Desert Dreams

by Cox, Deborah

  "Who are they?" she asked.

  "Those men? Filth, scum. They have been trailing you since Ubiquitous."

  "How do you know?" she asked sharply.

  The man smiled a bit sheepishly, revealing a gold-capped tooth. "Because I have been following them."

  "Who are you?"

  "I am Jose Carvajal. Rafael and I go way back."

  "He mentioned you."

  "Of course he did. We are like brothers."

  Her attention returned to the canyon. Someone rode up to one of the men who stood over Rafe and dropped a rope to him. He made a loop and dropped it over Rafe's head, careful that he placed his captive's bound arms over the rope. He jerked on the rope but Rafe didn't move. Two other men grabbed him by the arms and dragged him to his feet.

  Anne tried to rise, but Jose grabbed her and held her down. "What are they doing? We have to stop them!"

  "There is nothing we can do," he said again.

  The other end of the rope was tied to the pommel of the saddle. The leader stepped back and gave the signal, and the rider took the slack out of the rope.

  "They're going to drag him! They'll kill him!"

  "Be quiet, senorita, or they will hear," Jose Carvajal urged. "They will not kill him unless he tells them what they want to know. Rafael knows that."

  Tears slipped unheeded down her face. If only she could run to him, somehow make them stop. She hated this feeling of helplessness and terror. She fought with all her strength as Jose dragged her away. He carried her to the other side of the hill and lay on the ground almost on top of her, his hand still covering her mouth.

  "It is better that you do not watch, senorita," he said.

  She sobbed beneath his hand, quaking with the force of her emotions. How could anyone endure something like that? She could only pray that he would.

  "You must eat something," the Mexican said between bites of cold beans. He ate them straight from the can because they couldn't chance a fire. The outlaws were still searching for her, or so Jose claimed.

  Huddled in a ball of misery, Anne watched in disgust as he ate with his fingers, licking them clean every now and then. Her gaze swept over the small camp, stopping on two men who sat tied to a tree, their hands and feet bound, their mouths gagged.

  She nodded toward the men. "Who are they?"

  "Because of them, I wasn't around this morning when Rafael was captured. The older one almost got away from me, and I had to chase him down. He is a comanchero named Diego Munoz. The boy is Carlos Delgado, the cousin of Rafael's old enemy."

  "El Alacran."

  "What do you know about El Alacran? Rafael told you about him too?"

  "Yes."

  "I do not believe you."

  "Then how would I know about him?" She kept her eyes on the boy, who sat a few feet away, and wondered if he was hungry.

  "Rafael would never... so what do you know about El Alacran?"

  "He's the one who stole the gold. He set a trap for Rafe once and left him to die in the desert."

  "El Alacran is a very dangerous man because he is loco. Men who are crazy and have power are always dangerous."

  "They have been enemies for a long time."

  "Rafael made it his business to put an end to El Alacran's crimes in Texas and New Mexico as soon as he returned from West Point."

  "West Point! No wonder—"

  "What?"

  "He just isn't what he seems to be."

  Jose laughed softly. "He is exactly what he seems to be, senorita. He was un aristocrata. His father was a powerful American soldier who married a Mexican woman, daughter of a ranchero, and settled in New Mexico. Rafael had every privilege. Of course, I didn't know him then. I knew of his family. Everyone knew the Holden y Montalvos."

  "But if his father was American, why is his name Montalvo?"

  "He changed it after—after the trouble. He took his mother's name."

  She looked at Carlos Delgado again. When he caught her eye, he glanced away quickly. "Do you think he's hungry?" she asked.

  Jose shrugged. "So what if he is? He should be dead."

  "Dead? Why?"

  Jose threw the bean can on the ground beside him and wiped his hands on his pants. She saw dawning comprehension in his gaze, but comprehension of what she couldn't imagine.

  "I killed the other two men who were with them. Diego, I figured we could use him to bargain with if we needed to. I took the boy prisoner as a gift for Rafael."

  "A gift?" The implication in his words sent a shiver down her spine.

  "Si. The boy's life could have settled an old score between El Alacran and Rafael. But Rafael, he is getting soft."

  "But he's just a boy. How—"

  "In the old days, Rafael would have killed him." He looked at her with accusing eyes.

  "I don't believe you."

  Jose studied her so intently she wondered if her feelings for Rafe were written clearly on her face. Finally, he shrugged. "Believe what you want. It takes a hard man to survive what Rafael has survived. A soft man does not live long in the desert. If you do not want to eat, you can get some sleep. There is only one bedroll."

  She cringed. She wasn’t sure she could crawl into a bedroll where this dirty little man had been, but the air was already beginning to grow chilly.

  "What about you?" she asked.

  "I will see to the horses and then keep watch."

  "You've got to sleep sometime."

  "And let those bast—and let those outlaws sneak up on us?"

  "You take the first watch, then wake me up for the second."

  Jose laughed. "I don’t think so."

  She pulled the gun out of her pocket, and Jose's eyes widened. "Dios! You had that the whole time?"

  "I can use it too." She smiled. "You've got to sleep or you won't be of any use to Rafe."

  Jose glanced at the gun and then back to her face. "Si," he said, and walked away to take the first watch, but Anne's words halted him.

  "If you'd made camp at the top of the hill instead of here with the hill between us and them, we could have watched them from the camp," she pointed out.

  "But if I had made camp on top of the hill, they would have been able to hear the horses," he replied. "Get some sleep, senorita, and do not try to outsmart a fox."

  Anne crawled into the bedroll but found it impossible to sleep. She kept thinking about Rafe and what he must be going through. She couldn't bear it. Had they fed him? Was he still bound, lying on the hard ground, hungry and cold like the boy who slept nearby? Was he even still alive?

  No, she couldn't allow herself to think he might be dead. He was alive, he had to be. He was alive, and tomorrow they would save him.

  If she thought she could find her way, she'd go down to that ranch house tonight and find him.... And do what? Jose was right, as much as she hated to admit it. There was nothing they could do right now. They'd have to wait for better odds. She only hoped Rafe could hold out that long. If he died, she would want to die too.

  She closed her eyes and rolled onto her side, and the tears came freely. She didn't know how long she lay there before she finally cried herself to sleep.

  ***

  If Rafe had done one good thing in his life, he just might have saved Annie's life, he thought as he slipped in and out of consciousness. If she'd done what he'd told her. Maybe Jose had found her. He’d given Jose the same instructions—to get Annie to Las Cruces. He had been unable to save Christina, but maybe he’d had saved Annie. It seemed somehow fitting that he should give his life for her. It would absolve him. If only she made it, it would be worth it.

  He welcomed death, even though he hadn't been able to carve El Alacran's heart as he'd planned. El Alacran's punishment would have to wait for hell, he decided, slipping into a velvet darkness where he dreamed of holding Annie and making love to her and hearing her whisper his name.

  "I'm tellin' you, Frank, he don't know nothin'."

  "I say we kill him and—"

 
Voices floated around Rafe, but he didn't know who was speaking or even where he was. The longer it took him to die, the more time Annie would have to get away. But even though he had told her exactly what to do, he couldn't help feeling betrayed. She'd said she loved him, yet she'd been willing to leave him behind. It was irrational, but all rationality had been long since beaten out of him.

  "I've had enough," a disgruntled voice said. "I'm goin' after the woman."

  "What makes you think you can?" Braxton said. "No one's been able to find a trace of her."

  Rafe smiled, though he wasn't sure if his lips had responded. Good girl, you got away.

  "I'll go back to town. Someone's bound to have seen her leave."

  "I'm with Hank." Another voice joined in. "He don't know nothin'. If he did he'd have talked by now."

  Braxton watched as more than half his men moved toward their horses. He pulled his revolver and fired into the air, and they halted.

  "You can't kill all of us," Hank said.

  "No, but I'll start with you." Braxton leveled his pistol and shot Hank dead. The other defectors drew their weapons, and Braxton's men drew theirs.

  "We can all kill each other, or you and your boys can put your guns down and let us go peaceably," one of the would-be deserters said.

  Braxton stared at him for a long moment, measuring his intent and his determination. Satisfied he meant to fight to the end, and knowing he and the men who had remained loyal to him were grossly outnumbered, he uncocked his pistol and lowered it.

  "Get the hell out of here then."

  Nine of Braxton's thirteen remaining men mounted up and rode off, and he could do nothing but watch in cold fury. Before the dust had settled, he found an outlet for his anger. He walked over to where Rafe Montalvo lay on the ground and kicked him hard in the ribs.

  From her vantage point, Anne cringed but Rafe barely moved. "You've got to do something. There are only five of them now," she said to Jose.

  "Unless there are more inside the house. Besides there is only one of me."

  "I can help."

  Her captor only snorted his dismissal and her anger flared. He had cleaned his gun, and now he lay on the ground close by, reloading it with a calm detachment that made her blood boil. "Are you going to sit here and let them kill him?"

  "I am going to wait until the time is right," he said, his attention riveted on the pistol in his hand. "A little patience goes a long way, senorita. You would do well to remember that. I was once young and impetuous too, and I nearly got myself killed many times. Now I am older—not old, mind you, but older—and I know better than to go running into a situation without a plan."

  When his words elicited no response from her, he looked up, only to find that she was gone. He lurched forward, looking down into the canyon below, and swore savagely as he watched her ride slowly into camp, her gun drawn.

  "He doesn't know where the gold is," Anne said in a clear, strong voice. "I do. Let him go and I'll tell you."

  One of them moved toward her, and she pointed her pistol at him. "I wouldn't," she warned.

  "I don't believe she'll shoot," another one said.

  Anne decided to prove him wrong. Leveling the pistol at him, she pulled the trigger.

  The man cried out as the bullet ripped through the flesh of his thigh. He fell to the ground in a shower of curses, rolling around, clasping his injured leg as blood began to seep through his fingers.

  "Goddammit, she shot me!"

  She screamed as she was grabbed from behind and hauled down from her horse, but another shot rang out and she fell with the man who had grabbed her. She stood quickly, turning to see that he was dead, his eyes staring sightlessly at the sky.

  Another man fell as Jose rode into camp, his pistol blazing, his eyes on fire. She pointed her gun at the man closest to her. He was about to fire at Jose, having completely discounted her as a threat, and she squeezed the trigger and dropped him.

  The man she had hit in the thigh tried to rise, and Jose finished him off. With the next shot, he wounded the leader. She ran toward Rafe. Braxton rose up, injured but not dead. He pointed his gun at Rafe, and Anne screamed and lunged forward.

  Rafe screamed too, but the sound ricocheted inside his head. The blood pounded in his brain. He couldn't move. Helplessly he watched as she hurled her body in front of him.

  Two shots rang out. He tried to call out to her, to stop her, but his head began to spin, and he passed out knowing that Annie was dead and he had caused it.

  Chapter 16

  Rafe knelt on the ground. The smoke from a burning wagon filled the air and scorched his lungs. He held Annie's head while she vomited.

  When he looked down, she was gone and there was a knife in his hand. He moved it over the rabbit's carcass, peeling back the hide with practiced skill.

  "If your knife is very sharp and you are very careful, you can remove the hide in one piece without nicking the inside layer of skin," he heard Jose's voice saying.

  His hands trembled violently, but he managed to hold the rifle steady long enough to squeeze the trigger. A shot exploded, echoing through the empty desert.

  He walked through the tall brush around the burning wagon. There was a body, a woman. He had to bury her. He rolled her over and Annie's dead eyes stared up at him.

  He was falling through dark nothingness, nothing to hold on to, nothing to stop his fall, nothing but cold darkness.

  "There was nothing you could do," a voice echoed in the tunnel. "There was nothing you could do."

  "I couldn't move," he heard himself reply.

  "There was nothing you could do."

  Slowly, reluctantly, he woke up. He wanted to go on floating in the tunnel forever. He wanted to be dead, never to wake up again or feel the pain in his gut.

  Why, Annie? Why? The question reverberated in his mind, sending him back through memory. He was lying beside her in the grass, caressing her breasts, kissing her soft, sweet lips.

  He had to wake up, he had no choice. Though he tried to resist, the light drew him like a magnet. He blinked, opening his eyes to a shower of sunlight pouring in through an open, unadorned window. The light intensified as it bounced off the white adobe walls that surrounded him.

  Squeezing his eyes closed tightly, he tried to blot out the memory of Annie throwing herself in front of a bullet intended for him. Thoughts kept tumbling in his mind—that he would never see her again, that she had died for nothing. She had died to save him, a dead man. How could he ever live with that?

  "Annie," he whispered through swollen lips.

  It was another nail in the coffin that housed his soul. He yearned for death more vehemently than he ever had in his life. Annie was gone, gone forever.

  Something tickled his hand. He brushed it aside, only to have it return. He brushed it away again, but it persisted. When he tried to move, pain sliced through his being, consuming him. Lifting his head with an effort, he saw the woman sitting in the chair beside the bed, her body hunched over, her head resting on the bed beside him. He couldn't see her face, but the pale hair was unmistakable.

  Maybe it had all been a nightmare, a terrible nightmare. Or was he dreaming now, dreaming that Annie was alive? If he could just touch her...

  Despite the pain that made it difficult to breathe, let alone move, he managed to lift his arm enough to lay his hand on her head. She stirred and raised herself up. Her eyes were swollen and rimmed with dark circles when she looked at him, but then she smiled and the signs of worry and fatigue seemed to disappear.

  She was real. Somehow she was alive. He had so many questions, but he could feel his mind slipping away into the shadows.

  Just as the darkness enveloped him again, he thought she had to be the most beautiful woman in the world.

  ***

  Rafe sat up in bed, his shoulders propped up by a mountain of pillows. Annie dipped the spoon in the bowl of broth and raised it to his mouth, her small hand trembling slightly.

  She had
n't done what he'd asked. She'd promised to go to New Mexico if anything happened to him. If she had, he would be dead right now. And wasn't that what he'd wanted? To die?

  The spoon touched his lips and he ate obediently, though his eyes remained on her slightly flushed face. She looked tired, his angel of mercy. When she smiled his heart lurched.

  She'd told him she loved him, this beautiful, stubborn, indomitable woman, and for a moment he let himself imagine it was true, that all the years of brutality hadn't eaten away the fabric of his soul. For a moment, he tried to forget there were things she didn't know about him, things that would make her turn her back on him forever. She was light in an infinite darkness, but he wondered if it wouldn't have been better to have never seen the light than to have seen it, only to have it taken away. He'd lost so much already, he didn't know if he could survive another loss.

  "Where are we?" he asked.

  "A deserted ranch house near San Juan Bautista." She wouldn't meet his gaze, and he couldn't help wondering why. She seemed embarrassed, even timid. His throat constricted with an emotion he couldn't name and didn't want to explore.

  "How—"

  "We—"

  "Who is we?"

  "Jose Carvajal and I."

  She looked at him finally, and he could read her emotions in her eyes. She cared about him, for some reason he couldn't understand. He'd made love to her. He'd been the first. That must be it-infatuation. She'd almost died for him, because... because what?

  "He helped me get you away from those men and bring you in here," she was saying, but, immersed in his own thoughts, he barely heard her. "He said they knew about the gold."

  She pressed the spoon to his lips again and he forgot to eat. He was remembering it all again, that split second before the world had gone black, when he'd seen Annie fall and thought she was dead.

  Nothing made sense anymore. He'd wanted to die for her, and she'd nearly died for him. It was more than he could bear to think about, Annie dying for him. He wasn't worth it, not worth her life. Nothing was worth Annie's life.