Dark Warrior: Kid (Dark Cloth Series Book 2) (3 page)

He raised a brow at her, reminding her markedly of his blood-brother, Hawk. Sometimes, she had a hard time believing the two were not actually blood related.

“I was—ummm….” He ruined it by grinning at her.

She reined her horse in, staring at his retreating back.

Mandy stopped her mare beside her. “He’s worried, after that attempt on your life...,” she supplied.

Kat nodded, setting her horse forward in a slow walk. She’d thought so, but it didn’t make her any happier, hearing it out-loud. “I can’t have him worrying about me,” she said, turning her face away.

Mandy’s mare stayed right in line with her mount. “Why not?” Mandy said, an edge to her voice. “Oh,” she said, when Kat met her gaze. “You’re not use to having someone worry about you, are you? I can understand that. I had papa and Aunt Lydia. Hell, I even had all the hands—and I still didn’t like it when Hawk tried to rein me in....”

“He doesn’t,” Kat defended.

“No?” Mandy smiled, her gaze soft. “So let him watch after you a little.”

Kat swallowed and nodded as they urged the horses into at trot, heading for the ranch.

A half hour later, Kat leaned against her mount, depending on her pony to hold her up. She sat well within the cool shadows of the barn, so as not to get caught showing silly emotions.

Something bothered Kat about the gunman in town. And she couldn’t figure out what. After all, she’d faced deadly enemies before. But the gunman didn’t bother her so much—as the dreams. Something about the whole situation didn’t feel right.

She’d never seen
such cold, dead eyes. They reminded of what Mandy probably saw—when she talked about the man in the mask. The one she’d told Kat had been one of the Dark Cloth.

The one who wasn’t human.

It had been his eyes which caused her to practically toss her friend back inside the shop.

She leaned against her painted pony, breathing in his earthly scent, then turned so her friend wouldn’t see her. She set down the brush she’d been using, where the two of them stood in the evening shadows of the barn, currying their mounts to bed them down for the night.

This should be the happiest time of her life. So why did she see ghosts everywhere?

She reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose, as if that would erase the memory of the man she’d seen in town, but it did no good. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him again, staring through her soul. She actually suppressed the urge to shiver, then frowned at the realization that she’d had to. She’d seen more than her share of killers. So what about this one bothered her so much?

She closed her eyes, deep in thought. She blinked, then blinked again when she opened her catlike, green eyes, to find her best friend standing there, right before her, frowning, her own grey-green eyes sharp with concern.

As usual, Mandy didn’t mince with words. “Out with it.”

Kat winced in spite of herself, turning to gather the bridle off the ledge, between the stalls. She shook her head at Mandy and, for once, her friend let her engage her in small talk, instead, as they left the barn. Though it was still early, she said goodnight, and headed for the bunkhouse—intending to head for bed, to get some sleep. Tomorrow. Well—tomorrow she’d deal with some harsh decisions.

Bitter Dreams

Kat woke with a start, shaking as she fought to suck some air into her burning lungs.
Rubbing her face, she sat half up, trying to still the panic. As her vision cleared, she realized it’d just been another one of her dreams. She ran her hand over her eyes, as if that would clear her blurry sight—and sighed. She’d been having more of these nightmares, ever since she saw him.

Which only told her that her earlier fears had been correct. Something about this guy had caused an endless sinking feeling in her gut, which for some odd reason led straight back to her dreams. The visions in her dreams forewarned her. And she couldn’t ignore the warning, even if she wanted to. It would seem that her nightmares were not to go unheeded.

Leaning on one arm, she tipped her head and stared at the walls, sighing again. She couldn’t understand the dreams. She couldn’t understand
why
she kept playing these same images over and over again, as she slept. And what did the gunman in town have to do with her nightmares, anyway?

Why had he triggered more of these bad dreams?

She flopped back onto the wool blanket on her bed, continuing to stare up at the ceiling, remembering the blond, curly haired girl who ran toward a man. He, too, had blond, curly hair—and the same yellow-green eyes as the ones she saw staring back at her every single day—whenever she saw herself in a mirror.

She sighed, once more, turning over, as though finding a comfortable position would help to drive away the troubling images, then scowled. What was she supposed to understand about these dreams?

Kat frowned at that. What a silly thought. What could dreams possibly tell her? After all, dreams were just dreams.

Mandy wouldn’t say so—but Mandy always had visions. And these weren’t visions. They were just dreams.

Then, why did it feel like they were more like—
memories.

Giving up on sleep, she sat up, scooting toward the edge of the bed and placing her feet on the braided rug, which sat over the cool, wooden floor. In a few minutes, the sun would begin to spread its fingers over the land anyway, and Kat loved to greet the dawn.

Images of an older man, with curly hair and light-green eyes, mirroring her own, filled her vision as she got dressed. Kat couldn’t deny the foreboding that came with—and she knew this wouldn’t bode well for her.

Something felt wrong.

The images bothered her, and unable to shake the feeling that dropped over her every time she remembered them, she headed for the tiny cooking area in the corner of the room. Kat put some wood in the cook stove and cooked up some eggs and bacon for her breakfast, with some coffee to wash it down.

When she left the bunkhouse an hour later and entered the barn, she noticed Ned, Mandy’s foreman, riding toward the house, and she waved. He saw her, waved, and nudged his mount in her direction.

“How’s it going?” she said when he got close enough to hear.

He smiled and nodded in answer. “Kid around?”

Her smile faltered. Ned didn’t usually get down to business so quickly. He liked to visit.

“What’s up?” she asked him.

He frowned, settled his hat farther back on his head with a slight shake of his head. “Hawk heard about the gunman in town,” he said.

She nodded. She shouldn’t have been surprised to hear that—only that it took him till morning to send for Kid. Hawk never let a gunman go riding through town, without sending him a message not to return.

She should be thankful, she reckoned. And she was. But some part of her wanted to deal with this particular gunman herself. Yet if she did, she’d have to answer to Kid.

Maybe it would be better if she headed back out to ride fence. If she wasn’t here, she wouldn’t be tempted to go and seek out—and hunt—a bounty hunter. Her nightmares and her lack of sleep didn’t promise a good outcome with that. If she stuck around here—she’d lose the argument, Kat reasoned. Either she went out to clear her head—or she ended up on the receiving end of Kid and Hawk—wanting answers. Answers that Kat wasn’t ready to give.

Old Charlie came out of the barn with the boy, Tommy, in tow, and as soon as he spotted her, they both headed her way. She’d noted that Charlie had started walking with a limp lately, and it worried her. She wondered if it worried Hawk as well.

She smiled at Tommy. Mandy had sort of adopted him a few years before—since he’d been orphaned when his father died in a fire.

Tommy smiled back at her. Kat couldn’t help but notice that he looked like he’d grown at least two inches in the past few months. She blew out a little puff of air.

Everyone was taller than her now.

“Who was here?” Charlie asked her.

Kat glanced at him. She knew Old Charlie had started thinking of her like a granddaughter, almost as soon as she’d arrived at Mandy’s ranch. That touched her heart—because she considered him like a grandfather too.

“Hawk is hunting that gunman,” she said.

Charlie nodded. “Glad to hear it,” he said. “Figured he’d get right on it. Glad to see he did.” He pointed at the grain as he talked—and Tommy went to feed the animals in the barn.

Kat watched as Tommy walked away and sighed. It seemed that all the men on this ranch were hell-bent on her leaving this gunman to the men in the family. Even Tommy didn’t seem to think anything of it. Well, fine. That only reinforced her earlier idea, to head for the line-shack before dark.

Charlie squinted through aged eyes, heavily lined by leathered skin and toughened by the sun. “Girl,” he said. “You don’t much like having Hawk handle your fights, do ya?”

Kat shrugged. “Just not use to it,” she said, trying not to show she cared.

She didn’t fool Charlie. He gave her an awkward pat on the shoulder. “Let ‘em handle it,” he said. “You concentrate on that wedding of yours.”

Kat wanted to make a face, but she nodded. She didn’t feel like arguing. All she wanted to do, right now, was get away.

She headed to the barn, aware that Old Charlie followed her. He eyed her, as she saddled her pony.

“Heading out to do some work?” he asked. “He, he, he, need to get away from that boy already, girl?” he said, making a gentle attempt to humor her.

Kat grinned at his ribbing. She couldn’t help it. Charlie always teased someone. At least he had a way of getting people to smile, even when the chips were down and things seemed bad for them, like with McCandle. Old Charlie had always tried to keep their spirits up.

She loved him for what he tried to do for her now. It’s how he showed his concern—but she had to get out and ride. She needed air.

He watched her, then nodded. “You go, girly,” he said. “It will be here when you get back. I’ll tell Kid where you got off to.”

Kat gave him a nod, reached up to touch the brim of her hat in thanks—and headed out to make it to the line-shack by dusk.

Kat ate some grub by a campfire and rolled herself up in a blanket near the heat it provided. She slept out in front of the line-shack, not in it. She preferred being out under the stars, to being cooped up within four walls.

But even though she had to hit the trail early, she didn’t sleep. She still hadn’t been successful in getting the gunman out of her head. She couldn’t get the bad dreams out of her head either. Everything in her sensed a warning. She just couldn’t seem to figure out which direction to point her gun.

Kat thought about the work she’d been doing for Mandy, when they’d won that fight against Hawk’s deranged brother. She didn’t blame Hawk for not wanting anything to do with his father’s land. The last time Hawk had seen him, as a boy, his father had helped some men kill off all their friends on their wagon train, and then to top it off, he left him hiding in the grass where he’d been found by a Cheyenne warrior.

Sure, he’d given Jake and Kid the land, along with Star Flower, Hawk’s newly found baby sister. All it held for him were reminders of his father.

Jake and Kid had worked hard, to make something good come out of all the bad that McCandle had wrought on the local ranchers and the Native American people. Jake had recently added a Red Angus bull to the cattle he’d been raising, in order to take a large bunch of them to the Native American tribes hiding in Canada each year.

Kid had been searching for a better breed of horses to add to the horses he’d been raising, to do the same. And Kat—well, Kat worked between both of their ranches—and Mandy and Hawk’s.

Kat stared at the fire, from where she lay on the cool, hard ground. She’d looked forward to that life, raising horses, living with Kid and raising their own children. Things had seemed peaceful and right. She couldn’t imagine wanting any other life.

Then, the dreams had started.

At first, Kat couldn’t imagine why she’d start having such dreams, when it had appeared she’d been handed the life she’d only dreamed existed.

After all, she had a man who didn’t try to change her.

She’d been trying to wear dresses, sure. But not because he’d asked it, or expected it. Kid didn’t seem to mind that she wore pants and wielded a knife, or bow and arrow.

Kat rolled over on the uneven ground, placing her back to the fire.

Why would he? Kid also wielded and knife—and a bow and arrow. Sure, unlike Hawk, he really was a full-blooded Cheyenne. He’d only come with Hawk when they’d lost nearly their entire tribe to a Whiteman’s disease. And sure, Kid dressed like a gun-hand half the time, so did Hawk. He’d been too young not to let the White-eye’s ways rub off on him.

Kat had also grown up with her mother’s people, so she’d understood the wilder blood that ran through Kid’s veins. He understood her—she understood him. Everything had seemed perfect. And, then the dreams had started.

When Kat finally slept that night, she slept in fits. The dreams came as always, now, as though to haunt her, and she woke, finding herself having rolled to her feet, gun drawn.

Kat peered out into the darkness but sensed nothing. There wasn’t anything out there, just her nightmares. Well, it was nearly dawn anyway. She might as well get to it.

She fried up some bacon and opened a can of beans, dumping some coffee grounds into a pan of water, and that’s what she had for her breakfast. Then, she saddled her pony and hit the trail, riding fence.

Kat spent the better part of the morning searching for breaks in the wire and rounding up cattle that had slipped through the fence. Around lunch, she pretty much did the same thing she’d done for breakfast, and headed back to work before the sun made it over her head in the sky.

She had found a calf, separated from his mama, had begun working to get him on the right side of the fence, when a shiver snaked up her spine.

Kat had leapt from her pony, heading for what little shelter a half bent tree could offer her, when the first shot rang out. She shot back, but they had her pinned down, and she quickly realized that—at this rate—they’d force her out in no time. She eyed her pony. He flinched every time they fired, but he hadn’t gone anywhere.

That pony stuck with her through anything.

He’d had faith in her. Now—she’d have some in him. She didn’t have a choice. They had her backed against a wall, here.

Kat bunched up, took a running leap—and dove for her pony.