“Hopkins.” Snake thrust the note out to the pale, blond man who answered his call. “Ride fast up to Pueblo and deliver this to a Seth Pollard. Ask around till you find him. Then get out as quick as you can.”
Hopkins nodded, shoved the note into his pocket, and went to saddle his horse.
Snake turned back to Sophia. “Thank you, Miss Timperman. You’re about to make us very rich men.”
Sophia forced a smile upon her face. They needed to think she was happy at the thought of being released. But the second he and Roberts returned to the campfire, her mind shot into action.
She had to get away. Tonight, maybe, or tomorrow night. Before they learned Seth Pollard didn’t exist.
Before they figured out no one at all waited for her or cared if she was found.
Before they chose to relieve themselves of their burden and shoot her.
Chapter Four
THE MORE DESERT MATTHEWsaw, the more he craved a return to the mountains. But he refused to leave unless Miss Timperman was at his side.
He was beginning to worry that would never happen. The food he’d carried was running perilously low, and he’d left the river behind to venture farther out into the desert. Father had often spoken of the trials one must face, like that of Jesus going into the desert. But Matthew had never imagined he wouldliterallybe in the desert. One thing was for certain—he wouldn’t last forty days and forty nights out here.
They couldn’t have gone too far from the river themselves, else they’d risk running out of water. With that thought in mind, Matthew decided he’d headed far enough south and turned toward the west, leading the horse he’d brought for Miss Timperman behind his own mount.
And that’s when he found them. Or, rather, they found him.
He’d crested a rise and run straight into their guns, pointed directly at him. He’d seen his share of angry men, growing up on the edges of the frontier. They’d looked the same, no matter whether they were in Kansas or Montana or Colorado. The scowling faces, the quick reach for a gun or a knife, and the distrust that rolled off them in waves.
But these angry men had Miss Timperman.
He raised his hands as his gaze landed on her. She sat behind them on a horse. She looked unharmed, thankfully, although they’d tied her hands to her saddle. It was such a relief to see her. Although itwasodd—he thought she’d described herself as having light-colored hair—
“Who are you?” the man in the front demanded. He looked to be just somewhat older than Matthew himself, not yet thirty, although living under the harshness of the sun had already begun to create lines on his forehead. His wheat-colored hair stuck out from under a hat that looked to have once been the shade of cream. And his scowl rivaled that of a drunken man who’d robbed Matthew outside a saloon back in Montana.
“Matthew Canton,” he said, trying not to let his voice betray the nerves anyone would feel when having multiple weapons pointed at him.
“You alone?” An older man, one with an even more weathered face and dark hair shot through with gray, sauntered up on horseback next to the younger one. He glanced past Matthew as if he expected to see an army of men arising in the distance.
“Yes.”
