hounds baying after a false scent, the mob had taken the bait.
Maggie felt a wave of dismay go through her. It wasn’t that she trusted Garth and the other outlaws or anything like that. But as long as Joshua Shade was a prisoner, they still had a reason to keep holding the safety of Ike and Caleb over her head and forcing her to help them.
Was she never going to be free of those awful men? Would her husband and son ever be free? Those questions went through her head as she closed her eyes for a moment and sighed.
The hotel proprietor came up beside her. “What’s wrong, Miss Devlin?”
Since Maggie had given Matt Bodine that name, she had used it here at the hotel, too, after slipping off her wedding ring so that she wouldn’t appear to be married. She wasn’t sure at the time why she had done that; it had been an instinctive move.
But later, when she’d had a chance to think about it, she had realized that by pretending to be unmarried, she stood a better chance of getting closer to Matt Bodine if she needed to in the future. She had seen the way he looked at her. He thought she was pretty, and it wouldn’t take much encouragement on her part to get him interested in her.
She could carry off that masquerade if she had to, she decided, in order to save her family.
Now, of course, it looked like that wouldn’t be necessary, because Bodine and Two Wolves were gone, and Maggie would have been willing to bet that Joshua Shade was, too. The other two men must have tied the prisoner on a horse and escaped with him that way, while Bodine and Two Wolves distracted everyone with the wagon.
Maggie realized that the hotel keeper was standing beside her, waiting for an answer to the question he had asked her. She said, “I just don’t like all this shooting. I wish those men had never come here.”
“You and me both, miss,” the man agreed. “All this trouble is bad for business and bad for the town’s reputation. I’m glad those men are gone.”
Maggie wasn’t, but she kept that to herself. She had hoped that things would end here, one way or the other, but unless she was completely wrong in her guess about what had happened, it wouldn’t.
Ike and Caleb would still be in danger, and of course, so would she, although she didn’t really care anymore about what happened to her.
She wished she could see her husband and son right now, and know that they were all right.
The night wind stirred the sand on top of the tiny ridge against which Ike Winslow lay with his son, Caleb. In this dry, semiarid land, the temperature dropped rapidly once the sun went down, and as the air cooled, the sleeping little boy had instinctively nudged closer to his father for warmth.
Neither of them was aware of the lean, gray shape gliding through the shadows toward them. The coyote was hungry, as coyotes nearly always were. He sensed prey, but he approached carefully, his natural caution outweighing his hunger.
The bigger shape wasn’t moving, but it didn’t smell dead yet. The smaller one shifted around from time to time, but didn’t seem to represent any threat. The coyote slunk closer, figuring he would grab the little creature by the leg and drag it off away from the bigger one, so he could make a leisurely meal on it.
The wind picked up again, blowing their scent to the coyote. His tongue lolled from his mouth, saliva dripping from it. His muscles tensed.
One quick dash in, and he could clamp his jaws around the little one’s leg. He wouldn’t go hungry tonight.
Grains of sand from the top of the ridge trickled over Ike Winslow’s face. Some of it fell in his left eye. The eye twitched in irritation. Ike grimaced.
His eyes opened, and without thinking about what he was doing, he reached up to rub at the irritated one. That made thunderous peals of pain go through his head.
But even over that horrible racket, he heard the growling somewhere close by.
His eye watered as he blinked rapidly, trying to get the sand out of it. He put a hand on the ground and pushed himself up. Darkness surrounded him, but it was relieved somewhat by the light from millions of stars.
That starlight was bright enough for Ike to see the ugly shape crouched only a few feet away. He recognized it as a coyote and yelled hoarsely. The coyote whirled and dashed off into the darkness, unwilling to do battle against such a larger foe.
Only then did Ike become aware of the warm little body nestled against him. He looked down in amazement at his son. His shout had woken Caleb, who was now stirring. A thin cry came from him.
Ike struggled to sit up, lifting Caleb and holding the boy against his chest. His head hurt like hell, but all his muscles seemed to be working and he was grateful for that.
But where were they? he wondered as he looked around at the empty landscape. The last thing he remembered, he had regained consciousness after falling off the runaway wagon and stumbled north, until he ran into the outlaws who had Maggie and Caleb.
Caleb was still here, but the outlaws were gone.
And so was Maggie.
Ike’s brain wasn’t working at its full capacity yet, but one thought was crystal clear in it.
He had to find his wife. He had to find Maggie.
Cradling Caleb against him, he fought his way to his feet. He tipped his head back, which caused a moment of excruciating dizziness before things settled down again, and studied the stars. He knew how to steer by them, so he knew which way was south.
That was the way Marshal Thorpe had been taking the prisoner. Ike knew that if Joshua Shade hadn’t been freed yet, the gang would have continued in that direction, hoping to rescue their leader.
So Ike started that way, too, none too steady on his feet, not at all sure what he would do if he caught up to the gang…but he was certain of one thing.
