A Warrior's Vow

by Marilyn Tracy

  Sancho sat and whined piteously. He raised a paw and barked at Daggert.

  Leeza saw the flash of recognition cross Daggert's face. "Bill Thompkins," he said.

  "Who?"

  "Bill from Annie's Café." He said it with a note of wonder in his voice.

  Leeza understood. He'd made the connection of Sancho's gesture with the half-forgotten memory in his head. "Because he shakes hands with Sancho?" she asked.

  "Because Sancho always whines when Bill touches him."

  Ever since Daggert had demanded to know who Jeannie had said was up on the mountain looking for Enrique, Leeza had been straining to remember the three names her friend had mentioned on the cell phone. Leeza had been unable to conjure up a face for either Jenkins or Greathouse, the grocers, but she had a perfect image of Jack, Chance's former deputy marshal.

  But once she'd gotten past the unfamiliar name, perhaps never really having heard it, she'd remembered Bill Thompkins perfectly. Her heart sank now, thinking about the manager of Annie's Café. She hadn't particularly cared for him, for the way he didn't quite meet her eyes whenever the Milagro gang had gone there, or the way his gaze seemed to undress her. She'd commented on it to Corrie one time: "He makes me think of a man who does dirty things in his basement."

  She hadn't known the half of it. But Sancho had. "He knew," she breathed. "What was hidden behind the man's face."

  As if agreeing with her, Sancho barked, turned to face the rain and barked again with greater urgency.

  A strangely garbled animal scream cut through the storm's roar. Because of the curvature of the cave, the sound could have come from anywhere—deeper in the mountains, higher above them or from behind the very walls of the cave itself.

  "Dear God," she said, automatically cringing. "What animal made that sound?"

  Sancho ran out into the rain, barking furiously, his head lowered, his neck ruff raised.

  "That was no animal," Daggert growled.

  Leeza put her hand on his arm. Even through the thickness of his sheepskin jacket, she could feel the tensile strength of his rigid muscles.

  "Denzhoné, I want you to stay here. I mean it. I've got to go. That's him. He has the boy. I know it."

  Leeza saw that Daggert's knuckles were white with the fierceness of his grip on Stone's reins. A muscle worked in his jaw.

  "Go then," she said.

  With an odd look at her that seemed filled with unspoken need, he was gone.

  "But you're crazy if you think you're going alone," she added, blindly following him into the storm.

  * * *

  As if responding to his scream, the storm abated just enough to allow the hunter to hear the frantic barking of Daggert's dog, Sancho.

  When he was Bill Thompkins, he would shake hands with the setter. It always amused him that the dog could see the animal in him, and that his master, the great and powerful tracker, couldn't. It was a game he would play—teasing the dog into fear. Any dog was afraid of a mountain lion. Smart dog. Good dog.

  He pulled his hunting rifle from his saddle and aimed it down the mountain, ignoring the rain, sighting the scope on the only trail Daggert could possibly take.

  He wouldn't kill him. No. He wanted Daggert to see exactly what his little boy had gone through, because he'd had to pay for his daddy's crossing boundaries, invading the hunter's territory. He wanted Daggert to be powerless to stop him from reenacting his son's death scene, with Enrique Dominguez and Leeza Nelson in the leading roles.

  A two-fer. The hunter giggled.

  Then Daggert would see the face of his ancestors.

  The hunter wrapped his finger around the trigger.

  Chapter 11

  Daggert felt as if his heart was being ripped in two. Half of it remained in the cave with Leeza, the other half surged ahead, seeking the madman who had another little boy in his grasp.

  Ruthlessly, Daggert focused his attention on trying to plot ways to extricate the child from the monster's clutches. But the truth was, he had no idea what he was facing.

  The only thing he had in his favor was a good horse, a smart dog and a burning need to save the boy.

  Squinting through the rain, his eyes on Sancho, Daggert realized he had yet another advantage, one that couldn't have occurred to him in the past four years. The last three days had given him something to live for.

  He pulled his knife from inside his sheepskin coat. He had a Smith and Wesson in the holster on his saddle, but, as always, he preferred the deadly accuracy of his knife.

  The storm had lessened but was by no means finished raging yet. And judging from the madman's scream, more than a storm waited for him on the mountaintop.

  Daggert lowered his head against the rain and sought the fury that had sustained him so thoroughly for the past four years. Like the storm, his rage wasn't finished, but he knew something was different now. He felt it had splintered, worry about Leeza and Enrique overshadowing his hatred of the fiend who'd killed Donny. But his worry also fanned a whole new set of emotions.

  He pulled up on Stone's reins, instinct warning him that charging up the mountain could be a deadly mistake for the boy's sake. But he was also held back by emotions that took in the possibility of futures, hopes and dreams. Emotions that embraced the possibility of escorting Leeza Nelson to a movie or out to dinner. Something simple, something normal…and something so alien to him.

  He was struck by the awareness that he didn't know what kind of food she liked, what kind of movies she watched, what kind of music she listened to. He'd spent three intense days with the most remarkable woman in the world and he didn't even know what would make her laugh or why she might cry. He didn't even really understand what she did for a living beyond making bundles of money.

  As he hesitated before rounding the last sharp curve on the trail leading to the upper caves and the very top of Cima La Luz, he felt the weight of being the instrument of justice against this man who had stolen so much from him.

  And from others.

  Cold rain pelted Daggert's face and soaked his jeans. And seeped into his soul. What was wrong was obvious: a madman had little Enrique Dominguez in his control. How to set it right wasn't so clear.

  Daggert had spent the last four years preparing for, concentrating on this single moment, and now that it was literally at hand, he struggled with feelings of sharp ambivalence.

  Hesitating at the last curve of this mountain trail, not afraid of the confrontation sure to come, but no longer certain of his need to vanquish Donny's killer, he realized this was the first moment he'd considered that there were others like him out there—grieving family, survivors lost to anything but vengeance or justice. Others who desperately needed some measure of closure. The husband of the housewife who had gone out for an afternoon stroll on the outskirts of town and been found miles away, ripped to pieces the same way Donny had been. The hiker who'd seemingly fell, but lay spread-eagled beneath a cliff, the rim of which held a set of footprints that didn't match his hiking boots. The young couple necking in the wrong place, both mauled beyond recognition, and the trembling aunt who had been forced to provide toothbrushes to confirm their identities, as DNA was the only recognizable identifier for them.

  Every one of those people harbored some of the rage he did. And every one of them deserved resolution. Justice. Vengeance.

  Sancho barked frantically and stopped at the turn in the trail.

  Daggert knew the moment for which he'd been waiting for four long years was finally at hand.

  Instead of feeling fury rise in him, the need for an end to the four-year nightmare thrumming through his veins, he discovered a strange effervescence, a buoyant lightness.

  He felt free. Stripped clean. As if he might be allowed to start anew.

  And if he was lucky, very very lucky, that new start might just include Leeza Nelson.

  She'd asked him what he would do when he caught up with Donny's killer.

  He'd told her he would kill the man, and beyond th
at moment, he didn't know. He'd told her the truth, as he saw it then. Just yesterday.

  Now he had an answer for her. He would finally murder the rage that had held him in its thrall for the past four years.

  He would kill the fury roiling in him, throw sand on the fiery rage that burned everyone around him. He would be able to sleep again, appreciate the good mountain air.

  And possibly, just possibly, he would be able to give his heart again.

  Sancho barked and raced back to him, as if needing to speed his master along. The setter scrabbled on the wet trail, then whirled around and leaped up the mountain again. He careened from rock to rock, more antelope than dog now, a brown force of nature with Bill Thompkins's scream leading him directly to the crazy bastard. And bringing Thompkins's nemesis right behind him, riding on the broad back of an incredible horse named Stone.

  Daggert urged Stone forward and upward, and the mighty animal with the huge heart lunged toward the sharply angled curve and within seconds brought them around to face the cave-pocked cliffs leading to the very top of the cloud-obscured Cima La Luz.

  Lightning flickered in the blackened sky above the peak, and ghostly clouds, white wisps of moisture, snaked down over the ledges.

  Sancho, looking up at the cliffs, barked furiously, shaking with the intensity of his desperate need to alert Daggert to danger.

  Daggert leaned forward in his saddle and heard the crack of thunder at precisely the same moment Stone suddenly shrieked and reared. Stunned by his mount's uncharacteristic reaction, Daggert jerked back, pulling on the reins, shouting for the horse to calm down.

  He felt something sharp and hot rip into his shoulder. He understood that Stone had been wiser than he and had been trying to avoid the danger that had just struck his rider.

  Whatever hit him yanked Daggert from Stone's back with a hammer-drill force that slammed him to the sodden ground. Pressed against the wet pine needles, he realized with almost perfect clarity that the crack he'd heard hadn't been thunder, but the sharp report of a high-powered rifle.

  The impact had knocked the wind from his lungs, and he tasted the coppery tang of blood on his lips. He must have cut his mouth during the fall, he realized with an almost idle curiosity.

  He couldn't seem to breathe and he wondered if he'd been hit worse than he thought. He half expected his life to flash before his eyes, as he'd always heard it did at the precise moment of death, but instead he saw Leeza's blue, terrified eyes staring down at him from her pale, shocked features.

  She hadn't listened to him. Hadn't stayed behind in the cave, safely waiting for him. Why had he even thought she would? It wasn't her way to stay behind. Not in anything.

  He mouthed her name.

  He was conscious of breaking his vow to her and knew she'd take care of Sancho and Stone.

  He should have let her see some of what was in his heart.

  He should have given her that much.

  * * *

  When Leeza heard the thunder and saw Daggert fall from a rearing Stone, her heart jolted so painfully she couldn't breathe.

  Belle sidled to the left and shook her head in swift denial. When Leeza tried pressing her forward, every pore in her body wanting to be with the man lying so still on the wet embankment, her horse seemed to catch her fear and did a prancing dance of terror.

  Sancho barked and Belle shuddered as a riderless Stone raced past them, tearing down the mountain as if his hooves had been set on.

  "God, no," Leeza choked out, then cried, "Daggert!"

  Inexperienced at tracking as she was, she wasn't stupid. She knew Stone hadn't shied from a fear of lightning and that Daggert hadn't fallen to the ground because his horse had spooked.

  That last deafening crack of sound that ripped the sky wasn't thunder; James Daggert had been shot.

  In a strange time distortion, the whole universe became elastic and pliable. When she met Daggert's pain-filled gaze and, with a shock, believed that he wasn't thinking of the madman atop the mountain, but was thinking of her, the moment seemed to last a lifetime.

  She clearly saw an alternate future in his eyes, a future with laughter, children, lazy days beneath a cerulean sky.

  And she saw the cold rain beating down on the man who had discovered her heart and given it to her.

  And then his eyes seemed to glaze over, and with a sob of the deepest agony, she realized he could no longer see her.

  He lay perfectly still on a bed of wet pine needles and mud. One of his hands was outstretched as if reaching for her.

  * * *

  The hunter was scared.

  Daggert wasn't supposed to die yet. He had to suffer. That was how the game was supposed to be played. Daggert was breaking the rules again.

  He heard a noise behind him and turned in time to see the flash of white—Enrique's tennis shoes disappearing up a crack in the cave.

  He let loose another animal cry, this one of undiluted rage. He lunged for the boy, but only scrabbled against the cave's roof; the boy was already gone, having climbed to the ledge above the cave.

  No! he screamed, the man in him coming to the surface amidst his fear and fury.

  * * *

  Leeza had the fleeting thought that she'd been better off not knowing that she had a heart; understanding it existed only let more pain penetrate the deepest recesses of it.

  "No-no-no," she murmured, but inside she felt a scream of pure anguish rising and threatening to break free, a scream every bit as animalistic as the madman's on the mountain above her.

  She felt as if she would choke on the taste of the pain.

  As if he were attuned to her, she heard another of the monster's shrieks.

  Instantly her skin crawled and, out of the anguish inside her, a burning pillar of rage exploded into reality.

  She'd been uncomfortable in the house of John and Cora Nelson; she'd fought her way to the very pinnacle of venture capitalism; she'd despaired over Enrique's running away…but she'd never embraced the fury against fate. She felt it now and understood Daggert, really understood him for the first time. She had wondered what motivated the man, how he could continue as a tracker when he'd lost his own son.

  She knew the answer now: a blazing inferno of utter rage had fueled him, had allowed him to keep going. As it was sustaining her.

  She set her jaw and leaned forward on Belle. Daggert's feelings were hers now. She felt them flooding her veins, infusing her with a dark strength and hot determination. And a black, dark rage filled the heart she'd only so recently discovered she possessed.

  The time distortion shattered and abruptly, she could feel the cold rain, was aware of the lightning overhead, the pull of the earth. Only seconds had passed. A blink in the cosmic eye.

  As if understanding the situation, Sancho had half turned back to Daggert. But the madman's next scream stopped him in his tracks. The dog whipped back around and with a ferocious growl, launched himself toward the cliffs leading to the very peak of this horrible mountain. A moment later he again stopped sharply.

  Leeza, following on Belle, one with her horse, one with the fury inside her, dragged on the reins, and the mare slithered on the muddy track. Automatically, Leeza turned to see what Sancho was focused on. A wave of adrenaline swept through her, almost making her ill.

  High on a clifftop, Enrique was picking his way along a narrow ledge, his tiny body pummeled by freezing rain and his thin cotton shirt buffeted by strong winds.

  She heard the madman yell "No!" and knew that by some miracle Enrique had managed to escape him. Probably while the man was shooting Daggert.

  Terror for Enrique kept the fury in her soul honed to a razor's sharpness, and she ruthlessly kicked Belle on up the dangerous path. As she rocked with the horse's powerful stride up the slippery trail, she frantically dug in her front pack, not for her cell phone, the small device she'd often used as a weapon in her business, but for the killer's beautiful and evil knife, her fury's weapon of choice on this bleak day.
/>   She had it in her hands, and without conscious thought depressed the button that sprang the serrated blade free from its hiding place inside the intricate hilt.

  She didn't look back, didn't dare, for she knew if she did she would see her heart lying on the ground with the man who had taught her she owned one.

  Chapter 12

  "Jesus. It's James Daggert," a voice Daggert dimly recognized said. "I thought that was his horse running toward that meadow."

  "Is he dead?"

  "He's not," Daggert answered. He felt as if he were talking around a sackful of marbles. For a split second, disoriented and confused, he couldn't think why he was lying facedown in pine needles and mud.

  Then memory slammed into him. "Leeza!" he growled. He turned his head, ignoring the sharp pain in his shoulder, and saw a grizzled Jack Dawson, former U.S. deputy marshal, bending over him, worry carving lines of stress on an already well wrinkled face.

  "Where is she?" Jack asked.

  "She went to the top," Daggert said. "Get me up."

  Jack extended a hand. The other man, John Jenkins—owner of Jenkins's IGA and Farmer's Market—slid down the embankment and shoved a hand beneath Daggert's arm.

  With their combined help, Daggert struggled to his feet. He swayed a bit but his head was clearing.

  "Somebody shot you?" Jack asked.

  Daggert looked at him stupidly for a full two seconds, then followed Jack's gaze to the hole in his jacket, the stain of red shining darkly on the dampened cloth.

  "The same man who killed my son," he said.

  Jack Dawson looked from the hole in Daggert's shoulder to the ground and finally met Daggert's eyes.

  Daggert realized the man had no way of knowing that a madman had little Enrique, could even have Leeza by now.

  "Bill Thompkins," he said tersely.

  "Thompkins? From Annie's Café?" Jenkins asked. "He shot you? Why?"

  Daggert never looked away from Jack Dawson's eyes. The man might be retired, and may not have listened when he was still a deputy marshal, but the lawman in him was listening now. "He's Donny's murderer."

  Jack's gaze didn't flinch, though a dull flush stained his cheeks. "And he's got the Milagro kid?"