WHEN THEY FINALLY neared the Lookout they were watched through field glasses. A heavy wagon drawn by a six-horse team moved ponderously down a narrow road and to the flatlands. Handling the reins was Adam Granfield. At his side was Ralph Hitchburn.
Having already seen his wife through binoculars, Hitchburn did not show surprise at her disheveled condition.
“Are you all right, my darling?” the rancher cried, leaping down from the wagon, rushing to pull her from the saddle and against his buttoned whipcord coat.
“Yes, I’m all right.” Amalie’s eyes met Hawk’s over Hitchburn’s shoulder. “Yes, I am perfectly fine, Ralph.” She stood stiffly in the arms of her husband, then relaxed against him and lifted her mouth to his.
Hawk looked at Granfield, who wore range clothes instead of a fine Denver suit. “Satisfied?”
Granfield nodded. “We expected to be met by Colonel Spate. He sent us an ultimatum that he wanted the ransom today. We could only raise half of it. I’m afraid we wouldn’t have kept our end of the bargain.”
“He didn’t intend to keep his.”
Granfield’s hands tightened on the reins. “I hope by now the coyotes are picking his bones.”
“Unfortunately, I didn’t kill my colonel.” Hawk’s lips twisted.
“How about Keegan?”
Hawk’s cold smile told Granfield all he needed to know.
“What you managed to do is incredible, Hawk,” Granfield said.
Hawk tore his gaze from the wagon that contained half the ransom—two hundred fifty thousand in gold. Ransom for the pale-haired girl now clinging to her older husband.
Both of them older after this ordeal, he thought, Amalie a woman at last. He hoped Hitchburn, in his relief to have her safely in his arms, would not be too distressed that no virgin bride would grace his bed.
“Lucky you didn’t run into the two men who brought the ultimatum late yesterday,” Granfield said.
“I saw them this morning.” And he had. “At a distance. They’re heading for the mountains. They’ll have a surprise.”
Granfield nodded. “Hawk, you know I’ll keep my bargain. So will the sheriff. All I suggest—”
“Is that I get out of the territory.”
“It’s not much to ask.”
“I’m going to hunt down Colonel Spate. If he’s alive and in this territory—” Hawk didn’t finish. He was again resting his eyes on the wagon, thinking of the distance from here to the border, what that gold could buy. A man could become a hacendado with a chica on each arm—
He pushed the brief fantasy from mind and replaced it with Colonel Spate’s cold, merciless features. In a far corner of his mind he could hear Lila French’s sounds of agony from a distant battlefield in a long-ago year.
“I’ll stay in the territory, if I must,” Hawk said grimly. “To finish the job, Granfield. But I’ll keep my mouth shut—about everything.”
And across her husband’s stout shoulder Amalie’s tear-filled eyes blinked their thanks.
He mounted the lame horse. “If I were you,” he said to Granfield, “I’d get some men to help guard that wagon—and its contents.”
Granfield nodded. “When we light a signal fire on the Lookout, we’ll have twenty men here.”
Hawk looked at the wagon again, was tempted, then swung his gaze to Amalie who had buried her face against Hitchburn’s arm. The girl had suffered enough, he knew.
Hawk turned his horse and rode away. The animal wasn’t limping as badly now. He heard Amalie cry out to him, but he did not turn his head.
He hoped that since she had had love from two of the ruthless—himself and Spate—that she would find gentleness in Ralph Hitchburn.
She deserved that much.
He rode slowly because suddenly he was let down, a multitude of small pains and bruises rushing for recognition. He needed a bath and a meal and a drink. He would then backtrack Colonel Spate’s horse. He hoped that he might come upon the colonel’s carcass in some lonely place.
But he did not really believe it. Evil, he knew, was not so easily finished.