Wyoming Bride by Joan Johnston

Author:Joan Johnston [Johnston, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance
ISBN: 9780345527462
Publisher: Dell
Published: 2012-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Emaline sat still as death. She stared, horrified, at the shocking carnage below her. In order to reach the body that had shown signs of life, she was going to have to walk past every putrid corpse down there. And she needed to do it now.

Whatever wounds the lone survivor had suffered were severe enough that he hadn’t been able to drag himself out of the searing sun into the shade provided by the overturned wagon. He must be conscious and able to move, though, because otherwise the vultures would already be feasting.

“Ransom isn’t down there,” she told herself. “Those men are his cowhands. Ransom wouldn’t be with them. He left by himself yesterday and said nothing about joining up with anyone.”

So why hadn’t he come home last night?

Emaline’s body began to tremble. She was afraid to look too closely at the dead bodies, afraid she would recognize Ransom. But staying put wasn’t going to change what she found.

She kneed her horse, but instead of moving forward the gelding sidled away. “Come on, Concho,” she muttered, giving the gelding a nudge with her heels to get him moving. The horse snorted and turned to eye her over his shoulder, but at last moved down the hill toward the awful scene in the valley below.

Emaline knew her mount was feeling her own anxiety. Whatever had happened here had occurred sometime yesterday, early enough that the relentless sun in a cloudless sky had done its work, drying the blood to an ugly brown and hastening the decomposition of the bodies. The menacing vultures had used that stink of death to discover the carcasses.

Emaline ground-tied her horse about ten feet from the nearest body, knowing Concho was trained not to stray so long as the reins dragged on the ground. She put a hand over her mouth and nose, but that did little to protect her from the awful smell. The buzzing swarm of flies laying their eggs in open wounds made her skin crawl. She forced herself to stop and look at each face as she passed three dead bodies on her way to the one nearest the wagon, the one that had moved. She studied throats looking for pulses and glanced at glazed, wide-open eyes to make certain none of the victims were still alive.

She didn’t recognize anyone. She presumed the dead were Flint and Ransom’s cowhands because she recognized the cook wagon, which had the Double C brand burned into its wooden side.

She had an awful feeling in her gut that Ransom hadn’t heeded Flint’s warning to stay away from Patton. Or maybe Patton hadn’t needed any excuse to do this. She’d never liked the man. He had so much, yet he was greedy for so much more. She would make sure her father brought down the might of the whole Second Cavalry on the wealthy rancher if it turned out he was responsible for this massacre.

Emaline tiptoed past the dead men as though they were only asleep and might wake if she made too much noise.

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