“Who the hell areye?”one of them demanded.
With a grim frown, Hew turned.
If there was one thing Hew hated, it was a bully.Now he confronted two of them.Worse, they appeared to be the sort of brutes whose bodies were too big for their brains.
The dunces were standing but a dozen yards from the lady, in full moonlight, yet they were too thickheaded to notice that shewasa lady.
He supposed that was a blessing in this instance.She obviously didn’t wish to be recognized.
He didn’t bother answering their question.Instead he warned them, “You should walk away.”
The one with the beard puffed up his chest.“And ye should stay out o’ this.”
Hew ignored the threat.“You don’t want me to even the odds.”
“What’s that mean, even the odds?”the beardless one said, leering in challenge.
In answer, Hew casually swung his axe up where they could see it, resting the blade on his shoulder.
The lad’s leer drooped.His companion let out a low whistle.
The once leering lad whined, “We’re not even armed.”
“This?”Hew said with a shrug.“I don’t need this.”He swung it around with a showy flourish and hurled it into the ground in their midst with a resounding thud.“But I won’t stand by while two swaggering brutes threaten a wee lad half their size.”
“That ‘wee lad’ is a God-cursed cateran,” the bearded one argued.
Hew smirked.“So neither ofyouhave ever reived a coo?”
They scowled, but couldn’t deny it.Every lad in Scotland had reived a coo.It was practically a rite of passage.
“Let’s settle this here and now,” he told them.“No fists.No bloodshed.Take the beast.Return it to the fold.I’ll take the naughty lad to Dunlop.”Of course, he had no intention of turning the lass in for the crime of reiving cattle.But they didn’t know that.
“We’re the ones who caught the thief,” the bearded one said.“We’lltake him to Dunlop.”
Hew crossed his arms.So they wanted credit for the capture?“Give me your names.I’ll tell the laird ’twas you who caught the cateran.But I’m not going to turn him over to you so you can bloody your knuckles on his face.”Then he had a second thought.“Besides, don’t you have cooherding to do?”
The beardless lad took offense at that.“Cooherdin’?We’re not cooherds.”
Hew blinked.They weren’t?“Then what are you doing out here?”
The bearded one straightened.“Watchin’ for outlaws like him.”He nodded his head toward the cateran.
Hew narrowed his eyes.“How do I know you’re not outlaws yourself?”he wondered aloud.“Maybe you were planning to reive the coos when this one came along and beat you to the fold.”
“We’re not outlaws,” the bearded one sputtered.
“Maybe you are.Maybe you aren’t,” Hew said.“Are you even in the Dunlop clan?”
The other one lifted his beardless chin.“We’re the Boyles.Their neighbors.”
Boyle.He recognized that name.Weren’t those the brothers who thought they were worthy of the affections of the beautiful Lady Carenza?The idea was laughable.
But suddenly he realized why they were watching over the Dunlop coos.They hoped to do just this—catch a cateran and be rewarded by the laird of Dunlop, perhaps with a betrothal to his daughter.Indeed, they should be grateful Hew had saved them the humiliation of having bloodied their fists on the lass they intended to court.
“Wait,” the bearded one said, furrowing his brows in concentration.“How do we knowye’renot a cateran?We’ve ne’er seen ye before.”
“Aye, that’s right,” the second chimed in.“How do we knowye’renot after the coos?”
