The Bounty Hunter and the Heiress

by Carol Finch

  She studied the wide, well-traveled road that angled down the slope toward Mineral Wells and Canyon Springs. To the right was the narrow trail that she presumed led uphill to Hell’s Corner—the third raucous boomtown in the mining district.

  Ducking her head to conceal her identity, Eva rode into the community that was home to hundreds of individual prospectors.

  Satan’s Bluff was a rough-and-tumble town that sat on an elevated cliff overlooking a craggy canyon. Two meandering streams divided the canyon. They were lined with tents and wooden lean-tos. Like its sister city, only one street ran through the middle of town. Log cabins, false-front buildings and oversize tents lined the street. Banjo music filled the air and it seemed that most of the miners had called it quits for the day, in anticipation of the storm. They had congregated to take their leisure in the saloons, gaming halls and cafés.

  Eva glanced from one hitching post to the next in search of the brown horse Gordon had been riding when he hightailed it out of Purgatory Gulch. She spotted the horse in front of a tent that served as a gaming hall. She scanned the area, wondering if the soiled doves had also set up shop in this community. No doubt, Gordon would become an eager client after he drank his fill in one of the nameless saloons.

  She panned the street again. Sure enough, three shanties—connected by a boardwalk and sporting red-globe lanterns—sat on the edge of town. The small red-light district was butted up against a steep, rock-strewn hill.

  “Now what, Evan?” Frank asked, grinning conspiratorially. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll wet my whistle and try my hand at monte. Will you be okay for a while?”

  “I’ll be fine,” she insisted, anxious to be rid of the gamblers.

  This was her personal crusade, after all.

  “The first order of business should be to trade or lose the horses you rode in on,” she reminded them. “Eventually someone from Purgatory Gulch will show up here and remember you’re the ones who were sitting on those borrowed sorrel horses and were about to swing from ropes.”

  Both men tugged nervously at the collars of their shirts. “Point taken,” they mumbled in unison.

  “And it wouldn’t hurt to dress like the locals,” she advised. “I’ll be too busy to save your necks this evening.”

  Frank stared somberly at her. “Be careful, you hear?”

  “I will,” she assured them before she rode over to the dry goods store to purchase canned food for her supper.

  Eva also purchased a chain and leather straps to serve as manacles for her prisoner. Once she captured Gordon, she would find an out-of-the-way place to stash him for the night. First thing in the morning, she would head down the mountain to Canyon Springs.

  It was almost dark when Eva stationed herself outside the gaming hall where Gordon was entertaining himself—on the money he had extorted from Lydia, no doubt. She conjured up and discarded several ideas to entrap him. Shooting him out of his chair held the most appeal but she figured she would be swinging from whatever passed as the hangman’s tree in Satan’s Bluff by midnight.

  When a haggard-looking man, whom she guessed to be in his late fifties, hobbled past she reached out to tap him on the shoulder. “Sir, I need a favor.”

  The stoop-shouldered man with leathery features glanced over at her. He arched a curious brow as he leaned on his makeshift cane that was carved from a tree branch. Eva had noted earlier that most miners were younger than forty. No doubt, the grueling physical labor required to chisel gold from rock was a strain for older men. Most of them became freighters, café owners or shop managers.

  “What is it, boy?” the man said in a wheezy voice.

  Unlike the burly Irish saloonkeeper who had demanded payment for information, this man didn’t thrust out his gnarled hand, palm up. Eva felt exceptionally generous so she shook his hand and passed him a large banknote.

  His eyes widened in surprise. “You don’t have to—”

  “I want to,” she interrupted. “I need you to deliver a message to the man who is sitting at the corner table.” She craned her neck around the tent flap to single out Gordon. “Tell him that one of the ladies of the evening saw him ride into town and she wishes to make his acquaintance.”

  The crusty old prospector looked at Gordon then squinted speculatively at her, causing deep grooves to wrinkle his forehead. “Are you sure you want me to do that? If you’re out for some sort of revenge, which I expect you are, you might be wading into deep water.”

  “I have two assistants.” Sort of, she amended silently.

  If things went sour, she could prevail on Frank and Irving to assist her. However, nothing would please her more than to apprehend Gordon by herself—and she would never let him hear the end of it.

  “All right then,” the miner said finally, and nodded his shaggy head. “I’ll direct the gent to the shanties on the edge of town.”

  When the prospector hobbled off, Eva tugged on the bay’s reins and led him toward the poorly constructed shanties. With her pistol tucked in the waistband of the doeskin breeches, she flattened herself against the outer wall and lingered in the shadows to await Gordon’s arrival.

  Two minutes later she saw Gordon exit the gaming hall and stare at the three red-globe lanterns that hung outside the shanties. He rubbed his hand absently over his chest and belly then slicked back his hair. Eva grinned wickedly, certain the voodoo magic was at work, thanks to Hoodoo’s curse.

  As Gordon approached, she tried to recall every word of instruction and precaution Blackowl had tried to pound in her head during her crash-course training. She waited, her senses on high alert, her heart thumping in her chest, her hand folded around the butt of her pistol.

  The reckoning, she mused as she watched Gordon’s swaggering approach. This bastard was long overdue.

  Raven rode hell-for-leather, pausing only to let his horse catch its breath when absolutely necessary. The paint pony’s stamina didn’t match Buck’s and the thought made Raven lament losing such a good horse.

  The sense of urgency driving him to reach Satan’s Bluff was born of his concern and the uncertainty about whom Eva had confronted at the would-be hanging. Her good deed might have backfired in her face, especially if the men realized she was posing as a boy. Either that or Eva had located Gordon and who knew what kind of trouble she faced.

  To make matters worse, the line of storms building in the northwest looked ominous. Lightning flickered in the distance. The unsettled weather was as disruptive as the unsettling emotions Eva had touched off inside him since she exploded into his life with the force of a cannonball.

  Raven breathed a gusty sigh of relief when he spotted the glowing lanterns on the bluff. This place was aptly named, he mused as he pulled back on the reins, allowing the winded skewbald pony to slow to a walk. The golden lantern light reminded him of coals burning against the backdrop of mammoth slabs of rock that jutted helter-skelter from the mountains. He likened it to the flaming embers in the white man’s image of hell. Black clouds billowed up like angry fists and lightning bolts struck down the tormented souls congregated on the devil’s playground.

  “Getting a mite philosophical, aren’t you?” Raven scoffed at himself.

  “Come again?” Blackowl stared quizzically at him as he eased his horse up beside him.

  Raven angled his head toward the mining camp perched on the windswept bluff. “If there is a devil, I swear he’s in attendance here tonight.”

  Blackowl nodded. “Evil spirits seem to be swirling about. Makes me twitchy. I have a bad feeling about tonight.”

  “So do I.” Raven urged his pony into a trot. “I want Eva under wing before hell breaks loose.”

  Eva waited nervously as Gordon strutted up to the door of one of the brothels and raised his hand to knock. She pounced from the shadows and rammed the barrel of the pistol into the back of his neck.

  “Don’t move,” she growled menacingly as she dug the pistol barrel a little deeper into his flesh. “Hands up where I
can see them, Gordon.”

  He slowly raised his arms, as she demanded. “Eva? Is that you?”

  “None other. Too bad your aim was off the mark when you tried to bushwhack me repeatedly. But at this close range, I doubt I’ll miss. One careless move, Gordon, and you’ll be lying in a pool of your own blood.”

  When he tried to shift sideways, she kicked him in the back of the knees as Blackowl taught her. Gordon grunted uncomfortably then stiffened when she shifted the pistol barrel to the base of his skull.

  “Lydia sends her warmest regards, of course.” Eva took grand satisfaction in taunting the devious bastard. “She also knows you lied to her when you tried to turn her against me.”

  “I was just annoyed at you because you rejected my affectionate attention,” Gordon had the nerve to say. “You were the one who interested me. Lydia was my second choice.”

  “Don’t insult my intelligence,” she snapped as she forced him to walk backward with her.

  She berated herself for not having the forethought to grab the leather strips from her satchel so she could shackle Gordon immediately. She had to back him toward her horse—and hope he didn’t attempt to make a break for it. Keeping that in mind, Eva paid close attention to his every move.

  “It really is you that I care about,” Gordon purred.

  “Shooting at me is a strange way of showing it,” she scoffed. “You have no affection for anyone but yourself. I’ve dealt with conniving suitors like you countless times before. You are just a more obnoxious version of the others.”

  When he tried to shift sideways abruptly to catch her off guard Eva was ready and waiting. She whacked him upside the head to discourage him from trying to escape.

  “Ouch! Damn you, bitch!” he snarled as she forced him to take another reluctant step backward while she remained as close as his own shadow.

  “Ah, so now your true feelings for me come pouring out,” she said, and smirked.

  “That’s right,” he muttered bitterly. “The truth is that you’re a royal pain in the ass.”

  “So I’ve been told,” she said, undaunted. “I knew you resented me because I cautioned Lydia against placing too much trust in your premeditated charm and empty words of affection for her.”

  Keeping the pistol firmly imbedded in the back of his skull, Eva eased up beside the bay gelding. Lightning flashed overhead, making it easier to see what she was doing while she dug into her satchel with her free hand to retrieve the leather strips.

  She heard the clatter of approaching horses but she didn’t look back to see who had arrived at such a swift pace. Her first order of business was to bind Gordon’s hands. Then she would summon Irving and Frank to help her toss Gordon over the back of his own horse and tie him in place.

  When Gordon moved suddenly, trying to duck beneath the bay gelding’s belly and escape, Eva grabbed a handful of his hair and jerked him upright. “Stand still!” she snapped harshly.

  “Eva?”

  She made the crucial mistake of glancing over her shoulder when Raven’s deep baritone voice erupted unexpectedly behind her. Gordon took full advantage of her distraction. He elbowed her in the side of the head, momentarily stunning her. Then he wrenched the pistol from her hand.

  She recovered her senses quickly enough to attempt to kick him where he could be hurt the worst, just as Blackowl had taught her. Unfortunately, Gordon jackknifed his body and she kicked nothing but air.

  Wild fury blazed through her when Gordon spun around to hook his arm around her neck and yank her roughly against him. He had deftly turned the tables on her and now she was the one who had a pistol barrel digging into her temple. The fact that she had been so close to apprehending him single-handedly infuriated her to no end!

  Thunder boomed overhead as Eva stared into Raven’s face. He looked like murderous fury, which is exactly how she felt.

  “Let her go, James,” Raven snarled viciously.

  Eva blinked, bemused. “This is Gordon Carter. He’s the man who extorted money from my sister.”

  “Hello, Raven. Blackowl,” Gordon said, grinning triumphantly. “Long time no see.”

  “Not long enough, James,” Raven said scathingly.

  “James who?” Eva demanded, baffled and confused.

  Raven had assumed that his would-be assassin was one of Widow Flanders’s hirelings or one of Buster Flanders’s vindictive kinfolk. He never dreamed that his hated stepbrother had taken a new identity to extort money from unsuspecting young women. But here the bastard was, clamping Eva against him like a protective shield and holding a gun to her head.

  Outraged frustration poured over Raven as he stared down at James. Eva was at his mercy and James was gloating the way he always did after he had successfully played a cruel prank on Raven when they were teenagers.

  “Learning that you and Gordon Carter are one and the same explains a lot,” Raven growled. “No doubt, you saw your chance to take potshots at both of us. Of course, you were always a lousy shot.”

  “You would have thought that my stint in the army, fighting Indians, would have sharpened my aim. But I still managed to kill my share of your heathen kinfolk,” James said maliciously. “Of course, I pretended every one of those savages I slaughtered was you and your full-blood cousin.”

  “How ironic,” Raven countered acrimoniously. “Every worthless criminal I’ve planted facing west and X-ed out reminded me of you.”

  James flashed a goading smile. “Now here we are, with me holding the upper hand.” He inclined his head toward Eva. “I figured this spiteful termagant would come charging after me. Or, at the very least, send someone to track me. I made it easy for her to pick up my trail by leaving the buggy behind. Imagine my delight when I had the unexpected bonus of getting my half-breed stepbrother and his redskin cousin in the bargain. We can finally settle the score between us.”

  “Who were the men you disposed of so you could switch clothes, horses and mules constantly?” Eva wanted to know. “I plan to settle the score for them as well as Lydia.”

  James scoffed haughtily. “You’re in no position to settle anything. Besides, the hapless miners I shoved off cliffs won’t be missed…. Hold still, damn it!”

  Raven tensed when Eva kicked James/Gordon in the shin. He gave her a hard shake to bring her under control but she was in a fit of temper and fought him until he hit her in the head with the pistol barrel. It took every ounce of self-restraint Raven could muster to squelch the wild urge to launch himself off his horse and pounce on James, consequences be damned. But at the same time, he didn’t dare place Eva’s life at an even greater risk, for fear he’d have to watch James shoot her.

  This time James was too damn close to miss.

  “What do you want, James?” he sneered hatefully.

  “To walk away from here unscathed, for starters.” James shifted his forearm upward to place it solidly against Eva’s windpipe, making her gasp to catch her breath. “And of course, I already mailed off a note to Lydia from the stage station. I demanded a ransom for the return of her pesky sister. Whether or not I was able to overtake Eva along the way didn’t really matter,” he added with a careless shrug. “Lydia won’t know the difference. She should receive my ransom demands tonight or tomorrow at the latest.”

  “Bastard,” Eva wheezed with what little breath James granted her.

  When James grinned smugly, Raven gnashed his teeth. Again, he had to resist the intense urge to leap off his horse and go for his stepbrother’s throat.

  Even as a teenager, Raven had detested that haughty expression James wore so well. His stepbrother’s animosity had always been as vicious as it was obvious. Raven had left his father’s home in Pueblo, hoping he would never have to see James Archer again.

  No such luck. The son of a bitch had reappeared and had disrupted Eva’s life. He had caused as much turmoil for Eva as he had for Raven.

  “I’ll be your hostage,” Raven volunteered. “Let Eva go.”

  James barke
d a caustic laugh. “How noble of you. You must have become sentimentally attached to this feisty hellion. Don’t know why though. She has too much spunk and spirit to bother with, believe me. I got fed up with her several times while charming her sister into doing my bidding. But she’s worth a hell of a lot of money to me. Half-breed bounty hunters, on the other hand, are worth nothing to anyone,” he added cuttingly.

  The insult rolled over Raven like water down a duck’s back. He didn’t give a damn what James thought of him. Besides, there were too many other emotions bombarding him at the moment. He felt powerless and frustrated—and maddeningly guilty because he had unintentionally diverted Eva’s attention while she had the drop on this ruthless bastard. He was the reason that she was a defenseless captive.

  When Raven instinctively eased his horse forward, James jerked Eva back a step. “Stay where you are. I mean it, Raven,” he snapped sharply. “That goes for you, too, Blackowl. If you don’t think I’ll shoot this troublesome daredevil you are mistaken. A wounded captive is less trouble to control than a healthy one.”

  Teeth clenched, while dozens of vile curses danced on the tip of his tongue, Raven watched his stepbrother lash Eva’s wrists together—one-handed. He didn’t make the mistake of removing the pistol from the side of Eva’s head for even a second, much to Raven’s dismay.

  “I told Lydia to drop off the money at the stage station where I left her buggy,” James informed him as he wrapped another leather strap around Eva’s neck like a dog collar.

  Cold fury coursed through Raven’s veins when James twisted the strap, demonstrating how easily he could choke her if she offered the slightest resistance.

  “If you want to see this smart-mouth vixen alive then you will fetch the ransom money for me and leave it on the ridge by Seven Falls. You have three days to make the trip. After that…” He shrugged negligently. “I can’t promise Eva will still be alive and kicking if you don’t meet my terms. She’s a lot of trouble, after all, and I’m short on patience.”