To Tame a Wolf

Chapter One

Cochise County, Arizona Territory, 1881

TALLY HATED TOMBSTONE. She hated its dusty streets lined with saloons and brothels, its crowds of miners and gamblers and cowboys out for a little “fun,” its almost frantic attempts at respectability.

Tombstone reminded Tally of herself. She was as dusty as its streets, as false as the bright facades that lured the naive and reckless into the gambling hells, where fortunes were lost and won every hour of the day and night. She blended right in with the more ordinary class of men, and that was exactly the way she wanted it. No one looked twice at a figure clad in baggy wool trousers and loose flannel shirt or a face smudged with dirt under a sweat-stained hat.

Miriam, with her dark skin and simple cotton dress, attracted scarcely more attention, and neither did Federico. People of all races came to the mines or passed through the deserts and mountains of southern Arizona. Tombstone was no longer the mining camp of a few years past but a fully incorporated city of seven thousand souls, with five newspapers, its own railroad depot and a telegraph. There was a whole new world to be won here, a new life to be made by those willing to work—or risk everything for luck.

Tally was willing to work, but luck was definitely not going in her favor. She dodged a heavy wagon loaded with lumber for some new construction at the corner of Second and Fremont Streets. The smell of cheap perfume drifted from the nearest cathouse, temporarily overwhelming the stench of horse droppings, whiskey and unwashed clothing.

If André was here, it might take her days to find him. But Tally didn’t know where else to look. Her brother had made arrangements to buy fifty yearlings and two-year-old heifers from a rancher in northern Sulphur Spring Valley, but he should have been back at Cold Creek a week ago. She’d sent Elijah after him at the end of the first week, and now her foreman was missing as well.

God knew the ranch couldn’t afford the loss of four workers in the middle of calving season, even if rustlers had run off with half their stock last winter. Bart and Pablito would make do as best they could, but an old man and a ten-year-old boy didn’t have the time or strength to handle all that needed to be done.

There was a chance that André had met with some mishap. Apache renegades raided American settlements from time to time, and Arizona was an outlaw’s haven. But Tally didn’t believe André had run into that kind of trouble. Far more likely that he’d become distracted by the gambling halls and carnal temptations of Tombstone.

Tally sighed and surreptitiously pulled a handkerchief from her pocket, wiping the dust from her mouth. Miriam, whom Tally wouldn’t think of sending into the saloons, was off buying supplies in the dry goods store, while Federico investigated the establishments that catered to the Mexican traders and miners. That left Tally with dozens of saloons and bordellos to visit. She dreaded the brothels most of all.

For that reason as much as any other she chose Hafford’s Saloon, known for the hundreds of exotic birds painted on its walls rather than for its soiled doves. She walked up to the polished bar and leaned against it like any one of the men.

“What’ll you have?” the bartender asked.

Tally considered her limited supply of coins and ordered the smallest drink she could get away with. “Maybe you can help me,” she said as the barman slapped the shot of whiskey on the counter before her. “I’m looking for my brother—André Bernard, blond hair, brown eyes, a few inches taller than me. Have you seen him?”

The bartender looked askance under his bushy gray browns. “You just described ’bout a hundred men who passed through here the past couple of days. I can’t remember all of ’em.” He scratched his unkempt beard. “Might want to ask the faro dealer. He always remembers a face.”

Tally hid her disgust and downed the whiskey. It would affect her a little, but not too much. She’d learned to hold her liquor those first years in New Orleans.

“Listen, boy,” the bartender said with a confidential air of one doing a great good service, “I’d hold off that stuff if I was you. Wait until you’re a mite older. And stay out of Big Nose Kate’s!” He laughed uproariously at his “joke” and slapped the counter so hard that Tally’s empty glass bounced.

A shadow fell over Tally and the bartender. The newcomer seemed very tall in comparison to the stout barkeep—lean and taut with muscle, dressed in the wool pants and coat of a cowman rather than the duds of a miner. His black hat shaded his face, but something in his manner, the way he cocked a hip against the bar and dominated the space around him, alerted Tally’s instinct for danger. She paid for her drink and turned to go.

“Hey,” the bartender said, grabbing her shirtsleeve. “What name should I give if your brother comes looking for you?”

“Tal,” she said, keeping her voice low. “Tal Bernard.”

“Good luck.”

Tally tipped her hat, but he was already serving the tall newcomer. The skin between Tally’s shoulder blades quivered. She walked quickly to the gambling tables and searched out the faro dealer. He looked like a panther about to pounce as she approached, but he was pleasant enough when she explained her mission. A few of the gamblers took pity on the boy and speculated among themselves as the dealer laid the cards on the table.

“I think I seen him,” a miner offered. “About so high, curly yeller hair? Saw him at the roulette wheel over at the Crystal Palace oh, near ten days ago. You say he’s your brother?”

Tally nodded, her heart sinking to the soles of her boots.

“Don’t think he did too good. Lost a heap o’ money. Heard him talk about buying gear and heading into the Chiricahuas to make his fortune.” The miner chuckled. “Poor feller. Looked like he might know something about beeves, but mining—” He shook his head. “I’d ask over at the harness shops and livery stables. He’d o’ needed a couple good mules at the very least.”

Tally thanked the miner and trudged out of the saloon. André must have gone crazy. He knew that money had to go for cattle, or the ranch could fail. And he knew less about mining than she did. If he really had gone to the mountains, it was probably because he was too ashamed to face her and had thought up some cockeyed scheme to recoup his losses.

No, André wasn’t crazy, just rash and sometimes thoughtless. She had hoped this time he’d prove responsible. She had needed to trust him with the money she’d saved from her marriage, needed him to show that he cared as much about Cold Creek as she did.

She’d expected too much. Reckless or not, André was her brother. He knew what she’d been, and he hadn’t turned his back. He was the only family she had left. Even if all the money was gone, she had to find him and bring him home.

Tally began the wearisome rounds of Tombstones numerous corrals, stables and supply stores. By late afternoon she knew that André had, indeed, bought a pair of mules and all the appropriate gear, and had set off from Tombstone over a week ago. His likely path would take him east, toward the Chiricahuas, but well north of Cold Creek’s little side valley.

Tally muttered a curse she saved for only the worst situations and returned to the stable where she had left the wagon and horses. Miriam and Federico were waiting for her in the shade of the building. Federico looked as though he’d eaten a sour lemon and Miriam was furiously knitting the shawl she’d begun on the ride to Tombstone. She stopped when she saw Tally.

“Bad news?” she asked softly.

“Bad enough. André gambled the money before he bought any cattle and went back to the mountains with mining gear.”

“Madre de Dios,” Federico muttered.

“Elijah?” Miriam said.

The worry in her voice revealed far more than her dispassionate face. Tally knew how much she cared for Elijah, and he for her. God help the man if he ever made Miriam cry.

“I can’t find evidence that Elijah was in Tombstone,” Tally said.

“He’s been gone a week,” Miriam said, crumpling the shawl between her graceful hands.

“He may be looking for André in the Valley. It’s a big area to cover.” Tally pushed her hat back and blotted the perspiration from her forehead. “We can’t afford a hotel tonight. We’ll sleep in the wagon and decide what to do in the morning—if you don’t mind bedding with the horses, Rico.”

The Mexican shrugged. “What will we do tomorrow, señorita?”

“I can find him for you.”

Tally whirled to face the man from Hafford’s—the one who had made the uncharacteristic shiver race down her spine. His back was to the sun, so that she still couldn’t make out his features. But his height was a dead giveaway, and his voice, deep and rough, made her think of dark alleys and smoking guns. He was what the girls at La Belle Hélène used to call a ‘long, tall drink of water.’ Tally’s mouth had suddenly gone very dry indeed.

She held her ground, staring up into the shadows of his eyes under the black hat’s brim. “Who are you?”

“Someone who has what you need.” He angled his head so that she could see that the slitted eyes were the palest gray tinted with green, nestled in a web of wrinkles carved by sun and wind. His hair was a brown so dark as to be almost black. No single element of his face could be called handsome, yet the overall effect was one of compelling strength and inner power. Few women would fail to look at him twice.

“You followed me here,” Tally said.

“I heard you was looking for your brother,” he said, glancing over her shoulder at her companions. Federico took a step forward, compelled against his mild nature to assume the role of gallant protector. “Call your man off. I mean you no harm.”

“It’s all right, Rico,” she said, never taking her gaze from the stranger’s. “Why do you think you can help us?”

The man drew closer, crowding Tally to the wall of the livery. She dodged neatly, keeping her distance. He smelled of perspiration, as everyone did in the desert, but it was not an unpleasant odor. In fact, he smelled different from any man she’d met. He moved easily, smoothly, like a puma or a fox. But he didn’t offer a threat, and if he wore a gun it was well hidden under his coat.

“My name’s Sim Kavanagh,” the man said. “I heard your brother ran off to the mountains after losing big at the Crystal Palace. They say he’s a tenderfoot who wouldn’t know a pickaxe from a shovel, so I figured—”

“André’s no tenderfoot. We have a ranch on the other side of Sulphur Spring Valley. He—” She wasn’t about to confess André’s irresponsibility to this man. “He has dreams, sometimes,” she finished awkwardly.

Kavanagh narrowed his eyes. “He’s your older brother? Sounds like you look after him. He gamble away all your money?”

Tally bristled. “What is your interest in my brother, Mr. Kavanagh?”

“I was a scout for the army. I know all the ranges—the Dragoons, Chiricahuas, the Mules. Tracking’s what I do. And right now I need a job.”

His confession startled Tally into silence. A man like this Sim Kavanagh wasn’t the type to admit such a need any more than she was. She examined him more closely. His clothing, though of good quality, was much worn and patched at the seams. He’d been down on his luck for some time…or perhaps he was simply a scoundrel on the run. Surely even an outlaw wouldn’t consider what they had worth stealing.

Federico appeared at her shoulder. “How do we know you are what you say you are, señor? How do we know you are good at what you do?”

Kavanagh shrugged. “I’m willing to take half pay before, half after your brother’s found.”

“I can’t pay much,” Tally said. “You’d do better to look elsewhere for employment.”

“When your belly’s empty,” Kavanagh said, “even a few pesos look pretty damned good. You got supplies?”

This was moving much too fast for Tally. She didn’t trust men. That was the principle tenet of her life. “We can’t be sure he went into the Chiricahuas,” she said. “I sent my foreman to look for him, but he hasn’t returned, either.”

“Soon as I leave town, I’ll be able to tell which direction your brother rode—and your range boss, too, if he was in Tombstone,” Kavanagh said with an offhand conviction that brooked no argument. “Your brother’ll be headed east on the road to Turquoise if he’s making for the Valley. You pay me two dollars now and give me directions to your ranch, and I’ll deliver your brother within the next two weeks.”

Tally laughed. “Two dollars is your idea of half pay?” She turned her back on Kavanagh, and ice ran up and down her spine. Ice like the color of his eyes. “If I hire you, it’s one dollar now and one when you bring André back. Alive.”

Kavanagh also laughed, and the sound wasn’t pretty. “He have a bounty on his head?”

“No. And I might as well tell you that he can’t have much money left himself, so robbing him won’t do you much good. As you said, he can’t tell a shovel from a pickax. If he found anything worth mining, it would be a miracle.”

Federico laid his hand on her arm in warning. Kavanagh barely shifted, but Tally was aware of the tracker’s movement as if he had been the one to touch her.

“You don’t think too highly of me, do you, boy?” he said with a faint smile. “What taught you to be so suspicious so damned young?”

Life, she wanted to answer. And men like you. She turned and met his cold eyes. “I don’t know you,” she said. “I don’t know if anything you say is true. I could spend another day asking around town for references, but I don’t want to lose any more time.”

“I give my word that I’ll do exactly as I say or forfeit the money.”

His word. A man’s word meant as little to her as a snap of her fingers, but Kavanagh’s gaze held so steady that she began to believe him. Those eyes…

She shook her head to clear it. “There’s only one way I’ll hire you, Mr. Kavanagh, and that’s if I go with you.”

“I work alone.”

She ignored him. “Federico, you take Miriam back to the ranch and wait. Maybe Elijah and André will turn up while I’m gone.”

Federico’s black brows furrowed above his brown eyes. “No, seño—no, Mr. Bernard. I will not leave you alone with this man.”

“You don’t think I’m afraid?” She smiled at Kavanagh. “What could Mr. Kavanagh do to me, Rico? Steal a few dollars and my horse?”

Kavanagh snorted. “You ain’t coming with me, boy.”

“I am, or the deal’s off.” She pulled a coin from her wallet and tossed it in the air, catching it in one hand. “One dollar now, one after, and I go with you. Take it or leave it.”

She expected Kavanagh to leave it. She could see in his eyes how little he liked being ordered about, and there was a quiet menace simmering under the calm, cool air he affected. She was a little afraid. If he found out she was a woman—and he very well might, with them traveling together…

Zut. There wasn’t a thing he could do to her that hadn’t been done already. And she had her .44 hidden under her coat. She was prepared to shoot if any man touched her against her will, and the law would be on her side once they knew she was a woman. At least as long as they didn’t know what kind of woman.

“You drive a tough bargain, kid,” Kavanagh said gruffly. “But I’m making one thing clear. If you can’t keep up with me, if you fall behind, you’re on your own, and I still get my money for delivering your brother.”

Tally nodded. “I agree.” She waited to see if he would offer his hand, and when he didn’t, she bucked up her courage and offered hers. “My name’s Tal Bernard.”

He hesitated, then clasped her hand hard enough to squeeze the bones. The feel of his rough skin didn’t repulse her as much as she expected. She pulled her hand away, flexing her fingers behind her back, and tossed him the coin. He caught it so fast that she didn’t even see the gesture.

“We leave at dawn tomorrow,” he said. “You can tell me more while we’re riding.”

“What about supplies?”

“I have my own. You have a bedroll and rations?”

“Enough for a few days.”

“Don’t bring too much. It’ll weigh the horses down.”

“I’ll meet you at the south end of town tomorrow, Mr. Kavanagh. I have business of my own tonight.”

His lip curled in a way that suggested he knew what business she’d be about. “Don’t get too worn out, kid. I ride fast and hard.”

“I’m overwhelmed by your concern,” she said.

He leaned close, and she noted that his breath held not even the slightest taint of alcohol. “You talk mighty pretty, boy. Schooled nice and proper, I’ll bet. But all the fancy education in the world won’t help you out here.”

You’re wrong, she thought. There are certain kinds of education that are invaluable in a place like this. “Dawn. Tomorrow,” she said, dismissing him. “Good night, Mr. Kavanagh.”

He backed away, drawing his hat brim down over his eyes. A moment later he was gone. Tally let out her breath and met Miriam’s gaze.

“What do you think?” she asked her friend.

“Dangerous, for sure, but I think he was telling at least some of the truth.” Miriam looked down the street the way Kavanagh had gone. “You be real careful, Miss Tally. Real careful.”

“It is not good,” Federico put in.

“It has to be done. You know I won’t take any chances.”

“No chances,” Federico grumbled. “Ay, Dios!”

“You just see that Miriam gets back to Cold Creek.”

“I’ll pray for you and Mr. André,” Miriam said. And Elijah, but she didn’t need to say it.

“Thank you, Miriam.” Tally went to see the stable owner about staying the night and checked on the horses. She, Miriam and Federico shared fresh bread Miriam had bought at the bakery and a wedge of cheese, along with the jerky they’d brought from Cold Creek. Federico bedded down in a pile of clean straw, while Miriam and Tally lay rolled in blankets in the wagon bed.

At cockcrow the next morning, Federico harnessed the wagon horses. He and Miriam set out on the rough fifty-mile ride home, while Tally took Muérdago, her roan, and rode to the southern edge of town.

Kavanagh was waiting for her. He looked like Death himself, silhouetted against the lightening sky, the rolling, scrubby hills and mountains behind him. Tally hesitated only a moment and then urged Muérdago to join him.

She had a feeling that she would need every prayer Miriam could send her way.

Chapter Two

SIM WATCHED THE SLENDER RIDER trot up the hill, admiring her graceful posture and firm seat. He didn’t make a habit of admiring women—with one notable exception—but he had to give this one credit for the guts to pose as a man and the skill to pull it off.

Of course he’d known she was female the moment he stood beside her at Hafford’s Saloon, and that was after he’d heard someone named Bernard was searching for a brother called André. He’d followed her at a distance through the streets of Tombstone, waiting for the right moment to get closer and hear the full story. It seemed too lucky that he’d located his prey so easily, but here she was, just where Caleb had told him to look.

Caleb had mentioned that André had a sister who’d lived with him in Texas, but nothing Caleb said had suggested she was vital to Sim’s mission. What was her name…? Chantal. A handle as fancy as her speech. He rolled the name around his tongue, disliking the taste of it. He preferred the name she’d given herself: Tal.

He didn’t trouble himself wondering why she disguised her sex. She gave off a powerful impression of fearlessness—even he had been hard pressed to sense her unease—but she must be pretty damned afraid of something. Afraid, and yet confident enough to keep anyone from looking too close at what lay beneath the mask.

He had a suspicion that she cleaned up a lot nicer than her outward appearance indicated. Her features under the grime were strong but just a little too delicate for a boy, her lips full, her eyes the color of coffee lightened with fresh cream and flecked with crystals of sugar. She must have a figure under those baggy clothes. But she was only a means to an end, unimportant to him except as a guide to André.

Likely she didn’t know anything about the map or she would be a helluva lot more suspicious than she was. She didn’t have any idea why André would have gone into the Chiricahuas outfitted for prospecting. But if André had told her about the treasure, Sim would learn soon enough. Meanwhile, he would let her keep pretending as long as it served his purpose.

He nodded to her as she drew her mount alongside Diablo. A wisp of blond hair had escaped from under her hat, the strand no longer than a boy’s might be. She tucked it back with a gesture both artless and impatient. Her roan sidled, and Diablo snapped at the gelding’s flank.

“Your horse has an unpleasant disposition,” she remarked.

“Just like me,” he said. “You ready?”

“Lead on.”

He turned toward the east and broke Diablo into a gallop, racing down the slope of the dusty miners’ road pointing toward the Dragoons. Diablo had something to prove and lit full out, leaving Tal and her gelding to choke on his dust. But she was game for the contest. In a few minutes her roan was neck and neck with Diablo. What Sim glimpsed of Tal’s profile was grimly unamused. When Diablo had worked out a little of his spite, Sim reined him in and slowed to a steady lope.

Tal flashed him a smile edged with anger. “Trying to get rid of me already?” she said, breathing hard. “Or was that just a test?”

“That’s up to you.” He noticed that her hat had blown back a little ways. She caught his look and jammed it forward.

“Now tell me about your brother,” he said.

She blinked at his sudden change of subject. “What else do you need to know?”

“How familiar is he with the mountains?”

“Our ranch is in the foothills near the south end of the range, in Cold Creek Valley, between the Chiricahuas and the Liebres.”

Which meant she and her brother were squatters on land they hoped to claim once the southern Sulphur Spring Valley was surveyed and opened for homesteading under the U.S. land laws. Until they could claim it legally, they had to hold their spread against all comers, including the rustlers who swarmed over the Valley like lice in a miner’s beard. Sim’s respect for Tal increased.

“This is the first time your brother has shown any interest in looking for ore?” he asked.

“When we lived in Texas, he spoke of getting rich in Arizona Territory. I never—” She paused, darting Sim a wary glance. “I said he was a dreamer.”

“And apt to go off half-cocked.”

Her lips set in a straight line. “He’s young.”

“You ain’t?”

She shrugged.

“What was he doing in Tombstone?”

“I don’t know. He was supposed to be in the Valley, buying stock for the ranch.”

“Doesn’t sound like you should have trusted him.”

She shot him a cold look. “You’re not here to judge André, Mr. Kavanagh, only to find him.”

Sim scratched the day’s growth of new beard on his chin. Tal was defensive about her brother but still naive enough to lead a stranger right to him. She honestly didn’t believe André had anything worth stealing. She valued him more highly than he deserved, and Sim couldn’t figure out why.

“Your brother’s a drinking man,” he said.

“Isn’t everyone?”

The disdain in her voice almost gave her away. “You talk like an abstainer,” he said. “But I saw you take a drink in Hafford’s.”

“I think better when I’m sober.”

“So do I. But from what they say in Tombstone, your brother talks when he drinks. That ain’t a wise habit in this country. It’s a good thing he don’t have nothing to hide…except from you.”

“He was ashamed to come home without the money. That’s all.”

“You sure he planned to come back?”

“I’m sure.” But her voice had a little crack in it. She wasn’t nearly as sure about anything as she let on. She would ride her heart out to prove herself Sim’s equal, but under that tough skin was a weakness he intended to exploit.

He wondered how she would handle their first night together. They would have to make at least one camp between here and the Chiricahua foothills.

“What about this foreman of yours? He any good as a tracker?”

“Elijah was with the Tenth Cavalry, so he has the skill for it. He may very well still be looking in the Valley.”

“But you want me to concentrate on your brother.”

“Elijah can take care of himself.”

Which meant André couldn’t. That fit with everything Sim had heard so far.

Once they were well away from the overwhelming scents of Tombstone, Sim dismounted. “You got anything on you that belongs to your brother?” he asked.

She stared down at him, perplexed. “No. Why?”

“Never mind.” Sim knelt close to the earth. A hundred horses, mules, oxen and men on foot had passed this way. He located a pair of mules’ prints accompanied by the boot marks of a single man.

Sim gathered a pinch of dust and held it to his nostrils. The dirt was infused with a faint but distinct scent that linked this traveler with the woman riding beside him.

“What are you looking for?” Tal asked.

He didn’t bother giving her an answer she wouldn’t understand. “Your brother came this way,” he said, mounting again. “He probably passed through Turquoise. We’ll stop there next.”

He rode a little ahead of Tal to get her smell out of his nose. The ground began to rise, and the trail turned south to loop around the tail end of the Dragoons. Seventeen miles without shade on a road with so many twists, hills and dips was hardly a pleasant jaunt, especially in the growing heat of the day, but Tal didn’t complain. She drank sparingly from her canteen like an experienced desert traveler. Even Sim was glad to catch sight of the Chiricahuas when they finally reached Turquoise.

He knew that Indians had once dug the bright blue rock out of these mountains, but white men were far more interested in the lead, silver and copper they’d found a few years back. The hills were scarred with recent excavation and the discarded trash of human activity. The camp itself was no more than a series of tumbledown shacks, sufficient for the bachelor miners’ stark way of life.

One of the shacks was a makeshift saloon of sorts, indicated by the crudely drawn sketch of a bottle on the door. Sim tied his horse to the hitching post and went inside.

The proprietress was a blowsy woman of early middle age and probably the only female within a ten mile radius—possibly the wife of one of the miners, more likely a willing companion to any who could pay. Her establishment was empty of clients. Flies buzzed lazily near the warped tin ceiling. Sim dropped a coin on the long, poorly fashioned table that served as a bar.

“How’s business?” he asked.

The woman, whose rouged cheeks were the only bit of color in a face hard and gray as granite, looked him up and down. “Maybe better than it was,” she said. She put a shot glass of whiskey down in front of him. The door creaked behind Sim, and Tal walked in.

“You boys lookin’ to stake a claim? Ready Mary can help you get started, get you everything you need. Even a little fun.” She leered at Sim, and he shoved the whiskey back at her. She drank it herself. “No, you ain’t no miner. On your way to more important business, I’d say.” She winked at Tal over Sim’s shoulder. “Now he don’t look as if he’s done much riding at all. I’ll give you a good price, cowboy. And half of that for his turn in the saddle.” She laughed hoarsely until she realized that Sim wasn’t smiling.

Sim glanced back at Tal. It was difficult to tell if she was blushing under the dust and the tan, but he couldn’t mistake the pity in her eyes. Pity for this dried-up husk of a female, who was probably stuck out here because she couldn’t compete with the younger whores in Tombstone.

“We’re looking for someone,” Tal said before Sim could reply. “Maybe he passed this way.” She described her brother as she had before, but she wouldn’t meet the older woman’s avaricious gaze.

“Yeah, I saw someone fitting that description,” Ready Mary said, leaning forward to display the sagging bounty of her bosom.

“Did he say anything?” Sim asked, ignoring the view she offered.

“Well, that depends. He did a bit of drinking—not that he looked liked he’d gone thirsty too long.” She wiped out the glass with a dirty towel and hummed under her breath.

Sim plopped down another coin. “What did he say?”

Ready Mary batted her eyelashes. “Well, it was some days back, and my place was crowded—when the miners come down they need their entertainment….”

Sim slapped his palm on the table. The woman jumped and nearly dropped the glass. She glanced at Sim’s eyes. “Well, he…he wasn’t making much sense. He was talking about someplace called Castillo Canyon, on the west side of the Cherrycows. He was all outfitted up, but everyone knows there ain’t no mines there.”

“Castillo Canyon?” Sim repeated, holding her with his stare.

“Y-yes.” She swallowed, and the sagging flesh of her neck quivered. “What did he do to you, mister?”

“He’s my brother,” Tal said, grabbing Sim’s arm. “Come on, Kavanagh.”

Sim let himself be led more out of shock than cooperation. Once outside the saloon he pried her fingers from his arm and led his horse to the nearest trough, clearing away the scum with a sweep of his hand. Tal’s horse dipped his nose in the opposite end of the trough, wary of Diablo.

“Never do that again,” Sim said quietly.

“What?”

“Touch me like that. Drag me around.”

“You didn’t have to threaten that woman.”

“That whore? She would’ve robbed you blind if she could.” He pulled Diablo away from the water. “What made you think I was threatening her?”

Tal stroked her horse’s neck. “Not with words. But she was terrified of you.” Tal glanced at him sideways. “The way you looked at her… Do you dislike all women, or just a particular type?”

Sim snickered. “What d’you know about women, boy?”

Tal tightened the gelding’s cinch and mounted. “I had a mother,” she said softly. “I’ll ask you to behave with courtesy and decency as long as you’re in my employ. Even to whores.”

Sim swung up to Diablo’s back. So she expected decency, did she? Was the tough, capable shell a front as false as her male disguise? Let her put on some fancy frock and she’d probably want him to bow and scrape like some dandy from back East.

She would get quite a shock when she realized he saw right through her. He was looking forward to that moment.

“I thought you said you lived in Texas,” he said.

“Is that important?”

“Most Texans I know ain’t quite so delicate in their ways. But then, you had an education.”

She chose to disregard his mockery. “You were born in Texas yourself, weren’t you?”

“You wouldn’t know the town. Whereabouts did you live?”

Immediately she became guarded. “We had a place in Palo Duro country.”

She clearly didn’t want to continue on that subject. Sim whistled a few introductory notes and then began to sing.

“Well I come from Alabamy with my banjo on my knee, I’m goin’ to Lou’siana, my true love for to see.” He grinned at Tal’s dubious expression. “Lou’siana.”

“What?”

“That’s where you were born.”

She frowned. “You hear it in my speech.”

“Like I said, I’ve been all over.”

She considered that with a thoughtful tilt of her head. “You are too young to have fought in the war.”

“So’re you.”

“I saw what it did to people on both sides.”

“Is that why you left Texas?”

“My brother saw promise in this country,” she said. “He imagined what it could become.”

A dreamer, just like Caleb. Looking for something he couldn’t see with his eyes, never content with what he had right in front of him. Always wanting more.

And exactly how are you different from either one of them?

Sim spurred ahead. Tal caught up, and they left Turquoise and the Dragoons behind them. To the east rose the Chiricahuas, a range of peaks extending north to south across the horizon. The grassy expanse of Sulphur Spring Valley spread almost unbroken for over twenty miles, but Castillo Canyon was nearly another twenty miles north once they’d crossed the plain. Sim didn’t intend to push the horses too hard when they’d soon be facing much harsher terrain in the mountains.

Grass grew high where water collected in the draw down the center of the valley. A few hardy ranchers squatted on the richest land beside springs and creeks. Sim knew that the infamous McLaury gang had their own spread near Soldier’s Hole, but he and Tal had no cause to pass that way.

“We’ll make camp at Squaretop Hills,” he said, indicating the cluster of buttes rising up from the valley some fifteen miles to the northeast. “There should be water there for the horses.”

He watched Tal carefully, noting the slight stiffening of her shoulders and the jut of her chin. She didn’t suggest that they stop at one of the squatter’s holdings or the few more established ranches between here and the mountains.

“Do you know Castillo Canyon?” she asked.

“I know where it is,” he said. “It’s long and deep, cuts right into the high rocks. Hundreds of spires and pinnacles like towers on a castle. That’s what gave the canyon its name.”

Tal glanced at him with raised brows. “You have some poetry in you, Mr. Kavanagh.”

He almost gave in to the urge to spit. “The whore—the lady—in Turquoise was right. Ain’t no mining up there, at least not on the west slope. Anything else in the canyon that might interest your brother?”

“Not that I know of. I’ve heard there are settlers there—a family by the name of Bryson. I haven’t met them.”

“If your brother went that way, they might have seen him.”

She nodded, lost in her own thoughts. They left the dwindling trail and rode across washes and gullies, past occasional beeves grazing on the yellowing grama, threeawn and bunchgrass that thrived in the valley. The dry season was on Arizona Territory, but Sim sensed rain coming in the days ahead. With any luck, it wouldn’t fall until he had André Bernard right under his nose.

The shadows were growing long when they reached Squaretop Hills. Sim chose a campsite partially shielded by a thick growth of mesquite and unsaddled Diablo. Tal saw to her own horse while Sim sniffed out water running just under a dry creek bed.

He dug out a basin and let the horses drink. Once they’d been rubbed down and staked out for the night, Sim went hunting. He shot a brace of cottontails and brought them back to camp, where Tal had already gathered brush for a small fire. Once again he was grudgingly compelled to admire her practicality, no matter how schoolmarmish she could be when the notion struck her.

Damn all women. Most weren’t worth the confusion they inevitably brought with their presence. But as he began to skin the rabbits, he remembered why he’d looked forward to this night.

He tossed the bloodied animals to Tal. They flopped into the dirt beside the new-made fire, and she gave a little jump. Sim smothered a grin of satisfaction.

“I got our supper,” he said. “You cook ’em.”

She picked up one of the carcasses and examined it with a critical eye. “Not much, is it?” she said. “Well, I’m not very hungry, myself.”

Sim shot to his feet. “How many do you want?”

“I said I’m not hungry.” She drew a knife and set to work without the slightest sign of squeamishness.

He went to stand over her, hands on hips. “Never heard of any boy who wasn’t always hungry.”

She wrinkled her nose, sniffed and waved at the air as if she’d smelled something distasteful, and after a moment he realized that her broad gestures were aimed in his direction. “Some things can spoil even the healthiest appetite.”

“You ain’t exactly a nosegay yourself,” he snapped. “If you only knew how bad humans—” He broke off in consternation and quickly recovered. “Would you get your appetite back if I washed up, Bernard?” He yanked off his neckerchief, shed his buckskin jacket and unbuttoned his waistcoat. “I found a little water that ain’t too muddy. You scrub my back, and I’ll scrub yours.”

The anticipated blush turned her face pink under its layer of dust. “That won’t be necessary.” She focused her attention on the rabbits. “You can make yourself useful by rigging a spit—that is, of course, if you have an appetite.”

“A man on the trail takes what he can get—even if it ain’t the sort of meat he prefers.”

Her knife slipped, and he wondered if she’d guessed that he had seen through her masquerade. Sim rigged the spit as requested, letting her do the rest. He leaned back on his elbows a little way from the fire and studied her as night fell over the valley. The moon and stars had the peculiar effect of softening Tal’s features, breaching her disguise more effectively than the brightest sunlight.

She knew he was watching her, but she pretended to be oblivious. “Your supper is ready,” she said, stepping back from the fire. “I’ll be with the horses.”

“You prefer their company to mine?”

She braced her hands on her hips and stared him down. “I don’t have to explain myself to you, Kavanagh. Is that clear enough?”

Sim grinned, showing all his teeth. “Very clear, hombre.” He crouched by the fire and tore into the meat with gusto. When he’d finished one of the rabbits, he took a tin plate and seldom-used fork from his saddlebags, rinsed them in a freshly dug water hole, and sliced off steaming chunks of meat from the second carcass. He piled them on the plate and went in search of Tal.

She never heard him approach. She’d laid her bedding next to the mesquite where the horses were picketed and now sat cross-legged on the blankets, her hat beside her, raking her fingers through her mass of tangled flaxen hair. It wasn’t as short as Sim had imagined, for she wore it in tight braids that fit under the crown of her hat. She had a female’s natural vanity after all.

Sim crouched and breathed in the woman-smell of her body. He’d lied when he suggested that she needed a bath. There was nothing unpleasant about her scent. Damn near the opposite. She smelled like a natural female—real and warm, like Esperanza, but different….

The memory of Esperanza cleared his head in a hurry. He set down the plate where even a human would find it and retreated as silently as he’d come. He walked around to the side of the hill, shucked his clothes and Changed.

Even after so many times, he still marveled at the miraculous novelty of the transformation from man to wolf. It was good to run free—free in a way he’d never understood before he accepted his MacLean blood, free as no human could com prehend. Stronger than either man or ordinary wolf, containing the best of both in one agile and powerful body.

He shook his thick brown coat and twitched his large, mobile ears. He raced across the valley floor, rattling the dry grasses and leaping waxy-leaved creosote and saltbush. Wind sang in his fur. Mice scurried under his broad feet, and a startled cow with a young calf stoutly turned to face him as if she could drive him away with her lowered horns and snorts of alarm.

He left her alone. He wasn’t after prey this night, and when he hunted cattle it was for some gain other than the filling of his belly. Not that the wolf had ever brought him any profit but this…this shedding of human law, human conscience, human desire.

He opened his senses to their almost painful limits, heard the frantic heartbeats of quail in their nests and smelled the musk of an angry skunk. He sifted one scent from the next and found the place where André Bernard had made camp a few nights ago. The man’s trail joined the wagon road that ran parallel to the Chiricahua foothills.

Sim circled back to Squaretop Hills and resumed his human shape and coverings. He washed his face at the water hole and spread his blankets under the open sky.

He was still wide awake when Tal approached, heavy-footed like all humans but more graceful than most. He heard her crouch several feet away, felt her study him as he’d watched her before, with a bewilderment he sensed like a hum behind his eyes.

“You’re awake?” she asked.

He rolled over to face her, resting his chin on his folded arms. “I don’t sleep much.”

She nodded as if that fact were of little surprise to her. Her hat brim cast her face in shadow, but he could see the gleam of her eyes.

“You didn’t have to do it,” she said in a low voice. “The food, I mean. I can take care of myself.”

“Not if you’ll pass up a fresh meal on the trail,” he said. He sat up, scraping hair out of his face. “You ate it?”

“Yes.” She set his cleaned plate and fork in the grass, staying out of reach. “I just came…to thank you.”

Those words came hard to her, just about as hard as they did to him. He’d thanked maybe half a dozen people in his life, if that. Never for something so small.

“Go to bed,” he said. “I’ll watch.”

She retreated awkwardly. He heard her lie down and toss and turn on her blankets, trying to get comfortable. He didn’t think it was because she was too delicate for the unyielding ground. Something about her scent had changed, and he knew instinctively what it was.

Until now, she’d regarded him as a temporary employee and treated him like one. She’d been aware he was a man about the same way any female would be, sizing him up without even realizing it, cool and objective. But somewhere between his banter about the bathing and her accepting the food he brought, she’d started looking at him different. Not so objective. Not anywhere near so cool.

His body stirred in spite of itself, and he cursed softly. So what if she was interested? She would never admit it. She had some stake in playing the boy, and no reason whatsoever to act on her impulses, given that he was a stranger and she wanted to keep her respectability.

André Bernard had been something less than respectable in Texas. Tal must have known that their ranch in the Palo Duro was a haven for rustlers, but she didn’t seem the type to approve of such illegal activities. She made plenty of excuses for André Bernard, but she hadn’t been running the Texas spread.

Sim flung his hand over his eyes. Why was he making excuses for her? He didn’t give a damn one way or the other, and nothing would come of some fleeting attraction that was about as meaningful as a bull and heifer rutting in a field.

That was all it ever was to him—rutting. Drop your pants and thank you, ma’am. They were always whores, and he always hated himself when it was finished.

He’d only stop hating himself when he took Esperanza in proper marriage, touched that unsullied skin and knew she accepted him. Needed him. Loved him.

Tonight he would dream only of Esperanza. But as he slipped into that netherworld of shades and memories, he saw Esperanza dressed in a soiled dove’s garish plumage, turning from Sim with disgust in her eyes. It was Tal Bernard, in robes of virgin white, who held out her arms to welcome him home.