Kisses With KC (Cowboys and Angels Book 11)
Jo Noelle
1
KC Murray
KC Murray ducked into the shadows behind the wagon parked halfway in the grove that bordered a small clearing. The full moon was high in the sky, providing light for surveillance. Three men, the Holman brothers, sat in the camp he watched—all three with bounties on their heads for robbing freight lines in southern Colorado and the northern part of the New Mexico Territory. Alive—they had to be delivered alive.
He suspected that their posters would be updated soon, based on their last two heists. A man had been killed when they stole the military guns. And in this last one, they’d killed two men in the process of stealing dynamite that had been headed to nearby mining operations. KC considered that the outlaws were lucky he’d found them now. He’d take them alive—if he could. They were getting bolder and more ruthless.
He’d followed them for the two previous nights and knew they would soon set their watch and go to sleep. A stray donkey brayed in the distance as KC tucked back into the shadows and waited.
He had hoped that the watches would be assigned as they had been before. Marco, the tallest brother, limped out to the perimeter first while the other two spread their bedrolls on opposite sides of the dwindling campfire. KC would wait until they were sound asleep before moving in.
He planned to take out the first, wake the second after the first was secured, then repeat the process with the third. The placement of their wagon would facilitate his plan. He’d cinch up each man and toss him in the back with their loot before taking the next man out. Energy coursed through him, but repeating his plan—imagining the steps in his mind—held him back from acting too soon.
Half an hour later, one man slept on his back, his mouth slack open, while the other man snored loudly. KC leaned onto the balls of his feet. He’d move as soon as Marco came nearer. The man took three steps closer and looked out into the darkened landscape, then shuffled toward KC again.
He was just about where KC needed him. Four more steps…three more steps . . . two more steps…
Suddenly, a donkey brayed again—louder and much closer this time. The tall outlaw froze, kneelt down, and drew his gun not six feet from where KC crouched. KC didn’t move a muscle. Even shifting his weight could snap a twig, and the thief could put a bullet clean through him just from nerves.
KC decided to act now before that darned animal ruined his plan. He was mostly sure the other two men were still sound asleep. On the far side of the outlaw, the bushes rustled, and a small donkey moseyed into camp, drawing Marco’s attention. At least that had helped instead of hurt.
In a sudden move, KC leaped behind Marco, struck him on the side of the head with the butt of his rifle, and felled him to the ground—out cold. He stuffed his mouth with a bandana and tied him up. Then he drug him through the dirt and wrestled him into the wagon bed.
The donkey seemed to be in no hurry to move on and nibbled on clumps of grass in camp. She didn’t appear to have had a pack or bridle on her in the recent past, as her straggly fur was matted all over with mud.
KC continued to the next man, Evan Holman. Witnesses identified this brother as one of the killers. The other shooter was the third brother.
Several more pieces of rope hung from KC’s belt. First, he tied one around the outlaw’s feet to keep him from getting up once KC began to gag him. He had to work quickly to subdue the man without waking the third brother. Then more rope was used to secure Evan before storing him in the wagon, too.
As KC turned around, he heard a rifle cock. He froze in place, looking down the barrel of a loaded, probably stolen, military rifle.
“Untie my brothers,” the third man spat out. “And don’t do nothing stupid.” This was the man the other brothers had called Itchy, whose name on the wanted poster was Kip Holman.
KC nodded. Even if he untied the men, he doubted that they’d just let him walk out of camp. What was he going to do? The donkey continued to munch on grass just to his right. When KC moved toward the wagon, the donkey brayed and kicked her feet into the air, clubbing the outlaw in the jaw. Itchy dropped to the dirt—out cold, too. It took a minute, but KC hogtied him up tight. He lined the men up in the bed of the wagon and placed boxes of dynamite in rows between them.
“MayBelle? MayBelle?” called a voice from the stand of trees.
At the edge of the clearing, an old man stepped out into the clearing. “You needed our help, and we got here just in time. You remember that now,” he said to KC.
The donkey brayed and swung her head from side to side.
“Stop your caterwalin’,” the man said to the donkey. “I’ll get you cleaned up. I knowed you was mad about the mud, but it was your disguise.” He began moving his hand above the animal’s neck and back.
KC blinked, then squinted and blinked again. The mud disappeared, and a shiny black coat took the place of the mangy fur.
“I weren’t sure at all if we was going to get my MayBelle here in time.” The man stroked the donkey’s nose. “Was we, girl?”
It seemed to KC that the donkey shook her head in reply.
Then the man continued. “’Course, you’d of died, KC, and that don’t look good for no guardian angel.” He picked up silver reins and looped them across the back of the animal.