Authors: P. A. Bechko
Amanda fell on the rabbit stew Hollander had in the pot like she was starving. She stuffed succulent, gravy-washed mouthfuls of food into her mouth like a cowhand and poured herself a cup of coffee with her free hand. Then she doused the glowing coals with what remained in the coffee pot sending up a billowing cloud of smoke. She balanced on one foot, eating from the tin plate while she kicked dirt over the remains of the fire, before snatching up the blackened coffee pot, adding it to their stack of supplies as Hollander returned from the seep.
He saddled the horses as Amanda quickly finished up the remains of her food and lent him a hand. She was no less eager than Hollander to catch up with the three men. They were going to ride and she was determined she wasn’t going to hold them back.
“Mount up,” Hollander called as she finished a hasty clean-up on the stew pot and her tin plate. “Let’s ride.”
Amanda stuffed the pot and plate into the canvas sack that hung from Hollander’s saddle, then hit her own in a half flying mount as her horse broke into a gentle lope, following in Hollander’s wake.
Chapter 12
They rode hard. Amanda paced Hollander, keeping her place beside him, except where the trail was too confining. When it narrowed, the former trail boss forged ahead, setting a pace even more grueling than the one they had borne when running from the hangman’s noose.
“Which way?” he prodded her when they topped a rise, Amanda right beside him, directly above the trail she’d taken back to camp.
She gave a sour grin. “You’re backtracking me, why don’t you keep us moving in the right direction?”
“Because this is where the real test begins,” Hollander retorted solemnly as his eyes slew sideways to lock onto hers. “This is where you’re going to show me how much you’ve learned, how much I can count on you.”
“And if I don’t plan on performing like a trained pony?”
“Then I have to assume you’re dead weight.”
Inwardly, Amanda cringed. He couldn’t have chosen a better argument if he had read her mind. And, while she was nowhere near the tracker he was, she’d learned more than a few tricks and had come to know stretches of these mountains well. But, she grudgingly had to admit Hollander was right. The true test would come when she was well away from the familiar. For weeks they had seen no one but each other, not even a sign of the wily Dutchman who it was said had a fabulous mine stashed in these mountains. For all Amanda knew, he might well be there. She had had the uncanny sensation of being watched more than once when she’d ridden the slopes and ridges. She was sure the old coot’s secret would never be found in the maze of twisting canyons, washes, and jutting peaks.
Together, she and Hollander skidded down the same slope she had earlier taken at break-neck speed. The horses liked it no better this time. At the bottom, Amanda led the way to the stretch of desert floor where the fracas had taken place.
Jake was looking down at the ground as he spoke.
“You must’ve been riding like a banshee straight up out of hell when you got here.”
“There wasn’t much time to spare,” she murmured.
“You’ve got to be either the craziest or the gustiest woman I’ve ever met. Come on. We’ll pick up their trail.”
They found what trail the outlaws had left quickly when she and Hollander split up. Her companion spotted it first, pointing out the hoof marks in the softer sand. Little more than a hour’s worth of daylight was remaining to them when they started down it, heading south, the air surrounding them rapidly taking on the chill of night.
Amanda glanced over her shoulder back at the slope they had negotiated together. Somehow it had seemed worse at a slower pace than it had the first and she’d not been able to consider it.
At first the sign was clear enough. An idiot could easily follow the progress of three running horses over the almost unbroken dusty expanse. Hollander put their horses to a gait that matched the outlaws before them and the two of them plunged on, the sun settling into nothing more than an orange glow on the western horizon, stealing the warmth of the day away on the wings of night.
Hollander and Amanda slowed the pace as the light dimmed to gray shadows. Amanda vigorously rubbed her arms against the icy chill settling in. How could a place so hot by day turn so cold with the setting of the sun? Out in the open, astride a moving horse, it felt even colder than it had back in their sheltered camp. Only the warmth of her laboring steed offered any respite. She shivered, but held her tongue, riding beside Hollander in the darkness, hunched into a miserable, but no less determined huddle on her saddle. He would have to stop soon. Then she could fish out her make-shift poncho.
Their pace was slowed even more when Hollander began climbing down from his horse to check the trail only to swing back into the saddle and continue on. Then, finally, he climbed down shook his head in frustration. There was no moon. Darkness was complete, broken only by the distant twinkle of stars above.
Wrapped in her own cold misery. Amanda did not even notice Hollander had not climbed back into the saddle. Waiting patiently, she listened to the far off call of coyotes, then felt Hollander’s insistent hand upon her arm.
“Thought I cured you of that,” he said, lightly reprimanding her for her inattention. He felt her shivering beneath his hand. “There’s not enough light to see the trail. Don’t like stopping, but we’re going to have to sit it out here until sunrise. They’re gonna have to stop too. Unless they don’t mind risking having one of their horses step into a hole.”
The cold was settling in so intensely, Amanda could see small clouds of word vapor hanging suspended on the air. Hugging her warmth to her, Amanda was hesitant to move any part of her body, fearing she would admit the chilled air to some small spot which had remained warm in her tightly huddled position. But, after a few moments hesitation, move she did. The crisp, night air washed over her like an icy splash of water as she swung down. She said nothing, determined he would not have the opportunity to hear her teeth chatter around the words.
Hollander untied the saddle strings and dragged the bed roll from behind her saddle, pressing it into her hands. “Go ahead,” he told her, “I’ll take care of the horses.”
A sharp retort about her abilities to carry her share of the load rose quickly to her lips, but this time she didn’t utter the words. Instead, she opened the bedroll, swinging its heavy layers about her shoulders as she walked a few steps, then gratefully dropped down in the sand beside a couple of large rocks that still radiated a faint memory of the heat of the day. She wished they could light a fire, but she already knew the practical answer to that fantasy. Cold camp.
“No fire tonight.” Hollander dropped their saddles, flipped open his bedroll and sat down beside Amanda, wrapping the blankets about his shoulders. “Open flame can be seen for miles in this country.” He paused. “Send them hi-tailing it for Mexico sure as anything, caution be damned.”
Amanda nodded, leaning her back against one of the rocks for the warmth it offered. Nonetheless, the chill in her bones did not abate though she now had the edge of the blankets wrapped up over her ears.
Between the quaking of her flesh and the chattering of her teeth, Amanda felt she would never be warm again but she wasn’t going to complain and she wasn’t going to whine. She had known what this quest would entail from the beginning. Abruptly, she became aware of Hollander’s gray-eyed gaze upon her in the darkness. She turned toward him. He had fished out some of their jerky, hard bread and dried bits of cactus fruit. And, with a gesture which could not be mistaken, he was holding one side of his blankets open for her to join him, a colorful grin curving his lips..
“You are the damnedest woman,” he said softly. “You want to sit there and shiver or shall we bundle and share our warmth?”
Amanda hesitated, then, with a sigh, she slid across the few feet separating them. His arm, sheathed in blanket like a bat’s wing, settled around her, enclosing her within a cocoon of warmth. He handed her some food and they both began to eat, chewing in silence. Some of the chill began to leave Amanda’s body as the warmth collected beneath the blankets.
She glanced up, enthralled by the bright thatch of his blonde hair catching what pale light the sliver of moon offered, his face a collection of dark shadows against the darker backdrop of the night. Night sounds were all around. Soft scrapings, quiet chirpings and a distant shriek.
Her trembling stopped. Hollander chewed his dinner of jerky and cold, brick-like biscuits thoughtfully, staring down at the top of her head. She’d removed her hat and the thick, wavy hair, interlaced with starlight, shone blue-black and fell heavily over her shoulders.
“I’ve been a drifter of one sort or another most of my life,” he began, “but you, I don’t understand.”
She turned her face up to him.
“Why wouldn’t you go back East?”
Amanda shrugged. “Nothing for me to go back to.”
“Your family?” he probed. Have to have family somewhere.”
Not liking the direction their conversation was taking, Amanda gave a little snort and tried to pull away from him. Hollander grinned and shifted his arm to wrap tightly around her, holding her where she was.
Amanda found pushing against his arm was like trying to break through a split rail fence. Leaning back against him, she stopped struggling.
“What the hell business is it of yours why I don’t want to be back in the bosom of my loving family?” Her voice dripped with honeyed sarcasm.
“Oh, so there is a loving family.” He paused. “It’s none of my business and you don’t have to answer my questions. But you don’t have to run away either.”
He loosened his grip. A long silence settled between them, but Amanda stayed where she was. The warmth was, after all, much more pleasant than the chill of the night air. Strangely, she felt closer now to this man, whom she was barely beginning to know, than she had ever felt to anyone in her life, including her good friend Laura back in Phoenix. To Laura she’d told a few bits and pieces, like misplaced pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but she knew far from all of it.
“Do you have a family?” she asked Jake.
“Had a wife and son. They’re both dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s been a long time.”
“That doesn’t make it less tragic.”
“It dims the memory, but I know I can’t return to them. You can. So what was so bad that you won’t?”
“They consider me dead, and it’s just as well not to try and change it,” Amanda’s words were bitter. “In fact, those were my father’s final words to me just before I left.” She couldn’t look Hollander in the eye when she uttered the rest of it for the first time. “I have no daughter, he told me. My daughter is dead.”
“You sure he meant it?”
“He sure did,” she said in a husky voice. “And I hadn’t even done the worst yet. When he said that I had just refused to marry the man he wanted for a son-in-law. He didn’t know I was leaving. He might have killed me if he had. God knows he beat my Mama often enough and she was too much of a rabbit to ever defy him. He had big plans for me.”
“Plans?” Hollander was puzzled. She acted as if she was already on the run before their troubles had begun in Phoenix.
She was much like him. Not one to tell someone about herself. It created an air of mystery about her, an almost palpable thing, and was what had undoubtedly drawn him to her so strongly back at the bank when he had first spotted her there framed by the teller window.
Amanda looked at him, seeing little more than the glint of his eyes reflecting the night’s faint light. “You loved your wife?”
“Yes.”
“You met her out here?”
“Yes. She was Comanche.”
She absorbed that for a few moments, hesitating to reveal the final chapter of her story. Fearing how he would react, yet needing the cleaning the telling would give.
“Dear Papa,” Amanda said bitterly, “expected me to get married. But only to a very special man. The man he chose for me. Andrew Canan. All of Boston knew about the wedding before I did. I was so naive. I told anyone who would listen that I wouldn’t marry Andrew—including Papa and Andrew—but they all just laughed and said I would come around by the time the wedding took place. But,” she added, “just to make sure, Papa started, throwing Andrew and me together alone, frequently. Then, one night when we were returning home from a dance and we were together in the stable while he put the horses up, I found out why Papa was so determined I should marry him. Andrew was a very wealthy man. and Papa, unfortunately, had never been very good in business. Andrew let me know in no uncertain terms that after the wedding Papa was to become his partner. It was part of their bargain. That night he told me he intended to find out what he had bargained for before the marriage took place. He was going to make sure I was everything my father had promised. After all, we were going to be married, so what difference would it make?”
Amanda shuddered and drew a deep breath. “He found out everything he wanted to know. There was no use in telling my father. He would have viewed it as another way of cementing the marriage. Andrew Canan was a cruel, evil man, and I planned to kill him.” Amanda said flatly, not meeting Hollander’s eyes.