The Humbug Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

stalls on either side, some of which housed horses.
    “He’s my son. I want to come, too.”
    He turned, staring at her. “Can you ride?”
    “Of course I can ride,” she said irritably.
    “Well, well. You aren’t quite the lily I thought you were,” he mused as he went to the tack room.
    And what did that mean, she wondered, but anxiety kept her quiet. He saddled a quiet little chestnut mare for her and a huge buckskin gelding for himself. Snow was falling steadily as they stood outside the stable.
    “Molly won’t toss you, but she has a tendency to scrape people off against tree trunks, so keep your eyes open,” he said as he held the mare for her to mount.
    She swung easily into the saddle, sitting tall, the reins held lightly in her hands.
    He looked up. His dark eyes approved her excellent posture and he smiled. It was the first time she recalled ever seeing him smile, and his face didn’t even break.
    “No hat,” he said then and went back to the tack room again, returning with a beat-up old Stetson, which came down to her ears but did keep the snow off. “Let’s go.” He swung into his own saddle and took the lead. “Keep in my tracks,” he said over his shoulder. “And don’t stray off.”
    “Yes, sir, Mr. Hollister,” she muttered under her breath.
    “What was that?”
    She averted her eyes from that black stare. “Not a thing.”
    There might have only been the two of them in the world as they rode out through the tall lodgepole pines and aspens, where the snow was less thick, and Maggie thought irrelevantly that this was the best way to see Montana. Not in a car, or on foot. But on the back of a horse, with leather creaking as they rode, and the smell of the fresh mountain air and the bite of the wind and snow on her face. If she hadn’t been so worried about Blake, she might have even been able to appreciate it.
    She was still tense, but somehow she knew that whatever was wrong, Hollister would be able to handle it. She glanced at him curiously, wondering at the sense of security she felt with him, even in an emergency like this one. Which brought her mind back to Blake and to the hundred things that might have happened to him, the least of which was enough to make her nauseous. He was all she had…!
    “I said,” Hollister repeated curtly, “which way did he go when he left the house?”
    She looked up, to see her own cabin just before them. She had to blink twice to get her mind back on track. “Sorry.” She bit her lower lip. “He went there,” she nodded toward the back of the cabin, down the long hill behind.
    He spared her an irritated glance before he urged his mount forward, so much at home in the saddle that he seemed part of the big buckskin. Halfway down the ridge, he held up his hand and swung down, kneeling in the snow to look. He went on foot from there, stopping to examine limbs, his eyes keen and quick as they darted around the mountainous terrain of the forest.
    “He went through there,” he murmured, his eyes narrowed as he studied the downward slope. His head went up, and he listened. Maggie heard it, too—a voice.
    “Blake!” Hollister’s deep tones cut through the wind, carrying, bellowing.
    “Hellllp!”
    The cry was definitely Blake’s, and there was an odd note of fear in it. Maggie almost cried out herself, feeling that piercing cry to her soul.
    Hollister didn’t spare Maggie a glance. He whipped his rifle out of the sheath on his saddle and swung back up onto the horse, wheeling the animal in the direction of the shout.
    Maggie urged her mount after him, terrified. Hollister wasn’t a hysterical man. If he reacted that way, there was a reason. But even as she was thinking it, she heard the sound, and it chilled her to the bone. A sob caught in her throat. She knew the howl of coyotes, but this sound was deeper, richer, more threatening. It was the howl of a wolf…
    Hollister urged his mount down the ridge at a clip Maggie did her best to follow,