The Darkest Heart (50 page)

“No. I can’t.”

“Did you go through Apache Pass to reach the entrance or down Sulphur Springs Valley?”

“I—I can’t remember.”

“Surely you remember where the guide left you just a few days ago. Where was that?”

“On the Butterfield Overland Trail,” she lied. It had been in Sulphur Springs Valley.

“How long did it take to reach there from the time you left the camp?”

She tried to breathe more easily. “About forty minutes.” A total fabrication. In any case, now he would think the entrance was much farther north than it was.

“Where on the Butterfield Trail?”

She swallowed. “Close to Apache Pass. East of the summit.” She was thinking desperately. It was a middle-ground answer. They could or could not have gone through the pass after leaving the entrance to the stronghold.

“Surely you’d recollect the descent if you had gone through the pass?”

Trapped. Even at dark, there was no way a person would not be aware of the descent from the summit. “Yes, you’re right. We did go through. We must have.” At least, she thought, he would think the entrance to the stronghold was on the west side of the Chiricahua Mountains, when it was on the east side. But she had slipped. He was wearing her down.

“All lies,” he stated flatly.

“What?” Her heart sank.

He smiled. “Yesterday you told me that after the guide had left you, you found yourself in Sulphur Springs Valley.”

How could she have said something so stupid!

“Who are you protecting? Are you—”

There was a knock on the door.

Bradley paced forward with controlled anger. “I asked not to be disturbed,” he said stiffly.

“Sir, we got him. Savage.”

Candice gasped, standing. Bradley noted her reaction, and the way she moved to the left to see past Sergeant Holden’s form in the hallway. But there was no one there.

“Good work,” Bradley said. “Is he harmed?”

“He’s got a bullet in his shoulder, but it’s just a flesh wound. He gut-stabbed Myers, though, and nicked Lewis. Lewis is okay. Myers is dying. Savage is outside.”

“Heavily guarded, I hope.”

“Yes.”

“Take him to the stockade. Have the surgeon fix him up. Under no condition shall he die. Do you understand? This prisoner is invaluable.”

“Yes, sir.” Holden gave a lazy salute and left.

Candice couldn’t move. She was frozen, and Bradley was looking at her. Too late, she tried desperately to relax her face, but she couldn’t.

“You love him,” he said with interest. “But you obviously ran away. Why?”

She walked to the window, giving him her back. She saw him then, clad only in buckskin pants, his torso bare, wrists shackled behind his back. They were leading him away. He walked proudly erect, the sinewy muscles of his back rippling in the harsh summer sunlight, his sable hair shimmering with rich highlights. There was a soldier on each arm, and a few paces behind, Holden held a rifle pointed at his back.

“Because of Christina,” Candice said unevenly. She could hear her heart beating, it was pounding so loudly. “I could not let her become a squaw, hating her own people.”

She turned to him. “What will you do with him?”

“Interrogate him.”

“And then?”

“He’ll hang.”

Jack knew she was still there, he could feel it. His shoulder throbbed. Despite his wound, his wrists were still shackled behind his back, and because he could lie only on his back, it made the pain in his shoulder worse.

Why was she there?

Had she betrayed him again by betraying his people?

He heard a baby crying. Started, he sat upright, knowing beyond a doubt that it was his daughter. An ache swept through him that had nothing to do with his wound, and he stood, shakily, almost falling, but managed to stagger to the wall where mere was a narrow, barred window. He gazed out, across the parade ground, toward where the baby’s crying had come from. She was quiet. Candice was probably nursing her.

By now they had to know who she was. Had she already been questioned, interrogated? Had she told them what they wanted to hear? She was his wife, but she was also his enemy.… He was sick with doubt, with fear.

He had been so furious and hurt that she’d left him, he had been careless, and he now knew he had fallen into a trap. Had she stayed to be a willing part of that trap? Had she known all along that he would come after her? Had she led him there, right into the hands of the army, in revenge? Did she want to see him hang? Hadn’t she stopped loving him a long time ago?

He cursed.

“That won’t help,” Major Bradley said as the door to his cell was unlocked.

Jack moved weakly toward the cot, almost falling onto it.

“You should be conserving your strength,” Bradley remarked, entering the cell with two soldiers, one big and brawny, the other carrying a revolver, which he had trained on him. “You’ll need it.”

Jack looked at him without expression.

“We can do this the easy way,” Bradley said, “or the hard way.” When there was no response, he said, “I want information.
If you give it to me, you will be released. If not, you will die.”

Jack smiled slightly.

“Where is the stronghold?”

There was no reply.

Bradley made a barely perceptible gesture. The brawny soldier moved forward implacably. Jack tensed. The man reached down, grabbed him, and then a fist came smashing into his face. There was a simultaneous explosion of pain and sparking lights, then a black fog tried to descend. Jack sought it, did not try to resist. But cold water dumped on his head brought him back to consciousness, sputtering and coughing.

He tasted blood. His own. With cold eyes, he met Bradley’s impassive gaze.

“Shall we try again? Where is the stronghold?”

Jack smiled. The next blow cracked his jaw and brought another brief respite of black oblivion. He tried to hang on to it, but his mind surged out of the gray mists with a kind of determination, and with one overwhelming coherent thought. He was facing death.

For he would have to be beaten to death before he would tell them anything that might betray Cochise.

Candice paced. She had been served dinner alone. She was afraid. Bradley had not bothered with her because he had Jack to attend to. Hours ago she had seen Bradley cross the yard and enter the small stone building that was the stockade. He had been with two other soldiers, and they had not yet come out. Was Jack dying?

She had to see him!

She stared out the window. The night was starless, moonless, heavily black. She could barely see the shadowy shapes of the buildings. She listened for the sound of footsteps. Was Bradley still with Jack? If so, he had been interrogating a wounded man for hours and hours. Candice knew Jack would not bend. Ever. They would kill him before he said anything. Dear God—this was all her fault! She had led him right into a trap, and now he would be hanged because of what she had done! It was up to her to get him out, but how?

She was so absorbed in her desperate thoughts that she almost missed Bradley and the soldiers striding across the parade ground. She cried out, then flew to the door and threw it open. “Major! Major, wait!”

He stopped, an almost formless shape in the thick darkness until she was upon him. “It’s late. What a pleasant surprise.”

“Is Jack all right?”

“As well as can be expected.”

“I want to see him,” she pleaded, aghast at how her own voice sounded.

“Impossible. Perhaps tomorrow—before you leave.”

“Leave?”

“Surely you want to return home?”

Candice couldn’t speak.

“Let me escort you inside, Candice,” Bradley said politely, and she let him take her arm and lead her back to her quarters. She was barely aware of him, didn’t even respond when he said good night. She leaned her back against the door, fists clenched. How could she save Jack?

And why had she been such a fool as to run away?

First she had to see him, talk to him. Jack was no fool. She was sure he had been furious when he’d found her gone, even more so when he’d read her note. And surely hurt as well. He had to know by now that this had been a trap. Did he think her a part of it—after she had run away, after that horrid note, how could he not?

He’ll understand when I explain, she thought frantically.

She would seduce Bradley for Jack’s release, if she thought for a minute that would work. But she didn’t think so. On the other hand, once Bradley realized Jack would never speak, he might accept her charms for his release. And if that didn’t work, she could always seduce the guard at the stockade and break Jack out!

Both plans frightened her.

One thing was certain, she could not, would not, leave tomorrow.

She couldn’t sleep. Christina, sensing her mother’s distress, was also restless, crying intermittently. Candice sought comfort in her child even as she comforted her. The night was endless, but she did finally fall asleep when the sky was turning from black to a husky gray.

When she awoke to Christina’s insistent crying, the sun was already high. Candice quickly fed and changed her, then washed up at the basin, wanting to look her best for her interview with the major. She would begin her seduction now if she had to. She left Christina in the cradleboard on the bed, stepped outside, and started across the parade ground to the adjutant’s office. She instantly froze in her tracks.

“Jack!”

He was staked out in the middle of the yard, Indian style, naked. She understood. It was torture. The temperature could reach 110 in the desert in the middle of the summer. She was running to him. His face was unrecognizable. Swollen, bloody. One eye was swollen shut. His nose was broken, his lips split. She cried out, dropping to her knees beside him. The bandage on his shoulder was bloodstained, seeping. His torso was marred with bruises.

“Oh, Jack, what have they done?” she cried.

He looked at her out of one eye. It was hard, and cold. “You left me,” he said, his words slurred because his lips were
split and swollen. “You traitorous bitch.” He made a great effort to make sure she understood what he said.

“I won’t let them hurt you anymore,” she promised. “Jack, I didn’t mean for this to happen! You have to believe me!”

“Did you … lead me here?” Anger blazed in his eyes—and desperation.

“No, I swear it, no! Jack, you have to believe me!”

“Get up, Missus Kincaid, you can’t talk to him,” a man said pityingly behind her.

“No!” she screamed, looking up at Corporal Tarnower. “Get me some water. And rags. Untie him, instantly!”

“Please, ma’am, please get up. You shouldn’t have to see this.” He dragged her to her feet.

She wrenched away. “You’ll kill him! You can’t be so cruel! You can’t!”

“We have orders,” Tarnower said, leading her away.

She looked back, crying. He wasn’t looking at her. He was staring out of one eye straight ahead. “Jack,” she moaned. “Jack, I’m sorry.”

He didn’t turn his head or even give a sign he heard her—or believed her.

Candice ran to the major’s office, shrugging free of the young corporal. She burst in without knocking. He was startled, bent over paperwork, but not surprised. He raised two brows. “I take it you wish a word with me?”

“Do you intend to kill him?”

“I intend to hang him—after he tells us everything.”

“He will die before he tells you anything,” Candice screamed. “Don’t you understand?”

“He will break,” Bradley said confidently.

“No, he is Apache!”

“He is half white.”

“But he was raised by the Apaches! Raised to tolerate pain, endure pain! You will hurt him, yes, maim him, but he will die before ever crying out, much less speaking! Please! Don’t do this!”

“Perhaps there is another way to convince him,” Bradley said thoughtfully. Gazing at her.

“What—what do you mean?”

“A man might be able to stand a lot of pain when it is
inflicted upon himself, but not upon those he loves. His wife—his child.”

“You wouldn’t.” She wasn’t afraid for herself. She would gladly suffer if it would relieve Jack. But Christina …

“You’re right,” Bradley said. “I’m human, and I would never harm you or your baby. But still … I do have you both in my possession.”

She could see him thinking.

“There must be a way I could use you both to weaken him,” Bradley muttered. Without jeopardizing my career.”

Her heart was pounding.

“Tarnower,” he snapped, and the door flew open. “See Missus Kincaid to her room. Bring her lunch. Post a guard. I don’t want her going near the prisoner.”

“Yessir,” the corporal said. And led her away.

Candice couldn’t eat. She was too sick. It was finally, blessedly, dusk. Jack was still staked out, passed out. His calves, genitals, and hips were an angry red, his thighs a lesser shade of red, even his torso and arms and face, normally dark from the sun, were burned, but less badly. She had tried to get past the guard at her door with water in midafternoon. She had fought and screamed and cursed, kicking wildly, and it had taken another soldier to help restrain her, and then she had been locked in her quarters. She picked up her plate and threw it at the wall. It gave her no satisfaction.

She heard footsteps outside. She froze, having no idea what to expect. The door was unlocked, and she saw Major Bradley first, then Jack. Slumped, being dragged by two men, barely conscious. She couldn’t believe it. They helped him into her room and dropped him across the bed. With a strangled cry she flew to him.

“Oh, Jack.” She sobbed, touching his hair, clutching strands of it, wrapping them around her fingers.

His one eye opened, vague, unfocused. Then he saw her, and confusion mounted. But he recognized her. “Candice.” A ragged whisper.

She needed salve, grease, anything. She grabbed the pitcher of water and ripped her petticoat. Then she realized Bradley was standing there, watching with great interest. “Please,” she said, “get me some grease. Please.”

She turned to Jack, but was very much aware that Bradley had not moved. Why had he brought Jack there? She helped him to drink. She knew that throughout the day the soldiers had given him small sips of water, under orders, enough so he wouldn’t die. He knew better than to drink too quickly. He was so stoic.