Texas Lucky (6 page)

A few of the men snickered, and Tess knew she was beaten—until she spotted Lulie watching from the edge of the crowd.

She was her only hope.

“Lulie, you tell them,” she begged. “Tell them what Saul told you. How he’d left silver ore, by his estimate ten thousand dollars’ worth, and how he told you he planned to marry me. You said I’ve got a right to it.”

All eyes turned on Lulie.

Lulie backed away a few steps, looking nervous, but only for a few seconds before recovering to lash out at Tess, “You dare ask me to back up your lies after you stole my mule and buckboard, you shameless hussy?”

A murmur went through the crowd, and a man yelled, “She’s a horse thief. That’s even worse. Hang her.”

“That’s right,” someone else chimed in. “Horse thieves got to hang.”

Tess, her eyes filling with tears, could only stare at Lulie in disbelief, but the woman quickly backed into the throng to disappear from sight.

All around, the shouts were loud and clear. The people wanted Tess executed then and there.

But Worley Branson declared, “There’ll be no lynching. She’ll get a fair trial when the judge comes through. Till then, she goes to jail.”

Grumblings of disappointment went through the crowd. Worley, tightly gripping Tess’s arm, said, “All right, let’s go.”

“But this is wrong,” she argued, casting a final, scathing glare at Jake Harville as she was led away. “I only wanted to take what’s mine, and Lulie lied. She gave me the buckboard and mule, and—”

“Shut up.” Worley slung her in front of him, causing her to stumble and almost fall. “Or I’ll let them vultures have you.”

She was shoved along the street, with people jeering now and then, finally reaching a barn where she was thrown over the back of a horse. Then, with Worley leading and two other men on horseback carrying torches, she was taken, bouncing uncomfortably on her stomach, out of town.

Twenty minutes later, she was yanked down from the horse to find herself staring at a large opening in one of the many rock formations surrounding her. In the glow of torchlight, she could see a crude gate of some sort had been built in front of it.

“I saw your trunk in the back of Lulie’s buckboard,” Worley said as one of his men maneuvered to open the gate. “I’ll have some of your clothes brought out in the morning.”

With a beefy hand on her shoulder, he pushed her toward the hole.

Tess, panic rising, balked. “No, wait. You can’t put me in there. You said I was going to jail.”

The men laughed, and Worley said, “This
is
the jail in Devil’s Eye. Actually, it’s an old mine shaft, but it serves the purpose. There’s water for drinking and bathing, and lots of shelter in the tunnels. You get fed twice a day.”

He unlocked her handcuffs, and, as she stood rubbing her wrists, advised, “If you scrounge around, you’ll find some old blankets.”

She was shoved inside.

“How…how long will I be here?” she asked, shivering as the dampness of the shaft began to creep into her bones.

“Hard to say. But I wouldn’t be in a big hurry if I was you, ’cause you’re probably going to hang. I’ve never known the judge to let a horse thief go yet, and it won’t matter one whit you’re a woman.”

The gate was closed.

They rode away, and Tess found herself swallowed by darkness.

She stood there a few moments, terror an unseen hand clutching at her throat as she pondered her dilemma. Then, in surrender, she sank to the floor and let the tears come. When there were none left, she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and thought of all that had happened in the scant three days since her arrival.

She had been stunned by Saul’s death, leaving her indigent and alone.

She had been scared out of her wits by a murderer sneaking into her hotel room.

Two men had almost raped her.

A woman she thought her only friend had turned against her in the worst way. Lulie could have said she had loaned her the wagon and mule without knowing why she wanted it. She did not have to say she had stolen it.

Now she was being held prisoner in a mine shaft. With a heavy heart, she wondered what would happen next.

And suddenly the answer came as a torch appeared to drive away the darkness and a voice chuckled to say, “Well, well, well. Looks like I’ve got company.”

With a wrenching gasp, Tess saw in the fire’s glow that it was Curt Hammond.

Chapter Five

Tess quickly scrambled to her feet and backed against the wall. “Stay away from me!”

He sneered. “I don’t want anything to do with you.”

A sudden gust of wind blew out the flames. He stumbled forward and bumped into her in the darkness.

She swatted at him with both hands. “Get back, or I’ll—”

“Or you’ll what?” He moved away. “In case you haven’t noticed, there’s nobody here except us…and a couple of skeletons I found way in the back when I was exploring one day. But you don’t have to worry about me bothering you—not when you’re the reason I’m here.”

She dared to remind him, “You killed somebody.
That’s
why you’re here.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said tightly. “And the fact is, you wouldn’t give me the benefit of the doubt, so here I am, waiting to get my neck stretched, thanks to you.”

“It’s your own fault. You shouldn’t have murdered anybody.”

“It wasn’t murder.”

“Well, it makes no difference to me. I have my own problems.” She ran her hands up and down her arms nervously. Her eyes were gradually getting used to the dark, and she strained to see him so she could keep her distance.

“So what did you do?”

She was not about to tell him. “It’s none of your business. Leave me alone.”

“I’ll do just that,” he snapped. “And you can fend for yourself and try to find your own blanket among the scorpions and snakes. I don’t give a damn.”

She heard his boots crunching against the rocky floor of the mine shaft, finally fading away, and for one desperate moment she almost called out for him to come back. She was cold, but she was not about to try to find a blanket after what he had just said. She was also terribly hungry and wondered if he might have food stashed away.

Instead she kept still. After all, if he decided to take revenge, there was no one around to come to her aid. No one cared what happened to her.

Sinking once more to the floor, she wrapped her arms around her legs and drew her knees to her chin.

She wished she could fall asleep so the hours would pass quickly and morning would come, and then she could see her way around. Worley Branson had said she’d be fed, and maybe he would have a change of heart and realize she was telling the truth.

Exhausted, she finally slept, only to awaken with a start and a stiff neck at the sound of a horse approaching.

At first, she did not remember where she was and stared about wildly. Then it all came flooding back as she got to her feet and clutched the barred gate, watching the rider draw closer in the bright morning sun.

“Where’s Mr. Branson?” she asked the strange man, cringing at the way he grinned at her. He had beady eyes and a bushy beard and looked and smelled like he’d never bathed in his life.

“Oh, you probably won’t see him again till you go to trial,” he answered as he dismounted.

Untying the bucket hanging from the saddle, he brought it over to the gate and said, “Look around for a pan. There’s one in there someplace.

“And tell your partner to get his, too,” he added with a knowing smirk. “Or is he all tuckered out from last night? I’ll bet the two of you had a real nice reunion.”

“And I reckon you’ve got a dirty mind,” she fired back, surprising herself with her sudden nerve.

He snickered. “You don’t have to pretend with me, you haughty little strumpet. The whole town knows you two were in cahoots together. Now, are you gonna find a pan or do you want me to pour yours on the ground?”

From what Tess could see of the bucket’s contents—a brown-looking mash of some sort that smelled vaguely of beans and bacon—she was tempted to tell him to do just that, only it had been a long time since she had eaten, and she was starting to feel dizzy.

Glancing about, she spied a rusting pan among the rocks. Scraping the rust out with a stone as best she could, she slid it beneath the gate.

He had pushed a few of her clothes inside. “Worley thought you might be wantin’ a change in the weeks to come. Better be sparse, though, ’cause we don’t do laundry, and this is all you’re gettin’.”

“But I had a whole trunkful of clothes,” she protested.

“And Worley says he’s got a niece in Tucson who’s small enough to wear ’em, so be glad he was generous enough to let you have these.”

Tess thought of the wedding dress in the trunk. It had been her mother’s, who was a bit larger, so she had carefully taken in the seams and darts to wear it when she married Saul. It meant so much to Tess, and she’d hoped to one day hand it down to her own daughter—should she ever have one—to wear on her wedding day. It saddened her to know it was gone forever.

He was pouring out her portion when Curt Hammond appeared. Holding a pan, he said, without looking at her, “Give her as much as she wants, Skelly. She’s skin and bones.”

“That’s enough.” Tess drew back her pan. She wanted no favors from Curt Hammond.

“Any word on when the judge will be here?” Curt asked.

Skelly emptied the rest of the bucket in his pan. “You asked me the same question yesterday, and I’ll give you the same answer today—don’t nobody know when the judge is comin’. He just shows up.” He glanced slyly from Curt to Tess. “But at least while you’re waitin’”—he winked at Curt—“you can dip into the honey pot all you want.”

He left them, cackling to himself.

Tess had sat back down and was eating ravenously, having no choice but to use her fingers.

She had hoped Curt would take his food and disappear into the back of the shaft, but instead he sat down opposite her, darting glances at her every so often.

Finally, she could stand it no longer and, licking her fingers and setting the pan aside, declared, “Don’t get any notions about doing what that man said. You aren’t dipping into anything as long as I’ve got a breath left in me to fight you off, buster.”

He had just filled his mouth and nearly choked on his laughter before he managed to swallow and say, “I don’t think I could ever get that desperate, princess. I want to feel something when I touch a woman. Not get cut to pieces by bones. A soft woman, that’s what I want.”

“I don’t care what you want, Mr. Hammond, and quite frankly, I’m grateful you don’t find me appealing, because I certainly find you the most despicable man I’ve ever met in my whole life. You are a liar as well as a murderer. You tried to make me think you were my fiancé, remember?”

“I was desperate.”

“You’re a liar.”

“And what are you?”

She blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Why did they put you here? What did you do?”

“I told you that’s none of your business.”

“Well, I don’t give a damn, anyway. You’re on your own, princess.”

“And stop calling me princess,” she shouted after him as he walked away.

“Then stop acting like one,” he fired back. “Get off your goddamn throne, lady.”

Tess threw the pan after him, and it hit the rocks with a resounding clang.

He did not look back.

She felt like crying again but was too mad—not only with him but with herself as well, for not doing a better job of fighting back as problem after problem had arisen.

In the first place, she never should have left to marry Saul Beckwith. It would have been better to run away and find some way to support herself and then return for Perry as soon as she could.

Next, she never should have trusted Lulie, much less listened to her. Once Jake Harville had refused to give her the money, she had been a fool to try to take it by force.

Tess knew beyond all doubt that she did not belong in the West. But, as she reflected on her gullibility, anger began to replace her sense of helplessness.

She had no home to go back to now…no money to get there even if she did.

And it would be a waste of time to send her aunt a telegram asking for help. Aunt Elmina did not want her back and would, no doubt, tell her to look around and find another man to marry. After all, there were plenty of men out West looking for wives.

And they didn’t all want a
soft woman
, either, Tess thought with an indignant glance in the direction Curt Hammond had disappeared.

So it was time to stop feeling sorry for herself and think about how she was going to get out of the mess she was in. The first step was conquering her fear of her surroundings.

Daylight spilled through the opening of the shaft for perhaps fifty feet. Debris littered the floor—bones, too small to be anything but chicken, a few more pans, and an empty bucket. But no blankets.

During the night, she had heard the sound of running water and she soon located the source—a trickle running down the rocky wall to a narrow stream. She was able to drink and bathe and found a private place on the other side for personal needs.