Reluctant Enemies

by Vivian Vaughan

  Priscilla McCain turned away from Ol’ Sog’s pain-pinched countenance. Big man though he was, he’d passed out when Doc Sloan pulled his thighbone back in place. He was still so pale the sunspots on his aged, leathery face looked faded. Priscilla studied the fly-bespecked adobe walls of the hovel that served as both home and office for the only doctor within fifty miles of Chimayo. How could she leave Uncle Sog in such a place, so dirty and so far from home? “We’ll take the stage—”

  “Too risky.” Doc Sloan’s red face and stubbled chin gave him the appearance of a man who was just coming off a drunken binge. His hand had been steady enough, though, when he set Uncle Sog’s leg.

  Sog tried to move, but the doctor pushed him back to the narrow table where he lay. “Aw, Doc, I can’t lie here and let Jake ride off by her lonesome.”

  “A lot of good you’d do her,” the doctor countered. “In your shape, you’d likely die afore you reached Santa Fé.”

  “But I’m responsible for her, Doc. Her pa put me in charge.”

  Priscilla leaned over the stricken old man, frowning in her best imitation of anger, which didn’t fool either of them. “I’ve ridden these trails all my life, Uncle Sog. Nothing to it. Besides I’ll make better time without your carcass slowin’ me down.”

  Ol’ Soggy Bottoms, range cook for Charlie McCain’s Spanish Creek Ranch for twenty-odd years and for outfits clear across Texas for who knew how many years before that, was accustomed to giving orders, not taking them. Priscilla had learned that, early in life.

  “A range cook answers to no one,” her father had told her, when at twelve she’d had the audacity to suggest that Uncle Sog not make any more pies with canned peaches.

  “They make the bottom soggy,” she complained.

  “Where in tarnation d’you think I got my name, Jake?” She could tell by his peppery tone that she’d hurt Uncle Sog’s pride.

  “You eat, or you don’t eat,” her father said. “But Sog here runs the show.”

  Since that time she hadn’t given him any trouble, and certainly no one else had. But now a broken leg had grounded him, and he wasn’t taking the matter with grace, like her mother would have said. In fact, he was being downright ornery.

  “Your pa sent me along on this horse drive to chaperon you, Jake,” Sog argued. “He’d have my hide if I let you ride fifty miles through these mountains alone, jes’ ’cause a horse went an’ busted my good leg.”

  “Not until he recovers, he won’t,” Priscilla returned. “Doc says you’ll have to stay here awhile, Uncle Sog. But I can’t dillydally. With both you and Pa laid up, and Uncle Crockett off in Texas buying cattle, Pa needs me at home. No telling what the Haskels have tried since we’ve been gone.”

  “That’s my point,” Sog persisted. “Bad as that Haskel bunch wants Spanish Creek Ranch, ain’t no way of knowin’ what they’ll do next to take it. Why, they’ve got hired guns that wouldn’t blink an eye at snatchin’ you, Jake. That’d get to Charlie real quick, an’ they know it.”

  Priscilla focused on the earthen floor. Uncle Sog had a point, but she was a good enough shot that she wasn’t afraid of a Haskel hired gun. Of course, if they came at her with more than one—“They’ve let up since their attack on Pa,” she said. “Pa says they’ve turned things over to their crooked lawyers.”

  The old man’s gray eyes narrowed, whether from pain or worry, Priscilla couldn’t tell. “I don’t like it, Jake.”

  “I know, Uncle Sog.” She stroked his thinning, once-sandy hair, then grinned when he winced, knowing it was as much from embarrassment at her show of affection as from pain.

  Uncle Sog wasn’t really her uncle, but he’d come to the territory with her pa back in the early sixties. Sog and ranch foreman Titus Crockett were the only family Priscilla had ever known, outside her mother and father. They’d practically helped raise her. Since she got old enough to sit a saddle, she’d gone along on horse and cattle drives, but always with her pa, Uncle Sog, or Uncle Crockett to see to her safety. Pa had intended to head this drive to Chimayo himself, before he caught a couple of Haskel bullets.

  Priscilla wasn’t afraid of the Haskels, they just made her fighting mad. With the territory still recovering from the Lincoln County War, the Haskel Land Grant Company had stepped in and claimed thousands of acres of land on irregularities in Spanish Land Grant surveys. And they’d hired a passel of guns and lawyers to back them up.

  Three weeks earlier they’d attacked her pa and his cowboys while they were rounding up cattle to fulfill a government contract. In the skirmish Pa took a bullet through the thigh and another in the shoulder. Afterward, his cowboys quit, saying they weren’t drawing fightin’ wages and claiming the climate was healthier down Texas way. Only Uncle Sog and Uncle Crockett stayed on.

  And Red Avery, she thought, recalling the red-headed archaeologist who couldn’t be numbered among those capable of defending Spanish Creek Ranch. Red was long on education and short on everything else. As far as Priscilla was concerned he was less than worthless on a ranch. She knew he entertained romantic designs on her, which she considered equally misplaced.

  Priscilla had no time for romance. Not as long as Spanish Creek was in trouble. Her mother and father had bought that ranch with their blood and sweat. And as long as there was breath in her body, Priscilla vowed to fight the Haskels and anybody else who tried to take it.

  She smiled to herself. They’d outwitted the Haskels this time. With the cattle gone, the Haskel bunch figured they had the McCains over a barrel. But they hadn’t counted on one factor—the horses in Spanish Creek Canyon. Pa sold these horses only when a situation could not be resolved by other means. Such as at present, when a government contract waited to be filled. Competition was fierce for government contracts, since they went a long way toward helping turn a profit in lean years.

  With her father laid up, Priscilla had persuaded him to let her drive the horses. Truthfully, he’d had no choice.

  “Uncle Sog and I can trail that herd to Chimayo, Pa,” she’d argued, “while Uncle Crockett rides down river to buy more cattle.”

  “With what?”

  “With the government gold we’ll bring back from selling the horses,” she retorted. “Any cattleman in Texas will honor an IOU from Charlie McCain.”

  Which was true, except they hadn’t counted on Uncle Sog’s horse stepping in a varmint hole and breaking a leg. Nor had they counted on that horse falling on Uncle Sog and breaking his leg, too. All of which was unfortunate. None of which Priscilla would allow to stand in the way of ranch work.

  “I have to get this gold back to Pa, Uncle Sog. You know that.”

  “Now missy—”

  “You always said I’m handier with a rifle than you are. I can dispatch any hombre who sets out to take our gold, same as you.”

  “It ain’t only the gold, Jake.”

  “I can protect myself, too.” She reached for the saddlebags, which were heavy with government gold. “I’m going.”

  When the old ranch cook stirred, Doc Sloan laid a hand on his shoulder. “Wouldn’t be movin’ around if I were you. I’d hate like the dickens to have to pull them bones back together again.”

  Sog settled back. “Do me a favor, missy.”

  Priscilla eyed him.

  “Take the derned stage into Santa Fé. An’ get that Holbert feller to ride on out to the ranch with you.”

  “No tellin’ when a stage’ll come through—”

  “One’s arrivin’ this afternoon from Springer,” Doc Sloan allowed. “If you two’ll quit jawin’, you can catch it, an’ I can get my patient settled down.”

  Although she hated the thought of a jolting stagecoach ride over narrow mountain roads, Priscilla knew when to fold, as she’d heard the cowboys say, times when she’d sneaked off to the bunkhouse to play poker with them. Paying the doctor for Uncle Sog’s treatment in advance, she forewarned him.

  “We expect the best care you can give him, Doc. My pa will come personally to
fetch Uncle Sog, and he won’t settle for less than your best shot.”

  The stagecoach driver was already stepping onto the box when Priscilla approached the station. Recognizing him, she hailed, “Hey, Zeke, don’t leave without me.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it, Jake.” Zeke Grayhorse was a big man. His shoulder-length black hair bounced from beneath a high-crowned black felt hat when he jumped to the ground. He met her at the hitching rail. “Buy your ticket while I unsaddle your horse and tie him on behind.”

  Priscilla dismounted before the low adobe stage station. She removed her spurs and stuffed them inside her saddlebags with the gold. Pulling her Winchester from its scabbard, she lifted the saddlebags from behind the cantle.

  “Want me to put them things up top with your saddle?”

  Priscilla glanced to the top of the coach. “I’d rather keep them inside if there’s room.”

  “Sure is that.”

  “Good.” She grinned, wrinkling her nose. “For more reasons than one. I’d probably run off any paying customers. Uncle Sog and I’ve been sleeping with a horse herd for better’n a week.”

  Zeke laughed. “Wouldn’t know you any other way, Jake.”

  Priscilla took the remark as it was intended, in fun. After paying her fare, she opened the stagecoach door and tossed her gold-laden saddlebags to the vacant seat.

  The other seat was occupied by a long-legged man who slouched back in a corner with a hat pulled over his face. He was lanky enough to be a cowboy, but that’s where all resemblance stopped. His citified black suit, complete with starched collar and fancy silk tie, would be a laughingstock around a bunkhouse. Priscilla grinned at the hat, a black bowler, wondering what pranks Uncle Sog and Uncle Crockett would think up should such a man foolishly venture onto Spanish Creek Ranch.

  When she climbed into the coach, her eyes fell on the man’s boots. If you could call them that, she thought. Certainly they weren’t the sturdy boots Westerners wore to work cattle. Where in tarnation did this greenhorn expect to go in footgear that flimsy? Why, the first cactus patch would catch him like a flytrap.

  Will Radnor pulled his long legs out of the way of the boarding passenger with a brief, “Excuse me, sir.”

  At the unexpected greeting Priscilla’s head jerked up. Her Stetson fell backward. She reached for it with her free hand. In the other she gripped the Winchester.

  “It’s miss,” she corrected in a snippy tone.

  Hearing that, Will shoved the bowler back off his face. He’d seen only the scuffed boots and leather-clad knee when he made the assumption. Now he looked at the rest of the package. His brown eyes widened.

  Fully aware of his perusal, Priscilla moved inside, leaned her rifle in a corner, and arranged her saddlebags on the seat opposite the greenhorn. She figured him for a drummer of some sort. If he intended to sell his wares in this country, she could tell him a thing or two about how to dress. On the other hand, it might be fun to watch him find out for himself.

  Moving his gaze up her buff-colored leather britches, Will did a double take at the gun belt and holsters strapped around her slender hips. What the hell kind of country was this? Here he’d been dreaming about voluptuous, black-eyed señoritas and what had he found? A female warrior loaded for bear. He sniffed the air. Actually, she smelled more like a horse. But then he probably reeked malodorously, too. Since leaving St. Louis, he could count the number of baths he’d had on one finger—and that one in an icy mountain stream. He had run out of clean clothes even before that. Civilization couldn’t come soon enough.

  “ALL ABOARD!” Zeke called from the driver’s box. Without further warning, the coach lurched forward. Priscilla, in the process of taking her seat, staggered. She flung her arms wide, clutching at the leather straps to either side of the doors.

  Will caught her when she pitched toward him. He steadied her with hands spanning her hips just above the gunbelt. Their eyes met. He thought for a minute he’d grabbed hold of that horse he smelled, and it was a wild one. But no horse he’d ever seen had such startling blue eyes.

  “Damn,” she muttered.

  “Begging your pardon, miss.” But he didn’t think to turn her loose.

  She mumbled another oath, jerked free, and seated herself opposite him. With movements as cocky as a gun-fighter’s she diverted her gaze. Ignoring him, she settled back in the seat and clamped one booted ankle over the opposite knee in an unladylike pose that caught Will completely off guard.

  Unable to stop himself, he allowed his gaze to drift over her once more. Tall for a woman, trim, not a bad face even though it was tanned from too many hours in the sun. But her clothes were what intrigued him. A faded blue shirt, topped by the kind of leather vest he’d seen a lot of lately—on men. Her leather britches were as stained as a painter’s palette, and her floppy brown felt hat—he’d heard them called Stetsons—was well worn and misshapen. But her pistols gleamed in their oiled holsters, and she carried an equally well-cared-for Winchester for extra measure.

  The outfit intrigued him, yes, and the feel of her did, too. His hands tingled from the soft leather and what he knew would surely be softer skin beneath it.

  He watched her performance as attentively as if he were in a theater and she the star performer. She lifted her hat, wiped a dampened brow, and tucked wisps of hair the color of new-minted gold behind her ears. As though he weren’t watching, she turned to secure the position of her rifle, giving him a glimpse of an almost perfect profile and a mass of that gold hair that hung in one heavy braid down her back. His mind played games, wondering how long it was when loose, how soft it was, how it would smell against his face. Same as the rest of her, more than likely.

  When she turned her head again, he watched her face screw up in a grimace. Following her line of vision, he caught her sneering at his feet. His feet? He searched his boots for a scuff or a tear in the fine leather, but saw neither. What the hell? Probably she’d never seen such a fine pair of footwear.

  “Miss what?” he inquired.

  Her head jerked up. Her blue eyes glinted with undisguised mockery. She wasn’t in the least abashed to be caught sneering at his attire.

  But Will Radnor was abashed. Abashed to find himself seated across from such a woman. He hadn’t expected to encounter refined ladies in New Mexico Territory, not like the ones in Philadelphia. Actually, he’d looked forward to meeting a few less pretentious women. Well, here was certainly one less pretentious woman. After another snickering perusal of his person, she settled back and closed those sky blue eyes, which were the only feminine thing about her—except for that head of golden hair. As an afterthought, she lifted two slender fingers, whose nails were ragged and dirty, and used them to pull the brim of her Stetson over her eyes.

  Guns and britches and a baggy man’s shirt. Except when she settled back, her vest fell open and her shirt rested softly across breasts that revealed at least as much femininity as those blue eyes.

  Just when he figured she intended to ignore his question, she responded, “McCain.”

  McCain.

  The name did more to undo Will Radnor’s composure than Miss McCain’s mannish attire, or her weapons, or even her captivating blue eyes. With concentrated effort and the skills of one practiced in interrogation, he kept his voice noncommittal.

  “Will Radnor here.” He offered his hand but she merely nodded beneath the hat and didn’t look up. He turned to the window, watched the country blur past. The coach bolted around one hairpin curve after another, unsettling Will’s city stomach, as the vehicle hugged a towering rocky wall here, teased the edge of a sheer precipice there. Tops of trees appeared along breaks in the canyons and lined the banks of a swiftly moving river far below. In the distance mountains rose in tiers, ever higher and bluer. Everywhere he’d been in this country, tall blue mountains rose in the distance, beckoning him onward, always beyond reach.

  Beyond reach, like the mission that had driven Will since childhood. A mission of vengeance. When
he left Philadelphia, taking a leave of absence from his law practice, he hadn’t been certain he could locate his father’s killer after twenty-three years. But he couldn’t resist following the latest trail, which led to a man by the name of McCain who was thought to have been living somewhere in New Mexico Territory for more than twenty years.

  He glanced across the small confines of the coach to the sleeping Miss McCain. She looked to be in the neighborhood of twenty, and she obviously took their harrowing ride as an everyday occurrence. Which to his mind proved she must have been reared in this country. Certainly no one new to these mountains could fall sound asleep while faced with the prospect of being plunged into infinity at any given moment. After twenty-three years, Providence had at last smiled on him.

  The mountains fell away. Then no sooner had they reached the lowland, than the coach lurched ahead, whipped by a shouting driver. Will swallowed his stomach and decided the driver must be possessed by demons.

  At the change of pace, Priscilla bolted upright, settled her Stetson on the back of her head, and stuck her near-perfect profile out the window.

  “What is it?” Will asked.

  “Three…four men.”

  “What—” A volley of gunshots answered his question.

  Priscilla shoved her saddlebags to the floor and reached for her Winchester, which she loaded with dispatch. Will jerked his feet from under the heavy saddlebags.

  “What’ve you got in there—” A succession of gold coins spilled from the saddlebags and rolled across the floor.

  She fired out the window, then turned a silencing glare on Will. He met her gaze, struggling to make sense of the bizarre turn of events. Behind her a body fell from the driver’s box and dropped to the ground. Will’s stomach lurched again. He wished for his own rifle, which he’d stashed in the rear boot with his gear.

  “Hey, Jake,” came a call from above. “Whit’s been hit. Can you climb up here and give me a hand?”

  “Coming.” Priscilla reloaded her rifle as she spoke.