The Mavericks Read Free

hated the heat, the bugs, the dirt, the effort it took to wrest a living from the hostile earth of the desert. Why would anyone want to live here? The land was covered with plants that offered little shade and came equipped with thorns that were sometimes poisonous as well as painful. She dug her foot in the sand and kicked a smooth pebble into the riverbed. The flow of crystal-clear water was so meager it filled only a few feet of the thirty-foot-wide riverbed. Grass, the ever-present willow, and some small yellow flowers Josie couldn’t identify had sprouted in the dry portions of the riverbed. Despite the clusters of flowers, she didn’t like the desert.
    â€œI intend to keep my eye on him every minute,” Josie said.
    â€œMe, too,” Suzette added.
    â€œYou’d better keep your eye on the other one,” Laurie cautioned. “I don’t trust Indians.”
    â€œHe’s a half-breed,” Josie pointed out.
    Laurie remained unconvinced. “That’s even worse. He doesn’t belong on either side.”
    Having a white father who’d married his former slave, Josie knew how that felt. The sound of hooves against rocks caused the women to turn. Josie felt a shiver go through her when Zeke appeared astride an Appaloosa gelding. She didn’t know a lot about horses, but she knew all about men who looked magnificent in the saddle. She couldn’t deny that watching him ride toward her stirred something deep inside, but she had learned long ago to throttle any such attraction. Married or not, men wanted only one thing from a woman.
    And that was the one thing Josie was determined no man would ever get from her.
    Excitement began to build inside Suzette when she saw one mare after another follow Zeke around the bend in the stream. Bay, dun, sorrel, and one with the distinctive markings of an Appaloosa followed in the footsteps of their leader. “You didn’t tell me they had horses,” she exclaimed. “That first mare looks ready to foal. I wish I could be there when she does.”
    â€œIf you want a horse, you can buy one when we get to Tombstone,” Josie said.
    Suzette knew Josie didn’t understand her attachment to animals. Josie had grown up on a farm and hated anything to do with animals, but Suzette’s young years had been spent in very different circumstances. The stepdaughter of a wealthy man, she’d been allowed to have virtually any pet she wanted—cats, dogs, and rabbits—but she’d been especially fond ofher horses. She’d been devoted to a Morgan mare she was given on her sixth birthday. But everything had changed abruptly for her and her sister after their mother’s death. Since then she’d never had the opportunity to do more than adopt a stray cat or feed and care for an injured dog.
    â€œI can’t afford a horse. Besides, it’s not practical.” Maybe the men would let her watch the horses while they put the wheel back on the wagon.
    â€œDon’t go wandering off looking at those horses while they’re here,” Josie said.
    Suzette counted nine horses, all mares, before the second man appeared. Having grown up in the East and having heard numerous stories of the barbarous cruelty of Indians, Suzette tensed when she saw the single feather hanging down the back of the man’s neck. He didn’t look like the Indians she’d seen in Colorado. His skin was dark and his hair as black as a raven’s wing, but his features were finely chiseled rather than rounded and blunt. Even though he was seated in the saddle, she could tell he was as tall and powerfully built as the black man.
    While the horses fanned out to drink, the two men rode up together.
    â€œI’m Zeke Maxwell,” the black man said, introducing himself.
    â€œI’m Hawk Maxwell,” the other one said. He glanced at the wagon. “It shouldn’t take but a minute to fix that wheel.”
    He must have