Free Dorothy Garlock - [Colorado Wind 03] by Wind of Promise Page B

had loved none of them. Always he would leave them, and while he would often remember, he would never feel the urge to go back. He wondered how it would be to make love to a woman who was totally his, who had the look of love in her eyes just for him, not for the amount of money he would leave her. Vanessa was the kind of woman who would love a man wholeheartedly or not at all.
    “Vanessa, Vanessa,” he murmured. “I’ve got to stop thinking about you in that way.”
    The red horse, cropping the grass around the boulders, lifted his head, perked his ears, and gazed fixedly toward the trail. Kain got to his feet, moving slowly, fearful the pain would return. Soon his ears picked up what Big Red had heard a full minute before, hoofbeats on the hard-packed trail. Well concealed, he watched four riders pass. They were tough, dirty men. One was a small man with a thin face and straw colored hair—the kid Vanessa had hit with the shovel.
    Kain leaned weakly against his horse while questions dogged his mind. Was it a coincidence the kid was on the trail behind Vanessa’s wagon or was he deliberately following it? He mulled it over in his mind and decided that if the kid was following, he would not do anything in broad daylight, not with old John Wisner riding shotgun with that powerful buffalo gun.
    The air was very still, the sky impossibly clear. Kain patted Big Red, and the horse nuzzled his hand affectionately. The thought came to him that he would ride out of this place a much different man than when he rode in. He considered that for a moment, then shrugged his broad shoulders. Life was uncertain and death was sure for all. His end would just come sooner than he had expected.
    Kain was hungry, but afraid that if he ate the terrible pain would return. After a few minutes he realized he would have to risk it and dug into his pack for the last of his soda crackers. He ate them slowly, then mounted his horse and rode out.
     
    *  *  *
     
    The sun was down. Vanessa went for a short distance after they crossed a dry creek bed before pulling the mules to a halt. John drove his wagon alongside hers.
    “Not here, ma’am. There’s a better place on down aways.”
    Vanessa waved him on and followed. John turned down the dry creek bed. There was a fold in the ground where a trickle of a spring ran down to the creek and made a small pool.
    “Ain’t nobody agoin’ to see us here till they’re right up close,” John explained. “Ain’t no use tellin’ folks where we be.”
    “Do you think Mr. DeBolt is all right?” Ellie asked.
    “Him? He’ll make out. He’s makin’ sure them horses is scattered to hell ’n yonder. That breed’ll be madder ’n a stepped-on snake. I ain’t met a mean breed yet what wasn’t as sneakin’ as a snake. He be wily as a wolverine, ’n if’n ya ain’t careful he’ll poke a knife in yore back shore as shootin’. Kain ort a killed him. He’s gonna have to anyways.”
    “Oh! I do hope not.”
    “That’s how tis out here, ma’am. Ya got to do what ya got to do.” John took off his hat and tossed it up into the wagon seat. “We’d best share a fire agin tonight, cook what we got to, then dowse it ’n set back.”
    Vanessa and Henry unhitched and Mary Ben began to build a fire on a flat shelf beside the spring.
    “Do you think we’ll be . . . bothered?” Ellie asked.
    “I ain’t aknowin’ that, ma’am. It jist don’t make no sense to not be ready if we are.”
    “Mr. Wisner, does it bother you that you killed a man today?”
    “No ma’am. I ain’t never liked that Dutchman, no way.”
    “You knew him?” Ellie was shocked.
    “I sort a knowed him. He was low caliber ’n meaner ’n all get out. Ain’t nothin’ lower ’n a man who’d kill his own woman. It’s said it’s what he done. I ain’t never heard a him shootin’ it out face-to-face. Backshooter is what he was.” He glanced at Ellie’s white face and cursed himself for his blabbering tongue. “If