Tried and True (Wild at Heart Book #1)

by Mary Connealy

  There’d been tales in Aspen Ridge about him. Some said he was part Indian, others a legend, still others a ghost. Now here he stood, in the flesh. There was nothing ghostly about him. Wild, though. Mighty wild.

  “This is Aaron Masterson, Tucker.” Coulter’s voice, deep as a pounding drum, didn’t waste much time with niceties.

  Aaron gave Tucker a nod. “I’ve heard a tale or two about you. Coulter and I thought we’d come and poke around the trail Sunrise found.”

  Sunrise stepped up from behind Tucker. She had the same silent way about her, the same ease in the woods as Tucker.

  “You left Kylie at the house?” Sunrise asked.

  “Her . . .” Aaron caught himself just in time, before he spoke the truth with the word sisters. “Her brothers are still there.”

  “Brothers.” Sunrise rolled her eyes, then looked between the three men with a faint smile. “I will leave the three of you to handle the tracking. Tucker can show you what we have found. Perhaps you can learn more about the cowards who attacked our girl.”

  Her tone said very clearly that she doubted the three of them together were better than she was alone. Aaron didn’t even let it bother him, because she was probably right.

  Sunrise left as silently as she’d come.

  “Matt.” Aaron held out his right hand to Tucker. It reminded him of where shaking hands had come from—a sign of peace, two men offering the hand they used to wield a weapon.

  “Call me Tucker.” The mountain man reached out and shook Aaron’s hand in a good-natured way, as if he’d never seen a weapon in his life. A pretty good trick considering he had a Winchester rifle hanging down his back from a strap over one shoulder, a pistol holstered on his hip, a bowie knife in a scabbard that crisscrossed his chest, a whip looped and hanging from his belt, and Aaron glimpsed another, smaller knife poking out from under the man’s sleeve.

  Matt Tucker appeared to be a man who was ready for trouble.

  “Sunrise talked me through the tracks she found last night,” Aaron said. “I’d like to see them, especially where the horses were tethered. I’m going to look for tracks in town too, so it’ll help to lay my eyes on them.”

  “This way.” Tucker held up an arrow. “We found this.”

  “Sunrise missed that?”

  Smiling, Tucker flashed white teeth. “Yes, and I found it. Made Ma mighty humble.”

  “Ma?”

  Tucker nodded. “My own ma died when I was three—birthing a second child, I was told. I don’t remember none of it. Pa was living in the high-up hills, wilder than a mountain goat but a good man in his way. He had no idea what to do with me, so he took me to his trapping friend’s house. Sunrise’s husband, Pierre Gaston. She raised me when Pa was gone, which was most of the time. Pierre was gone mostly, too. They had them a passel of kids, and I fell into calling her Ma, still think of her that way, and her young’uns became my brothers and sisters. We had us a time.”

  His story reminded Aaron of the fun he’d once had with Nev and Lenny. Running the hills, fearless, their whole lives stretched out ahead of them, too young to worry over the future. Then, before he knew it, he was heading west and running for his life.

  “The arrow was in that tree right there.” Tucker pointed to a spot maybe ten feet overhead.

  Aaron furrowed his brow. “But they were shooting from right here.” He indicated the place, which was right below where the arrow had stuck.

  Coulter joined them, crouching beside some torn-up ground. “They set up here, only a few feet back of that tree. The trees you cut for the chicken coop were thick enough that they had to get this close or they’d have never gotten an arrow away.” Coulter stood, keeping his eyes on the spot. “Even so, that arrow went almost straight up.”

  Tucker nodded as he stroked his thick beard. “Cutting the young trees makes this safer, but the trees still stand on two sides. Ma thinks she’s invincible, but I don’t like her being here. She’s still one woman against three.” Tucker looked over at Coulter. “Three outlaws who may think they’re doing your bidding, Gage.”

  “Well, if that’s true, I’ll make ’em sorry they thought such a thing. I’ve already spread the word. I promise you, I’ll get a noose on this mess.” Coulter drew his six-gun, a Colt Army 1860, the same gun Aaron carried. With a harsh metallic click he checked the load, then re-holstered it with a smooth, practiced move. He looked up to where Tucker said he’d found the arrow.

  Aaron figured himself for a tough man. He’d faced down a lot of trouble in the war, but he was glad Coulter was on his side in chasing whoever was harassing Kylie. He wouldn’t want to be the focus of Coulter’s talent with a gun.

  “Whoever it was, he let the arrow go with little skill. Ma found several others gone wild, but she missed this one.” Tucker grinned. “I found it.”

  “So, one among them was good with a bow.” Aaron studied the tracks near Coulter. He could see where someone had knelt. He recognized the boot prints Sunrise said were a woman’s. He saw the worn-down heels on the men’s boot prints. So far he agreed with everything she’d said.

  Tucker pointed to a clump of aspen a few paces deeper in the woods. “Here’s where they tied their horses. They weren’t here long.”

  More tracks, the ground disturbed and the grass trampled but not eaten. Sunrise said they’d left their horses so they couldn’t graze.

  “They came, unleashed their arrows, and then rode away. They came to scare her, not kill her.” Tucker looked at Aaron. “The fact that you were there hastened their departure. Most likely they’d have stayed long enough to burn down the cabin if you hadn’t been there shooting back.” He pointed to a black smear Aaron would have missed. “Blood. You hit one of them. It has to have happened back there where they were set up to shoot, but I couldn’t find any drops there. If it’s hidden by clothes, we may not be able to tell he’s wounded, not unless he shows his pain or favors the wound somehow.”

  “Sunrise told me all this last night. Stay back from the horses. I don’t want their hoofprints messed up.”

  Tucker’s eyes showed amused irritation. Good. Aaron figured the man might as well know he wasn’t the only one who could read sign.

  Dropped to his haunches, Aaron studied the tracks again. Three horses, all of them shod, two mares and a gelding. He saw the long black strand from a mane still hanging from a branch in more than one place. This one horse had been eating from the aspen branches. “The black-mane horse is a small one.”

  “And based on where the lady’s boots are, I’d say she was the one riding it.” Coulter came closer, his eyes roving, shrewd enough to look underfoot, overhead, and all around.

  “Seems likely,” Tucker said.

  They were silent for a while, with Aaron still staring at the tracks. Nothing unusual about them. Shod horses was even more evidence this wasn’t Indians, although an Indian may ride a horse with shoes if he’d stolen it or traded for it and the shoes came along.

  The hooves weren’t all that distinctive, but he hoped he’d recognize them if he saw them again. “I’m not seeing much that makes these prints different from any other horse of medium height and weight. Am I missing something?” Aaron straightened and took satisfaction in towering over the other two.

  “I believe I’d recognize them if I saw them,” Tucker said. He didn’t sound all that sure.

  Coulter shook his head, not adding anything.

  “So I look for a woman rider and two medium-sized men, one of them wounded in a way that probably doesn’t show.” Aaron dragged his hat off his head and slapped it against his leg. “And they’re probably from Aspen Ridge.”

  The clues were weak. It’d be pure luck if he could track these varmints down based on what they’d learned here.

  “Don’t let the direction they rode blind you,” Tucker said. “There are lots of homesteaders around.”

  “Way too many homesteaders,” Coulter muttered.

  Tucker gave a humorless laugh. “Too many,
and more coming all the time—scaring the game, tearing up ground that ain’t fit for farming.”

  “Some with wives and grown-up daughters.” Aaron had a list back at the land office.

  “Homesteaders are usually hardworking types,” Tucker said. “Not a lot of time for scheming when you’re trying to wrest a living out here.”

  “Do you . . . ?” Aaron paused, wondering if he was going to get a fist in the face, but he had to ask. “Do you consort with the women in town, Coulter? Could there be one who thinks to win your favor by doing such a thing as this?”

  Coulter scowled. “There’s no one.”

  “That you know of,” Aaron added.

  “I can’t rightly say about things I don’t know about.” Coulter’s fist clenched, but he didn’t seem inclined to plant it. “But there is no woman in that town I’ve given attention. I’m too busy, and the women are too ugly.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence.

  Tucker cracked first. Aaron felt a ripple of laughter and tried to fight it. When Tucker near bent in half laughing, Coulter gave him a shove that almost knocked him on his backside, but that only left Tucker laughing harder. Aaron lost his fight and stepped back, out of shoving range, until he could lean against an aspen and howl. Coulter gave them both an icy look before his control slipped and he laughed, too.

  The three of them, laughing like fools, found a strange bond. Different men with different ideas of how to go about living but united in Coulter’s assessment of the slim pickings among the women of Aspen Ridge.

  The other two might’ve been laughing because of Coulter’s rude comment, and that was part of Aaron’s amusement, but there was more. Aaron laughed because he knew neither of these two had seen the rest of the Wilde family.

  Aspen Ridge had about fifty people living in town. Aaron went over his paper work and the few buildings in the ramshackle town all day and night and could come up with only twelve women besides the Wilde sisters. Those twelve didn’t include wives of homesteaders.

  Because however he chased ideas around, it made no sense for anyone to want Kylie’s claim, except that it could get her Gage Coulter.

  The claim was in a poor spot, with no grazing, no land for farming. The water was good, but on its own no one would want that claim enough to steal it. There were much better claims available, though the land was filling up fast.

  Aaron just couldn’t figure out which of those twelve women, running with two men, would attack Kylie. Two worked abovestairs in the saloon. No reason they’d want land, but neither did Aaron expect that those women were as honest as they ought to be, so they might team up with some varmints to cause trouble.

  Setting aside his sorting of the Aspen Ridge women, he wondered how in tarnation to find out if anyone was talented with a bow and arrow. It was a skill that needed a lot of practice, and Aaron had never heard a whisper of such a thing, nor had he seen a bow and arrow in town. It was a weapon so associated with the Indians that white men rarely used one. Aaron and his friends had played with bows as kids, built their own, and gotten to be a pretty decent aim. They didn’t cost anything and were as silent as the tomb, which made them a good thing for young’uns. But most pioneers carried guns and used them for protection and for hunting.

  The Wildes had all been in Kylie’s cabin this morning. Aaron tried to wheedle breakfast out of Kylie after scouting for her attackers, but he could tell right off that she wasn’t inviting him in. He knew why, too. If she let him in, she’d have to ask Coulter and Tucker in as well. And she didn’t trust her sisters’ disguises to hold up. So he got run off right along with Coulter and Tucker. It still stung, especially since Tucker hadn’t ridden away. Instead, he stood off to the side, talking with Sunrise.

  It left Aaron frustrated to the point he was tempted to take it out on someone. He had no idea who, though. Maybe he oughta arrest every single woman he saw. That’d make sure he didn’t miss the guilty party. Honestly, Aspen Ridge was a raw western town; most of the folks here had something they were running away from back East. He should just round up the whole town.

  A half-wit idea if ever he had one.

  He wandered to Sandy’s Livery and Blacksmith to check for horses with black manes. There were plenty. He was finding no natural skill for detective work and he was sick of trying. He hoped Sunrise was taking care of Kylie, and he worried about it until he wanted to punch someone.

  “Howdy, Masterson.”

  Aaron looked away from the corral. Matt Tucker rode up on his grulla mustang. It had a black mane and tail.

  A smile broke out on Aaron’s face. Tucker reminded Aaron of the sheep he’d helped shear at Shannon’s place the other day. “What happened to you?”

  Tucker’s face was scraped raw. A nick showed on his square chin, and a line around his neck was pure white to match his face.

  “A shave and a haircut happened,” Tucker said. Bareheaded, he ran a hand over his hair that’d been cut nearly to bristle length. “After you left, Ma sat me down and barbered me half to death.”

  Aaron chuckled at the thought of Sunrise bullying this tough mountain man. “My ma had a knack for making me sit down and do as I was told, too.”

  Thinking of his mother, who’d still been a youthful, pretty woman when Aaron had left for war—the last time he’d seen her—took the pleasure out of the moment.

  Aaron turned back to the corral. “I’ve been going over the women in town and around the area. While there aren’t many, I still can’t pick out which one was involved in the attack. After looking over the livery horses, I plan to wander around town to see who’s putting their own horses up at home. If we find the ones with black manes and check which of the horses are ridden by women, we might be able to narrow our search to here in town.”

  Tucker grunted. “I reckon they’re from town. Why would a homesteader want to drive another homesteader off her land? They can’t buy it and can’t homestead it. Unless they’ve got a personal problem with Kylie, it makes no sense.”

  “Did you stay and eat at Kylie’s?” Aaron tried to sound casual, but he saw Tucker’s eyes sparkle.

  “I ate, but it was outside while sittin’ on the porch rocker. Ma sat with me, but Kylie barred the door from me just like she done for you and Coulter.”

  “Coulter didn’t come back and harass her, did he?” Aaron’s temper rose. He trusted Coulter not to attack, yet he also knew Coulter wanted that land and he’d find a way to get it unless Kylie was careful, and some of Coulter’s tactics might not be pleasant.

  Tucker didn’t stop a smile this time. “I rode over with Coulter this morning. I had a notion Coulter was riding over there to sweet-talk Miss Wilde into spending time with him.”

  “What?” Aaron spun toward Tucker. “I need to ride out to Kylie’s right away and warn her.”

  “Hold up, Masterson. Coulter changed his mind before you got there.”

  “Why’d he do that? What man would see Kylie Wilde and not want her?” That was saying too much, and Aaron knew it even before Tucker’s smile widened.

  “I didn’t ask. I only saw Gage again while you were there, but he sure enough didn’t have Kylie with him and he didn’t stay after we went tracking. The man has good instincts about people, so I’m guessin’ he saw it was a wasted effort and decided on a new way of going after what he wants. I work for him every now and again, and I know the man well. One thing you can be sure of: He ain’t giving up that pond. That’s one of the most dependable water supplies in the area, and he thinks it’s his. And we’re heading into a dry summer. One pretty little lady nester isn’t going to turn him aside, at least not easily.”

  “There’s law in the area now. Coulter isn’t going to get away with breaking it like that.”

  “I reckon he knows that as well as anyone. Which’ll make him more careful. But there’re ways of getting through to a woman without breakin’ the law. He won’t turn aside from his plans.” Tucker looked out at the corral and the herd of horses, resti
ng his arms on the top rail of the fence out back of Sandy’s Livery.

  Half of the dozen horses had black manes. “Some of these Sandy owns,” Aaron said. “He rents them out by the day. Some belong to others and he boards them.”

  A stocky old man, mostly bald, came out of the livery stable. He walked with a rolling gait, as if his knees pained him.

  “Howdy, Sandy,” Tucker said.

  “Tucker, I ain’t seen you in town in an age.”

  “I haven’t needed much a town could give me.”

  “Can I help you?” The old man’s eyes shifted to Aaron. “Or you, Masterson?”

  Sandy knew the riders, the horses, and the town a whole lot better than Aaron. And Aaron boarded his horse here, so they’d talked many times.

  “We got us some questions about these horses, Sandy.” Tucker hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his fringed buckskin pants.

  “Come on in. I had a quiet morning, so I used the forge fire to make coffee,” he laughed.

  The old man’s laugh was on the ragged edge of a giggle. A strange old bird, but he took good care of his stock and was the town’s only blacksmith. And in a town full of horses, that made Sandy one of its leading citizens.

  He was just the man they needed to talk to.

  16

  Myra had ridden out here several times in the last week, and for a while she thought they’d done it—driven Kylie off. Now here she was back again, and since she’d come there’d been others coming and going constantly. Kylie had a good scare, but instead of giving up her claim and running, she’d just surrounded herself with help.

  They were going to have to scare her worse.

  Today she was here, and there wasn’t a passel of folks around. Finally.

  Myra had spent much of the war—after all the money was gone—hunting in the swamp around their home, and she was better than fair in the woods. She’d done a sight of exploring in this new northern land. If she wanted to be a rancher’s wife, she needed to figure out how all her swamp skills translated to the pine forests and mountain peaks.