Three Men and a Bounty (19 page)

Besides, Troy and James know there’s no safer place for this chil’

than right where he’s at. That’s why they left him here in the first place.”

“This ain’t no concern a yours, you old heifer.”

“Hannah!”

She didn’t give Chris a chance to express his shock much further before she shoved Lucy out of the way and pulled a revolver from the back of her trousers to point at him. “You’re coming with me now, understand?”

Chris glanced at the gun in disbelief but couldn’t obey, not with Lucy sprawled in the dirt a few feet away. He moved to help her up, then froze when Hannah fired her gun in the air.

Three Men and a Bounty

149

“The next one’s in her head. Makes no never mind to me whether she lives or dies, just that you…come…with…me!” Hannah grabbed his arm and pushed him toward the wagon.

Chris stumbled and caught the side of the seat to keep from landing in the dirt.

He hadn’t noticed how strong she was before now, how

formidable. He had just been concerned with not hurting her feelings.

This Hannah, though, was a far cry from the helpful saloon girl at Barrow’s. This Hannah was violent and far from vulnerable. And she was pointing her gun straight at Lucy’s head.

“No!” Caesar rushed out of the house at a sprint, and Hannah didn’t hesitate to turn the gun on him. He slid to a halt, arms in the air.

“I weren’t about to waste a bullet on your wench, but since you’re here, I could use an extra pair of hands.” Hannah went to the wagon and removed several lengths of rope. She tossed them at Caesar. “Tie bright eyes here to the buckboard behind the seat, and when you’re done, you can tie your woman to that tree.”

Chris watched Caesar’s jaw work as he gritted his teeth.

“I don’t want to waste any bullets, but if I have to, your woman will be the first one I drill one into, believe me.”

“No, don’t. I’ll do what you ask.” Caesar bent to pick up the rope and approached Chris with a rueful look on his face. “Sorry, boy.”

Caesar helped Chris up into the buckboard, then under Hannah’s instructions and watchful gaze, he made Chris sit with his back to the front seat and his wrists behind his back, then tied his wrists to the sturdy wood frame of the wagon seat.

Chris had flashes of Troy and James binding his wrists to the bed last night. He’d never felt safer or more protected then. Not like now.

Now he feared for his life and those of his new friends Lucy and Caesar.

Hannah checked the ropes binding Chris’ wrists once Caesar completed his task, grunting with satisfaction. Chris could have saved her the trouble and told her there was absolutely no way he could get
150

Gigi Moore

out of his restraints, not that Hannah would have believed him, anyway.

At gunpoint, Caesar helped his wife over to the tall, nearby oak and proceeded to tie her to its trunk.

Chris watched them, felt tears in his own eyes as he watched tears roll down the older couple’s faces. Each looked at the other with love and trust shining out of their eyes. It was as if they knew they would come out of this fine because they were together.

A ball of regret and fear tightened in his chest as he thought about dying alone, shot by Hannah without ever have the chance to tell Troy and James how he really felt about them. Shot dead before he could hear from them how they felt about him. Caesar had just finished tying Lucy to the tree when Hannah approached him from behind, raised her gun, and brought the butt down hard against the back of Caesar’s skull.

“No!” Lucy struggled against her bindings, growling low in her throat.

There was such unaccustomed rage on her face, Chris thought had she been able to get out of her ropes she might have killed Hannah with her bare hands.

“You didn’t have to hurt him like that.”

“You should be grateful I didn’t shoot him.”

Lucy glanced up at Hannah with hatred in her eyes, but it didn’t seem to affect the young woman, and Chris wondered why Hannah seemed so heartless. Wondered why she did this.

Hannah pulled a folded piece of paper from a pocket of her trousers and dropped it onto Lucy’s lap. “That’ll explain everything to your precious marshal and Troy when they get back. They’ll know where to find me and their darling…” Hannah paused and turned to Chris, her lips curling in disgust as she said, “Boy.”

“There’s no need to hurt that chil’. Whatever beef you have with James and Troy you take that up with them.”

Three Men and a Bounty

151

“I didn’t ask for your opinion, you old biddy. Don’t make me change my mind about shooting you, or I’ll just take my chances and trust the marshal and Troy to find my note on your dead body.”

Chris struggled against his ropes and shouted, “Stop threatening her! She hasn’t done anything to you.”

Hannah circled the wagon until she stood next to the buckboard, glaring at him for a long moment before she walked away, out of his line of sight. She returned several moments later, wielding a kerchief and a burlap sack. He tensed as she approached, and she paused, a smile on her face.

“Give me a hard time and I’ll put you to sleep like I did your friend back there.”

Chris sat still as she closed the space between them, determined not to show her his fear.

He knew he needed to keep his wits about him. He needed to stay aware. Even if she did blindfold and gag him, he wouldn’t let himself panic or be totally helpless.

Hannah put the kerchief in his mouth and tied it tight behind his head, then slid the dark sack down over his head.

Chris had to force himself to stay calm despite feeling like he suffocated. He felt like he had when those hands had him bound and gagged in that barn ready to do unspeakable things to him. He felt ashamed and vulnerable, like what happened to him now remained all his fault.

He listened as Hannah climbed up into the wagon seat and clicked her tongue at the horse. The wagon shot forward with Hannah in control.

She wasn’t in control of Chris, though. He wouldn’t let her be.

Chris perked up his ears to listen to his surroundings as the buckboard bumped and jerked over the ground.

They rode for a long while before Chris heard the familiar ebb and flow of a stream.

152

Gigi Moore

The memorable aroma of the forest and sounds of a nearby waterfall overwhelmed him so much until he had no doubt where Hannah headed.

His stomach lurched at the idea that Troy’s secret cove would be corrupted by whatever malicious plans she had for him, Troy, and James.

The wagon stopped without warning, and Chris listened as Hannah jumped down from the seat and walked around the wagon to him. She snatched off the burlap sack, then pulled the kerchief out of his mouth and left it down around his neck.

“Ain’t nobody out here to hear you scream, and if there are, well, I’ll just take care of them right and proper.” She wielded the gun in front of his face as if to remind him that she remained the one giving orders and he remained just a slave to her will.

She leaned back on her heels to stare at him a moment as if trying to decide what to do with him, and Chris stared right back, refusing to be cowed.

He couldn’t, however, stop his curiosity from getting the best of him and blurted, “What now?”

“Now we wait.” She moved her hand so fast Chris didn’t know what hit him. One minute he sat staring at her, and the next the back of his head exploded with exquisite pain until there remained nothing but silent darkness.

Three Men and a Bounty

153

Something was wrong. Troy could feel it in his bones. He’d been feeling off since he and James had hit the road en route to Wolf Creek, and the feeling had only intensified the closer they got to town.

His feelings had not been mistaken.

Troy and James had been bushwhacked by Cain and his gang just after entering the town proper. If it hadn’t been for Bart and several of the other town’s men who’d come to their aid, the undertaker might just be sizing him and James for a pair of coffins now.

Neither Cain nor his men had gone down easily, however, and once James had him and his remaining men, who had only been injured and not killed, in custody and settled in the local jail, Troy had been able to breathe a little easier. He’d thought the misgivings he’d been experiencing since they’d left James’ home were over, that he had no more reason to feel uneasy.

This thought proved wrong, however.

“What’s troubling you, young’un?”

He still hadn’t grown accustomed to James calling him young’un.

He’d been on his own, taking care of himself and without anyone much to care whether he lived or died, besides maybe Josie and Josiah, that he didn’t think of himself as anyone’s young’un. Except when James looked at him with the concern and stern look that he looked at him with now, he felt like a teenager still missing his father, still needing guidance.

“I’m not sure, just that…” A sudden blinding flash of pain attacked the back of Troy’s head. He felt almost as if he had been
154

Gigi Moore

shot. He closed his eyes against the pain and bent forward on his horse, gasping for breath.

“Troy, what’s the matter?”

He shook his head, unable to speak, unsure if, when he did, James would believe him. He pulled his horse to a stop, and felt James do the same beside him. He took several long moments to catch his breath, still reeling with pain and the vision he had witnessed.

He opened his eyes to see James’ anxious expression and shook his head. “It’s not over.”

“What’s not over?”

“Chris is in trouble.” He didn’t know how or why he knew, but he knew something had happened, was happening, to the kid as surely as he could shift to wolf. “We need to hurry.” Troy spurred his horse into a gallop.

Wordlessly, James followed suit. Troy could hear the hoof beats of James’ horse dogging Troy’s horse’s heels. He remained glad he didn’t have to waste time explaining any more than necessary when time proved of the utmost importance.

Troy saw the felled bodies behind the barn, and his heart tripped.

“Oh, Lord, no!” James saw them too and brought his horse to a stop before leaping off and running to Lucy and Caesar at the large oak.

Troy got off his horse before the animal fully stopped, running behind James and skidding to a stop just beside him. He watched as James bent to untie Lucy’s bindings.

Troy made himself useful tending to Caesar, who slowly came around at his prompting.

“Lordy, is he all right?” Lucy asked, ringing her hands.

Troy helped Caesar to his feet, and held on as the man steadied himself against the tree.

Lucy stood on the other side of him and wrapped an arm around her husband’s waist.

Three Men and a Bounty

155

“I’ll be all right. Don’t worry about me none,” Caesar assured them. “It’s that boy you need to worry about.”

“Chris? Where’d he get off to?” Troy asked. The heart in his throat clogged it so much he was surprised he could get the words out.

Lucy handed over a folded piece of paper, wiping tears from her eyes with her free hand as Troy took it.

He unfolded the paper and quickly read, the words running together as his vision blurred with apprehension.

“Some young lady came out here in a wagon, threatened us all with a gun, and had Caesar tie Chris to the buckboard. Strangest thing, Chris seemed to know her. He called her—”

“Hannah,” Troy rasped when he got to the signature at the end of the note.

“The young dancehall girl from your saloon?” James asked.

Troy nodded, handing the note over to James. “She wants both of us to come out to the cove.” He looked at James as James read the note, and when James looked up at him with the same confused look that Troy knew he wore, Troy said what was on both their minds.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out.” James turned to Lucy and Caesar, forehead creased with concern. “You two going to be all right?”

“We’re right as rain,” Lucy quickly assured him. “You two hurry on now and get that boy back. I don’t trust that little hussy far as I can throw her not to hurt him. She was a mean little thing. Mean as a rattler.”

The description seemed so far removed from the Hannah that Troy knew, so far removed from the young waif he had taken in and given a job to two years ago, that it made his head spin with disbelief.

Hannah couldn’t have been much older than Chris.

What made her such a heartless criminal? What made a young thing like that resort to kidnapping and violence, and why strike against the three of them? Troy had been nothing but kind to her since
156

Gigi Moore

he’d met her, had only tried his best to help her because he knew what it was like to be alone in the world. What beef could she possibly have with him, Chris, or James?

Rather than dwell on the why, he concentrated on locating Chris, concentrated on connecting with the link that had been established at the point when Troy felt the pain in his head. He tried to home in on that link and found it non-existent. It was as if a light had been snuffed out.

He swallowed hard when he remembered how intense, how

blinding the pain had been.

Christ, he hoped Hannah hadn’t shot Chris or worse. Troy couldn’t countenance a world without that kid in it. He didn’t want to exist in one without Chris.

Except there remained James, and Troy did love both the younger and older man dearly.

He looked at James and saw his fear hovering just under the surface, but like Troy, he tried to keep it at bay—for Chris.

It still didn’t stop James from rushing off to mount his horse as soon as he finished reading the note and pocketing it.

“Where are you going?”

“To find them.”

“Not so fast.” Troy approached James’ horse and grabbed the reins with one hand as he pet the animal’s head with his other. “We need to devise a plan before we run off half-cocked.”

He watched James close his eyes and take a deep breath. Several moments later, he opened his eyes to look at Troy and nodded.