by Carol Finch
His horse shifted uneasily beneath him, as if the gelding sensed the eerie presence that loomed over this tragic site. Jonah glanced sideways to see Boone’s horse, as well as Maddie’s, shying away from the bone-covered hill, where legend claimed a phantom herd of horses thundered across the valley beneath every full moon.
Jonah flinched when he felt Maddie’s small hand slide over his. Shaking off the unnerving sensations that bombarded him, he noticed she had slipped her other hand consolingly over Boone’s. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she stared at the skeletons that told the grisly tale of ruthless violence and cruel death.
“I’m so sorry I forced you to face the past,” she said with a shaky breath. “I didn’t know. Couldn’t even imagine…” Her voice dried up as her watery gaze settled on Jonah. “Go back.” She gave their hands a sympathetic squeeze. “I can’t bear the thought of making you confront more hellish memories like this one.”
Maddie swallowed convulsively as emotions, guilt and regret foremost among them, knotted in the pit of her stomach. She had hurt both men deeply by forcing them to pass through this area. She could tell by the stricken looks on their faces that it was like riding through the valley of doom.
“Go back,” she repeated brokenly.
Abruptly she gouged her heels into the mare’s flanks and thundered off, circling the gravesite and heading due north. Jonah and Boone didn’t give chase. Couldn’t. Not yet. They had to work through the tormented emotions that swirled around them and converged to strike with the force of a thunderbolt.
“The army knew they would devastate our people, who prided themselves in being experienced horse trainers and skilled riders when the herd fell beneath their firing squad.” Jonah scowled angrily.
“I wonder how those bastards would feel if the situation were reversed and the Indians had destroyed their way of life and stole all that was vital and important to them?” Boone growled resentfully. “I won’t be able to offer my services to the army as a guide after this.” His stormy gaze swept over the demoralizing site again and again, as did Jonah’s. “Even though Major Thorton and his men aren’t personally responsible for this violent atrocity I still hold them accountable in my heart.”
Jonah shared the same fierce feeling of contempt for the army. “First the Trail of Tears to remove the tribes from the fertile lands the whites coveted in the East. Then the Sand Creek Massacre, which came on the heels of a supposed peace treaty,” he snarled in disgust.
“And the Washita Massacre,” Boone added vehemently. “Not to mention the strychnine poisonings and premeditated introduction of smallpox and cholera epidemics to annihilate our people.”
Old hatreds seethed around Jonah like a host of fire-breathing dragons. Hatreds that he had willfully buried deep inside him and spent years avoiding now rose, one by one, to haunt him.
He reminded himself that he had learned to face the dangers of his occupation and that he had to conquer the demons of his past before they swallowed him alive. But this was far more devastating than any physical injury he’d ever suffered. This was a wound that struck heart-and-soul deep.
Jonah forced himself to shift his attention to the lone rider who scrabbled up the rock-strewn slope, then vanished into another glimmering mirage on the mesa. As much as he despised the coil of emotion that ate away at him, he would not allow Maddie to venture northwest without him. He would escort her safely to Mobeetie before he turned back. He couldn’t bear the thought of her perishing out here among the other ghosts of his tormented past.
“Go back, Boone,” Jonah murmured as he reined his steed in the direction Maddie had taken. “I’ll contact you when I return to the Flat.”
“Is she worth this, Danhill?” Boone asked pointedly.
Jonah brought his skittish horse to an abrupt halt and twisted in the saddle to meet the other man’s dark, smoldering gaze. “You tell me, Boone. It suddenly seems as if our roles have been reversed and she was sent into our lives to guide us through our past because we refused to face it ourselves. Just what is the measure of a man who allows his fears and bitterness to dictate who he is and what he will become?”
Boone’s quiet laughter held not one hint of amusement. “Damn, Danhill. I was thinking the same thing. Maybe visiting the boiling spring beneath Eagle’s Ridge, where the spirits reside, will soothe this ache inside me. If you’re going after her then I’m coming with you.”
“For only one more day,” Jonah told Boone.
“After that, I’m thinking I’ll take you up on your offer to join your Ranger battalion.”
Jonah nodded agreeably. “At least on the Rio Grande you’re too damn busy dodging flying bullets and fighting to stay alive to let your mind wander back into the past to gruesome landmarks like this one, where phantoms call out for justice and revenge that can never come.”
Side by side, Jonah and Boone circled the canyon to track down Maddie. Ironic, thought Jonah. Maddie Garret had become their guide, though she had no idea where she was going or what she would find. Jonah figured that he and Boone would be better men for this, but right now it felt as if they were trekking through hell to endure every torment of the damned.
Maddie reached a deep gully overgrown with juniper and mesquite, and couldn’t stir another step. She couldn’t forgive herself for forcing Jonah and Boone to revisit that grotesque site. She was thoroughly upset with herself for causing them to endure such outrage and grief.
She dismounted and sank defeatedly to the ground. Tears scalded her eyes and regret descended upon her with the impact of a rockslide when she imagined all Jonah and Boone had lost. As tough and invincible as Jonah was, she knew he was hurting in places that he refused to allow the world to see. Yet what wounded him cut deeply into herself like a razor-sharp sword. She was so attuned to him that watching him suffer tortured her beyond measure.
And if that wasn’t enough to shatter her composure, she only had two days left before she was to deliver the ransom. If Christina was still alive or even cared if she were rescued. The thought provoked an outburst of tears and an eruption of emotion.
Amid wrenching sobs Maddie asked herself how it was possible to weather some kinds of adversity courageously and then fall completely apart when confronted with others. Seeing Jonah and Boone hurting, and speculating about her sister’s terror crumbled Maddie’s composure thoroughly.
You are such a fool, Maddie chastised herself as she wiped away the streams of tears with the back of her hands. You’ve become so prideful and independent the past six months that you refused to become beholden to Ward Tipton or Avery Hanson. Imbecile that you are, you’ve made this situation worse, not better!
She knew both Avery and Ward had been waiting for her to accept their marriage proposals, and she had refused to let them believe for one minute that any assistance with the ransom money would guarantee her willingness to wed. Maddie had raced off on the first stage bound for Fort Worth to acquire the necessary funds. It had cost her valuable time that Christina might not have, and it had caused Jonah and Boone unnecessary torment.
Dear God! If Maddie’s own newfound independence hadn’t gotten in her way, Christina might have been home by now. Damn it, what had Maddie been thinking? If she hadn’t been such a stubborn, self-centered imbecile she would have agreed to marry Ward or Avery, just to ensure the ransom would be paid quickly.
“Damn, princess, I didn’t know you had so much water in you,” Jonah remarked.
Maddie blotted her eyes, then glanced up to see Jonah and Boone poised on the rocky escarpment above her. She thought she’d found the perfect, out-of-the-way place to fall apart. She should have known these two human bloodhounds would track her down. Now she’d humiliated herself by allowing them to see and hear her bawl like an abandoned child.
She was responsible for dragging these two men through hell and for prolonging Christina’s captivity and torment. No doubt, her father would have been bitterly disappointed in her inability to take command of her li
fe and resolve the problems she’d encountered. She was an absolute failure and she was causing turmoil in every life she touched.
“I’m s-so s-sorry,” she stuttered.
“You said that already,” Jonah reminded her.
“I’ve p-put you and B-Boone through unnecessary misery and my sister is suffering needlessly because I’m an imbecile!” she finished on a shuddering breath.
Jonah glanced quickly at Boone. “Do me a favor and get lost for a few minutes.”
“Fine,” Boone said, and snorted. “I’ll go see what other bad memories I can stir up.”
Her wild-eyed gaze flew to Boone and more tears dribbled down her flushed cheeks.
“Thanks a lot, Boone,” Jonah muttered sardonically. “You’ve been a tremendous help. Now go away.”
Jonah sidestepped down the steep slope, starting an avalanche of sand and pebbles. “You about done crying?” he asked as he came to stand over her.
“No,” she said, then hiccuped as she tried—in vain—to stem the flow of tears down her cheeks.
Jonah squatted in front of her, curled his forefinger beneath her quivering chin and forced her to meet his gaze. She could barely see him through the burning tears.
“Now tell me how you’ve made your sister suffer needlessly,” he insisted softly.
“I could have married one of the two men who have asked for my hand. They offered to provide the ransom if I agreed to a wedding.”
“And you’re exceptionally fond of one or both of these men?” Jonah questioned as he rerouted the trail of tears on her cheeks.
“No, but I could have tolerated a marriage to one of them. Should have,” Maddie said on a seesaw breath. “But I wasn’t thinking about my sister. I was thinking of myself! I might never see Christina again because I was too mule-headed to agree to a liaison I didn’t want.”
Maddie further disgraced herself by flinging herself at Jonah and holding on to him for dear life. Here was yet another of her weaknesses exposed, she realized too late. She had vowed not to depend on him for comfort or consolation when the going got tough. Yet here she was, clinging to him like ivy for physical and moral support. To her everlasting disgrace, she soaked the shoulder of Jonah’s shirt with her tears and buried her head beneath his chin. Arms locked tightly around his neck, she succumbed to the tidal wave of emotion that crested within her.
“Shh-shh,” Jonah whispered as he sank down on the ground to cradle Maddie in his lap. “You did nothing wrong, sweetheart.”
“Yes, I did,” she mumbled against his chest. “I defied a commitment that might have spared Chrissy several days of anguish!”
“You told me that you had a week to gather the ransom money,” he reminded her as he gently stroked her back and her arms. “You’ll return home in time. I promise.”
“You don’t even believe I have a sister,” she sniffled. “You think I’m a conniving thief and you despise me for dragging you and Boone where you didn’t want to go. I don’t blame you. I hate myself more than you can possibly imagine!”
Jonah couldn’t name another moment in his life when he’d felt so utterly useless. He was lousy at offering compassion. He had very little practice at it. Nor was he the kind of man people usually turned to for solace. But watching Maddie bleed tears and beat herself black-and-blue over what-ifs and should-haves tormented him to the extreme. She was questioning her decisions and actions. She was too emotionally distraught to give herself the slightest credit or cut herself any slack.
Feeling inadequate, Jonah simply held her to him until she finally cried herself out and there was nothing left but shuddering sobs of misery. He finally raised her blotchy, tear-stained face to his and placed a featherlight kiss on her quaking lips.
“Everything is going to be okay,” he assured her softly.
“No, it isn’t,” she said, taking a ragged breath. “It’s becoming apparent that I’m the curse of your’s and Boone’s lives. My sister’s, too.”
Jonah applied the same technique he’d used a few days earlier to snap Maddie back to her senses: he kissed her breathless. But this time she didn’t respond to him the way she had previously. She just sat there on his lap, dispirited, defeated, devoid of emotion.
The Maddie he had come to know was suddenly an empty shell who had cut herself off from the world that caused her pain and anguish. She reminded him so much of the man he had become the past few years that he wanted to shake her. He had forgotten how to hope, how to dream. But she was usually vital and animated and defiant. He wanted the old Maddie back and he wasn’t sure how to retrieve her from the desolate place she’d withdrawn to.
“Enough of this,” he said gruffly as he pushed her to her feet, then bounded up beside her. He scooped her up and set her atop her horse. “You’ve mewled and whined long enough, princess,” he said, purposely goading her. “I’ve seen enough of your self-pity. The whole world, and everyone in it, has troubles galore. Just because you’ve led a pampered life until recently doesn’t grant you special privileges. So what are you gonna do? Throw up your hands and give up on rescuing your sister? I never figured you for a quitter—until now.”
Sure enough, the harsh criticism fueled her temper, as he’d hoped it would. Her chin snapped up and those amber eyes blazed down at him like molten fire. Her spine stiffened as she grabbed the reins in her fist.
“You can go straight to hell, Jonah Danhill,” she snapped before she dug in her heels and sent the mare scrambling up the steep incline.
“Been there at least a dozen times. Don’t recommend it,” Jonah murmured as he climbed the ridge to retrieve his own horse.
Well, at least by inciting Maddie’s indignation he had stiffened her resolve to get up and get moving. Whatever worked. He’d rather face her anger than deal with the tears that dribbled into the cracks and crevices of his shriveled heart and tugged at his emotions.
Every time he turned around she was getting to him, somehow or another, and he couldn’t back away from her.
After witnessing that unsettling scene, Jonah was starting to believe that Maddie had been telling him the truth. No one was such an extraordinary actress that she could pull off the convincing performance Jonah had witnessed a few minutes earlier. But for the life of him he couldn’t understand her connection to the two men who had called her by name in Coyote Springs. There was definitely something going on here that Jonah had yet to figure out.
“Feeling better?” Boone asked as Maddie trotted her horse past him.
She didn’t glance in his direction, just galloped off as if the devil were nipping at her heels.
Boone glanced over his shoulder when he heard Jonah thundering toward him. “Charmed her into pulling herself together, I see. You do have a way with women, Danhill.”
“Of course I do. That’s why women have lined up to share my company all these years,” Jonah said sardonically.
He watched Maddie ride ahead of them, following the narrow ledge that led to a higher plateau.
Boone chuckled as he trotted his roan gelding alongside Jonah. “Right. I’ve been fighting off women with a stick for years myself.” He shifted awkwardly in the saddle. “Sorry about that thoughtless remark I made earlier. I didn’t help the situation when you were trying to console Maddie.”
Jonah shrugged off the apology. “I think she was being too hard on herself to notice your comment. Now she’s questioning all of the hard choices she’s had to make and she feels enormously guilty for putting us back in touch with our past when she knows it’s the last thing we wanted.”
They rode in silence for several hours, allowing Maddie her privacy. Jonah looked out across the rough terrain and felt hundreds of charged memories condense around him. Boone, it seemed, was fighting the same silent battle as his gaze drifted, then settled on one looming bluff and twisting gully after another.
Jonah noticed that Maddie had veered west to follow a winding ravine. She couldn’t possibly know where she was going, which made him wonder
again if a higher power was indeed guiding her. She was headed for an obscure spring nestled deep in the chasm. She had given her mare her head, and it had picked up the scent of fresh water, trotting eagerly forward.
Jonah and Boone urged their horses into a canter. Here was yet another favorite haunt that Jonah recalled from childhood. At least this one provoked pleasant, soothing memories. It was as if Maddie had led them from the jaws of hell into this piece of heaven on earth.
“It is here that the Great Spirit looked down and decided to create man.” Jonah recited the legend passed down by his father. “The Spirit took the body from Mother Earth, the bones from the stones and his blood from the morning dew.”
“His eyes were born from the depths of clear water,” Boone interjected as his gaze followed Jonah’s uplifted eyes to the towering peak that jutted out like an eagle’s beak. “He took the light from the sun for eyes and his thoughts from the endless waterfalls.”
Jonah smiled as he continued where Boone left off. “Man’s breath came from the stirring winds and his strength was born from powerful storms. The Great Spirit created man from all that was admirable and mighty in this world.”
“And the Great Spirit ordered all the inhabitants of the spirit world to bow in recognition that man was the most superb creation on the earth,” Boone recited.
“All obeyed the command except one,” Jonah murmured as he drank in the welcome sight of the sacred landmark of his people. “The defiant demon was cast from the world of guardian spirits and took refuge in the fang of the serpent, the spider, the centipede and other poisonous creatures that sought to torment and harm man.”
Maddie listened, fascinated by the Indian legend of creation. She stared at the sparkling spring that bubbled from the base of the towering precipice. A sense of peace and resolution stole over her as she dismounted, then walked into the shallow stream that spilled from the glittering silver pool.