Cherish

  “Boss! Hey, boss! Come quick!”

  Race glanced up just in time to see Corey appear at the wagon gate. The younger man’s blue eyes were wide with alarm. “What’s wrong?” Race asked.

  “It’s old Blue! We finished getting his hole dug, and I carried him out there a minute ago. When I tossed him in, he yelped and kicked up a fuss. Scared me so bad, I damned near wet my britches! He isn’t dead.”

  Race’s heart stuttered. Blue. So far, he hadn’t let many thoughts of his dog slip into his mind. Rebecca had needed him, and he’d postponed his grieving for later. But the loss had been there at the back of his mind, a sadness waiting to be dealt with.

  “He ain’t dead?” Race could scarcely believe his ears. He set Rebecca off his lap and sprang to his feet. “You sure?”

  “Of course, I’m sure! Hurry. He’s in a bad way.”

  Race started from the wagon, then hesitated to glance back at Rebecca. “I’ll be just over yonder, honey, not more’n a holler away. You’ll be safe here.”

  Those words had an echo, and he remembered saying the exact same thing to her that morning, right before he left her to chase after the stampede. This was different, though. He would be within shouting distance. All the same, he felt bad about leaving her.

  Evidently she saw his hesitation. “Go,” she said. “I’ll be all right.”

  Taking her at her word, Race vaulted from the wagon and broke into a run.

  I’m going to freeze in this position, Rebecca thought, with my arms hugging my knees. Like those children who go cross-eyed from pulling silly faces.

  Even so, she remained as she was, huddled at the far end of the bedroll wagon, her back wedged into the corner. She felt safer that way. Not safe, but safer. At least she had something to guard her back sitting there, plus she could watch the wagon gate and front opening in the canvas for intruders.

  The lowing of cattle drifted to her on the afternoon breeze—and the sound seemed to be coming steadily closer. We got more men out there to make sure they keep on runnin’, the ruffian had told her. Oh, God. Were those other desperadoes still following the herd? If so, they were coming steadily closer to camp. Right this minute, they might even be watching the goings-on, trying to determine where she was. Or, God forbid, maybe they’d already guessed where she was and were in the camp, slithering on their bellies like deadly snakes to avoid being seen, coming closer and closer to the wagon where she was hiding. She closed her eyes and swallowed, not wanting to even think about it. But it was there, in the foreground of her thoughts, impossible to ignore.

  If those men were anywhere around, they would find her. Even as quiet and still as she was being, they would find her. Oh, lands. Who were they? Her papa and the other brethren had been so very careful. Yet somehow those men had found out they were carrying money. How? That was the question. And when? Along the trail somewhere, surely, undoubtedly in one of the towns where they’d stopped to replenish supplies. Somehow, some way, the Petersens or someone else in her caravan had let the secret out.

  That money. It had become a curse—causing the deaths of all who’d touched it. Until those ruffians got possession of it, they weren’t going to give up. They would dog her footsteps wherever she went, and eventually, no matter how careful she might be, they would catch her by surprise.

  Knowing they would kill her was the least of it. What terrified her was what they would do to her first. Playing vicious games with her, cutting on her with those big knives, until she told them whatever they wanted to know. And then…oh, God, even then—it wouldn’t be over.

  A fine film of sweat covered Rebecca’s body, turning icy. The breeze caught the wagon canvas, making it snap like a sheet drying on the line. The sudden shift of weight caused the hickory bows to creak and groan. At each sound, she leaped, her sudden movements sending shafts of pain over her ribs. But she couldn’t help herself, visions of the ruffian’s huge knife dancing in her head. How easy it would be for a man to slash the wagon canvas, she thought frantically. He’d make scarcely any sound, possibly not even enough for her to hear. Then, in he would come, to leap on her before she could even scream for help.

  She could hear the cattle—moving ever closer—bringing with them those horrible men who would stop at nothing. Men whose sole driving force at this moment was to force information out of her and then kill her. And to reach her, how many other people might they kill?

  You have to tell Mr. Spencer about the money, Rebecca. You have to! And soon, before anything more happens.

  The thought made her heart slam. Spencer was going to be furious when he learned the truth. He might have been able to prevent that stampede this morning if only she’d told him about the money straightaway. It wouldn’t matter a whit to him that she’d had every reason to believe he and his men had been involved in the massacre at the arroyo yesterday. All he would be able to think about were his losses, which, judging by what that man Corey had said, were substantial.

  He was going to blame her. No matter how she approached telling him—no matter how many excuses for herself she might make—he was going to place the responsibility for everything that had happened on her head.

  Race Spencer, in a rage…The very thought made her throat close off with fright. By the way, Mr. Spencer, remember my mentioning right before the stampede this morning that there were things I needed to tell you? Well, guess what! My not telling you those things may have cost you your cattle herd.

  If only she had warned him, he could have had men riding guard around the herd to run off the shooters before they spooked the cattle. So far, he’d been kindness and patience itself with her. But he hadn’t had any reason to be furious with her either. That would no longer be true once she spoke with him. He would want to wring her neck for sure, and to be perfectly honest, she wasn’t certain she would be able to blame him.

  She wanted to run. Where, she had no idea. Just away. Anything but to have to look into those penetrating, coffee-brown eyes that seemed to miss nothing and tell him all of his misfortune could be laid at her door. His cows, his dog. Since the foreman’s last report, maybe even some of his men. If the desperadoes had been following the herd ever since the stampede, what horrid things might they have done out there? Oh, God, oh, God. The loss of animals was terrible enough, but if he lost men? He’d never forgive her. What was worse, how could she ever forgive herself?

  She had to warn him. And she had to do it now. Did she want someone’s death on her conscience?

  A little voice at the edge of her mind said, Now? You mean to go tell him right now? Are you out of your ever-loving mind? This very second, he’s out there trying to save his dog, which was shot because of you! If the animal’s not already dead, he may have to put it down. Do you really think right now is a good time to incite his anger?

  But she had no choice. The next person who died might be that funny little man, Mr. Grigsley. Or that Johnny fellow who was out there taking care of him. If she kept silent, as surely as she breathed, someone else would eventually die.

  Clamping an arm around her waist, Rebecca struggled to her feet and walked to the wagon gate, a distance of only a few feet. But it seemed like the longest walk of her life.

  Crouched beside the freshly dug grave, Race watched Cookie examine the hound’s wound. Poor old Blue. He touched a hand to his faithful canine friend’s head, thinking of all the nights when he’d fallen asleep scratching his ears. Loose skin and wrinkles. That silly, sad-looking face. Funny how he’d come to love such a homely dog so deeply. But there was no denying that he did.

  Then again, maybe it wasn’t so strange. Except for Blue, he was pretty much alone in the world. Oh, he had his men. And there was Dusty, his horse. But at night, when the day was done, he was always alone in the cabin with only Blue to share the evening fire and supper with him, only Blue to talk to, only Blue to sleep with.

  He would be mighty lonesome without his dog. Damned lonesome.

  Glancing from the hound to Cook
ie, whose face was so battered and grotesquely swollen above the frizzy gray beard that he was barely recognizable, Race said, “You sure you’re up to this, Cookie? You’re lookin’ kind of shaky.”

  “I’m here, ain’t I? I reckon I’m up to it.”

  The truth was, Cookie probably would have dragged himself out here from his deathbed. When it came to cooking or tending to wounds, the old codger was as territorial as a grizzly bear. Since Race had little experience at doctoring dogs, he was glad to have a second opinion.

  “Well, do you think the bullet shattered the shoulder?” he asked.

  Holding his belly with one arm, the old man leaned closer to peer at the wound. “I don’t know, boss.” He shook his head. “It’s a bad’n, no question about it.”

  If the bone was shattered, Blue would be crippled even if they managed to save him. Race didn’t want that, not for Blue, who lived to chase squirrels and rabbits, baying as if he were on the scent of bear. When life became a painful trial, what was the point? Maybe men had to go on living, in agony with every breath, but that didn’t mean Race meant to let it happen to his dog.

  This definitely was not a good time to talk to him, Rebecca thought as she approached the group of men at the grave. Race Spencer was hunkered over his dog, clearly intent on the animal’s plight, his hired hands milling around him, the only one she recognized being Mr. Grigsley, who knelt beside him, his swollen and discolored profile a glaring reminder to her of why she had come.

  Glancing worriedly around, she wondered if the desperadoes were out there someplace. They wouldn’t shoot her. She felt confident of that, not until they had pried the information they needed out of her. But there would be nothing to stop them from opening fire on these men.

  The thought knotted her stomach.

  Her footsteps faltered as she drew close enough to clearly make out each of the men’s features. With their filthy clothing and bewhiskered faces, they were a rough-looking lot, all of them wearing dusty, sweat-stained Stetsons, guns strapped to their hips, and knives on their belts. They were the sort of men who would give you a bad turn if you encountered them after dark on a deserted street—the sort of men her ma and the other women in her traveling party had cautioned her to avoid when they’d stopped in cattle towns to replenish their supplies.

  Just behind Mr. Spencer, a tall, lanky young man paced back and forth. His thin legs, clad in faded denim turned silvery by wear and too many washings, looked like well-oiled scissor blades cutting through the sunlight. When he spotted Rebecca, he turned toward her, his tan hat, dangling by its bonnet strings, forming a half-moon at the back of his sandy-colored head, the width of the brim nearly as broad as his shoulders. He swept his blue gaze slowly over her, his attention lingering on the top buttons of the shirt she wore, as if he were trying to make out the curve of her bosom beneath the loose folds of cloth. A chill of revulsion washed over her skin.

  At the opposite side of the grave, a stockier, older man stood with his feet braced apart, his hands on his hips, his green gaze drilling holes through her. Beside him was a younger fellow with white-blond hair that fell past his shoulders, his body padded generously with muscle.

  Rebecca felt her courage dwindling a bit more with each thunderous beat of her heart. She tried to tell herself she was being foolish to feel afraid, that they were just cattlemen, not outlaws, and were probably harmless. But they didn’t look harmless. The young man gaping at her chest was nearly as tall as Spencer, his posture conveying a swaggering insolence.

  Struggling to his feet, Mr. Grigsley finally broke the tension when he turned and saw her. “Well, now! You’re lookin’ better’n the last time I seen you.” He bobbed his gray head, flashing his bald pate at her, and hooked his thumbs under the wide straps of his suspenders, the shirt beneath them a washed-out blue instead of the green plaid he’d worn earlier in the day. “Howdy-do, missy!”

  Race Spencer glanced over his shoulder, spied Rebecca, and pushed to his feet with a fluid grace. As he turned, she revised her assessment of the three strangers. The thin young man whom she’d guessed to be nearly as tall as Spencer was at least half a head shorter, the fellow with the white hair, for all his musculature, looked lanky by comparison, and the older man no longer seemed very big.

  Race Spencer gave new definition to the phrase “big and tall,” for he was half again as broad through the shoulders as the others and seemed to tower over them. As for muscle? Even without his shirt to lend his torso the illusion of extra bulk, his shoulders, arms, and chest bulged with strength, his abdomen striated, his skin gleaming in the sunlight like polished teak. Standing with one black-sheathed leg slightly bent and his hands curled loosely at his sides, he looked ready to go for his Colts, as if living by the gun for so long had made the firing stance inherent to his nature.

  Whipped by the breeze, his hair wisped to his bronze shoulders like strands of blue-black silk. When she met his sharp, impenetrable coffee-brown gaze, she felt an almost overwhelming need to move closer to him. Only a fool sought safety in the arms of danger itself. Even so, she couldn’t deny her yearning—an almost frantic need—to fling herself into his arms again, where she might feel protected.

  This is madness, Rebecca. Sheer madness. What kind of cowardly, sniveling creature have you become? Get control of yourself.

  She dug her nails into her palms, shaking with the attempt. But the confident, levelheaded young woman she’d been three days ago no longer seemed to exist.

  “Rebecca,” he said, his voice pitched low, his dark eyes aglitter in the sunlight. “What’re you doin’ out here, darlin’?”

  Darlin’. The endearment curled around her like a smoky tendril of heat from an open fire on a freezing night—the sensation wonderfully reassuring and warming, and, God help her, beckoning her closer. She remembered the heaviness of his big hands on her back and shoulders, how he’d held her so tenderly after her ordeal with the ruffian. For all his feral traits, there was a gentleness in this man. She’d felt it in his touch, heard it in his voice. In the endless nightmare of the last two days, he’d been and still was the only hope she had to survive. Her voice of reason cautioned her not to say anything that would alienate him, which her imminent admission of guilt might surely do. But unfortunately, her own welfare was no longer the only concern.

  “Mr. Spencer, I—I had hoped to speak with you about a matter of great importance,” she said. Then, gesturing at the dog, she added, “I can see you’re very busy right now. But do you suppose you could spare me a brief moment?”

  “Now really ain’t a good time, darlin’.”

  Spencer glanced at the bosom gawker. No words passed between them, but the younger fellow nodded, as if an order had been issued. As he moved toward Rebecca, her legs went watery.

  Spencer’s dark gaze sliced back to her. “Go back to camp with Johnny, honey. The minute I finish up here, I’ll spare you all the moments you want.”

  She glanced at the dog, unable to forget that if not for her, the poor thing might not be lying there with its life hanging by a thread. She needed to warn Race Spencer that it could be a man who got shot next, and that it could happen at any moment.

  If that meant blurting out the truth to him in front of all these men, so be it.

  Horribly aware that the lowing of the cattle was getting louder by the moment, she cast a frantic glance at the grassland that seemed to stretch forever in every direction. How could such a wide-open expanse make her feel as if she were suffocating in a bottle? She tried to take a deep breath, but pain in her ribs prevented her.

  “There are more of those desperadoes,” she said, her voice coming out so faint and shaky that it barely sounded on the brisk breeze. She swallowed, tensed her shoulders, and in a louder tone, repeated herself. “I’m not sure how many, but I’ve reason to believe they’ve been following your herd, which means they aren’t far away from here right now.”

  The words seemed to hang there like icicles, touching the air with frigid
ity. Spencer stared down at her. She could feel the others staring at her as well.

  “You haven’t time right now to lend me an ear, so I shan’t go into detail,” she continued. “Suffice it to say that there is something those men want very badly, and I know where it is. My people in the arroyo refused to divulge the whereabouts of it. Now I’m the only person alive who knows. They aren’t going to rest until they can force the information from me, and to that end, they will stop at nothing, including murder.”

  Rebecca’s stomach lurched, and for a horrible instant, she feared she might vomit. “You should guard against an attack,” she managed to add, her throat crawling. “And you should get word to your men who are out there with the herd that they should do so as well.” She glanced down at the dog again, and tears burned at the backs of her eyes. “I should have told you about it this morning. I’m sorry I didn’t. This is—this is all my fault.”

  While she stood there, feeling like a criminal who awaited sentencing, she kept her gaze fixed on the bullet wound in the hound’s shoulder, a means of reminding herself that she deserved whatever punishment befell her.

  Finally she could bear the suspense no longer and she drew her gaze back to Spencer, expecting to see his expression seething with anger. Instead he was gazing at her with what appeared to be understanding and compassion, and perhaps even a trace of admiration as well.

  “I already sent word to my foreman to be watchin’ his back out there,” he said, his mouth tugging up at one corner. “And I got three men ridin’ bobtail guard around our camp. They ain’t gonna catch us by surprise again, so you can rest easy, darlin’. You’re safe and so are we.”

  He’d already known? Rebecca stared up at him, her gaze held captive by his. That was why he was looking at her as he was—with understanding and compassion—because he’d somehow deduced before she opened her mouth that she was to blame for everything, that she’d held back information that might have enabled him to prevent it all from happening. And that expression in his eyes—the aching warmth—told her he also knew what it had cost her to blurt out the truth, not only to him, but in front of all his men.