Two Brothers

by Linda Lael Miller

  The house Tristan had bought was the largest Emily had ever seen, a magnificent structure of natural stone, with a score of windows and a veranda that wrapped around one side of it like a steamboat rail. A windmill turned slowly in the breeze, and she could see a massive barn as well, and a corral full of fretful horses. It was plain that, like Emily herself, they smelled trouble, even though there was no one in sight besides Tristan and Black Eagle and the braves riding a short distance behind them.

  Emily was jerked off the mare’s back, striking the ground hard, and before she could cry out, a callused hand clamped itself over her mouth. She struggled, and the assailant dug his thumb and forefinger into the hinges of her jaw, giving her head a painful shake.

  “Settle yourself down, little lady,” an oily voice hissed. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to.” Emily was swamped with fear, but there was a quiet place inside her, a calm place where reason held fast. She obeyed the command and went completely limp, hoping her captor would think she had fainted and release her.

  It didn’t work. He stuffed a wadded bandanna into her mouth the moment he moved his hand away, and then tied another around her head to secure the first. He bound her wrists behind her, then hurled her up onto the back of a horse with such force that for a moment she thought she would swallow the bandanna and choke to death.

  She still hadn’t had a good look at the man who had ambushed her, but she didn’t need to see him to know he was one of the riders who had terrorized her two days before, when she and Spud and Mr. Polymarr were looking after the flock.

  He mounted behind her, and she felt his sloppy bulk, smelled sweat and whiskey and rotting teeth. He forced his hat down onto her head, and it was as effective as a blindfold. Emily’s stomach roiled, and she fought the urge to vomit, knowing she might well strangle if she lost control.

  After a while, revulsion gave way to sorrow. Tomorrow was Sunday, the day she was to have been married, and now everything was ruined. She might be dead by dawn, or wishing devoutly that she were. They would use her, these outlaws, as a weapon, or as bait for a trap. Once they’d drawn Tristan in, they would surely kill him.

  Emily reminded herself that she must not panic. If she was watchful, an opportunity for escape might present itself, but hysteria—her first and most ardent inclination—could only work against her. And against Tristan.

  Give me courage, she prayed, and centered her thoughts on the sanctuary she had found within herself.

  The hairs on the back of Tristan’s neck stood upright, and the horses pranced nervously. Black Eagle and his braves arranged themselves in a circle, facing outward, keeping their mounts under careful control.

  Tristan drew his .45 and got down off the gelding. On the second floor of the house, he saw a curtain move, caught the glint of a polished gun barrel. Suddenly, all hell broke loose behind him, the Indians shrieking war cries and generally creating a disturbance.

  Tristan used the distraction to make a run for the front door, and even then the ground behind him was peppered with bullets fired from the roof. He was glad to see, when he had a chance to look, that Black Eagle and the others had taken cover behind water troughs and at the edge of the house itself, evidently unharmed. They had guns, and they gave back as good as they got.

  Two men tumbled down from the roof, dead before they hit the ground.

  Tristan pushed open the heavy front door, using it as a shield. “There’s nowhere to go from here,” he called. “Throw your guns out the window and we’ll take you in alive.”

  The reply was another spray of gunfire, riddling the door.

  “Hell,” Tristan muttered, frowning at the damage. He’d probably have to send to San Francisco for a replacement, or even Mexico.

  “Where’s your bride, Saint-Laurent?” someone yelled from the upper floor. “You seen her lately?”

  A chill trickled down Tristan’s backbone like a drop of January creek water. He would have liked to believe the bastard was bluffing, but his gut told him this was no idle taunt. He held up a hand, palm out, signaling Black Eagle and the others to hold their fire.

  “If you’ve got something to say,” he shouted back, “say it straight out.”

  Silence.

  A stir at the edge of the meadow caught Tristan’s eye, and he let out a long breath when he recognized Emily’s mare, riderless, reins dangling. Until then, he’d thought she was at home, with Polymarr and Fletcher and the rest of Black Eagle’s crew to protect her. Now he knew she’d followed him, and they had her.

  Bile scalded the back of his throat. Dear God, those sons of bitches had her.

  He took a few moments to collect himself. Then he stepped into the spacious entryway and fired three shots through the ceiling. Overhead, somebody howled, and Tristan reloaded.

  “Where is she?” he demanded.

  “You loco or somethin’, shootin’ up your own house?” It was an aggrieved bellow. Word of the purchase had gotten around, apparently.

  “I’ll burn it to the foundation if I have to,” Tristan replied, and he meant what he said. He’d roast the truth out of them if that was what it took to find out where Emily was.

  “How do we know you won’t start shootin’ as soon as we show ourselves?”

  “You don’t,” Tristan replied. “Where is she?”

  Chapter 8

  WHEN THERE WAS A HITCH IN THE NEGOTIATIONS, Tristan figured it was time to take decisive action. He found an old newspaper next to a nearby fireplace, rolled it up, lit it with a match, and set the drapes in the front parlor ablaze. They made a dark, acrid smoke, and as the house filled, the two men who’d been hiding out upstairs came stumbling down, choking and swearing.

  Tristan got them both by the collar and flung them out the door. They pitched halfway across the veranda before landing, and when they hit the floorboards, he was there to send them flying again. They struck the dirt in a pile and squirmed there, howling as loudly as if they’d been shot full of arrows.

  Several of the Indians rushed past into the house, presumably to put out the fire, while Tristan and Black Eagle stood over the whining no-accounts. Tristan shoved his .45 into the base of one man’s skull, while planting a knee in the middle of his partner’s back.

  “One more chance,” he said, his voice hoarse from the smoke inside the house. “That’s all, and then there’s going to be a mess the likes of which this country has never seen.”

  “We don’t know where she is!” squealed the one in the greatest danger of getting the back of his head blown off. “I swear to God, they never told us!”

  Tristan got the other one by the hair and yanked. Coupled with the pressure of his knee in the middle of the man’s spine—if indeed he had a spine—it got his point across. “There’s a line shack somewhere up in the hills,” he bawled. “It’s north of the Indian camp!”

  Tristan ground the bastard’s face into the dirt. “She’d better be all right,” he warned, in a voice that would have frightened him, coming from someone else. “My friend Black Eagle is going to keep an eye on the both of you until I get back. As God is my witness, if there’s so much as a scratch on that woman, I’ll jerk your insides out, set them on fire, and stomp out the flames.” He stood up, and Black Eagle signaled two of his braves, who promptly bound the outlaws hand and foot with strips of rawhide.

  “I ride with you,” Black Eagle said staunchly, and Tristan could see by his expression that there would be no changing the man’s mind. There wasn’t enough time to work out an agreement anyway.

  Tristan swung up onto his gelding and reined it toward the high country. Black Eagle was mounted as well, and he spoke to his men in an earnest undertone before catching up with Tristan.

  “What did you just say?” He was only mildly curious as to whether or not the captives would be alive when they got back.

  The Indian’s black eyes glittered. “I tell them, if the woman-killers try to get away, shoot them.” Black Eagle probably knew every fold a
nd hollow of the hills above, and Tristan was glad to have his company, though he wouldn’t have admitted as much. With this particular companion at his side, he had a much better chance of getting Emily back safe, though he would have preferred Shay.

  He’d seen a half-dozen cabins in varying states of collapse while exploring in the mountains; some had housed miners, some the families of settlers who’d died out or given up long ago. Some were line shacks, where cowboys riding a fence line could get in out of a storm. Emily could be in any one of them, or none.

  “We need dog,” Black Eagle said, and for a moment, Tristan, riding hell-bent for nowhere, couldn’t grasp the meaning of the statement. Then he remembered Spud, and wheeled the gelding around in a wide circle, racing back toward his own ranch house.

  It probably took thirty minutes to get there, and Tristan begrudged every second of that time, but if he was going to find Emily he had to have the animal’s help. The gelding was still moving when he dismounted, bounding into the house, slamming the front door open, taking the stairs two and three at a time. In his bedroom he found what he sought: the tattered serape Emily had been wearing when she entered his life.

  He didn’t have to whistle for Spud; the dog, though injured, sensed calamity, and he was pacing nervously back and forth on the rug at the base of the stairs, making a sound somewhere between a snarl and a bark, when Tristan came down. He let the animal smell the serape, and the result was more than he would have dared hope for—Spud shot through the gaping door like a Chinese rocket, and Tristan went stumbling after him.

  Both he and Black Eagle rode full out to keep up with the dog, and even then they probably would have lost him if he hadn’t been forced to slow down on reaching the timber line. Of course, they couldn’t travel as fast either, and time was passing, and Tristan was about as scared as he’d ever been in his life.

  His greatest fear was for Emily, of course; her captors were just stupid enough to hurt or even kill her. Every atrocity he’d ever seen, and he’d seen plenty, replayed itself in his mind as he rode, with Emily as the victim. He felt stark, cold terror, and the messages rising from his gut were no comfort at all.

  At last the dog paused, prowling along the edge of a ridge. His ruff stood out in bristles, and he snarled and yipped like a wolf with prey in its sights, waiting impatiently for the pack to catch up.

  Tristan might have ridden straight down into the gully if Black Eagle hadn’t extended an arm and stopped him by taking hold of the gelding’s bridle.

  They dismounted, and Black Eagle led the horses farther back into the woods, after giving Tristan a warning glance. The shack below, a weathered board structure leaning far enough to one side that a stiff wind would blow it over, was clearly occupied. There were two horses out front, and a ribbon of smoke curled from the crooked chimney pipe, making a gray smudge against the sky.

  Black Eagle returned, crouched beside Tristan. “No guards,” the Indian said. By then, Tristan had to restrain the dog to keep him from flinging himself at the cabin, a pretty good indication that Emily was inside and probably alive, too, though there was no telling what shape she was in. He closed his eyes for a moment, and silently implored a God he had long since stopped believing in to protect her.

  “Not worry,” Black Eagle said, in a whisper. “She talk them to death.”

  He’d no more than uttered those words when the shack’s rickety door creaked open and one of the Powder Creek men came outside, unbuttoned his pants, and took a long piss in the brush at the side of the cabin.

  Tristan squinted, straining for a glimpse of Emily through the open door, and in that moment he relaxed his hold on Spud just long enough for the dog to break free and dash, growling ominously, for his target. The cowboy, still holding his pecker in both hands, was taken by surprise and gave a little whoop of alarm that might have been funny, under other circumstances.

  The dog was on him, at his throat, when the second man came out of the shack. He had Emily crushed against him, facing forward, and his pistol probed deep into the side of her neck. She looked pale and understandably rumpled, but otherwise unhurt, and Tristan’s relief was so great that he almost forgot she was in imminent danger of being shot to death.

  “Come on out, Saint-Laurent,” the big man called, getting his name right, and Tristan recognized him then. Once a Texas Ranger, Elliott Ringstead had gone bad a long time ago, and made himself a reputation as a thief and murderer of no little imagination and enterprise. He was the one man Tristan had ever tracked in vain, and the bounty on his head had probably compounded half a dozen times over the years. “No sense hidin’. I know you’re out there.”

  The man with his pants down was still wrestling with the dog, and shrieking like a frightened spinster all the while. Emily looked down and spoke to the animal in a quiet, firm tone. Reluctantly, Spud withdrew, but he didn’t go far, and he kept looking from one outlaw to the other, awaiting his chance.

  Ringstead cocked the pistol and thrust it harder against Emily’s neck. “You gonna make me shoot her, Saint-Laurent? A ladies’ man like you? Why, I don’t believe it!”

  “All right,” Tristan shouted back. He stood and tossed the .45 down the hillside, and it struck the ground with an audible thump. “Let her go.” He started the descent, his hands raised.

  Emily’s bright eyes widened with alarm when she saw him, then she squeezed them shut and shook her head slightly. Her lips formed a soundless word, once, then again. “No—no.”

  “You know, Saint-Laurent,” Ringstead drawled, “I’ve always wished I had your way with the women. This one here’s uncommon pretty—you outdone yourself this time, yes indeedy.”

  “I should have tracked you down a long time ago,” Tristan said evenly. He met Emily’s gaze and saw a reprimand there; she had not wanted him to come out of hiding. Of course, he couldn’t have done otherwise, and right then her opinion on the matter was of little concern anyhow. “I believe the posters read, ‘Dead or Alive.’ The first will do as well as the second.”

  Ringstead laughed, showing a row of tiny brown teeth and a lot of gum. “Looks like you’re goin’ to be the one that’s dead,” he observed. With the toe of his boot, he gave his partner a nudge calculated to bruise. “Get up, Homer. In case you ain’t noticed, we got the upper hand here.”

  Emily flashed a warning look at Tristan and then bit said hand with as much force as she could. Ringstead bellowed a curse, and she brought her heel down hard on his instep for good measure. Tristan made a desperate dive for Emily and flung her to one side, and during that interval Ringstead recovered enough to raise and sight in the pistol. He was so close there was no need to take aim; he simply drew back the hammer.

  “No!” Emily screamed.

  A shot was fired, and Tristan waited for it to hit him. And waited.

  Ringstead went down instead, graceful as a dancer, despite his bulky, awkward build, a crimson stain spreading across his chest and belly. Tristan realized that Black Eagle had just saved his life, but a shout from Emily brought his attention to the fact that the partner, heretofore wriggling on the ground, twisted up in his own pants, had gotten hold of the discarded .45.

  “Put it down,” Tristan said calmly.

  Emily had collected Ringstead’s gun, and she was standing over the other man, the pistol steady in her hands. “If you pull that trigger,” she told Homer, with bitter sincerity, “I will kill you.”

  The outlaw considered his situation and then handed the .45 over to Tristan, butt first. Tristan jerked the man to his feet and tossed him to Black Eagle, who was ready with more rawhide to secure the prisoner’s hands and feet, but his attention, all of it, was fixed on Emily.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked. They might have been alone, for all the notice he took of the world around him; it was merely a pounding, blurry void, an aura of light at the edges of his vision.

  She flung herself against him, hurled her arms around his neck and held on like a drowning swimmer. “They were saving
me for after they killed you,” she replied, trembling against him. “Oh, Tristan, thank God you’re safe!”

  He held her very tightly and closed his eyes for a moment, dizzy with relief. Then he thrust her to arm’s length and looked her over again. His fear had crested and then ebbed, but his mind was still spinning in the backwash. He opened his mouth to tell her precisely what he thought of her reckless interference, but she was alive, and unhurt except for a few bruises and scrapes, and that made the rest of it unimportant. He wrenched her close again and buried his face in her hair.

  Black Eagle leaned over Ringstead’s body, peering at him curiously. “You knew this man?”

  Tristan let Emily go at last and turned to look down at the dead outlaw. “I spent two years hunting him,” he answered numbly.

  Emily came to stand beside Tristan, gazing anxiously into his face. She was a tough little thing; many other women would have swooned, or at least burst into tears, during and after such an ordeal, but she hadn’t given Ringstead’s corpse a second look. “Hunting?” she echoed.

  He had not wanted her or anyone else—not even Shay—to know about his years as a bounty hunter, little better than a hired gun. But the choice had been taken from him; he would have to tell the tale, admit that for most of his life he had made his living by tracking men like any other prey, dragging them to the authorities when they would surrender, killing them when they wouldn’t. He had in fact enjoyed the hunt, the way he would a challenging chess match or a high-stakes game of cards, and as long as they’d been the first to draw, he hadn’t minded killing them, either.

  “Tristan?” Emily prompted, when he didn’t speak. Didn’t look at her.