Chapter 17

 

The din from the fight going on inside Johansson’s saloon tumbled into the street like stumbling drunks. Fists cracked against flesh and bone. Men cursed. Hard muscled bodies slammed into tables and onto the floor. Wood splintered and gave. From amidst the noise and confusion came laughter and the shouts of wagers being placed on combatants.

Buck entered cautiously, peering through the thick smoke. The sight of Cale leaning against the bar watching the ruckus rather than participating, came as a relief. Buck maneuvered around the thrashing bodies on the straw-covered floor. Cale ignored him, though Buck knew his entrance had been noted.

“Hullo, friend,” Swede shouted above the noise. Leaning toward Buck across the bar, the giant confided quietly, “A strange thing this night.” He tipped his head toward Cale. “The man was asking to find Buck Maddux. I tell him there is no man here with that name, but I think maybe he find him anyway. Ya?”

“Yeah. Give us both a whiskey.”

Buck slid a drink in front of his brother and lifted his to his lips. The burning in his throat sharpened his mind and senses. Enough to recognize the sound of running water at the other end of the bar.

Swede was already heading that direction. “How many times I tell you, Skinner, not to make water in my saloon. There are privies out back for that.”

“Ah, Swede,” the culprit whined, not bothering to refasten his trousers. “You wouldn’t want me to miss out on the fight, would you?”

“Ya, this I want very much, and I think you have done this for last time.” He came from behind the bar, stepping up out of his trench to tower menacingly over his errant patron by at least two feet. Awed by the man's enormity, the brawlers dropped their fists and sheepishly took their seats.

“Care to wager?” Buck murmured to Cale. “I’ll take Swede and give you triple the odds.”

Cale didn’t even look at him. “What do you want, Buck?”

“Same as most men in a saloon.” Buck kept his anger under tight rein and attempted to sound casual as they watched Swede toss Skinner into the street. “Did you come straight here when you left?”

“Where the hell else would I go?”

“Up into the rocks near Hearts-ease, maybe. With a rifle.”

Cale whirled toward him, fury and confusion mixed in a face as square-jawed and implacable as his brother’s. “What are you trying to say?”

Buck shrugged and calmly sipped his whiskey. “You said you wanted to kill me.”

“Someone shot at you from the rocks?”

Turning slightly, Buck showed his torn and bloodied shirt.

Cale’s eyes widened. Concern flickered through the blue orbs before the anger returned full force. “And you think I did it? You think I shot you?”

Buck didn’t, not after seeing Cale’s reaction. There was no mistaking the younger man’s shock, or the distress in his eyes before it was edged out by rage. But Cale gave him no chance to speak. His hand balled and once more the saloon resounded with the crack of flesh and bone striking flesh and bone.

* * *

Tempest finished tying a fresh bandage over the shoulder wound Buck had reopened in his fight with Cale.

“I might understand a man your brother’s age using his fists to solve his differences, but I thought, hoped, you were more grown up than that.”

Buck scowled at her unfair assessment. “He threw the first punch.”

“And naturally, male pride required you to follow up with the second punch.”

“You’d rather I’d simply stood there and let him pound on me?”

Her smile was gruesome. “Actually, there have been a number of times I would have enjoyed such a sight.”

Soaking a clean cloth with whiskey, she dabbed at a cut over his right eye. He flinched. “Ow! You trying to kill me, woman?”

“No, I’ll leave that to Jonas. Sit still.”

She slapped away the hand that tried to keep her from applying more of the stinging alcohol. “How long do you think it will be before your brother tells someone who he is?” she asked. “And, more to the point, who you are?”

Buck grimaced as she treated a scrape on his cheek. “I explained the situation to him and he promised not to give us away. Swede bedded him down in his back room." The boyishness of his grin charmed her. “Cale’s not going to be pleased that he still can’t beat me . . . especially with me shot up and all.”

“I wonder why that fails to worry me?”

Buck ignored her sarcasm. She had been brushing her hair when he arrived home with his bleeding shoulder. The golden brown tresses hung to her waist, thick and wavy and irresistible. He yearned to sift its silk through his fingers, bury his face in its fresh-washed scent, sweep it over his naked skin. Reaching up, he pushed the hair behind one shoulder, leaving it to hang free over her other shoulder. He loved the dance and shimmer of the lamplight in the long waterfall of hair as she moved, almost as much as the gentle sway of her breasts beneath the thin muslin of her nightdress.

“Do you think he’ll cooperate?” she asked.

He shifted his gaze to her face as she worked over him, and watched her lips part on a gasp as he cupped her breasts in his hands. It was insane, touching her, but he couldn’t help himself.

She jerked back, the anger over his foolish brawling still with her. “What are you doing?”

“Ought to be obvious enough.”

His voice had grown husky and heated. Almost as blistering as his hands, she thought. She clamped her thighs against an unwanted rush of sultry warmth and sensation, and decided he’d had enough nursing. Slamming the lid shut on her medicine box, she began cleaning up.

Buck watched with hot, slitted eyes. “We’ve been dragging our feet long enough, Tempest. It’s time we set our minds on finding the money to pay off Jonas, before someone gets killed.”

Amber flecked eyes yawned with indignation. “Dragging our feet? Speak for yourself, Buck Maddux. There hasn’t been a day gone by when I haven’t given a lot of thought to that particular problem.”

Viciously she wrung out the cloth she’d used to bathe his bruised flesh, as though she wished it were his neck. Buck smiled. “Judas, but you’re beautiful when you’re angry.”

“If that’s true,” she retorted, “I must be more beautiful around you than at any other time, because I’ve never been as angry as you make me.”

The grin he gave her was satanic. “Proves how perfect we are for each other.”

“Raspberry stickers!” The anger was fading. It was impossible to resist him for long. “Your brains could fit inside the head of an ant, with space left over, do you know that?”

“Ever spend much time watching an ant?”

Tempest rolled her eyes. “All the time. What else do I have to do around here?”

“Ants may be little, Tempest, but they’re wily as coyotes, maybe even more wily. So I’ll consider what you said a compliment.”

“You would,” she muttered. “Overblown jackass.”

He laughed. To keep from reaching for her, he pulled out his cigarette makings. “Seriously, sweetheart, we’ve got to get our hands on some money.”

“Maybe you could ask your brother for a loan, if you’re in such a hurry to get out of here.”

Blue eyes clouded. Before he asked his family for one cent, he’d simply walk up to Creedy and shoot him.

Rising, he went to the stove. He peeled a long splinter off a log, removed a stove lid with a lifter and stuck the tip of the splinter in the flames. A curl of tobacco smoke drifted upward on the breeze from the ill-fitting window coverings as he drew on his cigarette. He was right. She had to admit it to herself, even if she wasn’t willing to say it out loud—she had been dragging her feet. She knew her reasons, and prayed his were the same. Once Jonas was paid, and the security of her ranch assured for another six months, there would be no reason for Buck to stay. It was a day she dreaded with every fiber of her being.

Buck opened the door to gaze out at the night. The old suffocation of closed rooms had waned, returning only when he felt trapped by his own increasingly more complex emotions. “I keep thinking about the missing Army payroll. It belongs to you now, since you mortgaged the ranch and paid it back. If you only knew where that Pitt place was, we’d be sitting pretty.”

“Pitt place?” Open-mouthed, she stared at him. “What Pitt place?”

Buck shrugged, and winced. His shoulder was hellishly sore. "The homestead where Skeet hid the money. The Army couldn’t find anyone who’d ever heard of a Pitt family. The troopers scoured every abandoned homestead and cabin for miles around, but they didn’t find a nickel.”

Tempest’s heart stopped, skittered, started again. “Buck, tell me exactly what Skeet said.”

The sparkle of excitement in her brown eyes caught his attention. He straightened. "Do you know the Pitt place?"

"Maybe. Just tell me what Skeet said. Word for word.”

She looked so damn beautiful lit up like that, he could hardly concentrate on what she was saying. He wanted to kiss her. Frowning, he dug into his memory. "His exact words were 'Tell Tempest . . . look in old Pitt house.’ That was all he got out. He tried to shoot himself in the temple because of the pain, but he didn’t have the strength.” Buck turned away, his eyes darkly shadowed again.

Sobered by the image of her husband’s last moments, Tempest’s tone was quiet and solemn, in spite of the hope growing inside her. “Why didn't you tell me this before? The message was for me. Don’t you know what this means?”

One dark brow rose as he studied her. “Seeing that glow in your eyes, I’m hoping it means that you know where this Pitt family lived.”

“I do, Buck.” She danced away from him, swinging her arms in the air. “I do, I do, I do.” Her nightdress ballooned about her body. The light showing through the thin fabric gave him a clear view of her curves. Heat swirled through him.

Coming to a halt, she grinned up at him. “He wasn’t talking about a homestead, or a family named Pitt. That's why the soldiers couldn't find it. The money is right here in Deception Canyon. Only not in any kind of building you’re familiar with.”

His heart began to thrum. “What do you mean?”

“The Indian ruins. The houses were partially dug out of the ground, like a roofed-over pit, so Skeet called them pit-houses. He knew I’d understand. All we have to do is figure out which one the money’s in.”

“Damn!” He sank down onto a stool. “I figured he’d probably stashed it in the canyon. There’s a million places here a man could stash something as small as a payroll pouch, and he didn’t have time to do anything else. Just chuck it in a natural hole in the canyon wall behind a bush and hope he could find it again. Judas, Tempest, hiding that money likely cost him his life because it let that Army patrol from Fort Duchesne catch up with him. They lost him when it got dark, but not before he took a bullet. Poor bastard.” He shook his head. “Hard to believe he had enough time to get to one of those ruins, though.”

“No one else might have been able to do it, but Skeet could have,” she said. “You see, Skeet came here to find a treasure an old trader in St. Louis told him about. Lost Spanish gold. He searched this country until he knew every inch of it, including the ruins. If anyone could have managed to reach one, cache the money and still get away, he could. The money is here, Buck. All we have to do is find it.”

He stared at her a long time, while his blood slowly began to stir with a different sort of arousal from what he’d felt minutes ago. If Tempest was right, their problems were indeed all but solved.