Sundancer (Cheyenne Series) (40 page)

      
“What the hell are you talking about?” Powell's eyes narrowed but did not betray any disquiet, only annoyed perplexity.

      
Cain thrust a copy of the documents Jubal's agents had secured about the shady transactions into Powell's hand. He had always known the old man to be one hell of a poker player, but his admiration for his father's calm facade grew exponentially. Faced with certain ruin, the old son of a bitch didn't even break a sweat! ‘The originals are in Stanford's and Huntington's hands by now. Jubal MacKenzie is no man to cross. Neither am I.”

      
Powell skimmed the first few pages, then began to read with more care in several places. No, it couldn't be! This said he had siphoned off millions from the Central Pacific's accounts to purchase and ship supplies which never existed, never reached the West Coast. Sheer force of will held his hand steady as he quickly flipped through the rest of the documents. It was all here. A trail so clear a Philadelphia greenhorn could follow it—leading straight back to him.

      
Cain watched the subtle shift in Powell's demeanor as the older man perused the evidence. “You thought I was bluffing,” he said lazily. “Now I assume you realize the noose has been slipped down and tightened.”
I have the son of a bitch at last!
He waited a beat, expecting a surge of intense satisfaction, vindication, peace...something. Why didn't it feel the way he had always believed it would?

      
“Where has Larry taken my wife? Is she here?” The abrupt questions popped out before he could stop them.

      
Andrew Powell recovered himself sufficiently to pick up on the anger and vulnerability in Cain's voice. “Why on earth Lawrence or I should know anything about your wife is beyond me,” he responded with his usual icy contempt. “He is on the rail line, attending to Central Pacific business. Tell me, have you mislaid your scheming little actress somewhere between here and Denver?”

      
“She left me,” Cain admitted baldly, realizing that Powell's vitriolic satisfaction did not matter in the least. All he really wanted, all he'd chased hundreds of miles for, was Roxanna! “She wired Larry asking for help. It seems your heir is still smitten with her. He'd promised to help her—in spite of you.”

      
A flush of anger finally tinged Powell's cold patrician face. “That arrogant young fool,” he ground out. “He's taken his last slap at me. I'll see him in hell. I'll see you both in hell!”

      
Cain sensed that Powell was telling the truth about Larry. His brother had not brought Roxanna to San Francisco, which meant he had most likely taken her with him into the dangerous country where the Central Pacific was laying track. “I damn sure know you're bound for hell, Powell. I can help you arrange it for Larry boy, too,” Cain said, turning away from his father.

      
“Cain.” When his son turned, Andrew said with a grim parody of a smile, “I'll be at the finish line in Salt Lake first.”

      
Without bothering to respond, Cain walked through the door and out into the chill blackness of nightfall. It was going to be a bitch of a ride back over the mountains. When he got his hands on Roxanna, he would lock her away in their private railcar until the transcontinental was complete! That he might not find her unharmed he refused to even think about.

Chapter Eighteen

THE SNAKE RIVER COUNTRY

      
Roxanna felt the sharp sting from razor-edged fragments of stone when the rifle shot ricocheted off the rocks. As the tiny missiles flew all around her, she threw herself behind a large boulder. Heart pounding fiercely, she crouched low, prepared to make a dash for different cover. If the assassin circled around, she'd be dead in his sights in these rocks.

      
Surely someone in the camp would have heard the shot. Then again, perhaps not. The timber cutters were a noisy and industrious lot. Between their loud banter and the sharp cracks of their axes biting into wood, one or two rifle reports might not be discernible from the distance she had ridden. If only she'd not dismounted to drink at the stream. The rifle in the saddle scabbard of her spooked horse was out of reach now. At least the stupid beast should eventually wander back into camp.

      
By then I could be dead.
She listened for sounds of movement in the brush. The dry autumn woods would have made stealth nearly impossible if not for the murmur of the swift-running stream nearby. A faint noise in the aspens to her right had her poised for a dash. There, she heard it again. Nothing was visible through the dense screen of kinnikinnick bushes. She decided she had to chance it.

      
Tossing her hat to the right, she sprinted off to the left just as a quick shot pinged in the rocks, striking the ruined headgear. As she zigzagged toward the dense woods behind her, another shot whistled past her. When she reached the shelter of the trees, she could hear someone yelling and cried out for help. The sound of her attacker retreating left her dry-mouthed and quivering with relief. She leaned against the trunk of an aspen and waited. Soon the sound of hoof-beats drew closer and Lawrence called to her.

      
“Roxanna! ”

      
She stepped from behind the tree, still winded more from fear than the quick run she'd made across the rock-strewn clearing. “I'm here, Larry. Be careful. He has a repeating rifle.”

      
He dismounted beside the stream, looking around. “There's no one here now,” he said, slipping his fancy British revolver back into its holster. “I must've scared him away.” He walked quickly to meet her, his expression distraught. “Are you all right?”

      
“Yes. He must've been waiting for me to dismount by the water. I've become too much a creature of habit this past week, riding every morning at the same time, stopping here for a drink.”

      
He picked up her hat, which had a bullet hole through the crown. His hands clenched it so tightly it crumpled before he tossed it angrily away and took her in his arms, inspecting her. “You're certain you're not hit.”

      
“Certain,” she said, gently disengaging from his grip. “See, no blood.” She strove for a light tone, knowing how upset he was.

      
“Thank God I decided to ride out to join you. When I saw your horse down the road, I didn't know what to think. At first I feared you'd been thrown. Then I heard a shot.” He shook his head. “You said that this Darby woman sent some men to kill you in the Union Pacific work camp. I'm afraid the one who escaped the first time—or some other hireling—has found you again.”

      
Roxanna sighed. After they arrived in the rough lumber camp five days earlier, Roxanna had reached a difficult decision. Larry was risking too much for her, He was too decent and kind a man for her to deceive any further. She had told him the truth, gambling that he cared for her, not just that she was Jubal's granddaughter. Lawrence Powell, of all people, understood what it meant to be a powerful man's sole heir, valued only for that and nothing more.

      
He had not disappointed her, smiling wistfully and telling her that he was honored because she had trusted him enough to reveal her past. Then she'd explained the potential danger from Isobel Darby and he had promised to protect her. Now she could see how upset he was that one of their worst fears had been realized. All she needed was for Cain to ride in and demand her back at gunpoint. “It must be Isobel. I can't endanger you or your work crew any longer. If you'll loan me a horse, I'll—”

      
“Don't be ridiculous,” he interrupted, his face flushed with affront. “I'd no more let you ride away from here all alone with an assassin on the loose than I'd hand you back to Cain.”

      
“But I can't stay, Larry. Surely you see that.”

      
He raked his hands through his hair in frustration. “Yes, you're right. It's too dangerous. I promised to protect you and look what's happened right under my nose.” He looked at the ground and seemed to shrink before her very eyes. Roxanna placed her hand on his arm. “Don't blame yourself for the enemies I've made.”

      
“I'm hopeless, a failure, just as my father has always said I was.”

      
“That's not true. You are a good and kind friend, loyal, gentle.”
All the things your brother is not.

      
“We have to find someplace safe for you to hide while I have my agents track down this Darby woman.” He paced back and forth, stroking his chin, then paused and looked down at Roxanna, who was seated on the grassy bank of the stream, using her handkerchief to bathe her face with cool, soothing water. “Those Indians who held you for ransom…”

      
“Leather Shirt's Cheyenne?” she responded, puzzled.

      
“You said they treated you kindly—that you actually enjoyed your time with them. I found that amazing...was it true?”

      
“Yes. Most of the women were kind, especially Willow Tree and Lark Song, Sees Much's granddaughters. The old medicine man reminded me of my father in some strange way.” Thinking of Sees Much brought a smile to her face. She missed him. Had he forgotten her by now? Somehow she was certain he would never do that. He was the only person with whom she could ever discuss Cain and the confusion, anger and pain he evoked. Sees Much would understand.

      
“I know this sounds crazy, but what would you think of returning to spend a short while with this Leather Shirt's band?”

      
“Actually it doesn't sound as crazy as you might think,” she replied, remembering Sees Much's words. There are greater things...which will unfold...before we meet again. Almost as if the old shaman knew that she would return to the Cheyenne.

      
“If you would be safe with those Indians, then you'd certainly be safe from any hired killer sent after you. They couldn't get near an Indian encampment. While you were there, I could deal with Isobel Darby. Would you consider such an outlandish suggestion?” he asked doubtfully.

      
“Yes, I think it's a marvelous idea—almost preordained, you might say.” At his startled look she just chuckled. “It will be all right, Larry. But how can we find Leather Shirt's band? They move around so much. They could be hundreds of miles from where I last saw them.”

      
“I think one of the men who scouts for the railroad can locate them. He's a breed...” His face reddened in embarrassment, betraying his realization that she had deigned to marry a breed and still wanted the baby he had given her. When she only nodded, he continued, “I'll wire the Central Pacific railhead and have them locate him and the men who ride with him. If anyone can find your Cheyenne friends, he can.”

* * * *

DENVER

      
“I have names,” Jubal MacKenzie said, shoving the papers across the desk. “Enough hard evidence to link you to at least one attempt on Roxanna Fallon's life.”

      
Isobel Darby pursed her lips in a frugal smile that only served to accent the coldness of her dark eyes. She glanced at the sworn affidavit of Gable Hogue affirming that he had contacted a gunman named Butch Green on her behalf, hiring him to break into the private railcar where Roxanna slept to rape and murder her. Hogue had always been a craven lickspittle, for sale to the highest bidder, she thought contemptuously. ‘This will never hold up in court. Who would believe that a woman of my impeccable background, a flower of the South, would even think such a thing, much less commission a criminal to do it?”

      
She studied MacKenzie coldly, still seething inwardly that he already knew Roxanna’s identity. She had come to play her trump card, to destroy the bitch's last bid for security and respectability by revealing everything to “Alexa's” grandfather. The old Scot had a reputation for ruthlessness almost as single-minded as Andrew Powell's. MacKenzie had amazed her when he said he already knew of Roxanna’s identity. He was livid that the widow had threatened the sordid hussy, and countered her revelation with this evidence about her conspiracies which his agents had gathered. Her calm demeanor gave away nothing. Perhaps she could use his wrathful anger to her advantage. She waited for his response.

      
“I do na' think you'll get off quite so easy. Even if yer not convicted, think of the scandal it would cause. You'd be considered the very sort of woman you've spent the past five years saying Roxanna is. Ruined,” he pronounced with sepulchral finality. His gray eyes were wintry as a Wyoming sky in January.

      
“Then why don't you turn me over to the law?” she replied like the excellent chess player she was.

      
“Much as I'd like to see yer neck snap at the end of a noose, the best you'd probably get is a few years in prison,” he admitted baldly. “And I do na' want Roxanna to be dragged into the mess if I can avoid it. You've made her suffer enough already.”

      
“So we have an impasse.” She sat back, still unruffled. Although Andrew Powell would be angry because she had left San Francisco and interfered in his plans for Roxanna Fallon, she felt sure he would still come to her aid, if only to thwart his old enemy MacKenzie. Besides, the Scot did not intend to have her arrested.

      
“Not exactly an impasse,” he replied, stroking his beard gently, as if petting a cat. Andrew Powell could have warned her this was Jubal MacKenzie at his most deadly. “I will give you two choices and no others. Neither involves the law.”

      
A faint chill snaked down her spine. Surely, right here in the middle of the city in a public building he would not attempt to kill her. Or would he? The fool was as besotted by that Fallon harlot as any man half his age. “What choices?”