the rock but continued on. He wedged himself into the shallow crevice, lowering his body to the earth inside. To his right he spotted Griff huddled behind a rise in the land, and beyond him Morris lay flat on the ground. A cloud that had provided a moment’s darkness blew across the moon, and the hillside was bathed again in white light. Morris was exposed. If one of the men below looked in his direction, he’d be spotted in an instant.
Emma was still thirty yards from Luke.
Fortunately, the rustlers were too busy laughing at Jonas to bother looking over their shoulders.
“That’s what they said when we took the wagon with that backbreaking piece of furniture in it,” said the one whose voice identified him as Earl. “I didn’t believe it then, but I guess it’s true.”
“I don’t believe it.” Suspicion saturated the voice of the fourth, unnamed rustler. He shouted toward Jonas, “Surely you didn’t come here alone expecting us to hand over this here girl just ’cause you asked.”
Soundlessly, Luke shifted until he had his feet under him, ready to stand and make a quick dash. Any minute now. He raised his rifle, the barrel pointed in the direction of the kidnapper standing beside Emma.
“No, I did not,” Jonas answered.
The rustlers looked at each other. “What’s he saying? He’s talking in circles.”
“I don’t know, but I’m tired of foolin’ with this idiot.” Porter, who stood on the right, closest to Morris, raised his pistol and pointed the barrel toward Jonas.
The next few seconds exploded with rapid-fire action.
A woman’s scream ripped through the night. “Papa!” Emma jumped to her feet and dashed sideways, toward Porter, whose gun was trained on Jonas.
A shot rang out from somewhere to Luke’s right. Porter fell a moment before Emma reached him.
A second shot answered from the left, from beyond the pass into the bowl.
Charlie! Luke leaped to his feet and sprinted forward, his rifle in his hands. Lester surged after Emma, but he jerked his head around at the sound of thundering hooves. Five horses galloped through the narrow pass, all saddled but only one mounted, as Charlie drove the others before him.
Startled cattle surged to their feet in a wave, beginning with the ones closest to the camp and ending at the opposite end of the bowl.
Another shot, and the unnamed rustler fell. Earl whirled to face the hillside, where Morris, Griff, and Luke ran at full speed. Luke was dimly aware that the rustler’s gun rose to point directly at Griff, but he couldn’t spare a thought for that. He was heading toward Lester, who had recovered enough to resume his sprint after Emma.
The kidnapper reached her while Luke was still ten feet away. Luke raised his rifle and set the man’s head squarely within his sites. In one numb part of his brain he knew this moment would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Then Emma ducked and threw herself sideways. The kidnapper’s hand closed on air at the same moment Emma slammed into Earl, knocking the arm that held the gun fixed on Griff. He staggered and his shot went wild.
Lester’s back was exposed to Luke, a wide open target. One squeeze of a trigger, and Luke could take the man down.
What kind of cowboy shoots a man in the back, even a low-down, no-good, cattle-rustling kidnapper?
Not this kind.
He flipped his rifle around as momentum carried him across the few remaining feet. Holding the cold metal barrel, he swung the heavy butt like he used to swing a stick at a ball as a kid. It connected with Lester’s head. For an instant, the rustler’s body stiffened. Then he toppled forward and hit the ground at Emma’s feet with a puff of dust.
While Morris relieved Earl of his weapon, Griff approached Luke. The grizzled cowboy stood beside him, staring down at the unconscious man sprawled out in the dirt.
“Well.” He took his hat off and scratched his head. “I never saw a Winchester used that way before, but it sure was effective.”
Luke opened his mouth to answer, but he forgot the words in the next instant when Emma flew into his arms. He held her close, his insides quaking with relief while she sobbed.
TWENTY-TWO
When the torrent of tears slowed, Emma became aware of Luke’s arms around her. Warmth rushed from her head to her toes, partly from the pleasure of breathing in the earthy, wholesome scent that clung to him, but mostly from embarrassment. What an unseemly show of