didn’t take a skilled tracker to see that the two horses had been out of control when they’d passed this way. In spots where the trail was clear, the brush was broken and trampled, the earth scarred with the prints of galloping hooves. Frank was an expert rider, but with his hands manacled behind his back, he would be able to do little more than cling to the horse with his knees. He could easily be thrown, or worse, caught by a stirrup and dragged over the rocky ground. The thought of what could happen triggered a spasm of horror in the pit of Jessie’s stomach.
But she couldn’t help Frank by worrying, she reminded herself. Her best chance of getting him out of this mess now lay in pleading his case to Matt Langtry. If she could make the tall federal deputy see the truth, or even win his sympathy, he might be persuaded to help her find out who’d really killed Allister Gates. But how persuadable would Matthew Tolliver Langtry be?
If she’d met him under different circumstances—at a dance, say, or a church supper—she might have been drawn to his chiseled features, gold-flecked brown eyes and rangy, athletic body. She might have flirted a little, laughing and tossing her hair, wanting to catch his eye, wanting him to smile and walk her way. Wanting him to reach out and touch her.
Even now, where her nipples brushed the back of his leather vest, the awareness of his body was like a subtle electric current that tingled along her nerves, pulsing deep and hot where her thighs nested against his long legs. It might be possible to imagine more, or even to make it happen. But Jessie’s actual experience with the male sex had been limited to a few groping kisses from eager farm boys—kisses from which she’d always pulled away feeling flustered and ashamed. She was anything but an accomplished seductress. Trying to charm a man like Matt Langtry with her scant feminine wiles would only make her look like a fool.
Matt was a man intent on his job, and there was only one weapon in her meager arsenal that had any chance of moving him.
That weapon was the truth.
“You have to believe my brother is innocent,” she said, plunging to the heart of the matter. “I’ve known Frank all his life. He could never have murdered Allister Gates.”
“I know you’d like to believe that.” Matt guided the mare around a clump of juniper, his eyes scanning the ground. “But you can’t know for certain unless you were there.”
“I was there!”
Jessie felt his body jerk against her. To his way of thinking, she’d likely made herself an accessory to horse stealing and possible murder. But never mind that. She would do whatever it took to save her brother.
“Oh, I don’t mean right there,” she added hastily. “But I was close by. Frank and I rode Gypsy as far as the Goose Creek ford, about a quarter mile from the Gates house. After we crossed, I let him off so he could go in on foot and get Midnight—the stallion. Then I waited for him, maybe twenty minutes, before I heard him coming back.”
“Did you hear anything else?” Matt Langtry’s voice was flat and tough, the voice of a lawman questioning a suspect.
“Not voices. I was too far away for that. But I would have heard a gunshot. I was listening the whole time, and I didn’t hear one. Allister wasn’t shot until some time after my brother left him. I’d swear to that on a stack of Bibles!”
“Go on,” he said, his tone betraying nothing.
“We rode hard and didn’t get a chance to talk until we were in the hills. That was when Frank told me that Allister had come out to the corral and caught him leading Midnight from the barn. Allister had a pistol, and he ordered Frank to throw down the rifle. Frank did, but before Allister could pick the rifle up, Midnight reared and struck him in the head. Allister went down. Frank said he was groaning and moving, so he couldn’t have been too badly hurt.”
“So Frank just jumped on the stallion and galloped away?”
“That’s right. He didn’t realize he’d forgotten the rifle until I asked him what had happened to it.”
“Why did he take the rifle in the first place?” Matt’s question was sharp, almost contemptuous.
“For protection, of course! Frank would never set out to harm anyone!” Jessie battled the urge to shout at the man and pummel his back with her fists. Why did he seem so determined to believe in Frank’s guilt? Was it because that belief made his job simpler and eased his own conscience?
“Don’t you understand?” she exploded. “I waited and listened the whole time Frank was gone! There was no gunshot!”
“Would you be willing to swear to that in court?” His question chilled her.
“Certainly. It’s the truth.”
“Is it, Jessie? Do you think the jury will believe a sister who’d do anything, even perjure herself, to save her brother’s life?”
Jessie swallowed the bitter taste of her own fear. “Right now, the important thing is, do you believe me.”
He didn’t reply.
Jessie sank into an uneasy silence as they wound their way up the slope. The sun shone high and bright in a cloudless sky, and the aspens wore baby leaves, small and pale and new. A scrub jay scolded from the top of an ancient pine tree. It would have been a beautiful day, Jessie thought, except for the worry that blackened her spirits, casting its pall over everything she saw.
What if Matt Langtry insisted on taking Frank in? How could she stop him?
Each idea that came to mind seemed more ludicrous than the last. But one thing was certain—whatever it took, she had to stop the marshal from taking her brother in to Sheridan. If she failed, Frank would never make it home alive.
“Tell me about the stallion,” Matt Langtry said, breaking the silence. “Why were your brother and Allister Gates fighting in the first place?”
“Midnight is a full-blooded Arabian,” Jessie said, thinking how their purchase of the fiery, pitch-black animal had set loose a deluge of bad luck. “We found him almost a year ago through a newspaper advertisement. The owner had lost all his money and had to sell out his stables. Frank mortgaged the ranch for the cash to buy the stallion and ship him by rail from Kentucky. We were hoping to make good money racing him in Sheridan, putting him out to stud, and then later selling his colts from our mares.”
“I take it things didn’t work out that way.”
“No.” Jessie suppressed a sigh. She’d tried to talk Frank out of buying the stallion, but her brother had set his heart on having the beautiful horse, and in the end she’d gone along.
“It was almost as if the horse was cursed,” she said. “We had one delay after another. First the papers were lost in the mail. Then Frank came down with scarlet fever and was too sick to go to Kentucky and fetch the horse, and I couldn’t leave him. By the time we got Midnight home, it was late November. The racing season was long over, and the mortgage was due on the ranch. We tried to sell off some of our other horses, but nobody wanted to buy them and feed them over the winter, when they wouldn’t be able to use them until spring.
“Allister Gates was in Laramie on business when Frank unloaded Midnight from the train. Allister made an offer to buy the stallion on the spot, but Frank refused to sell him for any price. So Allister found another way.”
“I
