“I don’t know about the rest of your victims, but I’m not fond of the idea of hanging.”
“You’re not my victim.”
“Yes, I am,” Victoria shot back at him. “You came strolling into our valley like a wandering troubadour, easygoing and carefree. You made me believe there was more to my life than I’d let myself see. You made me want to be part of the world again. The moment you saw the stars of stupidity in my eyes, you tricked me into meeting you. And I fell into your hands like a ripe plum.” She spat out a particularly colorful Spanish curse. “I’m not just mad at you. I’m so furious with myself I can’t see straight.
“From the first, Buc told me you were nothing but a common cowboy, a saddle bum, a con man out for what you could get. But I wouldn’t believe him. No, I was fool enough to like you. You can’t know how that hurts now. All of us misjudge people now and again, but I must be really stupid not to recognize a vulture.”
Her words stung.
Trinity had always regarded his work as on par with a U.S. Marshal. He repeatedly risked his life to protect society from lawlessness. He volunteered to take on particularly unpleasant jobs because no one else would or could. And he refused all offers of reward. He didn’t expect people to praise him, but he’d always had a feeling of personal satisfaction. Now he felt guilty that he had betrayed Victoria’s trust and destroyed her hopes.
It had never occurred to him to consider how his work was viewed by those he captured. They were guilty of terrible crimes. They had escaped without paying their debt to society. He didn’t decide their guilt or pronounce their sentence. A judge and jury had already done that.
Neither had it occurred to him to care what his prisoners thought of him. They didn’t deserve consideration because they were murderers. He had gone after them and spared no effort to bring them to justice. Once that was done, he never thought about them again.
But he knew he would remember Victoria. He wanted her to understand that as much as he’d give anything to hold her in his arms rather than in chains, he couldn’t. He acted from principles which never wavered, never changed.
They couldn’t change because the past never changed.
But he wouldn’t explain. There wasn’t any point in it. She might be a soft, vulnerable, sexy woman, but she had killed her husband just as dead as if she’d been Queenie.
Trinity looked at Victoria lying in the leaves and pine needles. She looked so beautiful, so kind, so gentle until you looked into her clear blue eyes. That’s where you saw the real Victoria Davidge: cold, angry, and utterly determined to escape.
“I’d have thought living off other people’s misery would leave a bad taste in your mouth.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Trinity said, relieved to have his gloomy thoughts interrupted. He picked her up and settled her into the saddle. “I get a good feeling knowing I’ve helped to make the world safer.”
Victoria fell out of the saddle on the other side of her horse and headed quickly into the brush.
Chapter Nine
“Goddamn it, woman,” Trinity shouted as he plunged after her. That’s what he got for going soft. If he’d tied her across the saddle like the last two men he’d brought in, this wouldn’t have happened.
Victoria didn’t respond. He should have known she wouldn’t waste energy talking to him until he captured her. At least her hands were tied this time. She wouldn’t be able to scratch his face to ribbons before he could get her under control.
He had to follow on foot. There was no way he could ride down that slope. He just hoped his horse could find a way down. After all this running and climbing and fighting, he didn’t know if he had the strength to carry her out.
Trinity captured Victoria with a flying tackle. He made certain this time to hold tight to both legs until he could sit on them. She lay flat on her stomach. He didn’t look at her face or touch any part of her body except her ankles.
“I tried to make it easy on you,” Trinity said between gasps for breath, “but now we play by my rules.”
Victoria said something, but the words got lost in leaves and pine needles.
“I’m going to tie you on your horse. You can throw yourself over if you like, but if you do, you’ll ride under his belly until we reach camp. It’s about fifteen miles, so I’d advise against it.”
Victoria glared at him in response.
“How I treat you when we get to camp is up to you. I can leave you tied up the whole time, or you can have some freedom in return for reasonable cooperation.”
Victoria spat a leaf out of her mouth. “Go to hell!”
“So much for reasonable cooperation,” Trinity muttered.
He sat down. He was breathing hard. He’d once captured a brawny six-foot-three fighter with less effort.
“What’s the matter?” Victoria demanded. “Are you lost?”
“I’m waiting for the horses to find us,” Trinity said. “I don’t want to carry you up that slope.”
“Too weak?”
Yes, but not in the way you mean. “Too tired,” he said aloud. “I’m not used to foot races.”
“Can’t keep up with a mere woman?”
“So it seems,” Trinity confessed, “but I’d like a rematch when I’m not wearing my boots.”
“I’ll race you now, bad ankle and all.”
“Not a chance. One more race, and I’d have to tie myself on my horse.”
His admission of weakness seemed to cool some of Victoria’s anger.
“You know my uncle will come after me. It would save everybody a lot of trouble if you’d let me go now. You’ll only get hurt if you force a gun battle. You can tell the sheriff you tried and failed.”
Trinity was touched that even now Victoria could be worried about him. All the emotions he had ruthlessly pushed aside during the day threatened to break out of their confinement. But now was the wrong time, and Victoria the wrong woman.
But her words injured his pride as much as they gladdened his heart. It was bad enough she thought he might fail—he never had—but it jolted his sense of honor to know she thought he would give up and say he had tried.
No threat of danger had ever turned him from his purpose. It never would.
Many times during the past fifteen years his pride in his success and his belief in the rightness of his task were all that sustained him. Her words, and his own weakness, threatened to take that away. He wouldn’t let her. He couldn’t.
“You’re going back to Bandera.”
“Never,” Victoria replied hotly.
The commotion of the horses clambering through the brush kept Trinity from making a reply. He untied the rope from one foot and lifted her into the saddle making certain to stay clear of her teeth. He didn’t think she would bite him, but at this point he didn’t put anything past her. Before she had time to grasp the pommel and push off, Trinity reached under the horse’s belly, grasped the dangling rope, and tied it securely to the other foot.
He knew it hurt because she winced. But she didn’t say anything.
“Hold on to the pommel and keep your knees tight against the horse’s side. It’ll relieve some of the pressure.”
“I know how to ride,” she said through clenched teeth.
He watched her squeeze her eyelids together.
She swallowed. “You’ve got the rope too tight.”
He knew that admission hurt her pride.
“Tell me when it stops hurting,” he said as he loosened the rope. Victoria didn’t say anything, but he could tell when the pain stopped by the way her body sagged in relief.
Satisfied the rope was tight enough to hold her, Trinity took her horse’s reins and tied them to his pommel. He men took a rope from his saddle, put it over the horse’s head, and tied that to the saddle as well.
“I know married people who aren’t as securely bound together,” Victoria commented. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll shoot you if I get too close?”
“You’d never shoot me.”
“Keep on thinking that. In fact, I want you to be so sure you’ll leave your guns and rifle out just to prove you’re right.”
Trinity laughed. “That would be egging you on. It’d be the same as an insult, maybe even a challenge. Then, even if you didn’t want to shoot me, you’d feel honor-bound to do it just to prove you had the courage.”
“Is that really the way men think?” Victoria sounded stunned by what she’d heard.
“Pretty much.”
“I don’t even think Buc is that dumb.”
Trinity felt anger spurt through him. He didn’t mind Victoria’s disagreeing with him. He expected that. It was the way she said “even Buc.”
“Every self-respecting man feels that way, especially here in the West. If you don’t have courage, you might as well go back East.”
“You make it sound like the East is only for cowards and scalawags.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Trinity said, irked she had goaded him into saying something he didn’t mean. “Living in the West requires a certain kind of physical courage from a man, a willingness to put his life on the line to prove himself.”
“And if he fails?”
“At least he knows he died like a man. With respect.”
“And his wife. Does she know it, too?”
“Of course. A real woman wouldn’t want to be married to a coward.”
“Maybe I’d better let you hang me. I certainly don’t belong here.”
“What do you mean by that?”
But Victoria didn’t answer. Trinity tried several times to resume their conversation, but she made no reply to his remarks. He finally gave up and rode in silence.
He tried to concentrate on his plans for getting Victoria away from Mountain Valley Ranch and out of Arizona, but he couldn’t keep from thinking about Victoria’s words. Why should she feel such contempt for a characteristic which was basic to most men no matter where they lived? Other women believed in it. He knew because he’d seem them egg their men on. He’d seen it happen in saloons, at mining claims, even on poor dirt farms. Sometimes he wondered if the women didn’t believe in it more strongly than the men.
That same characteristic in Buc and her uncle had freed her from jail. Or did she think there had been no risk just because it had been successful?
Another thing puzzled him. Why would she fight so hard to get free, then give up? She hadn’t even struggled. Just said she didn’t belong, turned her head to the wall, and refused to speak.
He didn’t understand Victoria, but then he’d never understood women. Well, maybe he understood Queenie now, but he hadn’t then. She’d plucked him like a banjo, and he’d twanged loud and clear.
But he didn’t believe Victoria was like Queenie. Both had killed their husbands, but the similarity stopped there.
It had to.
Victoria was sure she couldn’t remain in the saddle another mile. They had traveled for hours without stopping. Trinity had picked up a packhorse shortly after he recaptured her, and he had kept to the trail without a single break. It made her absolutely livid to know he had planned her abduction down to the last detail and she had fallen right into his trap.
“You can have all the jerky you want,” he said when she complained she was hungry, “but we can’t stop long enough to cook. I want to get as far from Mountain Valley Ranch as I can.”
“It won’t make any difference. My uncle will find you. And when he does, hell kill you.”
“That possibility keeps me moving,” Trinity replied, a mocking smile momentarily vanquishing his stern expression. “I don’t relish the idea of holding off a dozen men and trying to keep my eye on you at the same time.”
“Don’t worry. It won’t be a problem for long.”
“You have a lot of confidence in Buc, don’t you?”
“Why shouldn’t I? He took me out of the Bandera jail without anybody knowing, and he protected me from five other men just like you.”
“But I captured you.”
“Only because we got careless. No,” Victoria corrected herself, compelled to be honest, “I got careless. Even worse, I ignored Buc’s warnings.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve never failed to bring in a man I went after.”
“It doesn’t,” Victoria snapped, convinced Trinity possessed a sadistic streak. “But it does make me happy to know you’ll go back empty-handed.”
“I’m taking you back even if we have to travel all the way to Texas without stopping,” Trinity declared.
“The sun went down an hour ago,” Victoria said, changing the subject. “Can’t we stop now?”
“We’ve only got a few more miles to go.”
“It’s so dark I can’t see where I’m going. We could fall off this mountainside.”
“I can see.”
“Now you want me to believe you can see in the dark. What other superhuman talents do you possess? No, don’t tell me. A catalog of your many skills would surely extinguish all hope of escape. And the way my bottom hurts now, I live for the hope of returning the pain full measure.”
“I’ll trade my scratches for your sore behind.”
“I didn’t think Western men felt pain. I thought you took bullets, fists, kicks, anything than or beast could throw at you without flinching.”
“I don’t know about Buc, but I flinch. And these scratches hurt like the devil.”
“You’ll soon have more to add to those.”
“The next attempt to scratch or kick me might well earn you a good paddling.”
“You wouldn’t dare. No man would strike a lady.”
“You women are fond of using that, aren’t you?”
“Using what?”
“A double standard. You think you can kick and scratch and cuss, do just about anything you want, and men will go on treating you like something sacred. And most of us do, fools that we are.”
“How is that a double standard?”
“When did you allow a man the same latitude? If we make one mistake, even if we live a blameless life afterwards, you never allow us to live it down. And it’s the women who perpetuate our guilt. You whisper it to each other, to your husbands and sons, even to strangers, all in the name of protecting the innocent.” He made a derisive noise. “You’re no more innocent than the devil himself. In fact, if the Devil ever decides to come to earth, I bet he’ll come as a woman.”
Maybe Satan already had. Maybe he came as Queenie.
“You have an extremely poor opinion of women, don’t you?”
“I haven’t found any reason to change it.”
“I don’t know which of my misdeeds has earned your greatest condemnation, but if you think I’d shrink from fighting for my freedom, you have a very poor understanding of women … ladies or otherwise.”
“I don’t think ladies are any different from women, except women are more honest.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re talking about someone else?”
Victoria’s question silenced Trinity. He realized he had let his carefully sealed emotions seep into his voice. He had to watch what he said. He didn’t want Victoria to know about Queenie.
He had always prided himself on his self-control, but ever since he decided to come after Victoria, thoughts of Queenie had plagued him almost constantly. For years he’d tried to forget her. Several times he’d believed he had, but she never stayed away for long. He had to get her out of his mind if he hoped to make it back to Texas alive. He had to be constantly alert if he wanted to be ready for Buc and Victoria’s uncle, and thinking about Queenie always ruined his concentration.
“I wasn’t talking about anybody in particular,” Trinity answered. “Just my general experience with women.”
“If you treated them all the way you treated me, I’m not surprised. Even fallen women take it unkindly when a
man tells nothing but lies.”
“What makes you think I know only fallen women?”
“If you knew any decent women, you wouldn’t feel this way.”
“The only decent women I’ve ever met were whores. They may not measure up to your idea of a lady, but they didn’t shoot their husbands in the back.”
“It’s pointless to talk to anybody with your warped judgment,” Victoria said. “Let me know when we reach camp, that is if I’m still conscious. Until then I relieve you of the responsibility of talking to me.”
Trinity took her at her word, but Victoria found herself wishing he hadn’t. She couldn’t imagine what had happened to make him think so badly of women. She wished he would tell her, but she knew he wouldn’t. At least not now.
She doubted he would ever listen to anything she said until he unburdened himself of some of his venomous anger, but she didn’t know how to help him do it.
As much as she hated to admit it, she still wanted Trinity to like her. She also wanted to help him. Maybe it was because she was a woman and felt compelled to nurture. Maybe it was because she had become so fascinated by him, she wanted to know everything about him. Maybe it was because she wanted to keep her mind off her own problems. Maybe it was because she wanted him to help her prove her innocence rather than take her back to a cruel punishment. Whatever the reason, she hated to see anyone suffer. And as much as Trinity tried to hide it, he did suffer.
Or maybe it was because she still liked him.
“We’ll stop here for the night.”
Trinity pulled up on a ledge of rock which projected about ten feet out from the face of the mountain. A thick canopy of pine and oak filtered out the fading light. A jumble of boulders hid them from the trail. They couldn’t even be seen from above. He couldn’t have found a more perfect place to hide.
Victoria didn’t care where they were. She felt like she had been in a saddle most of her life. The throbbing in her ankle had been joined by the aching in her bottom, wrists, and hands. At the moment, she didn’t care where she slept or if she ever ate again. She just wanted to get out of the saddle.
Trinity dismounted. He climbed a short way up the slope to check their back trail. Satisfied no one followed, he returned to Victoria.
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