As much as Kate didn't like the idea of staying behind, she knew that Mae and Jessie were right. She just had to believe that Jessie would come home unharmed.
* * *
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Just before dawn, Vance pulled her horse even with Jessie's.
She, Jessie, and the ranch hands had been climbing steadily into the foothills through the night, and the air was noticeably thinner and colder than on the ranch. The terrain was rocky and the scattering of junipers and sagebrush fairly sparse, so there wasn't much in the way of cover. The openness made Vance more than a little uneasy.
She was used to fighting in the woods and fields of Pennsylvania and Virginia, where trees and thickets provided plentiful shields. The sound of horses' hooves clattering on rock split the air like gunshots, and each time she heard it, her stomach tightened painfully. She knew where she was, and she knew that Lee's army did not wait over the crest of the next ridge. Still, the anticipation of battle was as familiar as the beat of her own heart. "How much farther, do you think?"
"We're pretty close to the line shack where Charlie and Johnny were staying when they saw the strangers following the herd," Jessie said.
"It might be better to leave most of the men back a ways, because fifteen riders are going to make a racket going up that last slope," Vance said, nodding toward the rocky ridge in front of them. "It will also prevent us from being flanked to have your guns at our back."
Jessie nodded. "I would never have brought this many men if Jed and Kate hadn't ganged up on me and threatened to follow us." She shook her head. "A few good hands are all we really need."
"It's a lot like trying to move an army without anyone noticing,"
Vance said. "It's far more effective to send advance skirmishers to secure an area and then bring up the main body."
"I guess you've been in situations like this before," Jessie said, slowing Star to a walk. The sun would be up within minutes, and any advantage of surprise they might have would be lost.
"A few times. Usually I stayed with the battalion, but when heavy forward skirmishes were anticipated, I went with the men."
Jessie turned in the saddle and motioned for Charlie to join them.
"Tell four or five of the boys to wait here. The rest should work their way down into the valley, staying below the ridge line, so they can cut off any escape if the bastards decide to run. You, Vance, and I will go on up ahead so we can get a look over the rim of the valley. You can show us where you last saw them, and if we're lucky, they'll still be there."
"The boys won't take lightly to being left behind," Charlie observed conversationally.
"Maybe not. But I don't want to spook this bunch before we get a fix on their position."
Charlie nodded. "Makes sense, I guess. I'll tell them."
As he rode back to the group, Vance and Jessie trotted ahead. Just before they reached the top of the trail that bordered the valley below, Jessie slowed again. "You might want to think about staying back, too.
We'll be visible on this ridge now that the sun is up, and if it's the same bunch as before, they won't waste any time shooting at us."
"I didn't come all this way to miss the action." Vance shrugged and grimaced as pain shot through her left shoulder and chest. The gray morning air hung thick with mist, and her leather duster kept the moisture but not the cold from settling into the damaged tissues. "Is it your plan to kill these men?"
"Might have to." Jessie regarded her pensively. "Is that going to be a problem for you?"
Vance held Jessie's steady gaze. "It wouldn't be if I knew they were the men who ambushed you and Jed. Attempted murder and horse thievery are hanging offenses."
"But we don't know for sure," Jessie said, spurring Star up a small rise off to one side of the trail.
Vance guided her horse up beside her, and together, they surveyed the valley below. "I'm not suggesting a friendly parlay. But once we find them, we might want to wait a bit to see if they're actually stealing--"
The small puff of smoke appearing from a clump of rocks two hundred feet away, the sound of the shot, and Jessie's horse rearing seemed to happen all at once. Then Jessie was falling and Vance was diving after her, her saddlebag clutched in her hand. Vance tucked her chin and rolled over her right shoulder, tossing the bag in front of her and pulling her revolver as she came to a teeth-jarring halt in the loose stones next to Jessie. A boulder blocked her view of the spot from which the shot had come, which also meant they couldn't be seen.
Even if the shooters climbed up to their location, it would take them a few minutes.
"Jessie," Vance said urgently, a sick feeling clamping down on her throat. There was blood spatter on the ground, and Jessie had not moved since she'd landed. "Where are you hit?"
"Leg," Jessie said through gritted teeth, slowly turning onto her back and pushing upright against the largest rock with her right leg.
"Just winged my thigh, but I think Star might have been hit. Bastards.
I'll kill every one of them if they hurt my horse."
"I saw her bolt away. If she's hurt, it's not bad. Now let me see your leg." Vance jerked open the flap on her saddlebag and pulled out a trail knife. She slit Jessie's chaps and denim pants in the area of the bloody tear on the outside of her left thigh. Jessie winced but made no complaint. "It looks like it's skimmed you, but didn't lodge in the muscle or bone." Carefully, Vance palpated Jessie's thigh, pressing along the length of her femur and eliciting no increased pain or movement. "It's not broken."
"Just bind it up so we can climb up there and get a shot at these rustlers," Jessie said. "And don't tear my pants up too much while you're doing that, because Kate is going to be mad enough as it is."
"Just make sure you don't get any more holes in your clothes, and Kate will probably only take a few swats at you," Vance said as she withdrew a length of cotton from her bag. She folded the end and applied it to the slowly oozing wound. "Here. Hold this end so I can wrap it around and stop the bleeding."
A minute later, Jessie tested her leg. "Doesn't feel much worse than when one of my stallions kicks me. I can walk on it."
"Keep your damn head down," Vance said, her relief giving way to anger at whoever had shot at them. She turned at a sound behind her and saw Charlie and another man, Johnny probably, crab-walking up the slope toward them, guns drawn, faces grim. She pointed to the ridge. "The shooter was probably a lookout, hoping to scare us off.
The rest are probably down the other side, waiting to see if we'll keep coming." She looked to Jessie, who nodded agreement, then pointed Charlie and Johnny toward the right. "You two see if you can get over to that outcropping...there, and Jessie and I will work our way around this one here. Then we should have them in a crossfire down below us."
The two men glanced at Jessie.
"It's a good plan, boys. Let's do it."
The few minutes it took to reach the ridge felt like an hour to Vance as they cautiously darted from one outcropping to the next, half expecting gunfire from some quarter. She breathed a sigh of relief when she and Jessie reached the top without further shots being fired.
From where they crouched behind a cluster of barrel-sized rocks, they could just make out Charlie and Johnny in a similar position partway around the ridge overlooking the deep narrow valley below. Scanning the area, she could make out portions of the herd grazing on the short grass that bordered a tortuously winding river. It wasn't surprising that the rustlers had chosen this location. Fifty prime mustangs grazed in the valley below, mares watching over their still-wobbly-legged foals as they ambled innocently beneath a clear dawn sky. Vance had seen bucolic scenes like this before erupt into gunfire and death in the blink of an eye. While a small corner of her mind noted the beauty, all of her senses were focused on detecting any sign of the enemy. She sniffed the crisp, sharp air and smiled, inching closer to Jessie.
"Cigarette."
"Where?"
Vance squinted in the s
unlight and caught a puff of white out of the corner of her eye, come and gone so quickly it might have been a mirage, but she knew it wasn't. "There. Halfway down and just to the right of that lone pine."
Without moving, Jessie stared and, after a few seconds, saw the telltale whiff of smoke. "That's one. How many more do you think?"
"Charlie said they'd seen four men yesterday, right?"
Jessie nodded.
"Then they're probably all still here."
"Damn fools if they think they can ride onto our land and ride out with our horses." Jessie shook her head, then glanced at Vance. "Killing a man doesn't come easy to me."
"I understand. It might not come to that."
"I guess we'll see," Jessie said, eyes narrowing as she watched a prong-horned antelope bolt from behind a clump of sagebrush and gracefully dance down the rocky slope. She pointed. "Over there."
Vance followed her direction in time to see sunlight glint on a gun barrel. Then the air exploded with gunfire, and she was shooting back into the clouds of dirt and rock chips being kicked up by the fusillade of bullets from Jessie and the hands. She had one clear shot when a man ran across an open space between two rock formations, but before she could fire he went down and did not move. From Jessie's grim expression, she knew it had been her bullet that stopped him.
"Two of them are running," Jessie shouted.
Vance peered around the rocks and saw two men well down the valley pulling whinnying, nervous horses from behind a stand of juniper. "Your men will pick them up farther down the valley."
"One more up here, then."
"Maybe. Maybe he already left." Vance had barely gotten the words out when she was knocked onto her back. It felt as if a giant fist had punched her in the shoulder, and she immediately felt the familiar fire in her chest and arm. "I guess not," she grunted, pressing her hand to her left shoulder. She blinked the smoke and sweat from her eyes and saw her left hand lying useless in her lap, the arm bones shattered, the crimson pool gathering on earth so drenched with blood it could hold no more. Milton sprawled beside her, his sightless eyes accusing her.
The sound of a thousand marching men bore down upon her, and for just an instant, she welcomed death.
"Don't think about going anywhere," Jessie said sharply as she shielded Vance with her body. "Mae will have my hide and then some."
Mae. Mae will be angry. Worse, Mae will be hurt. Vance took a deep breath and moved her right hand slowly over her shoulder and down the upper portion of her amputated arm. "I don't think it got much of me."
"Let me just get a look."
"Hand me my gun," Vance said, biting back the pain. "Dropped it."
"Here." Jessie put the revolver in Vance's surprisingly steady hand, then signaled for Charlie and Johnny to fire into the valley to give them some cover. She knelt beside Vance, shoved the duster aside, and ripped open her shirt. "Got a bit of a hole just above your collarbone.
It's bleeding some."
"Through and through, I think. I can still move the shoulder joint.
Help me sit u--" Vance caught movement out of the corner of her eye, rolled onto her side, and fired at the man who was pointing a rifle at Jessie's back. He groaned, fell to his knees, and then dropped face first into the dirt. "At least it's wasn't my gun arm."
When the pain surged again, she closed her eyes and let the sound of battle slip away.
v Kate found Jessie on the back porch, staring into the dark yard with a half-empty glass of whiskey in her hand. Coming up behind her, Kate put her arms around Jessie's waist and rested her cheek between her shoulder blades. "You shouldn't be standing on that leg, darling."
"It's fine, Kate. I've had worse after an afternoon in the corral."
"That might be, but it's a fresh wound and I don't want it bleeding again." It had taken her the better part of the evening to convince herself that Jessie wasn't badly injured. When she'd watched the cowboys' return, one leading a riderless horse, she'd thought her heart would stop. Then she'd seen Jessie on Star with Vance slumped in front of her, and she'd been able to breathe again. Until she'd seen the blood soaking Vance's shirt and heard Mae's agonized cry. "It's after midnight. You need to come to bed."
Jessie drank the whiskey down in one swallow and set the glass on the railing. She covered Kate's arms with hers, welcoming the warmth against her back. The sky was inky black, cloudless. Stars glittered like chips of diamonds. She felt so cold inside. "It was a night like this last fall when I was waiting for you to come to me. We were going to leave all this and run away. Remember that?"
"How could I not?" Kate gently drew her arms from beneath Jessie's and turned her lover to face her. She pressed both hands to Jessie's chest and leaned against her, searching her face. "What troubles you so?"
"Two people died today. It was my decision to go up there." Jessie sighed. "I knew it was right when I left here last night. I don't know why it doesn't feel that way just now."
Kate smiled softly and stroked Jessie's cheek. "Because life means something to you, and even though you did the right thing, protecting what's ours, it hurts to take a life."
"They fired first."
"Yes," Kate said gently. "And you protected yourself. And Vance protected you." She laid her cheek on Jessie's chest. "It takes a strong will to live in this land. Most people couldn't. It breaks them--destroys their dreams or corrupts their hearts. You have a good heart. I trust it.
I trust you."
Jessie tightened her hold and closed her eyes as tears trembled on her lashes. "I'd have no heart at all without you," she whispered, her voice rough and shaking. "If I hadn't found you, I don't know that I could have lived my life out here, or anywhere, without becoming one of those people dying from broken dreams. I need you, Kate." She shivered. "So much."
"I knew from the first moment I saw you that you would change my life." Kate kissed Jessie and smoothed her tears away. "I knew in that instant that this was where I belonged, in this land, with you. I promise you will always have my heart, as I have yours."
"You think Mae will ever forgive me?"
"She loves you. She will."
* * *
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Mae watched Vance sleep. She turned the lamp down so low the wick threatened to gutter and go out. There was very little moon, and although the sound of Vance's steady breathing was comforting, she feared the dark this night. She couldn't remember the last time there was something she'd wanted so badly the thought of losing it made her scream inside. When she'd seen Vance slumped against Jessie, her face ashen, her white shirt soaked with blood, she'd known what dying felt like. Carefully, she reached over and brushed damp, dark strands of sweat-soaked hair from Vance's forehead.
Vance's lids flickered and she muttered hoarsely, "Mae?"
"Right here, sweetheart."
"Might you have some water?" Vance tried unsuccessfully to sit up but found that her limbs were strangely sluggish. Her left arm, especially, was an agonized mass of muscle and bone. She reached over, discovered the empty place where she knew her hand should be, and groaned.
"Shh, love," Mae crooned. "It's going to be all right." She settled carefully onto the bed next to Vance and slipped her arm behind her, taking care to support her back away from the area of the bandaged shoulder. "I've got water here. Let me raise your head."
Vance drank thirstily. The tepid water tasted like ambrosia. Mae's voice sounded like beautiful music. "Arm's gone."
"Yes," Mae said, tears nearly forcing her throat closed around the word.
"Remember now." Vance opened her eyes and focused on Mae's worried face. "Appomattox."
"No justice, is there?" Mae deposited the glass on the bedside table and stroked Vance's cheek. "That happening to you the last battle of the war."
"I don't know." Vance grimaced. "Divine justice?"
"Can't see why a hero should be rewarded that way."
"I'm no hero."
"You are." Mae kissed her tende
rly. "And you're going to be all right. Caleb was here."
"What did he say?"
"That you were lucky, which all of us already knew." Mae settled her free arm around Vance's waist, caressing her gently, reassuring herself that Vance was really awake and with her. "The bullet missed all the important things, apparently. He said you'd feel weak for a spell, but there's no more damage to your arm that he could see."
"Damn thing hurts like it did right after I was first shot. Hasn't felt like that for half a year." Vance grinned crookedly. "Better than getting the other arm shot up, though."
"It would've been a damn sight better if neither one of them got shot up," Mae said fiercely, but her eyes, soft with concern, belied her anger.
"Wasn't my intention." Vance put all her effort into raising her right arm and found Mae's hand where it rested on her chest. She squeezed, surprised at how weak her grip seemed. "Sorry if I worried you."
Mae laughed, a sound that bordered on a sob. "Scared me half to death. Don't do it again."
"It will be my solemn endeavor not to." Vance took a deep breath, feeling a little stronger with each moment. "How's Jessie? Her leg okay?"
"Kate and I had gotten you both cleaned up before Caleb got here.
He says she needs to be careful riding for a few days, but no real harm done."
Vance closed her eyes. "That's good." Suddenly, she stiffened.
"What time is it?"
"Why, I don't know exactly. Going on toward one, I imagine."
When Vance tried once more to sit up, Mae said sharply, "Here now, stop that. You'll start something bleeding."
"Won't you be missed back in town? I don't want you bringing trouble on yourself because of me." Frustrated, she raked her hand through her hair. "Especially when I'm laid up and can't be there to look after--"
"I sent a note round to Frank with Caleb telling him that I was sick in bed out here at Kate's. That will buy me another day or so." Mae took Vance's face gently between her fingers and waited until Vance met her gaze. "You'll have to get used to me caring for you, just like you look after me."
Radclyffe - Promising Hearts Page 24