by Martha Hix
With no clear plan in mind, and determined that no one would see the evidence of last night’s argument, she scooped up dollops of mashed cake and threw it into the pail collected from the cookhouse. As well, she carried well water indoors, and was scrubbing the floor when Geoff tapped on the front door.
She gave silent thanks that it wasn’t Claudine returned.
Rather than invite him in, she walked onto the porch. “I thought you and Charlie were rounding up cattle for the Army.”
“Dey rounded up. He watching dem at dat ol’ Safe Haven Canyon. Me, I gots to go to town. Gots to get da saddle fixed, ’fore dat ole skewbald throws dis darkie into da cactus patch.”
“I’ll tell my husband to meet Charlie Main at the canyon.”
Geoff’s canny gaze assessed her. “Are you all right, Miz Skylla?”
Gone was his usual uneducated voice, which she wondered about. “I’m fine.”
“Where’s Bubba? Did he hurt you?”
“Certainly not.”
Geoff collected his wits. “Da massa, where he be?”
“He’s asleep.”
“I off to town, then.” Geoff swung to alight the stairs.
“Wait just a minute, please.”
He turned his face up to her.
“Geoff, where’s your family?” she asked.
“I gots none. ’Cept for da massa and Bella.”
“How long have you known Braxton?”
“My mammy, Bella, been wit’ da Hales befo’ I borned.”
“I’ve long suspect your ties were of long standing.” Skylla moved to the top of the stairs. “I suspect you’ve known all along about his plans for California, too.”
“What’s Calibornion?” he replied guilelessly.
Skylla exhaled, yet . . . “Tell me something, Geoff. Are you brother to Braxton?”
His toast-tinted complexion went pale. “Dat Miss Claudine been talkin’ to you. Doan you believe her, Miss Skylla. Ain’t no way dis darkie be brother to your man.”
He was lying. But his was an understandable lie. Skylla turned away from the boy, then stopped to say over her shoulder, “Take care what you say about Mrs. St. Clair. And don’t ever lie to me again, Geoff.”
Skylla finished cleaning up the parlor, afterward going to the cookhouse. Within minutes she had a cookfire built, the coffee brewing, and sausage, cheese, and bread sliced. Idly, she wondered why Electra didn’t arrive to beg for a portion.
As she took biscuits from the oven, she heard her husband enter the kitchen. She faced him. His hair tousled and a morning beard poking through his strong jaw—and with livid scratches that gave testament to her former anger—Braxton yawned and scratched his biceps. “Mornin’, wife.”
“Good morning.” She slapped a plate on the table.
Ignoring the repast, he took a giant step to take her in his arms. He might not have shaved or brushed his hair, but his breath had been attended to. And he wore bay rum. Such a normal scenario. A man greeting his wife on the morning after their marriage. If only California didn’t stand between them . . .
“Don’t you want coffee?” she asked, needing to settle matters and not in his arms.
He read her mood. “Skylla, about last night—”
“I don’t want to discuss it on an empty stomach.” Yet she had no appetite for food. “The men have the cattle rounded up. Geoff’s had to ride into town, though. Something about seeing the saddlemaker. You’ll want to help Charlie. Won’t you?”
Braxton let her go to step back. “Forget the cattle drive.”
“You promised Major Albright you’d deliver at the earliest possible time.”
Silence fell.
“Are you planning to go back on your word?” she asked.
“We don’t need a few measly Yankee dollars.”
She scrutinized her husband’s expression and didn’t care much for what she saw. “You took Yankee dollars and Yankee horses. And you spent Yankee dollars. We owe Major Albright.”
More silence.
Braxton gave in. “I’ll make good on my debt.”
“And then what?”
“I’ll hightail it back here, what else?”
California was on the tip of her tongue. She swallowed her comment. Turning away and pouring Braxton a cup of coffee, she yearned for him to say he’d given up the idea of leaving.
Even before he walked up behind her, she sensed his presence; tiny hairs lifted on her neck.
“Skylla, I want you. Again.”
He nuzzled her shoulder, eliciting a shiver of desire, and caressed her hips. His britches-covered shaft pressed against her backside, and she did nothing to hide her sighs. He swung her into his arms and smothered her sighs with a kiss hotter than a cookfire. They were on the dirt floor in no time, her skirts in disarray around them. His lips and hands began another conquest, yet the conquered railed.
She held him away. “You and I need to talk.”
“Later.”
When he fumbled with the buttons at her bodice, she tried to roll away. “Damn you, Braxton. Damn you!” She beat her bailed fists against his shoulders. “We’ve settled nothing. Don’t do this when my mind is troubled!”
He stilled. “What do you want, Skylla? For us to stay here the rest of our lives at this hellhole of a ranch?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t force me to promise something in passion—something that I’ll regret later.”
“You won’t regret it. We’ll have a wonderful life here, Braxton. We have money for everything we want and need. This ranch will prosper. For us. And for our children.”
“I’d love to have children with you. But . . .”
“Then let’s build a firm foundation for them. Let’s create them a legacy that will sustain and support them—and their children. Let’s give them what you and I were torn away from.”
“Is this damned place that important to you? Is the Nickel Dime all that’s tearing us apart?”
She recalled all the things he’d never told her about himself, including his ties to Geoff, yet she answered, “Yes.”
His eyes closing, he swallowed. With a ragged voice, he replied, “Then you’ve won. We’ll stay here. Forever and ever. This land will remain ours.”
Pure joy filled her breast. He loved her enough to make a huge concession, so what else could she ask for? “This land will be ours. And our children’s.”
Yet their conflicts weren’t settled, for he said, “Skylla, I may be sterile.”
“Whatever makes you think that?”
“I never got a child on my first wife. She had two babes from her first marriage, so I know the problem wasn’t Songbird.”
Throughout her life, Skylla had dreamed of being a mother. Could she go to her grave childless? Yes. Yes, she could. While she hoped he worried for nothing, she, too, could make concessions. “I didn’t marry you for children, Braxton. I married to spend the rest of my life with you.”
The clouds over his face lifted. “Then let me make love to you before I leave to settle my debt with Mr. Grant’s army. If you’ll allow me.”
“I will let you. More than willingly, I will let you.”
He smiled. His fingers brushed the material away covering her breasts. He took her nipple into his mouth. Once more he made luscious love to her. With his mouth, his words, his hands. And when he reared up to unfasten his britches and say, “Take me out so that I may finish our lovemaking,” she went to the task without haste. His whisper as sweet as their wedding wine, he enjoined, “Now guide me in.”
She did.
It had been a stupid mistake, his blabbing about California, one that could have cost Brax his wife. In the aftermath of backing down, and in afterglow of making love to her in the cookhouse, Brax came to grips with the future. San Francisco would be nothing more than a concept.
He could live with that. As long as he had Skylla at his side. A smile traveled across his face. Damn, he loved that woman. And he’d never had better lu
ck than to find her, then marry her. An added bonus was the wonderful lover she’d turned out to be. The finest woman in the world and with a fortune to line their nest. Was there a luckier man on earth?
In the bedroom—she was outdoors—he dressed for the cattle drive. A thought chipped into the crevices of his mind. Geoff’s mother had to be halfway to California by now. How could he get word to Bella about their changed plans?
He mulled the problem while exiting the bedroom, then stared at the treasure that could have saved Diana and the rest. He threw the lid back. How much worth did it encompass? A great deal. What else had Titus hidden? Who gave a damn?
He scooped up a handful of coins and topaz. Riches with which to buy his wife a cameo as well as a few creature comforts. Was it wrong to help himself to Skylla’s fortune? No. At least five thousand dollars of this lucre belonged to him.
Did Claudine know about the gold and jewels? From her actions of late, Brax doubted it. Don’t let her get her paws on it. The cameo money got shoved in his pocket. Calling up his strength, he scooted the heavy chest to the bedroom. Chances were, it would fit under the bed until he and Skylla could find a better hiding place. When he pushed the bedstead aside, dust motes swirled. And he got an eyeful of a trapdoor.
He lifted it. The dank awful smell reminded him of the Vicksburg jail. Rats skittered about on the ground below, which caused him to shiver. This was not a hidey-hole he wanted to make friends with, but it would do until he and Skylla decided where to deposit the casket’s contents. The muscles in his arms were strained as he wrestled the whole chest down below.
Finished, he rearranged the room and wiped his hands.
A commotion and a woman’s scream from outside drew Brax’s attention. He rushed to the window to see Claudine, her chignon askew, pulling Luke Burrows’s buckboard to a grinding halt in front of the house. Dust devils whirled, the horse whinnied, and Claudine continued screaming, “Someone come quick!”
Brax grimaced. What kind of witchery is she up to now?
Skylla limped from the cookhouse, in her stepmother’s direction. Brax strapped a gunbelt around his hips, just in case Claudine wasn’t the problem.
Seventeen
The Comanches had captured Kathy Ann.
Claudine sank onto the settee in the parlor, took a restorative swig of last night’s wine. “We were riding home this morning. She saw that cat of hers run into the woods. Kathy Ann jumped down from the buckboard and rushed after Electra.”
“Oh, no.” Skylla blanched.
Brax gave her hand a squeeze of assurance that he in no way felt. It had taken a good while for his impression of Kathy Ann to change, but that had come about.
Claudine, her face broken into welts, blew her nose into a handkerchief. “She said she wouldn’t let savages get Electra. She caught the cat.” Tears came. “It was awful. She wasn’t fifty feet from me when a half-dozen redskins surrounded her.”
For a moment Brax wondered if this was a hoax dreamed up by a woman in fear of her fate, but he gathered that wasn’t so. Claudine might be a witch, but she wasn’t without some heart. He loaded the Spencer as well as Kathy Ann’s six-shooter.
Red-rimmed blue eyes turned to him. “What happened to your face?”
Skylla did the answering. “Mind your own business.”
Brax agreed. Besides, there was a more important matter here. Did Stalking Wolf know the Army had arrived? Did he know a measure of the white man’s law and order was on the horizon? Brax doubted it. Unless the Comanche chief looked to get his people obliterated, he wouldn’t be making trouble if he knew white soldiers and lots of them would come after him and his. Of course, the presence of the white force might be what was prodding the chief to move deeper into the Comancheria before trouble broke out . . . and to take a young blond captive along?
Skylla placed her hand on Brax’s arm. “Braxton, what’s happening to her?”
“Unless they’re planning to move out, I doubt they’ll want her scalp. I reckon they’ll use her as ransom. Or . . .”
“Or what?” Skylla asked.
“I figure he’s lost a loved one recently. Maybe a wife. He may be looking for a new one. I’ll bet all that blond hair looks mighty good to him.”
“Kathy Ann as wife to some redskin?” Claudine made a gagging noise. “Why, I never heard anything so absurd. Besides, she’s only fifteen!”
“Which was your age when you took your first husband,” Brax pointed out. His eyes went to the dining room, where a slab of wedding cake had been recovered, no doubt by the bride. “Skylla, slice and box up the rest of that cake.”
“What for?” she asked.
“For Indian children. They like sugared treats.”
The cogs in his brain turning, Brax made a list of other handy items. One of these he could get from the medical supplies.
He said, “I’ll be back soon as I can.”
A biscuit tin of leftover cake held close to her chest, Skylla looked up at him. “I’m going with you.”
“If you feel a need to help, fetch Main.” Of course, his leaving would set free the gathered cattle, but this was no time to worry about a promise to the Army.
Claudine nodded, disturbing the last trace of her chignon. “Yes. Go for Charlie.”
Skylla stuck to her guns. “I said I’m going after my sister. And I won’t bend.”
Claudine hopped up from the settee. “We’ve got to form a search party. We must get in touch with the new sheriff.”
Patting the air, Brax said, “No. If there’s anything I learned during my time with the Comanches, it’s that they are proud people. Their culture isn’t ours, but, like all men, Stalking Wolf won’t stand for being cornered. He’ll come out fighting. Kathy Ann and her cat won’t be the only victims.”
“You don’t know that Indian,” Claudine pointed out with open hostility. “You have no way of predicting his behavior.”
They did need a safeguard. “Claudine, can I depend on you to drive Luke Burrows’s buckboard to Camp Llano? The army will help us. If necessary.”
She nodded reluctantly. “I’ll need a map.”
He gave directions to the new outpost, ending with, “Ask for Major Albright. Major Webb Albright. Tell him . . . if I’m not returned by tomorrow noon, come after me.”
“Us,” Skylla corrected. “Tell him to come after us.”
The tin of cake in her hand, she hobbled toward him. She’d turned into a feisty thing, his wife. If he rode out alone, she wouldn’t be far behind. “Let’s go, wife.”
She smiled, taking his hand, and they rushed to saddle their mounts. They reached the stable and got a shock. Geoff and Charlie had the skewbald and one of the roans, horseflesh traded from the Army, but the other roan was gone.
Impossible and Molasses remained.
Brax broke into laughter, not feeling half as amused as he sounded. Perhaps Stalking Wolf really did want Kathy Ann for his woman, and considering the missing horse, Brax figured the Comanches were on the move. Considering the late hour, he nixed any idea of changing mounts with Charlie Main. No time for it. “We’ll ride the geldings.”
I hope to hell we can catch the Indians and Kathy Ann on these candidates for the glue factory.
Kathy Ann heard the Indians laughing even before the riders arrived in the Comanche village that was in the beginning stages of being dismantled. Well, they were funny looking, Sergeant and Skylla galumphing in on elderly geldings.
Already she knew her captors had stolen the roan. That had to have Sergeant mad. Kathy Ann wished she could get a better look at her saviors. Saviors? They could be here solely to reclaim horseflesh. Sergeant wouldn’t be that unkind. He must be here to help me.
Naked as a worm—except for moccasins and a breechclout—Stalking Wolf left her side to meet the riders. Strapped to a tree and with a quartet of elderly squaws, all with mutilated fingers, circling her, Kathy Ann couldn’t do as she pleased.
Little good it had done to rescue Electra. A
lready those hags had laced the calico cat inside a wigwam and were boiling a bag of weeds to make some sort of witch’s brew. It looked as if one of the squaws was sharpening a knife.
Probably to butcher Electra.
Kathy Ann wasn’t one to cry. But she had to sniff back tears. She couldn’t stand the thought of Electra becoming anyone’s feast. As for herself, she didn’t feel any fear. Matter of fact, she’d hoped Stalking Wolf and his braves would find her. It was time she got her own man. Here lately, her dreams had been filled with a black-haired warrior who sashayed around, naked as a worm.
Her gaze followed him. Wow, he was a well-muscled worm, and she liked the looks of his coppery skin. A fellow like Stalking Wolf would never have the anemic look. And he’d talked about Cynthia Ann Parker. Trouble was, Kathy Ann had never gotten around to asking if the white girl had owned a cat.
She lost sight of him, thanks to one of the squaw guards stepping into her line of sight. Thankfully the old biddy and a couple of others got interested in the visitors; the trio, jabbering in their unintelligible tongue, walked toward Sergeant and Skylla, who were no more than ten yards from Kathy Ann.
Raising his right hand to shoulder level, Brax spoke gibberish to the chief and his clutch of followers.
“Stalking Wolf speaks English,” Kathy Ann called out, wanting to hear and understand every syllable that got uttered.
One of her guards shook some sort of rattle to shut her up. If Kathy Ann had been inclined to talk, no dumb rattle could stop her. She stuck her tongue out at the stupid old squaw.
With interest, she noted her sister and new brother-in-law as they began to haggle for her release. They weren’t after horses alone. A comfort. In truth, though, she didn’t want to be returned. If Electra didn’t turn up in someone’s cooking pot.
A dirty Indian girl of three or four walked up, staring solemnly. Her eyes, strangely, were hazel. A swarm of flies accompanied her.
“Get away,” Kathy Ann ordered. “You’re making me sick to my stomach.”
Naturally, the girl didn’t budge.
Kathy Ann pulled a face and made a rude noise, which got rid of the pest. She’s kind of cute, though. Someone ought to see after that kid, clean her up. Not my problem.