CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
An arc-shaped clearing surrounded by high rock walls promised grass for the horses, and Buttons Muldoon reined the team to a halt. “Take a look, Red. They don’t need much feed, just enough.”
Red nodded and climbed down from the seat. Buttons was wary enough that he passed his guard the Greener. “Take care.” He glanced at the sky. “The moon is coming up. Give you some light over there.”
“Not much. It’s as black as the bottom of a dry well.” Clutching the scattergun, Red walked into darkness.
Luna Talbot exited the stage and looked up at Buttons. “Why have we stopped here, Mr. Muldoon?”
“I think there’s grass over there, ma’am. If there is, I’ll let the team graze and we’ll set up camp. It’s rocky, uneven ground and I don’t want to bring the stage any closer. I could lose an axle quicker ’n scat.”
“Where is Mr. Broussard, I wonder?” Luna had taken her gun rig from her carpetbag and had slung the holstered revolver over her shoulder. The ivory handle of the Colt was white in the gloom.
Buttons didn’t comment but thought she was a careful woman. He also noticed that she was prettier than a woman had a right to be after spending most of the day in a hot, dusty stage. “I reckon Broussard can take care of himself, but he should be here. He must’ve seen us coming.”
“Yes, it’s a worrisome thing,” Luna said, frowning.
“Yes, ma’am,” Buttons said. “It sure is.” But he wasn’t worried. Not really.
“I’m thirsty,” the woman said.
Buttons handed down a canteen, holding it by the canvas strap. “Take a stingy drink, Mrs. Talbot. If we don’t find a spring, that’s our coffee water, and I’m a coffee-drinking man.” He smiled. “Why, here’s a little story. I recollect the time back in the winter of ’seventy-eight when I was driving for the old Anderson and Lawson company. Me and a guard by the name of Lonesome Charlie Wagner got snowed in for a two-month at a settler’s cabin up in the Kansas Flint Hills country. Well, me, Charlie, and the settler ran out of conversation after the first week, coffee after the second, and I thought I was like to die.”
“I’ll only have a little,” Luna said, smiling. She took a few sips and handed the canteen back to Buttons.
He laid the canteen beside him on the seat and said, “Lonesome Charlie came to a bad end, got hung for a mule thief in El Paso. I don’t know what happened to the settler. I guess he’s still sod-busting. Anyhoo, talking about coffee, I recollect another time back in—”
A shotgun blasted apart the night quiet, roared again, and then came a scream.
Buttons jumped down from his seat and, Colt in hand, hit the ground running. “Stay there,” he yelled over his shoulder to Luna Talbot before he vanished into darkness.
The woman drew her gun and stood with her back to the stage, her eyes probing the gloom. The team was restive, and the leaders tossed their heads, their harnesses chiming. Out in the desert scared coyotes no longer talked to the rising moon.
A long minute ticked past . . . then another . . . and another.
Luna felt the rapid thump-thump of her heart, and she found the night air hard to breathe. The stillness was profound, the deathlike silence ominous and threatening, full of malice. Her thumb lay on the Colt’s beautifully curved hammer and she shivered as the desert rapidly cooled. Finally, she called out, “Red . . . Mr. Muldoon . . . are you there?”
The moon was well above the horizon, and a wan white light stained the outcrops of rock on the slopes of the peak nearest to her. As though she’d just remembered, Luna took a cartridge from her belt and slipped it into the empty chamber that had been under the hammer. It was a test, that was all . . . a test to see if her hands shook. She was pleased that she hadn’t fumbled . . . hadn’t trembled. Good. She was tense, but not scared. Not scared of the dark or the hush . . . just . . . cautious.
“Is anyone there?” Luna called. “Mr. Ryan? Mr. Muldoon?”
Nothing. Behind her the horses stirred, jostled, pawed the ground.
“Oh, hell,” the woman said aloud, taking comfort in the sound of her own voice. “I’m not standing around here all night.”
She stepped out in the direction taken by Red Ryan and Buttons Muldoon. What had happened to them? Standing somewhere jawing to each other probably. Women were always accused of talking too much, but men were just as bad.
The darkness enveloped her, and she stared down at the rocky ground as she stepped, careful not to put a foot wrong and stumble. After twenty or thirty yards—she’d later say that she couldn’t remember how far she’d walked—Luna stopped and called out, “Red? Red Ryan, are you there?”
Then footsteps behind her. Luna turned, smiling, expecting Buttons or Red. She saw neither . . . only the hate-twisted face of Elijah Rathmore. The man jumped on her, and his weight forced her to the ground. Her Colt flared in the darkness as she managed to get off a shot. But then she was overwhelmed by other members of the clan, men punching her, women clawing her. Luna was forced onto her belly, and rough hands bound a rope around her ankles and she was dragged behind the Rathmores. At least six of them, men and women, had a hand on the rope.
“Let me go, you damned animals,” Luna yelled. Her back and hips bumped across the rocky ground and her canvas skirt rode up over her thighs. A younger man with a slack mouth bent over her, leered, and then backhanded her hard across the face. The blow hit her on the right side of her jaw and knocked her into unconsciousness.
By the time they dragged the senseless woman into the arroyo, the Rathmore males were already arguing about who would have her first.