The Complete Mackenzies Collection Read online

  Nothing. No one. The street was empty. He stopped to listen. He heard birds, the rustle of a fitful breeze in the trees, the far-off sound of an engine climbing the slight rise on the north side of the town. Nothing else. No fast breathing, no running footsteps.

  Wolf swore to himself. The guy was worse than an amateur, he was clumsy and made stupid moves, as well as being out of shape. If he’d been anywhere close by, Wolf would have been able to hear his labored breathing. Damn it, somehow his quarry had slipped away.

  Wolf looked at the quiet houses nestled under the trees. Ruth didn’t have residential and commercial zoning; it was too small. The result was that the houses and few businesses were mixed together without order. The man could have gone into any of the houses; the way he’d disappeared so suddenly left no other possibility. It verified Wolf’s conviction that the rapist lived in Ruth; after all, both attacks had happened right in town.

  He noted who lived in the houses on the street and tried to think of who inside them matched Mary’s description of a heavily freckled man. No one came to mind. But someone would. By God, Wolf vowed, someone would. He was slowly eliminating men from his mental list. Eventually, there would be only one left.

  From inside a house, a curtain moved fractionally. The sound of his own raspy breathing as he sucked air into his laboring lungs filled the man’s ears. Through the tiny crack he’d made, he could see the Indian still standing in the street, staring at first one house, then another. Murderous black eyes moved across the window where the man stood, and he automatically stepped back out of sight.

  His own fear sickened and enraged him. He didn’t want to be afraid of the Indian, but he was.

  “Damn filthy Indian!” He whispered the words, then echoed them in his head. He liked doing that, saying things out loud the first time, then saying them to himself for his private understanding and enjoyment.

  The Indian was a murderer. They said he knew more ways of killing people than normal folks could even imagine. The man believed it, because he knew firsthand how Indians could kill.

  He’d like to kill the Indian, and that boy of his with the strange, pale eyes that looked through him. But he was afraid, because he didn’t know how to kill, and he knew he’d wind up getting killed himself. He was too afraid of getting that close to the Indian to even try it.

  He’d thought about it, but he couldn’t come up with a plan. He’d like to shoot the Indian, because he wouldn’t have to get close to do that, but he didn’t have a gun, and he didn’t want to draw attention to himself by buying one.

  But he liked what he’d done to get back at the Indian. It gave him savage satisfaction to know he was punishing the Indian by hurting those stupid women who had taken up for him. Why couldn’t they see him for the filthy, murdering trash he was? That stupid Cathy had said the Indian was good-looking! She’d even said she’d go out with the boy, and he knew that meant she’d let the boy touch her, and kiss her. She’d been willing to let the filthy Mackenzies kiss her, but she’d fought and screamed and gagged when he’d touched her.

  It didn’t make sense, but he didn’t care. He’d wanted to punish her and punish the Indian for—for being there, for letting stupid Cathy look at him and think he was good-looking.

  And the schoolteacher. He hated her almost as much as he hated the Mackenzies, maybe more. She was so goody-goody, making people think the boy was something special, trying to talk people around so they’d be friendly to the half-breeds. Preaching in the general store!

  He’d wanted to spit on her. He’d wanted to hurt her, bad. He’d been so excited he almost hadn’t been able to stand it when he’d dragged her down that alley and felt her squirming beneath him. If that stupid deputy hadn’t shown up, he’d have done to her what he’d done to Cathy, and he knew he’d have liked it more. He’d wanted to hit her with his fists while he did it to her. That would have shown her. She would never have stuck up for the half-breeds again.

  He still wanted to get her, to teach her a lesson, but school was out now, and he’d heard people say that the deputy had made her move to some safe place, and no one knew where she was. He didn’t want to wait until school started again, but he thought he might have to.

  And that stupid Pam Hearst. She needed a lesson, too. He’d heard that she had gone to a dance with the half-breed boy. He knew what that meant. He’d had his hands on her, and she’d probably let him kiss her and maybe do a lot more, because everyone knew what the Mackenzies were like. As far as he was concerned, that made Pam a slut. She deserved to be taught a lesson just like Cathy, and just like the lesson the schoolteacher still had coming.

  He peeked outside again. The Indian was gone. He immediately felt safe, and he began to plan.

  When Wolf walked back into the feed store, the same group of men were still there. “We don’t much like you tracking folks around like we’re criminals,” one man snapped.

  Wolf grunted and sat down to pull on his boots. He didn’t care if they liked it or not.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  He looked up. “I heard.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing.”

  “Now look here, damn it!”

  “I’m looking.”

  The men fidgeted under his cold black stare. Another spoke up. “You’re making the women nervous.”

  “They should be nervous. It might keep them on guard, keep them from getting raped.”

  “It was some drifter trash who blew in and blew out! Likely the sheriff won’t ever find who did it.”

  “It’s trash, all right, but he’s still here. I just found his track.”

  The men fell silent and looked at each other. Stu Kilgore, the foreman on Eli Baugh’s spread, cleared his throat. “We’re supposed to believe you can tell it was made by the same man?”

  “I can tell.” Wolf gave them a smile that was closer to a snarl. “Uncle Sam made sure I got the best training available. It’s the same man. He lives here. He slipped into one of the houses.”

  “That’s hard to believe. We’ve lived here all our lives. The only stranger around is the schoolteacher. Why would someone just up and start attacking women?”

  “Someone did. That’s all I care about, that and catching him.”

  He left the men murmuring among themselves while he loaded his feed.

  Pam was bored. Since the two attacks, she hadn’t even stepped outside the house by herself; she’d been pretty scared at first, but the days had passed without any more attacks, and the shock had worn off. Women were beginning to venture out again, even by themselves.

  She was going to another dance with Joe, and she wanted a new dress. She knew he was going away, knew she couldn’t hold him, but there was still something about him that made her heart race. She refused to let herself love him, even though she knew any other boyfriend would have a hard time replacing Joe. Hard, but not impossible. She wasn’t going to mope after he’d left; she’d get on with her life—but right now he was still here, and she savored every moment with him.

  She really wanted a new dress, but she’d promised Joe she wouldn’t go anywhere alone, and she didn’t intend to break her promise. When her mother returned from shopping with a neighbor, she’d ask her about going with her to get a new dress. Not in Ruth, of course; she wanted to go to a real town, with a real dress shop.

  Finally she picked up a book and walked out onto the back porch, away from the sun. There were neighbors on both sides, and she felt safe. She read for a while, then became sleepy and lay down on the porch swing, arranging her long legs over the back of the swing. She dozed immediately.

  The abrupt jolting of the swing awakened her some time later. She opened her eyes and stared at a ski mask, with narrowed, hate-filled eyes glittering through the slits. He was already on her when she screamed.

  He hit her with his fist, but she jerked her head back so that the blow landed on her shoulder. She screamed again and tried to kick him, and the unsteady swing toppl