“Wouldn’t you?” he growled, squeezing her wrist. “I know you lied about staying in Mexico! You lied about not going back to stealing horses. You’ll do anything for Emilio, won’t you?”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “He is my brother. He is all I have!”
Clay released his grip and stepped back. “And where is he now? Is he here protecting you?”
She sniffed. “He is probably dead, because of you!”
Clay shook his head. “No, Nina. If he’s dead, it’s because of his own stupidity! Now walk ahead of me back to my horse, or by God I’ll tie you up and drag you if I have to!”
Nina’s lips moved into a pout, and she tossed her head and marched off ahead of him. One soldier came toward them, leading two saddled but riderless horses. One was Nina’s black gelding; the other horse she recognized as the one belonging to Mike. Was he really dead? Carmell had warned her that just because he had never been caught didn’t mean it couldn’t happen eventually. Emilio had been so certain that with so many men along they would be safe. Poor Mike. He had been good to her and Emilio.
The soldier handed the reins of the two horses to Clay. “I’m not sure what the tally is, sir. I think two men are dead, a few more wounded. Corporal Mills is bringing them in as prisoners. I think a couple of them got away.”
“Good!” Nina barked. “I hope one of them was Emilio!” She looked at Clay. “If my brother got away, he will come for me! You had better not close your eyes at night, Señor Lieutenant!”
Mills stared at her, then glanced at his commander. “Lieutenant, isn’t she the same woman we saw at Indianola, the one we rescued from the Humes gang?”
Clay’s eyes were on Nina. He saw right through her act of bravery and defiance, saw the frightened child inside. Why had she done this? He had no choice this time but to turn her in. “She’s the same one, all right,” he said with disgust. “I guess some people never learn!”
Clay turned angry eyes to Mills. “See what the damages are, Corporal. Gather everyone here—horses, prisoners, Boone and his men. We’ll have Miss Juarez identify the dead bodies and then we’ll bury them. I’ll have to make a full report at Fort Fillmore. We’ll have to do some hard riding to get there. We only have two days left of the five Lieutenant Beale gave me. I want to get there in time to continue with the expedition.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mills left, and Nina faced Clay, her hands on her hips. “What expedition? Are you leading another circus train, Lieutenant?” she asked snidely. She looked around. “Where is your animal act?”
“Forget about the camels,” he answered. He took off his hat and beat the dust out of it. His thick, sun-bleached hair and the deep blue eyes that looked at her now with such disappointment stirred feelings in Nina she had struggled so long to forget. Even in his dusty, sweaty condition, he was a movingly handsome man, and she found herself secretly wishing she could have seen him again under different circumstances. He beat more dust out of his uniform, then put his hat back on, his eyes drilling into her. “Don’t you understand the kind of trouble you’re in this time, Nina?”
“Emilio will come for me before you ever get me to any authorities!”
“You don’t know if he’s even still alive! If he is, I think you’re going to discover he isn’t as loyal and brave as you think! If he really had your best interests in mind, he never would have allowed you to come with him. And who are these men you were riding with?”
She dropped her eyes. “Their leader is…was…Mike Billings. He is one of the dead ones. I saw him when I was riding out.”
“How many were there all together?”
She met his eyes again, her lips pressed tight.
“Damn it, Nina, the only way you’re going to hope to get any kind of leniency is to cooperate! Now, how many were there?”
She sighed, her stomach feeling tight. She knew the lieutenant was right. He could not help her this time. And if it had not been he who came for her, the Texans from whom they had stolen the horses would probably already be having their way with her. “Seven men, including Emilio,” she told him. “I made eight.”
“I want names, Nina, as soon as we gather up the dead bodies and the wounded. I want to know who’s missing, if anyone.”
She looked at him scathingly. “So, you have another capture under your belt, do you? Tell me, Lieutenant Youngblood, will you get a promotion for this? Or maybe you already got one for capturing Jess Humes and taking credit for killing him yourself. It is just as Emilio said. You do not care what will happen to me! All you care about is capturing some outlaws and showing your superiors what a great and skilled soldier you are. So what if a woman gets hanged? So what if she did not really want to be a part of this?”
Clay shook his head, a deep hurt showing in his eyes. “Emilio sure did a good job of making sure you didn’t take anything I said to heart. I didn’t get any damn promotion, Nina, and I told you why I felt I should say I killed Jess Humes. That one little fact could help you this time around. And I do care what happens to you! Do you have any idea how hard I prayed it would be some other woman we found? I didn’t want it to be you. You’ve put me in one hell of a fix!”
She raised her chin, hating to admit to herself that he seemed truly sincere. She didn’t want him to be sincere. This would all be easier if he didn’t have that look in those blue eyes—eyes that made her want to run to him and let him hold her, protect her. “Just do your duty like a good soldier,” she said defiantly. “I am your prisoner, Lieutenant!” she sneered, holding out her wrists.
He shook his head. “Just start walking,” he told her. “Over there where those other men are gathered.”
She turned and marched toward the soldiers, who were laying out two dead bodies. Nina was relieved to see that neither of them wore Emilio’s red calico shirt. She walked closer, her throat tightening when she saw the men were Mike Billings and Johnny Lane. She pointed to Billings. “He was the leader,” she said sadly.
“That could be you lying there!” Clay said angrily. He looked up as Clyde Boone approached, his men herding the stolen horses behind him. Boone trotted his horse up to the dead bodies.
“Good riddance!” he sneered. Four more soldiers rode in, two of them leading wounded men who sat bent over in the saddles of their own horses, another carrying a third wounded man slumped over his lap. Clay walked up to him and pulled the wounded man off. The man groaned pitifully as Clay gently laid him out flat on the ground. The front of the man’s shirt was soaked with blood.
“Santos!” Nina gasped.
Boone dismounted and walked up to the man. “That’s the Mexican who worked for me!” he fumed. He kicked Santos in the ribs, drawing a cry of pain from the man’s lips.
Clay charged into Boone in a rage, landing a blow into the man’s jaw and sending him sprawling. “Get out of here, Boone!” he snarled. “You’ve got your horses and we’ve got most of the men who took them, so head on back home now! You’re the one who said you couldn’t afford to be away for too long.”
Boone shook his head, rubbing at his jaw, blood trickling out of the side of his mouth. He slowly got to his feet, looking ready and willing to light into Clay, but he held back. “I’ll go,” he sneered, wiping at his mouth with his shirtsleeve, his face beet red with anger and humiliation. His eyes moved to Nina, roaming over her with a look of disgust. “I’d better hear that you turned in all of them, Youngblood!” he warned Clay. “I intend to check with the authorities and make damn sure the woman gets the same charges and the same punishment. I’ll be going to Fort Fillmore myself to fill out a complaint against all of them, and that slut better be one of the prisoners!”
“Do what you want,” Clay answered, still striking a threatening pose. “Just get out of here!”
Boone shifted, turning to his men. “Let’s get those horses back home!” The man mounted his own horse, and just as he prepared to ride, Clay called out to him. Boone turned. “I believe you owe a thanks to Co
yote,” Clay told him. “It would have taken you a hell of a lot longer to catch up with this gang without his help. You might never have gotten your horses back.”
Boone moved angry eyes to the Indian, wiping at still more blood that trickled out of his mouth. “Thank you,” he finally muttered grudgingly, then turned his horse and rode off.
Nina hurried over to Santos, kneeling over him. “You will be all right, Santos,” she tried to soothe him.
Santos managed a meager smile. “No, señorita. A gunshot…to the belly…no man survives.” He squeezed his eyes shut and grunted. “That man who just left…he shot my horse from under me. When I fell…he walked up and shot me…close up…before I could get to my gun.”
Clay knelt on the other side of the man, and Nina looked over at him. “That man murdered him! He could have pointed a gun at him and told him to give up. He did not have to shoot him.”
Clay met her eyes. “And do you think any judge in this territory is going to hold that against him? This man worked for Clyde Boone, Nina, lied to him, cheated him, stole his horses! Damn it, don’t you realize what a serious offense that is around here? People will say Clyde Boone had every right to do what he did! If I hadn’t been along, he’d have done the same thing to you!”
Her eyes teared and she looked back down at Santos, whose breath suddenly came in a great shudder before he stiffened, his eyes wide and staring.
“Santos!” she cried.
Clay felt for a pulse at his throat, but there was none. “He was right, Nina. A gunshot in the belly is always bad. He’s dead.”
Nina turned away, feeling sick and numb. She looked up at the other two men, Greg Lions and Al Kinkade. Both had sustained less major wounds but were obviously hurting. She looked past them, scanned the rest of the soldiers. She did not see Emilio—or Carlos Baca. She looked at Clay. “Where is Emilio? And there is another young Mexican man. Is this everyone who was killed or wounded?”
Clay looked at Corporal Mills, who nodded. “This is it, Lieutenant Youngblood. Private Banner says he thought he saw a couple of men on horses scrambling through a narrow crevice farther up the canyon. But they’re long gone by now.”
Clay met Nina’s eyes. “So much for your loyal brother.”
She held his gaze boldly. “He will be back,” she said, her eyes misty. Clay detected the disappointment and fear behind the words. “You will see.”
“I see one young woman and two wounded men, all that’s left of a gang of horse thieves who thought they wouldn’t be caught.” He pushed his hat back, looking at Mills. “Get these men buried. Take any identification they might have on them. We’ll turn it in at Fort Fillmore with their gear. And see that the wounded men are tended to. If they can ride, we’ll head back yet today. We should reach the fort in just a couple of days.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mills began giving orders, and Clay turned his attention to Nina. He put a hand to her waist and led her away from Santos’s body. “I’ll do what I can, Nina, once I turn you in—explain you were only involved because of your brother. I don’t know how much I can help, but I’ll try. Who are the two wounded ones?”
“One is called Greg Lions. The other, the man with the blue shirt, is Al Kinkade.”
“How did you end up riding with a gang of gringos? I thought you and Emilio hated them.”
“They were good to us.” She walked farther away from him, angrily wiping at unwanted tears. “Emilio and I were working in El Paso. They came along with stolen horses. The leader, Billings, he rode a wild horse and got thrown.” She continued telling Clay how Emilio had rushed to his aid and gotten the horse away from him. “That is how they became friends. When Mike Billings told Emilio about the money he could make riding with them, Emilio could not resist.” She looked at Clay. “We were going to quit after this. We were going to go along with one more theft, up in that place where the Mormons live. Then we would have enough money to go to California and have a ranch of our own.”
“Is that what Emilio told you?”
“Sí. He did not lie. And he will come for me! You will see! He will come, unless he is badly wounded.” She turned away again, squinting at the horizon. “If he is hurt, I should be with him.”
“No, Nina. He should be with you, right here! He never should have ridden off and left you behind.”
“He had to do what was necessary. He called for me, but with so much dust and confusion, I could not find him.” She shivered, grasping her arms. “I would not know what to do without Emilio.” She turned to face him again, this time her true fear showing in her exotic dark eyes. “What will happen to me, Señor Lieutenant? Will they hang me?”
God how he hated it when she looked at him that way! He told himself she deserved whatever happened to her this time, yet he felt like a bastard being the one to turn her over to the authorities. “I don’t know, Nina. Maybe not.”
“If they do not hang me, they will send me to some prison, where I will rot, maybe…” She shivered again. “Some filthy gringo guard will do bad things to me while I am helpless. I would rather hang!”
“Nina, don’t think the worst yet. I said I’d speak for you.”
Her eyes moved over him. “It will do no good.” Her eyes pleaded with him, and she stepped closer. “You could let me escape.”
Clay sighed, wanting to hit her, wanting to hold her. “I can’t do that, Nina. Half the men with me already know…” He hesitated. Know what? That he was fond of her? How could he tell her that? “Already know that I turned you and Emilio loose the first time. I was damn lucky I didn’t get in trouble then. You heard Clyde Boone. He’s going to check and make sure I turn you in. It’s my duty, Nina. My enlistment is almost ended. I don’t intend to go out with a dishonorable discharge after all the years I’ve put in. I tried to help you once, but you wouldn’t listen.”
She stiffened. “Oh, yes, duty before honor!” she sneered.
“Honor? I don’t think you’re in much of a position to speak of honor right now, Nina.”
She sat down on a rock. “Just go away,” she said quietly.
“No, ma’am. You’ll run off the second I turn my back. You get over there with that private and help him tend the wounded ones.” He nodded toward Private Banner, who was cutting open Al Kinkade’s pant leg. Kinkade groaned and swallowed some whiskey. “Soon as they’re fixed up and the others are buried, we’ll be heading out,” Clay told her.
She held up her chin. “For Fort Fillmore?” she asked. She watched the blue eyes, saw his own pain and heartache. Yes, he did have special feelings for her! It was her only hope. She suddenly realized that it was not just the fear and dread of going to prison or being hanged that plagued her, but the thought that now that she had found the handsome lieutenant again, there was no hope of ever being special to him, of ever getting to know him better. She walked past him to help with Kinkade.
A myriad of feelings swept through Clay: hate, love, a desire to hurt her, a stronger desire to take her in his arms and make a woman out of her.
You’ve put yourself in a fine fix now, Clay Youngblood, he told himself. “Keep a close eye on her,” he told Corporal Mills. Nina looked up at him as he walked past her to supervise the burial detail, but Clay would not look at her. He wondered if she realized how his mind raced with confusion, how every nerve end in his body had come alive at seeing her again. The thought made him scowl. He realized he was left with the hardest decision he ever had had to make, the worst assignment he had ever been given. He would rather be assigned to face a war party of Apache or Comanche Indians than to have to turn Nina Juarez over to the authorities.
Clay rose from the fire in front of his tent, calling Corporal Mills to him. “Bring the woman over here,” he told the man. “I’ll guard her myself.”
“Sir? Shouldn’t she be kept with the other two prisoners? I’ve got two men watching them, and the wounded men are tied up.”
“Well the woman isn’t tied up, and I don’t want to h
ave to tie her. I’ll watch her myself tonight. Believe me, if she can find a way to dupe those guards, she’ll do it. I’m the only one she can’t fool, at least not anymore.”
Mills left to get Nina, whose horse had been tied between two soldiers all day on the long ride southwest toward Fort Fillmore. The young man realized that Youngblood had paid no attention to the woman all day, and he suspected the lieutenant had personal reasons for wanting to watch over Nina himself tonight. Whatever those reasons were, he was not about to argue an order. He just hoped the lieutenant knew what he was doing.
Clay waited, hoping he was not being a fool for sending for Nina. He had deliberately avoided her all day, afraid of his own emotions; but he felt he dare not leave her with the guards tonight. As long as Emilio was out there somewhere, he couldn’t trust her, and a woman of such rare beauty wouldn’t find it hard to cajole one of the guards into coming closer so she could grab his gun or sweet-talk him into letting her go. Most of these men had not been with a woman other than a whore in a long, long time. Trouble was, neither had he.
The corporal appeared with Nina at his heels. She folded her arms, looking at Clay defiantly. “Now what do you want?” she asked. “I told you everything about Mike Billings and his men. Your murdering gringo has his horses back.”
Clay dismissed the corporal and told Nina to sit down by the fire. She grudgingly obeyed, plopping down on a blanket he had spread out for her. “You want some coffee?” Clay asked.
Nina pouted. “I suppose.”
Clay poured her a cup and handed it over. “I want you to understand something, Nina.” He lit one of the thin cigars he liked to smoke and sat down near her. Picking up a piece of burning brush from the fire to light the smoke, he changed his mind and threw the stick back into the fire. “I really did have your best interests in mind when I agreed to help Clyde Boone find you. He would have caught up with you eventually without us, but I wanted to be there to protect you when he caught up with you. You saw what he did to Santos.”
She sipped some of the coffee, staring at the fire. “And now I am supposed to thank you? I would probably be better off dead than turned in.”
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