Taking a breath, she swung forward and jumped.
She landed almost before she started falling. She tasted blood in her mouth; she’d bitten her tongue. Her spine ached; she’d sat down hard. Crouching down, clutching the rock, she shook with a belated palsy of fear.
She was alive.
Glancing down, the dark rushed up at her, and she bit off a shriek.
A roar from above answered her. Damian called, “Catriona,” and his anguish lured the tears from her eyes to splash on the stone at her feet. But at least he was still alive.
She retreated. Her back found the wall; she leaned against it, seeking security in its cool, solid strength. Clearing her eyes, she lowered her gaze. Dizziness assaulted her, turned her stomach, made her break out in a sweat.
She rested on a narrow shelf that jutted from the stone supporting the floor above. Around her, there was nothing. Just a bottomless chasm in endless space. She closed her eyes. She opened them, stared straight ahead, and concentrated. There had to be a way off of this shelf. Tobias had been down here. Tobias had gotten out. There had to be a way off of here. Of course, Tobias would have brought a rope.
A flash from above attracted her attention, and she froze. Vietta’s head and two hands, outlined against the light from above, sent Katherine burrowing back. The shadow hid Vietta’s expression, but not the searching sweeps of her head as she searched for evidence of Katherine’s death.
Katherine didn’t blink, didn’t breathe, didn’t think. A small laugh from above signaled Vietta’s satisfaction, and Katherine held herself still until Vietta disappeared. She could hear grunts and cries from above. With her back hard against the chill wall, she fought to stand up. Betrayed by the seemingly solid rock, her head, then her shoulders slipped backwards. Where was the cliff? How could it disappear into a void?
Yet here she was, wedged into a crevasse. She twisted, and her hand met nothing. There should be stone, but it was empty. She squinted at the wall in the twilight. A hole, the darkest part of the already charcoal night, led off into the rock. With both hands, she probed the narrow passage, but she couldn’t find the back of it. She pushed her head in; black assaulted her. Her eyes strained against the gloom, and she shut them. She twisted until her shoulders could fit, wiggled until her hips jammed at the entrance, wiggled some more. Her knees, her feet followed, and the burrow widened and lowered.
Her own stupidity stopped her. Where was she going? Into the bowels of the earth? Perhaps Tobias had escaped this way; perhaps not. What if she took the wrong turn? Would she wander until she died?
She tried to look back at the opening, but she couldn’t turn enough to do that. This reminded her of a tomb, chill and silent. Would she be buried alive? This was a stupid place to die, and she was afraid. Her trembling made her slip on the damp stone. A drip of water from above made her jump and knock her head; she slithered backwards.
The fetid air moved; a breeze, light and unexplained, touched her cheek. She halted, experienced a tiny surge of courage; remembered her mission and what the stakes were. Somewhere in the cave above her, three people fought, all at odds with each other, and only one could win.
Damian had to win. She would make him win. She would prove herself to him and explain everything.
Thrusting out her hands, she groped forward. The tunnel dropped at first, frightening her again. Then it rose, a tiny passage leading almost straight upward. It twisted to the side. Where was she going? Oh, God, what would she find when she got there?
The tube that contained her lifted again, throwing her equilibrium off until she found handholds and toeholds. She climbed until she wondered why she didn’t break through the floor, then she blinked. Was that the light? Staring up, she blinked again. It was. It was light, subdued, perhaps, but after the night in this tunnel, it looked like the blazing sun. Encouraged, she struggled on—and touched something. Something soft. Shuddering, she recoiled, wiping her palm on her skirt.
She could barely see it, a something on the shelf she must use to climb further. What was it? A piece of rotting flesh? A long-forgotten trap? Could she stand to touch it again?
Yet it rested on the one place she must use to climb farther. She had to go on, and she reached out again. A leatherbound book fit into the palm of her hand. Puzzled, she held it, but a sound made her lift her head.
In the tunnel, a low whistling swept her ears, and she obeyed the command of the wind. “Hurry.”
His eye was swollen closed, his nose was bloodied, yet Damian lowered his head and drove it into Emerson Smith’s belly. The big man went down, and Damian slumped.
Katherine was dead.
Katherine was dead, and nothing mattered. Nothing but making sure that neither one of these animals—not Smith, not Vietta—escaped the consequences of their villainy. If he could just get his hands on his gun. . . .
It had been all he could do to stay out of Smith’s grasp. Smith’s reach was long; his fingers were like tentacles. His fighting expertise bespoke the streets, and Damian’s training with the vaqueros had been barely enough. Now, Smith writhed on the ground. If Damian could just get his hands on the gun, the contest could be his. He would have won the battle, and lost everything.
If he could just get his hands on his gun; but the gun had been kicked all over the uneven floor. Vietta scuttled past on her hands and knees. Damian grinned and stalked toward her. Her knife rattled to the floor, loud in the cave.
She ignored it. She sought the gun. He would have it first.
Like a wounded rattlesnake striking, Smith grabbed Damian’s ankle. Smith jerked; Damian kicked with his other leg, using his boot heel to smash Smith’s face. Smith’s neck snapped back, and Damian scrambled away.
He couldn’t let Smith catch him, for those long arms gave Smith an advantage Damian couldn’t counter. Yet Smith leaped, tackling Damian and rolling all the way over. The pit yawned beside them; Damian felt its breath, knew its terror. He was trapped, Smith on his chest, death beside him. Smith reached for Damian’s throat.
Damian understood Katherine’s agony, now. Smith throttled him, silent, intent, working to finish the job and be done. Damian struggled, twisting, seeing colors explode and the floor lift like ripples under his gaze. A shiny object caught his eye.
Vietta’s knife.
He clawed for it. Smith pulled him back. He reached again, and beneath his cheek in a flat paving stone set into the floor, he saw a clock.
A clock that had the face of death.
He knocked Smith’s hands away, rolled and groped desperately. He sought a fingerhold, an edge to lift. His fingernails scraped in a bone-chilling shriek. There was nothing, and Smith had him again. In frustration, his fingers closed around a large, cold rock, a heavy rock. A gold nugget.
Strike Smith? That made sense.
Strike the clock in the floor?
How stupid.
Lifting the chunk of gold, he smashed the clock with all his might. Startled, Smith leaned back and laughed. “You are soft,” he shouted. “Soft and stupid, and you’re going to die for it.”
Above his head, Damian saw the beams move. “Am I?” He pointed up, and the triumph in his face brought Smith scrambling to his feet—right into the path of an oak log, swinging in a wide arc from the ceiling.
It rammed Smith in the chest, lifting him off Damian. The force of it carried him over the pit, slipping down as he clawed frantically at the wood, then back, until his long, dangling legs smacked against the rim. He hung for a moment, an expression of terror and surprise on his face.
He fell, screaming, all the way down.
The log completed its huge arc, its pivot point above Damian. It swung, creaking, and he stirred uneasily. Above him, he saw more movement, as if the whole structure had been unbalanced.
He rolled, snatching up the knife and scrambling for the edge of the cave, for the spot where the dried body slumped in safety. End first, the oak log punched down, crushing away the rock where he had lain. The floor br
oke off like a piece of hard candy, collapsing into the pit. The beams above groaned in protest; the abyss gobbled the ground around it in mighty chomps.
Damian measured the distance between him and the outside, but the tumult died. Pebbles and sand still slithered down, but for the moment the cave was secure. For the moment, he could seek his revenge.
“Vietta,” he called, levering himself up.
Out of the shadows she stepped. “Yes, Damian?”
She held his pistol pointed at him. He had known she would. They’d performed this scene before, but this time there would be a different ending. “Are you going to shoot me, Vietta?”
“Yes.” Her lovely voice crooned the word, and she seemed to take pleasure in the thought. “I want the gold. That’s all I want, and I’m going to have it.”
The fading sunlight hardly touched him. “You’ve wanted it for a long time, but it’s not real. It’s just a rock, like every other rock in this cavern.”
“It’s not a rock,” she declared. “It’s gold, and it’s real. I’ve never had it, and I’m going to have it now.”
“Love is real, Vietta,” he mocked, “and you’ve never had it.”
“What do you mean?”
“What will you do with the gold? Buy yourself friends? Buy yourself a lover? Buy yourself parents who care about you? Why, all of Alta California waits somewhere down the mountain, prepared to kill you for your precious gold. What makes you think you can keep the gold, when you can’t even find one person to be your friend?”
“You bastard.” Her voice cracked with strain. “When I have the gold, everyone will love me.”
His laughter swelled from his toes, from his chest, up through his throat to a full-bodied merriment.
“Everyone. Everyone.” She backed from him, her eyes glowing hot. “Everyone.” She cocked the pistol, but still he laughed, watching her.
“No one will ever love you with the intensity that I’ve loved Katherine.” His amusement stopped, cut from him with a stab of pain. “You murdered my Katherine.”
Vietta fired. A muffled pop, a puff of smoke, and she screeched, her hand burned by the misfire.
From above them, Katherine screamed, “No!”
“Katherine?” Damian leaped for her as she struggled out of the dark opening above their heads. Vietta screeched again, shaking her hand, and he halted, remembering their peril, recalling his need to live.
She raised the gun while Katherine called, “Vietta, no, listen to me.”
Vietta didn’t listen, didn’t even hear. She stared at Damian, muttering, not seeing anything but him and his threat to her plan.
Katherine jumped from her perch. She landed with a thump, and Vietta swung toward her. Surprise, horror, stupefaction shook Vietta. She ran forward, her arm outstretched and the gun pointed at Katherine’s head. “You’re dead. You’re—” She stepped in a wet spot, slipped and twisted; the rock beneath the two women broke with a crack. Damian grabbed for Katherine and threw her behind him. The gun discharged loudly, cleanly. Vietta plunged—into nothing.
She fell in an eerie silence.
Katherine dragged at Damian. She felt him falter as they scrambled backward away from the widening hole. They halted, panting, against the wall. “She missed me,” Katherine said. “Look, she missed me.”
“I’m looking.” Tears swam in his eyes. “You look wonderful.”
Her own tears sprang up to join his. “Don Damian, dear Don Damian.” She grabbed him, hugged him with all her might.
He groaned.
“Don Damian?” Stepping back, she stared at her hands. They were covered with blood. Memory came in a wash. What would she see when she looked up? Would she see Tobias, dying while she struggled helplessly to save him? Or would she see Damian, dying? “Don Damian?” Her voice quavered in panic.
“Stop it.” He grasped her arm and shook it. “I need you, Katherine. There’s only you, and you’ve got to help me.”
Encouraged, she peeked at him. He looked even paler than she felt. Red stained the shirt over his ribs, and she could see where the material had been ripped away by the bullet’s blast.
His pleasure in the sight of her had faded, replaced by the torment of a man in pain. “I can’t make it without help. You’ll have to bandage me.”
“Yes.” Her faint answer disgusted her, and she strengthened her voice. “Yes. I’ll help you.” With her hand under his arm, she helped him to sit. “Here, right by our friend.”
Chuckling at her feeble attempt at humor, he seated himself beside the corpse. “He’s more congenial than our other companions have been.”
Wetting her lips with her tongue, she lifted her skirt and took a grip on her cotton petticoats. “Petticoats are a woman’s disposable garment. I was taught at my mother’s knee to tear them in an emergency.”
“I’m grateful to your mother.” He caught her waist as she ripped the material into strips. “I’m grateful to her for more than one reason.”
She never paused, but she put her emotions into the prosaic sentence. “You are a very nice man.”
“I was wondering when you’d realize it.”
“But your complacency doesn’t bear looking into.” She monitored him with a hand on his forehead. It felt clammy, at odds with his humor. Taking his hand from her waist, she kissed it surreptitiously and put it in his lap. Ripping at his shirt, she bared his side. She wouldn’t faint. She was too sensible to faint. But oh, how could the human body look so much like butchered beef?
“Katherine, what do you have in your pocket?” He tapped the watch pocket at her waist, bulging with the book she’d found.
Distracted, as he’d meant her to be, she lied, “It’s Tobias’s watch.” Shaking out the piece of petticoat, she made a pad and pressed it against him.
Head thrown back, he clenched his teeth as she wrapped the long strips around his chest, securing the flesh and stopping the flow of blood with the pressure. As she tied him, he asked, “Really? It didn’t feel like the watch.” A large slab of rock fell off into the pit.
“Do you want to discuss it now?”
“Not now.” He took her arm and let her pull him up. “Now we should leave, before the sun sets and leaves us here in darkness.”
“Yes.” They stepped towards the opening, and Katherine tripped on a stone. It rolled ahead of them like a siren, luring them on. The faint light of the setting sun turned the gold to liquid and added tints of red. She picked it up and held it out to him. The nugget was rounded and heavy, and it glowed with all the beauty that tempted men to murder and steal.
He took it, smoothed the surface with his finger. “So many deaths. The padres, first. The vaqueros of long ago, Smith, Vietta, even Tobias. So much pain, all for this accursed gold.”
Uncertain of his mood and his thoughts, she asked, “Will you take the treasure with you?”
His crooked smile grew, became wicked and passionate.
In the twilight and the silence she could hear bits of rock crumble away, falling into the abyss. She stirred, anxious about the way his gaze lingered on her face as if he would memorize it for eternity.
He said, “The treasure? It’s my treasure. I’ll take it.” Carefully, he pulled a knife from his belt.
Her gaze fixed on it; she croaked, “Where did you get that?”
“Vietta dropped it.” He flipped the knife and caught the handle, and Katherine couldn’t tear her eyes from its razor edge.
He murmured, “I’ve got to get rid of this.”
“Yes,” she agreed faintly.
With all his strength, he threw the knife—and the gold—into the chasm and turned back to her. “Hurry, my treasure. Let’s go while we can.”
Love broke over her like an avalanche, burying her in it, buoying her up in it, carrying her along. All the emotion she had suppressed, misunderstood, pretended away overwhelmed her now, and she stepped close to him. “Don Damian, you warm me, excite me, anger me, create a rejoicing in me that I couldn’t
recognize or put name to.” She waved her arm, encompassing the cavern. “In this room, I have seen—” A glimmer on the other side of the chasm distracted her, and she stared into the shadows. There was nothing there, and she continued, “I have seen . . . what is that?” She pointed. “It looks like a—”
“Madre de Dios,” he muttered.
“A ghost,” she whispered, lowering her arm.
A wisp of fog wavered across the pit. To Katherine’s shocked gaze, there seemed to be a figure inside it, struggling to get out. As they watched, the mist resolved itself into a man’s figure—the figure of a cowled priest. One diaphanous arm lifted a lighted candlestick.
Katherine found herself outside the cave, clutching Damian’s hand, staring at the mountain. “What was that?” she breathed.
The rock on the outside of the mountain cracked and rumbled in reply. Before their eyes, a landslide obliterated the entrance and the rosebush that marked it, while a groan of agony swept from the cavern. A ground tremor rattled their feet, and the precipice where Katherine had frightened Vietta crumbled.
The whinny of a horse cut the air and they whirled to see Vietta’s mount struggling as the rocks around it, the tree it was tethered to, the very earth beneath its feet fell away. “No,” Damian shouted, lunging at the animal, but Katherine went after him, grasping his coat and pulling him back. In horror, they stared as the horse went down and realized the ground was eroding toward them.
Somehow their feet found the path. Tripped by tree roots, slapped by branches, they descended the mountain. The journey that had taken so long in the morning now flew as they raced away from the cave, the gold, the death. Katherine didn’t want to stop. A stitch pulled in her side; the blisters on her feet were bleeding, but the survival instinct urged her on.
Someone—something—pursued them.
At last, Damian pulled her to a halt. She tugged at him, but he shook his head. “I can’t run anymore. We’re away. Nothing can hurt us now.”
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