"I can go by myself. I won't get lost. I can see the camp from there."
"When are you going to realize this is dangerous country? Mountain lions live in those hills. And if anyone is following us, that would be like handing you over to them."
"Do you mean I'm confined to that coach for the entire trip?"
"Until I feel sure we're not being followed and are reasonably safe from attack."
Her satisfaction in getting dressed in half the usual time faded. She still had no control over her life, and Luke thought she was an idiot. "No one's trying to kidnap me. I'm not of value to anyone."
The look he gave her-it lasted for only a fraction of a second-caused her to come vibrantly alert. It said she was of value. To him!
It was gone quickly, but a princess learned to be expert at interpreting brief glances. His glance said he cared. Being of value to Luke would be different from being important to Rudolf or her uncle. For them, her value would be inextricably interwoven with her position as a princess, with her inheritance. If Luke valued her at all, it would be for herself.
As a woman.
"I have to assume you're in danger," Luke said. "If you want to be helpful, get Hans and Otto to dress as quickly as you."
He turned, started to move away, then turned back. "Thanks for getting ready so quickly. The boys and I appreciate it." He flashed a quick, almost impersonal smile, then was gone.
"That's the rudest man in the world," Elvira said. She'd come out of the tent in time to hear the last exchange.
"By our standards, he probably is," Valeria replied. "By his standards, I think he just apologized."
Luke settled the deer more securely over his saddle, smoked a cigarette, and let his anger simmer quietly. He'd never had a more frustrating four days. He'd barely made eight miles a day, and then only because he drove everybody to the brink of rebellion. Valeria's people declared they were doing everything as fast as possible, but it seemed they got slower each day. A rattlesnake bit one of the cook's assistants. He'd survived but was laid up in one of the wagons, his leg black and swollen with the poison. Another man had broken his arm foolishly trying to convince one of the mules it didn't want to sample Valeria's dinner.
Now Luke had had to go hunting for meat.
Otto and the others had continued to eat as though there was no end to their food, and as Luke predicted, they ran out of meat. He could have sent Zeke after a deer. He should have sent Hawk, but he had gone himself. Given his present mood, he figured he'd be better off away from everybody for a few hours.
He had no intention of handing the deer over to the cook. He'd probably cook all the best pieces tonight, serve what remained for breakfast tomorrow, and throw the rest away. There were twenty adults in this group. Luke, Hawk, Zeke, and seven drivers made up one half. Valeria, Hans, Otto, Elvira, the cook and five servants made up the other half. Valeria's half consumed threefourths of the food and did none of the work. They spent all their time setting up and taking down tents, cooking and cleaning up after sumptuous meals.
But he couldn't blame Valeria for his difficulties. She had started to wakeup before he called. She was dressed and outside her tent long before Otto or Hans appeared. She still refused to wear any of the clothes he'd bought her, but she no longer complained of the heat. She said she had stripped her table down to bare essentials, but she simply had no idea how bare essentials could be.
Despite their continuing disagreement, he had begun to think of her less as a beautiful remnant of a useless and outdated society and more as a woman struggling to adapt to a new and unfamiliar environment. Zeke treated her like an ex-slave owner. Hawk ignored her.
Luke wished he could do the same.
Instead, he kept finding excuses for her mistakes. He paid no attention to Zeke's absurd accusation that he was going soft on her. Having lived in Europe, he understood more of what she was going through. That made it easier to keep from losing his temper when she demanded that
extra water be heated so she could wash her hair. It enabled him to understand why she continued the ritual of sitting down to a table set with priceless china and crystal. She wasn't emphasizing the distinction between herself and those around her. She was holding on to a piece of the only life she understood.
Coming to America must have been as frightening for her as being put into an orphanage had been for him and Chet. If they hadn't stuck together, fighting to protect each other, they wouldn't have survived. They'd felt almost as fearful when Jake and Isabelle adopted them, treated them with fairness, showed them love. It was a foreign world, but Chet had finally understood and wanted it for himself.
Luke couldn't accept it. He'd stayed outside the circle. He ...
The sound of rifle shots brought Luke out of his abstraction. He immediately whipped his horse into a gallop toward the camp.
Wild thoughts chased each other through his head. Somebody was after the horses, the mules, the gold and silver, silks and velvets-Valeria. He raked his mount's flanks with his spurs, but the horse couldn't run any faster over the treacherous ground.
Before Luke came into rifle range, he saw Indians circling the wagons. Even as he raised his rifle to this shoulder, he realized the scene made no sense. All the Indians in the area had been moved to reservations.
He started firing even though only the greatest stroke of luck would enable him to hit anyone from this distance. His horse galloped over rocks, around a towering saguaro cactus, through a chest-high tangle of mesquite. Luke kept up a steady rat-a-tat-tat of rifle fire even when his shots were deflected by branches of paloverde, cottonwood, or willow. He'd be lucky if he didn't fall out
of the saddle, but the attackers would know someone was firing on them from behind. Maybe that would drive them off before they could hurt anyone.
It did.
By the time Luke threw himself from the saddle in front of Valeria's tent, the Indians had gone. He rushed forward, threw aside the flap, and looked inside. Valeria and Elvira sat huddled on the floor propped up against the bed. For a moment neither of them moved, and Luke had the horrible feeling he had arrived too late.
As he started forward, Valeria lifted her head, turned a face with fearful eyes toward him. The look of relief, thankfulness, welcome-so many emotions were packed into that one glance-was unlike any that had ever come his way before. No woman had ever looked at him like he was the answer to her prayers, a hero come to rescue her, her savior in denim and scuffed boots.
Chapter Ten
"Are you hurt?" Luke hurried forward, dropped to one knee.
"No, but I can't get Elvira to move."
Luke tore his gaze from Valeria and directed his attention to the white-faced maid. He put his hand next to the side of her throat. He felt a pulse, weak but steady. He saw no sign of blood. He lifted her up, checked her back and sides, ran his hand over her body with the thoroughness of a physician.
"She's not wounded," Luke said, a weight lifted from his shoulders. "She's just fainted again."
He heard the tent flap being thrown back and turned, expecting to see Hawk or Zeke. Instead Hans entered the tent, his nervous body clad only in a pair of trousers.
"Your highness," he whispered, his voice hoarse with fear, "are you all right?"
"I'm fine," Valeria said.
"Elvira ... is she. .."
"She fainted," Luke said. "Where are your smelling
salts?" he asked Valeria. She dug though one of the boxes in her trunk until she found an elegant, cut glass and silver-gilt bottle, which she held out to Luke.
"Take the top off and hand it to me while I hold her up," Luke said.
During this, Otto stumbled into the tent. He had managed to put on his shirt, but he didn't look nearly as upset as Hans. Luke suspected him of being far more loyal to his own safety than his employer's.
"Is she hurt?" he asked.
"She fainted," Hans explained. "Luke is going to revive her with smelling salts."
"I can see
that," Otto snapped.
Luke waved the smelling salts beneath Elvira's nose. It took a moment before she revived with a violent jerk.
"Thank goodness," Valeria said.
"W-what happened?" Elvira asked.
"You fainted," Luke said.
"It's understandable," Hans said, shifting his weight from foot to foot, looking more nervous and upset than usual. "It's like the civil war all over again."
His words caused everyone to fall silent.
"It's your fault," Hans said, surprising Luke by his anger. "You weren't here when the princess needed you."
"He was hunting food for our table," Otto reminded him.
"He should have sent someone else," Hans said. "His job was to protect her highness."
"You're right," Luke said over Valeria's protest. "It was a stupid mistake, and I'm ashamed of it. I won't leave Valeria again. I'll sleep inside the tent tonight, right there." He pointed to a spot on the floor next to Valeria's bed.
"You'll do no such thing," Valeria said. "Elvira would
never get a moment's rest with you-a man-inside the tent."
Luke wasn't happy to know he'd tensed the moment he made the offer, that his body relaxed at Valeria's prompt refusal. He couldn't be sure it wasn't from disappointment rather than relief.
"Then I'll sleep outside the door. Isn't that what your guards did in Belgravia?" He hadn't meant to be snide, just to cover his reaction to his own feelings. He had to stop letting Valeria affect him like this. It might have been a long time since he'd had a woman, but he'd never been desperate before. Finding that Elvira could sit up on her own, Luke got to his feet. "I've got to see if anybody else is hurt. Stay here until I let you know it's safe to go outside."
"We can't stay in her highness's private tent," Hans said. "It's not proper."
"You can go," Luke said. "Nobody's trying to shoot you or Otto."
"How do you know?" Otto demanded.
"I don't. But if I thought they were, I'd be tempted to throw you outside so they could have a second chance." Outside, confusion reigned. Luke heard groans, one man yelling, presumably in pain. "Anybody hit?" he asked Zeke.
"Just a couple of the cook's helpers, but they deserved it. If I'd been here, I'd have shot them for stupidity. Instead of dropping to the ground when the attack started, they ran out into the open, directly into the field of fire. They're lucky they only got flesh wounds."
"Are they bad?"
"I don't know. I left the cook taking care of them."
Luke found the cook bandaging one man's arm; a second man was chattering away in a language Luke didn't understand.
"Do you need any medical supplies?" Luke asked.
"In the kitchen we have accidents all the time," the cook said. "I have everything."
"Did anybody manage to hit one of the Indians?" Luke asked Zeke.
"I don't know. I was down at the river with the horses when they attacked. By the time I got back they had gone."
"That seems awfully quick."
"Maybe the drivers ran them off too soon. As soon as they heard the first shot, they were on their bellies under the wagons firing as fast as they could. If those foreign fools hadn't gotten in the way, they might have killed a couple."
"We didn't have much chance to get any of them," one of the drivers said. "They were gone by the time I was able to work around my wagon, find my rifle, and get into position."
"You didn't see or hear them coming."
"I wasn't paying no attention," the driver said. "I thought you was taking care of that. I had my hands full trying to harness up these stubborn mules."
Luke supposed the man meant to make him feel guilty for not doing his job. He did, but he didn't have time for self-recrimination now. "Where did they come from? What direction?"
"Northwest," Zeke said. "That's what you saw?" he asked the driver.
"Pretty much. They ran off in that direction, too."
"Where's Hawk?" Luke asked.
He wasn't worried that anything had happened to Hawk. The man was more Indian than white, but Luke had expected him to head into camp as soon as he heard the first shot.
"Somewhere off to the south."
Luke had gone northwest, so he wouldn't have seen the attackers even if he hadn't been on the other side of the river. "I shouldn't have left," he said.
"You had to, unless you wanted us to starve," Zeke said. "I hope you got a deer."
"It's across my saddle. I'll get Hawk to dress it out as soon as he gets back."
If he gets back. He didn't know why that thought should bedevil him. Hawk had gone in nearly the opposite direction from the attackers. He couldn't possibly have been hurt. The orphans didn't always like to acknowledge the bond between them, but Hawk would never stay away if he thought one of them was in trouble.
"They were Indians," one of the drivers said.
"It looked that way," Luke said. "Do you know what kind?"
"No. I can't tell one Indian from another. They all look the same to me."
"You'd better not say that around Hawk," Zeke warned.
"I don't say nothing around him," the driver said. "I like my hair where it is."
"Hawk wouldn't scalp anybody," Luke said, disgusted anybody would think he might.
"He'll just cut your liver out," Zeke said, then laughed. "Shut up," Luke said. "You scare them off, you find replacements."
"Where?" Zeke said, looking around at the empty desert and hills. "There's not a living soul within fifty miles of us."
"Except those Indians," the driver said.
"They was Chiricahuas," a boyish driver said. He had coal-black hair and cheeks as downy as a peach.
That didn't make sense to Luke. The Chiricahua had been banished to the San Carlos Reservation in 1876. The closest part of that reservation was more than a hundred miles away. A few renegade braves had terrorized the area under Geronimo, but they'd been sent to Florida in 1886. There wouldn't be enough fugitives in the area to mount such an attack.
"Are you sure?" Luke asked.
"I used to live in Douglas," the young driver said. "I saw them Indians all the time. He was a Chiricahua."
"Have you seen Hawk?" Luke asked.
"I ain't seen him since he went out of here heading south," the boy said, returning to the job of harnessing his team of four mules. "That was over an hour ago."
Luke scanned the hills and desert to the south, but he didn't see any sign of Hawk.
"There he is," one of the drivers called.
"Where?" Luke asked.
"Over there, where those Indians disappeared."
It took Luke a moment before he could distinguish Hawk from several blooming yucca plants. A surprisingly strong feeling of relief swept over him. He'd hate to be the one to write Isabelle that Hawk had died because he hadn't attended to his responsibilities. Luke couldn't forget the passionate warmth Isabelle showered on her adopted family. He had stayed away because he didn't know how to return it. It would be easier if they just forgot about him.
Zeke pointed out the obvious. "Hawk's leading a horse with a body thrown across the saddle."
Hawk had apparently heard the attack, ridden to intercept the attackers, and killed one of them before they got away.
"We might as well get ready to pull out," Luke said to the drivers. "Everybody get your teams hitched up. Lend me a hand with this deer," he said to Zeke.
Luke figured it was probably safe for Valeria to come out of her tent, but he wanted to hear what Hawk had found out first.
"You think this attack has to do with her?" Zeke asked, nodding his head in the direction of Valeria's tent.
"I don't know," Luke replied. "They didn't appear to be looking for her tent."
"They couldn't have missed it. It's big enough for a king "
"She's a king's daughter," Luke pointed out. "A fact I hope you remember."
"I will. Now stop sticking your nose in my business and help with this deer."
They had the deer skinned and half the meat butchered, wrapped, and out of the heat by the time Hawk rode up. "Where did they go?" Luke asked.
"Toward the mountains," Hawk answered as he slid from the saddle.
"A driver said they were Chiricahuas," Luke said. "This one is a white man." Hawk grabbed the dead man by the hair and lifted his head until Luke could see his face. "White man," Hawk said.
The man had dressed himself as an Indian, but there wasn't enough makeup in the world to make him took like an Indian.
"I know him," one of the drivers said. "He goes by the name of Sam Lewis."
"Where did you meet him?" Luke asked.
"When I was doing some freighting over near Benson. They threw him out of one of the saloons for coming on too hard with one of the girls. He swore he'd come back and kill 'em all."
"Well, now you can go over to Benson and tell them they're safe," a fellow driver said.
"Not me. I don't want nobody thinking I'm a friend to that coyote."
"The one I saw was a Chiricahua," the young driver said. "I couldn't mistake something like that."
It didn't make any sense to Luke. A group of a halfdozen men, at least one real Indian and at least one fake, attacks the camp, doesn't take anything, doesn't kill anybody, and breaks and runs after less than a minute.
"Does anyone have an idea what they could have been after?" Luke asked the gathered drivers.
"They didn't try to get anything," one said. "They just fired off a lot of shots and rode off again."
"Maybe they were after the horses," another volunteered. "When they didn't see them, they rode off."
"We have twenty-four mules worth a fortune," Luke pointed out. "Why didn't they take those?"
"We all had our teams near our wagons," a driver said. "They couldn't have gotten the mules without getting shot."
"Then why didn't they come earlier when the mules and horses were still staked out?" Luke asked. "That's what Indians usually do.
Kill any guard and make off with the livestock before anybody knows what's happening."
No one had an answer.
"Why should this man be dressed up like an Indian?" one driver asked.
"So the raid would be blamed on Indians," Hawk said. "But they didn't take anything. Why get yourself in trouble and not take anything?"
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