killing.
“There, ma’am, you’re doing it again. Not knowing why or how, you only know I was wrong, whatever I done. Like those ranchers up there wanting to hang me with Jack Holden. I killed when I was sixteen. Two men who tried to rob me. My family were dead by then, so it was up to me.” His eyes were hot now, his voice harsh and strong.
She rested her hand on the knife handle, finding comfort there.
“Being called a thief by your pa seems small next to what you think of me.” He stood, and it was an awkward series of movements. “Ma’am?” This time the word was gentle and she shuddered. “We knew each other those months while I healed. You know me well, yet you judge me wrong.” He was a gentleman; she saw in his face how carefully he chose his words. “Ma’am…I’m beholding to you for the meal. Add that debt to the ones I already can’t pay.” His breath came out in short gasps, smelling of stew and coffee, and sickness. “I won’t go after your pa, ma’am. Not like I would any other man. That’s the best I can give you to pay off my debt.”
She put a hand on his ribs and felt the raw structure of muscle and bone. He shifted, and she leaned against him as his good hand stroked the back of her neck. She gasped in pleasure. At her sound, his heartbeat quickened and she could feel the race inside him.
Suddenly Burn pushed away from her, and Katherine could not stop a small cry.
“Ma’am, I can’t come to you like this. You be more careful you don’t let men like me around you. It ain’t safe.”
Before she could reach for him, he put out a hand to stop her. It was the arm wrapped in the now bloody rag and again droplets of blood stained her floor. “I’m a damned horse breaker, ma’am.” He grinned that wonderful, unexpected grin. “I keep swearing at you, ma’am, to get you to listen.”
“Sit down, and don’t pretend you’re all right,” Katherine ordered. “Let me doctor that arm…and pack you some food.” She used the words and the act of running water into a pan to recover. When she looked back, he was sleeping lightly, his head cradled on his good arm. Left alone, he began to snore.
A horse came into the yard. She peered out the window. It was Davey Hildahl. He dismounted and began tending his mount. Katherine waited. No other riders came in with him. Returning to Burn, she gently unrolled the reddened cloth, and still Burn did not wake. The cut was long and ugly, stinking of infection—most likely a wire cut. As she began her work, she found herself strangely pleased. She glanced at the back door, where she knew Davey would appear. And she touched the back of Burn’s neck, threading the soft hairs around her fingers. Harsh words had been spoken, warnings given, but for now, with the man needing her and another about to return, she was content.
Chapter Twenty-two
Davey knocked on the door. Beneath her fingers Katherine felt Burn’s body tighten. She kept washing the deep cut, focusing on the marvel of human muscle and bone, and did not look up when Davey entered.
He nodded at Burn as if expecting to find him there.
“You been riding that colt rough, English. Be too damned…darned bad to ruin another good ’un.”
Burn’s reply was filled with anger. “So you got a bronc’ to lend me, huh? A nice big steady bay gelding…or maybe a fine-legged grullo that’ll do the work of that gray.” Davey’s head jerked as Burn kept talking. “Two bronc’s killed under me. Remember?”
“Ah, hell…heck. You can’t lay the death of that roan on me.”
Burn flinched as if the words had drawn more than blood. “Hildahl, I ain’t blaming you for neither bronc’. You’re the one placing blame. I’m doing what has to be done. That colt’s a tough one and he’s all I got.”
Davey Hildahl sneezed, a loud and blustering intrusion that startled Katherine. Burn’s body twitched, then resettled, but Davey grinned like a little boy. “English, it ain’t bad seeing you setting quiet. I’ve been hearing summer tales about you. About some ranny put his mares on other folk’s pasture. That’s close to stealing.”
Burn turned his head, focused his gaze steady on Davey’s form. “How can a bite be stealing grass left to grow?”
It sounded like a Chinese riddle to Katherine, but Davey’s round face puffed out in a laugh.
Katherine began to ask questions. “Mister Hildahl, how far behind you are the rest of the men? Have they found the outlaws they sought? Are any wounded…what do I need to know?” By calling him “mister” she had withdrawn their tentative friendship, and it was obvious from the tightening in his face that he understood.
Burn stood, and by that act drew both onlookers into his world of suffering and deprivation. It took time and a tightening of his body to rise from the chair. His torso swayed as if a wind blew through the kitchen walls.
“Davey, I’ve got to ride,” the
Both waited for his next move, fearing a harsh breath or a quick turn and he would collapse.
“I never rode with Holden. You know that. Ah, hell…Davey.” Burn turned slightly. “Ma’am, you tell your pa my debt to you is the reason that I don’t go after him.”
Burn held up his arm, nodded again to Katherine, and made his way to the door. He hesitated, then looked back at the two silent people who watched him.
“If I ain’t careful,” he said, “I’ll get used to having friends.”
Davey’s head jerked back as if yanked. Katherine felt her pulse quicken within her breast and throat.
Burn opened the door, paused again. “You take care, Hildahl. We’ll cross trails again. Ma’am, it’s been mostly a pleasure. Thanks.” Then he was gone.
The silence held as they watched Burn disappear. Then Davey coughed and Katherine wiped her forehead.
“Mister Hildahl, you must be hungry. May I fix you some dinner?”
“Ma’am, I came off Slaughter Mesa when I found Holden’s tracks heading this way. I followed them till they mixed with other prints, tracks I know well.” He stared at her knowingly, and she dropped her eyes.
“It is a fine animal, and, yes, I met up with Mister Holden, who suggested I return to the L Slash where I would be protected. There were outlaws and killers on the loose, he said, and I would be much safer here.”
“Ma’am, that’s what worried Burn and me…the change in Holden. Still we know he ain’t a killer.”
Katherine would not look at him. “Mister Hildahl, how about some reheated stew and fresh biscuits?”
While they ate a good meal in the Meiklejon kitchen, Jack Holden stole the flashiest bronco out of Son Liddell’s pasture—a sixteen hand black gelding with high stockings and a star, a small eye hidden under a thick forelock. He left the worn-out paint in trade.
Chapter Twenty-three
They were one day off the mesa, and, when Gayle Souter got up from breakfast and walked out to the corrals, the men followed. He parceled out the chores quickly. Despite the useless siege, the fall work had still to be done. In ten minutes each man knew what the day held. The young stuff needed to be choused out of the upper range. Souter ticked off the landmarks, reminding Bit Haven it was a tall, burned cottonwood, not the puny aspen hit last summer, he was to sight on and turn before. And if any man didn’t know the difference between a cottonwood and aspen, he ought to quit his riding job and work for a shopkeeper.
Souter sent Davey Hildahl riding north to the fenced sections where the red he-devil patrolled his wire kingdom. Davey’s orders were to ease into the herd, cut out those meant for market, and leave the breeding stuff alone. Souter might send help later, but, for now, Davey and his snip-nosed bay would do.
Souter and Red Pierson would trail Jack Holden. Souter hated setting out to ride a man down, but the hole-up on Slaughter Mesa hadn’t caught the outlaw, and Holden knew the unwritten laws. He’d stolen from neighbors; now he would be hunted and killed, like any animal that turned on its own.
Davey had said that Holden rode a paint that toed out in front, so in the beginning the tracks were easily spotted. Soon enough Holden would need a new horse, for the paint’s stride was labored and uneven. The trick was
