Deborah Camp (46 page)

“I can’t believe this! Cassie, your father and I were friends. Why would I shoot him?”

“For the diamonds.”

“But the diamonds are yours. He willed this land and everything on it to you.”

“Yes, but you didn’t know that at the time. You figured
a dumb old man like Pa wouldn’t leave a will and you could slip in and maybe get the land for back taxes or offer his numbskull daughter a ‘fair price’ for it. ‘Fair’ being a sack of chicken feed or the like. All you’d have to do was call her some pretty names and—great balls of fire!—she’d roll over and give up her life for you!”

“No, Cassie. I never—”

“You’re a yellow-bellied snake! You shot Pa and left him to bleed to death, you stinking varmint! Why don’t you just say it so we can go on to the next business we got together?” Her pent-up anger made her feel hot and sticky all over.

“You’re distraught …”

“Darn tootin’ I am!” She popped the whip at shoulder level and Boone backed up and raised his hands above his head when Cassie cocked her arm for another crack at him. “I’m good and mad, and I’m either going to kill you tonight or take you in to the sheriff. It’s your choice. Makes no never mind to me.”

“Can we talk without you holding that gun on me and flicking that confounded whip over my head? I’m not an outlaw or an animal.”

“No, you’re worse than either of them.”

“Your theory about your father’s death couldn’t be more wrong, Cassie. If I’d wanted the diamonds I would have negotiated a deal with Shorty. Unlike you, he knew and appreciated a gentleman’s agreement.”

“Piss pot.”

“Cassie!” He sounded like an old maid. “Where did you learn to speak such language?”

“From the same man who appreciated a gentleman’s agreement,” she shot back with a wicked grin. “Boone, quit trying to talk your way out of this. You shot Pa. Just say so. I already know it and so do you. Pa let it slip about finding something valuable in the mine and you tried to strike a deal with him. He said no deal. Maybe you didn’t set out to shoot him. Maybe it was an accident. All I know is my pa was shot in the back and you’re the one that pulled the trigger.” She stepped closer still so that she’d be sure to shoot him squarely should he decide to run for it. “Now,
are you coming with me to the sheriff, or do you want to die young?”

“I don’t think you’re the type of girl who could shoot an innocent man.” He looked at his hands. “Can I lower my hands now?”

“No, I don’t think so. You see, I think you’re the type of man who
would
shoot an innocent man. Keep ’em up. Are you coming with me? Are you going to tell the truth about Pa and you?”

“No.” He dropped all pretense. “No, I’m not. Shoot me.”

Her trigger finger began to tremble and the tremor spread slowly throughout her body. Sweet Jesus! He was calling her bluff! Now she’d have to kill him. Sweat trickled down her spine and made sticky places under her arms. She was drenched within seconds and shivering from an inner cold.

“You sure you want to die?” she asked, hating the weakness that now appeared in her voice.

“I’m sure I don’t want to confess to something I didn’t do.”

He sounded so cocksure of himself that Cassie began to wonder if she could possibly be wrong about him. Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he hadn’t known anything until she told him. Maybe his slip was just that—a slip of the tongue about something he didn’t know anything about. Had she created a tempest in a teapot? Oh, Lord! She’d be the laughingstock of the town! Boone and his family would make her life miserable. She’d never be able to live it down. She’d probably have to move or take up work as one of Jewel’s girls. Only problem there was she didn’t want to be with anyone but Rook.

“Cassie?”

Boone and Cassie both turned at the sound of the voice, but only Cassie recognized it. What in damnation was he doing here?

“Rook, get out of here!” she called, but too late. From the corner of her eye she saw the swift arc of Boone’s hand and she knew he’d reached for his gun and was holding it. “No! Rook, watch—”

It all happened so quickly that Cassie could hardly take
it in. The report of Boone’s revolver ripped through the night and seemed to tear a hole in Cassie’s heart, because her sixth sense told her that the bullet had Rook’s name on it. She heard a soft grunt and then a thud. It was all she needed to hear. Her blood turned to ice and all tenderness and mercy crystallized into a solid mass of hatred.

She felt her lips pull back from her teeth as she brought her shotgun back around, pointing up at Boone’s chest and holding it steady there.

Boone was holding his revolver shoulder high, aimed at Cassie’s forehead. He smiled charmingly.

“Don’t be stupid, Cassie. You know I’ll kill you, don’t you?”

“Just as surely as I’ll kill you.” She smiled back at him. “Come on, Boone. Let’s go see Lucifer together. What do you say?”

“Are the diamonds worth this much to you?”

“Are they to you?”

“Damn right!” He stopped smiling. “This is my ticket to freedom. I won’t have to kowtow to my father or my goddamn brother-in-law another minute once I’ve got the lease to that mine! I can buy my own goddamn bank and nobody will call me ‘Aaron’s boy’ again!”

“I’m sure he won’t claim you as his after tonight,” she said as she stared down the barrel of Boone’s revolver.

“Why should tonight be any different? He’s always rubbing it in my face! I’m the son of a traveling blacksmith, and Aaron Rutledge has never let me or my poor mother forget it!”

His admission cleared away cobwebs. Cassie remembered how enraged Boone had been when she’d inadvertently linked his mother and Jewel in the same sentence. Cassie was caught in the middle of a grudge feud she’d had no inkling of until a moment ago.

Cassie nodded in acceptance of her fate. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a standoff here, Boone.”

“No contest, Cassie. You might think you’re the better marksman, but I’ve got a faster trigger finger. I’ll drop you before you can bat an eyelash.”

“Don’t need to bat a lash. Just need to squeeze one off
before I hit the ground. I can manage that right nicely.” She didn’t need to bluff anymore. She was in deadly earnest and fully aware of her own power and ability. The two men who had meant anything to her were dead, both murdered by the man standing before her. Killing him would be like swatting a fly, except that she’d draw pleasure from sending Boone to his bed of ashes and dust.

“You’re going to lose,” Boone said with certainty, “because I have too much to gain.”

Cassie’s finger tightened on the trigger. “It’s my pleasure to shoot you face to face instead of in the back like you plugged Pa, you filthy coward. You really think you can shoot somebody while she’s looking at you?” she taunted.

In a split second Cassie felt the tiny hairs at the back of her neck stand on end and she knew she’d pushed Boone over the edge. Through the darkness she saw the light go out of his eyes, leaving them lifeless, and she felt rather than saw his finger move on the trigger. Shorty’s face floated before her, quickly supplanted by Rook’s, and Cassie knew she was a breath away from dying.

She heard the explosion, tasted copper on her tongue, and then blinked in confusion as a blurred body seemed to fly through the air and land on Boone. In that same moment she was knocked to the ground and she wondered if that same blur of black and gray had rammed into her too. Another roar sounded nearby and this one seemed to rock the very earth beneath her. For a blessed span of time Cassie saw only blackness and felt only a shadow of discomfort.

Her senses slowly returned, until she realized she was lying flat on her back in the grass and dirt. Her right shoulder was burning and paining her something awful, her head was spinning a little, there was an acid smell of gunpowder in the air, and somebody was breathing real heavy, but it wasn’t her because she was barely able to breath at all!

But, an inner voice told her, you
are
breathing. You’re not dead yet, Cassie Mae. So giddyap!

She straggled to prop herself up on her elbows and realized that she was bleeding. Staring at the charred rip in
the shoulder of her blouse and the blood oozing around it, Cassie felt as if she were looking at someone else’s wound. She was light-headed and bleary-eyed. Shock had dulled the pain in her shoulder to a throbbing ache. The fingers of her right hand closed around the stock of the shotgun, and she pulled it closer to her. It smelled strongly of gunpowder. Had she fired it, or had it discharged when she fell backward? Had a bullet from Boone’s gun felled her? Her other hand clutched the butt of the whip and held on to it for the peculiar brand of comfort it gave her. Her mind reeled backward, then forward as her memory returned with the force of a freight train.

“Boone!” she said, gasping in horror as she pushed herself up to her knees, bullwhip in hand, eyes wide and searching. What had happened? Where was Boone? Where in heaven’s name was Rook? Dead? Dying? Hadn’t it been Rook who’d come flying out of nowhere to knock Boone off balance and ruin his aim?

Her head cleared along with her eyesight. A mere ten feet in front of her Boone Rutledge sat astride Rook Colton.

“You should have listened to her, stranger. Now you’re going to die for sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.” Boone placed the barrel of his revolver against Rook’s forehead and his lips drew back from his teeth in a death-mask grin. “Say bye-bye.”

“No, damn you!” Cassie screeched and reacted by instinct. She cocked her arm, brought it forward, and flicked her wrist. The tip of the whip snaked out across the night and coiled prettily around Boone’s wrist, biting hard and splitting skin. Cassie jerked on it, and Boone dropped the gun and yelped in pain.

He whirled to see who was at the end of the whip, and then he did a right strange thing to Cassie’s way of thinking. He gripped his shirtfront with his free hand and fell forward face first in the dirt. The leather whip loosened and uncoiled itself from Boone’s wrist. Cassie called it home with a backward tug.

“Boone?” she whispered, not believing he’d surrendered
so suddenly. “Get up or I’ll lash you. I swear I will.”

He didn’t move, so Cassie sent out the whip again. It popped beside Boone’s head and only a mere inch from Rook’s shoulder. Rook rolled away from the sound of it and Cassie screamed in reaction to the movement itself, she was that near hysterics.

“Holy Christ, woman!” Rook bellowed, getting to his hands and knees and glaring across Boone’s prone body at her. “What’s wrong with you?”

A memory floated into Cassie’s mind. Hadn’t Rook said that to her before? Hadn’t he said that on the first day he’d ridden up on her land looking for a long, cool drink?

“You can crack your whip all you want, but you can’t make a dead man dance a jig.”

“Dead man?” Cassie’s gaze drifted from Rook to Boone. “He isn’t dead.”

“Well, he sure isn’t alive. You blew a hole through his chest when your shotgun discharged.”

Cassie swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth. So she’d killed him after all. Tears filled her eyes and she lifted them to Rook again. Just seeing his scowling face made her happy.

“You’re alive,” she said, realizing finally that the danger had passed and that her man was still breathing.

“Yes, thanks to you and that mean whip of yours. You okay?”

“I got shot in the shoulder.” She glanced at the wound, feeling nothing but gratitude. “Boone would’ve shot me dead if you hadn’t sent him sprawling and spoiled his aim. I’m glad we both made it. I didn’t want to live when I thought Boone had killed you.”

Crawling on his hands and knees, Rook rounded Boone’s body and came up to Cassie. He kissed her hard on the lips, and that brought her senses back. She watched his slow grin and mirrored it.

“What are you grinning at, Reuben Abraham?”

“I’m glad you’re on my side, Cassandra Mae.” He kissed her again, bringing the color back to her cheeks. “You’re a lot of damn trouble, but you’re worth it.”

Jewel and Cassie sat side by side on the train-station bench and stared gloomily at Jewel’s two valises and steamer trunk.

“I’ll miss you something awful,” Cassie said. Turning in her seat, she saw, through her own tear-stained eyes, Jewel’s eyes also fill with tears.

“Let’s not have a bawling scene here,” Jewel said with a sniff. “That’s why I wouldn’t let Rook see me off. I’d collapse right here on the platform if I had to say my farewells to him before the train took off.” Jewel looked at Cassie and her smile was eloquent. “But I’ll be missing you too.”

“We’ll see each other soon. We’ll be in New Orleans before you can shake a stick,” Cassie promised. “Rook said so, and he’s a man who keeps his word.”

“I know.” Jewel smiled sadly and stared at the tracks.

Cassie faced front again as her chest tightened with emotion. “Things have moved so fast lately,” she mused. “It doesn’t seem like two weeks have passed since Boone was buried.”

“You’re not still feeling bad about that, are you? The man would’ve shot you in the head if he could’ve managed it! You were lucky to get away from him with only a bullet in the shoulder.” Jewel made a harrumping sound. “He would’ve liked to kill my baby boy too. It’s a wonder he didn’t!”

“That’s all behind us.” Cassie rolled her shoulders in a movement that had become habit since the doctor had removed
the bullet from her upper arm. The wound was healing, drawing the skin tighter and causing her some slight discomfort. “Rook didn’t get nary a scratch.”

“Begging your pardon, but he was bruised where Rutledge socked him in the face and stomach.”

“Yes, but he’s fine,” Cassie responded. “Everyone’s fine.” She sighed, hearing the lonely hoot of the train whistle. “I hate to send you off, but I’m mighty glad you decided to close down your business and go live with your sister and brother-in-law.”

Jewel tugged at her black gloves. “Well, Pearl needs me. Hollis is downright senile these days, and he’s too much for her to handle. Me and Pearl will have a fine time. We always got along real good. I’m looking forward to a quiet life.”