“Got Damn!” Travis exclaimed, not taking the Lord’s name in vein, yet cursing nonetheless. “That was amazing, Maddie!”
She felt his body leave hers as he clapped his hands in appreciation of her prowess with a pistol. A smile beamed on her face as she turned around to face him, her violet eyes bright with pride at not only sending three cans sailing into the morning air, but for impressing this obviously accomplished gunfighter. With a cocky grin, she blew the smoke from the end of her gun and then let the heavy pistol fall to her side as she said, “Let’s see you drop them.”
“Well, alright,” he drawled, just as cocky, while he nodded once with a smile and stepped back to the fence to replace the cans. Then, he returned to her side, eased her away from him a few inches and then stared at the fence for, what seemed to her, was only a split second before all six chambers of his left-hand pistol were emptied upon the fence of menacing enemies.
An amazed whistle was the response from Hayden, who had just returned with more cans and he dropped them at his feet as if his arms could no longer hold them. He put his hands upon his hips and declared, “Mighty fine shootin’ there, pardner. You should be working for me!”
Travis chuckled as he began picking up the cans at Hayden’s feet and said, “Right now, I’m only working for myself.”
“That was amazing!” Madeline exclaimed, keeping her eyes trained on him as he gathered the cans into his large hands and then walked over to the fence. “I’ve never seen shooting like that.”
“That’s nothing,” Hayden said. “That man can clear out a room full of gunfighters before they have a chance to raise their eyebrows and be out the door before the smoke clears.”
“You’ve seen him shoot before?” Madeline asked of Hayden.
“Yep,” he said with a nod. “He and I are old friends. We used to be partners, how long ago was it?”
Madeline’s eyes went from Hayden to Travis, who answered without a smile, “Six years, I believe.”
“Damn—er , pardon me, Maddie. Darn, that was a long time ago,” Hayden said before he continued to explain to her, “We were all Texas Rangers, me and Corbett and Tito and a few other men. Back when the state was in an uproar, when there was no law for miles around and it was up to us rangers to keep the peace. We had to ride for days sometimes just to get to the next town or the next scuffle with Injuns or Mexicans or gunslingers. But, we put ‘em all straight.
“Now, there’s not much need for us since things have settled down a bit. We kinda split up and lost track of each other. I found this nice little town and settled down, Travis went back to his blood-thirsty revenge mission, and Tito, didn’t he get married and head down to Mexico?” he asked Travis, who nodded.
“Del Rio,” Travis answered. “But, he’ll be meeting me just outside the village to give me a hand.”
Hayden shook his head in envy while he said, “I wish I could be there. Sounds like a Hell of a party. Pardon me, Maddie.”
“It’s alright,” she said with a shrug. “I’ve heard worse.” With an inward smile and a glance at Travis, who smiled back at her, she thought to herself that she had even said worse.
Hayden ducked his head and smiled at the two who seemed to have become friends in the short time that he had gone to gather cans. He left them to go to the fence and pick up the bullet-ridden cans, and as he examined one, he had to laugh for it was an empty tin of Professor Peterson’s self-rising flour with the good professor’s face painted on the outside. There, between the portrait’s eyes was a single bullet hole. He walked back to Travis and tossed the can to him, saying, “Just like old times, eh?”
Travis turned the can around to look at his handiwork and had to smile about the memory of the time he had to down a gunslinger with a bullet between the eyes and he said, “He never saw it coming.”
They all laughed, including Madeline, who wondered if there was an inside joke about it between them and then Hayden explained, “You see, Maddie, there was this gunslinger up in San Antone who thought he was the best in all of Texas. He’d killed three men before we made it up there and he’d believed that no one else would challenge him. Well, we rode into town, headed over to the saloon where the man was filling his belly with gut-rot and talking like he was ten feet tall and bullet-proof.
“Ol’ Corbett here, he walked into that saloon, flipped the man a coin and told him he’d buy a drink for any man who could kill that many men and when the gunfighter tried to catch it, Travis shot him right between the eyes.”
“Wasn’t that unfair of you to catch the man off guard like that?” Madeline asked, looking up at Travis, who shrugged in indifference.
“Ask those three widows about unfairness, they’ll say he got what was coming to him,” he said as he left her to line more cans on the fence.
Nodding, she realized that he had done what was necessary in the circumstances that he had faced. She watched his lean body bend over the fence, which had come to her shoulders yesterday when she had lined up cans on it. She could not help but admire him and the audacity that he exuded like rays of sunshine, a confidence that she now found alluring, despite the fact that the very boldness that he had showed last night had made her hate him. When he turned to walk back to them, she averted her eyes, hoping that he had not noticed her staring at him.
But, Hayden had and when his friend stopped at his side, he nudged Travis without saying a word. In their manly unspoken conversation, they exchanged a wordless dialogue that concerned Madeline’s fascination with Travis, the discussion ending in quiet chuckles from both.
Ire building in Madeline’s mind at the thought of them trading looks that were obviously ridiculing her, but she shook it off and smiled at them as if she knew exactly what they were laughing about and she stepped in front of them as she raised her pistol toward the line of cans and took her anger out on them instead. As if a tornado had torn through the cans, they flipped skyward in a wave of tin that flew as if the cans were connected with twine and the one before it pulled the next one up to its height and then back down to the ground. When the last can clanked to the dirt, she let her hand drop and looked at the two men, whose mouths had dropped in admiration at her accomplishment.
She turned to Travis and narrowed her eyes at him while she asked, “Are you still wondering if you should take me with you?”
A whistle escaped his lips before he removed his Stetson and scratched his sandy brown head and said, “I don’t think you’d take no for an answer, darlin’.”
“Nope,” she said with confidence as she tucked her pistol into her skirt and said, “When do we leave?”
“Can you be at the hotel steps at dawn?”
“Sure, I just have to pack a few things,” she said excitedly.
“You don’t want to pack too many, um, personals,” Travis told her with an embarrassed look on his face. “You don’t want to weigh your mount down.”
“Mr. Corbett,” she asked, her face tilted up toward him. “How much do you weigh?”
He cocked his head in question as he answered, “About one eighty-five, why?”
“And your saddle and gear?” she continued her questions.
“About one fifty. What are you getting at?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest.
“Well,” she started, tapping her chin with a forefinger. “That leaves me with about seventy-five pounds of ‘personals’ as you call them, before I weigh my horse down too much.”
“She’s got you there,” Hayden piped in and received a cuff on the arm from his irritated friend.
“Be ready at sun-up or you’ll get left behind,” Travis growled at her as he turned on his heel and left her and Hayden watching after him.
“He can be a hot-head, Maddie,” Hayden told her as he looked at his retreating friend’s back. “Don’t let him get under your skin, though. His temper is short-lived and it isn’t always directed at you personally. So, don’t take it that way.”
“Thanks, Hayden,” Madeline sai
d appreciatively as she, too, watched the man in question walk away. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Her eyes followed Travis as he strode to the hotel and stomped up the steps and across the wooden porch and then as he threw open the door and stepped inside. In her mind, she wondered if what Hayden had said was true, that Travis wouldn’t direct his anger toward her or if she would somehow be the cause of his resentment in the coming days.
She waved good-bye to her friend and then followed Travis’ steps into the hotel where she put together a few things for the trip and then went to the kitchen where she found Jake and Margaret having coffee. She told them that she and Travis were going to kill her husband and got different responses from each of them.
“That’s dangerous!” Jake admonished her. “That man’ll kill you before you have a chance to do him in.”
“I think it is brave of her to go down there and give him what he deserves,” Margaret disagreed with her husband.
“You want her to risk her life just to show that man that she hates him?” Jake asked, his anger growing.
“And to get my son back,” Madeline interjected.
“Yes, to get her son back,” Margaret agreed, tapping her husband on the forearm. “The boy has been without a mother for too long. It’s about time she gets the courage to take that devil on.”
“So that gunman that is going with you,” Jake asked, still concerned, but realizing that he would not change her mind. “Is he good at what he does?”
“He’s the best,” she said with assurance. “I have all the confidence in the world that Travis Corbett is the man for me.”
“Are you talking about his prowess with a gun or his skill in the tender territory?” Jake questioned knowingly.
“Jake,” Madeline admonished with a smile. “I am just using him for his aim with a gun. I don’t have the fortitude to let a man into my heart. I don’t trust any of them to give me what I think I deserve. Besides, I’m still married.”
“To a man that you want dead.”
“Be that as it may, Jake, I am his wife and I will be true to him until that glorious day when I am his widow,” she said with a sideways glance at him.
“Well, then,” Jake said. “Keep your heart out of the transaction and you won’t be hurt.”
“I will,” she said with a nod to them both. “I’ll miss you both terribly.”
“You just take care of yourself and bring that precious baby back with you,” Margaret told her as she rose to hug Maddie.
“I will. And thank you both for all that you have done for me,” Madeline said with a warm smile that brought them both into her arms for another hug.
Chapter Thirteen
A purple glow bathed the already steaming surroundings of the little border town known as El Charro. An ominously heavy quilt of stagnant air hung across the horizon, its oppressive outline, which was flanked by orange clouds that intruded upon the sun’s arrival, enveloped the town with its stifling heat. A still quiet overtook the town, broken only by an occasional call of a lost prairie hen. The crickets had already skittered away to rest until nightfall while the horned toads and roadrunners were stretching their limbs as they readied themselves for a full day of scampering about. Overhead, a buzzard wafted upon the breezes that hovered close to the clouds above, its head craned downward in hopes of an early meal.
Madeline sat in a stiff chair, sipping black coffee on the back porch of the hotel and waiting for Travis to find his way down from his room so that they could start their day’s journey into the desert and toward her destiny. She sat rigid and unmoving with her boot heels hung on a rung of the chair and her knees drawn up with her elbows resting upon her knees and her gloved hands cradling an earthenware cup. She leaned the cup toward her lips and took in the piping hot liquid as her eyes cased the brightening horizon.
She swore under her breath wondering if he had left without her after all. She drained the cup and slapped it on the floor of the porch next to her and then snatched the newly purchased Stetson hat off her head and slapped it against the split denim skirt that she had bought from the dry goods store. She sighed angrily in her body-hugging cotton blouse and tugged impatiently upon the tan leather vest that barely covered her bosom. She craned her neck toward the screened door that entered into the kitchen and wondered if she should have waited for him at the entrance to the hotel on the front porch instead.
Contemplating moving to the opposite side of the building, she watched her Appaloosa mare stamp her eagerness to get going. The gray horse with her white rump that was spotted with varying sizes of black dots was her new pride and joy. The docile and loyal mare, which Madeline had named Dixie the moment that she had bought her a month ago, was willing to take her owner anywhere that Madeline wished to venture. Dixie was also sure-footed, a trait that was not only necessary in this part of the country, but the Appaloosa’s agility was preferred by most of the locals, who were required to cover tough terrain filled with cactus, prickly bush, thorny mesquite and jagged rocks.
Madeline rose from the chair, stepped down to the ground and went to Dixie’s side, patting the mare’s neck affectionately and talking softly to her. She stepped back to the saddle and checked the cinch before she leaned to check the contents of her saddle bags that she had slung across Dixie’s back and had tied to the back of the saddle. She touched a palm to the stock of the Winchester that she had purchased yesterday afternoon and then her hands found their way to the holster belt around her waist that held her pistol and bullets. A leather case which held extra bullets was tied to the saddle near the pommel and two filled canteens dangled on the other side. A rope for good measure was coiled beneath the canteens. For the third time this morning, she had found that everything was securely in its place including the ‘personals’ that she had tucked into the saddle bag on one side and food on the other side.
“Where is he?” she ground through clenched teeth as she stomped her foot, causing the mare to prick her ears in excitement.
“Where’s who?” a familiar voice startled her so much that when she wheeled around to face him and to ultimately scold him for making her wait, she tripped on the toe of her boot and stumbled into his arms.
Travis Corbett set the disassembled woman back on her feet and smiled a beaming, white-toothed smile down at her discontented face. He couldn’t help but laugh inwardly at her for getting angry at him since he had made her wait for two long hours on that porch. Yep, he’d watched her from across the street, where he had parked himself as he sipped on his own cup of coffee. He’d waited until he knew for sure that she was serious about going with him. Once they headed into the desert, there was no way in Hell that he would turn back and escort a frightened bunny of a woman back to town.
“It’s about time!” she scoffed at him with a scowl.
He shrugged his wide shoulders in indifference and said as he pointed across the street, “I’ve been sitting over there since five thirty.”
“Over there?” she screeched. “You said to meet you here.”
“I know,” he admitted. Then he winked at her and said, “I kinda liked watching you getting madder by the minute. Besides, I wanted to make sure you didn’t give up and go inside.”
“Well, I didn’t,” she said with a huff. But then she added, “But, I was getting very impatient, as you must have noticed. You said that we were leaving at sun-up.”
“I said to be ready by sun-up,” he corrected.
“Well, I’ve been ready and I’m ready now,” she said angrily, her violet eyes boring into his.
“Then, let’s get going,” he said excitedly.
Madeline shuffled her boots on the dirt road as she hesitated a bit.
“You still want to go, don’t you?” Travis asked, wondering why she had not jumped into her saddle already.
“I—um—I have to go empty my bladder,” she stuttered, and then added in a perturbed voice, “I drank too much coffee while I was waiting for you.”
Travis chuckled and dipped his head in response and watched her twirl around and run up the steps, banging the screened door behind her. He did not have to wait long. A few minutes later, she was mounted and ready to go.
They steered their horses toward the outskirts of town and while Travis told her of their plans, Madeline listened intently. He’d figured, he told her, that it would take almost two weeks to get to the small Mexican village where her husband called home and then a few more days while he and his friend made plans to attack the house where El Diablo lived. He suggested that while they were confronting her husband at his house, she would go to the little house on the edge of town to retrieve her son. Maddie nodded while clamping her mouth shut against a protest in opposition to being sent away from the action and perhaps a chance to exact revenge on her husband. When he finished, both fell silent while the desert opened its wide, hungry mouth to swallow them up in its vast, barren abyss.
Quietly, Madeline watched the man who rode beside her and wondered if she was doing the right thing in asking a stranger to help her. All she knew about him was that he used to be a Texas Ranger and that he was and still is a cold-blooded killer. But, she did not think that he really looked like an assassin to her at all, for his features were soft, symmetrical and sensual, not the hard, scarred and marred version that she would have conjured in her mind of a rough-riding, cruel-hearted Texas lawman. And, except for his disregard for female modesty, his soaring ego and his curt disposition, Travis Corbett was not a mean-spirited man at all. In fact, she had a suspicious feeling that he may, at times, be gentle and affectionate.
She darted a glance in his direction as she scrutinized him in a way in which she had not dared to before, but was worried that he would catch her staring at him and find something to say to embarrass her. Still, she kept her eyes upon him, taking in every inch of him. His eyes, which were partially shielded by his black Stetson hat, were framed by thick black lashes that, when he blinked, would brush ever so delicately upon his sun-bronzed cheeks. And the amber skin that molded against those slightly angled cheeks was smooth and unlined except for a set of tiny crevasses that peeked out at the corners of his mouth. And when he smiled, only when he smiled, a pair of dimples was the onlooker’s reward as they appeared from inside those crevasses and mingled with the twinkle in his light brown, almost hazel eyes. These features made him handsome to her, to any woman who gazed upon that sun-bronzed god who stared toward his destination without even a glance toward her.
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