The only thing she found of interest at this moment was the person for whom Armando set his trap. Dared she hope it was for Kale? Perhaps not, but she knew she’d better lay plans for that possibility. If Kale was alive, if Armando had set a trap for him, then she would need a very clear head indeed. If Kale took the swatch of her chemise from that limb, she’d have to keep Armando from shooting him.
When they reached a point beneath the boulder Ellie had seen from the opposite bank, she recognized it instantly: the ancient staircase to the cave where Kale found Benjamin’s buckle.
She should have expected as much. Stopping abruptly, Costello ordered her to climb. She steeled herself. Desperately she tried to force her brain to work.
Finally, at his repeated prodding, she removed her boots, placing them close to the wall of the narrow ledge. Kale would find them and know where to look for her.
Her stomach tumbled at the thought of him finding her body. Costello nudged her roughly with the barrel of his rifle.
She began the climb, only to be hampered repeatedly by the hem of her riding skirt. The rocks were warm with the heat of day. Dirt clung to her sweaty palms; her mouth felt cottony and parched. Her nose itched, and she ached to rub it. She was alive. Soon she would feel nothing.
Suddenly, as she felt for a grip on the nearly smooth stone, her fingers slipped. Her heart lurched, as if it had been struck by a falling boulder. She had to get to the top alive. Kale’s life depended on it.
Costello caught her leg with an iron clasp and heaved her back toward the cliff, where her flailing hand found a hold.
“I told you not to fall!” he thundered.
Beneath the anger in his voice, fear trembled; she recognized it immediately. If she fell she would knock him off the side of the cliff. Her mind buzzed with the possibility of doing just that, but the fall would kill them both, and she was suddenly struck by how desperately she wanted to live.
Reaching the ledge some fifty feet above the river, she heaved her body up. She considered trying to push him off the cliff before he could gain the top, but he still held her leg in a tight grip, and she knew he could jerk her off balance before she could dislodge him. She dragged herself, pulling him along, to a place of safety and bided her time.
Immediately upon gaining the ledge, Costello let go of her leg and took cover behind the boulder, his rifle trained on the distant trees. After a time he took out his field glasses and surveyed the area. Suddenly he threw them down and jumped from behind the cover of the boulder. He stared intently into the line of trees.
“It’s gone!” he cursed. “He took my bait and—” He stepped toward the ledge and peered intently at the bank across the river, and Ellie found her chance.
Stealthily but quickly she moved toward him. One push and he would be gone forever.
Arms outstretched, hands open wide, she started for him. One step…one more. Her hands found his back. She lunged forward. She pushed, then pushed again.
He was much faster than she imagined he’d be. Wrenching himself to the side, he grabbed for a hold on the boulder to his left. When his body twisted away from her, she grasped after it with clawing fingers.
“Demon!” she cried. “Monstrous demon!”
Flesh gave way beneath her nails as she raked her fingers down his face. She pulled at his hair, tearing loose a handful. He struggled to get away. She sank her teeth deep into his arm, tasting blood. He howled, flinging her from him.
Her legs flew out from under her, and she screamed as she landed inches from the precipice, teetering on the edge. Rocks clattered to the riverbank fifty feet below.
She struggled to regain her footing. Pain seared up her right leg when she moved it. Pain followed by panic.
Costello could finish her off with one swift shove. Bracing herself against the expected move, she managed to roll away from the edge of the bluff.
She glanced around for Costello and discovered him hovering behind the boulder, frantically searching the opposite shore.
The tiny flicker of hope in her heart leapt into flame at the fear she saw in Armando Costello’s eyes. If someone really was across the river in those trees, as he seemed to think, there was hope.
“Help me! Please! Up here! Help!”
Costello lunged for her. He clapped a hand over her mouth. His eyes shone like black coals.
“I ought to kill you now and get it over with!” He jerked her arm. “Get up, whore!”
“I can’t. I think my leg is broken.”
He pulled her by the arm then, dragging her back inside the cave. She could see he was agitated.
“Who is following us?” she asked. “You confessed to killing Kale. Who else would bother?” She made no effort to conceal her contempt. She thought only to get his mind off her and onto his plan again.
He had dragged her to the rear of the cave, near the point where Kale had found Benjamin’s belt buckle. At her contemptuous tone of voice, he kicked her in the side. She flinched. The pain from her ankle made her dizzy and perspiration beaded her forehead.
“Fool!” he retorted. “I didn’t personally kill Jarrett. Abe and Martin were supposed to do it for me—for a sum, of course. Now I fear I shouldn’t have trusted those disreputable men. Who but Jarrett would have taken your scrap of lace?”
Who, indeed? she wondered, still holding herself back from complete hopefulness. As Kale had told her weeks ago, this thing was far from over.
Without warning, Costello unsheathed his knife and moved toward her slowly, his eyes alive with hatred. A wave of nausea swept over her; she fought to clear her head. If someone really was out there, he wouldn’t chance a shot. But she knew he would not hesitate to use his blade, which she had watched him hone to a fearsome edge.
When she spoke again, she didn’t recognize her own voice; it sounded hollow, distant, as if it belonged to a stranger. “Someone heard my cries,” she told him. “If you kill me, you’ll never get away. Whoever took that piece of lace will find my body, and they’ll know. They’ll hunt you down. You’ll never get your treasure.”
He stopped. His eyes flashed and he spat his contempt in her face.
She suppressed a shudder. “Kale Jarrett will kill you. If he’s alive, he’ll avenge my death—and Benjamin’s. He and his entire family will come after you. You’ll never live to see your treasure.”
Costello fingered the Bowie knife while pinning her to the stone floor with his eyes. She held her breath, too exhausted to continue. What more could she say? If she had not convinced him of the foolhardiness of killing her, more words would do no good.
Finally he spoke. “You have not talked yourself out of death, puta, only into a respite. While I am gone you may contemplate the pleasures that await you when I return from killing Jarrett.”
His smile froze in place; his eyes laughed at her terror. He poised the blade at the base of her throat. “Pleasures which will end with your death.”
She lay still, the pain in her ankle dulled by the violent beating of her heart. Surely Kale could hear her heart, she thought. If indeed he was alive and not the figment of this madman’s imagination.
Costello tied her hands and then her feet, causing excruciating pain in her ankle.
“He will kill you,” she mumbled. “Kale will kill you.” But she knew that Kale could well be lying dead back in Summer Valley—or in the canyon.
With a slash of his blade, Costello cut a strip of fabric from the front of her bodice and gagged her with it.
“You had better hope not, puta. Then no one would find your body.”
She watched him take cover behind the boulder and carefully search the area below before he descended from the cave.
Kale would find her. If he was alive, he would know exactly where to look.
Kale Jarrett adjusted the angle of his hat against the unrelenting sun. Ahead of him the hills rolled forward in waves of faded green and gold. Everything in sight seemed to be dusted with a thin coating of windblown silt.
He drew up at a creek and watered the bay. Travel was easier now; he was making good time. But he knew Costello was, too.
Before leaving the creek, Kale took out his field glasses and studied his back trail. Still no sign of the Circle R outfit. He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of them since the encounter back in the canyon, and that worried him.
He moved out, headed due north. The bullet wound in his thigh throbbed with every hoofbeat. Before breaking camp this morning, he had cleaned and dressed the wound again, wrapping the bandage extra tight to staunch any bleeding the trip might bring on.
His head wound was healing nicely, so after dabbing it with a measure of mesquite gum, he left the bandage off. He figured he was beginning to resemble a war casualty and he hadn’t even reached the battlefield yet. The wound stood to heal faster in the open air, anyhow.
His hands were stiff and sore, but they were beginning to heal, too. He clenched and unclenched his fists, trying to work the stiffness out before he caught up with Costello.
Five miles gave way to four, then to three. Up ahead a line of trees followed the river. As he approached them, Kale sized up the situation and decided it might be unhealthy to ride directly up to the bank of the river. So he picketed his horse and snaked his way into a position from where he could see the river and the opposite bank of cliffs.
The wide curve he remembered in the Concho was directly in front of him. Across from it he recognized the fractured wall of limestone which was riveted with caves.
He examined the tracks he followed through his glasses. They led to the edge of the river, then disappeared. The opposite bank was mostly rock, with the cliffs rising straight up from the bank. He saw no sign of Costello’s horses over there, but he hadn’t expected to. Likely they crossed upriver, where Ellie had suggested last time.
Still using his glasses, he scanned the cliffs, searching for the cave where he and Ellie had climbed, searching for any sign of movement. He saw nothing, yet assumed nothing.
Next, he inspected the cliffs with assault in mind. He could either climb up the front of the bluff, as would be expected. Or he could go over the top, an exercise that would be hazardous under the best conditions, and very foolish with a shot-up leg. A natural break appeared to cut the cliffs into two sections. That, too, was an option.
He saw it then, and his heart danced a frantic jig—a scrap of white lace blowing not ten feet ahead of him. It was Ellie’s. He’d bank on that. It came from one of her petticoats or something. Had she left it as a sign?
The instant he moved toward it, he stopped himself. Though he didn’t have much book learning, he was sure as shootin’ educated in the ways of cunning men.
Was Costello even now across the river, his rifle trained on that spot? The thought sent a shudder up Kale’s spine. But a second thought warned him that if Ellie had left it as a sign for him, she needed to be reassured that he’d arrived.
Then she might find the strength to hold out until he could get to her. That is, if he could retrieve the swatch of cloth without getting himself shot.
One jump and he had it clutched tightly in his damp palm. But even as he moved deeper into the trees, he was followed by a premonition so black it must surely have been born in the bowels of hell.
He shook his head to clear it, and after a quick glance to his back trail he mounted and rode east, careful to keep good coverage between himself and the river.
A mile upstream he found the crossing he and Ellie had used. One end of the piece of lace fluttered from his breast pocket where he’d stuffed it, reminding him of the need to hurry. If Ellie had left it, she probably knew he was following her.
And if Costello had left it…the thought struck Kale with an additional fear. If Armando Costello had taken a piece of lace from Ellie’s underclothes, what else had the bastard done to her?
With the greatest of difficulty, he chased these notions from his mind and turned his thoughts toward a cold and desperate plan of action. He must save Ellie from this madman.
He rode north, then cut back west. He must act quickly and carefully. If Costello saw him first, Ellie’s life wouldn’t be worth two hoots and a holler. Nor would his own.
Holt and Saint followed Newt’s lead across Brady Creek. From there they struck out west, skirted Kickapoo Creek, and found themselves in a rolling prairieland of knee-deep buffalo grass.
Wildlife abounded. Had they been hunting camp meat, their choice would have been anything from ground squirrel to white-tailed deer to buffalo.
But they weren’t out to bring home the bacon. At least, not in any ordinary sense, Newt thought. That five hundred dollars Matt Rainey had waiting for him and Saint would buy a fair-sized side of bacon, though.
At the Concho River they drew up and let the horses water. Saint got down and started to loosen his cinch, but Newt stopped him.
“No need to rest the horses. We’re only a few miles upstream from the cliffs. They’ll get plenty of rest and grazing while we tend to business.”
Saint started to balk at his air of authority, then thought better. The sooner they got this matter settled, the sooner he’d be shut of Holt Rainey.
“We cross here,” Newt continued. “That way they don’t hear us. Sound carries across water farther than a body would think.”
“The sort of thing Kale Jarrett’s likely listening for,” Saint added.
“Kale Jarrett,” Holt hissed. “I’m plumb fed up with the feats of that mighty warrior. When I get through with Jarrett, you can stuff what’s left of him in an ant hole.”
Saint sneered. “I’m plumb fed up with something, too. You want to buy chances on what it is?”
Holt turned in his saddle. “You’d better run first chance you get, Saint, ’cause when I finish with Jarrett, I’m comin’ after you.”
Saint grinned. “I’ll be waiting.”
Newt leveled his Colt at the two men. “Enough! I’ll have no more bickering until this job is done. After that the two of you can kill each other, for all I care. Now get a move on.”
They crossed the river and kept north for almost a mile, then Newt led them back east.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” he advised. “I figure to be right about this layout, but in case I’m not, we’ll have to scatter quicker’n quail to find cover on this prairie.” He dismounted. “We lead the horses from here.”
Newt Boswell did not enjoy the role of leader. By nature a loner, he had assured Matt Rainey he could handle this Jarrett affair by himself, but the old man brought in Saint, anyhow. Now, to top things off, he was saddled with the boss’s trigger-happy brother. Considering it all, he told himself, he’d be damned lucky to get away from here with all the hair on his head. That is, unless he could shake his two sidekicks before the shindig commenced, which was exactly what he determined to do.
No one had ever considered Newt good enough. Now, at last, he had a chance to show them. A notch on his gun for Kale Jarrett would be proof to any man that Newt Boswell measured up.
Soon as he got shut of Saint and Holt, he’d take Jarrett himself. Sometimes events in life seemed to fall into a man’s lap, like drawing the right card in a poker hand. That had never happened to Newt before, but this time he knew he held the right card, an ace for sure.
Newt Boswell had been born at Fort Concho to the west of here, the product of an army officer and a whore from the riverfront. He’d run away many times during his early years, and it was the painted cliffs that he always ran to.
There were few people around these parts then, and none to remember the kid who hid out in the hills because he was too ashamed to face folks at the base.
It rankled Newt now and again. Sometimes, when he had a gut full of tequila, he even admitted to hitting the outlaw trail because of a whorin’ mother. Mostly, he didn’t think about the officer father who never spoke to him on the street.
Newt’s drinking was confined to barrooms, however. He never drank on a job, and he never let emotions get in his
way. That was the trouble with Saint, he told himself—Saint had a trigger-temper. That’s why Newt preferred to work alone.
The men approached the spring with caution. A mockingbird sang from a pecan limb that swayed in the afternoon breeze. Clear water bubbled up through the rocks and fell into a secluded pond. Maidenhair fern, curled and brown from cool autumn nights, grew from holes in the moss-covered limestone.
At Newt’s motion they picketed the horses on a good grazing patch back in the trees.
“You boys get a drink and a bite to eat. No fire. I know this area, so I’ll scout around a mite.”
“What’d you mean, you’ll scout around?” Holt challenged. “Jarrett belongs to me. It’s my party.”
Newt restrained his boss’s brother. “Take it easy. I won’t spoil your fun. I just want to scout around. Sit tight.”
After Newt left them alone, Saint and Holt stared in different directions for a while. Neither dared risk a confrontation this close to the showdown.
Then Saint stepped back into the trees to relieve himself. When he returned, Holt Rainey was gone. Tracks showed where he’d hightailed it around the backside of the cliffs.
Good riddance, Saint thought…I hope he gets hisself shot. He moved back against a wall of rocks, settling his saddlegun across his knees.
At that instant a spine-chilling scream rent the natural silence. A woman’s scream. And she sounded to be in a heap of trouble. Saint drew deeper into the shadows and wished this place were more protected. Should he stay here as Newt said, or should he move out? That damn fool kid might’ve drawn them right to him here, and yet…
Decisions had always come hard for the man called Saint.
A mile or so north of the river, Kale cut back west. The terrain was rockier now and rising as he climbed to the top of the cliffs. He was worried. He was also tired and irritable—his leg pained him, his hands were stiff, and the wire stubble of his beard scratched. But mostly he was worried.
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