Only 05 - Autumn Lover

Morgan said softly, “some white trash down Texas way thought they’d hang this colored boy from a tree, just to see how long I’d kick.”
    Horrified, Elyssa turned and stared at Morgan. He was watching the ridgeline and the marsh in turn.
    And he was smiling like a man enjoying a memory.
    “Hunter rode up and started talking to them boys,” Morgan said. “He was real quiet like. Didn’t take him a minute to figure out I hadn’t done anything to earn a hanging.”
    Elyssa watched Morgan, appalled.
    “Hunter made some sign and Case came out of cover behind those boys,” Morgan continued.
    “So they let you go,” Elyssa said.
    “No, ma’am. All six of them went for their guns.”
    “Six?” Elyssa asked faintly.
    Morgan nodded.
    “Case is as quick with his hands as his big brother,” Morgan said. “When the shooting stopped, two Culpeppers were dead and the other men were bleeding and looking for ways to be somewheres else. Pronto.”
    “Culpeppers? The same ones who are here?”
    “Same clan, different branch. I was Hunter’s segundo from that day on. And from that day on was the beginning of Hunter’s problems with the Culpeppers. Those problems will finally end here, mark my words.”
    “What do you mean? Did Hunter come here because he knew Culpeppers were—”
    Morgan held up his hand, silencing Elyssa. She followed his glance to the top of the ravine, where Hunter lay nearly concealed in the sun-cured grass and rabbit brush.
    A faint drumroll of hooves came down the ravine.
    “Hellfire and damnation,” Morgan said. “Something spooked the mustangs.”
    With that he grabbed Bugle Boy’s reins and kicked his horse into a run.
    Hunter met Morgan partway down the ravine. He swung onto Bugle Boy as though he always mounted on the gallop.
    “Cut toward the mountains!” Hunter said. “We’ll run the horses toward the ranch.”
    Morgan waved in response.
    “Watch out for Culpeppers,” Hunter warned. “Something spooked those horses.”
    The smile Morgan gave Hunter was wolfish. Plainly Morgan was looking forward to meeting up with a Culpepper or two. He spurred his horse forward.
    Hunter turned to Elyssa.
    “Stay close,” he said curtly.
    He spurred Bugle Boy forward before she had a chance to respond.

14
    A s the rangy mare thundered across the landscape, Elyssa was less concerned about Culpeppers than she was with staying right side up in the saddle. Her mount was having a tough time keeping up with Bugle Boy, but at least the mare was surefooted.
    At the moment, agility counted for more than speed. Racing along the edges of the marsh was a dangerous game. The footing went from hard to soft and back again without warning. A tangle of grasses could conceal a muddy depression or a hillock or even an outcropping of rock.
    Any of the three could bring down a horse and send its rider flying.
    The sunstruck ground whipped beneath the mare’s feet with dizzying speed. Elyssa ducked her head, squinted against the wind tears in her eyes, and rode the mare with a skill she had honed while foxhunting at her cousins’ English estates.
    Despite the rush of air around them, the hard-running horses soon raised a sweat. The horses’ coats darkened, then began to show white lines of lather. The marsh, with its memory of water and clouds of birds, seemed like a tawny mirage conjured out of the heat of the dry land.
    Abruptly Bugle Boy cut hard toward the mountains. Then the big horse really flattened out, neck stretched and tail streaming in the wind. Heedless of the danger, Elyssa’s mare thundered down the side of the shallow wash, turned, and followed Bugle Boy up the wash at a reckless pace.
    Hunter glanced quickly over his shoulder. The rawboned mare was fifty yards behind him, running hard. Elyssa was bent low over her horse’s neck. She clung like a burr to the mare’s long, black mane.
    Abruptly the mare staggered, thrown off stride by a hidden obstacle beneath one foot. Elyssa stood in the stirrups and hauled up on the reins to pull her mount back into balance. After a heart-stopping few seconds, the mare collected herself.
    Elyssa’s brush with disaster chilled Hunter. He faced to the front again and wished futilely that there had been a way to avoid this.
    I should have made her stay at the ranch , Hunter thought savagely. She has no business risking her neck out here !
    Yet Hunter had no way of enforcing such an order, short of tying Elyssa hand and foot to the bed.
    And if he