Autumn Sage

by Genevieve Turner

  “Joaquin could not ask a woman who didn’t love him to follow him into the life he now leads. For that I am forever grateful.” In some ways that hurt worst of all: her gratitude that he had ended it. “He set me free when he could have held me to my duty. I should think that means more than love.”

  She had gone to visit him for the first time since the attack, her voice a raw scrape against her crushed throat and him… Well, he had been lucky to survive. But survival was all he’d been able to manage.

  Joaquin’s handsome face had been twisted by his sufferings into something darkly unfamiliar.

  “They’re sending me to the sanatorium,” he’d told her, his eyes dull and his entire self racked with pain.

  “For how long?” she’d rasped.

  “Forever.” Before she could protest, he’d gone on. “Isabel, we don’t love one another. At least not deeply.”

  He’d been correct. They cared for each other, wanted the same things from life, and got on well. It had seemed like a fine foundation for a marriage.

  “We have to end this.” His words had been flat, final.

  Still, she had protested. “I can’t leave you now—”

  A swipe of Joaquin’s hand had cut her off. “What shall we do? Put you in the room next to mine at the sanatorium?”

  “You don’t have to stay forever.” Each word had been painful, both in her throat and in her heart. “When we are well again, both of us, we can resume things.”

  “I will never be whole again. I’m a cripple, good for nothing but lying in this bed. I can’t ask you to follow me into this life. I couldn’t ask any woman to, but especially you. You want more and you deserve better.”

  She’d felt as if her chest were cracking open, cold air rushing in to fill the hollows. “What of what you deserve? To be alone, abandoned in that sanatorium?”

  “Deserving has nothing to do with it. How can you share a life with me, when it won’t even be a life?”

  “But—”

  “Please.” It was a rough bark. “Just go.”

  The defeat in his voice—that had finally convinced her. That and his turning away from her with a groan. She’d never seen him like that before.

  Voices had come from the next room. More townspeople, more and more, always wanting to hear the story, always prying, prying, prying. Wanting to see just how low Joaquin had been brought.

  How low they both had been brought.

  “Very well,” she’d said to the knot of his back. “If that is what you wish.”

  The raggedness of her words hadn’t been solely due to the wounds at her throat.

  She’d resolved to tell no one any more than that their engagement had ended. Let them think that she had ended it, that she was the heartless one. It was the least she could do for him, after the sacrifice he’d made to protect her, to keep her safe, the hole in his belly a permanent reminder of that sacrifice. What right had any of them to the details?

  But now there were few details in this sad, painful business that the marshal did not know.

  The marshal had heard every aching detail unflinchingly. The great bulk of him appeared as if it could take all the pain she had to give.

  He now picked up a dried pine needle from the ground, then idly flicked it into the fire.

  “I know nothing of love,” he said. “In fact, I try to know nothing of any deep emotion. It clouds the brain and makes my duties more difficult. I’ll simply have to take your word on the matter.”

  “You’re a liar.” The words tumbled from her mouth without thought, yet as they left, she knew they were true. His reserve was an impressive thing, nearly impregnable—but she could push him out of it. At times.

  Slowly, torturously, he turned his head toward her, and she sensed that a dark, dangerous thing within him was poised to leap at her. A most delicious thrill snaked through her, a thing that terrified and enthralled her all at once.

  “Whatever do you mean?” The words were low, all hint of mellowness gone. The deep rasp of it fit his brutish looks.

  She had no doubt the menace was quite real. Yet the fear she felt was somehow not real, more like the chilling shock felt when someone jumped out from a dark corner.

  She knew real fear, had felt it at McCade’s hands, and this was not it.

  She held his gaze. “I’ve seen you in the grip of a strong emotion twice. Once, when I was showing you the site of the attack. And now you’re in the grip of that same emotion. Considering we’ve known one another only two days, that’s a considerable number of times for you to be overcome.”

  To her surprise, he relaxed at that, his body unwinding. “I hope for you never to see me overcome by emotion,” he said mildly. But he kept his gaze averted. “In point of fact, I’m certain that will never happen, since I’ve made it a practice never to let emotion rule me.”

  She ought to agree with him—to tell him she also never let emotion rule her, to compliment him on his eminently sensible way of handling sentiment.

  But only one word sprang to her lips: “Why?”

  He stared into the fire for a time, his expression pensive, rather than impassive. She found she liked that look on him. Still quiet, still grave—but not so empty as the one he usually assumed.

  “When a man is ruled by emotion, he becomes no better than a beast.” He addressed the fire, and spoke in generalities, but she sensed something deeply personal lurking beneath.

  “Then it is well you exercise such impressive restraint,” she offered. “If more men followed such a philosophy, the innocents of the world would suffer less.”

  He didn’t answer. Simply kept gazing at the fire.

  Silence pressed upon them, sharp with chill and the piercing starlight. And out there, somewhere, McCade.

  If he were caught, that would not be the end. There was the trial—and if he was set free, he might come after her. She would never be free of the lurking specter of him then.

  “The trial is unlikely to be successful, isn’t it?” she asked.

  She could not convince herself it would be. She wanted to discuss it rationally, without sentiment—and the marshal was unlikely to offer her platitudes.

  He gave her a measured look. “I won’t lie—Edwin McCade will be a formidable opponent. But you have a stronger ally than you think—Judge Bannister.”

  She warned herself not to overreact. “I read the papers. I know exactly how Judge Bannister feels about our people. Why would he help me?”

  And why do you work for him?

  She didn’t ask, not wanting to distract him.

  “Judge Bannister has a special interest in the case. A personal one.”

  She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.

  “You can’t say what that is?” she demanded. “Don’t you think I ought to know, seeing that I’m trapped in the middle?”

  A muscle in his jaw ticked once, twice, and she sensed him struggling with something, weighing it behind those gray eyes. He flicked another pine needle into the fire.

  “McCade Senior owns a controlling interest in the Water Company of Los Angeles,” he said finally. “He wants to keep the water source for the city private. The city government wants to control it themselves.” He rattled that off rather reluctantly.

  “He sent you because of water rights?” She could almost believe it—water was a precious resource.

  “McCade also owns a controlling interest in the electric railway. More importantly, he owns the entire Santa Gertrudis valley. He runs water to that valley and a rail line, and he stands to make a great deal of money when he subdivides it.”

  “It’s about money?” Her mouth tasted as if she’d licked a coin.

  “No, power. With money comes power. He wants to sit in the governor’s mansion. Wealth—and seeding the Santa Gertrudis valley with his constituents—is a way to get there. He has dreams of being grander than even Stanford or Huntington.”

  “And the judge doesn’t want him to?”

 
; “It offends Judge Bannister’s sense of justice to have any one man be too far above his equals. No one should stand taller than he, you see.” He shrugged. “He also personally dislikes McCade. He’ll do everything he can to see Edwin McCade’s son brought low, to strike at the man himself. If this trial can’t be used to embarrass Edwin McCade, Judge Bannister will find some other means.”

  “For this, marshals are sent forth to do what should have been done regardless?” she mused.

  His gaze was intense, almost passionate. She felt the force of it right in the center of her chest, as if he had laid his hand there. “Understand, Señorita Moreno, those are not my reasons for hunting this man. Let them play politics in Los Angeles. I’m here now. I will find him and deliver him to the courts for justice.”

  He really did believe the courts would dispense justice. How could he work with a man like Judge Bannister and still believe that? She’d seen what happened to her people—their people—when they faced American justice.

  But the thought of this outlaw running free, ready to strike at any moment, made a leaden dread drip through her bones. The marshal might be certain he could capture this man, but capturing him wouldn’t bring an end to her nightmares.

  She’d begun to fear that nothing could.

  Chapter Six

  He was strangling her again.

  Only this time he wasn’t a man—he was a tentacled monster. When she pulled one of his arms free, another took its place to wrap around her throat, each one tighter than the last. They constricted until she saw stars, then gray.

  Until at last everything turned black.

  Isabel opened her eyes to darkness, her throat closing with panic. She sat up in her bedroll, her lungs burning with the speed of her breathing, her heart climbing up her rib cage.

  It was only a dream. He wasn’t here, didn’t have his hands at her throat. She repeated the words again and again, until her heart came back under her command and slowed its futile race to nowhere.

  She looked into the blackness surrounding her, the fire having dimmed to coals hours ago.

  He was out there, somewhere.

  Her entire body went cold, ice creeping under her scalp. She was ready for him. This time she would not miss. Because if he caught her again, it would mean her death.

  Your hands are still shaking. You missed last time because your hands were shaking.

  She curled her hands into fists. They would not shake. She would not allow it.

  “Can’t sleep?”

  The voice from the other side of the fire made her start, a whimper escaping her throat.

  “It’s only me,” the voice assured.

  “Marshal Spencer,” she breathed. “You’re awake.”

  His form slowly coalesced in the darkness as her eyes adjusted, revealing him perched across from her, some great beast come to warm by the fire as they slept.

  She blinked to clear her head. He was not a beast or a monster. The only monster was the one they were tracking.

  “Try to sleep,” he said softly.

  Oh Lord, she wanted to. She wanted to sleep as she once had, free of nightmares chasing her from dusk until dawn, to wake without her throat aching as though phantom hands had encircled it all night long.

  “Are you going to sit up all night?” she asked.

  “Mmm,” he answered. “I won’t allow anything to happen to you. Go to sleep.”

  His assurance was quite solid in the unreality of her half-awake, post-nightmare state. She lay back at his command, ordering her heart to slow and her jitters to still. The sky was heavy with stars and she began to pick out familiar constellations. She didn’t know many, but she could find the Dippers—and there was Orion.

  “You’re not sleeping.” A hint of gray annoyance crept into his voice.

  “How can you tell?” she demanded.

  “I can hear you thinking.”

  “One can’t hear a person’s thoughts.”

  He sighed. “You’ve a gift for attributing words to me I didn’t say. I don’t know what you are thinking, only that you are. The air fairly hums with it.”

  She smiled into the dark. “I have to be precise with you, don’t I?”

  “You don’t require precise handling?”

  She couldn’t stop smiling, although no one other than herself would consider such a thing a compliment.

  “Go to sleep, Señorita,” he urged.

  She did as he said.

  They had reached the second night’s camp. And were within sight of the ciénaga, although the twilight wasn’t quite enough to see it clearly.

  There was no sign of McCade.

  Isabel sighed and rubbed at her lower back. Riding down a steep trail for days at a time always set her back and legs to aching.

  The cattlemen of Cabrillo had constructed a corral and shelter here to function as a stop on their annual fall cattle drives. Even now, the herd was penned in the corral and everyone was busy preparing for nightfall, taking advantage of the twilight while it lasted.

  If McCade was somewhere on this road, she had only tonight and tomorrow to witness his capture. The marshal would continue to look for the outlaw—however long that might take—but she would return to Cabrillo. She couldn’t very well hunt with Marshal Spencer, even if she wanted to.

  Every step they’d taken closer to this spot had been a rivet in her spine, until she was nothing but anxious stiffness, clinging to her horse to keep from falling to the ground like a wooden dummy.

  Marshal Spencer had disappeared into the brush at times during the day, investigating likely hiding spots. At one point he’d found a pile of bullet casings that appeared recent, but nothing else. Each time he disappeared, she’d prayed that he would return with McCade—and that he himself would return whole and intact.

  She dreaded the thought of facing McCade again, the anticipation a heavy ball of poison in her belly. What would she do if she came face to face with him again? Would she spit in his eye? Would she want to shoot him again?

  Or worst of all, would she weep?

  She didn’t have to find out—the marshal returned empty-handed each time. And she only had to grapple with a mixture of disappointment and relief—disappointment that McCade hadn’t been found, and relief that the marshal returned safely.

  She rubbed her back with one hand and her temple with the other. Her spectacles dug into her ears, heavy on her face, and a headache beat a distant drum against her skull, coming closer and closer with each hit.

  If only she and Joaquin hadn’t gone for that drive. If only, if only, if only…

  “Is your back hurting?”

  She turned, letting her hands fall. Was he truly that quiet when he walked, or was she too distracted?

  The marshal was watching her with something quite like concern. Although if she took him at his word, he didn’t feel things such as concern.

  “A bit,” she allowed.

  His expression went much darker than mere concern. She swallowed hard and licked her lips, his eyes darting to her mouth to follow the path of her tongue.

  “Are you—are you leaving for the ciénaga?” she asked, the merest quiver threading through her voice.

  If McCade was there, he was not more than half a mile away. Perhaps closer if the noises of camp had lured him in, hoping to steal more food.

  If he’d seen her, was he waiting to grab her, instead of provisions? A shaking began in her shoulders, her hips, stealing throughout her limbs until—

  “Will you be all right here?” The doubt in his question had her snapping back to herself.

  She motioned to the people moving about the camp, catching Juan’s gaze as she did. “I’m hardly alone.”

  There were half a dozen men surrounding her—McCade was impulsive, but not stupid. Nothing could harm her here.

  “Of course not. How ridiculous of me.”

  Guilt pinched her at his words, although he’d said them as calmly, as unreproachfully, as he said everything else.<
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  He went to his saddlebag and prepared for war.

  At least it appeared that way. Most of the men of her acquaintance carried at most a rifle in a saddle holster, so to see the marshal check and load not one, but two rifles, holster two pistols at his hips, and slide a Bowie knife into his boot—well, it was quite unusual.

  Seeing a hard man ready to do violence on her behalf evoked a most interesting sensation in her bosom.

  Yes, that was what she would name that sensation. Interesting.

  He turned to her, the beginnings of a beard thick on his cheek, his body bristling with weapons—the epitome of the word dangerous. Her heart quailed at the sight of him.

  Oh, just let McCade try him. The outlaw would come out the loser, of that she was sure.

  “Stay in camp,” he warned, his voice low and thrilling.

  No need for the warning; if she stepped into the brush surrounding them, the paralytic fear would be upon her. It was a tickling in her joints, waiting to seize her should she leave the safety of camp.

  She wasn’t stupid—she wasn’t going anywhere.

  At her nod, he walked off into the dusk, and she watched him until he faded into the twilight. Even when she could no longer see him, she kept staring at the spot where he’d disappeared, her breathing shallow and her heart thudding.

  She was safe. She was protected. The marshal’s presence wasn’t necessary to ensure that.

  “Isabel?”

  She didn’t turn toward the voice at her elbow. “Yes, Franny?”

  “Did the marshal go to the ciénaga?”

  “He did.” She felt curiously light, as if her insides had disappeared.

  “Want me to sit with you?” Franny asked. “I expect you don’t want to watch the boys practice their roping.”

  Isabel didn’t, although it was clear Franny did. “Yes, please sit with me,” she said. She couldn’t be alone just now, no matter how it inconvenienced her sister.

  They settled side by side on a log by the campfire, a pot of beans smoking above it.