“Why...? You didn’t have to kill them.”
He turned on the hard wooden seat to stare at her. She looked as bleak as he felt. “Did you want me to leave them with you?”
“I...” Angela ran a hand through her blonde hair. “In some crazy way I feel like it’s my fault. Partially, at least.”
“I shot them. They deserved it. If I had to do it all over again, I’d do it exactly the same way.”
She shuddered visibly. “Because it was me.”
“Because they were acting like scum!”
“With me. If it had been one of the village women...”
“I’d have done the same thing,” Alec said coldly. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
They rode in silence for most of the morning, heading for the hills that bordered the western edge of the valley, under a sky of rolling fat cumulus clouds that checkered the landscape with warm sunlight and sudden cool shadow.
“Jameson found out last night that there’s a relay station for the horses over the first row of hills,” Alec said to her. “Is that true?”
She hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. And it’s built like a little fortress.”
“Can you talk the people there into giving us fresh horses peacefully, or will we have to fight?”
“Why should I help you?”
“You’ve got a damned short memory.”
“No. A long one.”
“All right, be tough. We’ll get the horses anyway.”
Which Alec did, by the simple expedient of threatening to shoot Angela if the men holding the station didn’t give them all the horses in their fortified corral. Alec held Angela on a knoll, far enough from the station so that the men could see her plainly enough. Jameson did the negotiating.
Angela fumed, “You’re using me!”
“That’s right,” Alec replied, smiling. “But that’s better than killing people, isn’t it?”
She was too angry to answer.
Toward sunset, as they rode together on the wagon, he asked her, “Still angry with me?”
“Yes.” But she looked more sullen than angry.
“Are you in pain?”
“No.”
“There’s no soreness?”
“Of course it’s sore! But it hasn’t bled anymore. And the bandage is still in place. Want to inspect it for yourself?”
“Dammit, I didn’t do it to you!”
“You killed them. You shot that boy.”
“You ought to be glad that I did.”
“You’re a murderer and you expect me to love you for it?”
“You wanted me to leave you alone with them so they could carve you into little pieces?”
“So it’s my fault!”
He knew he was red-faced; he could feel his cheeks burning. The driver kept his eyes strictly forward, not daring to show any expression at all on his face.
Lowering his voice, Alec said, “Yes, it was your fault. You were right this morning. If it hadn’t been you I wouldn’t have killed them. I lost control. I couldn’t stand to see them with their hands on you. I...”
“All right,” Angela said soothingly. “It’s all right. I’ve been a terrible bitch. I’m sorry.”
They rode together in silence, Alec’s mind whirling in confusion, until it grew too dark to ride further.
Chapter 21
Alec slept with her that night. Without a word of prearrangement they walked off together from the campfire and took their blankets from the back of the wagon. Side by side, still unspeaking, they moved off into the darkness.
