“If you count the hundred thousand in the bank, your share of what’s in the vault at the mine and what I offered you, you can walk away today with almost a half million dollars. Most women never see that kind of money in a lifetime. Men with families earn less than five hundred a year. If you spent four times that amount, you would have enough money to last two hundred and fifty years.”
Andrea laughed. “I’d still rather have a couple of million.”
Steve grinned, admiration sparkling in his blue yes. “You’re talking gross again,” he chided her.
“Am I?”
“Sure. Each year recovery expenses are mushrooming. Right now one of our biggest expenses is getting the silver out of Tombstone. Wells Fargo charges near a usurer’s rate to ship our cargo.”
“How do they get away with it?”
“Insurance. Road agents are taking a heavy toll on silver shipments. We’ve done everything we can to help. We pour silver in two-hundred-pound bars to discourage robberies. We ship at unspecified times. But nothing seems to work. We haven’t moved any silver for six weeks, and the robbers are getting so brazen they hit every stage that leaves town. We’re afraid their next move will be to ride into town and steal the silver right out of our vaults. Sheriff Johnny Behan doesn’t keep a tight rein on the criminal element.”
“Why doesn’t someone do something?” Andrea demanded.
“Russ Sloan, a friend of mine, is one of the owners of the Contention and the Tough Nut mines. He’s going to make a stab at taking his own silver out. If he makes it, we’ll all be trying it, probably.”
“This is more complicated than I expected.” Standing up, Andrea straightened her gown. “Now may I see the colt?”
The barn was a hundred feet southwest of the casa grande. The morning air was still crisp but warming quickly. From the trees in back of the house, birds sang noisily. A catwalk rimmed the inside walls of the fortress. The thick adobe enclosure had a walled platform at each corner. Even now men were on duty, watching.
“Do you keep men in those lookout posts all the time?”
“Geronimo is still on the warpath. And since Victorio was reportedly killed by Colonel Terrazas’s forces, the lesser chiefs, among them Nane, Chatto, and Loco, are raiding all up and down the Mexican border. They strike and run, hardly ever staying to fight once settlers get organized. Lightning raids that are over in a matter of minutes. Then they show up maybe a hundred miles away. Same strategy. Two thousand troops cover his whole territory. Cavalry patrols spend weeks on forced marches and never see an Indian. They’re like smoke. They disappear into wild canyons and mountain retreats. The Mescaleros are the worst. Outlaws for years, ever since Victorio left the reservation, they have an abiding hatred for whites.”
Smiling to herself, Andrea wondered if he was trying to legitimize that phony Indian attack with a little local color.
The colt and new mother shared a stall near the front barn door. Still shiny and wet looking, its coat roughed up from its mother’s ministrations, it walked stiffly, on brisk, spindly legs, but its breeding was already apparent in wide-set eyes, wide, deep lungs and sleek lines.
“He’s beautiful!” she cried.
Steve’s eyes were shining, too. “You know horses?”
“Some. I can tell good from bad. That goes for men, too,” she said, facing him. “You’re a good man, but you’re doing some cold things.”
Muscles moved under the smooth skin above his jawline.
“Really cold things,” she continued. “Like going along with that phony Indian attack yesterday and trying to buy me out today. You act is if I’m so repulsive you can’t bear to have me in your family.”
Steve shoved his hands into his pockets. She was right. But how the hell could he tell her that knowing she was his sister hadn’t kept him from having thoughts about her that were more than a mite improper? Shame kept him quiet.
“Well,” she demanded, eyes bright with unshed tears, “aren’t you even going to defend yourself?”
“No,” he said quietly.
A standoff. Frustration boiled within her.
A gunshot startled them both. Steve had already turned and was running toward the house as two more shots rang out.
“What?” she cried, running after him.
“Indians!” he yelled over his shoulder. He ran for the house and came out with a rifle. Men yelled and ran toward the gate. Andrea picked up her skirts and followed Steve. If this is another phony Indian attack, I’m going to kill him!
She had thought the compound deserted since the cowboys rode out after breakfast, but several men ran toward the wall with rifles in hand, yelling at each other. Women spilled out of the house.
Steve was the first to reach the lookout who had sounded the alarm. “Where?” he demanded, climbing up onto the platform. Panting with exertion, Andrea climbed up beside him.
About half a mile down the long gentle slope that led up to the compound, two groups of riders trailed dust comets. Grabbing the field glasses, Steve watched for several seconds.
“Open the gates!” he yelled.
Men rushed to comply. Slowly the heavy gates swung open.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, not trusting his motives.
“That small group in front is ours,” he said grimly, handing her the field glasses.
From this distance gunshots sounded like corn popping. Down the slope, six cowboys were being chased by a dozen Indians. One of the cowboys turned in the saddle and fired. An Indian fell from his pony. Two Indians appeared to have carbines, the rest arrows. One of the cowboys in the back of the pack began to sway in the saddle.
“Cover them!” Steve yelled. “Open fire!”
A hundred yards from the open gates, the injured rider’s horse slowed. Three Indians in the front of the pursuing pack quickly closed on him. Andrea recognized Johnny Brago riding at the front of the pack. Johnny slowed his horse and dropped back. He reached the swaying rider just as the man’s feet left the stirrups and he pitched forward.
Another few seconds and the Indians would be on top of them. “Cover them! Hit something, dammit!” Steve yelled, firing. Andrea craned her neck and tried to see.
Riders at the front of the pack pounded into the fortress, raising a dust cloud that almost blinded Andrea. Seventy-five yards from the front gate, Johnny dismounted, dragged the limp rider to his own horse, and tossed him over the horse’s haunches. There was no time to mount himself. Slapping the horse and sending it toward the gates, he turned to confront a knife-wielding Indian. A spear of sunlight gleamed off the blade as the Indian threw himself off his pony onto Johnny, knocked him down, and rolled on top of him.
Only seconds behind Andre, Tía ran from the house, climbed the ladder to the catwalk, and peered over the wall.
Johnny was surrounded. All around her, instead of firing to help him, men watched the struggle, held their fire lest they hit him, and aired their lungs with more than one string of cuss words. A puff of smoke indicated Johnny had fired. The Indian with the knife buckled forward and slumped into the grass, but three other Indians swarmed over Johnny.
Tía turned to Lindy Parker. “May I borrow your gun?”
Lindy smiled. “You know how to shoot it?”
“Yes!”
Lindy unsheathed his .44, handed it to her, and turned back to the wall to raise his rifle to his shoulder.
Less than twenty feet away, Johnny struggled with two Indians. The third stood and raised his lance over his head to plunge it into Johnny’s chest. Tía fired, and the Indian yelped and dropped the lance.
“I’ll be dad-gummed,” Lindy muttered. That little slip of a girl had shot the lance out of the brave’s hand. Five men had been waiting for an opening to help Johnny, and she had just eased in there the second the brave showed himself and done it.
Tía fired twice more, and the remaining attackers fell back and ran for their horses. Johnny ran for the gates, which closed after him with a thump that s
hook the wall. Rifles shots cracked. Indian ponies screamed and fell.
“Man the walls!” Steve yelled at the men who had ridden in. “They’re coming back!”
The next wave of Indians was greeted by a volley of rifle fire that added one more lean brown body to the count.
Johnny climbed up beside Tía, took her hand, and pulled her to a vantage point several yards from the nearest man.
“That was some good shooting.”
Tía smiled. “I’m surprised you noticed.”
“I always take time to notice when someone saves my hide. How come you did that?”
“They,” she said, gesturing at the riders on the wall, “were cussing a blue streak instead of shooting.”
Johnny laughed. “That probably saved my life. These fellas ain’t too handy with firearms. I was praying none of ’em forgot that and tried to pick off one of my opponents. They musta been kinda excited. They don’t generally try to bust any of the Lord’s commandments.”
“I heard some words a mule skinner would be proud to repeat.”
Johnny laughed. “You’re my good-luck charm. You stay right here beside me.”
Tía wanted to stay away from him until she figured out how she felt and what she wanted to do about Judy, but she could tell by the look in Johnny’s eyes that nothing short of the .44 in her hand was going to get him to give up his tomfoolery.
Johnny must have seen her answer in her eyes. He turned to add his rifle to the volley of gunfire. Another Indian fell. Tía sidestepped over, gave the heavy gun back to Lindy, and returned to stand near Johnny.
Finally the yipping braves pulled back. Johnny leaned back against the wall and looked at her intently. “You okay?” he asked. “You look pale.”
Excited by the fight, he looked cocky and handsome. His narrowed eyes seemed to see inside her. As if he knew how attractive he was with his shiny black hair and his healthy bronze skin, set off by a slash of black eyebrows and mustache.
“I’m right pleased you cared enough to save this ornery hide of mine,” he said, his voice husky.
“How could I not?” she asked irritably. “I don’t want anyone to be killed.”
“Nothing personal in it, huh?”
Tía shrugged.
“Would you cut that deck a little deeper for me?” His hand brushed her cheek and caused a strange weakness in her knees.
“No, I won’t,” she said, stepping away from him. Her foot slipped off the edge of the narrow catwalk. She clawed for the wall that somehow had gotten out of reach, and his left arm snaked out and caught her, stopping her sudden fall.
“If you’d just quit trying to get away from me,” he growled. Tossing the rifle up a little and catching it by the barrel, he eased it down beside him so he could hold her with two hands. “You’re lucky. You could have been hurt.”
He held her safe, but well away from the catwalk so she was at his mercy. “I’m used to being a sight luckier than this,” she said dryly. She tried to swing her self around so she could touch the catwalk, but he merely smiled and eased her over so he could hug her full against him. His heart pounded against her breast, confusing her.
Tía stopped struggling. Her hands on his chest tingled with awareness and feeling. Beneath his shirt, his skin felt damp, warm, and pulsing with life. Through narrowed, dark eyes, Johnny slanted a look at her. Heat flashed in his eyes and acted on Tía like a drug. Her mind forgot to function. She just hung there in his arms, her feet dangling, her body pressed hard against him.
Steve yelled, “Here they come again!”
Johnny’s mouth opened as if he were going to lower his head and kiss her. Beneath his mustache, his lips looked pink and soft. But slowly he swung her to his right until her feet touched the catwalk. He lowered her carefully into place.
“Get down,” he ordered, kneeling with her and pushing her head down until she was huddled into a ball at his feet. “Stay there. Don’t move.”
His hand on her head felt warm and masterful. Part of Tía wanted to do what he asked, but she was too curious. He stood up to raise his rifle, and she straightened, sidestepped out of his reach, and stuck her head up to see what was happening. The Indians were circling, yelling, and shooting guns and arrows. A dampness against her breast caused her to look down. A bright red stain wet the right shoulder of her gown.
Outside the walls, the Indians had begun to flee. Johnny lowered his rifle and turned to look at her. His dark eyes seemed to blaze. Then he saw the red stain on her gown and paled. His lips tightened into a hard line. Fear transformed his usually amiable countenance. “I told you to stay down. Now you’re hurt,” he growled hoarsely, angrily.
“You’re hurt!” she countered, pointing at his left sleeve where blood had soaked through his cut shirt.
Johnny looked down at his arm. The Indian must have gotten him with that knife. He remembered the sting of it. Relief that it hadn’t been Tía made his knees weak as water. “It’s only a scratch if I am.”
Nearby, Lindy Parker broke his rifle and reloaded. “Should we kill all of ’em, or do you want us to leave some for seed?” he asked.
“You musta finally hit something. You sound awful cocky there, Parker,” Johnny said, winking at Tía.
“Johnny!” Steve yelled.
“Yeah?” Johnny’s gaze never left Tía’s face. His dark eyes mesmerized her, kept her still and quiet and watchful.
“They’re pulling back. Think we can parley with ’em?”
Johnny nodded to Steve but spoke to Tía. “I don’t guess it’ll do any good to order you to stay down.”
Tía shook her head. “Guess not.”
Johnny sighed as if his burdens were near unbearable with her being so disobedient. “I’ll be back.”
He caught and mounted one of the horses ridden in and abandoned in all the excitement. Parley meant Johnny, who spoke a little Apache, had to ride out there alone with only a white cloth on a rifle. He rode slowly toward the braves, who had regrouped on the flat valley floor; Tía barely breathed.
A good two hundred yards down the slope, Johnny rode right up to the Indians. He sat his horse with his back to Tía, talking to them for what seemed like an eternity. Tía knew that if the riders on the wall hadn’t been able to hit anything before, they would be entirely useless now. Fear for Johnny turned her hands to ice.
At last Johnny turned and led two Indian ponies back up the gentle slope and into the compound without a shot being fired. Weak with relief, Tía listened to the warm sound of Johnny’s husky voice as he reported to Steve. “I was wrong. These aren’t Apaches. I shoulda known. If it was Chatto, he would’ve waited until dark to get his dead. Then they’da crept over the wall and killed anyone they could find, stolen anything they needed, and probably burned us out. These’re just hungry renegades from Bosque Redondo. They want flour, sugar, salt, a couple head of cattle, and the right to reclaim their dead and wounded.”
Steve yelled to the men beside the gate. “Get two packs for their ponies.” He turned to Johnny. “We’ll take it from here. Go have that wound dressed. You’re losing blood.”
“I’m okay,” Johnny said. “Where’s Grant?”
“That blasted horse of yours wouldn’t stop running. Slim is still chasing it.” Steve motioned to Tía. “Take him to the kitchen and get Carmen to help you dress that cut before he gets blood poisoning.”
Tía and Carmen converged on Johnny. Grinning, Johnny fell into step beside Tía.
“Does it hurt bad?” she asked, feeling foolish. Of course it hurt bad.
Johnny considered telling her about extreme suffering to see if she would care, but he resisted the urge. “I haven’t felt it yet. Check with me later. About nine o’clock tonight.”
Tía turned to Carmen, trotting along beside them, panting at the exertion. “He’s delirious already, Carmen. Do you have something for that?”
As if Johnny was one of her favorites, Carmen smiled at him until it looked like her face would split. “
Sí, señorita, castor oil. It is very good for all sorts of cowboy maladies.”
Chapter Sixteen
The wound was longer and deeper than Johnny had expected. Carmen held the bottle of spirits over the gash in his arm. “If you have a God, Señor Johnny, now is the time to ask him for strength.”
“Just pour. You can gloat later,” he muttered. Anything else he would have said was cut off by the sudden flash of pain. It felt as if a white-hot poker had been inserted into his flesh and held there. He concentrated on breathing as Carmen used her needle and thread to take eight stitches, then tied off the thread and poured fresh whiskey over his arm.
At the sight of his blood sizzling under the whiskey, a heartbeat of compassion throbbed inside Tía. Blackness started closing in on her from the periphery. She reached out to steady him or herself, she could not tell which.
A sweet, familiar voice jolted Tía.
“How touching!” Judy said from the parlor door, her voice taut.
Tía started to defend herself, but one man pulled open the outside door and two others carried in the rider who had fallen from his horse.
“Grant! What happened to Grant?” Judy cried, rushing forward to where they were laying him facedown on the table. An arrow protruded from his back. Johnny stood up and placed himself between Judy and Grant. He took both Judy and Tía by the arm and walked them forcibly out of the kitchen. Whiskey ran off his arm onto the floor.
“You’ll be better off if you don’t watch,” he said firmly. Judy tried to protest, but Johnny stepped back inside and closed the door in her face.
“Bully!” Judy glared at the closed door. When Johnny did not respond she turned away. She wasn’t sure she really wanted to watch whatever they would do to Grant. She’d heard terrible stories around the evening fireplace about how they poured gunpowder in an arrow wound and lit it. Shuddering, she turned and tried to concentrate on watching the activity between the house and the front gate, where men loaded supplies onto Indian ponies.
Tía walked over to the dining room window and peered inside. Carmen slipped a bandage around Johnny’s arm, and he waited patiently while she wound it around a few times and tied it.
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