Only 05 - Autumn Lover

bringing Culpeppers to justice was something that had to be done, like slaughtering pigs or digging a new hole for the privy. No man enjoyed the duty, but no man worth the name shirked it.
    “Well, that ties it,” Hunter said savagely. “What does the man look like?”
    “I don’t know. I can’t get close to him.”
    “I didn’t think there was anything you couldn’t sneak up on.”
    “Neither did I. Live and learn. He knows that marsh the way a hawk knows the sky.”
    “Is he big?” Hunter asked, thinking of Mickey.
    “I don’t know. He’s real careful not to leave tracks.”
    “Figures. Who does he talk to?”
    “Gaylord or Ab,” Case said.
    “When?”
    “Whenever he feels like it. As I said, he knows the territory real well.”
    “And the dogs know him,” Hunter said, disgusted.
    “I wondered about that. I keep hearing how he comes and goes from the Ladder S any time he pleases.”
    “It must be Mickey, Lefty, or Gimp. No one else has been here long enough to know the land as well as this damned ghost does.”
    “I don’t think a man with a limp could have shaken me off,” Case said. “That marsh gets real rough, real quick.”
    “That leaves Mickey or Lefty,” Hunter said. “Frankly, I’m thinking it’s neither.”
    “Why?”
    “Mickey is mean enough,” Hunter said, “but I doubt that he knows the land well enough to shake you off his trail. Lefty knows the land, but he isn’t mean enough.”
    “Someone sure to God is.”
    “Are you certain it isn’t Bill?” Hunter asked. “He’s mean enough and he knows the land.”
    “He’s mean,” Case agreed, “but not mean enough to kill his own daughter.”
    “His daughter ?”
    Case made a small, swift motion that demanded silence. He drew his gun with frightening ease and started toward the underbrush.
    Hunter breathed in fast. The scent of rosemary came to him on the wind. His hand shot out, holding Case back. Hunter shook his head slightly.
    “Sassy,” Hunter said.
    His voice was too low for anyone but Case to hear.
    Hunter had halfway expected to find that Elyssa had followed him. Part of him even had hoped that she would come to him in the night.
    The thought of walking Elyssa back in the darkness made his body tighten and his blood sing.
    Without a word Case holstered his gun.
    “What makes you think Bill and Sassy are related by blood?” Hunter asked.
    “Bill got drunk and talked about a woman called Gloria,” Case said bluntly. “Said he loved her. Said he was her lover.”
    “No wonder Sassy wants to protect Bill,” Hunter muttered. “He’s her father.”
    “She doesn’t know. At least, that’s what Bill said.”
    Hunter turned toward the willows.
    “Well, Sassy,” he said, raising his voice just enough to carry to Elyssa. “Is Bill right?”
    For a few moments there was nothing but silence and the wind.
    “Come on out,” Hunter said in a low, impatient voice. “You might as well meet my brother Case.”
    The willows shivered and parted. Elyssa walked out into the shadows at the base of the big cottonwoods. She didn’t even look at Case. She looked only at Hunter.
    There was enough shifting moonlight to show the shock on Elyssa’s face. Her expression told the men she was trying to get used to the idea that Bill Moreland claimed to be her father.
    “I didn’t know,” she whispered. “But it explains…”
    Elyssa’s voice died.
    “Explains what?” Hunter asked softly.
    “What went wrong between my father and Bill,” Elyssa said simply. “And why Bill was like a father to me whenever my own father was gone. Which was most of the time. Father was a prospector.”
    Hunter’s eyes narrowed. He, too, had been gone a lot during his marriage. He had been soldiering rather than hunting gold, yet the result was the same.
    Belinda had been left alone long enough to get into trouble with the neighbor man. And, if rumor was to be believed, others as well.
    “But still,” Elyssa whispered, “it’s hard to believe that my mother and Bill were that…close.”
    “It happens,” Case said calmly.
    “A faithless flirt of a woman,” Hunter said, his voice rough. “Like Belinda.”
    Elyssa flinched. “Mother wasn’t…”
    Again her voice faded to silence. Given what Bill had said, she could hardly argue that her mother had been faithful to her father.
    “She wasn’t a flirt,” Elyssa said. “She must have loved Bill very much. Yet she loved her husband, too.”
    “At least you have a