Frustration mounting, she jogged forward until she reached a pile of dead branches beneath a small cedar tree. Her attention was so focused on trying to spot her quarry that she didn’t lift her back foot enough to clear the branches as she stepped over them. The toe of her shoe caught on something hard and immobile, nearly launching her onto her face.
Emma caught her balance and glared down at whatever had tripped her. Her eyes widened. A flat brown stone, almost completely hidden, lay beneath the leaves and twigs. A stone that had a dark spot in the middle. A wet spot.
Exhilaration shot through her. She looked for more stones hidden inside the camouflage of dead branches and found several, all about a man’s stride apart. The branches and leaves meandered up the flat bank in a seemingly haphazard manner to a rocky section of ground where a trail would be next to impossible to find. No wonder Malachi hadn’t been able to track the outlaws. They’d disguised their escape route perfectly. If she hadn’t stubbed her toe, she would have completely passed it by without a second thought.
Instead of searching for a glimpse of the woman she pursued, Emma focused on the path. The stones hidden within the dead branches. The dry, rocky creek bed leading north into the densest patch of scrub brush. Emma pressed on, even as the vegetation grew from prairie grass to three-and four-foot shrubs, to mesquite and oak trees that stretched closer to ten feet. Only when she was completely surrounded with little or no visibility did she stop.
She’d been watching the ground for footprints, but had seen none. She could be three feet or three hundred feet from the precise route her quarry had taken. Since her eyes were of no help now, Emma closed them and stilled her body, focusing all her attention on the sounds around her.
There weren’t many. No birds. No hum of insects. The breeze rustled leaves and cooled the perspiration on her forehead, but nothing else stirred. So Emma held her breath and listened harder. Show me, Lord. Please.
The wind stilled.
Utter silence.
Then a new rustling sounded to her left. A rustling with no breeze. It had to be an animal. Or a person.
Emma slowly turned her head to the left, careful not to make any noise that would give away her position.
Voices. Male. Female. Muffled and distant. But voices for certain.
Should she leave? Fetch Malachi and let him deal with the outlaws? Or would they simply disappear again? This might be her only chance to catch them unaware. She heard one male voice. Low. Growling. But that didn’t mean the second man wasn’t nearby. A shiver coursed down her back, but she willed the fear away. Her grip tightened on her rifle. She brought it around in front of herself, into a more ready position. Two hands. Finger hovering over the trigger. Hand beneath the barrel.
What should she do?
The female’s voice grew louder. More agitated. Then a sharp clap. A cry of pain. Renewed rustling. Then a scream.
Emma lifted the rifle across her body and ran toward the sounds.
31
It didn’t matter what the woman had done to betray the colony. That was one of her ladies out there. And no female was going to be battered by a brute of a man on Emma’s watch.
But neither was she going to run blindly into a heated situation without first calculating her odds of success. So when the voices became loud enough to be distinguished, Emma slowed her step and crept forward with careful precision.
“I did everything you asked, but I ain’t gonna be part of any more killin’. It ain’t right, Angus. You swore nobody would get hurt.”
Emma bit back a groan as recognition swept over her. Flora. She should have known. All the signs had been there. The way she tried to talk women into leaving early on. Her suspicious behavior after the church fire. Her reluctance to share any of her personal history with Emma when they’d served on watch together. Yet, the bruises and bloody gashes she’d worn the day she first came to the colony had been real, too. Why would she return to a man who abused her instead of taking Emma up on her offer of a fresh start?
“They’re a bunch of chickens. Stupid woman.”
The sound of a fist hitting flesh made Emma wince.
“And if I say it’s time to up the stakes, it ain’t your place to argue.”
Emma crept alongside a large oak and peeked around the trunk. What she saw turned her stomach.
Flora had fallen to the ground and was cupping her jaw with her hand. Blood flowed from a split lip and one of her eyes didn’t seem able to open fully. The man she’d called Angus stood over her and swung his booted foot into her ribs with such force Flora lifted a bit from the ground before flopping back down like a rag doll.
“A wife is supposed to obey her husband,” he spat. “I don’t care if they figured out they had a traitor in their midst, you should’ve stayed.”