“Well—” he said at last, “I guess that leaves us with no choice. We head for the mountains.” But he still frowned.
Forty-Six
In how many ways is it possible to relive horror? Lucas told me later that he should have heeded the faint, uneasy feeling that persisted as we began the slow and tortuous ascent of the mountain that loomed almost directly in front of us. But he had me to worry about now, and the San Andres Mountains, where he would have preferred to hide out, if it came to that, lay across a stretch of comparatively flat desert that afforded little cover and no water at all. The Fra Cristobal Range was almost upon us, and if we could cross it, the Black Range, which Lucas called home, would soon loom up to the west.
There would be no time to rest today, except for very short periods. I knew that without having to be told. And our pursuers, although more than half a day’s journey behind us, would not rest either. Neither of us, unfortunately, could have guessed that an even worse danger lay ahead.
It was late evening when it happened, and I was almost dropping from sheer weariness. I remember glancing upward, at serrated peaks that had turned crimson in the last fierce rays of the sun, the shadows dark between them. Here, in the narrow gorge up which we rode, following some centuries-old Indian trail, it was already gloomy and menacing-looking. Lucas was riding a little ahead of me when I thought I noticed a sudden rigidity in the way he held himself.
I kneed my horse forward, and without turning his head he said quietly, “Don’t stop to argue with me. Get off your horse, quickly. Slip off its right side and stay still.” At the same time he brought up the rifle he held across his saddle horn with incredible speed.
Everything seemed to happen too fast—one detail merging into another. Rifle shots, deafening in the stillness, bouncing off rocky walls to assault the eardrums. I almost fell off the horse, barely remembering to hang onto its reins, and hardly felt the stinging, burning sensation in my arm as I did. A dark shape came tumbling down from some rocks to the left and above us, but I was too occupied with my plunging, rearing horse to even question what was happening yet.
I heard a wild, fearful yell, and a horse, riderless, went headlong up the canyon, drawing more fire from above. Suddenly, before I could scream his name, Lucas was beside me, pushing me back against the rocky wall so that I went stumbling to my knees. A shot ricocheted screamingly from just above my head. The horse I was still holding shuddered, and seemed to sink very slowly, folding into itself like a cardboard animal. And I was lying flat on my belly beside it, suddenly aware of a warm trickling down my arm, a gun thrust into my hand, while Lucas whispered urgently, “Lie just the way you are, an’ don’t move. But I want you to keep firing, up at those rocks. Take your time, but just keep firing often enough to keep him off guard. I’m goin’ up there after him.”
My mind was too numb with shock and disbelief for me to be able to utter a word, much less protest. It was suddenly darker than I had remembered only a few minutes earlier, and Lucas fired twice in quick succession, disappearing from my side while the acrid powersmoke still hung in the air.
I heard another, somehow perfunctory shot from somewhere above, and then, remembering what I had been told, my mind began to function mechanically. I must keep firing to give Lucas the cover he needed. I held the carbine balanced across the carcass of the dead horse, and keeping my head down, began to shoot, very carefully, at the place where I could see white puffs of smoke. I remember hoping that I wouldn’t have to reload. Already my arm, where a bullet had grazed me, was beginning to feel numb. I tried not to wonder where Lucas was—if he had reached cover before one of those shots had found him. Thank God for the fact that darkness falls so quickly here in the mountains… and remember to keep firing, Rowena, you can bandage your arm later, it’s only a scratch…
The carbine bucked against my shoulder, and the smell of burned powder was acrid in my nostrils. I tried to space out my shots, aiming carefully enough at that notch in the rocks above where I could see flashes so that he or they would think that Lucas was shooting. I had the advantage of being in deep shadow, but twice at least I heard bullets buzz within a few inches of my head like angry bees, ricocheting off the wall of rock at my back.
I hadn’t yet had time to feel frightened. It was only when, from somewhere above me, I heard a choking scream of terror, suddenly cut off short, that I suddenly began to tremble with sheer reaction, hardly realizing I was sobbing aloud until I felt the wetness of tears on my dust-streaked cheeks. What had happened up there? Who had screamed? There was no more firing now, and the silence seemed to press heavily against my ears and was all the more unnerving because it had followed on that terrible scream.
I think I almost screamed myself when, after what seemed like hours, I heard Lucas call softly from somewhere up ahead.
“Ro? Hold your fire. It’s all right now.”
And then he was holding me in his arms; and I was clinging to him as if I had to reassure myself of the reality of his presence, trying to fight back the shameful sobs that threatened to choke me.
“It all happened so suddenly that I still can’t believe—Lucas, no, I’m not crying because I am afraid! Only because—because I’m so happy you’re back and you’re safe!”
He tilted my chin up with one finger. “Who else but a fool woman would cry from gladness?” But in spite of the pretended harshness of his words, his voice was tender.
It was only later, after Lucas had washed out and bandaged the ugly bullet groove in my arm, that he told me what he had learned.
“There were only three of them, luckily for us. I got the first one, you saw him fall. An’ wounded the second bad enough so he was barely breathin’ by the time I got up there. But he talked before he died.”
As Lucas continued to talk, my mind became filled with a different kind of horror.
“Mark Shannon’s no fool, an’ so far, he’s been lucky as well. He sent some of his best men up ahead, while he followed our trail with Burris and Sonora an’ three Apache scouts he met up with at Fort Craig. Seems like they’d been visiting relatives at Warm Springs, an’ the colonel there suggested they might be glad to help track down an abducted wife—if he offered them enough money.”
Lucas’s voice was expressionless, but I drew my breath in sharply. “There’s more,” he said before I could speak. “Half the cavalry is out lookin’ for us too, but your husband’s given the men in his pay orders to stay one jump ahead of the soldiers—an’ to shoot first.”
It was dark by now. A clear, cool night with a scattering of stars spangling the velvety midnight blue of the sky. Lucas and I looked at each other, and he got up and began methodically to strip the horse of the gear it had carried. I think he wanted to give me time to digest the thought that Mark wanted me dead too.
And once I had realized this, I wondered why I hadn’t seen it before. Not only did I know far too much about Mark’s plans, but worse, from his point of view, I had betrayed and publicly humiliated him. So now he had begun to hate me, I was sure, with the same unrelenting single-mindedness with which he had once loved and pursued me.
I put some of these thoughts into words later, when Lucas and I had started off again, slowed down by the fact that the bullet wound in my arm had weakened me.
“An’ there’s your money too,” he said quietly, and I was almost surprised that I had not thought of that first. The money, of course. If Mark couldn’t have me he’d have enough wealth to buy him the power he craved. And it was my money he was offering as the price for my death!
The thought seemed unreal. Everything seemed unreal during those hours when we seemed to walk endlessly, both of us strangely calm. The horses were gone, and the mule would only slow us down now. I knew, without having to be told, how far sounds could carry in the clear desert air. The shots would have been heard, of course, and now they would all be racing to cut us off. I must have been slightly light-headed from loss of blood and nervous reaction, for I remember thinking
with a kind of cynical amusement that it was a change to be the hunted instead of the hunter. Strange, that all those times in India, when I had gone on tiger shoots with my grandfather and his friend the maharajah, I had never once stopped to think of how the tiger might feel.
I tried to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other as I had done once, so long ago. I carried only a water canteen, and as much beef jerky as I could carry, stuffed into the pocket of my shirt. Lucas carried a rifle, two handguns and bandoliers crossed over his chest with all the ammunition he could find. I took comfort from the fact that we were together.
Even if… I found myself thinking, even if the worst happens, I wouldn’t care. We love each other. And yet, even the thought of death seemed unreal. I could not imagine dying, I would not think of the possibility that we might be trapped after all.
I cannot recall how many miles we had covered before we rested, and this, I know, only because of me. Every breath I took seemed to rasp in my throat, and in spite of the coldness of the night I was soaked with sweat. Lucas put his arm around my waist and made me lean against him, while my breathing slowed.
“Where…”
He seemed to know what I had been going to ask.
“Fort Thorn. It’s the closest now, an’ the one place they won’t expect us to be headed for. An’ you’ll be safe. Make sure you get the colonel there to send off a telegraph to Fort Selden.” Lucas cut himself off to swear softly and bitterly. “Damn! That’s somethin’ I didn’t think off. The telegraph. That’s how he got the cavalry from Fort McCrae out lookin’ for us too. Now if only they sent a message on to Colonel Poynter at Selden…”
“You mean that he might come out to look for us as well? Oh, Lucas!”
“Ro, don’t hope too hard. Fort Thorn’s still the closest. But if I can get you there safely…”
“And you? I’m not going anywhere without you! And how do you know it’ll be safe for you?”
“Stop arguin’ and start walking.” He wouldn’t answer me, and soon afterward I had almost lost my breath again, and time seemed unending and meaningless.
It seemed impossible that the sun could be rising again, turning the sky faintly pink. Had we really walked all night?
In the shelter of a nest of boulders I waited, conscious only of the relief I felt to be resting again. Leaving one of the handguns with me, Lucas had taken the field glasses and disappeared. I think that in spite of all my resolutions I must have dozed off through sheer exhaustion, for the next thing I knew was that I was being shaken awake.
“Ro? Are you all right?”
“Yes.” I heard myself mumble, and then I was being pulled to my feet again, and I had barely time to wonder why Lucas looked so strange when he told me, his husky voice dispassionate.
“I couldn’t see how close or how far away your husband is. My guess is he an’ his men are right behind us—in the mountains already. But you got friends comin’ to the rescue from the direction of Fort Thorn. Todd Shannon… wonder what in hell he was doing there?”
“Todd?” I couldn’t keep the dismay from my voice. I looked up at Lucas, and he was staring down at me through narrowed, thoughtful eyes.
“Lucas—what are we going to do?”
“Fort Thorn’s still the safest place for you. An’ for all that I hate Shannon’s guts, I doubt if he’ll shoot you down in cold blood. So—we’re still goin’ south.”
“It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t…” Almost unwillingly, his arms went around me. “It’s no one’s fault. Or mine, for not seeing earlier that I’d come to need you. Rowena… crazy name. Crazy woman…”
I had the terrible, horrifying feeling that we were saying good-bye as our lips met. I suppose we wasted precious time as we held each other closely, bodies molding together. How can I remember now what thoughts went through my head, if, indeed, I was capable of coherent thought by then? What I remember most vividly is exactly what I do not care to recall—a nightmare without end.
I remember too that I would not do as I was told, so that what happened later was my fault, my guilt to bear.
The mountains were no longer a haven and a refuge but danger, because of the cover they gave to those who followed too closely behind us. And if I had not been along, as a liability and a burden, that Lucas could have escaped them all. But he had accepted me, and taken me as his woman, in much the same way that an Apache warrior would take a wife. And having taken the responsibility for me, Lucas also accepted the risks.
I want to digress here—if only to postpone the inevitable. I want to tell of what I did not know then but know now.
Todd Shannon had been supposed to meet Mr. Bragg at Fort Selden, but as luck would have it, he was still at Fort Thorn, being entertained in style by the commanding officer there, when the telegraph message had arrived.
And at Fort Selden, which was much further off, the same message had also been received, but with very different reactions from Colonel Poynter and Mr. Bragg. They had set out too, but several hours behind the rest. And closest of all was the man that I had chosen to be my husband—or who had chosen me. I had never felt closer to the Apache, whose very name meant “enemy,” than I did then. I was with my lover, my man, and I would not leave him. I would die with him if I had to, but I would not be separated from him again.
I didn’t try to explain these emotions to myself, nor to Lucas either. But when the shooting started, and we were in a place sheltered on three sides but not from behind, I disregarded Lucas’s angry order that I should stay beside him until there was a lull in the firing, and he could send me down to whatever safety I could find with Todd Shannon and his Texan gunslingers.
I said very calmly, “If we’re going to die, Lucas, then we’ll die together. Did you really imagine that I would agree to leave you?”
I took one of the handguns and a cartridge belt, and crawled up the unprotected slope at our back. I suppose now, looking back, that the first man I encountered, hearing the shots, had not imagined he would meet anyone as he crept silently up from the rear. But he met me, and I shot him, without pausing to think, and all I remember now is the surprised look on his face as he tumbled backwards among the rocks.
“Ro—come back here, damn you!”
I heard Lucas call to me, and I must have turned my head. The next thing I knew an arm had clamped around my waist, and a voice, gloatingly triumphant, said: “Better throw down that gun, Cord, or she gets a hole blown in her pretty body.” And at just about the same time I heard Mark’s voice, with a cold ugliness to it I had never noticed before.
“The only chance I’ll give you is if you’ll turn around and shoot that gun at my uncle. Maybe I’ll let Rowena live then…”
Almost without thinking I made myself go limp, kicking backwards only when I felt the man who held me let his grip slacken. I fell to the ground, hearing the now-familiar sound of a bullet wing past my ear and the man who had held me fell also, a grunting, burbling sound coming from his throat.
When I looked, Lucas was lying on his side, where he had flung himself, and he had just fired his gun. Mark was dead—and a second bullet, fired while I watched, made sure of it.
I was glad that I couldn’t see his face. Mark had fallen some distance, and the sunlight reflected off his blond hair, turning crimson in the slowly widening pool of blood that seeped from under his prone body. The gun that had been in his hand had fallen somewhere as he fell; but at least his face was turned away from me…
I had time to notice all this as I ran back down the slope toward Lucas, wondering why he stood so stiffly—but only until I saw all the rifles.
“You murderin’ bitch!” Todd Shannon’s harsh voice rang out. “I suppose this was what you planned on all along!”
Forty-Seven
“Why won’t you listen to me? Are you afraid of hearing the truth, afraid that for once in your life you might be proven wrong?”
“Shut up, an’ stop wastin’ your breath. I wouldn’t want you to m
iss it when that half-breed lover of yours starts screaming—if he don’t choke to death first.”
There was no mercy in Todd Shannon’s voice—none in his face. And I think that I would have tried to kill him myself if he hadn’t tied my wrists to his saddle horn.
“It was Mark, for God’s sake, I can prove it! Todd—if you’ll only take us to Fort Selden! I tell you that’s where we were going. Mr. Bragg—”
“Bragg can tell me whatever it is was so damn urgent after I’ve done what I should have done a long time ago. Look up, missy. That sun’s getting hotter now, ain’t it? Hot enough to shrink that green rawhide real fast.” I began to shudder weakly, and Shannon laughed. “Tell you what—I don’t want him to die too fast—not before he’s had a chance to suffer. So why don’t you take that canteen an’ go wet down that piece of hide he’s got wrapped round his neck? Mebbe you two can exchange some last words—while he can still talk, that is!”
Had it been an hour yet? Or longer? I had begun to wish that Todd, in his blind anger, had killed me or even beaten me unconscious as he had threatened to at first. Instead he had contented himself with forcing me to stand roped to his saddle, to watch…
I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard Todd describe—his voice tight with rage and grief, of sorrow as he looked down at his nephew—what he intended to do.
“You murdering, woman-stealing ’breed. Your dying ain’t gonna be easy as his was, I promise you that. Because you’re gonna die real slow, Apache fashion. Boys, you see that cactus down there, just about the height of a man? You know what to do. An’ make sure you use green hides when you’re tyin’ him up.”
I had never been closer to madness than I was then. I must have screamed. The next thing I remembered clearly was reeling backward, the side of my face throbbing where Todd had struck me.
The Wildest Heart Page 57