“You’re mad,” Lorena said.
“Mad with anger, mad with rage, whatever you want to call it. Yes, I agree. Now here’s what’s going to happen, and I apologize beforehand because I know it will be most unpleasant for you. You see Lum, standing there, grabbing his crotch? Yes, that’s right, dearie, look at him. Why, just seeing the fear in your eyes makes me shiver all over. It really does.”
“Let me go,” Lorena said. “I’ll say nothing of this.”
“Oh, that’s quite impossible at the moment. But be of good cheer, we do intend to send you back to Dromore. But alas, you won’t be the same person who left there this morning. Like me, you’ll be quite mad, but in a different way, you understand?”
Now Lorena was genuinely scared. “What are you going to do to me?”
“I’m not going to do anything to you, my dear, but Lum is,” Dora said. “He’s going to take the little princess into the dark woods and have his way with her until she’s quite mad.”
“You’re right about that, Dora,” Lum said. “I never had me a fine lady before, and I’m going to enjoy this one.”
“Bring her back here alive, Lum,” Dora said. “I don’t want you dragging her dead carcass behind your horse.”
“Oh, I’ll carry her, Dora,” Lum said. To Lorena he looked like a living, breathing monster from the worst kind of childhood nightmare.
Suddenly Dora looked bored. “Take her away, someplace far,” she said. “I don’t want to see or hear your damned rutting.” She stood. “Wait, strip that riding habit off her. I wish it for myself, and I don’t want it damaged. Oh, and her boots and that absolutely precious hat.”
Lorena screamed and struggled as Lum, being careful not to tear the riding habit, removed her clothes. When the woman was stripped to her underwear, Dora picked up the dress and hat.
“Go now, Lum,” she said, her voice lashing across the morning like a whip. “And don’t bring her back until she’s had a foretaste of hell.”
Lum grabbed Lorena by the wrist and dragged her away from the cave to his horse. He stepped into the saddle and effortlessly pulled the woman up in front of him.
“You and me is going to a place where we won’t be disturbed,” Lum said.
“Please,” Lorena said, “don’t do this. I have a baby at home, and he needs me.”
Hope fled from Lorena as Lum rode deeper into the foothills of the Santa Fe Mountains. She knew there would be no rescue, no escape, and she wondered if she could will herself to die—just close her eyes and let her soul flutter free of her body like a rising dove.
When the time came, she was determined to try. Lorena knew it was cowardice on her part, but then she’d never been brave. Even spiders scared her.
“My poor baby,” she said.
“Shut your damned trap,” Lum said.
And Lorena was surprised that she’d spoken aloud.
As they rode, Lum’s hands were all over her body. She shuddered, and Lum whispered, “Ready, girlie? Well, not much longer now.”
The man’s entire attention was centered on the woman’s body, the smell of her, her perfume as sweet as wildflowers.
When he saw the arroyo, Lum’s heart leaped in his chest. He’d found it, the ideal spot for his rustic boudoir. He swung his horse toward the opening, shielded from prying eyes by the branches of a wild oak.
For the first time in her life, Lorena knew true fear.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Sarah Elizabeth Walker, known in the past—when men called her anything—as Letdown Lizzie, rode out of the Pecos and onto the bank among the trees.
She saw the two men ride away with Lorena and Patrick, people who’d been kind to her, and suddenly she was adrift, without direction.
Her obvious choice was to head back to Dromore for help. But she was a poor rider and she’d have to make the trip at a walk, if she could even find the trail. She’d let Patrick do the leading and had paid little attention to landmarks. Besides, by the time she reached Dromore, Lorena and Patrick could be dead.
The man with the burned face had terrified her, and Sarah knew what Lorena’s fear must be because she was grappling with her own.
Then the realization came to her in a rush. She was now part of Dromore and all it stood for, and she could not be weak. The colonel would not expect her to turn and run and abandon Lorena and Patrick; none of the O’Briens would.
Fighting down the fear that curled in her stomach like a green snake, Sarah kneed her horse into the Pecos again. She patted the sorrel’s neck and said, “Easy now, horse. Don’t go too fast.”
Keeping to the shallows, Sarah rode in the direction taken by the kidnappers. She wished she’d someone with her, somebody wise like Luther Ironside, who’d say, “You’re doing the right thing, Sarah. I’d do the same.”
But Luther wasn’t there. There was only Sarah, and she was scared almost out of her mind. Then she remembered the Remington derringer that she’d bought a few years earlier. But it was in her room at Dromore, wrapped in an oily cloth in a dresser drawer. It was of no use to her here.
“Nice horse,” Sarah said, but only because she needed to hear the reassuring sound of her own voice.
Sarah was not a tracker. Her only relevant experience was to avoid stomping boots as she cut a trail across a crowded dance floor. But a horse with two people on its back leaves deep hoofprints, and the kidnappers had made no attempt to keep their destination a secret.
Sarah followed the trail as best she could, lost it a couple of times and had to cast around, riding back and forth, before she picked it up again.
She’d never been in this part of the country until now, a raw, untamed wilderness of pine forests, high rocky crags, and shadowed canyons. The sun was high in the sky and the day was hot, and dust settled on Sarah’s face and chafed her neck. In the distance the flats between the hills shimmered, waves of heat that crowded closer around her.
She removed her borrowed top hat with its pink chiffon band and wiped her forehead with a scrap of handkerchief. The cloth came away yellow with dust.
“Do you know this country, horse?” she said, patting the sorrel’s sweating neck. “No? Well, that makes two of us. Neither do I.”
Sarah followed the tracks again, easier now that she rode across grassy ground that was softer from the recent rains. After a few minutes she caught a down-home drift of wood smoke. At first Sarah thought she was imagining things, but then an errant breeze reassured her that she was correct. It was wood smoke, and the odor was strong enough to be close.
Now Sarah faced a dilemma. She realized the need to scout ahead on foot so she wouldn’t be seen from the kidnappers’ camp, if that were what she had discovered. But if she wanted to get back on the horse in a hurry, would he stand or shy away from her? Mounting and dismounting in a barn was one thing, doing the same thing in the middle of a vast wilderness where a horse might spook was quite another.
She had to take a chance that the sorrel was well trained enough to stand. He was a cow pony, Patrick had told her, and fairly mannered.
Well, she couldn’t sit and think about the pony’s demeanor all day.
Sarah lifted her leg over the sidesaddle’s top pommel, removed her left foot from the stirrup, and slid to the ground. The horse swung his head around to look at her, but apart from that he seemed disinterested.
“Nice horse,” Sarah said, relieved. She gathered up the reins, stepped into a stand of trees, and tied the horse to a juniper branch. “Stay,” she said, backing out of the trees. “Good horse.”
The sorrel tossed his head, the bit chiming, and ignored her.
Crouched low, Sarah took advantage of every scrap of cover as she followed the smoke smell. Her heart hammered in her ears, and fear tied her stomach in knots.
She was unarmed and had no idea what she’d do if this were indeed the outlaw camp. She’d once read a dime novel about a prairie girl who’d rescued her soldier beau from a band of Indians by creeping up on the bloodth
irsty savages’ camp and untying his bonds.
It was a thought, Sarah decided, something she could try. And right now it was all she had.
But she was about to discover that the reality of what she faced was much more terrifying than anything even Mr. Buntline could imagine.
Sarah’s riding habit was a dark green color that helped her blend in with the landscape. The silk top hat with its chiffon band she’d left behind with her horse.
Two paths led ahead of her, winding upward through ponderosa and scattered juniper. Between them rose a massive rock that looked like the prow of a steamship, its north side scabbed all over with yellow lichen. Here the smell of smoke was much stronger, and above the rise Sarah saw a veil of gray lift into the sky, straight as a string.
She took the nearer path and scrambled in the direction of the rock. With every step she smelled a growing stench, the cloying odor of something long dead.
And then, close and loud, the scream of a terrified woman . . . crying out for help, begging to be let go.
Sarah reached the base of the rock and looked over the rise. About fifty yards of meadow sloped gently away from her and ended in a grassy flat that stretched another hundred feet or so to an overhanging cliff face. Doubting her own senses, the woman took in the horrific tableau unfolding beneath her at a glance.
She recognized Dora DeClare, who stood near the entrance of a hollow in the rock, smiling, admiring Lorena’s damp riding habit. Her brother sat near the fire, his legs crossed in front of him like bent twigs. A man who had the stamp of Texas gunfighter all over him stepped out of the cave and said something to Dora that Sarah couldn’t hear. But what caught and held her attention was the burned man, his face as grotesque as a carnival mask, grinning as he dragged Lorena toward his horse.
In that single, horrific moment as her breath stifled in her throat, Sarah knew that she was in the presence of evil she could not comprehend or fight.
Her instinct was to run back down the path and keep running until she reached her horse. Let Colonel O’Brien deal with it. He was a man of wealth and power with strong sons and a small army of vaqueros . . . and she was . . . just a scared, two-dollar whore . . . a nobody.
Sarah’s body tensed as she prepared for headlong flight. Then Lorena screamed again, begged for mercy, her hands beating uselessly against the burned man’s chest, and Dora DeClare laughed at the spectacle . . . laughed!
There was little doubt in Sarah’s mind about the fate that awaited Lorena. The burned man was hulking and strong, and he’d use her hard, toss her around like a rag doll as his lust dictated.
Then she saw the man ride out, pawing at Lorena who was draped facedown across the pommel of his saddle. He headed north, in the direction of the Santa Fe Mountain foothills, and Sarah turned, hiked up her skirt, and ran down the path as though hounds were on her heels.
To Sarah’s relief, the sorrel stood while she mounted. She’d ride south, back along the canyon, then swing north again toward Dromore and tell the colonel what she’d seen.
By then of course, Lorena would be . . .
Sarah drew rein. She sat with her head bowed, her heart racing. No, she couldn’t tell the colonel what had happened . . . face the accusation in his eyes, the whispers and sidelong glances of the people who depended on Dromore for their livelihood and loved all that it stood for.
She’d have to take the coward’s way out—slink back to Georgetown, like the faithless whore she was.
It was the sorrel that settled things.
He turned smoothly and headed north, his head high, eyes on the trail. Sarah tried to rein him in, but the horse would have none of it. He tossed his head, fighting the bit, and walked on.
Later, looking back on it, Sarah thought she’d drawn strength from the horse. Or maybe it was a sign . . . from God, providence, whatever.
But if the sorrel was willing to go back, then so was she.
She let the horse have his head. Sarah’s experience with horses was limited, but she’d heard cowboys say that they were notional animals that didn’t always do what their riders wanted. She was willing to accept that the big red horse was just being ornery and that she wasn’t rider enough to correct him.
But he was headed in the right direction, and so was she. And that was all that mattered. The next time she saw Colonel O’Brien she would be able to look him in the eye . . . and suddenly that mattered to her very much.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Sarah followed the rim of Apache Canyon north. The smell of dust was in the air, and the sorrel seemed eager for the trail, eating up one mile, then another with a smooth, distance-eating stride.
The sun was merciless, soaking Sarah’s wool riding habit and streaking the sorrel’s flanks with sweat.
But the tracks of the burned man’s horse were fresher. She was gaining on him. Unbidden, the thought came into her head, Gee, I bet he’s real scared!
That mental image made her giggle uncontrollably—and she knew the sun and hammering heat were having an effect on her.
There was no breeze to help alleviate Sarah’s misery. The sun was a flaming ball in a molten sky, and around her the land spread still, as though too hot to make the effort to move. She saw a Gila monster lying inert on a rock, its sides pulsing, and without warning a covey of quail scattered from a mesquite bush, apparently startled by the nearness of the horse.
A canteen hung from the English sidesaddle’s leaping pommel by a canvas strap. Sarah drank, and then drank again. The water was warm but it slaked her thirst, and, for a few minutes at least, it helped against the worst effects of the heat.
Then, a ways ahead, she saw dust—just a wisp that hung in the air for a moment—but it soon vanished. Now Lorena and the burned man were not far ahead.
Sarah knew much was at stake and she must be careful. She eased back on the reins, and the sorrel responded, slowing his walk, the heat finally tiring him.
Crushed grass and the occasional track told Sarah where the burned man was headed. She followed his tracks over a low hill and then crossed a dry wash, her horse stepping around the white skeleton of a dead cottonwood. Ahead lay another grassy humpback, scarred by a narrow game trail. Dust still hung over the trail and was only now beginning to settle.
Cautiously, Sarah rode to the bottom of the rise and then slid from the saddle. Immediately, her knees buckled and forced her into a little dance to keep upright. Whether from tiredness or fear, Sarah pretended not to know. But the butterflies fluttering in her stomach assured her the latter was the case.
Stepping carefully, the girl took the game trail until she could just look over the rim. She was barely in time to see the rump of the burned man’s horse disappear into the narrow slot of an arroyo.
A hundred yards of grass, studded with juniper, piñon, and tangled stands of prickly pear cactus, separated Sarah from the arroyo. She didn’t dare take the horse, because a whinny or even a bit-jangling toss of the head could betray her. Turning, she glanced back at the sorrel. He was grazing peacefully in tree shade and showed no indication to wander away.
Now that she was close to the burned man again, Sarah felt the presence of evil, overwhelming, threatening to devour her. It tore out her heart and took her courage with it, leaving her to feel naked, weak, vulnerable, and, worst of all, alone. She swallowed hard, fighting down the urge to cut and run, and walked down the trail to the flat.
She felt an unfriendly breeze pushing at her, teasing her hair and slapping her skirt against her trembling legs. Telling her to get away from here.
Sarah kept walking. She stopped at the brush-choked entrance of the arroyo and looked around for a weapon, a rock, a tree branch . . . anything. She found nothing. From somewhere inside the arroyo Lorena screamed and kept on screaming. Sarah heard the burned man laugh, breathless from exertion, as though he was struggling with his victim.
Sarah had her riding crop, attached to her wrist by a leather strap. It was little enough, but it would have to do. She
stepped into the arroyo and was hit by a mailed fist of sound . . .
Lorena’s desperate screams.
After ten yards the arroyo narrowed to a few feet, and cactus tore viciously at Sarah’s skirt and arms. The dank air smelled damp, of rotten vegetation and squeaking things, and there was no light from the sun. After a while the walls opened, and the arroyo ended at a gray wall of rock. From high up water fell, splashing into a stone tank, and near there, the burned man, naked, lay on top of Lorena.
The man’s horse grazed on scant grass off to one side, and his clothes were scattered, obviously removed with much urgency. He’d carelessly thrown his gunbelt on top of a flat rock, and the Colt was halfway out of the holster.
Lorena struggled under the burned man, fighting back with all her woman’s strength. Finally he forced her legs apart and pushed the back of her thighs with his forearms, forcing her hips upward, her knees bent all the way to her naked breasts.
Sarah ran for the Colt and grabbed it out of the holster. The burned man’s horrendous face turned toward her, and his lipless mouth twisted in a snarl. “Get away from here,” he said. “This female is mine.”
“Get off her!” Sarah yelled. She held the revolver straight out in front of her, the muzzle shaking.
Lum rolled off Lorena. “Give me that gun,” he said, rising to his feet. “Give me the gun or I’ll tear you apart,” he said.
Sarah backed off a couple of steps. Her eyes were terrified, and the big Colt shook uncontrollably in her hands.
“Give me the gun,” Lum said again. “And I’ll let you go. I don’t want you, girlie; my business is with the O’Brien woman.”
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