"We didn't kill your pa, little girl," Jesse said softly. "We weren't there. Zeke Moreau had his own splinter group. You know that."

She gritted her teeth, thinking about Robert, trembling inwardly at the depth of the hate that seared her. She could have pulled the trigger. She would have happily maimed or wounded or killed any one of them. When she thought about Centralia…

Jesse knelt in front of her, speaking earnestly. "You're just seeing one side of it, you know. One side. They came in— the jayhawkers, the Red Legs—they came in and ripped us all up really bad, too, you know. We all got farms burned down or kin slain. It always did work two ways—"

"Two ways!" Shannon exclaimed. "Two ways!" She was choking. "I never heard of anything as bad as Centralia. Ever. In the town, unarmed men were stripped and shot down. And outside the town, the things you people did to the Union men shouldn't have been done to the lowest of creatures, much less human beings—"

"You obviously haven't seen much of the handiwork done by your friends, the Red Legs," the tall, dark man said dryly.

"You ain't gonna change her mind," Frank said from the ground.

The dark-haired man moved closer, a wary eye on the Colt. "My name is Justin Waller, Miss McCahy. And I was there, at Centralia—"

"Bastard!" Shannon hissed.

"Justin—" Jesse warned sharply, but Shannon already had the gun aimed straight between Justin Waller's eyes. She pulled the trigger.

And she heard the click of an empty chamber.

"Son of a bitch!" Justin swore. He reached for Shannon.

She couldn't escape him quickly enough and he dragged her to her feet. She screamed as he twisted her arm hard behind her back.

"Justin—" Jesse began.

"That bitch meant to kill me!"

"Don't hurt her. We don't know what we're doing with her yet."

"I know what I'm gonna do with her," Justin growled savagely. His free hand played over her throat and the rise of her breasts, which had been left bare when the Red Legs had ripped her shirt. The little pink flowers and white linen of her corset were absurdly delicate against the tattered fragments of the man's ranch shirt.

Shannon recoiled, kicking out desperately. Justin pulled harder upon her arm and she choked back another scream of pain. He pressed her to her knees. "Get me some rope, Jesse. I'm too damned tired to truly enjoy what I intend to do with this little beauty. And she can't be trusted an inch."

Jesse lifted a length of rope from his saddle pommel, but he stared at Justin contemplatively as he walked toward him. "We ain't decided about her yet, Justin."

"We ain't decided what?" Justin had his knee in Shannon's back as he looped the rope around her wrists.

She gritted her teeth against the pain.

"She's kin to Cole Slater," Jesse said softly. "And I never did cotton to the idea of rape and murder, Justin."

"You rode with Quantrill."

"Quantrill didn't murder women."

"All right, Jesse. All right. I ain't gonna murder her."

"You're right, you ain't. I'm in control here."

"War's over, Jesse."

"I'm still in control here, you understand that."

Justin jerked hard on the rope, then shoved Shannon flat on the ground. She tasted dirt as he grasped her ankles and began looping a knot around them.

"Maybe we oughta just let her go," one of the light-haired men said. "Hell, Justin, we ain't supposed to rape our own kind—"

"She ain't our own kind. And if we just let her go, she'll have the law down on us so fast our heads will spin. That is, if she doesn't get hold of another gun. She shot at me, you fools. She meant to kill me. And you all say what you want, she's going to pay for that."

He jerked hard on the last of his knots. He reached for Shannon's shoulders and dragged her face up close to his. "Bitch, when I wake up, we're going to have some real, real fun."

Shannon spit at him.

Swearing, he wiped his face and tossed her down hard beneath the tree. He stared at the four others, who were looking his way. "And you all can watch, join in or turn the other way, I just don't give a damn."

Shannon watched Jesse James set his jaw hard. "I'm in control here, Justin. We agreed. Don't you forget that."

Justin ignored Jesse and went to his horse. He loosened his saddle and pulled it off and threw it beneath the tree next to Shannon. He fumbled through his saddlebags for a canteen. Looking furiously at the other men, he walked down a grassy slope to the fresh-running spring water of a stream.

"Water," Frank James muttered, following Justin.

Jesse remained, staring at Shannon. She didn't know what he was thinking. "Lots of people lost in this war," he told her quietly. "Hell, ma'am, I do not like half the things I learned to do, but I doubt that I'll ever forget them. We all want to remember the weddings and the christenings and the flowers in the fields on a Sunday. Hell, I never really wanted to get so damned good at killing. I just did." He paused. "You shouldn'ta shot at Justin. It was a mistake."

"He's an animal. He was there—at Centralia. You heard him."

"You still shouldn't have tried to kill him. You got his temper up way high."

He turned away from her. Justin was back, drinking water from his canteen. It spilled over his face and trickled down his jaw. It reminded Shannon just how desperately thirsty she was. He stared at her, and she saw he knew of her thirst. He smiled and drank more deeply.

She wasn't going to beg. Not of a man like that.

Frank James was back by then, too. He was drinking from a wooden Confederate-issue canteen with his initials engraved into the wood. He looked at her, then knelt by her, lifting her head.

"Don't give her no water!" Justin said irritably. "I'll give it to her." He smiled, nudging at Shannon's rump with an evil leer. "If she's good, if she's real good, she'll get some water. You'll see, my friends. Old Justin knows how to take a Yankee shrew."

Frank ignored him, lifting Shannon's head, allowing a trickle of water to cool her face and seep into her mouth. She drank it thirstily.

"Frank!" Justin swore.

Frank told Justin what he should do with himself, and Justin jumped to his feet. Shannon watched the two men with interest, her heart thundering. If they would just rip each other to shreds…

Jesse, who was now leaning against the tree, paring off a bite of dried beef from a strip he'd taken from his saddlebags, spoke sarcastically. "That's good, you two. Real good. Kill each other. She's enjoying every minute of it."

Both men stopped. They stared at her.

"Let's all get some sleep," Jesse said. "You want her that bad, Justin, the girl's yours. But don't kill her. I ain't no murderer of women and children, and I ain't ever gonna be."

He stretched out on the ground, leaning his head upon his saddle. Frank swore and chose another tree.

The two light-haired men found their own shade, and Justin smiled as he settled down beside Shannon. She stared at him, her face against the earth, hating him. He laughed and reached out, slipping his arm around her, twisting her over and pulling her close against him. She squirmed and struggled, choking on the tears that threatened to stream down her face. "Bastard, I swear I'd just as soon die!" she hissed vehemently.

Justin laughed at her futile efforts. Tied hand and foot as she was, she wasn't going to do anything.

His hand hooked beneath her breasts as he pulled her against his chest and the curve of his body. His fingers played over her breasts and rested there. He whispered against her ear. "Just a few hours of sleep, honey. I apologize for being so exhausted. But just a little bit of sleep…I wouldn't want to disappoint you. I want to hear you scream and scream and scream…" Laughing again, he leaned his head back against his saddle, seeking sleep.

Shannon closed her eyes and set her teeth. She gave him time to fall asleep, then tried to edge away from him.

His hand tightened around her like a clamp. "Not on your life, my golden Yank. Not on your life." His fingers moved through her hair. Shannon held her breath, praying that he would stop.

He did. He dug into his saddlebags for another length of rope and grimly tied her wrists to his own. Shannon watched him in bitter silence. When he was done, he smiled and touched her cheek. "You're a beautiful Yank-lover, you know that?"

She ignored him. He lay down to sleep again, chuckling.

Shannon lay awake in misery until absolute exhaustion overwhelmed her. Despite her hunger and thirst and discomfort, she closed her eyes, and sleep claimed her.


To the best of Malachi's knowledge, there was no one on the lookout for the James boys.

But they were riding as if their lives depended on getting into the heart of Missouri just as fast as possible.

And they were hard to track. By the time he'd reached his bay and found Shannon's big black gelding, the raiders were already well ahead of him.

And they knew where they were going. Thank God they had turned southward, deeper into Missouri. It was land he knew. If he hadn't been accustomed to the terrain, he'd never have managed to follow them. They cut a course right through forest lands, knowing unerringly where they could take shortcuts and pick up roads again and disappear back into the forests again.

By midmorning he realized that they were following the course of a small stream. Malachi stuck with it.

He was exhausted. His leg was aching, and he was afraid that the fever might be searing through him again. An hour's worth of sleep just might make it a bit better…