Chapter 18

“Dammit, boy, I said I was in a hurry.”

A very young Rhys struggled to get the saddle on the moving bay horse, but his usual soothing touch wasn’t working. The bay was almost frantic, and Rhys saw the whip scars on its hide, and he understood the horse’s skittishness. He wished that he, like the horse, could kick out at his tormentors.

But instead he kept his mouth shut, knowing that any response would earn him a back hand or worse. He tried to throw the saddle over the horse’s back, but he was small, only ten, and the horse lunged against the stall, nearly crushing him.

The owner of the horse impatiently moved to the stall, jerking the horse’s mouth cruelly. He lifted the whip in his hand and struck the horse, and Rhys tried to dart out of the stall.

The whip suddenly hit his back, tearing through the thin fabric of the too small shirt. Rhys felt the pain, then the blood start running.

“Ye lazy little bastard,” the man said, and Rhys, weak from hunger and a sickness that wouldn’t go away in the cold damp of the barn where he slept, struck back. In a sudden unexpected action, born of impotent rage and hopelessness, he struck back, knocking the whip from the man’s hand and skittering away.

But he wasn’t fast enough. The man’s hand came out and grabbed what was left of his shirt. The whip came down, again and again. Rhys tried to roll into a ball, just as he did against so many things, against hunger and loneliness, against the vast dark fear that never entirely left him.

He kept hearing the man’s word. Bastard.

Like his mother’s words. “Ye be a lord’s son, not that he wanted ye.” His mother’s words, beat again into his consciousness as the whip tore into his back. He remembered each one. “You should have died.”

Red clouded his eyes, and he fought unconsciousness, afraid he wouldn’t wake again. Instead, he steeled himself inside, forever shunting away any softness still left there and making a pledge. When he was bigger, no one, absolutely no one, would ever touch him again. No one would ever call him bastard again. No one would …

No one. He struggled up from where he lay. No one, he thought, would touch him and live. He had to get back. He had to get back to Land’s End. And then … he would make someone pay.

And pay big.

It was Wes who found him.

He and one of Miguel’s sons were bringing a string of horses back to the corral late in the afternoon, when he saw buzzards circling above in the distance. Wes didn’t really know why he decided to check; it could well have been a small animal, but then too much had been happening lately. He handed the lead rope to his companion and spurred his horse toward the carrion.

Wes saw it was a man before he knew his identity. But then he saw the black hair, and instinctively knew it was Rhys Redding. As he drew close, he swore. If it hadn’t been for the hair, he wondered if he would even recognize the body. It was covered with dirt and sweat and blood, the skin flayed and the face cut and bruised. He saw the tracks in the sand, obviously Rhys’s, obviously staggering, and he wondered how far Redding had come like this.

Was he even alive?

Wes dismounted, taking his canteen, and signaled to Miguel’s son to approach. When the young man saw Rhys, he made the sign of the cross. “Is he alive, señor?”

Wes bent on his remaining knee and balanced himself with the other half leg. A rope was around Redding’s neck, and Wes took a knife, cutting it away. He felt for the pulse in Redding’s throat, and relaxed slightly when he found one. He tensed again, though, as he noted the raw red ring around Rhys’s neck.

He looked at the bruises, the torn pants. Rhys’s hands were tied in back of him. Wes quickly cut through those ropes, too. “I’d say he’s been dragged, and whipped. Christ knows what else. Bastards,” he said, almost spitting out the words. He didn’t like Redding, but he wouldn’t wish this on his worst enemy, except perhaps on the men who did this. Redding was here because of Wes, because of his threats, and because of his sister. “Goddamn them,” he said. And then he thought of Susannah, and his throat went dry.

Wes thought about taking him someplace else, but there wasn’t any other place. He knew he wasn’t welcome in any home in the county. And Redding needed a doctor. Badly.

He poured some water on Redding’s face and was rewarded as the man slowly opened his eyes and stared at him a moment, before his lips bent into the usual wry smile. “I’d rather drink that, than … have you drown me,” he said, each word said in a harsh almost gasping tone which spoke, more than his words, of his thirst.

Wes couldn’t help a slight smile. Nothing had changed Redding’s caustic personality, at least. He helped lift Redding’s head and held the canteen to his lips, letting the water drip into his mouth. He saw the throat gulp greedily, and again he cursed under his breath. “I take it you’re going to live,” he finally said.

Rhys’s dark eyes fixed on him. “So I can get those bloody bastards,” he said.

Regardless of Rhys Redding’s current condition, Wes knew he was damned glad it was the Martins the Welshman hated. He suspected they had made a bad mistake leaving Redding alive. The look on his face was different from any Wes had seen; it reflected a cold implacable fury that created shivers even down his own back. He had thought the Welshman’s expression, when confronting the thieves months back had been daunting; it had been downright friendly compared to this silent, soul-deep rage. Wes knew his war, his and Susannah’s, had now become Rhys Redding’s war, and for the briefest of moments he pitied the Martins.

“Lowell Martin?” he asked,

“The sniveling brother,” Rhys said.

“Should I call the sheriff?”

Rhys shook his head. “It’s my business now!” The words were a low rumbling promise. He moved, and his body seemed to shiver with pain.

Redding stilled, apparently, it appeared to Wes, to adapt to the pain, and then his expression eased slightly. “As you said, the sheriff is probably on their payroll. Martin said … if I went to the law, he and his men would say they found me on a stolen horse, that they were only … teaching me a lesson. And then they would ‘discover’ the body of the man who … had been riding that horse.”

Wes thought he knew what was coming. “What did happen to him?”

“I killed him,” Rhys said emotionlessly.

“And they left you alive?”

“An object lesson, I believe,” Rhys said. “And I’m … not sure they really thought I would get back. If you hadn’t come along …”

“I saw the buzzards …”

Rhys closed his eyes. “I don’t know how far I came. It was an old cotton tree … a hanging tree.”

“Christ,” Wes said. “That’s at least three miles away. How the hell did you—?” He looked down at the man sprawled on the dirt. He had apparently walked, or crawled, three miles on feet that were butchered, with his hands tied, and a back which must be sheer agony.

But now was no time to talk, and Wes knew it. Those cuts needed cleaning and tending. “Can you get up?” he asked.

Rhys opened his eyes again, his eyes almost blank now. But he nodded.

“Take Jesus’s horse. He can ride bareback on one of the string. He’ll help you mount.”

Rhys nodded again. He looked down at his chest, at the matted blood. “Your shirt,” he said.

Wes looked confused.

“Your … shirt. I don’t … want to … scare Susannah. My back … I think it’s even worse.”

“She’ll have to see it.”

Rhys shook his head. “No. You … or Hannah. Swear it.”

Wes shook his head. “She nursed you in the hospital. I don’t—”

“You don’t have to understand. Your word … she won’t see my back?”

Wes finally nodded his head. He didn’t know whether it would be possible, but he now realized Redding wouldn’t move unless he promised. Wes knew Susannah too well. She would try to take over immediately. Damnation.

“Say it.”

“I swear,” Wes said, exasperated now. Yet it was the first time Redding had ever asked anything of him. It was unnerving.

Wes got up on his crutches and leaned down, offering his hand while. Jesus did the same. The Mexican was seventeen and slim, but he had a lean strength. Redding took Wes’s instead, and Wes again felt a small bit of satisfaction as he provided the strength and balance Redding needed—even on the damned crutches.

Redding swayed for a moment, and Wes saw the lips press tightly together, watched a muscle twitch in his throat, and knew the pain must be enormous. He didn’t think he had ever before seen such willpower … three miles, for God’s sake. “Your shirt …” Redding repeated.

Redding was standing on his own now, though swaying slightly.

Wes took off his shirt and handed it to Redding. “That blood’s going to go right through it.”

“It’s mostly dried,” Redding said as he shrugged the shirt on carefully.

Wes knew the pain must be agonizing. He looked at Jesus. “Go to town for the doctor.”

The Mexican nodded, but hesitated for just a moment. “You can manage the horses … and the señor?”

Wes nodded. “Once we get Señor Redding on a horse, he’ll be all right.” He looked at Redding, who nodded.

The Mexican looked dubious, but he went over to his mount and held it as Rhys hobbled over to it. Jesus made his hands into a cup and leaned down, waiting for Rhys to put his left foot in it.

Rhys took the saddle horn, grateful for it now, put one of his bloody feet into Jesus’s hands, and painfully rose into the saddle, discarding the stirrups.

“You will be all right, señor?”

No. But he would survive as he’d survived other times. He nodded. “Thank you,” he said, as he looked down at the Mexican’s bloody hands.

“It is nothing, señor. I will bring a doctor.”

Rhys forced a smile. “Be careful.”

“They killed my brother. I am always careful, but I will avenge him someday.”

“We both will, Jesus,” Rhys said softly. “We both will.”

Rhys fought to stay in the saddle. The saddle horn he had so disdained earlier helped him do it, and he clung to it as a leech clings to its victim. He wasn’t sure he had told Wes and Jesus the truth. He wasn’t sure at all that he could make it.

He had survived on pure hate thus far. He had wanted to give up so many times, but something in him would not give Hardy Martin that satisfaction.

He tried desperately to fasten on something. Not Susannah now. Not the pity he knew he would see on her face, not the horror if she saw the whip marks. Especially if she saw the old ones. They were faint now, very faint, but they could still be seen. One woman he’d slept with had felt them, and asked about them. Since then he had either kept his shirt on when he made love or kept his back turned away. He’d done that with Susannah the other day.

There was something so … demeaning, so … shaming about a whipping, about that rope around his neck. He swallowed, still feeling the choking sensation, the humiliation of being led behind the horse like an animal. The anger kept him conscious, as his mind debated different forms of punishment. He would ruin the Martins. He would humiliate them as he had been.

Susannah’s war had become his.

Susannah paced the floor restlessly. She thought she might go mad with the waiting.

She had hoped Rhys Redding would return before supper. And Wes was also late. The others had returned an hour ago, and they said Wes was on the way.

Where were they?

She wished she had gone with them this morning, but she was so determined that Wes take responsibility. But it gnawed at her, this sense of helplessness, this need to be doing something.

And Rhys? How she had hungered to see him today, as she did every day. But each day that hunger grew stronger, more powerful. Her occasional glimpses merely whetted that need.

He’d evidently had his meal with the hands this morning, and she’d just barely had a glimpse of him riding off with Wes and Jaime. She wondered if he’d changed his mind about working the ranch, but then one of the hands came back and said Rhys had left the others about noon.

Just thinking about him hurt. Every inch of her ached for him, to be with him. To her soul, it hurt. She cared so desperately about him, and in so many ways. Her elusive nighthawk.

“Riders coming in!”

She heard the call, and she strode over to the door and threw it open.

Two men and a string of horses. She recognized Wes holding the horses. The other man—

Dear heaven, it was Rhys. She saw his dark hair, but little else was recognizable. Not his horse, nor his seat on the horse. He was barely holding on to the saddle horn, his shoulders slumped, and …

She saw the blood then, and the bruises on his face. His feet weren’t in the stirrups but hanging down, bare and terrible looking.

Her heart clenched. Her fingers turned into fists for a moment, and then she ran to him. “Rhys!”

He barely looked at her. Wes called to her, “Go get some help.”

“What happened?” she said, unable to take her eyes from Rhys.

“I’ll tell you later. For God’s sake, get Miguel or Jaime to take him upstairs.”

She didn’t have to. She was suddenly surrounded by men, and Wes was giving orders as he once had. But she barely noticed that. She noticed little except all the bruises and cuts on her nighthawk, the paleness of the usually tanned face, the pressed lips which she knew from experience meant extreme pain.

“Oh, Rhys,” she said, her heart in her stomach. She reached out to touch him, but he flinched away. She quickly withdrew her hand.

His eyes focused on her then. With difficulty, she could tell. “I’m all right,” he said. He swung his leg over the saddle and slid off, wincing slightly as his feet touched the ground.

Jaime was there, and he put his arm around Rhys. Rhys straightened, tensed. Bloody Christ, but he hurt. But Jaime didn’t know about his back. Not yet. No one did, except the Mexican lad and Wes, and for some reason he trusted both Jesus and Wes not to say anything.

So he bit back the agony and said nothing as the man’s arm pressed against the cuts.

“The second bedroom on the right,” Susannah told Jaime, and started to hurry after them.

“Sue!”

She turned as she heard Wes’s voice.

“Stay here,” he said.

“But—”

“If you care anything about him, you’ll stay here,” Wes added.

“No,” she said.

“It’s what he wants, dammit.”

That stopped her. “What happened?”

“Hardy Martin.”

“His feet—”

“I don’t know all of it,” Wes said, “but he’s had a hell of a time, and he doesn’t want to talk about it now.”

“I … can help.”

“Jesus went for the doctor.” The words were curt and he didn’t add that was Redding’s choice. He didn’t have to. Her face flushed red and the violet eyes filled with tears.

“What do you care about him?” Her question was unexpectedly sharp, but also full of hurt.

Wes wished he hadn’t given his word to Redding, but he had. And he understood Redding’s demand. Dammit, but he understood. He understood better than most men could.

“For him, personally, I don’t; for a … man staying here on our—your—property, I care one hell of a lot. Call it a violation of our hospitality or whatever you will. And I’ll abide by his wishes.”

Part of Susannah’s mind noted Wes’s newfound decisiveness and determination, but the other part, the larger part, focused only on Rhys, the way he looked, dear God, and how much she wanted to help him.

If you care anything about him, you’ll stay here. Her heart was breaking for him, for her wounded nighthawk. But she cared, dear God in heaven, how much she cared.

Wes turned to Hannah, who had been hovering anxiously nearby. “Get some hot water and plenty of towels. And the salve. And whiskey. Plenty of whiskey.” He clumped away on the crutches toward the room where Rhys had been taken. Susannah bit hard on her lip, tasting blood where she’d done so, and then hurried after Hannah. If nothing else, she could help boil water and gather towels. Perhaps some bandages.

Her eyes now nearly blinded by tears, Susannah filled the pots as Hannah put wood in the stove. This was her fault. She had continued to urge and entice Rhys to stay when he hadn’t wanted to. She and Wes. They were both responsible for this.

How much more could his body take? The terrible wound that had put him in Libby Prison, the subsequent infection, and now this. And she didn’t even know how bad it was. That was the worst. She didn’t know what had happened, whether he’d been shot. She knew how cruel Hardy Martin could be. Once, when she was in school, she and Mark had found him torturing a dog. Mark had attacked Hardy, beaten him in front of a number of classmates who’d gathered at her screams. He had never forgiven Mark that. Nor her.

Lowell was more sophisticated than his brother, more cunning, but just as wicked. The Martins had been nothing before the war, and she had watched as they profited by it. And the more they’d profited, the greedier they’d become.

The water was boiling now … too hot. She moved it aside and placed another pan on the oven, quickly warming the water, and then she carried both to the bedroom door, followed by Hannah, who held towels, salve, and a bottle of whiskey.

Susannah heard voices inside, but they were too low to understand. She knocked and the door opened. Jaime took the pots of water, and then the other items. Susannah could see Wes’s back, but his body shielded the bed from view. “How is he?” she whispered.

Jaime’s young face was hard, his jaw set, and his eyes angry. “He’ll be all right,” he said. “Send the doctor in, as soon as he gets here.”

“Isn’t … there anything I can do?”

His face softened as he shook his head. “I don’t think so, Miss Susannah. Well, maybe there is. Is there a nightshirt around … Mark’s or his father’s?”

Something to do. Susannah nodded. “I’ll find one.”

She directed Hannah to stay on the porch and await the doctor. She went to the room she’d shared with Mark, that one night so long ago. She had not touched his things since she’d returned. She didn’t even know what was there. She closed her eyes against the welling behind them, that ache of grief that made her head feel like hot lead. Was she a Jonah? Everyone she loved seem to be … destroyed. Her father. Mark. Wes. Now Rhys. She had to send him away. If he got well, she had to! Tell him he was no longer of use.

Despair, grief, emptiness, fear gripped her in tandem. Despair and emptiness for her. Grief and fear for Rhys.

A nightshirt! So little to do for him! She finally found one. Linen. Light. But she couldn’t imagine him in a nightshirt. Not that hard, lean, beautiful body.

What did they do to him?

She swallowed hard, then closed the trunk she’d been riffling through and took the garment to Rhys’s room, handing it through a door barely cracked open, wanting to hurl herself past the barriers and see him.

“Some more,” she heard Wes say inside, soothingly. So unlike his gruff voice of late. “A few more sips.” There was a gentleness in her brother’s voice she hadn’t heard since before the war. A soft persuasion.

“Bloody hell, I don’t want—” Rhys’s voice was somehow different, harsh now without the aristocratic tone to it, more of a … what? She couldn’t put her finger on a description. It was just … different.

“I’ll be damned if I’ll clean those damn cuts unless you drink more whiskey,” Wes said with a firmness that would usually have warmed Susannah’s heart, but now that heart was too uncertain, too afraid.

And then Jaime shut the door again. Against intrusion. Against her intrusion.

She leaned against the wall, feeling the outsider, feeling lost and lonely. And then she straightened. She realized she was feeling sorry for herself as well as Rhys. He wouldn’t appreciate either of those emotions.

Susannah set her jaw, firmly locked back the tears, and went to join Hannah to wait for the doctor.

Rhys bit back the groans. The whiskey had helped—the whiskey he hadn’t wanted. He knew from the look in Wes’s eyes that Susannah’s brother knew exactly why he hadn’t wanted it. He hadn’t wanted to become dependent, as Wes had been well on his way to becoming.

Wes, his face flushed and even a bit chagrined with the knowledge, had still insisted. “We don’t have anything else,” he said, and “I’ll be damned if I’ll clean those cuts unless you do.”

So Rhys had taken a few sips, and then a few more. He tried not to tense as Wes’s hand soaked a towel in the hot water and then slowly started to clean his back, where the worst slices were.

Wes and Jaime had packed pillows around him so as little of the torn skin as possible touched anything, but some did, and every movement was pure agony. He concentrated on that pain, every second of it, every burning instant. He wanted to remember it when he went after Hardy Martin.

“Christ,” Jaime said, “I wish Doc Campbell would get here.”

“No more than I,” Wes said, although their patient said nothing. His face was blank, as if he had willed away any feeling.

Wes eased the cloth along the ridges caked with dirt. He noticed some very old scars, but he didn’t say anything. He just knew his respect for Rhys Redding was growing. He thought he would probably be yelling like a baby if someone was doing this to him. It didn’t make him like the Welshman, but he sure as hell admired him. He still couldn’t figure out how the man had walked so far.

He finally finished. There was nothing more he could do to help the back wounds. He wasn’t about ready to pour alcohol on them, not without the doctor here. “Can you turn over?” he said.

Redding sat up awkwardly. “I don’t think I want to try it.”

“That’s good enough,” Wes said, as he leaned over and started rinsing Redding’s chest. “Why don’t you go back to England?” he asked suddenly.

“I thought you wanted me to stay … badly enough to blackmail me.”

“I was wrong. It’s our battle.”

“Not any longer,” his patient said through gritted teeth.

Wes watched a muscle flex in Redding’s cheek as he started cleaning yet another cut. “I’m sorry,” he said suddenly, surprising even himself. “I—we shouldn’t have asked you to fight our battles.”

Rhys glanced up at him, met his direct gaze. “Don’t be. I probably would have died if you hadn’t come by.”

Wes grinned. “I don’t think so. You’re too damned stubborn to die, and … too damn mean as well.”

Rhys’s gaze met his, and this time there was no amusement in it. “I came pretty bloody close,” he said slowly. “Too close.”

Wes’s hand stilled. And his eyebrow raised, just as Rhys’s had on occasion.

“Is that amusing?” Rhys asked with irritation.

“Only that you finally admit you may be human.”

Rhys glared at him.

“Why weren’t you wearing a gun?”

“A misjudgment,” Rhys said. “I found out long ago not to let my enemies know my.… capabilities. Usually, I compensate for that. Unfortunately, I was distracted.”

“I don’t think I want to ask you why.”

“Don’t,” Rhys said. “But it’s a mistake I won’t make again.”

Wes’s smile disappeared, but his touch remained light.

He was almost through when the knock came at the door, and it was opened to admit an older man with a black bag. He took one look at Rhys’s bruised and torn torso. “The Martins?”

Wes nodded.

The man walked over to Rhys’s side and held out his hand. “Dr. Campbell. From the looks of you, I think you’re damned lucky to be alive.”

“A miscalculation on their part,” Rhys said.

The doctor didn’t comment. His hands touched the torn skin on Rhys’s chest and then his back, his breath catching as he did so.

“I’m going to have to stitch some of those, or you’re going to have some godawful scars.” His gaze fell to the newly healed wound Rhys had received in Virginia. “Looks like you lead a mighty interesting life, Mr.—”

“Redding,” Wes interceded quickly, his eyes meeting Rhys’s dark gaze. “He’s a guest here.”

The doctor shook his head. “Things just aren’t the same anymore. Been busier than I’ve ever been. Suspect most of the cause are those Martin boys.”

“No one’s doing anything about them?” Wes asked.

“Not too many folks strong enough left,” the doctor said. He mentioned a dozen men who had died, all once friends of Wes or Wes’s father. “Everyone’s scared now.” He looked over at Wes and then down at his missing leg. “I’m glad you’re back, Wes. We need you.”

Wes gave him a sardonic look. “The Yank?” The words were bitter, deriding himself.

“Give ’im time.”

“I don’t know if we have time.”

The doctor eyed him carefully. “Doesn’t sound like the Wes Carr I knew. Nothing stopped him, then.” He changed the subject. “There’s an anxious young lady outside. Why don’t you two go outside and talk to her while I take care of Mr. Redding?”

Wes looked at Rhys, who nodded. “Just tell her I’m all right.”

The doctor waited until Wes and Jaime left, and then he fastened all his attention on Rhys. “Are you?”

Rhys raised a dark bushy eyebrow in question.

“All right?”

“Hell, no.”

The doctor smiled. “Then let’s get to work.”

Dr. Campbell left two hours later, after accepting a cup of coffee from Susannah, who searched his face for any kind of news.

“He’s going to be in a lot of pain, and he needs a lot of rest, though I would guess right now you might have to tie him down. Damndest constitution I’ve ever seen.”

Susannah wanted to scream. No one, not her brother or Jaime, would tell her what had happened.

“What exactly,” she asked the doctor, “are his injuries?”

“Cuts, bruises, general mishandling,” Campbell said. “Nothing that time won’t cure. Interesting man. Where’s he from?”

“Wales,” Wes said, and Susannah glared at him, realizing there was a conspiracy to keep the conversation away from Rhys’s injuries. But then, all that was really important was that her nighthawk would live.

“Can I see him?”

The doctor shook his head. “I gave him something to sleep. He didn’t want to take it until I told him rest was the only way he’d get his strength back. Don’t you go disturbing him, now.”

When he left, Susannah turned on Wes. “What happened to him?”

Wes gave her an abbreviated story. “Hardy Martin and some men surprised him. Dragged him behind a horse. He’s damned lucky to be alive. I don’t think Hardy really intended that, but he was too much of a coward to finish it himself. If Redding had been found dead on the prairie or in the hills, anyone could be blamed.”

“But if he lived …”

“Hardy believes he’s a harmless tenderfoot. He threatened to charge him with horse stealing and murder if Redding survived and said anything.”

“We’ve got to make Rhys leave,” Susannah said.

Wes shook his head. “I don’t know why you brought him along in the beginning.”

Susannah hesitated. “Remember, when we were kids, when I brought that hawk home?”

Wes’s eyes narrowed. “It died.”

“I know,” she said softly. “But Rhys reminded me a little of the hawk in the hospital. Wild and free … and so badly hurt. Yet defiant. I thought maybe …”

“You could save this one,” he finished for her. “I seem to remember that hawk bit you.”

Susannah winced. He would remember that. “Anyway, we have to make him go now. He’s been hurt enough.”

Wes’s gaze never left her eyes. “There’s no way in hell you can do that now, sister mine.”

“But—”

“Ask him to leave the ranch, and he’d only go someplace else around here. He wants Hardy Martin and by God, he’ll get him.”

Susannah looked at him with tear-glazed eyes. “What have we done, Wes?”

“Unleashed your hawk, Sue.”

Clad in a linen nightshirt made bulky by bandages, Rhys squirmed slightly on his stomach. He had taken only a sip of the opiate the doctor had left. He didn’t want his mind befuddled.

He had memorized everything the doctor said as he worked on his cuts, sewing up two wounds on his back. Rhys had asked about the Martins, about every family who’d had unexplained mishaps, about Martin’s wealth and how he used it, about the sheriff.

The doctor had rambled on, apparently trying to keep his patient occupied as he sewed up the whiplashes and applied salve to the other wounds caused by the dragging. When he finished bandaging Rhys’s feet, he sighed heavily. “You won’t be able to walk for at least a week.”

Rhys merely stared at him with eyes that he knew unsettled the doctor. There were no other prognostications about his rate of recovery.

But he had information he needed, that he was stacking in orderly piles in his mind. Ten families, located along the river or along creeks running into the river, were holding out against the Martins. Six others had folded, selling away their land.

Ten families!

The question was how to bring them together.

He remembered Susannah’s words the other night. They needed a leader. They wouldn’t follow Wes. They probably wouldn’t follow anyone associated with him. The wounds from the war were still too deep.

How then?

He recalled what Susannah had called him the other day. A hawk. A nighthawk.

Thoughts tumbled over each other in their eagerness to be heard. A leader. Perhaps he could conjure one up. Perhaps someone they didn’t know but could grow to trust.

Rhys knew he could probably take the Martins alone. One by one. But now he didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want any trouble placed on Susannah. Any suspicion.

And his desire went even deeper than that, less philanthropic. He wanted the Martins to suffer, to see everything slip away without knowing how or why. And then … then would come the time to finish it.

The nighthawk. It had a nice ring to it. Like the names of the English highwaymen of years past. It seemed rather appropriate.

Unable to sleep because of the agonizing pain, he lay awake, making plans.

And he smiled, a smile that had no amusement in it at all.