Lady Renegade. Carol Finch
case the killer was waiting to dispose of all of them. “We need to take cover before more shots are fired.”
“You’re a liar!” the brunette railed as she dropped down beside Tony. “Now what am I to do? I’ve lost my husband and now you’ve murdered my foreman. Who will help me run my business? How will I survive?”
When Maggie grabbed the spare pistol, Lori was certain the grief-crazed widow intended to shoot her for the crime she falsely presumed Lori had committed. As Maggie clutched the pistol in both hands and raised it to fire, Lori darted behind the nearest tree. The shot zinged past her, compelling her to run for her life.
“Whore!” Maggie screeched, then fired off another shot. “Murderess! Sonny! Teddy! Come quickly. The killer is trying to get away! Hurry!”
Lori sprinted toward her horse, grateful she was wearing her usual attire of breeches and shirt so she could move swiftly and agilely.
On her best days, Lori couldn’t compete with Maggie Burgess’s stylish clothing. But then, Maggie didn’t have to vault onto a horse and race into the night to avoid capture.
“What happened, Mizz Burgess?”
Lori glanced back to see the silhouettes of Sonny Hathaway and Teddy Collins, two of the hired hands, racing uphill toward Maggie.
“Lorelei Russell just killed Tony!” Maggie wailed. “Stop her before she circles back to the trading post to seek her father’s protection!”
Maggie’s command sealed Lori’s escape route, forcing her to ride toward the wild tumble of timbered hills so she wouldn’t drag her father into this horrible misunderstanding. She hoped when Maggie had time to calm down and review the situation she’d realize that Lori hadn’t fired the fatal shot.
Lori nudged Drifter in the flanks and he took off like a shot, zigzagging through the trees to put more distance between her and the two hired hands sent to pursue her. She swore she could still hear Maggie screeching like a banshee, but Lori didn’t look back. She held on to the saddle horn and curled over Drifter’s neck to make certain a low-hanging tree limb didn’t knock her off the galloping horse.
She allowed herself to spill the tears that had clouded her eyes when she’d realized Tony was beyond help. Now she could cry for her lost friend and curse herself for rejecting his marriage proposal. It broke her heart, knowing Tony had offered his love and she’d turned him down—the moment before the fatal gunshot ended his life at the young age of thirty.
In addition, Maggie Burgess was so beside herself with grief and fury that she’d shot at Lori. She felt sorry for the young widow who was only six or seven years older than Lori.
Maggie had married Hubert Burgess who was sixteen years her senior. Two months ago, Hub’s horse had bucked him off while he was chasing cattle rustlers and he’d died instantly. Maggie had yet to recover from her anguish, and now someone had shot and killed her ranch foreman, leaving her grief-stricken, desperate and feeling abandoned and overwhelmed.
Lori’s thoughts scattered in the wind when she heard the thunder of hoofbeats behind her. The report of a rifle shattered the silence. Lori plastered herself against Drifter’s neck and urged the gelding into his fastest pace as he scrambled uphill. The flare from a discharging rifle caught her attention and she frowned, bemused. The shot came from the west, not the south where Sonny and Teddy rode in hot pursuit.
Was the bushwhacker who had killed Tony after her, too? A cold chill slithered down her spine when she remembered Tony had stepped in front of her like a shield to take the fatal shot. By all rights, she should be dead right now. She would have been the innocent victim struck by the killer’s careless shot in the darkness. Whatever Tony had done in his past to draw gunfire, he’d committed a selfless act. He didn’t deserve to die! she thought remorsefully.
Lori muffled a sniff and tried to block out the awful scene that kept replaying itself in her mind. She couldn’t allow herself to be distracted while racing to safety with two hired hands chasing her, as well as the sniper, who evidently had circled to the west to shoot at her.
Guided by the light of the moon, Lori headed toward the wild, broken Osage Hills where deep gulches and rock-and-timber hilltops offered protection. She cringed, knowing the grief-stricken widow and the hired hands believed the worst about her. They planned to take the law into their own hands to see her pay for a crime she didn’t commit.
Glancing uneasily around her, she held on as Drifter scrabbled uphill, weaving his way around oversize boulders and trees. She knew bears and panthers roamed the area, not to mention vagabond outlaws. Not counting the two-man posse and the mysterious sniper who had killed Tony.
She squeezed her eyes shut and choked on a sob. She hoped that wherever Anthony Rogers was—and no matter what he’d done in his secretive past—he could hear her silent apology and he’d forgive her for turning him down. The thought of never seeing Tony again tormented her to no end, especially when she’d sent him off to the Hereafter with her rejection echoing around him.
Five days later
Deputy U.S. Marshal Gideon Fox scrunched down in the bushes, watching the outlaw known as Pecos Clem Murphy build his morning campfire in the valley between two steep embankments in the Osage Hills. Despite the thick fog that cloaked the valley, Gideon hadn’t had trouble tracking Pecos Clem—thanks to the man’s cohorts. They had been all too happy to offer Gideon directions—after he’d applied some unfriendly persuasion.
Clem whistled while he worked. The former Texas cowboy and his brigands had turned to cattle rustling and horse thieving and had been hiding out in Indian Territory for several months. But very soon, Clem would rejoin his two friends, who were sitting in the jail wagon at marshal headquarters.
Gideon crept closer to the stubble-faced, scraggly-haired outlaw. When Gideon noticed the trip wire six inches in front of his boot, he stopped dead in his tracks. He glanced speculatively from the wire to Clem. No wonder the wily outlaw was lounging by the campfire, looking carefree and unconcerned while he brewed his morning coffee. The sneaky bastard was inviting Gideon to come closer and fall into a trap.
Giving Clem more credit than he did previously, Gideon stepped over the booby trap and surveyed the area. If he were Clem, he’d set another trip wire. Sure enough, partially concealed by fallen leaves and twigs, another trip wire awaited Gideon. But he carefully avoided it.
He’d seen all kinds of schemes and traps during his years as a member of the Osage Reservation Police Force and then as a commissioned deputy marshal serving the federal court in Fort Smith. Dealing with Clem served to remind Gideon of his motto: Don’t believe everything you hear or see. And don’t trust anyone but yourself and your own family.
Gideon had seen too many men die with stunned expressions on their faces. He didn’t plan to join the ranks of the departed.
Crouching in the underbrush near a tree, Gideon grabbed his dagger from his boot then hurled it into the tree stump where Clem sat. Wheeling quickly, Clem fired off three shots that sailed ten feet over Gideon’s hiding place. Then Gideon tossed a broken tree limb to his left and watched Clem fire off two more shots. The outlaw was lightning-quick with his pistol.
“Show yourself!” Clem barked. “Only cowards crawl and slither on their bellies in the grass.”
Gideon had been taunted, ridiculed and baited scores of times and he really didn’t give a damn about an outlaw’s opinion of him. Clem could call him The Devil Himself and it wouldn’t faze Gideon. His objective was to rid his people’s land of the thieves and murderers that invaded the territory to escape the law from neighboring states.
“You gonna show yourself, yellow-belly?” Clem taunted.
Gideon didn’t reply, just surveyed the campsite once again. Since Clem wore double hostlers on his hips, Gideon figured the outlaw had seven shots left in his six-shooters. Plus, he had access to Gideon’s dagger—and perhaps a dagger of his own. Also, there was an empty scabbard on the saddle Clem had used as his pillow for sleeping. Gideon predicted there was also a rifle