Marshal of Hel Dorado (39 page)

 
    
“How’s her horse?” Sam kept his voice low.
Cody tipped back a canteen to drink and shrugged.

 
    
“Noah says it hit bone. But she’s better
now, we won’t have to put her down.” It was a relief to all of them. No one had
wanted to shoot the horse, but if the injury was too bad, they would have been
forced too. “We’re going to have to find a place to keep her a spell and let
her heal the rest up. Noah took care of the worst, but she still needs a few
days.”

 
    
Sam’s mouth twisted and he pushed his hat
back to scratch his forehead. “Scarlett can’t stay a few days, Kid said he
spotted Ryker. So those were his men.”

 
    
“You know him?” Cody’s head tilted, his
eyes wavering between brown and yellow.

 
    
“Yeah. He’s a rat bastard. Cob sent word
that he’d rousted some of the town to go on the hunt. They want the reward
money associated with the gold.” Scarlett’s association with the reward stuck
like a stone in Sam’s throat. If he’d held off just a couple of days on sending
word to the judge, they might have avoided all this.

 
    
“How many men?”

 
    
“Twenty.”

 
    
The men shared a grim look. Jimmy walked
over to join them, dumping the contents of the tin cup before setting it on the
back of the wagon. “Ike and Noah can take the mare up into the hills. There are
plenty of secure places they can camp until she’s well enough to travel.”

 
    
They’d found plenty of shelter and at least
one of those rock caves had boasted fresh water running in an aquifer through
the back passages.

 
    
“And if Ryker and his men come back?” Of
the twenty he left with, Ryker had at maybe eleven men in addition to himself.

 
    
“Saves me the time of hunting them down.”
Cody grinned, the wolf in him baring its teeth. It was odd, Sam was starting to
recognize the differing signs of personality between the man and the wolf and
moments like these when the two were in tight agreement.

 
    
“Them coming back isn’t the problem.” Jimmy
leaned back against the wagon. The other horses, though spooked, were fine and
the holes in the wagons wouldn’t hamper their traveling plans. “The problem is
if Scarlett is here when they do.”

 
    
Sam’s gaze wandered back to the woman in
question, she was nestled amongst the blankets with Rudy fussing over her. The
brothers had all taken turns sitting with her, fetching her food or water and
making her smile. “I’ll take her. We’ll cut north from here and edge up into
the painted desert before we turn east.”

 
    
“That’s Comanche territory. They’re likely
a lot further north still, it’s too early in the season for them to have
migrated back. But they sometimes send raiding parties down past the river.”

 
    
“Ryker’s not much for creative thinking. He
saw her with the wagons, he’ll be coming back for the wagons.” All three
studied the darkness around them.

 
    
“Rudy’s small enough.” Jimmy mused. “We can
dress him in Scarlett’s shirts and have him ride up front.”

 
    
“What about her hair?” Micah joined the
discussion, nursing his own tin cup of the bitter chicory. It was terrible for
coffee, but of all of them, Micah actually seemed to enjoy it. “That hair can
be seen for miles.”

 
    
“We could cut it off,” Jimmy suggested.
“Fashion it as a wig for Rudy.”

 
    
“No.” Sam and Cody uttered in one single
breath. Micah snickered and Jimmy just looked pained.

 
    
“No,” Sam repeated. “Dig out a red bandana,
tie it around his head and stick a hat on it.

 
    
It’ll look like she was trying to bind her
hair up from a distance.”

 
    
Cody nodded. “If they take a shot at him,
he can phase. He’ll have to be watching for it though. And if you’re both
prepared, he can phase you too, Micah.”

 
    
“Joy.” Micah grimaced. “I’d rather we skip
that part.”

 
    
Jimmy clapped him on the shoulder. “It only
hurts once. Bullets can hurt forever.”

 
    
Sam ignored them, meeting Scarlett’s gaze
across the campsite. She was watching him, and he got the sense that she was
waiting. “She won’t want to leave all of you.”

 
    
“No, but she’ll go all the same.” Cody’s
tone brooked no argument. “You can both move faster on horses than with the
wagons, and if you can get around them, we can deal with them on their next
pass.”

 
    
“You sure you’re okay with me taking her?”
Sam pulled his gaze from Scarlett and focused on the blonde. They’d worked a
truce since they’d bloodied their knuckles on each other’s faces. Unlike
Cody’s, Sam’s injuries were still healing, the bruises a livid color of black
and blue on his ribs.

 
    
“I don’t have to be to know it’s the right
thing to do.” Cody shrugged. “Don’t think we didn’t all see what you did out
there today, Sam. You walked right through the fire, right to her and picked
her up. You didn’t back away even when she could have lit you up like a bonfire
blaze, but she didn’t.”

 
    
“Cody’s right, Marshal. The faster you get
her back, the safer she’ll be.” Jimmy didn’t quite say she would be safer with
him, but Sam heard the tacit approval in both voices. Cody’s had been hard
earned, but even the wolf seemed to be coming around.

 
    
“Should probably take her straight to the
ranch, if Ryker develops sense and goes straight back to town, you don’t want
it to be you and Cob alone against all of them.” Micah added.

 
    
He’d already considered that possibility.
The Flying K stood more than fifty men. They’d all go for guns if his father
asked for it and Ryker would have to be an idiot to go after her there.

 
    
“Bring the gold there, too. Until we can
reach out to the Army to pick it up.”

 
    
A strange look passed between Jimmy and
Cody.

 
    
“What?”

 
    
“Yeah, about that, Marshal. I’m not sure
the rest of us can even go on the ranch.” Jimmy looked uneasy. Sam glanced at
Micah, but his younger brother merely shrugged. He had no idea what they were
talking about either.

 
    
“Why not?”

 
    
Cody cleared his throat. “When we came for
Scarlett. We couldn’t cross onto your land.”

 
    
“What?” Sam repeated the question,
frowning. “What do you mean you couldn’t cross?

 
    
Kid said you were there.”

 
    
“The wolf could cross,” Cody explained.
“But I couldn’t not unless I went wolf. None of the others could either.”

 
    
“What happened?” Micah pressed forward.

 
    
“It was like being stung by a thousand
nettles, they dug in until I thought my skin was bleeding. It stopped whenever
we pulled back.” Jimmy grimaced. “Damned unpleasant. We rode miles up and down
the line, but we couldn’t find a safe place to cross.”

 
    
What the hell were they talking about? Sam
spared a glance for Micah and scowled at the delighted grin on his face.

 
    
“I can’t believe it really worked.”

 
    
Resisting the urge to smack his brother,
Sam strove for patience. “What really worked?”

 
    
“You remember that Shaman that stayed with
us when we were kids?” Micah motioned with his hand. “The big guy with the
feathers in his hair. We kept daring each other to steal one.”

 
    
Sam had a vague recollection of an
iron-faced Indian, who liked to sit so still they’d thought he was dead until
they walked up and his eyes would open. Micah had followed the man around like
a hound dog, trying to imitate everything he did. “Barely.”

 
    
“His name was George Two-Feathers or
something like that. He had another name, but I couldn’t pronounce it and Pa
called him George. He stayed the whole winter with us, when spring came, he
went out and said he would dance to bless the land, returning the favor of Pa’s
back every spring, he’d dance, share a drink with Pa and then leave again.”

 
    
“What the hell does that have to do with
phantom nettles?” Impatience fanned the flames of his own irritation. Micah was
practically bouncing in place with excitement.

 
    
“Shamans have strong magic,” Buck closed
the circle with Ike and Noah in attendance.

 
    
The men had clearly been listening long
enough to follow the conversation. “A shamanic blessing would explain why we
couldn’t cross.”

 
    
“You want to explain it to the rest of us
then?” Jimmy tugged his hat off and slapped it against his thigh.

 
    
“You should pay more attention to Father’s
lessons.” Buck grinned. “He told us that Shamanic magic can repel us,
particularly if it’s protective. My people have had gifted amongst them since
Coyote ran with us on the plains and the Buffalo Woman shared her wisdom around
the campfires. Protective magic to keep away those who would harm have been
handed down through the line of Shamans.”

 
    
“That’s amazing.” Micah laughed. “I always
thought it was a bunch of hoo wa, but I like the idea that it works. Means the
Flying K is a safe harbor.”

 
    
“Unless you can’t cross onto it.” Sam
pointed out and then cut his hand through the air before someone else could
speak. “But if that’s the case, how was Scarlett able to get there? She didn’t
complain about nettles when we rode in.”

 
    
“You carried her in, Sam,” Micah’s voice
was patient and amused. “You brought her onto the land.”

 
    
Buck nodded in quick agreement. “And
invitation would allow the crossing.”

 
    
“Then Kid and I can invite ya’ll in.
Problem solved.”

 
    
Cody and Sam shared a look of skepticism.
It should have surprised him that their thoughts traveled a similar path, but
it didn’t. “Fine. Even if it doesn’t work, it will still get the gold somewhere
safe and we can figure out the rest later.”

 
    
“Agreed.” Cody nodded.

 
    
“Only one last thing to decide then,” Noah
drawled.

 
    
“What’s that?” Sam was tired of the
conversation and wanted to check on Scarlett for himself. They were as secure
as they could be for now.

 
    
“Who gets to tell Scarlett she’s going?”

 
    
As if rehearsed, Micah and her brothers all
gestured to Sam. “He will.” And then they scattered, leaving only Cody to
linger.

 
    
Sam waited.

 
    
“Take care of her. We’ll take care of Ryker
and his men.” Cody said after a long, brooding silence.

 
    
“We’ll be waiting for you, all of you, at
the Flying K.”

 
    
Cody hesitated, as though he wanted to say
more, but shook his head and walked back into the darkness. He would shift, prowling
their campsite with his ears, eyes and nose on point.

 
    
Sam allowed the man a few moments to get
away before he walked over to deliver the news to Scarlett. Her sleepy face lit
up at his approach with a smile so wide it punched the air out of his lungs.

 
    
His heart had stopped when they’d heard
that first gunshot and refused to beat again until he’d seen her standing out
there in the open, with bullets kicking up the earth around her feet.