Claudia Dain (5 page)

She was so pretty. Small and slight, her hair the black of river mud, smooth and slick. He was watching her and he knew she could feel his eyes on her. Knew that she was flattered by it. Knew that she wouldn't fight it when he made his first move. He knew how to make it so a woman wouldn't fight, not until the last breath. Not until it was too late for fighting.

But that time wasn't now. He was just getting started with her.

He'd been watching her for weeks, building her trust in him. That was important to a woman. She needed to trust. That was the hard part. What made it easy was that she wanted to trust a man. Any man. As long as she believed the man could be
her
man.

Which made it just perfect, because he wanted to be the man she chose, the man she gave herself to. The man she trusted. The man she'd marry.

That was what he needed.

And he knew just how to get it.

With a smile, he tipped his hat, and rode out of town.

He'd be back. And she'd be waiting for him, just to win another smile from him. Not much longer now. Not much longer before he kissed her.

* * *

He'd been out of Abilene for a day and felt measurably better, away from the blatant hostility of the town, away from
her
.
Jack squinted into the late afternoon sun and pulled his hat lower. He was still a bit thrown by his reaction to her. It didn't happen much, feeling a woman's pull that way; made him feel like a calf being roped and tied up. He didn't like the feeling.

Trouble was, he liked the feel of her.

Jack pulled off his hat and slapped it a couple of times against his leg, pulling his thoughts back into line. Adjusting his hat down over his tangled hair, he considered the site of the last murder.

McPherson was a remote spot just west of the old Abilene Trail and east of the old Ellsworth Trail; in the middle of nothing and on the route to nowhere. Good spot for a murder. The cabin was a scant mile from the town proper, isolated and abandoned, the boards shrunken and wind scraped, the roof just able to keep out water. There was a bed frame, stark and wooden, and a shelf in the corner; that was the extent of the furniture.

There was no blood.

There was no sign of life.

There was nothing to see, nothing to learn. It was just an old shack in the middle of nothing. The place where a girl barely turned woman had died.

The sun slanted low through the small square of a window in the western wall of the cabin; it was getting late, time to make camp. Jack took a last turn, his eyes scanning the space, looking for evidence. There was none. There never was.

He left the cabin on quick feet; he wanted to make camp before dark and there was no way he was going to bed down in there. Grabbing Joe, he mounted and rode north, toward Abilene. He'd not make Abilene before dark and didn't care to. A night in the open was more welcome than the reception he'd get in that town. He'd rarely been in a town that had more quills than Abilene had set against him. Only the sheriff and that Samaritan gal had shown him any sign of welcome, and he understood the sheriff's reasons. Why the Samaritan hadn't clawed her way out of his range, he couldn't figure. If she understood men at all, she'd light out, leaving a trail he couldn't follow.

The rise and fell of her breasts and the smell of her hair came to his mind again with the unexpected force of a hot wind running before a prairie fire. She should have run then, that minute, instead of standing so still, caught in the trap of his arms. But he'd been the one to do the running.

Jack stroked Joe's neck and urged him northward, running again from the image of the dark-haired girl and the soft rhythm of her breathing. He'd bed down on the prairie, just south of the Smoky Hill River, halfway between the cabin and Abilene; it was an easy ride and, though he was running, he was in no mood to push himself hard.

He got his fire going and his bedroll spread just as the sun touched the rim of the earth, heating the sky with color just before the long fade to indigo. He laid his horsehair rope around his bedroll in a loose loop. The sound of the darkness changed suddenly and he faded back into the growing shadows, leaving the golden firelight to warm an empty camp.

The newcomer edged into the light slowly, carefully, taking his time with each step. Jack watched from just beyond the man's range of sight. He, too, was careful.

"Coffee's ready," the man said, using a folded rag resting on a rock to lift the boiling pot off the fire.

"Help yourself," Jack answered before moving a few feet to his right, not willing for the man to use his voice to find range.

"Thanks," the man answered, pouring a cup. "You?"

"Only one cup. It's all yours."

"Thanks again."

The man's hands were both blatantly occupied. Jack had circled his own camp and could detect no other men waiting for him in the dark. He moved into the light of his fire, approaching the man head-on, his hands coiling a length of rope, occupied.

"Name's Foster. I'm a U.S. Marshal."

Jack had heard of him; this man fit the description. "Scullard."

"Haven't seen you around; you new to the country?"

Marshal Foster kept sipping at his coffee. Jack kept playing with his length of rope. Both men edged around each other with caution born of experience.

"Yeah," Jack said, his hat masking his features in heavy shadow so that only his stubbled jaw was clear in the firelight. "Up from Texas. Huntin' bounty."

The marshal nodded and threw the gritty remains of his cup onto the hard soil of Kansas. "Figured you for a bounty hunter. Who you hunting up here?"

Foster refilled the cup and held it out to him, but he kept his distance. A lot could happen when a man got too close.

"Been some murders down around Red River Station, track led north; heard from Sheriff Lane in Abilene that you've had some of the same up here."

The marshal set the full cup down on a flat rock and moved back from it; he stayed in the fire's glow, but he put some distance between himself and Jack. Jack appreciated the effort.

"You heard right. It's damn ugly when men take to killin' women." The marshal spat in disgust.

Jack nodded. The memory of a woman lying in the dirt, her blood running away from her life in a torrent, flashed like lightning in his mind. "It's rare enough, thank God." He set the rope down and picked up the coffee, glad for something to rinse his mouth with.

"You seen it before?" the marshal asked, reading Jack's face too clearly.

"A few times, mostly with the Comanche. Never pretty."

The marshal brought his horse into the light and hobbled him, showing Jack the level of his trust. Jack pushed back the hat from his face, allowing the marshal to see him clearly, returning the trust he had been given.

"Comanche? You with the Rangers down there?"

Jack took a long swallow, ignoring the coffee grounds that he felt on his tongue and between his teeth. "Yeah, used to be."

"Good outfit."

"Hard service."

"That why you quit?"

Jack raised his blue eyes to the marshal's brown ones and allowed himself a smile. "You think I quit? Maybe they threw me out."

The marshal looked back, eye to eye, and smiled slowly.

"No, they didn't throw you out."

"You're right they didn't. But they might have. Too many rules for me."

Foster chuckled and got out his own cup, filling it with coffee. "That I can believe. You don't strike me as a man who sticks to the trail."

"You're making a lot of quick decisions about me," Jack said, drinking again and watching the marshal on the other side of the fire.

"Some, I'll admit."

"Any you won't admit?"

The marshal didn't answer, not with his mouth, but his eyes were sharp and he was keeping Jack in his line of fire.

"Tell me about those killings down at Red River Station."

Volumes were spoken of trust and suspicion in that one command. The U.S. Marshal was no fool.

"Three women in all," he began, his voice even and low, "and all went the same way. Strangled."

"You know that's how it's been up here."

"Yeah, Lane told me as much." Jack looked up into the sky, black now and filled with stars beyond measure, so distant and so bright. So familiar and so cold. "Three women, one of them south toward Fort Worth, one just west of the Station, and the last just north of Caldwell."

"I know those towns," Foster murmured.

"Yeah, anyone who ever rode herd on cows knows those towns."

The marshal studied Jack in the flickering light of the fire, so small a light against the myriad stars. Jack let him look his fill.

"There's been one down off the Arkansas River, not far from Wichita. Three days ago."

"Does Lane know?"

"Not yet."

"Same way?"

"The same," the marshal growled.

The silence lengthened. The fire popped, sending sparks skyward. A shooting star flared across the sky, a strong, smooth arc that dwarfed the light of the stars held motionless by an invisible hand. Jack made a wish for luck; the way the marshal was looking at him, he'd need it.

"When did you hit Abilene?" Marshal Foster asked.

"Yesterday," Jack answered.

Foster nodded, accepting it.

"About those towns..." the marshal began.

"Yeah, all on the trail."

"You rode the trail?"

"In my day," Jack said. "Not many didn't."

"True, the Chisholm Trail saw a lot of cows a few years back."

"And a lot of riders."

"So he's following the Chisholm Trail—"

"At least until Wichita," Jack interrupted. "Now he's on the Abilene Trail."

"That how you see it?"

Jack threw away what was left of his coffee and scoured the cup with sand. "More coffee?"

"No. Thanks." The marshal watched him intently.

"I don't see it any way at all," Jack said, sitting on his bedroll. "I've been following a trail up from Texas and the killings are staying tight to the trail I followed as a hand."

"Abilene's the end of the trail," Foster said, considering Jack again across the fire. Jack was in Abilene.

"Yeah," Jack murmured, lying down on his blanket, facing the stars.

"You going to be in Abilene awhile?"

Jack heard the suspicion in the man's voice and couldn't fault him. He saw again the bodies of the women, broken and bloated, their beauty and youth taken with the tightening of a cord. He buried the image and made sure his rope was securely in place around his own bed, a barrier to snakes that might come crawling in for comfort during the night.

He thought again of the dark-haired girl who had smelled of wildflowers in his arms. He remembered the sheer magnetism of watching her breathe. She lived in Abilene.

Putting his hat over his face, blocking out the stars, Jack answered the marshal's question.

"Yeah. I'll be there."

Chapter 5

Jack and the marshal had parted company that morning. They had no more information to give each other regarding the murders; the marshal was going to stay in the area surrounding the Abilene Trail north of Wichita. Jack was going back to Abilene.

He rode into town just about noon; he could almost hear the town groan in disgust. The Demorest Restaurant window was full of faces, all looking at him. Powell at the livery clamped down on his pipe and shook his head, probably figuring he was a stupid cuss for heading back into Abilene when he'd made it safely out. Well, Jack had never made any claim to being smart.

Lane wasn't in his office, so Jack made his way on down to his hotel. The desk clerk didn't look any happier to see him than anyone else in town had. One thing he was learning about this new Abilene; it was consistent. The old Abilene, the cattle town he remembered, had been a whole lot more fun. This Abilene was as dead as the trail that led to it. As dead as the women who now lined it as grisly signposts pointing north.

It was with that image in his head that he faced the clerk.

"Get me a bath."

The man sniffed and then said, "The bathhouse is under repair and not open for business. We do not provide private bathing arrangements until after eight p.m."

That was a load of bull and Jack knew it. "I want a bath and a cake of soap and a towel in my room in fifteen minutes. I also want you to see to it that my clothes are washed and back in my room by eight p.m. Understood?"

Fortunately for the clerk, he was quick to agree. Jack was in a mood to blow a fly off the wall for buzzing.

"Good," he snarled and then went up the stairs two at a time, skipping that memorable sixth step.

A gang of three boys was waiting in the hall in front of his room. Upon seeing him, they began whispering and pointing, leaning toward the tallest of them to share instant insights. Jack looked more closely. The tallest kid looked like a Walton. He, obviously, was the exhibit.

"Hey, kid, how's your ma?"

The tallest kid straightened and hissed to his friends, "I
told
you I knew him!"