Ambush at Shadow Valley (6 page)

Chapter 4

Having seen the old man and the two shepherd dogs disappear upon their approach, Suelo Soto stared at the shack as he and Ransdale reined their horses down and stepped them back and forth in the dirt. ‘‘I hope we're not interrupting anything, ma'am,'' he said politely, although his voice carried an unpleasant tone. ‘‘I've got a feeling there's things here we want.''

‘‘We don't want any trouble, Mister,'' the woman said. ‘‘Take anything you want and leave us in peace.''

The two men stopped their horses and stared at her. Ransdale said as he eyed her up and down with a wicked grin, ‘‘Did you say
anything
we want?''

Her eyes moved across the long, freshly taken scalp hanging against his leg, but she pretended not to see it. The sight of the wet, gory artifact sent a chill of desperation up her spine, yet she managed to keep her voice steady. ‘‘Yes, you can have whatever you want without a fight—only please don't hurt my pa, or our animals.''

‘‘What makes you think putting up a fight would bother us any?'' Ransdale said, his grin going away, replaced by a dark, malevolent stare.

Turning her eyes from Ransdale without answering him, she said to Soto, ‘‘Pick out a yearling. I'll clean it and spick it for you.'' She gestured a nod toward the small herd of goats milling nearby in a corral. ‘‘It's better that I cooperate, do what you want done, rather than fight you over every little thing, isn't it?''

‘‘You're a whore, aren't you?'' Soto said bluntly, causing Ransdale to snicker as if he'd meant it as a cruel joke or an insult.

‘‘I used to be,'' the woman said, ignoring Ransdale for the moment and speaking only to Soto. ‘‘But I haven't forgotten how.'' She tilted her chin as she spoke and cocked a hand onto her hip as if compelled by instincts she thought she'd long abandoned. She felt herself steadily gaining a footing of control, and with it, courage. ‘‘In case you and your laughing friend want to know, my name is Clarimonde—''

‘‘I don't want to know your name.'' Soto cut her off roughly. He gestured a finger up and down her. ‘‘Step out of that dress and let's see what you're carrying around underneath.''

‘‘Yeah and let your hair drop,'' Ransdale cut in.

Without taking her eyes off Soto, she untied the two strings holding her dress at her throat and let it fall to the dirt. Behind her she heard the bitch shepherd whine and scratch at the inside of the door. She heard her father call the restless animal down.

‘‘I hate an unruly dog,'' said Ransdale, his hand going to his gun butt and wrapping around it. Yet his eyes stayed riveted on the woman's pale, naked breasts.

‘‘The bitch dog is old. She doesn't mean anything by it,'' the woman said. ‘‘Neither of these dogs bites. You don't have to worry about them.''

‘‘These dogs look too damn much like wolves not to bite,'' Ransdale replied. ‘‘But you tell me if I look worried to you.'' He glared at her, his hand resting on his gun butt.

‘‘No, you do not look like a man who worries about troublesome dogs when more pleasurable things are close at hand.'' Relieved that the scratching and whining had stopped, the woman eased a hand up her flat stomach and cupped a breast to keep Ransdale's attention drawn away from the door. She deliberately avoided looking at the fresh scalp at his knee as she reached up, pulled a long thin cactus needle from her hair, shook it out and let it fall.

Having noted her accent and the way she handled Ransdale, Soto chuckled and said, ‘‘Yeah, you've been a ‘hurdy' girl all right. I can see your mind clicking right along. Don't try getting too bold on us,'' he warned. ‘‘You can see what my pard thinks of womenfolk.''

‘‘I will do only as you tell me to do,'' the woman said submissively.

‘‘Whoo-ieee, I like the sound of that,'' said Ransdale. He looked her tall, naked body up and down and said with a tight, hushed voice, ‘‘Her hair's the color of wheat in the field.''

‘‘Keep hair out of your mind for right now, Nate,'' said Soto. ‘‘We're going to eat some hot goat meat and make ourselves at home here for a while.'' He glared at the woman and said, ‘‘Does that sound good to you,
Clarimonde
?'' He deliberately used her name as if to let her know she had won something.

"Yes, that sounds good to me," she offered with a coy smile. Now that she felt she'd diverted their attention from the shack for the moment, she stooped straight down to pick up her dress. ‘‘I will kill our largest kid and prepare it for you.''

‘‘You don't need to dress on our account,'' Soto said, stopping her from pulling the weathered dress back up around her. ‘‘I might enjoy watching a woman go about her work without her clothes on."

‘‘Might?'' said Ransdale. ‘‘I know for damn sure that I would.''

The woman straightened, picked up her dress and let it hang from her fingertips. Without letting her humiliation show, she nodded toward a smaller weathered shack thirty yards away. ‘‘I keep our butchering knives in there.''

‘‘After you then,'' said Soto, backing his horse up a step and allowing her to walk to the corral.

The two watched her select the largest yearling from among the goat herd and walk out, cradling it in her arms. They stepped down from their saddles and followed her to the shed. Ransdale took off his gun belt and draped it over his saddle horn as if preparing to force himself upon her as soon as they entered the shack. But a stern look from Soto kept him in check as they walked along, watching the woman stroke the kid's neck and speak soothingly to it in German.

Without looking around, the woman said matter-of-factly, ‘‘If I make you happy, I am hoping you will not kill my papa or the dogs before leaving."

Chuckling, Ransdale said, ‘‘It's not likely you'll get what you're hoping for—not with hair like this." He reached out with his gloved hand and ran it down her long hair hanging down her back.

Ignoring Ransdale's words, Soto said bluntly to the woman, ‘‘We're American convicts running from an Arizona lawman. I don't like leaving live witnesses behind us.''

‘‘But you have nothing to fear from us,'' said the woman. ‘‘No one here can say who you are. My papa does not see well.''

Ransdale grinned cruelly and said as he watched the sway of her naked hips beneath her hair, "Then that leaves only you."

‘‘You do not have to worry about me saying anything about you,'' she said. Still stroking the kid in her arms, Clarimonde reached out with a foot and shoved the weathered plank door open, then walked inside the shack.

‘‘Oh?'' Ransdale said. ‘‘And why is that?''

‘‘Because I will ride along with you when you leave,'' she said, pressing her cheek to that of the kid before setting it down atop a chopping block in the middle of the dirt floor.

‘‘No fooling?'' Soto gave Ransdale a look, then said to the woman, ‘‘And what makes you think you're going to be going with us?''

She leveled a gaze into his eyes as she picked up a long, sharp-pointed knife from a rack on the side of the butcher block. ‘‘Because I have lived here for a long time. I can show you ways out of this hill country that no American lawman knows about. I can take you deeper into the wilds of Mexico.''

‘‘Maybe we're not going much deeper into Mexico,'' he said, watching her play her hand at keeping herself and her father alive. ‘‘What if we're headed somewhere a little nearer to the border?''

‘‘Nearer to the border? But if you are running from the law, shouldn't you try to get farther away from the border?'' Clarimonde asked.

‘‘Not just yet.'' Soto smiled. ‘‘What if I asked you to show us a fast way to Shadow Valley? Think you could do that without the law catching up to us?'' His smile widened. ‘‘I mean, if it meant saving you and the old man's life?''

Without hesitation, she said, ‘‘I can take you to Shadow Valley on a gun runner trail that even the local villagers do not know about.''

‘‘Is that so?'' Soto replied. ‘‘Then how is it that you know about it?''

With bold confidence she said, ‘‘Because I was once the concubine of the gun runner who forged the trail.''

‘‘ ‘Concubine' . . . ,'' said Ransdale. ‘‘That's just a fancier word for whore.'' He took a half step forward, but then stopped, noting the knife in the woman's hand.

‘‘If you know a high trail to Shadow Valley, I'm interested,'' said Soto. ‘‘But if you're lying to me . . .'' He let his words trail, leaving the consequence to her imagination.

‘‘I am not lying,'' Clarimonde said, ‘‘and you will see that I am good at everything I do.'' As she spoke she pressed down gently on the kid's spiny back. The kid sank onto the block and lay staring blankly.

The two men watched her slide a low, wide, deep tin cup up against the thin animal's throat. With a deft stroke of the knife blade she opened a half-inch cut across a raised artery in the animal's frail neck and let the blood flow into the cup. The kid lay bleeding painlessly.

‘‘Now that was slickly done,'' Ransdale chuckled. As the animal lay with its eyes closed beneath the woman's soothing hand, he dipped his fingers into the filling cup and flipped blood on Clarimonde's naked breasts.

Giving Ransdale a harsh stare, Soto cautioned him, saying, ‘‘Careful she doesn't do the same thing to you while you're not looking.''

But Ransdale only laughed. He flipped more warm blood on the woman and smeared it down her breasts with his finger. Giving her a cold, menacing stare he said, ‘‘Not me, she won't. I'm always looking.'' He leaned in close to the woman and ran his bloody fingers down her hair. ‘‘One slipup, and you're going to look good swinging from my saddle horn.''

Inside the shack the old man had paced back and forth for more than an hour, hushing the two shepherds when they piqued their ears and growled toward the sounds of harsh laughter and swearing from across the yard at the butcher shed. ‘‘Be still, Bess,'' he ordered the large bitch. ‘‘I know no more what is going on than you do. Now be silent.''

But moments later when the aroma of roasting goat meat permeated the air, he stopped pacing and stood, anxiously wiping his palms on his trousers and squinting out a dust-streaked window toward the butcher shed. ‘‘Good, she is feeding them now. Soon they will go on their way and leave us in peace.''

Yet, on the floor at his feet the distrustful old bitch rose slowly, this time growling louder as a peal of dark laughter resounded from the smaller shack. Close by the younger dog followed suit.

‘‘Halt die Schnauze, Bess! Sie störrisches altes Weibchen!''
the old man chastised the wary animal, resorting to his native tongue. Then, shaking his finger at the younger, thinner dog, he said, ‘‘You, lie down! What she does with those
schmutzige Schweine
, she does for all of us!''

But no sooner had he settled both animals than the pair sprang back up from the floor as a loud sound erupted from the butcher shed, as if someone had been slammed against the thin plank wall.

Cursing under his breath, the old man walked to where a long, ornate shotgun hung on pegs above the mantel. ‘‘I won't sit here idly like a
dummer feigling
, no matter what my daughter demands of me.''

At the sight of the old man taking down the shotgun, both shepherds began scurrying in circles around him. But he raised a hand toward them and said, ‘‘
Nein! Nein!
Both of you lie down and do as you were told!'' Only when the two had settled grudgingly down onto the floor did the old man pick up his walking cane, step out onto the porch and slam the door behind himself.

From a place where they had built a fire out back of the butcher shed, Ransdale turned with a mouth full of hot goat meat and called out to the open doorway, ‘‘Suelo, here comes the old man. He's packing a scattergun.'' As he spoke he lifted his gun from his holster with greasy fingers and added with a glistening grin, ‘‘But don't get up. I've got him.''

Inside, on a dirty blanket lying on the dirt floor of the butcher shed, the woman cried out, ‘‘No! Papa!'' and shoved Soto from atop of her. Soto only rolled over and laughed as he watched her snatch her dress from the dirt, hold it to her bosom and run out the open door. ‘‘Crazy whore,'' he said to himself, pulling the cork from a dusty bottle of whiskey Ransdale had found when he'd rummaged the shack, ‘‘lives here with two wolves and a madman.''

Standing, Soto lifted his gun from its holster on the butcher block and walked out naked, the bottle in one hand, his cocked revolver in the other.

‘‘Please! It is not loaded!'' the woman cried out, having run forward and grabbed the shotgun from her father's hands. She broke the empty shotgun down quickly and held it out for Soto to see, keeping herself between the old man and the two killers. ‘‘He is old and foolish in his head! Don't hurt him!''

Ransdale turned to Soto, his gun out at arm's length toward the old man. ‘‘You call it, Suelo. I can kill either one or both for you.''

‘‘Hold up,'' Soto said. He walked closer to the woman and took the shotgun she held out for him to examine. Behind her the old man struggled to shove her out of his way. Soto looked at the unloaded shotgun, shook his head and tossed it aside. ‘‘Foolish is right,'' he said, staring at the old man's confused and squinting eyes. ‘‘Old man, your daughter, Clarimonde, just kept you from making a bad mistake.''