A Mating of Hawks
Page 26
As they jolted back to the road, Tracy felt physically sick, not only at the horror of his plan, but from the merciless way he’d used her. Aching and nauseated, she leaned forward and vomited.
Swearing, Judd braked to a halt. Roughly, he scrubbed her face, but he untied her to make her clean up the mess on the floor. This made her sick again.
“If this is your way of buying time for that bastard, forget it,” Judd grated. “Pardo’s to follow and kill him if we don’t meet him at the old ranch by eight.” He handed her a canteen. “Rinse your mouth and let’s go.”
Back on the road with its broad strip of weeds grown up between the tracks except where they passed over rock or gravel, they drove across the rolling expanse toward the mountains that marked the ranch and the way in. The moment the sun came over the mountains, it was instantly hot. Judd had on the air conditioner. Tracy thought of Shea, who had probably been walking for several hours by now.
When he saw them coming, he’d think it meant rescue. Tracy groaned silently before she said bitterly to Judd, “Shea’s been walking while you’ve been riding. He hasn’t had any real food since yesterday. Apart from guns, you’re a long way from starting even.”
Judd only chuckled. “When I’m after a deer, babe, I don’t know—or care—when it drank or had its belly full.”
Tracy’s mind doubled back and forth, desperately searching some way to thwart the man beside her. Hurl herself against him? Even if she caused a wreck that disabled him, Pardo had orders to kill Shea.
A sudden thought sent a thrill of hope through her. If Pardo would kill for money, why wouldn’t he spare a life for it? Though his training might allow him to murder Shea, he must have some liking for him.
I’ll offer him double whatever Judd has, Tracy thought. Why shouldn’t he take it?
It was possible, of course, that some perverted mercenary’s honor would keep him bought once he’d made a bargain. Still, it was the only hope Tracy could see. In spite of the oppressive throbbing in her head, the bruised aching between her legs, she felt better than she had since the ordeal started.
Trees and brush grew thick around the deserted ranch. Tracy relaxed slightly when she saw the pickup waiting in the sandy wash below the corrals. Pardo was there, not trailing Shea.
Dressed in camouflage, holster at his hip, the tall wiry black came out of the trees as Judd stopped the RV. “See you found your brother’s wife,” Pardo greeted, flipping his hand upward at Tracy.
Judd scowled at the words but asked impatiently, “How far ahead is he?”
“Seven miles, maybe eight. He only slept a couple of hours.”
With a nod of satisfaction, Judd moved to the back of the car. “You drive, Pardo. Give me the Magnum.”
Pardo handed over the lethal black gun. “Want I should drive right up to your brother?”
“He’s not my brother, he’s a bastard!”
“Ain’t we all?” Pardo grinned. He slid under the wheel.
“Drive up beside him,” Judd ordered. “I’ll tell him how it’s going to be and give him a start.”
Pardo’s ironic grin twisted his sparse beard sideways. “It’d be a lot more interesting if you didn’t have a gun either.”
“I’m not doing this to entertain you,” Judd said curtly. “All you have to do is wait with the girl.”
“Yassuh, boss,” gibed Pardo.
They could go only about twenty miles an hour. Time crawled as they jounced along. Muscles tense, stomach feeling as if it had shriveled to a tight ball, Tracy caught in her breath when she saw, at last, the light blue of Shea’s shirt showing around his darker blue daypack. His canvas hat and khaki trousers blended with the road and the barren land till they were a good deal closer.
At the sound of a motor, he’d glanced back and shielded his eyes. They he turned and came to meet them. When he saw Tracy, he broke into a trot, smiling with relief.
If there were only a way to warn him, at least prepare him for the treachery! All Tracy could do was shake her head and bring up her bound hands.
Shea halted, smile dying. Judd climbed out of the back. The Magnum was in his holster. He had a rifle in his hands.
“I’m giving you a start,” he said.
Shea’s incredulous look hardened into a grim one. “You do like your little games.”
“Especially this one.”
Disgust, not fear, was in Shea’s eyes. His gaze flicked to Pardo before he shrugged. “Even with that artillery, you may not come back, Judd. If we both kill each other, what happens to Tracy?”
“Don’t worry,” Pardo said. “I’ll take her home before I split.”
“Thanks,” Shea nodded.
Incredibly, he grinned at Tracy. “Hang in there, honey. I may be back. And if I’m not—I’ll always love you.”
“I’ll always love you,” she promised, through what felt like blood clotting her throat.
Shea drank from his canteen, dropped his pack and started walking.
“Class,” said Pardo. “That’s class.”
Judd grunted. “Want a beer?”
“Why not?”
Tracy declined. Shea had vanished around a bend in the road curving past a hill. Probably now he’d leave the road and hunt for a weapon of some kind. This wasn’t good ambush country. There were few hiding places. But if Shea could find cover and Judd came close, he might be able to stun him with a rock or hurled stick.
He might—The overwhelming chances were that Judd would spot him from a distance and drop him with the rifle. Tracy wished mightily that Judd would leave the RV so she could bargain with Pardo. Of course, now that Pardo had handed the Magnum over to Judd, he didn’t have a weapon. Still, if the price was enough, he might think of some way to rescue Shea.
“Twenty minutes.” Judd mashed the beer can together, tossed it away. “I don’t expect this to take long,” he said. “Just hang around here till I come back.”
Pardo said slowly, “You’re really going to do it.”
“Damn right.”
Judd started down the road.
“Pardo—” Tracy began.
He sighed. “You got a good man. Take care of him.”
He started the engine. Judd whirled. “Stay there, you dumb black bastard!” he shouted, jumping to the side.
Pardo cut sharp. He headed straight for Judd. Judd brought up the rifle and fired in the moment the RV ran him down. Glass shattered. Pardo slumped forward, blood pouring from his face. His hands loosened, fell slack.
Tracy could do nothing with her hands but she pitched forward in the wildly lurching vehicle and got a foot on the brake. Then she was able, using both hands clumsily, to switch off the engine.
From the bloody mass that was Pardo’s face, a drowning voice said, “Tell sarge—” The words choked off. Pardo convulsed, arched upward. Then he collapsed on the wheel.
Tracy looked back. The crushed body beside the rifle wasn’t moving. She struggled out of the RV and was hunting for a rock sharp enough to cut her ropes when she heard a shout. Shea was coming from around the hill.
He passed Judd and looked in at Pardo before he came to drop beside her and work at the knots. “I couldn’t believe Pardo sold me out. And he didn’t. Are you all right?”
“Now that you’re here.”
They held each other a long time before they got up and went about the things they had to do. As Shea composed Pardo’s body, he bowed his head. “He wouldn’t die for a flag. But he would for a friend. We’ll bury him with the family.”
A week later, there was another wedding in the sala. The service was followed by the christening of Tivi and Carla’s baby girl, with Tracy and Shea standing up as godparents, a joyful and sobering experience. Socorro was their responsibility, and the land which was the future of those born upon it. But for now there was joy and celebration.
Two pickups full of Mary’s relations came down from San Carlos. They were going to stay for several days, quartering in the new ranch house
where Geronimo and Mary would live, sharing it with several bachelor vaqueros.
“Lots of things have happened in this courtyard,” Tracy laughed to Shea. “But I think it’s the first time Apaches have danced with ranch families.”
“It won’t be the last.” Shea danced her into the shadows and kissed her tenderly but with purpose. “Geronimo’s bet me they’ll have a baby before we do.”
“Oh?” returned Tracy. “Mary’s assured me there won’t be any baby till Geronimo’s promised to split the diapering and getting up at night.”
“Maybe he’s already promised,” Shea twinkled.
“Then maybe there’ll be two Patricks running around here at the same time,” Tracy smiled.
“Dad would have liked that. But he would have been just as happy with a couple of little Marys or Teresitas.”
“There’s time for both,” she said.
This time, when he kissed her, they didn’t go back to the dancing.
About the Author
Born on the High Plains near the tracks of the Santa Fe Trail, Jeanne Williams’s first memories are of dust storms, tumbleweeds, and cowboy songs. Her debut novel, Tame the Wild Stallion, was published in 1957. Since then, Williams has published sixty-eight more books, most with the theme of losing one’s home and identity and beginning again with nothing but courage and hope, as in the Spur Award–winning The Valiant Women (1980). She was recently inducted into the Western Writers Hall of Fame, and has won four Western Writers of America Spur Awards and the Levi Strauss Saddleman Award. For over thirty years, Williams has lived in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1983 by Jeanne Williams
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3640-5
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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