Linda Castle Read Online Free PDF Page A

nightmares were never exactly the same, except that Rachel was alone and needed somebody to help her.
    He kissed her forehead and started to rock her back and forth, humming some tune that had lain in wait since his own childhood.
    Too damned long ago to know how to do this.
    “I can’t find my mama—. Mama—” Her voice trailed off. Within a moment she dragged in a sobbing, ragged breath, and then she finally became still. Her breath came deep and slow as she fell into the blessed peace of slumber. The only sound was the creak of wood and bed ropes as Flynn rocked her.
    Morning dawned gray and thready. The clouds overhead were salmon on top and a dirty tarnished silver beneath, streaked as if a child had dipped her fingers in paint and dragged them across the eastern horizon, thought Flynn.
    There was no wind yet, but Flynn knew the respite was only temporary. Yep, it was going to come a blow by noon.
    He tugged the brim of his Stetson hat down tighter on his head, as if he felt the wind pulling at it already. Jack snorted and broke wind and the chin on the curb rattled as he shook his head. Flynn swung into the saddle and gathered the reins, wanting to get the last of the herd moved today.
    “I know, you’d rather stay in the stall and eat cracked corn. You’re getting downright lazy since we retired,” Flynn told his mount. They had been together so many years that conversation seemed natural, maybe even required. Jack had been his partner on many manhunts and had shared a cold camp with him beyond counting. The big horse flicked his ears back and forth as if he were listening to Flynn.
    Flynn pointed Jack southeast and kicked him into a ground-eating lope. When they reached the rest of the herd, Jack worked hard, as if he sensed Flynn’s need to get done early. The first-year heifers were separated and put in an upper pasture, but Flynn took the breeding cows and the one-eyed bull to a nice meadow that lay in the squat hills just past Brunckow’s cabin.
    There were no windows left now and a part of the roof had blown off during the last dust devil, but the cabin and meadow provided a good place to water Jack and take a rest. The cabin had been standing since 1858 when Frederick Brunckow had come looking for riches. What he got was his body tossed down his own mine shaft by a band of renegade Mexicans. It was ironic that Ed Schieffelin had discovered a rich vein of silver only seven miles away in 1870. Poor old Brunckow.
    When Flynn had still been riding for the law he hadcome to the cabin more than a dozen times looking for outlaws. The raw pockmarked adobe walls helped give it the name that the Epitaph newspaper had perpetuated—the bloodiest cabin in Arizona Territory.
    Flynn stepped off and let the horse wander around the perimeter of the old building, nibbling grass as he went. He shaded his eyes from the sun, and leaned against the side of the cabin while Jack had a good rest. His eyes roamed the countryside, picking out a jackrabbit and a covey of quail as he rested.
    It struck him that he was only a few miles from the Lavender Lady Mine. Since he was so near he decided to go check on it. A lot of men had remained out of work since the big strike that closed the Lady.
    And brought him here.
    Flynn’s mouth twitched at one corner. If it hadn’t been for the mining strike he wouldn’t have been in Hollenbeck Corners.
    And he wouldn’t have had to be Marydyth Hollenbeck’s escort.
    All these years it had stuck in his craw. He had never had to take a woman to prison before. And now he was taking care of that woman’s daughter. -
    It was a hell of a thing.
    Flynn leaned away from the side of the cabin and gathered Jack’s reins. He had enough daylight left to make it to the mine and still be back home before Rachel needed to go to bed.
    Flynn saw the yawning black hole of the shaft from a long way off. There was something about a mine that made his flesh crawl. He supposed he was a bit of a coward when