in town, or we could stay at Will and Henny's. I'll leave the children here with Anne and Billy, and please warn the men not to cuss in front of the children. We'll have to stay the night in town. By the time you finish with your meeting, it will probably be too late to get home from there before dark." She sighed longingly. "The next thing we need is a church. I do wish a preacher would come to Billings. I miss real church services, the singing, praying together. If there were as many churches in this territory as there are saloons, there wouldn't be such a dire need for organized law."
Luke chuckled, heading his horse even higher on the narrow path. "Why is it women think of churches and men think of guns and ropes?"
"Because women have more common sense and more compassion," Lettie answered teasingly. She breathed deeply of fresh air as they rode on for several minutes, each of them enjoying the peaceful afternoon. One thing she had to admit, Luke had chosen some of the prettiest country in America to call home. Never had she seen bluer skies, greener grass, more colorful rocks. The air smelled of sweet pine and wildflowers, clover and... She frowned, a little warning deep inside telling her something was wrong, but she couldn't quite place it. "I hope the children are all right."
"Why do you say that?"
Lettie looked around. "I don't know. I just have this funny feeling."
Luke led them to a shelflike clearing, then turned his horse, looking back along the pathway. Lettie saw the concern in his eyes then. "You, too?"
Lettie kept a tight hold of the reins of her horse. "What is it, Luke?"
Luke took his rifle from its boot and carefully scanned their surroundings, taking on the look of a suspicious wild animal. He seemed to be literally sniffing the air. "I don't know. I just realized Ben never caught up to us when we stopped that last time. We'd better go back and—"
The sentence was interrupted by a booming shot from somewhere above them, and in the same instant a bloody hole opened in Luke's right thigh, accompanied by a sickening cracking sound. Lettie screamed at the hideous sight and sound. Luke cried out with awful pain, and his horse jerked and whinnied, then fell. Luke rolled off and tumbled down the steep embankment to the left of the path they had been following. His horse lay still. Whatever had hit Luke had gone right through his leg and into the horse. Before Lettie could decide what to do about the horror she had just witnessed, another shot thundered from above, thudding into her horse's neck. Lettie gasped as the animal trembled and fell, whinnying in agony.
"Oh, my God!" Lettie cried, quickly getting her feet out of the stirrups. She ducked down against the rocky wall of the pathway they had been following. "Luke!" she screamed. She couldn't see where he had fallen, and there was no reply. "Luke!"
CHAPTER 13
Lettie realized that somehow she had to get to the other side of the pathway and down the embankment. Luke was down there somewhere—maybe dead. She would be a target for whoever had shot at them, but she had no choice. She took a deep breath, telling herself she must stay calm for Luke's sake. She charged across the pathway then, clambering over the edge of the bank down which Luke had fallen. More shots rang out, but quickly she was out of sight as she slid and tumbled down the rocky ledge, thorny, dry plants tearing at her buckskin riding pants and her cotton blouse, cutting into her hands as she tried to grab something, anything, to slow her fall. Finally she landed on firm ground, breathless, filthy, and bleeding. She took a moment to get her bearings, looked up, and saw no one. Desperately she looked for Luke, jumped when a small rock spit past her to her left. She looked in the direction from which it must have been thrown and saw Luke, sitting behind a large boulder. He waved her over but did not call out to her.
Lettie looked up again, still saw no one. She ran to Luke's side then, felt sick at the sight of his leg, the pants and his thigh ripped open, blood everywhere. His eyes showed the incredible pain he was suffering, and he already looked pale. "Tie it off." He groaned. "Hurry! And don't talk." He