Spirit's Song by Madeline Baker Page A

looked over at Ravenhawk. He was standing with his hands on his hips, a smirk on his face.
    Ravenhawk gestured at the fallen bounty hunter. “If that don’t beat all!” He grinned at her as he picked up Yellow Thunder’s .44 and shoved it in the waistband of his trousers.
    Kaylynn put the plate aside and stood up. “He’s hurt.”
    “Yeah, he is that,” Ravenhawk said, looking pleased. “Gonna be dead soon.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Wound’s festering. I can smell it from here. Come on, let’s go.”
    “Go? You can’t just leave him here to bleed to death.”
    “Hell I can’t. We’d be doing him a favor if we put him out of his misery right now.”
    Kaylynn stared up at him, unable to believe her ears. “You can’t mean that! He’s hurt. He needs help.”
    “Well, you can stay and help him, if you’ve a mind to. But I’m leaving. And if you’ve got any sense at all in that pretty head of yours, you’ll come with me.”
    Kaylynn looked down at the bounty hunter, a shiver rippling down her spine as she recalled the first time she had seen him, the sense that his soul had brushed against hers. She remembered watching him at the Sun Dance. Lifting a hand to her cheek, she remembering how he had slapped her, the look in his eyes when he warned her not to run away again. He was a violent man, but so was Ravenhawk.
    “You coming?”
    Kaylynn met Ravenhawk’s gaze and nodded. He was right. There was nothing she could do for the bounty hunter.
    She packed their gear while Ravenhawk went in search of Yellow Thunder’s horse, and all the while, she was aware of the man lying unconscious in the dirt. Fresh blood oozed from the wound in his shoulder. His face was deathly pale beneath his sun-bronzed skin. His breathing was shallow, rapid and uneven. A low groan rumbled in his throat. His eyelids fluttered open and he gazed up at her for a moment before his eyes closed again. He didn’t look so forbidding or so frightening now.
    He had slapped her. She lifted a hand to her cheek, remembering. He hadn’t meant to hit her. She knew it without knowing how she knew. Perhaps it had been the look of horror in his eyes when he realized what he had done.
    She looked up as Ravenhawk materialized out of the shadows, leading the bounty hunter’s horse.
    “I’m staying here,” she said, surprising them both.
    “What?”
    She shook her head, hardly able to believe what she was saying. She couldn’t ride off and leave Yellow Thunder any more than she had been able to resist looking after Ravenhawk when he needed help. Maybe she had missed her calling in life, she thought wryly. Maybe she should have taken up nursing the sick and infirm. Heaven knew she had loved to pretend she was a doctor when she was a little girl, always bandaging her dolls, pretending she was setting broken arms and legs. Once, she had found a baby bird and taken care of it until it was old enough to fly away. She had been sorry to see it go, but had felt a deep sense of satisfaction that she had saved its life.
    “I can’t just leave him,” she said.
    “Don’t be a fool.”
    “He needs help.”
    Ravenhawk glanced at Yellow Thunder, then looked at her and shook his head. “There’s nothing you can do for him. You’d best come with me. I’ll see that you get home.”
    “I’m staying here.”
    “I don’t think so.” He made a grab for her.
    With a cry, Kaylynn twisted out of his grasp and grabbed the rifle he had left propped against a tree. She swung it to her shoulder and leveled it in his direction. “I’m staying.”
    He laughed softly, mockingly. “You don’t even know how to use that.”
    “Yes, I do.” Mo’e’ha had taught her how to load and fire a rifle, saying it was good for a woman to know how to shoot in case she had to protect herself or her children from the bluecoats.
    Kaylynn jacked a round into the breech and leveled the gun at Ravenhawk’s chest. “I may not be a very good shot, but this close, I