Chapter 25
Hawk hadn’t ridden more than five minutes before he saw a familiar figure racing toward him.
Sloan.
He continued forward until they met; both men reined in hard. “Did you come in from Gold Town? Did you pass Skylar?” Hawk demanded.
“Skylar’s gone?” Sloan demanded in turn.
“She just rode toward town—”
“She isn’t on the way to town. I would have seen her.
Hawk, you have to listen to me. I overheard a conversation at the Ten-Penny.
There’s been a bounty out on your wife. Huge money, payable in gold, for Skylar.
Dead or alive. That weasel Abel was passing the word on it.
There was money, and power, behind the offer. ”
“Dillman!” Hawk muttered. “Dillman is in my house right now. He was trying to tell me Skylar is insane, that he was crippled because of her.”
“He might be crippled, but he has the dregs of the territory out to find her.”
“Did you see signs of a struggle anywhere—”
“I wasn’t looking. I was trying to reach you.”
“Let’s look now. Time, Sloan, time might mean everything.”
They kneed their mounts, rocketing mercilessly out along the trail once again.
As they rode, they could see a wagon coming in the distance.
Hawk slowed his horse, nearing Sloan. “It’s Henry’s wagon.
He must have Skylar’s sister with him. That’s why Skylar lit out of the house so wildly—she was afraid of Dillman getting his hands on her sister. ”
“We’ll send him back to town.”
Hawk shook his head. “We’ll send him to the cabin.”
But even as they rode closer to the approaching wagon, riders burst out from the westward edge of the forest. Shots were fired. The wagon started careening wildly.
“The whole damned world has gone mad!” Hawk exclaimed. He was unarmed, except for the knife he wore in his ankle sheath.
Sloan pulled his Colt Army pistol from his holster. He fired off several shots, taking careful aim at the half dozen painted men shrieking toward the wagon. The attackers, looking to the north, hadn’t seen them observe the assault.
Hawk saw that Henry was no coward. He rose behind the reins of his small flatbed wagon, firing off his shotgun. Then he was hit in the shoulder. He fell back against the seat. The woman beside him, her face hidden by a wide-brimmed hat, shrieked, bending over poor Henry.
Sloan picked off two of the attackers with his Colt while they thundered down upon the wagon.
Bullets sizzled by their ears in turn. Hawk would have been hit straight in the heart, but he had learned how to ride as a Sioux.
When the bullet came, his body was on Tor’s side, and the lead ball of death hurtled on by him.
He straightened and came upon one of the dressed-up white men in time to leap from Tor’s back and hurtle his opponent to the ground before the man could get off a shot.
His wife’s life was at stake. His own life, now, too. He reached his knife in seconds.
He killed the man with merciful speed, then stole his pistol.
It was out of date, but it had three shots left.
He spun just as he heard a rustling behind him, shooting another painted white man who would have attacked him.
He rose, just in time to see Sloan leaping atop the step of the wagon to kill the last of the attackers, a man now bent over the woman, trying to wrest her from the wagon.
Sloan wrenched the fellow up to a stand with a grip upon his shoulder, then felled him with a blow against his neck.
The man silently catapulted from the wagon.
The woman kept shrieking.
“Stop it!” Sloan shouted, holding her back taut to his chest, grappling her arms to her sides and twisting her around so that she faced Hawk. “Hawk, this isn’t—”
“Hawk! You’re Hawk! Oh, my God, get this man—”
“Sabrina?” Hawk said. She was striking. Auburn hair now wild and tangled around a beautiful face.
Her features were something like Skylar’s, but her coloring was completely different.
Her figure was an hourglass form. Together, the sisters were like a perfect pair of fairy-tale princesses, Rose Red and Rose White, perhaps.
“Hawk, this woman—”
“Lord Douglas, this man—”
“She isn’t Sabrina, Hawk, she’s—”
“I am Sabrina Connor!” the woman exclaimed.
“She’s not! She’s—”
“Who the bloody hell is this wretched bastard?” she hissed.
Hawk’s brows shot up. “Sabrina Connor, a very good friend and associate, Major Sloan Trelawney. Sloan, my sister-in-law, Sabrina Connor.”
Sabrina Connor had something of her sister’s fighting spirit about her as well. She stamped hard upon Sloan’s booted foot.
“Will you let go of me, please, Major?”
Sloan grated out, “I still don’t believe—”
“Wait!” Hawk said, putting up a hand when it looked as if both would begin arguing again. “Riders coming again, from the south. Sabrina, see if Henry is breathing.Sloan—toss me Henry’s gun.”
He ducked down, taking aim at the half-score of riders now coming toward them. Sloan sank down as well, his Colt leveled upon his arm.
They came into view. Dillman’s two aides first. Then two other men, white men, strangers to the territory. They had a look about them. Professional gunfighters, Hawk thought.
Behind them rode Dillman.
With Skylar seated before him on his mount.
For a crippled man, he was riding damned well.
“Are you going to shoot, Lord Douglas?” Dillman called out. “It wouldn’t be a very good idea. I’d kill her before you could even pray to hit me.”
Hawk stood, shoving the pistol through his belt loop.
The group remained perhaps twenty-five feet away from him.
He met Skylar’s eyes. He could see them clearly at this distance.
They were filled with misery and more. A wealth of sorrow that she had involved him in this.
Love. Aching. She didn’t move, but he could see it all there.
So much that he had missed for so long. She wanted to come to him…
She sat dead still. Staring at him with those silver eyes. They misted. “Hawk, I’m so sorry—” she began.
“I nearly had to kill her to get here, Douglas. Or do they call you Hawk, Lord of the Plains? She thought she could keep you safe if she bargained well enough with herself. But then, I’m a gambling man.
I’ve always been a gambling man. If this territory wasn’t filled with idiots, she might be dead now, and you might be a grieving young widower.
I hate to be forced to show my hand. If you’d agreed that she was mentally unbalanced, I’d have been happy to take her back east and leave you a free man.
Unfortunately, this territory is filled with incompetent fools. ”
“Not everyone would have been fooled, no matter what your offers of gold might have accomplished. You wanted to escalate the Indian problems in the West, didn’t you, Dillman?”
Dillman shrugged. “I don’t give a damn about the Indians. They don’t need me to escalate their problems. Let’s just say that I meant to use a situation already well underway. Sabrina! How nice to see you. What a pity you hadn’t the good sense to figure out where a decent future awaited you!”
“What a pity I didn’t have the damned good sense to realize what a lying pathetic fake you were! You’re riding damned well for a cripple, Dillman.”
“Indeed, I am. I have a will of steel, girl, and of course, I had your capable, tender care—until recently. Ah, well. Is the driver dead?”
“No,” Sabrina said. “But he needs medical attention—”
“See if he’s blacked out. It might do well to leave the attorney, since he must have been struck by these painted fools on the ground here before they let themselves be killed by a pair of half-breeds.”
“Dillman, just what the hell do you think you’re going to get away with?” Hawk demanded.
“This is Lord Douglas,” Sloan spoke out, “And I am a US Army major, not a drunken prospector or desperate agency Indian.”
Dillman smiled, showing them the knife that he’d been pressing against Skylar’s side. It was tipped with blood. Hawk almost made a move. Thought better of it. Dillman was trying to goad him.
“Don’t let him get away with this!” Skylar suddenly cried out.
“Hawk, whatever happens to me, shoot the bastard! Don’t let him bring you and Sloan and Sabrina down, too!
” She broke off with an involuntary shriek of pain.
Hawk took a step forward. Sloan leaped down from the wagon, catching his shoulders.
“We can take them all if we just wait for the right moment!” Sloan said, switching to the Sioux language.
Sloan was right.
“What do you want?” Hawk demanded.
“You have a cabin in the woods, I understand. Let’s go there.
I take your weapons, of course, gentlemen.
Major, Lord Douglas, mount your horses, please.
And keep your distance from one another at all times.
The big fellows here with the feral eyes are George and Macy.
Between them, they’ve logged well over a hundred kills.
In fact, they’re wanted for murder in several places, but I can take care of that for them.
” He brought the point of his knife up to Skylar’s throat. “Well, gentlemen—do we ride?”
The man he had called Macy dismounted from his horse and seized Sloan’s and Hawk’s weapons. He didn’t seem to realize Hawk carried a knife at his calf. One small point in their favor.
Hawk turned to help Sabrina Connor down from the wagon.
“Sabrina, dear, you ride with Macy,” Dillman said.
“I’d rather be dragged,” Sabrina replied.
“That can be arranged,” Dillman assured her.
“Get on the damned horse with him!” Sloan snapped to her.
Sabrina had little choice. Macy was large and powerful and could handle the weapons and Sabrina quite easily.