Way Station by Paul Lederer

Author:Paul Lederer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480487581
Publisher: Open Road Media

SIX

‘I will ride with you,’ Renaldo volunteered as Cameron Black saddled his six-year-old gray horse.

‘No, you won’t,’ Cameron said firmly. Renaldo’s shirt was off and he could see where someone – Lucia, most likely – had tweezed shotgun pellets from his shoulder and then painted the wounds with iodine. ‘You’re in no shape, besides you may be needed more here, if Tinker is riding to Borrego.’

Cameron filled two half-gallon canteens from the water barrel and looped them onto the pommel of his saddle. The horse was already eyeing him with mistrust. His owner had been known to ride him into uncomfortable, dangerous situations.

Cameron stroked the gray’s sleek neck, soothing it only slightly. He did not wish to take the horse out into this weather, but there was no choice. None at all. The woman-hungry Augie Traylor had abducted Becky in a way that was no less than slavery or an act of piracy. Cameron owed the little blonde an attempt at rescue.

As Renaldo watched, ready to shut the barn doors behind him, Cameron walked his horse outside and swung aboard. The winds continued to howl, pelting him with driven sand. The horse shied at first, not liking this a bit, then lowered its head and trudged forward.

Cameron had no clear idea of where he was going, but if Augie Traylor had originally meant to meet Becky’s stagecoach at Overton, that seemed the logical place for the blond man to be headed. What his final destination might be was anyone’s guess. It was almost impossible to see the trail, but Cameron Black had been long on this stretch of desert, and he knew it better than most. The only other advantage Cameron had was that Augie had taken only one horse – and that one a stage horse hardly broken to saddle, as an anguished Archie Tate’s rapid count had confirmed. The gray that Cameron rode was not fast, but they had ridden many a long trail together, and besides, speed was not called for under these conditions.

Cameron would catch up with the man – unless he had guessed wrong and Traylor was now miles away, riding in the opposite direction.

He did not think that was the case, simply because Augie was not a desert man and would head for a place known to him. An hour on, seeing nothing but sand and more sand drifting in clouds, darkening the land, Cameron drew up his tortured horse and swung down to swab the dust from the faithful animal’s nostrils with his bandanna and water from the canteens. The gray’s eyes must have been stinging from the pelting sand as well, but there was little to be done for it. He loved that horse, but a small woman’s entire future was at stake.

After letting the horse lower its head and try to catch its breath in a breathless land, Cameron started forward again, looking for any landmark, trying to follow the obscured trail. He would have sworn he knew it well, but like a man disoriented in a snowstorm, he was fearful that he had lost his way.

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