Crane flushed. “Well that don’t mean I killed your uncle. He was already dead when I found him. I don’t know how he died, but there weren’t a mark on him. He was just dead, there on the porch. I fished through his pockets trying to find out who he was. That’s when I found this.” He waved the nugget in the air.
Daniella suspected he was telling the truth, in spite of her desire to believe the worst of him. Her father’s letter had said Uncle John died of a heart attack. His heart had been bad for years. Crane was probably telling the truth. She nodded at him.
“All right. Maybe you didn’t kill him. But if you think you’re going to find gold in that valley, you’re wrong.”
“Ha! Your uncle found this, and nuggets this size don’t come alone. This little hunk has got lots of little friends lying around somewhere in that valley, and I intend to find ‘em. “
A wry grin formed on Daniella’s lips. “Not in that valley you won’t. It’s a shame my uncle was dead when you found him. It’s a shame you didn’t get the chance to ask him where that came from.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Carmen warned. “She’s trying to trick you.”
“Trick him?”
“Sí, trick him. But it won’t work, puta. Even if you tell us exactly where to find the gold, you aren’t stupid enough to think we will let you live. It’s too late for that now. Travis will come after Crane no matter what.”
Daniella hung there from the tree branch wishing desperately Carmen hadn’t realized that. Now that it had been voiced, she knew they’d never let her go, no matter what she said.
“So why should I try to trick anyone?” she said finally. “If you get the valley, if you get a chance to look for gold, if you search for the next forty years, you still won’t find anything. But you go ahead and look. I know all about gold fever, and you must have it bad to go to this much trouble.
“You see, Uncle John had gold fever, too, for a while, a long time ago. He went to California back in forty-nine. Sold everything he owned and went. He was smart enough, though, to put some money back, in case he didn’t strike it rich. Just enough to give him a new start somewhere.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Carmen urged.
Daniella kept on. “Uncle John spent three years in the freezing streams of the California mountains, sleeping in a leaky tent, never enough food to eat. When he finally gave up, all he had left was that one nugget. He carried it in his pocket from then on to remind himself how foolish a man can be. He used to take it out and rub his fingers over it all the time, just like you’re doing now,” she said to Crane. “And he’d laugh at himself and his crazy, foolish dream.”
Billy Joe Crane looked deep into the girl’s eyes and knew. He knew without a doubt in his soul she spoke the truth. There was no gold in that valley. Damnation! What was he supposed to do now?
Carmen was right about one thing. If they let the girl go free, Colton would come after him. But Colton didn’t know who had her! Crane could still stick to his original plan and sell her down in Mexico. He wasn’t about to kill her. Hell, he wasn’t no murderer.
He hadn’t meant to kill that greaser girl earlier. It was an accident. But how could he explain that when Daniella Colton climbed up behind him in his saddle and he’d felt those firm, full breasts of hers press into his back, his whole body had tightened. He hadn’t even realized he’d pulled the trigger until he saw the girl fall over.
Damnation. How had he got himself in this mess?
The answer to that question stood next to him and spoke in a cold voice. “It doesn’t matter what she says. It’s time to kill her now. I want to watch her die. I want to watch.”
Crane glared at Carmen in impotent rage. “If anyone gets killed around here, it oughta be you, for getting us into this mess.” He took a step toward Carmen, and she backed away. He grinned. Good. The bitch was afraid of him. Good.
“You’ve had your say from the beginning,” he said, a low growl in his voice. “Telling me what to do, when to do it, and I’ve kept my mouth shut. But now it’s time you know I got no intention of killin’ her. I never had no intention of killin’ her.”
“Why you—”
“Shut up! I’ll get rid of her, all right, and that husband of hers’ll think she’s dead, but I ain’t gonna kill her. I’m gonna take her down below the border. Get a good price for her down there, with that pale skin of hers. That’ll give me a grub stake. You, I don’t care what you do. Me, I’m gonna sell her. After I get through with her,” he added with a grin. “You still wanna watch?”
Carmen glared back at him, the buttons on the front of her blouse threatening to pop loose over her heaving chest. Whoowee! She sure was mad.
He didn’t care.
Crane turned his back on Carmen and faced Daniella with a grin. “Now,” he said rubbing his hands together, “I’ve been waitin’ for this a long time, sugar.”
Daniella felt her skin shrinking from his touch as bile rose to her throat. No! This couldn’t be happening! She’d rather he killed her than this! She wanted to beg, scream, cry. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t make her voice work. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from those huge, brutal hands. Hands that reached for her.
Fat, sausage-like fingers clamped over one breast. Daniella screamed. Crane cursed and clapped a hand over her mouth. She screamed behind his hand.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Carmen moving in behind Crane. An instant later Crane freed her and whirled to face his partner. Carmen had his gun! She waved it around wildly.
“Get away from her! She has to die, I tell you! If you won’t do it, I will!”
Crane lunged for Carmen, trying to knock the gun from her grasp. The two struggled, the gun caught between their bodies. All Daniella could see were flailing arms and legs.
Frantically, while they occupied each other, she sawed the rope back and forth over the branch above her. She didn’t take her eyes off the struggling couple, but knew if she looked up she’d see blood on her wrists.
A sharp explosion ripped through the clearing. Daniella froze. Crane and Carmen stared into each other’s eyes. Daniella couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She didn’t know what to hope for. If Crane won, he’d rape her; if Carmen won, Daniella would die in a matter of minutes.
She didn’t want to die! Dear God, she didn’t want to die! But neither did she believe she could endure what Crane had planned for her.
She stared, waiting, then watched with a sick feeling as Carmen slowly slid to the ground. The woman fell back, revealing a gaping hole in her stomach, blood gushing, spreading rapidly across her clothes.
“Goddamn,” Crane whispered. “Goddamn!” He looked down at the gun in his hand, then threw it away in disgust. Another woman, dead. He, who’d never thought to harm anyone all the years of his life, had killed two women in one day.
Goddamn.
His eyes darted around the tiny clearing, trying to light on something that would help him make sense out of all this. Then he spotted Daniella, still hanging where he’d tied her.
What now? he asked himself.
Carmen had made several prominent friends in Tucson. She would be missed. And he’d been seen with her more than once. Someone would look for her. If they found her, no, when they found her—bodies always had a way of getting themselves found—there’d be questions.
He’d have to leave, that was certain. But he might still be suspected. Mexico would be a good place to go. He’d been headed there anyway, to sell Daniella.
That was too dangerous now, selling the woman. One woman he knew was dead, another woman he knew missing. No. Too dangerous.
Then he had it. Carmen had told him she couldn’t be anywhere near when Daniella was killed, because everyone at the Triple C knew how much she hated the girl. If both women—he shook at the thought of killing Daniella, for he wouldn’t be able to tell himself it was an accident—but if both women were found dead, next to each other, with signs of struggle, people would think they’d
killed each other!
Daniella kept her eyes on Crane and sawed at the branch.
She watched him look around, realizing he had something new on his mind. When the big bull of a man finally straightened and turned toward her, her hands fell still. Her heart thundered in her chest.
His gray eyes held a new light, different from before when he’d reached for her. Different. Harder. Colder. And there was something else there, too. Something that terrified her more than anything yet this day. An apology.
He was going to kill her. Right now. And he was sorry.
“Don’t do this, Crane,” she whispered. “Don’t.” It was the closest she could come to begging for her life. Then her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and she couldn’t speak at all.
When he turned back toward Carmen and squatted next to the woman’s body, Daniella didn’t relax. He was still going to kill her, she knew. She had no earthly idea why he was ripping Carmen’s clothes and scratching up her face and hands, but she knew he was going to kill her.
Then he stood and gave a slow nod to his work and came toward Daniella. She sawed at the rope again, too terrified to worry about whether or not he understood she was trying to get free. He didn’t seem to notice her efforts. He reached out and yanked the braid wrapped around her head loose from its pins.
She was too scared to even cry out at the sharp pain. She started squirming, kicking, anything to keep his hands away from her. Her breath came in harsh, painful gasps. He grabbed hold of the front of her dress. She jerked backward. The buttons slipped from their holes, opening the dress clear to her waist.
Crane stared at the sight of her pale skin barely concealed by her thin chemise. He grabbed a breast and stared, seeming mesmerized as she felt warm milk ooze from her engorged nipple. Tender and swollen from not being able to nurse the twins all day, Daniella moaned against the pain.
His tongue came out and swiped at his lips, barely visibly through his grisly red beard. Daniella wanted to die. She nearly strangled on the revulsion rising in her throat. He squeezed her breast again. More milk leaked. He lowered his head slowly, tongue out. Daniella screamed.
He swiped at her nipple through her chemise and she flinched. When he raised his head, his gray eyes darkened like storm clouds. He held on to her breast and grabbed her hair with his free hand. Wet, slobbering lips covered her mouth, and his tongue forced its way past the barrier of her teeth.
Daniella gagged and squirmed against him, trying to free herself. Bile rose in her throat. As he pressed closer she felt him harden against her stomach. Almost of their own accord, her teeth clamped down on his tongue. He tried to jerk away. She clenched her jaws and bit down even harder. The coppery taste of blood flooded her mouth.
His hand in her hair yanked hard, breaking her hold on his tongue and jerking her away. “Thit!” he screamed. “Oo gaw-amn bith!” Blood spurted from his mouth. Teeth and lips gleamed red and hideous in the waning afternoon light, a different, darker shade of red from his beard. He swung at her. His beefy fist caught her squarely between the breasts, knocking the wind from her.
Daniella swung limply by her bleeding wrists, trying to suck air into her tortured lungs.
A hoarse bellow of rage echoed through the trees. Travis!
In the next instant, all hell broke loose. Travis erupted into the clearing, going for Billy Joe Crane like a maddened beast. His pistol was still holstered, his knife still sheathed. He went after Crane with his bare hands, seeming oblivious to the flashing steel blade Crane pulled from his boot.
Crane lunged with the knife. Daniella didn’t even have enough air in her lungs to scream. Travis deflected the blow with his left arm and smashed his right fist into Crane’s face.
Again and again the knife came at Travis, and each time he managed to block the blade and keep his skin intact.
Of the two men, Crane was by far the larger, but Travis was harder, leaner, faster.
Eventually Crane got lucky and managed to lay open a thin slit along Travis’s upper arm. Travis drew his own knife then. They circled each other, dodging and feinting, lunging and parrying.
Having finally regained her breath, Daniella clamped her lips shut to keep from screaming as she watched her husband’s blood trail down his arm. Time after time, the two men slashed and jabbed at each other. Several lightning-swift thrusts from Travis sent rivulets of red pouring down Crane’s chest.
With a roar of desperate rage, Crane lunged at Travis with his whole body, knocking Travis’s knife aside. The momentum of the rush sent Travis crashing backward toward Daniella with a grunt. Crane had him in a fierce bear hug. Both men’s faces turned red with fierce effort.
They were only a couple of feet in front of Daniella now. She tried to swing out of their stumbling path.
Crane’s grip held Travis’s arms immobile, crushed as they were against his sides. Daniella held her breath, willing Travis whatever strength she had to break loose. Then Crane wrapped his foot around Travis’s. She watched, horrified, as Travis’s knee buckled. Crane leaned into him. Both men, wrapped together in their deadly struggle, crashed fully into her.
She would have cried out at the impact, but the breath once again rushed from her lungs. With the weight of two large men against her, the rope bit into her wrists until she thought surely her hands would be torn off.
In the next instant the thick dead branch holding her prisoner snapped like a twig, sending Daniella, with the two men on top of her, crashing to the ground.
Pain exploded in her head, her lungs, her wrists. Then everything went black.
When she came to, she had no idea how long she’d been out. Not long, she guessed, rolling to her side with a groan and pushing herself up, for she couldn’t see any new wounds on either man.
Travis was breathing hard, but Crane was gasping, clawing for each breath.
When she realized Travis’s dangerous position, she felt a sickening lurch in the region of her stomach. He was about to back into the pack mule. She bit down on her bottom lip to keep from crying out. To distract him now would mean his certain death.
Thanks to the height of the limb she’d been tied to, there was over two feet of rope between her bound wrists. Without taking her eyes off Travis, she fumbled with the knots, only to realize her fingers were so swollen and numb they were all but useless.
Travis jumped back to avoid Crane’s vicious jab at his stomach. He shook his head, trying to cool his raging temper enough to think. There was something he’d overlooked. Something he should be aware of. Wary, he watched Crane’s look grow more self-confident by the second.
A sound behind him, a shuffling—too late he remembered the mule.
The screeching bray came simultaneously with what felt like a locomotive ramming him below the ribs. He landed on his back, stunned.
Crane loomed over him and gave a triumphant shout. He raised the knife in his beefy fist, directly over Travis’s head.
Travis, still stunned, realized his danger and rolled away as swiftly as he could, but Crane followed him, the gleaming knife poised. Travis knew he couldn’t move fast enough to get clear. He couldn’t even breathe.
The bark of the pistol didn’t register in his brain until he saw Crane’s fist open, saw the knife fall to the dirt, and saw Crane stagger forward, stumble, and collapse to the ground, dead.
Travis raised his eyes slowly and stared at a sight he would never forget as long as he lived.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Daniella stood across the clearing, on the other side of the small fire, feet spread, both arms stretched out in front of her, a smoking pistol wavering in her shaking hands.
She’d seen Travis fall beneath the hooves of the mule, seen Crane raise his knife for the kill. Frantically, she’d searched the ground for Crane’s discarded revolver, finding it with no time left to think about what she was doing.
But what was there to think about, after all? Crane had kidnapped her; he’d tried to rape her; he’d killed Car
men; he’d killed Lucinda; and he was going to kill Travis. No, there was no point in thinking. She clutched the gun in both hands, ignoring the rope connecting her wrists, aimed at Crane’s back, and pulled the trigger a mere second before he would have plunged his knife into Travis.
She stared blankly at Billy Joe Crane’s body for a long, stunned moment, then began to shake violently from head to toe. The pistol fell from her trembling fingers.
Travis rose stiffly to his feet and gave one last look at the glazed, dead eyes that stared sightlessly at the darkening sky. In seconds he was across the clearing, taking Dani in his arms. The heat of battle still rushed through his veins. He was unaware of how tightly he held her until she whimpered in pain. He eased his hold at once.
“You’re hurt. Where, Dani?” he questioned frantically, running his hands over her, checking for injuries.
“No,” she answered quickly. “Only bruises.”
“Did he—”
“No!” Then, more calmly, “No. I’m all right. Really. But you’re not.” She tugged at his shirt in an effort to get at his wounds, every bit as frantic as he had just been.
“They’re just scratches, nothing to worry about.”
Then Jason, Luis, and Benito burst into the clearing. Travis pulled Dani to his chest, gently this time, buttoned up her dress and untied her hands.
During the next hour the men carried the bodies from the clearing and set the camp to rights.
Dani told what happened and explained Carmen’s part in the plot. Travis never left her side. Jason and the others took the bodies and started home in spite of the dark. They wouldn’t go far, but wanted to give the couple some privacy.
Travis was grateful. He needed Dani to himself for a while. He needed to hold her, to reassure them both that she was all right.
But she wasn’t all right, he knew. He’d been watching the way she moved, slowly, carefully, the way she hunched her shoulders. The way she tried to hide the wet spots on the front of her dress with her arms.
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