The Loner (10 page)

Quickly, she went to the ledge, picked up the targets she hadn't blown off the bluff into the valley below, and took them back into the cave. No sense arousing the curiosity of any hunter or traveler who might happen by.

She hoped no one would notice, much less enter, this place that had been one of her best hideouts since the beginning of her campaign against the bootleggers. She might need it again sometime, so she would leave a few supplies stored in a hidden cache. She would take the rest with her and hope it was enough to get her out of the Nation when her work was done, assuming her life and her freedom both survived it.

Efficiently, she set to work, disciplining her mind not to think past the job itself. For the thou
sandth time, she imagined calling Glass out for the gunfight and what that encounter would be like. Once he went for his gun, once he fell dead in the street, she'd leap onto Little Dun and head west.

She would be much safer on the other side of the MK&T railroad tracks that ran from north to south across the Cherokee Nation to connect Missouri, Kansas, and Texas—safer from the law, at least. It was called the “dead line” because west of it, on nearly every trail, criminals posted cards warning certain deputies that they were dead men if they ever crossed the tracks.

From the outlaws, who were said to be thick on the ground out there, she would simply have to protect herself. She'd be safer as a boy, therefore she would put her hair up again just as soon as she hit the trail west. But first, Tassel Glass had to know it was Cathleen O'Sullivan who was sending him to judgment.

She made sure to include canned tomatoes and peaches in her pack, just in case water was scarce farther west. Not knowing the country and the location of the water holes would be scary, but then, nothing important was ever accomplished without some risk.

After working beside her stepfather, Roger, for so long, she could always get a job as a farmhand and make enough money to take the train. She could go to Texas, by horseback or by train. Law-
breakers disappeared into Texas all the time. If she took the train, though, she'd have to buy passage for Little Dun, too.

She could make enough money for that. And once in Texas, she could start a whole new life and work toward a home of her own. It would never have a man in it, though. Men were mostly either drunkards like Roger or ruthless and evil like Tassel Glass.

Except for Black Fox. Black Fox was different from any other man she'd known. Any other man would've taken advantage and bedded her when she had been clinging to him and kissing him with all her heart and soul.

Now she wished he had. She would never know what it was like to make love with a man and she would never even
want
to with any other man but Black Fox, whether he was her enemy or not.

Cat pulled her thoughts up short and went to saddle the small dun horse. She spoke aloud to keep from feeling so lonesome.

“Let's not think about Black Fox,” she said. “And let's not think too far ahead.”

Little Dun answered with a playful toss of her head and a stomp of the foot. Cathleen checked her packs one more time, stepped up onto her horse, pulled her hat down, and rode toward Sequoyah through the beautiful, green-and-blue spring afternoon. She wanted to fix every minute of this day in her mind.

The woods were bursting with every shade of green—trees and bushes leafing out all over the place and the wild azaleas in pink and white bloom. The meadows lay lush and thick, and the valleys between the hills gleamed dark as evergreens beneath the waving silver tips of the tall grasses. The wind was just enough to bring the mingling smells of pine and cedar down from the mountain.

The sky shone blue enough to hurt a person's eyes if they looked at it too long. It had been that color ever since the big storm.

Cathleen took a great, long breath of the sweet-smelling air and turned a little in the saddle, watching two huge, fluffy clouds float by. Where would she be this time tomorrow?

This hilly, beautiful country was the only home she could really remember. She'd lived off the land and in these woods for so long she knew them the way she'd once known her family's farm. How would it feel to be on a strange land in Texas or way out west? How would the sky look out there? Would there be trees and hills and fast-running creeks that chattered over rocky beds the way Lost Boy Creek was doing below her right now?

Little Dun slowed and started down the steep incline that led to the water. Cathleen smiled as she watched the mare stiffen her front legs and place her small hooves carefully for purchase in
the shifting gravel. Dunny was more surefooted than any mount she'd ever seen and she was thankful for such a horse beneath her. On any other mount, she probably wouldn't have survived this long.

The mare carried her into the water. They were in the middle of the creek, picking their way over the rough jumble of stones at its bottom, when she looked up. Her heart stopped.

On the opposite bank sat a man on a horse. She froze with her eyes on him while her mind raced in several directions—telling her that Dunny couldn't run on the monstrously rocky creekbed, noting that the mounted man blocked the path that led up out of the water, warning her that he had a better shot at her than she did at him. He was sitting in silhouette to her while she rode full face to him.

Then she recognized him. The man was really more of a great big boy. It was Willie, Black Fox's cousin, who had burst into the bedroom that night at his house.

The shy, backward boy who had helped her with her wagon wheel.

“I've been looking for you,” he said. “Where are you going, Cathleen?”

Gradually, the ice left her veins and she began to breathe again. In fact, her blood started to heat.

He was Black Fox's cousin. Black Fox was look
ing for her. She was caught if she didn't get rid of him now.

“What business is it of yours, Willie?” she asked, as Little Dun stepped out of the water.

She scowled her fiercest look, meant to drive him away, and sent Little Dun leaping up the steep bank.

“Step out of my path,” she said.

“I'm staying in it,” he said, much more stoutly than she expected.

“I'll run you down,” she warned.

Which was a ridiculous threat. Willie's horse stood two hands taller than hers and five hundred pounds or more heavier.

At the last minute, he backed him enough to make room for her to come out on top of the bank. She let Little Dun stop there and rest from the climb so she'd have enough air to run when Cat decided to make a break.

“Did Black Fox send you to look for me?” she said in a belligerent tone.

“No. I'm
your
partner,” he said sincerely. “I'm here to take you away from him.”

The words struck her so strangely. No one had been on her side or offered her help in a long, long time.

But they also scared her a great deal. Being a prisoner was being a prisoner, no matter who the captor was.

“I ride alone,” she said. “Nobody takes me anywhere, Willie.”

She laid her hand on her gun.

He stared at it, then raised his eyes to hers.

“I would never shoot you, Cat,” he said.

“Well, I wish I could say the same, Willie,” she said, “but I don't aim to be taken a step where I don't want to go.”

“I know you're The Cat,” he said. “You flew right past me when you robbed Old McGill at PawPaw. I saw your horse's track that day and again at Black Fox's place, but I don't reckon you're a killer.”

Surprise flashed through her as she listened and watched him. Had other people come to the same conclusion?

“I'm not gonna let Black Fox arrest you again,” he said. “You need to stay with me. Where are you headed?”

Evidently he wasn't going to go away, no matter what she said. He was a kind boy, though—he had volunteered to help her that day long ago when he certainly didn't have to. And, right now, with this cockeyed idea of his about being her partner, he sounded completely genuine.

She believed him, but she didn't have time to fool with him now. She had to get rid of him—but in some way that wouldn't hurt his feelings.

Cathleen took a deep breath and sat up straight
in her saddle, taking a better grip on the reins, tucking her heels against Dunny's sides. Underneath her, the mare gathered herself up to run.

“Never mind where I'm headed and don't try to follow me, Willie,” she said. “I'm warning you.”

Willie just looked at her.

“You're the one needs warnin',” he drawled. “Black Fox is in Sequoyah, just in case
that's
your destination. More'n' that, I seen tracks of two shod horses between here and there.”

Cathleen's stomach clenched and her legs went loose in the stirrup leathers. What a piece of rotten luck—she could hardly believe it.

“So Parker's already sent out deputies to find who killed Turner,” she blurted.

At least her overall instincts were still good, even if Willie had surprised her. Her time
was
running out, so it was good she was doing this today.

“Looks like it,” Willie said. “And Black Fox will tell them it was you.”

Then he gave her his shy smile again.

“That's a lot of law after you,” he said. “You'd best let me help you, Cathleen.”

Just the way he cut his eyes at her made her understand. He was sweet on her, the poor boy!

She thought about that for a minute.

He truly had come to warn her. He would help her if she let him. Maybe she could use his loyalty to her without telling him everything she'd planned and get rid of him at the same time.

“All right,” she said. “Tell me where you saw the deputies' tracks.”

“At Bushyhead Creek,” he said. “They crossed it heading south.”

“So I'll be behind them.”

“Depending on where you're going.”

“Right you are,” she said deliberately, watching his face and smiling at him.

He squinted his eyes and frowned worriedly.

“
Are
you going to Sequoyah? I told you Black Fox is there.”

“I have some business there before I leave the Nation,” she said. “Do you think you could draw Black Fox out of town for me?”

Willie considered that. “You couldn't just make a run for the Dead Line now and let me help you get away?”

She set her jaw and looked him straight in the eye to let him know that she could not be swayed.

“No,” she said. “But what I have to do won't take long. I just don't want Black Fox to capture me again before I get it done.”

Her mind raced. She didn't want to flirt with Willie and give him false encouragement, but it would be wonderful to have his help with Black Fox. And this chore would get him, as well as Black Fox, out of Sequoyah, too, which would keep him from trying to be a hero when she called Tassel out. He might get shot on her account, which she never would get over.

“Willie,” she said directly and deliberately, “I really need you to do this.”

His eyes lit up as his gaze searched hers.

“It's done,” he said. “Don't worry about it.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I'm much obliged to you.”

He touched the brim of his hat like a quick, little salute.

“Don't worry,” he said again, then he added, “I know you can take Tassel Glass.”

Cold shock raced through her veins, although his blind faith also warmed her considerably.

“How do you…I mean,
why
do you think my business is with Tassel Glass?”

“I seen you practicing a little while ago,” he said, and laid the rein against his horse's neck. “I know how fast you are.”

He smiled at her once more and then kissed to the big paint horse. They whirled around and vanished into the timber.

Cathleen sat still for a moment, trembling in her saddle. Dear God. Willie had been watching her and she didn't even know it. She'd been too deep in thought about the future and the past to be vigilant in the present.

That kind of carelessness could get her killed.

Or she could get
herself
killed in just a little while.
Carefully
get herself killed by calling Tassel Glass out to face her.

B
lack Fox lay on the bed with his boots on, crossed feet resting on the railing of the wrought iron footboard, waiting for his inner voice to tell him what to do. Young Gray Ghost stood waiting, too, tied to the hitching rail in front of the hotel, saddlebags packed and ready to ride.

But Black Fox hadn't yet gotten that gut feeling to tell him which way to go when dusk fell: north into the woods to search for Cathleen or south and east just one long stone's throw to watch Glass's store—again—for her arrival. He'd been in Sequoyah long enough and time was running out. Maybe trying to use Glass for bait wasn't going to work.

Maybe Cathleen had made another plan for revenge. Or maybe Cathleen was lying in the woods somewhere, sick or hurt, alone.

His stomach clenched. There were black bears and mountain lions all through these hills, animals normally afraid of people, but any wounded person was prey and therefore a completely different proposition.

Her last exploit that he had heard anything about had been three days ago. Anything could've happened since then.

Willie could've run across her trail, for one thing, out there in the woods, or he might even know where one of her hideouts was—he could've accidentally run across it at any time in the last year. If he had to take Cathleen from Willie, it might be a bloody fight between kinsmen. That boy was stubborn to the point of bullheadedness.

He closed his eyes and tried to still his mind enough to listen and stop borrowing trouble. The breeze blew in fresh and cool through the open window. A long, deep breath of it helped to take him toward his center and his balance.

But only a little way.

His gut instincts hardly ever failed him but today he couldn't really feel any kind of direction, no matter how hard he tried.

Come to think of it, he hadn't felt his feet firmly planted on the face of the earth mother or his spirit completely at peace for what seemed to be
endless days and nights. Not since the moment he'd opened Cathleen's shirt and seen that she was a woman.

That realization made him open his eyes and stare at the ceiling. Now the sight of her fine, high breasts filled his memory and he'd never be able to settle.

Wagon wheels creaked along out on the street, horses nickered, men's shouts carried on the wind to each other and to their animals. Black Fox tried to close out the noises, then he let them in. He might as well try to distract himself.

Farther away, there was a commotion of some kind, then came a man's louder yell with words he didn't quite catch. Then, a sudden silence fell and the wind brought a woman's voice.

Dear God, it was Cathleen's.

“Tassel Glass! I'm calling you out. This is Cathleen O'Sullivan.”

Black Fox lunged off the bed and ran to the window.

Was he imagining things? Had he lost his mind entirely? How could she be so foolish?

But hadn't he known all along she would be? Hadn't he been sitting right here waiting for her to do this very thing?

What he
hadn't
expected was the deep, cold horror that rose up in his veins with the reality of it.

People were gathering at the corner of the street and staring toward the store.

“Hear me, you craven coward of a woman-killer,” Cathleen called, determination vibrating in her husky voice. “Tassel Glass! Come out here, armed, or fall in your blood on the floor of your store.”

She
couldn't
go in there—Glass and his men would cut her down the instant she stepped through the door.

Black Fox whirled and rushed out, grabbing his hat as he ran. He threw himself down the stairs, five at a time. At the bottom, three men were crowding the doors, trying to see into the street.

“Clear the way,” he shouted. “Lighthorse.”

Even so, he was on them before they could move, pushing his way through, plunging across the sidewalk to his horse. He jerked the reins loose and leapt into the saddle without touching a stirrup, already heading the big horse toward the store before his seat brushed leather.

Cathleen wouldn't—and couldn't—turn back now. And he couldn't interfere with an honorable challenge. The most he could hope for was to keep her from getting killed.

Maybe Glass wasn't there.

No such luck. Before he reached the corner, a gasp went up and people began falling back to get vantage points out of the line of fire.

Black Fox crossed the street cater-cornered and rode into the woods, glancing fast to the left. He
caught a glimpse of Tassel Glass stalking out onto the front porch of the store, letting the screen door slam shut behind him, his huge bulk moving toward Cathleen's small form. She stood firm in the middle of the path leading to the steps.

She had her hair down and her hat off, he saw in that instant. Clearly, she wanted there to be no mistake about who was going to lay the big man low.

“Cathleen, honey, I got no notion what you're talking about.” Glass's voice, deep and oily as ever, rose louder with each word so everyone could hear. “No notion at all.”

“Lying about it now will only add to the sum of your sins,” Cathleen said clearly. “Be careful, Tassel, for this is your Judgment Day.”

Her voice didn't waver. Black Fox had known from the first time they met that she had grit, but he hadn't known how much.

Working his way through the sparse trees so he'd have a clear path to her, Black Fox noticed her little dun horse half hidden by a rhododendron bush. He went straight to the little mare, took the reins, and looped them in a quick slip-knot through a ring on his saddle. He had to be ready, not only to get Cathleen out of this confrontation alive, but also to get her out of town.

He eased both horses into place behind a thin grove of maple saplings where he could see the
whole front of the store. No one would notice him, anyway, since all eyes were on Cathleen and Glass.

“Now, now, Cathleen, you've gotta settle down,” Glass said. “You can see that you've done shot me up to where I can't fight worth a damn.”

He pointed to the sling that held his right arm across his chest. Black Fox remembered that Glass had been shot on the right in that fight with her and Becker's gang but he couldn't remember whether Glass was left-handed or not—if he had ever known it.

“My mother wasn't strong enough to fight
you
, either, but you killed her anyway.”

Her strong voice didn't break when she said that, but some note in it made Black Fox think how young she was and how much she missed her mother. And now here she was, facing down a gun.

He caught a movement in the corner of his eye and looked up. His jaw tightened. Cathleen was facing more than one gun.

A man was crawling over the hip of the roof on Glass's store, staying under the limbs of the huge overhanging oak tree for cover, headed for the porch. He moved awkwardly and sideways because he carried a gun in one hand.

No doubt Tassel had a gun just like it hidden in his sling. The man on the roof was sent to shoot Cathleen before she could get off a shot, just at
that last second of her draw so it would look like Glass had killed her honestly.

Black Fox took his foot from the stirrup and slipped his rifle from the scabbard beneath his leg. This rescue might be far more of a trick than he'd thought.

That realization steadied him, stilled the fear for the beautiful girl that had been running through his veins like a winter river. It sent a white-hot iron determination charging through his blood like a fever.

He felt almost exhilarated. He had done harder things than this many times. He could save her.

“I don't know one cottonpicking thing about how your mama died,” Glass said loudly, “I had nothin' to do with it.”

“I am a witness,” she said. “I saw you with my own eyes.”

A knowing pity stabbed at Black Fox's heart. Cathleen had been older than he was when he saw his own parents killed by the Intruders, but that didn't make it any easier. It didn't matter that she and her family were Intruders, too. Such a horror should come to no child, ever, anywhere.

“You mistook another man for me, Little Girl,” Glass argued, clearly trying to buy time for the man on the roof to get into position.

Also, when he said it, he glanced toward the watching townspeople as if to say that this was just a foolish woman child and he hated to have to
shoot her. He was trying to show them that he had no choice and when she lay dead at his feet, he would cry what a shame that she'd been so mistakenly stubborn in blaming him for something he didn't do.

“Never,” Cathleen said. “I would know you on a dark night in a driving storm. Ever since you trapped me in the back room of your store and put your filthy hands all over me, I'd know you just by the stink you carry.”

Black Fox's breath came short. There was
another
horror Glass had visited upon her. His fist clenched. It would give him so much satisfaction to smash Glass's face that he couldn't begin to imagine it.

But he didn't have time to think about revenge. Glass wouldn't stand there for many more insults from Cathleen, a mere girl and a nobody at that.

Somewhere in the crowd, a man laughed and Tassel wouldn't be able to take that, either.

“I didn't see it but my heart knows that you killed Roger, too,” Cathleen said. “I overheard you that day when you offered to mark our whole account paid, plus give him all the whiskey he wanted—my poor stepfather, who wanted all the whiskey in the world—if he would let you bed me.”

“Your stepfather was a drunk,” Glass snapped. “He died of drink.”

“He died of a bullet to the
back,
” Cat retorted. “I
was the one who found his body—facedown in the corncrib.”

For the first time, Black Fox realized just how hard her life had been, and unlike him, she had no Aunt Sally and Uncle Muskrat to turn to.

“I'm through trying to reason with you,” Glass snapped. “Anybody could've shot the man. Any long rider or drifter in the Nation could have come onto his farm and shot him.”

Black Fox trained his rifle on the man on the roof. All this palavering was about to end. The shooter was still in the shadow of the tree limbs, but he was very close to the porch roof now and getting settled lying on his belly, getting ready for Cathleen to draw. As Black Fox watched, he brought his knuckles down on the tin roof—a signal to Tassel, no doubt, that he could quit talking now.

But the drumming of hooves drowned him out. When the man took his eyes off Cathleen, Black Fox risked a glance toward the sound, too.

Dear God in heaven, it was a big, fancy paint horse and the rider was Willie, still wearing his Sunday shirt. Black Fox nearly choked as his breath turned to a knot in his throat.

A strange slash of jealousy cut through him. There was Willie, trying to be a hero when he didn't have a logical thought in his head. Willie, trying to be a hero and save Cathleen when he was still wet behind the ears.

Damn it. He, Black Fox, should've put a stop to this whole situation before it ever went this far. Before Willie could've arrived to put in his two cents worth of craziness. After all, he could hardly protect
two
foolish kids at once, and if Willie got himself killed, it would kill Aunt Sally, too.

The big paint horse tore into the store yard from the east and slid to a stop a few yards from the showdown. Willie threw himself off the gelding and strode toward Cathleen.

Glass went pale with fury.

“What d'you think you're doing, boy?” he demanded.

“I'm here to back Cathleen,” Willie said.

Cathleen half turned to glare at him. She, too, was clearly furious.

“Get out of here, Willie,” she said. “This is my play.”

“I know that,” he said. “But you need somebody…”

He never finished the sentence. A gun barked, flashing flame from overhead. Black Fox fired a second too late to stop it but he shot the man off the roof.

Glass turned and ran, Cathleen fired a shot at him, Willie went for his handgun and started shooting, somebody shot from the woods and that was all Black Fox knew because he was moving too fast, then, to see anything but Cathleen.

He bent over the gray horse's neck and rode
into the melee reaching for her as soon as he got his rifle stuffed back into its scabbard. This was his chance to get her out of town and it was the only one he'd get.

“Wil-lie-e!”

The one word was a long scream rising above all the rest of the noise—hoofbeats, more shots, shouts, and confusion—and it was coming from a girl in a blue calico dress racing on foot directly across the gray horse's path. She came so close Black Fox narrowly missed hitting her.

He wanted to look and try to see whether Willie was hurt but, for this one precious moment, Cathleen was standing still. People were becoming thicker, his young horse was trying to shy from all the noise, and he had to get to her fast.

Pounding up behind her, leaning far out of the saddle into his right stirrup, he swept her up in one arm and held her across his thigh as he forged through the gathering crowd until he found his seat again. Then he dragged her, kicking and screaming, up into the saddle in front of him and headed out of town at a gallop.

She waved the gun under his nose and he smelled the powder she'd just burned.

“Put me down,” she yelled, above the noise of the horses. “You let me go right now, Black Fox Vann!”

She pointed the muzzle at his chest.

He grabbed her gun away from her and, jug
gling it and the reins in one hand, managed to lift her with his forearm, take her left leg with his free hand and turn her to sit face front, astraddle of the horse. Thank goodness, he had managed to take her out of trouble unhurt. If she'd done that to anybody else, she'd be dead right now.

They rode through the little town at a high lope, racing for distance before anyone could come after them, keeping both horses moving on and on down the road until they had trees and brush and plenty of distance between them and Sequoyah. Finally letting the horses slow, Black Fox listened for sound of pursuit and heard none.