'Sweetwater is east of here.'
'You're taking me back.' She nodded. 'Jail looked pretty good to me a few hours ago.'
He didn't lie to her. He just couldn't tell her the truth, that he'd have to leave her and go after Cannon. His rifle was almost destroyed; they had two pistols and one horse between them. They couldn't outride Jack's gang, and they couldn't outshoot him. As long as they stayed hidden, they might be safe. But when they started back toward Sweetwater, he knew Jack would come after them.
He put her on the stallion and led Dancer uphill to the spring. They couldn't risk a fire tonight, and they were without food, but they could survive with water.
It took a half hour to reach the spot. He helped Tamsin down and let her drink her fill before he led the horse to the small run-off pool between the rocks. Tamsin sat stoically while he tore up a clean shirt from his bedroll to cleanse the bullet hole and stanch the bleeding. Next he packed the wound with moss that he scraped off a boulder and bandaged it tightly.
'You might have brought us some dry biscuits or bacon in that pack of yours,' she chided when he was finished with his doctoring. 'And you need to take care of Dancer's injuries.'
'I'll wash the damn horse's scratches.'
'They aren't scratches. They're puncture wounds. He could get lockjaw.'
'Maybe I should have put a vet in my pack as well.'
'Fried chicken would have been nice. Or apples, ripe red apples.'
'Would have if you'd given me notice you were runnin' off again.' He grumbled as he cared for Dancer's cuts.
'You can't blame that on me. I was kidnapped.'
'So you say.' He grinned at her and spread a blanket on a pile of pine needles, then gestured for her to sit on it. 'You're more trouble than any owlhoot I've ever gone after.'
'Sorry.'
Carefully, he reloaded Billy's pistol and placed it within reach. 'This one's for you. Use it, if you need to.' He settled down beside her and put an arm around her shoulder. Tamsin's head fell naturally against his chest as though that was where it belonged.
She looked up at him, and he winced at the sight of the dark circles under her eyes. 'What happens in the morning?'
'I told you, let me worry about that,' he said. 'You sleep. You look like you need it.' He pulled her close, mindful of her injured arm. 'I've got no intentions of dyin', Tamsin. Once this is done, we can start living.'
Gray smoke billowed from Leon's chimney in the early morning light. Ash lay on his belly near the house spring and thought about Tamsin while he waited for Texas Jack to show his face.
She'd be fightin' mad when she found out that he'd gone off without her again, but he figured she'd forgive him once Jack was permanently out of the way.
It seemed impossible to him that they'd only known each other such a short time. She was part of him now, as close as his right hand, as necessary as his lungs for giving him life.
Horses, cows, or kids, he didn't give a tinker's damn what she wanted to raise or where she wanted to raise them. He could turn his hand to just about anything, and he was tired of hunting men.
It was time someone else tracked down the Texas Jack Cannons and the James boys. His belly was empty. His arm hurt like hell, and he had blisters on both heels from walking half the night. Damned if he wasn't getting too old for this business.
He'd left a note for Tamsin under Billy's pistol. He'd drawn a map showing her the way back to Sweetwater and left instructions to get to Max Spence's place and have Max contact Dimitri.
If he didn't make it back, she could take Dancer and ride. He'd have to put his faith in Dimitri to get her out of trouble with the law. Nobody else could do what he had to do this morning.
The back door opened and Billy limped out, using a barrel slat for a crutch. He had a thin mustache, wore bloodstained rags wrapped around his head, and carried a shotgun.
'Three left,' Ash muttered under his breath. He hadn't expected the injured man to be able to walk this morning, let alone carry a weapon. It showed that outlaws had grown tougher than they used to be. Or that he was a complete fool for letting Tamsin talk him out of killing Billy where he'd found him.
A trickle of sand rolled down from the bluff above him, and Ash tensed. Had Jack or Boone slipped out and come up behind him?
A cold sweat broke out on his skin. He didn't dare move and give away his position, but neither could he lie here and wait for a bullet through his back.
Slowly Ash turned his head. No silhouette of a man loomed above him. The grass and wildflowers that sprouted from the overhang seemed undisturbed. What then could-
He froze as something heavy slithered over the back of his calves just above his boot tops. His breath caught in his throat, and his heart bucked against his chest. A long second passed, and then another.
From the corner of his eye Ash detected motion. At the same instant, a dry buzzing turned his gut inside out. Ash's mouth shriveled as though he'd eaten a green peach when the rattlesnake's diamond-shaped head appeared inches from his right elbow.
The serpent's body slid over Ash's legs, and the flat expressionless eyes gleamed with moisture as the snake flicked a long, thin tongue. Ash remained motionless. He knew it wasn't possible, but he would have sworn he could smell it.
The rattler smelled of death.
Sweat dripped into Ash's eyes. His lungs began to burn for lack of oxygen, and his fingers cramped on the damaged rifle stock. Somewhere high above, he heard a hawk shriek a plaintive cry. Ash's parched mouth tasted of lead.
Slowly the scaly, gray-green patterned body coiled and sounded another lethal warning, a dull vibration like the rattle of seeds in a dried gourd.
The snake turned its huge striped head to stare at him with frigid, glassy eyes, and Ash's bowels clenched. When he was twelve, he'd seen a boy bitten by a big diamond-back. His leg had swollen to gigantic proportions and turned black. And all his parents' prayers hadn't been enough to save him from a screaming death.
A prairie rattler wasn't as volatile as a diamondback, but one this size packed enough poison to kill a horse.
Ash didn't know how much longer he could hold his breath, but instinct told him that any movement could trigger a deadly strike.
Then something rustled in the grass. The snake's head snapped around as a white-bellied deer mouse popped into sight. The tiny rodent rose on its hind legs and sniffed the air.
The rattler bunked.
Emitting a faint squeak, the mouse darted off. The snake leapt after it, and both vanished from view. Ash inhaled deeply, remembering Billy and his shotgun just before the weapon blasted.
Ash snapped his rifle up, preparing to return fire, then realized that the outlaw hadn't been shooting at him.
Ash's breathing slowed and his heart quit jumping as he watched the man walk into the tall weeds and lift up the rattlesnake.
The back door flew open, and Boone Cannon showed his face. Boone had aged a lot since Ash had last seen him. His blond hair had darkened and thinned, and one side of his face bore an ugly scar. 'What the hell you shootin' at, Billy?'
'Thought it was a rabbit,' the man with the shotgun answered. 'Ain't nothin' but a damned ole rattler.' He heaved the headless body of the twitching reptile over the top rail of the corral, and the horses shied and crowded to the far side. Billy laughed. 'Skittish, ain't they?'
'Jack don't like being woke up this early by you actin' the ass,' Boone said. He walked out a few steps from the back door, scanned the valley, and fumbled with the front of his trousers.
As Boone relieved himself, Ash's finger tightened on the trigger. If he fired now, he could drop both of them before they could shoot back.
Common sense told him that's just what he should do, but he couldn't. He'd killed more men than he wanted to
