A chill colder than Lake Tahoe took root in his backbone. Men lay dead, and the fire in his belly for vengeance roared to life. He’d get justice for these poor folks.
He’d done it before.
Breathing hard, fury and grief tearing through his gut, Trace realized his grip on the reins had tightened, causing Black to dance. He forced himself to relax his hands and remembered a time when he’d spent many of his days watching this same trail from a distance, posting himself as a guardian to those hardy few who broke off from the main wagon train and took the little-used trail south.
Back then he’d put a stop to the raiders who preyed on honest folks. Back then he’d known no one, spoken to no one. He’d done his work and slipped away. He’d even chosen not to follow the trail out, find civilization, because the raging need for vengeance kept him here, kept him on guard.
Finally, the trouble had stopped. And he’d stopped standing sentry to those passing by. He’d settled in to a lonely life in the wilderness.
Then Adam had turned up at Trace’s property hunting work. His loneliness struck him. He hadn’t realized how terrible the isolation had been, with only his anger as a friend.
Trace learned a lot about the outside world from his new friend. He explored more widely and found a few folks lived around him. From them he learned about the ghost who haunted this trail. “The Guardian,” they called him.
To his grim amusement, Trace found he’d become a legend. The identity of this ghostly guardian was never known, and Trace sure as certain never told anyone. He’d killed men. Oh, they’d needed killin’ real bad, but it was a weight on his soul that he never could shed.
He’d nearly reached the fire circle when a rustling to the north, in the tall grass, jerked him around, his rifle aimed. Wolf whirled to face the noise.
He heard a strange cry that he couldn’t identify. It put him in mind of childhood stories among superstitious folks in the mountains of Tennessee, of witches and goblins and banshees. The cry sent a chill up his spine and made the hair on the back of his neck stand up straight.
Trace didn’t believe in such things as ghosts, but if ever a place might be haunted, the site of all these murdered souls might be it.
He suppressed the eerie notion. Someone or something was coming and, considering the carnage of the wagon train and the pure fact that someone mighty evil was close by, it looked like, for all his thinking that he was a tough man who survived in the West, he’d walked right into a trap.
He leveled his rifle, ready to fight to the end. Wolf’s ears came forward, and his growl changed to a bark. A mighty friendly bark. It wasn’t a sound Wolf used much. In fact, about never. Trace couldn’t remember ever hearing it before.
“Stay, boy.”
And then he saw . . . something impossible.
With a quick jerk, he pulled his finger away before a twitch could trigger his gun. And how could a man not twitch when he was staring at an absolutely shocking sight?
Wolf took off running. He was just as obedient as he wanted to be and not a speck more.
His pa used to say, “Believe your own eyes, son. Most of the time.” This might be one of those times Pa was thinking of as an exception.
A woman. He was watching a woman running right toward him.
“Help, don’t leave us!” The woman waved her arms, shouted, and generally acted like he was the finest sight short of the Lord returning in triumph.
Which meant she didn’t have a lick of sense.
She had no idea who he was, but he had a good notion about her. She was from this wagon train and had somehow survived. And she needed help. In fact, she should’ve been sorely afraid that he was one of those who’d attacked and killed her fellow travelers. Instead, she showed herself bold as could be.
“You have to help us, please!”
“Us?” Trace said to Black. And now she was asking a strange rider for help shortly after she’d witnessed a massacre.
On the other hand, she did need his help. He shoved the rifle into the leather scabbard on his saddle and was about to call out . . . something. What?
Relax, I’m not going anywhere.
I’m not a murdering outlaw, and you’re shot full of luck.
Please quit screaming—you’re scaring my horse.
And then a strange high-pitched squall drew his attention as a second woman emerged from the grass. He noticed the bundle she carried in her arms. It was . . . Trace shook his head with some violence. It was . . . no, it wasn’t. Yep, it sure enough was . . . a baby.
Now that he was getting a few more details into his addled brain—and he’d been so proud of what an alert and noticing kind of man he was just a few minutes ago—he noticed the second woman had an older child in her arms, too.
The littler kid just plain howled, which set off the older one—a girl and still mighty young herself—into a fit of wailing tears. The first woman turned away from him and raced toward the second, took the crying older child, then they came at him running, screaming, waving. His mustang just got plain jittery, and maybe Trace was a bit jittery himself.
Banshees were looking mighty good right now.
While they kept running and hollering, he started figuring. He was twenty miles from home. He had one horse to carry five people. He’d been on the trail a long time and had very little food left, and sure as certain no baby’s milk. The blustering wind and overcast sky told him snow and cold were on the way and might strike at any time.
He looked down at his black mustang stallion. He’d caught the
