“Just me, and I’ve come to talk.”
“We’ve met, haven’t we?”
“You could say that.”
“Figured you two had left the area.”
“We did, but we keep checking on you from time to time. And today was our lucky day. We’ve got your woman. Give us your mine and we’ll give her back.”
His answer was to shoot the hat. It flew backward, but there was no head under it. He heard a laugh, likely from behind one of the trees down there.
Rifle pointed between the two closest trees, Morgan said, “She owns the other mine here and you already got her. One of you marry her and you’re all set.” If they were stupid enough to go looking for a preacher, he could easily ambush them on the way.
“She is a fine-looking filly. My brother might go for that.”
“But he’s not here to say. Course, if you intend to mine next to me, I’ll shoot your ass.”
He fired off two rounds, hitting each of the two closest trees. That caused a nervous yell. “You can’t kill me, dumb-ass! She’s tucked away where you won’t find her. And if I don’t come back, she dies.”
“You should have moved on last year. Now you’ve pissed me off.” Morgan fired off two more rounds.
“Cut it out! He really will kill her if I don’t come back with a deal.”
Morgan took a deep breath to calm his fury. That didn’t work. He tried it three more times, but this kind of rage wasn’t going away. But it wasn’t in his voice when he said, “All right, I’m lowering my rifle. If you want to come to terms, show yourself.”
The blond man who stepped out from behind the tree was hefty. Good, a nice target. And a gun was in his hand, but he’d spread both arms wide, so the weapon wasn’t pointed toward the house.
“I’m planning to leave this camp pretty soon,” Morgan said. “I’ll give you two thousand for the woman. It would take you a year to make that much mining without a smelter.” That wasn’t even close to true, but he had a feeling these two wannabe miners didn’t have a clue.
“You got one of those.”
Morgan nodded. “I do, but the smelter goes with me, and I’m blowing up these mines when I leave. You should accept my offer. It’s going down in value as we speak. One thousand for the woman. In fact”—he raised his rifle and fired—“I’ll fetch her myself.”
The man had fallen to the ground with a bullet in his leg. He was still in view and easy enough to finish off, but Morgan didn’t want him dead, so he let the claim jumper crawl back behind a tree for cover while he stepped into the cabin.
He waited for about five minutes before he yelled out the door, “You know it would be easy to finish you off. I advise you to toss your gun over the fence before I finish my lunch and agree to take me to the woman. Think carefully. You and your brother have been a pain in my ass for too long.”
“You don’t really want her back, do you?” was growled angrily.
He wanted her back too much, but he answered, “I’d rather kill you and your brother, so the only way you get to live is to take me to her. Ten minutes to make up your mind.”
He didn’t expect the man to surrender. He just wanted to give him enough time to get to his horse and flee. Then he could follow the blood trail straight to Violet.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
VIOLET HAD JUST LEARNEDfrom firsthand experience that hindsight was useless. She realized now that she should have fired her weapon immediately when she’d had the chance, even if she’d only taken a warning shot. Morgan would have heard the shot and come to investigate, and her heart wouldn’t be pounding with fear.
But Morgan would know by now that she had been captured. The man who had gagged her had ridden off to tell him so, while the other one had ridden with her down the hill, then south along the base of the mountain range until he finally came to a temporary-looking camp. They seemed to think they could get Morgan to abandon his mine in exchange for her return. They were in for a nasty surprise.
She really wished she didn’t know who these men were, but she did, the claim jumpers who had tried to kill Morgan last year, the two he’d looked for but never found. She’d gleaned as much from what the men had said to each other.
As soon as she was set on the ground and her gag was removed, the curly-haired man asked, “What’s your name, honey?” When she didn’t answer, he grinned and pointed at his hair, volunteering, “Family calls me Curly, enemies aren’t so nice. Real name is well-known. Tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine.”
She ignored his humor, but wanted to talk to him so he wouldn’t think she was afraid of him. “You don’t actually live on this range, do you?” Her mouth was so dry after being gagged that her voice sounded scratchy.
“Live outdoors? Why would we? We’ve been living in comfort in Helena for a few years now. Roughing it out here is for loners like your friend, though even he finally built himself a house. Did he do that for you?”
It didn’t sound as if they knew about Texas. And they certainly didn’t know much about Morgan.
