Swept Away by Mary Connealy Page B

how much this would hurt if Glynna were conscious, Dare straightened her arm at the elbow, dragged in a deep breath, then said, “Okay, hold her.”
    The boy bore down. Dare yanked.

    The joint reseated itself with a sickening pop. Glynna cried out in pain.
    The boy looked up, furious, as if he’d dive over his ma’s prone body to attack Dare.
    “Look at the shoulder. It’s back where it should be.”
    The boy turned to look and the worst of his killing fury ebbed. Or at least Dare sure hoped it did.
    The girl came tearing into the room with a stack of towels in her hands. She looked at her brother. “What happened? What did he do to her?”
    “He fixed her arm,” the boy said. “Can’t you see it’s better? He’s helping her.”
    The girl skidded to a halt, just as the front door slammed open.
    Flint Greer.
    Dare had met him in Broken Wheel once. Otherwise, the man never came to town. But there was talk, and Dare knew the man to be a tyrant. Greer looked like a wild man. Someone in town said at one time he’d been almost too neat. His hair always trimmed, his clothes clean and well made. He was a Northerner, a carpetbagger, which made Dare ashamed of his part of the country. Greer had come into the area and took what land he wanted. There was no law in north Texas to stop him.
    There was nothing tidy about the man now. His hair and beard were long and filthy. His clothes looked like they’d been good quality at one time, but now they were worn near to tatters.
    The signal his guard had fired brought him in, as Dare knew it would. The man would be frantic now to see how badly hurt his wife was.
    Greer’s eyes went first to her, then straight to Dare. “You get off my land.”

    Of all the responses Dare had expected, that wasn’t one of them. “I will not get off your land until I’m sure my patient is able to be left on her own.”
    Greer whipped a revolver from his holster and aimed it straight at Dare’s heart.

    Luke raised his head slowly to study the land before him through a row of scrub brush. He saw a pair of riders crossing a long stretch of rich grass. They rode horses with Greer’s Diamond G brand.
    Luke had been ghosting around all morning, leaving Dare’s house before dawn. He’d staked his horse on grass near town and walked. Palo Duro was a good place for ghosting, but a man on horseback had his hands full staying low enough. There were trees to be found, though they were sparse. A man on foot could slither along on his belly through cracks in the ground, duck behind clumps of juniper, scale the red rocks, and study the lay of the land. Luke’s time playing with the Indian children had taught him a lot of tricks.
    He’d spent the morning getting an idea as to how many cattle Greer ran and how many men he had on the payroll, and whether those men were cattlemen or gunmen. Luke considered how to thin the herd of hired hands on Greer’s property and decided to watch a bit longer before he chose a plan of action. The wrong approach could get him shot.
    Luke could see the sentries standing on the high ground by the narrow canyon that led to his pa’s house. Pa had chosen that spot to build because there were Indians in the area back when they’d settled there. He’d wanted aplace he could defend. Now Greer was using his pa’s savvy against Luke.
    Looking down a long, sweeping slope at the riders, Luke’s eyes narrowed on the older of the two men. Even from a hundred yards away, he recognized Dodger Neville. The man had been old when Luke was a kid and a good friend of Pa’s. But he was riding for Greer now. The horse had a Diamond G brand. Which meant Dodger worked for the enemy. Luke figured that made Dodger a man not to be trusted.
    The younger of the two riders pointed at a divide in the trail, and they rode toward it.
    Luke watched them and, knowing his land, walked a rugged trail that threaded between two soaring mesas that would give him a view of the two men at a point farther