The sunbaked earth, seemingly empty of life, called to him.
Conner heeded the call, needing the delay not only for himself, but to give Logan time to talk to his boys, and for tempers to cool.
Keeping his horse to an easy lope, Conner guided the animal toward the north corner of the Kincaid spread. The buttes and arroyos offered plenty of private places for a man who desired to be alone.
Minutes later, Conner left his gelding, Sour Mash, ground-tied below a rocky incline. He made the climb to the top easily, having worn a path over the years that he had come to this spot.
A large flat slab of rock offered him a seat from which he could see a good part of their land.
This was one of his favorite places on the ranch, the one he had escaped to most often when he felt hemmed in by all the demands for his attention. Especially in the years before Ty and Logan had shouldered their responsibilities as equal working partners in the family’s holdings and all the worry and decisions belonged to him.
He tilted the brim of his hat back to wipe the beads of sweat on his forehead. It was long past noon, but the sun still beat strongly, sucking up every bit of moisture from land, animal and man.
A whisper of a breeze touched him, sultry hot, and died moments later.
He sensed he was being watched and slowly glanced to his left, then his right. A Gila monster’s forked tongue darted out, testing the air not three feet away. The lizard was nearly two feet long, its pebbled skin a mottled brown and gold. Their name had come from the Spanish conquistadors who had first seen the large lizard near the Gila River.
Conner remained still. The lizard was venomous. It was unusual to find one out in the open while the sun blazed hot. He must have disturbed its resting place in the creosote bushes when he climbed up here.
The short-clawed feet held the thick body and even thicker tail away from the heated rocks. With a slow, almost waddling gait, the lizard made its way back down the incline.
Conner let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had held.
Shifting his seat, he scanned the scattered brush below. Farther away were the glistening thin ribbons of streams and the dark brown smudges of cattle clustered on their banks where they’d come to water.
He caught the flash of sunlight reflecting off the rifle barrels of the guards he had ordered posted a few days ago, after another rustling incident. Four of the men he had chosen, with the agreement of Logan and Ty, he would trust with his life. The fifth, and the only one who had seen the map where each guard was posted, was Enrique. He was engaged to marry Santo and Sofia’s daughter, Rosanna. And he was the one man they all suspected was feeding information to Riverton.
But no one had caught him doing it. Out of love and respect for Santo and Sofia, whom the Kincaids considered family, no vocal accusations had been made against Enrique.
Conner wanted proof, indisputable proof that would tie Enrique with Charles Riverton, before they did anything.
For now, all he had were suspicions, despite Logan’s infiltrating the gang that had been robbing their mines of ore and payroll. His brother had almost lost his life, but the gang had been broken. They still couldn’t prove that Riverton was behind them but the robberies had stopped.
Riverton either had enough money from the robberies to further his schemes, or the man was biding his time to lull them into a false sense of security.
But the rustling had continued. Logan had been the one to figure out how easily a Rocking K brand could be changed to the Circle R one. Conner had to quash any talk of a necktie party. He had patiently explained to their men that knowing their cattle were used by hot-iron hombres to run a maverick factory, and proving it beyond a shadow of a doubt, were two different things. The law needed proof.
When he’d been officially sworn in as sheriff at the county seat, Conner had come home with a personal warning to each man riding for the Circle R brand what would happen to him if he were caught altering the brand of any cattle.
He then ordered that every calf and cow found on Kincaid land have its right ear notched as another means of identifying the animal as Rocking K property. This added identification was not foolproof, but it was the best Conner had to use. That, and a letter he had sent as the new sheriff of Sweetwater to the stock buyers in the territory. He warned them to carefully check the brands of cattle purchased for shipment to the stockyards in Eastern cities.
Again, Conner knew this method of alerting the buyers that rustlers operated in his corner of the territory carried no guarantees that anyone would pay attention.
Conner couldn’t blame the buyers. As fast as settlers were heading out to the territories to stake their twenty-five-cent-an-acre claims under the Desert Land Act, they were being replaced by immigrants from Europe. As the demands from the settlers to have goods available in the various territories escalated, new factories were built and more rails were laid to carry the goods west and, in return, they filled the demand for beef to be shipped east.
What man, receiving orders to fill, was going to look closely at the brands of cattle that he bought? Damn few that Conner knew.
He felt calmer for working things through, but had a feeling that the problem of the rustlers would take second place until he found a way to handle the new threat Belinda Jarvis had made to his family.
Despite what Logan’s temper led him to believe, Conner was deeply torn over doing what his badge demanded of him, and being the eldest Kincaid brother. The caretaker…
And sitting there brooding wasn’t going to solve it.
As was his habit, Conner once more sent a searching look over the land below him before he rose. His gaze passed over the long shadow thrown by the rocky incline where he sat back from the edge, then roved over the adjoining low buttes. They were empty of any signs of life. In the nearly cloudless sky he made out a pair of hawks floating on air currents too high to cool him.
A rhythmic muffled sound intruded on his thoughts. Conner looked down, quartering the broken land, his gaze probing every bush and rock.
The sound continued, drawing nearer, and he wished he had his field glass in hand and not tucked in his saddlebag. He wasn’t alarmed by the sound, but a strange tension filled him as the sound grew louder.
“Bunch ’em up.”
The hoarse male voice came from directly below him.
The only things bunched up around here were cattle and horses.
There were no cattle nearby, and the wild herds of horses rarely roamed this corner of the ranch. There wasn’t any good water or grass.
No cattle immediately eliminated the chance that they could be Rocking K men. The order had been given to someone, so two or more were the odds against him.
He was prone on the flat slab in seconds.
As his body absorbed the heat of the rock, he broke out in a sweat. Calm replaced his tension. He had thought to put aside the problem of the rustlers, and now fate had handed him men to follow. He could feel the certainty of being right deep in his bones.
Conner identified the muffled sound. It was the slow plodding of horses’ hooves that had been wrapped in cloth. When they were children, Santo had shown them the old Indian trick to avoid leaving tracks.
If these men hugged the deeper shadows cast by the rising buttes, odds were that the men posted as guards would never see them.
Conner was on his own.
“You go back with the boys,” Santo insisted as Jessie finished probing his swollen ankle. He had refused to let her take off his boot, knowing, as she knew, that he would not be able to get it back on. He had been careless in his excitement of discovering evidence that a group of men had camped in the rear of the slot canyon for several days.
Rocking back on her heels, Jessie shook her head. “I can’t leave you here and I won’t send the boys back alone. What if the rustlers saw them? No, Santo, when Kenny brings the horses, we’ll get you mounted and ride back together.”
“You do not listen.”
Jessi
e smiled. “So Logan often tells me.”
Thinking of the pain to come when he tried to put his weight on the ankle, Santo closed his eyes. He knew, and suspected that Jessie did, too, that his ankle wasn’t sprained but broken. A stubborn woman, she had refused all his sound arguments that she should ride back to tell Logan what they had discovered.
“Santo.” Jessie said his name softly, alarmed to see the sweat beading on his leathered skin. His eyes opened and focused on her. “It’s more than a bad sprain, isn’t it?”
Reaching for her hand, he squeezed it. “I am a careless old man.”
“No. Don’t say that. You’re Santo the rock. That’s what they call you. Why I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Macaria mention that. She wouldn’t know what to do without you. And Logan—”
“Jessie. You chatter like woodpecker.”
She glanced away for a moment, unwilling to let him see what she was feeling. A strange tension beset her, as if something was about to happen. She tried to dismiss it, but the feeling remained.
“You are frightened?” Santo asked. “Tell me what—” He broke off and looked at the rock slide. Marty was leading with his pony and Kenny brought up the rear with the other three horses.
Jessie was already on her feet moving toward them. She forced herself not to run when she saw the tears glinting in Marty’s eyes.
“J-Jessie, will he—”
“Santo is going to be just fine. We’ll all help get him home to Sofia. You know how she’ll fuss over him.” She brushed her hand through his blond hair, smiling to reassure him. Over his head she met Kenny’s gaze. The eyes of a man met hers. Sometimes Jessie found it hard to remember that Kenny was still a boy. He had been through so much and, like Santo, had become a rock to lean on.
Marty still had nightmares, less and less as the weeks passed, but half the time Kenny reached his room before she did.
“Jessie, I figured that my mare’ll be best for Santo. I can get her to lay down so he can mount. Santo taught me how.”
She stepped closer to Kenny. “I hope you can do it. He’s in a great deal of pain. But don’t let on that I told you.”
“I won’t. But Jessie, let’s get going. I got a bad feeling about this place.”
Kenny’s honesty demanded her own. “So do I, son. So do I.”
Less than a mile away, Conner had a few bad feelings of his own. He wedged one hand between his belly and the rock to cover his belt buckle. The other hand held the canted butt of his gun out of the way as he inched backward on the stone slab. He didn’t want a whisper of sound to reach the men below him.
He had already dismissed the thought of firing his gun to attract the attention of the posted guards. Shots would give an alarm, but they would also send his quarry running for cover in any one of a hundred small canyons and washes that braided this corner of the land, before a man could come and help him.
He was on his own.
As he worked his way down the well-worn path, Conner hoped that Sour Mash lived up to his name and unsociable disposition, and didn’t neigh a greeting to the animals passing so close. Or, if the gelding was in one of his real ornery moods, issue a challenge as if he still was the lead stallion of a wild herd.
Conner needed a solid plan of action. Beyond following these men, he had come up blank.
Easing alongside his horse, Conner cupped one hand over the animal’s nose to insure his silence. He drew a mental map and saw a way that he could get ahead to set up an ambush if he moved out fast.
A deep-sided wash backed close to where he stood. Not wishing to make himself a target, he walked the horse down the loose scree slope before he mounted. He followed the wash as far as he could to where the land leveled off.
The rocky slope offered him a protective barrier as he leaned low, close to the gelding’s neck, and gave the animal his head. Riding at a flat-out run, nothing moved on the heat-shimmering land ahead of him.
He slackened his horse’s pace to cut into a slit that would lead him into Clove Bush Canyon, named for the spicy odor of the golden currant berries that grew in abundance there. From this slot canyon, he could reach a green-topped mesa and be waiting for the rustlers.
Berries? Conner shook his head, something nagging at him that he should remember. He didn’t understand why the thought of berries surfaced now. Fruit wasn’t going to help him set a trap.
He rode from the lip of the canyon into the deep, shadowy recess. This was one of the canyons that had been searched repeatedly in the past year as a possible hideout for the rustlers. The searches always came up empty, especially after several bad storms had sent part of the rock wall crashing to the canyon floor to erect a barrier that cut the canyon in half.
Conner let Sour Mash pick his way over the stone-strewn ground. The murmur of voices came from up ahead. He kicked free of the stirrups. In one smooth motion he slid from the saddle, dragging the reins behind him as he pressed tight to the rock wall.
He was trapped. The only way out was up.
Conner dropped the reins and grabbed his rifle, inching his way forward. He stared in stunned surprise when he recognized the first rider coming over the opening in the rock slide.
“Kenny? What are you doing here?”
“Santo’s hurt,” the boy called out, relieved to see Conner. “Me an’ Jessie got him up on my mare, but he’s in pain.”
“An’ me,” Marty added, drawing his pony even with Kenny’s horse. “I helped, too.”
Conner shot a quick look at the opening of the canyon, then ordered, “Go back.”
“Back? We can’t, Conner.”
Coming away from the wall, Conner’s rapid, long-legged stride brought him to the boys. “Don’t argue, Kenny. We got big trouble coming.”
“The rustlers?”
Conner wanted to groan as he looked up at Kenny’s eager face.
“What do you know about this? Never mind,” he said in the next breath, “just do what I said.” Conner started to turn back when he heard Jessie.
“Conner? What’s wrong? Did something happen at home?”
“No. I was just—”
“Not that I’m sorry to see you,” she interjected. “Santo’s been—”
“Hurt. Yeah, Kenny already said that. Just turn around and go back into the canyon, Jessie. Find cover for you and the boys.”
“But you don’t understand. Santo’s—”
“Jessie! I’m not Logan. Just do it!”
For a few moments, Jessie was shocked. Conner had never raised his voice to her, never ordered her, never snapped at her with temper flaring hot in his eyes.
Santo drew rein alongside Jessie. “Do as he said,” he whispered to Jessie. Then he turned to Conner. “We found the place where men have camped. Four or six hombres, Conner. A few days, I think.” Silently he cursed the weakness pain brought to his voice.
“We’re wasting time. I want to set up an ambush for them.”
“They’re coming?” Jessie asked, darting a frightened look at first Marty, then Kenny. Guilt filled her. If she had listened to Santo, her boys would be safely away from here.
“I don’t know how many,” Conner said. “They’ve got our cattle. They wrap their horses’ hooves which is why we couldn’t track them. I want you and the boys out of the way. Logan’ll kill me if any—” He broke off when he saw Santo sway in the saddle. “Amigo, how bad?”
“The ankle is broken. I will not be much use to—”
“Ain’t to worry, Santo,” Kenny interjected. “Conner’s got me to help him. You said yourself I’m a damn fine shot.”
“An’ me, Kenny. He’s got me, too.”
“Yeah, he’s got both of us.”
“Then obey me. Get back on the other side.” Conner stepped closer to whisper to Jessie. “I’m counting on you to keep them out of the way. I don’t know what the devil I’m facing. If the odds are too high, Jessie, I’m inclined to let them go rather than risk anyone’s life.”
�
��But we need to catch them. Logan—”
“Is not here,” he finished for her. Done talking, he hustled them through the opening and back into the canyon until he found the slit that led to the flat tabletop.
He sent Kenny through first, then Jessie, followed by Marty. All received the same instructions: dismount, lay the horse down and use the animal for cover. And keep quiet. He stressed that.
Conner eyed the narrow opening. Santo would have difficulty riding up. The trail twisted with rock that jutted out and if he caught his broken ankle he might cry out.
As if he had read Conner’s thoughts, Santo spoke. “I will go with them. To remain puts you all at risk.”
Conner couldn’t argue. There was no more time. He heard the deep, sustained low of a cow. Handing his reins to Santo, Conner slapped the gelding’s rump and watched them disappear.
He had a rifle, his handgun and surprise on his side.
It had to be enough.
Chapter Seven
Belinda nearly jumped from her seat in the courtyard when the sound of a loud commotion penetrated the uncomfortable tension between Charles and herself. She welcomed the diversion, whatever its cause.
Charles had retrieved the eardrop, assuring her he would have the bent wire repaired. But he hadn’t let her out of his sight since then. To allay his suspicions, Belinda had launched into her reason for coming there, leaving out her cousin Albert’s threats. But she had not liked his avid interest when she’d explained how the Kincaids were involved.
Charles rose from his chair. “I can’t imagine who is causing—”
“You can’t go out there!” Mrs. Dobbs shouted as she bodily blocked the doorway.
“Riverton!”
Belinda did not need to hear Charles’s muttered “Kincaid.” She knew who it was by the imperious, commanding tone of voice.
“Mrs. Dobbs,” Charles ordered, “please allow the sheriff to join us.”
If Belinda had not been watching Charles, she would have missed the tightening of his facial muscles. He was not, she surmised, happy about this unexpected visit. When she directed her gaze at the doorway where two rope-bound men staggered out into the courtyard, followed by a rifle-toting sheriff, she understood why.
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