Canyon Song by Gwyneth Atlee Read Free Book Online Page B

trees or partly hidden by a rock outcropping. Possibly, she was crazy enough to live inside one of the caves.
    He’d be damned if he wanted to spend the next six months looking for her . He had something easier in mind. This far from civilization, the folks that lived around this canyon were likely to rely on one another now and then. Hamby thought back to his family’s Texas ranch, how even distant neighbors might help sink new post holes for a fence-line or maybe castrate calves.
    Among those who weren’t Indian, that might be true here, too . And he’d remembered one small family of Mexicans they’d mostly ignored so far, except for stealing stock from time to time. Hamby was glad they’d let them be, for he felt sure that they could be convinced to tell him what they knew. And if they resisted, hell, he and the boys were always in need of entertainment.
    Hoof beats marked the approach of a horse even before it neighed a greeting to the animals it knew . Black Eagle, who liked to brag that he was a better scout than any full-blood, was returning.
    “Find them Mezcans?” Pete asked eagerly . He wasn’t much for work, but the idea of a raid always got his blood up.
    “They ain’t moved . Guess they thought we’d ride on past that sorry little hut a theirs forever,” Black Eagle responded, with a shake of his lank hair.
    Hop turned from his task of picking a stone from one of Ark’s huge feet . The gelding’s hooves were magnets for horse cripplers. “They see you?”
    Black Eagle’s face froze . “You think I’m so clumsy I’d let ‘em know that I was there?”
    The boy grinned . “Way you tell it, you move like the wind. Way I hear it, sounds more like a tornado.”
    The half-breed pulled an evil-looking Bowie knife from his right boot . The same knife he’d used to teach the bunch of them the art of scalping.
    Ned gritted his teeth . He didn’t know which was worse, Black Eagle’s mean streak or Hop’s attempts to prove himself a tougher outlaw then the others. Fortunately, Ark chose that moment to bite Hop on the hand.
    Pete, who’d always liked Hop, laughed extra hard to defuse the situation . Black Eagle glared for a long moment, then finally put away his knife. For now.
    One of these days, that half-breed was going to cut up Hop . Ned peered at Hop’s red-brown thatch, trying to imagine how it would look in his collection.
    Even though Black Eagle was the half-breed, it was Ned who’d started the collecting . He liked to take those scalps out and rub his fingers through them. Made his skin prickle with accomplishment at the thought of those he’d killed.
    Ned thought again of killing, so he urged his mount in the direction of the Cortéz place . One way or another, they were going to learn the whereabouts of a lone white woman in this hell.
    It didn’t take much time to find out what they wanted . An hour later, they were riding toward the canyon’s mouth. Ned didn’t like the low, gray ceiling of the sky, the quick transition from a few white flakes to what looked like serious snowfall.
    He reined in Ginger and imagined the others admiring the smart way the mare pulled up, nearly sitting on her haunches . Their sorry mounts’ gaits dribbled to a halt.
    “If Cortéz told the truth, it could take us half a day to ride to where she lives,” Ned said . He brushed snow off his coat and wished he’d grabbed the pair of leather gloves that Pete had taken from the sheriff’s saddlebags.
    “He wasn’t lyin’,” Black Eagle insisted . “Not with his brat’s hair in my left hand and my toothpick in the right.”
    Ned wouldn’t have been surprised if Black Eagle had killed the child anyway, just to hear its mama scream. Hamby nearly grinned to think of it.
    “I don’t see as why we had to leave them Mezcans livin’,” Pete complained.
    Ned shook his head . “We’ll pick them off later. Prob’ly catch them on their way someplace else. Somethin’ tells me after today, they’ll be