Incident of the Sighing Wind
He heard the shot only after feeling the bullet impact the top of his shoulder. There was no pain, not yet, only a feeling of being hit, hard, much like the time he'd been rammed from behind by a muley bull and catapulted through the air, landing in a quivering heap - with that same sense of power. He wasn't knocked from the saddle, but forced forward over his horse's neck, arms dangling over either side, face planted in the buckskin's mane and for a moment it was as if every bone in his body had turned to jelly.
The shock passed and he sat up, swaying in the saddle. Warm blood trickled down his back beneath his shirt. Gingerly, he touched his shoulder in the front at the place where the bullet would have exited. Looking down at his fingertips he saw they were clean. There was no blood. The bullet remained inside. Maybe that was a good thing, the only good thing. He might just be able to make it back to the herd before he fainted...or bled to death. Attempts to draw the Henry from the rifle scabbard were in vain. Pulling the Colt from the holster with numb fingers also proved impossible. All he could do he did and that was just rest his hand on the butt of the .45 and pray he wouldn't need to use it.
All during the long, painful and exhausting twenty mile ride he thought about how he'd sensed no danger; had not seen, heard or felt a presence, yet here he was, bleeding, hurt and mad that he'd been caught unawares and very nearly killed, but by whom? Indians, no, he'd seen no sign whatsoever; robbers, no, he'd been left alone once he'd been shot...then who and why?
Stopping, he fumbled the cap from his canteen with his left hand and took a long swallow, glad he'd filled the container before he'd been shot. Already it was nearly empty. In his thirst he'd not been frugal, but there seemed no need. He should've met up with the herd by now, before now. Turning his head slightly, he glanced to the west. The sun hovered just above the horizon. Soon it would be dark. If he didn't run into the herd before then his chances for survival would be slim. Just staying in the saddle took all his remaining strength. If he had to find shelter, build a fire...just the idea of swinging his leg over the tall horse's back and dismounting under his own steam made him feel dizzy and sick.
Pushing on was perilous. His eyelids refused to stay open and several times he slipped sideways, catching himself only at the last moment, averting a fall which he knew would finish him.
The rocking motion of the horse lulled him into a hazy stupor from which sprouted dreams of warm comforting arms and the soothing whisper of a woman's voice, but it seemed no dream. He heard her calling, husky and breathless, but the words were not plainly spoken to where he could understand. Still she beckoned with gentle coaxing murmurs. "I'm coming," he replied. "Wait for me...I'm coming."
----
Wind rustled the long prairie grass in a lonesome sigh around the trail drive's camp, causing no little unrest. "Sounds kinda scary, don't it? Like a restless ghost or somethin'. You don't think it's a ghost, do ya Mr. Wishbone?" The young cook's louse paled at the thought, his wide-eyed gaze fixed on his boss's face as he waited, breath held, for an answer.
"No, Mushy, I don't think it's no ghost! You're startin' to sound just like Hey Soos! All that superstitious mumbo-jumbo! It's just the wind in the grass." The cook stopped stirring the stewpot and cocked an ear to the sound. "If I was to say it sounded like anything at all, I'd say it had more the tone of a woman's voice – a heartbroke woman callin' after somethin' she lost – a child maybe or a lover. That's what it sounds like to me! A livin' breathin' woman and no ghost...but it's neither. It's only just the wind!" Under his breath he added, "Too bad it ain't a woman. I surely would enjoy settin' eyes on somebody who didn't need a shave and a wash."
"You say somethin' else, Mr. Wishbone?" Mushy senses were well developed, especially his sense of hearing, often much to the chagrin of his boss.
"I said...get back to work, Mushy!"
Just as supper was being dished out Joe Scarlet rode into camp leading a foot-sore buckskin gelding. "Pete's hurt! Shot in the back! Found him out about a mile north. Can't see that he was followed."
Before anyone in the chow line had a chance to move, Joe was down off his horse. "I got 'cha, Pete. I got 'cha," he soothed as he succeeded in easing Nolan out of the saddle and onto a hastily placed blanket near the fire.
Wishbone was Johnny-on-the-spot, quickly assessing the situation, seeing exactly what he'd need and issuing orders. "Mushy, put some water on ta boil and bring me my bag! The rest a you men dish up yer own supper 'fore it gets cold. Pete here don't need no audience!"
Curious, concerned drovers backed away, speaking in low tones among themselves. The rattle of metal dishes and eating utensils and the sound of silence as they dug into their meal followed.
Gil Favor knelt beside the scout, careful to stay out of Wishbone's way. "Where'd this happen, Pete?" he questioned softly. "Who did it?"
"Boss, give him a minute, can't 'cha?" Wishbone complained.
"It's okay, Wish." Nolan wet his lips before continuing, the words coming slowly, "Happened at the river crossin'...this side...maybe twenty, twenty-one miles northwest. Don't know who did it... didn't see a track or a sign anywhere... didn't hear a thing neither."
"If you two are done flapping yer gums, I'd like ta see what I'm dealin' with here!" Wishbone unbuttoned Nolan's shirt and with Favor's help separated scout from clothing. It wasn't easy on anyone, particularly Pete. Wishbone placed a thick towel pad over the entry wound and rested the patient down against the blanket, pressure holding the bandage in place.
Nolan had indeed been shot in the back, high up in the right shoulder. Directly above the collarbone in front spread a dark bruise from whose center, just beneath the skin, bulged the spent cartridge.
Wishbone glanced at Favor, his expression one of relief. "Won't have ta probe for the darned thing! A shallow cut and it should be out in no time flat! Save Pete a lot a pain and you and me a lot a sweat, Boss!"
Gil nodded, turning his attention back to the scout who, while still awake, seemed in a daze. Favor was surprised when out of the blue he asked, "Where is she, Boss? Where'd she go?" At Gil's confused shake of the head, Nolan pleaded, "Didn't you hear her? Didn't you hear her callin'?"
It was Wishbone who answered. "I heard her, Pete. She'll turn up soon. Don't you worry none."
"The wind, Boss," Wish explained. "The wind was rustlin' in the tall grass. Sounded all the world like a woman callin'. He musta heard it, too. Heard it and hurt like he is thought she was callin' ta him alone."
"I understand. I've heard it like that myself, but always thought it sounded more like a child cryin' for its mother." Favor remembered back to the time when the whispering sighs reminded him of his own two little girls and how they'd cried, heartbroken breathless sobs, when their mother had passed on. No wonder he chose not to hear the wind this day.
"Enough a this here talk." Wishbone saw no need to drag out the inevitable. Without warning the patient he sliced into the skin over the slug. Pete reacted with a bitten back curse, but by then the deed was done, the spent slug resting on Wishbone's palm along with a patch of shirting carried into the wound with the bullet. "That coulda caused a lot of trouble on its own festerin' like it would. Might not a found it neither if I'd a had to go in from the back." Wishbone flipped the bit of cloth to the ground.
Wiping blood from the cone shaped projectile off onto a bit of toweling Wish offered it to Favor who scrutinized it closely and after a moment came to a conclusion. ".52 caliber Sharps and fired from a distance; the bullet's barely outta shape."
Wishbone leaned over for a closer look. "If I was a bettin' man," he paused for effect, "I'd say you're right, Boss. Once heard a fella say he made a clean kill at 800 yards with a Sharps. Hell, I couldn't see no 800 yards, but then who am I to call a man a liar, 'specially when that man never said exactly what it was he killed. Never thought ta ask him, neither. Suppose there's no reason to expect company. Indians woulda finished the job. Thieves woulda stole Pete's horse and tack." Wishbone shrugged. "What we got here is a honest to goodness conundrum, Boss."
"A conundrum...where'd you ever pick up that word?" Favor shook his head. "You couldn't a just said mystery?"
Wishbone shrugged. "You knew what I meant."
"Sharps, huh?"
Favor very nearly dropped the slug he was that startled by Rowdy's voice so close to his ear.
"For Chris' sake, Rowdy! If you're gonna creep up on a man do it louder!" Favor growled.
"Didn't wanna bother Pete any," Yates explained. "I just wanted ta say about the only person who could hit a target at 800 yards would have ta be an expert - a sniper maybe."
"And just what do you know about snipers anyhow?" Wishbone interjected.
"What do I know about 'em...? I spent two weeks as one durin' the war. Couldn't abide the job, though. Didn't seem fair...honorable....I didn't like the idea of shootin' a man who didn't know I was there. Seemed a sneaky, underhanded way ta carry on a war." Rowdy crouched down, taking the spent bullet from the boss's hand and rolling it between thumb and forefinger as he looked it over.
"Ain't you never heard 'all's fair in love and war?' Wishbone countered.
"I can see the all's fair about love and all, but war...nah." Rowdy dropped the slug back into Gil's hand. "Was it fair somebody went and shot Pete and him not seein' or hearin' it comin'...shot him in the back? Was that fair, Wishbone?"
The cook shook his head, some of the wind knocked from his sails. "Now that you put it that way...when it's got somethin' to do with a friend a mine...then no, it ain't fair at all."
----
Mist fell, so lightly that at first none of the men riding night hawk bothered donning slickers. Only after it turned into an unrelenting drizzle did the first man make the effort.
Wishbone had Mushy rig a canvas tarp to keep Pete dry. He would've laid the wounded man in one of the wagons, but having just loaded up on supplies room was temporarily unavailable. Spreading a blanket out on the ground next to his patient Wishbone stretched out, but sleep wouldn't come. Nolan was quiet, too quiet. Wishbone fussed a bit, pulling up Pete's blanket, checking the bandaging. Lying down, head pillowed on one arm, Wishbone rested his other hand against Pete's chest to monitor the fast shallow breaths. Finally he dozed off. After what felt like only moments he was roughly shaken awake.
Gil Favor crouched at Wishbone's side, rain dripping from his sodden hat and running in rivulets from his slicker. "Where the hell's Pete?" he barked, indicating the empty pallet next to the cook's. "You better say you made room for him in one of the wagons!"
Wishbone jerked up, alarmed. "Don't tell me he's out in this rain!"
"Don't tell me!" Favor countered. "If he is, I don't give 'im one chance in hell! It's comin' down in buckets!"
"Well he ain't in either wagon, that's fer sure, but he can't a gone far!" Wishbone was quick to his feet, amazingly spry for a man of his age, of any age. Searching through the supply wagon he located a slicker and shrugged it on.
Favor sent every available man out to search for the missing scout, but in the black, moonless night, rain pouring down, luck was the only thing on their side. This night it was the trail boss who held all the cards.
He stumbled over the wounded man not seeing him in the dark and when there was no sound, no reaction to being rudely knocked into, Gil became alarmed. On his knees in the mud he pressed a hand to Nolan's chest, but his own heart was pounding so hard and so fast, his own breathing so labored, it took some anxious moments before he felt the rise and fall of the chest. Stripping off his slicker he wrapped it around Pete and then gathered the limp body into his arms, struggling to rise as the mud and wet bogged him down. Realizing it would be easier to carry the dead weight over his shoulder, Gil shifted Pete as gently as possible into that position.
Favor didn't realize how far from camp he'd wandered in his search. Each step felt like it might be the last with him and Pete both ending up dead on the prairie. Yet Gil pressed on, amazed that someone as lightly built as Nolan weighed as much as he did.
Nothing but black lay ahead, behind, above or beyond so that all Gil had to guide him was instinct. Finally a break in the downpour offered the struggling man a glimpse of what might be a campfire or perhaps the lantern hung on the chuck wagon back at camp. Gil blinked, taking one hand off Pete to wipe the rain from his eyes. Squinting, he strained to see. Sighing in relief he forced his aching legs to move ahead, one step at a time...right, left, right, left. Gently patting Nolan's back he whispered, "it's okay now. We're okay."
Wet to the skin and blue from the cold, Pete Nolan woke to Wishbone hovering over him, a worried frown adding innumerable lines to an already wrinkled face. Rough towels vigorously scrubbed the mud and wet from his skin and got the blood flowing, slowly warming Pete until he could actually shiver, warming his own body.
"How in hell did you manage to get up and walk off, barefoot yet, after losin' all that blood?" Wishbone's voice came as close to that of an angry mother's as Nolan had ever heard. Words formed in Pete's mind and he meant to answer, but shivering like he was, cold as he was and weak, not a single word made it past a thought. How could he explain...even if he could speak the words, how could he explain that he had to find her...that she was alone and calling for him to come? How could he explain when he was too weak to even speak? He closed his eyes and allowed Wishbone to cluck and chatter and rub the life back into him.
"What I wanta know is how he got as far as he did...musta been close to a mile...least it seemed that way to me." Gil Favor shivered as he spoke, teeth knocking together in aching jaws, a woolen blanket draped around his shoulders, a cup of hot coffee warming hands and innards as he sipped.
"Probably just wandered off delirious is all." Rowdy commented, watching the proceedings from his position at the chuck wagon where he'd just finished sugaring his own coffee.
Favor swiveled just enough to paste him with an 'I mean business' glare and add his two cents to Rowdy's. "Well let's all of us make damned sure he just doesn't wander off delirious again, shall we?"
"Well sure, Boss." Rowdy answered somewhat self-consciously. Mr. Favor always asked questions to which the answers were obvious, but he wanted them answered all the same. Guess he needed to drive the point home. Rowdy just wished that sometimes he didn't always get the sharp end of that point.
----
Pete wouldn't listen to reason and if he wasn't weak as a day old calf he would've gotten himself up out of his blankets and gone off to find her without anybody else's help...again. "She's out there! Why won't you listen to me?" He raved. "Why won't you send somebody, anybody, out to just take a look? A woman's life is at stake!"
The boss watched warily as if not knowing quite what to expect next, erratic behavior typically out of character in the scout, but there was deep concern in Favor's expression as well as the usual direct candor when he spoke. "Pete, there is no woman out there, alone or otherwise. I have sent men out to search and to a man, they've found nothing." Gil's tone softened, "you're sick, feverish, the mind plays tricks, you take one sound to be another, the wind to be a voice...."
Nolan's complexion darkened. He was angry and hurt that of all people Gil Favor took him for addle-pated, humoring him like you might humor a confused child. Pete turned his head away. As far as he was concerned, the conversation was over.
"He's still plenty sick, Boss. Might be easier to talk to when the fever dies back. Give him a day...maybe two." Wishbone handed Favor a plate of food, but Gil handed it back, seemingly lost in thought.
"We don't have a day or two. Tomorrow morning we're headin' out. Supplies are down enough so Pete can ride in the wagon. We been here too long already. This place gives me the creeps." Favor gave Wishbone a look which would've wilted a lesser man. "Do I stand here all day before I get something to eat?"
Wishbone stood with the boss's dinner plate still in hand. Figuring he must've missed something somewhere, Wish passed the plate back over to Favor.
"That's more like it!" Gil admonished as he dug in to the heaping portion, leaving Wishbone scratching his head.
"You know, Boss, you're right. We been here waaay too long," the cook agreed.
----
Drovers sat around the campfire nursing cigarettes or the last cup of dinner coffee. Jim Quince strummed Mushy's guitar giving an almost familial sense to the surroundings. Horses were quieting down for the night and even the boss had his sights set on a warm bed roll and a decent night's sleep. He should've known better.
"Rider comin' in, Boss!" Joe Scarlet brought the news so it was no surprise when the stranger came into view silhouetted for a moment in the waning light, a black figure on a large horse. The rider advanced at a leisurely pace, dismounting at the remuda to the sound of jingling spurs and handing the horse off to Hey Soos with a nod. The figure walked to the fire and with a flourish removed a wide-brimmed sombrero.
"Well I'll be damned...it's a woman!" Wishbone blurted out. "Uh, sorry for the profanity, Ma'am. We...we ain't used to having a woman...a lady in camp."
A woman she was, but a lady, that no one knew although the drovers literally fell over one another in their haste to offer her a seat, coffee, food...all that is, except Gil Favor. Immediately something about her struck him oddly. 'We should've gotten out of here today,' he thought. This woman has ill luck riding her coat-tails, he was certain of it, and although it was a warm night a shiver ran down his spine and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and that was before he remembered – Pete was right all along! There had been a woman. He glanced behind him into the wagon bed where Nolan slept. Pete hadn't heard her ride in. He didn't hear her now. Perhaps there was yet time to spirit her away.
Her name, so she told them, was Hettie Daniels. Neither young nor old she remained attractive in early middle age with dark gold hair worn up from which escaped numerous tendrils daintily framing a heart-shaped face. Large gray eyes produced an innocent open expression, but it was her mouth which Gil Favor found to be her most telling feature. Many believed the eyes were the mirrors of the soul, but to Gil it had always been the mouth. Hettie Daniels' lower lip was full and sensual, but her upper was a thin sharp line, a slash of pale color, unyielding, hard. He saw it if no one else did and it frightened him, frightened him badly that he was the only one who noticed.
Although dressed mannishly – a faded flannel shirt tucked into corduroy trousers and secured with a wide brown belt, the too long end of which was crudely hacked off, high-topped riding boots and Mexican-style spurs with overly large sharp rowels which chimed, almost like tiny bells, when she walked - there wasn't a man in camp save Gil Favor who didn't find Hettie Daniels femininely captivating.
"You can stay till morning, Ma'am. We're leavin' then. You should be alright travelin' alone since you made it this far with no trouble and since you're headin' south. There's a town less than two day's ride." At Favor's pronouncement there arose a chorus of protests from the drovers. Gil did not reply figuring it would only make matters worse to open a subject for discussion when his mind was irrevocably made up. Instead he checked on Pete.
"He's tryin' to break that fever; got a good sweat goin'. I'm bettin' it'll break by dawn." Wishbone wielded a cool cloth with as much diligence as a mother tending a sick child.
"The men been takin' turns keepin' a watchful eye on our wanderer here. Some of 'em are pretty good nurses, too, though I wouldn't say so to their faces; likely get a poke in the eye for my kind words. Funny ain't it, how a man can be hard as nails and proud of it; can throw a steer to the ground with his bare hands or take on half a dozen drunks in a bar fight and win, but that same jasper can be gentle as can be with a new born calf or a hurt friend, but don't allow as you noticed or there'd be hell ta pay. Funny, huh?" Wishbone questioned.
Before Gil had a chance to answer, Hettie Daniels interrupted. "What's funny, Mr. Wishbone?"
Wish blushed a lovely scarlet which caused the woman to smile and Gil to grind his teeth. It wasn't enough that she had every man in camp enthralled by her very presence, now she was butting in where she didn't belong.
"Uh, oh, it wasn't nothin' important, Ma'am. Me and Mr. Favor were just discussin' Pete's condition is all."
She peered into the wagon bed and a slight "oh!" escaped her as if she was surprised or somehow distressed by the badly wounded man resting there. Yet Gil knew she knew Nolan was there through her conversations with the drovers. Pete's presence was no secret.
"What happened to the poor man?" She exclaimed even as she leaned closer, moving sweat-dampened curls back from Pete's forehead in what Favor thought a far too familiar gesture for a 'lady' and resting the back of her hand against his cheek. "He's terribly warm. Is he ill?" As she spoke, she lifted the blanket revealing a wide swath of white bandaging, marred at the shoulder by a deep red stain the size of a ten-dollar gold piece.
"He was shot several days ago – in the back." Gil refused to mince words.
She turned to gaze stonily up at Favor. "That's dreadful," she said. There was not a drop of emotion in the statement and Gil realized she knew he was on to her game and she was not only willing, but eager, to play.
Hettie turned to Wishbone. "I've nursed men before and have been told I'm quite competent. I'd deem it a favor if you would allow me to help out. I mean since Mr. Favor has so kindly allowed me to remain in camp for the evening...it's the least I can do and I insist on being of some use while I'm here." Her lips curved upward in a smile and Wishbone was putty to her will.
Gil turned away, disgusted. Things were sure to get worse. Naturally they did.
Morning brought news that the cattle had somehow scattered across several miles during the night, by who or what the drovers could not say. "Yes," they'd all been awake yet had seen and heard nothing out of the ordinary. Hey Soos crossed himself, muttering in Spanish while he tended the horses. Drovers discussed the whys and wherefores over breakfast and Gil Favor boiled. Somehow his plans to leave that morning had been thwarted. He needed no one to tell him who, but how she'd accomplished it and why. Presumably she'd tended Pete all night long.
Though she'd had no sleep Hettie insisted on caring for Pete. His fever had broken and he was resting, actually sleeping peacefully for the first time since his wounding. Gil was grateful for that, but gave total credit to Wishbone and his herbs and skill. He'd not mentioned his suspicions or dislike for the woman to any of the men. They would've either laughed or thought him mad. Perhaps he was mad. At least that was some sort of explanation for the goings on.
Another full day would pass before the cattle were rounded up and Gil gave the order, again, that the drive would move out in the morning. Not only had the woman insisted on caring for Pete virtually 'round the clock, but without assistance. When Wishbone attempted to check on him, she shooed the healer away with a wave of the hand. "Don't you believe I'm capable enough to care for him?" She asked, tears springing ably into the wide gray eyes; her lower lip trembling. It was enough to make Wishbone beat a hasty retreat, apologizing all the way back to his pots and pans.
----
Pete woke to a woman's face going in and out of focus and was relieved that she'd found her way into camp and was safe and unharmed. Maybe Mr. Favor had relented and sent out another party to search for her. In any event seeing her was a weight off his mind. With that and the fever gone, sleep came over him like a warm comforting blanket.
Defenseless and vulnerable, Pete never thought to wonder where Wishbone had gotten to, not with her sweet face and a smile that would melt any man's heart, her hands cool as she pressed them to either side of his face to check for fever or to brush aside the always disheveled hair from his forehead. She was ever so gentle at first and he found himself lost in the gray shadowed eyes, falling slowly under her spell.
But then something occurred which turned the gentle caresses rough. There appeared to be no reason for the change. Pete knew he'd done nothing to offend her since he was still so weak he could barely put an entire sentence together and that not above a whisper. Although he was thirsty, she stopped offering water and his misery increased by the hour. To those making inquiry as to his condition she either offered a report, in detail and in her most persuasively convincing voice, or allowed them to see the patient while he slept and was therefore unable to speak for himself. The melodic sound of her voice grew grating to Nolan's ears and he lapsed into a sort of misery and pain induced stupor.
They were moving out at first light, Pete heard the boss give the order. No sooner were the words out of Favor's mouth than she was back. As she leaned over, ostensibly tending his needs, Pete noticed that her face had changed totally. Not a hint of beauty remained. Even the gold in her hair looked tarnished and lifeless and was shot through with gray, like she'd aged not overnight, but within moments. He kept focused on her face because her hands caused nothing but pain. There was warmth at his shoulder and he knew fresh blood flowed. When he opened his mouth to protest, she touched a finger to his lips.
"It'll be over soon, Pete Nolan, I promise you that. It would've been over sooner had I been nearer when I shot you or if that busy-body trail boss hadn't of found you the night I called you out into the storm. Another moment or two and you'd have been dead and no one the wiser, my tracks washed away in the rain. They thought you were hearing things, didn't they? They never believed you heard a woman's voice. How wrong they were."
"Why?" Pete questioned. "Why me? I never saw you before in my life."
"I'd like to know that too, Miss Daniels? Why Pete?" Gil Favor stood off to the side, his face a stone-carved mask, its peaks and valleys emphasized by the flickering firelight, the only man left in a camp readying to hit the trail. "I'm waiting for an answer, Miss Daniels."
Cool and unafraid she turned to face him. "He never saw me before, but I've seen him. I've seen a hundred like him, Mr. Favor. He killed my husband and left me a widow."
Pete struggled hard to sit, finally grabbing on to the side of the wagon bed and hauling himself up to face the accusation. "When did I do this and where?" he gritted out.
Favor's attention remained focused on the woman while his right hand moved to rest on the butt of his Colt. Her gaze followed the action and he was glad of it. The game continued.
Keeping her gaze on Favor, she replied to Nolan's question. "At Second Bull Run, you traitors call it Second Manassas, August 30th, 1862 you shot my William dead and left me a widow."
"I wasn't at Second Manassas. I couldn't a killed your husband or anyone." Pete's strength began to fail but he held on. He had to see it through.
"You were there, Johnny Reb. I saw you even though I was a thousand miles away. I formed a picture in my mind and it's you all right; tall in the saddle, slender-built and dark-haired. You were every Confederate soldier. Every mother's son had your face and your body and your insatiable desire to murder. It's you alright and I'll have my reckoning, every one else be damned!"
In a single smooth motion she drew an ivory-handled derringer from her trouser pocket, aimed and fired it directly at Gil Favor. The only reason she missed was that Pete Nolan managed to snag the back of her shirt, throwing off her aim. Favor's returning shot hit the mark, the slug traveling completely through the woman's body and lodging in the side of the wagon.
Her last words were pretty much what Gil expected. "The first bullet was for you. The second would have sent Pete Nolan to hell!" As she gasped her last, the once pretty face twisted into a grimace so hideous Favor was forced to look away.
Hettie Daniels wore a shroud of defeat and bitterness to her grave. For all his trying, Gil Favor could find no sympathy for her. He kept wondering how many others she'd killed, men like Pete whose only crime was a resemblance to a man who existed only in an obsessed woman's mind.
----
"Found this in her rifle scabbard, Boss." Rowdy Yates showed off the Sharps he'd found, a fine example of a model 1859 which he then handed over to Favor. Gil raised it up, settling it into his shoulder and sighting down the barrel, taking a bead on a tree stump some hundreds of yards distant. There was little doubt in his mind that the shot was makeable. He released a low whistle of appreciation.
"A man could shoot a mile with that," Rowdy observed.
"Or a woman," Gil added.
END
He heard the shot only after feeling the bullet impact the top of his shoulder. There was no pain, not yet, only a feeling of being hit, hard, much like the time he'd been rammed from behind by a muley bull and catapulted through the air, landing in a quivering heap - with that same sense of power. He wasn't knocked from the saddle, but forced forward over his horse's neck, arms dangling over either side, face planted in the buckskin's mane and for a moment it was as if every bone in his body had turned to jelly.
The shock passed and he sat up, swaying in the saddle. Warm blood trickled down his back beneath his shirt. Gingerly, he touched his shoulder in the front at the place where the bullet would have exited. Looking down at his fingertips he saw they were clean. There was no blood. The bullet remained inside. Maybe that was a good thing, the only good thing. He might just be able to make it back to the herd before he fainted...or bled to death. Attempts to draw the Henry from the rifle scabbard were in vain. Pulling the Colt from the holster with numb fingers also proved impossible. All he could do he did and that was just rest his hand on the butt of the .45 and pray he wouldn't need to use it.
All during the long, painful and exhausting twenty mile ride he thought about how he'd sensed no danger; had not seen, heard or felt a presence, yet here he was, bleeding, hurt and mad that he'd been caught unawares and very nearly killed, but by whom? Indians, no, he'd seen no sign whatsoever; robbers, no, he'd been left alone once he'd been shot...then who and why?
Stopping, he fumbled the cap from his canteen with his left hand and took a long swallow, glad he'd filled the container before he'd been shot. Already it was nearly empty. In his thirst he'd not been frugal, but there seemed no need. He should've met up with the herd by now, before now. Turning his head slightly, he glanced to the west. The sun hovered just above the horizon. Soon it would be dark. If he didn't run into the herd before then his chances for survival would be slim. Just staying in the saddle took all his remaining strength. If he had to find shelter, build a fire...just the idea of swinging his leg over the tall horse's back and dismounting under his own steam made him feel dizzy and sick.
Pushing on was perilous. His eyelids refused to stay open and several times he slipped sideways, catching himself only at the last moment, averting a fall which he knew would finish him.
The rocking motion of the horse lulled him into a hazy stupor from which sprouted dreams of warm comforting arms and the soothing whisper of a woman's voice, but it seemed no dream. He heard her calling, husky and breathless, but the words were not plainly spoken to where he could understand. Still she beckoned with gentle coaxing murmurs. "I'm coming," he replied. "Wait for me...I'm coming."
----
Wind rustled the long prairie grass in a lonesome sigh around the trail drive's camp, causing no little unrest. "Sounds kinda scary, don't it? Like a restless ghost or somethin'. You don't think it's a ghost, do ya Mr. Wishbone?" The young cook's louse paled at the thought, his wide-eyed gaze fixed on his boss's face as he waited, breath held, for an answer.
"No, Mushy, I don't think it's no ghost! You're startin' to sound just like Hey Soos! All that superstitious mumbo-jumbo! It's just the wind in the grass." The cook stopped stirring the stewpot and cocked an ear to the sound. "If I was to say it sounded like anything at all, I'd say it had more the tone of a woman's voice – a heartbroke woman callin' after somethin' she lost – a child maybe or a lover. That's what it sounds like to me! A livin' breathin' woman and no ghost...but it's neither. It's only just the wind!" Under his breath he added, "Too bad it ain't a woman. I surely would enjoy settin' eyes on somebody who didn't need a shave and a wash."
"You say somethin' else, Mr. Wishbone?" Mushy senses were well developed, especially his sense of hearing, often much to the chagrin of his boss.
"I said...get back to work, Mushy!"
Just as supper was being dished out Joe Scarlet rode into camp leading a foot-sore buckskin gelding. "Pete's hurt! Shot in the back! Found him out about a mile north. Can't see that he was followed."
Before anyone in the chow line had a chance to move, Joe was down off his horse. "I got 'cha, Pete. I got 'cha," he soothed as he succeeded in easing Nolan out of the saddle and onto a hastily placed blanket near the fire.
Wishbone was Johnny-on-the-spot, quickly assessing the situation, seeing exactly what he'd need and issuing orders. "Mushy, put some water on ta boil and bring me my bag! The rest a you men dish up yer own supper 'fore it gets cold. Pete here don't need no audience!"
Curious, concerned drovers backed away, speaking in low tones among themselves. The rattle of metal dishes and eating utensils and the sound of silence as they dug into their meal followed.
Gil Favor knelt beside the scout, careful to stay out of Wishbone's way. "Where'd this happen, Pete?" he questioned softly. "Who did it?"
"Boss, give him a minute, can't 'cha?" Wishbone complained.
"It's okay, Wish." Nolan wet his lips before continuing, the words coming slowly, "Happened at the river crossin'...this side...maybe twenty, twenty-one miles northwest. Don't know who did it... didn't see a track or a sign anywhere... didn't hear a thing neither."
"If you two are done flapping yer gums, I'd like ta see what I'm dealin' with here!" Wishbone unbuttoned Nolan's shirt and with Favor's help separated scout from clothing. It wasn't easy on anyone, particularly Pete. Wishbone placed a thick towel pad over the entry wound and rested the patient down against the blanket, pressure holding the bandage in place.
Nolan had indeed been shot in the back, high up in the right shoulder. Directly above the collarbone in front spread a dark bruise from whose center, just beneath the skin, bulged the spent cartridge.
Wishbone glanced at Favor, his expression one of relief. "Won't have ta probe for the darned thing! A shallow cut and it should be out in no time flat! Save Pete a lot a pain and you and me a lot a sweat, Boss!"
Gil nodded, turning his attention back to the scout who, while still awake, seemed in a daze. Favor was surprised when out of the blue he asked, "Where is she, Boss? Where'd she go?" At Gil's confused shake of the head, Nolan pleaded, "Didn't you hear her? Didn't you hear her callin'?"
It was Wishbone who answered. "I heard her, Pete. She'll turn up soon. Don't you worry none."
"The wind, Boss," Wish explained. "The wind was rustlin' in the tall grass. Sounded all the world like a woman callin'. He musta heard it, too. Heard it and hurt like he is thought she was callin' ta him alone."
"I understand. I've heard it like that myself, but always thought it sounded more like a child cryin' for its mother." Favor remembered back to the time when the whispering sighs reminded him of his own two little girls and how they'd cried, heartbroken breathless sobs, when their mother had passed on. No wonder he chose not to hear the wind this day.
"Enough a this here talk." Wishbone saw no need to drag out the inevitable. Without warning the patient he sliced into the skin over the slug. Pete reacted with a bitten back curse, but by then the deed was done, the spent slug resting on Wishbone's palm along with a patch of shirting carried into the wound with the bullet. "That coulda caused a lot of trouble on its own festerin' like it would. Might not a found it neither if I'd a had to go in from the back." Wishbone flipped the bit of cloth to the ground.
Wiping blood from the cone shaped projectile off onto a bit of toweling Wish offered it to Favor who scrutinized it closely and after a moment came to a conclusion. ".52 caliber Sharps and fired from a distance; the bullet's barely outta shape."
Wishbone leaned over for a closer look. "If I was a bettin' man," he paused for effect, "I'd say you're right, Boss. Once heard a fella say he made a clean kill at 800 yards with a Sharps. Hell, I couldn't see no 800 yards, but then who am I to call a man a liar, 'specially when that man never said exactly what it was he killed. Never thought ta ask him, neither. Suppose there's no reason to expect company. Indians woulda finished the job. Thieves woulda stole Pete's horse and tack." Wishbone shrugged. "What we got here is a honest to goodness conundrum, Boss."
"A conundrum...where'd you ever pick up that word?" Favor shook his head. "You couldn't a just said mystery?"
Wishbone shrugged. "You knew what I meant."
"Sharps, huh?"
Favor very nearly dropped the slug he was that startled by Rowdy's voice so close to his ear.
"For Chris' sake, Rowdy! If you're gonna creep up on a man do it louder!" Favor growled.
"Didn't wanna bother Pete any," Yates explained. "I just wanted ta say about the only person who could hit a target at 800 yards would have ta be an expert - a sniper maybe."
"And just what do you know about snipers anyhow?" Wishbone interjected.
"What do I know about 'em...? I spent two weeks as one durin' the war. Couldn't abide the job, though. Didn't seem fair...honorable....I didn't like the idea of shootin' a man who didn't know I was there. Seemed a sneaky, underhanded way ta carry on a war." Rowdy crouched down, taking the spent bullet from the boss's hand and rolling it between thumb and forefinger as he looked it over.
"Ain't you never heard 'all's fair in love and war?' Wishbone countered.
"I can see the all's fair about love and all, but war...nah." Rowdy dropped the slug back into Gil's hand. "Was it fair somebody went and shot Pete and him not seein' or hearin' it comin'...shot him in the back? Was that fair, Wishbone?"
The cook shook his head, some of the wind knocked from his sails. "Now that you put it that way...when it's got somethin' to do with a friend a mine...then no, it ain't fair at all."
----
Mist fell, so lightly that at first none of the men riding night hawk bothered donning slickers. Only after it turned into an unrelenting drizzle did the first man make the effort.
Wishbone had Mushy rig a canvas tarp to keep Pete dry. He would've laid the wounded man in one of the wagons, but having just loaded up on supplies room was temporarily unavailable. Spreading a blanket out on the ground next to his patient Wishbone stretched out, but sleep wouldn't come. Nolan was quiet, too quiet. Wishbone fussed a bit, pulling up Pete's blanket, checking the bandaging. Lying down, head pillowed on one arm, Wishbone rested his other hand against Pete's chest to monitor the fast shallow breaths. Finally he dozed off. After what felt like only moments he was roughly shaken awake.
Gil Favor crouched at Wishbone's side, rain dripping from his sodden hat and running in rivulets from his slicker. "Where the hell's Pete?" he barked, indicating the empty pallet next to the cook's. "You better say you made room for him in one of the wagons!"
Wishbone jerked up, alarmed. "Don't tell me he's out in this rain!"
"Don't tell me!" Favor countered. "If he is, I don't give 'im one chance in hell! It's comin' down in buckets!"
"Well he ain't in either wagon, that's fer sure, but he can't a gone far!" Wishbone was quick to his feet, amazingly spry for a man of his age, of any age. Searching through the supply wagon he located a slicker and shrugged it on.
Favor sent every available man out to search for the missing scout, but in the black, moonless night, rain pouring down, luck was the only thing on their side. This night it was the trail boss who held all the cards.
He stumbled over the wounded man not seeing him in the dark and when there was no sound, no reaction to being rudely knocked into, Gil became alarmed. On his knees in the mud he pressed a hand to Nolan's chest, but his own heart was pounding so hard and so fast, his own breathing so labored, it took some anxious moments before he felt the rise and fall of the chest. Stripping off his slicker he wrapped it around Pete and then gathered the limp body into his arms, struggling to rise as the mud and wet bogged him down. Realizing it would be easier to carry the dead weight over his shoulder, Gil shifted Pete as gently as possible into that position.
Favor didn't realize how far from camp he'd wandered in his search. Each step felt like it might be the last with him and Pete both ending up dead on the prairie. Yet Gil pressed on, amazed that someone as lightly built as Nolan weighed as much as he did.
Nothing but black lay ahead, behind, above or beyond so that all Gil had to guide him was instinct. Finally a break in the downpour offered the struggling man a glimpse of what might be a campfire or perhaps the lantern hung on the chuck wagon back at camp. Gil blinked, taking one hand off Pete to wipe the rain from his eyes. Squinting, he strained to see. Sighing in relief he forced his aching legs to move ahead, one step at a time...right, left, right, left. Gently patting Nolan's back he whispered, "it's okay now. We're okay."
Wet to the skin and blue from the cold, Pete Nolan woke to Wishbone hovering over him, a worried frown adding innumerable lines to an already wrinkled face. Rough towels vigorously scrubbed the mud and wet from his skin and got the blood flowing, slowly warming Pete until he could actually shiver, warming his own body.
"How in hell did you manage to get up and walk off, barefoot yet, after losin' all that blood?" Wishbone's voice came as close to that of an angry mother's as Nolan had ever heard. Words formed in Pete's mind and he meant to answer, but shivering like he was, cold as he was and weak, not a single word made it past a thought. How could he explain...even if he could speak the words, how could he explain that he had to find her...that she was alone and calling for him to come? How could he explain when he was too weak to even speak? He closed his eyes and allowed Wishbone to cluck and chatter and rub the life back into him.
"What I wanta know is how he got as far as he did...musta been close to a mile...least it seemed that way to me." Gil Favor shivered as he spoke, teeth knocking together in aching jaws, a woolen blanket draped around his shoulders, a cup of hot coffee warming hands and innards as he sipped.
"Probably just wandered off delirious is all." Rowdy commented, watching the proceedings from his position at the chuck wagon where he'd just finished sugaring his own coffee.
Favor swiveled just enough to paste him with an 'I mean business' glare and add his two cents to Rowdy's. "Well let's all of us make damned sure he just doesn't wander off delirious again, shall we?"
"Well sure, Boss." Rowdy answered somewhat self-consciously. Mr. Favor always asked questions to which the answers were obvious, but he wanted them answered all the same. Guess he needed to drive the point home. Rowdy just wished that sometimes he didn't always get the sharp end of that point.
----
Pete wouldn't listen to reason and if he wasn't weak as a day old calf he would've gotten himself up out of his blankets and gone off to find her without anybody else's help...again. "She's out there! Why won't you listen to me?" He raved. "Why won't you send somebody, anybody, out to just take a look? A woman's life is at stake!"
The boss watched warily as if not knowing quite what to expect next, erratic behavior typically out of character in the scout, but there was deep concern in Favor's expression as well as the usual direct candor when he spoke. "Pete, there is no woman out there, alone or otherwise. I have sent men out to search and to a man, they've found nothing." Gil's tone softened, "you're sick, feverish, the mind plays tricks, you take one sound to be another, the wind to be a voice...."
Nolan's complexion darkened. He was angry and hurt that of all people Gil Favor took him for addle-pated, humoring him like you might humor a confused child. Pete turned his head away. As far as he was concerned, the conversation was over.
"He's still plenty sick, Boss. Might be easier to talk to when the fever dies back. Give him a day...maybe two." Wishbone handed Favor a plate of food, but Gil handed it back, seemingly lost in thought.
"We don't have a day or two. Tomorrow morning we're headin' out. Supplies are down enough so Pete can ride in the wagon. We been here too long already. This place gives me the creeps." Favor gave Wishbone a look which would've wilted a lesser man. "Do I stand here all day before I get something to eat?"
Wishbone stood with the boss's dinner plate still in hand. Figuring he must've missed something somewhere, Wish passed the plate back over to Favor.
"That's more like it!" Gil admonished as he dug in to the heaping portion, leaving Wishbone scratching his head.
"You know, Boss, you're right. We been here waaay too long," the cook agreed.
----
Drovers sat around the campfire nursing cigarettes or the last cup of dinner coffee. Jim Quince strummed Mushy's guitar giving an almost familial sense to the surroundings. Horses were quieting down for the night and even the boss had his sights set on a warm bed roll and a decent night's sleep. He should've known better.
"Rider comin' in, Boss!" Joe Scarlet brought the news so it was no surprise when the stranger came into view silhouetted for a moment in the waning light, a black figure on a large horse. The rider advanced at a leisurely pace, dismounting at the remuda to the sound of jingling spurs and handing the horse off to Hey Soos with a nod. The figure walked to the fire and with a flourish removed a wide-brimmed sombrero.
"Well I'll be damned...it's a woman!" Wishbone blurted out. "Uh, sorry for the profanity, Ma'am. We...we ain't used to having a woman...a lady in camp."
A woman she was, but a lady, that no one knew although the drovers literally fell over one another in their haste to offer her a seat, coffee, food...all that is, except Gil Favor. Immediately something about her struck him oddly. 'We should've gotten out of here today,' he thought. This woman has ill luck riding her coat-tails, he was certain of it, and although it was a warm night a shiver ran down his spine and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and that was before he remembered – Pete was right all along! There had been a woman. He glanced behind him into the wagon bed where Nolan slept. Pete hadn't heard her ride in. He didn't hear her now. Perhaps there was yet time to spirit her away.
Her name, so she told them, was Hettie Daniels. Neither young nor old she remained attractive in early middle age with dark gold hair worn up from which escaped numerous tendrils daintily framing a heart-shaped face. Large gray eyes produced an innocent open expression, but it was her mouth which Gil Favor found to be her most telling feature. Many believed the eyes were the mirrors of the soul, but to Gil it had always been the mouth. Hettie Daniels' lower lip was full and sensual, but her upper was a thin sharp line, a slash of pale color, unyielding, hard. He saw it if no one else did and it frightened him, frightened him badly that he was the only one who noticed.
Although dressed mannishly – a faded flannel shirt tucked into corduroy trousers and secured with a wide brown belt, the too long end of which was crudely hacked off, high-topped riding boots and Mexican-style spurs with overly large sharp rowels which chimed, almost like tiny bells, when she walked - there wasn't a man in camp save Gil Favor who didn't find Hettie Daniels femininely captivating.
"You can stay till morning, Ma'am. We're leavin' then. You should be alright travelin' alone since you made it this far with no trouble and since you're headin' south. There's a town less than two day's ride." At Favor's pronouncement there arose a chorus of protests from the drovers. Gil did not reply figuring it would only make matters worse to open a subject for discussion when his mind was irrevocably made up. Instead he checked on Pete.
"He's tryin' to break that fever; got a good sweat goin'. I'm bettin' it'll break by dawn." Wishbone wielded a cool cloth with as much diligence as a mother tending a sick child.
"The men been takin' turns keepin' a watchful eye on our wanderer here. Some of 'em are pretty good nurses, too, though I wouldn't say so to their faces; likely get a poke in the eye for my kind words. Funny ain't it, how a man can be hard as nails and proud of it; can throw a steer to the ground with his bare hands or take on half a dozen drunks in a bar fight and win, but that same jasper can be gentle as can be with a new born calf or a hurt friend, but don't allow as you noticed or there'd be hell ta pay. Funny, huh?" Wishbone questioned.
Before Gil had a chance to answer, Hettie Daniels interrupted. "What's funny, Mr. Wishbone?"
Wish blushed a lovely scarlet which caused the woman to smile and Gil to grind his teeth. It wasn't enough that she had every man in camp enthralled by her very presence, now she was butting in where she didn't belong.
"Uh, oh, it wasn't nothin' important, Ma'am. Me and Mr. Favor were just discussin' Pete's condition is all."
She peered into the wagon bed and a slight "oh!" escaped her as if she was surprised or somehow distressed by the badly wounded man resting there. Yet Gil knew she knew Nolan was there through her conversations with the drovers. Pete's presence was no secret.
"What happened to the poor man?" She exclaimed even as she leaned closer, moving sweat-dampened curls back from Pete's forehead in what Favor thought a far too familiar gesture for a 'lady' and resting the back of her hand against his cheek. "He's terribly warm. Is he ill?" As she spoke, she lifted the blanket revealing a wide swath of white bandaging, marred at the shoulder by a deep red stain the size of a ten-dollar gold piece.
"He was shot several days ago – in the back." Gil refused to mince words.
She turned to gaze stonily up at Favor. "That's dreadful," she said. There was not a drop of emotion in the statement and Gil realized she knew he was on to her game and she was not only willing, but eager, to play.
Hettie turned to Wishbone. "I've nursed men before and have been told I'm quite competent. I'd deem it a favor if you would allow me to help out. I mean since Mr. Favor has so kindly allowed me to remain in camp for the evening...it's the least I can do and I insist on being of some use while I'm here." Her lips curved upward in a smile and Wishbone was putty to her will.
Gil turned away, disgusted. Things were sure to get worse. Naturally they did.
Morning brought news that the cattle had somehow scattered across several miles during the night, by who or what the drovers could not say. "Yes," they'd all been awake yet had seen and heard nothing out of the ordinary. Hey Soos crossed himself, muttering in Spanish while he tended the horses. Drovers discussed the whys and wherefores over breakfast and Gil Favor boiled. Somehow his plans to leave that morning had been thwarted. He needed no one to tell him who, but how she'd accomplished it and why. Presumably she'd tended Pete all night long.
Though she'd had no sleep Hettie insisted on caring for Pete. His fever had broken and he was resting, actually sleeping peacefully for the first time since his wounding. Gil was grateful for that, but gave total credit to Wishbone and his herbs and skill. He'd not mentioned his suspicions or dislike for the woman to any of the men. They would've either laughed or thought him mad. Perhaps he was mad. At least that was some sort of explanation for the goings on.
Another full day would pass before the cattle were rounded up and Gil gave the order, again, that the drive would move out in the morning. Not only had the woman insisted on caring for Pete virtually 'round the clock, but without assistance. When Wishbone attempted to check on him, she shooed the healer away with a wave of the hand. "Don't you believe I'm capable enough to care for him?" She asked, tears springing ably into the wide gray eyes; her lower lip trembling. It was enough to make Wishbone beat a hasty retreat, apologizing all the way back to his pots and pans.
----
Pete woke to a woman's face going in and out of focus and was relieved that she'd found her way into camp and was safe and unharmed. Maybe Mr. Favor had relented and sent out another party to search for her. In any event seeing her was a weight off his mind. With that and the fever gone, sleep came over him like a warm comforting blanket.
Defenseless and vulnerable, Pete never thought to wonder where Wishbone had gotten to, not with her sweet face and a smile that would melt any man's heart, her hands cool as she pressed them to either side of his face to check for fever or to brush aside the always disheveled hair from his forehead. She was ever so gentle at first and he found himself lost in the gray shadowed eyes, falling slowly under her spell.
But then something occurred which turned the gentle caresses rough. There appeared to be no reason for the change. Pete knew he'd done nothing to offend her since he was still so weak he could barely put an entire sentence together and that not above a whisper. Although he was thirsty, she stopped offering water and his misery increased by the hour. To those making inquiry as to his condition she either offered a report, in detail and in her most persuasively convincing voice, or allowed them to see the patient while he slept and was therefore unable to speak for himself. The melodic sound of her voice grew grating to Nolan's ears and he lapsed into a sort of misery and pain induced stupor.
They were moving out at first light, Pete heard the boss give the order. No sooner were the words out of Favor's mouth than she was back. As she leaned over, ostensibly tending his needs, Pete noticed that her face had changed totally. Not a hint of beauty remained. Even the gold in her hair looked tarnished and lifeless and was shot through with gray, like she'd aged not overnight, but within moments. He kept focused on her face because her hands caused nothing but pain. There was warmth at his shoulder and he knew fresh blood flowed. When he opened his mouth to protest, she touched a finger to his lips.
"It'll be over soon, Pete Nolan, I promise you that. It would've been over sooner had I been nearer when I shot you or if that busy-body trail boss hadn't of found you the night I called you out into the storm. Another moment or two and you'd have been dead and no one the wiser, my tracks washed away in the rain. They thought you were hearing things, didn't they? They never believed you heard a woman's voice. How wrong they were."
"Why?" Pete questioned. "Why me? I never saw you before in my life."
"I'd like to know that too, Miss Daniels? Why Pete?" Gil Favor stood off to the side, his face a stone-carved mask, its peaks and valleys emphasized by the flickering firelight, the only man left in a camp readying to hit the trail. "I'm waiting for an answer, Miss Daniels."
Cool and unafraid she turned to face him. "He never saw me before, but I've seen him. I've seen a hundred like him, Mr. Favor. He killed my husband and left me a widow."
Pete struggled hard to sit, finally grabbing on to the side of the wagon bed and hauling himself up to face the accusation. "When did I do this and where?" he gritted out.
Favor's attention remained focused on the woman while his right hand moved to rest on the butt of his Colt. Her gaze followed the action and he was glad of it. The game continued.
Keeping her gaze on Favor, she replied to Nolan's question. "At Second Bull Run, you traitors call it Second Manassas, August 30th, 1862 you shot my William dead and left me a widow."
"I wasn't at Second Manassas. I couldn't a killed your husband or anyone." Pete's strength began to fail but he held on. He had to see it through.
"You were there, Johnny Reb. I saw you even though I was a thousand miles away. I formed a picture in my mind and it's you all right; tall in the saddle, slender-built and dark-haired. You were every Confederate soldier. Every mother's son had your face and your body and your insatiable desire to murder. It's you alright and I'll have my reckoning, every one else be damned!"
In a single smooth motion she drew an ivory-handled derringer from her trouser pocket, aimed and fired it directly at Gil Favor. The only reason she missed was that Pete Nolan managed to snag the back of her shirt, throwing off her aim. Favor's returning shot hit the mark, the slug traveling completely through the woman's body and lodging in the side of the wagon.
Her last words were pretty much what Gil expected. "The first bullet was for you. The second would have sent Pete Nolan to hell!" As she gasped her last, the once pretty face twisted into a grimace so hideous Favor was forced to look away.
Hettie Daniels wore a shroud of defeat and bitterness to her grave. For all his trying, Gil Favor could find no sympathy for her. He kept wondering how many others she'd killed, men like Pete whose only crime was a resemblance to a man who existed only in an obsessed woman's mind.
----
"Found this in her rifle scabbard, Boss." Rowdy Yates showed off the Sharps he'd found, a fine example of a model 1859 which he then handed over to Favor. Gil raised it up, settling it into his shoulder and sighting down the barrel, taking a bead on a tree stump some hundreds of yards distant. There was little doubt in his mind that the shot was makeable. He released a low whistle of appreciation.
"A man could shoot a mile with that," Rowdy observed.
"Or a woman," Gil added.
END