Long Road to LaRosa (West Texas Sunrise Book #2)

by Paul Bagdon

  And it was then that his horse lived up to his name. A sudden, explosive snort cut the silence like the roar of a cannon. The outlaw’s eyes instinctively swept in Snorty’s direction, and he swung the barrel of his rifle toward the sound at the same time. Ben was already in motion, throwing himself to his left, both hands finding, snagging, and drawing in an adrenaline-fueled motion. The muzzle flash of the outlaw’s 30.06 slashed the night at the same time the slug cut a shallow groove over Ben’s right ear.

  Ben fired twice before his body struck the ground. Rolling and firing again, he came to his knees and shot off two more rounds. There’d been no time to aim, no time to gauge precisely where the outlaw stood. He’d fired at the burst of light—and that was all he needed. The first two rounds staggered the outlaw, shoving him back a step. Then his final two rounds slammed into the man’s chest. He was dead before he joined his rifle on the sandy dirt.

  Ben stood with stooped shoulders, breathing hard with his Colt in his hand. After a stunned moment, he felt the sweat running like tears from his face. The stink of gunpowder, blood, and his own fear sickened him, and he turned away from where he knew the corpse lay.

  He holstered his guns and dragged a shirtsleeve across his face. He moved his lips silently in the darkness.

  * * *

  4

  * * *

  Lee’s eyes followed Stone as he rode past her, and a shiver took her for a moment. When the clouds drifted away from the face of the moon, she noticed that the other men were tired, listless, and dull eyed. But Stone sat straight in his saddle, with his eyes constantly in motion and his fingertips within inches of his pistol. The smoke from his stogie burned Lee’s eyes and scratched at the inside of her nose. When she sneezed, the big horse under her reacted with a quick side step, and the Mexican outlaw lurched clumsily, fighting for his balance. He cursed his horse as he settled again into the saddle. Stone circled back, grinning.

  “Almost lost your seat there, Pablo. You might better stay awake. You go to sleep an’ the lady shoves you off your horse, we ain’t got nothin’ that’d catch her. That’d put an end to you, boy—I’ll tell you that for sure.” The grin was gone, and his eyes were reptilian in the moonlight.

  When the Mexican looked away from his leader, unable to hold eye contact, Stone reined his horse back so that he was side by side with Lee.

  “That’s jist what you were thinkin’, now, wasn’t it? Dumpin’ the Mex an’ ridin’ off on that good horse of his?”

  Tendrils of cigar smoke drifted toward Lee, and she used her left hand to dissipate them. “Whatever it takes is what I’ll do.”

  She hadn’t turned her head as she spoke, so the pain caught her unaware. She moved instinctively, the fingers of her left hand catching the tip of Stone’s cigar and dislodging the glowing end. Tears sprang from her eyes at the pain, but she refused to make a sound. She touched the burned spot on the side of her face gingerly and felt the blister that already was rising. Her skin felt raw, as if it’d been scraped away by a dull knife.

  “Now you gone an’ wrecked my smoke,” Stone chuckled. He rode beside her for several strides. “You gotta remember one thing,” he said. “You ain’t nothin’ but a hunk of bait to me—jist a make-sure that your voodoo book man will come after me. That’s for true, missy. An’ you know I’ll kill you if the fancy strikes me, don’t you?”

  Lee was silent.

  “Answer me!”

  Her voice was barely a whisper. “I . . . yes. I believe you’d kill me.”

  “What ’bout you, Mex? You think I’d gun the lady?” His words were rushed now, as if he couldn’t spew his evil fast enough. His voice had climbed to an almost feminine pitch, and Lee felt his spittle on her face. Then she heard a whisper of steel touching leather as he drew his pistol.

  “Sí. You’d kill her, jus’ like you say.” Pablo’s voice seemed far away to Lee. She fixed her eyes to where the barrel of Stone’s pistol was jammed against his skull, pushing his thick black hair aside.

  “An’ what about you, Mex? You think I’d kill you?”

  Pablo’s voice wavered as he pushed out words. “You have no reason to . . .”

  Lee heard Stone take in a deep breath. “I don’ need no reason,” he said, and suddenly his voice was back to normal.

  Pablo’s shoulders relaxed slightly. Lee suspected this was not because of Stone’s words, but instead the voice he used to deliver them. She swallowed hard and drew a breath.

  The spray from the Colt lashed her face with burning bits of black powder. The concussion of the report—not more than eight inches from her ear—threw her off the far side of the horse. She lay there for a moment, numb, not sure whether or not she’d been shot. She looked up. Pablo had been launched forward by the slug, and he slid down his horse’s side when the animal reared.

  Stone snagged the reins before the frightened horse could bolt. The men who were slightly ahead of the shooting wheeled their horses and raised their pistols and rifles in confusion, seeking the attackers who’d fired on them. Those farther out galloped back to where Stone continued to lead Pablo’s horse in a wide circle.

  Lee rolled onto her back, both hands covering her face. The screech in her ears was almost unbearable, and louder, somehow, than the actual shot. She winced at the pain in her eyes. It felt as if her eyeballs were being scoured with sand. She resisted the urge to rub them. Instead, she held them both open, letting her tears do their work.

  She stared off into the darkness of the prairie for a moment, her vision initially shimmering as if she were looking into the night through an indistinct mist. When she closed her eyes and blinked, she had to grit her teeth to keep from crying out. But at least she could see. And the screeching in her ears was beginning to abate.

  She saw that the men were clustered around Stone, who’d dismounted and was now holding Pablo’s horse by a single rein. His voice sounded strange to her, barely piercing the racket in her head as he told his gang to take whatever they wanted from the dead man. But, he added, the horse was his. Two of the men dismounted, and then several more followed suit, walking to Pablo’s corpse. One of them began hauling off a boot, and another unbuckled the dead man’s gun belt.

  But no one appeared to be watching her. She eased into a sitting position and began gathering her legs under her. The outlaw she’d embarrassed at the bank had left his horse not fifteen feet from her and was hurrying toward the body.

  There was no time to debate, no time to think. She drew breath as she rose to her feet and in a heartbeat was in a full run toward the horse. She snatched the reins, planted her right foot into the left stirrup, and screamed at the startled horse. He reacted precisely as she knew he would—he ran. Outlaws turned at the scream, and a few raised weapons as Lee and the horse crashed through the group like a battering ram, scattering men and horses. Her mount’s shoulder took an outlaw in the chest, flinging him at Stone, whose pistol was drawn and beginning its swing toward her. The outlaw took Stone down, and his pistol—or someone else’s—fired.

  Lee dove at the right side of Pablo’s horse, grasping the saddle horn in both hands and using her momentum to arc herself into the saddle. She grabbed the reins. Then she slammed her heels into the horse’s sides. The animal responded by plowing through a knot of four or five outlaws as she separated the reins on either side of his neck and gave him his head.

  She hadn’t yet covered twenty yards when she heard the roar of the Sharp’s. The clouds had deserted the moon, and she knew she was too good a target. She wrenched the horse into an impossibly tight turn to the left, ran him hard for a few seconds, and then twisted him into an equally sharp right turn. The roar of the Sharp’s was like the thunder of a violent storm. Slugs buzzed past her, some close enough to feel heat.

  The horse performed magnificently, responding to Lee’s light touch on the reins as she maneuvered him. A bullet found the saddle horn and whined off into the dark, its impact enough to throw the horse off his stride. He recovered ins
tantly, and, even with death slicing through the cool air around her, Lee rejoiced at the power and coordination of the fine animal.

  As they topped a low ridge and began down the far side, she abandoned the twisting and turning and asked—demanded—his all. He stretched out like a cougar at speed, seeming to pull the ground under himself rather than coursing over it. The darkness was her friend, her protector, and she raced into it, ignoring the danger to herself and her horse.

  She had no idea in what direction she was headed, but it really made no difference. She was free of Zeb Stone. She leaned forward over her mount’s neck and gulped the cool, damp air, like a swimmer breaking the surface after a deep dive. The horse shifted his body slightly as he ran, avoiding obstacles she could barely see until they were past—rocks, clumps of tumbleweed, prairie dog holes. He moved effortlessly, as if he were dancing—dancing in the darkness of the night to a tune only he could hear.

  Lee laughed with sheer joy at her freedom and at the speed and coordination of the horse—her horse. As they galloped through the darkened prairie, his new name flashed in her mind. Night Dancer.

  After she had let Dancer run for a while, she drew rein and let him replenish his lungs with great draughts of air. The buzzing in her ears was barely noticeable now, although the burn from the cigar had begun to throb, and the powder burns from Stone’s pistol, no longer cooled by the rush of night air, stung like fresh insect bites on sunburned skin.

  She rode on, asking for a gallop when the light was adequate, otherwise holding Dancer to a lope or walk. She wanted to do nothing more than put space between herself and Stone, and she did that for four hours. When she finally stopped, she heard nothing but prairie sounds and saw nothing but indistinct shadows as clouds shifted in front of the moon.

  She slid from Dancer’s back and adjusted the stirrups to the length of her legs. Then she searched the contents of Pablo’s saddlebag. She found a rough cloth, a pair of leather hobbles, a sheathed hunting knife, a few twisted sticks of jerky, and a pistol with one of its grips missing. As she looked at the weapon more closely, she saw that the metal frame that had held the grip was twisted slightly, and its back edge protruded outward in jagged shards of metal. It didn’t take a gunsmith to know that a bullet had done the damage. She snapped open the cylinder. There were five bullets in it.

  She fit the hobbles at pastern height, and Dancer accepted the restraints calmly. She used the cloth to wipe foam from the horse’s neck, chest, and flanks, gnawing at a piece of jerky as she worked. Dancer’s breathing had already settled, and his ears followed Lee as she moved around him. When she loosened the girth and let air circulate under the saddle, he grunted contentedly, like a sow rolling in cool mud on a steamy August day.

  Then she knelt a few steps away from Dancer and closed her eyes. She thanked God for providing the means of escape and asked earnestly that Stone be stopped from spreading his evil. She’d seen the man’s insanity in the bank at Burnt Rock, and again when he killed Pablo. The bizarre swings of his mood, the explosions of his temper, and his wanton cruelty frightened her more than she’d ever been frightened before.

  Dancer was watching her, his ears pricked. She walked to his head. The spade bit in his mouth bothered her, and she cringed as her forefinger traced the curve of the shanks. Her fingertips told her that the corners of Dancer’s mouth weren’t torn—that his saliva had kept them moist—but she knew that the oversized frog in his mouth exerted cruel and needless pressure in response to any movement of the reins. The latigo and leather of the bridle were wet with salty sweat, but she could tell it was a good piece of work—the stitching was straight and tight, and the leather was solid and smooth in her hands.

  Lee knew nothing about Dancer other than that he was an exceptional horse and had carried her away from a situation that would have ended in her death. She knew he was intelligent; his interest in the world around him proved that. But could he be trusted? She didn’t know that yet, but she had faith in her skills with horses. And something about Dancer told her that they’d already formed the friendship between horse and rider that must exist if the relationship is to be a good one.

  She unfastened the bridle and slid the heavy bit out of Dancer’s mouth. As she had suspected, the spade bit couldn’t be altered by hand. She eased her index finger into the side of Dancer’s mouth and moved it gently along the bars, the toothless sections of his lower jawbone. Pressure on the bars could cause instant agony to a horse. Dancer flinched when her finger touched the broken and abraded skin. His tongue felt swollen and slightly puffy to the touch, and she was able to trace scar tissue on it before he twisted his head away.

  Lee wondered what to do about the bit. She thought of the Indian-style bitless bridle—a hackamore. She could use that type of bridle to control Dancer not through pain but rather through the touch of the reins against his neck. She had no way of knowing if Dancer had ever been trained to a hackamore, but she went with her instinct. She unfastened the spade bit from the bridle and hurled it out into the scrub.

  Then she picked up Pablo’s sheath knife. It was heavy in her hands, but the blade was razor sharp. She worked over the bridle as carefully as a surgeon over a patient, cutting leather here, tying it there. She felt little need to hurry her work—she doubted Stone would waste the time attempting a recapture. When she finally looked up from her task, she held in her hand a workable, if not pretty, hackamore. All that remained was to try it on Dancer.

  The big horse swung his head away from her when he saw the bridle in her hands. She whispered gentle words, holding the altered bridle to his nostrils. Very gently, she eased the bridle over his muzzle and fitted the back strap behind his ears, smoothing the hairs under the leather. The fit was a good one; the hackamore rested comfortably on his head. Letting the reins hang in front of him, she tied them together near their ends.

  Dancer shook his head and snorted, not knowing what to make of the familiar weight of the bridle without the torture of the harsh bit. He shuffled back a couple of steps with the hobble strap tight between his front legs like a too-small belt on a fat man. As she was watching, Lee hummed a monotonous note in an effort to calm the nervous horse.

  She watched, not moving at all, seeking the signs that would tell her Dancer was relaxing and beginning to accept the strange new device on his muzzle. Soon, she noticed the slight relaxation of the muscles in his neck and heard the slowing of his breathing. After a half dozen minutes, his ears lost their edgy state of alertness and moved toward Lee almost questioningly. She held her position and continued her humming. After another couple of minutes, Dancer dropped his nose to the dry grass around him and began to munch at it, seeking out green patches. Only then did Lee move to the horse and encircle his neck with her arms. She kissed him below an ear when his head came up. Then, gathering the reins, she climbed into the saddle.

  Dancer set out at a walk, shaking his head at the strangeness of the hackamore. Lee eased him into a broad circle to the left, resting the right rein against the right side of his neck, taking up a bit of slack on the left rein. He didn’t question the turn, and Lee smiled. She held the reins loosely in her left hand, over the saddle horn, with her little finger taking up slack as needed.

  Next, she put Dancer into a canter and reined him through a sweeping figure eight, feeling him pick up the change of leads in the center with the accuracy of a fine watch. The set of his head remained slightly stiff, as if he were expecting to be punished by the old bit at any moment, but he responded beautifully to neck reining—responded so well that Lee realized she couldn’t take responsibility for it. Dancer had been trained—perhaps as a cutting and roping horse—before Pablo had owned him. The horse wasn’t branded, indicating that he’d been purchased, or more likely stolen, from a breeder or trainer who’d planned to sell him and wanted to avoid a double brand.

  Lee asked Dancer for some speed, and he responded with a burst of acceleration that took her breath away. Even after the grueling day yesterday
, Dancer launched into a gallop that Lee doubted could be bested by her best short horse. She reined down and stroked her horse’s neck, already listing in her mind the mares on her farm she’d breed him to.

  But then reality penetrated her bubble of euphoria as she slowed to a walk and checked the sky around her. It would be a long ride to Burnt Rock. And a rumble in her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten anything besides jerky in a day, and that Pablo hadn’t carried a canteen of water.

  But it wasn’t the distance or the hunger or the thirst that bothered her—it was the certain knowledge that Ben was riding after Stone to rescue her and bring the outlaws to justice. She’d seen Stone’s craziness firsthand, and she knew that he and his gang had no more concern for life than a threatened scorpion. Would Ben come with enough men and firepower to overcome the band of cutthroats and killers?

  No, he won’t. He’ll leave Nick to watch the town, and he’ll ride alone.

  The sun had drawn away all the moisture from the morning, and heat shimmered in all directions. Lee’s stomach growled again as her eyes followed the flight of a red-tailed hawk as it crossed far in front of her, banked, and glided into a landing behind a rise. From the opposite direction, another bird soared in a graceful half circle and swooped downward beyond the rise.

  Lee clucked to Dancer and set him ahead at a walk. The heat assaulted her, and she could feel the sweat form on her face. The back of her neck began to tingle, and she eased first one and then another ivory comb from the sloppy, lopsided mess her hair had become. She placed the combs in the saddlebag and ran her fingers through her hair, which fell to her midback and protected her neck from the sun.