Autumn Lover Read Free Page B

muscular neck, small ovals ofwhite appeared among the black hair. The white ovals increased along the deep chest and shoulders and barrel until they consumed the black background color. By the time the stallion’s flanks were reached, white was the dominant color. Large black ovals stood boldly against white on the horse’s rump and hind legs.
    The equine eyes watching Hunter over the paddock railing were wide, black, as unblinking as the night itself. Hunter had the feeling that Leopard was sizing him up as surely as he was sizing up the stud.
    “Sixteen hands?” Hunter asked.
    “You have a good eye.”
    “Do you use him for stud?”
    “Of course.”
    Hunter grunted. “Chancy.”
    “What?”
    “Using a killer for stud. Likely he’ll throw colts as vicious as he is.”
    “Leopard isn’t vicious!”
    “Tell that to the soldiers.”
    “They had no right to rope Leopard and throw him and blindfold him so that—”
    “He couldn’t kill the rider he unloaded into the dirt,” Hunter finished coldly. “Probably the only smart thing that fool captain did.”
    With that, Hunter turned from the stallion to Elyssa. She stood in the moonlight and wind, her skirts swirling like an earthbound cloud. Even in the dim light, the flat, impatient line of Elyssa’s mouth was visible.
    “In any case,” Hunter said in a clipped voice, “the army has every right to conscript suitable mounts, no matter whose pet the horse might be. The Paiutes have been raiding along the Oregon Trail.”
    “Or Culpepper trash dressed as Indians have been raiding.”
    “Either way, the army has its work cut out.”
    “We’ve had no trouble with Indians here.”
    “Yet.”
    Hunter’s certainty rankled Elyssa. Impulsively she pushed away from the paddock and confronted the dangerous stranger.
    “I’m surprised to hear you take the army’s part,” Elyssa said.
    “Why?”
    “Not so long ago, they were your enemy. Or,” she added rashly, “did you get that greatcoat behind your saddle from a Confederate officer whose luck ran out?”
    “I don’t steal from the dead.”
    Hunter’s voice was calm, soft, and all the more dangerous for it.
    “That’s not what I meant,” Elyssa said.
    “Then what did you mean.”
    It wasn’t a question. It was a demand.
    “That you purchased the greatcoat,” Elyssa said, “the same way Mother and Father purchased furniture and farm animals from settlers on their way west.”
    Hunter just looked at her.
    “It happens a lot,” Elyssa pointed out. “Most of the people who go west can’t believe what Nevada will be like. My English cousins thought I was lying when I talked about rivers that dried up long before they reached the sea, and lakes that evaporated into salt crystals every summer.”
    Finally, curtly, Hunter nodded, accepting that Elyssa hadn’t meant to insinuate that he was a grave robber.
    Yet it was an effort for Hunter not to show the fury that had swept over him when Elyssa had seemed to describe him as no better than the crows and carrion eaters who descended after a battle to pick over the dead.
    Like the Culpeppers , Hunter thought, meaner than snakes and twice as low .
    Barely human .
    No. Not even barely. The devil’s own, corrupt to the center of their black souls .
    What other kind of creature could do what they did to helpless women, and then sell their terrified children to Comancheros for the price of a fancy ruffled shirt ?
    There was no answer to Hunter’s silent question.
    There had been no answer since the moment he came back from war and discovered that everything he fought for had been raped and murdered, utterly destroyed by rebel raiders.
    Culpeppers.
    Southerners, like Hunter. That was the worst of it. Betrayal upon betrayal.
    Slowly, soundlessly, Hunter let out his breath. He hadn’t felt this depth of rage since he had learned his children’s fate. But thinking about it wouldn’t help. It just got in the way of doing what had to be done.
    Take the