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“Anyway,” Matthew said, “when I woke up, the sun was much lower in the sky, so I knew it’d been hours since we were attacked. I’d seen that one of the horses eluded capture, so I hoped to find him, but I’m afraid that I lost consciousness. That was yesterday. Today, I managed to set the wagon on fire, then I came here to the river.”
“You don’t know where the men who robbed you went, do you?” Angus asked.
“My French isn’t very good, but does the phrase ‘three pretty daughters’ mean anything to you?”
“McNalty,” Angus and Mac said in unison.
Angus looked at Matthew. “Can you ride?”
“Of course,” Matthew said. “If you’ll give me a few minutes, I’ll wash this blood off.”
“We can’t take the time,” Angus said.
“Besides, I like it,” Mac said, grinning at the young man. “I bet that under there, you’re a pretty boy.”
Matthew grinned, showing bloodstained teeth. “Ugly as mud.”
As Mac mounted his horse, he looked at the other men. “In fact, I’d say that, except for me, the best-looking men at the fort are right here.”
Angus paused for a moment with his foot in the stirrup, then glanced at Mac. “And you’re the man Austin hates the most.”
“Who’s Austin?” Matt asked as he got on the horse behind T.C.
“Think of the worst man you’ve ever met,” T.C. said. “Now triple it and you haven’t come close to Austin.”
Angus wasn’t sure what was going on, but he knew that it was bad. And with every second he was more sure that Austin was behind it. The fact that he, Angus, had been sent to find the fiancé seemed to be part of the plot.
If Angus had been alone, he would have headed east and gone back to civilization, the army be damned, but he had three soldiers and a man who looked more dead than alive with him, so he couldn’t leave. He thought maybe the whole thing about the “three pretty daughters” was part of the trap, but he couldn’t be sure. He hated having to leave the two dead soldiers who’d inadvertently become part of Austin’s treachery, unburied, but they needed to get to the McNalty cabin as quickly as possible.
“Where the hell are you taking us?” Mac asked as he tried to keep up with Angus.
“A shortcut,” Angus said over his shoulder, and looked back at the men behind him. He was surprised but pleased to see that Connor and Aldredge had traded places and the blood-smeared young man was now holding the reins to the horse, while Connor held on for dear life. Angus saw at once that Matthew Aldredge knew a great deal about horses.
“Like a girl, is he?” Angus said to Mac as he nodded toward the young man as he led his horse across a stream full of slippery, moss-covered rocks. Poor Welsch was scared to death.
“I’ll switch them,” Mac said, reading Angus’s thoughts. “You go on, we’ll catch up with you.”
“I’ll leave a trail,” Angus said, and in the next moment he was gone.
Mac had Connor and Welsch trade places so Naps could have a break. After he mounted, Naps threw his arms around Aldredge’s waist, put his head against his back, and said, “You’re second only to Betsy,” which made them all laugh.
Mac led them quick and hard as he tried to catch up with Angus. He knew where the McNalty cabin was, but he also knew that Angus was a great deal more familiar with the country than he was.
He tried to follow the trail that Angus left, but he was having trouble seeing the broken branches. The bushes all looked alike to him—but not to T.C.
“There!” T.C. called ahead. “On that Kalmia.”
Mac gave him a look that could have set his hair on fire.
“That shrub on your right,” T.C. said meekly.
Mac motioned for him to come forward, and T.C., alone on a horse that he could barely ride, was made the leader. It was easy for him to see what was wrong with a plant and where Angus had left a trail. And he surprised even himself when he so quickly adjusted to his new role of authority. When Naps, still holding on to Matt, reached out to touch a plant, T.C. ordered him to stop. “That’s poisonous!” he said. “Don’t touch anything unless I tell you to.”
Naps looked surprised, as it seemed that in an instant T.C. had gone from being his equal to his commander.
By sundown they’d traveled over fifteen miles, and Mac knew they were close to the McNalty cabin, but he wasn’t going anywhere without Angus. Besides, there was a swift-moving river nearby, and he didn’t want to cross that in the dark. “We’ll camp here and wait.”
“But what about the McNalty family?” T.C. asked, but Mac had had enough of the young man’s being the leader. It took only one look before T.C. was silently removing the saddle from his horse and helping to set up camp.
