were embarrassed. “Well, he’s a man who likes variety. Someone should have warned you about that before you ran off with him.” His hand closed on her arm. “Go back to the hotel anyway. Sometimes the boys get kind of excited when they see something like this. There’s no telling what kind of trouble you could get into here.”
The bearded man had finished cutting the switch from the bush and was sauntering toward Andre.
“No!” Elspeth screamed. “Don’t do this to him.” She stepped forward, trying to get to the man holding the switch.
“Are you loco?” Ben grabbed her by the arms, holding her helpless. “You interfere now and they’ll tear you apart.”
She struggled desperately, her breath coming in harsh sobs. “Let me go. I have to-” She broke off as her gaze suddenly met Andre’s.
He was only a few yards away and looking directly at her. His face was chalk-pale and his eyes still held that look of helplessness and confusion. But now there was stark terror in them also. Then, as she watched, two tears rolled down his plump cheeks.
“Don’t let Nicholas know I was frightened,” he called softly to her. “Don’t tell anyone I wept. Don’t tell…” His last words were drowned in the sudden cry that went up from the crowd as the switch whistled through the air and came down on the horse’s hindquarters. It leaped forward!
Elspeth’s scream ripped through the night.
Silver ran up the front steps, threw open the door, and dashed into the parlor, where five women in various states of undress lounged on the tufted sofa and the several chairs that furnished the room. “Dominic,” she said breathlessly. “Where is he?”
“Busy.” The red-haired woman who answered had one shapely leg thrown over the arm of the plumply cushioned turkish chair on which she was sitting. She smiled lazily at Silver. “Very busy. Even for Dominic. You can leave a message, but I don’t think he’s going to want to be disturbed.”
A small bonehandled knife appeared in Silver’s hand. “Where?” she repeated.
The smile disappeared from the red-haired woman’s lips. “Rina.” Her gaze was fixed warily on the glittering blade of the knife. “Upstairs. Second door to the left.”
Silver turned and took the steps to the second floor two at a time. She threw open the door to Rina’s room and stood in the doorway, her breasts lifting and falling with the force of her breathing, gazing impatiently at the naked man sitting on the bed and the equally naked woman kneeling before him on the floor.
“You have no time for this. Get your clothes on and come with me. Elspeth needs you.” Silver marched forward, grabbed a handful of Rina’s gleaming brown hair, and pulled her face from between Dominic’s thighs. “Hurry, Dominic, we have no time.”
“The hell we don’t,” Dominic growled. “Silver, I believe I’m going to scalp you. Get the hell back to the hotel and-” He broke off. He shook his head to clear it of the brandy fumes that were misting his thinking. “Elspeth? What’s the devil’s wrong with Elspeth?”
Silver nodded as she quickly gathered Dominic’s clothing from the floor and tossed them to him. “You have to stop the hanging. Elspeth is very worried about the man.”
“What hanging?” Dominic began to dress automatically.
“I told you about the hanging.” Rina stood up and reached for the yellow satin robe edged with sealskin that was draped over the bedpost. “The horse thief.” She slipped the robe on and turned to face Silver, gazing at her icily. “I don’t like to be interrupted, Indian.”
Silver glared back. “I robbed you of nothing you cannot replace. Find another man to pleasure you. I have need of Dominic.” She bent, picked up one of Dominic’s boots, and threw it to the carpet at his feet. She turned away. “Find his other boot while I get his gunbelt.”
Rina hesitated and then a grudging smile touched her lips. She turned away and began looking for the missing boot.
“For God’s sake, what has Elspeth to do with a horse thief?” Dominic jammed his foot into the boot while he finished buttoning his shirt.
“She says she knows the Russian and the hanging is a mistake.”
“Russian?” He knew of only one Russian in Hell’s Bluff. Andre Marzonoff. He knew very little about the man other than that he was a godawful poker player, but he vaguely recalled hearing he had arrived in Hell’s Bluff on the same stage as Elspeth. “Andre Marzonoff is the horse thief?”
Silver nodded as she handed him his gunbelt. “And I think if you do not stop the hanging, Elspeth will try to do it herself.”
“Christ.” He buckled his gunbelt on with swift hands. Knowing Elspeth, he had no doubt she would try to stop it. “Why the devil did you leave her alone?”
“If you had not been here, I would not have had to leave her alone,” Silver said with sudden ferocity. “Why did you not return when you knew there was to be a hanging? Even if Elspeth did not know the man, it would not have been good for her to see this happen.”
“I forgot the hanging tree could be seen from the hotel. I guess I didn’t think-”
“You thought of nothing but liquor and fornicating,” Silver said coldly.
She was right, Dominic thought wearily. If he hadn’t been desperately seeking to erase the tormenting need for Elspeth from his mind and body, he would have been aware of how the hanging would affect her.
“Your boot.” Rina offered him the second boot she had found behind the chair. She cast a half-mocking glance at Silver. “Anything else, Indian?”
Silver nodded curtly. “He will need a horse. We will not get there in time on foot.”
Rina moved swiftly and gracefully toward the door. “I’ll have Li Tong saddle my mare.” The door closed behind her.
Dominic pulled on his other boot. “How much time do we have?”
“It depends on how eager they are to hang him.” Silver’s lips tightened. “But Elspeth will not wait long.”
Dominic felt a cold finger of panic touch his spine and he went quickly to the door. “Let’s go!” He ran out of the room, down the stairs, and out on the porch. Li Tong had just finished drawing the cinches of the saddle on the mare tied to the hitching rail in the street. Dominic hit the saddle with one spring and pulled Silver up behind him.
Rina stood by the hitching rail, a derisive smile on her lips. “Take care of my mare, Indian. If you don’t bring her back, I’ll take the price out of your hide.” Her gaze ran over Silver in sudden speculation. “Which might not be a bad idea. I don’t have any Indian women at my house. Interested?”
“No, she’s not,” Dominic said shortly. His heels prodded the mare into a run.
Silver’s arms tightened around his waist, her cheek pressed against his shoulder blade. The mare was fast, her gait smooth and even, but would she be fast enough? she wondered. No more than fifteen minutes had gone by since she had left Elspeth and perhaps… A sudden roar of voices disturbed the stillness, and Silver’s hopes plummeted.
A piercing scream shattered the darkness ahead.
Dominic’s body tensed, his spine became rigid. “Elspeth,” he whispered. How many times had he heard her scream just that way in the night when she was attacked by those terrifying nightmares? Now it wasn’t dreams but reality that was threatening her and he might be too late to drive it away.
He turned the corner and saw the hanging tree directly in front of him at the end of the street. He heard a second shout go up and felt a cold sickness knot his belly. He didn’t have to look at the man dangling at the end of the rope to know it was over. Too late.
The mob was melting away quietly, not looking at one another, almost subdued now. It was always like that at any lynching Dominic had ever witnessed. First the exhilaration, then the quiet, casual dispersal as if denying the act had even happened.
His gaze anxiously raked the crowd. “I don’t see her. God, she has to be here. I heard her, dammit.”
“There.” Silver pointed. “By the tree.”
Dominic caught a glimpse of tawny hair against the rough brown bark of the oak and urged the mare forward, picking his way through the crowd.
Elspeth was standing by the tree, staring blindly up at the grotesque obscenity that was now Andre Marzonoff. Ben Travis was beside her, speaking low but vehemently into her ear. She didn’t answer him. She didn’t ignore him. It was as if she didn’t realize he was there.
