Page 44 of At Love’s Command

Matt stretched his boot toward it, raising his knee at an awkward angle. There wasn’t much there, but if he could plant his toe and the root held, he might be able to take enough weight off his arms to keep from losing his grip.

He jabbed the pointed toe of his boot into the wall, catching the ball of his foot on the root. He straightened his knee, letting the foothold take his weight. It held. Thank God, it held. Warm relief rushed into his fatigued muscles.

Then a deep voice rumbled from above. “I got you, Cap. Hang on.”

The rope tugged, and Matt’s grip instantly tightened. God bless Preach.

Matt focused all his energy on maintaining his hold on the rope as his corporal dragged him toward the rim. Three feet from the top, however, a spinning object in his periphery yanked his focus away from the rock.

A black hat decorated with silver conchos flew out over the canyon. Bullets knocked it hither and yon until it finally fell to the ground in front of the chuck wagon. The shooting slowed.

Matt grimaced as his shoulder scraped along the rim’s edge and his body folded over the side. He scrambled to his feet, thumped Preach’s arm in thanks, then frowned up at Charlie sitting astride Josie’s horse. Without his hat.

The shooting ceased altogether as Jonah and Wallace retreated from their positions and raced to their mounts.

Questions and suspicions flooded Matt’s mind, but they would have to wait. Taggart and his crew would pursue. Creating distance was paramount.

Matt jumped to his feet and slid his hunting knife from its sheath. Grabbing the rope he’d knotted to the rock, he sliced through it in two quick slashes and let it plummet to the canyon floor as he swung up onto Phineas’s back. He couldn’t leave the outlaws an avenue to attack from behind, and reeling the rope in would have forfeited too many precious seconds.

“Ride!” Matt’s command set the Horsemen in motion.

The horses lunged forward, and in seconds, the group of five galloped as a unit away from the canyon. By tacit consent, the Horsemen surrounded Charlie in tight formation. For his protection, yes. But also because they didn’t trust him. No one knew for sure where his loyalties lay.

Jonah led the way, guiding them to the main road, where their hoofprints would disappear among the myriad others cluttering the path. Not that Taggart wouldn’t guess they were headed northeast. Only an outlaw would travel southwest into Mexico.

Yet the longer they rode without any sign of Taggart’s men on their trail, the more uneasy Matt became. When the road crested a small rise, he called for a halt.

“Why are we stopping?” Charlie asked, glancing over his shoulder to scan the road behind him. “We need to put more distance between us and Taggart.”

“Wallace, toss Brooks the field glasses.” Matt glanced straight through Charlie as if he hadn’t spoken and made eye contact with his trumpeter.

Mark didn’t hesitate. Holding his gray steady with his knees, he unhooked the strap of the binocular case from his saddle and tossed the equipment to Jonah. The sharpshooter snagged it out of the air and brought his horse around to face the rear. He pulled the field glasses from their case and held them to his eyes.

“No sign of ’em.”

Even with the delay of gathering their horses, a group of outlaws should have been visible on their back trail if they were giving pursuit.

Matt drew Phineas even with Charlie’s mount and glared. “What did you signal?”

Charlie flinched and jerked backward in his saddle. “Signal? What are you talking about? I was just trying to get away. Same as you.”

Matt didn’t have time to play games. “Your hat,” he growled. “You tossed it into the canyon. You had no reason to do that. Not unless it was some kind of prearranged signal.”

Charlie’s face darkened. He leaned forward, eyes narrowed and tone sharp. “In case you didn’t notice, I was the one being held against my will. The one whose life Taggart threatened. If you think I’m working in collusion with that kidnapping scum, you better get my sister to examine your head next time you see her, because it’s obviously malfunctioning.” He glanced briefly at the other Horsemen, noted their frowns, then shifted in the saddle and refocused his attention on Matt. “The wind caught it, all right? I pulled it off my head to bang the dust off, and a gust of wind carried it away. Guess my hands were too shaky from that climb to hang on.” When Matt failed to relent on his stare, the kid moved from angry to defensive. “You think I wanted my favorite hat riddled with bullets? I loved that hat.”

Matt wasn’t buying it. Neither were his men, judging by their closed expressions. Charlie had signaled something to the outlaws. The question was . . . what?

CHAPTER

NINETEEN

A bird twittered, and Josephine’s chin jerked up. From her bench in front of the boardinghouse, her gaze scanned the road over the pages of the dime novel she’d purchased in the mercantile that morning. Nothing. Well, not nothing. The drugstore clerk was still sweeping the walk in front of his store, a pair of ladies chatted in front of the café a couple doors down while their children banged sticks together in a mock sword fight, and a man loaded sacks of feed into the back of a wagon across the street. They’d all been there the last time she’d looked up too. Probably because her last glance had been less than a minute ago when a horse in the livery corral had nickered.

She forced her lungs to inhale at a slow, steady rate, then exhaled on a prayer.

Please let them be safe.

Her hands crinkled the pages of her paperbound book. Not that she had read more than a handful of its words. She turned pages every so often to keep up appearances, but in truth, the only purpose the book served was to give her hands something to hold so the townsfolk wouldn’t think her deranged for sitting on a bench for hours and staring anxiously down the road.