Code of the Wolf

“Jacob,” she said.

He nodded briefly without looking at her. “Yes, Miss Campbell,” he said. “I am good.”

It wasn’t just arrogance on his part. He was confident with good reason. She had seen how supremely competent he was, how at home in his own body, graceful and powerful at the same time. Never a wasted motion, like a wolf in pursuit of its prey.

“How many criminals have you caught?” she asked.

“As a Ranger, or a bounty hunter?”

“Both.”

“Maybe fifty or so.”

It seemed an incredible number, but she didn’t doubt him. “How many did you kill?”

His jaw set. “I don’t kill unless I have no choice.”

“Even when someone tries to kill you?”

“I defend myself like any man.”

“You would have killed Leroy, wouldn’t you?”

He gave her another of those long, flat stares. “If I had to. My aim is to take them in alive.”

“What happens when you deliver a wanted man to the authorities?”

“He’s tried by a judge and jury.”

“Have you ever arrested an innocent man?”

He looked away again. “Not that I know of, ma’am.”

Ma’am. It was a safe word, a respectful word, but suddenly she hated it.

“Serenity,” she said.

Constantine—Jacob—was silent for a time. “It don’t seem right, Miss Campbell.”

“You asked me to call you Jacob.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Because I’m a woman?”

“That’s what you are, Miss Campbell, even if you don’t want to admit it.”

She scrambled to her feet. “Not as far as you’re concerned, Mr. Constantine.”

His mouth twisted in that familiar smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll stick to my side of the bargain.” His smile faded. “Maybe you have good reason to distrust all men and refuse to have any on your place. I just can’t help wondering what that reason is.”

JACOB HADN’T MEANT TO ask such a direct and personal question. He should have discouraged Serenity’s curiosity about him as soon as she started to talk. He’d told himself he didn’t want to know anything more about her, but the longer they were together, the less true that seemed.

He hadn’t lied when he’d said she worked as hard as any two men, and just as well. Her skill wasn’t in question; wherever she’d learned to handle cattle, she’d taken to the lessons like a dog to a bone. And she’d never asked a single favor of him, never expected him to take on dirty work she wouldn’t do herself.

The fact was that she’d been easy to work with, and he’d had more than one assumption about female ranchers proved wrong—which only made his need to understand Serenity that much stronger.

Now she stared at him, her full lower lip caught between her teeth, and he noticed again just how pretty she was. Fresh and clean, like a desert night.

“We have discussed this before,” she said. “Does it really seem so strange to you that women might strike out on their own simply because they have the means and courage to do so?”

Her response was much less defensive than he’d expected, which pleased him for no reason at all. He phrased his answer carefully.

“There are easier ways to strike out on your own than to try running an outfit like this.”

Serenity uncorked her canteen and took a long drink. “We don’t just try, Mr. Constantine. We succeed.”

No easy answers, just as he’d expected. “You were lucky to get a place like this,” he said. “You have a spring here?”

“Coming out of the Organs,” she said. “We also have two good wells.”

“There are some pretty big outfits in the county,” he said. “The owners must envy what you have here.”

“Their envy is no concern of mine,” she said, the ice returning to her voice.

“They never give you trouble?”

“What trouble could they give us?”

“You’ve never been pressured to sell?”

“We are capable of defending ourselves, Jacob. There are plenty of good shots at Avalon. Anyone who comes here looking for trouble will get it.”

“You’ve had no problems with rustlers?”

“None to speak of,” she said.

Only because they’d been lucky, which didn’t make Jacob feel any easier in his mind. Even if the more powerful ranchers in the area didn’t find a way to move them off the land, some gang like Leroy’s was bound to see Avalon as a plump chicken waiting to be plucked, come in force, and then—

He cut off the thought and took another tack. “If you’re having trouble with branding,” he said, “what do you do when you set up a drive?”

“We supply cattle to Fort Selden and Fort Cummings. We manage very well on our own.”

And they must leave the ranch pretty much undefended at such times, which seemed like sure suicide.

Unreasonable anger gathered in Jacob’s chest. “You think you’ve found some kind of freedom here,” he said harshly, “but this peace won’t last forever.”

She sprang to her feet. “You have no stake in our success or failure,” she said, her voice husky with emotion. “You won’t see any of us ever again once you leave.”

Why did that simple fact make him want to argue with her? She was right. But he still hadn’t learned a damned thing about what drove her. He knew generally why these women had come here, but not what made her so wary of men, or why she would risk so much to prove she didn’t need them. She must have had a father, a brother, maybe even a husband. The thought of her having been bound to any man had a strange effect on his heart. It made him forget to be careful.

“You saved my life,” he said. “That gives me some reason to care what happens to you.”

She froze in the act of turning away, her face caught in a rare moment of vulnerability. “You don’t have to worry,” she said. “We know the risks. We live our own way and make our own rules. No one here has to be afraid…”

She didn’t finish the sentence, but Jacob recognized how close she’d come to revealing something important about herself. She must have realized it as well, for she suddenly broke into a brisk walk and strode out into the darkness.

Jacob could still see her. He knew she wasn’t in any danger, and she wasn’t angry or reckless enough to stray far from the fire.

Still more than a little angry himself, he adjusted his saddle under his head, folded his arms and closed his eyes. Four weeks, at most, he reminded himself. Only four…

He dozed for a while, half-awake as he listened for Serenity’s return. Only when he heard her soft footsteps approaching her bedroll did he allow himself to sink into a deeper sleep, though some part of his wolf senses remained alert.

It was those senses that woke him first when the gun went off. He sprang up, shaking the sleep from his mind and body, and listened for the echo of the distant report.

“What is it?” Serenity asked, her voice muffled as she sat up and pushed her blanket aside.

Of course her human ears hadn’t heard it. “A gunshot,” he said.

In a moment she was on her feet beside him, fully alert. “Where?”

“Two, maybe three, miles to the east,” he said.

Which would be somewhere in the cluster of what passed for foothills not far from the house. Serenity didn’t even ask how he’d heard a shot so far away. Her face went pale in the breaking dawn light.

“Bonnie and Zora,” she said. Without another word, she buckled on her gun belt, ran for the horses and swung up onto her gelding’s bare back. She kicked the horse into a hard run, not waiting to see if Jacob would follow.

He cursed under his breath, mounted his own horse and urged it after her. Serenity obviously knew she couldn’t push the gelding at a full gallop for three miles across the desert, but she never let him fall below a trot, and the horse was willing enough.

Jacob’s own mount proved equally willing. Little by little, he pulled into the lead, knowing that Serenity could only guess where the shot had come from.

He knew. Just as his nose and ears told him that Leroy and three of his men were waiting in ambush in one of the deep arroyos cutting east away from the Organ Mountains.

There was no time to warn Serenity. He cut across her path, forcing her horse to turn with his. He aimed for a jumble of high rocks a dozen yards from the arroyo. Once the horses were behind the rocks he jumped down, grabbed Serenity around the waist and pulled her after him.

Her fists pounded his chest in a drumbeat of panic. Her eyes were wild, though she didn’t make a sound. He wrapped his arms around her.

“Be quiet,” he whispered. “There are men in that arroyo just waiting for us to stumble over them.”

Her rigid body went still. “Leroy’s men?”

She read the answer in his eyes. Her shoulders slumped, and she went limp as the tail of a newborn calf. Just as he was about to release her, she jerked free and put a good dozen feet between them.

“Don’t ever do that again,” she said, very softly.

He ignored her warning. “Bonnie was working out here?” he asked.

“With Zora.”

He didn’t know who Zora was, but this wasn’t the time to ask. He was too busy keeping an eye on Serenity, who had pulled her rifle from its scabbard and moved to a point where she could see around the rocks to the lip of the arroyo. “How do you know Leroy is there?” she asked.

He couldn’t very well tell her the truth. “I saw one of them stick his head up,” he said. He didn’t tell her that he smelled blood. He hoped it belonged to one of the gang.

“I have to find Bonnie,” she said. “Zora can take care of herself. But Bonnie—”

Her voice broke. She was sick with worry, and there was little Jacob could do to reassure her. “Miss Maguire struck me as a lady who can take care of herself, too,” he said. “They may have the men pinned in the arroyo.” He adjusted his gun belt. “Let’s just hope your friends don’t shoot at me when I—”

“You don’t have to worry,” she said. Her face was as hard as one of the granite peaks rising above them. “I’m going out there myself.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he said. “They’ll shoot you down as soon as you stick your head out. I know how to get around them. You cover me.”

Before she could protest, he was running around the rocks, crouched low and ready to shoot. He heard Serenity’s feet crunch on the gritty earth behind him. He prayed she was only getting into position to shoot if one of Leroy’s gang spotted him.

They didn’t see him until he was within a few feet of the arroyo, and then only because someone out of his sight nearly got him in the leg. He half fell into the arroyo, twisting like a cat so that he landed on his feet and was firing before his boots touched ground.

There were four horses and three men crowded between the steep walls of the arroyo—Leroy, Hunsaker and Silas—and two bodies sprawled behind them, one male and one female. The man was Stroud, clearly dead, and the woman was Bonnie Maguire. She was lying on her stomach, very still, but breathing.

Leroy was heavily bandaged, but he wasn’t as badly hurt as Jacob had hoped when he’d seen the outlaw shot. Leroy’s eyes blazed with a very personal hatred.

Three guns aimed at Jacob. He got Leroy in the bad shoulder again and watched the man go down before the first bullet grazed his own arm. He twisted out of the path of two more bullets and fired again.

His shot missed, but someone else’s didn’t. Hunsaker fell with a cry. The horses shied and squealed. Hoofbeats pounded at the edge of the arroyo.

Serenity had ignored his warning.

“Go back!” he ordered.

“You’d better give up!” Serenity shouted from her position somewhere above them. “You’re outnumbered!”

Silas looked wildly toward Jacob and aimed his revolver at the female body at his feet. “Tell her if anyone shoots again, I’ll kill this bitch!”

Jacob lowered his gun. “Serenity!” he called. “Can you hear me?”

“I hear you. Are you all right?”

“Yes.” The slight wound on his arm was already healing, and he was too worried to feel much pain. “Don’t shoot, and tell your friend to hold her fire. They’ve got Bonnie.”

Neither Silas nor Leroy heard Serenity’s soft wail, but it tore at Jacob’s heart. He swallowed a growl and faced the two men who remained.

“I warn you,” he said, “if you hurt the woman, you’ll never get out of here alive.”

CHAPTER FIVE

SILAS LAUGHED NERVOUSLY. “You’re going to let us go, Constantine, and we’ll be taking the woman. We’ll release her when we’re good and ready. If you try to follow us—”

He continued with his threats, but Jacob was concentrating on the sounds of movement above the arroyo. Serenity had dismounted and was walking away. Not abandoning him or Bonnie, he knew, but planning some new and foolhardy tactic. He had no way to stop her, but at least the men hadn’t heard her. He could keep them occupied until something—or someone—broke the stalemate.

“How do I know the woman is still alive?” he asked.

“She’s alive,” Leroy said, clutching his bloody shoulder and rolling to his knees, his face pale as milk. “But she won’t be much longer if you don’t do what we say. Drop the gun.”

Jacob let his pistol fall and raised his hands. “Why did you come back?” he asked.

“You think I’d let a bunch of ugly bitches drive us away?”

“So you thought you’d make them pay.”

“They will pay.”

“Didn’t you plan to take the woman and leave?”

“I’ll be back.”

“And I’ll find you. You think I believe you’ll let the woman go once you’re out of here? You’ll kill her, and there won’t be anything to stop me from getting you.”

Leroy glowered. It was obvious he knew Jacob wasn’t bluffing. The fight seemed to go out of him all at once, but Jacob wasn’t fooled.

“I’ve got a deal for you, Leroy,” he said. “Me for the woman.”

Silas giggled, but Leroy was listening. “What’s your relation with these females, Constantine?”

“They saved my life.”

“You want me to believe you’d give yourself up for some bitch you hardly know?”

“That’s right. I’ll ride with you, unarmed. Once we’re at the pass, you let the woman ride back, and you can do whatever you want with me.”

Leroy’s eyes narrowed in calculation. He was smart enough to realize that Jacob would never expect him to keep his part of the bargain, and he had a hard time believing Jacob would keep his.

But he couldn’t resist the temptation. “Okay,” he said. “I want to see you strip buck naked so I can make sure you don’t have any weapons on you. And you tell them bitches to keep away.”

“I need proof the woman’s alive and well enough to ride.”

Leroy jerked his head at Silas, who knelt beside Bonnie and turned her over. Her jaw was already black-and-blue from a nasty blow, but there was no visible blood on her clothes.

She groaned and tried to push Silas away. He helped her sit up, and she opened her eyes.

“Jacob?” she whispered.

“I’m here. You save your strength.”

“All right, Constantine,” Leroy said. “Throw your duds and gear down there, then climb up top and tell them females not to fire afore you come back.”

Without hesitation, Jacob began to remove his clothes. He unbuckled his gun belt, set his belt knives in their sheaths on the ground, took off his bandanna and vest and shirt, pulled off his boots, and removed the tiny knife in its boot sheath. When he’d taken off the rest, Leroy gestured sharply with his gun.

Jacob knew he could Change in an instant and be on the men before they recovered from the shock. The Code was plain about bargains and promises: you didn’t break your word, even if you were dying. But he’d been careful in his agreement with Leroy; he’d agreed to ride out with them, but hadn’t made any promises about what he would do before.

Still, something held him back. He didn’t want to risk Serenity seeing him Change. She had enough to worry about without facing that kind of terror.

But he still had his superior speed and strength. He began to climb up the side of the arroyo, letting his feet slip as if he found the effort difficult. As soon as his eyes reached ground level, he saw Serenity flat on the ground a few yards away, rifle in hand, waiting for the chance to get near the ravine. She met his gaze, her eyes dark with emotion and fear.

But not for herself. He knew that as clearly as if she had told him.

He turned his head to search out the other woman he could smell nearby. She was crouched a few yards away on the other side of the arroyo, ready to fire her own Winchester.

“Tell them!” Leroy snapped behind him.

The muzzle of a gun poked into the small of Jacob’s back. He dug his fingers into the dry, crumbling dirt at the lip of the arroyo. It began to disintegrate under his grasp.

“Serenity!” he shouted. “Don’t—”

The soil under his hand gave way, and he fell backward. Leroy cursed as he buckled under Jacob’s weight, firing blindly. The bullet just missed Jacob’s hip. A second bullet flew over his head as he spun around and knocked Leroy’s gun from his hands.

Silas’s hands were shaking, but he had moved within point-blank range and was about to shoot Jacob through the heart. His finger twitched on the trigger.

The gun never went off. The muzzle of a rifle poked over the edge of the arroyo, and a bright red blossom opened on Silas’s shirt. He opened his mouth, staggered and fell.

“Jacob!” Serenity cried. “Are you all right? Is Bonnie—”

He was distracted for one fatal instant. Leroy scrambled up, dodged Jacob’s reaching hands and fell on top of Silas’s body, snatching at the fallen man’s revolver. His bullet caught Bonnie full in the chest. Serenity screamed, dropped her rifle and threw herself into the arroyo just as Jacob lifted Leroy and tossed him against the rock wall.

Then there was silence, broken only by Serenity’s quiet sobs.

Jacob turned slowly, barbwire coiling in his gut.

Serenity was holding Bonnie in her arms, rocking her gently and singing some kind of lullaby as she wept. She was no longer aware of Jacob at all.

Jacob crouched where he was, remembering. Remembering Ruth and how he’d found her body, shattered and abused and shot. He had promised to protect her when he’d made his marriage vows, and he’d failed her. He had made himself responsible for Serenity and Bonnie when he’d gone after Leroy and his gang in the arroyo. He’d failed them, too.

The almost inaudible crunch of soft footsteps above alerted him to the other woman’s approach. She knelt and looked into the arroyo, black hair falling across her face. Her dark-eyed gaze brushed over Jacob and his naked body, dismissed him, and settled on the women below. She jumped lightly to the ground and knelt beside Serenity.

Jacob felt the shock of recognition through the dull haze of his despair. Zora had to be half Indian, probably Apache by the looks of her, but she was at least half werewolf, as well. And she recognized the wolf in him, too.

Right now, though, she wasn’t interested in anything she and Jacob might have in common. She put her arm around Serenity and spoke low in Apache, a murmur of farewell and sorrow.

The last thing either of them wanted, he knew, was his commiseration. He made sure that Hunsaker and Silas were dead, then crouched beside Leroy to keep an eye on him, averting his face from the women’s suffering.

After a while the weeping stopped, and Serenity lowered Bonnie’s body gently to the ground. She smoothed the woman’s flyaway red hair from her face, removed her own coat and laid it over Bonnie’s chest to cover the ugly wound.

“We’ll take her home,” she said. She rose and glanced around the arroyo at Leroy and the dead men, her face expressionless, eyes red-rimmed and empty. She turned to Jacob.

“Is Leroy dead?” she asked

“Miss Campbell,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

She looked right through him. “Is he dead?”

“No. But I swear to you—”

“Why didn’t you kill him?”

“I’m taking him in,” Jacob said. “He’ll suffer a lot more waiting to be hanged than he would if I killed him now.”

Even to his own ears, the words sounded cold and indifferent.

Serenity began to shake. “He is not going anywhere,” she whispered.

“I will do it,” Zora said. Her voice was as soft as her tread, but her eyes were hard. She pulled a knife from its sheath at her belt.

Jacob rose to stand between Leroy and the Apache woman. “I can’t let you do that.”

“He killed Bonnie,” she said.

No fire, no hatred. Just simple fact. That was enough for Zora. But Serenity might still be reasoned with.

“He has to be brought to trial,” he said. “You talked once about women making the West civilized. I aim to keep it that way.”

Serenity stared at him as if he’d gone loco. “Civilized?” she repeated blankly. “What is civilized about any of this?”

Nothing. And that made the law even more important. No matter how much he might wish he could kill Leroy here and now, the Code wouldn’t let him. Killing in self-defense and to protect innocents was sometimes necessary, but he’d sworn years ago never to murder a man in cold blood, no matter what the reason. To do any different would make him just like those he hunted.

One slip would send him plummeting into the pit.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, meaning it with all his heart. “But the law is the law. I promise he’ll pay the price for what he’s done.”

Serenity’s shaking had stopped, but he knew she wasn’t half ready to concede. “You want him to go to trial?” she asked. “We can arrange that right here at Avalon.”

The idea took him aback. “Miss Campbell,” he said, “this is no place—”

“He would have a chance to tell his side of the story,” she said.

As if that would matter. Serenity had held Bonnie in her arms as the life had drained out of her friend. Her devotion had gone deeper than Jacob had guessed. There wouldn’t be even a semblance of justice in what she was proposing.

He looked at Bonnie’s body. She’d been a good woman. She might not be suffering, but Serenity and the others would go on grieving. Revenge wouldn’t ease those feelings, no matter what they thought. Revenge was a disease that ate you up inside and left nothing but a rotted soul.

“I can’t let you do it, Miss Campbell,” he said.

He’d underestimated Serenity and her women when he’d first come to Avalon. He should have known better than to do it again.

Serenity pointed her rifle at his chest.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Constantine,” she said. “Zora?”

The other woman advanced on Jacob, knife in hand.

Jacob held his ground.

“You won’t hurt me,” he said.

Serenity’s eyes were clouded with the blindness of grief, but he could see the battle roaring inside her. She had no desire to threaten him, but she saw no other choice.

She didn’t trust the law to take care of Leroy. She didn’t trust Jacob to finish what he’d started. And maybe she blamed herself for Bonnie’s death, for not taking better care of her people.

That was something Jacob understood. When he’d first set out to track Ruth’s murderers—killers who had taken pains to leave obvious evidence of their identities—the trail had already gone cold and he hadn’t known where they’d taken refuge. He’d thought his need to kill them outright would never fade, no matter how long he searched.

But it had. He’d seen the pit opening up in front of him and had stepped back just in time. He’d found the Code. It had restored his sanity and given him new purpose. Serenity didn’t have the Code, or anything like it, to make her path clear.

And he knew there was something darker behind her need for violent retribution.

Zora moved closer to Jacob, her gaze never leaving his. She knew just how dangerous he could be. He knew he could overpower her, but she or Serenity might get hurt in the struggle.

That was a risk he didn’t want to take. He would go along for now, but he wouldn’t make any promises he couldn’t keep.