Pursued (Intrigue Under Western Skies Book 1) Read online

  Pursued

  Book 1

  Intrigue under Western Skies

  Elaine Manders

  Copyright ©2016, Elaine Manders

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons is purely coincidental.

  Scripture references are taken from the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible.

  For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

  -Ephesians 6:12

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to all who speak out against evil and proclaim the truth, regardless of the consequences.

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Foreword

  The glitter of the very rich marked the late nineteenth century, the so-called gilded age. Shiny machines churned out products at an increasing rate. It was a fast-paced period. Trains picked up speed as tracks extended from coast to coast, webbing out to every point in between. Communication sped along telegraph lines. Industrialization demanded labor, more and cheaper. Immigration increased.

  This was a time of great change—social, economic, and spiritual. And the roots of modern culture sprouted during the gilded age.

  Industry, medicine, and science advanced rapidly, laying the foundations of life as we know it. But this era had a dark underbelly as well. Greed and corruption abounded.

  Christianity in many different denominations flourished in the low and middle classes, but Darwinism gained a foothold with the elite and laid the foundation of the secular humanism that permeates western culture today.

  Chapter 1

  Nebraska 1884

  Click. The gunman cocked his pistol, the muzzle jabbing her neck. Carianne Barlow was going to die on this perfect spring day at high noon, right here in the dusty street of this little prairie town. A place she shouldn’t be. Alone. Chasing a crazy dream.

  “Back up, Sheriff, or I’ll blast this little lady to kingdom come.” After that threat sailed over her head, the brute lowered his voice. As his hot breath blew into her ear, she got a whiff of tobacco and horse and a couple of things she couldn’t put a name to. “No offense, ma’am.”

  She took him to mean he didn’t intend to shoot her, just make the sheriff think he would. That gave her just enough reassurance to breathe. Maybe he didn’t intend to kill her, but she was plenty offended and would tell him so, if she could get a word past the constriction in her throat.

  The sheriff attempted bluster. “Better let her go, Welford.”

  The outlaw knocked her hat forward, and a green feather obstructed her view. All she saw of the sheriff was his upraised rifle, and the way it shook gave her no confidence. He halted several yards in front of them. “Let her go. You don’t want another murder on your head.”

  A murderer? Maybe she’d read her captor wrong. Two murders wouldn’t cost him any more than one. The lump in her throat threatened to choke her.

  “I ain’t killed nobody.” Welford tightened his grip on her middle. “That man ain’t gonna die.”

  “Whadda you mean? I cut him down myself after you and your cohorts lynched him.”

  “We didn’t hang him to kill him—just to stretch his neck a little. He hadn’t even turned purple. You gotta let me talk, Sheriff.”

  “Let the woman go, then you can talk.”

  With the men arguing over her fate, a strange calm settled over Carianne. Though the gunman didn’t slacken his hold one bit, he lost all power to frighten her. Peace descended as it had when her mother died in her arms.

  Welford nudged to the right. “See…he ain’t dead. They’re bringing him in.”

  She shifted her gaze to the sound of thundering hooves. Two horsemen, dressed like cowboys—jeans, leather vests, Stetsons—rode up to a building down the street. They halted and she noticed one of the men held a third in front of him.

  The riders dismounted. Maneuvering an obviously injured man between them, they dragged him onto the plank sidewalk. Sandwiched between those two handsome men, he appeared almost comical, like a ragged magazine supported by two magnificent bookends.

  Another man came out of the building and took over for the dark haired cowboy who twisted around and started toward Carianne and her captor, his long strides pounding the dusty street. She squinted against the sun as her memory stirred.

  It was him. Rhyan Cason. She’d never met him, but had seen his photograph in countless magazines and newspapers. He was the talk of social gatherings back east and a favorite subject of all the gossip rags from Boston to Washington. Though his ranch lay somewhere near this town, she was surprised to find him here. Most cattle barons never even visited their ranches.

  “Better stop there, boss. I have this woman.” The gunman’s threat blasted in Carianne’s ear, and she sensed his heightened tension. He feared Rhyan Cason.

  “Let her go, Welford.” Mr. Cason kept coming, his long legs covering the distance fast.

  Carianne sucked in a breath. Those photographs were a pale reflection of the man in the flesh. Tall and lean, his tousled hair shone as black and glossy as a raven’s wing. He was clean shaven, of course. It would be a pure shame to cover the perfect lines of his face. Everyone said he was the best looking man west of the Mississippi, but they were wrong. He was the best looking east or west.

  “I’ll shoot. I mean it.” Welford jerked her attention back to her predicament. He stepped backward, pulling her with him, and ramming the pistol hard enough to send pain shooting from her neck to her temple. Mr. Cason loomed before her. She scrunched her eyes closed, expecting to fall into the arms of Jesus the next moment.

  Her captor was snatched from her so abruptly she stumbled. The crack of bone on bone rent the air, and she opened her eyes in time to see the gun fly off in one direction, and Welford hit the ground in the other.

  He scooted sideways like a crab. “Why’d you do that, boss? I wasn’t gonna hurt the little lady, and we didn’t intend to kill that tramp. He ain’t dead, is he? You got him to the doc’s on time?”

  Mr. Cason grabbed him by the shirt, hauling him up. “That was for scaring the young lady. This is for the tramp.” He slammed Welford with an uppercut that laid the man out flat.

  Welford propped up on one elbow and swiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “We were just following orders. You said you wanted us to skeer off the trouble-makers. When word gets out about this, they’ll all be skeered.”

  “My orders didn’t include hanging a man, you idiot. Where are Hawk and Falcon?”

  “They got away.”

  “Then you go find them, and all of you get back to work.”

  The sheriff brandished his rifle. “You can’t let him get away.” br />
  Mr. Cason grabbed the rifle’s barrel, forcing it down. “Hold on, Jeb. If the fellow dies I’ll bring them in.”

  “He ain’t gonna die.” Welford started to retrieve his gun, then apparently thought better of it and stalked off.

  With a wag of the head, the sheriff lowered the rifle to his side. “There’s a deputy U. S. marshal waitin’ to talk to us.”

  “The marshal doesn’t have any authority over you or any jurisdiction over this town.”

  “That ain’t what he says.”

  “I’ll talk to the marshal later.” Mr. Cason’s tone indicated he considered the sheriff in the same category as a schoolboy who needed placating. “Right now I have more important things to do.”

  The sheriff found something he could do and flapped his hat at the gawkers gathered around, scattering them like a flock of birds.

  Realizing she ought to be on her way too, Carianne reset her hat and smoothed out the folds of her skirt. She glanced up to see Mr. Cason headed in her direction and froze. Her hands flew up to check her hat and pat her hair with fingers searching for stray tendrils to be put back in place.

  He stopped before her and their gazes locked. For the life of her, she couldn’t pull her attention away from his dark, mesmerizing eyes. They weren’t solid brown but radiated from the pupils in varying hues—molten chocolate, glistening coal, soft sable—made more sensual by thick, black lashes.

  A smile crossed his handsome face, and those provocative eyes intensified. Deeper. Darker. Dangerous to her peace of mind.

  He pressed his fingers ever so gently on the place where the pistol barrel had assaulted her, and his gaze fell to her mouth. The look and the touch set a nerve aflutter in her stomach.

  She moistened her lips, while heat flooded her cheeks that had nothing to do with the unusually warm spring day.

  “Hope that scum-bucket didn’t hurt you, Miss—”

  She stared as one of his brows rose in a question. He was asking. What? “No…I’m not hurt. It’s Miss…Carianne. That is, Barlow. Carianne Barlow.” She rushed on to cover her blunder. “You’re Rhyan Cason, aren’t you?”

  The other brow hiked. “Have we met?”

  “No, I read about you in the newspapers.”

  He smiled, revealing even white teeth and double laugh lines. “I hope you don’t believe everything you read.”

  “Most of what I’ve read was…complimentary.”

  A dimple deepened the crease in his right cheek. “And a lot was uncomplimentary, but we won’t talk about that.” He turned his head in the direction of the street, and she caught a glimpse of his profile. His nose was straight, not too long or too short. Just right.

  A nerve in his jaw twitched. “I’ll bet you intended to go to the boardinghouse for lunch like your fellow passengers. You did get off the train, didn’t you? You can’t be from around here. I’d have noticed.”

  “I did get off the train, but I decided to forego lunch. I’m on a scouting trip to find a location for a western cultural center, and thought I’d take a look at your town.”

  “A cultural center? Here?”

  She had to admit the whole idea was far-fetched, but she wouldn’t admit it to him. “Yes…a library, theater, lecture hall, opera house. There’s hardly anything west of the Mississippi, and it’s about time, don’t you think?”

  His grimace told her what he thought of that. “I’ve got to admit the west is a little bereft of culture.” The frown gave way to a wide grin. “Just hope you’re not looking for a money making venture.”

  “Your town is centrally located.”

  “Yeah, it’s as far from civilization in one direction as from the other.” His low chuckle tickled her ear as he laid his arm across her shoulder and pointed her in the direction of the sidewalk. “But let me show you the town. There’s not much of it.”

  She walked out of his embrace. He was called the Casanova Cowboy, a womanizer, in the scandal rags, and while she didn’t believe half the stories, she had no intention of helping him live up to that reputation. “I don’t want to be a bother. The sheriff seemed to think you should talk to the marshal.”

  “The sheriff’s just in a dither. He’s never had to deal with attempted murder. His usual duties are no more demanding than sauntering back and forth from the saloon to the boardinghouse, and putting down the occasional brawl or cat fight—usually with real cats.”

  His light-hearted humor put her at ease. “Perhaps you’re right. I’m not sure the population would support a theater. How many people live here?”

  “Counting my employees, about three hundred.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “Now if you could use cattle for patrons, you’d be in business. Sollano has twenty thousand head alone.”

  Their boots tapped in rhythm on the plank sidewalk. She’d read about his huge ranch and hoped to get a glimpse of the unusual ranch house before going back east. “I doubt your cattle would understand opera.”

  “I assure you, Miss Barlow, the cows would appreciate opera as much as the people would.”

  She laughed as she gazed down the street. Weathered wooden buildings lined both sides of the dirt road, a haze of dust rising up whenever a horse trotted past. Westerfield was like dozens of prairie towns she’d passed through during the past two days. So different from the paved streets of her Philadelphia neighborhood.

  They stopped at each store front, and Mr. Cason rolled off the history of each, punctuating his remarks with antidotes about their colorful owners. He had the reputation of being a gifted orator, and she understood why. Just talking about the town, he spoke with enough knowledge and poise to make her think he’d been practicing his whole life for this moment.

  She’d read a couple of his speeches and admired how he called out the rich and powerful for their greed and chicanery. But that had gained him some enemies in high places.

  They were half way down the other side of the street when he stopped. “The next door is the doctor’s office, and I need to see how that tramp’s doing.”

  He lengthened his strides, and she sped up to match his steps. “How is it possible to survive a hanging?”

  “Instead of using a hangman’s noose that would instantly break a man’s neck, they used a loose knot to slowly strangle the victim. It was a form of torture used in the range wars.”

  “It sounds…brutal.”

  He held the door open for her. “It is brutal, Miss Barlow, but a lot of brutality goes on everywhere. It’s just not as well hidden out here.”

  A strange thing to say. She thought about it for several seconds before entering the building and glancing around the room.

  This was like all doctors’ offices, holding that unpleasant scent of medicine, suffering, and fear. She hadn’t been in a doctor’s office since the train wreck that injured her and killed her mother—a crushing tragedy that changed her destiny in unexpected ways. God and her wealthy grandmother had opened doorways Carianne had never thought possible to pass through.

  Mr. Cason came around her and touched her shoulder. He leaned in far closer than would have been proper back east. “This won’t take long. I promise to get you back to your train before it pulls out.” He stepped back and gave her another heart-flopping smile. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  He turned on his boot heel and disappeared through the hallway.

  She drew in a deep breath and stared at the dark hole that swallowed him. A stick of dynamite wouldn’t blast her from this spot.

  ***

  A weight fell off Rhyan’s shoulders when the doctor assured him the man hanging from a cottonwood on Sollano would live. Rubbing the tension from his neck, he knew the responsibility was his. His men committed the crime on his property. Lynchings were unheard of in this area. Sure, when Grandpa had been the law of the land, a few marauding Indians had been horsewhipped, but none had been hanged. It was unthinkable.

  How was he going to explain to that nosey marshal?

  The tramp lay on a cot sleeping p
eacefully. Dr. Ulrich had given him laudanum and expected him to be fit to travel when he woke.

  “I’ll be back later to settle up, Doc.” Rhyan turned to Colt Holliman who’d been helping the doctor. “You ready?”

  “Since we’re going to stick around town a while longer, I think I’ll get a haircut.” Colt raked long, calloused fingers through his wheaten thatch before resettling his hat.

  Glad his friend had somewhere to go, Rhyan slapped him on the back. “Fine with me. Come on, there’s someone I want you to meet.” He’d rather Colt leave by the back door, but that would call for an explanation.

  Colt had no trouble turning female heads, and some women found his easy-going, unaffected manner charming. Rhyan didn’t have much time left with Miss Barlow and didn’t want to compete with Colt. A quick introduction was all he’d get.

  She still stood in the spot Rhyan had left her. Dressed in a dark green traveling costume of fine wool accented with emerald satin, she could grace the cover of Harper’s Bazaar. Her perfectly coiffured hair under that silly hat was glossy dark brown, and her full, shapely lips waited to be kissed.

  Not that there’d be time to work up to a kiss. She’d be leaving in a short while, and wouldn’t return. Westerfield didn’t fit her grandiose scheme. Which was just as well. He didn’t have time for a woman right now.

  “Miss Barlow, I’d like you to meet an old friend of mine, Colt Holliman.”

  She tilted her head toward Colt, and Rhyan went on to fill up the silence. “Miss Barlow is scouting out a town to open…a theater.” No need to elaborate for Colt’s sake. “This is the first town she’s looking at.”

  Colt had swept off his hat and was grinning more widely than necessary. “Sure hope you don’t hold that scuff-up against us, ma’am.”

  Miss Barlow had a habit of pausing a split second before she spoke. “I wouldn’t do that. You have a charming town.”

  If there was one thing Westerfield wasn’t, it was charming.