North To The Rails by Nora Roberts

Author:Nora Roberts [Roberts, Nora]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

From there they would drive to the vicinity of Two Buttes, and this would be what the Kiowas would expect. But their next move would, he believed, surprise the Indians. It might also confuse them. For instead of driving away to avoid the Indians, they would drive right toward them. And he had his own ideas about what to do next.

Oddly enough, he had come to like French. The arrogant gunman, with his amused, taunting eyes, puzzled him, but Chantry wasted no time in trying to figure out his personality. His liking stemmed from the fact that Williams was good at his job, and Tom Chantry always admired a man who knew what he was doing and did it well.

The thought came to him that he might have to kill Williams, but if so he would do it with regret. That thought gave him pause. He ... kill? Such an idea had been foreign to him, but now he was considering the possibility, if there was no other way out.

His readiness to accept the possible necessity of it worried him. He must guard his emotions and his actions all the more now. He must not only be wary of others, but of himself.

In spite of the dust, there was a feeling in the air that he liked, a smell from the land. Eastward the rising sun shone in the faces of the cattle. They walked stolidly on, sometimes trotted a little, then walked again.

Today he stayed with the herd, interested to see how easily his horse responded to the work, and how accustomed to it he himself had become. His hand was sure, his movements easy ... he had changed.

But he must not permit the ready smile of French Williams to put him off. Why had Williams so easily accepted the idea of going north into the face of the Kiowas? Did he think Chantry would fail when he faced them and lose the herd there? Or had Williams already approached the Kiowas, perhaps on a share-and-share-alike basis? It would not be the first time Indians had raided a herd or a wagon train at the instigation of a white man.

As he rode, his thoughts returned to the girl called Sarah. Of the two, the girl had been the stronger, the most dangerous. And she was an attractive woman with a good figure, enough to take the eye of any man, east or west, but this was the West, where women were scarce.

He had been thinking there must be some connection between them and Williams, but Williams had seemed to know nothing about them.

The cattle went ahead steadily, heads swinging to the rhythm of their walk. The cowhands lounged in their saddles, thinking of the campfire ahead, the strong black coffee, and the warm food.

Tom Chantry swung out from the flank where he had been riding, and loped his horse along the slope of the low hill. Clay Creek Spring was not far ahead, hidden in a notch of hills.

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