War Path (17 page)

Molly Page lingered near the front door, a bemused expression on her face as she watched Johnny Stark “hold court.” Even in her woolen hunting shirt and buckskin breeches, she looked lithe and sleek as a bobcat, with fire in her eyes and courage in her heart. Molly knew she had won the respect of this lot, no matter that she marched to a different drummer and favored a starlit sky to a roof above her head and the wind in the branches of the sugar maples to gossip circles and quilting bees.

Who didn't think her as desirable a woman as Tess? Maybe even more so, for this woman shared the dangers of the wilderness trails. And the Indian fighters knew firsthand that Molly could hold her own in battle. The Rangers doubted there was another woman like her in all the colonies. She made them proud. And Stark made them envious. Everyone knew how Molly felt about their rawboned leader. Any man would give his right arm to be loved like that, by such a woman.

Molly rolled her eyes and shook her head. She had heard this story before. Johnny Stark was in his element now, keeping his audience transfixed with his account. Had he no shame? Well, no. Not when it came to telling his tall tales.

“What kind of beast?” she called out, from the back of the room, playing her part. And in truth, seeing him up and about after his illness lifted her spirits. She had grown accustomed to his presence in her brother's old bedroom. But he had mended. And Stark was determined to return to his cabin tonight after spending almost two weeks as Uncle Ephraim's guest.

And Molly intended to be there in his cabin, to give him a proper welcome when he arrived, promised herself to see that his bed was turned down and perhaps, “improperly warmed,” that is if the
spirit
moved her and she decided to throw caution and her reputation to the wind. Then again, being alone with Johnny Stark made her feel anything but
spiritual.

“A wolverine, from nose to tail near as long as a full-grown man is tall,” Stark said, right on cue. “With claws like skinning knives and fangs like a devil's grin. And there I am, knowing full well if I turn my back the old devil will tear into me worse than any heathen. So I snapped Old Abraham and, bless my soul, it was the only time the rifle failed me.”

“Should have kept your powder dry,” one of the older men called out.

“Aye and it was a lesson learned too late for the devil bared its fangs and lunged at me before I could dust the pan with gunpowder.”

“You were done for,” another of the younger men observed.

“What did you do, Johnny?”

“I knelt down and scooped up a handful of mud and threw it smack-dab into that glutton's mouth.” Stark acted out the scene before the fireplace, kneeling and sweeping his right hand forward. “Then another handful soon as it cleared the first. And that's how we passed the better part of an hour, me throwing mud in the brute's mouth every time it charged. Longest hour I've ever spent.”

“You finally get your smoke pole primed?” asked Oday, his speech slightly slurred. The buttered rum was taking its toll.

“Didn't need it,” Johnny replied. “After an hour I had that wolverine so filled with mud its belly was dragging the creek bank. It could hardly waddle much less run me down. So I just headed on back to my camp, gathered up my blankets and possibles bag, then I walked on out of there.” The audience started to relax, then realized the story hadn't ended. “Well, sir, about half a year later I was hunting the same hillside and tracked a white-tailed buck down to that very same creek bank and there she was, the wolverine, and the critter was standing there, just like I remembered her only … the mud she had swallowed had dried solid, shriveled her up and turned the creature into a little statue. There it was, a
fiercesome
sight despite its size, even dead, hunkered in a crouch, teeth bared and hackles raised.”

He reached into his belt pouch and brought out a small figurine of a wolverine he had whittled while confined to bed at Uncle Ephraim's. He tossed the figurine into Barlow's outstretched hands. The Ranger caught the small carving and held it aloft like a trophy, then realized he'd been duped and the image he held had been carved from wood, had never breathed air or howled on a moonless night.

“Oh the devil, you say,” Barlow grumbled, knowing he had been taken in by the story and the storyteller. The crowd erupted into laughter. Tess breathed a sigh of relief, dabbed her upper lip with the hem of her apron, then took up her stoneware pitcher and continued to distribute her libations.

Stark glanced up and saw Molly wrap a coarsely woven scarf around her head to protect her ears from the wind's wintry bite, and then give him a come-hither wave of farewell. He knew where she was off to and planned on joining her soon. He leaned forward to the mastiff and scratched the animal behind the ears and whispered softly in her ear and to the surprise of the men around him, the great hulking canine hurried the length of the room, nudged the door open and vanished into the night.

“Now, where was I?” said Stark.

And Tess leaning forward to reveal the creamy mounds of her bosom barely encased by her sleeveless cotton bodice answered in a sultry tone of voice, “I can think of a place, Johnny Stark.” And she glanced toward the ceiling as if indicating the bedroom above the tavern that she called home.

Stark looked toward the door. His stomach growled. By golly, he was downright gut-foundered after all that talk. Molly would be waiting for him in his cabin. He was certain of it. But why hurry? He'd spied a joint of beef sizzling over the flames in the hearth. And Moses Shoemaker and Uncle Ephraim had just produced their fiddles. There was music and laughter … and Tess McDonagel. From the sound of the moaning wind, it promised to be a long cold night.

So where was the harm in just one more flagon of rum?

21

M
olly never saw it coming, not till the last second when a trickle of moonlight through the diminishing flurries revealed a glimmer of the brass butt plate of a flintlock pistol speeding toward her out of the murky interior of Stark's cabin. She worked the latch and crossed the threshold and was standing just inside the doorway when her assailant made his move. Molly tried to swerve and push herself out of harm's way but could not avoid the gun butt. It struck the side of her head, her right temple received a glancing blow. Stars exploded before her eyes, a lightning bolt of white-hot pain crackled inside her skull.

Molly groaned and stumbled to the side, crashed into a table, sent an assortment of tinware cups and plates clattering to the floor, then knocked over a chair as she tried to break her fall. She fumbled for the pocket pistol tucked in the wide leather belt circling her waist, her hands clawed beneath the folds of her great cloak as she tried for the gun with her fading strength.

“No, you don't,” said a familiar voice.

Even injured and near unconscious, she recognized Cassius Fargo. But then she had made a point of studying this one, sensing the harm he meant to the man she loved. Fargo read her actions, growled, and darted toward her. He batted the pistol from her grasp as she struggled to bring it into play.

Molly clawed at his bearded features, left a streak of blood to clot in his silvery stubble and caught a backhand in reply that split her lip and left a trickle of crimson at the corner of her mouth. The woman reeled from the blow. Still, having the foresight to see the front door was ajar, the woman made a desperate lunge toward the swirling snowflakes that rode the night wind like miniature sailing ships, their sails unfurled and beaconing crystal white against the dark.

Fargo caught a fistful of red hair. His left hand clutched at the back of her hunting shirt. The fabric tore as he overpowered the stunned woman and savagely yanked her about and manhandled her away from the doorway and then dragged her into the room and flung her onto Stark's bed. The walnut frame creaked and groaned from the force with which she landed on the patchwork quilt and goose-down mattress.

Molly tasted blood. The pain was riveting, it took her breath away.

“I was expecting Stark, what with the rum he was swilling. Figured I'd have his measure.” Fargo's hungry eyes lowered to her torn shirt and what he could see of her breasts. The sight of that sweet flesh gave him another idea. Stark set quite a store by this one. Scratch her and the son of a bitch would bleed right enough.

“Where's your man now? No one's here to stand for you, Molly Stark. Always meddling where it don't concern you. Well see here … you don't look so full of yourself.”

“Lay a hand on me and you will rue the day,” Molly exclaimed, trying to cling to consciousness. Her head throbbed, the room reeled like a ship's cabin in a squall. The pain was almost more than she could bear. Her eyes moistened and despite her resolve a tear spilled down her cheek.

Cassius glanced to the side. Ford was watching him, standing just in the shadows of his brother's own twisted ego.
“Come on, Cassius, if you can't take Stark, at least take his woman,” said the ghost. “That'll kill him sure as if you put a bullet through his heart!”

“I'll make a romp in your bushy park and be well on my way back to Cowslip before any man's the wiser. The devil take you all, says I.”

“You're a fool, Cassius Fargo. There will be nowhere you can hide.”

“No. I have kin in Cowslip. Any man … or woman … come asking for me, they'd play the fool to chance it. But who's to know for sure. I'll take my pleasure and afterwards see you tell no tales.” Fargo slowly advanced toward the bed, the baleful moonlight streaming in through the open door played off her wide-eyed features. “You've a pretty mouth, Molly Page. I warrant I can find use for it, better than what you've put it to.”
Look at her. See her eyes, Brother Ford. Like a wounded doe in my gunsight. Such pretty skin, how the moon makes her pale
. He shivered. Damn gust of wind. He turned and stared at the open doorway and then with a wink in Molly's direction muttered and tugged on the front of his breeches. “Don't want to freeze it off, not when I can put it to such good use.”

He was halfway to the door when the mastiff bounded into view. Duchess sniffed the air, recognized Fargo, curled her lips back and revealed two brutal-looking rows of teeth as she snarled. Then two hundred pounds of canine fury bounded toward him. Fargo shrieked as the animal knocked him to the floor. Those powerful jaws tore a patch from his thigh as he fell to the side, leveled his pistol, and fired. The muzzle of the barrel was close enough to singe the animal's flesh. Duchess yelped as a .50-caliber ball ripped through the mastiff's side. Duchess sagged to the ground momentarily pinning Cassius to the cabin floor. He kicked free and scrambled out of harm's way, stumbled free and winced at the ragged wound that streaked his thigh with crimson. He glanced around intending to join Molly on the bed. But Molly Page was no longer lying supine, stunned, on the coverlets. While Fargo was occupied with the masitff, Molly had staggered over to the fireplace, reached the hearth and the long rifle John Stark had hung over the mantle.

Molly thumbed the hammer back on Old Abraham and steadied herself against the back wall as she drew a bead on her attacker. “I'll send you straight to hell,” she exclaimed in a voice thick with pain and barely controlled rage.

Cassius took one look down that long barrel and lunged for the door, bounding across the room and ducking out into the night.

Molly let him go.

For one thing, she didn't have a clear shot, not with the world caving in on her, like a veil of black gauze draping over her eyes, dampening every sound until all she could hear was her own breathing, her own heart hammering in her mind. But she clung to the world, refused to surrender to the pain and the dimming of the light for fear the brute might return and finish what he had begun.

She would never know how long she waited like that, refusing to surrender to the oncoming void. It seemed like an eternity. And then, at last, John Stark loomed in the doorway, blocking the moon's cold-white glare. She heard him call her name as if from far away and watched him rush toward her and catch her as she collapsed into his arms.

“Oh my God! Molly! Molly!”

His gaze swept the room, taking in the critically injured mastiff, Molly's torn clothes, the overturned furniture, the acrid smell of gunsmoke. He tenderly brushed the hair away from her face as he cradled her bloodied head in the crook of his arm. Fear turned to horror turned to a quiet, seething rage.

She knew what he wanted. But Molly held her tongue. She didn't want him plunging off into danger. But his eyes fixed her, held her suspended above a pool of precious oblivion.

“Who?” he whispered, struggling to contain his emotions.

Her bruised lips formed the words. He leaned down until he could feel her breath tickle the inside of his ear. And then he heard.

“Cassius Fargo.…”

22

M
olly opened her eyes and focused on the ceiling of her bedroom, on the slanted sunlight pouring in through the cracks in the shuttered windows, and on Big John Stark sprawled in a chair by her bed. Garbed in his knee-length green hunting shirt, brown fly-front breeches, his long legs stretched before him like fallen timber. His forest green Scottish bonnet was tilted to the side, riding high on his sun-bronzed forehead and the shaggy ginger mane that framed his craggy features.

“John Stark …” she said in a faint voice.

He stirred, coughed, straightened his bonnet, ran a hand across his crooked countenance. He studied her for a moment half expecting to find her delusional. But her gaze held. She even struggled to sit upright though rightly failed, groaning as the dull ache in her skull threatened to break loose in a wave of full-blown agony. She settled back on the pillows and dutifully remained still. John's expression brightened.

“Thank God,” he said.