The Outlaw Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

stop himself from smiling. Miss Josie Miller might have been embarrassed by his erection, but he wasn’t.
Everything
still worked.
    Callahan’s thoughts shifted to Ben, and for the rest of the day, he concentrated on trying to remember what had happened. The memories came back, one piece at a time. He and Ben had been riding north from Sharpsburgtoward Laramie, when out of nowhere, three or four men on horseback attacked. The bastards had picked their spot well, hiding above them behind a formation of rocks until he and Ben were almost past. Then they started firing.
    He’d been hit immediately, in the back, just below his belt, but he’d concealed it from Ben, throwing his brother the saddlebag filled with the money and yelling for him to ride like hell. Callahan had reined his horse behind the last boulder and returned fire, holding them at bay just long enough for Ben to get away. Then he headed in the opposite direction. That’s when the second shot caught him in the shoulder. He still might have made it if his horse hadn’t gone down.
    After that, things got a little hazy. He remembered another horse, a big dun-colored animal with an odd scar on its haunch. The mark looked like a crescent moon with a circle at one tip. On the horse’s back rode a shadowy figure, but he couldn’t recall anything beyond that, except heat and pain. He didn’t know how long he’d lain there before the Indian found him and brought him here.
    If Ben was really missing and the money for the cattle was gone, they’d lose the ranch. Without the new cattle or the money they’d contributed to buy them, they wouldn’t be able to survive. None of the ranchers would. This would be the second home the Callahan brothers had lost. The family plantation in South Carolina had been the first. Neither Ben nor Callahan could claim credit for that. But the loss of their ranch, as fledgling as it was, would be their fault. He could take losing the ranch, but he couldn’t take losing his only brother.
    ————
    Will Spencer and his men sighted the mountains in the distance and the grasslands to the south. He climbed off his horse and squatted, studying the ground. The rain hadn’t washed the trail away, and with Bear Claw’s help, he’d been able to trace the Callahan brothers’ trek north. They reached a pocket of rocks where it looked as if there’d been some kind of confrontation. Faint tracks revealed that several horses must have converged with two horses splitting off, one riding west and the other going north, hell-bent for leather.
    Farther up the trail they’d found evidence of another scuffle. Under a scattering of rock there were bloodstains. Either one of the riders had been shot or he’d fallen off his horse. This was where Bear Claw had found Josie’s patient. The Indian told them that he shot a limping horse he’d found beyond the rocks nearby. An animal with a broken leg was always put out of its misery.
    The posse doubled back, studying the first horse’s tracks, and Will mulled over the evidence. There
was
the possibility that Bear Claw was involved. After the failed treaty of Fort Bridger in 1868, the Sioux, the Shoshone, and the Arapaho continued to wreck havoc on one another. Because of this, the settlers—including Will—had become distrustful of any Indian who was not living on the reservation. It was only because of Dan Miller that Bear Claw and the rest of his Sioux were tolerated by the authorities. Will knew that this tolerance would end if Bear Claw was in any way an accomplice of the Callahan brothers. But the Millers trusted him completely, and so Will would assume that Bear Claw was innocent—for now.
    On the way back to Laramie, Will thought of a more likely conclusion. Suppose the whole thing had been a setup between the Callahan boys? From what he’d beenable to find out, Sims Callahan’s past was pretty spotty. For a short time, he’d ridden with Quantrill’s Raiders, who were notorious for