Pieces of Sky (46 page)

She wanted to give in to it. She wanted to fall into nothingness. She wanted to die.

Like a hand pulling her from drowning waters, Brady’s voice called her back. Gasping and choking, she fought her way out of the darkness. With a scream of outrage, she launched herself at Sancho, clawing at his face, his eyes, yanking at his hair.

Caught off-balance, he stumbled back, hands up to ward her off.

She drove her knee into his groin.

He doubled over.

Screaming and cursing, she kicked again and again, her bare foot ineffective until it landed against his injured leg.

He buckled and fell backward.

She raced across the cave, frantically searching for a weapon—a rock, a stick—anything to use against him. She saw the lantern and snatched it from the shelf. She heard him move up behind her and whirled, swinging the lantern as hard as she could.

A crack—then a shower of kerosene and glass as the lamp exploded against the side of his face. Flames engulfed his head. He screamed, batting at his face, his hair, his shirt. Then suddenly he was a human torch lurching blindly, arms flailing, his inhuman shrieks ricocheting off the rocky walls.

In mindless horror, she scrambled into the tunnel.

 

 

BRADY HEARD SCREAMS AS HE CHARGED UP THE ROCKY SLOPE. He had heard agony like that only one other time in his life—the day Sam died. Hearing those blood-chilling wails now and knowing Jessica was in there sent such a wave of terror through him he almost lost his footing. Heart pounding, he raced through the arched entrance just as something sailed out of the darkness and slammed into him.

He stumbled back, raising an arm to knock it aside, then froze when he recognized the voice and the body pressed against his. “Jessica?” he choked out, his arms locking around her, so weak with relief his legs threatened to give way.

She clung to him, shaking and crying. “Y-You’re a-alive, you’re alive.” Her arms were so tight around his neck he could hardly breathe.

The shrieking from the back of the cave stopped.

Trying desperately to stay focused, he pulled back and trapped her face in his trembling hands to keep her still. “Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?”

She shook her head, her teeth chattering so hard she could hardly speak. “I th-thought you were d-dead—I thought he—”

“Shhh . . . it’s over.” He kissed her, kissed her again, then again, wanting to pull her inside him so he could keep her with him and safe forever. “I’m here. It’s over.” With shaking fingers he wiped red smears from her face, hoping it was his blood, not hers. “You’re safe now.”

She saw his bloody fingers and recoiled. “You’re bleeding! Your cuts.”

From the darkness came a noise—part whimper, part cry—a sound no human should make.

Jessica threw herself against him. “He’s still alive! How can he still be alive?”

Thrusting her behind him, Brady scanned the darkness at the back of the cave. He caught a whiff of something rank and sickeningly familiar, but saw no movement. “Where is he?”

“I h-hit him with the lantern and—and he started burning and—”

Voices behind them, then Hank and Jack ran through the entrance, panting, guns drawn.

Quickly Brady told them what happened and that Sancho was still alive in the back of the cave. “Hank, stay with Jessica. You wouldn’t fit in the tunnel. Jack, come with me.” Spotting a lantern by the entrance, he lit it and headed toward the back of the cave, Jack trailing behind.

“What’s that smell?” Jack asked as they ducked into the tunnel opening.

“Sancho.”

“Jesus, did she burn him?”

The stink grew stronger the deeper they went, almost making Brady gag. Wishing he had a kerchief to pull over his mouth and nose, he crawled through the tunnel into the inner cavern. As soon as he had headroom, he straightened and held the lantern high. It was a grisly sight.

“Damn,” Jack muttered, his voice muffled behind his hand. He looked around, then nodded toward the broken lantern. “She must have hit him with that.”

“Fried him good, didn’t she?”

“She was fighting for her life, Jack.”

“I’m not complaining. Saves us a bullet.”

Holding his shirttail over his nose and mouth, Brady bent over Sancho’s twisted, smoking body to see if he was still alive.

He was. Barely. His face looked melted. His lips were gone, his teeth showing in a ghoulish grimace. His seeping eyes were open but Brady couldn’t tell if they saw anything. He was breathing but appeared to be unconscious.

Suddenly all the fury that had eaten away at him for twenty years uncoiled in Brady’s mind. He reached for his pistol. “I’ve got you now, you sonofabitch.” Drawing the Colt, he thumbed the hammer back and pointed the barrel at Sancho’s head.

But he couldn’t pull the trigger.

His hand started to shake. Gritting his teeth, he squeezed the pistol grip so hard his swollen knuckles turned white. Still, he couldn’t pull the trigger. It was as if he had turned to stone, his mind shouting orders but his body unable to move.

Sancho made a garbled sound, his scorched body jerking with spasms.

Slowly the rage faded, leaving a sour taste in Brady’s mouth and an ache behind his eyes. This was what he wanted, he reminded himself.

A long, agonizing death was what Sancho deserved. Shutting his mind to the tortured breathing, he eased the hammer down and reholstered the pistol.

“You’re not going to shoot him?” Jack asked.

“Let him suffer.” For Sam. For Jessica and Ru and all the others. He turned to his brother. “You and Hank take Jessica to the ranch. Sancho set the barn on fire. It could spread to the house.”

“What about you? You’re bleeding like a stuck pig.”

“Send someone for Doc. He can tend to me when I get back.”

“You’re staying?”

Suddenly Brady felt so weary he was light-headed. Every muscle ached. The cuts on his chest throbbed and his throat still burned from all the smoke he’d inhaled. Moving to the other side of the cave, he slumped down against the wall where the air was less rank. Mindful of his lacerated wrists and swollen hands, he rested his folded arms on his upraised knees and leaned back. “I’ll wait. This shouldn’t take long.” After twenty years and more death and destruction than he wanted to contemplate, it was fitting he and Sancho should spend these last hours together.

Jack left.

Silence, except for the rasp of Sancho’s breathing. Brady watched his struggle and thought of all the people this smoldering ruin of a man had hurt. And for what? A piece of land?

It sickened him.

Maybe Jessica was right. Maybe he should walk away. Start over somewhere else.

As soon as that thought popped into his mind, all the reasons it would never work shouted it down. And the one that kept resounding in his head the loudest was the one hardest to overlook: Without the ranch, who was he? What would he do if he started over? How would he live the years he had left? A man needed something to hold on to. Something bigger than himself. If he couldn’t build something lasting and worthwhile, what was all the struggle for?

“Was it worth it, Sancho?” he asked wearily.

Sancho had no answer.

Brady didn’t either. He just wanted it over.

Time passed, measured by the slow dimming of the lamp and the gradual stiffening in Brady’s battered body. He tried to rest but couldn’t, plagued by a steady march of memories. He realized that with Sancho dead, he would never know who killed Maria and Don Ramon. In his mind he saw his father’s slack face, his haunted eyes begging for understanding, and it came to him that he no longer cared about his father’s guilt. His own lack of forgiveness troubled him more. It shamed him that he had let his father die without giving him that at least.

So many wasted years, so many mistakes. There had to have been a better way.

Wearily he dropped his head into his crossed arms, wishing he could start over, do things different. But what? This was what he was, what his life was all about—struggling to dig out an existence in a land that didn’t want to be conquered, fighting for just one more day, one more chance, hoping tomorrow would be better. If he walked away from the ranch, he’d be walking away from himself.

Sancho’s breathing changed.

Brady looked up to see the dying man twitch, his seared muscles jerking and flexing. His moans echoed along the walls. “
Ayú . . . da . . . me
. . .”

Moving stiffly, Brady rose and crossed the cave. He stared down at the charred face, watched those blind eyes move toward him. Sancho said something but Brady couldn’t make it out. Trying not to breathe, he leaned closer.

“H-hel . . . ne,” Sancho rasped, with only his blistered tongue to form the words.
Help me.

Brady straightened, repelled by the stink, the moans, the utter agony reflected in those sightless eyes. Walking to the far wall, he rested his palm against the cool sandstone and tried to shut his mind to the sound of that raspy voice. He didn’t want to feel sympathy for this pitiful wreck of a man. Vengeance was in his hands. He didn’t want to weaken.

“Shoot . . . ne . . .”

Brady squeezed his eyes shut as the past pressed against him, demanding its due. Vengeance or mercy? He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do anymore . . . what any of it meant or why it all rested on him now. He was so sick of the hate and killing, he felt like he was drowning in blood.

He wanted it over. He needed it to be over. Now.

With grim determination, Brady drew the Colt and walked toward Sancho. Lifting the pistol, he cocked it and aimed at Sancho’s head. He took a deep breath. Silence thundered through his head. Too much silence. He lowered the gun.

Bending over Sancho, he searched for movement, some sign that he still lived. Nothing.

He straightened and slipped the gun back into the holster.

For a minute he stood there, unable to walk away, waiting for something—some sense of satisfaction, of triumph. But he felt nothing beyond a soul-deep weariness. The feud that had consumed him for most of his life was finally over. The enemy he had battled for two decades lay dead at his feet. He’d won. Shouldn’t he feel something more than this empty relief?

When no answers came, he picked up the lantern and left the cave.

He decided to leave Sancho where he was. At first he had thought to give the body to the sheriff, like he’d done with Alvarez. But at some point during those long hours while he waited for Sancho to die, Brady realized that, for better or worse, this broken man was as much a part of RosaRoja as he was. In his own twisted way, Sancho loved this land, too. Maybe it was weakness, or maybe he didn’t care anymore, but Brady decided to let him stay. He’d get some black powder or a few sticks of dynamite from one of the mines nearby, and seal Sancho in his cave forever. But for now, he stacked rocks in the tunnel opening to keep scavengers out and let it go at that.

It was long past dawn when he finally trudged down the slope to where his horse waited.

As he rode toward home, a spark of hope ignited in his weary mind, and with every step away from the cave it grew. Maybe without the feud hanging over his head, things would be different. Maybe he could build something worthwhile, find a better way to spend the years he had left. With Jessica beside him, anything was possible. She had a way of making him feel like he could do it all.

Riding down into the home valley, he noticed a pall of smoke hanging in the still air, turning the sun a deep orange in the morning sky. Despite the thickening smoke, he could still see the glow of the fire long before he reached the compound. And when he finally got close enough to see the extent of the destruction, he reined in, staring in shock.

The barn and paddocks were lost. The house was a sheet of crackling flames. Most of the outbuildings had been reduced to tangled piles of glowing timbers. The only things standing were a few of the more remote cabins and the loafing shed. It looked like the fires of hell.

He stared in disbelief, unable to get his mind around what his eyes were seeing. Gone. Everything. The losses were immeasurable, not just because Ru had died or because of all the structures that were lost. It was the loss of years—decades of backbreaking work—years he didn’t have anymore. He was thirty-three. Not in his lifetime could he make RosaRoja into even a shadow of what it once was.

Gone. All of it.

A sudden tightness gripped his chest. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Slumping over the saddle horn, he struggled to pull air into his aching lungs as his mind grappled with the terrible reality that faced him. He saw nothing ahead but endless toil and years of struggle.

Could he even survive a future like that? Probably.

Could Jessica? Probably not. And he couldn’t even ask her to try.

A terrible emptiness spread within him. He saw everything clearly now, all his failures, his sins—Sam, Jacob, Paco, and Sancho—all the bloodshed, the forgiveness withheld—all the mistakes he’d made as he’d blindly forged ahead on a path he’d never questioned.

This was his accounting, his payback for all the sins of the past.

He was doomed and damned.

But he wouldn’t bring Jessica down with him.

Suddenly dizzy, he gripped the pommel with both hands, fighting for balance as he realized the full extent of the debt he had to pay. More than the destruction of the ranch, more than the end of the dream, it was the loss of Jessica that would bring him to his knees.

With an anguished cry, Brady lifted his face to the bloodred sky. His day of reckoning had come.

Twenty-three