Free The Loner: The Blood of Renegades by J. A. Johnstone

For every yard they covered, Finger Rock seemed to recede an equal distance, but gradually the gap narrowed. They reached it in mid-afternoon. The rock was twenty feet wide at its base, tapering to a much narrower point sixty feet in the air. The shade it cast on its eastern side was welcome, and the air felt almost blessedly cool.
    Conrad unsaddled all the horses, including Selena’s. Her saddlebags were in the back of the buggy now that there was no longer any need to keep their contents secret. Conrad didn’t think any of the horses would stray very far from the shade, so he hobbled them but didn’t picket them.
    “We’ll stay here until after dark. That’ll give us a chance to rest and cool off. We can probably travel most of the night. It won’t be hard to follow the railroad, even in the dark.”
    “What about Leatherwood?” Selena asked.
    “How long would it take him to get back to Juniper Canyon from Navajo Wash?”
    “At least half a day, I suppose.”
    “And once he got there he’d have to round up more men and fresh horses,” Conrad said. “That would take a while. So at the very best, he couldn’t have started after us again until a little while ago. If anything happened to delay him, he might not be on the trail yet. We’ll be able to stay ahead of him. Anyway, we had to stop and rest the horses. Pretty soon they wouldn’t have been able to go on, and then we really would’ve been stuck.”
    “I suppose you’re right. I’ll just be glad when I know I’m somewhere he can’t get at me anymore.”
    Conrad didn’t say it, but he knew that wasn’t really possible. They could make it very difficult for Leatherwood to find Selena, practically impossible, in fact, but the chance that he might track her down would always exist. A man who devoted all his time and energy, even his very life, to something was hard to stop. The question was whether or not Jackson Leatherwood was that stubborn.
    Selena sat down with her back propped against the rock pinnacle, and within a few minutes she was asleep. Conrad and Arturo were giving water to the horses when Conrad said, “You might as well get some shut-eye, too.”
    “What about you?” Arturo asked. “Neither of us has gotten much sleep in the past twenty-four hours.”
    “That’s true, but I’ll be all right. You doze for a while, then I’ll wake you.”
    “Very well.” Arturo took a blanket from the buggy and spread it on the ground to sit on. He folded another blanket and stuck it behind his head to use as a pillow when he leaned back against the rock. Tipping his derby down over his face, he folded his arms across his chest, and soon dozed off.
    Conrad hunkered on his heels and sipped from one of the canteens. He didn’t drink much. He didn’t know when they would find more.
    He was still a little irritated Selena had hidden that money from him. On the other hand, he understood why she had done it. He couldn’t blame her for not completely trusting him and Arturo. Growing up in a Mormon community, she might have been taught all Gentiles were not trustworthy. Conrad didn’t know much about what they believed. Like most people, he was aware Mormon men sometimes had multiple wives, but that was about the extent of his knowledge.
    He struggled to stay awake for a couple hours while Arturo and Selena slept. Then, quietly so as not to disturb Selena, he shook Arturo awake and took his place. In two more hours, the sun would be down and they could think about moving on.
    Sleep came down on Conrad like a sledgehammer. When he woke up, his face was beaded with sweat and he didn’t know how long he had been lost in deep, dreamless slumber.
    All he knew was that somebody had just screamed.

Chapter 13
     
    Conrad bolted up from the ground. His gun was in his hand without him even thinking about it. The sun was down but a faint rosy glow remained in the sky. When Selena screamed again and Conrad swung toward her, the light was bright enough for him