Sweet Autumn Surrender

by Vivian Vaughan

  Glancing around the shelter, she tried to formulate a plan. Remnants of a rock midden, used by ancient people to cook meat and to warm a shelter during cold months, stood in the center of the space. If she could get loose—when she got loose—she would take one of those soot-blackened rocks, she would hide beside the entrance, and she would attack him from the rear as he entered the shelter.

  Quickly she looked around again, this time for something to use as a crutch. If worse came to worst, she could prop herself against the wall of the cave. The force of the blow would knock her down, but she would have to fell him with one strike anyway. Armando Costello would hardly give her a second chance.

  She rested in her struggle with the ropes, giving in for a moment to the pain in her ankle. Perspiration covered her cold body. She fought to keep her stomach calm and her head from swimming.

  By sheer willpower she forced her mind away from the fate Costello had planned for her. Several times his crude threat returned to taunt her, but she shoved it behind a wall in her mind and worked harder. She must keep hope in her heart; she must beat Costello and see him punished.

  The gunshot came to her muffled by layers of limestone, but she recognized it nonetheless. Her heart stood still, waiting. Then two more shots echoed almost in unison, as from some distant place.

  She struggled frantically with the ropes, but now they seemed even tighter than before, and her fingers could do no good. Her hands had already begun to swell.

  Panic swept over her; her trembling turned to shivering, then to deep, soul-wrenching sobs that wracked her body and blackened her mind. Gradually unconsciousness swept her thoughts away.

  Sometime later she opened her eyes to find a man standing above her.

  “That damned gambler thought he could hide you out up here all for hisself, but I found you, anyhow.” Holt Rainey’s voice carried a note of triumph. He dangled her boots in front of her.

  She squeezed her eyes tight in a futile effort to close out that smirking face. He continued.

  “Ain’t seen hide nor hair of that gambler, but Saint done got your man.”

  She gasped. Could he mean Kale?

  “An’ I got you. Now, ain’t you the lucky one?” He looked at her more closely and laughed. “Seems that gambler done started my work for me. All trussed and scored. I ain’t never had no woman who was all tied up before.”

  She knew what he wanted and that he would take it. What could she do to defend herself? And what difference did it make now?

  If Holt left her alive, Armando would surely return later and kill her. But she knew what he would do first. She’d seen it in his eyes. His calling her “whore” had stopped hurting days ago.

  Tears flowed down her cheeks and spilled to the floor. Why could they not let her die with a measure of dignity?

  The echo of two gunshots filled the silent cave.

  Holt froze momentarily, then relaxed, apparently having satisfied his warped mind as to the only explanation.

  “Well, little lady, sounds like Newt just saved you from the gambler.” He leaned forward as he spoke, reaching for her shoulders.

  When he touched her, she rolled into his legs, throwing him off balance. He toppled over her, landing on all fours, his body straddling hers.

  “Whoa, hoss,” he called, “that ain’t the way we play this game.” He crawled around, trying to position himself over her body while she rocked back and forth beneath him. “You hold still now, so we can get on with our business. They tell me you looked mighty fetchin’ in ol’ Poppy’s dress. Wonder, do you know the same tricks to satisfy my appetite?” The way he accentuated the word appetite caused Ellie’s skin to crawl.

  His knees on either side of her hips, he began to fumble with his own clothing. “I’m gonna give you a ride like that dirt farmer never dreamed of.”

  They heard the noise outside at the same time—boots scraping against rock, climbing up the wall.

  Holt paused in his attempts to undress. “That’s ol’ Newt. He’ll want a piece of this action hisself. He…” His words faded; a puzzled look crossed his face. “How’d you reckon he knew where to find me?”

  The footsteps came closer.

  Holt stared at Ellie’s boots lying on the cave floor where he had dropped them. He found this place because her boots were on the ledge. How in hell—? His eyes darted to the mouth of the cave, then back to Ellie.

  “Sit tight a minute, darlin’.” He struggled up. Tugging at his breeches, he crossed the room and flattened himself against the wall, muttering out loud.

  “I’ll make sure, that’s all. Holt Rainey ain’t no fool. I’ll make sure.”

  Kale took a long look at the rock wall in front of him. This had to be the place. But the boots were gone. He passed it twice looking for Ellie’s boots, thinking perhaps some other path resembled the one to the cave where he and Ellie had gone that day.

  But there was no other place, so he started to climb the cliff, knowing there was only half a chance she was still at the top. Costello had probably gotten her away from here when the shooting heated up. It would take but a minute to look, though, and Kale knew he couldn’t strike out on their trail without being sure.

  He climbed as quietly as possible, anticipating a shot in the back, or even one from above. If Costello was still around, Kale could find himself walking into a hornets’ nest.

  The whereabouts of Holt Rainey worried him. He’d seen no sign of the man since early afternoon, and he was sure Rainey was smarting from the effects of their last encounter. A man with wounded pride could be as mean as an injured grizzly, given the chance.

  At the top of the cliff, Kale pulled himself up and took a moment to catch his breath and flex his fingers. With Newt’s saddlegun slung across his back, he unhooked the leather thong on his six-shooter.

  Then he stepped around the corner into the cave, and Holt Rainey was waiting for him.

  On occasion Kale had given thought to the end of his life—his last moment on earth. And it had always been violent, going out in a blaze of bullets, or whatever those dime novels called it. But in his dreams, the flying bullets had been his own as well as the other fellow’s. The other man paid the price along with him.

  So here it was, here stood Holt Rainey, ready and able to blow him to kingdom come. Only that’s where any resemblance to daydreams stopped.

  This time was real—for life or death. And this time Kale found himself hog-tied.

  His glance about the cave had taken in Ellie, and he could see she was in trouble. Blind fury surged through him at the sight of her bound and gagged like that. Her wide eyes full of fear, she wormed herself away from behind Holt. Thank God she was alive, but he knew she wouldn’t be for long if he cut loose and started shooting.

  Slivers of limestone and ricocheting bullets could cut her to doll rags, when he had come to save her life. He’d sooner face Costello’s Bowie knife in these close quarters.

  Holt’s light-colored shirt, the front part running down his middle between the edges of his black coat, glared at Kale against the darkened backdrop of the cave. The man stood straight, fearless, legs braced, arms dangling by his side, loose and ready.

  “What took you so long?” Holt demanded.

  “Had a couple of matters to take care of,” Kale answered, staring at the streak of light down the front of Rainey’s body. Three buttons down. Two inches to the left. Holt spoke again.

  “Only a couple?” At Ellie’s scooting around, Holt sneered. He pierced Kale with cool gray eyes as he addressed her. “Hold on a bit, darlin’, while I finish off this dirt farmer. Then I’ll come tickle your fanny.”

  Concentrate, Kale cautioned himself. Go for the body. Let the body absorb the bullets. That way there would be no rock splinters.

  “Two down, two to go,” Kale replied. He stood still, relaxed, wanting to blow the blustering self-styled cowman to kingdom come, waiting for Holt to make the first move. His arms felt light, his head clear, but his heart was clench
ed as tight as a fighter’s fist.

  Holt sneered. “Ain’t no lowdown dirt farmer who calls hisself a gunfighter gonna outdraw a Texas cowman.”

  Holt’s shirt glowed in the near darkness. Kale knew he offered a perfect target, standing in the mouth of the cave as he did, silhouetted against the sky.

  “A lowdown varmint who calls himself a Texas cowman,” Kale challenged quietly. His words seemed somehow detached from his body.

  Then Holt moved and Kale came to life.

  He felt the Colt buck in his hand. As soon as he shot, he lunged to the right, going down on one knee. His hat flew off. A bullet grazed his left cheek. Rock spit up in his face, throwing dust into his eyes.

  He heard choking, a moan, the thud of Holt’s body hitting the floor. Then nothing.

  Kale kicked away the man’s guns and rolled him over. His breathing had already stopped. Kale’s had just started.

  Then he was by Ellie’s side, holding her, soothing her. He felt her tears hot against his cheek. He fumbled with the knot behind her head, finally managing to remove the gag from her mouth.

  Her lips trembled. He covered them with his own. Tenderly. Urgently. Desperately. Then he kissed the tears from her cheeks, her eyes.

  “Ellie, Ellie…God, I was so afraid. So afraid.” He ran his fingers through her hair, clasped her head in his palms, pressed her face to his chest, to his beating heart, rejoicing in her life—not mourning her death.

  Or his. They were alive.

  Finally, he held her back to untie her hands. She sat limp, scarcely breathing. But her body trembled in his grasp. “Here.” Quickly he removed his shirt and slipped it over her shredded bodice. “One dirty shirt.”

  When he tried to untie the ropes on her legs, she winced and he stopped immediately. “What is it, honey?”

  “I think my leg is broken.”

  As gently as possible he finished untying the rope that bound her ankles together. Her flesh was extended, he could tell that by feel. “How did it happen?”

  “I fell trying to push Armando off the ledge,” she answered in a tired, listless voice.

  Drawing her near, he wrapped his arms around her in a protective fashion, as though to shield her from desperate memories. “Where is he?”

  She stiffened at the question. “I thought—the shots?”

  “Newt and Saint.”

  At his reply, she began to tremble. “I thought—”

  “Shhh…” He placed a finger on her parched lips, then kissed them softly. “I’ll find him.”

  “No,” she pleaded. “No. Please. He’ll kill you.”

  “The others didn’t,” he responded with a confidence he did not feel. Everyone’s luck ran out sometime. And he didn’t need a genie to tell him he had used up a bunch of his this afternoon. He prayed his winning streak would hold until he got Ellie home.

  Suddenly he was tired. Bone tired. Tired of shooting and being shot at. Tired of killing. He wished Costello would go away. Better yet, he wished the man had never existed.

  But that was not the case. He had a job to do. Ellie clung to him.

  “He said he would kill you, then he would come back and—” Her voice broke and her trembling increased. He knew the end of that sentence without another word being spoken.

  Drawing her close to him again, he spoke softly into her hair. “I’ll move you over there behind that boulder, where you can see anyone who climbs onto the ledge before he can see you.” He thumbed shells into the two pistols he had taken from Holt’s body and handed the guns to Ellie.

  “Will you use them?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll see to your leg when I return. And I’ll bring food and water. How does that sound?”

  She nodded again.

  Kale scooped her up gently in his arms and carried her to a spot behind the boulder, past Holt’s fallen body. “Keep your eyes on the ledge,” he told her. “Shoot as soon as you see a head.”

  He reloaded his own gun then and climbed down the cliff to find the last of their assailants. He hoped his luck held. For at least a few minutes more.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After leaving Ellie in the rock shelter, Armando Costello went directly to his horse. Their fight and his subsequent near-fall from the cliff had taken its toll. He was physically and emotionally drained.

  He drank long from his canteen, then poured the remaining water over his scratched face and torn shoulder.

  That whore! He never imagined she would try to harm him. But she had actually intended to kill him, to push him off the cliff. She would pay for that!

  First, however, he must find Kale Jarrett—find him and kill him. Costello’s thoughts were filled with bitterness. Why must he always fight so hard for what rightfully belonged to him?

  He sat in the shade and rolled himself a cigarette, trying to figure out a way to finagle Jarrett into a trap. He told himself he wasn’t afraid of the gunfighter. But no one was going to keep him from his treasure. He was too close this time.

  Besides, he would save valuable time by drawing Jarrett into a trap and taking him with his Bowie knife. Using his knife, the act could be accomplished with the speed of a bolt of lightning.

  Face to face there would be talking, and he recalled how well Jarrett had handled himself in such confrontations. Costello considered himself intellectually superior to most men, certainly to this unread gunfighter. Still, why take unnecessary chances?

  Armando Costello admitted to being less than proficient with handguns. The knife was his weapon. Letting his cigarette dangle from his lips, he unsheathed his Bowie knife and felt the edge reassuringly. He took pleasure in the fine, tempered steel, the highly polished brass handguard, the stock of carved walnut which felt as if it had been molded to his own hand.

  Costello grinned at the swath his blade had cut across Texas and Mexico. The graves were unnumbered in his mind; the method was not. Except in rare instances, the knife had entered the victims’ bodies between the shoulder blades.

  He would set a trap and take Jarrett with his blade. He wouldn’t give the gunfighter a chance to draw on him. Jarrett was a fair hand with a gun, he’d give him that, but little good it would do him this time.

  Another thing that bothered Costello about Jarrett was the gunfighter’s unlimited self-confidence. Costello shied away from men with too much self-confidence. Somehow, they always managed to undermine his own.

  Kale Jarrett was not afraid of the devil himself. Costello saw that the night they searched for the intruders who returned Benjamin’s horse to the ranch. Jarrett had showed so much enthusiasm then that Costello had feared Abe and Martin, whom he paid generously to bring the puddin’-foot to the ranch, would be unable to elude him.

  The gunshot shattered his thoughts and shredded his already frayed nerves. He jumped to his feet, ground out the cigarette with the toe of his boot, and looked around him in terror.

  That whore! She couldn’t have gotten a gun and killed herself. Of course not, she was tied. But Jarrett would hardly kill her, either.

  Two more shots rent the air—and Costello’s senses.

  Then he recalled the shooting back in the canyon. The Circle R men? He hadn’t realized the Raineys would go to such lengths to ensure their claim to Jarrett’s ranch.

  Did Matt and Holt Rainey know about the treasure? Were they even now taking it, while Costello was off on this fool’s journey.

  It hadn’t begun as a fool’s trip. He’d planned it well—he’d bring the woman here and kill her where nothing could link him to her death or Benjamin’s.

  But Abe and Martin were supposed to have taken care of Jarrett. They had failed, it seemed, and his plan began to unravel. Now, the Raineys were after his treasure!

  But wait. Were not the Circle R men after Jarrett and the woman, also? Why not let them have at each other? The woman was out of commission, and Jarrett was only one man among several. Certainly the Circle R outfit could take him.

  Why not leave Jarr
ett and the whore to them and head back to the ranch right now? That way he could retrieve his treasure before the Raineys located it.

  They could have the ranch and were welcome to it, but he’d be damned if they were going to touch that treasure.

  Armando Costello was considerably bolstered by the way things were shaping up…in his favor, just as he always knew they would.

  He saddled his horse and made his way around behind the cliffs. He’d find a place to cross the river farther north, where he could get away undetected.

  Coming out in the thicket beside the spring, he was startled to see three Circle R horses. He had supposed them to be behind him, nearer where he’d staked his own horses.

  A nagging thought took hold of Costello then—the idea that maybe he should hang around and be sure they killed Kale Jarrett. If that gunfighter got away from here, Costello knew he would dog his trail the rest of his life.

  So Costello got down and inspected the spring area. He found Saint lying facedown in the mud along the bank of the river. Turning the body over, he stared at the one bullethole in the man’s forehead; his mind struggled to sort out the message.

  He wiped his hands on the seat of his pants and looked anxiously toward the cliffs. He could not let the Raineys get his treasure, but neither could he afford to have Jarrett after him.

  That was crazy, he told himself. There were three Circle R horses, leaving two men out there gunning for Jarrett. The odds were two to one. One of those gunmen would get the gunfighter. Kale Jarrett was not invincible.

  But what if they didn’t? Costello shook his head to clear the fog. What was he thinking of? He had a plan, and he would use it. Those shots had momentarily confused him, but now he was back on track.

  Hadn’t he left Ellie’s boots where she’d dropped them at the base of the cliff for a purpose? As bait for Jarrett? He hurried along the bottom ledge to a niche he had chosen in his mind.

  It was a secluded place etched into the side of the cliff from where he could watch the pathway to the cave; it would afford him one perfect strike at Kale Jarrett’s back with his Bowie knife.