"You'd be lucky to cut butter with this, boy."
Milt's glazed eyes focused on Ten, who was throwing the knife from hand to hand, flipping it end over end, testing the knife's balance with the expertise of someone thoroughly accustomed to using a knife as weapon.
"Other than the edge, it's a nice knife," Ten said after a few moments. "Really fine."
There was a brief blur of movement followed by the sound of steel grating through earth. Buried half the length of its blade, the knife gleamed only inches from Milt's shocked face. Ten removed his boot from Milt's wrist.
"Pull the knife out and put it back in your belt."
Milt reached slowly for the knife. For an instant as his fingers closed around the hilt, he thought of throwing the knife at the smaller, rain-soaked man who had humiliated him with such offhanded ease.
Watching with the clear-eyed patience of a predator, Ten waited to see how smart Milt was.
Slowly, reluctantly, Milt returned the knife to its sheath.
"You're learning, kid. Too bad. I was looking forward to watching you eat that knife." Ten bent down and dragged the younger man to his feet with a single powerful motion. "Now here's something else for you to learn. I've been hearing things about a busted-out gyrene pothunter who gets his kicks slapping around teachers whose only crime is wanting to camp in a national park."
For the first time since the fight had started, Milt was close enough to see Ten's eyes beneath the dripping brim of his cowboy hat. The younger man's face paled visibly.
"Hearing things like that makes me real impatient," Ten said matter-of-factly. "When I get impatient, I get clumsy, and when I get clumsy, I break things. My friends are the same way, and I've got friends all over the Four Corners. So if you know any other pothunting cowards, pass the word. Starting now, my friends and I will be damned clumsy. Understand?" Slowly Milt nodded.
Ten opened his hands and stepped back, his body both relaxed and perfectly balanced. "You're going to start thinking about this, and drinking, and pretty soon you'll be sure you can take me. So think on this. Next time you come after me, I'll strip you, pin a diaper on you, and walk you through town wearing a pink bonnet. Know something else? You won't have a mark on you, but you'll be marching double time just the same." Ten jerked his head toward the Rover. "Make sure I don't hear about you again, kid. I purely despise bullies."
Milt backed away from Ten and reached for the Rover's front door with more eagerness than grace. Ten watched. He was about to congratulate the two men in the Rover on their good sense in staying out of his way when he saw that the reason they had sidelined themselves wasn't good sense.
Diana had stepped down from the truck and was standing in the rain, sighting down a rifle she had braced across the hood of the truck.
7
With outward calm Diana watched the Range Rover slither and slide down the shale, retreating from September Canyon as quickly as the rain and rough terrain allowed.
"You can put it away now. They won't be back."
Ten's voice made Diana realize that she was still crouched over the rifle, sighting down its blue-steel barrel, her hands holding the weapon too tightly. She forced herself to take a deep breath and stand upright.
"May I?" Ten asked, holding out a hand for the rifle.
Diana gave the rifle to him and said faintly, "It will need cleaning. The rain is very…wet."
Ten didn't smile, simply nodded his head in agreement. "I'll take care of it."
"Thank you. It's been years since I cleaned a rifle. I've probably forgotten how."
"You sure didn't forget how to use one," Ten said as he checked the rifle over with a few swift movements. He noted approvingly that there was a round in the chamber. He removed the bullet and pocketed it. "Thanks."
Diana looked at him and blinked, trying to focus her thoughts.
"For aiming the rifle at them rather than at me," Ten explained, smiling slightly. "It's nice to know you think I'm one of the good guys."
"I-they-you didn't need me," she said, rubbing her hands together.
"Three against one? I needed all the help I could get."
Diana shook her head. "You could have made veal cutlets out of that pothunter before his friends could have taken a single step to stop you. Why didn't you?"
"Never did like veal cutlets," Ten said matter-of-factly, opening the truck door. "Get in, honey. It's wet out here."
"I'm serious," she said, climbing up into the dry cab. "Why did you hold back? You certainly didn't with Baker…did you?"
Ten went around the truck and got in behind the wheel. He sensed Diana's intent, watchful, rather wary eyes. Wondering if Diana were still afraid of him, Ten watched her from the corner of his eye as he began wiping down the rifle and shotgun. Despite the vague trembling of her hands and the paleness of her skin, he began to realize that she wasn't afraid of him; she was simply caught in the backlash of the adrenaline storm that had come from her brush with pothunters.
"Why?" Diana persisted, rubbing her arms as though she were cold.
"Baker is a brute who only understands brute force," Ten said finally. "If I had pulled my punches with him, he would have been back for more. That kid Milt was different. He's a swaggering bully. A coward. So I showed him what a candy ass he really is when it comes to fighting. He'll be a long time forgetting."
"Will he be back?"
"Doubt it." Ten turned around and locked the weapons back into the rack. "But if he does come back, he better pray Nevada isn't on guard."
"Nevada?"
"My kid brother. He would have gutted Milt and never looked back. Hard man, Nevada."
"And you aren't?"
Turning, looking at Diana over his shoulder, Ten smiled slowly. "Honey, haven't you figured it out yet? I'm so tenderhearted a butterfly can walk roughshod all over me."
It was the second time in as many minutes that Ten had called Diana "honey." She knew she should object to the implied intimacy. At the very least she shouldn't encourage him by laughing at the ludicrous image of a butterfly stomping all over Ten's muscular body. So she tried very hard not to laugh, failed, and finally gave into the need, knowing that it was a release for all the emotions seething just beneath her control.
Ten listened, sensing the complex currents of Diana's emotions. He reached for the door before he looked over at her and nodded once, as though agreeing with himself.
"You'll do, Diana Saxton. You'll do just fine."
"For what?" she asked, startled.
"For whatever you want. You've got guts, lady. You'd go to war over a carton of Anasazi artifacts. You stand up for what you believe in. That's too damned rare these days."
Ten was out of the truck and closing the door behind him before Diana could put into words her first thought: she hadn't stood in the rain with an unfamiliar rifle in her hands to save a few artifacts from pothunters. It had been Ten she was worried about, one man against three.
/ didn't need to worry. Ten is a one-man army. Cash was right. Someone taught Ten to play hardball. wonder who, and where, and what it cost…
The truck's door opened. Ten set the closed carton of artifacts on the seat next to Diana, then swung into the cab with a lithe motion. His masculine grace fascinated her, as did the fact that his rain-soaked shirt cling to every ridge and swell of muscle, emphasizing the width of his shoulders and the strength of his back. If he had wanted to, he could have overpowered her with terrible ease, for he was far stronger than Steve had been; and in the end Steve had been too strong for her.