The Loner (9 page)

She wasn't stopping until she called the man out; she had plainly told Black Fox that herself.

So he would find her. What she wanted was Tassel Glass and if he watched Tassel, eventually he would find The Cat.

 

Four nights after her escape from Black Fox, deep in the darkest hours of the early morning, Cat rode Little Dun into the edge of the woods growing a long stone's throw from the side of Glass's store. The trees whispered warnings to her, and the moon moving in and out behind the streaking clouds looked to see if she would heed them.

She'd usually felt comfortable out roaming in the night. But tonight, her hands were shaking.
She glanced behind her before she leaned into the stirrup to step down.

Ever since she'd left Black Fox's place she'd had this awful feeling that somebody was following her.

And he was. She knew that well. But he hadn't found her yet and she had work to do.

She threw her leg over and slid to the ground without using the stirrup, so the saddle wouldn't creak. It was a mistake. Even moving as slowly as she could, it jarred her shoulder when she hit the ground and she had to stand for a minute, gritting her teeth against the pain.

Then she took a deep breath, forced her mind to go blank about everything but the job before her, and began to move. The moon vanished for a moment and she ran, not bent double as she usually did to make herself a smaller target because that would make her wound hurt more.

Every time, she went into the store the same way—ducking under the high back porch and through a window into the root cellar with its lingering odors—the sharp smell of whiskey mixing with the earthen smell of the floor and the homey scents of onions and cabbages and turnips. Tassel never had figured this out. He'd made sporadic attempts at blocking the outside doors and wedging the windows shut but he'd never put an obstacle in front of the door in the rear of the store that led to the cellar stairs.

The same was true tonight. She pushed the window open and slipped through, clutching the big canvas bag she'd stolen on her first trip into the store. It had straps long enough to go over her head and across her chest so she could hold it against the opposite hip and fill it with her right hand. It had served her well.

Tonight she wore it the other way, though, to keep the straps off her wound. That would slow her down a little, but not much. She knew what the Masseys needed.

The thought of the thin, desperate woman and her equally skinny little girl made Cat wince. They were doing the best they could farming their few rocky acres of ground but they were about to starve since their breadwinner had died of too much drink. Cat had left food on their porch twice and, that last time, when the child caught her at it, she had promised more.

Then she'd gotten shot and captured and they probably thought she'd lied to them.

She waited for a moment for her eyes to adjust, which didn't take long because she'd ridden over here in the dark. Plus she knew the place well.

The only thing different was that Tassel had moved the pickle barrel inside. The new pickle barrel. She smiled. Just a little more trouble and expense she'd caused him.

Quickly, she moved from the jerky to the beans to the dried fruit and put generous amounts into
the small sacks Tassel kept behind the counter. Gingersnaps, cheese, chocolate, and crackers. Raisins and salt. Baking powder and candy. Flour and coffee and the bag was getting nearly too heavy. Her shoulder was aching.

Cat walked quickly along the aisle leading to the back of the store, reaching across her body to hold the weight of the bag up with her right hand. It was awkward and she couldn't do this and run back to Dunny, but it relieved her shoulder for now. She hurried. She had to hurry back to her hideout before her strength left her and before the moon went down.

Right now it was sliding in and out of the clouds, so she'd have some light to travel by. It was also peeking in at the front windows and lighting up a beautiful doll sitting beside a horse carved from wood. She grabbed the doll as she walked by and laid it in the top of her bag. Neither she nor her little brothers had ever possessed a store-bought toy. Or even played with one.

The thought of the little Massey girl, whom she'd once heard her mother call Rachel, gave Cat the strength to get back to her horse. Imagining the smile that would come to that pinched little face moved Cat's legs and feet through the door and down the steps.

There, tucked underneath the stairs, was the barrel of illegal whiskey Tassel had placed there to
fill the jars or whatever containers his customers brought in when they didn't have enough money to buy a whole bottle. She took a deep breath, went to the barrel, and, holding onto her bag with one hand so it wouldn't pull her over, bent and used her other hand to open the bung. It began to run a thin but steady stream.

She smiled to herself. That was for her mother and the Masseys. Tassel would lose a lot of money before he noticed.

Then she crossed the dim room to the old tool box beneath the window.

That was where the weight of the bag nearly did her in, but she set her mind on Rachel and forced her injured shoulder to help lift it up and out to lie beneath the porch. Sweating from the pain, she climbed out after it and closed the window behind her.

Compared to those two things, the run back to her horse was easy and she made it without a stumble, keeping to the shadows as best she could. She hung the bag on her saddle horn and climbed up behind it.

Then she grabbed the horn with both hands and just sat there, telling herself she was pausing to listen, but knowing that it was to settle her heart and slow her breath. It was dangerous not to get moving, but the night seemed friendlier now and the sounds of the birds and the rare, muffled noises
that came from the livery stable across the way or some other place farther down the one street of the town reassured her that no one was around.

Besides, Dunny would know and would warn her.

It was a good night's work and soon she could really rest.

Her mind needed settling, too, almost as much as her heart. Time was running out for her. Black Fox was after her now and, no doubt, even more determined than he'd been before he'd caught her. She'd been shot for the first time in all her many forays, which had to be a sign.

But worse, she was wanted for killing a federal deputy, and eventually the Parker court would send in its lawmen to help Black Fox.

Not eventually. Soon.

The next time she came to town, she had to do what she had promised on her mother's grave. She had to kill Tassel Glass and then get out of the country.

 

Black Fox was eating breakfast at a corner table in the café, alone—contrary to his best intentions to be sociable—when Turtle Fields, who owned the livery stable came in. The burly man stopped at the sight of him.

“Well, Lighthorseman,” he said, in his customary loud and overbearing tone, “you got some
thing to do on the first morning after you come to town.”

Everyone in the place turned to look and listen.

Black Fox ignored them and indicated the other chair at his table. He didn't want Turtle's company but he didn't want to carry on a conversation in front of the whole town, either.

Turtle ignored the gesture and turned his broad face to see who else was there. Clearly, this news was for everyone.

“Tassel Glass opened his store this morning to find beans and flour and meal on the floor, lids off the bins, and many other things missing.”

Excited voices moved through the room punctuated with gasps and sudden exclamations.

“The Cat!”

“That boy is everywhere at once.”

“He nearly got in bad trouble the other day.”

“I was afeared he was shot.”

“Old Tassel's fit to be tied,” Turtle continued boastfully. Then he paused dramatically before he said, “And, boys, that wasn't all that was on the floor.”

Everybody fell silent to listen.

“In the root cellar…”

A chorus of three or four men's voices interrupted the tale.

“Turtle!”

“Want a seat over here?”

“Hey, Polly! Bring a cup of coffee here for Turtle.”

Black Fox saw more than one man glance at him from the corner of his eye, then significantly at Turtle. Poor Turtle. None of the Fields were known for their brains.

He was as relieved as they were when Turtle clamped his mouth shut and went to sit down. Right now was no time to arrest Tassel Glass for bootlegging and take him to Tahlequah to jail.

But his gut twisted into a burning knot. Why not do just that? He had been right that Cat would come back to do mischief to Tassel and she had—but, embarrassingly enough—without him even knowing it, much less catching her.

He'd chosen to sleep last night and stay up watching tonight, and he'd chosen wrong. He had thought she'd want to recover a little longer before she moved again, and he'd thought wrong.

But if he investigated, found Glass's whiskey, and took him to Tahlequah, he would lose his bait. No telling where Cat would go then. She certainly wouldn't come to the jail to try to get her revenge.

He had let the fact that she was a woman undo him completely. He had allowed his inappropriate feelings for her to cloud his judgment.

While he thought about his mistakes, he set his jaw and stared out the window at the busy town. If he didn't find her soon and get her to Fort
Smith, he was finished—in his own mind, if not in anyone else's. If he didn't find her, he could never call himself a Lighthorseman again.

 

Cathleen caught a glimpse of someone in the corner of her eye that pushed her heart up into her throat. She clutched her bag closer and whirled to look, reaching for the handgun in the holster on her hip.

A long breath sighed out of her. A tree. It was a
tree
and she'd thought it was a person.

A person named Black Fox.

This pale, before-dawn light was deceptive. It was enough to see by, yet it wasn't. She had to work now, though, because she needed to be headed back to her hideout by broad daylight.

Darting the rest of the way across the Masseys' yard, moving as fast as she could with the burden, she faced the truth. She was imagining things, and she was about to lose her nerve. Getting shot had nearly ruined her.

No, it was Black Fox that had nearly ruined her. Saving her life, taking care of her, washing her hair, kissing her senseless. She could feel his touch and she could even taste him in her memory. Yes, Black Fox had spoiled her by dulling the edge on her anger—and that would kill her just as expediently as Glass or Becker would.

Truth be named, she was losing her mind.

She set the bag on the edge of the porch and quickly began taking the smaller parcels out of it. Cat hoped neither Rachel nor her mother was awake. She didn't want to see them or think about what they'd do from now on, if Glass killed her in the shootout or Black Fox captured her again.

This was the third time she had brought them food and both the other times she'd watched them from the woods. She'd listened to their mother-daughter talk. She'd smiled at their companionship.

She had saved them from starving, she really believed that, and now they would be on their own again.

When she'd emptied the bag, she laid the doll carefully on top of everything else and stood looking at it for just a moment. It was the most beautiful doll she had ever seen.

She reached out and touched its smiling face with one finger, then picked up the skirt of its pink dress and fluffed it free of its folds.

“What's her name?” said a little voice.

Cat whirled. Rachel stood behind her, in a ragged nightgown, one small hand clutching a scrap of quilt to her cheek and the other at her mouth. She sucked her thumb once more, quickly, and removed it so she could talk.

“Is she your baby?”

Cat froze for a moment, then she remembered to lower her voice and try to sound like a boy.

“Naw, only girls play with dolls,” she said.

“
You're
a girl,” Rachel said.

“Am not,” Cat said, even more gruffly.

“Are, too.”

An overwhelming urge came over Cat, the desire to reach out and hug the wan little girl and comfort her. Or was it to comfort herself?

She snatched up her empty bag and started backing away.

“Nope,” she growled. “That doll belongs to you.”

Sparks of joy kindled in Rachel's eyes and a slow smile began on her lips. It grew and transformed her face.

For one long heartbeat, Cat let herself look at it and feel the warm satisfaction that began to spread through her.

“Oh, thank you, Cat,” Rachel cried, tucking the quilt scrap under her arm to reach for the doll. “I'll name her after you.”

Cathleen turned and ran for her horse.

D
uring the next few days, Black Fox thought he might have a harder time overhearing any gossip about Cathleen, now that his presence in town had been noted by the whiskey drinkers, but not so. They might not want him to arrest the bootleggers, but no one held any animosity about The Cat's anti-whiskey efforts.

Mostly, it was because they liked seeing the bootleggers made fools of—selfish, overcharging bastards that they were—by a mere boy on a fast horse. The Cat was the underdog in what had become a game and everybody, it seemed, was rooting for the kid. Besides, there were enough bootleggers in the lucrative business that there
was no way he could pour out all the whiskey in the Nation—or even one district of it—at the same time, therefore, the populace in general didn't have to worry about that.

So Black Fox made himself stay in Sequoyah for the news, smiling, being sociable, and catching sleep when he could during the day for the purpose of spending the nights lurking in the woods near Glass's store. Most of all, he was fighting the urge to start chasing Cathleen through the woods. Every time new word of her came in, he had to force himself to do nothing but listen. He'd caught her the first time purely by accident, yes, but only in one way. He had also been thinking that she would come back to hit her favorite target again. A Lighthorseman had to learn from the past and control his emotions accordingly for the sake of the law.

Every day but two in that week, there was a report. The Cat had been seen—only a glimpse, but it was a kid on a small yellow horse—one late afternoon in the woods near Hudson Becker's girlfriend's place. That night, somebody had shot into the wagonload of whiskey sitting at the edge of the yard and thrown a match. The fire had been seen for miles.

Two days later, all the way up in the Flint District, John Bushyhead, a small-time whiskey dealer, had been waylaid, robbed, and killed.

That news had made Black Fox sick to his stom
ach and had given him strength at the same time. Woman or not, Cathleen was a killer and she had to be stopped. Never mind that some on each side of the law would say that her victims needed killing—some because they were lawbreakers and Donald Turner because he was a lawman.

Always there were a dozen bad men wanting to kill a lawman but instinct told him that The Cat wasn't like that. Maybe that one killing, Donald Turner's, hadn't been Cathleen's handiwork…

He slammed that thought to a halt in a heartbeat. Her mark had been there. Her mark was on all these other crimes.

And on the good deeds. According to the gossips, there had also been three instances of either food or blankets or wild game left at the cabins of poor people during the week, gifts tagged by the sign of The Cat.

Plus two other known whiskey dealers had been robbed between Sequoyah and Stilwell. Ranging from Stilwell back toward Sequoyah, The Cat's mark was there every time.

It looked as if she was working her way back south to hit Glass again. And, since this was much more activity from her than was normal in such a few days, Black Fox's guess was that she would call Glass out when she reached Sequoyah. She had been doing all the damage she could ahead of time, just in case she didn't live through the gunfight with Glass.

Cathleen was a smart girl. She knew she no longer had much time left. She knew that the Lighthorse would never let a murderer go, and that Judge Parker's court would never stop hunting for the killer of a deputy federal marshal. She knew that one or the other of them eventually would find her, so if she wanted to get her revenge done, she should do it now.

A cold fist squeezed Black Fox's gut. She was liable to kill herself instead, just by pushing her diminished strength to the limit. The girl had lost a lot of blood from that wound. She was riding miles every day and enduring the physical and emotional strain of each of her exploits, plus running and hiding.

It would be a miracle if she didn't collapse.

A sudden image of her—unconscious in his arms, her face pale as death and her booted feet dangling off the side of his saddle—assaulted him. He shook his head and made himself look at reality around him as he walked down the street of Sequoyah. He would go to the livery stable and see who had ridden into town since breakfast and then he'd go to his room and sleep so he could stay awake all night in the woods.

However, as he approached, he saw that the livery's long bench was filled with the usual loafers sitting there whittling, spitting tobacco juice, and talking. Suddenly, he could not face them and the boring conversation that would ensue.

He was tired. He'd been up half the night scouting the woods around the general store and tonight he would do the same. Besides, he was doubly tired of people, unaccustomed as he was to being around them. So he crossed the street and walked swiftly toward the hotel.

When he entered the lobby, however, he found more trouble than a boring conversation with the old men. He found Cousin Willie.

Again, Willie was dressed in his best. One glance inside the livery and Black Fox would have, no doubt, seen the fancy paint horse and been forewarned. Too bad he hadn't done that and slept out in the woods somewhere.

Without a word of greeting, Willie walked to him and started climbing the stairs beside him.

“You come to town to find the preacher?” Black Fox asked sarcastically. “Cathleen's not here.”

Willie shot him a slanted, sideways glance. It was an accusatory look. A knowing look.

“Where is she?” he asked, keeping his voice low so as not to be overheard by the button drummer coming down the stairs.

His tone was arrogant, though, and that irritated Black Fox even more.

“She left me,” he said, and climbed the stairs two at a time.

“Oh?” Willie said, doubtfully.

Irritation turned to anger in Black Fox.

“Where's your pa, anyhow? Is Muskrat farm
ing or not? How come he's letting you do nothing but run all over the country when it's time to get the crops in the ground?”

“It's my Wandering Year,” Willie said confidently.

“Well then you need to wander farther off from here,” Black Fox snapped. “You're not seeing new country or learning a damn thing if all you do is come to town.”

While he unlocked the door, he turned to look at Willie.

“Oh, I forgot you've been to my place, too,” he said sarcastically, “to tell me how to live my life.”

Willie followed him into the room without being invited. Black Fox left the door open, hoping the boy would take the hint, but knowing in his heart that it was way too late for that. Willie was behaving as if he had a purpose.

He did. Willie took it upon himself to close the door.

“You don't want the whole town to hear this,” he said, by way of apology.

Black Fox didn't take the bait and ask what it was he was about to hear. He walked to the window and waited, looking out.

Damn it all, anyhow. He'd never known Willie to act like this. Love made fools of them all, but why couldn't Willie just go off and be a fool by himself with some other girl and leave Black Fox out of it?

“I know who The Cat is,” Willie said.

Black Fox tried not to show his surprise as he turned to look at him. Or his dismay. Surely not.

“Well, then, we could use you in the Lighthorse,” he said. “
How
do you know?”

Willie looked him in the eye and didn't give an inch.

“Hoofprints,” he said. “Down at PawPaw that day, The Cat's yellow dun horse turned in a little on the right front.”

“And…”

“And Cathleen's yellow dun turns in a little on the right front,” Willie said, “according to the prints her mare left in your barnyard.”

Black Fox stared at him.

“Lots of horses turn in on the right.”

“Maybe. But these both have a little nick out of the middle of the left front, too.”

Black Fox clamped his lips shut and tried to intimidate Willie with a glare. But the boy was like a snapping turtle and always had been—once latched onto something, he would not give up.

“It makes a lot of sense,” Willie said. “Even her names. Cathleen. The Cat. I heard her mama call her ‘Cat' one time in town.”

Black Fox made a dismissive gesture.

“Next you'll be telling me that Cathleen is a shapeshifter. Don't you know that The Cat is a boy?”

But Willie only smiled and Black Fox knew he was fighting a losing battle.

“She hides her hair under her hat and dresses like a boy,” Willie explained, in the tone of a teacher dealing with a somewhat slow student. “That day at PawPaw I glimpsed them green eyes blazing, just for that instant when she flew past me. I shoulda known her then.”

“You still don't know her,” Black Fox said, making one last, futile try.

Willie ignored that. “I'm not telling you anything new,” he said. “But what galls me is that you
captured
her and then you took her to your bed.”

The outrage in his voice showed in his eyes, too. That, and disappointment.

“I never thought you, of all men, would do that,” Willie said.

“She was
wounded
,” Black Fox snapped. “She'd have bled to death if I hadn't found her. You think I'd have just dragged her in and laid her on the floor?”

“
Where
was her wound? I never saw it.”

“No,” Black Fox said nastily, “you didn't. She held the sheet up to her chin the way any woman would do when strange men come bursting into the room in the middle of the night.”

“
You
could've slept on the floor,” Willie said.

That fanned Black Fox's temper into a blaze.

“And take the risk of letting her get away? I
don't have to answer to you, Willie,” he said, furious with himself that he had just done so.

He was letting this boy control him. He was a kid, just a kid, lovesick on merely the looks of a girl he didn't know.

Willie had always been a shy boy and he'd never courted any girl. Willie didn't know what he was doing and Black Fox had to be patient with him.

Not to mention that he had to ensure that Willie didn't talk about this discovery to anyone else.

Black Fox took a deep breath and tried for a calmer, kinder tone of voice.

“Cousin, the girl has no connection to you. Go get your horse and go home.”

Willie's eyes narrowed. He didn't move an inch.

“You arrested her for killing that deputy marshal at PawPaw, didn't you? And she got away from you, didn't she? Well, you
ain't
finding her again and taking her to Fort Smith.”

Black Fox stood still as stone and held his temper.

“I'll do what I have to do,” he said. “Why is it that I have to keep telling you to get out of my business and go home?”

Willie clenched his fists.

“Because I love her,” he said.

“You wouldn't know love if it slapped you in the face,” Black Fox said. “And you don't know
Cathleen, either. You're too young—that's what your problem is.”

Willie only looked at him with the beyond-stubborn expression that Black Fox knew too well.

“I'm not going home,” the boy said.

“Then go wherever you want, but get out of here.”

“I'm a man of honor,” Willie said, “so I came to warn you. I won't let you take her to Parker's court. You know they'll hang her.”

The words were a cold knife through Black Fox's heart.

“No,” he said, “what I know is that they'll find out whether she's guilty or not.” Then, as much for his own benefit as for Willie's, he added, “If she killed Donald Turner, she deserves to hang.”

“She didn't,” Willie said stoutly.

Unreasoning hope bloomed again in Black Fox, as if Willie's believing that could make it so. He was losing his mind.

“I aim to find her before you do,” Willie said, “so stay out of my way.”

“You'll be interfering with the law,” Black Fox said.

Willie held Black Fox's eye just long enough to let him know he'd heard. Then he turned, opened the door, and threw a last warning over his shoulder as he went out.

“I'd hate to have to shoot you, Black Fox.”

“I'd hate that, too,” Black Fox said dryly.

Willie closed the door behind him.

Black Fox stared at the blank panel of wood. So. Reality had come to him in the form of his cousin. Willie might keep his own counsel, but other people were bound to come to the same conclusion soon. Many of them would hide The Cat without question.

There was very little time left to find her.

 

Cat stood, feet apart to give her a solid stance, gun in both hands, and shot at the empty airtights she'd arranged along the rock ledge until all her rounds were gone. Two out of six of the tin cans remained, winking at her in the sunlight.

She looked at them for a long moment, then holstered her handgun. Good enough. Tassel Glass was a whole lot bigger and easier to hit than an airtight.

Besides, the time for practice was gone. She'd not have many more sunny afternoons before Parker's men were here in the Nation beating the bushes for her, if Black Fox didn't find her first.

Black Fox Vann. He was nothing like she'd thought he'd be. Nothing like his reputation.

Well, yes, he was, but there was another side to him, too. Staring silently off into the distance, she let the sweet warm memory of his hands painting that feather—and of his big strong hands in her
hair—come over her. Those weren't the hands a bold, relentless lawman should have.

Their strength, their gentleness, that deft, sure touch as he worked in the soap and massaged her head. She would recall every moment of that hair-washing until the day she died.

Which might not be too long from now if she didn't get moving out of his territory. He was, no doubt, searching for her, bound to be even more driven now that her escape had wounded his pride. His hands would never again be so gentle on her, especially not when he tied her hands behind her back.