by Sandra Brown
“Then to hell I shall go.” He laughed again as he shoved her away from him and shouted, “Let’s go,” to Kurt and Parker.
His words struck her like physical blows. The breath had literally been knocked out of her. She heard the shouts and thudding of horses’ hooves as a score of men mounted and rode out of the stableyard. She stood rooted to the spot, oblivious to everything except the constricting pain around her heart.
Carson came up behind her and touched her shoulder solicitously. “Jared’s a little keyed up, Lauren. He spouts off things he doesn’t really mean.”
His kindness penetrated the protective shell she had drawn around herself. It was strange, but she wasn’t humiliated or embarrassed that they had heard what Jared said to her. Her wounds went too deep to be bothered by superficial lacerations.
She felt only the desolate loss. They had shared something beautiful and the product of that sharing lay sleeping in her womb. She touched her stomach as if to reassure herself that his words hadn’t ripped the seed out of her body. Scalding tears rolled down her cheeks as she was ravaged by despair.
Passing Olivia on her way out of the room, she met the smug, triumphant face of her mother-in-law fully. Lauren wondered at the hate that so consumed her that she sought to destroy those she supposedly loved. Maria had once said that Olivia was a sad, lonely woman. Lauren thought she was most likely right. In spite of her aversion, she felt a moment of pity for Olivia. The woman was incapable of real love. Her destructive selfishness wouldn’t permit it.
Olivia must have perceived her thought, for her emerald eyes narrowed with loathing. Lauren knew then that she had scored a small victory over this domineering woman. That knowledge emboldened her as she swept past Olivia and went up the stairs.
* * *
The hours passed with interminable slowness. Once Rosa had finished clearing the dinner things away, a tangible silence settled over the house. Carson and Olivia sat in the office, she in her usual place behind the large desk, he in a nearby chair. They talked little.
Had Jared noticed the missing ammunition? Surely. It hadn’t stopped them. Had Pepe gotten away with his warning in time? The questions came at Lauren out of a dark void which provided no answers.
She lay on her bed wondering how she would survive this nightmare. Visions of Jared wounded and bleeding crowded those of him with the mocking sneer on his face, his eyes cold and hard, resembling those of his mother. Dimly she saw him tender and loving. But only dimly.
The pounding hooves were heard from far off, so quiet was the house. Lauren held her breath as she heard the single horse being reined in just outside the fence-enclosed yard. When she heard the rapid knocking on the front door, she rolled off her bed and fled to the top of the stairs where she could see Carson hurrying to open the door. Kurt Vandiver lunged into the hall.
“Jared’s been shot!”
Chapter 24
“It looks bad,” Kurt told the startled Carson. “Where is Lauren?” Just then he spotted her at the top of the stairs, gripping the bannister so hard her knuckles were as white as her face.
He stepped quickly to the bottom of the staircase and looked up at her. “Can you get into some riding clothes? He’s asking for you.”
She didn’t even answer him, but whirled away and ran toward her room.
Olivia was standing next to Carson when Kurt turned back to them. “The bastards were waiting for us. Somehow they were tipped off. There was a lot of shooting. I don’t know how many of our men were killed or wounded. None of the fires we planned really got started because of the damp weather. It’s raining now.”
“Are Jared’s wounds serious, Kurt?” Carson asked anxiously.
Kurt’s eyes darted to Olivia, then he answered slowly, “It’s hard to tell just yet, Carson. I thought his wife ought to be with him.”
Olivia’s features remained calm. She asked no unnecessary questions. Carson had always respected her stoicism in the face of trouble. He patted her arm reassuringly.
Lauren came racing down the stairs. She had donned one of her split riding skirts and boots, but left on the lace-trimmed shirtwaist she had been wearing. She had raided the bathroom for first-aid implements and stuffed them into a small cloth bag.
“I’m ready.” She hurried out the front door, never even glancing at the others.
Kurt glanced hastily at Olivia before he followed Lauren swiftly out the door. “I told your man in the stable to saddle up a horse. I’ll get it,” he called to her.
His stocky legs carried him quickly across the yard and he turned down the side of the house toward the stable. Lauren was unmindful of the rain that fell gently around her. She saw lightning flash and light up the sky to the west in the direction of Keypoint, but it was far away. She clasped her hands in front of her and prayed silently for the life of her husband. Don’t let him die. Please, God, don’t let him die.
She had changed her clothes with trembling fingers, shaken to the depths of her being at Kurt’s news. Judd brought the gelding around and offered to give her a boost up. She hesitated only an instant. Would it hurt the baby for her to ride? But she had to get to Jared. She mounted quickly.
“Where is he? Jared. Where did you take him?”
Kurt shouted over the crunching sound of the horses’ hooves as they sped down the lane, “He was shot up pretty bad. We took him to a cave one of the men knew about. I think they were going to try to fetch a doctor. They were afraid to move him anymore. He was bleeding pretty bad.”
Lauren clung to the reins and shut her eyes momentarily. Shot up pretty bad. What did that mean? Bleeding. Oh, God!
* * *
Carson never ceased to be amazed at Olivia’s composure. She sat with her eyes closed, her head leaning against the high back of the leather chair behind the desk. It had been an hour since Kurt had ridden in with the news of Jared’s injury and the terrible turn of events in Pueblo. Soon after that, Parker had arrived and stormed into the office in a rage.
“The whole goddam thing blew up in our faces. I tell you, they were like animals hiding in the buildings where we couldn’t even see to shoot them. They picked off our men one by one. They knew we were coming. They knew!”
“Parker, please calm down. There’s nothing we can do now.” Olivia’s voice was dispassionate. “In a way, we can turn it to our advantage. We can say that the degenerate citizens of Pueblo went on a shooting spree and shot a few cowboys who drifted into town after dark. We’ll think of something.”
“Well, it better be damned good. I’m getting tired of all of this muck.” The Teutonic features were congested and contorted.
“We’ll work it out, Parker,” Carson said with more assurance than he felt.
“You’d goddam better. I could call off this whole thing just like that.” He snapped his pink, sausage fingers loudly and then turned his bulky body and strode out the door.
Even after that altercation, Olivia had remained tranquil. Carson paced the rug in front of the desk as if hypnotized by the pattern woven into it.
Suddenly they heard hurried footsteps and jingling spurs coming across the porch and through the front door.
“Maybe that’s word of Jared,” Carson said hopefully and rushed into the hall. He was struck dumb.
Jared was striding purposefully toward the office. He wasn’t wounded at all. In fact, Carson had rarely seen him so exhilarated. Behind him was Rudy Mendez, his white teeth flashing against the dark complexion of his face, his black eyes dancing. Carson was shocked as always by their resemblance. Standing in the doorway but not coming into the house was Thorn, the taciturn Comanche who had been the boys’ childhood friend and their father’s before them.
“What—” Carson started before Jared interrupted him.
“Carson, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost,” Jared said heartily. “I believe you know my brother and Thorn.” Jared pushed past the flabbergasted man and tramped to the desk, confronting his mother.
“It didn�
��t work, Mother. Your friends from Austin ran off with their tails between their legs. It’s all over.”
Olivia had fastened her eyes on Rudy and her face had paled significantly. “What is he doing in my house?” she gasped. Her voice rose a note or two on the last words. Her agitation was apparent. “Get that bastard out of my sight.”
“Rudy is my brother,” Jared said levelly. “He stays in my house if I say so.” His eyes never wavered from her face, daring her to challenge him.
She looked at him closely then, the truth dawning on her. “It was you, wasn’t it? You were the traitor. You ruined everything for us.”
“No, Mother, I didn’t ruin anything. Hopefully, I helped to save a lot of property and lives.”
“You sound just like your father,” she spat. “Always so full of goodwill and nobility. You were against me all along. Don’t you see, Jared, that you’ve probably set us back for years by this insane high-mindedness?”
Jared shook his head. “No. No, I didn’t. We’ll get our railroad, but not through exploitation and violence. And without the help of Vandiver and his lot.” Jared turned to the stunned man standing behind him. “Carson, you see why I had to go against you, don’t you? We were being manipulated. I had to take matters in my own hands. I think I did what Ben would have done.”
Carson looked deflated and tired and old. He smiled kindly at the young men before him. They were both good men. Honorable. Strong. Ben’s sons. He was proud of them for their absent father, his best friend. “Yes, Jared, I think you did the right thing,” he said, clamping him on the shoulder. The two men stared long at each other. Finally the younger man turned away in embarrassed humility. It was an emotion completely new to him and he covered it quickly.
“Rudy, wait here just a minute. I’ll go tell Lauren the news and then we’ll bed you and Thorn down for the night. I know you’re both exhausted.” Jared was already headed for the door when Olivia halted him in mid-stride with her level, quiet words. “Lauren’s not here, Jared.”
For some reason, her tone and the calm manner in which she spoke set off an alarm buzzing in his head. A great foreboding squeezed his chest.
He turned back slowly and faced his mother. “Not here? Where is she?” His voice was low. Lethal.
“She’s with Kurt Vandiver. They left on horseback about an hour ago.”
“She wouldn’t go anywhere with Vandiver. What the hell are you talking about?” His anger was building.
Olivia smiled sweetly at her son. “Jared, have you forgotten your first impressions of Miss Lauren Holbrook? You thought she was a trollop, an adventuress. I think your hunch has proved to be correct.”
Carson butted in, sputtering, “Olivia, tell the boy why she left. Tell him!” He stared incredulously at the woman whom he had worshiped for over a score of years, as if he were now seeing her for the first time.
“This is none of your concern, Carson,” she declared sharply.
Jared faced Carson, his whole body tense. “Where is she?” he asked hoarsely.
“I don’t know, Jared,” Carson answered honestly, baffled by this twist of circumstances. “Kurt came in here hell-bent for leather about an hour ago. He said that you were hurt critically, and that Lauren should go with him. He hinted that if she didn’t, she might never again see you alive.” He left Jared and walked over to where Olivia sat with her hands folded on the desk. “You knew that Jared wasn’t hurt.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
Jared pushed Carson out of the way and spread his hands wide on the desk as he leaned over it, his face a few inches from his mother’s. “Why did you let her go off with that sonofabitch? Why, goddam you?” He slapped the desk with his palms and the sound exploded like a shot in the air already fraught with tension.
When she answered, it was with the same even tones she had used before. “Lauren has served her purpose. It was expedient for her to be a victim of tonight. That way, no one could blame us if anything went wrong. As it did.” She looked malevolently at Rudy. “Who could blame us if one of our own had been kidnapped and… hurt as a result of the fracas?”
Jared was trying hard to keep the coldness in his stomach from spreading to his entire body and freezing him on the spot. His teeth were clenched as he rasped, “Where did he take her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where?!” he screamed.
“I don’t know!” she screamed back.
Rudy hadn’t spoken once since entering the house. Now he grabbed Jared by the sleeve. “Come on. We’re wasting precious time here. Thorn can track them, but they’ve got an hour’s head start in the rain. We’d better hurry.”
Jared still stared at his mother, thinking all sorts of crude insults to fling at her. But she wasn’t worth it. She was defeated and she knew it. Bitter disappointment that this woman who had given him life could never give him love filled his lungs, drowning him. The innumerable times in his life he had been hurt and rejected by her flashed through his mind in kaleidoscopic fashion. All his efforts at attempting to please her had been scorned and for naught. He never quite met her expectations. That rejection had been the crux of his bitterness, his contempt, his anger at the world. If he wasn’t loved, then, by God, he wasn’t going to love anyone!
But it hadn’t worked. He had loved Ben. Yes. He admitted it now. He loved his father and had been devastated by his death. And in spite of Ben’s ill health, Jared was still haunted by the argument that had precipitated the final seizure. He had loved Ben. He loved Rudy and Gloria. And Maria. And he loved Lauren.
Lauren! It had only taken a few seconds for these soul-rending admissions to pass through his mind. Rudy’s hand was still on his arm. He gave his mother one last regretful look and then turned on his heels and fled the room.
“Thorn, we need to track two horses that left here an hour ago. Vandiver’s got my wife.” He shouted all of this as the three men dashed out to the yard and mounted their horses.
“We’ll have to hurry. The trail could be washed away soon,” Thorn said matter-of-factly as they picked up the faint trace of horseshoes impressed in the soft mud.
* * *
Lauren clung to the pommel of her saddle with stiff, cold fingers, trying to navigate her horse up the slippery, muddy incline. The rain that had started as a fine drizzle had now increased to a steady downpour. She had not taken the time to put on her hat after Kurt had informed them of Jared’s injury, nor had she put on a jacket or any kind of protective covering. The hard raindrops fell like lead balls on the top of her head. Her hair, even heavier with the weight of the rain in it, had pulled loose from its pins and hung down her back, making her neck ache. She was soaked through to the skin and shivered with cold.
Vivid flashes of lightning had spooked their horses several times and the thunder rolled over the plains and off the shallow hills like giant bowling balls striking a stone wall.
Cold, wet, and miserable as she was, one thought kept reverberating through her head like the thunder: Please, God, let Jared be alive.
It seemed to her that it was taking an inordinate amount of time to reach their destination. They had ridden off in the opposite direction from Pueblo and had been riding for what she calculated to be a couple of hours. But they may not have been riding anywhere near that long. Time had stood still for her when she heard that her husband’s life was in danger.
She questioned Kurt about Jared’s condition when the trail had widened enough to allow them to ride abreast. “Where did they take him, Kurt? We’ve come miles from Pueblo and you said they were afraid to let him travel too far.”
He avoided her eyes. “Well, one of the men knew about this cave. They wanted to get Jared away from the scene of the trouble for his own safety, so this cave seemed ideal. Not too many people know about it.”
His words didn’t make much sense to her, but she didn’t argue. She only wanted to get to Jared as quickly as possible.
She had been hearing a loud roaring for the pas
t several minutes, and when the sky was illuminated by a lightning flash, she saw that the river was about fifty feet ahead of them. The Rio Caballo, which was usually so placid even as it formed small rapids over the limestone that lined its bed, was raging and boiling out of its banks.
Kurt rode toward it and cursed loudly as he saw their predicament. “We have to cross it, Lauren,” he shouted over the roaring of the river and the crashes of thunder. In daylight, the prospect would have been grim, but in this darkness, with stinging rain in their faces, it seemed suicidal.
“Isn’t there another way?” Her throat hurt in the effort to make herself heard over the din. “The horses can’t swim this. Even if they could, look at all the debris.”
There were large trees, barrels, wagon wheels, lumber, and sundry other objects being carried by the swift, churning water. Lauren didn’t think they could make it to the other side without seriously injuring either themselves or their mounts.
“Do you want to get to Jared or not?” Kurt demanded, frustrated by her caution.
“They couldn’t have brought him this way and gotten him across the river with it flooded like this,” she argued.
“It’s been hours since they must have crossed it. I’m sure it didn’t flood until it started raining hard again.”
He was right and she knew it. With all the rainfall of the past few days, the possibility of a flash flood was great. When the new rain had begun to fall, the saturated ground at the top of the hills had refused to hold any more, causing it to funnel downstream into the river. It wouldn’t have taken long for the river to rise to these proportions.
She nodded at Kurt as she gripped the pommel more firmly.
“You go first, and I’ll be right behind you,” he shouted. “If the horse won’t swim, just try to ride the current until you get a chance to make it to the other side. Okay?”