Forever, Victoria

by Dorothy Garlock

  CHAPTER

  * 7 *

  They were mounted and riding out of town before Victoria could gather her scattered thoughts. Mason rode close behind her so it was impossible to turn back. At first the sun was warm on her face, but when they reached the pines, the trail narrowed and the air cooled. The horses kept a steady gait and the only sound to be heard was that of iron striking rock as the shod horses picked their way to the top of the pass.

  Just before they reached the crest Mason rode up beside Victoria. The trail had widened, yet he rode so close their legs almost touched.

  “Let’s stop for a few minutes and rest the horses,” he said quietly.

  She gave him a disdainful look. “You can stop any time you please. I’m going on.”

  “I said stop, Victoria.” He reached out and took hold of her bridle.

  “Stop it!” She attempted to turn her horse. The mare danced in confusion.

  “Hush up and be still, you little fool! Someone’s trailing us,” he hissed angrily and pulled the mare into the trees.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Hush up and listen.”

  After a long silent moment she said, “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Neither do I. Not even a bird back down there.” He sat for at least another full minute. “If they weren’t up to no good they’d’ve come on. They’re waiting until we go over the top and are downhill from them. What’s on the other side?”

  Victoria still didn’t believe there was anyone on the trail who meant them harm, but Mason’s face was so serious, his eyes so alert. “There’s a clear space then the trail twists around a boulder.”

  “All right. We’ll walk the horses to the top of the ridge. As soon as we pass over, make a run, get behind the boulder, and stop. We’ll see what happens.” As he talked his eyes scanned the trail behind them. He lifted his rifle out of the boot and motioned for her to go ahead.

  Victoria began to walk her mare up the trail. Mason was so close behind that the mare was wary of being nipped on the rear by the horse behind, and she had to hold her mount in check.

  The top of the ridge was a mesa about fifty yards wide. As they neared the middle of it, Mason said sharply, “Now!” and Victoria let up on the reins and gigged the mare sharply. The animal sprang forward in a flying leap and they raced toward the boulder.

  “Go! Go!” Mason encouraged.

  Victoria had no time to look for pursuers. It took all her effort to stay in the saddle during the downhill run. She was about to turn in behind the boulder when she heard the first loud crack of a rifle and then felt the whoosh of air as the bullet passed her. My God! she thought. Someone’s shooting at us!

  The shock had not diminished when she felt the sharp, burning pain on her thigh. Her mare stumbled and fell to her knees. Victoria went sailing over her head. She hit the ground on her back. Mason hit the ground running. He grabbed her arm and dragged her behind the huge rock as a bullet dug into the ground beside them. The breath had been knocked out of her and she lay gasping. Mason stood over her and peered through the tangle of brush growing beside the boulder.

  A gun roared at close range. Mason’s gun. He stepped over her and out from behind the rock to fire again. Victoria tried to sit up. She heard the sound of horses crashing into brush and crawled to the rock. Hugging it close she pulled herself to her feet. Her leg almost buckled under her and suddenly she realized she was wet and sticky beneath her skirt and her thigh burned like the devil. Mason was still firing his rifle, but there was no answering fire. He stood at the end of the boulder for a moment and then lifted his head cautiously for a look. A bullet ricocheted off the boulder.

  “Damn,” he cursed. “They’ve got us pinned.”

  “Who is it? Bushwhackers?”

  “Whoever it is, they were too sure of us.” He glanced at her. “I shot your mare. She’d caught one in the stomach.”

  “I think I was hit, too,” Victoria said calmly.

  Mason was reloading his gun. He jerked his head toward her. “You what? My God, Victoria! Where?”

  “My leg.” She took her hand from her thigh; it and the side of her skirt were bloody.

  “Did it hit the bone?” Mason knelt beside her.

  “I don’t think so. I think it creased across my leg and went into Rosie. That’s when she fell.” Her voice quivered.

  “We’ve got to stop the bleeding. Will those things pull up that high?”

  “No!”

  “Don’t be a fool!” he snapped. He took out his knife and started to cut the sleeve of his shirt where it joined the shoulder. He placed the knife in her hand. “You’ll have to help me. Hurry! I’ve got to take another look-see.”

  She finished cutting the sleeve and Mason slipped it off his arm. He picked up a stick and put his hat on the end of it and held it to the side of the boulder. Instantly a bullet hit the rock sending powdery chips flying.

  “Son of a bitch!” he muttered. He came to her and crouched down. “That thing you’ve got on has got to come up or go down. We’ve got to tie that leg and stop the bleeding.” He began to pull up the leg on her riding skirt. It came up to the knee easily, but the material around the thigh was too bulky and it was sticky wet with blood. The wound could not be reached this way. Mason pulled the skirt back down and got up to peer around the rock. “Drop your skirt, Victoria, and tie this sleeve around your leg if you’re too modest to let me do it. I wanted to see how badly you’re hurt. We may have to run for it.”

  “All right.” Victoria untied her belt and pulled down her skirt. Her white bloomers were covered with bright blood and it frightened her. “Mason!” she exclaimed.

  He turned quickly, knelt beside her and slit the side of her bloomers with his knife. The bullet had gone into the fleshy part of her thigh tearing a jagged edge across the top part of it. He quickly wrapped the leg of her bloomers tightly around her thigh and tied it with the sleeve of his shirt.

  Victoria looked down onto the top of his dark head and to the arm now bare to the shoulder. The lower forearm was brown from the sun and the upper arm a startling white. There was no feeling of embarrassment when he finished and gently tugged the skirt up over her hips. She buttoned the front buttons and tied her belt while he took a quick look around the boulder.

  “Do you feel weak or dizzy?” He came to stand close beside her and spoke very softly.

  “I’m all right.” She was leaning with her back against the rock, her weight on her uninjured leg.

  “Sit down and save your strength. Does it hurt much?”

  “I’d be lying if I said it didn’t.” Their eyes met and held. It was the first time she had really looked into his face today. He had shaved this morning in spite of the cuts on his face.

  “Can you think of a reason anyone would trail us from town to bushwhack us?” Mason put his hands beneath her armpits and eased her to the ground. He crouched beside her.

  “Maybe someone saw us go into the bank and thought we were carrying money to pay the hands.”

  “That’s possible.”

  “I can shoot. Papa taught me how to handle a gun.”

  “I’m glad to know that. We have some ammunition, but not a lot.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.” She looked him in the eye. “I could have got us killed.”

  He grinned his crooked grin. “I wasn’t going to let that happen.” He studied her for a minute, and she met his eyes frankly, a little puzzled, and faintly excited. “You know they’re not going to wait out there forever and there’s no reason for them to give up. They know we’re on foot. We couldn’t have picked a better place, though. They can’t get below us on either side without us seeing them and they’re not going to cross that bare space to rush us. They’ll wait till dark.”

  Victoria tried hard to appear calm and unafraid. She wished he would keep on talking. His voice was soothing and confident.

  “What happened to your horse?”

  “He bolted. They
may have shot him.”

  All was still. Mason listened intently for the sound of a boot heel striking a rock, the scrape of leather against dry brush, the clink of a rifle being reloaded, any slight noise. He heard nothing, yet someone was out there waiting. He felt the sweat break out on his brow and his mouth go dry. How was he going to get Victoria away from here? Alone he could wriggle through the grass and make it to the shelter of the trees.

  “Mason!” He turned at Victoria’s urgent whisper. “A bird flew out of that bush. Flew straight up and away as if frightened.”

  “If they’re going to flank us it’ll be from that side.”

  He positioned himself on the other side of Victoria and held his rifle steady. Watchfulness was no new thing for Mason. That and patience had kept him alive during the war. He crouched down beside the boulder wanting to make as small a target as possible as well as shield Victoria. She was a plucky woman! No panic, no hysterics.

  Mason studied the terrain with care, beginning afar and working closer, letting no rock or clump of brush go unscrutinized. Suddenly, across the clearing at the edge of the trees, a good hundred yards away, he saw a man duck behind a tree. When he stepped from behind it to run forward, Mason took aim, held his breath, let it out easily and squeezed off a shot. The bullet struck the tree near the man.

  “Damn!”

  Mason glued his eyes to the place where the man had disappeared. He watched and waited and when he saw a slight movement in the grass he fired carefully. There was no answering fire or any indication he had hit the man. He cursed again.

  “They won’t try again until night, but by then we’ve got to be gone from here.” He spoke to Victoria without taking his eyes off the grass he had fired into.

  He felt her hand on his back. “Don’t worry about me. I can do whatever we’ve got to do.”

  After a few minutes Mason got up and looked around the other side of the boulder, then came to hunker down beside Victoria. Her face was very pale. At this moment the question of which one had legal claim to the Double M was insignificant. He only knew there was not another woman like this woman. She was lovely and proud, calm and intelligent. He suspected she could be soft and yielding, too. He had been ever conscious of her since the moment they met. She could not know the depth of feeling she’d aroused in him when he’d heard her sobbing in that darkened room. Holding her in his arms, feeling her soft, warm body through her thin nightdress had been the most sensuous moment of his life.

  “Victoria…” He didn’t know why he said her name. She was looking directly into his eyes. He could see his reflection in hers.

  “Those men out there mean to kill us, don’t they?” she whispered, still holding his eyes with hers.

  “It seems so. It might be Kelso. Would he be a party to harming you? One of them was definitely shooting at you and one at me.”

  “Kelso wouldn’t! It has to be someone who saw me go into the bank.”

  She flexed her leg and tried not to grimace with the pain. Her leg felt as if it were on fire. Her mouth was dry. She remembered reading somewhere that a terrible thirst followed a loss of blood. Right now she would give anything for a cool drink of water.

  “I’ve been trying to figure a way out for us and there’s only one thing that might work. In about an hour the sun will be right there on the horizon. That means for not longer than ten minutes whoever looks into that sun isn’t going to see a thing. If we make a beeline for the sun then veer off to the left and get in among that low growth we can be a good distance from here before they know we’re gone.”

  “Then I’d better not sit here and get stiff.” She was suddenly desperately afraid, but smiled so he wouldn’t know.

  “No. Don’t get up yet.”

  “I told Stonewall I might stay over in town so there won’t be anyone coming to look for us,” she said bleakly.

  “And we can’t hope that my horse went back to the ranch even if they didn’t shoot him. He hadn’t been there long enough for it to be home.”

  “Rosie would have gone home,” she said in a low whisper.

  Ever vigilant, Mason moved away from her to scan the landscape. The sun was getting lower and casting long shadows out toward where the bushwhackers waited. It was also getting cooler up here on the pass. He looked down at the bowed golden head and saw Victoria try to suppress a shiver. She was cold! He shrugged out of his vest and crouched down beside her.

  “You’ll be cold because of the loss of blood. This will help a little.” For an instant when she looked up he saw something in her eyes that could have been…fondness for him? Admiration? It couldn’t have been that. She was grateful. He wouldn’t read any more into the look than that.

  She slipped her arms into the garment and hugged it close around her. “Thank you. I am cold, but won’t you need it?”

  He grinned. “I’m too mad to be cold.”

  “My papa always said, Don’t waste your energy being mad. Use it to think.”

  His grin widened despite his swollen lip. Victoria had time to study his face. The pucker on his cheek where she had put in the stitches had lost some of its swelling. In a few days she would clip the thread and pull it out with a pair of tweezers. At home there was some salve she would rub into the wound to make it heal faster.

  “Victoria…” he said in a soft whisper. “What are you thinking?”

  “I was thinking that I’d have to take that thread out of your cheek when we get home.” She felt the urge to laugh hysterically. There was a good chance she would never see home again.

  “It almost killed me when you put it in. I don’t know if I’m going to let you take it out.” His voice teased her. “I think you enjoyed poking me with that needle.”

  Victoria felt an overwhelming desire to touch him and lifted her hand. His met it and gripped hard.

  “I didn’t exactly enjoy it,” she admitted with a small smile. “But it was a good opportunity to inflict a little pain.”

  “I always suspect a streak of cruelty in a beautiful woman,” he said and laughed at the rosy tint that covered her face.

  We’ve got to be crazy, she thought wildly, to be sitting here talking like this when we may be dead within the hour.

  Mason saw her mood change and got to his feet. He put his hands beneath her arms and lifted her up to stand beside him. He held her for a moment. She tried to put her weight on her injured leg and a small groan escaped her lips.

  “It’s just that I sat still for too long,” she said by way of apology. “I’ll be—”

  The sharp crack of a rifle and the sound of the bullet hitting the boulder halted her words. Mason picked up his gun and threw off a quick shot at their attackers.

  “They want to make sure we’re still here. A very stupid move on their part, but I’ll play their game.”

  “Why?”

  “Because now we know where they are. They’ve settled down to wait until dusk, thinking they’ll sneak around us.” He shaded his eyes and looked toward the sun. “It won’t be long now. How do you feel?”

  “I won’t be able to run.”

  “I was planning on us wriggling through the grass. Can you manage that?”

  “Yes.” She could almost taste the fear in her mouth, but at the same time she felt an overwhelming peace, a willingness to follow this man. She could endure as long as he was with her. He stood over her, close to her and she had to tilt her head to look into his eyes.