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of good that did him.
    What in the hell was he going to do with her? It wasn’t that he resented the inconvenience. In this country, a man got used to helping folks, his hope being that the favor would be returned if he ever got in a fix himself. It was just that a pretty young female didn’t mix well with a bunch of lonesome cowboys. Sort of like dynamite and a lighted lucifer.
    Not only that, but it was Race’s observation that messing with an unmarried woman, no matter how good the reasons, was a damned good way for a man to end up married whether he wanted to be or not.
    Galvanized by the thought, he turned a full circle, searching the horizon in all directions. There had to be another woman somewhere in these parts. But try as he might, he couldn’t think of a single one. Between here and his ranch, a two-week ride to the north, it was mostly open country, the only dwellings along the way a few lean-to cabins belonging to trappers. Pretty much the same held true along the trail from Arkansas that he had just traveled, the only exceptions a couple of trail stops operated by bachelors. Four days ago, he and his men had passed a cabin with a dress hung out to dry on the front porch, but that was the only sign of a woman Race could recollect seeing in nearly a week.
    Four days back? Hell’s bells . Before he could get the girl to that cabin, he’d have every freckle on her fanny memorized. And after riding all those miles to find her a nurse, it would be just his luck that she’d recover her senses about the time he got her there. Where would be the point? No matter how he circled it, he would have to care for her between here and there, anyway. So he might just as well keep heading for home and save himself a lot of aggravation.
    Not one to fret long over things he couldn’t change, Race took a deep breath, mentally jerked himself up by his boot straps, and turned to survey the group of nearly destroyed wagons, one of which he would have to commandeer to transport the girl back to his herd, and fromthere to his ranch. His ranch ? That was a highfalutin term, now that he came to think on it. Next spring, he planned to start construction on a house. But for now, all he had was a one room cabin, a bunkhouse for his men, a rickety old barn and some outbuildings, with a few horse corrals and cattle chutes mixed in.
    He made a quick tour of the encampment, examining the wagons. Buckets of junk . The only one still held together with more than a hope, a prayer, and precious few rusty rivets was the wagon the killers hadn’t had time to rip apart, and even it was in sorry shape. By the time he got a decent means of transportation assembled and had hitched the two surviving oxen into the traces, he was flat tuckered, it was damned near dark, and the girl felt as cold as death when he went to get her. The quilt hadn’t provided her with enough protection. Some caretaker he was proving to be.
    Resting his Henry against a wagon wheel, he went to search through the rubble again, his boots slapping the parched earth in impatience as he collected every stitch of bedding he could find. After fashioning a pallet in the wagon bed, he returned to get the girl, drawing the quilt off of her and carrying her quickly across the clearing.
    Just as he planted his boot on the backboard of the wagon, a section of the tailgate exploded, splinters of rotten wood pelting him in the face. Almost simultaneously, the report of a rifle exploded in the twilight. Reacting instinctively, he dropped like a felled tree. Catching his weight with his forearms, he landed in a sprawl over the girl, using his body to shield her. Another bullet zinged past his jaw, coming so close he felt his whiskers stir. Dirt shot up.
    Tears streaming, he balled a fist and rubbed frantically at his eyes, horribly aware that bullets were striking the earth all around him, chunks of clay stinging him through his shirt. Christ on crutches . He felt like a bale of hay at a