BOUND AND GAGGED since they left the cave, Jessica found herself atop the mesa once more. It was little relief to be outside once again. Piah pushed her toward the waiting horses and heaved her up into the saddle. He tied her bound wrists to the pommel and then leaped on his own saddleless mount, all the time holding on to the reins of her horse.
The ride was excruciating as she bounced in the saddle, unable to balance herself with her hands tied. They crossed the tabletop land and raced down a shallow gully then up the other side until they came upon three men huddled around a low-burning fire behind a rock outcropping.
Piah slid off his horse and left her waiting, still tied to the mare. Wide-eyed above the gag, Jessica watched as he spoke and gestured to the others. Two of them stood, stared at her suspiciously, then mounted up and rode back toward the cave. The third remained by the fire. She recognized him as Piah’s nephew. He was watching her closely, speculatively.
Had he, too, watched while she and Rory made love?
Jessica stared at the ground while Piah spoke to the youth in a commanding tone. The boy argued, but eventually left the fire to wander off into the darkness.
Piah came to her then, and pulled her down into his arms. He stood her on the ground. They were alone.
The fire was low, much like the one Rory had burned the night they slept in the canyon. The night they made love beneath the stars—beneath the watchful eyes of Piah and how many others?
She felt as if she had already been violated by this man who had taken her captive, but she refused to let him know it. She stood stubbornly silent beside him, waiting for his next move, watching the firelight play across his sharp features.
“We will eat. And wait. Burnett will come and then I will kill him.”
Hours ago she had prayed that Rory would find her. Now she prayed that he would lose the trail, that she could find a way to free herself and warn him before it was too late. If she died, there would be no one to alert the ranchers around Cortez that a faction of the Utes were armed and ready to revolt.
Refusing to give in to her fear, she followed him to the fire. He pushed her close to the fire and commanded her to sit With her hands tied in front of her it was difficult, but not impossible, to lower herself to the ground.
Piah took out his gun and held it to her temple. She heard the hammer click. “I am going to uncover your mouth. You will not cry out, or I will kill you.”
She nodded.
He took off the gag. “Now we will eat.”
“I’m not hungry.” Contrary to her words, her stomach rumbled. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
“Starve yourself then.”
He tore the leg off a small animal carcass that the others had roasted on a spit. As he concentrated on the meal Jessica noted that he had set the gun on the ground beside him. She would have to lunge over him to get it.
A time will come. Wait and see.
She pretended not to care, but she couldn’t help but watch each time he bit into the succulent meat. Jessica wet her lips and looked away. Beyond the ring of the firelight the land was black. She could see the outline of low-growing trees on the mesa, but little else. It was impossible to tell where the land ended at the canyon rim. One false move and she would fall into an unseen abyss.
He watched her the whole time he ate, black eyes boring into her, stripping her of her dignity, her nerve. Cross-legged, the man was at ease and confident. Somewhere nearby the youth remained on guard. She guessed the other two men had gone back to watch the entrance to the cave where the guns and dynamite were still hidden.
Carmichael’s body was still there, lying in the blood-soaked sand. She closed her eyes.
When he touched her, she jerked awake. Slowly, as he unbound her hands, she looked back at the gun a few feet away.
Determined to keep him talking, to lull him into trusting her, she said, “What are you doing?”
“I cannot undress you if your hands are bound.”
Her heart was in her throat. She looked over her shoulder. “What about the boy?”
“He is watching for your lover. Your old lover.” He laughed.
“And the others?”
“You talk too much.”
Rory would agree, she decided. Still, she pressed him.
“What makes you think you’ll get away with this? Rory already suspects you of killing the other paleontologist, the bone hunter.”
“I knew he would. It was only a matter of time until our paths crossed.”
“He’ll kill you for this, you know. He loves me.”
Piah laughed again. “He will not get the chance.”
Her hands were untied. He stared off into the darkness, watching for something, waiting. Stalling for time.
It struck her instantly.
Rory. He wanted Rory to find them, wanted him to witness her ultimate degradation.
Jessica took a deep breath and lunged for the gun.
BEFORE HE LOOKED anywhere else, Rory decided to search the sacred cave. It would be just like Jessica to have stumbled across it, for up to now her instincts and knowledge of possible locations of fossils had proven correct.
He hoped Piah had not been there with a welcoming party.
A good hundred yards from the path that led down to the cave, he dismounted. It was slow going on foot as he worked his way down in the darkness and tried not to scatter rocks or gravel that would give his presence away.
As he neared the entrance he crouched to catch his breath and stare into the dark opening. If Jess was inside, she could be well hidden or asleep. If anyone else was there, they would be on guard.
Nothing moved inside the cave. He picked up a small rock and tossed it past the opening. It struck a boulder with a sharp ping.
He was rewarded with the sound of a rifle being cocked and readied. A flash of steel along a rifle barrel caught his eye. Someone was indeed guarding the entrance to the cave, and it wasn’t Jess.
Footsteps alerted him. A man paced the entrance, watching for movement in the bushes below. Rory threw another rock; this one hit the wall that had the saurian skeleton embedded in it.
The guard stepped out into the opening, an Indian whose bare chest showed beneath an open suit coat. White feathers woven into his braids caught in the low moonlight. Rory took aim between the feathers, then wondered how many more Utes were hidden in the cave. Would the sound of a shot alert them and endanger Jessica if she was captive inside?
He scuffed his boot against the ground and his spur jingled. The slight sound drew the man’s attention. The Ute bent low and crept through the overgrowth hiding the path, careful to stay in the entrance of the cave, where it was dark.
Rory held his breath until he could hear the other man breathing. He raised his own rifle by the barrel and swung it like a club. The stock hit the Ute in the head and sent him plummeting over the ledge in front of the cave.
The body hit the ground many feet below, but Rory waited, crouched and ready for another guard to rush from the cave.
Nothing stirred inside. Cautiously he crept forward, moved inside the opening, and waited. He didn’t hear a sound. He pulled a match out of his back pocket and struck it on the wall. Holding it aloft, he tried to see how far back the cave projected and noticed that it narrowed down in back and opened into a single passageway.
“Damn it!”
The match singed his fingertips and died.
Was Jess hidden somewhere beyond the passageway? Had she stumbled across this place at all? Had someone taken her down the narrow corridor to the interior of the cave?
Damn it, Jess. Where are you?
Intuition told him she wasn’t inside. If Piah had killed Stoutenburg, as he suspected, the man wouldn’t be stupid enough to box himself into the cave. Rory reckoned Piah was sm
arter than that. Hoping his intuition was right, he ducked beneath the low entrance and left the cave behind.
Chapter Twenty-one
LUNGING PAST PIAH, Jessica reached for the gun. He shoved her and sent her careening toward the fire. Reaching out to brace herself, Jessica’s palm hit one of the searing rocks in the fire ring. She screamed and cradled her hand. Piah took advantage of her distress, grabbed her, and threw her down.
His nephew, Chako, came running.
“Help me!” Jessica screamed, imploring the youth.
Piah thrust his hand into her long hair and gave it a hard yank. “Silence!” Then he began berating the boy in their own language.
The pain in her hand was fierce. She cradled her burned palm against her breast and gave in to tears.
Piah’s nephew looked confused. Finally, after Piah harshly issued what sounded like an order, the boy left them alone again. Piah turned to Jessica and reached for the front of her blouse.
Rory had searched nearly the entire mesa top when he finally rode down a shallow gully. His horse tripped and he instinctively braced himself, ready to vault from the animal’s back. Pancho recovered his footing, and when Rory reined in, he thought he saw a flicker of light through the trees up ahead.
Dismounting, Rory was careful not to make a sound. He tied the horse to a nearby shrub and unsheathed his rifle. Slowly, soundlessly, he crept between the scattered pine and oak until he was certain he saw the light of a campfire glowing orange in the distance.
He paused, held his breath, and listened for the sound of a guard in the vicinity. Perhaps, he thought with renewed hope, Jessica had found a clearing, made a fire, and was waiting out the night in relative safety.
A twig snapped to his left.
Rory crouched low, taking cover behind the tangled underbrush. He eased his rifle to his shoulder and waited. Someone was definitely moving in on him. He moved left, slowly, cautiously, a few inches at a time.
From his new position, he could see the fire clearly. He almost bolted into the open when he recognized Jessica’s long golden hair shimmering in the fire’s glow. That was before he realized her blouse was open and that she was not alone—Piah leaned out of the shadows and reached for her. The outline of her breasts was high and proud above her camisole in the shimmering light.
Rory watched as Piah traced his hand along her breasts, saw Jessica stifle a cry. The firelight caught the tracks of her tears.
Hold on, Jess. Hold on a few minutes more.
Instead of moving, he waited for the man trailing him. Come on, Rory silently urged. Come get this over with. He had to get to Jess, had to let her know that she would soon be safe.
The short, smooth needles of the piñon pine fluttered, but there was no breeze. Rory forced himself to be patient when his mind screamed at him to move, to run to Jess, to save her.
Pine needles, crushed beneath his boots, scented the air. He waited, unmoving. Another twig snapped. He felt a slight whoosh of air and then saw someone hurtling at him through the darkness. Again he used the gun like a club, unwilling to alert Piah and place Jess in even greater danger. But this time when he swung, he only hit his assailant on the shoulder. The man grunted and then let out a yell.
Rory leaped for the man’s throat and drove them both to the ground. One hard right to the smaller man’s jaw and he lay still. Rory pulled the attacker up to a sitting position and instantly recognized Chako, Piah’s nephew. He let go and the boy crumpled to the ground.
Still in a crouch, Rory spun in the direction of the fire.
When Piah heard his nephew’s cry, he pushed Jessica aside, grabbed his gun, and leaped to his feet. She was up in an instant, staring over the fire, her injured hand pressed against her skirt while she struggled to hold her blouse closed with the other. She started backing away from Piah.
In seconds, Rory burst through the trees.
Jessica recognized him instantly and screamed, “Look out! He has a gun.”
Piah fired a round at Rory, who was running toward them, rifle ready.
“Get down, Jess!” Rory advanced on them.
Jessica took two steps back. Rory fired, but Piah had already hit the ground. The Ute rolled to avoid the bullets and came to his feet not far from Jessica. He reached out to grab her.
“Run, Jess!” Rory bellowed.
Barely escaping Piah’s hand, she turned and ran.
When Rory realized where she was headed, he screamed again. “Jess! Stop!”
Jessica ran into the darkness, ran from the terror of her captor, from the gunshots that echoed around her. She ran heedless of the terrain, sought refuge beyond the firelight.
Without warning the ground beneath her disappeared. As she fell through space she screamed and screamed again. Then the earth rushed up to meet her.
Piah was hit. Rory saw the man grab his side and run into the trees. Rory picked up the Ute’s gun near the fire, where it landed after he shot it from Piah’s hand. He hurled it over the abyss and then, running to the edge of the bluff, tried to see down into the dark canyon below.
“Jessica!”
His cry echoed off the canyon walls and faded away. He called out again. A cry of agony. A plea. “Jessica, answer me!”
Nothing. No sound, no cry. Not a whimper.
It was as if the night had swallowed her without a trace. On hands and knees, ignoring the rocks, forgetting there were any number of poisonous creatures that could bite him in an instant, he felt around for a way to climb down the cliff face, but found nothing. It was a sheer rock wall. He ran back to the fire. A thick branch had not yet burned on one end. He picked up the flaming branch and carried it over to the rim of the canyon and hurled it. With a shower of sparks it flew like a shooting star, then fell, and fell, and fell. By the time it hit bottom, the fire had been extinguished.
There was no way down, at least none that he could see in the darkness.
She was gone and he hadn’t told her he still loved her.
She was gone and he couldn’t get to her until dawn.
He stood at the edge of the mesa, his hands slack and useless at his sides. When his right brushed the hard, turquoise-inlaid handle of his gun, he knew that there was one thing he could do before he found Jess.
One last thing he had to do.
THERE WAS ONLY one place Piah would go to hide.
First Rory looked for Chako, but there was no sign of the boy. He found his horse and immediately headed back to the cave. Dawn was still a few hours away; he had time before his men found him, time to track down Jessica’s killer and avenge her death. In his mind, Piah was just as guilty of killing her as if he’d put a bullet through her head.
There was no one guarding the path to the cave. Rory covered the same ground he had earlier, this time without making any effort to be quiet He wanted Piah and whoever he had with him to know that he was stalking them. He had no fear of death. Right now he knew he would welcome it.
The entrance to the cave was unguarded. Rory found a dry branch on the ground the length of a man’s arm. He took his bandanna out of his back pocket and twisted it around the stick, lit it with a match, and waited until the wood caught fire. Torch in hand, he entered the cave.
Just inside the entrance, half-hidden by a boulder, was Jessica’s knapsack. She had found the cave. He picked it up and slipped the strap over his head. The bag had been important to her, part of her. He would keep it He moved on.
The pictographs danced in the torchlight. They seemed alive, pointing the way. Farther and farther into the deep recesses of the cave he ran until he became aware of two things: the distinct smell of bats and the distant sound of a shout somewhere in the cavern below. Someone was moving along the passage carrying something that made a loud wooden sound as it hit the walls.
He backed out of the pas
sageway. Let them come to me, he decided. Come on. Come on and taste a little lead. When he saw torchlight bobbing and weaving from the other direction, he extinguished his own tight and tossed it away. Backing out all the time keeping the others’ light in view, he was nearly back in the great entrance room when he stopped and slipped into a wide crevice in the wall.
Two Utes in calico shirts and wool pants appeared in the passageway. They were struggling with a long crate with two smaller ones tied atop it. Piah lagged behind, fighting to hold a torch aloft as he favored his right side. Blood oozed between his fingers and stained his shirt.
Rory stepped out from his hiding place. The two men in the lead were brought up short.
“Drop it and put your hands up,” he demanded.
The man in front dropped his end of the crate and translated for the one behind. They raised their hands, nervously shifting their gaze from side to side, waiting for Piah to realize the danger they were in.
Piah called out a curt command to the men but halted when he saw Rory standing near the cave’s entrance.
Rory cocked his rifle and shouldered it. “Move away from your men or I’ll kill them, too,” he warned.
Piah’s eyes were shadowed by the brim of his hat, but his sinister smile showed beneath it. “You wish to die like your woman, Burnett?”
“I’m the one holding the gun,” Rory reminded him.
“Those crates are filled with dynamite. I am holding the torch.”
“You’re not that stupid,” Rory said.
“No, but I am willing to take you with me when I die.”
Without taking his eyes off Piah, he said to the other men, “Throw down your guns and get out now, if you want to live.”
Piah lowered the torch to waist height. It burned just above the crates. One of the men tried to charge Rory.
The rifle went off. Piah’s cohort was thrown back against the wall with the force of the blast.
The second man watched helplessly, his hands in the air, as his companion slid down the wall into a lifeless heap. A crimson stain blossomed on the dead man’s shirtfront.
Past Promises Page 31