RenegadeHeart (2 page)

Gradually, the horizon grew light, and when the sun rose
above the mountains, Logan Tyree had shed his last tear. Relentless as a
starved lobo, he prowled the river’s edge, searching the ground for sign,
casting about in ever-widening circles, using all the skills the Mescalero had
taught him.

He was not disappointed. Hours of painstaking effort
rewarded him with that which he so eagerly sought. Moments later he was
tracking six iron-shod ponies headed southeast. It did not occur to him to ask
the Apache for help. They would have been willing, even eager, to take a few
paleface scalps, but avenging Red Leaf’s death was something he needed to do
alone.

The tracks separated near New Mexico, four sets going toward
Colorado, two sets drifting south toward Texas. He followed the first trail
because it was the biggest. And found the four men sleeping beside the dying
embers of a campfire. The first four, caught while his grief was still fresh,
died the hardest. Their screams had been the sweetest music he had ever heard.

Ironically, he found the last two men in the same dirty
whorehouse where he had been born. He had killed them where he found them,
giving them no chance to plead their innocence, no time to defend themselves,
no opportunity to call for help.

And so Red Leaf’s death was avenged, and now there was a
terrible emptiness inside, for he had neither love to warm him nor hate to
sustain him. Unable to face the thought of returning to the Apache now that she
was dead, he drifted into Abilene, Kansas. And somehow, without rhyme or
reason, he became a hired gun, quickly earning a reputation as a merciless,
cold-blooded killer. As time passed, his reputation grew and spread, until he
found himself being credited with murders he hadn’t committed, accused of crimes
he knew nothing about, crimes that occurred in towns where he had never been.
But they had caught him red-handed in Arizona, the gun still in his hand, the
body bleeding at his feet. Perhaps, if the woman had been white, they would
have rewarded him for killing the man who had been trying to beat her to death
with an axe handle.

But the woman had been an Apache squaw, the white man had
been her husband, and Tyree had been sentenced to ninety-nine years in the Yuma
Pen.

Chapter One

Rachel Halloran smiled warmly at the young man sitting
beside her on the front porch swing.

“I’ll miss you, Clint,” she said, her voice soft as honey.
“You will be careful, won’t you?”

Clint Wesley’s grin was as bright as the six-pointed star
pinned to his vest.

“Caution’s my middle name, Rachel. You know that.”

Rachel laughed softly. Clint
was
cautious. He never
made a move that hadn’t been carefully thought out in advance. She knew he
loved her, wanted to marry her, yet his courtship had been slow and
predictable. He had spoken to her several times in church—only after they had
been formally introduced by a mutual friend, of course. After that, he had
sought her out at socials and picnics. A few months later, he had asked her
father if he might come to call. Now he came to see her every Saturday night
and more often than not, Rachel invited him to Sunday dinner as well. Their
romance was very circumspect. After they had dated for a month and a half,
Clint found the courage to hold her hand. A few months later, he summoned the
nerve to put his arm around her shoulders when they sat together on the porch
swing. Just recently, he had found the courage to kiss her. He had asked her
permission first, of course. Somehow, that had irritated her, though she was
careful not to let it show. She supposed she loved Clint and would likely marry
him one day in the future, but sometimes she wished he was more exciting, more
spontaneous. If he wanted to kiss her, why didn’t he just sweep her into his
arms and kiss her?

Rachel sighed softly as Clint’s arm went around her
shoulders. He was a nice young man and she was terribly fond of him. People
just naturally liked Clint. He was tall and handsome, with sandy blond hair and
mild blue eyes. He didn’t look tough enough to be a lawman and yet he had
managed to keep the peace in Yellow Creek for over two years. Of course, few
strangers ever came to town, and the local folk rarely violated the town laws,
except for Gus Bradshaw, who got roaring drunk every Saturday night. Rachel
wondered sometimes how Clint would react if a real bad man ever rode into town.

Clint gave Rachel’s shoulders a squeeze. Then, with an
audible sigh, he stood up, reaching for his hat.

“Well, I’d best be going,” he said reluctantly. “I’ve got to
get an early start in the morning.”

Rachel stood up, lifting her face for his kiss. “Take care
of yourself,” she murmured. “I’ll miss you.”

Wesley nodded. “I’ll see you as soon as I get back.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Wesley nodded again, wondering if he dared kiss her again.
Instead, he gave her a last, quick hug, then went down the stairs to where his
horse was hitched to the rail. He swung agilely into the saddle, tipped his hat
to Rachel, and rode out of the yard.

Rachel smiled as she watched Clint ride away. He would make
her a good husband, she mused as she went up to bed. If he ever got the nerve
to propose! He had wanted to kiss her again; she had seen it in his eyes. Why
hadn’t he done it?

Climbing into bed, she drew the covers to her chin, wishing
that Clint Wesley would stop worrying about propriety and sweep her off her
feet. She fell asleep thinking of Clint, dreaming of all the towheaded children
they would someday have.

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear and warm. Rachel’s
first thought was of Clint, she hoped he’d gotten off to an early start and
would return safely home. Transporting a prisoner from Yellow Creek to the
territorial prison at Yuma was always a dangerous assignment. You never knew
when a prisoner’s friends or relatives would take it into their heads to try and
help a convicted man escape his fate. Patrick Murphy, the town’s previous
lawman, had been killed en route to Yuma, shot down in cold blood by his
prisoner’s brother. Fortunately, such things were rare, but they did happen.

Resolutely, Rachel put such thoughts from her mind. Slipping
out of her blue flannel night-rail, she dressed quickly and headed downstairs
to prepare breakfast for herself and her father.

She found six-year-old Amy Cahill waiting for her in the
kitchen. Amy was a frequent visitor at the Lazy H. Her uncle, Joe Cahill, was
foreman of the Halloran ranch.

“Good morning, Amy,” Rachel said cheerfully as she tousled
the girl’s blonde curls.

“You slept late,” Amy remarked. “Are we making pies today?”

“If you like.” Rachel spread a clean cloth over the kitchen
table and put the water on for coffee. “You’ll have to pick some berries
though. I’m fresh out.”

“Can I pick them now?”

“Have you had breakfast yet?”

“At home,” Amy said, scooping up the berry basket from a
shelf in the pantry. “Mama made pancakes.”

“Be careful,” Rachel cautioned as Amy skipped out the back
door.

“I will,” Amy replied, her tone implying that was a warning
she heard frequently.

The berry bushes were located behind the smokehouse. It was
a long walk, but Amy didn’t mind. Skipping along, she glanced at the sand hills
located some miles away. She had been admonished time and again not to go
there, but she promised herself that one day she would explore the forbidden
mountains of sand.

But now, pies were uppermost in her mind. The bushes were
heavy with fruit and Amy hummed softly as she moved from bush to bush,
collecting blackberries. Her basket was nearly full when she found the man. He
was lying in a shallow hole in the ground, partially covered with dead leaves.

Startled, Amy stared at the man for a long time, wondering
if he were dead. He looked like he was asleep, but then, her best friend, Joe
Bob Somers, said that was how dead people looked, like they were sleeping, so
how was a girl to know? The man lay so still, Amy decided he had to be dead,
and all the scary stories she had ever heard about ghosts and haunts made her
shiver with apprehension.

She was about to turn and run for home when the man rolled
over and she found herself staring into a pair of pain-glazed yellow eyes.

“Are you all right, mister?” Amy queried tremulously.
Slowly, she began to back away from the man, surprised to find she was more
afraid of him now that she knew he was alive than she had been when she thought
he was dead.

“Need help,” the man rasped. He tried to sit up, but fell
back heavily. His face went white beneath its tan. “Water—”

“Sure, mister. Just lie still and I’ll bring help. Honest I
will!”

But the man was unconscious again and did not hear her.

Rachel held the front door open as Joe Cahill and two of the
Lazy H cowhands carried the unconscious man into the house. Twenty minutes
earlier, Amy had run into the kitchen shouting, “A man, Rachel! I found a man
in the berry bushes. I thought he was dead, but he wasn’t!”

Once Rachel had calmed the excited child down, she had
learned that Amy had first gone to her uncle and that Cahill was even then
bringing the man to the house.

Rachel looked at the stranger’s face as he was carried
inside. Who was he? Where had he come from?

“He’s bad hurt,” Cahill remarked.

“Take him into the spare bedroom,” Rachel said. Frowning,
she went down the narrow hallway ahead of the men. Turning left, she entered
the spare bedroom located at the end of the hall and quickly turned back the
bedclothes.

“Don’t know if he’s gonna make it,” Cahill muttered as the
cowhands laid the injured man on the bed. “That bullet wound looks like it’s
festering.”

“It’s in God’s hands,” Rachel murmured. “All we can do is
patch him up and hope for the best.”

Logan Tyree stirred at the sound of voices but his eyes
refused to open and when he tried to speak, the words would not come. Rough
hands endeavored to wrest the six-gun from his grasp, but he batted them away,
refusing to relinquish his hold on the .44.

“Shit, Candido, let him keep his iron,” Joe Cahill growled.
Then, remembering where he was, he murmured, “Sorry, Miss Rachel.”

“It’s all right.”

“He ain’t gonna turn loose of that Colt,” Cahill mused, “but
he ain’t got the strength to cock the damn thing, neither.” Color crept up the
back of Cahill’s bull-like neck. “‘Scuse me again, Miss Rachel.”

Rachel smothered a grin. When the men got excited, they
often cursed in her presence. Always, they were embarrassed and quick to
apologize.

“Leave the gun for now,” Rachel said.

Cahill nodded as he followed the cowhands out of the room.
If anyone could pull the stranger through, Rachel Halloran could. Many a man on
the Lazy H owed life or limb to her nimble fingers and quick thinking.

Rachel quickly gathered several clean cloths, scissors,
disinfectant and a bowl of warm water. Then, taking a deep breath, she began to
undress the man lying on the bed. The wound in his side was red, swollen, and
infected. Fortunately, she had been blessed with a strong stomach and steady
hands and the sight of blood and torn flesh did not send her running for her
smelling salts as it did so many of her friends. As the only woman on the
ranch, she was often called upon to nurse the sick and tend the wounded. When
times were hard and they could not afford the extra help, she often pitched in
to work the cattle, occasionally she helped with the branding and the calving,
sometimes she helped with the castrating, which was hard, dirty work at best
and usually left to the men.

With cool efficiency, Rachel began to wash the wound.

Tyree groaned as unseen hands probed for the slug lodged
deep in his left side. The slightest touch caused him agony, and he clenched
his teeth as the slug was pried from his flesh. Through it all, he held fast to
the Colt, finding comfort in the weight and feel of a gun in his hand without
remembering why. Rachel gnawed on her lower lip, her brow knit with
determination, as she removed the slug, washed the wound a second time, then
swabbed the whole area with strong carbolic.

With a soft grunt of exertion, she rolled the semi-conscious
man onto his side so she could remove the sodden, blood-stained linen from the
bed. It was then she saw his back. It was badly scarred. She knew men in prison
were often flogged for disobedience and she drew back, chilled to the bone by
the thought that the man tossing restlessly on the bed might be an escaped
felon.

As though hypnotized, she continued to stare in horrified
fascination at the broad, scarred back, feeling a surge of pity well in her
heart. No human being, no matter what his crimes, should be subjected to such
cruel abuse.

With tender concern, she washed the broad expanse of
sun-bronzed flesh, spread a clean white sheet beneath him, then pulled the
bedcovers up over his shoulders.

That done, she studied the man through boldly curious eyes.
He was a big man, tall and whipcord lean. Though he was terribly thin, she
could see he had once been powerfully built. A thick black moustache and
bristly black beard covered the lower portion of his face, making it difficult
to determine if he were young or old, handsome or plain.

His language, when he mumbled in his sleep, was coarse,
filled with the kind of profanity no lady was ever permitted to hear. Even
Rachel, accustomed to the curses of the men who worked the ranch, had rarely
heard such foul expletives.

Abruptly, the man began to toss fitfully. His eyelids
flickered open and he stared, unseeing, at Rachel.

“You dirty sonofabitch,” he growled in a voice edged with
pain. “If my hands were free, I’d take that whip and give you a taste of your
own medicine.” He lay still, rigid, as though listening to a distant voice, and
then he laughed, a deep ugly laugh laced with bitter despair. “Go ahead, you
slimy bastard, do your worst!”

Rachel watched in tight-lipped silence as the man’s body
grew tense from head to heel. His mouth thinned to a taut line and sweat popped
out on his brow as he relived the agony of the lash playing across his flesh.

It was too awful to watch. Stepping forward, Rachel placed
her hand on the man’s shoulder and shook him slightly.

“It’s over,” she murmured urgently. “Forget it. Sleep now.
Hush, hush. It’s over. Go to sleep.”

Tyree’s eyes flickered open as a soft voice murmured words
of comfort. He stared at the woman hovering over him, expecting, somehow, to
see the face of the woman he had loved more than his own life. But the face
hovering above him was pale ivory, not copper; the hair was honey-gold instead
of Indian black; the eyes the most incredible shade of sky-blue when they
should have been deep chocolate brown.

Disappointed, he closed his eyes and fell into a deep black
void that stretched away into infinity.

Rachel stayed at his side almost constantly during the next
few days. She held him down when he began to thrash about, fearful that he would
rip open the ugly wound in his side. He had already lost a great deal of blood;
he could ill afford to lose more should the wound start to bleed again.

The thought that he might be a wanted man gnawed in the back
of her mind. Harboring a fugitive was against the law and, though she tried to
convince herself he was just a man who had run afoul of outlaws or Indians, she
knew deep inside herself that he was wanted by the law. The scars on his back,
the odd purple discolorations on his wrists and ankles, undoubtedly caused by
shackles, the words he mumbled in his sleep, all pointed to the fact that he
was an escaped prisoner.

The man was ever in Rachel’s thoughts as she moved from
chore to chore. Who was he? What had he done? Was it safe to have such a man in
the house? When she voiced her concern to her father, he merely shrugged.

“I don’t reckon he’ll be much of a threat for another day or
two,” John Halloran said laconically, “but I’ll have one of the boys take him
into town to Doc Franklin if his being here bothers you.”