Cactus Flower (37 page)

      
Nick
watched as Blankenship turned from the pile of wood he’d been stacking
and looked at Patsy. Nick supposed he’d been adding to his supply
for several days, because wood wasn’t easy to come by out in this
part of the world. So. Evidently, the bastard had planned this abduction
in advance. He clearly didn’t know what he was doing, or he’d have
developed his scheme more fully. He hadn’t taken into account the
territory itself or the territorials who inhabited it.

      
“That
was punishment. You were misbehaving and had to be taught a lesson.”

      
“You’re
crazy,” Patsy whispered.

      
“That’s
not nice.” Blankenship frowned at her. “I don’t want to have to
punish you again, Miss Patsy. I want us to have a nice, happy life together.”

      
“A
happy life? You’re … you’re insane.”

      
Blankenship
set the log he’d been holding aside and reached into his scabbard
to withdraw a knife. “It’s not nice to call people names.” He
felt the knife with his thumb. “I don’t want to have to punish you
again.”

      
Patsy
pressed her head to her knees, evidently deeming it prudent to stop
calling Blankenship names. Nick agreed, although he hoped to be able
to tell the bastard exactly what he thought of him soon.

      
“Do
you know what they do out here to things they want to mark as their
own?” Blankenship asked pleasantly.

      
Patsy
shook her head.

      
“They
brand them. I’ve decided the best way to keep you in line and to make
everyone understand that you belong to me is to brand you.”

      
Nick
heard Fuller’s hiss of breath and poked him with his elbow. They couldn’t
afford to show themselves yet; they were still too far away. And Blankenship
had not merely his knife, but a gun as well.

      
Patsy
lifted her head and gaped at Blankenship. “Brand me? You’re going
to
brand
me?”

      
“Yes.
I thought I’d do it with this.” He held out a piece of metal. “It’s
a pretty shape. A cloverleaf. I think it’s supposed to be a seal.
You know, in wax. But I had it soldered to this piece of metal to use
as a brand. I think it’s a good idea.”

      
“He’s
a lunatic,” whispered Fuller.

      
“Shh,”
said Nick.

      
They’d
worked their way to the bottom of the hill. Nick slowly and carefully
stood up. He reached out to help Fuller do likewise. Blankenship, wearing
thick leather gloves, was holding his “brand” to the fire.

      
Worried
and looking as if she were about to faint or break down or both, Patsy
slowly got to her feet, too. “What are you doing?” she asked.

      
It
looked fairly obvious to Nick, but he supposed there was no harm in
keeping Blankenship talking. If he were involved in conversation with
Patsy, he’d be less likely to hear Nick and Fuller sneaking up on
him. Nick hoped like fire Fuller wouldn’t decide to shoot Blankenship.
Patsy was too damned close to take a chance on that.

      
“Why,
I’m heating my branding iron, of course,” said Blankenship.

      
“You
don’t need to do that,” said Patsy. “I’ll go with you without
that.”

      
“Oh,
but this is necessary. You see, this way everyone will know that you’re
mine, and they won’t try to steal you away again.”

      
“That
bastard,” muttered Fuller in Nick’s ear.

      
Nick
couldn’t fault him for the sentiment, but he wished the man would
keep quiet. No wonder the army had undergone so much trouble with the
Indians, if they were all this noisy on secret assignments. It looked
to Nick as if Blankenship was about satisfied with his branding iron,
which was glowing red in the fire.

      
They
weren’t going to have much time. Nick and Fuller were still at least
twenty yards away from Blankenship and Patsy. Nick wished Patsy would
do something instead of merely standing there, awaiting her fate. Eulalie
would have killed Blankenship by this time—or at least tried to. But
Eulalie was one of a kind, Nick supposed, and Patsy couldn’t be faulted
too much for playing the role generally assigned to women in society.
Which meant she aimed to continue standing there like a helpless lamb
while Blankenship, the wolf, stalked her.

      
“Ah,
that looks about right.” Blankenship stood, admiring the glowing end
of his makeshift branding iron. “I think the thigh would be a good
place to brand you. And perhaps your arm, as well.”

      
Finally,
Patsy decided to take her fate into her own hands. She shrieked, “You’re
a maniac!” and she rushed away from the boulder against which she’d
been huddled. About damned time, Nick thought.

      
Startled,
Blankenship said, “What are you doing?”

      
By
that time, Patsy had skirted the fire and retrieved a big pot. In the
meantime, he and Fuller had picked themselves up and were running like
stampeding cattle towards Blankenship.

      
“Drop
it!” Nick hollered. He retrieved his Colt and tried to aim and run
at the same time.

      
Blankenship
whirled around. His eyes widened, and he dropped his branding iron and
fumbled at his waist for the gun he’d stuck into his belt.

      
“Halt!”
roared Fuller, who had already drawn his own gun.

      
“
Gabriel
!”
shrieked Patsy. Nick didn’t mind that she ignored him. He understood.

      
“Stay
where you are!” cried Blankenship, having found his gun, which he
now aimed at Nick and Fuller.

      
Because
neither man was a fool, they both stopped. Nick, panting slightly said,
“Drop it, Blankenship, and let the lady go. She doesn’t want to
go anywhere with you.”

      
“Nonsense,”
said Blankenship, and Nick could scarcely credit the fact that he sounded
honestly offended. “We’re going to get married. We’ve been planning
this for months.”

      
Oh,
brother, now what? “Then put the gun down, and let’s talk about
it, all right?” The absurdity of the situation didn’t escape Nick.
Here he and Fuller were holding guns on Blankenship, and Blankenship
was holding a gun on them. In the meantime, Patsy cowered in the background.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.

      
But
wait. Patsy wasn’t cowering any longer. In point of fact, she had
moved. Nick didn’t want to stare, but he was pleased to note that
she seemed to be sidling around behind Blankenship while he was occupied
in holding Nick and Fuller at bay. While her action might well prove
useful, at the moment, it wasn’t at all, since if either Nick or Fuller
pulled the trigger, Patsy might well be on the receiving end of a bullet.
He decided to try to keep Blankenship’s mind on other matters.

      
“I
understand you know the Gibb sisters from Chicago, Blankenship.” He
tried to keep his tone conversational.

      
“Yes,
that’s where we met.”

      
“Is
that where you cut her up?” snarled Fuller.

      
Nick
hissed at him to shut up. He didn’t want the man to get riled.

      
Fuller,
clearly too irate to take hints, didn’t. “What kind of man cuts
a woman with a knife? A coward, is what kind. Put the damned gun down!”

      
“Oh,
I see,” said Blankenship, focusing his attention on Fuller. “So
you’re the one who’s been trying to steal my Patsy. You’re an
idiot if you think you can break our bonds of love.”

      
Patsy,
as pale as a frosty window, had made her way behind Blankenship. Now,
obviously straining weak muscles, she lifted the pot, a cast-iron number
that must weigh a ton. Nick prayed for her, even as he wished the noble
lieutenant would stop being so damned noble and shut up.

      
“Cut
it out, Fuller,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

      
The
lieutenant shot a malignant glance at Nick, as if he didn’t know why
he should do any such thing.

      
“You’re
both wrong about Patsy and me. We love each other. We’re going to
get married. And I’m going to mark her, so that no one will ever doubt
that she belongs to me.”

      
At
that moment, Patsy made her move. With a stumbling rush, she lifted
the pot and bashed Blankenship on the shoulder with it. Nick figured
she’d been aiming at his head, but didn’t quite make it. It didn’t
matter. Blankenship staggered sideways, and his gun discharged into
the dirt. Patsy, exhausted by her recent efforts, sank to the ground
along with her pot, which made a dull thump as it hit the dirt.

      
Both
Nick and Lieutenant Fuller fired at the same time. Nick didn’t know
whose bullet connected, or if both did, but Blankenship howled out in
pain and fell into the fire, where he continued to scream.

      
“Shit,”
Nick murmured. He wanted the fellow dead, but he was a humane man and
didn’t care to see even vile creatures like Blankenship suffer unnecessarily.
Before he was able to ascertain whether or not Blankenship might be
rescued, another shot rang out, and the man fell back into the fire,
limp as a rag. Dead, Nick presumed. When he turned his head to look,
he saw Fuller stuff his gun back into his holster and head for the crumpled
form of the woman he loved. Then, as the lieutenant and Patsy embraced,
Patsy weeping pathetically against Fuller’s formerly blue uniform,
Nick pondered the spectacle of Gilbert Blankenship, roasting in the
fire he’d built in order to brand Patsy Gibb.
Brand
her, for
God’s sake.

      
A
small avalanche announced the arrival of the posse. “Jesus, Nick,
we were watching the whole thing. We didn’t dare shoot for fear of
hitting the girl.”

      
“Yeah,
me, too,” said Nick as the smell of roasting meat filled the air.

      
“God,
we’d better get him out of the fire,” said Wallace, wrinkling his
nose and looking uncertainly at Blankenship’s legs, which were the
only parts of him not being cooked.

      
“I
expect you’re right,” said Nick. “You want to get one leg and
I’ll get the other?”

      
“Yeah,
I reckon.”

      
So
they hauled the remains of Gilbert Blankenship out of the fire, and
Nick decided he’d never look at the annual Rio Peñasco barbecue supper
the same way again.

      
The
posse didn’t bother taking Blankenship back to town. For one thing,
they didn’t want to wait until he quit smoldering, and for another,
none of them had any interest in exerting so much effort on so puny
a specimen of humanity as he. Therefore, using tools Blankenship himself
had brought, they dug a shallow grave, rolled him into it, and covered
him up with dirt. So that there would be no possibility of any sparks
escaping the hole and igniting prairie grasses, however unlikely such
a contingency might be, they rolled a few boulders over him.

      
“I
expect those rocks won’t keep out the coyotes,” muttered Nick.

      
“Well,
that’s all right,” said Junius in his usual jolly mood. “By the
time they dig him up, he’ll have gone out.”

      
When
the posse rolled the last boulder over the grave, Nick’s nerve had
begun screeching like seven untuned fiddles, he was in such a state
about Eulalie, who, as far as he knew, was still under the knife in
Rio Peñasco. Before the posse reorganized itself to ride back to town,
he grabbed his uncle.

      
“Let’s
go, Junius. I’ve gotta make sure Canning isn’t slicing off her leg.”

      
Junius
patted him on the back. “She’ll be all right, Nicky. Canning might
be slow, but he’s a good-enough doc.”

      
“For
Rio Peñasco,” Nick observed sourly. He knew good and well that Canning
had never gone to medical school. Canning, like most of the doctors
who set up practice in the western territories, had got his training
by serving in the United States Army. He supposed that might give Canning
experience in digging out bullets, but he didn’t like to think of
his Eulalie suffering under Canning’s knife.

      
“Well,
sure,” agreed Junius, as if that went without saying.

      
Nick
mounted Claude, and Junius mounted the poor horse he’d borrowed from
the sheriff, and the two took off towards Rio Peñasco before the rest
of the men knew what they were about. The sheriff didn’t try to stop
them, which Nick considered sensible of him.

      
*
* * * *

      
Eulalie
knew she was home when she awoke, because she recognized the pretty
curtains Mrs. Sullivan had sewn for her and the chenille bedspread she’d
bought from the Loveladys’ store. But Nick wasn’t there. And neither
was Patsy. Rather, she recognized the stocky form of Dr. Canning, who
was placing a bottle of something on her night table. Her leg hurt like
thunder, too.

      
Where
was Nick? Eulalie wanted Nick. She wanted him so badly, and she felt
generally so horrid, that she very nearly succumbed to tears.

      
“Oh!
She’s awake.”