Once a Renegade Read online

"What was that?" Jackson asked in a hushed voice.

  "It was one of the horses, you old coot," the kid said caustically. "What'd ye think it was?'

  Jackson's head was cocked, listening. "What's got 'em riled?"

  "Nothin's got 'em riled," the kid said snidely. "They're horses. They nicker once in a while."

  Jackson looked at Mueller. Sucking on his quirley, Mueller shrugged.

  The kid laughed. "What do you think—ole Louis Shambeau's comin' to twist my horns fer shootin' his mule?" He laughed again and reached for his whiskey cup. "You two are worse than a couple old women."

  Another nicker rose above the soft popping of the fire in the stove.

  Jackson looked up from the cribbage board at Mueller. "Think you should check it out?"

  "Why in the hell should I check it out?"

  The kid cursed angrily and heaved himself up from the cot. "Here—I'll check it out." He opened the cabin door and called into the black night, "Hey, Shambeau, you out there?"

  "Kid, close the damn door!" Mueller rasped.

  The kid swaggered drunkenly, one hand on the door latch. "Come on out, Louis," the kid squealed. "Come out, come out, wherever you are. Come out so I can kick your half-breed ass for you. You're frightening these old women in here."

  "Kid!" Jackson scolded.

  Falk turned from the door, closing it behind him. "Well, I guess he ain't out there," he said. "You old women can shut up about it now and let me sleep."

  He sat on his cot and kicked his boots off. He lay down, punched his pillow, and drew the blankets up.

  Mueller and Jackson listened quietly, but the only sound was the fire in the stove and a mouse gnawing something beneath the floor. Finally Mueller shrugged, and Jackson returned it. They poured fresh whiskies and hunkered over their game. In a few minutes the kid was snoring.

  When he and Jackson had finished another game twenty minutes later, Mueller scraped his chair back, stretching and yawning. "Well, I'm gonna go out and shake the dew from my lily."

  "Don't let the breed get ye," Jackson cracked.

  Mueller snorted and headed for the door. He stepped outside and stopped, listening and watching. The sky was broadly brushed with stars. The horses were still shadows in the hitch-and-rail corral, silver-limned by the moon rising over the peaks. The air was damp-cool, rife with the smell of the pine wafting from the tin stovepipe.

  Finally Mueller gave a self-chastising grunt at his apprehension and walked left of the cabin, near a dirty snowdrift peppered with pine needles, and unbuttoned his trousers. He sighed and cut loose, but it took him several minutes of grunting to get a decent stream going. That damn whiskey. Every year it seemed to take him longer and longer to get rid of it.

  Behind him a horse blew. Mueller jerked his head up, looking around. The pines were mostly still. A few branches bobbed almost imperceptibly.

  He looked behind him, at the cabin, corral, and at the wood stacked beneath the brush arbors. The wagon sat before the corral, the tongue angling downward.

  Nothing seemed to be moving. Still, the hair pricked along Mueller's spine, and he tried to hurry his stream, cursing himself for not bringing a gun out here. But if he had, Jackson would've laughed.

  Finally he buttoned up and, looking warily around, headed for the cabin. He tripped the latch and opened the door, trying not to breathe too hard. Jackson was stoking the stove with a stick, whiskey cup in one hand. The kid slept, curled on his side. Jackson looked at Mueller.

  "Any bogeymen out there?" he asked with a grin.

  "Ha-ha."

  Mueller swung the door closed behind him. He'd taken two steps toward the table when the door exploded inward, wood casing flying everywhere. Before he could turn around, a man in a buffalo coat bolted into the room, grabbed his hair to steady his head, and ran a wide-bladed knife across his throat.

  Mueller didn't even have time to scream. As he dropped to his knees, stunned, blood gushing from his neck, Jackson jumped up from his chair. His face was a mask of horror and surprise. Before he had time to lunge for his gun, the intruder threw his gigantic knife. It careened end over end through the air and landed in Jackson's chest with a whomp and a snap.

  By this time the kid had bolted off his cot, bounding toward the chair over which his gun belt was looped. The intruder lifted an old Colt Navy and fired. The kid screamed and went down howling.

  Grabbing a second big knife from his belts, the intruder leaped toward him, grabbed a' handful of his thick auburn hair, and gave a savage pull, yanking the kid's head back. Holding the kid's head with one hand, wielding the knife with the other, the intruder shouted, "You think it's funny to shoot my mule!"

  Then, in one clean swipe of the knife, he sliced the kid's scalp from his head and held the bloody mane high in his fist. "I didn't think it was funny! Not at all. But this—I think this is very funny." His laugh was low and throaty.

  The kid was screaming, rolling on his back, and holding his head. "My hair! Ah, my God! My hair!"

  The intruder walked to the door and turned around. He held the kid's scalp aloft once more, a silver-toothed grin on his big, bearded face. "Now it's my turn to laugh, no?" Then he turned and was gone as fast as he'd come.

  The sound was like a stout branch snapping far away, but something told Roy Early that it had not been a branch. It had sounded more like a pistol shot.

  Early brought his gray mare to a halt on a hillside over the creek he had just crossed and listened, his heart quickening, feeling hopeful. Normally if he were out here alone at night, the sound of a gun would not be a welcome one at all. But tonight Roy Early, who ranched with his brother along Rock Creek east of the town of Big Sandy, had gotten himself lost.

  He didn't know how he'd done it, but he'd been chasing a herd of elk late in the day and suddenly ceased recognizing terrain. Then it got dark, and here he was, listening for another shot that might lead him to people who could point him home.

  At the moment he wasn't too worried about how friendly they were. He just wanted to get home before his horse played out. Besides, that pistol shot had probably been fired by another hunter like himself, or by some line rider trying to keep a coon away from his grub sack.

  When no more shots pierced the cool, quiet night, Early gigged his horse along the mountain, through a sprinkling of pines casting their dark silhouettes against the starry sky and down through an aspen copse. When he came to a game trail, he followed it in what seemed an easterly direction but for all he knew could've been north or even west. There weren't enough stars out yet to get a decent reckoning.

  Finally a dull light shone through the trees on his left, and Early, feeling almost giddy with relief, swung the mare off the trail. When he came to the clearing in which the cabin sat, he stopped.

  Whores in hell! That was the Bar 7's woodcutting shack, which meant this was Davis Hollow and he was a good six miles and several watersheds from where he'd started out!

  Amazed that he could have gotten this lost and relieved to know where he was at last—in spite of having a long ride home through the dark—he spurred his horse ahead. But then he stopped, frowning.

  The gunshot.

  Wariness creeping in, he called, "Hello the cabin!" His voice was tentative, cautious.

  He peered at the hovel through the pine branches, waiting and listening. There were no sounds but the distant calls of night birds and occasional coyotes. He'd ridden up on the cabin's backside, and a single window shed wan yellow light on the half-melted snowdrift below. The window betrayed no movement within.

  Puzzled, Early gigged his horse slowly forward, its hooves crunching pinecones and needles. When he came to the window, he ducked his head to peer inside. Instantly he recoiled, gasping.

  "My Lord!"

  He kneed the horse around the cabin and dismounted, letting the reins drop. Muttering oaths beneath his breath, he ran to the open door and stopped, looking inside with his jaw hanging. He stood there, at once shuddering and sweating inside h
is wool-lined denim coat, hands away from his sides, fingers twitching.

  "Jesus... Jesus God... what the...hell?”

  Then one of the men inside groaned painfully, gave a clipped cry. Surprised that any of them were alive, least of all the youngest one lying in a pool of his own blood, a grisly red swath where his hair had been, Early kicked a fallen chair away and moved into the cabin.

  He knelt beside the kid. The kid's eyes were squeezed shut, but his lips were moving. "Hel... hel-p... me... please!”

  Chapter Three

  BEN STILLMAN AWOKE to soft morning light touching the bedroom window. No frost on the glass nor any ubiquitous icy chill seeping through the sill and up from the floor.

  Winter was over.

  This far north, only forty miles from the Canadian line, that was a real blessing. Like a second birth, no matter how many times you'd been through it.

  "Jesus, I'm getting old," Stillman groused to himself, keeping his voice a whisper.

  He remembered hearing his father and his father's friends grouch about the cold and snow back in Pennsylvania and not understanding the aversion. He'd been a boy who loved snowball fights and sleigh rides. He hadn't even minded forking hay all day in the pasture when the temperature stayed well below zero.

  Now he understood. And the fact that he did meant he was getting old—as if the salt in his longish brown hair and thick mustache hadn't begun telling him that several years ago, when he'd hit forty.

  Okay, so he was middle-aged. Nevertheless, he thought now, his hands laced behind his head, he always felt young when spring hit, melting the drifts along First Street and pushing the first green shoots up through the pastures surrounding the town. His town: Clantick, Montana Territory.

  The soft, pinkish opal light made him think of his wife, and he turned to her now, sleeping beside him, her chocolate tresses fanned across her pillow. With his eyes he traced the straight, delicate line of her lovely jaw, caressed her smooth, pale cheeks, the almond shapes of her closed eyes, the resolute nub of her dimpled chin.

  An aristocratic chin. Hell, the whole package, right down to her toes, belonged to the French gentry. Her family's name had been Beaumont, and though they'd ranched along the Powder River in Montana, they'd immigrated from France when Fay was a child, and she'd been homeschooled in the French classics and Latin.

  Every inch of her bespoke that regal lineage. But Still-man had her now—the middle-aged sheriff of a little one-horse town in the middle of nowhere who hated winter, loved spring, suffered the bullet a drunk parlor girl had lodged in his back several years ago, and tended chickens in the little makeshift coop in his backyard.

  He grinned at the thought of his having this lovely young woman in his bed. His wife of three years. This bewitching French princess.

  His desire stirred. She seemed to sense it and opened her eyes, the two brown orbs burrowing at him through the misty shadows. Reading his mind, the corners of her full mouth rose slightly.

  "I know what you're thinking about, Sheriff." As always, her silky voice betrayed a slight French accent, arousing him further.

  "Better not. It's still early, and you need your sleep."

  Her eyes burned sensually into his as she slid toward him and lowered her hands through the quilts, finding him. "Are you sure?"

  Stillman swallowed as she worked very softly, deftly, gently torturing him with her fingers. "No."

  She smiled and sat up, the quilts falling away. Quickly she lifted her nightgown over her head, shaking her thick hair back from her shoulders, exposing her heavy, round breasts. She turned and straddled him, drawing the quilts over her shoulders with one hand.

  Then, tightening her thighs against his hips, she leaned down and kissed him, probing his mouth with her tongue. He put his arms around her and held her tightly as they kissed. He balled his fists in her hair and sighed with desire, feeling her squirm against him, flattening her breasts against his chest.

  He ran his large hands down her fragile, narrow back to her round bottom, caressing her, enjoying the silky feel of her skin against his own. Then she drew away from his mouth, giving his lower lip an enticing nibble, and kissed her way down his chest and belly, until her hot, wet mouth closed over him and he it was all he could do to keep from screaming.

  Afterward, they lay talking languidly about the day ahead, and then they made love once more in the traditional way.

  When they were through, she held him there, ran her hands through his thick mane. "My ... what's with you this morning?" She gave a luscious laugh.

  He smiled and kissed her smooth forehead. "I feel... young today."

  "You are young."

  "Not in years."

  "You're forty-six."

  “That's old. On the frontier, that's ancient."

  "Well, it's not the frontier anymore. Not really. Haven't you heard about the electric lights they're getting back East? And Crystal told me just the other day about horseless carriages."

  Stillman shook his head. "They ain't here yet. No, this is still the frontier, will be for a good while to come. A place where young men get old awful fast."

  "Well, I disagree," she said, rubbing his leathery cheeks between her hands and kissing his lips playfully. "And anyway, you're not old. No old man performs the way you just performed, dear heart." She laughed again, lustily.

  Stillman sighed and swung out of bed, nude, and walked to the window. He stepped to the side so Mrs. Bennett from next door didn't peek in, as she was wont to do, and have a stroke.

  "Doesn't matter," he said dreamily, staring out at the burgeoning dawn. "It's spring, and I feel young." He glanced over his shoulder at Fay. "But then, there's really no excuse for not always feeling young, married to a woman like you."

  "Why, thank you, kind Sheriff."

  She smiled radiantly, as only Fay could smile, then tossed away the quilts, and swung her coltish legs to the floor. Standing, she grabbed a flannel wrapper off a wall peg. Heading for the door, she said, "I'll get a fire going and put the coffee on. I should get over to the school as soon as I can. More grading to do."

  "You assign too many themes," he called to her.

  "Don't I know it," she returned from down the hall.

  Stillman had washed at the basin and was combing his hair in the mirror over the washstand when he spied movement out the window. Setting down the comb, he peered out. Three men on horseback were trotting down the street, including Stillman's deputy, Leon McMannigle. The other two men Stillman recognized as rancher Walt Hendricks and his foreman, Dave Groom.

  Frowning, Stillman watched the three disappear around the house, knowing by the serious expression on his deputy's face they were heading here.

  "What now?" Stillman asked himself, reaching for his shirt.

  Hendricks had had problems with horse thieves last fall. If he was having them again, Stillman could look forward to three or four days on horseback in the Two-Bear Mountains, where it was no doubt still plenty cold. "Christ."

  He grabbed his gun belt and was heading for the living room when someone knocked on the door. "I'll get it," he called to Fay, who met him halfway with a mug of coffee.

  He kissed her cheek, accepted the coffee, and opened the door. McMannigle stood on the porch—a rangy, muscular black man with a pleasant face and humorous eyes. His deputy sheriff's star caught the morning light, glowing brightly against his black cowhide vest.

  Behind him, Hendricks and Groom sat their horses stiffly. Neither one waved or even acknowledged Stillman with his eyes.

  "Mornin'," Stillman said to his deputy.

  "Mornin', Ben." Leon's voice was grim, his expression at once wry and ominous.

  “Trouble?"

  "Yep." The deputy jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "I wanted to come alone and get you, call you over to the jail, but they wanted to tag along. They're a little hot under the collar. Left their ranch about five o'clock this morning."

  "Horse thieves?"

  "Nope." McMannigle's
eyes were round and dark. Stillman could tell he wanted him to get the story from Hendricks himself, which meant it was bigger trouble than he'd suspected.

  "Ah, crap." Stillman sighed. "Entertain them a minute, will you?"

  "Sure."

  Stillman went back in and found his buckskin mackinaw and scarf, which he hadn't worn for a couple weeks but he'd need if he was called into the Two-Bears. Hendricks's ranch was up fairly high. When he'd grabbed his soogan from the closet in the hall, he walked into the kitchen.

  Fay turned from the range, a spatula in her hand. She looked at the mackinaw and bedroll in Stillman's arms and winced, knowing it had been trouble at the door. "What is it?"

  "I don't know, but Walt Hendricks is out there lookin' like he drank some bad milk. I may be awhile."

  "I hope it's not last fall all over again." She was referring to the horse thieves he'd chased for the better part of a week last October, and whom he'd finally caught on the eastern slopes of the Two-Bears with twelve of Hendricks's best peg ponies.

  Stillman shook his head and finished his coffee. "Hard to tell."

  "Here—eat." Fay was shoveling eggs onto a plate. "I didn't have time to fry bacon."

  "No time," he said, and kissed her cheek.

  "Ben, you have to eat something!"

  He looked at her. Seeing how determined and worried she was, he grabbed a fork and shoveled several loads into his mouth. He washed them down with coffee from Fay's cup and kissed her on that ravishing mouth.

  He looked at her seriously. “I'm sorry," he said. "I know it's always something." He meant more than that; he meant he was sorry for bringing her back here from Denver to live as a sheriff's wife and one-room school teacher when she deserved so much more. All that was in his eyes.

  She returned his look, smiled, and pinched his cheeks lovingly, bringing her face close to his. "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, I'm happy... as long as you are."

  He smiled and kissed her again. "Gotta go. Give those little jaspers hell today."

  "Ben, you be careful!" she called as he headed through the living room.