Wildest Dreams - By Rosanne Bittner Page 0,43

their lives."

He swallowed and cleared his throat, then straightened, looking across the valley, a soft breeze blowing his dark hair away from his eyes. He had dug all the rest of the afternoon after the encounter with the horse thieves, continued digging into the night. He had not slept, but sat up smoking most of the night, finished digging the graves this morning. He had buried every last man, kept their identification, carved their names on wooden crosses. That morning Lettie thought he looked achingly tired. There were new lines about his eyes, a new set to his jawline, harder, the look of a man learning to bury his emotions because that was the only way to survive. She didn't know what to say to him.

"Riders coming," he said then. "Get inside till I find out who it is. Could be some men who were supposed to meet this bunch."

Lettie prayed they would not have to go through another encounter like yesterday's. She saw only three men, one of them in buckskins, as far as she could tell from this distance. They were making their way along the muddy rut of a road that led there from Billings. At least they were coming from a different direction, so maybe it was just someone from town. She hurried up the hill to the porch of the cabin and stood in the doorway, while Luke picked up his rifle, which he had left propped against a boulder. He had dug the graves in a spot that would always be relatively dry, even in spring, and well away from the rushing water supply of the creek on the other side of the house.

It took several minutes for the riders to come within calling distance. As soon as they did, one of them whistled, the one in buckskins. He was the biggest of the three, and when he called out, Lettie and Luke both realized it was Will Doolan, not just by his burly size, but because of the wolf-like dog that ran beside his horse. "Helloooo, Luke Fontaine!" he hollered.

Luke raised his arm with the rifle in it. Lettie came back outside as the three men came closer. She did not recognize the other two, but she welcomed Will with a smile, wishing with all her heart that Henny were with him. Oh, how wonderful it was to see friendly faces, and how sad that the first human life they had seen after their long winter alone had to be vicious outlaws.

Will laughed. "By God, it's good to see you, Luke, you and the missus both. We was worried about how you'd make it through the winter." He rode closer and dismounted, shaking Luke's hand, his smile quickly fading at the gaunt, haunted look on Luke's face. It was then he noticed the graves. "Jesus, boy, what happened here?"

Luke removed his hat and wiped at his forehead and damp hair. "You were right. Horse thieves came here to hole up, decided they'd kill me and have a good time with my wife. I set them straight."

The other two men dismounted, and all three stared at the graves for a moment. "By God, I guess you did," Will finally spoke up. He looked over at Lettie. "You and the boy okay?" His eyes dropped to her abdomen. "You're carryin!"

Lettie blushed at the remark. "I'm all right."

"She shot one of them herself," Luke put in. "Didn't kill him. I finished them all off."

Will stood back and looked him over. "Must have been quite a shoot-out. You didn't take any bullets?"

Luke shook his head and put his hat back on, while the other two men stared at him as though he were something to be idolized. "I gave them ten seconds to leave. They didn't believe me. I knew my only hope was the element of surprise, so I pulled the trigger before they had a chance to think twice about it, got three right off, four more after they came up behind the first ones. One of them wanted to light out and was shot by his own man... called him a coward and shot him in the head." Luke shook his head. "I'll give you more details later. Right now it's hard to talk about it."

"Well, I expect so." Will sighed deeply, a look of true concern on his face. He turned to the other two men. "Luke, this here is Perry Ward and Jim Calahan. I've known Perry for quite a few years.