Page 91 of Native Hawk
“Listen, ma’am,” Chase murmured, obviously ill-at-ease. “I don’t know what my brother told you, but he’s not the marrying kind of man. I’m sure he paid you well for your services and probably enjoyed them too. But if you’re looking for him to put a ring on your finger, I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’m sorry to have to break it to you this way, but…”
Catalina thought nothing could make her laugh this morning. But Chase’s assumption that Catalina was a prostitute and his delusions about his own brother were highly amusing.
With a smug smile, she flashed her engagement ring at him.
He didn’t believe her.
Even after she finally managed to convince him the ring had indeed come from Drew, he shook his head.
“My brother is a love-them-and-leave them kind of man.”
Catalina frowned. He apparently couldn’t imagine that Drew was capable of change.
Thinking she didn’t understand his English, he tried, “A rolling stone? A tumbleweed? One that doesn’t put down roots?”
Roots? She hadn’t heard that one before.
Chase sighed. “My brother is the kind of man who will give a woman a kiss and then vanish into the night.”
“Oh, that he does,” she agreed with a nod. “But he always comes back in the morning.”
The week-long ride from Hupa to Round Valley had only sharpened the edge of Sheriff Jasper Brown’s ire. He’d been so sure he’d be able to track down the half-breed who’d killed Billy before he made it this far.
But there was no sign of the villain. The man had paid for no lodging, stolen no horses. He hadn’t even stopped at any of the saloons along the way.
He supposed any other man would have given up. His own damn sons had started whining about turning tail and going home.
But Jasper wasn’t about to wave the white flag. The South had made that mistake. To his mind, Lee’s men should have fought until every damn soldier lay on the battlefield, dead.
Because the South had knuckled under, Jasper was forced to live in the world they’d left, a world full of damn Yankees, freed slaves, and uppity Injuns.
Today, however, proved to be his lucky day. To his surprise, he got a piece of useful information from Round Valley.
A scowling Konkow named Hintsuli came forward, identifying himself as the brother of Sakote, the Injun with the white wife Jasper had met in Hupa. He claimed his people had been marched from their homes and that their father, a great chief, had starved himself to death on the way. He went on to say their mother had been left behind, enslaved by a rancher in Paradise, and that she had died only last month.
Jasper didn’t give a shit about the Injun’s parents. Hell, his own parents weren’t around anymore. Hewasinterested, however, in the place Hintsuli called home. Maybe Hintsuli’s half-breed nephew had sought refuge there, in the place he was born.
It was a long shot and another week-long ride. But at least, he thought with a grim chuckle, he didn’t have to march on foot along the route like the Injuns had. He had a horse, food, water, and a silver star.
