Page 15 of Hard Bounty

“Yes, sir,” she said.

He wondered if she was going to attempt to run during the night. The odds seemed pretty low. It would be better if he could tie her hands or something, but the shackles he kept for prisoners were back on the pack horse. Thankfully, he was a light sleeper. And something told him she wasn’t the violent type.

Was he wrong about that? Was there a chance she’d wait for him to go to sleep and then clobber him over the head with a rock?

As he’d told her, he’d just have to play the hand dealt him and cross that bridge if and when he came to it.

That’s about all a man could do in life. Planning only took you so far.

Another thought hit him, and for some reason, it really bothered him. He tried to just lay down and close his eyes, but sleep wasn’t coming so easily. He let nearly twenty minutes pass. Finally, he sat up, shook out of his coat, and tossed it over to her. “Here,” he said.

“What’s this for?”

“Use it as a pillow. At least your head will have something.”

“But you need—”

He held up his hand and shook his head. “I’m fine. Again, I’ve slept in worse conditions.”

“I can’t imagine what’s worse than a hard cave floor.”

“A battlefield where people are waiting to shoot at you,” he said, not bothering to go into his experiences in the War Between the States.

It wasn’t something he wanted to revisit.

“Good night, Mary,” he said, once again hating that he was being informal and personal. There was something intimate about this all, and it felt so wrong.

But also so right.

And that’s exactly what worried him.

Chapter Ten

Mary awoke with a start.

Gently raking a finger over her eyes, she tried to wipe the sleep from them and gather her wits. It wasn’t hard; her nervous system was on high alert, even though she didn’t know why. Adrenaline was coursing through her veins.

“John?” she whispered, trying to wake him. But as she looked where he’d been laying, she found the slab empty.

That’s when she realized he was up ahead, to her right, crouched on one knee with his rifle pointed at the cave’s entrance.

“What’s—” she whispered.

But he shook his head, indicating she needed to be quiet.

A noise reached her ears, causing her to shiver.

Someone—it sounded like a woman—was screaming.

Scrambling to her feet, she whispered, “Someone’s in trouble! We have to—”

“Mary. Get behind me. Now.” His voice was low and calm, but there was an urgency to it.

“Why—” Once again, her question was cut off, but this time it wasn’t a sound that halted her words.

Moving into the cave, its body sashaying gracefully, was a mountain lion.

It hadn’t been a human screaming, after all. It was the eerie sound of the huge cat. A sound that gave Mary the chills.

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