CLARK’S BREATH WAS shallow and he could hear his heart drumming in his ears.
The stitches in his head were irritated by the heat, and the sun was frying his face in spite of his hat. Dust clothed him; he could feel it everywhere—even in his underwear and deep within his ears.
But the dust was nothing compared to the pickle he found himself in with Bachelard.
Clark grunted, suppressing a cough. What the hell had happened? The plan had been to find Reese McCormick and head to Mexico, where they would become rich men. Clark would buy a Western ranch operation, with a big log ranch house, a herd of Texas cattle, and real cowboys. Clark’s family’s Missouri plantation was long gone to carpetbaggers, so Clark would simply start over. The West was just the place for doing such a thing.
He had no illusion that Marina loved him. Their marriage had been arranged, in a way—if you can call winning your wife in a poker game an arrangement—and there had been no time for love to develop between them. But to Clark love was not important. Clark was a Southern gentleman, who married a woman for the same reason you bought thoroughbreds: so they could produce more thoroughbreds while looking very nice about the grounds.
Before the war, Clark’s father had arranged for Adrian to marry the daughter of a wealthy friend. Clark had not loved the girl but accepted the engagement as part of the due course of his life; love was not a consideration. The girl—dark had forgotten her name—had been young and beautiful and wealthy, and that had been enough.
But then the war came along, first postponing, then canceling, the marriage—the family was living in poverty now, with relatives in Colorado. Clark had been ushered off to war by his father, albeit in a non-fighting capacity. If not for the war, Clark would no doubt be married to a woman he did not love, but who would have produced worthy heirs, and all would have been right with the world.
Now he carried in his mind the image of Marina on his arm at some stockmen’s gathering in Wyoming or Colorado, a roomful of frock-coated and silk-gowned admirers gazing at her extraordinary beauty, champagne glasses clutched in their bejeweled hands. He loved her the way men can love a beautiful, beguiling woman for the idea of her alone, for the thought of her naked and writhing beneath him, for the progeny she would produce, and for the fancy figure she would cut at a dance.
Unconsciously he believed—he hoped—that when Marina saw the gold, she’d forget all that blather about tracking down her daughter. Because of her Latin beauty and sensuality, Clark thought he could overlook Marina’s unmentionable relationship with her uncle, but he wasn’t sure he could live with the bastard child it had spawned.
While he was not certain which meant more to him, Marina or the gold, he had to admit the thought of leaving her with Bachelard had crossed his mind. With that much gold a man could have any woman he wanted.
He chastised himself for the half-conscious thought. His father had raised him better than that. Adrian Clark might
have been stripped of his wealth, but he still had his honor, by God!
Now he reined his horse to a halt and suppressed a gasp. Bachelard and his men sat their mounts about thirty feet away. The group that had run down the stage had been joined by Perro Loco. Clark’s heart drummed so wildly he could hear it in his ears.
Between Bachelard and the Indian, Marina stiffly sat a gray pony, her back taut and her face tense. Her hands were tied behind her back and there was a noose around her neck. The end of the noose was held by the Indian. His forage cap shaded his forehead, but Clark could see his smoldering black eyes. The muscles in his bare arms coiled like snakes.
Clark glanced at Cameron, who sat his horse tensely, returning the Indian’s dark look. They were like two wolves meeting in the woods—two wild, angry, bloodthirsty wolves fighting for the highest stakes of all.
Bachelard took the cigar from his mouth and flashed a malevolent grin. “Hello, Cameron. Heard a lot about you. We meet at last. You already know my friend here.” He glanced at the Indian, whose gaze was locked on Cameron as though fixed there by some unseen force.
Cameron nodded at the Indian mockingly and broke a smile.
Perro Loco stared at Cameron. Cameron wasn’t sure the Indian understood English; he’d given no indication of it since Cameron had captured him.
“You two throwin’ in together?” Cameron asked Bachelard.
Bachelard shrugged. “Let’s just say we have a common interest.”
“Quiet one, ain’t he?”
“I never cared for a chatterbox.”
Cameron’s eyes went dark. “You killed a good friend of mine last night.”
Bachelard shrugged again. “He was in the way.”
“I’m gonna kill you for that.”
The Cajun didn’t even blink.
Cameron stared flatly at the man, his cheek dimpling where his jaws joined. Finally he placed his hands on his saddle horn and shifted position. “But that’s between us alone. Why don’t you let that woman go?”
“I’d like to do that, but first I’ll need the plat.” Bachelard’s eyes slid to Clark.
“How do I know you’ll let her go?” Clark asked him.
“I have no use for her.” Bachelard gave a wolfish grin. “Hell, me and Perro Loco here had our fill of her last night.” He removed the cigar from his mouth with a gloved hand and threw his head back. “Ha, ha, ha!”
Clark felt as though he’d been clubbed in the chest. Anger filled him, filled his mouth with the taste of bile. He wanted to pull the pistol out of his holster and put a bullet between Bachelard’s eyes, and he would have done so if he thought he had a chance of hitting his target from this distance.
“Easy, Clark,” Cameron said, reading his mind. “He’d love you to go loco. Give me the plat; I’ll ride it over to him.”
“No, I’ll ride it over to him.”
Clark gripped his reins firmly in his sweat-soaked hands and clucked the horse forward. He looked at Marina. She stared at him. Her eyes were scared but sane. Clark wondered if it was true, what Bachelard had said about him and Perro Loco, last night … If it was true, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to share a bed with her again. What a shame.
He stopped before Bachelard, his horse jerking its head away from the Cajun’s black, which pricked its ears offensively. The Indian’s cold stare lifted the hair on the back of Clark’s neck. The look told him they were not going to get out of this without shooting.
“Let her go and I’ll give it to you,” Clark said to Bachelard.
“Let me see it.”
Clark reached behind him, into his saddlebag, withdrew a rolled javelina-skin and clutched it before him.
“Unroll it.”
Clark did as he was told and held it facing Bachelard.
“That the original?”
“Yes.”
“How do I know?”
“You think I caught a javelina last night?”
Bachelard stuck out his hand. “Give.”
“How can you be sure the story’s genuine?”
Bachelard shrugged. “I’m not. But for that much gold I’m willing to take a chance. Hand it over.”
“Let her go.”
“Oh, Christ … those damaged goods?” Bachelard grumbled wryly. He nodded at the Indian, who removed the noose from Marina’s neck.
Bachelard turned to Clark. “He’ll slap that horse’s rump as soon as the plat is in my hand.”
Clark glanced at Cameron, then shifted his eyes to Hotchkiss and Bronco. Rifles across their saddles and a grim cast to their eyes, they appeared ready for anything. It was small comfort to Clark, but a comfort nonetheless.
Bachelard yelled angrily, “Come on—hand it over, pilgrim!”
Clark jumped, startled by the sudden outburst, and thrust the plat into the Cajun’s outstretched hand. Bachelard smiled. “There—that wasn’t so hard now, was it?”
“My wife, Mr. Bachelard,” Clark growled through gritted teeth.
“Oh, yes. Forgive me,” Bachelard said.
Casually, his wolfish grin still directed at Clark, he unholstered his revolver, brought it up to Marina’s head, and thumbed back the hammer. But before he could pull the trigger,
the Indian let out an angry, high-pitched wail that sounded like nothing Clark had ever heard before. In one motion the big Indian swung his leg around and leaped from his horse onto the back of Marina’s.
Startled and amazed by the Indian’s sudden display, Bachelard brought back his pistol, frowning, and struggled with his horse’s reins as the horse jumped and danced, spooked by the Indian’s cry. Perro Loco slapped the hip of Marina’s horse, drawing a long-barreled pistol from the waistband of his leggings, and thumbed back the hammer as the horse bolted in a headlong, ground-eating rush past Clark, who was fighting with the reins of his own startled mount, toward Cameron.
Perro Loco aimed the pistol in his outstretched hand over Marina’s right shoulder, screaming an Apache death song.
It had all happened in little more than a second. Cameron was still reacting to Bachelard’s draw as the Indian bounded toward him. Now he turned his Winchester in the Indian’s direction, but there was no way he could take a shot and not risk hitting the woman. His horse, startled by the Indian’s shriek, was doing a stiff-legged dance that made an accurate shot even less likely.
Cameron saw the swiftly approaching pistol aimed at his head. When the screaming horse was only ten yards away, Marina yelled, “No!” and flung her right arm at the Indian’s hand. The gun barked and the bullet sailed wide.
Perro Loco yelled savagely, striking at Marina as his horse plowed broadside into Cameron’s. Cameron tried to roll wide as the horse fell, but his boot caught in the stirrup, and the horse went down on his leg. The Indian’s horse fell on Cameron’s, throwing Marina on top of the white man. The Indian lost his rifle as he slid out of the saddle, then quickly regained his seat as the horse struggled to its feet and plunged away.
As Cameron’s horse rose noisily, Cameron scrambled to a
sitting position, and brought the Winchester to his shoulder, trying to plant a bead on the bouncing, quickly diminishing figure of the Indian. He shot once, saw the bullet kick dust. He cocked again, steadied the rifle, and fired.
Perro Loco’s head snapped forward. The horse bucked and the Indian fell out of the saddle. He rolled once, bringing a hand to his head, then crouched, looking back at Cameron as the horse bucked across the desert, angrily kicking its back legs and arching its neck.
Perro Loco gave an angry shriek as Cameron fired again. The bullet spanged off a rock at the Indian’s knees. Perro Loco rolled to his side, then regained his feet smoothly, like a cat, and ran behind a brushy rise. He appeared a second later beyond the rise, darting between saguaros and creosote shrubs, heading east.
Cameron stood and fired four more angry shots, hitting nothing but mesquite and rocks. The Indian disappeared down a grade.
Cameron cursed. Becoming aware of guns going off around him, he crouched behind a creosote shrub and looked around. Hotchkiss knelt in a gully about twenty yards away, aiming south, where Bachelard’s men apparently were. A few shots sounded in that direction, and Cameron saw a single puff of smoke from a hundred yards away. But it looked as though Bachelard and his men, having gotten what they had come for, were retreating into the desert.
Cameron couldn’t see Clark and Jimmy Bronco, but the sound of pistol fire beyond Hotchkiss told him they were still kicking. They probably had Perro Loco to thank for that, Cameron speculated wryly. If it hadn’t been for the Indian’s sudden attack, Bachelard no doubt would have killed Marina, and his men, following suit, would have opened up on Cameron and the others before they’d had time to react.
“Thanks, my Injun friend,” Cameron muttered dryly, turning to look for Marina.
Ten yards behind Cameron, she lay behind the skeleton of a fallen, decaying saguaro. Only her eyes and the top of her head were visible.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
The others were still shooting—Cameron thought he recognized the eager, rapid bursts of Jimmy Bronco’s Coltsbut there hadn’t been any return fire for several minutes.
He stood, and then she did as well, favoring her left foot. Her eyes were frightened, haunted, but there was a fire there too.
No, she was definitely no hothouse flower, Cameron thought.
“I think I—how do you say?—sprained my ankle,” she said.
“Sit down there, let me take a look.”
She sat on the dead saguaro, on which the thorns had long since decayed, and started unlacing her shoe. Cameron took over, loosening the laces and pulling out the tongue, then gently eased the shoe’s heel away from her foot.
She gave a pained sigh.
“Hurt?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He gave one more gentle tug and the shoe came off in his hand. He dropped it, removed her sock, and took her long, slender foot in his hand. He moved it, very gently, from left to right.
He raised his eyes to hers. “Hurt?”
She shook her head. “Not much.”
“I don’t think it’s broken,” he said.
Her eyes held his. “I am sorry, Mr. Cameron … for everything … for all this.”
Cameron couldn’t help smiling at her. Something about
her touched him very deeply. “What are you talking about?” he said with a laughing grunt. “You saved my life today.”
She smiled wryly, gave a slow blink of her smoky-black eyes. Cameron couldn’t help staring at her, transfixed for what must have been at least a quarter-minute. Then he looked down and saw that her bare foot was still in his hand.
“Marina?” Clark called from somewhere nearby.
Startled, suddenly self-conscious, Cameron lowered her foot and stood, awkwardly looking around. “Well … we’ll get you on a horse and you can rest that ankle in Contention City. Maybe get a doc to take a look at it.”
Clark appeared out of the creosote, pushing a branch aside, a pistol in his hand. He was sweaty and dirty.
“Marina … ?” he said. His eyes dropped to her bare foot. “What happened?”
“I sprained my ankle,” Marina said. “It’s okay.”
Clark dropped to take a look at the ankle, and Cameron moved away to find Hotchkiss and Bronco. Hotchkiss holstered his pistol as Cameron approached.
“You all right, Jack?” Hotchkiss asked, smiling with relief. “I figured for sure Perro Loco was going to take you to the dance there for a minute.”
Cameron shook his head. “I did too. You boys catch any lead?”
“Nah,” Hotchkiss replied.
“I think I clipped one of ’em,” Jimmy Bronco said proudly.
Hotchkiss looked at the kid, scowling. “You did not, son. That was my shot, for cryin’ out loud.”
“Uh-uh.”
“Okay, okay,” Cameron said, interceding. “Let’s just worry about getting the horses back so you two can get Clark and his wife to Contention City.”
Hotchkiss looked at him, blue eyes flashing incredulity. “What do you mean so you two can? Where are you goin’?”
Cameron was glancing around for the horses. “After Loco. Where the hell do you think?”
“Alone?”
“He’s unarmed,” Cameron said with a shrug. “It’s best to ride him down now, before he can get back to his band. I want you two to stay with the Clarks.”
Hotchkiss looked down, troubled. “I don’t know, Jack. Armed or unarmed, that’s one hotheaded Injun.”
Cameron started walking in the direction where his horse had disappeared, then stopped suddenly and turned toward Clark and Marina.
Clark was sitting in the sand, heels planted in the ground before him, resting his weary head. Marina was putting her shoe back on. She glanced up and saw Cameron. She stopped what she was doing and looked at him with a vague question in her narrowing gaze.
Cameron turned, giving a wry chuff, and continued walking. All he needed now was to get a goddamn woman stuck in his craw …