by Nan Ryan
The governor quietly informed Edmund of Elizabeth’s intended departure. Worried, Edmund immediately offered to go back to the hotel with her. Elizabeth told him she wouldn’t hear of it. The governor called for his carriage and personally rode with her around the plaza, ushered her safely into the lobby of the La Fonda, and bade her goodnight.
Sighing with relief, Elizabeth climbed the stairs, eager to get out of her dress and into her bed. In the broad corridor outside her door, she lifted her small silk reticule, pulled the drawstrings loose, and reached in to feel for her brass door-key. Not immediately locating it, she withdrew her hand, lifted the small evening bag closer, and looked inside.
She didn’t see the key.
Frowning, Elizabeth moved nearer to a lighted wall sconce suspended overhead directly between her door and the door to the room next to hers. Standing beneath the sconce, she moved over a little further, toward the other door, positioning herself so that the light would spill down into the reticule.
Sure enough, there was the brass key, in the very bottom of the silk bag. She was reaching for it when the door before her abruptly opened. Startled, Elizabeth looked up and found herself standing face-to-face with Doña Hope.
Equally startled, the doña gasped and swiftly jerked the door shut behind her. But not before Elizabeth caught a fleeting glimpse of a dark man lying stretched out on the rumpled white bed. Naked, he lay on his stomach, his head turned away, his jet-black hair ruffled against the pillow.
For a long, awkward moment, both women were speechless.
Finally Doña Hope forced a smile and said, “This is not what you think it is, Mrs. Curtin.”
“Whatever it is, is no concern of mine, Doña Hope.” Elizabeth smiled back.
“I wholeheartedly agree, so I’d like to know what you think you are doing here?” The doña’s chin lifted a little defiantly.
Elizabeth didn’t like the blonde’s attitude. “Now that,” she smiled confidently, “is no concern of yours.”
She turned away, moved to the door of her own room, patiently unlocked it, and stepped inside.
“Wait,” said Doña Hope, hurrying forward, putting out her hand to keep Elizabeth from shutting the door. “You’re staying here? This is your apartment?”
“Have you any objection?”
“Yes! I mean no! That is, I … no … certainly not, but …” Doña Hope stammered.
“’Night, Doña,” said Elizabeth, and continuing to smile, she slowly closed the door in the blonde’s face.
Inside, Elizabeth leaned back against the heavy door and shook her head. Poor S. Dwayne Haggard. While he had been looking everywhere for her, the beautiful Doña Hope had been here in the hotel with another man.
A dark, naked man with jet-black hair.
All at once Elizabeth felt a chill skip up her spine. Sure it was effects of the thin mountain air, just as Governor Mitchell had suggested, she pushed away from the door, eager to get undressed and into bed.
But once in bed she couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned, restless, despite her exhaustion. Exhaling disgustedly, she punched at her pillow, turned onto her stomach, and shut her eyes.
And saw again, behind closed eyelids, a dark naked man lying atop a big white bed.
Suddenly feeling uncomfortably warm, Elizabeth kicked off the bedcovers. It did no good. She was still too warm. She raised herself up on her elbows and looked across the room. The windows were closed.
That was it. The room was close and stuffy. She rolled over, sat up, bounded from the bed, crossed the darkened room, briefly considered opening the heavy double doors onto the front balcony. Then quickly remembered the tall, dark stranger from the night before, standing on the balcony lighting a cigar in the wind.
She made sure the balcony’s double doors were securely locked, then turned to raise a window beside them. The night air was fresh and cool and Elizabeth inhaled deeply and allowed the breeze to press her gown against her heated body.
Returning to bed, she wondered: Was the dark stranger she’d seen lighting a cigar and the naked man next door one and the same?
Ashamed of her preoccupation with the dark man, Elizabeth willed herself to think of something else. Of someone else. She chose her husband, Dane. She concentrated and called up from memory his blond good looks, his cultured voice, his ready charm. He was alive out there in the desert, she knew it. And they would find him. When they did, Dane would have a perfectly logical explanation for his mysterious disappearance. And maybe … the buried gold.
Yes, she would soon be with her husband. Her blond, handsome, rich, loving husband.
The night breeze cooling her, Elizabeth soon fell asleep.
But she dreamed. And it was not her blond, handsome husband, but the dark, mysterious stranger who followed her into those dreams:
The dark man lay stretched out on his stomach on an enormous white bed, his head turned away. He was naked and his body—dark all over—was nothing short of divine.
His shoulders were broad and powerful, his arms long and muscular. His smooth back was deeply clefted and beautiful, narrowing symmetrically to his ribcage and trim waist. His bare buttocks were taut and gently curving, his long legs leanly muscled. Even his bare brown feet were pretty.
Elizabeth eagerly stripped off her nightgown. Naked, she climbed onto the massive bed and crawled across it on her hands and knees. It took forever to reach him. When finally she did, she laid a hand on his bare shoulder. Immediately he turned onto his back, his eyes opened, and he smiled at her.
She had only a second to admire his handsome face, his broad chest with hard, flat muscles and thick growth of raven hair, his corded ribs, his tight belly. He drew her down to him, and kissed her.
It was a sweet, wonderful, dreamy kiss that went on and on, his lips warm and gentle, moving coaxingly on hers. At some point in that exquisite kiss, their positions changed. When his lips lifted from hers, Elizabeth was lying on her back, he was above, looking down at her with love and passion shining in his beautiful eyes.
They were no longer on the big white bed. They lay atop a fluffy white cloud floating through the heavens. At first Elizabeth was afraid she might fall off, or even through, the cloud.
But his loving gaze told her that she wouldn’t. He had her. He wouldn’t let her fall. So she relaxed and dangled a foot over the cloud’s side and drifted happily along, high above the towering mountains and tall green trees and scattered villages far below.
Happy as she’d never been before, she looped her arms around his neck and drew him back down to her, wanting more of his incredibly splendid kisses. With his sensual mouth covering her lips and his hard, lean body pressed to hers, Elizabeth was not surprised, nor was she frightened, by the fierce heat that radiated from him, burning her flesh, setting her blood afire.
Soon she, too, was hot, devastatingly hot. She gloried in the heat because he was the source, this dark, naked god of love, this unselfish provider of ecstasy. Trusting him totally, Elizabeth closed her eyes and sighed and writhed as his burning lips pressed kisses on her parted lips, her bare shoulders, her sensitive throat.
And the heat continued to soar.
A brightness began to shine blindingly through her closed eyelids. Elizabeth’s eyes fluttered open and she could see nothing but a glaring white sun. Close, dangerously close. Its fierce gravity was pulling them directly toward the fiery ball.
Then her lover’s face came between her and the sun, and she tried to warn him, to tell him they were in imminent danger. But she couldn’t make her voice work and he seemed unconcerned. He smiled at her and it was then she suddenly realized he had a thick black beard.
He lowered his bearded face to her breasts. The hair of his head ruffled against her chin and that on his face tickled her sensitive skin. His lips were scorching hot as he kissed her burning flesh.
She tried in vain to caution him. Tried to make him stop before it was too late, before they were both incinerated in the fiery infe
rno drawing them steadily closer. But he wouldn’t. He kept on kissing her, and kissing her, his lips and tongue driving her wild. His bearded face moved lower and lower as they were pulled closer and closer to the sun.
Frantic to be free, to save herself, she struggled, fighting the perilous pleasure. Attempting to rise, she managed to roll into a sitting position, putting her stiffened arms out beside her. At that same instant his dark, bearded face moved down over her belly and went between her legs.
“No,” she murmured as his strong hands urged her legs wider apart and his dazzling mouth sank into the fiery red curls between. “No, no,” she pleaded as his heated lips opened over her wet, burning flesh. “No, no, no,” she screamed as together they were sucked into the sun.
“No, no!” Elizabeth moaned, and bolted upright in her bed. “No, no, no,” she gasped loudly, trembling, looking about in confusion. Soaked with perspiration, her heart hammering in her chest, she tried to recall the dream that had awakened her.
And could not.
“No, no.” Her anguished cries awakened the man in the room next to hers and he bolted up. “No, no, no,” it came again, and West Quarternight shot up from his bed, reflexively reached for his heavy Colt .44 and hurriedly crossed to an open window, the gun leveled, the hammer cocked.
His lean body tensed, he stood naked in the darkness, waiting, listening. In seconds he began to smile and lowered his weapon, feeling foolish. He went back to the bed and laid the Colt on the night table.
What he had heard was a woman’s cries of ecstasy. He was sure of it. There had been that unique, breathless sound to her no’s with which he was more than familiar. Those sweetly pleading no’s mixed with startled gasps of delight. That’s all he had heard. The occupants next door had been making love.
Grinning, West got back into bed, stretched out, yawned, and closed his eyes. In minutes he was sound asleep and soon he dreamed.
But he did not dream of women and of making love. He dreamed of being in a dark tunnel deep down under the surface of the earth. He was belly flat in the small, airless tunnel, squirming and pulling himself slowly forward, inch by agonizing inch. Captain Brooks was right behind him, their freedom less than twenty yards ahead when the tunnel started caving in on them.
Cut off, trapped, West clawed at the smothering dirt, calling to Captain Brooks. Blinded and coughing, he dug frantically with his bare hands, searching, begging Brooks to answer, knowing they would both suffocate if he didn’t get them out!
“No, no,” West moaned, thrashing wildly about, trapped in the smothering tunnel. “No, no, no,” he gasped, feeling the last of his air supply being sucked from his starving lungs at the moment he touched the stilled fingers of Captain Brooks.
Coughing and choking, West awakened with a start. His breath coming fast, his heart thundering, he sat in the darkness, trembling, his chest and face wet with sweat. But oddly, as it sometimes did, the recurring nightmare faded as soon as he woke and in seconds had totally left him. Try as he might, West could not recall the frightening dream.
Running his fingers through his damp hair, he sighed and lay back down. Chilly now, he pulled the sheet up to his chest and closed his eyes. And fell back once again into a deep, dreamless sleep.
At midmorning on Friday, West Quarternight left his room. Walking directly through the hotel lobby, he never noticed a well-dressed lady seated on a long leather sofa, head bent, reading the New Mexican.
Nor did the woman notice him.
West walked out of the hotel, looked up San Francisco, then down. He stepped into the street, crossed it, then crossed the plaza to the Palace of the Governors. A smile spread over his face when he saw Micoma in her usual place on the palace portal.
“How are you this morning, Micoma?” he said, crouching down on his heels to smile at her and to wait for her inevitable question about her sons.
But it didn’t come.
She said nothing. Just smiled toothlessly, her old black eyes sparkling, as if she knew some pleasant secret. West narrowed his own eyes and cocked his head.
“What’s on your mind? There’s something you’re dying to tell me.”
The old Navajo chuckled, but still said nothing. West noticed the copper brooch pinned to her poncho. Tapping a forefinger to it, he said, “Where did you get this pretty brooch?”
“From woman with hair on fire. You know her?”
He shook his head. “No, but if I meet a woman with her hair on fire, I’ll see if I can’t put it out.”
“You can’t,” said the old woman, who crossed her arms over her chest and added, “Be very careful her fire not burn you, West Quarternight.” And then she laughed.
“I’ll watch my step,” he said, rose to his feet, and left her there. Still laughing.
Restless, West sat in for a few hands of poker in a saloon, got bored, and cashed in. He returned to the hotel. He thought about taking a nap. Back in his room, he reached up behind his head, jerked his pullover shirt off, and dropped it to a chair, but left on his boots. He lay down on the bed, immediately got back up. He paced, poured himself a drink, and wandered out the open double doors onto the hotel balcony.
He lifted a booted foot up to rest atop the adobe railing, draped a bare forearm atop his bent knee, and looked indifferently out over the town. His sleepy-lidded, bored eyes took in all the activity below. It did not interest him.
Draining his glass of bourbon, West was ready to go back inside when in the distance, across the plaza, a flash of fiery red caught his eye. A woman was coming in his direction. A well-dressed woman who was young and slender. She moved with an easy, fluid motion, the skirts of her pale blue suit swaying gently with her steps.
Her hair was red, ablaze in the sunlight.
His gray eyes never leaving her, West watched the young woman move closer until she stood directly across San Francisco Street. She paused to wait for a couple of wagons to roll past. She was beautiful. Very beautiful. Something about her was familiar. As if he had met her before.
It hit him like a bolt of summer lightning.
The passionate little Southern belle from the Shreveport stockade! It was her. No doubt about it. Hers was a face and body no man could forget.
Grinning now, West lifted his hand and waved to her, but she wasn’t looking up. He didn’t know her name. Had never called her anything but “miss.”
“Miss!” he shouted, “Red, up here. Up here, miss.”
She hadn’t heard, didn’t look up. Her attention was on someone coming toward her. West wondered who. A moment later, he found out.
Edmund Curtin stepped out of the La Fonda, crossed San Francisco, smiled at the red-haired beauty, and took her arm. Together they stepped into the street and walked toward the hotel while West, unseen by either of them, gaped in disbelief.
The truth dawned.
That hot-blooded, flame-haired murderess from the Confederate death cell was now the respected Mrs. Dane Curtin of New York City.
And his boss.
16
AS THE APPOINTED HOUR drew near, West Quarternight caught himself feeling mildly excited about having dinner with the Curtins. A man who approached most everything with a weary indifference, he was surprised to find he was looking forward to the evening with a degree of anticipation.
West hummed as he shaved meticulously. When he had completed the task, when his tanned face was smooth and totally devoid of dark whiskers, he leaned forward and carefully studied his reflection in the mirror.
Blotting at his chin with a corner of the white towel draped around his neck, he gazed intently at his face, frowned, picked up the shaving mug and brush and again lathered up. Handling the sharp straight-edged razor as deftly as a skilled surgeon, the man who often didn’t bother to shave at all, shaved a second time.
Satisfied at last that all traces of his dark, heavy beard had been scraped away and that his face would remain shiny smooth for the entire evening, West reached up and turned out the twin gaslights mo
unted on either side of the tall mirror. He struck a sulfur match and held it to the wick of a lone white candle resting in a terra cotta dish. He turned, bent from the waist, and set the candle on the floor.
He discarded the towel draped around his bare shoulders and the one wrapped around his slim hips. Naked, he stepped into a high-backed porcelain bathtub filled with steaming hot water. He stayed there for the next twenty minutes, shampooing his dark hair, scrubbing his back with a long-handled brush, soaping up every part of his long, lean body. Scouring himself as if it had been weeks since last he bathed instead of only that morning.
While the flickering candle cast dancing shadows on the Mexican tiled walls of the big bathroom, West splashed about in the tub, singing a mellow song, wondering if the beautiful Mrs. Dane Curtin would remember him.
He looked different now than he had that night in Shreveport. Not only had a bushy, black beard and mustache concealed his face then, he had been undernourished and thin, at least twenty-five pounds lighter than he was now. And too, they had spent the majority of their time together in a darkened jail cell, where it was impossible to ascertain even the color of each other’s eyes. West grinned, recalling that she had told him of being partial to green eyes, so he had let her think he had green eyes.
Smoothly shaven and scrubbed clean, West walked into the adjoining room, where his clothes were laid out. He shoved his long arms down into the sleeves of a fine white cotton shirt, buttoned it, then stepped into a pair of well-tailored gray linen trousers. He dropped down onto a chair and drew on his mirror-polished handmade black boots.
He spent the next ten minutes brushing his clean dark hair, finally dropped the brush atop the pine highboy, and reached for his suit jacket. The last thing he did was turn up the collar of his freshly laundered shirt, drape a braided black-and-gray bolo tie over his head, and settle it beneath the turned-up collar. He drew the tie secure with the turquoise and silver bolo ring Micoma had given him, turned down the collar, shot his long arms out to effect just the right amount of shirt cuff showing … and West Quarternight was ready to renew old acquaintances.