Montana Sky

his knees. “I’ll use yours.”
    “What the hell are you doing?”
    She picked up her hat, wound the scarf around her throat again. “I’m going after Ben.”
    “The hell you are.”
    “I’m going after Ben,” she repeated. “And you’re in no shape to stop me.”
    His eyes on hers, he rose, steadied himself. “Oh, yes, I am.”
    It was a matter for debate, but at that moment they both heard the muffled sound of hooves in snow. Unarmed, Willa whirled toward the door and dragged it open. With Adam only steps behind her, she raced out. Her knees didn’t buckle until Ben slid out of the saddle.
    “Where the hell have you been? You were supposed to be right behind us. We’ve been here nearly thirty minutes.”
    “I circled around. Found some tracks but—Hey!” He dodged the fist she’d aimed at his face, but misjudged the one to his gut. “Jesus, Will, are you crazy? You—” He broke off again when she threw her arms around him. “Women,” he muttered, nuzzling her hair. “How you holding up?” he asked Adam.
    “Been better.”
    “Me too. I’ll tend to the horses. See if there’s any whiskey around here, would you?” He gave Willa a friendly pat on the back and turned her toward the door. “I need a drink.”

TWENTY
    “C AMPSITE A LITTLE NORTH OF WHERE WE GOT ambushed was cold. Signs somebody dressed some game. Looked like three people on horseback, with a dog.” He patted Charlie on the head. “Two days, maybe three. Tidied the place up, so I’d say they knew what they were doing.”
    He dug into the canned stew Willa had heated. “Anyhow, there were fresh tracks. One rider, heading north. My guess is that would be our man.”
    “You said you’d be right behind us,” Willa said again.
    “I got here, didn’t I? Charlie and I wanted to poke around first.” He set what was left of the stew on the floor for the grateful dog and resisted rubbing his hand over his stomach where her fist had plunged. “The way I see it, the guy takes a couple of shots, then rides off. I don’t think he waited around to see what we’d do.”
    “He may have been staying here,” Adam put in. “But that doesn’t explain why he sabotaged the radio.”
    “Doesn’t explain why he tried to shoot us, either.” Ben shrugged his shoulders. “The man we’ve been worried about for the past few months uses a knife, not a gun.”
    “There were three of us,” Willa pointed out. At Charlie’s thumping tail she managed a small smile. “Four. A gun’s a safer bet.”
    “You got a point.” Ben reached for the coffeepot, topped off all three cups.
    Willa stared at hers, watched the steam. They had food in their bellies, the kick of caffeine in their blood. It was all the time she could give the three of them to recover.
    “He’s been here.” Her voice was steady. She’d been working on that. “I know the police checked the cabin after that woman was killed, and they didn’t find anything to indicate she’d been held here. But I think she was. I think she was held right here, killed right here. And then he cleaned up after himself.”
    She got up, went to the base cupboard, dug out the bucket. “I think he mopped up her blood with these, then stuck it back under the sink.”
    “Let me have that.” Ben took the bucket from her, then eased her into a chair. “We’d better take this back with us.” He set it aside near the woodbox, out of her range of vision.
    “He killed her here.” Willa was careful to keep her voice from bobbing along with her heart. “He probably tied her to one of the bunks. Raped her, killed her. Then he cleaned up the mess so if anybody checked in, things would look just as they should. He’d have had to bring her down on horseback, most likely at night. I guess he could have hidden the body somewhere for a few hours, even a day, then he dumped what was left of her at the front door. Just dumped her there with less care than you would a butchered deer.”
    She closed her eyes. “And every time I begin to think, to hope, that it’s over, it comes back. He comes back. And there’s no figuring the why.”
    “Maybe there is no why.” Ben crouched in front of her, took her hands in his. “Willa, we’ve got two choices here. It’s going to be dark in an hour. We can stay until morning, or we can use night as a cover and head back. Either way it’s a risk. Either way it’s going to be hard.”
    She kept her hands in Ben’s, looked at Adam. “Are you up to the