“So you’re finally up and about,” said Ree when Ella entered the kitchen.
Ella smiled weakly, heading straight for the back door.
“Where you goin’?” asked the older woman.
“I ... I have to meet someone. I’ll be back soon,” she explained. “If Warfield arrives while I’m gone will you ask him to wait for me here?”
“Where else would he wait?”
“I mean—tell him not to go anywhere.”
“Say, you may be up and about, but you still look a little peaked to me. You sure you’re okay?”
Ella nodded.
“Yeah, well, don’t you go far. For my money, you ought to be back in bed.”
“I’ll only be out back of here a few hundred yards; there’s nothing to worry about. Really.”
“I don’t like this,” said Ree uneasily. “All this mystery, you actin’ so strange today. You sure you shouldn’t wait till Hunter gets back before you go traipsin’ off like this?”
Ella’s one wish was that Hunter could be with her now, but the stage was never on schedule, and it was already the appointed time to meet Scofield.
“I can’t wait,” she told Ree. “I have to go.” And then she quickly turned away from the older woman and rushed out the back door.
Bledsoe lay in wait in the ruins of a fire-gutted shack down the street and across from the Sloan’s house. He, like S. J. Lindstrom, was anxious to see Dave Bennett come riding by in a wagon full of powder and dynamite. But unlike Lindstrom, Bledsoe had the patience that comes with the title of “bounty hunter.” He simply bided his time, knowing that eventually Bennett would come his way. And then, with the expenditure of just one bullet, Bledsoe would have six-thousand dollars to stuff in his money belt.
He was thinking about that money when he was distracted by movement off to his left. Even in the half-light of dusk the bounty hunter could see that it was War Hunter’s woman.
She was walking out onto the open plain behind the Sloans’ house, and he watched her until she disappeared in a buffalo hollow that dipped out of his sight.
Wondering why she had gone out there helped Bledsoe pass the time. He came up with a few theories but dismissed each of them, in turn, as being too unlikely. And then, finally, he dismissed the subject from his mind entirely because Dave Bennett’s wagon had just appeared at the northern edge of the street.
Bledsoe raised his rifle.
Scofield was deep in the shadows of the buffalo hollow, watching with awestruck fascination as Ella walked up to within ten yards of him and stopped. She was even more beautiful now than she had been seven years before. At sixteen, Ella had been little more than a girl, but now she was grown-up and Scofield appreciated the difference. Her womanly curves, full breasts, and especially her mature yet still youthful face were a rude shock to Scofield’s expectations.
The night before he had seen her for only a moment and then only across a dark street. Now he was seeing her up close, and he was liking what he saw very much.
“You’re looking exceptionally well, my dear,” he understated.
Ella wasn’t interested in making small talk. “You said you had news of my mother?”
“Indeed I do,” he said smoothly, a smile creasing his lips despite the fact that the news he had of Ella’s mother was that she had been dead now for four long years.
“Tell me about her,” said Ella.
“For starters, I can tell you this much: you look remarkably like your mother—particularly in the portrait of her that hangs over the fireplace in the library. You do remember that painting, don’t you?”
“Yes,” said Ella softly, remembering not only the picture, but the way she used to look up at it when she was a little girl and think of how beautiful her mother was.
“It amazes me,” said Scofield as he took a few small steps toward her, “how you’ve not only managed to survive during these last seven years, but how you’ve also managed to keep from being dragged down by the hard life out here on the frontier.”
“Life,” said Ella bitterly, “would’ve been much harder on me had I not run away from you.”
“Not necessarily,” said Scofield with a wicked smile. “You should’ve given yourself more time to adapt. You might’ve enjoyed these last seven years a good deal more than you expected.”
“I see you didn’t come here to apologize,” she said coldly. And then noticing for the first time how Scofield had narrowed the distance between them, she demanded, “Stay where you are!”
“Don’t you want to hear about your mother?” he asked innocently.
“You can tell me from right there. Don’t come any closer!”
“You’re not still afraid of me, are you?”
That was a not a question Ella cared to answer. The truth was that she was still very much afraid of him, but she’d never admit it to him even though her fear was obvious in her quivering voice.
“Well, are you still afraid of me?” he persisted, stepping still closer to her.
Ella tried to hold her ground, but her courage failed her and she backed away.
Scofield wasn’t as close to her as he wanted to be. Just a few steps more and he could simply reach out, grab Ella by the throat, and squeeze until she went limp with death. There was one simple way, however, to make Ella stand still long enough so that he could kill her swiftly and easily ...
“Your mother is dead,” said Scofield.
The shock of these words had the desired effect. Ella was stunned. She had to close her eyes to fight back a sudden rush of tears. And that’s when Scofield covered the last few yards that separated them, his large meaty hands encircling Ella’s throat.
As soon as his hands touched her skin. Ella opened her eyes. She would’ve screamed, but it was already too late, she couldn’t even breathe.
Ella fought against him frantically, kicking and clawing even as her strength was ebbing.
Suddenly, a thunderous explosion rocked the earth. Scofield, startled, made the mistake of loosening his grip on Ella’s throat. With one last desperate effort, she scratched at his eyes and jerked her body away from his ... and broke free!
Barely having the breath to breathe, Ella ran out of the buffalo hollow and toward the Sloans’ house. Gasping for air, she looked over her shoulder and there was Scofield, close behind and gaining on her fast.
“It looks like you’re gonna owe me five bucks!” chortled Del O’Connell as he began slowing the coach down in front of the Lost Creek Hotel.
But just before the stage came to a halt, there was a booming explosion and Hunter and O’Connell both looked up to see smoke and debris go flying high into the air over the south end of town. “That’s near where I live!” exclaimed Hunter.
O’Connell just stared up at the cloud of smoke that was billowing up into the sky and said, “I wonder what in blazes caused that?”
Hunter grabbed the reins out of the stage driver’s hands and said, “I’m sure as hell gonna find out.” And with that, he whipped the horses into a gallop, racing as fast as he could through the streets of Lost Creek to make sure the people he cared about most were all right.