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to—was going to . . . .” She put her hands over her hot cheeks.
    He raised an eyebrow in Meg’s direction. “Is that what you’d say, Miss Anderson?”
    Meg pushed herself away from the doorjamb she’d been leaning against.
    Mandy took a deep breath. She hadn’t realized Meg was there. That rattled her. She never allowed herself to be so unaware of her surroundings. She caught the questioning look in Meg’s crystal-blue eyes.
    At length, Meg answered the sheriff. “That’s what happened, Sheriff. He was going to hurt Mandy—if you know what I mean. If Hawk, there,” she nodded toward the room where Hawk lay, “hadn’t come in when he did . . .” her voice trailed off.
    Sheriff Tucker looked back at Mandy, concern evident in his eyes. “Did he harm you, Miss Kane?”
    Mandy let out the breath she hadn’t been aware she’d been holding, and whispered a promise to up above that she would let Meg know more of what the Grandmothers had to say.
    “No. Thanks to . . . Thanks to . . . .” Mandy nodded towards the bed where Hawk laid, a delayed reaction to everything causing her voice to shake.
    Meg glanced at her, a worried frown on her face. “Cord told him to leave her alone,” Meg told the Sheriff. “But McKinney . . . .”
    “McKinney!” Tucker’s face showed more than a little surprise. “The McKinney?”
    “Yes,” Cord answered him from the doorway, where he was toweling his hands, “the McKinney . He stuck a gun to Mandy’s head, said he was going to have some fun with her.”
    Tucker turned to him. “You heard what these ladies were telling me?”
    Cord’s brow furrowed. Throwing the towel aside, he scratched his jaw. “Most of it.”
    Tucker stood to face Cord, leaning his thigh against the desk where the doc greeted his patients. He dropped his hat on the desk, and folding his arms across his chest, he waited, finally glaring at Cord with impatience. “Well, do you have anything to add?”
    Cord stood a moment, hands on hips, and met the sheriff’s glare with an unconcerned look and a deep frown on his face. “Just that, if Hawk hadn’t come when he did—Hawk told him to let her go, and there was a lot of gunfire. When McKinney was dead, Hawk went outside, and there was a bunch waiting to jump him. They must have taken him by surprise—because he had to use his horse for a shield.”
    Mandy winced at his words. Out here, a man’s horse oftentimes became his best friend. Some treated their horses better than they did themselves. They really couldn’t afford to do less. A man’s horse meant his life. Without it, he could well be dead. That still didn’t stop some from abusing theirs.
    “Did Hawk recognize McKinney?”
    “Yes,” Mandy answered, wincing when she realized what she’d revealed. She was glad he hadn’t been looking at her when she’d said it. She was sure her face had given her thoughts away.
    “How did Hawk know McKinney?” Tucker rounded on her, hitting uncomfortably close to the truth.
    Without glancing at Mandy, Cord answered evenly, “I guess a warrior like Hawk would make it his business to know.”
    “Yeah.” Tucker’s steely gaze moved over Hawk, still as death under some blankets on the surgery table in the next room. “I imagine so.” He looked at Mandy. “You reckon that’s what you’d say?”
    Mandy glanced at Cord, then back at the Sheriff. “Seems right.”
    “Then, how come I didn’t recognize him under all that trail dust—and hair?”
    Mandy didn’t back down. “Maybe Hawk had the bad luck to cross McKinney’s path before?”
    “I suppose.” Tucker rubbed two days’ growth of stubble on his face. “But, I’ve seen McKinney before, and he didn’t look noth’n like the man I saw outside, laid up in that pine box.” His eyes narrowed on Mandy. “Heard a tale.” He scratched the stubble on his face again. “Heard, wherever you see Hawk, you see this one particular gunman.” He watched Mandy’s face closely.
    This time