Savage Tempest

How could he have escaped again?

She had seen the impact of the bullet as it hit his chest. She had seen him fall to the ground, surely dead.

Could she have been wrong?

Had she so badly wanted the man to be Mole that she’d imagined it was he as she took aim at him?

She looked quickly at Andrew again. “Andrew, was an outlaw called Mole a part of your group?” she asked, searching his eyes. “There were many civilians among the fallen who we know were outlaws. Was the outlaws’ leader, a man with many moles on his face, among those who were searching for the Pawnee?”

A perplexed look came into Andrew’s eyes. “I didn’t know everyone,” he said. “I stayed to myself mostly, reading my Bible. So I just can’t say.”

Joylynn didn’t know how to take his answer. Was he telling the truth? Yet why wouldn’t he?

Oh, surely she couldn’t have imagined that the man she’d seen was Mole.

She would never forget his ugly face, his leer, the emptiness of his eyes, and that cigarillo she’d seen him smoking today before the attack.

“I’ve got to see for myself,” she said, rushing to her feet.

Breathing hard, her face flushed, she ran from one fallen man to the other, feeling more and more sickened by the blood and gore, but concentrating on only one thing.

Mole!

She had to find the man she’d thought was Mole!

How could she have been mistaken?

After searching each of the bodies and finding none that resembled Mole, she concluded that one of two things had happened.

Either he had survived and was even now fleeing, or . . . it had not been him at all!

Feeling dispirited, she went back to where Andrew sat. High Hawk was caring for his wound. She had not realized that he knew the skills of medicating wounds. Was there anything he could not do?

She knelt beside Andrew as High Hawk covered the wound with a mixture of buffalo fat from the food he carried in his bag and sweet grass he found on the ground. He then sprinkled on the powdered root of the ocotillo plant, which he carried, too, in his bag for such times as these, when he or his men might be injured.

She marveled at this man’s knowledge of so many things as he gently wrapped the wound with a small strip of doeskin.

“He is well enough now to travel with us as we return to our people,” High Hawk said.

Seeing Andrew shivering, and uncertain whether it was because of the chill of the late afternoon, or fear, or pain, Joylynn took a blanket from her saddlebag and slid it around the young man’s shoulders.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Andrew said softly. “I’m strong enough to ride, even with my leg bandaged. My injury shouldn’t get in the way.

“Again, thank you for your kindness,” he added softly.

A part of Joylynn wondered whether this young man might be skilled at duping people, for how could he have not noticed Mole among the outlaws? She could have sworn that Mole had been there, and that she had killed him. But if he’d merely been wounded, he would have had time to escape while she and the others were riding down to the scene of the ambush.

“Gather together what firearms you can carry on your steeds; then we must hurry back onto the mountain and catch up with our people,” High Hawk instructed his warriors. “Hurry. We have a long trip ahead of us before we will be reunited with our loved ones.”

He looked at Joylynn. “Can you ride the night through?” he asked. “I would like to continue until we reach my people.”

“I’ll be all right,” Joylynn murmured. She glanced over at Andrew. “Can you ride the entire night? Are you in too much pain to travel so long?”

“I’m from a farm,” Andrew said proudly. “Before my pa died, I was in the fields with him day and night until crops were planted. At

harvest time, we worked long hours, too. Yep, ’cept for my leg, I’m as fit as a fiddle and I can stand pain. I got many a snake bite when I was workin’ the fields. I learned to tolerate even that sort of pain in order to stay with Pa until the work was done.”

Hearing that he was raised on a farm made Joylynn feel a strange sort of camaraderie with him, for she had been the son her father had never had, and she worked long hours with her father, as well, during planting and harvesting time.