Cloudcastle

by Nan Ryan

  Kane could hardly blame her. Not after what he'd discovered this morning. The lovely judge had been an extremely rich young woman until he had shown up in Cloudcastle bearing a deed to Promontory Point. She had every reason to hate him.

  And so did Ashlin Blackmore.

  Natalie rushed toward the big white mansion at the end of Main Street. Anxious to have the upcoming unpleasantness behind her, she climbed the steps to the imposing dwelling and lifted the heavy brass knocker.

  Old William promptly threw open the front door and smiled warmly at Natalie. "Come right in, Mrs. Vallance," said William. "Let me take your wrap."

  "Thank you, William." Natalie turned her back to the old servant and released her long pink cape to his wrinkled hands. "Lord Blackmore offers his apologies. He's—"

  Natalie whirled about, interrupting. "He's not gone, is he, William? I specifically asked that he—"

  "No, no, ma'am. He's here, but he is tied up right now with a gentleman in the study. Shouldn't take but a few moments." He smiled reassuringly. "You're to go on upstairs and wait for him in the drawing room."

  Natalie nodded and patted her upswept hair. "Thank you, William," she said and, lifting her long skirts, ascended the wide staircase. A bright, cheerful fire blazed in the spacious drawing room, but despite its heat, Natalie felt a definite chill. The flames in the marble fireplace licked and leapt erratically around the pinon logs and Natalie looked about, puzzled. She went back out into the hallway, searching for the source of the cold draft.

  The door across the wide corridor stood ajar. The door leading into the library. Natalie went inside. She immediately spotted a window across the big room, half open. Frigid air poured into the library, causing the heavy velvet drapes to flutter with its force. A biting chill permeated the room while on top of a tambour desk beside the open window, pages of a small open book were riffling in the cold wind.

  Natalie hurried forth and closed the window. Her attention was caught by the open leather book and she laid her hand on it, intending to shut it. But her gaze was drawn to the written word and what she saw there made her green eyes widen. She lifted the book from the desk.

  Lips parted, Natalie flipped to the front inside page and read the words Property of Lord Titus Blackmore. Titus? Natalie murmured musingly. Ashlin's middle name was Courtney, not Titus. Ashlin Courtney Blackmore. Who was Titus Blackmore?

  Intrigued, Natalie flipped to the first page. A bold, scrawling hand had made an entry on May 5, 1859: Finally got to the United States this date Will writs Ashlin tomorrow to let him know of my safe arrival.

  Natalie turned to a page farther into the yellowing journal. August 8, 1859. Have reached the wilds of Colorado where I will prospect for gold. Natalie turned more pages. February 2, 1860. My luck is changing. Have met a young Ute squaw. She claims to know of hidden gold.

  The blood began to drum loudly in her ears, and Natalie eagerly continued to scan the brittle pages of the leather-covered journal. Titus Blackmore had recorded everything. How the young Indian girl had led him to the gold in the Cliff Palace and how he had meticulously drawn up a map of its exact location. How he had murdered the girl afterward and hidden her body in a fissure of Treasure Mountain. How he was next planning to kill a meddlesome old Ute shaman. How he could hardly wait until the old Indian lay dead so he could take his gold and return to his beloved England.

  Natalie heard men's voices in the downstairs corridor. Ashlin was bidding his guest good-day.

  Thoughts tumbling over one another, heart hammering beneath the soft pink woolen bodice of her dress, Natalie dropped the leather journal back on the tambour desk, whirled about, and dashed out of the library. Silently crossing the marbled corridor, she slipped back into the drawing room and was standing quietly before the fireplace when Ashlin walked through the double doors.

  "Darling," said Ashlin, his hands outstretched, "so sorry I kept you waiting."

  Natalie forced herself to smile at the tall, blond man and allowed him to put his arms around her. She stood in his embrace and carefully concealed the dismay threatening to make her ill. Putting the shocking facts together, Natalie wisely kept all burning questions to herself.

  Ashlin's lips pressed soft kisses to her temple and he said solicitously, "Tell me, my dear, what was it that was so important?"

  Natalie lifted her face to his. "Nothing really, Ashlin. I just wanted to say good-bye in private." Again she smiled and prayed he could not read what lay behind her eyes.

  "My love," murmured Ashlin, seeking her lips. Natalie endured his brief caress. Freeing her mouth, Ashlin murmured against her ear, "I've an hour before I leave on the stage for Denver."

  Natalie thought fast. "I have a private hearing in my chambers set for twelve-thirty," she quickly lied, and pulled back. Ashlin sighed, then told her, "I wish I didn't have to leave, but this damned railroad business is—"

  "I understand." Natalie was anxious to get out of his arms, out of the room, out of the house. And out of his life. "I'm glad. You'll keep busy while I'm away?"

  "Yes," she quickly assured him, although she had not a single case on the docket for the next ten days.

  In the downstairs corridor, Ashlin, standing behind Natalie, draped the pink cape around her slender shoulders. Impulsively, he put his fingers into her hair at the sides of her head and urged her back against his slim body. Huskily, he whispered, "After we're married, darling, will you… wear your hair in plaits when we're alone?"

  Watching nervously from her private chambers, Natalie felt an overwhelming sense of relief when she saw the Denver stage leave Cloudcastle with Ashlin Blackmore on board.

  Troubled thoughts rushed through her mind, one after another. Tahomah asking, more than once, if Ashlin had a brother. Ashlin trying to purchase Promontory Point, telling her it was needed for railroad right-of-way. Kane Covington shooting Damon and Burl Leatherwood while all three were on top of Treasure Mountain. What were the Leatherwoods doing up there? Did they know of the gold? Did Kane? Did Ashlin? Was Ashlin nothing more than a greedy gold-seeker bent on stealing the treasure?

  The sun slipped behind thick, dark clouds as Natalie rode home to Cloud West. Natalie began disrobing the minute she walked in the door. Pink cape thrown over the polished banister, she worked at the tiny buttons of her pink wool dress as she climbed the stairs.

  The big ranch house was silent; Natalie was alone. Jane had gone to a married daughter's in Arizona. The young woman was due to deliver her first child and Jane planned to stay until her grandchild safely entered the world.

  In too great a hurry to light the fires, Natalie shivered as she stepped out of her dress and full petticoats.

  Moments later, teeth chattering, she flew down the stairs wearing buckskin trousers and fringed shirt, gunbelt buckled around her flaring hips. From a peg beside the front door, Natalie snatched down the black Stetson her uncle Shelby had left behind. Jamming it down over her upswept flaming hair, she went to the stables for her bay stallion, Blaze.

  Natalie headed east as snow began falling from a rapidly changing sky. She looked heavenward and grimaced. A harsh winter's storm was on the way; she could see it gathering in the north. She didn't care. She had to see Tahomah; to question him, to get to the bottom of this nightmare she'd unwittingly uncovered.

  "Hell, Burl." Damon Leatherwood scratched his armpit. "It's fixin' to snow again. Can't we wait a couple of days?"

  "No, Damon," said his older brother, "get out of that bed and put on a shirt. We're riding over to pay a little visit to Kane Covington." The thin man dropped cartridges into the chamber of his heavy revolver.

  Damon Leatherwood made a face, but he rose from his narrow bed. "You know I like a nap after I eat. Don't see what it would hurt to wait till tomorrow."

  "We're getting it over with, little brother. Today. This very afternoon."

  Damon was still bellyaching when the pair rode away from their little spread in the foothills, heading toward Promontory Point.

/>   Kane returned to his alpine cabin shortly before noon. By the time he had unsaddled Satan and fed him a half bucket of oats, snow had started falling. Kane stepped from the small barn and looked up at an eerily ominous sky.

  The storm was blowing in from the north. Likely as not it would be a bad one, maybe bringing a foot or more of new snow. Kane didn't care. He had books to read and liquor to drink and food to eat.

  And millions of dollars of bright, shiny gold stashed in the high Cliff Palace directly above him.

  Kane went inside his cabin, took off his black Stetson and tossed it onto the coat tree. He would just spend the next two or three snowy days pondering how he could spend all of that money.

  Chuckling, he tossed several pinon logs into the fireplace. When the fire was snapping and crackling and shooting tongues of bright orange flame up the chimney, Kane shrugged out of his buckskin shirt, poured himself a tumbler of straight Kentucky bourbon, and dropped into an easy chair.

  One long leg hooked over the chair's padded arm, he took a healthy swallow of the dark liquid and smiled over the glass. He was a rich man once more. A very rich man. One of the Territory's richest.

  Perhaps he would go again to Europe. Or to New York City. Maybe even down to the Mississippi coast. Buy back his home place and build a new, baronial mansion, grander than the old one. Sit in lazy idleness on the verandah while Gulf breezes and icy mint juleps kept him cool and contented.

  Kane sighed and took another drink of bourbon. A twinge of melancholy nudged at him. He yawned with boredom. The newfound money didn't make that much difference. There was nothing he wanted to do. No place he wanted to go.

  Kane again lifted the glass, emptied it, and poured another. Hooded blue eyes stared fixedly into the fire and his dark head fell back against the tall, padded back of his chair.

  It was quiet and very warm inside the one-room cabin, the only sound that of the hot fire snapping and popping. Kane swirled the whiskey in his glass, drank half the contents, and set it aside.

  Yawning drowsily, he scratched absently at his bare stomach, then lifted his fingers to toy with the shiny panther's claw that hung around his neck. Kane dozed.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The weather had rapidly turned foul.

  Natalie felt the cold, driving winds biting through the heavy buckskin shirt and lifting at the too-large Stetson atop her head. One gloved hand clutching the reins, she shoved the hat lower, stood in the stirrups, and wheeled the big bay in a southeasterly direction, putting the winds to her back.

  Snow that had been light only moments before was now falling fast and heavily, and the sky was white. A total, complete white out. No sign of the horizon in any direction. It would be easy to get lost on such a day.

  Natalie was unworried.

  She knew the way blindfolded. She and Blaze had climbed these bleak slopes toward the El Diente pass in every kind of weather. She leaned over and patted her mount's wet, sleek neck, trusting the powerful beast to carry her safely around and over the snow-covered spires rising like threatening shadows out of the milky mist.

  Blaze, never breaking pace, suddenly tossed his great head and whinnied. Natalie wondered at his action, then saw the coil of black smoke curling up into the snow-white sky. She was not fifty yards from Kane Covington's cabin. Blaze had likely smelled Kane's horse, even through the storm, and was reacting. Distracted, the bay stumbled, quickly recovered his stride, and lunged forward. "This is dumb, Burl, I can't see a danged thing," complained Damon Leatherwood. "Will you put a lid on it, Damon, we're almost there," warned his older brother. "I don't like this, I don't—"

  "Wait," said Burl, and pulled up on his horse. "What's that just—" He squinted and raised a bony hand to wipe rivulets of water from his cold face. "I don't see nothing," whined Damon, turning his dun about.

  Burl's pale eyes blinked, then blinked yet again. "It's him," he said quietly, "the fool's out for a ride."

  "Where, I don't… oh, yeah. That him?"

  Damon strained to see. "Has to be. Man in buckskins and black Stetson astride a bay stallion. Who else could it be way up here?"

  "This makes it easier for you, Damon."

  "Easier for me?" Damon grumbled. "I thought you was going—"

  Interrupting, Burl said resolutely, "You're going to shoot Kane Covington, little brother." His cold eyes swung to the bigger man. "Were I you, I'd try my best to get him before he spots you. He might be wearing his gun."

  Fear registered in Damon's wide eyes. He swallowed hard, dug his big-roweled spurs into his horse's belly, and shot forward, Colt revolver drawn.

  A shot rang out.

  Kane sprang from his chair. Snatching his Colt. 44 from the holster hanging beside the front door, Kane dashed outside, mindless of his bare torso. Gun raised, he stood poised in the swirling snow, a figure of dormant power, eyes savagely alert, coiled muscles tensed.

  And then he was running, his long, powerful legs bounding over the deepening snows to a horse whickering in panic. Blue gaze cautiously sweeping about as he ran, Kane neared the frightened, riderless animal and felt the heart inside his bare chest constrict with fear.

  He recognized the big bay.

  The horse's great head was low; held down by a hand clinging tightly to the drooping reins. That hand belonged to a prostrate form upon the snow and Kane knew, even before he reached her, that it was Natalie.

  Shoving the revolver into the waistband of his trousers, Kane rushed to her, fell to his knees, not realizing that he had let out a loud wail of despair.

  She lay upon her back. Hat gone from her head, her fiery hair was fanned out like strawberry lace upon the snow. Her eyes were closed, long, thick lashes resting on pale cheeks. Her head was half turned to him and her lips were slightly parted.

  Kane immediately laid his ear to her chest, heard nothing but the hammering of his own speeding heart. He straightened, put his hand to her throat, and encountered metal. Pushing the shiny gold disc out of the way, he pressed his fingers against her wet flesh and felt a faint, steady beating. He uncurled her slender, gloved fingers from the horse's reins and gently picked her up. And again groaned when he saw the crimson circle of bright red blood staining the crystal snow beneath her.

  Tucking her head beneath his chin, Kane ran through the blinding snowstorm, the woman in his arms as lifeless as a rag doll. Inside the cabin, he carried Natalie directly to the eating table in the center of the room. He laid her down upon her back, then carefully turned her over onto her stomach.

  From the cupboard he grabbed a sharp knife and quickly sliced away her bloodied buckskin shirt and crimson-stained chemise. The bullet had entered her right shoulder an inch from the armpit and had not exited. It was lodged in the soft tissue and muscle and was bleeding profusely. It would have to come out soon.

  Kane's deft fingers unfastened the gold chain from around her throat. Shiny gold disc resting in the palm of his hand, he carried the dazzling necklace to the night table beside his big bed. Then he turned back to Natalie.

  Kane knew what had to be done. Dr. Ellroy was too far away. The snowstorm was growing worse. The wounded judge would never make it down the mountain to Cloud-castle.

  Pausing only a second to gently cup a pale white cheek in his hand, Kane went into action.

  Within five minutes of entering the cabin, Natalie was stretched out on the table, which was now covered with freshly laundered linen. Unconscious, lying on her stomach, she was naked save for her lacy underdrawers and a covering sheet draped across hips and legs. The wound had been thoroughly bathed and cleansed with warm water and Kane, his hands scrubbed sterile as any surgeon's, stood over her. Nearby were boiling-hot water, several clean white towels, sponges, and a razor-sharp knife that he had held in the blaze of a candle for sterilization.

  Kane flexed the stiff fingers of his injured right hand and picked up the gleaming knife. Keeping his eyes off the pale, beautiful face of the helpless woman lest his calm resolve depart, Kane put
the point of the sharp knife to soft flesh and felt his insides twist.

  With steely determination, he probed the wound, ignoring the instinctive flinching of the bare white back. A soft moan issued from Natalie's parted lips and it, too, was ignored by the dark man who was inflicting the pain. With a single-mindedness born of necessity, Kane went about his work, his blue eyes narrowed in concentration, his stiff hand miraculously steady and strong.

  The deadly bullet was extracted and dropped into a dish. For want of a better antiseptic, Kane poured bourbon over the wound and dressed it with white gauze. And it was not until he had put one of his clean white nightshirts on Natalie and had placed her in his bed, that his hands began to shake uncontrollably and he felt so faint, he had to dash out of doors to draw a breath of fresh, cold air.

  And then his long vigil began.

  Kane drew up a straight-backed chair beside the bed and straddled it. Long, bare arms folded over its back, chin resting on top of them, Kane stared steadily at the pale, pretty face upon the pillow. Long, anxious minutes passed slowly and that face kept growing paler. And paler.

  Alarmed, Kane rose and peeled down the bedcovers. Gently, carefully, he slipped his fingers beneath Natalie. They came out wet and bloody. That's why she was getting paler. She was still losing blood. Kane bit the inside of his jaw and crossed the room to the fireplace. He picked up the heavy black poker and looked at it. And he looked back at the deathly-white face upon his pillow.

  Kane placed the poker directly into the flames.

  He took a deep, slow breath, wondering miserably, Can I do it? Can I actually press that glowing piece of iron against her bare, beautiful back? Can I forever scar such feminine perfection? Even as he pondered, bright red blood oozed out of the bullet wound.

  Kane carried Natalie back to the table and stripped away the soiled nightshirt. Again he cleaned the wound. Without further delay he strode to the fireplace, wrapped a heavy cloth around the handle of the fire-red poker and drew it from the flames. Heat from it caused his blue eyes to squint, but he opened them wide when he reached Natalie.