Kid Calhoun (41 page)

“I have come for my woman. You will tell me where to find her
now
!”

Jake had been so focused on the movement in the valley, that the Apache caught him completely by surprise. Jake stared in disbelief at the painted warrior on horseback who had appeared before him to bar his way.

“Wolf? We thought you were dead!” Jake saw the barely healed wound on the Apache’s temple where a bullet had cut into his scalp.

Wolf’s nostrils flared and his lips flattened. “I have looked for my woman in the white man’s house. I did not find her there. What have you done with her?”

Jake felt his neck hairs hackle at the Apache’s demanding tone of voice. He reminded himself that Claire loved this man. He thought of how happy she would be to see Wolf alive and tried to ignore the fighting instinct that rose in him when he met the Apache’s insolent stare.

“Claire and Anabeth are picnicking under that big willow down by the river,” Jake said. “I’ll ride with you, and we’ll find them together.”

Wolf didn’t wait for Jake. He kicked his pony into a gallop and headed toward the stream that ran along the bottom slope of the valley.

“Hell and the devil!” Jake kicked his buckskin gelding into a hard gallop and soon caught up to the Indian. The closer they got, the more certain Jake became that the movement he had seen was Dog. He forced himself to remain calm. There was probably some simple explanation for why Dog wasn’t with Anabeth. He wasn’t going to panic over nothing.

Besides, he had sent a man to guard the two
women. Surely there would have been a signal if anyone had intruded on Window Rock land.

Jake glanced over at the Apache and realized that he wouldn’t want to be the man who touched Claire against her will. The Indian’s dark eyes were frightening to behold. Bleak. Merciless. Jake was glad he was not an enemy.

Wolf couldn’t explain to the white man the emptiness he had felt inside when he had woken two days after the battle with the white soldiers to discover that Little One was gone. When he had confronted White Eagle, the boy had stood undaunted before his wrath. White Eagle would say only that Wolf’s woman had wanted to go home, so he had taken her there.

Wolf was devastated to think that Little One would leave him. It had taken him another day of brooding to realize that he was not willing to live his life without her. He was going after her, and he wasn’t coming back to the village alone.

As Wolf was leaving the village He Makes Trouble had come running up to him. The tiny child had tugged on Wolf’s leggings to get his attention and said, “Take me with you! I want to help find my mother.”

Wolf had not denied He Makes Trouble the right to call the white woman mother. But the boy was too young to come on such a journey. “You wait here, and I will bring her back to you.”

“If you say so, Father,” He Makes Trouble had answered solemnly.

Wolf had opened his mouth to deny the kinship but said nothing. He Makes Trouble would be a good son—once some of the mischief had been lessoned out of him. “Wait here,” Wolf said. “And do not think to be coming after me,” he called over his shoulder. With He Makes Trouble, you could not repeat a thing too often.

Now the moment of truth was at hand. Could Wolf force Little One to come back to him against her will? Would it be necessary? Jake had said they thought him dead. Was that why Little One had fled the village? Was that why she hadn’t gone to hide in the hills as the other women had done?

Jake saw the brooding look on the Apache’s sharp-boned face and wondered what Claire saw in the taciturn man. He wasn’t allowed much time to think about it, because the feeling struck him suddenly that something was wrong. They were no more than halfway to the site of the picnic when Jake realized what had made him so anxious.

“The lookout!”

“Where?” Wolf asked. “I see no one.”

“That’s just it,” Jake said in a steely voice. “I sent a cowhand with a rifle along to guard the women and make sure nothing happened to them. He’s not where he’s supposed to be.”

Jake made a slight detour to check on the man he had sent to keep an eye on Anabeth and Claire. His worst fears were confirmed when he pulled his horse up beside the pine where the man had been posted.

“He is dead,” Wolf said after one look at the bloody body lying sprawled on the ground.

Jake slipped off his horse to see how the cowhand had been killed. “Stabbed.” He mounted again and spurred his buckskin toward the willow.

“I never should have let her out of my sight,” Jake muttered.

Halfway to the willow, they met Dog. He barked frantically and raced back toward the willow, then toward Jake again.

“Hell and the devil.” Jake realized suddenly that Anabeth had sent the dog back on purpose. She had saved the damned dog instead of letting him protect her!

The two men galloped the rest of the way to the willow. They read the story left in the women’s wake as though it were written in a book.

“Four, maybe five white men were here,” Wolf said. “The one who killed your sentry joined the others when they left this place.”

“They brought an extra horse, so this was planned in advance,” Jake added. But Rankin hadn’t been expecting to find Claire here because Jake had said she was visiting friends in Texas. So one of them had ridden double.

Jake recalled that Rankin—Reardon—had wanted to marry Claire. Was that why Rankin had killed Sam during the holdup? So Claire would become a widow?

Jake felt his stomach pitch. His flinty gray eyes met Wolf’s gaze. “They’ll kill the women when they’re done with them.”

“Why have they been taken? Do you have an enemy among the whites?”

“Wat Rankin,” Jake said flatly. “He’s hunting for stolen gold, and he thinks Anabeth knows where it is. And I think he had plans once upon a time to make Claire his wife.”

“Will they go to the white man’s town?”

“No. They’ll go to the valley.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s where the gold is supposed to be hidden.”

“Let us go,” Wolf said. “I have a need to spill my enemy’s blood this day.”

The two men rode side by side toward the valley. Dog followed, but along the ridges, at a distance from them.

But Wat Rankin had anticipated pursuit. Jake and Wolf were still some distance from the valley when
they were ambushed, pinned down by a single gunman who was guarding the only way into the valley.

Jake pulled his rifle from the boot on his saddle and returned the outlaw’s fire. “I’ll keep him busy if you’d like to go pay him a visit,” he said to Wolf.

The Apache’s eyes narrowed. “It shall be as you say.” Wolf had spent a lifetime moving across the rocky terrain without a sound, without leaving even so much as a stem of grass bent to show that he had passed. It was child’s play to sneak up on the white man who lay prone with his gun aimed down the canyon that led to the valley.

Wolf gave no warning, and the outlaw who had been recruited by Wat in Santa Fe for a few dollars in gold made no sound as he died with his throat slit from ear to ear.

Wolf waved to Jake, who quickly scrambled up the trail to join him.

There was no mercy in Jake’s eyes when he looked down at the dead outlaw. “I want Rankin. Leave him for me.”

“Which one is Rankin?” Wolf asked.

“He has long blond hair. The kind that makes a showy scalp. You can’t miss him.”

Anabeth glared at Rankin, who was knotting the rope that held both her and Claire tied to a wooden stake planted in front of the stone house. “Jake will kill you for this,” she said.

“I expect he’ll be comin’ after you, all right,” Rankin said. “But you see, Kid, we’ll be waitin’ for him.”

Anabeth exchanged a look with Claire, who was tied with her back to Anabeth on the other side of the stake. Both of them knew Rankin was right. Jake would be coming. And with the way Rankin had them tied to this post, there was no way Jake could save
them without exposing himself to the outlaws concealed nearby.

“Now if you was to tell me where that gold is, Kid, maybe we could make us a deal,” Rankin said.

“I’ve told you I don’t know where it is!”

“Maybe a few hours in the hot sun will refresh your memory,” Wat said.

Anabeth looked up at a spring sun that felt a whole lot more like summertime. Already her mouth felt dry. She wasn’t so much worried for herself and Claire as for what effect such a deprivation might have on the children they carried inside them.

When Rankin left them and moved into the shade of the house Claire asked, “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. But your face …”

“It’s nothing.”

By turning her head Anabeth got a good look at the huge purple and pink bruise on Claire’s cheek. “You shouldn’t have tried to fight them,” Anabeth said. “You should have just let them take me.”

“I couldn’t do that, Anabeth. All I could think was, what if it had been me they were after? You wouldn’t have stood there doing nothing.”

“I’m sorry I got you involved in this,” Anabeth said.

“I still can’t believe that Will Reardon is also an outlaw called Wat Rankin.”

“Rankin was the man who shot and killed Sam,” Anabeth said.

“Oh my God,” Claire said. “Dear God. Does Jake know?”

“He knows.”

“And Rankin wants you,” Claire deduced, “because you can lead him to Sam’s gold.”

“I swear to you, Claire, that I don’t know where it is. You have to believe me. If I knew, I’d have returned it long ago. Please don’t hate me, Claire. I’m so sorry about what happened to Sam.”

“I don’t blame you, Anabeth.”

“But I was there, Claire! I was on my knees beside Sam when he died. And his last words … He said he loved you, Claire. And that he was sorry about Jeff.”

“Oh, Anabeth. So much tragedy …”

Both women were quiet for a while, each caught up in her own memories. Finally Claire said, “How many men do you think Jake will bring with him?”

“Shug won’t stay behind. And surely he’ll bring along a couple of the hands.

“They won’t be able to do much with us being held hostage like this, will they?”

“Jake will figure something out.”

Jake swore vehemently when he saw the two women staked out in front of the stone house. “How are we supposed to get them out of there?”

“We will have to wait until darkness falls,” Wolf said.

“We can’t leave them in that hot sun all day!”

“It is a small price to pay for their safe rescue,” Wolf said.

Jake sighed heavily. “Anabeth is carrying my child.”

“I have seen an Apache woman go a long time without water and bear a healthy child. So it will be with Stalking Deer. You will see.”

“I hope you’re right,” Jake muttered.

“You are a fortunate man,” Wolf said. “I have tried to make a child with my woman, but it has not happened.”

Jake grinned. “Now there you’re wrong.”

“What?”

“Claire told us she’s going to have your child in the fall.”

“Why did she not tell me?”

“I gather there wasn’t time.”

But Wolf knew it was because she had planned to leave him. She had known he would never let her go if she told him she carried his seed. His dark eyes took on a dangerous look as they turned to search the valley. He would kill the men who had threatened his woman. Then he would take her home where she belonged. No one was going to stop him. Not her brother. Not even Little One herself.

“I’m going to take a look around,” Jake said, “to make sure Rankin didn’t plant some extra men here before he went after Anabeth.”

“I will look also,” Wolf said. “We will meet here when the sun sets to do what must be done.”

The instant the two men left the hill two small heads bobbed up.

“I do not know why I let you talk me into this,” White Eagle said.

“It was for her sake, and you know it,” He Makes Trouble replied. “We cannot let our mother be taken captive and do nothing to save her.”

“Wolf will make sure she comes safely away from this place.”

“He may need our help.”

White Eagle eyed the smaller boy askance. He knew better than to disobey, and yet he had allowed himself to be swayed by He Makes Trouble. Likely the boy would one day be a leader of the tribe, he talked so smoothly. But they were here now, and it was up to him to see that He Makes Trouble did not make things worse instead of better. It was always possible that the younger boy was right. If they remained hidden, there was the chance that they might be of some use later, when help was needed.

“Come with me,” White Eagle said. “Let us move closer so we can hear what is being said.”

“Do you remember the white words?” He Makes Trouble asked.

White Eagle frowned. “Most of them.”

“I do not understand how you could have a mother like Little One and be willing to give her up,” He Makes Trouble mused.

“I did not give her up,” White Eagle retorted. “I was stolen from her.”

“Did you not miss her?”

“In the beginning. I was only as old as you are now when Broken Foot brought me to the village. I was afraid. I cried for my mother. But she did not come to get me.”

“Why not?”

White Eagle tugged on his lower lip with his teeth. “I thought it was because she did not care. I got very angry with her and with my white father. I hated them for abandoning me.

“But Cries Aloud was a good mother. Soon I was too busy doing things—things I had never been allowed to do before—to think about my white parents.” He shrugged. “I forgot about them.”

“Little One never forgot about you.”

White Eagle frowned. “No. She remembered me for a long time.”

“Do you still hate her?” He Makes Trouble asked.

“No. I … There are memories of our times together that fill my heart with joy. I was only afraid she would try to take me away from Broken Foot and Cries Aloud. Now … I do not want her to be hurt.”

“Well, that is why we are here,” He Makes Trouble said. “With both of us to watch over her, surely she will come back home safe.”

The two boys inched their way down into the valley, using skills that were still new. So new, that they made mistakes. Which was how they found themselves
facing the barrel of a shotgun with a one-eyed white man holding the trigger.