Winter Fire (11 page)

I suppose I could marry her for it
.

No sooner did the idea come than an icy blackness burst through his soul, freezing the fragile tendril of hope for the future he had just felt.

Marriage meant children.

Children meant a nightmare of helpless, maimed bodies.

No
, he thought savagely.
Never again
.

Never!

There had to be another way to win Lost River ranch.

A safe way.

A way without any feeling at all.

Case was silent all the way back to the ranch. Not even the tilted, silvery smile of the moon penetrated the night that filled his soul.

T
he next
day Case awakened long before dawn. As always, he lay motionless, orienting himself.

What woke me up?

The answer came in a butterfly-soft brush of fabric against his shoulders as someone tucked the covers around him.

Sarah
, he thought.

Still watching over me
.

A warmth that was only partly sexual radiated through him. Even as he slid back toward sleep, he decided that he would move on in the morning.

He had to.

Otherwise his relentless male hunger would overcome his common sense.

Wouldn't be the first time a man got led down the wrong road by his dumb handle
, he thought sleepily.
It happened to Hunter the first time around. His blood got so hot he married the wrong girl
.

Soft, sweet breath flowed over Case.

He tried to ignore the rose-scented heat of Sarah.

He couldn't, any more than he could ignore his insistent, pulsing hunger for her.

A hunger she didn't share.

She wants me as a big brother
, he reminded himself,
amused and nettled and relieved all at once.

He hadn't thought of a gentle way to tell Sarah that he didn't want any kinship with her. Not brother, not cousin, not uncle.

Especially not uncle.

What the war hadn't destroyed in Case, finding the bodies of his nephew and niece did.

After that, he had been a long time learning how to sleep again, how to eat, how to live without feeling anything at all.

Even rage.

Sarah was more dangerous to his hard-won lack of emotion than a loaded, cocked gun pointed right at his face.

Air shifted and stirred lightly, disturbed by her silent withdrawal from his side. A moment later small sounds came as she curled up a few feet away. Soon her breathing slowed and deepened.

Wonder how many times she has gotten up all through the night to check on some hurt creature?
he thought.

The thought of her padding barefoot across the cold dirt floor to check on him bothered Case.

No need for that. I'm fine. Hasn't she ever heard of letting sleeping dogs lie?

An owl called from behind the cabin.

Case came out from under the blankets in a single, silent rush. One hand closed around his shotgun, which was propped against the wall. The weight of the weapon told him that it was fully loaded.

When he cocked the shotgun, both Sarah and Conner woke up.

“What's go—” Conner asked.

“Quiet,” Case interrupted.

Though his voice was very low, Conner shut up instantly.

“An owl called out back,” Case said softly.

“So?” Conner whispered. “We have lots of owls around here.”

“Never heard one sound like that. Do you have your shotgun?”

“Right in my hands.”

“Good. Guard Sarah.”

“I can guard myself,” she said in a low voice.

As though to prove her point, she cocked the shotgun she was holding.

“Stay here anyway,” Case said.

“But—” Conner began.

“Less people moving around out there,” he said over the boy's objection, “less chance we'll shoot one another by mistake. Stay put.”

“Do as he says,” Sarah said to her brother.

“Who's on the rim now?” Case asked.

“Ute,” Conner said.

“Good. None of the Culpeppers are built like Lola. Even in the dark, I'd know not to shoot her.”

Conner laughed quietly.

Case knelt and looked out the back of the cabin through one of the many chinks between the ill-fitting planks. The light outside was as thin as the moon itself. A river of stars cascaded silently overhead, throwing off an eerie radiance.

No shadows moved. No brush stirred. No pebbles rattled in the stillness. No birds called sleepily, disturbed by the passage of man. Not even a coyote sang to the darkness.

Quickly Case dressed. The black wool pants and shirt he put on made him dissolve into the darkness. Instead of boots, he wore knee-high moccasins. In addition to his belt gun, he strapped on a knife whose blade was eight inches long. He hung the shotgun by its leather sling across his left shoulder and down his right side, handy but not in the way.

“Don't shoot unless you know who it is,” Case said. “I'll call like a hawk before I come in.”

“Case,” Sarah whispered.

Unerringly he turned toward her, though she was no more than a faint blur in the darkness.

“Yes?” he asked softly.

“I…Be careful.”

“Don't worry. I did a lot of this sort of thing during the war. If I were a careless kind of man, I'd be dead.”

“Let me guard your back,” Conner said.

Case turned toward the darkness where the boy waited, a shotgun in his hands.

Sarah hasn't spoiled her brother too much
, Case thought.
He's man-sized in more than his rawboned body
.

“You can help me most by not talking or moving around in here,” he said. “I'm going to be listening outside. If there's shooting, keep your sister in the cabin if you have to sit on her. Hear me?”

“I don't like it, but I hear you.”

Sarah muttered something neither male bothered to acknowledge.

The door creaked as Case opened it and slipped out into the darkness. He closed the door behind him and stood motionless with his back to the cabin, listening to the night with his ears and other, far more subtle senses.

The lack of sound was overwhelming, silent eternity flowing overhead like the stars, but in darkness rather than light. There was an icy stillness to the air that told of time and distance and the slowly deepening grip of winter.

The quiet was absolute.

Somebody is out there
, he thought.
No night is this quiet unless men are sneaking around
.

Crouching, he went to the corner of the cabin and peered around it. There were no human shadows prowling about on that side. He ghosted down the side of the cabin, crouched again, and listened.

Silence.

Counting seconds in his mind, Case waited.

More than four minutes went by.

While he waited, tiny sounds began to sift through the darkness once more. The night creatures were picking up their normal business of finding food, spurred on by the chill and the coming winter.

A pack rat hurried across an opening between a man-high sagebrush plant and the smaller shrubs that grew ten feet away. Instants later an owl swept by on noiseless wings. There was a tiny, frantic squeal and the beat of wings on dirt.

The owl lifted into the night. Outlined against the stars, a pack rat hung limply from the bird's talons.

An owl called from the brush at the back of the cabin. Another owl answered.

Silence returned, as deep as the night itself.

The critters are no more fooled by those hoots than I am
, Case thought dryly.

He judged that the calls were about ten yards closer to the cabin than the first round of false hooting he had heard.

Suddenly the silhouette of a man moved against the stars. It was just for an instant, but it was more than enough for Case to see and note the man's location.

A hundred feet away, another shadow moved.

At least two
, Case decided.
Not Culpeppers, unless those boys have started wearing Mexican-style headgear
.

Wonder where they left their horses?

Within a thousand yards of the cabin there were only a few places that had enough cover to hide horses.

Bet they came down that ravine a few hundred feet beyond the privy
, he thought.
They're too damned lazy to walk a step farther than they have to
.

Crouched over, he went quickly and silently across the cleared area around the cabin. He eeled through the brush and grass until he was past the privy.

Keeping the outhouse between himself and the area
where he had seen the men, he straightened and moved swiftly toward the ravine that opened out onto the flats just beyond the cabin.

Three horses waited in the ravine, tied to the skeleton of a dead juniper.

Hell's fire
, he thought.
Horses
.

He had been hoping to see mules. It would be easier to take the Culpeppers on one at a time in the dark than head-on in a gunfight the way he had at Spanish Church.

Less risky, too.

Ab must be more patient than he used to be. Too bad. It makes him more dangerous
.

A quick, careful circuit of the mouth of the ravine told Case that no one had been left behind to guard the animals.

An empty whiskey bottle gleamed in the starlight just beyond the juniper's twisted, dead branches. Gnawed bones from a rabbit had been tossed near the bottle.

Guess those boys waited here awhile
, he thought.
Hope it was long enough to get impatient
.

Impatient men made mistakes.

A few minutes of soft talking and slow moving assured the horses that Case, despite his strange scent, meant them no harm.

The animals stood quietly while he cut their reins free of the bridle. He used the braided leather to hobble the horses. Then he loosened the cinches and removed the bridles entirely.

If any raider made it back to his horse, he would have the devil's own time getting away.

Now
, Case thought,
it's time to see how drunk those boys really are
.

He made no more noise on the way back toward the cabin than he had on the way out. In fact, he was so quiet he nearly tripped over the first raider.

“Rusty?” whispered the man. “What 'n hell you doin'
over here? You'll get your turn on that gal after I break her to—”

The words ended an instant after Case's knife slid out of its sheath. He caught the dead man and lowered him to the ground.

Then he crouched, listening.

The night was far too quiet.

There were too many memories welling up, darker than any night.

Air is too dry
, he thought distantly.
No trees rustling softly. No lush green. No campfires burning a hundred feet away
.

But one thing hadn't changed. Death still smelled the same as it had during the War Between the States.

A hooting sound came from his left.

Nothing moved to his right.

Case kept quiet. The last time he had heard two men calling, that had been the pattern—one hoot, one answer.

He was hoping that the dead man wasn't one of the outlaws who had been calling back and forth.

The hooting came again from the left.

Damn
, he thought.
I'd better answer
.

It was hard, but he tried to mangle the hooting call of an owl as badly as Moody's men had.

A faint stirring sound came from the left.

Brush rubbing over buckskin
, he thought.
The raider must be in that clump of big sage off to the left
.

Slowly, relentlessly, Case closed in on the area where the false owl call had come from.

A shape that only a seasoned night fighter would recognize as a man slipped through the clump of tall sagebrush and paused at its edge.

Case recognized the human outline instantly.

Can you see him, Conner?
he asked silently.
He'll be at the back of the cabin if I miss him
.

But Case didn't plan on missing the raider. He kept hearing what the other man had said just before he died.

You'll get your turn on that gal after I break her
.

Case was certain the man hadn't been talking about Big Lola.

Wonder where that third man is?
he asked silently.
And why he's so quiet
.

At the moment, there was nothing he could do about the missing raider.

The man in the big sage was moving again.

Silently Case inched closer to the outlaw who was even now heading for the cabin.

Hope to hell Conner follows orders. If he unloads his shotgun at the raider, he'll get me in the bargain
.

Case was eight feet from the outlaw before the man sensed that something was wrong. The raider spun around, drawing his gun.

A shotgun butt hit the outlaw like a falling mountain. With a hoarse sound the man folded up and dropped to the ground.

As quickly as Case had come out of the darkness into the cleared area, he vanished back into the clump of tall sagebrush.

The outlaw stayed where he fell.

Silence came.

Breathing deeply yet very quietly, Case strained to hear any sign of the third man.

He heard nothing but the unnatural silence of the night.

Guess the third man isn't as impatient to get his hands on Sarah as the others were
, he decided.

After five minutes the normal night sounds slowly resumed. Case settled in for a long wait. He had played this deadly game many, many times before. The first man to lose patience was usually the one who died.

Behind him the night sounds abruptly stopped. Silence descended.

The hair on the back of his neck stirred. He threw himself to the side just before a six-gun shattered the silence with two rapid shots, then one more for good measure.

Lead whined through the thicket where his head had been. Even as he dove for cover, he turned and brought the shotgun to bear on the muzzle flash of the raider's six-gun.

Case triggered the first round of buckshot so quickly that its deeper sound masked that of the outlaw's fourth bullet. Lead pellets shredded through the sagebrush, then went ripping through the night in a deadly metal hail.

The raider grunted twice.

If he made any other noises, they were lost beneath the sounds Case made as he rolled swiftly to a new position. He knew his own muzzle flash had given away his location.