Kiss Of The Night Wind Read online

  What if he’s a bounty hunter? What if he’s playing games with me? Or trying to decide what to do about me? How she wished she had her Remington revolvers nearby for comfort, but they were concealed in Carolyn Starns’s baggage. Besides, she doubted she could defend herself against this particular man. The way he moved, looked, even breathed told her of his enormous prowess. The flaming haired female shifted in her chair, unnerved by his overt attention. Maybe he was only intrigued by her scent of fear, or responsive to her unintentionally enticing behavior. She reminded herself to behave as the respectable and studious schoolmarm. “No, thank you,” she replied in a ladylike manner and dismissive tone. She focused her eyes on her food, but was intensely aware of him.

  Suddenly he stood, pushing back his chair with his legs, and walked to the front wall. Recovering his gunbelt from a peg, he strapped it around his firm waist, the way he buckled it exposing that he favored his…right hand. Strange, she would have sworn he was left-handed. The holsters held two Frontier Colts, the ’73 model, six-shot, forty-five caliber, single action. As he bent forward to secure the dangling thongs about his thighs, Carrie Sue observed his lithe movements. Before putting a dark hat on his ebony head and settling it into place, he pulled on a brown leather vest which was as worn as his shirt and jeans. He retrieved a Winchester ’73 lever-action rifle from where he had leaned it against the door jamb.

  “A fine meal, Sam,” he told the station keeper and smiled broadly, a smile which captivated Carrie Sue and sent tingles over her body.

  The burly man in a stained white apron smiled and responded, “Most folks say I got the best vittles on any line. Stop in again to fill yore belly. I cook a kill-for stew on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

  The appealing stranger tossed Sam an extra coin, glanced back at the beautiful redhead, shrugged as if she puzzled him, then departed.

  Carrie Sue heard a horse gallop away, but only halfprayed she had seen him for the last time. She waited patiently while the other passengers, the two men and the soldier’s wife, completed their meals. The driver and guard loaded their baggage and summoned them.

  For a moment, the fleeing desperado wondered if she should buy or steal a horse and escape this area as swiftly as possible, just in case that virile stranger was after her. No, she bravely decided. This chance for a new life was too good to pass up without proof he was on her trail. If he had delayed her capture with the hope of her leading him to Darby and his gang, he would have a long wait!

  “All’s away!” the driver shouted to let the passengers know he was leaving so they wouldn’t be thrown backwards roughly when the horses jerked against the harnesses and the stage’s weight.

  Tomorrow night, she would be in Tucson. There were only a few more stops for fresh horses, meals, and one night’s sleep between her and her destination. Suspense, eagerness, and hope filled Carrie Sue Stover and diverted her from thoughts of the stranger.

  The stage had passed the Dragoon Springs station where an Apache massacre had occurred in ‘58. The road was flanked by impressive mountains. They had made it through the Chiricahua range which had been Cochise’s stronghold until four years ago when the infamous Apache chief had agreed to settle on a reservation. Carrie Sue looked out the window, as did the other three passengers. No one chatted, which suited her just fine.

  The arid countryside possessed a wild beauty with its abundance of blooming yuccas, entangling catclaw, bean laden mesquite, paloverde, snakeweed, and countless other sturdy plants and small trees which could survive this harsh area and climate. A variety of cacti, some crouching low to the ground and some standing tall and green against the blue skyline, was scattered before her line of vision. The coach had passed through many mountain ranges, but the landscape in this flash flood region was relatively flat.

  She watched the scenery alternate between scrub-covered areas with an occasional hill, to sparsely vegetated areas, and sites with countless boulders and brown mountains on all sides. In some places, grass was a yellowy tan, or pale green, or nonexistent. At times thousands of yuccas grew on both sides of the road; at other times, only scrubs and small trees were visible. She noticed that the mountains had an almost purply brown color—unlike the vivid reds, grays, and blacks of Texas mountains or the heavily forested green ones of Georgia.

  Carrie Sue’s eyes had rested enough to return to her task, which was a difficult one in the jouncing coach. She wanted to read Carolyn Starns’s letters and diary as many times as possible before she reached Tucson so she would know the woman’s life by heart. She could not afford any slip-ups when she met her contact tomorrow and began her new job. She had practiced signing Carolyn’s name until she could do it perfectly. She had learned why Carolyn had purchased a ticket for this cheaper stageline, to save money. The brunette was intent upon saving enough to buy a dress shop with a small home attached.

  Carrie Sue hated sewing. But when she claimed the money which Carolyn had transferred to the Tucson bank, she would not squander those hard-earned dollars; she would use them wisely. Carolyn had no need for them and she had no family to claim the shattered-dream fund. Carrie Sue would use the money for a promising future, just as Carolyn had meant to do.

  She also studied the school books in Carolyn’s baggage to refresh herself on “reading, writing, and arithmetic,” along with history and geography. She was glad her mother had insisted on educating her and that she’d always loved learning. She went over sample lesson plans to familiarize herself with presenting information to various ages, as the Tucson school included first through eighth grades. Carrie Sue smiled, for she felt confident she would make a good schoolmarm. If she didn’t like teaching, she could change jobs later, after she was certain her new identity cloaked her securely.

  Following the midday meal, the other three passengers dozed in the warm stage which was traveling at an almost rocking pace in the heat of the day. Carrie Sue leaned her head against the coach and closed her eyes to think about her brother and their stormy past. While there was not an accurate picture of herself on her wanted poster, Darby and his gang were not as fortunate. She worried about her brother. Darby had been such a cheerful, easy-going, likable person before Quinn Harding and his lecherous son Quade had ruined his life. She fretted over how Darby was changing, especially during the last two years since Quade had released her brother’s picture and name and had tagged his band the Stover Gang: a vicious trick to flush her into the open again. The longer Darby was an outlaw and the more he was forced to do to survive, the harder he would become.

  She and Darby had been born and raised in Georgia, until a greedy Carpetbagger wanted their farm following the War Between the States. The northern controlled law had refused to protect them when they were forced to sell out for less than half of the land’s value or risk imprisonment for allegedly unpaid taxes. After her father secretly took revenge on the villain, they had left Georgia to make a new life elsewhere, finally settling in Texas. Her parents, Martha and John Henry Stover, had come upon another Southerner in dire straits and purchased his ranch near Brownwood. But Quinn Harding and his son had wanted to add it to their large spread, the QH Ranch, a fact the seller—who despised the Hardings—had not told them. Her father had refused to sell out to the Hardings, refused to be forced from his land and home again. Within a year, her parents had been killed and the Hardings had taken control of the small ranch with a coveted water supply and lush grasslands. This time, their unpaid bank loan had been used as the so-called legal means to steal all the Stover’s possessions. Lacking evidence against the Hardings, there had been nothing she and Darby could do, or so the Hardings had believed.

  In ’69, at the age of seventeen, she had gone to work in the Harding home as the housekeeper’s helper to spy on them for her brother. The elder Harding, a hateful man, had treated her as a slave—someone to dominate and cruelly tease. She had despised waiting upon Quinn Harding, who had been crippled three months earlier from a fall. It was that accident which had placed
Quade in control of the QH Ranch, their evil plans, and all of their hirelings. She had learned about payroll shipments, cattle drives, auctions, and more—information she had passed on to Darby and the gang he had formed to destroy the Hardings. The unknown band of outlaws had cut fences, rustled cattle, burned barns and fields, and stolen payrolls—anything to punish the Hardings.

  In the beginning, she and Darby had been concerned only with justice and revenge. But her furtive activities had been discovered by the lustful Quade who had watched her too closely. After seven months on the everincreasing QH Ranch, she had been compelled to flee Quade’s wicked demands and his threats about unmasking her brother.

  From his wheelchair, “Old Man Harding” had ordered his devious son to hire gunslingers to guard his spread and bounty hunters to destroy his persistent enemies. Quade had agreed to a certain point but, despite his family’s losses, he had not told his father or the law about Carrie’s involvement or about the gang’s identity. She had been surprised and confused by Quade’s silence, until she guessed his motive: he wanted to capture her, not have the law do it.

  After several run-ins with detectives Quade had hired, Darby had ceased his harassment of the Hardings, and they had fled into the Oklahoma Territory. They had lain low there all winter, until a lack of supplies had forced them to pull off raids in Oklahoma and Kansas. For a year, dressed as a boy and masked, she had ridden occasionally with Darby’s gang as they eluded Quade’s relentless detectives and struggled to survive. But unless it was too perilous to leave her behind, she remained in hidden camps because Darby didn’t want her—a fiery-haired female—to be sighted and remembered. The same was true when the boys visited towns in small groups, which was possible since their faces and names were unknown. Still, no matter where they journeyed, they had to be on constant guard. And she, at eighteen, could do nothing except tag along for safety.

  With no place to live and on the run from Quade’s cohorts and the law, Darby’s gang had begun to commit other crimes, mainly robberies and rustlings. Carrie Sue had realized her brother’s gang was becoming too much like other outlaws or the men she wanted to punish, but she was caught up in the band’s crimes and too fearful of capture to leave.

  When the men had grown restless in camp and supplies had run out, the gang had made their raids. Yet, Darby Stover was careful not to kill, and he never attacked poor folks. Sometimes, he gave money to people in dire straits whom they met along the way. For those reasons, his reputation became the colorful one of a hero more than that of a ruthless outlaw. Darby’s rule had been “Never kill anybody unless you have to save your hide ‘cause it only gives lily-livered men the guts to join posses and chase our tails to kingdom’s come. Folks will allow robbing but not killing. They know we’ll treat them fair, so they yield without trouble. Some of them even enjoy being held up by the Stover Gang.”

  In late ’71, she was desperate to break free from her offensive life and Quade’s obsessive pursuit. She tried to make a fresh start by working in a mercantile store in Sante Fe. To go unnoticed, she dressed plainly, kept her eyes lowered timidly to hide their color, and covered her fiery hair with a dark brown net. Her freedom lasted only ten months before one of Quade’s detectives tracked her down and delivered his intimidating threat: “Marry me and I’ll get the charges against you dropped. If not, I’ll see to it you and your brother are imprisoned and hanged.”

  Carrie Sue had heard tales about the treatment of female captives. The law could kill her as punishment, but never send her to prison! She would do just about anything to avoid that degrading existence. She had used her wits and skills to overcome the clever detective. She had fled to one of Darby’s hideouts and nervously waited for three wintry months until her brother arrived to lay low and found her there.

  At twenty, she was thrown into the gang again, and rode with them from March of ’72 until April of ’73. To protect her identity, she continued to dress as a boy, to conceal her hair, and to wear a mask.

  Things had changed over the years, mainly because they were charged with crimes which they hadn’t committed. Clearly the gang’s reputation was suffering from the false accusations and wild newspaper stories, and sometimes from the bitter truth. During her absences, Darby had begun hiring other outlaws to help pull certain jobs. Her brother was a strong leader who tried to choose his men carefully, but a “rotten seed” sometimes slipped past his keen wits. It was those rare mistakes who were hard to control at all times, mistakes who got them into trouble with unwanted violence. Still, Darby Stover was responsible for his gang’s actions.

  Carrie Sue admitted to herself that she wished she had never gotten involved in such a wicked existence, even to punish the Hardings. Perhaps the grief and anger she’d felt after her parent’s deaths had made her too susceptible to Darby’s scheme.

  In April of ’73, Darby and his men had grown tired of roaming and of being chased. They had realized their luck could not last forever. One truth could not be denied or halted: every fast gun and strong body eventually slowed, every keen eye and mind dulled with age.

  The men who had ridden with Darby from the start put their money together and purchased a ranch near Laredo from a widow who could no longer manage alone. On April nineteenth, for a pleasant change, she had celebrated her twenty-first birthday in happiness and peace. As they had always been masked during their crimes and Quade had continued to hold silent, their identities had remained unknown. Still, they had taken the precaution of changing their names. For eight wonderful months all went well, even if Darby wouldn’t allow her to leave the new seclusion of their new home. Then, Quade’s detectives had located them again, forcing them to leave the ranch and new life behind. They had fled to Mexico for the next few months.

  That time, Quade became desperate, impatient, and dangerous. He released the descriptions and names of Darby and his men in hopes of flushing the gang—no, her—into the open. He hired an artist to provide the law with accurate sketches of the men. Yet, Carrie Sue’s wanted poster still lacked her sketch and identity, containing only a vague description of a fiery-haired female. He had labeled her the “Texas Flame,” a nickname which had stuck to her.

  She had been lucky to remain a secret over the years. Her family had not lived near Brownwood very long when they were slain, so few people had met her there. She had been over seven years younger and her looks had changed greatly since ‘69. Her short, dark auburn hair was now—due to hours beneath the sun and years of growing—a long “flaming red mane with a golden soul” as Darby put it. Nor was she a “skinny kid” any longer. Anyone who might have met her as the sixteen or seventeen year old Carrie Sue Stover was either employed by the Hardings or had been run out of Texas by them. No doubt, Quade had ordered everyone on the ranch to keep silent about her looks and, considering her scanty poster, his father must have agreed to let Quade have his way in this matter, if the old man even knew about it.

  Maybe Quade’s relentless pressure was partly her fault. At times, she had led him on, boldly and vindictively tantalizing him with what he could never have. She had made him crave her to the point of taking any risk or paying any cost to have her. Yet, as an innocent seventeen-year-old, she had not fully understood the hazardous trail she was taking with that unpredictable villain. But marry her? She didn’t believe him. Probably Quade wanted to force her to become his defenseless and slavish whore, to punish her for duping and eluding him! Without a doubt, both Harding men were evil and cold-blooded.

  For the past two years, she had stayed with the gang, becoming widely known as the mysterious “Texas Flame.” She had given up trying to tuck her thick hair beneath a hat and banding her breasts tightly to conceal the shapely feminine figure which her cotton skirts and snug jeans insisted on revealing. But she still wore a mask to hide her identity and made certain to keep her distance from their victims to prevent anyone from noticing her unusual periwinkle eyes.

  She knew what most men thought and said about her, “a w
ildcat to be tamed” or a “sly vixen to be captured and punished.” Yet, Carrie Sue only shot in self-defense if she was cornered. Even then, she gave her pursuer many chances to retreat or yield before firing.

  But things had worsened over the years. With the men’s faces and names known, they could no longer travel at will. And they all feared that Quade would panic and expose her at any time. Carrie Sue was sickened by the accidental deaths like Carolyn’s and the Ranger’s two weeks ago, and a mother’s and her child’s in March near San Angelo.

  Her worst experience had been in August of ’75 when a Texas Ranger snared her. She had the drop on him, but couldn’t shoot him, so she surrendered. The vile lawman had physically and mentally abused her, and had tried to ravish her. With skills taught to her by Kale Rushton—a half-Apache member of Darby’s gang—she had thwarted the wicked Ranger and escaped. That experience hadtaught her that the law couldn’t be trusted. She also had learned that the authorities were no longer lenient with female criminals, especially those without children.

  She had been given no choice except to stay with the gang. Anger and resentment gnawed at her. Being a woman, she couldn’t take off to faraway places without plenty of money, a job, or a partner. Often women were trapped in terrible situations because good and safe choices were so few. To have raced off with the blind hope of finding a lucky opportunity would have been reckless. Every time she had been on her own, numerous men had tried to take advantage of her. She was a good shot and fighter, but she could not call attention to herself by going around killing or beating wicked men all the time! And once Quade raised the amounts of his rewards, listing “Dead or Alive” in all cases but hers, bounty hunters and vicious gunslingers became a threat to them. Everyone knew that bounty hunters were like badgers; they never let go of their prey. At least she had her brother and his gang to protect her from beasts like the Hardings, their detectives, bounty hunters, posses, lawmen, and gunslingers.