Night Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy)

by Shirl Henke

  Walkman, too, had heard the shooting and come to investigate, reasoning it would draw the woman. Once he observed the fight, he could see the trap laid for Blaine and Gall. Swearing, he considered. If he could find Blaine and kill him before the blubbering old drunk told Velasquez about him and Greer, the situation might yet be redeemable. He scanned the battle, awaiting his opening as he pulled a Sharps rifle from his scabbard.

  Melanie finally caught sight of her husband wrestling on the ground with a Comanche. They were only a few hundred feet from her. She watched in horrified fascination as Lee rolled on top of the savage and slashed his throat in one quick, clean motion. Instantly, he was up, bloody knife in hand, turning to face another foe. He needs a gun, she thought frantically, realizing his Dragoon Colt must be out of ammunition. Close to her hiding place, a dead Lipan lay sprawled grotesquely, his body partially concealing a rifle.

  Looking to left and right, Melanie made a dash for the gun. She knew how to shoot and would cover Lee.

  Blaine saw a flash of waist-length, gleaming black hair and a white shirt. Velasquez's woman was here! Of course, the bitch knew about the trap and had come to help her husband! She was close by but obviously unaware of his hiding place. He'd grab her and use her as a hostage to get away from here. Slade and Lawrence wouldn't shoot a woman, and she was that greaser's wife—a perfect shield. He could see she was trying to get to the rifle beneath that dead scout. Quickly, he scurried down between the rocks, pulling his pistol from his belt.

  Melanie struggled with the dead weight of the Lipan and almost had the rifle free when an arm grabbed her in a choke hold from behind. “Drop th' rifle, little squaw,” Blaine hissed, tightening his cruel grip on her windpipe until she complied. He held a gun to her head and began to back toward the rocks. “Now, let's jist find us yore horse 'n' git outta here.”

  Walkman watched from his vantage point across the clearing, sighting his rifle on the fool Blaine, whose usefulness to him was ended, and the meddling woman who had earned his undying hate. He could kill them both and get away in a trice!

  “I wouldn't, Walkman,” Jeremy Lawrence's voice said in a low growl that cut through all the screams and shots around them. A .44-caliber Walker Colt was pointed at his captain's back. He had seen Walkman and had dismounted to sneak around and catch him from behind. Walkman gestured over to Blaine and Melanie as he lowered the rifle. “My friend there has some business with the pretty lady.”

  Seeing Melanie struggle as Blaine dragged her off, Jeremy's face whitened in shock. “My God, how did she—you bastard!”

  In the split second Lawrence's eyes took in the struggle, Walkman struck like a rattler, swinging his rifle up and firing at the other ranger. The shot went wild as Lawrence deflected the barrel, but his own shot also missed its mark when he fired at Walkman. He lunged at the renegade ranger and the two men went down in a thrashing tangle, rolling across the rocky ground, punching and gouging.

  Lee was drowning in blood once again as the battle raged furiously around him. He had shot, stabbed, and clubbed countless Comanche until he was covered with gore and sickened by it. Despite the clear autumn air, the earth stank of death in the cold, dead moonlight. Slowly, he hacked his way across the melee to where Sangre waited. The Comanche who had dragged him from the horse was dead, and the superbly trained stallion would let no one but Lee ride him. The big blue roan shied and danced as his master dispatched another Comanche with his knife and then mounted up.

  Lee had hoped to catch Blaine but had not seen him yet. Then he saw Jeremy Lawrence lunge at Seth Walkman. A piece of real luck to find him here! Surely his whiskey-dealing compadre must be nearby. He kicked the roan into a trot and headed to help Lawrence. Just as he drew near, Walkman pulled a small pistol free from his boot and shot Jeremy in the side. Before he could aim the deadly little weapon for another more accurate shot, Lee leaped from Sangre and landed on the renegade, knocking him clear of his victim. The gun clattered uselessly out of reach across the rocky ground.

  “So, the greaser who set this trap.” Walkman grinned evilly, as if he knew something Lee did not.

  Lee already had his knife poised as he rolled onto his feet. So did Walkman. The two men circled, ignoring the unconscious form of Lawrence. “This is one greaser you won't walk away from, rinche,” Lee gritted out as he parried a wicked thrust.

  “You're already so bloodied I can scarce figger where to stick you,” Walkman panted as he dodged several exceedingly close thrusts.

  “You're pretty chewed up yourself, Comanchero,” Lee said scathingly, indicating Walkman's lacerated arm.

  The bigger man grinned again. “Got this from your woman this afternoon, greaser.” He paused, sensing the coiled tension in Velasquez. Then he continued, “I caught her ‘n took her to Blaine's post. She used a broken bottle—tried to gut me, but all I got was this little scratch.”

  “Where is she, Walkman? You've never seen what the Mescalero do to their captives, but I have—and I swear, I'll do it to you until you tell me. Ever peel a man's eyelids off? Put live coals beneath his fingernails? Take his cock—”

  Walkman lunged and struck Lee a glancing blow across his ribs. The renegade's tale about Melanie filled him with a terrified rage. Deflecting what he knew could have been a deadly thrust, Lee forced himself to calm. He was too angry, and as his foe well knew, angry men made careless mistakes. He knew he must win and he must keep Walkman alive to tell him about Melanie. He kept up a steady stream of taunts, describing in sickening detail what he had witnessed in the Apachería, meanwhile opening several seeping wounds in Walkman's neck, arm, and thigh, wounds designed to weaken him and slow him down through blood loss without killing him.

  Just when Lee was about to make his move on the glazed-eyed renegade ranger, a shot rang out and Walkman pitched forward into Lee's arms. Bill Ross rushed over with a smoking Colt in his hand.

  “Are you hurt, boss? Jesus, I thought he had you—you're covered with blood!”

  Lee ignored his would-be savior and bent over the inert form of Walkman, shaking him furiously. “Walkman, you son of a bitch, you can't be dead! Damn you! Where is she? Where is Melanie?” He turned pain-glazed eyes up to his foreman, who looked down with dawning horror in his face.

  “He has Miss Melanie?”

  Jeremy Lawrence groaned and called out weakly, “Blaine—Blaine took her away.”

  Lee dropped Walkman's body and quickly moved over to the fallen ranger. “Melanie was here in the fight? You saw her?” He raised Jeremy up slightly while Ross checked the wounded man's injuries. “Over there, by those rocks—” When he tried to point, he coughed and nearly blacked out with the pain.

  Lee's eyes followed to where Jeremy had indicated. “If Blaine took her off as a hostage, there's only one place left for him to go—Greer!”

  Without looking at Ross or giving any further instructions, he lay the unconscious ranger back and reached for Lawrence's Walker Colt. Within seconds Lee had swung up on Sangre and spurred the stallion into a gallop toward Laban Greer's ranch.

  Mellie, oh, Night Flower, if they've hurt you... Lee forced his mind into a cold blankness in order to save his sanity. He must remain in control of his wits to save his love. Heedless of the battle din he was leaving behind, Lee rode alone into the still night at breakneck speed. The cold brilliance of the Texas moon lit his way on a mission of rescue and of death.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  “You goddamn fool! Why the hell did you come here and drag her with you?” Laban Greer was dressed only in hastily donned trousers and slippers, having been awakened from a sound sleep by the pounding on his door. His face purpled in rage as he looked past Lucas Blaine's shoulder at the quiet moonlit landscape. Nothing stirred.

  “I wasn't followed, Greer. Them militia wuz so busy cuttin' up Gall's braves they never seen me,” Blaine replied as he supported Melanie's dazed, semiconscious body. When he had slipped up on her in the thick of the fighting, Blaine had struck her a blow to the
jaw, dumped her across a horse and fled. By the time her captor brought her into Greer's front hall, she was struggling to focus her eyes and to overcome the rubbery weakness in her legs. She listened to the two men discuss her fate.

  “You never should have let her get away from your trading post. Walkman's as goddamn incompetent as you.”

  “But th' fire—” Blaine protested.

  “Set by someone else who's probably alerted half of San Antonio by now,” Greer interrupted with a hiss of impatient disgust. He began to pace, stroking his jaw in consideration. He looked at Melanie’s drooping head, her face covered by the curtain of ebony hair. With one thick hand he raised her chin and inspected her face.

  Gold eyes met pale blue ones defiantly. “So, still as feisty and beautiful as ever, champion of the redmen. Too bad you stumbled onto my land deals. You know I'll have to kill you now that Seth has failed me. A respectable rancher and businessman like me—”

  “Everyone knows about your conspiracy with the renegades—Walkman and Blaine's deals with you, your buying up Broughton's and Ryan's ranches—even your plans to burn my husband's ranch and get it, too. Jim Slade, Jeremy Lawrence, and my husband all were in on this trap to catch Gall and Blaine so this fool here would confess and lead them to Walkman and you. It worked,” she finished with grim satisfaction. “You can kill me, but it won't help you, Greer—it'll only make things worse for you. My story is already in print,” she added with a bluff of cool bravado.

  Melanie was rewarded by a shadow of doubt flickering in Greer's eyes. “She may be lying about the news story, but judging from the trap you escaped, Blaine, I don't doubt that someone higher up knows about our plans,” he said speculatively.

  “Try someone as high up as Sam Houston,” Melanie shot back.

  Now, Greer swore in earnest at Blaine. “And you brought her to my ranch to cement his case! You crack-brained, fucking moron!”

  Blaine whitened, both at the mention of the senator's name and at Greer's unleashed fury. “We kin git away, Mr. Greer. I know lots o' real important fellers up in Injun Territory. With this here leetle gal as pertection, we kin cross th' Red without th' rangers botherin' us.”

  The veins in Greer's bull neck stood out as he ground his teeth. “I do not intend to pass the rest of my life living in filthy shacks with your half-breed cronies!” He reached for Melanie and yanked her roughly out of Blaine's grasp.

  “Watch it, Greer. She's quick ‘n mean as a snake. She nearly got Seth ‘n me at th' post with a busted bottle,” Blaine cried as Melanie twisted suddenly free from Greer and darted toward the nearest open door. It led to his study.

  The gun racks on the wall were instantly in her line of vision and she dashed for a .54-caliber Sharps rifle. She yanked it off its pins and turned to aim it at Greer, who burst through the door with Blaine behind him. Greer was unarmed. Blaine was not. Using the thick, muscular body of the rancher as a shield, the whiskey runner fired at his small target with his pistol, hitting her before she could fire the heavy long arm. It clattered to the floor as she was propelled backward by the impact of the slug.

  A cry as fearsome as any uttered by a Comanche raider echoed down the hallway as Lee burst into the house, shooting Blaine at point-blank range with Lawrence's Colt. The .44 slug ripped into Blaine's fat gut from the left side, splattering the blue silk wallpaper behind him with red gore as he pitched headlong down the hall, dead before he landed.

  Greer vanished into the study, intent on getting the rifle from Melanie, but Lee was on him before he could free it. Fearful of hitting his fallen wife if he fired, Lee tossed his gun behind him and yanked Greer away from her, rolling him across the wide floor until the two of them hit the large oak desk with a solid whack. Although shorter than Lee, Laban Greer was muscular and thickset, built like a bulldog, with all the strength and tenacity of the breed. He reached for Lee's throat, intent on gaining a choke hold. Lee pummeled and gouged his antagonist, breaking the deadly grip only when he pressed his thumb into Greer's right eye.

  Dazed from the near strangulation, Lee shook his head to clear it as he struggled to his feet. After they broke apart, Greer reached inside a desk drawer behind him and extracted a knife. “Now, you greaser son of a bitch,” he snarled and lunged at Lee.

  Lee had his own knife freed instantly in a reflex action. “Walkman and Blaine are already dead, Greer,” he rasped. “I'd like you to die slower, but I don't...have...time,” he said with seemingly methodical detachment as he feinted low, parried Greer's slower thrust, and then brought his own blade up to slice the squat thick neck cleanly across with surgical precision. Greer's eyes glazed over and large bubbles of red frothed from his mouth. He slid down the desk and sat flat on the floor, his head lolling at a bizarre angle in death.

  Lee whirled and raced to Melanie. He knelt and gently stretched out her crumpled body to examine the extent of her injuries. His hands were trembling as he peeled the silk shirt away from her blood-soaked side.

  Melanie moaned as she fought her way back to consciousness. Sharp pain stabbed at her side, but a low, soothing voice comforted her, Lee's voice, her husband, her love.

  “Shh, Night Flower, be still. I have to stop this bleeding. You'll be all right, darling,” he crooned softly as he worked, tearing his shirt into strips for bandages.

  “Blaine—Greer—I heard shots,” she whispered in confusion.

  “Don't worry. They're dead, sweetheart. They can't hurt you anymore.” His callused fingertips stroked her face with tender reassurance.

  Suddenly, his words of endearment registered—“darling,” “sweetheart.” She struggled to focus her pain-darkened eyes on the harsh, angular planes of his face. Now, it had lost all traces of forbidding anger or sarcastic scowl. It blazed with love and fear for her.

  Before she could pursue that thought further, Lee's voice again broke in. “I have to move you, Mellie—carry you out to Sangre and get you to town to the doctor.”

  With surprising strength she raised one small hand and pressed the palm against the rapid pounding of his heart. His naked chest felt warm and hard, reassuring to her. “No, not town. Take me home, Lee—home to Night Flower. Kai's better with bullet wounds than Dr. Westin, anyway. I want to go home...please,” she entreated.

  “Oh, Mellie, I love you. Whatever you want,” he whispered in a stricken voice. She'll be all right. She can't die. “Come on, darling, I'm taking my wife home,” he said softly as he gently scooped her up and strode from the room.

  * * * *

  Lee paced Sangre as smoothly as possible, trying not to jar his injured wife any more than necessary. He had no more than cleared a few hundred yards when Jim Slade's big buckskin skidded to a halt in front of him, followed by half a dozen other riders kicking up dust and pebbles.

  “Jeremy told us what happened,” Slade said tersely. “Melanie?”

  “She's been shot in the side just below her ribs. I can't tell more, but I'm taking her to Night Flower. Send someone to town for Doc Westin,” Lee said quickly and kneed Sangre forward with no more ado, calling over his shoulder, “Blaine and Greer are dead in the house.”

  By the time Dr. Westin arrived, it was well past sunrise. A careworn but calm Father Gus accompanied him. Kai already had Melanie's wound cleaned, disinfected, and wrapped. The bullet had entered and exited her side cleanly. Despite having treated numerous bullet wounds, the Kanaka was uncertain of whether any vital organs had been damaged. He was also uncertain the doctor could do anything more than he could, even if that were the case. Nevertheless, he had left the final stitching to the physician and simply wrapped the injury with great care.

  The old physician, too, had tended many bullet wounds and knew when he unwrapped Melanie's side that it was serious. He looked up at Lee and Kai. “How much has she bled?”

  “I packed the wound tight before I rode home with her,” Lee said anxiously, turning to Kai.

  The big man's expression was grave. “He kept her from bleeding bad. Before
I cleaned the wound I applied more packing. Seemed to slow it, but she's such a little thing...”

  “She's young and strong. Since shock's not set in yet, I think she has a good chance. No vital organs hit,” he concluded, then checked her pulse. Westin issued orders to Genia, who stood in the background wringing her hands, to bring more clean linens. He instructed Kai to assist him by holding Melanie in case she came to while he stitched.

  Lee nodded for the big Kanaka to move away and he sat down beside his wife, taking a position on the edge of the bed. “I'll hold her, Doc. Just get it done while she's out.”

  Westin assessed the set features and calm hands. “Yep, reckon you can handle it. Some men haven't the stomach—especially when it's someone they love.”

  Someone they love. The words accused him. Did it take a bullet to convince him? He knew so surely now that he loved her, wanted her for his wife, was proud of her and everything she was and did. And she may die never knowing it. No! I won't let you, Mellie, my Night Flower, my love. She moaned in his arms, in an unconscious stupor, as the doctor worked deftly. Lee stroked her cheek softly with one hand while his other arm held her shoulders firmly. All the while he murmured soft reassurances in her ear, willing her to fight for her life.

  When the doctor finished, the priest took him quietly aside and ushered him outside the door. “Is there any need for me to give her last rites, Doctor? I do not want to upset her husband, but I am not sure...”

  The doctor shook his head. “No, Padre. I don't think you have to do that now. The next twenty-four hours will tell the tale.”

  Mercifully, Melanie did not awaken during the course of the day. Lee kept a tense vigil by her bedside, listening to her moans and simply watching her laudanum-induced sleep. By noon Charlee Slade arrived, and stalked into the room, where she took one look at Lee's unshaven face, bloodshot eyes, and generally exhausted appearance. She ordered Kai to draw Lee a bath and turn down his bed.