by Tess LeSue
Complicit. Manslaughter. Jesus wept, the man spoke like a lawyer. And he was out-uppitying her.
“Well, I won’t feel bad about it for long,” she retorted, “as I’m liable to die out here myself in the next couple of days.” She paused as a thought struck her. “Maybe I’m already dead.” This seemed a likely possibility now that she thought of it. She’d expired of thirst in the desert and was doomed to roam it for all eternity, looking for water. And to get stuck arguing with dead Indians. Because if she was dead, so was he. They were just a couple of cranky ghosts.
“If you go, I’m doomed,” he said darkly, talking right over the top of her.
If he was a ghost, he was a yappy one—that was for sure. Where did he get the energy? It made her throbbing head hurt.
“It’s tantamount to murder.”
Tantamount. There he went, being all lawyerly again.
Did Indians have lawyers? Probably. They had laws and rules just like everyone else—someone had to be in charge of all that.
Trust her to find a lawyer in the middle of nowhere.
“If you leave me, I’ll die slowly, in enormous pain,” he continued. “And then I’ll haunt you.”
“You’re already haunting me,” she muttered. Just ride away. She didn’t know this Apache ghost from Adam. She didn’t owe him anything.
But tantamount to murder . . . Jesus wept. Now she had an image in her head. If she rode off, he’d return to squatting on the griddle-plate-hot ground, crisping in the hot sun. He’d die alone, with no one to talk lawyer talk to. The carrion birds would come, and eventually his bones would bleach and be blown by the winds. And no one would ever know what had happened to him.
Goddamn. This was all LeFoy’s fault. If it wasn’t for him and his Great Hunt, she wouldn’t even be here. She’d be safe and sound in San Francisco, taking some rest and enjoying the cool sea breezes. She wouldn’t be doing anything that was tantamount to murder.
“Fine,” she said through clenched teeth, “but I’m only taking you as far as the next humans. I don’t care if it’s your tribe, or white people, or some old coot out hunting jackrabbits.”
“It’s unlikely to be my people.”
She felt a chill. Why was it unlikely to be his people? Her gaze returned to his bruises. Someone had beaten him and left him out here to die in the desert. . . . Had it been his own people? Maybe he wasn’t a lawyer; maybe he was just a common criminal. Maybe he’d committed some heinous sin and been driven out of his tribe. . . .
What would a man have to do to be punished like this? She couldn’t think of a worse punishment than a slow, scorching, thirsty death. Well, she could. But this was still pretty bad.
Oh hell, what if she was about to go riding off with a rapist or a murderer?
Fantastic, she thought sourly. Another one. She’d just escaped from Kennedy Voss, the most infamous rapist in the west, only to get saddled with another one.
“Who left you like this?” she asked bluntly. There was no room for coyness in situations like these. Although, if he was a criminal, he wasn’t likely to tell her the truth, was he? “I’m armed,” she warned him darkly before he could even answer her. “And I’m a great shot.” That was a flat-out lie, but with any luck, he wouldn’t test it. Even if he did, what was she going to shoot him with? Air?
“I’ve got nothing but this rock,” he countered, holding out the rock, which did seem pathetic in comparison to her iron Colt Baby Dragoon, bulletless though it might be. She supposed she could throw the gun at him. It was pretty heavy. It could do some damage as a missile.
“Drop the rock,” she ordered.
He unfurled his fingers, and the rock dropped to the ground.
She considered her options. The man was a total wreck. Even though he was lively, his eyes were swollen shut and crusted with some nasty yellow stuff that had the flies swarming. “How are you even going to walk?” she asked, completely peeved by the whole situation. “Can you see anything at all?”
“No.” He raised a tentative hand to touch the puffy skin around his eyes.
“How come they’re not black?” she asked. “Usually when a man gets a black eye, the eye is, well, black.”
“They’re not black eyes. I got stinging nettle in them,” he said shortly.
“How the hell did you get stinging nettle in your eyes?” She looked around—she couldn’t spy a trace of nettles, stinging or otherwise. There was just chaparral and dirt.
“It was a few days ago.” He paused. “I think it’s gotten worse since then.”
“It looks pretty bad.”
“Thanks. That’s very comforting.”
“I ran out of comfort about the same time I ran out of water.” She felt a bit queasy looking at his crusty eyes and forced herself to tear her gaze away. “I got poison ivy once as a kid. It was awful.” That didn’t come out as sympathetic as she had meant it to. But hell. He was probably an Apache-ghost-lawyer, so who wanted to give him sympathy? “How did you get nettles in your eyes?”
“I didn’t. Someone did it for me.”
“Someone did that to you?”
“Rubbed it right in.”
What kind of crime had he committed? She was certain now there must have been one. No one treated a man like this unless he really deserved it. She felt a pull between sympathy and sheer aggravation.
“Now I’m blind.” He stated the obvious for the millionth time. Definitely a lawyer.
“It might clear up.” She said so only because it seemed polite. He’d be dead long before it cleared up. Unless a miracle happened, and it rained. She squinted at the merciless blue-white sky. No such luck.
“It won’t clear up quick enough for me to walk out of here.” He returned her pointedly to the issue at hand. “I can’t walk if I can’t see. I’ll need to ride.”
“Well, you’re going to have to walk somehow, because you’re not getting on my horse,” she said. Goddamn it. She hadn’t just agreed to walk him out of here, had she? Lawyer tricks. “If I let you on my horse, you’d be liable to just gallop off and leave me,” she snapped. It was what she would have done if she were him.
“We could ride together,” he suggested.
She gave a humorless laugh. “Do I look like a fool?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see you.”
“You’re naked,” she reminded him. “And I’m not riding with a naked man.” Stop talking, she screamed silently at herself. You’re getting yourself all tangled up with him. You’re all but agreeing to help him.
“You don’t have anything I could wear?”
“No, I don’t have anything you could wear.”
“So you prefer me naked?” The bastard actually put his hands on his hips in pique, fingers splayed on the sharp V of his . . .
“I ain’t going to be looking at you!” she shouted, exasperated. “Because I won’t be with you.”
The expression on his face—a silent, judgy expression that reminded her of her mother—sent her right over the edge. Her head gave a thick thud. Goddamn it! She wanted to throw things. How did she end up in these situations?
Fine. He was right. If he was coming with her—and somehow it looked like he was—he wasn’t coming with her naked. She didn’t want to look at his bits and pieces. Even if they were quite impressive bits and pieces.
She fumbled with her saddlebag. Damn it. She didn’t have much. She was wearing her only riding culottes. She’d been traveling light and had only one dress and some underthings packed in her bags (because a lady never knew when she might need a dress). “You can have a petticoat,” she snapped. She wasn’t about to give him the dress. She tossed him the undergarment. Of course, he couldn’t see to catch it; it flopped against his chest and fell to the hot ground. She sighed as she watched him bend down and feel for it. God, look at the bridge of muscles across his sho
ulders. Who even had that many muscles? He’d be awfully fearsome if he wasn’t so battered.
“You’re very trusting,” she said crankily, mostly to distract herself as he struggled to get into the petticoat. There was too much naked flesh on display for comfort. “You could be riding to your doom, you know. I could be a killer.”
“You are a killer,” he said, “if you want to leave me here to die.”
She rolled her eyes. “I still might leave you here, if you keep carping on.”
He grimaced. Her stomach pinched at how painful his split lip looked. This was what she’d come to, feeling sorry for naked ghost-lawyer-rapists who were looking to hijack her.
“I can’t guarantee we won’t die together out there,” she warned him. “Don’t go expecting heroics. You might be better off staying here, without me.”
“I’ll take my chances.” He wriggled into her petticoat and reached between his legs to pull the skirt through, blindly tying the petticoat into some sort of loose bloomer arrangement. It was actually quite a marvel, the way he did it without being able to see. And it didn’t look half bad, like a very baggy pair of short pants. She got a bit distracted by the way the blazing white of the waistband contrasted with the bronzed ridges of his stomach.
“I can’t walk without shoes,” he said as soon as he was finished.
She glanced at his massive feet. “Well, I don’t have a solution for that one in my saddlebag.”
“The ground is too hot to walk on barefoot.”
“Feel free to wait here, then.”
“I won’t make it walking. Or waiting.”
There went the goddamn guilts again. She fought them as hard as she could, but she was hot and tired and thirsty as hell (water water water, rasped that endless voice at the back of her thoughts). She was too wrung out to keep sparring with him. Her head hurt.
“Fine.” She unhooked a coil of rope from where it was tied to her saddle. “But the only way you’re riding with me is if you’re tied up.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Where in the hell had this Apache learned his English? He’d be right at home in a Boston drawing room.
“Stop talking,” she said curtly. “No more talking. I’m done with it. Let’s get going.” She slid off the horse. Her head was pounding fit to burst now. “We need water. You won’t walk, and the only way you’re getting on that horse is tied. So hush up and let me tie you.”
Surprisingly, he obliged. Maybe he could tell she’d hit her limit. And, let’s face it, she was his only way out of here; it was in his best interests to do what she said.
“There’s no point in trying to steal my horse out from under me either,” she told him as she checked her knots and then led him to the horse. “You can’t ride her blind—you need me. So behave yourself. You do what I say, or I dump you. Understand?” When he didn’t answer, she gave him a poke in the shoulder, careful to avoid his bruises. “Well?” she demanded.
“I thought you told me not to speak?”
Impossible man. “Get on the horse.”
She was expecting to have to help him up, but even blind and with his hands tied in front of him, he was surprisingly agile. He was on the horse in one fluid movement. She winced, hoping poor old Freckles, her horse, could bear his weight. And Jesus wept, how was the poor old girl going to manage both of them? The animal struggled enough with Ava on her own.
Ava had developed an affection for the hardy little horse. She didn’t look like much, but she had some grit, and Ava had a lot of respect for grit.
“Wriggle forward,” she ordered the Apache. There was no way she was sitting in front of him. First, because she didn’t trust him not to assault her, and second, because she had no intention of letting him press his bits and pieces into her derriere. “And keep your hands on the pommel where I can see them,” she said waspishly. “At all times.”
Obediently, his hands found the pommel. She clambered up behind him, wishing she had a broader saddle as she found herself hard against his back. It wasn’t comfortable in the slightest. Up close he was even taller and wider than he’d seemed on the ground. She couldn’t really see around him. It looked like they’d both be traveling blind.
But at least Freckles was coping with carrying both of them. Grit. Ava gave her a pat on the rear. If they made it out of here, she was going to see this horse had the best a horse could want. Whatever that might be.
“Which way did you come from?” she asked the Apache, leaning to see around him. “Was there water back that way?”
“Head for the Colorado River,” he told her shortly, ignoring her questions as he adjusted his position. His firm behind rubbed into her.
She gave him a shove between the shoulder blades. “Stop that.”
“Head east,” he said, continuing to ignore her.
“Surely we’ll meet people before we find the Colorado.”
“Let’s hope so. But we may as well head toward water. Just in case.”
“Mexico would be closer.”
“No,” he said.
“What do you mean, no? Of course it would. It’s much closer than the Colorado River.”
“We can’t go to Mexico.”
She gave him another shove. “There’s no we about it. I can go to Mexico. And I’m not killing myself to get to the Colorado if there’s a town right over the border in Mexico.” She reached around him and took up the reins. “Whoever did this to you is in Mexico, huh?”
He didn’t answer.
Well, that was a mess, wasn’t it? Because Mexico was their only salvation. They were bound to find a village over the border in Sonora or at the very least some kind of creek or spring. So that was where they were headed. There was nothing westward that she knew of. And the Colorado, eastward, was so far . . . No. Mexico was the only choice.
But what if they rode straight into the people who’d done this to him? And what if those people thought she was the Apache’s friend?
She swore. “I don’t want to die because of you.”
Silence.
“We’re going to Mexico.” There was no question about it. Water was what they needed, and Mexico would have water.
“Are we? So there is a we now?” Now he talked.
He was such a pain in the ass.
“I am going to Mexico,” she corrected. Damn finicky lawyers. “If you want to come, come. Or I can leave you here.” She turned the horse and pointed them south. “Last chance to get off . . .”
Of course he didn’t. She kicked her heels into her thirsty, tired animal. Freckles gave a halfhearted whicker and then plodded on, her load heavier than before.
“It might help if you tell me who did this to you,” she suggested, “so I know who to watch out for.”
He sighed. “It was more than just one incident,” he admitted.
It took a minute for that to sink in. “You mean, more than one group of people did this to you?” She didn’t doubt it had been done by groups. He was too big and too strong for a single person to do much damage. “How many incidents was it?”
“Three,” he sighed. “First, it was the army—”
“The army? You mean the United States Army?”
“Turns out, they have a thing against Apaches.”
“Are you telling me the U.S. Army rubbed stinging nettle in your eyes?”
“No, that was someone else.”
“After the army?”
“After the army, it was the Chiricahua. It was the Chiricahua who took my horse. And my clothes. And my dog.” He sounded regretful about the dog.
“And then someone came along and rubbed stinging nettles in your eyes? Why? What in hell did you do to him?”
“I got him in trouble with the army. And the Chiricahua.”
“Was he the one who left you out here to die?”
She gasped.
“You’ve heard of him?”
Yes. Yes, she had. She’d had the misfortune of riding out of San Francisco with him a few weeks ago, when this whole nightmare had begun. When she’d been swept into the Great Hunt.
The Apache gave a disgusted grunt. “I’d never met him. But he seemed to think he knew me. And he didn’t like me much.”
She groaned. “Let me guess. He thought you were the Plague of the West? Deathrider? The most infamous Indian this side of the country? That man is a stone-cold fool. Everyone knows Bruno Ortiz caught Deathrider days ago.”
“He did?” The Apache sounded shocked. Ava couldn’t blame him. She’d never thought that anyone would catch Deathrider. And she was plenty upset that she hadn’t been there to see it. Hell. She was the one who’d made Deathrider famous, and she should have been there to see his end. And if it hadn’t been for Kennedy Voss, she would have been.
She must have written a dozen dime novels about the Plague of the West, but she’d never actually met him in person. Surely it wasn’t too much to ask to see him in the flesh just once? Now she never would. If only Kennedy Voss hadn’t up and kidnapped her from the Hunt . . .
“Bruno Ortiz caught Deathrider?” the Apache repeated as though he might have misheard.
“He did,” Ava said glumly. “Didn’t even have to kill him. I heard he’s trussed him up to take back to San Francisco, alive and kicking.” That was the only glimmer of hope. Maybe she could get there before they killed him . . . if she could ever get out of this desert alive.
“So Ortiz won the bet,” the Apache said thoughtfully.
“You know about the bet?” Ava supposed that shouldn’t have been a surprise. It was the story of the century. In these parts anyway.
“I know about the bet.” The Apache sounded grim. She guessed if Pete Hamble had mistaken him for the Plague of the West, then, of course, he knew about the bet. And had good reason to sound grim about it.
“How’d you get away from Pete?” she asked, curious. “He’s a dangerous son of a bitch.”