And aren’t you about to do even worse with Geronimo?
The question from the back of his mind surprised him. From that day when he was five and found out from Wade that Phillip and Lucy weren’t his real parents, Blake had vowed to kill the man who’d murdered his mother.
Justice? Maybe.
Revenge, certainly. And it would be his.
That his action would be sanctioned by orders from the highest possible military authority—were the orders an excuse to justify what he’d always wanted? Probably. That didn’t mean he wanted it any less.
And his orders wouldn’t protect him, he knew. He was on his own. If he were seen, identified, he would be a wanted man the rest of his life.
He told himself—as he always had—that it was worth it. He told himself avenging his mother’s death was worth anything.
Even Jessie?
The answer wouldn’t come, but Blake figured the question was pointless. Jessie was sweet and beautiful and rich. She thought she was in love with him, but it was probably because of the circumstances. They’d been thrown together by her kidnapping. She was grateful to him. That was all. She wouldn’t really want to tie her life to a man filled with so much hate, a man who’s hunger for something he couldn’t even name, something that had nothing to do with revenge and everything to do with Jessie—a hunger so powerful it would devour her.
Geronimo couldn’t cost him Jessie, because she wasn’t Blake’s to begin with.
And don’t you forget it, Renard.
Blake tied his horses in the thick woods, with the entire length of the massive parade ground between him and the watch tower on the other end. Twenty yards away, in the direction of the guard house, he tied the horse he’d brought for Colton. No use in Colton seeing the pack horse and asking questions.
Slipping from shadow to shadow, he made his way to the Infantry Post still under construction. Damned accommodating of the Army to give him such an easy way to come and go undetected. He didn’t know if it was the approaching storm, General Stanley’s overblown egotism, or sheer neglect that left not a single guard in the entire area, and he didn’t care. In the intermittent flashes of lightning, he could see the white row of tents housing the prisoners across the parade ground in the quadrangle. What he could not see, because there evidently were none on this side, were guards.
Damn, but this was going to be too easy.
Keeping to the shadows, Blake crept up to the side of the guard house and listened. He heard nothing but the wind and the storm. The building was dark. Lightning arced overhead from cloud to cloud. When it finished, Blake peered around the corner of the building.
Nothing. No one.
Strange, he thought, feeling the adrenaline rush through him. Where were the guards?
He slipped along the front of the building, ducking low to avoid the window in the front cell, and stole a look around the corner toward the door. No guards there either.
Hell. How was he supposed to open the damn door if he couldn’t lift the keys from the guard?
The crunch of a footstep on gravel had him sliding into the dark corner past the door to the cells.
Two privates, shoulders and necks hunched low against the gusting wind, hurried toward the guard house. Blake slid farther into the corner, praying the two would walk on by.
They didn’t. They paused a moment a half-dozen yards away, looked toward the guard house, conferred with each other in low voices, then came straight to the cell door and peered in.
“Pace? Pace!”
Shocked, Blake could only stare at the two short figures less than three feet away from him in the darkness. Good God Almighty! What the hell were they doing here?
“Pace! Answer me,” the second voice called.
Blake shook his head. At least with the second voice, he knew one of the two was not Jessie. “Evening, ladies.”
The sharp gust of wind carried with it millions of tiny sand particles to sting the flesh and eyes of anyone foolish enough to be out in it. Jessie tugged the brim of her cap low and ducked her head. Thunder boomed directly overhead. She flinched. How was she supposed to keep four horses and two pack mules quiet in weather like this?
And even if she couldn’t, who the devil would hear a snort or whinny over the furious noise of wind, lightning, and thunder?
While her mother and sister had snuck into the fort to get Pace, Jessie had been left in charge of the animals under cover of the woods just beyond the gate to the quadrangle. If the lightning got any closer, she knew she would have to lead the animals out into the open. The trees looming over her were much too tall for her peace of mind during this type of weather.
Another gust of wind, this one carrying the definite scent of rain, buffeted her. The gust swept through the trees, then the air stilled momentarily, waiting for more.
Into the temporary stillness, Jessie thought she heard a shout. She stiffened. Had something gone wrong? Were her mother and Rena discovered?
She waited five more minutes, then couldn’t stand not knowing what was happening. They’d been gone too long. After checking to make certain each animal was tied securely, Jessie crept out of the woods and into the fort.
It was too easy. Where was the sentry?
In the lee of another wind gust, more voices carried to her. Angry shouts and curses from the direction of the tents housing the prisoners. Light glowed there, while most of the rest of the fort was in darkness.
She glanced in the direction of the guard house, but couldn’t pick it out from this distance along the dark row of buildings. She saw no light, no movement in that direction.
But there was activity beneath the trees fronting the prisoners’ tents. She checked to make sure her hair was still stuffed beneath her cap, then darted across an open stretch of ground toward the row of trees. Breath held, she waited for a shout, for someone to spot her and send up an alarm.
There was a shout, but it came from ahead. It sounded angry.
Where were the guards usually posted around the tents?
She learned the answer a moment later when she spotted more than a dozen soldiers and what appeared to be every one of the Apache prisoners gathered between the tallest tree and the tent she knew was occupied by Geronimo and Naiche. Several lanterns lit the small clearing. Swaying tree limbs cast eery shadows along the ground.
Gatewood and Wratten were there, as well as a general. And there was Captain Lawton. She recognized a few of the others as guards she’d seen earlier in the day, and some she may have seen boarding the train in Bowie. The troopers formed a circle around the tree, facing outward toward the Apaches who were trying to push closer, their voices rumbling in what could only be protest.
“You can’t do this,” Wratten yelled.
“I can, and I am,” the general yelled back.
Lieutenant Gatewood stepped forward. “Begging your pardon, General, but these are my prisoners. This man is my responsibility. I must request that you—”
His words were cut off by Jessie’s sharp cry as she discovered the reason for the argument. Pace, her beloved older brother, was manacled and chained to that tall tree next to the men! Shock held her immobile for a moment, but only a moment.
As the men turned to gape at her, rage rose up to choke her. Not this time, she vowed. She would not stand idly by and do nothing while the Army had its way with Pace again. She would not allow her inaction to be the reason Pace suffered. This time, she would stop it. Somehow.
With deliberate movements, she pulled the cap from her head and shook out her hair.
“Good God!” the general cried. “Who are you?”
With a peculiar sense of calm and unwavering determination, Jessie pulled the revolver from the holster at her side and aimed it at the general’s chest. “I’m the one who’s going to shoot you here and now if you don’t unlock my brother’s chains.”
In the instant of shocked silence, Jessie half expected Pace to protest her interference the way he had in Bowie. A
quick sideways glance at him told her any words from him were unlikely. They’d beaten him again. One eye was swollen completely shut. Blood streamed from several cuts along his mouth. Rage filled her again.
“Mr. Wratten,” Jessie said, that unnatural calm still in her voice. “Would you please fire your pistol into the air three times in rapid succession while I keep the general covered?”
The three people gathered in the shadows of the guard house heard the shots.
“Jessie!” Daniella cried.
Blake felt his stomach clench. “Shit.” He took off at a dead run across the quarter mile of bare parade ground toward the quadrangle, where the shots had originated. The two women rushed to follow, but he didn’t wait for them.
Jessie. Damn her hide. Her mother had said she was watching the horses. What the hell had gone wrong?
And where was Pace Colton? Had he managed to escape on his own, or had Gatewood or General Stanley moved him?
Most of his questions were answered when he reached the gathering on the quadrangle. Good God Almighty, Pace Colton was chained to a tree and Jessie looked just wild-eyed enough to put a bullet right between the shiny buttons on General Stanley’s coat. Jesus. Her hands weren’t even shaking.
From the corner of her eye Jessie saw Blake rush into the circle of light. Her pulse, already racing with the wind, took another leap. But she couldn’t afford to wonder what he was doing here. He had obviously lied to her about having to leave town. If he didn’t want anything more to do with her, so be it. She had other things on her mind just then. If it hurt to have Blake so near, she would just have to deal with it later.
“Unchain him, General,” she said coldly. “Now!”
The general looked past her shoulder.
Jessie felt her hackles rise. Would someone rush her from behind? Would Wratten help her again?
“Sergeant,” the general said to someone behind her. “Take that gun away from this young lady before she hurts herself.
Behind her Jessie heard a shuffling. “Sergeant,” she called loudly. “Unless you want to be responsible for my pulling this trigger, you’ll stay right where you are.”
“Jessie! What—” Daniella’s voice cut off sharply. “Pace! Oh, my God.”
The guards’ attention swung to Daniella. Geronimo slipped past the troopers and into the inner circle to stand beside Jessie. Blake stiffened. If that murdering renegade so much as breathed on her, Blake would carry out his secret orders right there in front of everyone, and damn the consequences.
Geronimo spoke low and hard in his own language. His words, blending with the thunder of the night, were addressed to General Stanley.
Wratten interpreted. “Geronimo says Fire Seeker is not one of his warriors. He does not understand why the Army arrested him or the scouts, but at least the scouts have not been beaten and chained like dogs. He asks you to explain why this is being done.”
“Yes.” Daniella stood at Jessie’s other side. “Explain, General. Right after you unchain him.”
“Mrs. Colton, your son was caught trying to escape.”
“I doubt that,” she answered sharply.
“That he would try to escape?”
“That he would get caught,” came Daniella’s terse reply. “He’s been taught better. If Pace had tried to escape, I assure you your men would not have caught him.”
Stanley’s face turned a mottled red in the light from the lanterns. He opened his mouth, but Jessie cut him off.
“Enough talk. The key, General. Now.”
“I will not honor a demand made at gunpoint.”
Lieutenant Gatewood spoke up. “Begging the general’s pardon, but neither will you honor my right to see to my own prisoners.”
Blake took a deep breath. He knew Stanley well enough to know he would stand there and let Jessie drill holes into him before he would give in to threats. It was time to play his trump card.
“Perhaps, General, you’ll honor a set of written orders from someone who outranks you,” Blake said.
Stanley jerked. “Last time I checked, generals still outranked captains, Renard.”
“But brigadier generals outrank generals. At least that’s what they taught us at West Point.” He pulled a folded slip of paper from the inside breast pocket of his coat and passed it to Stanley.
With pure hatred flashing in his eyes, Stanley took the orders and read them. Then he laughed. “You and I both know what this means, Captain.”
So, Miles had written to Stanley about his verbal orders to Blake. But Stanley wouldn’t be able to admit it. Not without landing himself and Miles in the guard house.
“It means exactly what it says. General Miles’s orders are quite specific. They mean exactly what they say—see that the half-breed known as Fire Seeker is taken care of.”
From the corner of his eye he saw Jessie stiffen.
Before him, General Stanley glared.
“Now,” Blake said quietly. “Who’s got the key to those manacles?”
Before Stanley could respond, a bolt of charged light streaked down from the sky to the tree where Pace was chained. Blinding light flashed. A tremendous explosion rent the air and knocked everyone to the ground. Men and women alike screamed.
The lightning shot down the tree, drawn by the promise of iron, and danced along the chains. Pace Colton’s arms stiffened. His head reared back, his chest bowed out, and his hair literally stood on end. Fire shot down the chains and between the manacles on his wrists and ankles.
Blinded by the light, stunned by the noise, Blake instantly lost sight of Colton as the whole tree seemed to explode. The air filled with the smell of sulphur, burning wood, and singed flesh.
Blake saw Jessie struggle toward the tree. He tried to reach her, but Geronimo got to her first and dragged her back. The sight of the bastard’s arm around Jessie’s waist made Blake furious, yet at the same time, grateful that someone—anyone—had kept her from reaching Pace and the fire still sizzling through the tree and down the chains.
It was a long moment before Blake realized the tree was not on fire. But the trunk had been sheered down the middle, with half of it now lying on the ground. The half of the trunk that supported the branch Pace was chained to still stood.
Colton hung limp from his manacles.
“Pace!” Daniella screamed.
“No!” Blake grabbed her just as she would have touched the manacle on one wrist. “Don’t touch it. Look!” He pointed to the smoke wafting from the fired iron. Daniella acted as though she didn’t care. She struggled fiercely.
“Rena?” Daniella cried.
“I don’t know.” Serena stood and stared at her brother with tears streaming down her cheeks. “…dear God, I don’t know, Mother.”
Without taking her eyes from her son, Daniella calmed, then stepped away from Blake. “Give me the key,” she said dully.
“You can’t,” Blake said fiercely.
In her eyes he saw the fires of hell. “I will not leave my son hanging there like a side of meat!”
“I’ve got it.” Serena held a ring of keys a sergeant handed to her. “I’ll do it.”
“No.” Daniella took the keys herself. “Which one, Sergeant?”
“T-the…l-longest one.”
“Mama?” Jessie’s voice quivered.
“I have to, Jessie. I have to.”
“Good God, woman!” General Stanley yelled. “You’ll be burned if you touch that iron. He’s dead already. There’s nothing you can do.”
Without taking her eyes from Pace, Daniella spoke. “Jessie, do you still have your gun?”
Jessie raised her hand, looking surprised to find the pistol still in her grip. “Yes.”
“If General Stanley opens his mouth again, I want you to shoot him.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The demure words echoed with the fierce determination in Jessie’s voice.
The Apaches gathered close, mumbling among themselves.
Daniella selected the correct ke
y and stepped toward her son. With a deep breath, she reached for the manacles. Before the key reached the hole, Blake put a hand on her shoulder. “Let me.”
She looked at him, and her eyes widened. “I believe you really mean it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She shook her head sadly. “Thank you, Blake, but he’s my son. This is for me to do.”
Then she stepped forward again and thrust the key into the smoldering lock.
Chapter Fourteen
Daniella jerked against the heat that traveled instantly from manacle to key. But she didn’t let go of the key. With a fierce cry, she turned it in the lock and released one manacle. Pace’s wrist slipped free. As he fell, Blake leaped forward and caught him, lowering him to the ground as carefully as he could. He unlocked the other manacle and tossed it away, then felt frantically for a pulse.
Nothing. He tried again. “Come on, come on, Colton, don’t quit on us now.”
Daniella dropped to her knees next to him. Her voice sounded like that of a lost and frightened child. “Blake?”
Blake pressed his fingers harder beside Pace’s Adam’s apple. There! “He’s alive!”
Daniella sagged with relief. With violently shaking hands she touched her son’s arm. “Pace, thank God.”
“Get a stretcher,” Captain Lawton commanded. “Get him to the infirmary. Somebody go wake the doctor.”
While Blake unshackled Pace’s ankles he watched Daniella hover over her son. She cried over the burns on his wrists and ankles where the manacles had been. She touched his face so gently, so lovingly, Blake’s vision blurred from just being near so much unconditional love.
Geronimo and Naiche tried to approach but were halted by guards.
“Let them go,” Gatewood ordered.
General Stanley made as if to speak. Whatever he would have said ended in a gurgle of rage when Jessie raised her pistol to his face.
The two Apache leaders knelt beside Daniella and spoke with her in their low guttural language. Daniella replied in their own tongue. The two seemed pleased by whatever she said. Then they spoke grimly, furiously, and Daniella once more responded.
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