She was wearing one of Tyler's heavy coats with the fur-lined cape over her head. She wondered if he would let her keep it. He'd probably offer to buy her a new one, but she'd rather keep this one. It would be a mute reminder of their week together.
Tyler lifted Daisy into the saddle and was just mounting up himself when they saw Willie Mozel coming through the forest at a trot.
"They're coming," he managed to gasp.
"Who?" Tyler asked.
"The three men who tied me up. Old man Carver told me they were at his place last night. They plan to work their way along the ridge until they hit every cabin. They ought to be here before tonight."
"Thanks," Tyler said. "You take care of yourself." He took hold of the reins to the burro and started out at a trot.
"Who's coming?" Daisy asked. She didn't like riding at a trot. The burro had a rough stride. She didn't think she could stand the pain of being bounced in the saddle for long.
"The men who tried to kill you," Tyler replied.
"How do you know it's the same men?" Daisy managed to call forward to Tyler despite the bouncing. Fear of these men clutched at her throat and made it hard for her to speak.
"They stopped by Willie's a few days ago asking about two young men," he answered over his shoulder. "They tied him up when they didn't like his answers. He got away and came here."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
He slowed down to let her come along side. "You would have worried. There was no need. They couldn't follow him. The snow covered his tracks."
"But they could have come any time since." She thought of the time she had spent outside the cabin, her thoughtless comings and goings, never looking over her shoulder, never checking to see if anyone were around.
"I told Zac. He was on the lookout."
She turned her gaze away from overhanging limbs to glare at him. "You told Zac, but you wouldn't tell me!" She was so mad she didn't feel the bouncing. He was the one person who had been telling her she could do anything she put her mind to, yet he didn't tell her three bloodthirsty killers were hot on her trail. What did he think she'd do, fall into a dead faint?
"What could you do?" Tyler asked. "Besides, you were still recovering."
"It's my life we're talking about here, Tyler Randolph. I think I have a right to know when it's in jeopardy."
"Well you know now, so I don't see why you're so upset."
"I know because I overheard Willie talking to you, not because you thought to tell me. That's why I'm upset."
The trail had become so steep they had to slow down to a fast walk. Deep snow still remained in some places under the trees. The crust was hard, the footing icy. It would be all too easy for one of the animals to fall and break a leg.
"Willie didn't mean for you to hear. You shouldn't have been listening."
"You're just like my father," Daisy snapped. "If it's men's talk, then women should be deaf, dumb, and blind. But when it comes to work, we're supposed to be smart enough to figure it out for ourselves." She jerked on the burro's reins. The animal brayed its objection when she nearly bent his neck double to make him turn around on the narrow trail. He backed her into a pine tree, which retaliated by showering her with snow and ice.
"What are you doing?" Tyler asked.
"I'm going back," Daisy said, digging her heels into the burro's flanks. "You've been wanting to find these men for days."
Tyler was at her side in a flash. He leaned out of the saddle and grabbed the reins of the burro. "We can't go back up there. We'd be sitting ducks."
"Why?" She yanked on the reins, but he wouldn't let go. "We could hide in the cabin. You've got plenty of ammunition."
"But we don't have plenty of food," Tyler pointed out. "They could starve us out. Or burn us out. There are three of them against one of me."
"You forgot about me."
"Can you shoot?"
Her gaze became less defiant. "My father wouldn't let me learn."
"One of me," Tyler repeated. "I can't take that risk with your life."
"Can't we wait to get a look at them?" Her tone was more conciliatory.
"No. They're better mounted than we are. Our only hope is to be so far ahead they can't catch us before we reach Albuquerque."
Daisy still didn't move. She looked unconvinced.
"If we stop them now, we may never find the man behind them. You'll never be safe until we know who he is and why he wants you dead."
The thought sent chills up and down Daisy's spine. She might not have to worry about Guy jilting her. She could be dead before he got the chance.
"You won't be safe either," Daisy said. "Your life is as much in danger as mine."
"But I can take care of myself. Now let's get moving. We can't afford to lose any more time." Still holding the reins, Tyler turned the burro and started down the mountain.
"You've made your point," he said without turning around to face her. "I promise I won't keep anything from you."
Daisy hadn't anticipated the satisfaction that surged through her upon having gained that victory. She realized it was only a small thing, but she felt like she had achieved something momentous. For the first time, she had stood up for herself against a man and won a point. She liked the feeling and decided she was going to try it again as soon as she found the opportunity.
"What are they like?" Daisy asked.
"I never saw them," Tyler replied, "but they're plenty determined. They came back to check on the fire, and they found us in the mountains quicker than I thought possible. Somebody wants you dead real bad."
Daisy wished she hadn't asked. She felt helpless to defend herself. "The only person I can think of who might want to kill me is Bob Greene."
"Why?"
"He wanted my father's land."
"Enough to kill for it?"
"That's what doesn't make sense. It's not worth much, even as grazing land."
"How much does he have?"
"I don't know. Our . . . my land runs from the river to the base of the mountains."
Tyler whistled.
"Is that a lot?"
"Your father ought to have been a wealthy man."
"He never was. It seemed we had just enough cows to pay for the expense of rounding them up. Daddy said it was rustlers. Greene is the only man I can figure who might be doing it."
"But that's no reason to want to kill you. If he's been rustling your cows, he could just keep on doing it."
"I can't think of anybody else."
They slowed down as they allowed the animals to pick their way across a sparkling stream running bank-full with the run off from the melting snow. The deep green of spruce and pine formed a sharp contrast to the white snow. Here and there the browns and yellows of the rocky mountain soil showed through, muting the effect of the sunlight on the snow's pristine surface. The call of an occasional bird broke the silence, but Daisy saw no animals. It was almost as though she and Tyler were alone in this winter wonderland. It was almost impossible to believe that somewhere out there three men were following them, determined to kill her.
She kicked the burro in the flanks, encouraging him to keep close to Tyler. He might be a dreamer more concerned with fabulous hotels and lost gold mines than a decent future for himself, but he was the only thing standing between her and these crazy killers. Despite his tendency to concern himself with the fanciful, she was confident he was fully capable of dealing with them.
After they left the mountains, Tyler and Daisy rode through an area of low hills and shallow, flat canyons covered with a sparse growth of buffalo and grama grasses and stunted pines, juniper, and service berry. From any one of a dozen ridges, in almost any direction, an unbroken vista of up to seventy miles stretched before them. Thirty miles away, across the Rio Grande River, a flat-topped mesa rose like a black wall cutting off the fertile valley from the dry plains beyond. The expanse of sky overhead was a dull blue-grey.
A thousand feet below the Rio Grande River wound its lei
surely course through a narrow valley that had never entirely lost its green. Cottonwoods, willows, and a few maples, oaks and alders hugged its shore, their leaves shivering noisily from the cold wind that wafted down from the snow-covered peaks. A dozen rivulets of snow-melt glistened in the bright sun.
It was on a slight rise in this pastoral setting that, late in the afternoon, they reached Daisy's ranch.
Chapter Sixteen
Daisy hadn't expected the sight of the charred remains of her home to affect her so strongly. She knew the house had burned, but seeing it was a shock. The charred spot on the desert floor bore no resemblance to the home she remembered.
"It's almost as if it was never here," she said to Tyler. She couldn't explain the feeling of loneliness that assailed her. Not only was her family gone, almost all trace of her life had disappeared. It was almost as if she had never existed.
"We buried your father next to your mother." Tyler looked over the charred remains of her home but found nothing worth salvaging. "I wonder why your father didn't build closer to the river. The soil would have been better for a garden."
Her mother had asked her father to move several times, but he wouldn't. For him the difficulty of finding water to irrigate the garden didn't outweigh the view of the mountains above and the river valley below. Daisy slipped from the saddle and reluctantly approached the graves. She had been here so many times before, times when talking to her mother was all that kept her sane. Her father had never understood. Now he lay here as well. She wondered if he would be glad of her visits now.
"I know it's not much, but the ground was frozen."
"It's okay." If she managed to find the money, she would have a nice stone marker made. Her mother would like that. She would hate having nothing but her name carved on a piece of board. In a few years, there would be nothing to show she had lived or died in this place.
Daisy found that unutterably sad.
"Let's go," she said, turning away from the graves. "I imagine the killers know we've left the cabin by now. I won't feel safe until I'm in Albuquerque."
* * * * *
"Son-of-a-bitch!" Toby cursed when he slammed through the cabin door. "There ain't nobody here." The whole left side of his head was badly swollen from a nasty-looking wound to his cheek.
"Looks like they ain't been gone long," Frank said.
Ed dismounted with painful slowness. He hobbled inside and dropped into a chair to take his weight off a heavily bandaged leg. "This can't be the place," he said. "Looks like a woman's been living here. I never seen so much kitchen stuff in all my life."
"If it's a woman, why do they have bunks?" Toby asked.
Frank threw back the curtain to Daisy's corner. "They got a bed back here," he said. "Now why would a man keep a woman and let her sleep in the corner?"
"Maybe there's two of them, and they take turns at her," Toby said with a lewd snigger.
"You ain't never seen that kind of woman keep a place like this," Ed said.
"You two stop jawing and let me think," Frank ordered.
He didn't understand. Three animals had occupied that shed, but he could find the tracks of only two leading down the mountain. That cabin sure looked like a woman lived here regular, but mountain men didn't go to any trouble to hide it if they were keeping a woman. None of the dried-up pieces of leather he'd talked to these last few days had said anything about a woman. If the Singleton woman was brought into the mountains, this had to be the cabin. They had been everywhere else.
"We'll stay the night," Frank said. "The answer was here somewhere."
"You'd better catch up with that son-of-a-bitch soon," Toby said, making himself comfortable in Tyler's bunk. "I mean to fill him full of lead for this cut across the cheek."
"And my leg," Ed reminded him.
"You just find him," Toby said to Frank. "Then you leave the rest to me."
"I wouldn't be too anxious to tangle with that hombre if I was you," Frank said. "Any man who can hit a rifle barrel at a hundred yards can kill you before you got within pistol range."
* * * * *
"This ought to do for tonight," Tyler said as he pulled up his mule in a cottonwood grove on a wedge of land between a noisy stream and the Rio Grande. He dismounted and tied the mule to a willow. Daisy slid from the saddle, her body stiff, her legs sore. She stumbled when she tried to take a step. Tyler caught her. The electricity was still there. Even his touch was sufficient to send her pulses racing.
She had to put some distance between them. After tonight she wouldn't have to worry about her desire to be in his arms, but just now it was nearly overpowering.
"I'm not used to riding," she said, reaching out to lean against the trunk of a massive cottonwood. "Papa thought women should ride in a buggy. Only we didn't have a buggy, so we stayed home or walked."
Tyler waited, but Daisy didn't release her hold on the tree. "You ought to meet Iris. She wouldn't allow Monty to go anywhere without her. She rode down the outlaw trail once in little more than a week."
Daisy didn't know a thing about the outlaw trail, but she gathered Iris's accomplishment was something out of the ordinary.
"Who's Iris?"
"My sister-in-law."
"You've got so many relatives, I lose track."
Tyler began to unsaddle the animals. "You wouldn't forget her if you ever saw her. She's enough to knock your eyes out."
Not only could she ride better than Daisy, she was ten times as pretty. No wonder Tyler wasn't interested in her. He'd seen far better.
Tyler spread out Daisy's mattress and blanket. "Here, sit down for a few minutes."
"I'd better walk around a bit to loosen my muscles." She hobbled away from him. Anything to keep her mind off her desire to be near him.
She told herself Tyler wasn't the kind of man she wanted for a husband, that if he asked her marry him, she'd refuse. But would she? Her heart leapt at the thought, and she realized with a sinking feeling she did want to marry him. She sighed aloud as she hobbled back and forth. It was silly enough she should fall in love with him. It was inexcusable she should consider marrying him.
She walked around a second huge cottonwood, letting her fingers trail over its rough bark. A mat of damp leaves squished under her feet.
She tried to tell herself Tyler was exactly like her father, but she knew that wasn't true. He might be a dreamer, might never make anything of himself, but he was thoughtful and kind and handsome and so big that for the first time in her life she felt small and feminine. She could marry him for that alone. Feeling a little better, she walked toward him. He was arranging stones for a fire.
"I can help," she offered, determined to put such thoughts out of her mind.
"No need. I can handle it."
She stopped. She was so close she practically stood over him. "Why won't you ever let anybody help you?"
Tyler looked up, surprised. "It only takes one person to make coffee."
"There's water to fetch, wood to find, the fire to build, the food to dig out of the saddle bags, and everything to get ready for eating. That's more than enough work for two people. Sometimes I think you'd eat for me if you could. That way you wouldn't have to be bothered with me at all."
"It isn't that." He broke some dry sticks and lighted them with a match.
"I know. You don't even think about it. You did the same thing to Zac. You only let him take care of the animals when you wanted to get rid of him."
"I don't need help." Tyler arranged some larger sticks over the tiny flame.
"That's just it," Daisy said, waving her hands about in frustration. "You don't need anything. Don't you think that's strange? It's not normal for a person to go through life not needing other human beings, not wanting their company, never depending on them for anything."
"I've always been this way." Tyler dipped some water from the stream and put it on to boil for coffee.
Daisy knew she ought to stop right here. It was none of her business how Tyler chose
to live his life, but this was her last chance. It was inconceivable she should disappear tomorrow and leave no trace on his life.
"Look where it's got you. You live in the mountains by yourself, avoiding the company of every living soul but your mules. You spend all your time searching for lost gold mines that don't exist. You seem to have a large family, but you never see them. Twenty years from now you'll still be there, and what will you have to show for it?"
Tyler dropped some coffee beans into the steaming water. "I've got less than six months."
His response dried up the stream of words she was about to utter. "What do you mean?"
"I've given myself a deadline. If I don't find anything by June seventeenth, I'll quit."
Daisy felt a surge of hope. "What would you do?"
Tyler opened the pack where he'd put the meat. "My family would find me a job in Denver, probably in a bank."
Daisy spoke before she thought. "But you'd hate that."
"Yes, I would, but I promised George I wouldn't play in the woods for the rest of my life. Like you, he finds it an inappropriate pastime for a grown man."
"It might not be as bad as you think," she said, hopefully. "You'd have a regular income. You could have a house and everything."
"I don't want a house." He opened another pack and took out a pan.
"Well you can't expect your wife to want to live in a cabin in the mountains. It's no place to bring up children."
Tyler looked up at Daisy, a faintly baffled expression on his face. "Whatever made you think I want a wife and children?" He put some venison steaks in the pan.
"I j-just assumed y-you did," Daisy stammered. "I thought every man did."
"I don't."
Daisy felt hope die. It wasn't a terrible death because it had only been a faint hope, but it was a sad death nonetheless. It was the only hope she had.
"Don't you ever get lonely?"
"No." He carefully seasoned the meat.
"Don't you want to like people and have them like you?"
"I've got family."
"You might as well not. You never see them. I can't imagine wanting to hide in the mountains from my family."
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