Cactus Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (24 page)

      
Slade could accept accusatory anger like Lee's, but losing the respect of this proud, honorable old friend was a bitter draught indeed. He felt helpless, angry, guilty, and very confused. “Look, Asa, I appreciate you speaking your piece and I understand what you mean. I...I just don't know what I'm going to do. My whole life's turned upside down since she came into it.” They both understood which “she” he meant. “Just let me sort things out for a while.”

      
Asa nodded, reaching for his hat and heading for the door. “All right. You do what you got to, son.”

* * * *

      
Jim spent the entire morning catching up with paperwork in his office. He needed to keep busy, that was the answer. If he put enough time and distance between himself and Charlee McAllister, he might be able to see things clearly.

      
Asa's condemnation sat heavily on him. First, Weevils’ accusatory looks, then Lee's furious attack, now Ketchum's reluctant sermon. Was everyone on Bluebonnet her champion? Of course, that didn't account for the debacle in town Saturday night and resultant furor the next day.

      
After he had deposited her at the boarding house, Slade had ridden to the Sandovals' to spend the night, too emotionally wrung out to feel like making the long ride back to the ranch. When his aunt had accosted him in the sala the next morning, he had cursed himself for a fool over and over. She had been to mass at San Fernando Church and had heard the latest gossip about his fight with Paul Bainbridge.

      
Tia Esperanza had been furious. What was he doing, disgracing the family name and shaming his fiancée by consorting with a kitchen trull, and worse yet, engaging in a street brawl with a shopkeeper's son? His mother and father would both be appalled at his crass behavior. What would Tomasina say?

      
Slade did not wait to find out. Placating one furious woman in twenty-four hours was enough trouble. He would handle Sina later, after she had a chance to cool down. The devil of it was, he didn't know what he would tell her about his feelings for Charlee, or for that matter about his feelings for her.

      
Was Asa right? Would Will have approved of Charlee and have freed him from his promise to wed Tomasina Aguilar? That morning, as he sat slumped at his desk with his head in his hands, there was only one thing Jim Slade wanted to do, and that was be shut of both females.

      
Dammit, I don't want to get married at all!
He wanted neither a manipulative beauty like Sina nor a raging termagant like Charlee. What a choice, he thought bitterly to himself.

      
Just then a knock sounded on the open door and Lee stepped inside. The youth had not appeared at all chastened after their terrible fight, but rather seemed to be biding his time, the same as Weevils and Asa. Well, they could wait till the Gulf froze over. He'd do what he wanted when he wanted, not before.

      
Glaring up at Lee, Slade motioned silently for the youth to enter. “What is it, Lee?”

      
The slim young man shifted uneasily and then sat down on the edge of a large leather chair across from the desk. As he began to speak, he looked distinctly nervous. “I...er...heard about Saturday night in town, Jim. I'm glad you didn't pull your punches with Bainbridge the way you did with me.”

      
“That all you came in here to tell me?” Slade replied, with a faint grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

      
“No, but it does concern Charlee, or at least, she's the one who saw it. I should've told you sooner, but I wasn't sure you'd believe her, but now that you went to town to see her, and all that's happened...”

      
“Can you get to the point,
mano
? I have a lot of work to do today.” He gestured impatiently at the cluttered desk.

      
“Well, last week, when I went to town to see Charlee, she told me about a strange coincidence. She had gone to the store and was cutting back across the plaza, past the Rojas house..,” Lee relayed the whole tale to Jim, half afraid of an eruption of unreasoning anger as his boss defended his fiancée from such an accusation, half afraid of a killing fury if Slade believed Tomasina Carver guilty of such perfidy.

      
Slade stood up and began to pace, his mind racing back to the evening of the dinner party with the Montaldos; the way Sina disliked Serafina Rojas yet still had luncheon with her every week; the many other small, odd events over the past months... “Why didn't you tell me this sooner?”

      
Lee darkened and muttered something unintelligible, but Jim interrupted him. “All right, you thought I was so mad at Charlee I'd think she was lying. Well, I don't believe Sina is a British agent; but maybe, just maybe, she's a misguided Mexican patriot. Hell, I don't know. Maybe the whole thing's a damned coincidence and Sina's never even met Ashley Markham.”

      
“Then you do believe Charlee saw them both at the Rojas place at the same time?” Lee looked immensely relieved.

      
“Yes, for all that proves. The important thing is that our friend Markham has been a busy boy here lately. I've heard rumors that there have been sizable Mexican troop movements south of the Rio Grande and the Comanche are raiding more frequently to the north of here in the past weeks. Someone is financing a lot of dirty work.” Slade stared absently at the dispatches he'd received yesterday from Houston City.

      
As if reading Jim's mind, Lee smiled and said, “Your source for all this information, would it be our president himself?”

      
“You've got a shrewd and observant head on those young shoulders,
mano
. Take care that it stays in place. Keep away from political intrigue. It's bad for your health.”

      
“What are you going to do, Jim?”

      
“Just what you hoped I would,” Slade snapped. “I’ll go to San Antonio and talk to Sina and Charlee. Maybe even look up a sidewinder named Markham. It's time I had some answers.”

* * * *

      
“Now, what you want, ole evil-eye debil, you?” Sadie glared down at an agitated Hellfire with rancor in her piercing black eyes.

      
“Sadie, I haven't seen Charlee all morning. It's after one now and she's still not home. Chester said she was going to Bluebonnet for some emergency or other, but I just looked in the stable and Patchwork is still there. I'm worried.” Deborah's face reflected her concern as she absently eyed the pacing old tom.

      
“Dat critter been drivin' me loco fer hours, Miz Debrah. Doan Miz Charlee go nowheres without him.” Sadie, too, was worried.

      
“This isn't like Charlee,” Deborah said as she knelt and stroked the restless cat.

      
“What isn't like Charlee?” Jim Slade questioned as he opened the kitchen door and stepped inside, pushing his wide-brimmed hat back on his head.

      
“Oh, Jim, I'm so glad you're here!” Deborah rose and quickly relayed what she, Sadie, and Chester knew of the morning's events.

      
“You say she was off to the ranch to see Lee?” His face was drawn in alarm by the time she had finished her tale.

      
“Yes, that's what she told Chester at Bainbridge's store, but Patchwork is still in the stable. She never came home, and that was at least two hours ago.”

      
Slade cursed and turned to leave. “I'm going to the store to see what I can find out. Maybe someone's seen her along the way.”

      
Before he could get out the door, a blur of orange brushed by him and was down the back steps, waiting uneasily near Polvo, well out of reach of the horse's large hooves. As if to express his disgust with human slowness, the cat looked up at Slade.

      
“You wouldn't...no.” Slade dismissed the feline almost instantly as he mounted up and headed toward Bainbridge's Store, taking the most direct route. All the while, Charlee's sighting of Markham and her suspicions about Sina replayed fearfully in his mind. God, what might the fool girl have blundered into?

      
Slade paused to look down the twisting narrow labyrinth of alleyways near the store, a two-story landmark of sorts surrounded by various one-story frame and stone structures, many of them shoddy and deserted. “Not exactly a classy neighborhood, eh, Polvo?” he muttered, trying to decide which course she might have taken. Did she strike out on foot to reach her house first or go directly to the livery? Then a flash of color caught his eye, and he turned to see Hellfîre dart down one narrow alley toward a dilapidated shack at its end.

      
“Damn fool cat still hanging around. Still, Charlee always did have a queer way with him. Maybe it's worth a look,” he said, half in disbelief, and nudged the big buckskin down the narrow back street.

      
When he dismounted, the cat was clawing furiously at the splintering wood of a door on a very deserted-looking frame building. Looking cautiously around him, Slade sensed no one nearby, but nonetheless he drew the rifle from his saddle scabbard. When he tried the door, its wooden bar latch slipped up with a creak and it opened easily. He peered into the dim interior.

      
There in the far corner, with her back against a filthy, cobweb-infested harness rack lay Charlee, hogtied and gagged. Slade's reflex action was to check all corners of the room for any hiding kidnappers. But the cat scurried quickly over to his mistress and began to butt up against her face, yowling angrily.

      
Satisfied that the shed was empty except for Charlee, Jim quickly knelt beside her crumpled figure and propped his rifle against the wall. He slipped a wicked-looking knife from its sheath and cut her bonds, then the rag that held the hateful gag in her mouth.

      
It hurt too much to try to talk, for her throat and tongue were parched, but when the circulation began to return to her hands and feet she let out a low moan. Even with Slade's help, she found it agony to straighten her legs and attempt to sit up.

      
“Don't try to move for a few minutes until the blood starts pumping again. Let me get a canteen off the saddle and give you a drink.” As he rose, he said over his shoulder, “Your feline friend here found you. Better give him a whole churnful of butter tonight.” He was back in a second with the water, warm and brackish from the hot metal container, but heavenly to her injured mouth. “Take is slow, that's it...easy.” Jim found his hands were trembling. If he hadn't found her...

      
“Son of a bitch!” The expletive ripped from Rufus Brady's throat as he aimed his gun and fired.

      
Slade had been absorbed in caring for Charlee, but his reflexes were still sharp from years of survival on the frontier. He rolled to his left with lightning speed and scooped up his rifle. Brady, standing in the bright sunlight, peered into the dim interior of the shack but could not see clearly. His first shot went wild, showering jagged splinters over Charlee, who rolled to the right, holding Hellfire tightly in her arms. Ignoring the girl and cat, Brady pulled a second pistol from his sash and aimed it at the man with the rifle. His shot found its mark at the same instant Slade's found the Comanchero, but Brady's .54-caliber martial pistol did not carry the impact of Jim's .54-caliber Pennsylvania Long Rifle. Slade's shot knocked Brady back from the door frame into the hot yellow dust of the alley, where he lay very still.

      
Slade lay crumpled with his back against the harness rack. Using a heavy iron hook for support, he pulled himself up unsteadily. As quickly as she could get her stiffened legs to move, Charlee was by his side. “You're shot! Where? Oh, Jim, is it bad?”

      
“I've been shot lots of times. It's never good, believe me.” He grimaced as he shook his head, trying to clear the sudden spate of dizziness overtaking him. “Just a crease in my side, I think. Let's hope our friend out there is in worse shape.” Using the rifle as a crutch, Slade cautiously walked out the door and prodded the Comanchero's inert figure. “Yep, he's worse,” he said tonelessly. Then, he swore several particularly vile Spanish oaths. “Rufus Brady,” he breathed.

      
“Who...who is...was he?” Charlee could not make herself look at the corpse for more than a second, although the cat was sniffing it as he circled warily.

      
“Christ, you're lucky to be alive! Brady's a Comanchero.”

      
“I know that,” she said with a shudder. “He told me what he planned to do with me—send me to a chief called Iron Hand.”

      
Slade swore again, then reached his hand to her shoulder to steady himself.

      
“You are hurt bad. Lordy, I can see the blood seeping through your shirt. Let's get you over to Polvo. Can you mount up?”

      
He shook his head. “First I have to check his body and his horse for any information. If he was on his way to Iron Hand, he'll have something for sure.” Using her for support, he knelt and began to go through the cutthroat's pockets.

      
“Dammit, you'll bleed to death!” Seeing he would not be dissuaded, Charlee stopped her protest and began to tear strips methodically off her petticoat. “Here, at least let me wrap it before you pass out from losing blood.” She knelt beside him and began to pack the long reddening slash across his left side. She tied the makeshift bandage around his chest as he continued doggedly with his task.

      
“Go through the saddlebags on his horse.” He nodded to the big roan tied down at the end of the alley.

      
“What am I supposed to be looking for? Why can't the law do it?”