line in a moment later.
“You got a head start on me, Jo,” he chided.
“First fish.”
Dag chuckled. “A bet’s a bet,” he said.
All of a sudden, Jo pulled back on her pole and reared backward. Her line was taught and was making circles as it cut the water.
“I got one!” she exclaimed and bent back even farther, pulling on the line to keep out the slack.
That move probably saved her life, because just then, a rifle shot cracked. Dag heard a bullet sizzle just past his ear, frying the empty air where Jo had been a second before.
Dag’s blood froze as his belly knotted in fear.
Chapter 13
Dag lunged to cover Jo with his own body, smothering her under his weight. The sound of the gunshot lingered in his ears for several seconds. And then it grew quiet. He thought he heard the sound of running footsteps, but he couldn’t be sure.
Jo struggled to free herself, squirming beneath Dag.
“Hold still,” he whispered. “Listen.”
Jo stopped struggling. They both listened, but all they heard was the sound of crickets sizzling in the grasses surrounding the pond, and the throaty wharrumping of the bullfrogs.
They listened some more, turning their heads so they didn’t hear their own breathing.
The cattle were quiet, except for a few still roaming around. The occasional
“Felix,” Jo whispered.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“No, not anymore.”
“What happened?”
“Someone took a shot at us.”
“I heard it,” she said. “Who? Why?”
“It wasn’t a ricochet. I mean it was a straight shot. Aimed at you. Or me.”
She shuddered beneath him.
He looked down at her, her face barely visible in the moonlight, but the contours all there, the nose shadowed, the lips. Invisible eyes in dark sockets.
He slid from Jo’s body and lay beside her, still listening.
Something moved. Dag saw that Jo’s hand was wiggling. She still clutched the pole with the dancing fish on the end of her line.
“I caught a fish,” she said. “He’s still on.”
“Well, throw him back in.”
“But I won,” she said, her voice a teasing whisper in his ear.
“Yeah, Jo, you won. Let’s get out of here and back to camp. We’ll see who’s up, who’s pretending to be asleep.”
“What if he’s still out there, waiting for us?”
“We’re going to make a wide circle,” he said, “go back a different way than the way we came.”
Dag got up, drew his pistol. He peered into the darkness, looking for any movement, any sign of life across the empty plain. There was nothing that he could see.
Jo got up, brushed herself off. She still held the pole in one hand. She crept up the bank on all fours and squatted. She pulled on the line, bending her pole back over her shoulders. There was a splash, and the inertia gone, she fell backward, stopping herself just before she tumbled down the bank.
“Oh, it got away,” she said, still in a whisper.
“Good. Now I don’t have to pay you that nickel. Let’s get the hell out of here. Just follow me, Jo.”
He picked up his pole and helped Jo down the bank. They walked away from the pond, keeping it between them and the direction where they heard the rifle shot. Dag held his pistol at the ready, but it was uncocked.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“We’ll come up on the herd from the south,” he said. “Maybe add another half mile to a mile to our walk out here.”
She was silent for a few moments. “Felix,” she whispered, moving close enough to him that their bodies touched, “I can still feel you on me.”
“Huh?”
“Back there. When you were lying on top of me. Protecting me. I liked it. I felt safe.”
“Ain’t no nothin’ in that, Jo.”
“Yes, there is,” she said, her whisper louder than before. “There are feelings. My feelings. Yours, maybe.”
“I just didn’t want you to get shot is all.” His voice was gruff as if he were not at all certain that what he said was true.
“I know. You were protecting me, Felix. But it was nice having you so near. Almost as if . . .”
“As if what?”
“As if we were married.”
Dag swallowed hard. There it was, he thought. Jo did have her eyes on him. As Laura had said.
“Jo, we’re not married. I am married. To Laura. That’s not going to change.”
“I know,” she said quickly. “But a girl can dream, can’t she?”
“Maybe you should learn to be more realistic, Jo.”
“I’ve loved you for a long time, Felix. I will always love you. I can’t help that.”
“Maybe not. But you shouldn’t talk about marriage with a married man, that’s all.”
“All right. I won’t. I promise. I just wanted you to know how I felt about you, Felix.”
“You’ll make some man a good wife someday, Jo. That’s what you should be thinking about.”
She flung her head back in defiance, but said nothing.
As they drew close to camp, Dag saw that there was a lot of riders circling the herd. He heard one of the men singing softly. Some of the cattle were on their feet. The cattle were lowing and he could feel that they were restless, ready to bolt at the first loud noise or follow the first panicked cow. His heart felt as if it were sinking.
“That shot must have made the herd jumpy,” he said. “Come on, let’s see what’s going on.”
He started to trot and Jo kept up with him. They reached the chuck wagon and Dag handed her his fishing pole. He holstered his pistol and started looking for Flagg.
Flagg was riding toward him. He appeared out of the darkness and Dag waved to him. Flagg rode up, swung down out of the saddle.
“Where in hell have you been, Dag?”
“Jo and I were fishing.”
“Well, some jackass shot at a coyote and liked to spook the whole damned herd.”
“Do you know who fired the shot?”
“Did you hear it where you were?”
Dag decided not to tell him that he and Jo had been shot at.
“Yeah, we heard it.”
“Wasn’t you, was it?”
“Are you crazy, Jubal? I wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“I didn’t think so. But it’s damned funny. Only it ain’t funny. I’d like to get my hands on the jackass who shot off the gun.”
