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  From outside, the same man’s voice sounded off again. ‘Pile it on, boys. It’s good and dry. We’re going to have quite a blaze.’

  Before long, Cathy could hear the crackling sound of wood burning and she began to choke on the thick smoke that flowed in through the open window. Her cabin was on fire and there was no one to help her. Momentarily she cursed John’s absence and then the only thing on her mind was to get out of the doomed building. Scrabbling over to the door, she heaved the crossbar out of its brackets and yelled out, ‘I’m coming out. For pity’s sake, don’t shoot me!’

  With her eyes streaming, Cathy yanked open the door and burst out into the cool crisp air. At that point, two things happened that only added to her distress. Her feet were kicked out from under her and as she hit the ground with bruising force, the Winchester was torn from her grasp. Desperately, she sucked air into her voided lungs, but it was some moments before she was able to focus on her surroundings. And then she got yet another very unwelcome shock.

  A band of grimy, rough looking men was scattered around the clearing in front of the cabin and all eyes were fixed on her. The terrified young woman abruptly realized that her thin dress had ridden high up her shapely thighs. Hastily, she dragged the material down over her knees, but that action only seemed to encourage the watching ruffians.

  ‘By Christ, she’s a real peach,’ one of them muttered and then en masse they closed in around her. Dreadfully aware of what was about to happen, all she could do was stare in horror at their repulsive, brutalized features.

  Then a voice that she recognized roared out, ‘All right, all right. Break it up or I’ll start smashing heads.’

  Two men were dragged out of the way and a big, powerful individual suddenly provided her with a faint glimmer of hope. Then she recognized him as the man she had shot at and her heart sank again.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’ He sniggered. ‘You missed!’

  Barging to the forefront of his men, Taw Johnson reached down and seized her arms. Seemingly effortlessly, he heaved her upright and then quite blatantly looked her up and down.

  ‘My, my. You’re a real honey, aren’t you?’ he remarked throatily.

  Something snapped inside Cathy’s skull. She might be cold, desperately afraid and friendless, but no big oaf was going to treat her like a piece of meat. Tearing her right arm free, she planted a stinging slap across her assailant’s face.

  ‘Take your hands off me, you pig. My husband and his men will be back soon and they’ll make you pay dearly for this!’

  Johnson appeared not to even notice the sudden blow, but her words stirred his curiosity. ‘Just how many men have you got working this spread? There can’t be but a few, because if it was me, I wouldn’t leave you all alone out here for even five minutes.’

  Cathy stared at him with a mixture of surprise and loathing. It had just dawned on her that the cabin wasn’t actually on fire and the cunning deception rankled.

  ‘John’s got ten riders and they’re all armed to the teeth!’ she declared angrily. Even to her the heated reply rang hollow, a fact that she realized as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

  The big man didn’t attempt to disguise his amusement. ‘Well, is that a fact? Hell, if I’d known this place was so well defended, I’d have stayed up in Canada.’ He suddenly thrust his head forward, so that they were almost nose-to-nose. ‘What’s your name, girl?’

  Resentment again flared up within her. ‘Cathy. Cathy Clemens. And I’m no girl!’

  Johnson blatantly glanced down at her barely concealed cleavage. ‘Oh, I can see that.’ A crazy idea had suddenly entered his head. ‘If all your gun-toting ranch hands are about to descend on us, we’d better get moving. Fix yourself up with some warm clothes. You’re coming with us!’

  That declaration got more than just Cathy in a lather. The watching raiders began to lick their lips at the prospect. And yet Clay Bassett immediately shook his head in dismay. ‘I don’t reckon that’s a good idea, boss. Whores in a town’s one thing, but to bring one along on the trail with us can only cause trouble. Let’s just all have her here, take what we want and torch the place. That’s what we’ve always done in the past.’

  Johnson stared at him long and hard in stony silence. He knew full well that his right hand man spoke good sense. And yet. . . . Cathy looked so good she made him ache inside. He had never ever possessed a woman like her and quite likely never would . . . unless he took this one chance. Right or wrong, his mind was made up. Hardening his heart, he responded to Bassett’s well-meaning counsel and yet even as he spoke, the outlaw leader knew that he was making a mistake.

  ‘At least you got one word right, Clay. Boss, because that’s what I am. And until that changes, I’ll make the decisions. And this ain’t the past anymore. We’re for Mexico and new beginnings, remember?’

  Ignoring the visible hurt on the other man’s face, Johnson turned to his prisoner and almost as an afterthought, unleashed a lazy backhand slap. The blow was enough to knock Cathy off her feet and brought tears to her eyes.

  ‘Now, lady,’ the outlaw leader snarled. ‘You need to realize that I ain’t asking anymore. I’m telling. So go get your things together and keep your hands off any more firearms!’

  She stared at him dumbly for a long moment, before slowly getting to her feet and returning indoors. Clay Bassett watched in silence as his boss moved off to oversee the looting. He had more than just bitter rejection on his mind. He was trying very hard to recall where he had heard the name John Clemens before.

  The low sun had barely moved across the sky before the scavengers mounted up. They had removed every scrap of food and every item of value from the cabin. Over her strongest objections, Cathy found herself riding double in unpleasantly close proximity with the bear-like Johnson.

  ‘We’ll steal a horse for you when we can,’ he stated. ‘Although for myself I’m more than happy with this arrangement.’

  ‘I thought we were going to torch the cabin,’ remarked Bassett sourly, eliciting a horrified gasp from its owner.

  Johnson, who was acutely aware of the woman’s supple body pressing against his, had other things on his mind and was in an unusually good humour.

  ‘Nah, I was just funning. This man Clemens is going to be hurting bad when he finds out someone’s took his woman. Might as well leave him something for the winter, ha ha. After all,’ he added, pointing to the name plaque above the cabin’s open door, ‘looks to me like he’s trying to put some bad times behind him.’ With that he gestured south and bellowed out, ‘Let’s ride,’ and they did.

  Not for one moment did it occur to him that ‘this man Clemens’ might actually decide to pursue such a large gang of desperados. And it was also left to the deep thinking Clay Bassett to ponder over the rather fanciful thought that New Haven might just possibly refer to the New Haven Arms Company of Connecticut: former producer of the revolutionary Henry repeating rifle.

  Chapter Three

  John Clemens had spent an unsettled night in a rough and ready rooming house, which was all the town of Chinook possessed in the way of accommodation unless he had been prepared to surrender himself to one of the local whores. As on so many occasions before in such surroundings, his past life came back to haunt him in the form of vivid dreams. After waking up drenched in sweat, it had been a relief to dip his head in the water trough outside. Thankfully, ‘two bits’ worth of strong coffee and a fried breakfast set him up to face the new day and he was soon back on the trail, his wagon loaded with essential supplies for the winter.

  The prospect of rejoining his young wife excited him, even after such a brief separation. He was well aware of just how attractive she was and of how very lucky he had been to find her on his trip back East. Unfortunately, that knowledge frequently led to feelings of insecurity, which manifested themselves in boorish and controlling behaviour. Even as he rattled his way back to New Haven, the hunter turned rancher vowed, not for the first time, to change his ways
and improve his relationship with her.

  The moment he set eyes on the cabin, Clemens knew that something was amiss. The building’s only door was wide open and a wisp of smoke trickled lazily up from just beyond the far side of the structure. Resisting the urge to charge forward hell for leather, he instead reined in and reached down below the wagon’s bench seat. From a long leather scabbard, he withdrew his meticulously maintained Sharps model 1874 rifle and cocked the hammer. Only then did he cautiously roll on towards his home. Instinctively, Clemens knew that Cathy was gone, because at no time did he call out her name.

  With his heart pounding fit to burst, he prowled around his property, reading the signs and piecing together what had happened. The large number of horse tracks indicated a sizeable raiding party, but the hoofs were shod so it was unlikely that Indians were involved. The leafy fire, slightly removed from the wall, had been a ruse. The empty cartridge case on the floor of the bedroom showed that his wife had fought back, but the lack of any bloodstains suggested that he should have taught her better.

  The enormity of the situation suddenly overwhelmed him and he burst out of the cabin. Why had he left her all alone in a relatively untamed wilderness? Angrily, he prowled up and down in front of the name plaque. The two optimistic words now seemed merely to taunt him; his new start smashed to pieces by a gang of low life scum. The thought of his young wife in their brutal clutches brought forth an outpouring of incandescent rage and for a few moments, he howled uncontrollably at the empty landscape like a demented wolf. Spittle flew from his lips as the veins in his neck bulged alarmingly.

  Then, quite suddenly, his fury turned inward and crystallized like ice in his veins. Cathy Clemens belonged to him. She was his wife and therefore his property and what was his had rarely been easy to take. Therefore his course of action was quite obvious. Regardless of their overwhelming numbers, he would pursue the outlaws and reclaim her. Whether he would actually want her back after her inevitable debauchery was an issue he could not yet bring himself to consider.

  Mind made up, John Clemens went about his necessary tasks in a calm and considered manner. From then on there would be no more emotional outbursts, because such things could get a man killed. First, he went back into the cabin. The only positive outcome of the raid was that the building had not been raised to the ground. Consequently, his hidden possessions remained intact and there would likely be a home to return to, if he got her back and if nobody else destroyed it just for the hell of it in his absence.

  Just to the right of the fireplace, there was a section of wall panelling that under careful inspection intruded further into the room than would be expected, but was only noticeable if the outside dimensions were measured. Using his fingernails, he prized open a hinged portion and inspected the contents of the secret chamber. By far the largest item was a pair of saddle-bags, which he hoisted out and opened. In one compartment there was crammed a thick wad of dollar bills, accumulated during a decade of killing on the northern plains. At one time there had actually been a lot more, but building a ranch from scratch did not come cheap. His top lip curled with the makings of a sneer, at the knowledge of just what the raiders had missed.

  Next out was a leather gun belt, complete with cartridges and a revolver wrapped in an oiled rag. A brief inspection satisfied him that the Schofield was in full working order. There was a very particular reason for him owning such a make of weapon. The latch on the top of the frame allowed it to be broken open and then all the spent cartridges ejected at once. This meant that it could be reloaded faster than any other revolver available, a feature that had come in very useful when its owner was ‘jumped’ by angry redskins. Such an occurrence had been a commonplace hazard for professional buffalo hunters and Clemens had often interspersed such work with some even more unsavoury activities!

  The addition of two full bandoliers of Sharps cartridges and a razor-edged skinning knife left the concealed chamber completely empty. After carefully resealing it, Clemens arranged the various weaponry about his person, and headed for the door. He emerged from the cabin a changed man, with bandoliers criss-crossing his chest and the gun belt fitting snugly around his waist. And yet he was altered in far more than just appearance. Gone was the prospective small rancher and family man. There was a harder set to his strong jaw, whilst his eyes held the far away look of a man who spent a lot of time scrutinizing his surroundings. John Clemens was taking up where he left off and not for the first time he was hunting men!

  After leading the horse and wagon into the barn, he helped himself to as many supplies as could be stuffed into his substantial saddle-bags. They included coffee, corn meal, flour, sugar, salt and beans. The fact that he was commencing a manhunt meant that there would be a few fires so he also packed a good supply of beef jerky and pemmican. A drawtube spyglass and a supply of Lucifers in wax paper completed the list long since committed to memory.

  Releasing his horse from the wagon harness, Clemens rubbed her down and allowed her feed and water before heaving on his saddle. He tied on a thick woollen blanket from under the wagon’s bench seat and then it was time to leave. The outlaws had at least a day’s start on him, but he had little doubt that he would overhaul them. It never occurred to him that it might be more sensible not to.

  Without a backward glance at his once highly prized new home, the grim-faced hunter set off after his prey. Following such a large band was child’s play. They had made no attempt to disguise their path, being quite obviously overconfident in their numbers and not expecting any pursuit. He gave no thought to what he was leaving behind. If he and Cathy did make it back to New Haven, any opportunistic squatters would be given very short shrift indeed. His blood was up and was very likely to remain so!

  ‘God damn it all to hell! Who is it down there, Wild Bill Hickok his self?’ The frustrated scavenger ducked under cover as more bullets ricocheted off the rocks.

  ‘That don’t seem possible,’ another one responded in all seriousness. ‘I seen him shot to death in Deadwood over ten years ago. That’s known as a decade, you know,’ he added helpfully.

  ‘Shut up and lay down some fire, you morons,’ Taw Johnson shouted angrily.

  Back up the hillside, well out of harm’s way, his prisoner gazed down on the unfolding drama with disbelief. It was hard to credit that they were going to all this trouble just to obtain a horse for her.

  Since kidnapping Cathy Clemens, the gang had been resolutely heading due south. Their leader considered that to be a sure fire way of eventually reaching Mexico. They had passed the first night in the shelter of a stand of trees and it was here that Cathy expected her worst fears to come true. Amazingly, she had remained unsullied, although certainly not ignored. On their bear-like boss’s instructions, his men had given her a wide berth, but that quite obviously didn’t apply to him. Clutching her wrist in a vice like grip, Johnson had led her off into the undergrowth. Out of sight of the others, he had suddenly thrust her to the ground and shown every intention of assaulting her there and then.

  She had no intention of submitting quietly, but suddenly found that loud and violent resistance was unnecessary, because the gang boss had unexpectedly backed off and merely stared at her long and hard.

  ‘That’s not the way it’ll be,’ he had finally remarked softly. ‘You’re too good for such.’

  Despite her apparent reprieve, there was an intensity to his gaze that frightened the young woman. The very fact of being so stunningly attractive had enabled her to control most of her encounters with men in the past, even though they had usually come to nothing. It was a sad fact that she had had little luck in her choice of men. What she now faced was something entirely different. She had never been the subject of such blatant animal desire, or so completely helpless in the face of it. And yet . . . for all her fear, a tiny part of her found the attention exciting and flattering. John had always seemed so controlled, as though all sensitivity had been crushed by the events of his earlier life.

&n
bsp; She was jerked out of her thoughts and back to the present by a volley of gunfire from the rocks below her. Taw Johnson and his cronies were pouring a torrent of hot lead into a substantial cabin some one hundred yards away, but it seemed to be having little effect. The defenders continued to return an accurate fire. One man sustained a flesh wound and suddenly Johnson had had enough.

  ‘Cease fire,’ he bellowed. ‘We carry on like this, we’ll run out of cartridges and then they’ll take all our horses!’

  As the firing petered out on both sides, he cupped his hands and hollered out, ‘Hello, the cabin. There’s really no need for any of this. All we want is the one horse . . . for a poor young lady who’s come on bad times and found herself afoot. Only thing is, she ain’t got any coin to speak of.’

  They didn’t have long to wait for a reply. The main door eased open and a grey head appeared.

  ‘Go to hell, you thieving scroats! I never met a young lady yet who couldn’t earn coin somehow. Anyone comes near our corral and we’ll fill him full of lead. You hear?’

  Clay Bassett shook his scrawny head and sighed, before scrambling over to join his boss. He was about to say what all the other men were thinking, but it gave him no pleasure.

  ‘This won’t answer, Taw. No good’ll come of keeping that girl. It’ll unsettle the others. Have her and be done with it.’

  The colour began to rise in Johnson’s thick neck as he glanced around at his men. They didn’t look particularly unsettled to him, but there was no doubt that it was getting cold and he didn’t take to being stood off by a bunch of no account settlers.