Outlaw Hearts(52)

Jake held the gun steady, moving it back to Nemus. “I’ll just bet you have. What have you done to her, Nemus?”

The man’s eyes widened, and he swallowed. “Nothin’! All I’ve done is keep her cooled down. You know the fever a person gets when they’re snakebit. She’s lucky she’s even alive. Hell, I offered to take care of her. Those people she was with just wanted to dump her off like a sick animal. I…I helped her. What’s she to you, anyway?”

“She’s my woman,” Jake answered without even thinking. The words had come out so easily that he was hardly aware of what he had said.

“Then what’s she doin’ travelin’ with somebody else?”

“That’s my business. You take me next door.”

Nemus looked helplessly at the other two men, who both put up their hands. “We don’t want nothin’ to do with this, Turner,” they told Jake.

“You bastards,” Nemus growled. “You wanted to keep her around as much as I did. You did your share of lookin’!”

Jake felt such rage he wondered if his head would explode. Looking? Had they all taken advantage of Randy’s condition to ogle her naked body? What else had they done?

“We never touched her though,” one of them protested to Jake. “Honest to God, mister.”

Jake backed to the doorway. “Let’s go, Nemus.” When the man hesitated, Jake fired, the bullet skimming across Nemus’s cheek.

Nemus cried out and jolted back against some shelves. Several sacks of flour fell, one landing on his head and spilling white powder through his hair and over his face. “Jesus Christ!” the man swore as he got to his feet. He coughed and brushed flour from himself, then grabbed a rag and pressed it to his bleeding face. “What the hell is wrong with you, Turner! You could have killed me!”

“That’s right,” Jake warned, still pointing the gun. “I could have. You give me any trouble and the next one goes right between your eyes! Now let’s go next door, and I’ll decide whether or not you live or die!”

“Shit,” one of the others whispered. Both men backed farther away. Nemus came out from behind the counter, his hair still full of flour. “You’re a goddamn crazy man,” he grumbled, leading Jake outside. Others were heading toward the post, and Nemus shouted to them. “Stay back! This sonofabitch will kill me if you make trouble!”

Jake turned his gun on them, watching them carefully as he followed Nemus next door. “All of you stay out of this and mind your own business and you’ll live,” he told them. “I’ve got no quarrel with you.”

Only one of them was armed. Jake looked back at Nemus, but his side vision did not miss the armed man’s movement as he went for his gun. Instantly Jake turned and fired before the man had a chance to pull his own weapon. The loud crack of his gun made Nemus jump with fright, thinking at first he must have been plugged in the back. Jake’s victim made no sound as his body lurched backward. A hole in his chest spurted blood for a few seconds, before his body stopped twitching.

“I’m gettin’ out of here,” one of the others yelled. He turned and ran for his horse. The two men from inside the trading post hurried over to see to the one who had been shot, and Jake followed Nemus into the sod hut. He immediately curled his nose at the smell of smoke and filth and urine, and he felt as though someone were tearing his heart from his chest when he heard a whimpering sound come from a small cot in the corner.

He herded Nemus to a chair, making the man sit down and remove a rawhide string belt from his pants. Jake used the belt to tie the man’s wrists tightly behind him and to one of the back rungs of the chair. The towel Nemus had held to his wounded cheek fell to the floor. “I’ll bleed to death,” the man protested.

“You break my heart,” Jake answered, jerking the rawhide as tightly as possible. He holstered his revolver then and went to the cot, bending over Miranda, drawing in his breath in a gasp at the sight of her. If not for the honey-blond hair, he would hardly know it was her. Even the hair looked different, it was so stringy from sweat and filth.

“Randy?” She whispered something, but he couldn’t understand her. A tear slipped out of one eye, and he wiped at it gently. “It’s me, Jake. I’m right here, and I won’t leave you.”

“Jake?” she whimpered. She opened her eyes, but he had a feeling she couldn’t really see him. Her tears came harder then. “It’s…not true. Leave me…alone…don’t…touch me.”