Elizabeth Lowell (11 page)

The surge of anger and adrenaline that went through Ty’s body surprised him, but it didn’t keep him from demanding roughly, “Did he lay a hand on you?”

“He never even saw me that time,” she said evasively. “I hung back in the brush and listened long enough to figure out how he had found me, and then I swore never to be predictable again. I haven’t been, either.”

“You said you follow Lucifer’s bunch in the summertime.”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re predictable. Every mustanger knows Lucifer’s territory. All any man would have to do is to lie in wait at the water holes his herd uses. Lucifer is fast enough to get away from that kind of ambush. You aren’t.”

“Cascabel is keeping the mustangers away.”

“He didn’t keep me away. Nothing will. I’m going to have that stud no matter what. I need him too badly to let a few renegades get in my way.”

“You plan to use Lucifer to buy your silken lady?”

“Yes,” Ty said, his voice flat, inflexible. “The war took everything but my life and my dreams. I’ll have that silken lady or die trying.”

Janna held herself tightly, trying not to flinch against the pain she felt.

“Then you understand,” she said huskily.

“What?”

“You understand why I can’t live in a town as a kitchen maid or a saloon girl. I have my own dream.”

There was a surprised silence while he digested the idea that the ragged waif had a goal beyond simple survival. “What is it?”

Shaking her head, eyes tightly closed, she said nothing. There was no point in telling him that she had begun to dream of having him turn to her and discover within her the silken lady he sought. It was a dream that would never come true and she was practical enough to know it.

But it was the most compelling dream Janna had ever had. She could no more turn away from it than she could transform herself into the lady of Ty’s dreams.

A mile outside of town, Ty shifted his weight and spoke softly to the mare. Zebra stopped obediently no more than two feet from a clump of boulders and brush.

“Get down,” he said, handing her the big knife she had given him. “I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

“I’m going with you.”

“No.”

“But—”

“No!” Hearing the roughness in his own voice, he winced. “Janna, it isn’t safe. If you’re seen with me on a mustang—”

“We’ll tell them you tamed her,” she interrupted quickly.

“They’d have to be dumb as a stump to believe that,” he retorted. “I’m going to have enough trouble making them believe I survived without help as it is. You know damn good and well if Cascabel finds out you were responsible for making him the laughingstock of the Utah Territory, he’ll come after you until he gets you and cooks you over a slow fire.”

Without another word Janna slid down from Zebra. She vanished into concealment between one breath and the next. For a moment Ty couldn’t believe that she had ever been with him at all. An odd feeling shot through him, loneliness and desire combined into a yearning that was like nothing he had ever known.

“Janna?” he called softly.

Nothing answered but branches stirring beneath a rain-bearing wind. The scent of moisture reminded Ty of the urgency of the situation. They had to be back at the hidden valley before the storm broke or they would spend a miserable night out in the open, unable even to have a fire to warm them for fear of giving away their presence.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, causing Zebra to throw up her head and snort. Ears pricked, nostrils flared, the horse sniffed the wind.

“Easy, girl,” he murmured. “It’s just the summer rains.”

He slid from Zebra’s back, landed lightly and pulled off his breechcloth. His foot Wrappings came off next. After he poked the scraps of blanket into an opening between two boulders, he turned east and began working his way over the rocky surface of the land toward a wagon trail a half mile beyond. He was very careful not to leave any signs of his passage, for he had been into Sweetwater once before, riding Blackbird and armed with two pistols, a rifle and a shotgun. He had been glad for each weapon. The only thing sweet about the town was the name and the tiny spring that bubbled to the surface nearby, watering stock and men alike without regard to their individual natures.

As he walked toward town, he wished heartily for one of the new repeating carbines that loaded as fast as they fired. Even a pistol would have been nice. Two revolvers and extra cylinders loaded with bullets would have made him feel a lot better about going in among the canted shacks.

Though Janna seemed not to realize it, Sweetwater was an outlaw hangout, and the two ranches she bought supplies from had a reputation for branding “loose” cattle that was known from the Red River to Logan MacKenzie’s ranch in Wyoming. Some of the Lazy A’s and Circle G’s cowhands were doubtless reasonably honest men who had been forced to make a living any way they could after the Civil War had ruined their farms and homes. Other cowhands on those ranches were men who would have been raiders in heaven itself, because they plain enjoyed riding roughshod over people weaker than themselves.

How the hell did Janna ever survive out here?
Ty asked himself for the hundredth time as he walked quietly into the collection of ramshackle, weathered shacks that constituted one of the few towns within several hundred miles.

No answer came back to him but the obvious one, the uncomfortable memory of women in a war-ravaged land, women selling themselves for bread or a blanket, women who in peacetime wouldn’t have dreamed of letting a man touch them outside the boundaries of love and marriage.

Is that how you survived after your father died, Janna? Did you sell yourself until you had the skill and the strength to survive alone?

Again there was no answer but the obvious one. She had survived.

The thought of her soft body lying beneath rutting men both sickened and angered Ty. For a woman to sell herself like that in order to live was simply another kind of rape.

In the past, he had surprised more than one woman caught within the ruins of war by giving her food or shelter or blankets and taking nothing in return. He would never forget one girl’s combined look of shock, relief, and gratitude when he had refused her thin, bruised body as payment for a plate of beans. She had eaten quickly and then had vanished into the night as though afraid he would change his mind and take her after all.

And when Ty had finally fought his way home, he had discovered that his sister, Cassie, hadn’t been so fortunate in the strange men who had crossed her path. Taken by raiders, she had been a captive until she became too ill to service the men. Then she had been
abandoned to die. She would have, too, if Logan and Silver hadn’t caught up with her and gentled her back into sanity and health.

Ty’s grim thoughts were a match for the town that he finally reached. There were no men loitering in front of Sweetwater Mercantile when he walked by. There were no horses tied to broken railings. No dogs slept in sun-warmed dust.

The first person he saw was a boy who was emptying slops out the saloon’s back door. The boy took one look at Ty and ducked back inside. Instants later the door creaked open again. The bartender stood with a shotgun cradled in his thick hands. A single glance took in Ty’s muscular, naked body covered with healing bruises.

“Well, you be big enough and the right color,” the bartender said. “Maybe you be Tyrell MacKenzie.”

Ty nodded slowly.

The bartender stepped aside. “Come on in. Name’s Ned. A breed by the name of Blue Wolf was looking for you ‘bout two weeks back.”

When he heard Blue Wolf’s name, Ty almost laughed aloud. “Wondered how long it would take him to catch up with me.”

“Friend of yours?”

“Yeah.”

“Good thing, too. From the look of that buck, he’d make a powerful bad enemy. He’s damn near as big as Cascabel and white-man smart into the bargain. Talks English better than me.”

“He’s a dead shot, too.”

Ned grunted, reached behind the door and pulled a ragged shirt off a nail. He threw the cloth to Ty. “Wrap up and sit down.”

Within moments Ty had the shirt wrapped around his hips and between his legs in a semblance of a breechcloth. He sat down, enjoying the unfamiliar sensation of a chair after months on the trail. Ned went to a sooty corner of the small room and pulled a pot off a broken-legged stove. He wiped a spoon on his britches, stuck it into the pot and shoved it in front of Ty.

“Reckon you’re hungry.”

He wasn’t, but admitting that would raise too many questions, so he dug into the cold beans and ate quickly, trying not to remember how much better Janna’s food had been. Cleaner, too. Living in the camp with the hot springs had spoiled him. A bath every day, clean dishes, and clean company. It would take him a long time to get used to the smell of a sty like Ned’s saloon.

“Thanks,” he said, shoving away the empty pot.

“Smoke?”

Ty shook his head. “Gave it up the night I saw a man get killed lighting a pipe when he should have been holding still and looking out for enemies.”

Ned grinned, revealing teeth about the color the beans had been. “Yep, war can be hard on a man. Worse ‘n
robbin’ banks or rustlin’.”

Ty ignored the oblique question about his past.

“Don’t mean to jaw your arm off,” Ned said quickly, “but it’s been nothin’ but me and Johnny for two weeks now. Rest of ‘em went to the fort. Old Cascabel’s got ‘em pissin’ their britches. Hear tell he killed two white men a week ago.”

“I wouldn’t know about that. I’ve been too busy hiding and healing. Did Blue Wolf say when he’d be back here?”

Ned opened a stone jug and thumped it onto the table. “Don’t know as he’s comin’ back. I told him you’d been took by Cascabel. He said you wouldn’t stay took. Left a poke of gold for you over to the fort. Said you’d be needful of it when you got shuck of Cascabel. From the look of you, he was right.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“He was meetin’ up with your brothers north of here. Looking for gold.” Ned grunted. “Probably’ll find it, too, if’n Black Hawk don’t lift their hair first.”

“With Wolf on scout, no one will even know they’re around.” Ty paused, then added casually, “When my brothers come back here looking for me—and they will—tell them I headed for Mexico. I’m going to finish healing up in some
se
ñorita
’
s
bed.”

Ned’s smile was as crooked as a dog’s hind leg as he absorbed Ty’s gentle message: he might be naked and alone, but if he were killed his brothers would come hunting for the killer. So Ned poured cloudy liquid from the jar into a dirty tin cup and put it in front of Ty.

“Drink up.”

“If it’s all the same, I’d rather have water,” he said. “My daddy always told me not to mix liquor with an empty stomach or a knot on the head.”

Ned chuckled, picked up the cup and drained it. His harshly expelled breath made Ty glad there wasn’t an open flame nearby. Sure as hell, the alcohol on the other man’s breath would have caught fire and burned down the saloon.

“Damn, but that’s good ‘shine,” Ned said, wiping water from his eyes. “A man couldn’t get from dawn to dusk without it.”

Ty could have gotten from birth to death without moonshine, but he said nothing. He had known a lot of men like Ned, men for whom the savage bite of homemade liquor was the sole joy of life. With outward patience, Ty waited while Ned’s hands stroked the cold curves of the stone jar, lifted it, and shook it to gauge the amount of liquor left within.

“You say you and the boy are the only ones left in Sweetwater?” Ty asked after a few moments.

Ned poured another half cup of pale liquid, belched, and sat down opposite Ty. Though it was daytime, the interior of the saloon was gloomy. If there had ever been glass windows in the slanting walls, the panes had long since been replaced by oiled paper.

“Yep. Just me and that useless whelp. He’s so scared he’s gonna run off first time I turn my back.” Ned took another swig of liquor, shuddered deliciously and sighed.

“And Joe Troon. That sidewinder ain’t never far off. Used to keep a Mex gal stashed somewhere off in the rimrock to the north, but she run off with Cascabel’s renegades. Ol’ Troon is real lonely these days, less’n he caught that
bruja
again.”

“What?”

“That red-haired gal the renegades call Sombra, cuz she leaves no more sign than a shadow. Lives with the mustangs, and she’s a wild ‘un just like them.” Ned took another huge swallow, grimaced and sighed out the fumes. “Troon had her once a few years ago but she got away. Gals don’t cotton much to Joe Troon. Mean as a spring bear, and that’s gospel. Wish he’d kept her, though. I get right tired of squaws.”

When Ty understood that the
bruja
under discussion was Janna, it was all he could do not to hurl himself over the table and hammer the half-drunk bartender into the floor.

“But now Troon’s decided to make hisself rich off of that old black stud,” Ned continued. “He took his rifle and went to Black Plateau. Gonna crease that stud bastard, break him, and take his colts while every white man in the territory is too scared to butt in.”

Ty grimaced. “Creasing is a chancy thing. A lot more horses are killed than caught that way.”

“One mean stud more or less won’t make no never mind in this world. If’n it was me, I’d kill the stud, grab the best colts, and light a shuck clean out of the territory before the Army finds Cascabel and the whole shootin’ match goes up in smoke.”

Ty thought of Lucifer as he had last seen the stallion—ears pricked, neck arched, muscles gleaming and sliding beneath a shiny black hide. The thought of someone killing that much animal just to grab his colts made Ty both disgusted and angry. But he had no doubt that Troon would do just that.

If he got to Lucifer first.

“Is the mercantile closed?” Ty asked, interrupting Ned’s monologue.

“What? Oh, you mean the Preacher’s store. Naw, he didn’t close up when he went to the fort. Ain’t no man would steal from him. Sooner steal from Satan hisself. Even the renegades leave the Preacher alone. Cunning as a coon and snake-mean into the bargain. Troon gave up on the red-haired gal after the Preacher told him to leave her be. See, she gave him a Bible once. So when you see her again, you tell her it’s safe to come into Sweetwater. Troon won’t bother her.”