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“Looks safe,” he said. “No sign of Apaches.”
He offered the spyglass to Shannon, but she just waved her hand.
“I’ll take your word for it, Mr. Blaylocke.”
He nodded, as if to say that taking his word was a good idea. Then he swung down from his saddle and gestured toward the side of the nearest boulder.
“Nature calls, Miss Duffy. If you’ll pardon me, I’m just going to retreat behind yonder boulder to answer it.”
“I need to do the same thing.” She pointed to a different boulder. “I’ll go over there. Meet you back here in a few minutes?”
Blaylocke politely touched the brim of his hat, then turned and walked out of sight around the side of the boulder.
Shannon dismounted. She waited a moment, just to make sure Blaylocke wasn’t coming back, then she opened her saddle bag and lifted out the bottle of suppressant she’d bought that morning. She’d already taken a dose before leaving Lamentation, so she ought to be good until the next day. She just wanted to check on the bottle to make sure it was still there and still intact.
For a moment, she considered taking the bottle with her while she went to relieve herself. If Blaylocke went snooping through her belongings while she was gone, he might see it and wonder what it was. But that was just her paranoia talking. The man was nosy, but he was also a gentleman, and he had no reason to go through her stuff. Shannon refastened her saddle bag and set off toward the other boulder.
After about ten paces, she stopped.
She had the strangest feeling she was being watched. The back of her neck prickled, and she quickly turned around. Her right hand dropped to her hip, and the holster that hung there.
Blaylocke wasn’t the only one who was armed out here. Shannon had brought a gun of her own. With her hand resting on the butt of her pistol, she searched the area around her for signs of danger.
No one was there. Blaylocke was still out of sight behind the other boulder, and the horses were both quietly cropping the grass. If there was danger around, the animals certainly would have sensed it.
Shannon tilted her head back and looked at the sky. The same harpy was still up there circling, higher now, smaller.
Paranoid, that was all.
Shannon shrugged off her unease and walked the rest of the way to the boulder. She took off her duster, folded it, and hung it over a catsclaw bush growing nearby. Then she unfastened her belt, pushed her jeans down past her knees, and squatted. Her bladder had been full, and it was a relief to finally empty it. It was kind of funny, she mused to herself, that a person could be so thirsty and so full of water at the same time.
Just as she was finishing, her eyes caught on something in the dirt in front of her.
A pawprint.
It was faint, so she hadn’t noticed it before, but there it was, clear as day. Shannon wasn’t an expert tracker, but she wasn’t wholly ignorant of such things either. She could tell a deer’s track from a pronghorn’s at a glance, or a coyote’s from a fox’s, and there was no doubt in her mind what animal had made the print she was looking at now. The only problem was thesize.
“Wolf,” she whispered under her breath.
Something moved at the corner of her vision, a shadow spreading across the dry ground like spilled oil. Adrenaline zapped through Shannon’s body like an electric shock. She started to run, but her jeans were still around her ankles, and she tripped, falling face down on the dirt with a soft thud.
From behind her came the sound of a man’s laughter.
“My oh my, Miss Duffy. That surely is a fine little rump you’ve got there.”
CHAPTER 10
Shannon rolled over and looked up at the man who was standing above her with his hands on his hips. His face was shadowed by the brim of his hat, but Shannon could still see the big grin showing through his perfectly groomed beard.
“Mr. Blaylocke!” she gasped. “What are you doing?”
The Texan didn’t answer her. He seemed not to have even heard. His eyes were aimed between her legs, staring at everything that was exposed by her pushed-down jeans.
“A pretty little cunt too,” he said.
With a buzz of anger and fear, Shannon realized what was about to happen. She reached for her gun, which was down around her shins with her belt.
Blaylocke was too quick for her. He kicked, and the tip of his boot caught the inside of Shannon’s wrist. Pain sparked up her arm, and her hand was flung away from her pistol.
