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“You mean…?”
“Miss Duffy, me and Logan would like to offer our services, to help you get that firestone you’re after.”
Shannon’s heart jumped. She wondered if the terms the alpha had stated last night still applied. She was too afraid to ask.
“However,” McBain went on, “in light of everything that’s just happened, I understand if you’re not up for it. If you’d prefer to call the expedition off, me and Logan will escort you safely back to Lamentation. Right, Logan?”
Logan nodded. “Right. It’s up to you, Miss Duffy. What do you want to do?”
Shannon turned and looked off at the horizon as she carefully weighed her options. The idea of traveling alone through the desert with not one but two alphas terrified her. If they found out what she really was, then no amount of firestone would be able to save the ranch.
Yet, what other options did she have? She could go back to town and try to find another suitable escort to accompany her on the journey, but that would set her back a few days at least, probably more, and time was already short as it was.
Besides, these two alphas were obviously powerful and capable. She would not be able to find two better protectors for the dangers that lay in the canyons where they would be heading. They were her best hope for securing the safety of the five hundred hucow women back at the ranch.
She turned again and looked into Tanner McBain’s steel gray eyes. She hoped she appeared assertive.
“About the terms you laid out last night—”
McBain lifted his hand to interrupt. “Last night I said some foolish things, Miss Duffy. Blame it on the whiskey. You pay me and Logan half of the firestone we bring back, and you got yourself a deal.” He nodded toward Blaylocke’s horse. “Now that we got ourselves a pack animal, we’ll be able to bring back more firestone. That ought to make up the difference for the other thing I mentioned last night.”
Shannon thought about it for a minute, then gave a curt nod. “Deal.”
“Deal,” said McBain. “Shall we get a move on, then?”
Shannon glanced at the bloody, mangled remains of the man who had called himself Gilbert Blaylocke. “What about him?”
“She’ll take care of it,” Logan said, pointing.
Shannon followed the line of his finger. About fifty paces away, a harpy, probably the same one she’d seen circling earlier, was now squatting with folded wings, patiently waiting for them to go away.
CHAPTER 13
It was a couple hours later when Butch Bartram finally reached the three red boulders. Nearby, a cluster of six or seven harpies were feasting noisily on something hidden beneath the umbrella of their oily black wings.
Bartram grunted and spit a long brown stream of tobacco juice onto the ground. He swung down off his horse, his black duster flaring like a cape, and he strode forward, cursing and shooing away the harpies. For a second it seemed like the creatures might try to stand him off. Then they realized he was an alpha, and they changed their minds, squawking their indignation as they abandoned their meal and flapped away into the afternoon sky.
Bartram looked at what they’d been eating. There wasn’t much left of it, just some bloodstained scraps of clothing and a pile of greasy bones. A freshly cleaned skull stared up at him with eyeless sockets.
That was the man. The one called Blaylocke. Even like this, Bartram recognized his scent.
If the Duffy woman was dead too, that would be a problem. A big one. It would mean he and the others would have to call the whole thing off and head on back to town. But he didn’t smell the woman nearby. Then again, he never had smelled her.
As far as he could tell, the woman had no scent.
But her partner did, and so did their horses. Bartram had been following their trail since late morning. With his keen eyes and sensitive nose, there was no reason for him to follow too closely, and by keeping well behind them, he avoided the risk of being spotted. Along the way, he’d been leaving trail markers for the others to follow.
Bartram turned and looked back the way he’d come, his dark eyes piercing through the liquid waves of heat rising from the sunbaked desert. In the distance, a dust cloud blossomed on the horizon. It could have been a dust devil, but Bartram knew it wasn’t.
“Idiots,” he muttered under his breath.
That dust cloud was the rest of the gang—two dozen men led by Bartram’s boss, Ned Flarity. A gang that size was way too visible out here in the desert, which was the reason they were riding about an hour behind, following the trail of markers Bartram left for them.
The size of the gang seemed excessive, but Flarity had insisted. The big man liked to take precautions, and he probably figured that bringing a small army along with him would ensure his safety. At first, Bartram had considered it foolish, but now, looking at what had become of the Blaylocke fellow, he wasn’t so sure.
He would need to wait here for the rest of the gang to catch up. Flarity would want to see this and discuss how they should proceed.
There was also the matter of the other two alphas. They hadn’t ridden out of town with the Duffy woman, but Bartram had caught whiffs of their scent along the way, and he’d found evidence of their horses’ tracks too.
