The man scowled and jabbed a finger at him, as if to strike him dead. “Don’t you presume to know the will of the Lord! The girl is ours and she goes back with us. She has defied the elders and must be punished!”
“You’ll have to take her from us,” Conrad said coolly.
“There are six of us and two of you,” the man pointed out with a sneer.
“Yes, but we’ll kill four of you before you put us down. Maybe five. Maybe even all six.” Conrad smiled. “Not to brag, but I’m pretty good with a gun. Maybe we’ll all wind up lying here, food for the buzzards, and then the girl will ride away. What good will that do your elders?”
The other men had been listening intently to the exchange. One of them spoke up now, saying, “Leatherwood, maybe we’d better not do this. We were just supposed to bring her back, not kill anybody.”
The leader’s head jerked around. “This man’s not going to tell me what to do. Our orders were to fetch the girl!”
“We’ll be able to find her later.” The man waved a hand at the landscape around them. “Where are they going to go that we can’t find them whenever we want to? This is our home.”
The one called Leatherwood hesitated. He glared back and forth between his companions and Conrad. “Elder Hissop was clear about what we’re supposed to do. I don’t know about you, Kiley, but I don’t much want to go back without doin’ as we were told.”
“They won’t get away,” Kiley said. “Besides, after these men have been saddled with that headstrong female for a while, they may want us to take her off their hands!”
Leatherwood nodded. “That’s a good point.” He turned back to Conrad. “All right, mister, if you want her, take her. But know that by defyin’ us, you’ve signed your death warrant. Sooner or later we’ll kill you, and the girl will go back where she belongs.”
“Talk like that makes me wonder why I don’t just go ahead and drill you right now,” Conrad said.
The squint-eyed Leatherwood grinned, which made him even uglier. “You’re welcome to go ahead and try, mister.”
Conrad began backing his horse away. Without taking his eyes off the six men, he raised his voice and said, “Arturo, take the girl and get out of here. I’ll cover your back trail.”
The Mormon gunmen stayed where they were. Conrad understood why the one called Kiley hadn’t wanted to force the issue. Outnumbered, surrounded by miles and miles of nothing and no place where they could get any help, he and Arturo were at a definite disadvantage. The avenging angels could stalk them at their leisure, and Conrad and Arturo would have no way of knowing when or where the inevitable attack would come.
But for now, more gunplay appeared to have been headed off. Conrad had a chance to find out who the girl was and what was going on here, and he wanted to take advantage of that opportunity. He didn’t mind fighting, but he generally liked to know what he was fighting
Conrad heard the buggy and the girl’s horse departing behind him. He waited and continued backing his horse away from the gunmen. When he had put a hundred yards between himself and them, he whirled the horse without warning and kicked it into a run. As he galloped after Arturo and the girl, he looked over his shoulder and saw that the Mormons weren’t giving chase. That surprised him a little, but obviously Leatherwood had decided they were going to bide their time.
Conrad was sure of one thing: This trouble was far from over.
Because Kiley was right. There was no place for them to go where the avenging angels couldn’t find them.
3
Conrad, Arturo, and their unexpected companion didn’t stop until they had gone at least a mile. Conrad kept checking behind them. He was ready to stop and throw up a screen of rifle fire to cover their getaway, but the gunmen didn’t come after them.
When they finally reined in, the horses were all fatigued by the hard run. The young woman’s horse was in the worst shape because she had been fleeing from her pursuers before Conrad and Arturo joined the chase.
The young woman wasn’t in much better shape. When she tried to dismount, she half fell out of the saddle and had to grab hold of a stirrup to keep herself from dropping to the ground.
Conrad had already slid his Winchester into the saddle boot and swung down from the black. He reached out to grasp her arm and steady her. “Arturo,” he said, “get one of the canteens.”
Arturo turned around on the buggy seat and found a canteen in their boxes and bags of supplies. He climbed down from the seat and brought the water over to them. Conrad unscrewed the cap and held the canteen to the young woman’s mouth. She grabbed it with both hands and tried to gulp down as much water as she could, but Conrad pulled the canteen away after a couple of swallows.
“Take it easy,” he told her. “You’ll make yourself sick.”
“I . . . I . . . Thank you,” she gasped. “If you hadn’t come along . . . I wouldn’t have made it much farther.”
While Conrad waited a moment before he gave her another drink, he took advantage of the opportunity to have a good look at her. She was tall and slender, and hair a little lighter in color than honey flowed all the way down her back to her hips. She wore men’s clothing: a rough cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up a couple of turns on tanned forearms, brown twill trousers with suspenders that went over her shoulders, and work boots that laced up. Despite the clothing, no one would ever take her for anything but female.
“What’s your name?” Conrad asked.
She’d been breathless when she dismounted, but she was starting to recover. “Selena,” she said. “Selena Webster.”
“I’m Conrad Browning. This is my friend Arturo Vincenzo.”
Conrad handed her the canteen, and this time he didn’t have to take it away from her. She took a long drink, but not enough to make her sick. As she gave him the canteen, she said, “I can’t thank you enough for helping me, but I’m afraid you’ve just doomed yourselves. Like Jackson Leatherwood said, when you interfere with Father
