Tumbleweed Fever, Part 3 by LJ Maas 4 страница

The rider had no intention of refusing Sarah anything, so she unlaced her borrowed moccasin boots and pulled them off, removing her guns and laying them on the table, then lay down on the soft bed on her side to face Sarah. Hannah squirmed slightly between the two women, while Dev ran slender fingers through Sarah's blonde locks, caressing the young woman's face with a gentle touch.

"Mama, when we go back home, can Dev stay with us…for always?" Hannah yawned sleepily.

Sarah and Devlin kept their eyes focused only on one another as Sarah answered the little girl.

"Is that what you'd like, honey…for Dev to stay with us…always?" Sarah asked, her eyes trained on the azure pair of eyes before her.

"Un huh," Hannah nodded with a smile, closing her eyes.

"Me too," Sarah admitted with a whisper, to her daughter as well as the woman who lay next to her.

Dev couldn't help the way the corners of her mouth curled up at Sarah's response. It was the first verbal admission from the woman that she did indeed want a future with the rider. Dev felt too many emotions to even speak. Sarah reached up and gently ran her fingertips across the rider's lips. Dev used her own hand to press the woman's fingers against her lips in a kiss, pulling Sarah's hand away slightly to place a gentle kiss in the palm of the young woman's hand.

As a declaration of love, it was an unexciting affair. Both women simply closed their eyes as sleep took them to another realm, the events of the day finally stealing over them.

"Sarah, what are you doing up so early?" Madeline questioned her sister. "Devlin told me you were rather sick after your accident."

Sarah gave her sister a wry smile. "Mattie, you know me. I can't stand letting people take care of me."

"Oh, right," her sister replied sarcastically, walking toward the window that Sarah stood in front of, taking in the sight that her younger sibling was fixed on.

Devlin stood casually with her hands resting on her hips, just above where her guns lay. She was speaking to a few men, obviously giving instructions on how to perform some task by the occasional gesturing of her arms. The tall rider glared a little at the men she was talking to, but when she finished and the men walked away, she looked up into the window that granted her access to Sarah's image. The rider's scowl was so quickly replaced by smiling blue eyes, Madeline swore she was looking at a different woman.

"Oh, right," Madeline repeated, letting the curtain fall back across the window. "Yea, you're definitely not one to let anyone take care of you." She smiled.

Sarah couldn't stop the blush or the look of satisfaction that appeared on her face.

"Does it bother you?" Sarah looked suddenly worried at her sister's reaction to her obvious affection for the dark-haired rider.

Madeline laughed. It was genuine and after a day of so much sadness it did both women's hearts good to hear it.

"Sarah…after living with you and father? Narrow minded is just not in me…especially when it comes to you, little one." Madeline placed her arm across her younger sister's shoulder and pulled her closer. "It's about time you had a little happiness in your life. Besides, I talked with her a little this morning and Devlin seems to care about you and the children a great deal. And I can see how taken with her Hannah and Matthew are." The taller woman squeezed her sister's shoulder.

"It's time you forgive yourself, Sarah. Not everything that happened when we were younger was your fault. Give yourself a break, okay?"

Sarah smiled at her older sister. "Why weren't we this way with each other when we were younger?"

"We were both too busy being spoiled brats! When it comes right down to it, I was too jealous of the way you got on with father, and you were too jealous of me and the time I had with mother." Mattie answered.

It's too bad we were such foolish girls," Sarah replied, "We would have been unstoppable together."

Again Mattie laughed. "Can you imagine? God, help Lexington if we had!"

Both women laughed and shared a sisterly hug before turning to the sound of a light rapping as the front door was opened. Dev walked through and Sarah thought how much taller and stronger the woman looked when inside the confines of four walls as opposed to standing on the open prairie.

The rider pulled off her hat and said good morning.

"Hey, you should be taking it easy," she touched Sarah's cheek in concern.

Sarah touched the rider's hand and brought her own up to Dev's face. The rider's eye took a nervous glance at Sarah's sister, who stood watching the pair.

Sarah pulled the rider's chin till her blue eyes met Sarah's own. "It's okay," Sarah said.

Devlin realized Madeline held nothing but love on her face for her younger sister. If Sarah's going to be open with her family about us, I'm sure as hell not going to act like she embarrasses me.

Dev smiled at the smaller woman and surprised Sarah by brushing her lips softly against the blonde's forehead.

"You had kind of a rough day yesterday…I don't want you out breaking ponies today." Dev smiled.

"Yes, Devlin," Sarah teased obediently.

"Devlin," Madeline called the rider's name as she held back the lace curtains to the window that faced the corral. "Do you know who that man is out there?"

Dev still held Sarah's hand and the two women walked over to where Sarah's sister stood. Mattie indicated a man in the midst of half a dozen riders entering the corral. Devlin tried to search the men's faces, but most of them began dismounting and pulling saddles from their mounts, their actions hiding their features.

"I can't tell who you mean, why?" Dev asked.

"There's a youngish man among them…he took sick yesterday, that's why Uncle Art rode herd. When I sent Chang out with some tea and broth for him, he said the man was gone. The trail boss, R.J., said that happens with young riders, they up and take off sometimes. I think it's odd he's back now. There…there he is by the barn."

Dev quickly looked over to where Mattie pointed. Sarah felt Devlin's hand tighten around her own.

"Dev, do you know him," Sarah whispered.

Devlin felt herself go numb at the sight of the younger rider. An image from her memory flashed brightly in her mind. She was being held down and pistol-whipped by the traitorous members of her gang after she had unsuccessfully tried to stop the rape of the young girl from the ranch in Pawnee. The man that hit the hardest and smiled the biggest stood chatting to the trail boss not fifty feet from her.

"Where are the children?" Dev asked quickly.

"Upstairs, they're all still in bed," Mattie answered.

Stay in here…both of you," the rider hissed.

Sarah didn't even bother arguing. She felt the emotions coming off the rider's body in waves. She and her sister drew back from the window, but only until they could still see the corral area.

Without her old boots and spurs, Devlin's feet hit the ground without a sound. The moccasins caused a mere whisper in the dirt. By the time she was standing behind the rider Mattie pointed out, R.J. was already speaking to her.

"Can you believe he rides out yesterday and wants a job again today?" He asked Devlin.

Dev didn't wait for recognition in the man's face. Devlin Brown wouldn't be a forgettable woman in any man's mind. The young rider could only pray the woman towering over him wouldn't be able to place him. He was so wrong.

Dev wrapped an iron grip around the rider's throat, the young man moving a petrified hand toward his holster. Dev squeezed her fingers tighter until the man was gasping for breath.

"Whatchya goin' for here?" She grabbed his gun hand by the wrist before it even touched the grip of his pistol. Rotating the wrist in her grip sharply, the man let out a sharp scream as the sound of his own bones snapping, filled his ears. Dev brought her knee up and drove it into the man's crotch, releasing her handhold around his throat as the man dropped, moaning, to the ground.

"Allright…let's start at the beginning." Dev drawled, grabbing the front of the young man's shirt and pulling him to his feet. The narrow gaze that burned blue fire and the feral smile that spread across the dark-haired woman's lips became a warning sign, as other riders backed up, so as not to become involved in the certain pain that was about to be inflicted.

"I'm gonna ask you this twice, 'cause I believe in givin' everybody a second chance. If I have to ask you a third time, I'm going to blow your kneecaps apart, one at a time." Dev pulled her pistol from its holster, cocking back the hammer in front of the trembling man's nose.

"Who hired you to set up the old man?"

When Sarah heard Devlin's question she knew what the rider suspected the young man of.

"I can't hear you…" Dev said to the man. His silence continued.

"One more time." She paused to let the ultimatum sink in. "Who hired you to set up the old man?"

"If I tell you, they'll kill me," he groaned in pain.

"Well, if ya don't tell me, I'll kill ya…and guess who's got ya now?" Dev sneered.

If the young man had any thoughts about the woman's humanity, and whether there really would be a third time, he squashed any chance he might have had by his next action. Rearing back his head, the man spit in the dark-haired woman's face.

Dev stopped all motion and wiped the spittle from her cheek with a gloved hand. When she raised her face to the young man, the smile on her lips unnerved him more than anything else she'd done to him so far. Lowering her right hand she pulled the trigger of her gun without even looking.

The man screamed in pain as the bullet ripped through his kneecap. His body crumpled in on itself and he lay in the dirt writhing in agony.

"Montgomery…Montgomery hired us." He cried out.

"That son of a bitch," Sarah screamed as she tore through the front door, on her way to the corral.

Dev turned when she heard Sarah's scream, realizing she had been watching the whole incident. The small woman ran straight for the nearest horse in the corral.

"Sarah!" The rider shouted.

Devlin raced the overwrought woman down just as she was about to leap on one of the already saddled ponies. The rider had to grab her around the waist and lift her, kicking, clear off the ground to stop her.

"Sarah, stop!" She pulled the smaller woman's body tight against her own, feeling Sarah's sobs convulse through her body.

"Think about what you're doing. If this is true, you'll be doing exactly what Montgomery wants you to do, going off half-cocked like this. Do you think if he was responsible for Art's death, he'll mind one little bit about blowing some woman's pretty little head off?" Devlin's words began to have an effect on Sarah. It was her final say that had the most impact.

"What would happen to Hannah and Matt…what would they do without you? What would I do without you, Sarah?" Dev's voice cracked slightly. "Let me take care of this…it's what I do best."

The click of a gun's hammer alerted the rider. Turning, Devlin saw into the beaten face of the man she just shot. She also looked straight into the barrel of his six-gun. The young man was still on his knees, but only twenty feet or so from where Devlin and Sarah stood. The rider immediately positioned her body in front of the smaller woman's. The man's gun was pointed directly at her chest, but his hands shook and he swayed from side to side.

"Did ya tell yer little girlfriend there how we fucked ya after we beat ya up?" a smug smile on the kneeling man's face indicated that he thought he had the upper hand now.

Dev's eyes narrowed, taking in the sound of Sarah's small gasp, but the rider's face remained as stoic as before. She merely watched the young man and the way he moved his body. She watched, waiting for the flaw to appear. It always did, if you were patient enough. That crease in time that allowed her to read the thoughts in a man's head before his brain could order the action taken.

The wind caught the barn door and it slammed against its frame loudly. The young man was good, he never turned his head, but his eyes jerked instinctively toward the sound, and Dev felt it was all the chance she was going to get. She drew one gun with dazzling speed and fired three rounds, slamming the young man's body against the barn wall, his own shot hitting the dirt to no avail.

The rider's eyes scanned the men that stood around, trying to elicit a feeling of whether there were any others that belonged to Montgomery in the crowd. Dev twirled the gun once and flipped it easily back into her holster. It wasn't a showy move; it had merely become habit over the years. Her thoughts immediately went to Sarah. Turning, she realized the young woman had never seen her kill anyone before. Dev wondered how it would affect her lover.

"Are you okay?" Sarah put her hands on the rider's waist.

Sarah was worried about her, how like her. "Yes," Dev answered. Not caring how it looked, she wrapped her arms around the young woman and held her close.

"What he said Dev…is it true?" Sarah whispered.

Dev replayed what the dead man had said before she shot him. Had she remembered? How could she ever forget the men who violated her on that day?

"Later…" Dev answered, knowing she would tell the woman in her arms the whole story, but not until they could be alone.

A scream from inside the house drew their attention in that direction.

"Sarah…Devlin!" Madeline shouted in near hysteria as the front door flew open with a bang.

Both women were already moving in that direction, but when they saw Matt's bleeding face come to the door, they took off at a run.

"My, God, Matthew," Sarah wrapped her arms around her sobbing son.

"I tried to stop 'em," the boy looked up at Dev, "I tried." Dev ran a concerned hand through the boy's hair. Matthew had a split lip and a narrow cut along his right cheek that actually looked worse than it was.

"They took Hannah," Mattie groaned.

It was as if the world had just stopped for Sarah. The hands that had been caressing her son's head stilled; suddenly there was no air to be had in the space around her. She turned to the rider at her side.

"Dev?" were the only words she could utter.

The rider immediately rushed up the stairs, taking them three at a time, her long strides eating up the distance between the first floor and the children's bedrooms. The room looked thrown about, the window remained open, a tall ladder still resting against the side of the large ranch house. A small knife held a piece of notepaper against the bedside table. Dev pulled the knife out and read the words, even as she felt her own heart being ripped apart.

"Dev?" Again the rider's name was the only question from Sarah's lips.

The rider handed the note to Sarah and held the small woman as her tortured cries echoed through the house.

The flames from the fireplace became the only illumination in the small den that belonged to Art Winston. Devlin leaned back on the long leather couch, one foot on the floor, the other resting along the length of the couch. Between her legs Sarah lay, wrapped in a wool blanket, her head resting against the rider's chest.

The grandfather clock chimed in the front parlor and Dev squeezed her partner in a gentle hug.

"Sarah, it's almost time, honey…we need to get up."

Dev eased her body up from the comfortable couch, finding it difficult to tear herself away from her lover's warm embrace. The note that was left in Hannah's room said the rider and Sarah were to meet a messenger at the entrance to the Winston ranch at nine o'clock in the evening. The messenger would give them instructions regarding what they would have to do to have the girl returned to them. As long as the messenger returned unharmed, little Hannah would remain unhurt.

Standing at the gates that indicated Winston property, Dev heard the rider come in long before he arrived. She lit a lantern and held it up, directing Sarah to stand back in the shadows.

"Here's my calling card…they said you'd recognize it." The young man said.

Dev looked at the material and recognized it as Hannah's frock.

"I sure hope that girl don't catch cold in her slip. That would make me very angry…and, you don't want to see me angry," Dev looked directly into the young man's eyes.

The man shifted uncomfortably in his saddle under the rider's icy gaze. He was starting to get a little apprehensive by the deathly calm that surrounded the rider. No one expected to come back from this job, so they all threw dice, he lost. He was waiting for the rider to pull her guns and blow him to hell, waiting so intently in fact, that it took him a few moments before he realized the rider was impatiently waiting on him to continue.

"Uh, yea…uhm, this is for the woman."

Dev reached her hand out. "I'll see she gets it."

"Nope," the man pulled his hand back. "She's supposed to take it from my hands."

Sarah stepped into the light and took the offered envelope. She opened it and scanned the documents, handing them to Devlin. The rider held them up to the light, noticing that they were deeds not only to Sarah's land, but also to Art Winston's. Montgomery was assuming that Sarah would be Winston's beneficiary.

"Tell the bastard I hope he burns in hell." Sarah said vehemently. Dev had never heard that vitriolic tone to Sarah's voice before; but then again she'd never seen the younger woman in her protective mode. Like a wounded grizzly protecting her cubs, Dev understood the look in Sarah's eye and the tone of her voice.

The young man tried to ignore the woman. "You're to sign the papers and bring them to town at midmorning. Just you and the rider," the young man now addressed Sarah. "You exchange the papers for the girl…no one gets hurt. You and your family go back to wherever you came from. Any funny stuff," he looked at Dev, "and the girl dies…you do anything different from the way I just told you, and the kid dies. Any questions?"

"No questions." Dev answered. She let the man turn and leave, as she and Sarah walked back to the house.

Everyone else had gone to bed, Sarah encouraged her sister to do the same. Dev tried to get Sarah to go upstairs, telling her there was little they could do till morning, but the young woman grabbed the rider's hand and led her back to the den and the warm fire.

"Sit with me?" Sarah asked.

Dev resumed her position on the leather couch, feeling only slightly better when she was once again holding the young woman in her arms. The rider had been fighting her own self loathing, cursing herself all evening for the ineffectualness that caused Hannah to be kidnapped.

After a long while of unbroken silence, Sarah murmured against Devlin's neck.

"Dev, can you talk about it…the day that man was talking about? Was he telling the truth?" Sarah asked softly.

Devlin rested her chin on the top of Sarah's head. She tried to avoid revisiting the memories of that day. Sometimes the images came to her in nightmares that often left the rider shaken and unable to return to sleep, sitting alone in the dark waiting for the sun to rise. It felt different now. Sarah had helped her to overcome some of those old demons by knocking down the walls around the rider's heart. She told Sarah in vivid detail the events of that day. How she was beaten, shot, raped repeatedly, then left for dead by the members of her gang, because she had attempted to stop the same from occurring to a young woman whose parents the out-of-control men had already killed. Dev told her of her second-in-command, Dale Karsten. He had waited for an opportunity to depose Devlin as the leader of the gang, and that had been it. She would always remember his face as the one who took her first.

By the time the rider's story was finished, Dev realized she had tears streaming down her face. Sarah sat up and beckoned the dark-haired woman into her embrace. And, as Sarah's arms enclosed around the woman whose heart belonged so completely to her, she felt Dev's silent sobs shake her body with their intensity. It hadn't been the pain nor the humiliation that the rider had kept to herself all this time, that tore at her heart the most, but rather the betrayal of her own men, some of whom she trusted with her very life.

"Sarah, I'm sorry I couldn't protect Hannah. I can't promise you that something like this will never happen again. There are always going to be people from my past that are going to want to hurt the ones that I love, just to get to me. That man I killed today…he was one of the men from my gang, and I'm afraid Montgomery has hired those men to help him with this land fight and to kidnap Hannah.

And, then the rider said something so out of character for her, she scarcely believed they were her own lips speaking the words. "Sarah, please don't leave me," Dev pleaded.

Sarah could now understand the fear Dev had of abandonment and betrayal. Everyone the rider ever loved had left her or had broken faith with her for one reason or another. Kissing her softly on a cheek still damp with tears, Sarah reassured the rider that she would love Dev no matter what the woman's past held or what darkness her future might bring to them. Sarah knew in her heart that she and Dev were destined to be together, forever. Although their pasts might intervene occasionally, and life might not always be easy for the two women, the headstrong young woman finally felt as if she truly had found the dark warrior of her soul.

"I'll never let you go, Dev…never." She whispered.

"Don't do it, Sarah!" Dev begged her lover.

Sarah sat at the desk that had been her uncle's, poised to place her signature on deeds, signing over the land to John Montgomery.

"Sarah, if you do this, then he wins." Dev said.

"Oh, Dev," Sarah said, her reddened eyes filling with tears, "he's already won. Who else should I wait for him to take from me? Matt, my sister…you?"

"Sarah…honey," Dev knelt in front of Sarah, looking into her eyes. "Do you think Montgomery's going to let us just ride away from this? Forget about me…do you think he can afford to leave you as a witness to what he's done? Sarah, do you trust me?" She waited until the young woman lifted her face and nodded.

"With your life…with the lives of your children?" Dev asked earnestly.

"Absolutely," Sarah answered without hesitation.

"Then I'm asking you to trust me now. Let's do this my way. I promise you, I'll die before I let anything happen to Hannah or you. Remember what you said to me that night, before I let you pull that bullet out of me? Well, I don't want to lose you either, but I need you to trust me, now." Dev finished.

Sarah stared at her own hands in her lap for a few long minutes, until she looked up into the cerulean gaze that swept her up in it's intensity.

"I trust you, Dev." Sarah said.

"I don't know how many there'll be, I'm guessing around twenty." Dev said to Hank as she slipped an object wrapped in a blanket under the seat of the wagon. The morning had been overcast, now the thunderheads began moving in.

The giant of a man stood next to his friend finalizing their plan. Half a dozen riders were sent over to the Double Deuce to run herd and take care of the ranch. Hank had returned as soon as word had come about Art Winston's murder. Dev asked for volunteers and picked a dozen men she knew as loyal to the old man, and that she herself trusted.

"Remember, these boys are cowhands, Dev, not gunmen." Hank reminded the woman.

"Hopefully it won't even come to anything like that. If it's Dale, he and I will end it right there. I'm betting if he goes down, the others will lose steam in a hurry. Then it's just a matter of showing we got a little firepower and tossing them out of town. Remember that they'll be too busy to watch the roads, but you'll have to be careful once you get near town. I'm sure Karsten will realize I'm not gonna let him waltz away, but Montgomery's stupid enough to be unpredictable. You'll have to sneak into town after Sarah and I get there. And another thing…make sure everybody understands that I'll kill the first man that starts anything before we have Hannah."

Dev ran her fingers through her hair and replaced her hat. The back of her head held a dull ache she knew was only caused by tension. She knew a gunfight now would be different. She admitted to herself that some of her edge was gone, now replaced with a need to live, a need to protect the people she cared about. When she was known as the fastest gun in the Territory, she cared about no one, least of all herself. She was good for a simple reason, she didn't care whether she lived or died. Now, she had a reason to care.

"Other than me, Sarah is going to be the only one they'll allow to get close enough to Montgomery or Karsten." Dev looked down at the object she'd placed under the wagon's seat. "Frankly, she's a better shot than you or me." Dev gave a wry sort of smile.

"But if anything happens to me…I don't care what else happens, Hank, but promise me you'll get Sarah and Hannah out of there."

The large man gripped his friend's hand tightly. "You can count on me, Dev."

Then both riders did something completely out of character. They shared a short, but heartfelt embrace.

Devlin told Sarah on the way to town, the way she wanted it to go. The young woman was quiet, but she knew no amount of arguing could keep Dev from doing this. Besides, she had agreed to trust the rider with her child's life, and she meant it.

"Sarah, I'm going to ask you to do something I never wanted to ask you, and hopefully it won't even become necessary." Dev said.

"Anything, Dev."

Sarah said it so quickly, with such strength of conviction that Devlin had to look at the woman in pure wonder. The unconditional love this young woman offered was amazing to the rider.

"What one thing did I do right in my life, to be able to deserve you?" The rider asked, touching a gloved hand to Sarah's cheek.

The love and adoration emanating from the rider's deep blue gaze, would always be enough for Sarah. She prayed to every God of the white man and Great Spirit of the clan that she knew of, asking only for the safety of her children, and this woman that she loved.

Dev's hand returned to the wagon team's reins, a worried expression remained on her face.

"Sarah, I know you don't want to think about it, but we need to plan for the eventuality that something might happen to me." Dev said.

"I know," Sarah replied sadly.

"If Karsten takes me down, they're not going to want to let you and Hannah out of there. God, how do I say this to her. They'll know you're…with me, I mean, they'll think you've been with me…"

"And, they'll want to hurt me because of that," Sarah finished for the relieved rider.

"I'm afraid of what they'll do to you," Dev said, barely above a whisper.

"So what should I do?" Sarah asked, circling her hand around the rider's arm.

"If Karsten is dead, there's not much chance Montgomery will have the jewels to order anybody around. And, hopefully by that time Hank and the boys will show up. Sarah, feel what's under your seat."

Sarah reached under the wooden seat and felt a blanket wrapped around a long, heavy object. She recognized her Winchester immediately.

"If Karsten kills me, you'll need to…buy yourself some time, then you and Hannah take off in the wagon. Hank should be there by then, but I can't depend on that. Besides, you'll be the only one close enough to…" Dev couldn't bring herself to say the words of what she was asking Sarah to do.

"I'll have to kill Karsten myself if we're to get out of there alive." Sarah said slowly.

The look of pain that settled on Dev's face nearly broke Sarah's heart. The young woman leaned her head against the rider's shoulder.

"We'll be okay, Dev," she whispered as she leaned over and kissed the rider's cheek. "We'll be okay."

Дата добавления: 2015-10-30