The Mavericks

by Leigh Greenwood

  “It feels good to stop.”

  Josie climbed down from the driver’s seat. “I’ll take care of the mules.”

  “I’ll take care of the mules,” Suzette said. “You start the fire.”

  “What makes you think I can start a fire?” Josie knew she sounded petulant, but she was tired of people assuming that just because she cared about her appearance and her comfort, she couldn’t do anything practical. The fact that she wanted to forget every minute she’d spent on that farm growing up didn’t mean she’d actually forgotten everything she’d learned.

  “You can do anything you want,” Suzette said. “I just want to take care of the mules because I like animals. Hawk is great with them. You ought to see him.”

  Josie had started to climb into the wagon to get the things they needed to prepare supper, but she backed down and walked around the end of the wagon so she could see Suzette. “Let’s agree not to mention Zeke or Hawk ever again,” she said.

  “Ever?”

  “Okay, just for tonight, then. We’ve got to fix supper, eat, clean up, and get to bed. It’s been a long day and we need a good night’s sleep.” Josie pulled out the bag of provisions, then set about gathering wood. The river had washed plenty of debris up on the sandbar, but she was looking for mesquite and ironwood. Mesquite burned fast and hot, while ironwood coals would still be glowing in the morning. She didn’t find any ironwood, but she found plenty of cottonwood, mesquite, and some juniper that had been washed down from the slopes. She had the fire started by the time Suzette finished unharnessing and picketing the mules.

  “Since we’re not thinking about the men,” Suzette said when she returned, “we should think about making some changes in our act.”

  “Why? It’s good like it is, and nobody in Tombstone has ever seen it.” They had used the same five songs with their accompanying dances for two years. Though she and Suzette could do the act in their sleep, the men never seemed to tire of it. “Will you get the water?”

  Suzette reached for the bucket hanging on the side of the wagon. “Our act needs to be great, not just good. You know I don’t want to spend the rest of my life going from one mining town to another. I need to make a lot of money if I’m going to go back to Quebec to help my sister make a good marriage.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll make plenty of money. Now go get the water. I’ve been thinking about that ham Mrs. Pettinger gave us ever since noon.”

  Suzette went off to get the water, but Josie’s thoughts weren’t on a new act or a new town. She was wondering where Zeke and Hawk were, if they’d stopped for the night or if they were pushing on, trying to get as close to their ranch as possible.

  And as far away from her and Suzette as they could.

  Dammit! What was it about that man she couldn’t forget?

  Suzette gave up trying to go back to sleep, but she didn’t get up. It wouldn’t be dawn for another half hour or so. For the rest of last evening, they hadn’t mentioned either of the men who’d invaded their thoughts, but both knew they were thinking about them. Suzette turned on her side in an effort to get more comfortable, but not even a thick quilt could soften the impact of the ground on her body. The sand had proved hard and uncomfortable. Suzette wondered how Hawk could sleep on the ground night after night and not seem to mind it. She would be glad to reach Tombstone and sleep in a bed again.

  She wondered how often Hawk came into Tombstone. The two men couldn’t stay on that ranch all the time. Even if they didn’t want to see other people, they needed supplies. She wondered if they ever went to saloons, if they enjoyed watching the dancers and singers, how often they sought the company of women. They weren’t as young and randy as many of the miners who had come to the saloon in Globe, but it only took one look to see that Hawk was still in the prime of his life, physically active and brimming with good health.

  Thinking of Hawk, visualizing his body—the way he sat tall in the saddle, the grace with which he moved around camp—ignited a small flame of need in her belly. The longer she lay there picturing Hawk in her mind, imagining what it would be like to touch him, to feel his powerful muscles move under her fingertips, to experience the warmth of his skin against her own, the more the flame grew, until she was unable to lie still. She felt too hot to remain under her covers, yet shivers sent chills through her body. She didn’t want to admit it, but she could no more put Hawk out of her mind than Josie could banish Zeke from hers. Her attraction was physical, while Josie’s was psychological, but she wasn’t sure that made any practical difference.

  Unable to remain still any longer, Suzette threw back the covers and sat up. Her shoulders were stiff from holding the reins the day before. She rotated them, almost enjoying the ache of her stiff muscles. Next she rolled her neck from side to side.

  “You look like you’re drunk.”

  Suzette looked up to see Josie climbing down from the wagon. “My whole body is stiff. How about you?”

  “I tossed and turned too much to get stiff. Just sore.”

  Suzette bent forward from the waist, feeling the ache as her muscles stretched. “I don’t know what it is about holding reins and sleeping on the ground that’s so different from dancing for several hours, but I’ve never felt this stiff in the morning.”

  “It’s the cold air,” Josie said, pulling her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. “I need some coffee to warm up. Are there any coals left?”

  “I haven’t looked.” There would have been if Hawk or Zeke had made the fire. They seemed to know everything without having to think about it.

  “I’ll look for some wood. We’ll need it regardless.”

  “Don’t go too far, and be careful not to pick up any thing with thorns. I’m not as good as Hawk when it comes to medicine.”

  “I know more than I want to know about cactus and the wounds they make,” Josie said. “You keep forgetting that I grew up on a farm. Come to think of it, why don’t I start the fire and you look for firewood? You can bring the mules in at the same time.”

  “I’ll be glad to.” Suzette put on her boots, threw a blanket over her shoulders, and headed off.

  Digging among the ashes, Josie located one coal that burned red when she blew on it. She shredded some leaves, sprinkled them on the coal, then blew on it until the leaves burst into flame. To this she added twigs, choosing larger and larger ones until she had built up a steady blaze. Being careful to avoid the thorns, she laid a couple of dry mesquite branches across the fire and kept adding kindling until the branches caught. Confident the fire wouldn’t go out, she grabbed a bucket and walked down to the river to get water. When she returned, she poured some into a pot, then put it on the fire to boil for coffee. She was about to take out the bacon to slice when Suzette returned, her arms full of wood but her expression worried.

  “I can’t find the mules,” she said. “They must have wandered off during the night.”

  Chapter Six

  “Maybe we should just point the mules in their direction,” Zeke said to Hawk as he led their saddled horses into the campsite. “They won’t be happy when they find out we know how inept they are.”

  The sun had just peeped over the horizon, its warm rays quickly dispelling the chill of the night. Birds and small animals scratched among dry leaves looking for something to eat before taking refuge during the heat of the day. Zeke and Hawk had finished their breakfast, but finding the mules with their horses had forced them to postpone their departure.

  “They’ll be too glad we found the mules to be angry with us,” Hawk said.

  Zeke kicked more sand on the campfire to make sure it was out. “That may be true of Suzette,” he said, “but Josie won’t be happy to see my face.”

  “Then I’ll take the mules myself.”

  “That’s because you want to see Suzette.”

  “So what if I do?”

  A small vessel in Hawk’s temple began to throb, an infallible sign he was getting angry. Zeke directed his gaze to th
e job of rolling up his bedroll. “You can’t go getting interested in a female now. Think about the ranch.”

  Hawk snatched up his saddlebags and tied them to his saddle. “And I suppose you’re not interested in Josie.”

  Zeke tied his bedroll with two strips of rawhide. “It wouldn’t matter if I were.”

  Zeke didn’t want to go within a hundred yards of Josie, yet neither would he let Hawk take the mules to the women by himself. He hated it when part of him wanted to do one thing and the rest of him wanted to do just the opposite. And all because of a woman who couldn’t stand him. What was wrong with him? He’d never done anything like this before. He might have liked a woman who didn’t return his interest, but he’d always been able to shrug his infatuation off and turn his attention elsewhere. Why couldn’t he do that with Josie? Hell, he’d only been around her three days. How could a woman get her hooks in a man that quickly? He packed the rest of the supplies in his saddlebags and stood. “Let’s finish packing up, and we’ll both take the mules over.”

  They didn’t speak, but their abrupt motions spoke eloquently of the tension between them. Five minutes later they were headed to where the women had camped, each leading a mule. Angry at the whole situation, Zeke charged into the lead. He dodged a cholla cactus only to nearly fall into a prickly pear.

  “Watch where you’re going,” Hawk said. “We can’t afford to have you laid up with a dozen poison thorns in your hide.”

  The mule Zeke was leading looked nearly as disgusted as Hawk sounded. “I was thinking,” he said.

  “I could tell. You’ve got that Josie look about you.”

  Zeke ground a small barrel cactus beneath his boot, then spun around to face Hawk. “What the hell is a Josie look?” He was tempted to knock the smile off Hawk’s face.

  “It’s this vacant look,” Hawk said, “like you aren’t aware of anything around you.”

  Zeke turned and plunged ahead. “I was aware of you the whole time. It’s hard not to be when you insist upon wearing that damned feather.”

  Zeke had done his best to convince Hawk that wearing rawhide leggings was okay as long as he wore a normal shirt. He could even wear moccasins if he wanted. But a single feather, even one discreetly hanging down from the back of his headband, would bring out the worst in people who feared or hated Indians. Zeke wasn’t sure Hawk actually wanted to wear the feather. He thought it was Hawk’s way of forcing people to recognize he was different and accept him anyway.

  “You weren’t aware of that cactus,” Hawk said.

  Zeke swung his arm in an arc that encompassed half the Arizona Territory. “There are cactus all around us. It’s impossible to be aware of all of them.” A hundred yards from the river, the landscape was virtually bare of anything except cactus until they encountered the beginning of the junipers and pinyon pine on the lower flanks of the Santa Catalina Mountains to the west and the Galiuro Mountains to the east.

  “How many times have you walked into a cholla?”

  “Never. The damned things are poisonous.”

  “Exactly.”

  Zeke made a point to give the next cholla a wide berth, but that just made Hawk chuckle. Zeke’s fist clenched around the lead rope. He wasn’t about to let Hawk get to him. If he did, Hawk would tease him unmercifully. Neither one of them would hesitate to give his life for the other, but they were also each other’s severest critic. Outside of Isabelle, that is. She was everybody’s severest critic.

  “Let’s just deliver the mules and leave,” Zeke said.

  “We will as soon as they’re ready to travel.”

  Zeke swerved to give a wide berth to a large jumping cholla. “Why should that make any difference to when we get started?”

  “Because we have to make sure they get to Tombstone.”

  “And how are we supposed to do that when they can’t even keep track of their mule team?”

  “We take them with us.”

  Suzette hadn’t been aware of the ball of tension until it started to unravel when she saw Hawk and Zeke each leading a mule toward her. She hadn’t been terribly worried about finding the mules. She’d been following their hoofprints, confident the mules hadn’t gone very far during the night. If she hadn’t been able to find them, it wouldn’t have been too difficult to return to the Pettingers’ farm. So what was the reason for the knot in her stomach?

  Hawk. As he drew closer, she felt her whole body relax, and a lazy smile begin to curve her lips. She couldn’t put it into words, but there was something about that man’s presence that made everything better. Maybe it was the confidence with which he walked, the easy strength of his body, the steadfastness of his gaze. It could be something else entirely, but right now she wasn’t especially concerned about discovering the source. He was here. That was enough for now.

  “You’re probably thinking me a great idiot.” She spoke directly to Hawk, only vaguely aware she’d walked past Zeke to do so.

  “No, but I’ll teach you how to put a stake in the ground so it won’t come up.”

  “My only experience was with horses who spent their nights in a comfortable stall.”

  “If you’re not sure, you could tie them to a tree.”

  “How will they be able to graze at night?”

  “Maybe I ought to teach you how to hobble them instead.”

  “Is Josie looking for the mules, too?” Zeke asked.

  Suzette turned to Zeke, embarrassed to have ignored him. “She stayed in camp to fix breakfast.” She pointed in the direction of the river at a narrow tendril of smoke rising in the brisk morning air. “I’m the one who lost the mules, so I insisted I should be the one to look for them. Besides, I’m better with animals than she is.”

  Zeke hoped Josie hadn’t burned the coffee. He could use a cup right now.

  “Zeke and I have been thinking,” Hawk said. “Since we’re all going in the same direction, it seems only logical that we travel together.”

  Zeke hadn’t been thinking any such thing. It certainly wasn’t logical in his mind, but he’d do just about anything to be close to Josie. He didn’t want to get next to her. That would be too close for either of them. Just close enough to keep her in sight, close enough to figure out what she was like, close enough to figure out the hold she had on him.

  Close enough to break it.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Suzette said. “We’ll slow you down.”

  “Not much,” Hawk said.

  “Thank you, but we’ll be fine.”

  “Don’t you trust us?” Zeke asked.

  Nobody trusted a black man and a half-breed Indian, Zeke knew, especially when they rode together. They might as well have thief written across their foreheads. Women would yank small children out of their path, merchants dog their every step, men avoid them in saloons, and rowdy boys shout insults at them.

  Suzette looked surprised. “Of course I trust you. What makes you think I wouldn’t?”

  Zeke didn’t tell her he had a lifetime of reasons. “You don’t seem to want us around.”

  “I didn’t think you wanted us around.”

  Zeke couldn’t miss the fact that Suzette appeared to be asking that question of Hawk. He wondered if she was as interested in Hawk as Hawk was in her.

  “It’s not a matter of wanting or not wanting to be around you,” Hawk said. “It’s just logical that people traveling in the same direction would be safer together.”

  Well, that wasn’t true, either. Two women traveling through the desert were bound to attract the attention of any men in the vicinity. And the last thing he and Hawk needed was for greedy men to know they were traveling with a herd of blooded mares, all carrying foals nearly as valuable as their mothers. They’d already had one brush with horse thieves. Traveling with these women would make them more vulnerable.

  “You’re not going to Tombstone,” Suzette said.

  “Our ranch is close enough,” Hawk said.

  Zeke wasn’t sure which was a more danger
ous cargo, a herd of valuable horses or two beautiful women. It was certain that neither his nor Hawk’s mind would be entirely on the horses. They didn’t need the distraction, but he didn’t open his mouth to withdraw Hawk’s invitation.

  Suzette turned to Zeke. “I didn’t think you liked Josie.”

  “I think it’s more accurate to say she doesn’t like me, but we don’t have to be friends to travel together. She’ll be in the wagon, and I’ll be with the horses, so we won’t get in each other’s way.”

  Suzette looked from Hawk to Zeke, then back to Hawk. “Are you sure about this?”

  “It would have been stupid to offer if I hadn’t been,” Hawk said.

  Not that Zeke wanted him to be a smooth talker just now, but Hawk needed to learn how to talk to women if he ever hoped to keep one interested in him for anything but the money he was willing to spend on her. Suzette didn’t seem to be offended by his offhand manner, but Zeke could just imagine how Josie would have reacted to a statement like that.

  “Well, we’d better hurry back to camp to tell Josie the good news.”

  Zeke didn’t trust Suzette’s grin. There was something about it that said she knew something he didn’t and found it amusing. Zeke couldn’t remember a single instance when someone being amused at his expense had been a good thing, and he was certain this instance was not about to reverse the trend. He fell in behind Hawk and Suzette, who walked side by side in silence. That was something else about Hawk. Women didn’t like silence. It drove them crazy. He was going to have to learn to talk or give up being interested in women altogether.

  But as far as he could see, Suzette didn’t seem to mind. She was speaking softly now, in a slow, easy manner, not bothering to wait for Hawk to answer or comment. Zeke was used to Hawk’s silences, but he’d never expected a woman to accept them. Zeke had been putting up with those silences for twenty-five years. He could remember some days when he felt he was living with a figment of his imagination.