With a roar of rage and anguish that sounded barely human, Trinity picked the sheriff up and threw him through a window twenty feet into the middle of the street. Then he charged down the street like a man possessed by the demons of hell.
“I don’t know what to do,” Myra said to Doctor Roundtree, wringing her hands. “She hasn’t responded to anything I’ve done.”
Victoria lay on Myra’s bed in the hotel; her face pale, her body motionless, her skin hot and dry, her pulse rapid and irregular, her breathing fast and shallow.
“Does she have a history of heart problems? Has she had a similar attack like this before?”
“I don’t know,” Myra said. “She’s my daughter-in-law, but she’s been living in Arizona for the past five years. I really know very little of her history. Did she ever mention an illness to you, Kirby?”
Kirby stood like a statue, apparently too deeply shocked to answer his mother.
“I wish me Judge were here,” Myra said, nervously twisting the huge emerald-cut diamond on her right hand. “He and her father were longtime friends. He might know something to help.”
“I hesitate to treat her without knowing anything about her,” Dr. Roundtree said. “I could so easily prescribe the wrong medicine.”
“You must do something,” Myra insisted. “You can’t let her die.”
The door slammed open and a dust-covered, wild-eyed stranger burst into the room. Ignoring everyone who stared at him as though he were some sort of apparition, he plunged across the room and fell on his knees beside the bed. He grasped Victoria’s limp hand in his and crushed it to his lips. His eyes, wide and frightening, stared at her deathly pallor.
“How dare you force yourself into private rooms,” Myra declared furiously. “Release my daughter-in-law’s hand and get out.”
The man turned blank eyes to the doctor. “What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know,” the doctor replied. “No one can tell me what might have caused the attack.”
“I demand that you leave at once,” Myra repeated, her face rigid with fury, “or I shall call the sheriff.”
“What have you done for her?”
“Nothing. I don’t know where to begin. No one knows her medical history, and she has been unconscious ever since I got here.”
“Kirby, fetch Sheriff Sprague. I want this man removed immediately.”
The stranger turned to Myra. The expression of hatred in his eyes was so vivid, so vibrant, it felt like a living, palpable thing.
“Get out,” the stranger ordered.
Myra’s eyes burned with a fury almost as great as the stranger’s. It was clear she was not used to being ordered about, and she had no intention of submitting to such treatment. Most certainly not by a dirty cowhand. “I will not. This is my room and I’ll—”
“Leave, or I’ll kill you.”
Trinity palmed his gun, pointed it at Myra’s head, and pulled the hammer back.
“You touch me and—”
The deafening roar of a gun being fired in the close confines of the room startled the occupants. They gaped in disbelief when the coil of ebony hair at the side of Myra’s face exploded into tiny fragments which scattered all over the room like a cloud of lint. Myra nearly collapsed with terror, her face dead white under her makeup. She stared at the man, unbelieving, uncomprehending, then fled the room.
Kirby ran after her.
That was Judge Blazer’s wife,” the doctor informed him, horrified. “He’ll hang you for that.”
“What do you do for poison?” the man asked, turning back to Victoria.
“There’s no question of bad food. The sheriff says—”
“She was poisoned,” he stated. “That’s Queenie. She poisoned my father.”
The doctor gaped at Trinity.
“She was poisoned. See she doesn’t die, or I’ll kill you and Queenie both. I’ll kill the Judge if I have to.”
The doctor swallowed. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re mistaken about that woman. She’s not your Queenie, whoever she might be. She is Myra Winslow Blazer, Judge Blazer’s wife. Everybody in town knows she’s been trying to take care of this young woman.
“When she refused to leave the jail, she had a bed and many of her things taken over to the jail. She even had the hotel prepare her meals. Good God, man, you can’t expect me to believe she would poison her own daughter-in-law.”
“Believe it,” Trinity said. “Your life depends on it. What are the most common poisons around here?”
“I don’t know. I never thought about it.”
“Then think of it now.”
“I suppose you can buy several kinds of preparations for—”
“No. Plants. Something you can find growing in a garden or along a stream in spring.”
“There are lots of those.”
“Which ones would produce these symptoms?”
“I can’t say for sure. I would have to know the dose, how long ago it was given—”
“Guess, goddamnit! That’s all we’ve got time for. What would be the most likely?”
“I suppose something like deadly nightshade. Maybe horse nettle or jimsonweed. They’re all pretty much the same. They have the same symptoms.”
“That’s it then.”
“If you’re wrong …”
“She’s going to die if you don’t do something.”
“Yes, I expect she will.”
“Go ahead. At least this will give her a chance.”
The doctor began to search the inner recesses of his bag. “I still must protest your notion that Mrs. Blazer is in any way responsible for this.”
“I don’t care what you believe as long as you save Victoria.”
“I shall do my best.”
“And don’t tell Queenie I know who she is.”
The doctor started to protest, but the expression on Trinity’s face stopped him. “No, I won’t tell her.”
Five minutes later, someone pounded on the door. When Trinity opened it, an irate Sheriff Sprague tried to barge into the room. Trinity blocked his path.
“Now look here, Smith,” the sheriff said, “I know you’re upset about this young woman, but you can’t go running people like Mrs. Blazer out of her room.”
There are other rooms” Trinity said, slamming the door shut.
There came a furious knocking. Trinity opened the door again.
“But she’s Judge Blazer’s wife.”
Trinity drew his gun and placed the end of the barrel against the patch of skin between Sheriff Sprague’s eyes. He drew back the hammer. “Don’t bother us again.”
The sheriff staggered back against the far wall. Trinity closed the door and locked it.
There were no more knocks.
An hour later, the doctor took Victoria’s pulse once again. “It’s come down some. It’s still terribly elevated, but there’s nothing more I can do for her. If it’s one of the poisons I mentioned, she has a chance. If not, my treatment has been entirely useless.”
“It was poison,” Trinity assured him.
The doctor looked unconvinced. “I hope I got here in time.” He gathered everything into his bag and put on his coat. “Now we have to wait and see what her own body can do.”
“How long?”
“I can’t say. If she’s alive in the morning, I think she’ll pull through. I have other calls to make, but I’ll come by as often as lean.”
The door opened after a single warning knock. Doctor Roundtree entered and approached the bedside to check Victoria. A young man accompanied him. Trinity didn’t look up.
“Will she live?” the young man asked.
“I don’t know,” the doctor replied.
“Has anyone notified her uncle?”
Trinity shook his head.
“I think you should.”
Trinity made no response.
“If you have no objection, I’ll send a telegram immediately.”
Still Trinity
didn’t respond.
“I’m David Woolridge. Her uncle hired me to defend her.”
Trinity’s gaze remained on Victoria.
“She’s about the same,” Dr. Roundtree said to Trinity. “I’ll come back later in the evening.”
Mr. Woolridge looked undecided, then followed the doctor from the room.
“Who’s that man with her?” he asked the doctor as soon as they were outside the door.
“I’m told he’s a very dangerous gunman named Trinity Smith. He seems quite unbalanced to me. For the good of us all, I hope that young woman survives.”
“But what’s he doing in there? He!s the man the sheriff deputized to bring her back.”
“I don’t know anything about that. I just know he drove Mrs. Blazer out at the point of a gun.”
“I heard. The story’s all over town.”
“He’s positive she’s been poisoned.”
“Has she?”
“It’s quite possible.”
The young man looked thoughtful. “Does he have any idea who did it?”
“He says it was Myra Blazer.”
Woolridge looked stunned.
“Do you think he’s right?”
“I don’t see how he can be, but I know his kind. They don’t often make mistakes.”
After the doctor left, Trinity took Victoria’s hand in his once again. Even though she couldn’t see him, hear him, or feel his touch, he desperately needed to touch her. It was all that kept him from going crazy and shooting everyone in Bandera. All of them had taken a part in bringing her to this point, and he wanted to kill every one of them.
He especially wanted to kill Queenie.
He didn’t know how he managed to conceal his shock when he looked up and saw her. She had altered her appearance, but he would have known her anywhere. The long blond hair, which used to hang from her head in great masses like golden clouds, was changed to black hair dressed atop her head. Her cheap, brightly colored dresses had been replaced by a magnificent silk gown, her gaudy red lips and brightly rouged cheeks had given way to a delicately tinted complexion. Her predatory anxiety had been replaced by complacent acquisitiveness, but he knew her without a doubt.
He would never forget Queenie. Now that he had found her, he meant to see she never harmed anyone again. This time he wouldn’t expect anyone to believe him, and he wouldn’t attempt to achieve justice by legal means.
He intended to kill Queenie.
He didn’t know how she pulled it off, but he was sure Queenie was responsible for Jeb’s death. It was inexcusable that she had planned for Victoria to spend the rest of her life as a fugitive from justice. In Trinity’s eyes, Queenie signed her own death warrant when she tried poisoning her when the gallows failed.
He looked down at Victoria. She couldn’t die now. She had too much to live for. She was free, never again would she have to look over her shoulder and fear what tomorrow would bring.
She could marry, have children, and live to a ripe old age.
She could marry him. She could have his children. She had to live for a very long time because he wanted to die in her arms. He didn’t want to live one minute of his life without her.
Trinity could hardly bear to look at Victoria, yet she was all he wanted to see. He had thought of her nearly every minute since he left for Uvalde. For the first time in thirteen years he had a real purpose for his life, a focus that had nothing to do with hatred or guilt or escape. He knew he would never have to chase down another criminal. He was through with all that.
He had looked forward to asking Victoria to marry him. Never once did he imagine she would refuse. The memory of their one night together remained fresh in his mind.
He had never known such pleasure with a woman, and he didn’t believe it stemmed from either the perfection of Victoria’s body or his long enforced abstinence. Clearly it owed nothing to her lovemaking skills. The source of his pleasure was Victoria herself.
Even if she had not been so physically desirable, he would still have wanted to take her to bed a dozen times a day. He had experienced real fulfillment for the first time. Certainly he hungered for her, he always would, but he knew his greatest pleasure came from just being with Victoria, being loved by her. Anything else was a bonus.
And now she lay on this bed, her pulse racing as though she had run all the way from Arizona; her life hanging by a thread, and all because of Queenie.
It was all he could do not to kill Queenie right now. It would only take a few minutes. She was still in the hotel, probably just down the hall. He could be back in a minute.
But he couldn’t leave Victoria even for a moment. If she should wake up, he had to be here. If these were her last hours on earth, he had to be here. Now that she was Judge Blazer’s wife, Queenie wouldn’t leave. She had too much to lose. He could kill her later.
Trinity got up off his knees and sat down on the bed next to Victoria. Gently lifting her from the pillow, he cradled her in his arms. If she had to die, he wanted her to die in the arms of the one person who loved her more than life.
He realized now what he had suspected for years. His love for Queenie was no more than a young man’s infatuation: partly with an older and very beautiful woman, partly with the heady sensations of love, and partly with his own emerging manhood. All of these had come together at once with such force he hadn’t been able to analyze the feelings which drove him to such wild actions. He had only been able to act.
His father, still sunk in the mire of self-pity and sorrow over his wife’s death, couldn’t help. Naturally he hadn’t listened to the advice of his friends or of the older men who counseled caution. He dismissed them as jealous and of his success; they wanted Queenie for themselves.
And he finally realized something else. He wasn’t responsible for his father’s death. Queenie hadn’t simply lured a grief-stricken man into a disastrous marriage. His father had married Queenie knowing she was the woman his son loved. His father must have known Queenie was more interested in being the wife of a rancher than an impetuous boy. He just didn’t know she was willing to commit murder for the sake of money.
But that had been his father’s mistake, not his own. And his father had made it nearly impossible for Trinity to bring Queenie to justice. By willing his property to Queenie rather than his son, he had virtually disowned him. It was the same as publicly stating he trusted his wife more than his son. By letting his son go off to Colorado at an age when he should have been at home, he further proclaimed his disaffection. No matter how his father really felt, his actions put public sympathy with Queenie rather than with his son.
It was just as Victoria had tried to tell him: He wasn’t responsible for his father’s death. And, if he wasn’t responsible, he didn’t have to avenge his death.
Trinity had never suspected the weight of that burden until it began to lift from his soul. If Victoria hadn’t been lying near death in his arms, he’d have performed a song and dance. For the first time in his adult life, he felt free to live his life the way he wanted.
Now that he was free of the need to avenge his father’s death, he was also free to admit that killing Queenie would ruin his own life. He had suspected it before, but he had never admitted it. He’d never had a life worth preserving, but now he had a future which included much more than salvation through vengeance.
Now he was free to be Victoria’s husband, to build a life together, to raise a family, to build a ranch he could leave to his children. As he faced the fact that Victoria might not live to enjoy that life, Trinity felt the same killing rage all over again. Even as he worked himself free from one of Queenie’s cursed legacies, she’d trapped him with another.
Would he ever be free of that woman? He knew she had poisoned Victoria, probably through the food she sent from the hotel. That alone would have been enough to convince him she had been the cause of Jeb’s death. Knowing Myra Winslow Blazer was really Queenie removed any doubt whatsoever. Murder was her way of gaini
ng the wealth she craved. He couldn’t see her changing now, not when the largest fortune in Texas stood within her grasp.
Again, he didn’t know how to prove it, but he knew she would probably try to poison the Judge. Might she not try to blame that on Victoria? As Jeb’s widow, Victoria would inherit her husband’s estate. Unless the Judge made specific provisions, Victoria might have a claim upon the Judge’s estate as well. Queenie wouldn’t allow that. She would never invest all this time in a marriage only to see the fortune pass into Victoria’s hands.
Now that Trinity knew she had a son, he felt even more certain Queenie planned to murder the Judge, especially if she had convinced him to adopt her son. She probably intended to get the entire estate. She couldn’t afford to let Victoria stand in her way. If Victoria didn’t die now, she would try again.
Could he afford not to kill Queenie?
He didn’t see how.
Four hours in the same position had caused Trinity’s arm to go dead. His whole body felt numb, but he didn’t move. All through the lonely hours of the night, he held her close to him, sharing his warmth, trying to give her his strength, hoping he could feel the will to live in her.
He spent the long hours reviewing his life, wishing he could have it to live over again, hoping Victoria would be there in the future to make up for the waste of so many years. But no matter how far away his memories carried him, his attention never wavered from its intense awareness of Victoria.
He sensed the crisis moments before her heart stopped beating.
“No! Please, don’t!”
Surely it would start any second. It had to. She couldn’t die!
But it didn’t.
The breath went out of her body. She lay in his arms. Motionless.
Chapter Twenty-five
“Mother of God!” Trinity hissed as he jerked himself into a sitting position, causing Victoria to fall away from him. Not heeding the pain in his deadened limbs, he sat her up, grabbed her by the arms and shook her like a rag doll.
“Breathe, goddamn it! You can’t the on me. Not now.”
Victoria’s head bounced from side to side like her neck would break, but she didn’t breathe.
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