The Kissing Stars (29 page)

Fixing his gaze on Tess, he reached down and rubbed his crotch. “Special plans.”

Tess shut her eyes as the knowledge seeped into her pores like a poison. Rape.

Fear fluttered through her, threatening to send her to her knees. But maternal instinct was mightier than fear, and as she turned her attention to protecting her son, her strength came roaring back. Take it one step at a time, Tess. You’ll know what to do when the time is right.

Jimmy Wayne Bodine would not hurt her son in any way.
Period
.

“Do as he says, Will,” she told the frightened boy.

It took them almost twenty minutes to get the bags property balanced and lashed onto Pollux’s saddle. Bodine sat and watched them, waving his gun, talking tough, and touching himself. Tess watched her son closely and saw the moment he realized what Bodine had in mind for her. The wild look on his face convinced her she must convince the criminal to leave her son behind. To that end she began to talk.

“Don’t be afraid Will. You know how you get when you’re afraid. We don’t need to deal with vomiting and the other…well…I don’t know that Mr. Bodine will allow you to change your britches. And you don’t have that many extra pairs with you.”

“What?” her son said looking at her as if she were crazy.

Bodine scowled “Are you saying the kid gets the trots when he’s—”

“Upset or frightened or even just a little tense. It’s a physical problem, and not something he can control. So, please, Mr. Bodine, don’t take it out on Will when he becomes unpleasant to be around.” Turning to her son, she said “I know you’ll try your best, honey, but when it happens, just make sure to stay downwind of Mr. Bodine.”

Now she’d made the boy crazy. “Mama, what are you doing?”

“I’m sorry, honey. I know it embarrasses you, and I try to be extra sensitive of the fact. However, under the circumstances I thought it best for Mr. Bodine to know.”

“Damned right,” Bodine said rearing back and holding his hand over his nose. “I’m not taking a boy who shits his pants with me anywhere. Don’t need him anyway. Get a rope, lady. Well tie him up and leave him here.” He scratched at his beard and added, “I sorta like that thought, anyway. He can give my message to Montana personally.”

Bodine directed Tess to tie the knots so he need not get too close to the boy. “I will check them, though,” he added. “So do them up right.”

While she retrieved a rope from Castor’s saddle, she kept her gaze on the ground, searching for the best sharp-edged rock among the many scattered across the desert sand. Making her choice, she dropped the rope to hide the act of scooping up what she intended to be a makeshift knife. Then, as she bound her son’s hands, she whispered in his ear. “You are my best hope, Will. Try to get loose and get back to Twinkle. Maybe Andrew will have arrived by then. If not, she and Colonel Jasper will figure out a way to help me.”

“But I can follow you,” he whispered back. “Surprise him.”

“No. I forbid it, Will. Do you understand me? You are
not
to come alone. I’ll have your word on it.”

Bodine said, “Hey, what are you mumbling about. No funny business, ya hear?” He took a step toward them. “Ya got him tied?”

“Yes.”

Holding a hand over his nose, he approached Will.

His grimace told her he’d caught a whiff of the camel droppings ground into her son’s pants during the earlier fall. The chiding glare he shot Tess told her she’d failed to sufficiently hide the laxity in her knots. “Get back over here and tie him again, woman.” He put the barrel of his gun against her son’s temple. “Do it right this time or I’ll take care of the problem myself.”

Tess tied good knots. Bodine checked them again and grunted his approval “Damn boy smells like a goat. I can’t get out of here fast enough, I’m telling you.” He gave the rope a vicious yank, setting the knot even tighter, and backed away. “You won’t be going anywhere now. You’ll be here in case your pa misses the message we’re leaving him up in the mountains. If that happens, see that he gets this.” He removed a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and set it on the ground, weighting it with five gold coins. “Then give him a personal message from me. Tell him I’ve a hankering for a woman. Tell him while I’m waiting for his arrival, I’ll be having me a right fine time with his wife.”

CHAPTER 16

CHISOS MOUNTAINS ROSE TO nearly eight thousand feet above the flats of the Chihuahuan desert. For comparison, if Gabe dubbed the lush, pretty little Aurora Springs valley as Eden, the area of the Big Bend wouldn’t make a bad hell.

Robards had underestimated the length of time required to reach the rendezvous spot. It had taken them closer to twenty minutes to ride into the mountains to the base of Dagger Mesa. Though Gabe could see the needle shaped rock that was his destination, they still had a goodly climb to go before they would reach it. “This is shaping up to be a long ten minutes,” he told the Ranger.

“Guess we made better time before.”

Guess Bodine better not get too antsy when it takes longer than ten minutes to retrieve the gold to ransom Monty
. If ransoming Monty was what this was all about, that is. Gabe wouldn’t bet so much as a pebble on that being the case.

He eyed the steep narrow trail up the side of the mesa, noting the abundance of cover. “If Bodine is perched up high waiting to pick us off, he’s had better opportunities elsewhere.”

“I don’t think that is his plan, do you?”

“No. He won’t try to kill us until he knows for certain we brought the gold and I intend to see and speak with ol’ Doc myself before we let anybody know anything about where we stashed the stuff.”

They conversed no more as they started up the trail. It was a slippery business and each man stumbled and skidded a number of times along the way. Gabe kept a close watch on his surroundings, on guard against ambush or other surprises as he climbed. Nothing untoward happened and finally, the trail leveled out and a campsite of sorts was revealed.

Two items lay on display beside a ring of stones. Gabe identified the first item the moment he spied it.
My mother’s locket
. His father had called it his most prized possession. That clenched it Monty Cameron was involved in this plot one way or another.

The second item was a sheet of paper. Gabe picked it up and scanned the page.

“What does it say?”

“It’s signed J.W. Bodine. Says he has moved his hostage to a place called Burro Canyon.”

“Burro Canyon! That’s at least a two hour ride from here. Maybe longer. In fact,” Robards paused and rubbed his jaw. “Burro Canyon isn’t far from where Doc has been working in those caves that have him so inspired.”

Gabe’s brow furrowed in thought. What was the purpose of having them come this way to begin with? He felt like a miner lost in tunnels whose walls kept shifting. Somebody was playing with him, and he damned well didn’t like it.

“So, do we ride on?” Captain Robards asked.

Gabe shook his head. “No. We go back. The rules on this game we’re playing have just changed. We’re going back for Tess and my son. Then we’ll take the gold and head for Burro Canyon.”

“You’re taking a chance,” Robards warned. “We’ll be lucky to make it by dark and sunset is Bodine’s deadline.”

Gabe shrugged. “By sunset I expect Bodine will be dead, period. I’m gonna kill him.”

With that profound statement, Gabe headed back down the hill. He led them away from Dagger Mesa and made better time than Robards going in. Upon reaching the flats, he spurred his horse into a gallop, a sense of urgency riding his shoulders, trepidation clutching his gut. Bodine or Doc or whoever played puppet master had sent them on a wild goose chase.

That knowledge was why, when they returned to the ring of boulders where he’d left his family, he wasn’t surprised to find it empty.

JIMMY WAYNE Bodine talked murder all the way to Burro Canyon. Starting with the playmate he’d purposefully drowned at the age of eight, he spoke in excruciating detail of the killings he’d accomplished. He threw in a robbery account now and then, and spoke of beatings and assaults. Mostly, though, he talked about death. Thirty-seven bodies.

Whip Montana, he told her, would be thirty-eight.

“I’ve been looking forward to this since the minute my friend Doc broke me out of jail. You know, I spent at least an hour of every day planning how I’d kill him when I had the chance. Thought up some great tortures.” He chuckled with devilish glee and added, “For all my thinking, I never expected you. You are the best surprise I’ve had in a coon’s age. Just think how it’ll burn his ass when I plant ol’ Dickory Dock in the pole hole.”

His crudity served to insulate her from the fear and instead flamed her anger. Tess renewed her struggles to free herself, working the leather bonds at her wrists until her skin was raw and bloody. Tied to the saddle horn of the mule he’d provided for her to ride shortly after leaving Will, she was unable to loosen the knots at all She was good and stuck on this animal until Jimmy Wayne Bodine saw fit to release her.

She tamped down her temper and forced herself to think. She’d be hanged before she’d let Bodine succeed at his cruelty. What she needed was a plan. Gabe had been scornful of Bodine’s intelligence and she’d seen nothing that contradicted his low opinion. It didn’t take smarts to be evil, and that’s all Bodine had revealed up to now.

I’m bright. I can outsmart him. I’m not scared
.

He turned his head and leered at her, licking his lips.

And rice grew in the Chihuahuan desert in July
.

She lost track of the time they traveled, but eventually they arrived at a campsite deep in what he told her was Burro Canyon. Bodine left her tied in her saddle while he divested Pollux of his golden burden and stashed the bags in a brush-concealed opening in the rock. That he openly allowed her to view the hiding place told her without words of his intention to kill her.

“This area is riddled with caves,” he explained matter-of-factly. “Easy to get lost in. When Doc first left me here, I went exploring one day and damn near didn’t find my way out. I could’ve died in that maze.”

“Wouldn’t that have been a shame,” she muttered.

With the gold stored, he approached her, carrying a bowie knife. Sunlight glinted off the long, curved blade, and Tess watched with an eagle eye as he sliced through her bindings, ready to take advantage of any lapse in attention. But he gave her no opening.

With his meaty hand wrapped around her forearm, he dragged her over toward a crate that smelled of onions and forced her to sit down. His gaze raked over her and lingered on her bosom. Heat flared in his eyes; dread washed through Tess.

“You sure are a pretty thing,” he said. “I like women with big tits. Show ‘em to me.”

With his attention locked on her bosom, the big knife dangled at his side.
What the heck
, Tess thought.
A smart woman uses the weapons at her disposal
.

“No, please don’t do this,” she begged, the tremble in her voice dismayingly real.

“Pop those buttons.”

“I can’t. Not without standing up.”

“Do it, then.”

Tess slowly stood. Her mind raced as her fingers went to the buttons at her white shirtwaist. She fought to overcome the sick feeling sitting like a lump in her stomach and use Bodine’s lust against him.

She made a show of undoing each small pearl button. Cowering and sniveling and pleading, she flamed the fires of his arousal. She recognized the danger in what she was doing. The man was stronger than she and sometimes physical strength did win out over superior intelligence. But Tess simply refused to accept that this could be one of those instances. Her buttons all undone, she pulled the blouse off her shoulders.

Bodine’s eyes rounded as the fabric pooled at her waist “Now the corset. Peel it all the way down to the skin. I want to see those beauties.” His mouth widened in a hungry grin. “I want to see what Montana gets to see. In fact maybe I’ll go ahead and have me a taste. I’d figured to wait until Montana showed up, but now I reckon I’ll go ahead and have me a snack while I’m waiting. Hurry up, there, gal. I like looking a bit before I get down to business.”

She’d have to take off her skirt to get to the corset. Her stomach took another flip. Tess was finding this more difficult than she’d anticipated, but she made herself stay focused on the goal—unman him, unarm him, and make him
her
prisoner. To that end she unbuttoned her waistband and gave her hips a wiggle and both skirt and bodice floated to the ground. Her petticoat slowly followed.

Please let this work
.

She stepped free of the fabric pooled at her feet and stood before the criminal in her corset and drawers. Jimmy Wayne looked like he was about to swallow his tongue.

Come here, you murdering piece of filth. Come try to lay a hand on me
.

“Faster,” he rasped “Go faster.”

His stare was avid but she needed his eyes glazed. She worked the hooks on her Primrose Path corset, then took a deep breath and tossed it atop her skirt and shirtwaist, leaving only the thin lawn of her chemise to shield her from Bodine’s lust-coated gaze.

“Take it off.”

No, she didn’t think she would. This was where she drew the line, and if Jimmy Wayne Bodine wanted her naked he would just have to handle the task himself. Of course, she had no intention of allowing that to happen.

“I c-c-can’t,” she stammered and allowed tears to pool in her eyes as she brought her arms up to cover herself.
Come do it yourself, you snake-eyed whoremonger
.

When she interrupted his view, Bodine scowled and started walking toward her. Tess wanted to cheer when he absently sheathed his knife. Instead she lifted her hands away from her body, acting fearful, but in truth trying to keep his attention on her bosom and away from her feet. She eyed the angle of his approach and shifted her body slightly, then balanced the majority of her weight on her left foot.

Bodine was four steps away…three…two…

Tess drew back her foot, then put all the force she could summon behind the weight of her riding boot as she kicked him square in the crotch.

He yelled out and dropped immediately, his hands cupped between his legs, his breath coming in a long, pain-filled gasp. Tess grabbed the pistol from his holster, and then the knife from the sheath. She backed away to a safe distance just as he caught his breath and let out a moaning stream of particularly vile epithets.

Tess shut him up by shooting at him. Not
at
him, actually, but in his general direction. Close enough to get his attention. As the sound of the gunshot echoed off the canyon walls, Tess told the stunned outlaw, “Throw me my skirt and shirtwaist.”

He did and she struggled into them, careful to keep the gun aimed at Bodine. When she was covered, she said, “Now, take off your boots.”

“My what?”

“Your boots. Throw them over here.”

He pitched them hard, right at her, but Tess had expected that so she dodged them with little trouble. “Socks next.”

“What is this? Are you trying to pay me back or something?”

“You’d have been better off having me take off my boots instead of my clothes, Bodine. Have you noticed the rocks beneath your feet? You will if you try to stand up. I guarantee it. Bare feet will slow you down enough to give me extra time should I need it. Which I won’t, by the way. Unlike you, I am not easily distracted. Now, toss your gun belt along with the socks, please. Just in case I need more bullets.”

He growled at her, but was unable to manage anything more threatening as he met her requests. Tess was filled with a sense of empowerment and she had the silly urge to stick out her tongue at him and say,
I win
.

Instead, she glanced quickly around the campsite and chose a bare spot toward the center, out of reach of anything he might turn into a weapon. She pointed to it saying, “Move over there, Bodine.”

“No.”

She shot at him again. “Another thing. Don’t think you’ll annoy me into using up all my bullets. I give you fair warning, the next bullet will hit you, if not kill you. I’m quite good with firearms, you see. I spent a few years in Ireland with an avid hunter and when we weren’t studying the stars, he was teaching me how to shoot. The gentleman was offended by the notion that any Texan didn’t know how to use a gun. It ruined the Wild West fantasy for him, you understand.”

Bodine stared as though she were speaking a different language. Tess waved the gun. “Now. Move.”

He attempted to rise, but ended up crawling to the spot she had indicated. Tess grabbed Bodine’s canteen and saddlebags, then took a seat atop a huge boulder, the position providing both a bird’s eye view of her prisoner and unobstructed sight of the mouth of Burro Canyon where Gabe was most likely to enter.

Thus supplied, she settled down to wait.

FEAR OF this dimension wasn’t a new experience for Gabe. He’d felt this gut-wrenching, mind-numbing terror previously in his life. Once. The night Billy died. But back then the fear had come on in a flash and ended quickly in despair. He’d never been this scared for such an extended length of time. It was a damned lucky thing Robards was with him, because he was having a hell of a time concentrating on the trail. One thought continued to override all the others in his brain, and it all but froze him into immobility.

Jimmy Wayne Bodine had his family.

Gabe followed Robards blindly through the rocky, winding trail of the Big Bend. In the few moments when terror loosened its grip on him, anger took its place. Fury at Bodine for being the bastard he was; anger at himself for bringing this danger to his loved one’s door. Cold, violent rage at the man—
no, the filth
—who had seen Jimmy Wayne released from prison.

Was his father responsible? Had Monty Cameron become the animal behind all this grief? Despite himself Gabe recalled the father of his youth, the man who had explored the world around him with such interest and excitement. Why would he do this? Why would he go to all this trouble? Had the years changed him this much?

Tess believes in Monty. Will thinks he hung the moon. If he’s betrayed them this way, I’ll kill him in a heartbeat
.

Patricide. Gabe shuddered and shied away from the thought.

Sweat dribbled down his back despite the coolness of the day. He rode with grim determination, trying not to recall the carnage Bodine had left in his wake in times past. He reminded himself that had Bodine wanted Tess and Will dead, he’d have left their bodies back where Gabe had stashed the gold. No, Bodine or, more likely, the bastard’s boss, had plans for Gabe’s family. Otherwise, they’d already be dead. He refused to believe such an end might have already come to pass.