Read Dorothy Garlock - [Colorado Wind 03] for Free Online

fell in behind. Daylight found them on the trail that ran parallel with the Arkansas River. The day was warm, but a cloud bank in the southwest promised a rainstorm before the day was over.
    At noon they pulled off the trail toward the river. Vanessa and Henry unhitched the mules and took them down to drink. On the way back they passed Mr. Wisner leading his team to the water, and caught a glimpse of a dark-haired girl in a faded and patched calico dress that barely reached the tops of her high-laced shoes. She moved to the back of the wagon as they approached. A big yellow dog lay beneath the wagon and eyed them but didn’t move. After they passed Vanessa glanced over her shoulder and saw the girl peeking at them from around the water barrel.
    “We’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted,” she assured Henry when he lagged to look at the dog. “Right now I’m hungry.”
    The man and the girl kept their distance through the nooning, and when Henry drove the team out onto the trail again, they fell in behind and moved up close because the southerly breeze blew the dust cloud made by the wagon ahead away from them. Vanessa rode out ahead astride the saddle horse.
    The country slid away behind them. It was big, open and grassy as far as the eye could see, and to the south was the Arkansas River. It was lonesome country. Since noon Vanessa had seen nothing but a lone buzzard, a roadrunner, and a snake that slithered across the trail. Here the gigantic herds of buffalo had roamed for hundreds of years. Here the rawhiders had come to slaughter them by the thousands. Buffalo were different from cattle; they moved constantly, allowing the grass to grow back, and they left chips for travelers to use for campfires.
    Vanessa studied the country ahead and reckoned that by evening they would reach the Cimarron cutoff. That notorious stretch of the trail was a shortcut going south across Indian Territory, used by those brave souls who thought the risk of attack by marauding Indians and bands of cutthroat outlaws was worth the two hundred miles it saved to Sante Fe.
    She worried a bit about the weather. Today was the first of September. Back in Missouri they would have two months of good weather before winter. Here there was more brown in the grass than green, and the cottonwoods along the riverbank had a tinge of yellow to their leaves. That could be due to a dry season, Vanessa thought. Nevertheless, she felt they needed to make every day, even every hour count if they were to reach Junction City before winter set in.
    When she saw the three horsemen come out of the trees along the river and walk their horses toward the trail, she dropped back beside the wagon and held out her hand for the shotgun. Ellie handed her the gun, then reached under the seat and placed the rifle between her and Henry. It was a plan they had worked out and used several times before. Henry had never shot the gun, but no one knew that except Ellie and Vanessa.
    “Don’t say anything, Henry,” Vanessa cautioned. “And don’t stop even if they get onto the trail ahead of you. Just whip up the mules and go ahead. They’ll get out of the way.”
    “I will, Van. I’ll do just what you tell me to,” he said, but he had a worried frown on his face.
    The trio drew up beside the trail and waited for them. Vanessa cocked the shotgun and let it lie across her lap. One of the men wore a flat-crowned black hat and had on a black vest over a dark red shirt. He was lean and dark and clean shaven. One was sandy-haired and looked no older than sixteen. The other man was thick in the middle, his clothes were filthy and he had a tobacco stain running down the side of his mouth. All three had bedrolls tied on behind their saddles.
    “Howdy.” It was the heavyset man who spoke.
    Vanessa nodded and rode on past them. She could feel their eyes boring into her back and had to suppress the desire to turn and look at them. She listened intently, and knew the instant they