Free the Burning Hills (1956) by Louis L'amour

to one strange to her and to her ways. She would think no more of him. He was gone.
    It had been enough and more than enough that other time. She had not been in love but was desperate for some wider life than that in their little corner of desert and mountains. With her father gone she was one more mouth to feed, so she had married Bud Hayes. She had never loved him but he had loved her and he had been a good man until he began to drink. But he was a weak man.
    This man was different. There was something in him that made her believe even when she told herself she was a fool to listen. Men were liars. All of them.
    She remembered how she had first seen him, lying across his half-opened blanket roll, his face ghastly, blood seeping from the broken wound in his side. He had seemed dead ... and then she saw him breathe.
    He was gone now. He had gotten away. He would not come back. And if he did these men were waiting to kill him.
    Buck Bayless pushed back from the table and looked at Maria Cristina with grudging admiration. "You can cook, Mex. I'll give you that."
    She flashed him a sullen look and turned away. Behind her Joe Sutton got to his feet, saying a little self-consciously, "Thanks, Ma'am."
    Wes Parker glanced at him scornfully but Hindeman added his thanks and Joe felt better. Only Jack Sutton loitered at the table. The food had been good but Jack loitered because he could not convince himself that any mere Mexican girl could be cold to him. He stalled over his coffee, wanting to be alone with her.
    Ben Hindeman came to the door after several minutes and said, with heavy sarcasm, "If you're going to stay in there, Jack, get away from the window. If Jordan sees you he'll never come in."
    Irritably, Sutton moved.
    Maria Cristina was thinking that tonight Jordan would not come back. Tonight he would wait for her. Tomorrow? He would wait tomorrow too. After that she must get away.
    She came to herself with a start. She believed him! She was no foolish girl to listen to the talk of any cowpuncher. Yet it could not be that she was in love with this man. She could never truly love a gringo. Yet he had moved her as no man had and his hands upon her ... she hurriedly dismissed the thought and returned to cleaning up.
    Behind her, Jack Sutton sat with his hands shoved down behind his belt He watched her move about the room, the flattening of her dress against her thighs, the way she moved her shoulders.
    "You," he said, "comin' it high an' mighty, an' up there with him!"
    She turned her back to the sideboard, her eyes taunting him. "You don't like that, do you? You think you big man! You think I should like you! Bah! You nothing! You animal! What woman want you? All you know is steal an' -- "
    He came off his chair with a lunge and slapped her across the mouth. The sound was like a pistol shot. Then he swung with the other palm and she grabbed behind her for a kitchen knife.
    Before she could use it, Ben Hindeman sprang iuto the door. "Stop it!" he roared. "Damn you, Jack! Leave that girl alone!"
    Sutton stopped, his face white with fury. He turned on Hindeman, his fingers spread, his face hungry with the lust to kill. "Don't talk to me like that Ben! Some day I'll kill you!"
    "All right." Ben Hindeman rolled his tobacco in his jaws. "You call it, Jack. Just any time." He jerked his thumb toward the door. "Right now you get out an' leave her alone. We ain't got time to let you mess things up by grabbing at her skirt. We're huntin Trace."
    Jack Sutton waited while a man might have counted a slow twenty, then he walked by Hindeman and out the door. Something about Ben was too much for him. He had looked Jack right in the eye and never missed chewing his tobacco. He looked just the same when he watched a branding or bought a barrel of flour.
    "Forget it, Ben. Only she gets under my skin."
    Hindeman looked at the knife Maria Cristina gripped. "Yeah," he said dryly, "I can see where she might."
    Hindeman left and Sutton turned in the