Authors: Ashley Elizabeth Ludwig
Chapter 42
Marcus situated RuthAnne at the edge of the hearth ring. He dropped the smoking torch into the center of already stacked kindling. Within moments, the fire burned bright, casting long shadows throughout the cave.
He turned and his liquid eyes, mesmerizing in their intensity, glittered in the orange light. “I wish we had more time, but that soldier of yours will come after you, guns blazing. He’ll figure out that you’re not dead. I’ll be out of here come sunrise, back safely in my quarters, no one the wiser. El Tejano’s reign is over. I don’t need him anymore. Money, as you know, is the root of all evil. All of this has become far too easy. As the quartermaster, my reach will be far more...extensive. I may even make Mother proud someday and become a general, after all.”
He snorted with the thought as he emptied the canister of thin, ruby kerosene in a ring just outside of the fire’s reach. He sloshed a long line to the crates and trunks, flinging aside the dusty canvas drape where it landed in a pile of fabric. He doused the boxes of dynamite, leftover from his escapades as the hooded bandit.
Crates and trunks were open, tossed aside like empty coffins. He had plundered what he considered of value and planned to cover his tracks by destroying whatever remained.
RuthAnne caught sight of the strongbox where her stagecoach driver had so openly declared his silver was stored. The one he had showed her with pride, where he stowed his weapon in the secret compartment underneath. It appeared to be intact, on its side, and she wriggled herself away from the fire and toward it. Her palms itched to reach it. A quick look to Marcus, and she pushed herself back toward the wall, as if to get away from the scent of the acrid fuel.
“What are you going to do?” She tried to keep her voice even as she scooted. She’d managed to work her bindings almost loose. If she could just bend her right hand enough, she might be able to slip it out...
“The fire’s heat will ignite the kerosene vapor as it dries. There’s just enough dynamite left to collapse the cave, but you won’t have to worry about that. The fumes will smother you first. You’ll feel drowsy, I’m told. Just close your eyes and succumb to it. There’s no point in fighting. They’ll find you here, of course. You’ll be given a proper burial, I’m sure. But all trace of El Tejano will be left to charred rubble.”
“Marcus, please. You don’t have to do this...”
“Come now, RuthAnne. Begging’s not becoming to you. I have a plan, and unfortunately, you aren’t a part of it.”
He knelt where she sat but an arm’s length from the box. With a move more befitting a gentleman than a rogue, he lifted her chin in his hand. Leaning closer, he placed a kiss on her ice cold lips. Though revulsion filled her, she did not fight him. She knew how he fed on her fear. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. With a scowl, he pushed her away.
She stiffened as Marcus adjusted her bindings, visibly annoyed that she didn’t even whimper in pain. She wanted to be nothing to him. A statue among his scattered treasures.
“This is where we say good-bye, RuthAnne.”
She turned a cold eye toward him, swallowing around her fear and the certainty of her impending death. She had but one chance to survive. “It’s a pity that you never learned the real meaning behind that message...” Her throat burned.
Halfway across the cavernous room, Marcus paused. Curiosity had gotten the better of him. Good. RuthAnne fought the wracking cough. The fumes grew thick. Black smoke curled to the ceiling from the igniting kindling. “What message?”
“It isn’t the money that’s evil...it’s the loving of it. Look what that’s done to you, Marcus.” In one motion, she leaned forward as if to cough; instead she flung herself into a shooting stance, the ropes that bound her, discarded at her feet. She aimed the recovered shortened .38 revolver at his midsection.
“Oh, you are full of tricks, aren’t you?” He eyed where he had placed his guns by the entrance, too far to grab. Instead, he took a step toward her. Flames licked the dark trail of kerosene. “Give me the gun.”
“Or what? You’ll let me live?”
“You don’t have it in you to kill, RuthAnne. You’re a good and decent woman...”
He took another step forward.
With hands shaking so mightily she feared she’d drop it, RuthAnne pulled the hammer down, needing both thumbs to cock the weapon. The cylinder turned with a long, well-oiled click.
He hesitated, raising his hands and looking at her in awe. “Where on earth did you find that?”
“Mr. Bingham had a few tricks up his sleeve, if you hadn’t taken the coward’s way in robbing him. There’s a reason you didn’t recover his silver, you know. And now you’ll never find it.”
She gestured toward the strongbox with its secret compartment. She’d pried the false bottom open, leaving the empty holster of the .38 now trained on his midsection. At each corner on the box, she’d exposed four gaping keyholes of equal size, the silver ingots locked within. “You had the silver all along.”
“No...” The realization struck him, his face an open book of shock, horror, and awe. “You did this. Turned the tables on me!”
Flames leapt from one log to the next. The toxic fumes began to roil, burning her eyes, nose, and throat. RuthAnne blinked back the tears, not only from the smoke, but from righteous indignation left unspoken. “No. You’ve done it. I might die in here, but so will you, Marcus.” Her voice shook, her hands slick with sweat as she leveled the pistol.
He dove for her, a battle cry filling his lungs. The force of his attack knocked the small weapon from her grasp. They scrambled for it on the cave floor. RuthAnne became an avenging angel. She clawed and scratched at him. Fire ate up the trail of fuel he had left for it, igniting the trunks and crates in rapid succession.
She kicked the gun away from his closing fingers. It skittered over rocks, into a crevasse. They both watched it go. Fire jumped as if alive from one crate to the next, igniting packing straw and scattered contents. It edged toward the stacks of dynamite he’d left to seal the cave in a grand explosion.
With the weapon out of the way, he reached for her long, pale neck. His hands closed over her throat as they both coughed and gagged. “You’ve killed us both.”
She saw the rush in his wild eyes as she fought and clawed at his hands. She writhed and scratched beneath him. Her lungs screamed for air. Dark stars filled her vision. This was the end, she was sure.
“I...I...”
“You what?” he growled, animal-like. Eyes filled with fury.
“For...give...” RuthAnne choked out the word.
Marcus yanked her close as the swirling smoke reduced vision to nothing. Her tear-filled eyes rolled up in her head as she dragged in a last gasp for life, her struggle almost over. She knew his had only begun. Sinking with her to the floor, his grip on her throat loosened.
The inferno behind them raged toward the ceiling.
“I forgive you,” she rasped.
He backed away from her as if burned, pushing himself to stand with panting breath.
The heat from the blaze was intolerable. It seemed to crisp flesh like charred bacon. RuthAnne lay in a heap at his feet. Marcus shook his head. Just then, a voice straight from heaven filled her ears, calling her name.
“RuthAnne! Don’t move!” Bowen lunged through a wall of flame to reach her and gathered her limp weight in his arms.
“How did you...”
“Let’s just get you out of here.” After a split second’s decision, he drew her to her feet, wrapping them both in the canvas tarp he found on the floor.
“Wait! We can’t leave him!” She pointed to Marcus, coughing through the thick smoke.
Bowen’s eyes were wide with lack of understanding. “You can’t be serious! He meant to kill you! Twice!”
RuthAnne was already on her way over to Marcus, kneeling beside him and pulling him to his feet. “We’re getting out of here. All of us.”
“Let me go.” Face contorting beneath smeared soot and ash, Marcus wrenched away from her grasp, edging closer to the conflagration.
He lunged toward the only part of the room that wasn’t burning: the waiting crates of dynamite.
“Marcus! No!” She reached for the man who would have been her killer. Retreating, Marcus reached into the box, unearthing a red cylinder with shaking hands.
“RuthAnne! We’re leaving. Now,” Bowen said, dragging her away. Ducking beneath the tarp, he manhandled her through the flames and down the stone shaft into the hot night air.
Bowen barked orders to the waiting team as he and RuthAnne vaulted themselves onto General’s back. The group fled from the mine, down the mountain road.
A series of explosions rang out behind them. Flashing light pierced the darkness. The earth shuddered beneath their feet as if demons attempted to claw their way out of hell. Behind, the mine collapsed. The mountain groaned and dust settled. All that remained of El Tejano and his lair had been buried by his own hand.
Chapter 43
General rocked along at an easy gait, but RuthAnne’s grip around Bowen’s waist hadn’t loosened since the harrowing journey. She cocked her ear to the symphony of desert sounds that greeted the dawn. Cactus wrens jabbered their raspy calls. The steady hoots as the quail answered one another. Lonesome mourning doves flitted from the trees. Even the heavy footsteps of mule deer echoed as they searched for a breakfast of tender mesquite leaves.
Looking at Charley, Ross, and Reggie’s grim faces and slumping shoulders, she could tell how exhausted they all were. RuthAnne was overcome with the notion that they were returning from battle as they reached the Rillito ford on the outskirts of Fort Lowell.
With a nod, Bowen pulled General over to stop at the water’s edge. The others went on ahead, each tipping his hat to RuthAnne as they passed. Her eyes were full. No words needed to be said.
Bowen slid from the saddle, taking RuthAnne’s hand and helping her down. She winced in soreness. The physical evidence of the previous night would be with her for some time to come. He gently guided her to the creek and sank down beside her on the small, sandy beach.
“Thought you’d want to wash away some of that soot before we give everyone the good news...”
“Good news?” Her words were full of cynicism, but relief filled her soul as she sank her toes into the sand. “Have I thanked you, Bowen? For coming to my rescue? Again?”
“No need to thank me, Ruthie. I’m the man who loves you.”
He looked painfully serious, save for the glint in his eye. He cleared his throat and cupped her cheek in his hand. “Did he hurt you very much?”
“I’ll make it.”
She thrilled at his touch, leaning into him. Her body neatly melted into his, like a puzzle piece that had been tried every which way and finally fit. Was this love? Real and everlasting?
She released herself from his grasp, turning to let her fingers trail through the cool, clear water, bringing a handful to her lips. Sweet. She swallowed, wincing slightly at her bruised throat. She would make it. Marcus, on the other hand...
Memory threatened to rock her to the core. RuthAnne focused instead on the beauty around her: the desert in the morning; the dappled sunlight through tree branches; the way the spattering light formed rainbows on the water; the soldier who sat beside her, who wouldn’t take his eyes off her for even a moment. Bowen’s hand found hers, his thick fingers curling around hers possessively, his thumb tracing the back of her hand.
“When I saw the fire at the stable, I came apart inside. I didn’t know how much I needed you until...until I thought you were lost to me forever.” Tears welled in his eyes. Emotion tinged his voice to breaking. It was more than her heart could bear.
“Bowen...”
“Let me finish.” He rose to his feet, pacing at the water’s edge. “I need to know where we stand, once and for all. I’m a soldier, RuthAnne. I go where the army sends me. It could be here, or it could be the outer reaches of the northern territory. This life’s about duty. And honor. And sacrifice. Would you be willing to share it with me? As my wife?”
RuthAnne closed her eyes to imagine a future with Bowen by her side. Where she had once envisioned flinging open the doors of a dress shop she could call her own, she now saw opening the doors of a house full of stair-stepped happy, dirty faces, each one bearing a striking resemblance to their father. Instead of making clothes for strangers, she foresaw a family to be cherished. Here at Fort Lowell or anywhere else the army would send them. Together, as husband and wife.
Opening her eyes, she drank in the sight of him. Memorizing his weather-lined face. His sun-darkened skin. This moment. And she knew what her answer would be.
He knelt beside and drew her close, crushing his lips to hers without waiting for her reply.
Laughing, she pushed him back, wiping a line of soot from his brow. “You presume a great deal, don’t you?”
“Better get used to it,” he whispered, voice rough with emotion. He leaned in and kissed her as she had never been kissed before.
A word about the author...
Ashley Ludwig is an Arizona native, though she has been transplanted to her new home in Southern California wine country. She lives with her husband, their two daughters, and dog.
She received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Arizona, with a degree in Anthropology and a minor in History. Ashley worked for several years as an Archaeologist across the American Southwest. She has turned her passion for research and attention to historical detail to her true love, writing inspirational, historical romances.
Visit Ashley at
www.ashleyelizabethludwig.blogspot.com/
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