He'd have been in far better shape to tackle a war party of hostiles with his rifle in hand and a good mount under him. Naturally, Tamsin had taken both with her, leaving him with nothing but a dead man's pistol, his belt knife, and an aging mule.
'I'll kill her myself.'
He pulled his hat low over his eyes to shut out the moonlight, but sleep wouldn't come. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck every time he heard a branch creak or a mouse rustle in the leaves. Expecting two hundred pounds of puma in his face at any moment didn't help a man relax.
'When I get back to Sweetwater, the first thing I'll do is rent the whole damn fancy house, have a hot bath, and sleep for two days.'
He'd had to halt when it got too dark to read Tamsin's trail, although God knows a child could follow it in daylight. He hadn't stopped to eat. He'd chewed dry venison on the move. Tomorrow, he might be down to eating roots. Shooting anything or lighting a fire to cook would be suicide. A gunshot or a campfire would bring every hostile for miles.
Something with a lot of legs crawled up his back, and he twisted around and smashed it.
'I'll strangle Tamsin with my own two hands.'
What was it about her, besides the obvious sexual attraction, that had gotten to him? Why had he forgotten who and what she was? She'd made a fool of him, not once, but twice. If he got himself killed in this mess, he deserved to die.
'Stupid,' he whispered. 'I'm plain stupid.' Done in by a shapely backside and a sweet southern accent.
He almost hoped the Cheyenne had finished her off.
Almost, but not quite. He had better plans for her.
A nagging thought rose to trouble him like an old war wound. She'd been his prisoner. And as much as he hated to admit it, the conniving, thieving, probable murderer was his responsibility.
Unbidden, an image of his dead wife flashed across his mind. Becky hadn't been pretty and laughing that morning after Jack Cannon had left her. Things had been done… things it sickened him to think of even now.
'I couldn't save her,' he muttered. 'I should never have left her alone when she begged me not to.'
There was nothing he could do for Becky now, but he might keep Tamsin from coming to the same end at the hands of the Cheyenne. He'd seen his share of dead women, but it never got any easier to stomach. And not even a back-shooting female deserved to die that way.
He'd promised his Becky that her killer wouldn't escape justice in this world, and he meant to keep that vow. He'd caught sight of Texas Jack during the battle of Glorieta Pass, but he hadn't been able to get close enough to him to get a decent shot.
This time would be different. If he could get Tamsin MacGreggor back from the Cheyenne in one piece, he could use her for bait to trap Cannon and send him to hell.
Ash wasn't much of a religious man, and he had little hope that he'd ever find his way to heaven in the hereafter to join Becky. But just maybe… with a little luck… he could find Tamsin MacGreggor before it was too late.
Chapter 12
Rain had been falling all night in Sweetwater, filling the mossy bottoms of the rain barrels and making the main street a muddy morass. Few citizens were about this morning, but outside the sheriff's office, Roy Walker tacked a new wanted poster for Tamsin MacGreggor beside the sketch of Texas Jack Cannon's face.
Henry Steele, always at his desk by 7:00 a.m., stopped to see the notice. 'Morning, Roy,' he said as he balanced a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and a stack of files in the other. 'Not much of a likeness of her, is it?'
The sheriff shrugged, rolled two additional posters, and tucked them into his pocket. 'Peddler over at the boardinghouse drew the picture. Guess it ain't too good. But I'm not likely to pencil a better one.' He frowned and scratched at the back of his starched collar. 'Not too many tall, red-haired women riding around on fancy, stolen horseflesh. I imagine anybody who sees her will remember her.'
'I want her caught and hanged. The sooner the better.' Henry scraped some of the muck off his good shoes. The wooden sidewalks the town had put in on this side of the street were a help, but they didn't extend to the livery stable where he'd left his horse a few minutes ago.
Walker nodded. 'No more than the rest of us do. Your brother was a hard man, but I liked him. A lot of honest folks don't hanker to see a bushwhacker go free.'
A hard man? It was all Henry could do not to tell Walker just how he felt about his brother. Sam had been the spitting image of their father, and he'd driven their mother to an early grave.
But prudence held his tongue. Walker wouldn't understand. Blood was blood, and people expected one brother to mourn the other, regardless of what might have passed between them in a lifetime.
'I put the two-hundred-dollar bounty on her head,' Henry said, motioning to Tamsin's picture. 'The county put up the other hundred. I imagine that when Morgan finds her, he'll find Jack Cannon, as well.'
The judge stepped back, put his reading spectacles on, and studied the other wanted poster. 'A thousand dollars for Cannon, dead or alive. You'd think that would bring the varmints out of their holes. His own mother would turn him in for that much gold.'
Walker folded his arms. 'Shame Morgan filled them two road agents that helped Cannon rob the bank in Wheaton full of lead.'
'Sanchez and Johnson? I agree. We might have gotten something useful out of them.'
The sheriff gave a snort of amusement. 'Heard Morgan's got a way with a knife. Heard tell he can get a man to say everything he knows and then some.'
Henry pursed his lips. 'I've been told that that Morgan has some unorthodox methods of interrogation.'
'Wouldn't be surprised none if that stage robbery outside of Pueblo two weeks ago was Cannon's work. The driver and one of the passengers were shot through the head.'
'I agree. Company records show two men unaccounted for on that stage. They vanished without a trace.' Henry removed his glasses and tucked them into his coat pocket.
'You think Cannon or some of his gang were on the stage?'
'He's done it before. Inside jobs are the easiest, and Cannon hates to leave witnesses. It's why he killed Morgan's wife, back before the war. She saw him hold up a mining office. Cannon didn't get her that day, but he went to Morgan's ranch and murdered her a week later.'
'Bad business, killing a bounty hunter's wife,' Walker said.
'So far, he's gotten away with it. I hope his luck doesn't last.'
The sheriff tucked a fresh plug of tobacco inside his lower lip. 'They say a rabbit's foot is lucky, but every dead rabbit I ever saw had four of them.'
Henry took a sip of his coffee. It was stronger than usual, and he decided that the boardinghouse cook must have added gunpowder to the coffee grounds. 'Cannon killed Morgan's wife back before the war. Texas Jack's kept one jump ahead of him ever since. They claim that the three Cannon brothers and Parson Bill Marsh lost their taste for playing soldier after Glorieta Pass. They deserted and hid out in Mexico. But the parson played loose with one too many married women, and a jealous husband put a bullet through his head.'
'Saved us the trouble of stringing him up. The parson was a dangerous man. He killed a friend of mine during a bank robbery in Missouri.' Walker leaned his hammer against the wall. 'I was just fixin' to go and get me some breakfast, Judge. You had yours yet?'
'Yes, before I left home,' he lied. He'd barely eaten since Sam's shooting. His stomach felt as though he'd swallowed a keg of ten-penny nails and they were working their way out, one by one. 'You go on. I need to finish up some paperwork for Sarah. My brother handled all the financial matters for the ranch, and I'm afraid my sister-in- law's at a loss.'
'She gonna keep the place or sell out?'
Henry frowned. 'We haven't discussed that. I think she's still in shock at Sam's death. We all are.'
'Never figured him to go like that, shot in the back by a-' He broke off as a horse and buggy stopped in the
