“With it all on fire, he said he couldn’t see a way down. So he went for a rope and a lantern instead. He’s a man of action, my big brother.”
“And you just rode home, with no trouble?”
“It was like I didn’t even hurt for a while. I remember leaving that cave. They made me go first, afraid they’d need to catch me. But I just climbed right out, mounted up onto my horse, and headed out. Rafe told me later that I passed out and fell off my horse a little ways from home. Ethan ran for help because they were afraid to touch me, all burned up like I was. Pa had come home. He carried me into the house. I don’t remember much after that. I got a real bad fever. Then the nightmares started coming. I tossed and turned in bed, which made it hard for my burns to heal.” Seth turned to look at his wife. “I didn’t have the nightmares so much after a while. But by the time I was out of bed, Ma had started sleeping most of the day.”
“That’s not your fault. You needed her and she failed you.”
Seth kissed her quiet. “And Pa was gone off trapping more than ever. He didn’t really live with us anymore. I guess we know now where he went, huh?”
“Your pa failed you, too. You were just a boy. You couldn’t help the nightmares. At least Rafe and Ethan were tough enough to stick with you.”
“They didn’t, though. Not really. Rafe was so watchful, and he blamed himself. He seemed to grow up overnight. I didn’t have a big brother anymore. I had a very young father. And Ethan . . .” Seth shook his head. “Ethan saved me. He goaded me into showing some backbone and climbing up that rock wall. But he said he’d been too hard on me when I’d been hurt so bad. It was like something broke inside him. No matter how bad things got with Ma sick and Pa gone and me climbing down in that cavern every chance I got, he never did nuthin’ but smile.”
“You went back down?” Callie stretched her arm around his shoulders and rubbed his back, her fingers caressing the ugly scars as if they didn’t repulse her.
“I swear I could hear the cavern calling to me. I still hear it sometimes. I’d lay awake and hear it whisper, speak to me. On the nights that happened, I’d have the worst nightmares. I always thought if I could just go down in the cavern, I’d sleep all right. But Rafe watched too close for me to sneak out in the night.”
“Is that what happened the night you left me?” Callie lifted herself away from him and he suddenly felt cold. But she didn’t leave the bed. Instead, she propped herself up with one elbow, and Seth could see her ink-black hair in the first light of dawn.
Dear God, thank you for this woman.
An ache in his chest grew and spread as he thought of his good fortune. He had the most beautiful woman in the world for his very own wife. He had a strapping son who seemed to love him, even when he’d abandoned the little guy.
He remembered being on fire, thinking he’d gone to where the devil lives, and thinking he deserved it for his reckless ways. And now God had blessed him by giving him Callie. By giving him a family. He was blessed in so many ways.
Seth closed the distance between them, and this time he was thinking clearly and didn’t ask for more than a simple kiss.
She came willingly into his arms.
And he did his best to let her know just how wonderful she was.
Chapter
27
Callie woke up alone.
The panic struck before she was fully awake. She was dressed and running out of the bedroom before she gave her actions a rational thought.
It was full daylight. The cabin was empty. A quick glance in the other bedrooms told her Connor and Heath were gone.
Her whole family had abandoned her!
She flung open the door and rushed outside in her bare feet to hear an axe sing in the woods, not that far away. She could have heard it inside if she’d taken a second to think.
Heath came from the chopping block with an armload of kindling, carrying Connor on his back.
“Reckon you were tired after Seth’s nightmares.” Heath slipped past Callie into the house. As he passed, Connor flashed a huge smile at Callie and waved wildly as they went in. Heath added over his shoulder, “Feet cold?”
Callie looked down and flexed her toes. “They most certainly are.”
Trying her best to be calm, Callie followed Heath inside. “Where’s Seth?”
Heath shrugged. “He rode off this morning early. I just caught sight of him through the window. Didn’t talk to him.”
Fighting down the urge to sprint for the barn and saddle up a horse to hunt her husband down, Callie stiffened her backbone as she watched Heath dump kindling into the woodbox.
“Have you eaten?”
“I had some jerky.” Heath acted like it wasn’t important, but Callie thought she saw a flash of hunger in his eyes. After all, he was a growing boy. “Connor ate, too.”
She spent a few minutes dressing properly and getting a dry diaper on Connor, then let him crawl on the floor while she started breakfast. Heath helped get a hearty meal on. Hunger made a child cooperative, Callie decided.
She put a lot of energy into the cooking to keep from jumping out of her skin and was just washing up when she heard the hoofbeats.
A lot of hoofbeats.
She rushed to the window as a longhorn steer came into sight, from the direction of Ethan and Audra’s house.
Heath came up beside her to watch, and by the time a dozen cattle had begun to mill in the yard, Ethan rode in.
He shooed the cattle forward, through the clearing around the house and on down the trail until they were swallowed up by the woods. A grizzled cowhand with a steel-gray mustache came along from where Ethan had first emerged, then a few more men riding herd, then finally Seth.
A shocking desire to cry swelled in her throat and burned her eyes. Seth hadn’t abandoned her.
They’d brought part of the cattle here to graze on the open meadows. Seth had mentioned Ethan bringing them, but Callie hadn’t heard any plans about Seth going off to help herd them.
She hurried to the door. Swung it open, mindful of how easily cattle spooked, and caught Seth’s eye. He had a coil of rope in his hand to haze the cattle down the trail. He lifted it in a lazy salute and his wild blue eyes flashed. Too much passed between them to be possible with a single look. He hadn’t run off.
Riding drag, Seth took the time to stop. “We’ll leave half the herd to graze on a pasture near this place, and take half on to Rafe’s. We’re planning to do it in one day. Ethan wants to get there and get home so he can sleep in his own bed tonight. We’ll be a half hour or so cutting the herd. Is there anything we can have for a meal before we head on?”
For a minute she thought she might break right down and cry. It was such an embarrassing inclination that it brought her to her senses. She nodded.
“We can manage without a meal if it’s too much trouble, but something warm would sure be good. Then afterwards I want you to saddle up and come along. I’ll be all day about this and I don’t like leaving you alone here. It’s high time I started turning you both into cowhands, anyway.”
“I can outride you any day of the week, cowboy.” Callie leaned on the doorframe, so relieved her knees were a little wobbly.
“I’ll just bet that’s right, Mrs. Kincaid. I’m counting on it.” He smiled, the teasing clear in his eyes.
Heath slipped past her. “I’ll saddle up for us both.” He headed for the barn.
They were all fed and on the trail for Rafe’s within the hour.
“Look at this.” Jasper grabbed a piece of paper that scudded across his path in the sharp wind.
“What’ve you got?” Bea asked.
They were ready to saddle up and start tracking. Jasper was in the midst of thinking about his warm house back in Colorado City when he’d spotted the paper. An unusual sight, out in these remote mountains. He pressed it flat and listened to the paper crackling. It hadn’t been out here long. His eyes caught on a detail that couldn’t be mistaken for anything else.
“Could be, Jasper.” Bea studied the picture. “And that’s the cabin.”
Nodding, Jasper looked between the paper and the little building where they’d spent the night. “There looks to be a trail up behind it. It might lead us to the diamonds.”
With an eager nod, Bea said, “Let’s go.”
They followed the map across a deep gully and found a hole in the ground right where the map said it’d be. “What do you think it means?” Jasper looked in the black pit. “Should we go down there?”
“According to the map, there’s a ladder around here somewhere.” Bea looked and Jasper threw in. Scratched-up dirt led them straight to a boulder, where they dragged out the ladder.
A few minutes of working up the nerve and Jasper climbed down into the belly of the earth. When he reached the bottom he knew immediately he was in for trouble. It was too dark. Bea almost knocked him off the ledge when she reached his side.
“Be careful, this is narrow.” Jasper produced the map, barely visible with the light from overhead. “Look at all these twists and turns. If we had a lantern, maybe we could find the diamonds hidden somewhere.”
“I don’t think so. Look at the way the diamond is drawn. It’s off to the side, almost like someone was just fiddling with the pencil. If it was a treasure map, then the diamond oughta be stuck inside the lines, marking the spot.”
Jasper scowled at the map. “Well, we know that whoever drew this most likely has the diamonds.”
Taking another look at the drawing, Bea said, “Appears this cave runs deep, with tunnels going off in different directions. But they don’t show the ends of ’em. The page is filled; I’ll bet whoever drew it made a second page.”
“It’d make pretty good sense to hide the diamonds down here. It’s about as safe a place as you can find. And drawing a map to it makes sense, too. All we need is to get our hands on one of those Kincaids and make him tell us where they hid my gems.”
“We could scare ’em good and not have to hurt anyone. We could . . . hold one of them for ransom.” Bea’s eyes gleamed in the dark cave. “If the one we grab can take us to the diamonds, then we’ll get them and scram. Leave whoever we grab behind and pull up the ladder. Then we’ll leave a note in that shack for the rest of the Kincaids. No one’ll get hurt.”
“There was a lantern in the cabin and we’ve got enough supplies that we could hide down here quite a while.”
They laid out a plan Jasper liked real well and headed back up the ladder. They were a while getting everything in place. Then they set out to find one of the Kincaids and make him talk.
They went down the same trail they’d taken up there until they came to the place it divided. One direction headed back toward the cabin where Jasper and Bea had spent the night before. The other direction might lead them to Rafe Kincaid’s spread.
Jasper hadn’t yet decided which way to go when he heard approaching hooves. He jerked his head toward the woods and quickly dismounted. Bea followed suit.
They led their horses off the trail, then slipped back to where they could watch. Seconds later a longhorn came up the trail, then another and another. Jasper crouched in the trees and watched silently as a herd of cattle moved slowly through, pushed along by Seth Kincaid, a couple of cowhands, and a half-grown boy with a baby strapped on his back. A woman trailed along riding drag.
When the woman passed, Jasper rose to study the direction they were headed.
Bea came to his side. “What are you thinking?”
“Did you see how the woman brought up the rear?”
“What about it?”
“Let’s grab her.”
Bea’s expression looked doubtful. “You heard the parson talk about what happened to that one Kincaid woman. He mentioned dark hair and that she had a baby. I’ll bet that’s her. She held off a band of outlaws single-handedly when they tried to rob the stage. Sounds to me like she’s mighty tough, Jasper.”
“What it sounded like to me was she was cut to ribbons and almost died before help got there. The parson was impressed all right, but he’s from back East. She’d be easy to kidnap. Maybe she can tell us where the diamonds are, and if she can’t, we’ll have our ace in the hole to make the Kincaids talk.”
He pulled out the one diamond and looked at it, then took a step toward his horse. Bea grabbed his arm.
“What?”
“You’ve got to promise me you won’t hurt anyone, Jasper. Swear it. I’ll stick with you while you hunt down your gems, but we come away from this with what’s yours and no harm done.”
“I swear it.” Jasper wondered whether she was fool enough to believe a word he said. He looked at Bea for a long time. “I’m going to cover my face, but how’ll we disguise you?”
“If she can identify us, we’ll have to leave Colorado City.”
Jasper heard in her voice how much she hated giving up her little home. “Let me get hold of her, gag and blindfold her. You stay back until I’ve got her, then don’t talk. She doesn’t even have to know a woman is along.”
Bea hesitated.
Jasper watched her as she mulled over what he’d said. Up to now they hadn’t done a thing wrong. No crime had been committed. That was about to end when they laid hands on that woman.
“I’m going,” he said. “If you want to ride away, I’ll understand.” He was careful about it, but he lifted the diamond just a bit higher, rolled it between his fingers to catch the light.
Jasper waited for her to trust him—or want the diamonds bad enough to accept his lies without question. When she broke eye contact and stared at the diamond, he knew he had her.
She beat him to the horses.
Usually drag was a dirty job, but on these barely broken forest trails, more rock than dirt, there hadn’t been much dust kicked up.
Callie knew the way to Rafe and Julia’s, and the cattle were docile after walking miles this morning. So all she had to do was shout a little encouragement when one of the critters started dogging it. It gave her plenty of time to think with pleasure that her husband hadn’t abandoned her.
Things really were going to be just fine.
A hand clamped over her mouth. An arm wrapped like an iron band around her midsection. Thrashing, she yelled as she was dragged off her horse. But no sound escaped her lips. She clawed for her gun yet couldn’t reach it.
Her head was pulled against a hard chest.
“Get her gun.” A voice hissed in her ear as the last straggler cow curved around the trail and vanished. Leaving her alone with her assailant. Then her eyes were covered and she couldn’t see anything.
A second set of hands tightened the blindfold and then slipped her gun from its holster. Increasing her efforts, Callie elbowed whoever had her. There was a grunt of pain, but his grip didn’t loosen.
“Get her tied up. Fast. We need to get off this trail.” A rope lashed around her, securing her arms to her sides. Screaming behind the hand, still no sound escaped. She tried to bite the man, and his grip tightened, holding her jaw closed.
“Don’t fight me. I’m not going to hurt you.”
She had no reason to trust such words. The kerchief over her eyes was so tight it hurt. The ropes cut into her arms and stomach until it was hard to breathe.
“Bring her horse.” The man issued terse orders under his breath.
As she drew in a breath to scream again, suddenly a wad of cloth was shoved into her mouth.
Choking, fighting to breathe, she was thrown on a horse. Her hands weren’t tied and she grabbed for the reins, but couldn’t find them. The man lashed her wrists to the pommel.
Breathing was a battle. It took all her attention to draw in each bit of air, and before she could think how to fight back next, her horse began walking, then trotting fast.
Think! She had to think. Why would anyone bother her?
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Those outlaws she’d fought when they’d robbed the stagecoach. Had they broken jail? Were they out for revenge?
“You hide the horses where we planned. And leave the note. I’ll get her across the stream. Bring the map.”
Map? The only maps Callie knew of around here were in her saddlebag. Except that one she’d lost.
But who would want a map of the cavern?
“Your family will be hunting you soon. I want some space between me and them. So I’m not letting you make a sound.”
Rough hands dragged Callie off her mount. The second her feet hit the ground, she kicked the man hard.
“Ouch!” The man grabbed her by the front of her blouse and shoved her to the ground. “You little wild cat.” Her captor knelt beside her. Something slammed into the side of her head, a fist or maybe a gun butt. He whispered, “I’m sick of you fighting me.”
The stunning blow had knocked the fight out of her. The hoofbeats of three horses faded. Callie was alone with the man who’d grabbed her and bound her with such cold, ruthless skill.
The world upended and she was hanging, head down, over the man’s shoulders.
“You go first with the end of the rope. That gully is steep. We’ll need to pull her up.”
Callie had a thin line of vision, and she tried to see who was coming up behind her. But for all her twisting around, she couldn’t get a good look.
The partner who had taken the horses passed quickly to take the lead. These two worked well together.
Callie felt as if the ground had dropped from beneath her. The trail was so steep, her face scraped against the rock when she tried to lift her head. She glimpsed rushing water and realized what the man had said. If he wanted to raise her up with a rope, he’d have to let her go. She had a knife in her boot. She tested the bonds. Her arms were tight to her sides, but her hands weren’t bound. She wiggled her fingers to see how much reach she had. If the man let go of her, she might have a chance to—
She was dropped to a rocky ledge at the bottom of the gully. Through her blindfold she saw the man, his face covered with a bandana.
Mary Connealy - [Kincaid Brides 03] Page 21