The girl dragged herself off the floor, yelling at him in a mix of Tewa and Mexican. She spit on the floor and barreled out the door just as Tyra started in. The two collided, and both went down. They came up fighting, ripping at each other’s clothing, going for fistfuls of hair, yelling in both Tewa and English.
“What the hell?” The slight bartender, evidently still itching to fight someone, headed for the two women, this time with a club. Probably didn’t see any sense in killing women when they were so scarce.
Though of the same persuasion, Zach leaped forward, grabbed his arm. “I wouldn’t do that if I was you.”
The kid grinned, showing gapped teeth, and jerked loose. Waded into the battle of spitting, cursing women. Both turned on him, his club went flying, and so did he. He banged up against the wall and slid down, sat there with legs spread, all goggle-eyed.
“I warned him,” Zach said to his glass of beer.
Tyra and the Tewa girl squared off after tossing out their enemy, studied each other a moment, then began to laugh.
In the back of the room, the card players, bored with the dying battle, went back to their game.
He never would understand women. Been men, one would’ve had to win, regardless. Someone would have been killed right there in the doorway. Tyra could more than take care of herself, unless some of the men got ideas, and even then he’d put his money on her. Besides, it didn’t look like that would happen. Every one of the handful of drinkers had gone back to nursing their drinks and talking. Ah, well. Time to play some poker. Carrying his glass, he made his way to the table and sat down.
“What’s the ante, gentlemen?” He reached into the pocket where he kept his buy-in coins and took out enough to lose a few hands if he had to.
Tyra settled down beside her new friend on the bench outside the saloon. Zach would be in there for hours, and she welcomed being out of the saddle for a spell.
After exchanging names and ages with the girl, she asked her where she lived. She pointed vaguely. No help there at all.
“Okay if I call you Annie? I can’t say your name.”
“Yours is very strange. Tyra?”
“Yes, I’m from England.”
“I don’t know that place. Is it in Texas?”
“No. It’s far away, over the ocean.”
Annie’s eyes grew wide. “The big waters? I’ve heard them spoken of, but was never sure if they were really there.” She gestured at Tyra’s Colt. “Do you shoot people with that?”
Tyra laughed. “Once I shot Zach, the man inside who saved your hide when he shoved you to the floor. I was watching. Thought you were gonna cold-conk him.”
“I do not blame you for shooting him.”
“At the time, no one else did either. But everyone got over it. He’s really a very good man.”
“There is no such thing.”
She sounded so sad that Tyra wanted to hug her, but the girl needed a bath so badly she held back. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“All they want is your…” She pointed between her legs.
“You—you let men, you know, do that to you? Men you don’t love, who don’t love you?” The nuns would be shocked. Hell, she was shocked. Not that she didn’t know about doves or women of the evening, but this girl-child…How could she allow such a thing?
“It is not a matter of let. They want, they take.”
A man staggered out the open door of the saloon, looked around a minute, then lurched over and grabbed Annie by the arm. “Come on, whore. I paid for it, now I want it.”
Tyra jumped up, palmed her Colt. “Leave her be, mister, or I’ll fix you so you don’t want anything anymore.”
Eyes wide, Annie shook her head, her dark hair flying. “No, do not do this, Tyra. I must go now. He has paid for me. You have been very kind.”
With a snarl, the ugly cowboy yanked Annie along behind him, headed around back of the saloon with her.
Tyra pursued them, pulled the Colt and fired it over the heads of the couple. The cowboy shoved Annie to the ground, whirled with a six-shooter in his hand. Tyra lowered her aim and pulled the trigger. For a long moment the man stood in one place and stared at her. The echo of the shot died away, leaving an eerie stillness. Blood bloomed on his dirty shirt front, and he stumbled to his knees, firing one shot. Annie screamed, tried to get up, then fell back.
“A woman ain’t meant to be bought and paid for.” Tyra wasn’t sure who she spoke to. No one was listening.
For her it was as if the world around her had simply ceased to exist. Her heart pounded in her ears till she could hear nothing. Numbed by what she saw, she could not move, for his last shot had hit Annie. She sobbed and ran to her, falling to her knees.
Men poured from the saloon, shouting. Zach ran to her side, tried to lift her to her feet, away from Annie.
“No, leave me alone.” She shoved away his hands.
“Honey, come on. We have to go. Now.”
She screamed up at him. “No. Look what I did. I can’t go. I made him shoot her.”
He hooked her under both arms and lifted her so her kicking feet could not touch the ground. No matter how hard she struggled, she could not pry his hold loose.
His harsh whisper in her ear shook her loose from whatever had hold of her. “We can’t stay. If we do, we’ll both go to jail. They’ll hang you right beside me. Stop fighting, or I’ll knock you cold.”
She went limp in his arms. By this time he had reached the horses. The men from the saloon stood around the two bodies talking about what had happened. Obviously they didn’t realize she and Zach were escaping. Hang them? What was he saying? She shot the bad man, that’s all. He shot poor little Annie. Tears tracked the dust on her cheeks.
“They’re gonna come after us now. You ready to ride?”
When she nodded, he swung her up into her saddle like she was a tow sack of flour, untied all three horses, slapped Morgan’s rump, and sent her off. Kicking for the stirrups, grabbing the reins looped over the gelding’s neck, she screwed her head around to make sure he was coming. That no one had stopped him.
Through the dust from Morgan’s galloping hooves Zach rode, hunched forward to make less of a target. The trail was somewhere ahead, but she chose the surrounding woods, hoping to stay hidden as long as possible. He followed, and there they remained the rest of the day. By nightfall, the horses were winded. She was too, one cheek stinging from the slap of a low branch.
Zach hollered, and she turned to see him and the two horses standing in a small clearing surrounded by thick trees and low-growing brush. When she reached him, he was on the ground, dragging everything off the pack horse.
“We’ll be fine here. We have to stop, or run these horses to death.”
Exhausted, she slid down, loosened the girth, and tugged off the saddle. She wiped down the lathered Morgan with his blanket, then dropped the reins to the ground. He wouldn’t go far for now.
Having done much the same, Zach joined her, wrapped his arms around her. She laid her head on his chest, listened to the thumping of his heart, and let out a deep, broken sigh.
His lips were in her tangled hair. “It’s okay, darlin’. We’re well away. Besides, they don’t have law there. No one else cares what happened to that broke-down cowboy and a poor little Indian girl.”
She burst into tears.
He took her shoulders and held her away to study her face. His fingers touched her cheek. “You’ve got blood all over you. Are you okay?”
“Oh, I remember. A branch slapped me when we were riding. I’m fine. Just keep holding me till this hurt goes away. I didn’t mean her to get killed. He was going to ravage her, and she didn’t even fight back. Why would she let him do that?”
“She didn’t have any choice. That’s just the way things are sometimes. You’ve got to remember, you saved her from that.”
“But she died, right there beside him. How is that right?” Sobs tore through her.
“What would th
e nuns say about this?” He kissed her forehead. “A poor little girl caught up in evil, unable to escape. Wouldn’t they tell you she’s with the angels now? Wouldn’t they say that?”
His words surprised her. He’d never voiced even a vague interest in believing in God or saints or angels.
“Maybe. Yes, I suppose.” She took a deep breath. “Except for Sister Anne Marie. She thought she was the only one fit to go to heaven. Besides, I can’t just pick and choose what I believe from all the dreadful things they crammed into our heads. It was not a good place.”
“Doesn’t change what’s right and what’s wrong. You know it don’t.”
“Zach, do you believe in angels?”
“I believe in one. She’s in my arms this very moment. And if she exists, then who’s to say others don’t?”
“Let’s go to bed so you can hold me.”
“Want some jerky first?”
Stars were scattered thick in the velvet darkness above, and she lay close against him. “I hope she’s up there now,” she whispered.
He kissed her forehead. “Stop worrying about her. She’s fine now.”
After a while, she pointed. “See that really bright one? I want it for mine. When I die.”
Nose buried in her neck, he nibbled, made a spitting noise. “Dusty, you’re dusty.”
“So are you, but it’s okay. I love you anyway.” Clearly he didn’t want to talk about death. Especially hers.
He rolled over on top of her. “Wanta make love, dust and all?”
“I think I do.”
“Good.”
It was hard sometimes, believing this life was really happening to him. Zach took his time opening her shirt, finding all the spots that made her tremble and hug him close and make humming sounds deep in her throat. His mouth fit so very nicely over her nipple, his tongue outlining the tips till they hardened, taking his time there until his own body thrummed with a need to satisfy her. Still going slowly, he came to his knees and licked a trail down the center of her body, passed her belly button, and kept right on going.
She raised her hips in an invitation, head rolling back and forth, humming changing to moans of pure pleasure. He went where she invited, remained there exploring until she cried out and shuddered all over.
He was so hard he ached. Still he continued to pleasure her. With a primitive gasp, she hooked her legs around his waist, and he slid forward, more than ready to enter her. Fingers grasped him, turning his passion white-hot, and she guided him inside, where he plunged deep and came with such ferocity that he let out a feral shout.
Exhausted, he sprawled all over her, afraid he was mashing her, yet unable to move. “Good God, woman. Are you alive under there?”
“Barely, just barely.”
If he could move at all, he would. Trouble was, he couldn’t so much as wiggle his big toe. Not that he really wanted to. “If you could just sort of push me, I think I could roll off you.”
“If you say so.” She grunted, pushed, and he rolled to her side, one leg draped over her thigh, an arm across her breasts.
“Well, that’ll have to do.”
She laughed, and so did he. For a long time after that he couldn’t think of a thing to say, so he lay quietly contemplating what was happening to him with this woman. Was it all just sex? Or was this emotion gripping his heart and gut and brain really love? Something he had never expected to happen to him. What he planned when this man caught up with him could get her killed. That wasn’t what he wanted for her. To die at his side. Yet could he let her go, send her on her way? More, would she go even if he did? And what was all this shit about angels? What had got into him, he didn’t know.
It had taken a lot of thought to figure out who was behind everything, from Josh being arrested and sentenced to hang to the bullet that cut him down and the threat now to both him and Tyra.
The answer finally came to him so clearly when he replayed that long ago day in the Valley of the Gun. It should’ve just been a bloody fistfight with winner take all, and that’s how it started. Pleased with his poker win for Josh and his mother, he rode for home, nose swollen and eye puffed. The kid he’d known only as Apache Red ambushed him, put a bullet in his arm, and was about to put another in his heart. The two of them fighting over a stupid poker game.
The Valley of the Gun reverberated with gunfire as it had so many times before, giving it the name, and Zach pitched to the ground. He leaned up against a boulder not far from where he’d fallen, Colt in his other hand. The kid rose up like a wraith in the moonlight, took aim with a six-shooter, and Zach cut him down with two bullets in the stomach.
Fearful of reprisal from the law and Red’s older brother, nicknamed after the infamous Geronimo and ten times tougher, Zach bade his family goodbye and rode east to join up. He’d thought no more about it till that bullet cut Josh down. The war had done its job wiping the incident from his memory.
For Christ’s sake, he was fifteen years old. How could anyone hold that against him so many years later? Yet it was Red’s brother, no doubt about it. And he was going to have to kill him to stop him. She hadn’t ought to be a part of this. Young as she was, it all sounded romantic and exciting, but the death of the little Tewa girl might change her mind. He could only hope it did.
The idea of living without Tyra broke his heart. Thing was, he didn’t really expect to survive this gunfight. She knew him only as a gambler; she had no notion of his life between the end of the war and when he’d discovered the magic of cards. A life kicked off by that long-ago tangle with Apache Red and fueled by the bloody civil war.
Beside him, she turned over and snugged up under his arm, breath warm against his flesh. He held her so tight she grunted in her sleep. He placed his lips against her forehead and held them there for the longest time. If only his life had been different, and he’d met her another way. He had to do something. He couldn’t let her ride beside him into that death valley, with its reputation of outlaw killings.
He’d have to think of something. But not yet. Now he’d just hold her. Cherish her. Keep her safe.
All was still, dead bodies heaped over each other. Where the hell was he? Rifle at the ready, he walked onto the bloody battleground, gaze scanning for someone, anyone to shoot. A skittering through the woods, too much noise for a small animal. The hairs on his neck rose, his gut cramped, his heart slammed around in his chest. His vision grew foggy, until nothing was what it seemed. A huge black animal launched at him out of the woods, arms spread like wings. He shot at it with his rifle. One shot and it had to be reloaded, and the damnable thing kept coming. Coming till the wings closed around his face and he could not breathe.
Gasping for air, he awoke, lurched upright, arms swinging. Hitting something.
“Zach, what’s wrong? You smacked me one.”
Sweat poured into his eyes, soaked his shirt. He gasped for air.
Her arms locked around him. “Are you okay?”
Finally able to nod and speak, he grunted out, “Yes.” Leaned into her embrace, her fingers working into his hair. He pulled in long deep breaths until his heart settled down. “Bad dream, that’s all. Sorry, darlin’. Did I hurt you?”
“No. Scared me, is all.”
He sat beside her on the blanket for a long time, just holding her. He was one crazy son of a bitch. He needed to send her home before he got her hurt. But not yet, not just yet.
****
Something was going on with Zach that Tyra did not understand. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t figure out what might be bothering him. It went much deeper than the death of his brother, though that seemed to have kicked it off. And he wouldn’t talk about it. Whatever it was, she’d puzzle it out, sooner or later. And maybe then she could help him.
For days they traveled, always climbing the Staked Plains. One day, when they took a break to wash in a small hole of water, sitting because it wasn’t very deep, she broached the subject that had been bothering her for a while.
&
nbsp; “I don’t think there is such a place as this New Mexico. Tell me more about it.”
He twined his fingers in hers, kissed the back of her hand. “There is a New Mexico, and we are almost there.”
“How will we know? Everything around us looks the same. Will there be a sign?”
“Yep, there’s a sign on the trail that tells us we’re leaving Texas. That’s when we’ll go into New Mexico Territory.” He chuckled. “The other side of the sign says ‘Entering Texas.’”
“Can’t people who live in New Mexico write?”
“I suppose about as many as can in Texas. But it might be Spanish or Tanoan.”
“I don’t know about that one, though I always thought Spanish was a beautiful language. Why do people in New Mexico speak Spanish?”
He tousled her hair, laughed. “That’s a good question, and a long history lesson. Let’s just say that Spain once held much of Mexico, which then included the land in New Mexico and Texas. Oh, and California, too. There were other folks there then, but mostly they are gone now. The Tanoan language is Kiowa, but spoken by the Tewa, who live in the Pueblos in New Mexico.”
“Often this country of yours is very difficult to figure out.”
“It is. It certainly is.”
“I know one thing, though. I am going to celebrate when we see the sign that we are leaving Texas. This land of the stakes is monotonous, and so dry. I thought we would never get this bath.”
“Well, be very careful not to drink any. It isn’t fit for man nor beast.”
“And so that is why you placed the horses over there.”
He nodded. “Come here to me a minute, would you? I need to hold you.” He opened his arms, and she straddled his lap and snugged close.
“I love you, girl. More than I love life or anything in it. I want you to always remember that.”
Inside, her heart jolted so hard it sent a pain through her chest. Something in his voice frightened her so badly tears filled her eyes. “Then let’s go back. Let’s go somewhere besides this place in New Mexico. I’m afraid for you there. This man is leading you into a trap.”
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