Reckless Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

the U.S. Marshal’s badge pinned to his shirtfront. Unaware of my presence, the two men stared at each other across six feet of barren ground.
    “I’m taking you back, Cory,” the Marshal said in a hard tone. “On your horse, or tied across your saddle—makes no difference to me.”
    Cory’s eyes were wild and scared, but the hand hovering over his gun butt was rock steady.
    “I ain’t goin’ back!” he shouted, and grabbed for his Colt.
    There was a double explosion as both men drew and fired, the reports echoing like thunder. When the smoke cleared, Cory lay dead on the ground, a slightly surprised look on his face. Blood trickled from a neat hole in his chest, just left of center.
    I had never seen a dead man before and I felt suddenly sick to my stomach as I ran past the lawman and into the house.
    Later, I learned that the dead man had cold-bloodedly killed three men and a young girl while escaping from jail in Steel’s Crossing.
    Luckily, most of our days passed in a quieter fashion.
     
    By the time I was fifteen, Joshua and Orin were both courting me in earnest. I might have been flattered if I hadn’t been the only white girl their age within a hundred miles. Mrs. Berdeen and my mother had become good friends and made no secret of the fact that they both hoped I’d decide to marry one of the Berdeen boys. I think my folks, especially Pa, favored Joshua, for he was older than Orin and a lot more mature. Personally, I preferred Orin. He had a dazzling smile and a wonderful way with words. Nights, when we sat on the porch holding hands, he’d tell me I was prettier than all the flowers in the world, and sometimes he’d whisper poetry in my ear while he nuzzled my neck.
    Josh liked to hold hands, too, but he rarely told me the things a young girl likes to hear. Instead, he told me his plans for the future—how he’d like to build up a spread of his own and raise cattle and horses and a couple of kids and help turn our part of the country into a civilized place to live. Which was all well and good, I suppose, but not particularly romantic. Sometimes it sounded like he was running for public office instead of wooing his sweetheart!
    Orin and Joshua both asked Pa for my hand in marriage, but Pa said they’d have to ask again when I was sixteen, and that when the time came, the decision would have to be mine, not his.
    And so the days passed. I did my chores and studied my lessons and helped Pa in the store on weekends. Evenings, I learned how to do needlework and how to cook something besides apple pie, dreaming of the day when I’d have a home of my own and a man to do for. Nights, when I lay in bed, I’d try to imagine what it would be like to be married. I’d close my eyes and try to conjure up a picture of myself as a married woman—tending my own children, or sleeping in my husband’s arms, the way I supposed Mother slept in Pa’s. Strangely, every time I saw myself in my husband’s arms, he had black hair and dark eyes! When I mentioned it to Mother, she just laughed and said maybe a tall, dark stranger was going to ride into my life and sweep me off my feet.
    Pa laughed, too, but said I had as much chance of marrying a dark-eyed man as I had of marrying a prince—unless the Berdeen boys decided to dye their hair, or another family with grown boys moved into the valley before I turned sixteen.
    So the days passed, tranquil as a summer sky, and I dismissed my notions of a raven-haired husband as meaningless and foolish and set my mind to deciding between Orin and Joshua.

Chapter Three
    1871-1874
     
    Becoming a full-fledged warrior of the Cheyenne nation was not an easy task. There was much to learn, how to read the tracks of man and beast, how to interpret the signs of earth and sky, how to take an enemy scalp, how to count coup, how to locate food and water while traveling across the trackless plain, how to make and repair weapons. There were endless tests of courage and skill, as well as