Lady Renegade. Carol Finch
glanced overhead then grabbed another broken limb to hurl upward.
“Hell!” Clem growled when he heard the clatter in the tree above him.
Since Clem expected someone to drop down on him, Gideon took advantage of the distraction and charged forward. By the time Clem realized the threat was behind him, not above him, Gideon slammed into his back and knocked away the pistol. Clem went down with a grunt and groan then spewed profanity. Before Clem could roll away to grab a dagger or his pistol, Gideon snatched up his knife and pressed it into Clem’s throat.
“Wanted dead or alive, according to Judge Parker,” Gideon snarled threateningly. “You decide how you want to meet him. As for me, I’d just as soon toss your sorry carcass over the back of a horse and let the undertaker deal with you.”
Clem glanced over his thick shoulder. “Who are you?”
“Deputy U.S. Marshal Gideon Fox.” He manacled Clem’s wrists then hauled him to his feet.
“Well damn,” Clem muttered. “I ain’t been in the territory too long but I’ve heard of you and none of it’s good. A real bastard who’ll chase a man to the gates of hell…and beyond, I’m told. A blue-eyed half-breed to boot. I never did care much for Injuns.”
“Quit flattering me. It’ll get you nowhere.”
From Lori’s hiding place behind a boulder on the hillside, she watched the tall, muscular man, wearing black breeches, a dark shirt, leather vest and boots move through the soupy fog like a shadow within a shadow to capture the outlaw. The man who claimed to be a Deputy U.S. Marshal was exceptionally quick on his feet and handy with weapons.
Although Lori had overheard the conversation, she was leery about approaching the lawman. But after holing up in caves for five days—and encountering one unsociable panther, while dodging Sonny Hathaway and Teddy Collins—she decided a lawman could offer legal protection. She needed to tell her side of the story about the murder and clear her name. Plus, whoever had killed Tony was running loose, which meant she was still in danger.
Lori had grieved the loss of her friend as she had washed his blood from her shirt in a nearby stream.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to wash away the torturous memory of that tragic night.
Several of Tony’s comments continued to baffle her. She welcomed a formal investigation that would give her the opportunity to make her statement and find the man who shot Tony. Whatever had been going on that fateful night, Lori owed her life to Tony, who’d taken the fatal bullet for her.
Her regretful thoughts trailed off and she came to attention after the lawman had captured the outlaw. Now was the time to pick her way down the rugged hillside to introduce herself to the lawman. Mentally rehearsing what she intended to say, Lori led Drifter around the trees and boulders, then tethered him. She could only hope the Deputy U.S. Marshal would offer protection and agree to accompany her back to Russell Trading Post to clear her name and reassure her father that she was alive.
Gideon pushed Clem ahead of him, just in case there was another booby trap strategically situated between Clem and his stolen horse. When Clem halted, trying to lure Gideon into taking the lead and dragging him forward to spring the trap, Gideon stayed put.
“We can still do this the easy way,” Gideon breathed down Clem’s neck. “I can shove you into the trip wire and you can shoot yourself. You’ll be as dead as a man can get. Not me. I’ll be around to collect your bounty and the reward.”
“You’re all heart, Fox,” Clem said and scowled.
“I hear that a lot… Now move.”
Muttering, Clem stepped over the booby trap.
“Where’d you learn to set traps?” Gideon asked conversationally as he quick-marched Clem to his stolen horse—the evidence needed to stick him in Judge Parker’s jail, awaiting a prison sentence.
“I rode with Confederate raiders in Kansas during the war.” Clem glanced back at Gideon and smirked disrespectfully. “Where’d you learn to avoid ’em? In Injun warrior training school?”
“Sure. I graduated at the head of my class,” Gideon replied without missing a beat. “I get even better at it while dealing with former guerilla fighters like you. I have a lot of practical experience with sneaky, lying, cheating, thieving white men.”
Swearing foully, Pecos Clem tugged on the rope Gideon had used to tie him to the tree. Although Clem called Gideon several rude, disrespectful names, he ignored them and saddled the gray stallion. According to the reports delivered to the marshals’ mobile headquarters, Pecos Clem and his two cohorts had raided an Osage ranch and stolen several horses. The gray was the last one recovered.
“How’d you find me?” Clem sniped as Gideon hoisted him onto the horse then tied his feet to the stirrups. “Did my backstabbing friends squeal on me? Damn those rascals!”
“Nope, I smelled you two miles away,” Gideon replied.
“I’m not the stinking Injun around here. You are,” he muttered hatefully. “We ran off your redskin cousins in Texas and herded them into this territory. If it was up to me, you and your kind would be dead and gone.”
Gideon’s response was a snort. Clem could spout insults until he ran out of breath. Gideon was ridding Indian reservations in the territory of white criminals and he was protecting his people from harm. That’s what mattered.
“You hear what I said, Injun?” Clem ridiculed. “I—”
His voice trailed off at the same moment that Gideon noticed movement in the shifting fog. The sun broke free briefly, leaving a pocket of light shimmering on the hillside. A shapely female in her early twenties emerged from the hazy shadows of trees and underbrush. Her long curly hair caught in the sparkling sunlight and danced like red-and-gold flames.
She was tall—maybe five foot six inches, he guessed. Plus, she was all too alluring in brown, trim-fitting breeches that accentuated the shapely curve of her hips and the white shirt that molded itself provocatively to her full breasts.
He blinked twice, wondering if he was seeing a mirage or some sort of mystical apparition. The shifting fog and glittering spears of sunlight gave the woman an ethereal quality impossible to ignore. The world seemed eerily still and Gideon stood transfixed. Even Pecos Clem seemed too dazed to attempt escape while Gideon was hopelessly distracted.
Honest to goodness, Gideon had never seen a woman so captivating and alluring in all his thirty-two years of vast and varied experience. If there were white men’s angels sent down from above, he’d like to think this was what an angel looked like. Either that or she was one of the Indian spirit guides he’d heard described by his Osage mother.
And yet, a quiet voice inside his head whispered, Here comes trouble, and the cynic he’d become paid close attention.
Chapter Two
“Gideon Fox?” Her voice floated toward him on the slightest hint of a breeze.
How’d she know my name? he asked himself, stunned.
Gideon spoke not a word while the woman moved gracefully toward him. When she came close enough for him to make out her facial features, which were surrounded by that shiny mass of flame-gold hair, the astonishing sight of her stole his breath right out of his lungs. Alert golden eyes, rimmed with a thick fringe of black lashes, focused intently on him. She had a creamy complexion, a pert nose and plump pink lips ripe for kissing.
Hell and damn! He couldn’t recall another time in his life when he’d been so awed by the sight of a woman. He couldn’t seem to look away, just stood there wondering if he had set off a trip wire, died and ended up on the spiritual pathway to the Osage Afterlife and didn’t know it yet.
“Are you real?” Clem chirped, obviously as hypnotized as Gideon by the unexplained appearance of the bewitching creature that had