Now and Forever (22 page)

L
ook at that.” Tucker pulled on the reins with one hand while pointing at the ground with the other. He’d gotten Shannon to where her horse was hid, and they’d been riding fast from that point onward.

“Tracks.” Shannon sounded grimly satisfied. “He hasn’t covered his horse’s hooves with rags. He’s not even trying to be careful. Are you sure this is the same man?”

Tucker looked up from the tracks; they might as well have been shouting at him. “It has to be. We know it was him, because we followed him from those corralled animals. We know this is who came in there, silent as the tomb, and got himself a horse. Not many men with that kind of skill. In fact, I’ve never known a man with that kind of skill. And yet this isn’t his normal way. I’ve been wondering how he’d cover his tracks in snow. But I figured he’d either try or he’d give up rather than leave a clear trail.”

“Is it possible he wants us to follow him?”

Tucker looked hard at Shannon, thinking, wondering.
He took her horse’s reins and led her off the trail. Was that it? Were they being led into a trap? If so, then it might already be too late.

But if he stopped his headlong run for home, that left Ma and Coulter unprotected. They were well set to care for themselves, but the way this man had gotten his horse out of that corral without Tucker or the grulla noticing had been unlike anything Tucker had ever seen. He needed to be there to help, just in case.

He stood in the depths of the woods, trying to decide what to do next, his senses opened wide. Listening for the sound of a ghost.

The thrill changed from hot and excited to ice-cold control. Finally. There was greater power in control, though he delighted in how he could feel both.

Slowing his horse, he pondered the obvious trail he was leaving behind him. Yes, he left tracks because of the snow, which was coming down steadily. Harder all the time, in fact. It would cover his trail within an hour. It was as if God himself was aiding him. No, not God. He knew God had no part in this. This was very much a deed in league with the devil.

Tonight, he knew why the devil had rebelled. He knew why he’d wanted to feel the heady sense of a godlike power. He picked his moment and left the trail. This was close enough. He needed to find a place to hide the horse.

It was simple. His horse concealed, he made his next move.

It was the perfect night for a patient man to begin a new life.

As Gage watched Sunrise vanish into the dark forest, swallowed up by the woods and the silently falling snow, he didn’t kid himself that he had a single skill better than hers, leastways none needed tonight.

He’d known her for years and knew just how skilled she was in most things. He didn’t let it stomp on his pride that she could best him, but he did on occasion play a game in his head where he challenged her to contests in roping and throwing and branding a thousand-pound steer.

First watch was his, second was hers. Now it was third watch, his turn again. But she told him she was rested and would share sentry duty. She’d slept enough to survive, but now she’d help him so the job could get done right.

Sunrise let him know what part of the homestead she took charge of, so they didn’t run afoul of each other. Then she melted away silently, and Gage was left alone. Just him with his mostly unstomped pride.

Gage settled into a spot deep in the forest that gave him a view of the barnyard. The snow was steady and yet not heavy enough to obscure things. Tucker’s warnings rang in his head. Sunrise had repeated them.

He leaves no tracks. He never makes a sound.

Shannon had called him “eerie.” She’d talked of how he’d vanished. Tucker spoke of the mountainside with that corral and the stolen livestock. No tracks in or out.

That mule . . . Gage’s blood ran cold at the thought.
He didn’t want a man running loose who’d do such an awful thing.

Wind bounced the pine boughs, while the leafless trees reached in the air like skeletal fingers. Snow drifted and danced and left a smooth layer of powder over the ground. Tonight would be the exception. Tonight, if the Barnburner came, he couldn’t move without leaving a trail. Which was almost enough to make Gage go inside. The man was too smart; he’d never come tonight.

Then in the darkness, a shadow shifted, solid and low to the ground, at odds with the movement of the trees around it.

Keeping his eyes on that darkened position, Gage inched forward, mindful of every step. He drew his gun quietly. The shadow flitted forward. A man. He put a tree between them. Gage moved faster, doing his best to be silent but not wanting to lose track of his quarry.

He rounded the tree and saw . . . nothing.

Gage froze in place. He studied the woods. The ground was too rough, with too many trees to let the snow fall evenly, so it wasn’t easy to read sign.

He listened in the whipping wind for any sound out of place. With so much dancing in the breeze, his eyes—sharper than most—probed each shadow but found nothing.

He had a choice. Stay here and hope the man hadn’t kept going and wait for him to reveal himself, or assume the man was heading for the barn, as he had been every other time he’d come.

To give up on finding him here and head for the
homestead risked giving away his position, a dangerous business when dealing with a man who took sick pleasure in killing.

Gage wasn’t that deep in the woods. Rather than charge forward, he eased back and moved sideways until he could get an angle on the yard. He was on the far side of the river that ran on the west side of Shannon’s homestead, behind the tree line. He didn’t trust the thin trunks of the aspens, so he continued inching along until he found a massive oak. From there, he watched. Waiting for the intruder to break cover.

Moments stretched. Gage settled in, determined to outlast the varmint. And it paid off. The shadow appeared again. The slightest movement revealed the man only a few yards away.

So shockingly close, Gage couldn’t believe how silent the man kept himself.

He wasn’t heading into the open. Instead he crouched and watched. This time Gage didn’t give him a chance to get away.

Tucker was at heart a man of action. He could wait with the patience of a stalking mountain lion if need be, but to stand here in the drifting snow while his ma was in danger . . . no.

“Let’s go. Mount up. We’ll follow those tracks as long as we can see ’em. If we lose them, we’ll decide then what to do.”

Shannon was astride her horse so fast Tucker knew she
agreed with his decision. He had to hurry to stay in the lead. He remembered her saying she was tough.

It was hard to hold a sobbing woman in your arms, feel scared to death of the danger she’d been in and think of how tough she was, but watching her hurry toward danger, knowing she wanted to catch this man, defend her home, protect her friends and her animals—even if they were a bunch of sheep—was a solid reminder.

Tucker saw no reason to ride careful. Those tracks were already filling with snow. He set a fast pace, watching close for any sign the man had turned off the trail.

And then they came to an open stretch, where the wind whipped across the trail and swept it smooth. When they reached the far side of it, the tracks didn’t start up again.

They were gone as surely as if they had never been.

Tucker pulled his grulla to a halt and knew his chance to make good time and get to his ma’s side was over.

Gage dove, landed hard, swung an iron fist and connected solidly. The man’s head hit a tree root with a sickening thud. He went limp.

Somehow, Gage expected to have a tougher fight of it. But the man was down and out cold.

Gage knelt beside the coyote, ready to finally figure out who was behind all this, and saw the man wore a thick scarf wrapped around his head to conceal his face. He reached for the scarf just as he heard someone from behind walking fast toward him. He whipped out his gun and swung around.

“Gage, it is me.” Sunrise, too smart to run up on an armed man. She must’ve known exactly what was going on or she wouldn’t have called out, even as quietly as she did.

“I’ve got him.” Gage again reached for the scarf and tore it away.

“That is—”

“Nev Bassett.” Gage looked at the man. Unconscious. Skin and bones. A lunatic, some said. It all fit.

“I know.”

“Tucker was suspicious of him.” Of all the low-down betrayals.

“Yes, he told me of his suspicions. That is why you are here instead of Aaron. Nev—”

“This sidewinder was about to have another try at burning Tucker out.”

“It’s not—”

“Even after he’d attacked and almost killed Kylie, Masterson forgave him and tried to help him. And this was the thanks he gets.”

“Gage, he was trying to—”

“Bassett is a lunatic. He might have had plans to kill Shannon. Tucker too. Even after the Mastersons gave him a place where he could heal.”

“He has been keeping watch for days.”

“The more I think about it, the madder I get. The ungrateful . . .” Gage looked up sharply from where Nev lay sprawled on the ground. “What did you say?”

“I spotted him three nights ago. He is very good.”

“We know the man behind these attacks is very good.”

“I watched him until he left for home. The second night was the same. He stood watch, then went home without doing any harm. That day I went to his cabin and asked him what he was doing.”

“You went there alone?” Gage asked, horrified at the risk she’d taken.

Sunrise narrowed her eyes.

“I know you’re a fine hunter and a better tracker than I’ve ever seen. You’re good with a knife and better with those arrows, but you’re still a woman alone against a vicious killer.”

“By then I knew he was not who we seek.”

“How could you be sure?”

Sunrise snorted. “A child can read the difference in the sign. He was good, but not the same. I could tell.” Suddenly, Sunrise straightened and turned to face away from Tucker’s cabin. “Silence. Hide Nev.”

Sunrise grabbed his feet. Gage didn’t hesitate. He caught Nev under his arms. They had Nev stashed away quickly. Sunrise slipped behind a clump of aspens, and Gage could swear the woman vanished.

He did the same—or at least his best imitation of it. He sure hoped Nev didn’t wake up noisy.