The Ruination of Essie Sparks (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 2) (7 page)

After a few minutes of climbing, the warm rock scraped and dug painfully into the soles of her tender bare feet. He pulled her along by the binding at her wrists. Finally, as she stumbled after him, she jammed her toe against a small ledge of rock and crumpled to her knees.

"
Ow
! Ohhh!"

As if he'd only just remembered she existed, he stopped and looked back at her. "You are hurt?"

"Yes! My toe!" She cradled her bare foot in her hand, not caring at all what he thought. "
Ow, ow
! I might have broken it, thanks to you! And look. I'm bleeding."

The cumulative effect of the rock on her bare feet had done her no favors. Indeed, there was a small cut on the bottom of her heel, covered with a smear of blood, and her toe throbbed. But if she exaggerated the damage, he deserved the delay for dragging her up here in the first place. She felt exhausted after their long ride and wanted nothing more than to stop for a moment to breathe.

Impatient, he glanced at the dome of blue Montana sky above them and the hawk circling overhead. It dipped and swirled in the air currents, unconcerned with them or their petty human problems. Nearby somewhere, the rush and roar of some cataract sounded and the horse's ears perked at the prospect of a drink.

Essie's gaze fell to her captor's bloodied leg and she felt suddenly guilty for her silly complaints. For the past hour, he'd been limping badly on it and she could only imagine his pain was much, much worse than anything she might whine about. Still, why should she feel sorry for him? It was his own fault he had a bullet in his—

Without so much as a by-your-leave, he bent down and picked her up, throwing her over one shoulder like a sack of grain.

She
gawped
as the air whooshed from her lungs and she thrashed against him. "Oh! Put me down! I mean it, put me down!"

Naturally, he ignored her and limped along toward the sound of the nearby water. He quelled her thrashing with a steely arm across her thighs and another planted, horrifyingly, on her rear end.

Clearly, she had underestimated him and his strength. Upside down, the view from the granite slope was disorienting and terrifying. Now, instead of pounding on his back, she gripped his shirt in fear. His cross-slung rifle jabbed painfully at her ribs. One slip down the bald face of this rock and they would both fall to their deaths. She squeezed her eyes shut to keep from being nauseous.

"Please don't drop me," she begged him, under her breath. If he heard her, he didn't reply. Instead, he just moved at a frightening clip—much faster than he'd moved with her in tow—toward the sound of the water.

Minutes later, with the blood rushing to her brain, and distracted by the humiliating familiarity of his hands on her thighs, she realized he'd asked her a question.

"Excuse me?"

"Your foot," he repeated. "How long was it bleeding?"

She frowned. "Long enough."

"
How long
?"

"If you must know, since shortly after you dragged me off the horse. Not that you would care."

He cursed under his breath. A white man's curse. She'd never heard a Cheyenne swear. In fact, she'd heard there was no such thing as a curse word in the Cheyenne tongue.

"If you'd cared, you would have let me get dressed before dragging me off into the wilderness. Without
shoes
."

"Next time," he answered, "I'll make sure you're decent before they start shooting at us."

"At you. They were shooting at
you
. And believe me, there will be no next time."

"You're right. Because unlike those little pieces of lace you've been ripping off to leave like breadcrumbs for your friends, your trail of blood on that rock face will lead them right to us."

Essie's eyes widened. He'd caught her leaving the lace behind? Good God.

"If you saw me doing it, why didn't you stop me?"

He gestured out with a tip of his chin at the expanse of Montana that stretched before them. "Feel that?"

She felt nothing but the urge to kick him. That and the insistent tug of wind caressing the rock face.

"That breeze will scatter those bits to the four winds and will only confuse them more. That was more favor than risk."

Drat.
He was probably right.
But the blood
. The blood was a different story. Maybe there was hope for her after all. And when they caught him...

Her gaze flicked to the rock face behind them. When they caught him, they would... hang him.

Or worse.

She pressed her lips together. No, that wasn't exactly what she wanted at all.

He swayed for a moment under her as if he'd nearly lost his balance and she gripped his shirt tighter. She felt a surge of shame for hoping they would catch him. He hadn't actually hurt her, after all, her foot aside. Oh, he'd scared her silly. But he could have done worse, much worse to her.

No, she didn't wish him dead. She simply wanted him gone. She wanted to be on that train right now back East to begin her new life, and not here on this mountain, slung over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes.

And while she might have saved
him
from the first bullets fired at them, he might, indeed, have saved her from the ones that chased them out of the barn. Even if they hadn't been shooting
at
her, they hadn't taken care not to hit her either.

She thought of Mitchell Laddner and shuddered at the possibility that he might be the one who had come after them. He had no love for her either. How far would a man like him go?

She swallowed thickly.

As they moved toward the sound of the water, she stared at the rock face, thinking of the blood she'd left behind and suddenly wishing the wind would scrub that away too.

Chapter 4

On the banks of the creek, Mitchell Laddner scanned the muddy ground near the water from atop his bay horse. He had easily picked out the unshod pony's prints from the jumble of hoofprints before the other searchers had even decided which direction the rest of the herd had taken on the other side of the water. The trail of blood brought a smile to his lips. He thought he'd hit him, outside the barn. His gaze moved upstream, where he guessed the renegade he was after had gone with that woman, Essie Sparks.

He could not shake the image from his mind of the man's face that morning in the half-light of dawn as he'd taken a bead on him. That scar on his cheek, those silvery-gray eyes that didn't belong on any damned redskin he'd ever seen, save one.

A cold finger traced up him; cold as that day on the Powder River and the battle that had cut down his only true friend, Private Lorenzo Ayers, like an animal.

Twelve years had come and gone since that day under Colonel Reynolds' command. Laddner rarely spared so much as a thought anymore about that heathen squaw he'd shot, stumbling from her tepee in the chaos of that freezing cold March morning. And no one had actually seen him cut that woman down. No one but Gray Eyes, as he'd come to think of him. They'd both been practically boys then. But the government had pinned a medal on Laddner for his part in the charge, and for the killing of Whirlwind, one of the Northern Cheyenne warriors who'd come out shooting that morning.

There was only one reason that battle still haunted his dreams. It was the look in that scar-faced, half-breed's eyes that he'd never forgotten. Their eyes had met over the heads of the two small children he'd had in his arms. Laddner had raised his gun to shoot them, but that bastard had shouted at him in perfect English, "Shoot them and I will string your insides along the banks of the frozen river, you son of a bitch."

English, spoken by that savage, had shocked him momentarily. Long enough that the half-breed turned tail with those two and ran. He disappeared into the thicket of snow-covered lodges toward the bluffs where the rest of the tribe hid out and picked off half a dozen of the fine men from K Company. Even so, he would have shot them all, had his gun not suddenly jammed. Had the tables been turned and Gray Eyes had the bead on him, no doubt he wouldn't be here today, tracking the redskin.

But what was he doing here, all these years later, hauling white women off into the wilderness? If it were up to Laddner, he'd chase the bastard down alone. Screw the other idiot guards who wouldn't be able to find the ground with their hats if they threw them down. No, tracking this particular renegade was personal. Not because of the woman. He could care less about Essie Sparks or her virtue. She would get what was coming to her.

No, he had a score to settle with that half-blood savage on Lorenzo Ayers' behalf. And settle it he would.

He turned in his saddle to see the squat figure of Reverend Dooley approaching on horseback at a run. He was a little out of control, as usual, riding like a jack-stick toy. With arms and legs flailing, tugging the reins up by his chin, he looked precarious enough to fall at any minute from the animal who clearly knew he held the upper hand. Dooley was holding onto his flat-brimmed hat for fear of losing it as his horse raced to catch up with the ones parked near the banks of the creek, tugging grass.

Indeed, the horse skidded to a halt beside the creek and dropped its head down for a long drink, and the panting Dooley, who'd managed not to fly over the horse's neck, immediately parted company with the animal and put a safe distance between them.

He bent over with his hands on his knees to catch his breath. "Blasted animal!" he muttered.

"Reverend?" Laddner tilted a look at the man.

"He got a taste of freedom this morning and now he's a maniac."

There were few things more loathsome to Laddner than a man who couldn't control a dumb animal. "I'll send one of my men to ride back with you. You shouldn't have come out here on your own, sir."

Mollified by Laddner's apparent concern, the reverend waved a hand and straightened. "In truth, I despise the beasts and wish we weren't so confounded dependent on them. But they are a necessary evil, aren't they?"

Idiot.
"Yes, sir."

"Any sign of them yet?" The Reverend Dooley shaded his pale blue eyes from the morning glare and peered up the creek at the men studying the banks on either side. The sun hovered high overhead in the blue August sky. They'd already lost the morning, gathering up the horses and hitting a dead end in the box canyon where they'd found the herd.

"In all these tracks here"—he pointed to the muddy bank—"there's only one set that's unshod. That belongs to the one carrying both the renegade and Mrs. Sparks. So far, we've found no sign of him crossing with the other horses here, so I believe he headed straight up this creek to throw us off. Sooner or later, we'll find where he got out."

The reverend whistled. "Impressive, Mr. Laddner. I didn't realize I'd hired a tracker."

You have no idea who you hired. No idea at all.
"Yes, sir. Never had a redskin outsmart me yet. Not in the military and not now. I'll find him."

"And the boy?" he asked a little warily. "I need him back. Accounted for."

Laddner found the reverend tiresome, mostly because the man was a half-wit, but also because he was more politician than soul-saver. And nearly everything he did, where it concerned the school, was done with his own deep pockets in mind.

Not that Laddner gave a damn about the little bastard who'd run
.
He did, however, admire the little rounder his resourcefulness.

He'd had taken this job a year ago after spending the last decade and a half fighting Cheyenne, Crow and Sioux. Now that they were in their proper place, locked up on reservations and on agencies, the war was over. But he found this guard work beneath him. Until this morning, he'd intended to leave this employ shortly and look for a job better suited to his particular talents. But today, his reasons for having taken this job became clear. It seemed particularly appropriate that Essie Sparks was the one who'd been taken, since she'd been a thorn in his side since day one. Sometimes, justice prevailed in a world full of injustice.

"With our limited resources, the boy is the least of our worries at the moment, Reverend."

The reverend scowled. "Make no mistake. A scandal like this could ruin this school, affect subsidies I'm paid by the BIA, Laddner. Including your salary. I want this headed off before the Bureau of Indian Affairs learns what happened here. I want that boy back before everything we've done is undone by that renegade. And I want Mrs. Sparks out of the grasp of whoever took her."