Daisies In The Wind Read online

  So Molly sighed and continued, running a finger absently around the rim of her glass. “It’s about the Rawlings gang.”

  Immediately she had his attention. His eyes razored in on her, and she saw his shoulders tense. “What about them?”

  “Fellow came in a while ago and got to talking to Pokey at the bar. Mentioned a name—the same name you asked me about not too long ago—Russ Gaglin. Wasn’t that one of the hombres you wanted me to watch out for?”

  “Yes. Go on.”

  “Seems this fellow talking to Pokey met a man by that very name over in Jefferson City a day or two ago. They got to playing cards, and the fellow asked him how far it was to Powder Creek. The reason he mentioned it was because this Gaglin hombre later sneaked out of the saloon without paying up his debts, so this man came to Powder Creek looking for him—said Gaglin owed him fifty dollars. What do you think of that?”

  “I think Gaglin’s mighty stupid or mighty cocky to be using his own name like that,” Wolf replied, getting to his feet. “But it’s sure a break for me.” He regarded her a moment, breathing in the heavy, cloying but sensuous smell of her perfume as, with her dressing gown open, she lounged across the bed. He bent and kissed Molly’s fragrant cheek. “Thanks for the tip. Let me know if you get wind of Gaglin or if you happen to hear anything about Homer Bell or Fred Baker from that Rawlings outfit—pronto.”

  And he was gone quick and light as an Indian, vanishing through the door and down the stairs like a ghost in the night. Molly sighed and fell back against the fringed velvet pillows. She hoped that skinny, tart-tongued, black-haired schoolteacher knew how lucky she was.

  Wolf mounted Dusty and turned the horse toward Rebeccah’s property. The sun was sinking, and the vast Montana sky was turning into a rainbow of rose and orange and gold. He told himself there might not be any immediate danger—Russ Gaglin might have no idea that Rebeccah was in Powder Creek—but every instinct told him that the buzzards were swarming in for the kill.

  But was Gaglin alone? Or were one or two of his former pards—maybe even his long-lost pard, Neely Stoner—closing in on Rebeccah too?

  That does it, Wolf decided, his fingers tightening on the reins as he spurred Dusty to an all-out gallop. Rebeccah is not spending one more night alone on that ranch until this business of the silver mine is settled. I don’t give a damn how good a shot she is or how many derringers she keeps hidden on the place, she’s coming to the Double B until these hombres are either all locked up or dead.

  For the hundredth time since Rebeccah had confided her danger to him, Wolf damned Bear Rawlings for leaving her in this mess. Wolf didn’t know if there was or wasn’t a mine, but either way it meant trouble for Rebeccah.

  There was no sign of her at the ranch. She must not have returned from the schoolhouse yet—maybe she was keeping one of the students after school. Wolf headed toward the schoolhouse, a prickle of apprehension growing inside him. He didn’t like the looks of the sky. More snow was coming. A storm maybe. He’d better get Rebeccah Rawlings all packed up and moved someplace safe before it hit. Yet when he reached the schoolhouse, he found the little building closed up and empty.

  Now what?

  Wolf didn’t like the feel of this. He told himself there could be an explanation—that maybe she had gone to one of the nearby ranches for supper —it was customary for families to take turns having the schoolteacher to supper. But a sixth sense warned him that something was wrong. Calling on his training and experience to keep his sudden fear for her at bay, he counted with cool precision the ranches within a five-mile radius.

  He decided to try the Moseley place first.

  Wolf spurred Dusty forward as the first heavy snowflakes began to fall.

  * * *

  They surrounded her before Rebeccah even had a chance to scream.

  One moment she was headed at a fast trot toward the Moseley ranch, admiring the sunset sky while uneasily sifting through her thoughts about Chance Navarro, and the next she was ringed by three dark-garbed, weather-beaten riders, who left her no space in which to escape.

  “Howdy, Reb. I wonder if you remember me?” The man on the dun horse edged closer as Rebeccah glared at them. Her team was tossing their heads and pawing the ground nervously—sensing trouble every bit as much as Rebeccah did.

  “I’d never forget you, Russ!” she replied evenly, trying to look more nonchalant than she felt. Her swift gaze had taken in the faces of all three men, and she recognized the other two as well.

  Fred Baker and Homer Bell. The three surviving members of the Rawlings gang. She didn’t have to wonder what they wanted now.

  If Bear were alive, not a single one of them would have had the courage to look sideways at his daughter, much less accost her like this on the road. But now that he was dead, Rebeccah realized grimly, their greed was too much for them. They thought they’d get that silver mine from her and then live high on the hog for the rest of their days. And it didn’t matter that they’d be stealing from their former leader’s daughter to do it.

  “I know what you want, Russ, and I can’t help you—any of you. Homer, Fred—I don’t have the deed to any mine—or a map. The mine doesn’t even exist!”

  “Well, we know for a fact it does,” Homer Bell retorted. He scratched the blond stubble covering his long chin. “So you’re lying, Reb. Can’t say I blame you. Bear taught you real good, didn’t he? But it won’t get you nowhere. Bear promised us all a piece of that silver mine one night when he was drunk as a skunk and feeling grateful because we saved his hide from getting shot by a Pinkerton detective who had him trapped upstairs in a fancy house. We killed the hombre and got Bear out the window. He told us we would all be rich men.”

  “And then he died,” Fred Baker continued, his prune-black eyes boring into her, “died without leaving us a clue as to how to get our hands on that silver. But we knew he’d leave it to his little gal. He sure was fond of you—talked about you all the time, Reb.”

  Russ cut in. “Bear promised to share that silver mine with all of us, and I think out of respect for his memory, Reb honey, you ought to fork over the deed and do the same.”

  “There is no mine!”

  “Don’t be greedy, Reb,” Homer warned, his milky blue eyes peering out from beneath a filthy mop of pale hair. “It’ll only get you buried.”

  “Are you working with Neely Stoner?” she asked in a sharp tone. Snow had begun to fall thickly around them. It dusted her cheeks and eyelashes. It slid down the back of her neck, inside her cloak, chilling her.

  Or was she shivering from fear—fear of these men she had once ridden with and lived with on a daily basis, men she’d cooked for and played cards with around a campfire and from whom she’d learned how to lie, steal, and run? She’d never been afraid of them before—but then, Bear had always been there, and no one had dared cross Bear.

  Except Neely Stoner.

  “Stoner?” It was Fred who answered her, his thin mouth forming a sneer. Those black eyes seemed to burn with malice in the last quickly fading rays of daylight. “We ain’t seen him in years. But we heerd that he wanted that silver mine too. Thought Bear owed him something, after kicking him out of the gang all those years ago and nearly killing him.”

  “But the way we figure it, Reb,” Russ said, leaning forward in his greasy gray duster, “Stoner was clean out of the gang when we helped Bear out of that tight spot—he had no part in it—so he don’t deserve to get chicken shit.”

  Neither do you, Rebeccah thought, but she didn’t bother saying it. These men understood only one thing, so she’d better give it to them.

  With one smooth, rapid movement she scooped the rifle from the floor of the buckboard and cocked it straight at Russ Gaglin’s egg-shaped face.

  “Anybody moves a muscle, Russ, and you get it right between the eyes,” she said coolly. Somehow she managed to keep the arm that was steadying the rifle from shaking.

  She heard their sharp intake of breath, saw the surprise r
egister in their eyes and something else, the sneaky look of men planning an attack. “Russ!” she bit out sharply, “Tell them to drop their guns, or you’re a dead man!”

  “Now, Reb, no one’s goin’ to end up dead,” he began in a wheedling tone, but she could see that he was nervous. “Maybe you should just put that thing away and—”

  “Drop your guns!” she ordered. “I’ll kill Russ and at least one other of you before you can drop me, and you know I can do it too!”

  It might have worked if not for a deep voice shouting suddenly from the edge of the woods that bordered the trail.

  “Miss Rawlings? What’s wrong?”

  Toby Pritchard and Louisa Moseley, arm in arm, had emerged from the clump of winter-bare trees. Rebeccah knew that the strapping, gentle Toby had been carrying fifteen-year-old Louisa’s books home for her every day the past two weeks. They must have been walking in the woods together, holding hands, maybe even kissing, when they’d seen her surrounded by the three men, pointing her rifle at one of them. In a flash she realized they must have been alarmed and called out to her without thinking. But it was as far as they got.

  Fred drew his heavy Remington revolver and spun automatically in the saddle to fire at the masculine voice.

  “No!” Rebeccah screamed as he pulled the trigger.

  She jerked the rifle toward him and fired, knocking him out of the saddle. Homer yelled something she couldn’t understand, and then he and Russ both charged her at once. Before she could fire again, Russ yanked the rifle from her and backhanded her so hard, she nearly fell out of the buckboard.

  “You’ll pay for this, Reb,” he was shouting at her through the pain drumming between her ears. “We could have done this nice and easy, but now ... Look it, you’ve killed Fred! Damn it, Homer, grab her onto your horse and let’s get out of here!”

  “What about those kids?” Homer Bell rasped, pointing toward the woods, where Toby had collapsed on one knee and Louisa was crouched in frozen terror beside him.

  “Toby, Louisa! Run!” Rebeccah screamed.

  Russ cursed her and tried to hit her again, but she ducked aside just in time. To her immense relief she saw Louisa and Toby scurrying back into the copse of trees from which they’d come.

  “Son of a bitch! I’ll get ‘em,” Homer muttered, but Russ stopped him with a shout.

  “Let them go! They don’t matter. Take Reb and let’s get the hell out of here!”

  She clutched at the reins and tried to urge the frightened team forward, but Homer Bell plucked her off the seat before she could manage it and plunked her down hard in the saddle before him.

  “Don’t say a word, or cry, or cause one bit of trouble, Reb, or you’ll be sorry—and I don’t care if you are Bear’s daughter! Ride, Gaglin, ride!”

  The last thing she saw was Fred’s inert form bleeding into the snow in the road. Then they were galloping hard away from everything familiar, riding hell-bent toward the snow-dusted foothills that rose to the north, looming gray and white and purple against the darkening winter sky.

  20

  “Calm down, Toby, and tell me everything you saw.”

  Wolf placed both hands on Toby Pritchard’s shoulders and studied the young man’s desperate face. A few feet away, in the rapidly falling darkness, a dead man sprawled in a bloody heap across the trail.

  “Those men won’t kill Miss Rawlings, not until they get what they want from her, so don’t worry. I’ll find her before then. But you have to tell me everything that happened. How many were there? Did you see which direction they headed? What did their horses look like?”

  Wolf had come upon the dead man just as Culley Pritchard, Waylon, and Toby had ridden up. Rebeccah’s team and buckboard stood over to the side of the road, the horses foraging in the snow-dusted winter grass, and at the sight of them an iron band had tightened around his lungs. He was too late!

  But he remained deadly calm as Toby told him what he and Louisa had seen and how they had come tearing back to the Pritchard ranch after Toby had been shot at, alerting his father and brother that Miss Rawlings was in trouble. With every word the boy spoke, Wolf’s grimmest fears were confirmed. It took every ounce of his self-control to think clearly, to put aside his fears for her and the dread that filled him when he thought of all the ways they might hurt her, and to concentrate on what must be done to find her. Stay calm. Think. You can catch them in time.

  If they hurt her ...

  No. Don’t let yourself think that way. You’ll find her.

  “And then this hombre shot at me, and then Miss Rawlings shot him. The other man hit her, and then they dragged her onto one of the horses and rode off. Damn it, if I’d had my six-shooter on me none of this would’ve happened,” Toby exclaimed, running a hand in frustration through his sandy hair. “Miss Rawlings would be safe, and Louisa wouldn’t have had to be scared to death!”

  “Do you think you can find them, Wolf?” Culley Pritchard interrupted, casting a worried glance at the densely falling snow.

  Wolf nodded, his face coldly set.

  “Want some company?” Waylon offered.

  “No. I don’t know how long this will take. But you could help. Will you take care of that hombre over there? And then there’s Miss Rawlings’s horses and her buckboard.”

  “Consider it done,” Waylon said.

  “There’s something else. Billy.”

  Culley cleared his throat. “What do you want us to tell him?”

  “Tell him everything will be all right, but I want him to stay with the Bradys until I get back. He’s there right now, matter of fact. I sure hope Emily doesn’t mind if this visit is extended for a day or so,” Wolf muttered.

  “He’s welcome to stay at our place if it’s not convenient for her,” Culley said, clapping a hand on Wolf’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about the boy, he’ll be well taken care of while you’re gone.”

  “How long do you think it’s going to take?” Toby asked. He appeared now more angry and frustrated than frightened—his “wound” was only a slight grazing above the knee, already bound up and hurting him hardly at all. His concern for Rebeccah, and for Louisa, badly shaken, overshadowed whatever discomfort he’d endured from his injury.

  Wolf shook his head. “We’ll see. They don’t have too much of a head start on me, I’d reckon, but it’s getting dark fast. I may not catch up with them until tomorrow.”

  “Give those low-down bastards hell!” Culley Pritchard growled as he glared over at the dead man in the trail.

  “I intend to,” Wolf answered softly. Then he mounted again with easy grace and turned Dusty toward the foothills to the north.

  “Tell Billy not to worry!” he shouted over his shoulder, and then he was riding as hard as he could across the sloping land, cursing the late hour, the clouds and whirling snow—and the approaching darkness.

  * * *

  The snow fell faster and ever more frenziedly as inky blackness clamped down over the hills. Russ and Homer never slowed their mounts, instead riding at the breakneck pace of outlaws on the run. Hunched in the saddle before Homer’s thin, muscular frame, Rebeccah tried to keep track of her surroundings, but the land was unfamiliar to her, and after a while she gave up trying to find a landmark in the endless clumps of woods, the twisting ravines, and the narrow, coiling trails her captors followed.

  When she felt certain that she would surely freeze or faint from weariness if they traveled another mile, they halted before a rambling log shack set on a high bluff. Below was a frozen stream. In the distance rose the gray-and-purple mountains, their sharp peaks frosted in snow.

  Rebeccah glanced about as Homer yanked her down from the saddle. The rickety wooden building he was dragging her toward appeared to be in even worse shape than her cabin had been when she’d first seen it. There were huge chinks in the walls and roof, which must let in a good deal of rain and sleet and wind, and the weeds surrounding the place were waist high.

  The moment she stepped through th
e scarred wooden door and saw the thick smoke curling through the air, the long knotted-pine bar along the far wall, the scattered tables and chairs, and the profusion of glasses and whiskey bottles, Rebeccah recognized what kind of a place it was—she had been in many such as this one in her lifetime. A hideout saloon, frequented solely by outlaws, rustlers, gunfighters, and their ilk, a place where men who flouted and fled the law could meet, drink, and rest—or count their loot—while they planned their next move.

  “Come on into the back room and have a drink, Reb,” Homer invited coldly, dragging her by the arm across the dirt floor. A few seedy-looking men glanced up from their whiskey and cards to stare as he propelled her past their tables and pushed her into a dim hallway, but as Russ followed, yelling for Redeye, no one said a word or even showed much interest. Rebeccah knew better than to seek help from any of the men in this place. No one would pay her any attention, at least not the kind of attention that would help. Minding your own business was the way an outlaw stayed alive. Only a fool would risk his neck to save a stranger.

  She would have to save herself. But at the moment she wasn’t sure exactly how she would do it. The knowledge that she still had a derringer tucked inside her right boot gave her only a small measure of reassurance. One little hideout gun against her captors’ powerful revolvers wouldn’t necessarily get her out of this alive. And even if she killed them, how did she know that the other men in this place would let her leave?

  Rebeccah had no choice but to bide her time and watch for a chance—but a chance to do what? She would just have to see when the time came, move quickly, and pray her reactions were quick and sure enough to guarantee her survival.

  Russ Gaglin pushed her into a dingy back room furnished with a lumpy bed, a three-legged chair, and an oil lamp set on a small table. The table was littered with whiskey bottles and tin cups. A greasy burlap curtain hung lopsided across the window.