by Kaki Warner
He was trapped like a rat in a maze.
Strength deserted him. He sagged against the makeshift crutch, his head hanging in despair. How would he get to Daisy and Kate now? They could be out there, needing him, but all he could do was wait for the creek to go down, or sit here until help came, or try to find a way across the logjam.
Lifting his head, he stared numbly at the twisted pile of shattered timbers that had probably saved his life by keeping him from going over the falls. He could never cross that. Not without guide ropes and two good legs.
Then recognition came, and he laughed bitterly.
Caught in the logjam were ropes and splintered planks and shattered two-foot diameter logs. Apparently, he hadn’t gotten that far from the bridge after all. But maybe there was something in that pile he could use to find another way out.
He scanned the steep walls for a place to attach the ropes. Instead, he saw water seeping out of a long split in the rock face, and suddenly he was so thirsty he could hardly swallow. Hobbling over to it, he brushed away grit with his tattered shirtsleeve, then pressed his open mouth to the fissure and greedily sucked up the trickling water. After drinking his fill, he turned and studied the steep grade rising behind the blowdown, wondering if he could climb out that way.
Deep gouges scored the muddy soil where the bear had clawed its way up the slope. A big bear, by the looks of the tracks and depth of the gouges. A sense of defeat moved through Jack when he realized even if he could scale that incline with his bad leg, the bear could very well be up there waiting for him.
Or maybe it wouldn’t wait. Maybe the scent of blood that had attracted it the previous night would bring it back again tonight.
He checked his pocket and was relieved to find he still had his folding jackknife. Small, but it might do some good. With painful slowness, he hobbled over to the logjam, intent on salvaging anything he could use to defend himself or strengthen his blowdown shelter in the event help didn’t come today and he had to spend another night.
Help didn’t come.
But long after dark, when the moonlight spilled silvery bands of light through the gaps in the logs and planks Jack had tied over the blowdown, the bear did.
Eighteen
BRADY AWOKE WITH A GASP, HIS HEART POUNDING IN HIS chest. Not sure what woke him, he listened but heard nothing unusual ... the tick of the day clock on the mantel, a coyote howling down the valley, Jessica breathing softly at his side, her arms and feet flung wide in an attitude of careless abandon she allowed herself only when asleep.
Gently removing the arm thrown across his chest, he rose and padded across the thick rug to the window that overlooked the front of the house. Pushing the drape aside, he looked out.
The sky had cleared except for a few wispy clouds moving east ahead of a three-quarter moon. A pale gray wash highlighted the landscape, creating odd shadows but giving some visibility. Across from him the barn was a dark, looming mass, its sharp angles and long, flat planes softened by moonlight. In the paddocks, horses rested quietly. No dogs barked. Nothing moved.
Then what had woken him? Awareness burst into his mind.
Jack.
Not an image, or even a fully formed thought—but a feeling, a certainty—that Jack was alive and in trouble and needed him.
Now.
He quickly gathered the garments he’d thrown over one of the wingback chairs by the cold fireplace and slipped into the dressing room. Without taking time to light the lamp, he hurriedly dressed, the sense of urgency so strong it made him clumsy, and his shaking fingers fumbled with the buttons on his shirt.
They’d searched all yesterday from dawn until full dark. Still no sign. The nights were cool, too cool for an injured man or one without shelter or dry clothes. If they didn’t find Jack today ...
No! He wouldn’t even consider that possibility. They would find him. And Brady had an idea of where they should start looking. It was a long shot, but with the creek running as fast as it was, Jack might have drifted that far. It was the only place he could think of that they hadn’t already searched.
A moment later, he stepped back out of the dressing room to find the lamp lit and Jessica sitting up in bed.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, as unerringly attuned to him and his moods as he was to hers.
He considered lying to her. Not just to shield her from worry, but because he didn’t want to waste time in explanations. But lying to Jessica had never come easy, so he decided to go for partial truth.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said, avoiding her eyes as he sat in one of the chairs to pull on his boots. “Thought I’d get an early start.”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“There’s plenty of moonlight yet.”
“Brady.”
Clenching his teeth in impatience, he lifted his head and looked at her.
“What’s wrong?”
He continued pulling on his boots, speaking hurriedly, his tone daring her to argue. “He’s alive, Jessica. I know he is. I have to go.”
“Can you not at least wait for daylight?”
“No. He’s in trouble. I feel it. And he’s running out of time.”
He stood, lifted his gun belt from the hook behind the door, and slid it around his waist. As he buckled it on, he could feel her watching, could feel the press of all her unasked questions and her doubts and fears for both him and Jack.
“I won’t give up on him, Jessica,” he said curtly. “I won’t lose another brother. By God, I won’t.”
When she didn’t respond, he looked over to find her studying him, her eyes dark, luminous pools in her worried face.
“Then what can I do to help?” she asked.
Gratitude flooded him. He loved her for that—for understanding, for letting him do what he had to do without pulling him down with her doubts and worries. Crossing the room in two strides, he cupped her face in his hands and gave her a hard, quick kiss. She tasted of sleep and her hair smelled like flowers and his love for her was like a living, breathing thing lodged in his chest.
He straightened and gave her a look he hoped would reassure her. “I can’t wait on Hank. Tell him I’m going to Dead Horse Falls. Have him bring the wagon of supplies and meet me there. I’m sure that’s where Jack is.”
“Find him then, Brady. Bring him home.”
“I will.” He left the bedroom and hurried down the hall. As he came around the curve of the staircase, he saw a figure silhouetted against one of the moonlit entry windows. Daisy.
She turned to watch him come down the last of the stairs.
Even with the dim light, the woman looked like she’d been dragged behind a horse. But despite her haggard, scratched appearance and the terror he saw in her eyes, he sensed within her the same unyielding resolve that seemed to afflict all the women in his family. He and his brothers were lucky that way.
“Why aren’t you asleep?” he asked as he stepped onto the entry landing.
“Why aren’t you?”
He paused and looked down at her, thinking again his brother would be ten times a fool to let this woman get away from him. “I’m going to get Jack.”
Hope trembled in her voice. “You know where he is?”
“I think so.”
Air rushed out of her. Reaching a shaking hand into her pocket, she brought out something that glinted in the shaft of moonlight coming through the window. “When you find him, give him this. For luck.”
It was a silver cross. Nodding, Brady took it and slipped it into his pocket. As he started toward the coat hooks on the other side of the entry, she reached out and caught his arm.
“You bring him back to me, Brady,” she said in a wobbly voice. “Promise me you won’t come back without him.”
“My word.”
STANLEY ASHFORD DRESSED CAREFULLY. HE HADN’T SEEN Jessica Thornton for almost four years, and it was important to him that he looked his best.
Not Thornton, he reminded himself. Wilkins now
.
Stupid woman.
Careful to avoid looking at his face in the mirror, he made sure the points of his collar were perfectly straight and aligned, then reached for the new tie he had bought expressly for this occasion. Slipping it around his neck, he lined up the loose ends before tying it.
Wilkins Cattle and Mining, he called himself now.
Pretentious bastard.
At least the new name was easier to say than RosaRoja Rancho.
The last time Stanley had been to the ranch, Wilkins had been a hard-luck rancher living in a worn-out adobe house with his two idiot brothers—one of whom looked like a damned cave dweller. Now he heard they lived in a grand log and stone mansion. They had mines and their own spur line and fancy crossbred horses and cattle. Now they were rich.
But not for long. Stanley took some satisfaction in that.
Pleased with the width and fluff of the bow tie, he crossed to the small wardrobe that passed for a clothes closet in this dismal hotel room. He pulled out the black gabardine jacket he’d had the coolies in the laundry down the street clean and press. After inspecting it carefully for wrinkles and scorch marks, he hung it on the door then made the same thorough examination of the brocaded vest he intended to wear under it.
Hate for Brady Wilkins churned in his belly. He’d despised the cocky bastard from the moment Wilkins had walked into the stage stop where Stanley had been gagging down a bowl of chili and enjoying the admiration of Jessica Thornton. Widow Thornton, she had assured him and her other fellow passengers on the westbound that day.
But the Widow Thornton had fooled them all, hadn’t she?
He had known who Wilkins was, of course. The Wilkins brothers were notorious throughout the area, and not just because of their feud with Sancho Ramirez over their ranch. They were admired, actually admired, for being hardheaded, clannish, uncompromising sons of bitches who would rather live in prideful squalor than allow the railroads access across their land.
Idiots. The West was full of them.
But advance work for the railroads was Stanley’s business, and he had dealt with men like Wilkins before. In fact, Wilkins was the reason Stanley had been in the area that day—to secure the RosaRoja water rights for his employers, the Texas and Pacific Railroad. And when Wilkins, whose horse had died somewhere between the stopover and El Paso, had climbed onto the stage for the last leg into Val Rosa, Stanley had considered it a lucky break.
Then their stagecoach had fallen over a cliff. By the time Stanley had recovered—at the Wilkins ranch, that pesthole—the T&P had decided upon an alternate route to San Diego, and Stanley was out of a job. Oh, he soon got another one, of course. In this wasteland, men of his refinement and education and experience seldom lacked employment for long. But working for a small group of investors on a branch line was not as lucrative as working for one of the big railroads or the transcontinental, and Stanley had soon found it difficult to maintain his style of living. So using that education and experience his employers had so vastly undervalued, he’d augmented his meager salary by using the money his employers had set aside for the purchase of water rights to make his own investments in the Union Pacific Railroad.
And it would have paid off handsomely except for the Credit Mobilier scandal. Now the railroads were toppling like a house of cards, and the Union Pacific was looking at bankruptcy, as were most of its investors.
Except in Stanley’s case, it would be embezzlement charges and prison as well.
Smoothing his hands over the front of the vest, he savored the slickness of silk against his palms then pulled on his jacket. He smiled, liking the feel of it too. A perfect fit and well worth the outrageous price he’d paid for it.
Stanley liked looking his best. He liked living well and enjoying fine things. Perhaps that small weakness was what had led him down the treacherous path he found himself on today.
No matter. Soon he would be back on track and all would be as it should be.
Either Wilkins would repay the smelter loan that Stanley had forced that banker, Lockley, to sell him—which would then enable Stanley to return the borrowed funds to the railroad account before the auditors came. Or if Wilkins couldn’t pay, then Stanley would take the deed to the ranch instead, and as the new owner of RosaRoja, he would hand over the secured water rights to the auditors and he would be saved.
Either way, he couldn’t lose.
And just to be doubly sure, he had an ace up his sleeve. The Widow Thornton. She would do anything for her husband, he’d been told. And Brady Wilkins would do the same for her. All Stanley had to do was apply the right pressure on the right spouse.
A perfect plan.
After dusting his coat sleeves for stray lint, he straightened his lapels, then moved to stand before the full-length cheval mirror beside the bureau. Bracing himself, he looked at his reflection.
As always, there was that instant of shock when he first saw his ravaged face, followed almost immediately by a feeling of such fury and disgust it bordered on nausea. Only a handful of people in the entire country were unable to tolerate the smallpox vaccine, and he had to be one of them.
Goddamn Indians. They’re the ones who kept the virus going. They should all be shot.
Frowning at his scarred image, he tried to see himself through Jessica’s eyes. She had looked on him with approval at one time. Even interest. Certainly admiration. Would she even recognize the handsome man she had once esteemed?
No matter. She was used goods anyway. He knew all about her now.
Several years ago when he’d first read the notice tacked to the board outside the sheriff’s office in Socorro seeking information about a lost Englishwoman with red hair, he’d known exactly to whom it referred. The sheriff, a garrulous old man missing his right ear, had confirmed it.
The Widow Thornton had never been married at all, it seemed. And a man in England named John Crawford was offering a huge reward for her return.
Her lover perhaps? The father of the child she carried?
No, children. Twins, he’d heard. One stillborn, and the other very much alive. He wondered if Brady Wilkins knew the truth about lying Widow Thornton and her bastard son?
Stanley smiled. He had hoarded her dirty little secret for years, waiting for the perfect moment to bring it to light. How gratifying that the time had finally come.
Lifting the tin of Orland’s French Hair Dressing and Restorative from the bureau, Stanley scooped a dab more pomade and smoothed it over the blond strands covering his bald spot. Then returning the tin to the bureau, he straightened his jacket and made a final check.
Perfect.
Satisfied, he left the room, ready to go visit the esteemed Mrs. Jessica Thornton Wilkins and her lout of a husband. He laughed softly, looking forward to bursting their happy little bubble of domestic bliss.
Just a few more days. Then, either Wilkins would have somehow found a way to repay the loan, at which time Stanley would be able to put back the money he’d borrowed from the railroad account. Or the ranch and all those lucrative water rights would be his.
And if that were the case, the best part, the part he would relish the most, would be booting that English slut and her turd-kicking husband to the road while he toasted his toes by the fire in their fancy new house.
He laughed softly, picturing it. What a treat that would be.
A PURPLISH PINK GLOW WAS JUST BACKLIGHTING THE EASTERN ridges when Brady neared Dead Horse Canyon. After a day and a night without rain, the creek had started back down, but it was still running so full and fast he could hear the roar of the falls even though it was still fifty yards upstream.
He reined in and dismounted. Because of the canyon’s sheer walls, he would have to leave the horse here and climb on foot down to the base of the falls. He had decided to check there first, before working his way back upstream. If Jack had made it this far, and had gone over the falls, then that was where he’d be. Dead or alive.
That sense of urgency gr
ew stronger.
Jack had to be somewhere in this canyon. They’d looked everywhere else. Brady wouldn’t even consider that his brother might be dead and the reason they hadn’t found him was because his body had gotten caught on a submerged log, or trapped in a logjam, or might even now be lying at the bottom of a swirling backwash waiting to be exposed when the creek went down.
Moving quickly, he loosened the coils of rope lashed to the front of the saddle and untied the bulging saddlebags attached behind the cantle. Knowing he might have to cross to the other side, and not wanting to have to backtrack later, he loaded himself up with the supplies he’d brought. In addition to a hundred feet of stout rope, the long knife in his boot, the Colt with five rounds—he never carried a live round under the hammer in case of accidental discharge—he’d also stuffed his saddlebags with a hatchet, a small shovel, an extra jacket for Jack, heavy gloves, a box of safety matches wrapped in oilcloth, a packet of dried meat, and assorted medical supplies like cotton batting, gauze, carbolic ointment, and pads suitable for dressing wounds. The saddlebags felt like they weighed fifty pounds when he slung them over his shoulder.
Leaving the horse tied to a tree, he picked up the rope and with the saddlebags slapping against his back, worked his way as fast as he safely could over tangled brush and downed limbs toward the base of the falls.
Thoughts of his brother haunted him with every step.
He couldn’t imagine life without Jack. As much as he’d butted heads with his brother in the past, and even resented and envied him at times, there was something about Jack that had such a strangle-hold on Brady, to lose him would be to lose part of himself.
Maybe even the best part.
They’d always fought. Jack could try the patience of a saint, and Brady was no saint. On the farm in Missouri, before they’d come west, whenever there had been a task to be delegated or a reprimand to be given, it had fallen on Brady. Never Jack. Pa always had excuses.