Read Online Dorothy Garlock - [Colorado Wind 03] by Wind of Promise - Free Book Online Page A

who rode with the old man. He’d have the spunky woman! She was just what he’d always looked for and had known he would find some day. She was fresh and spirited and would fill his days and his nights with excitement.
    All his life Tass had taken leavings; leftover clothes, leftover food, leftover, used-up women. His own mother, part Comanche and part Mexican, had been used up by his father, an old white son of a bitch, by the time Tass was old enough to know who he was. But he had fixed the old bastard with a knife in his throat when he’d tried to use him after his mother died. This time it would be different. Someone would get
his
leavings.
    Tass had thought of nothing but the woman since he had seen her. He thought of the way she had warmed him the day before when she sat on her horse and looked just at him, and the way she’d sassed him back. She reminded him of a little wildcat, and he was sure she’d fight like one. He would watch and wait, and when the time was right, he would take her and head for the wild, desolate country in Mexico. On the way he would break her like he would a wild mountain pony. Just thinking about it excited him. He’d tame her with his quirt and fists until she lay naked and willing beneath him, legs and mouth open to welcome him. He would teach her what he wanted her to do, then he’d devour her day and night until he got his fill.
    His mind told him to stop thinking about her. Soon, and for as long as he wanted her, the woman would be his. He was in no hurry. It was a long way to Denver or Santa Fe or wherever the woman was going. He would follow slowly, take his revenge on the gringos, then take her.

Chapter Four
    Ellie and Mary Ben were waiting at the edge of the camp when Vanessa and Henry rode in with the mules. Mary Ben, shading her eyes with her hand, looked behind them toward the river.
    “Mr. Wisner’s all right, Mary Ben.”
    “And Mr. DeBolt?” Ellie asked.
    “He’s all right, too, Aunt Ellie. Mr. Wisner killed one of them,” Vanessa blurted, still shocked by the sudden violence.
    “Killed one? Oh my goodness!”
    “Let’s get hitched up, Henry.” Vanessa feigned composure, for she did not want her aunt and cousin to see how unnerved she was. She had seen death many times in her life and had come to accept it for the old, the sick and the injured. But never had she seen such sudden violent death as she had just witnessed.
    They were ready to leave camp when John Wisner rode in. He went to his wagon and handed the gun up to Mary Ben, then slid from the horse and hitched him alongside the other horse Mary Ben had backed into the traces. He didn’t offer an explanation for Kain’s absence and Vanessa didn’t ask. When he climbed up on the seat, Vanessa set the team in motion and moved out onto the trail.
    The horizon ahead seemed to melt into the sky. Nothing moved except the long grass bending in silver ripples before the wind. Vanessa’s eye swept the country. It was vast, empty and still. They were deep in the prairie, which was broken only by the river to the south of them. It was quiet there. Quiet beyond anything she had imagined.
    They were at least three miles from the camp before Ellie brought up the subject of Kain DeBolt. “I wonder where he is?”
    “Who?” But Vanessa knew who she meant.
    “Mr. DeBolt.”
    “He drove off their horses, Ma.” Henry rode beside the wagon on the saddle horse. “He just went in there and told them we were taking the mules. He told me what to do, Ma, and I did it.” There was pride in his voice. “I like him. I hope he comes back. You don’t care if I like him, do you, Van? He got our mules back.”
    “Of course not. You’ve got the right to like whoever you want to.”
    “I hope he comes back, too. I’m afraid now. I just never imagined it would be like this.” Ellie’s eyes swept the wide horizon ahead and on each side of them. “Just look at all that space, and we’re right in the middle! Anything