Treasure of the Sun (45 page)

He knocked her fists away from his face, striking one wrist hard enough to numb it. She tried to scream, rampaging against his ugly domination. Her flailing hand caught one ear and poked, and he toppled off to the side. Roaring, he came up; her grip slipped. Blood dripped off his face and he slapped her, open-handed. Her head rang; she tasted salt. He ripped at her jacket, tearing the braid, catching her watch chain. He clawed at .the buttons when they wouldn't snap off, cursing in language she'd never heard before.

Some detached portion of her mind thanked the seamstress who'd sewed for the rough outdoor life. That same portion noted she couldn't win this fight. She had experience with defeat. She'd lost time and again to her cousins, but she'd never lost with such a great penalty at the finish.

She hit Mr. Smith again. She ripped his face with her fingernails again. She called again. "Lawrence!"

Her scarf dangled, and Mr. Smith caught the end. She caught a glimpse of blackened teeth when he grinned, then he jerked it tight. The pain of her scar was nothing compared to the lack of breath. She closed her eyes, fighting for strength, for the thin stream of air he allowed in. Through the explosions of light behind her eyes, she could hear him saying in a conversational tone, "Do you remember that I said I was a murderer? Well, Miz Kathy, this is how I did it. I choked her. She turned funny colors, just like you. She tried to talk, just like you, but I just did this." He tightened his grip.

Agony exploded in her throat. She writhed until her cognizance slipped.

The pressure relented, and she sucked in the damp air without being aware.

That flat voice droned, "Makes you a little more amenable to some fun. It worked with her, too."

She couldn't bring herself alive. She couldn't make her hands work, or her feet, or her eyes. All she could do was breathe. Her consciousness drifted when his hand fumbled with her shirt, and she breathed some more. Her eyes opened, then closed against the sight of him. She tried to turn away, and the pressure at her neck increased.

"Don't want too much piss and vinegar outta you. Don't like women who move much."

She went limp.

"Hey, now, don't overdo it." He throttled her. She struggled.

"That's better," he soothed. "I like to see-"

She heard a whack right by her ear, a scream she didn't think was hers. The clamp on her throat released; his knee smacked her hip. He scrambled away, dragging his legs over her chest.

She thrust at him, but her hands met the air and fell to the ground, useless. She tried to make sense of the sounds that filled the clearing, but she couldn't do that, either.

She opened her eyes. She was blind.

No, it was the fog, thicker than ever, obscuring everything. It was swallowing up Mr. Smith. She could hear him strug1ing, shouting to escape.

She had to do something. She had to pick herself up off this ground and get away. As her brain became clearer, she considered jumping up and running. But no, her feet were tied.

Sit up? Perhaps that was possible. By slow inches, she wiggled so her head rested against the trunk. She raised it, winced as her neck throbbed.

She screamed.

She thought about that. No, she hadn't screamed, but someone had. She smiled. It must have been Mr. Smith. Perhaps he was being chewed.

Up the tree trunk she crawled, halting when she half sat, half reclined. That was enough.

Mr. Smith's shrieks were music. She didn't worry about being eaten herself. El padre's fog would be just. Abruptly, Mr. Smith and his yells faded. All the noise stopped. She was alone in the swirling grey.

She must have slept, because someone picked up her hand ·before she knew anyone was there.

"Catriona." He spoke sweet and low, like someone calling the dead.

Her eves popped open. "Don Damian." Her lips formed the words.

He looked beautiful, with his hair dank and a scratch of blood on his cheek. He knelt beside her, her huge stick grasped (.in one of his bloody hands. The bark had been stripped from it in places; it was cracked down half its length, but she recognized ill width. Damian was the mouth in the fog; the stick was the ~. Damian was the one who'd made Mr. Smith go away.

She'd known it, but she was glad to see her stick had been the instrument of revenge.

"Catriona." His hand reached for her neck. She flinched; she couldn't help it, and his hand fell away.

Tears flooded her eyes, raced down her cheeks. She tried to cry silently, because the sobs hurt her throat and made her cry more. He reached for her as if she were a delicate flower, taking her into his arms.

Finding strength in the shelter of his body, she burrowed into his chest.

"You're safe now. There's nothing here to hurt you," he told her. "Smith is unconscious."

She touched the stick, touched her head in pantomimed query.

Understanding, his hand touched her hair. "No, that's not where I hit him. He might die from where I hit him. Most men would."

She couldn't stop her grin, but Damian winced with reflex male empathy. "I tied him just in case he didn't die. I tossed his gear into a creek. I didn't tie your worthless cousin, though." He tugged her jacket closed. "When he wakes from his drunken stupor, he'll run, and if I never see him again, it will be too soon. How could he drink himself senseless, when he should be protecting you?"

He glared at her fiercely, expecting an answer, but she just shrugged.

"Can you stand?" She shook her head.

"I'm glad. I wanted to hold you." He pulled her closer, hugged her as if he would never let her go.

She was content to rest there, to let her mind clear. He had come barely in time. Wetting her lips with her tongue, she tried to talk and found a whisper. "Your head?"

"Hurt a bit."

She nodded, tried again. "Long wait."

"We would have been here sooner, but we got lost in the fog." He rubbed his head against her hair. "You knew I would come, didn't you?"

She hesitated. The doubts of the night scurried through her mind like unwelcome rats.

"Didn't you know I'd be here to rescue you?" She hid in his arms.

"Catriona?" His voice warmed with concern mixed with indignation. "We've been up all night in the dark, trying to get to you. I walked so I wouldn't lose your trail, and I lost your trail, anyway. I've got a headache and I'm hungry because that bastard took my food and you didn't believe-"

Tugging at his jacket, she whispered, "Illogical."

"Who? You or me?" With gentle hands, he thrust her back against the tree trunk. Running his fingers through his hair, he closed his eyes as if he were hurting.

She touched his arm. "Sorry."

He looked at her. "I'm sorry, too. I thought that you would realize-"

She widened her eyes in question. "Nothing." He turned away.

She understood that she'd hurt him. She wished she'd lied.

She wished she could have told him she believed he'd be there whenever she needed him. Even now she was thankful he didn't know the extent of her doubts. She wondered if she'd ever have the nerve to tell him, to question him about his intentions, about his· tender feelings. Twining her fingers in her lap, she discovered how deep her streak of moral cowardice extended.

"Vietta," he called into the fog. To Katherine, he said, "Vietta followed us from Monterey because of the rumors. She brought food and a horse. She agreed to back me up in case I couldn't handle it."

His voice failed, and Katherine looked up.

Like a phantom at the edge of vision, Vietta stood cloaked in fog. Her black hair faded into the dimness, her pallid skin glowed. Her scarlet riding costume attracted the eye, and the ornate silver decorations looked grey. Then Katherine realized why Damian no longer spoke, why he stared at Vietta with such intensity.

In one scarlet riding glove, she held a pistol pointed at Damian.

Damian's pistol.

"Vietta, put that thing down," he ordered. "What do you think you're doing?"

She said nothing, answering with a crooked smile.

He stepped towards her, his hand extended. "Vietta, I've taken care of Smith. Give me my revolver."

"Thank you, Damian, for getting rid of my mistakes. I should never have hired Smith, but life's full of poor choices and loathsome consequences." Sympathy dripped from her voice. "You've found that out."

"Vietta?" he said, puzzled.

She aimed the gun at his chest. "Let's go after my treasure, shall we?"

From her pocket, she lifted an object. Katherine's breath caught in her throat, held as tightly as if Smith still choked her. She lifted her hands in rejection, twisting away from the sight of the knife Vietta held. A knife whose handle was black, whose blade shone black, with a tip so sharp it could slit a man's throat---or a woman's. She wanted to speak, to warn Damian of his peril, but she could only moan, "No."

Damian couldn't understand Katherine's violent reaction, didn't understand anything right now. Why was Vietta smiling at his wife like that? Like a sorceress pleased to be recognized?

Why was Katherine contorted in a protective shell like a victim of torture forced to confront her executioner?

This was Vietta, his little friend, not some monster. Katherine begged him to step back, using her damaged voice, and he waved a hand. "What? You believe her? She wouldn't hurt me."

"Don Damian," Katherine croaked. "The knife. That is the knife."

He stared at his wife, and she touched her throat.

"You better pay attention to your Catriona," Vietta warned.

"She remembers that night in the boarding-house."

He looked at Vietta again, then back at Katherine. She nodded urgently. "Vietta, where did you get that knife?" He sounded like a scolding father, but he couldn't help himself. This situation was ludicrous. How could Katherine believe Vietta was capable of such an act? How could Vietta threaten them with a gun in her steady hand?

"It's my knife." Vietta displayed no defiance, no guilt, only a warm delight in his skepticism. "Julio gave it to me."

"Julio." He stroked his mustache.

Vietta shook her head at him reprovingly. "Julio gave it to me years ago. Remember? When we were children, and the vaqueros taught you boys to use a knife, I cried because I didn't have one. Julio gave me this one. His vaqueros had made it for him of the black glass stone. He thought it wasn't as good as your steel blades." She flipped the knife, catching it in an efficient fighting hold. "I practiced just like you did, and I found this black stone blade is better than your steel blades. It can slice anything."

Sure he'd unravelled the puzzle, he suggested, "Julio's had it." Her mouth puckered and she shook her head.

Incredulous, he stared at the knife, expecting to see incriminating blood dripping from it. That couldn't be the knife.

"Have you lost it recently?"

This couldn't be the person. "A man attacked you," Damian laid to Katherine.

Vietta laughed, low and rich, while Katherine denied it. "No, I never said a man attacked me. You assumed a man attacked and I was so confused and upset, I couldn't put my finger on the discrepancies I'd seen." Her tortured voice turned hoarse, dwindled to a whisper. She gulped in moist air before she could continue. ''It's Vietta. Her voice, her height. They deceived me.”

"Women don't kill people," Damian said in desperation, his confidence tumbling as his precepts shook.

"I never killed a person before I killed Tobias," Vietta reassured him. She glanced down at her hand with a sort of distaste. ''It's not easy to kill a man. I planned carefully, but I hadn't realized how messy it would be."

"Messy?" Damian stared at this woman he thought he knew.

It was as if she were evolving before his eyes: changing from a genteel lady to a freak who had no morals or sense of virtue. "You kill a man, and you call it 'messy'?"

"I attacked him from behind, jumped on his back. If my first stab hadn't hit that blood vessel, I would never have got him, down." Like a matador recounting a difficult fight, she reminisced with the assurance of their avid interest. "Then I had to saw through his windpipe."

Katherine put her hand on her throat, as if the memory of Tobias’s death and her own disfigurement were too close.