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"So we will come up with some kind of plan before we get there."
"Yes, before we get there," Chase answered. "In fact, as soon as we are close, we can try to watch him and see what he is doing."
"You are certain he is there. I don't know how you could know that."
Chase couldn't explain it for the Captain, so he shrugged. "He's been stalking Katherine and her brother there. There is something at the station that he wants. Until he gets it, he won't leave. Unless of course we kill him."
"If necessary…"
Chase cooked the meat and took some to Lee then gave him the canteen so he could drink.
Lee felt a little better after he ate. They all did.
"Hawks has the girl?" Lee asked Chase after a long silence.
"Yeah, he has her." Chase replied.
"You still don't know what he wants with her?" Lee watched him move about the small encampment.
"No, but I aim to find out. He's been stalking her and Josh since her folks died, and Katherine is scared of him. She didn't say so, but I could tell by the way she acted around him." Chase worried about her, his frown growing as he thought of her. "But it is not that he wants her for himself. It's something else."
"Yeah, he's not exactly your everyday neighbor, is he? And those Tyler boys rode with him. You'd have thought he'd have a little feeling for them. But to shoot them down like that… They were all just kids." Lee grimaced.
"Only desperate men do such things. But Katherine knows something, or he thinks she does. He's after her for a different reason. She's alive because he thinks she knows something." Chase decided. "Hawks was her father's friend or business partner or something, and whatever they shared together, he thinks Katherine is in on too. Otherwise he would have killed her. It's the only edge she has."
"Then you think it's something against the law?" The Captain neared them now, his interest piqued.
"Stands to reason. But Captain, Katherine knows nothing of it. She's frightened of Hawks."
"Is Hawks his real name?" The Captain seemed interested in the puzzle. He took his bandana off his neck and dried his face.
"Don't know, everyone knows him as such, but I never met the man until he showed up at the shack. We— me, Lee, and the girl knew he was following us. We just didn't know why," Chase answered.
"Is he from around here?" The Captain asked, emptying the sand from his boots.
Chase thought about what Katherine had said about him, "I don't think so. He's been out here a while, but I don't think he's from here. Katherine and her family moved here from Missouri a few years back. This man, Hawks seems to have known her father back then too. She said he often came to the station to speak with her father, but always in private, and he was never offered to come inside by her mother."
The Captain turned his head in question.
Chase smirked, "He had an Indian wife…"
"So you think Katherine's father and this man Hawks were involved in something?" The Captain sat in front of Lee, resting against a rock.
"It's the only thing that figures, Captain," Lee remarked resting on the travois but taking the canteen and drinking.
"If he doesn't want the girl for himself, then greed is the only other answer."
"Money?" Both men asked at the same time.
"I don't know what money. I only know there are few reasons strong enough to kill anyone for, and with the white man, that is money, or a woman. Since he's had a chance to take Katherine as his woman, he could have done that after her folks died. So it's gotta be money."
The Captain nodded. "Did anyone else know about this?"
"Not that I know of…no," Chase answered, surprised the Captain was acting concerned.
"Did the girl confide all this in you?" The Captain raised a brow for his answer.
"Yes…she did. Only she knows nothing of the money." Chase nodded, stretching himself on the ground for much needed rest. "I'm sure of that."
