to ask, but didn’t, couldn’t, all things considered. He had no choice but to clamp his jaw down—hard, so hard his back teeth hurt.
She continued. “I was wondering if you knew where Davy…Mr. Gibson went?” Her brows were pulled down, her sensuous mouth curved in a thoughtful frown.
Davy, huh? Josh’s fingers closed into a fist.
The desk clerk said, “Mr. Gibson didn’t say anything. Just packed up and left.”
“Ah,” she muttered, looking disappointed.
The clerk spoke up. “Well, there was…”
“What?” She came down a step.
“Mr. Gibson came in with two other men and, as they were leaving, I heard him tell the others that he knew someone who might give them work…cowboying, I think he said.” He rubbed his chin. “I’m trying to think where…” He made a clicking sound in the back of his throat. He shook his head, signifying his failure to remember.
That noose knot in Josh’s stomach drew in tighter. This was going from bad to worse.
Then something sparked in her face, her eyes—recognition, understanding perhaps. “You did say cowboying, didn’t you?” she prompted, her head cocked to one side. “Not something else, like gambling or—”
“Cowboying. I’m certain.”
“Cowboying? You’re absolutely sure?”
“Yes. I told you.” Impatience tinged his voice. “Somewhere up north, I think.”
She grinned. “Thank you very much. You’ve been a big help.”
She spared Josh some of that smile, then turned and practically raced up the stairs.
Josh dragged in a breath that didn’t do a thing to quell the frantic beating of his heart. What the hell kind of cryptic conversation was that? Whatever it was, two things were clear. The woman was somehow involved with Gibson, and she knew, or thought she knew, where he’d gone. That was all Josh needed to know. He was nearly to the stairs when the clerk called to him.
“Mr. Colter, you didn’t register.”
Who the hell cared about registering now! But he figured it was faster to go along than to argue. He grabbed the pen and dragged the register closer to him. Halfway through writing his name, he paused to read the signature above his—her signature. It was then he realized she’d never introduced herself. It was then his world took a sudden tip to the left as he read and reread the name written there.
A. J. Gibson.
Josh paced the length of the hotel room. Eight by ten, it was either three long steps or four short ones from the gingham-covered window to the walnut bureau on the opposite wall. He’d been pacing ever since he slammed in here about an hour ago.
A dozen times he’d started out the door, bent on going to her room, demanding to know what she knew, demanding to know where the hell Gibson had gone.
He’d stopped every single time, because there was no way, no easy way, no certain way, to get the information he wanted.
It hardly seemed likely he could go there, bang on the door and say, “Pardon me, but would you mind telling me where David Gibson is? Why? Oh, so I can kill him, of course.”
Yeah, that was a surefire way to get what he wanted, what he desperately needed to fulfill his debt of honor, to finish this bloody business and go home.
He sank down onto the bed, the coiled springs creaking in protest. His fingers absently traced the threads on the brightly colored patches of the quilt.
Feet on the floor, knees bent, he fell back on the bed. His eyes slammed shut. In the next motion, he surged to his feet, unable to remain still. He paced over to the window, his boots making a hollow thud on the pine floor, his spurs adding to the scarred surface.
Leaning one shoulder against the white wood framing, he stood very still, thinking about the men who’d murdered his sister.
In a heartbeat, the scene flashed in his mind. He could see Mourning Dove’s lifeless body, broken, contorted, while blood pooled under her. Rage had filled him, turning him hard and cold. Someone would pay for this atrocity. He would see justice served. No white man’s court would ever bring a white man to trial for killing an Indian, for killing three Indians, he corrected. There were others dead that day besides his sister.
But there’d been survivors, enough to tell him the descriptions of the men who’d done this, enough to start him on the path to revenge. That day, as they’d buried the dead, he’d pledged to the others that he would not rest until justice was served.
He was nearly done, finished with his grisly task. For Josh Colter was not a murderer, not a man who resorted easily to violence. He was a man who believed in honor and family—a man willing to do whatever it took to preserve both.
Now he had no family. Mourning Dove had been the last. He had the extended family of the Crow, but it was not the same. His family, his mother and father were gone years ago, and now so was his sister.
He felt alone, bone-chilling alone. Maybe it was that feeling of being alone that drove him, as much as the death of his sister, for he, too, had been robbed, robbed of family, robbed of someone to care about him and for him to care about.
He stared out the window, over the rooftops to the vast grassland beyond, grass greening with the promise of summer sun and gentle rain. Fifty years ago there would have been herds of buffalo roaming those hills, now there was cattle.
Things had changed, and for the Indian they had changed for the worse. Confined to reservations, their days of being lords of the plains were over. The government said it was for their own good. For the government’s good was more like it. No blankets, no supplies, no dignity. Only lies and empty promises from corrupt Indian agents.
It was no wonder that small groups of Indians from all the tribes were slipping off reservations, returning to the hills or fleeing over the border to Canada. That’s what Mourning Dove and her husband, Blue Crow, had been doing that day they’d stopped to camp on Josh’s land. He wished they’d been together all the time, but Mourning Dove had been born later to Josh’s mother and her new husband. She knew only the Indian world.
He’d welcomed their small band of twenty. He’d given them food and supplies and tried to convince them to stay permanently with him. It wasn’t the first time he’d offered, but like all the other times, they’d refused. He knew they saw it as charity, and it was not what they wanted. A man had his pride, Josh knew that well.
He straightened and paced over to the stove, cold and lifeless, waiting for someone to kindle the fire and bring it to life again.
He wished he could bring his younger sister back to life as easily. That rage was pulling in tighter, threatening to choke the breath out of him. Arms braced on the wall, he let his chin drop to his chest. Breathe. Slow. Again. Again. Again. The rage receded to a more manageable level.
He stood like that for a long time, head down, arms braced, fingers digging into the cool white plaster walls while that last day played itself over in his mind as though he could find some answer.
Guilt and regret rolled and spiraled inside him until he could no longer separate the two. He should never have left them that night, but no, he had had a business meeting early the next morning. He had needed to do some paperwork, get things in order before he went into town.
You had no way of knowing, the voice of reason entreated for what must have been the millionth time, and it was true. He knew it was true. Yet somewhere deep inside, where logic didn’t reach, somewhere close to the heart and soul of him, he felt he should have known, should have guessed. Dammit,