When the Splendor Falls

by Laurie McBain

  “Well, I don’t know who the devil they are, but I figure they don’t have much to say about what goes on at Royal Rivers. And Neil does as he damn well pleases,” Gil said, beginning to unload the bundles piled high on the packhorse. “The usual, Pedro. Beans and flour, and plenty of coffee. Lupe also sent plenty of salsa, and hot the way you like. Said it was the only way you could eat your own cooking. And she even prepared lunch for you,” he said, glancing down in surprise at the collie, thinking he’d growled, then he laughed, for it had been his own stomach.

  “That Lupe,” Pedro said with a wheezing laugh as he gratefully accepted the tightly wrapped packet Leigh handed to him from her saddlebag.

  “We’ll get ours later, Leigh,” Gil called over his shoulder, knowing Pedro would be embarrassed he might cause offense if he ate in the company of Neil’s beautiful, patrician wife, and an inglesa, even though he knew Leigh wouldn’t mind. Handing several packs to Pedro, and taking the bulk of the load onto his own young shoulders, he started toward the crudely built hut that had somehow managed to survive countless winter blizzards.

  “Everything all right up here, Pedro?” Gil asked, glancing around the shepherd’s campsite, where he stayed only occasionally, having to follow his herd cross-country as they grazed fresh pastureland each day until they returned to their settled range or bed-ground each night. “Soldado and the other dogs seem a bit nervous,” Gil remarked as he noticed the collie circling the herd again, pausing now and again beside a couple of slightly larger black-and-brown shepherds, as if they were listening for marauding coyotes or wolves.

  “Oh, sí, but last night, we have the big trouble with the wolves. They come down from high on the mountain, ’cause they know we got the little ones now and they like to make Soldado awfully angry, ’specially when they steal one of his little lambs,” he explained. “But I shot one of them thievin’ devils,” he added with his almost toothless grin as he pointed toward his rifle propped against the side of the hut, and the gray carcass of a wolf lying nearby. “They don’t come back too quickly. It’s the coyote Soldado don’t like, ’cause they too much the coward to get caught like the brave wolf.”

  “Did you lose any lambs?” Gil asked, setting down the bundles by the door to the hut.

  “Sí,” Pedro said sadly. “And they got two ewes that wandered off to graze. Muy loco! It was midnight. They eat all day long—now they’re eaten. And the little ones have no madre. One followed his madre into the brush and…” Pedro said, throwing up his hands in helplessness to explain more succinctly what had been the fate of the poor lamb.

  “Think the wolves are still around?” Gil asked, eyeing the silver gray carcass worriedly, his gaze moving to search the copse of pine, where too many shadows seemed to deepen before his very eyes. “Soldado acts like he knows they’re out there.”

  “Sí, but we be ready for them this time. Ol’ Soldado, I think he’s been eating chile peppers, or…there’re Apache around. Never seen him so jumpy, ’ceptin’ when they been sneakin’ around in the rocks. Soldado hates the Apache. They eat dog,” Pedro said, frowning as he decided to keep his rifle closer at hand.

  Gil looked over at Leigh, whose eyes had widened in growing dismay. Meeting her worried glance, Gil winked, for no one believed half of what Pedro said anymore. He remembered mostly the old days. Although, Gil thought, the beginnings of a frown forming on his brow, the Apache were always raiding isolated mines and ranches, Cochise never having given up seeking vengeance for his overwhelming defeat at Apache Pass. But he was hiding out in the Chiricahua Mountains most of the time, and the old Apache warrior chief Mangas Coloradas had been killed a couple of years earlier, Gil thought with a return of confidence. And last year Colonel Kit Carson and his troops had fought the Kiowas at Adobe Walls, but now that the Civil War was over, there would be more troops stationed in the territories, and the way Gil figured it, the Comanche were a problem for the Texans since they seemed to do most of their raiding across the High Plains, their war trail cutting across the heart of Texas from the Pecos River to the Red.

  It was shortly after noon when they bade farewell to the old pastor, who stood waving to them, Soldado by his side, watching until they disappeared from view. Their path carried them along a narrow trail winding down the far side of the highland meadow, and in the opposite direction from Royal Rivers.

  Gil was taking her to Riovado.

  “I don’t know if I ought to do this, Leigh,” Gil said over his shoulder an hour later, the fringe on his buckskin jacket stirring slightly in the breeze. “It’s later than I thought, and I’ve only been along this trail a couple of times. I haven’t even been up to Riovado since Neil left. Father doesn’t like any of us to come here—except Neil, of course, but it’s his land.”

  “Why doesn’t Nathaniel want you to come here?”

  “Well, actually, he’s forbidden it, now that Neil’s away,” Gil admitted a trifle sheepishly.

  Leigh was indignant, urging Capitaine closer as she followed Gil and Jicama single file along the trail. “You should have told me, Gil! I wouldn’t have asked you to bring me here otherwise. I knew Nathaniel would refuse to bring me. And I understand why. This is where he lived when his first wife died, and where Neil and his sister were kidnapped. But I didn’t think he’d mind you bringing me.”

  Gil shrugged. “He thinks it’s a bad place. He thinks it should be called Malvado instead of Riovado because it is an evil place. But I don’t care,” Gil added defiantly. “I’m almost a man now, and I can make up my own mind. You have a right to see Riovado,” he said, lightly touching his heels to Jicama’s sides and sending the dark bay more quickly along the narrow, rocky path.

  Leigh glanced around nervously, noticing for the first time how low the sun had dropped toward the distant mountains, and how much deeper a gold the lengthening shadows were, and the air was no longer as warm.

  “How far is Riovado, Gil?” Leigh asked, glancing around at the forested slopes that rose around them, the gilded crest of a cloud beginning to form above the hills in the distance and as she watched the cotton-like mounds grew higher, darkening ominously. She wasn’t surprised when she heard the thunder.

  Gil squinted at the sun. “Too far, I think, for us to make it there and back by sundown, Leigh. I’m sorry,” he said, risking a glance back at her, his own disappointment greatest because he’d wanted to please her. But when she nodded her agreement, her smile coming easily, his spirits lifted and he squared his shoulders, glad he hadn’t had to find the canyon that led to Riovado, because he wasn’t certain he remembered exactly where it was, and he’d have hated to have gotten lost up there with nightfall coming, and then he’d have to explain to his father where they’d spent the night. Not that he was too worried about that, because if they’d reached Riovado, they could always have stayed in the cabin.

  “I promise we’ll come another day, all right, Leigh?” he asked as they turned their horses around and headed back along the trail.

  “That’s a promise then,” Leigh agreed, glancing up as a hawk’s shadow passed overhead. Shivering slightly, she decided she was just as glad they’d turned back.

  “We’ll stop and water our horses just the other side of this grove of cottonwoods, where we had lunch earlier. We’re almost back on the trail now. Pedro’s meadow is atop that ridge, but we’re going to head across the clearing toward those trees and come out on the trail lower down,” Gil told her as they entered the shade of the thicket, slowing their mounts down to a walk as they threaded their way through the tall, waving grasses and tangled undergrowth, the gentle murmuring of a meadow brook coming from just beyond.

  “What was that?” Leigh asked, pulling up on the reins just as she reached the edge of the woods.

  “What?”

  “That! Didn’t you hear it?” she asked, turning around slightly as she looked around, her saddle creaking beneath her.

  “Probably a prairie dog or ground squirrel.”

  “No, it sou
nded like a lamb,” Leigh said, climbing down and looping Capitaine’s reins over a branch.

  “Better be careful, Leigh. It could be a skunk, or a bear cub, and if it is, then its mother isn’t far away,” Gil warned as he watched Leigh walk carefully toward the nearest tree, and the thick brambles at its base.

  Suddenly she knelt down, peering through the leafy growth. “Oh, look, Gil! It’s a newborn lamb. Poor thing,” Leigh crooned, reaching in to pick up the tiny, frightened creature, its baaing growing louder out of fear of the unknown.

  “It’s caught on a thorn and can’t get loose,” Leigh called back to him.

  Gil sighed in resignation as he dismounted, not bothering to tie Jicama, who was trained to stay in place. Gil squatted down beside her, looking through the leaves at the big-eyed lamb. “Never known critters that can get themselves into so much trouble,” Gil muttered beneath his breath as he pulled out his knife, nonetheless glad that Leigh had heard the pitiful thing.

  “One of the ewes that wandered off from camp is probably this little fellow’s mother. It would have just stood here waiting, and either died or been killed by wolves or coyotes. We’ll have to take it back to Royal Rivers with us. We don’t have time to go back up the mountain, and even if we did I doubt we could find another ewe to feed it,” Gil said, his knife having sliced through the thorn that held the lamb captive, and lifting the shaking creature in his arms, he placed it well away from the brambles.

  Before either Leigh or Gil knew what had happened, the lamb had hopped off, just escaping the arms that reached out to stop its flight.

  “Damn!” Gil said in exasperation as Leigh hurried after it, unable to corner it as it shot out into the clearing, its spindly legs carrying it right toward the babbling water of the brook, obviously mistaking it for its lost mother. “Probably drown,” Gil said, Leigh’s laughter drifting to him as he joined in the merry chase along the grassy bank of the brook.

  They’d chased the animal some distance from the grove before they finally caught it, and only because it slipped and fell into the icy water, its blathering drawing no sympathy from either Gil or Leigh as they pulled it, drenched and dripping, from the stream.

  “Probably catch its death of cold now.”

  “No it won’t,” Leigh said, holding the trembling lamb close against her breast. “I’ve a sarape rolled up behind my saddle. We’ll wrap it in that. This little lamb is—” Leigh was saying when she was suddenly interrupted by Gil’s hoarse voice.

  “Damn,” he said. He stood completely still, his blue-gray eyes wide and unblinking as he stared at the grove of cotton woods where they’d left their horses.

  Leigh followed his stare, her arms tightening around the lamb convulsively.

  “Damn!” Gil said again, his face paling into a sickly pallor as he stared at the group of mounted Indians who’d formed a half circle in their path.

  “Apache?” Leigh managed to find her voice and ask.

  Gil was silent. Then he shook his head, his shoulders drooping in defeat as he thought of his rifle still in its halter on Jicama. “Comanche,” he said, cursing himself for his carelessness, and for his stupidity in ever bringing Leigh so far off the main trail without a proper escort of armed riders. His father would whip the skin from his hide for this.

  He looked over at her standing there, her long chestnut hair woven with gold as the sunlight touched her, and for a moment he thought about pulling out his knife and stabbing her through the heart so she wouldn’t know the terror of being taken captive, the rape and torture she would have to endure, but then he realized that he’d dropped his knife by the brambles after freeing the lamb.

  Gil felt like crying, and he deserved the death that would shortly follow, but he didn’t have the time for further self-flagellation, for the six or seven Comanche, who until now had been sitting patiently on their piebald and shaggy roan ponies while watching them so intently, suddenly surged forward with a bloodcurdling, wild howling that had his scalp tingling with more than fear as he felt the sweat trickling down his back in anticipation of feeling the coldness of a knife slicing along his scalp and lifting his rust-colored hair from his head.

  “Come on, Leigh!” he cried, grabbing her by the arm and jerking her, and the lamb that was still locked in her arms, toward the trees, thinking they might be able to lose the Comanche just long enough to circle around to their horses—and his gun.

  Gil even found himself laughing as he thought of the bastards’ surprise if Leigh had been on Capitaine—they would never have caught her then.

  But their escape was cut off abruptly as one of the Comanche braves, apparently the leader of the little band of raiders, ran his horse in their path, his dark thigh bared naked, rippling with smooth muscle above the deerskin leggings with their tinkling brass cones.

  Gil glared up at the Comanche and tried to grab hold of the leather strap looped over the Indian pony’s lower jaw, and serving as a bridle, but a feathered shield was shoved in his face, splitting his bottom lip and bloodying his nose. Gil staggered back, somehow losing hold of Leigh’s arm as he fell to his knees. But he hadn’t given up yet—he was a Braedon—and he yelled a foul-sounding word in the Comanche’s own tongue, which Neil had taught him, and which had them momentarily startled, at least long enough for him to grab hold of the surcingle beneath one of the Comanche’s saddle and give it a vicious tug, which caused the Comanche, feathers, saddle, and all, to slide to the ground, where he landed with a painful yelp, his friends laughing loudly at his misfortune.

  Gil ducked, but not fast enough to completely avoid the butt end of the heavy wooden handle of one of the Comanche’s quirts as it struck him on the back of the head, leaving him stunned and vulnerable to the rawhide tails slapping stingingly against his face as he tried to cover his head from further abuse.

  He was surrounded now by three of the Comanche ponies, penning him in and herding him like a cow toward slaughter, he thought in growing despair as he tried to catch a glimpse of Leigh, wondering what had happened to her, and then wishing he hadn’t found out when he heard her cry out in fear.

  Leigh had almost reached the trees when she’d been caught. While Gil had kept the Comanche amused, she had tried to make it back to their horses, and the gun Gil had forgotten. Leigh felt a painful jerk to her head before she was spun around by her long braid of hair. The first Comanche, the one who seemed to be the leader, was holding onto it, winding it tighter around his fist.

  Leigh glanced over at Gil, who was now being prodded by the Comanche with their feathered lances, the sharp saber points stabbing him whenever he stumbled. Leigh knew a fury growing inside as she thought of Gil’s pain, and she dropped the lamb and grabbed hold of her braid of hair, jerking back on it and nearly causing the Comanche to tumble from his mount.

  But he wasn’t easily unbalanced, this young Comanche brave, and he quickly hopped to the ground, moving with a panther-like stride to stand in front of her, while his companions, still mounted, followed close behind.

  Leigh stared up into his eyes bravely, her own widening in disbelief as she met and held the pale-eyed stare of her captor; for his eyes were a brilliant sky blue.

  He was tall and slender, his body sinewy with corded muscle, and he couldn’t have been much older than she. His features startled almost as much as his eyes had, for they were delicate, his lips full and sensuous, his nose straight but slightly hawkish. His black hair hung in long braids wrapped in deerskin, and several hawk feathers fanned his forehead from his proud scalplock, while long earrings dangled from one of his ears. A bow was slung over his strong shoulder, and a number of eagle-feathered arrows stood up dangerously from a buckskin quiver strapped behind. From his lance several scalps dangled, the long hair of varying shades, the scalps still bloodied.

  Slowly, the young Comanche moved closer, drawing a broad-bladed knife from his leggings. Leigh swallowed against the fear rising from her belly, her eyes moving almost hypnotically to the pale blue eyes again, wh
ich were intent upon her as he closed the distance between them.

  Leigh raised her hand to shield herself from the blow as he raised his knife, but he grabbed her wrists, holding them bound with his hand as he raised the knife in an arc and sliced down through her scarf and blouse, the knife blade a hair’s breadth away from her flesh, but the cold steel never touched it, never drew one drop of blood from her bared breast.

  Leigh closed her eyes as she felt the warrior’s eyes on her, then she sucked in her breath when she felt his hand touch the softness of her flesh, his thumb lightly stroking the hardened nipple, then cupping the firm, pale roundness.

  She heard Gil’s scream and opened her eyes in time to see him struggle forward, briefly breaking free from the Comanche who’d had him surrounded while they tormented him. Gil had only managed to take a couple of steps before one of the Comanche knocked him a glancing blow with his horse’s shoulder, then another had thrown his lance, striking Gil in the shoulder and pinning him to the ground.

  Leigh smelled the sweat and leather, and the odor of horse, and there was another odor that came from the grease smeared over the Comanche’s bare chest and arms. Leigh could bear it no more and lowered her head, trying to draw breath into her lungs. She jumped when she felt her chin lifted, her throat muscles taut as she stared into the pale blue eyes fringed with thick black lashes.

  He grinned, his finger tracing along the soft contours of her cheek and jaw. He glanced back at his friends when one of them, sounding impatient, called something to him. Another had already dismounted and was fumbling with his breechcloth, his erected organ easily outlined beneath the light material that bared his tight buttocks.

  Turning back to her, the Comanche warrior with the startling blue eyes, who seemed to have the right to claim her first, allowed his eyes to travel down over her full breasts. Leigh looked heavenward, but there was no comfort to be found, for the sky was a reflection of this savage’s eyes, and Leigh began to struggle frantically as she felt him press intimately against her.