Wicked Wyoming Nights (51 page)

Eliza welcomed the additional proof that Cord was truly an extraordinary man, but she couldn’t forget that close to fifty men were gathering outside, or that before dawn some of them might be dead, and her heart was heavy.

“We’re going out to the herd now,” Cord explained when he returned. “It’ll be less dangerous if we’re in position before the rustlers arrive.”

“Will you be able to catch them?” Ella asked.

“You don’t capture a gang like this without killing half of them first. That would mean risking my men, and frankly, I’d rather keep them alive.”

“But not lose a single cow in the process,” Ella added for him.

“No, ma’am,” Cord said, breaking into a reluctant smile, “I don’t aim to lose a single cow. I’ll see you all at breakfast.” He smothered Eliza in a rough embrace, and then was gone.

“That man is enough to make me forget I’m a married lady,” Ella sighed. “If I was thirty years younger, I’d fight you for him myself,” she told Eliza.

“That man is so in love with Miss Eliza, he wouldn’t notice you even if you were forty years younger,” said Lucy coming nearer to the mark.

“You don’t have to tell me what I can see with my own eyes.” Ella laughed good-naturedly. “You also don’t have to tell me when I was
thirty
years younger I didn’t look half as good as Eliza, because I know that too. Now stop trying to depress me and put a little more of that brandy liqueur in my coffee. I declare, I never knew spirits could taste so good.”

“Your husband won’t like it,” Lucy cautioned.

“Then I won’t tell him. Don’t pour so much in your cup. I don’t want to have to carry you to bed.”

No one had to help either lady upstairs. After their long day, they looked forward to a luxurious bed piled with feather mattresses. Eliza reluctantly decided against staying up another hour because she knew Ella and Lucy would insist upon sitting up with her.

“There’s nothing you can do sitting down here,” Ginny told her, understanding in her heavily lined face. “If you marry Cord, you’re going to have to get used to waiting. It’s never easy, but the first times are the worst. You should have let me put some brandy in your coffee.”

Eliza still hadn’t fully recovered her strength and she had no trouble falling asleep, but about one o’clock she sat up in the bed with a start; she was wide awake and shaking like a leaf. She had been having a nightmare, a horrible, senseless kaleidoscope of terrifying scenes. Out of the mishmash, two chilling pictures battled for supremacy, one of Cord killing Ira and another of Ira murdering Cord; in the end, the one of Cord shooting her uncle emerged the victor. Eliza was too unnerved to even consider going back to sleep. At least wakefulness would keep the nightmares at bay.

The moon was shining in her face, and she got up and pulled the heavy curtains over the window, but she didn’t feel like going back to bed. When her uncle told her of Croley’s plans, her only thought had been to stop his stealing Cord’s cows, but now the specter of death rose up as an even more appalling menace. She couldn’t let Cord kill Ira any more than she could let Ira kill Cord.

She knew she wasn’t released from her vow; she never would be as long as her uncle was alive. No matter what he had done to her, no matter how sick with hate he had become, she had to help him. She could not live with herself if she didn’t.

More importantly, she didn’t know how she could live with Cord if he killed Ira. It seemed so unfair that just when her vow to Aunt Sarah no longer had the power to separate her from Cord, Ira should have the power to drive a potentially fatal wedge between them. She couldn’t allow that to happen. There had to be some way to prevent it, some way to avoid an event that would always gnaw at the very foundations of their love.

Eliza dressed quickly and tiptoed downstairs. The silence of the big house was eerie; the thick carpets deadened her footsteps as she moved soundlessly through the hall to the front parlor, but Eliza didn’t remain in the hall for long. She had made up her mind to go look for Cord.

Cord pointed to a narrow pass leading from the plain where most of his herd was garnered. “They’ll have to come through here if they intend to take the herd to Montana,” he told the sheriff. “They’re pretty well scattered over the plain, but they ought to be easy to move in one direction if Croley’s men are skillful.”

“You can depend upon it they are.”

“Then the best thing will be to let them gather the herd unopposed until they try to take them through the pass. You take half your men and block the other end. Sturgis can show you where best to station them.”

“I can command my own men,” Joe said, his feelings still raw because of the rough treatment he’d endured that day.

“I’m sure you can, but my men know every foot of this ground, day or night, and we’ve had a good of bit of experience at waiting in ambush.”

Joe had to agree, with no particular enthusiasm, to accept Sturgis’s help.

“The rest of us will close the trap at this end.”

“Won’t that trap the cows as well?”

“Some, but I hope not many. They’re bound to have some men ride ahead, but once the cows enter the pass, they can’t do anything except go forward. I’m hoping most of the men will be at this end and you and Sturgis will be able to capture those at the head without giving warning to the rest. I don’t want a single one to escape.”

Joe looked up sharply. “You told Mrs. Baylis you weren’t planning to capture this gang.”

“I didn’t want the women to worry. Rustling isn’t the only cause of the trouble we’ve been having, but it’s caused most of it and it has done more to prolong and intensify it than anything else. If we can eliminate this pernicious gang of thieves, the casual rustlers will be too afraid to operate openly and the hardened criminals will look for easier pickings somewhere else.”

“So you’re set on capturing everyone, huh?”

“Alive or dead,” Cord said grimly. “And I don’t have any prejudice against the latter condition.”

Eliza drove steadily on, but she was no longer sure of where she was. Cord had told her the herd was being held near the pass to the high plain; she’d been there once before, but in the dark everything looked different. It seemed hours since she’d gone to the corral and harnessed the horse to the buggy herself. She’d never done that before, but it wasn’t very different from hitching a horse to a wagon. In any case, there were no unused buckles or dangling straps when she finished, and after bouncing over half the stones in Wyoming, the horse was still connected to the buggy. She knew she should still be at the ranch house soundly asleep in her bed, but she was glad she had come. Even if she was lost, it was better than lying in bed waiting to be told Cord or Ira was dead.

Suddenly she halted the buggy; she thought she’d heard a shot, but no other sound followed. Still, she was certain if she followed the sound it would somehow lead her to Cord, so she turned her buggy and headed off in that direction.

The trap closed on Croley’s men with jarring suddenness. One moment they were moving the herd along without a hint of trouble, and the next they found themselves surrounded, their route of escape cut off by the herd ahead and by a cordon of men, led by Stedman himself, who had suddenly loomed up out of the silent shadows behind them. Croley had never paid much attention when he’d heard it said Cord materialized from nowhere, but now he understood why some men refused to ride across Matador land after dark.

“We’ve got to look for someplace to hole up,” he said, thinking hard.

“Why don’t we push through the herd and out the other end?”

“Unless I misjudge my man,. Stedman has clamped down on that end as well.”

“Do you mean we’re trapped in this goddamned canyon like cornered coyotes?” demanded one of the criminals he’d hired.

“For the time being at least.”

“You were a fool not to know Stedman wasn’t in Montana. You led us into this trap, you mother—” The single shot Eliza heard ripped the silence of the night. The man, a huge, ugly-tempered bully, had started for his gun, but Croley put a bullet through his heart before the gun had cleared the holster.

“Anybody looking for more of the same?” Croley threatened, looking around him with an ugly glare, his gun moving in a slow arc. “Nobody’s going to be captured unless we start fighting among ourselves. I don’t aim to be caught because there’s a hanging tree waiting for me this time. I can’t get hung any more for killing a dozen men than for one.” No one showed any inclination to argue the point.

“Now sit tight while I do some thinking. Nobody’s caught me yet, and I’ve been at this for more than ten years.” Croley sent Harker forward with four men to see what was ahead and stationed nearly a dozen at his rear to hold that end of the canyon. He took the two left, Ira and Les, to look for a place to dig in if the trap closed on them from both ends. To the south the river glimmered in the moonlight like mother-of-pearl, but a sheer wall on its far side made it of no interest to Croley. There was no way out across the river.

Croley made his way through the canyon along with the plodding cows until he came to a place where the north wall of the canyon looked as if it had been worn down by rains. It just might be worn enough to allow them to climb out. In case they had to fight it out, several large boulders offered some cover.

“Well hole up here if we have to, but I want you to find a way up to that rim,” Croley said to Les. “It may be our only way out.”

Eliza pulled her buggy to stop at the rim of the pass. She was unable to see anything from where she sat, so she climbed down, walked over to the edge, and peered down. The sight that met her eyes was extraordinarily beautiful. The river lay more than a hundred feet below, a torrent of molten silver in the moonlight as it wound through the pass, cascading over falls and surging between rocks as it dropped the two hundred feet between the high and low plains in little more than a mile. A few cows plodded soundlessly along the trail, leaving the empty silence of the night unbroken. Eliza walked a short way along the rim, but there was no way down and no one in sight. Just as she was about to conclude her ears had deceived her, a man jumped out of the dark at the canyon’s edge and was on her in a few strides.

“Croley will be mighty glad to see you, Miss Sage,” he growled. “It’ll give him something to talk to your boyfriend about.” Eliza made a spirited attempt to escape, but Les knew she was the best chance they had of getting out of the canyon alive.

“What are you going to do with me?” Eliza asked when she realized it was useless to struggle any longer.

“We’re going to talk to Croley” he said, pointing to a spot that seemed to fall
straight
down. It took all her courage not to panic, but she knew her impetuosity had caused her capture and possibly endangered Cord. She couldn’t afford to act foolishly now.

“Where is my uncle?” she asked as calmly as she could.

“Down there too.”

“Then let’s go, only not so fast. I’ve never tried to climb down a canyon wall before.”

Les looked at her uncertainly. If she really did want to see Ira, she might be useless after all, but it was best to make sure.

“Don’t try to get away again,” he warned in a gruff voice.

“You frightened me,” she said, trying to reassure him. Frantically, Eliza racked her brain for ways to escape, but every thought fled her mind the moment she looked over the rim of the cliff and realized she would have to follow. Her body froze.

“Come on,” Les urged. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“It Hooks horrible, stammered Eliza, and only the knowledge she had to warn Cord enabled her to throw her legs over the edge. She closed her eyes and slowly lowered her body, seeking a foothold in the hard clay that formed the side of the canyon, but a large chunk broke away under her weight and she pitched forward into space.

Chapter 38

Eliza didn’t have time to scream. Before she could open her mouth, her body catapulted into Les and the breath was knocked out of her; the two of them went end over end down the slope, like rocks in a landslide, until they came to a jarring halt against a large boulder. They lay there, one atop the other, momentarily stunned.

“You trying to kill me?” Les growled, pushing her off him with ungentlemanly swiftness. He picked himself up, bruised and sore, but neither had any broken bones.

“The bank caved in,” Eliza gasped, her wits nearly paralyzed with fear.

“Hold on to me then. I don’t want to fall the rest of the way down.” He grasped her hand tightly and began the descent.

The fall had completely shattered Eliza’s nerve, but each time she made it to the next rock, it seemed a little shorter. Certainly the distance to the bottom was less. Again Eliza tried to think of some plan, but it was impossible to concentrate with the ground steadily falling away in the dark at such an alarming rate. It took all her concentration just to stay on her feet.

The two half ran, half stumbled the last twenty yards, coming to a halt virtually in front of Croley.

“And where did you find this little keepsake?” he inquired, eying Eliza with a mixture of fury and lust.

“She was driving about up above.”

“You seem to take an extraordinary delight in riding about in the dark,” he said, coming so close Eliza could see the moonlight reflected in his eyes. “What do you find so interesting out there? Or should I ask
whom?
”