The Loner (13 page)

Even aside from the desire, he felt reluctant to leave her.

He was losing his mind.

“I've been a wild outlaw for a long time, remember?” she told him, and her eyes told him she knew what he was thinking. “I can take care of myself, Black Fox.”

“See that you do,” he said gruffly.

“I'll meet you right back here,” she said.

He walked past her to his horse, tied on the canteen, and mounted up.

“I'll be back directly,” he said.

“All right,” she said.

Then there was nothing he could do but leave her.

Yet he was in town, riding down the middle of the main street, listening to the noise and watching the traffic of a Saturday afternoon before his mind left her, too. He was in deep trouble. After only parts of two days and one night of riding together, he felt strange without her beside him.

He tried to ignore the feeling. Immediately, he set his thoughts firmly on the task ahead and didn't let them waver again. It was Saturday, the town was full, and he had business to conduct. He had better pay attention.

He was a Lighthorseman and Sallisaw was a rough town. There could be any number of men here today who would like to see him shot off his horse and lying dead in the street.

Cathleen would really be in trouble if that happened.

He rode down the street scanning both sides of it from beneath his hat brim. Lots of farmers and ranchers were in town, lots of wagons pulled to the side of the street, loading and unloading. Dust
blew everywhere from the traffic still moving on the street.

It was early yet, but a few men were going in and out of the two saloons, which, handily, were right across the street from each other. Several more men were standing on the street corners, loafing.

Horses were tied at the hitching rails of almost every establishment, and the lot behind the livery stable held a dozen more. The wagon yard on the other side of it contained a half dozen wagons camped for the night.

Black Fox rode all the way to the end of the one main street, turned around and came back, hunting seriously now that he'd looked over the general situation. There. Burke and Fielding had tied their horses in front of the Tin Whistle, the saloon on the north side of the street.

Neither was much of a drinker, as far as he knew, but sometimes the watering holes were a fine place to come across characters who might have some connection to a lawman's trail gone cold. He rode up to the Whistle, tied his horse beside theirs and went in through the swinging doors that had been tied open to let in the feeble breeze. A fair amount of dust came with it, but no one seemed to mind.

Sure enough, the two lawmen were sitting at a table in the corner, side by side, facing the door. Burke lifted his glass in greeting and Fielding beckoned Black Fox over.

“Never know who they'll let in here next,” Fielding said, as Black Fox took a chair and dragged it around so that he, too, could see the door.

Black Fox leaned across to catch Burke's eye.

“Looks like you're resting, Burke,” he said, needling him a little. “You already have The Cat out there somewhere chained to the prison wagon?”

Burke scowled. “Not yet,” he said, staring out the door, “never could pick up the tracks again.”

“And no gangs of four bad men hanging around town drinking to a job well done?” Black Fox asked.

Burke gave him a dirty look and wouldn't say another word. He kept looking around the room as if The Cat would leap up from behind the bar any minute and he needed to be ready.

“Not yet,” Fielding answered for him. “Best bad man we've heard about since we got here is Hudson Becker, and he's alone for oncet. Evidently, he's been here in Sallisaw for three days.”

“What's he up to?” Black Fox wondered aloud.

“Hirin' a wagon built, looks like,” Fielding said. “That's what the smithy and the wagon maker both told us.”

“You talk to Becker himself?”

“Ain't seen him yet.”

“Maybe he's gonna haul his own whiskey shipments all the way from Fort Smith,” Black Fox
said idly. “Maybe take a bigger piece of old Tassel's pie.”

“Yeah,” Burke said nastily. “You Lighthorse better start puttin' a stop to some of this liquor traffic or every Indian in this Nation'll be a falling-down drunk.”

Black Fox fought down the quick anger that seared him so he could give Burke a long, lazy look.

“Soon as you white-boy deputy marshals catch Turner's killer you'll have a chance to help us,” he drawled. “Reckon that's what we're waitin' for.”

Fielding laughed. And, to his credit, Burke gave a sheepish little grin.

“Right now,
I'm
here to help
y'all,
” Black Fox said. “Give me a little more information about those tracks you saw at Little Creek.”

For the next ten minutes he asked them every question he could think of and found out that the stolen moneybag had been made of white canvas and had contained sixty dollars in gold and American paper money. The tracks had been of unshod horses, three of them weighing maybe eight hundred pounds or so and one tall thousand-pounder with a long stride who had a nick out of the inside of the left rear hoof. One of the smaller horses was a pacer. The rider of the tall horse rode with his weight to the right. The stolen whiskey's brand was Monongahela.

Word was, some of the same tracks had been found at Bootlegger Foster's house.

When Black Fox was satisfied that he knew as much about that shooting and the Little Creek Crossing robbery as they did, he stood up to go.

“We just can't figure The Cat taking on three partners after all this time alone,” Fielding said. “But it ought to make him easier to catch.”

“Yep,” Black Fox agreed. “It ought to do that, all right.”

He went out and walked up and down the street a couple of times, but he didn't see Hudson Becker anywhere. Lingering in a shadowy spot where he could see both the wagoner's and the smithy's yielded nothing.

Finally, he ducked into the general store and bought as many food supplies as he judged he could carry in what space was left in his saddlebags. He still had a feeling that the impostor Cat was going to come to Sallisaw or that he would find a clue here but there was no telling where this chase would take them and he had another mouth to feed now. Sometimes, when he was traveling alone, he went long stretches without food but that wouldn't be good for Cathleen, especially since she was still recovering from her wound.

That made him remember, and, as the merchant added up his purchases, Black Fox took a handful of stick candy out of the glass jar on the counter and had him add it to the sum he owed. He only hoped no one had come through the cottonwood grove since he'd been gone.

When he'd paid, he carried his packages to his horse, stowed them away, unhitched Ghost, and stepped up into the stirrup. As he turned the gray's head away from the rail, he glanced up.

A flash of brightness glittered in a window on the second floor of the hotel. A figure shifted quickly into and then out of the opening behind the lace curtain—a woman who was quickly gone.

His stomach clenched. He'd thought he'd seen Cathleen.

It scared him to death. What was the
matter
with him? He had damn sure better get hold of himself.

The horse moved up the street on his own as Black Fox kept his eyes fixed on the window but the woman or whoever had been there was gone. The curtain never moved.

He was imagining things, he was getting light-headed, he needed to eat. He'd only thought he'd seen her because he'd bought the candy with her in mind.

Heading slowly down and then back up the street, he made himself go over the information he'd learned and look for Hudson Becker instead of thinking about Cathleen. Becker was said to be a talkative sort and he might get some kind of a lead out of him. One time, in the process of hauling Becker to jail, another Lighthorse, Means Whitepath, had got him talking and learned of a
killing back in the mountains that otherwise never would have been discovered by the law.

Black Fox had almost given up, had almost reached the hat maker's shop, which was the last one at the end of the street, on his way back out to the cottonwood grove, when he spotted the short, stocky form of Hudson Becker walking across the street toward him. Two cowboys rode around him and went on. Black Fox rode up in front of him and stopped.

“Becker,” he said. “I'm Black Fox Vann.”

“Well, if it ain't the Lighthorse,” Becker said. “I know your face, Vann.”

Then he squinted up at him suspiciously and asked, “When did you ride into town?”

“Not an hour ago,” Black Fox said, “but I already heard you were here getting a new wagon built.”

Becker shrugged—as best he could with his arms full of packages. Black Fox looked them over.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Sneaking into town here with sacks full of whiskey? You're liable to get shot horning in on the saloonkeepers' territory, Hudson.”

The bootlegger grinned wolfishly.

“This ain't whiskey,” he said. “I'll open up these pokes and show you if you don't believe me. I'm gittin' out of bootlegging.”

“No,” Black Fox said, “surely not. Don't lie to me, Becker.”

“I
ain't
. I'm through peddling liquor.”

Black Fox relaxed in the saddle and rested his arm on the horn as if settling in for a long talk.

“What in the world would bring that about?” he asked. “I thought the reason you were having a new wagon built was to haul it by the barrel.”

Hudson Becker put on a solemn look.

“You ain't heard? I'm surprised, you being the best of the Lighthorse and all.”

“Heard what?”

“We're getting some bad competition, me and Tassel are,” he said. “I'm gonna step back and let them have it.”

“With all due respect, Hudson, that's hard for me to believe. If my recall is good, I believe you went to jail for bootlegging three different times and served your sentences, only to go right back to it again.”

“That's past,” Becker said. “Now, I quit. The Cat's done took up bootlegging and I cain't set around and wait for a boy to steal my customers and plow me under.”

“No!” Black Fox said.

“I'm tellin' you the truth,” Becker said righteously. “You may not know it, but I heard he robbed Pate Moynahan at the Little Creek Crossing last night. Took everything he had.”

“See, The Cat hates bootleggers,” Black Fox ar
gued. “Hasn't he waylaid and robbed nearly every whiskey dealer in the Nation at one time or another?”

Hudson nodded and narrowed his eyes.

“And don't that make sense when you really look at it, Mr. Lighthorse? Think about it. That boy has done harm to ever one of us.”

He took a step closer.

“I'll tell you something that you lawmen ain't figgered out yet. The Cat don't hate whiskey. The Cat hates the rest of us whiskey
sellers
. He wants us
gone
.”

Black Fox gave him a skeptical look.

“You don't say.”

“I do say,” Becker said insistently. “You just look at it straight. The Cat is trying to wipe the rest of us plumb out and have all the liquor trade to hisself.”

Black Fox looked at him doubtfully.

“So what? I don't know why you'd let a mere boy back you down like that,” he said.

“'Cause everybody thinks he's a merciful angel to the poor folks,” Becker explained, in a tone that said Black Fox should already know that. “They call him a damn Robin Hood.”

Black Fox shook his head doubtfully.

“I am tellin' you this for your own good,” Becker insisted. “I know nobody can catch that boy but you ought to at least know who's doing the mischief around here.”

“So it's not you, huh, Becker?”

“Nope. You Lighthorse don't have to think about me no more.”

“What are you going to do for a living?” Black Fox asked.

Becker smiled.

“Farm,” he said. “From now on, Mr. Vann, you can count on it. I'm not the man you're lookin' for. I'm on the farm.”

“So
that's
why you're getting a new wagon,” Black Fox said.

“Yep. Gonna haul watermelons and pumpkins, stuff like that. And that's
all.
”

Black Fox lifted his eyebrow and gave him a long look.

“Well, good luck with your farming, Hudson.”

He lifted his hand in farewell and rode on at a jog trot even though he wanted to ride straight to Cathleen at a high lope. He could hardly wait to tell her every word that Hudson Becker had said, and see if her reaction might be the same as his.

But when he rode into the stand of cottonwoods he found only the dun mare, all alone, tied to a tree. He searched the little grove, his heart beating faster by the second, only to find nothing and no one.

Cathleen was gone.

C
athleen's heart beat so hard and fast it nearly smothered her. She ran the rest of the way across the grassy meadow that rimmed the north side of the town, then sank to her knees at the edge of it to rest a little bit. She stayed there, hidden, for a minute or two, drawing in deep breaths of air and willing strength into her limbs.

When she parted the tall turkey-foot grass and looked in both directions on the road, no one was in sight. The woman in the buggy who had stared at her so steadily was gone, swallowed up by the town, and so was the man on horseback who she'd thought might be the sheriff. Thank goodness.

She stood up and started walking along the
edge of the road toward the cottonwood trees where Little Dun waited. That should attract less attention than running through the grass.

And it should be easier. Thank goodness, her bag wasn't heavy. Fear streaked through her as she acknowledged just how weak she was. Much weaker than she'd have ever guessed, so it was a good thing that she'd partnered up with Black Fox.

Except that now she'd have to explain to him every decision she made and everything she did. The very idea of that galled her thoroughly—she was used to her freedom. Besides that, she had always resented authority, maybe because she'd known very little. Mama had been too sick and overworked and Roger too interested in drinking to give her very much oversight and she'd had pretty much free rein in everything she did.

Black Fox was going to be so mad at her.

But that was all right. She couldn't just give up control of her life completely and turn everything over to him. She had to keep her hand in, didn't she?

Shifting the bag to a more comfortable position on her shoulder, she hurried as fast as she could until she reached the trees. The best she could hope for was that he hadn't come back yet and she could be there with Little Dun, waiting for him when he returned.

Well, he might as well be mad. She could
not
have simply sat here and waited for him, even if she'd tried. She would've been not only mad but crazy, too, from just sitting around here wondering what was happening in town.

Maybe what she had found would soften his anger.

“Cathleen!”

Scared, she whirled at the sound of his voice, which was right behind her.

Black Fox's big hands enveloped her shoulders. The heat of them came through her clothes as if she were naked.

“You're alone?” he asked. His grip tightened and he pulled her closer, his eyes hot with demand.

“Y-yes. Who would be with me?”

“I thought somebody took you. The dun is here,” he said.

Stunned by his touch, by his nearness, by the hoarse sound in his voice that wasn't all anger, Cat stared up at him. She kept trying to read his face.

“I…thought she might…attract attention,” she said.

“Ah, Cat…” he said, and he crushed her to him.

She clung to him like a child rescued from an unseen danger.

He thrust both hands into her hair and, for a long moment, held her head against his chest and
his hard-beating heart, then he tilted it back and bent to take her mouth with his. Instantly the storm inside him raged through her whole body.

Then the shock of it melted into a bright, shimmering thrill and shivering streams of radiance came to life in her blood. She kissed him back hungrily—surely and confidently now that he'd taught her how to kiss a man—and she stood on tiptoe to press her body to his and be still closer to him.

His strong arm around her back held her nearly off the ground and his other hand cradled the side of her face as if he were holding a treasure. He tasted of trees, elm and cedar, and of Black Fox. The same Black Fox who had kissed her before.

The taste of him always reminded her of the sweet bite of wild honey.

His mouth was still hot as the sun.

And it was fast becoming her world. The sharp, desperate need for more of him came quickly alive, deep in her womanhood, and went shivering through her like the relentless, cold touch of a fever.

He seemed to know that, because he pulled her closer as if to protect her, to warm her.

She tried to lift her arms to put them around his neck but the weight of her now-forgotten bag hindered her. He slipped it from her shoulder and let it drop while he settled her still closer against him and drew the very heart out of her with his kiss.

Cat melded her body to his as if there were not a bone in it and slid her hands over the wide, muscular expanse of his shoulders. It was a wonderful, delightful journey that infused an insatiable desire into her blood through her palms—desire and an overwhelming urge to caress the back of his neck.

That touch made him groan and hold her even closer, caused him to twine his tongue with hers and explore the taste of her as if he were a starving man. Never would she have thought that her fingertips held such power!

Then he tore his mouth from hers and pulled back to look down at her but he didn't turn her loose. His fingers burned their shapes into her upper arms.

“Don't ever do that again,” he said abruptly.

“Don't do what?” she asked.

Her lips tingled so, they felt so bruised and sweet and good for nothing but kissing him again. She was amazed they would even move to form words and let her talk.

He held her gaze with his darkly burning eyes—and her fate in his hands. The thought came unbidden, in a whirl of others, a feeling, really: he could kiss her and look at her like this and touch her and encircle her close and safe in his arms and say, “Cathleen” in that low, rough way he had and he would hold her fate, all right. She would do anything.

This couldn't be. She had to be free.

“What is it you're ordering me not to do, Black Fox?” she demanded. “Kiss you back? You grab me and kiss me senseless and I'm not supposed to kiss you back, is that it?”

He dropped his hands to his sides. She wanted them on her again, wanted them holding her, even though she'd been on the verge of jerking away. She needed the heat and the strength of his palms and his fingers and his skin flowing from him into her.

She didn't
want
him to set her free.

“I was…overcome,” he said hoarsely, his eyes still on hers.

But, this time, he didn't say he was sorry he had kissed her. He
wasn't
sorry, and he could see that she wasn't, either. His eyes told her that. It must be written all over her face, plain to see, that every nerve in her body was still thrumming with what that kiss had done to her and that she was longing,
aching
, to reach for him with everything she had.

He must be feeling that very same way.

A great gladness came over her. Because the kiss was nothing to be sorry for; it was something good, something to be happy for, and to remember. Just as their first kiss had been.

She would cherish the memories, that's what she would do.

“What I'm saying is don't leave when you say
you'll stay someplace,” he said, holding her gaze as if to make her promise.

Her natural stubbornness rose in her and she opened her mouth, but he spoke again before she could.

“We have to be able to trust each other,” he said.

Those words touched her more deeply than she wanted. She had been expecting him to say that she should stay out of the investigation, that he'd be the only one to go into danger, or that he'd do all the work.

No, really, she'd been expecting him to say that she had to follow his orders at all times or else go to jail.

Tears sprang to her eyes for no reason whatsoever.

She turned on her heel, picked up her bag, and walked to a fallen log to sit down.

“I never promised to stay here, if you recall,” she said. “I said I'd meet you here.”

He crossed the little open space and straddled the other end of the log to sit down facing her.

“I guess you did,” he said solemnly, “but I'm not one to split hairs.”

“I'm not either, usually,” she said. “It was just that I thought if you knew what I was planning, you'd tell me not to do it.”

“So where'd you go?”

“Into town.”

He stared at her for a minute, as if he couldn't quite believe his ears.

“You knew you could be recognized—if we rode down here from Sequoyah, anyone else could have, too,” he said, and the wondering tone he took made her feel even more guilty for the worry she'd caused him.

Yes, he'd been worried and it had been relief that made him kiss her like that. Which meant that he had been
very
worried about her. But she wasn't going to think about that and she wasn't going to accept any guilt.

She had been living alone for months and if she could do anything, she could accept life and see the truth of it. He was a famous lawman and he was worried sick about losing his prisoner. He had caught The Cat and that would put a big feather in his already famous cap.

If she got away from him now, it would knock a big hole in his great reputation as soon as Burke and Fielding heard the story of her calling Glass out at his store and put that together with the girl they'd met riding beside Black Fox. She had never been one to fool herself and she wasn't going to start now.

He might have kissed her out of relief, but it was relief for his lawman's renown, not her safety, not her as a person. She must believe that.

That
was what she must remember when she
looked at his full, sensual mouth and longed to taste it again.

His very next words confirmed her thought.

“You took a chance on Burke and Fielding seeing you,” he said, beginning to lecture. “By now they could've heard about you calling Glass out of the store.”

“Yes,” she said tightly, “and then they'd have been looking for you to find out why you didn't tell them who I was, wouldn't they?”

He shrugged, as if he didn't care about that.

“That would've shot a big hole in your precious reputation,” she said nastily, taunting him.

She hated that tone in her voice. She hated that she couldn't just accept things the way they were and go on. This wasn't even normal behavior for her.

But she couldn't seem to stop herself.

“Everyone would be talking about you running all over the country with a woman captive but not acknowledging the fact,” she said. “They'd be wondering what you'd been doing with me.”

He brushed that away as if it were a pesky fly and looked down at her bag.

“What have you brought from town?”

“This,” she said, bending over to open it.

She brought out a bottle of whiskey. Black Fox stared at it.

“Where did that come from? What did you do, rob the saloon?”

“No. Hudson Becker's hotel room.”

Shaken as she was by the way he was looking at her, she still had to laugh at the expression that came over his face.

“You don't have to look so astonished,” she said. “You do know I'm a burglar by trade, don't you?”

He didn't bother to answer.

“What the hell,” he said. “So I did see you.”

It was her turn to be astonished.

“You
saw
me?”

He glared at her with a face like a storm cloud about to break.

“Through the window,” he said. “Your hair caught the sunlight.”

“I can't
believe
you could see me,” she cried. “I wasn't in there five minutes.”

“What were you doing in there at all?” he said sharply. “How'd you even know Becker was in town? Explain yourself, Cat.”

He crossed his arms and waited, pinning her gaze with his as if he thought she was lying.

She crossed hers and glared back.

“You sound suspicious as if I'm in league with Becker or something. What's the matter with you?”

“What's the matter with
you
? The man could've caught you in his room and killed you. Or worse.”

That made her feel a little better. Which was stupid.

Wake up, Cat, you're thinking like a silly girl. Black Fox's feelings mean nothing. The important thing is finding out who killed Donald Turner.

“I was going down the alley on my way to the livery stable,” she said, “intending to see if I recognized any of the horses stabled there.”

“What a plan,” he said sarcastically. “Well worth risking your life for.”

She bristled and glared at him.

He set his lips in a straight line and listened.

“If I'd recognized any horse, it might've given us someone to follow,” she said, “assuming that my impostor was someone from up around Sequoyah, and that Burke and Fielding were right about the direction he took from Little Creek.”

“So?”

“You sound like you think I'm the dumbest person in the world,” she said. “Stop it. I've survived, haven't I?”

Why do you even care what he thinks? Stop this, Cathleen.

He glowered, his eyes blazing.

“Spit it out,” he said, “it's
your
hide we're trying to save here, remember?”

“Exactly,” she said, sarcastically, “which is why I was in Sallisaw looking around, thinking that I might come across someone drawing the mark of the cat on the wall of a building.”

“And
did
you?” he said, mimicking her tone.

“I was near the hotel, walking fast with my hat pulled down, when Hudson Becker, of all people, kicked the back door open. He was coming out with his arms full of packages.”

“Right,” Black Fox said judgmentally, as if this were some kind of test and she'd answered one question correctly.

She stared at him harder.

“He didn't see me because he was looking back, calling to someone to get his bill ready, that he'd be back in a few minutes to pay.”

For once, he stayed silent, so she went on.