In The Beginning by Gail Daley (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📕

but even I can see the way Carlos looks at you. He's not marrying you to please Papa. He wants you."

Bethany rose and gave her sister a hug. "I'll send you up dinner and some broth for him as soon as I get the chance. His color looks better than it did when he got here."

She headed down to the kitchen where she found Margo just starting on dinner.

"It will be late," Margo warned her.

"Don't do anything elaborate," Bethany said. "Sandwiches and the soup we had yesterday will be fine."

"Soup's already on the stove. I'll cut bread for sandwiches. Did Paco ride for the doctor?"

"Yes, I let him ride Glory."

Margo smiled. "He will be on top of the world. He wants to ride the next time you race you know."

Bethany poured herself a cup of hot tea and sipped gingerly to avoid burning her tongue. "Your son has the skills as a rider, but I wouldn't ask him unless you agreed."

Margo lifted her shoulders. "Life has to be lived. I can't hold him back, even though I will worry about how dangerous it is."

Tessa reached the roundup camp by evening. Knowing she had many miles to go, she had alternately walked and galloped Stinger, who was breathing easily and still frisky enough to kick out at a hand who got too close when they arrived.

McCaffey saw the girl coming and recognized his wife's prized racing colt. Circling the herd of fractious cattle, he kicked his tricorn back to the camp at a sharp trot. When he arrived, he realized the rider hadn't been Bethany. The young stable hand sipping the coffee handed her by the cook was waiting to speak to him.

"Tessa, what are you doing here riding Bethany's racing colt?" Alec demanded.

"I have permission," she assured him. "There is a sniper targeting the ranch house. He got Carlos Madonna when they came back from investigating those miner thefts."

"Got him?" he repeated. "Is he dead?"

"I don't think so, but Paco rode Glory into town to fetch the doctor. Miss Bethany sent me to ask you to come home, and to warn you to be careful. She sent Red Courteen up into the hills after the sniper. He's the best tracker we have."

"Was Carlos alone when he was shot?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so. Red and Durango rode in with him."

"How many shots were fired? Were the other two hit?"

"Just the two shots, I think. Neither Red or Durango looked wounded."

"He got who he was aiming at," Alec said. "That means he was after Carlos, me, or maybe both of us." He was thinking out loud. "Johnson himself isn't that good a shot. He must have hired someone for this, or its one of the sons."

"Boss?" it was Jorge Verduzco, "Why don't we leave part of the crew to finish up and go hunting too?"

Several of the crew had been listening and there were sounds of agreement.

Alec shook his head. "We won't find him blundering around in the dark. We'll start back tomorrow. Unsaddle Stinger," he told Tessa. "There's extra bedrolls in the wagon."

He unsaddled his tricorn and picketed him where he could crop grass.

The next morning, Alec had the crew draw lots. Half of them would remain with the wagon and move the herd culled for sale down toward the stockyards at the ranch. The other half would ride with him to find the sniper.

"You've done your job," he told Tessa when she protested staying with the herd. "Your main concern now is to take care of Stinger and make sure the pair of you get home safely."

It was mid-morning when Alec and the hands reached the hills above the ranch. Alec had the men dismount. He changed his riding boots for moccasins. The soft shoes would make less noise on the ground. He noticed Jorge and a few of the others doing the same. Leaving one man to guard the tricorns, he set the others up to do a wide sweep, moving in a straight line about ten feet apart, looking for the sniper's camp or for him. The Ironwood forest leading up into the mountains surrounding the Golden Tricorn was thick with low thorn bushes carrying ripe berries. Groves of massive grey trees thrust straight up through the brush. The thick canopy overhead created pockets of dimness, broken by strips of bright light.

"This place has a lot of cover," Alec remarked to Jorge, who nodded in agreement.

"Going to be hard to spot him in all this," said a tall man with a shock of black hair.

"It will at that. Men, I'd like to find out who hired him," Alec continued, "But he shot Carlos in the back. He needs taken out."

Alec was aware he had just given permission to kill the sniper on sight. There were nods of understanding. These men had all grown up on St. Antoni, they understood the harsh conditions under which man survived here. A local Sheriff would handle trouble inside a town; outside of town, there was one District Marshall to enforce the law over thousands of square miles.

On St. Antoni, you dealt with your own problems, and reported afterwards to any law that was around. The men riding with Alec knew they were hunting a man who had shot from ambush without giving his opponent the chance to defend himself. To the men of St. Antoni, that meant the sniper was fair game.

They crept at a snail's pace through the forest making as little noise as possible. Alec could see that this wasn't the first time some of them had performed this duty; they were the ones who seemed to fade into the brush.

Alec discovered the sniper's tricorn hidden in a small glade. The animal's dark grey/brown stripes blended so well with the surrounding trees that he almost missed him. The tricorn was saddled and ready to ride at a moment's notice. He found warm bluestones from a small fire under an overhanging boulder. The sniper had camped here last