COLONEL THOMAS SPATE and the four men who had accompanied him to the meeting with Ralph Hitchburn had been approaching the gate when they heard the sudden blast of distant gunshots. The sound both chilled and enraged Spate.
Instinct told him the source of the trouble. One man: Hawk. Hitchburn had let it slip.
When they reached the wagon the team was panicked, ready to run. The scent of blood and the gunfire had caused one of them to straddle the tongue. One of the riders swung down, a grim look on his round face, when he saw Pete Sanborn crumpled under the wagon with his face blown off.
He got a hand on a yoke and spoke quietly to the horses.
Spate and the other three men dismounted near the bodies on the blood-stained granite floor. Spate gave them barely a glance. Striding to the gates on his long legs he peered up at the heights, regarding them as a military objective.
He pounded on the gates. But they were solid, un-moving to his hard fists. He shouted Hawk’s name, expecting no answer. His yellowish eyes glowed as he began to briskly shout orders in the canyon of death. Vultures, somehow sensing the carnage below, had already begun to circle; they were black dots against the, azure sky.
Now, Spate and his men were faced with the problem of scaling the locked gates. Spate ordered saddle ropes to be spliced. When this was done, he instructed one of the men to cut the tarp from the wagon. Enough of it, carried aloft, could be used as padding against the murderous spikes that were spaced across the tops of the two gates.
One of the men, Cleburne, made a successful throw and hooked the rope onto one of the stout spikes. Spate joined the others and they balanced Cleburne on their shoulders, boosting him as high as they could. He began to climb hand over hand up the rope, neck muscles straining. Spate stepped back, watching. It seemed to take an ungodly long time to reach the top of the gate. If the man slipped, his skull would be crushed. And if that happened, Spate would order a second man to try, and a third if necessary.
Finally, Cleburne was able to hang at the top of a gate with one hand, and at the same time maneuver the tarp so that it covered the needle-sharp metal projections. Then he eased himself over the top, pulled up the rope, and descended on the opposite side of the tall gate, his boots thumping against the planks.
Spate heard the bars withdrawn. The gates were swung open, pinned against the walls with timbers Hawk had kicked aside. It had taken most of an hour to reopen them. Spate swore as he strode through the opening, peering up the twisting road as far as he could see. There was no sign of Hawk. Hopefully, he searched the slick stone floor for signs of blood; there were none. Apparently, Hawk had not even been wounded during the deadly encounter.
Cleburne scowled upcanyon where shadows were thick against the formidable walls. “How’d he manage it?”
“The bastard’s always been lucky. But not for long. There’s no way out for him.” Spate recalled Hawk’s luck in other encounters over the years. He turned to his four men. “You stay here. Clean up this mess. I’ll go on to camp. Don’t let anybody in or out.” He indicated a broad, thick-necked man. “Linn, you climb to the ledge. Keep your eyes open. If anybody approaches, you signal for the gates to be closed and locked. You understand?”
“Nobody in or out. Yeah, I understand.”
The other men looked back at the four dead men on the canyon floor. While they had worked at opening the gates, the last man had died in brutal agony. They hadn’t even noticed. Four more dead men. They were used to it. Just as long as it was the other fellow, not them.
Spate followed the men’s stares. “It’s their own damn fault,” he said thinly. He was indignant that men under his command had allowed one man to gun them down with such apparent ease. He knew it had been sheer nerve and the unexpected that so far had allowed Hawk to get away with his tricks.
He mounted his horse. “I’ll send somebody down for the wagon.” He rode through the gates on up the mountain road. From time to time he leaned in the saddle to tighten his hand on the butt of a booted rifle.
A cold smile touched Spate’s lips as he thought of Hawk in a trap. Maybe Hawk didn’t know that there was no way out of the mountains except this road and the narrow trail ten miles or so to the north. And the northern trail so narrow, there was not even room for a wagon. Stolen cattle could be driven in single file from the big ranches on the mesa country. Or a rider could make it if he didn’t fork a horse too broad in the beam.
The main advantage of the road was that one rifleman could guard the pass. And that guard had orders to kill anyone who tried to get in or out. The weakness at the gates was due to the fact that in order to survive they needed supplies from the outside. And the nearest supply point was Alto.
Amalie Hitchburn brushed her long pale hair as she stood before a looking glass that Thomas Spate had thoughtfully attached to the wall. She wondered idly when he would return. All he had said early this morning was that he intended to visit the outside; the outside was any place beyond the natural walls of the fortress, This morning he had smiled and caught her chin in his gentle hand.
“I have business with a certain wealthy rancher,” he said.
She knew he meant Ralph and that it concerned the ransom. That a large sum was being asked for her return was exciting. She wondered how much her husband was being asked to pay. Once she had asked Thomas, but he touched her lips and said, “Whatever the amount, it’s not near enough. You’re a jewel, Amalie, a rare jewel.”
This pleased her. Few people had ever complimented her. Her father had been so preoccupied with sin that Amalie’s older sister had run off to marry a teamster in Prescott and had died along with her first born. Amalie’s mother had disappeared years before; it was rumored she had died in Monterrey. With two errant females in the family, her father was determined Amalie would be saved from an immoral world.
How ironical, she thought as she dressed to wait for one day past her nineteenth birthday for marriage. And that same day, hours later, to meet the one she could truly love for the rest of her days.
She stepped to the porch of the small house in the pines. From her own quarters, which were better than most, she could see various cabins scattered through the trees. High above loomed the thousand-foot canyon walls that made this place a fortress.
There were only two other women in camp; she knew what they were. There had once been many more, Tom Spate had said, but too many females caused dissension. Keegan had gotten rid of them.
Even in Kingdom she had known there had been such women, but she had never seen any. They were kept in seclusion in a small building behind the Arcady Saloon.
But the two women at camp did not seem to be examples of the human degradation that her Bible-shouting father had preached to her about. One was named Meg, the other, Trudy.
She could see the two women in the glaring sunlight, washing their hair in the creek.
Amalie sauntered down and spoke to them. They turned their heads with high-piled dripping hair. They spoke pleasantly, their eyes studying her. She felt they were as curious about her as she was about them.
“What a beautiful day,” Amalie exclaimed. Here on the heights, the sun had more warmth than below, where the canyon was so narrow. It glistened in Amalie’s golden hair that spilled over her shoulders.
Meg, who was older, and had thick red hair and freckles on her nose and shoulders, glanced toward the largest of the buildings across the clearing—Keegan’s headquarters, combined with a communal dining room for the men.
“You’d better get back inside,” she said, “Keegan might yell at you. You ain’t s’posed to be outside ’less the colonel’s with you.”
Amalie had been warned before. Keegan might bellow and rage, but Tom Spate could silence him with the lift of a dark brow. She did not care for Keegan, who was big and sullen. She had yet to see him in a good mood. On the other hand, Tom Spate was always gracious and soft-spoken. Even thinking of him brought a fluttering to her heart.
The second girl, Trudy, twisted her thick dark hair, squeezing out the water. Beside her was a jar of French soap, the scent incongruous in the fresh mountain air. Smoke from a forge drifted through the trees. Amalie could smell heated iron and dung.
Again she tried to engage the two girls in conversation, but they were afraid of Keegan.
“I’d like to wash my hair,” Amalie said, indicating the jar of soap. “May I?”
Meg shook her head. “Best not. Keegan’s in a mood.” Light gray eyes under dark lashes flicked nervously toward the headquarters building. A man carrying a rifle walked toward the blacksmith shop nestled deep in the trees.
Amalie turned away. As she was crossing the clearing, Keegan appeared in the doorway of his headquarters, thick legs braced, shaggy rust-colored mane catching the sun. He jerked a thumb at her and then at the long low log building that was her prison.
Showing a slight defiance, she took her time along the path through the trees, glancing once over her shoulder to see Keegan still glaring at her. A gout of chest hair showed through the open collar of his shirt.
A typical outlaw, big and burly and mean. On the other hand, she thought with a soft smile, Tom Spate was the gentlest of men.
What a contrast to her own husband, who had asked for her hand a week after her father had died raging in his bed. Her father had angrily demanded that she promise to marry Ralph Hitchburn.
Hitchburn had taken her small hand in his callused one, and whispered endearments. Despite his money, he repelled her. When he had slipped the ring on her finger hysterical laughter began to bubble, and she shut it off with a hand pressed tightly against her mouth. Ralph Hitchburn thought she was overcome with emotion and leaned down, his moist lips seeking. At the last moment she turned her head and his mouth caught only a corner of hers.
She remembered how Hitchburn’s body shook against hers when he embraced her. She remembered the rough material of his coat against her neck. She had finally offered her lips and a moment later he’d said that true love often developed in a woman a year or more after marriage.
Her father had said that love was for poets and that a female fortunate enough to marry should concern herself with producing offspring and seeing to her husband’s comfort. And keeping her nose out of his business affairs.
The wedding was held at the Hitchburn ranch. It had been an enormous affair. Even she was impressed by the important guests who had come from all corners of the territory. There was talk that Hitchburn might possibly be the most powerful political figure in the area.
Wives of the important men of the territory helped dress her and keep her from sight of her future husband. To let him see her in her wedding gown before the ceremony was bad luck.
At twilight the marriage service was read by a tall balding man with sunburned nose and deep voice, whose name she never did catch. All she knew was that he was uniting her in marriage to the bulky man at her side who gave off an odor of whiskey and cigars. As his bride she would be able to do as she liked, have servants to wait on her, be able to awaken when she wanted. No longer would she be forced to listen to the dire predictions of her father. If she had been born ugly or fat, he had often said, then the Devil’s temptations would have not been so great. But she was a pretty girl, and since she’d been fourteen years old the cowboys and the town merchants had turned to stare. It had given her a feeling of power, although she never dared mention this to anyone. Only when the ceremony was concluded, and she had properly greeted the many guests, was she able to escape to the room set aside for her.
Waiting for her in the private room was a stranger, a tall, slender man with a soft smile. He was clad in a finely tailored dark blue suit, a white snowy shirt, a dark tie loosely tied in the manner of gamblers.
Amalie felt a mingling of fear and excitement when he reached behind him and shot the bolt in the door. Then he came toward her, his feet brushing the soft carpet that Ralph Hitchburn had said came all the way from Persia.
“You are a most beautiful bride,” the stranger said, and his voice somehow blended with the distant violins and concertina from another part of the great house.
“Who are you?” she managed to say. He stood before her. He was older, but not as old as her husband. And there was a glow of eternal youth in the bright eyes, the gentle mouth framed by the well-trimmed beard. Without warning, he bowed to her and gently pressed his lips to hers. She was suddenly aware that her body arched to his, that she was on tiptoe.
As an unaccustomed flame began to engulf her he suddenly whipped a silk scarf across her mouth, tying it in back of her head. And, as swiftly, her wrists and ankles were bound with other scarves. One of the large wicker hampers that had brought fancy foodstuffs to the ranch was hoisted through the window.
Before she knew what was happening, she was shoved into the basket, and the lid secured. She felt herself lifted back through the window. Sounds of music and the scrape of feet came from the main room of the big house where guests were dancing. Laughter filtered through the woven sides of her prison. People so near, yet too impossibly far away to help her.
She heard men talking in deep voices. With one eye to a slight break in the weaving, she saw a man run toward her captors out of the shadows. He gestured at the hamper.
“What’re you stealing?” he demanded. She recognized him as one of the tough cowhands employed by her new husband. A brawny man, who she later learned was Kyle Keegan, muttered something. The cowhand reached for a gun. But a knife appeared in Keegan’s hand, the blade catching lamplight that spilled from a window. As she stared from her cramped position in the hamper, her eye glued to the opening not more than half an inch wide, she saw the look of surprise on the cowhand’s face. She saw the thin reddening line across his throat, followed by a cascading of blood. The man’s head tipped forward and he started to sag. Two of Keegan’s men gripped him by the arms.
“Bring him along,” Keegan hissed. “We’ll dump his body away from the ranch.”
Fear turned her cold as a wagon hauled her away from the friendly sounds of civilization. Some miles later she was put aboard a horse ridden by the satanic bearded man who had kissed her. For as long as possible, she lay stiffly in his arms as he and several men rode northward. And then, no longer able to maintain dignity and rigidity, she sagged against him.
He used his free hand to untie her gag. “I hope it didn’t bruise your pretty mouth,” he said softly.
“Take me home!” It had been intended as a scream but it came out as a hoarse low sound, barely reaching the big man who rode on their right.
“I’d a thought the female that’d marry Hitchburn would be ugly as sin,” he boomed, looking at her closely in the darkness.
“We’ll take good care of this gem,” said Colonel Spate.
Not that night, but the next, she realized what had really happened; she had been kidnapped. Never in all the forbidden novels she secretly read had a heroine been in greater peril. But instead of being chilled with fear she began to experience an intense attraction for the tall, slim man who could look at her with such tenderness.
During their hours together, Colonel Thomas Spate often mentioned a new life in South America. Once he jokingly asked if she thought she could learn to speak Portuguese, the language of Brazil.
It meant, of course, that poor Ralph Hitchburn would be heartbroken when she failed to return after the ransom was paid. But Ralph really had no love for her. As Tom pointed out, what the rancher wanted was a young wife as a decoration to show off to his political cronies. With such a wife, it would indicate that he, at fifty-six or so, was still vigorous.
Thinking of the kidnapping, the hours she had spent here with Tom, made her long for him to hurry back to camp.
Just when she had returned to her quarters from the brief encounter with Meg and Trudy, who had been washing their hair, she noticed the stranger. She happened to look out the window to see a dark-haired man creeping stealthily through the trees in the direction of the back door. Something about his hawklike face sent a tingle of fear along her spine. But she made herself shrug it off. Of course, he was one of Keegan’s men she had not seen before. No one else could get in here. Just another ruffian, as were all of them except Colonel Thomas Spate. He was the kindest man she had ever known.