Patricia Potter (2 page)

Sullivan shivered. “Alex’s men say Lobo’s arrived. Why don’t you move back into town for a while?”

Willow’s back stiffened. “There’s no place large enough for all of us.”

“I’ll take the boys. You can stay with Sallie Sue in your old house.”

“And Brady and Estelle? I couldn’t leave them there alone. And there are the horses and the garden and…”

Sullivan sighed. Willow was the most stubborn woman he had ever met. Jake’s place had been hers for a year, and she loved it, dilapidated as it was. Disapproving town officials had not scared her off; a schoolroom full of unruly, undisciplined boys had not scared her off; censure had not scared her off when she took in Estelle; and he knew Alex Newton would not scare her off.

Or even a man called Lobo.

“I’ll ride back to the ranch with you,” he said with a smile that warmed her heart. When she’d first come to Newton, she’d thought she might come to love him. But although there was warmth and liking between them, there was no passion or excitement, or any of the feelings she had read about but never felt. She had, however, seen his eyes rest on Marisa Newton with more than passing interest, although he had never tried to court her.

“I would like that,” she said softly. No matter how much she tried to brush the worry away, a nagging fear whispered in the back of her mind.

Sullivan tied his horse to the back of the buckboard, then helped Willow up on the seat and the twins to the back before jumping in. He was lean to the point of thinness, and fought occasional bouts of malaria. They came at unexpected times and Willow had nursed him more than once.

They rode along in companionable silence, listening to the twins chatter. Finally, Willow asked in a low voice she hoped would not carry, “What have you heard about
him?”

Sullivan shrugged, wanting to reassure her and yet make her realize the danger. “You know I don’t put much stock in what people say. But he is a gunslinger.”

“You don’t think he would hurt the children? You don’t think Alex would permit that?”

Sullivan knew Alex Newton was a man out of control. He had visited Alex and tried to talk to him, but to no avail. Willow Taylor, Alex had said, his face red, had no right to Jake’s ranch. Willow had bewitched the old man.

“I don’t know,” he told Willow now.

“No one would hurt a child,” she protested.

What about a woman? he wanted to ask. But he didn’t think his words would do any more good with her than they had with Alex. She saw the world through different eyes. She firmly believed that everything eventually turned out exactly as it should. And so far she had been right. The town had succumbed, however reluctantly, to her.

But Lobo was an entirely different matter.

Sullivan had seen the cruelty of human beings during four years of war. He had seen it again as an army doctor when communities had been ravaged by Indians and Indian villages by soldiers. Unlike Willow, he had lost much of his idealism. He was only too aware of what some men were capable of. And from everything he had heard of Lobo, it was a great deal.

L
OBO LOOKED FROM
the top of a hill to the lonely-looking ranch house. It was in great need of paint, but its shabbiness was somehow diminished by the flowers bordering it. There was a fat horse in one corral and a bull in another. Beyond the house he saw the gray-green color of things struggling to grow in a garden. The fences badly needed repair though, and the barn didn’t look much better. The hen house seemed ready to fall over.

The ranch didn’t appear worth the trouble Alex Newton was taking, and probably wouldn’t be were it not for the section of the river it bordered.

Lobo turned toward the sun. It was late afternoon, and the bright golden ball was as he liked it—at his back. Hooking one leg over the saddle horn, he faced the ranch again.

He had surveyed the entire area after leaving Newton’s place, even though this didn’t seem like the kind of job where caution was a primary concern. But he had found it wise in the past to scout out routes of quick departures. It was simple habit. He never overlooked the possibility of complications.

He saw three figures emerge from the house. The grown-up wearing a dress must be the Taylor woman. The other two looked like children, the smaller not much more than a babe.

Alex Newton had said nothing about children! Anger rose in Lobo’s craw, and as he debated whether to ride off with Newton’s money in his pocket, he heard a distant scream. It reminded him of the screeching of a rabbit when it had been grabbed by a fox, and he felt a sudden surge of pity. An echoing cry rose from deep inside him, a cry from the past that was as sharp as an arrow, a cry that was his own. The last he remembered making as his brother’s shouts of desperation rang in his ears.

He spurred his horse as another scream tore through the blast of hot wind. As he neared the house, he saw a boy stretched out on the ground. At the sound of the pinto’s hooves, the boy glanced up, panic in his face. The woman was nearby, a pale wisp of a thing who clutched her hands together in despair and fear.

“M-my…sister,” the boy stammered. “She fell into a hole.”

From down below, Lobo heard a childish wail that ended in a whimper.

Remembering only briefly that he had been summoned to frighten the occupants of this ranch into submission, he slipped from his horse, the lariat he always carried with him clutched in his hand. Lobo quickly tied one end to the saddle horn, then moved toward what appeared to be an abandoned well shaft. The cries were growing weaker, like the haunting cries of his brother so long ago.

Don’t care,
he warned himself.
You can’t hurt if you don’t care.
But the sounds were eating into him like red ants on bare skin. He tried to look down into the hole, but it was too dark. With his gloved hands he tore away the rotten wood partially covering the top. Even then he could barely see within. There was only a flash of white skin.

He judged the size of the hole. He would barely be able to fit inside. The walls looked as if they were crumbling, and he could hear rustling sounds. He stiffened as he thought about the possibility of snakes.

“What’s your name?” he asked the boy roughly.

“Ch-Chad,” the boy stammered.

“Get another rope,” Lobo said. “Fasten it to that tree and drop it in when I tell you.”

Chad didn’t question him; he immediately headed for the barn. But he turned around when he heard the stranger call out unintelligible words. The man had tied his rope around his waist and had started lowering himself into the well. At his commands—that’s what the words were, Chad quickly figured out—the horse moved forward, one step at a time. Chad watched one more second in amazement before entering the barn.

Rope in hand, he returned to the well and quickly did as he’d been told. The horse had stopped moving, and the line from the saddle horn was taut. He heard the stranger utter what sounded like a curse. He had heard plenty in his life, and although he didn’t understand what the man had just said, he recognized its intent.

Sallie Sue’s whimpering had stopped. Chad leaned down and hollered. “Is she all right?”

“I don’t know yet,” the man snarled, then cursed again, this time in very distinct English. When he finished, he said more calmly, “Drop that second rope.”

Chad did so with alacrity, and heard another curse. “Not so damned fast. There’s snakes right below me. Your sister’s caught on a ledge between them and me. She’s not more than three feet above them.”

The boy slowed the descent of the rope considerably and started praying, although he had little experience at that particular endeavor.

“Tighten it,” came the voice again. “I can squeeze against the wall just enough to get her past me, but you’ll have to pull her up on your own. We can’t come up together, not without knocking down the walls. I’ll climb up under her in case she falls.”

“Yessir,” Chad said.

“Start pulling.”

Chad did, and he thought his arms would break or come loose from their sockets. He heard rock hit bottom as the sides of the well started crumbling.

“Slow down, boy,” came the rough command. “You’re doing fine.”

Chad felt himself swelling with determination and pride. There was something about the man’s voice that gave him more strength than he knew he had. And then two other hands grabbed the rope behind him and he knew they were Estelle’s. Together they pulled, and the man commanded the horse to slowly back away, pulling the weight of his master up.

There was the sound of another wall collapsing, and it was all Chad could do to keep from pulling fast.

A dirt-covered Sallie Sue started to emerge, and Estelle let go of the rope and ran to pull the child into her arms. Several seconds later, the stranger appeared, his body also coated with dirt.

Chad started to thank him, but he stopped when he saw the man’s eyes. They did not invite thanks; they even commanded against it. Chad couldn’t help stare at them, at the unusual color. Like winter frost skimming a mountain pool. Chad felt himself shiver in the blistering hot afternoon.

But Chad was filled with curiosity, and there was a question he had to ask. “How did you get your horse to do that?”

The stranger ignored the question and stared at Estelle, who was squeezing Sallie Sue so tightly Chad thought the girl was in more danger now than she had been minutes before. At the unblinking, appraising look of the man, Estelle fled to the house.

Chad watched as the man took one step toward Estelle, and then turned back to him. “Miss Taylor?” His voice carried puzzlement.

“Naw, that’s Estelle,” Chad said. “Willow’s not here. She hasn’t come back from school.”

Lobo’s eyes ranged over the ranch. His brow furrowed. “School?”

“She teaches school, didn’t ya know? Everyone knows that.”

“You her kid?”

Chad shrugged. He guessed he was. “One of ’em,” he said.

“Why aren’t you in school?”

“Willow needs me here during the day.” Chad was too ashamed to say he’d flatly refused to go because he’d been so far behind the other kids his age. Willow taught him privately.

Lobo’s senses were reeling.
One of ’em,
the boy had said. “There’s more of you?”

“Two,” Chad said, watching surprise register in the stranger’s cold eyes. He fought to keep his own eyes from going to the well-worn gunbelt on the man’s hips, the holster held tight against his body by a leather strap around his thigh. There was a tension about the man, an aura of danger that fascinated Chad.

“Goddamn,” the stranger said to himself.

“Willow will be here pretty soon,” Chad told him. “She’ll want to thank you. Sallie Sue’s her baby. She was chasing Brunhilde.”

“Brunhilde?”

“One of the chickens. Sallie Sue’s pet,” Chad explained. His expression changed to one of disgust. “Now I’ll have to catch her.”

Lobo found himself blinking. Sallie Sue, for God’s sake. What a name for a kid. And Brunhilde. A chicken?

Chad suddenly found his manners. “Why don’t you come inside. There’s some cookies,” he offered.

Cookies, for chrissakes.

Lobo winced. He had been hired to scare the hell out of the woman who lived here, and now he was invited for cookies! Filled with unaccustomed confusion, he ignored the boy and untied the rope from around his waist, circling it in loops and tying it back on his saddle.

Lobo leapt into the saddle and leaned down to speak to the boy. “Get that damned well fixed.” Only after he said the words did he realize how ridiculous they were. These people would be gone shortly. Very shortly.

Before Chad could utter a word or even ask for the stranger’s name, the man was gone in a swirl of dust. Chad thought that the whole episode was just like one of Willow’s stories, and wondered whether he had imagined the whole thing.

But then he saw the last of the dust settling down in the distance, and he grinned to himself.

God’s whiskers, but did he have a story of his own to tell.

T
HOROUGHLY DISGUSTED WITH
himself and his incomprehensible behavior, Lobo finally found a clearing alongside the river that ran through the ranch. It was nearing dusk, and he was filthy from his venture into the hole. He washed in the river, not much more than a trickle of water because of the hot, dry weather, and he started a cooking fire.

Sitting under a tree, watching the flames flare and lick the coffeepot, he felt an unusual disquiet. Nothing was as he expected it, and he didn’t like the feeling of not having control.

Nor did he like being lied to. Even if Newton hadn’t actually lied, there was a hell of a lot he’d left unsaid.

Not only a woman, but children were involved. What in the hell had Newton expected him to do to kids?

And he was supposed to believe that the woman had seduced and cheated an old rancher. After bearing four children, how could she entice anyone? He had seen enough worn women in his life, old before their time because of childbearing. And every woman teacher he’d ever seen had been as homely as sin.

Goddamn Newton.

Lobo recognized only one weakness in himself. Young things. He had no pity, no mercy, no compassion for those who should be able to take care of themselves.
He
had survived. Others could well do the same thing.