Desert Captive (Doc Beck Westerns Book 4)

by Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer

  His instructions were disrupted by a wail coming from the direction of the servants’ quarters.

  Rebekah froze in the shadow of the trees while Laramie vaulted back over the stone rail. He reached for her but Rebekah took several steps away. Laramie needed to hide until they could safely escape. Being with him now would only put him in danger.

  The double front doors opened, spilling more light onto the terrace. But the light was cut in half by Sancho stepping out. His grandmother came out beside him, her regal poise undeterred by another desperate wail.

  Edgardo climbed the side steps of the terrace, his hand twisted in the worn serape of old Gabino Fuentes, pulling him along. Carmelita and Antonia followed, both crying as Carmelita held her little sister close.

  Edgardo pushed the old man down to his knees before Sancho and Abuelita Guerra.

  Antonia spotted Rebekah. She tore from her sister’s hold and ran over. She grabbed Rebekah by the arms, her breath coming in great gasps.

  “Please, Señorita Rebekah, help my grandfather! They will kill him for what he said.”

  Chapter 14

  Rebekah had never felt so utterly helpless as she did in that moment. Edgardo’s eyes blazed as he spoke to his grandmother.

  “I would have shot this old man as soon as the words left his mouth, but I wanted you to spit in his face first, say what a liar he is.”

  Sancho hooked one thumb behind the hammer of his six gun. How quickly he had strapped it back on after the dinner table, and Edgardo as well.

  Sancho’s voice sounded strained when he asked, “What is this lie he has told, my son?”

  Edgardo stared at his grandmother. “He says…I cannot even speak it.”

  Old Gabino put his hands on his knees and raised his head to look at Abuelita Guerra. “I spoke the truth.” His voice quivered then strengthened. “I spoke the truth to him so that he may know the kind of man he will become when he listens to you—the kind of man his father became.”

  Gabino paused and there was a deadly silence before he finished with, “I told of how you killed Edgardo’s mother.”

  Rebekah slipped both arms around Antonia’s waist, holding her tight as the girl began to weep again.

  Edgardo grabbed the back of the man’s neck and shoved him hard to the floor. The old man’s hands went out to catch himself, but he failed, and his face smacked into the stone floor.

  Edgardo looked to his grandmother. “Spit on him and then I will kill him.”

  Sancho shifted his feet and his eyes came up to meet Rebekah’s. He gave her his odd little smile and it chilled her like never before. He glanced down at his son.

  “Abuelita warned me not to marry your mother; that she was an outsider and would not accept our ways. You must understand, my son—she could have destroyed our village.”

  The deadly silence stretched again. Edgardo, his face pale, slowly raised, releasing the old man’s neck.

  His grandmother, her chin high, said, “Your grandfather was of the same sort, turning the people against me. That was why Sancho hated him. As for your mother…I was forced to poison her slowly, the same as she was poisoning our people against me. You would not have had your home, your very life ways, had I not done this.”

  Edgardo took a step back, his jaw slack. Rebekah stroked Antonia’s hair, unable to breathe in the thickness of the air on the terrace. Carmelita stood with her hands over her mouth as though stifling a scream that would echo all the way up the road to freedom.

  Edgardo shook his head. “No.” His voice sounded like a strangled animal. He shouted, “No! Those weeks she was ill, when I stayed at her bedside, when she was crying out for a priest or a nun to come and pray for her. That was not caused by you.”

  Abuelita Guerra stepped further onto the terrace, blocking more light from behind her, shadowing her grandson’s face.

  “I must be obeyed without question or our society can no longer exist,” she spat. “This is something your father understands and it is something you now will come to understand. I have taken your desires into careful consideration and made my decision.”

  Abuelita Guerra turned sharply, facing Rebekah. She spoke to Edgardo. “You will kill this lady doctor before she poisons our people anymore. Do it now!”

  Antonia screamed into Rebekah’s shoulder where her face was pressed tight. Rebekah instinctively loosened her grip on the girl as Edgardo slowly turned toward them, his fingers wrapping around the butt of his pistol.

  Carmelita screamed, “Edgardo, no!”

  Rebekah stared into his eyes, shadowed by the lack of light, and drowning in the darkness of this place.

  Rebekah took Antonia by the shoulders and forced her away, out of the line of fire. She knew what Edgardo would do and she wanted to be ready for her next move. Only God knew what that was.

  Where was Laramie?

  Edgardo’s grip on his holstered pistol tightened until his arm shook. The shaking made its way to his head and the rest of his body until he was shaking uncontrollably.

  He let out a strangled cry and dropped to one knee, burying his face in his arm. He released the grip on his pistol and his hand dangled loose.

  Abuelita Guerra clenched her jaw and took a step back to nod at Sancho.

  Sancho let out a heavy sigh as he spoke to Edgardo. “You disappoint me, my son. I thought you had finally become a man, but I see you never will.”

  Sancho’s hand dropped to his gun. As Carmelita screamed again, Gabino pushed up to his hands and knees, a stream of blood running from his nose. He staggered forward, partly on his feet, and grabbed Sancho’s gun arm with both hands. The rage in Sancho’s eyes was one Rebekah recognized. She only had a few seconds.

  She hooked Antonia around the waist and dragged her to the side of the terrace. She looked back in time to see Sancho whack the old man away and raise his pistol.

  Edgardo jumped to his feet, shouting, “No, Papá!”

  He drew his gun and Sancho turned instinctively toward him. His gun went off. The bullet struck Edgardo in the gut, freezing the young man on his feet. Then he collapsed.

  Sancho’s smoking barrel turned toward where Rebekah had shoved Antonia close to the rail of the terrace. She hovered over the girl.

  Another shot echoed over the stone, and Rebekah gripped Antonia’s shoulder hard.

  Sancho took one step forward and then another before crumbling at the feet of Gabino Fuentes. But it wasn’t the old man who shot Sancho Guerra.

  Rebekah twisted to where she was on her hands and knees, facing the scene.

  Laramie Jones, six-gun smoking, leaped over the wall and onto the terrace.

  Abuelita Guerra stared at the bodies of her grandsons. Her chin went higher, higher, higher. She gripped the bodice of her dress and dropped to her knees then slumped down face first onto the terrace.

  Gabino Fuentes went to pry Sancho’s gun from his limp hand. Carmelita ran to Edgardo. Rebekah, helped by Antonia, got to her feet and went to Abuelita Guerra. She knelt by the woman’s quivering form, turned her over, and into her arms.

  Abuelita Guerra’s eyes were red like a demon from the Bible. Her hand came up, claw-like, from her chest and reached for Rebekah’s throat. Abuelita Guerra clamped on, but there was no strength to squeeze.

  Rebekah slowly reached up and took the woman’s wrist, pulling her hand away. She said quietly to Antonia, who had followed her, “She is having a heart attack. Go fetch my medical bag please.”

  Her words faded at the end to match Abuelita Guerra’s fading heartbeat. It faded away into the stillness.

  The gunshots awoke the entire village. As Rebekah lowered Abuelita Guerra to the cold floor of the terrace, she was aware of the people rushing up the hill to the Grande Colina Hacienda.

  Laramie knelt by Rebekah’s side, gripping her forearm. “Time for us to git, Becka. We’ll make a run for the road on Slate. He was part of Contrera’s wagon team.”

  The hot metal of his gun barrel was near her bare hand—the
gun that killed Sancho Guerra and freed her at last.

  As she looked around at the scene on the terrace with Gabino Fuentes embracing his two granddaughters, she knew she was not the only one free.

  Rebekah let Laramie help her to her feet, but she stayed rooted in place when he tried to pull her away. “Wait, Lee,” she whispered. “We’ll be shot if we run, but I don’t think we’ll need to.”

  First onto the terrace was Martín Fuentes, his un-bandaged hand showing no injury, only a scar. He halted and stared in shock at the three bodies spread before him. The other villagers came up behind him and made a solemn line from one end of the terrace to the other. They were in disbelief.

  No one cried.

  Old Gabino turned to his son. They looked at one another a good long while in the silence before Martín finally turned and addressed his fellow villagers.

  “We were fearful of this time coming. We were fearful of it not. I am the greatest coward among you.” He raised his scarred hand. “I did this. I shot my own hand to keep from going out on that long ride with Sancho. I am filled with that much fear. But no more!” His voice boomed. “For too long, the Guerras have lorded over our lives with fear and violence. It is time for us to live!”

  Families bunched close together, holding on to one another, and the tears finally came. Whether in grief for the poor lives they had lived or for the lives they could now live, Rebekah couldn’t judge.

  Old Gabino shuffled toward her, supported by his granddaughters. He reached out to pat Rebekah’s cheek. “We will send messengers out to the guards that you and your friend are to leave in peace. You have nothing more to fear in this valley, Señorita Rebekah.”

  Martín strode over to them. He quickly kissed his daughters on the cheeks, then turned them toward Rebekah.

  “Señorita, you know many of us will be arrested by the army soon. These two children have never committed a crime, but will become outcasts in their own country and destitute. Please, Señorita, will you take my daughters from here with you? Take them and show them there is a world beyond these walls.”

  Antonia cried out and wrapped her arms around her father’s neck. Old Gabino reached up to grip his son’s shoulder in a gesture of pride. A tear made its way down the ravines of his face.

  Carmelita looked stunned. She glanced over to where one of the village men was covering Edgardo’s body with a blanket.

  She reached out and touched her sister’s arm. “Kiss your grandfather and your father goodbye. We will do as he says.”

  Within half an hour, Rebekah was seated in Fernando Contrera’s wagon, on the springboard bench next to Laramie. The Fuentes sisters were in the wagon bed with their few possessions and enough supplies to see them all to the border.

  Laramie’s big gray horse, Slate, was hitched to the wagon with Contrera’s horse. Rebekah should have recognized Slate right away when she saw him earlier.

  Laramie shook the reins and the team took off. He aimed them up the road to freedom.

  Rebekah gripped the wagon bench, feeling as though she’d been underwater for so long she had nearly drowned and now, there was the surface, rushing closer and closer to meet her.

  There were no guards at the top of the hill. All of Sancho’s bandits had fled the valley, knowing the Mexican army was coming and the villagers would let them in.

  The wagon suddenly reached the top, and the ground leveled. Rebekah sucked in a deep breath, finally above the surface of the water. She drew in another breath and another. She couldn’t stop.

  Laramie slowed the horses and held the reins in his left hand while he put his other arm around her shoulders. “It’s all right, Becka. I’ll have you home soon.”

  Home. How sweet and foreign that word was.

  Chapter 15

  They stopped off at the town of Golden to pick up Just Jimmy from jail there. After a fierce hug for Rebekah, he didn’t stop talking for two hours as he stood behind the bench, alternating between telling Rebekah about his short adventure in trying to rescue her, to attempting to engage the Fuentes sisters in conversation through his broken Spanish. At least his Spanish had improved over the past few weeks in the jail where he’d had all the drunks and town disruptors for cell mates.

  Carmelita never said a word, but Rebekah glanced back a few times to see Antonia smiling and trying to talk to the young white man, the first she’d ever met.

  They were escorted to the border by the Rurales and greeted on the other side by Marshal Lopez and Sheriff Thad Biggins, who took them on to Zapata.

  There, Rebekah said a tearful goodbye to the Fuentes sisters who had taken such fine care of her. She left them in the tender hands of Bernadette Peterson, knowing the woman was the most capable of introducing them to the outside world.

  Antonia begged to go on with Rebekah, and Rebekah promised to come back and see the sisters someday. Or perhaps they could come visit where Rebekah was going. But this was not the right time. The sisters needed to get acclimated in a familiar landscape, not the lush green pastures and valleys of Wyoming.

  When they left the wagon at the Zapata livery stables, Rebekah touched the bench in thankfulness for the man who had given his life to save her.

  Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

  She had experienced yet another one of her father’s favorite scripture verses. Fernando Contrera had given his life for her; Laramie Jones and Just Jimmy had been willing to. Because of them, she was alive.

  In the same hotel room she stayed in after her first ordeal with Sancho Guerra at the mission, Rebekah tossed and turned, unable to sleep. Dawn was a relief, along with boarding the train bound for Wyoming—at last.

  Laramie sat on the bench beside her, Jimmy across from them. Her medical bag, with the pepperbox gun she recovered from Sancho’s gun case in the hacienda, rested between her feet. It was comforting to keep it close.

  Jimmy seemed to have slept well in the room he shared with Laramie, but there were still dark circles under his eyes.

  He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “I sure was worried about you, Miss Rebekah,” he said quietly. “Never prayed so much in my life. Even my cellmate prayed for you, and he didn’t even believe in God, I don’t think.” He looked to Laramie. “What was that he said when you got me out of there? I can do better with Spanish now, but couldn’t make out what he said.”

  Laramie smiled. “He said something about living more like you from now on.”

  Jimmy cocked his head. “I wasn’t really living much. I was just in jail, praying and wishing I could read this.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his New Testament.

  Rebekah stared at it. “There are many stories in there of men who lived the best parts of their lives in prisons and lion’s dens, praying.”

  She shook herself and quickly added, “We will teach you to read, Jimmy. And we are going to have the biggest and best birthday celebration for you that the McKinnon Ranch has ever seen.”

  Jimmy smiled. “I don’t reckon that’s nearly as important to me now, Miss Rebekah, but I know what date I want for keeps—the day you got set free from that bandit hole, whatever date that was. Would you write it in my Bible for me?”

  Jimmy held it out to her and Laramie handed her a pencil from his vest pocket. Rebekah took the items and opened the worn book. She wished—almost expected—for Jimmy’s full name to be in there, and the real record of his birth. But the records in the front were blank.

  She wrote “Just Jimmy” and added the date of her freedom. Her hands shook as she handed the pencil back to Laramie and the book to Jimmy.

  Jimmy took it, his eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Thank you, Miss Rebekah. I sure am sorry I wasn’t any help in getting you out.”

  Rebekah blinked, surprised her own tears still hadn’t come. “I think, maybe, Jimmy, that you did help more than any of us will ever know.”

  She gave him the best smile she could. “And it’s al
l right. Lee was there.”

  Jimmy raised an eyebrow and glanced around, looking to see if there was someone else with them. “Lee?”

  Laramie Jones tugged on his vest as if to straighten it. Rebekah looked up at him apologetically, but he grinned and spoke to Jimmy.

  “Me and Miss Rebekah have known one another a good spell, Jimmy. She’s the only one these days who calls me Lee. I’d appreciate it if you would remember that.”

  Jimmy returned the grin. “Sure, I know how that is. But I’m reckoning you’re a mighty good man, being one of Doc Beck’s old friends.”

  When the train pulled into Centennial Ridge, Wyoming, Rebekah was half asleep. Yet she was conscious of what she was about to face, the world she was going to re-enter. She just wanted to get to her final destination as soon as possible.

  There were familiar faces at the depot, including Marshal Dave Thorp and top hands from the ranch like Steve Bowers. All who had big grins for her. There were familiar town faces too, but Rebekah gratefully let Laramie hand her into a covered buggy from the McKinnon Ranch while Steve held the reins.

  Laramie and Steve took the front bench, while she settled in the back with Jimmy, medical bag on the seat between them. Now that they were past the initial relief of the ordeal coming to an end, Jimmy could hardly contain his excitement. He gripped the buggy frame and scanned the verdant foothills of the Medicine Bow Mountains in summertime.

  “You reckon Doctor McKinnon will really give me a job on his ranch?” he asked.

  Rebekah patted his hand. “I’ll put in a good word with the foreman.”

  “Who’s the foreman?”

  Rebekah nodded toward Laramie’s back. Jimmy gaped at her and Rebekah chuckled. It wasn’t a full laugh, but a genuine one. It relieved some of the tension in her body. Yet not all.