Free Night of the Wolves by Heather Graham

after the first hours, followed by the stuffy jolting carriage and the chubby banker who had passed gas all the way. She thought of the men fresh off the cattle drives, mud-encrusted and sweaty, and the nasty way some of them had of not seeming to know there was such a thing as a toothbrush. How could women choose to sleep with such men? Were whores allowed to force their customers to bathe first?
    “She wasn’t there—yesterday,” Alex noted.
    “I told you. She comes and goes,” Beulah said.
    Alex started to rise from the table.
    “And where do you think you’re going, young lady?” Beulah asked.
    “I told you, I’m going to ride around, just get the feel of being home again,” Alex said. “It will be fine. I’m going to walk down to the sheriff’s office and get Dave to go with me.”
    “Not until you’ve had breakfast. You just relax. Tess is in the kitchen, and I’ll have some eggs out for you in a flash. I made corn muffins this morning, too, and you are not leaving until you’ve told me just exactly how delicious they are. That nice Mr. Fox and his friend Mr. Vincent said they’d never had better.”
    Alex frowned, looking at Beulah. “They are up already? Where are they now?”
    “Honey, they were up bright and early. But I don’t know where they are now.”
    “You didn’t ask?”
    “I don’t put my nose where it shouldn’t be,” Beulah told her firmly. “What those fellows choose to do is their business. I have no right to pry.”
    Alex had to laugh. “You don’t mind grilling me as if I were a prisoner!”
    Beulah looked at her sternly. “Honey child, you are my business. And bless the Lord, those fellows are like manna from above, the first paying customers in weeks, so don’t you go questioning them, either, missy—we want those men around here just as long as we can get them to stay. Now, sit tight. I’ll have your breakfast in two shakes, and then you can hurry down to see Dave and get up to whatever extremely careful adventure you’ve got planned for the day.”
     
    C ODY AND B RENDAN were both well aware, as they neared the Apache camp, that they had been followed for a long time.
    Victory, like its now ghost-town neighbors Brigsby and Hollow Tree, sat near the winding Little Red River. An offshoot of the Little Red, Dead Man’s Creek, meandered north through the plain and on into brush and forest land, to the sudden outcrop of cliffs that surrounded Tall Feather’s main camp. In the past, the Apache people had been known to move, following the buffalo trails, and sometimes they still did. But Tall Feather’s main camp, here in the cliff country, had been established for decades. It was a perfectly secure setup. Tall Feather’s warriors could see for miles around and were stalking them now from the heights.
    Cody had expected the escort, but he wasn’t expecting any actual trouble, even though the Apache were generally regarded as warlike, and they had a complex social network. According to Brendan, who had spent time in Texas and knew the man, Chief Tall Feather was part of the Jicarilla tribe, the Llaneros band and his own clan, which he had named for the area in which he chose to live; in English, it translated as the Cave Warriors, and he was their supreme authority.
    These days, Tall Feather had chosen the richness of life over the glory of warfare. In fact, from all that he had learned, Cody didn’t believe that Tall Feather had ever been responsible for cold-bloodedly murdering anyone, including Alex’s father. If he went to war, if he attacked riders or a wagon train, he would not deny what he had done.
    “There,” Brendan said quietly, nodding in the direction he meant. “The chief is waiting to meet us.”
    They were nearing the vast array of deer-and buffalo-skin tents, many adorned with antlers, feathers and other trophies from the hunt, that marked Tall Feather’s camp. A path led through the camp, and at the end of the path stood an extremely large