The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,283

Even though it sounded like the screams of a dying woman, she knew it wasn’t human. It was a cougar, and still some distance away. Nervously, she reached toward the butt of the rifle. It wasn’t until she felt the warmth of the wood beneath her fingers that she calmed.

T-Bone growled what she assumed was another warning. She reached down and patted his head, murmuring softly until she felt the hair on his back finally relax.

And so time passed. She didn’t know how long she’d been smelling wood smoke when it finally sank in, and then her heart skipped a beat. Everything around her, from the sound of the wind in the grass, to the water running in the creek beside them faded in the background of her consciousness.

She stilled, and then closed her eyes, concentrating on nothing but her sense of smell. Adrenaline heightened every sensation. She began to slowly turn in a clock-wise direction, intent on locating the direction from which the smoke was coming. When she felt the wind on her face and the smoke up her nose, she suddenly realized what had happened.

Somehow, in the dark, she had ridden past the killer’s camp. The scent of smoke was faint. And from the way the wind was blowing, there was no telling how far back the camp had been made, but she was going to find out. She mounted quickly, whispered a command to her dog, and began to backtrack.

A short while later, the scent of smoke was growing stronger. Within minutes, she’d ridden close enough that she could see the flames of a campfire through the trees. At that point, she stopped, dismounted, and tied her horse to the branches of a tree along the creek bank, then pulled the rifle from the scabbard and put her hand on T-Bone’s head.

The pup sensed her anxiety and whined softly. She felt the muscles of his back trembling beneath the palm of her hand and gave him a quick pat. With her rifle in one hand, a knife in her boot, and her dog at her side, she walked into the camp.

The light from the fire was so much brighter than the moonlight by which she’d been traveling that she saw everything quite clearly. The shape of the man lying beneath an old blanket was long and large. From where she was standing, she could see the end of a rifle barrel beneath his blanket near the back of his head.

Since she’d walked in from the backside of the fire, she had yet to see his face, but it didn’t matter. She was almost positive as a person could be that this man was the killer she’d been tracking—but she needed to make sure.

The man’s horse was tethered some twenty yards away, but when she noticed that it was standing on three legs and favoring the front hoof on the right—the one that was missing a shoe—she knew she’d found her man.

She took a deep breath, and without giving herself time to panic, pointed at T-Bone. Although he never moved his gaze from her face, he sat down, quivering with tension, but sensing the need to obey.

Letty moved quietly, taking care with every step, until she was only inches from the sleeping man’s head. Her eyes narrowed as she reached down and silently slid his rifle from beneath the blanket. Then, clutching his weapon in her left hand, she backed up until she was out of the circle of light and laid the gun in the grass. The man was snoring loudly, completely unaware he was no longer alone, yet she could barely hear the sounds for the thunder of her own heartbeat in her ears.

She eyed the layout of the camp, noting a large stack of firewood that he’d obviously gathered before bedding down for the night. Tightening her grip on her rifle, she picked up a large stick, and from where she was standing, tossed it into the fire.

It hit the flames with a thud, scattering sparks and burning embers into all directions, including the man’s hair and blanket.

“What the hell?” he shouted, as he sat up in his bed, and then began beating at the blanket, trying to put out the flames.

He didn’t know Letty was there until he heard something growl. Believing it to be a wolf or a bear, he went for his rifle, then saw Letty Potter at the same time he realized his rifle was gone.

She looked like something out of