Dorothy Garlock (32 page)

Silence lingered after Ben finished his story. Johanna thought back over the things she had learned about old Mack: his hatred of Mexicans was because of his father’s mistress; his determination to see to it that a bastard didn’t inherit his valley, because a bastard had inherited his father’s fortune. But still, Johanna thought, he begot bastards of his own; and by being so extremely cruel and sadistic toward them, had he felt in some way that he was inflicting punishment on his father’s bastard?

Johanna was so totally absorbed in her thoughts that she had forgotten Ben. She looked up to see his head tilted back and his eyes closed.

“Ben,” she said gently. “You’re tired. Go to bed. There’s nothing more we can do tonight.”

He got to his feet. “All right, lass. I am tired.”

Johanna leaned back and closed her eyes. She was tired in body and tired in mind. She listened to the crackling fire as it ate at the firewood, and watched the sparks fly upward when a chunk of burned wood fell into the embers. Two people had breathed their last breaths in this house tonight. But time didn’t stop. It went on, and dawn would come tomorrow the same as it had today.

She opened her eyes and, completely without fear, looked into blue ones. Burr had squatted down beside the chair, his eyes level with hers.

“You all right?”

She nodded, surprised by his concern. “You know . . . ?”

“Mooney came and told us. Why don’t you go to bed?”

“I will. Did you find out anything?”

“Luis and I think the woman came in alone and that she got past the spring before Mooney went up there. She must have hidden somewhere near the smokehouse all day and seen Mooney leave his post when I told him to go get some sleep.”

“How did she know to find old Mack’s room?”

“Mack left his lamp burning and she saw him through the window. The old fool was probably waiting to see if I went upstairs with you,” he said dryly. “I don’t know how she got the knife in him before he shot her, unless he was dozing. He always kept the gun right on the bed beside him. He had it in his head that Luis or I would try to kill him sometime.” Burr took a deep breath and his shoulders sagged. “He wasn’t too far off the mark, Johanna. More times than one, I was tempted. Anyway . . . he’s dead!”

Johanna didn’t think about the strangeness of their talking like this. Or how natural it was for her to reach out and touch his arm. “Don’t think about it,” she urged. “You did what you could for him. You have nothing to regret.”

“Luis is bringing Jacy back up to the house, and he and Red will stand watch for the rest of the night,” he said wearily. “Mooney and I are going to get a couple hours’ sleep. We’re taking the supply wagon down to the Indian camp first thing in the morning, just as if nothing’s happened.”

Burr got to his feet and Johanna stood as if pulled by invisible strings, her stricken eyes on his. “You’re going down . . . there?”

“I always take a wagonload of supplies to the camp. They expect it.”

She reached out and clutched his arms. “But . . . they might kill you!”

“Maybe, maybe not.” He lowered his eyes to her hands on his arms. She removed them quickly. His mood changed instantly. Mockingly, and with a devilish look on his face, he said, “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t be pleased to be made a widow tomorrow?”

A look of shock crossed her face as she reeled back a step. Her lips, red against a white face, quivered, and her voice trembled. “How . . . can you say such a thing?”

He tilted his head to the side and stared at her, his face sobering, eyes questioning, but he said nothing.

She stumbled past him and hurried to the door. When she reached it, she turned and was surprised by the look of concern on his face. She forced herself to meet his eyes and not to look away.

“Will you please tell Jacy to be careful of the steep stairs when she comes up? She’s one of those people who can’t see in the dark, and I’m afraid she’ll fall.”

“Don’t worry. Go on to bed. I’ll bring her up.” His voice held a quality that, had Johanna been less distraught, would have made her wonder.

Johanna began to shake all over, and it was such a peculiar sensation that it frightened her. Fear ate into her very being. Burr might not come back from the Apache camp! She looked at him as if to etch his face in her memory forever, and fought an impulse to run to him and plead with him not to go. Shocked back to reality by the thought of what his reaction would be, she wondered how she could feel this way about a man who thought of her only in terms of his physical needs.

Suddenly she was ashamed.
At least he’s been honest,
she thought. He didn’t want her inner self. He wasn’t interested in her thoughts, her dreams, or whether she was happy or sad. He had told her that her being here would save him a trip to El Paso to visit the whores. He would use her body to satisfy the age-old urge to procreate, while she hid her lust behind her pride. She was no better than a harlot! The word stiffened her resolve to do her utmost to hide her love. She would never, she vowed silently, allow him to know of it and risk his using it as a weapon against her.

Without speaking, she turned and left him.

N
ineteen

M
orning came and with it the dread. Sleep had held Johanna’s fear at bay for a few hours. This morning Burr and Mooney were taking their lives in their hands. They were going to the Apache camp.

Johanna and Jacy walked down to the corral to watch the loading of goods Burr would take to the Indian camp. There were sacks of corn, stacks of blankets, bolts of cloth, knives, dried fruit, tobacco, iron pots, and a small keg of gunpowder.

“The Apaches,” Ben said, when she questioned, “are not frivolous people. They want practical things.”

“I wish they didn’t have to go,” Johanna said worriedly.

“So do I, lass. But a man does what he thinks he must.”

Burr and Mooney joked lightly about their mission.

“I’m sure a-hatin’ to depend on these old clods to get me outta that camp fast.” Mooney shifted his chew of tobacco to the other side of his mouth and patted one of the mules on the rump. “Sure’d like to take that old pie-eyed horse of mine along.”

“They’d steal that old nag and have her butchered for the pot before you could spit, Mooney.”

“I still think I should go with you, Burr.” Luis lifted the large sack from his shoulder and threw it into the wagon.

Johanna heard the small gasp come from Jacy when she heard her husband’s words. She gripped Johanna’s arm tightly, and waited in terrible silence.

“Things are different now, Luis. You’ll do more good here,” Burr said, and Jacy let the breath escape from where she had trapped it in her throat.

“I’ll ride with you as far as my place and wait for you there,” Luis insisted.

“Stay here. You’ve got three good men down there. We’ll stop at your place and see if things are all right. If anything had happened at your ranch we’d have heard shots.” Luis looked worried, and Burr laughed. “Cheer up, brother, you got that pretty little bride over there to keep you company.” When Luis didn’t smile, Burr sobered. “If we’re not back by the time you think we should be, you know what to do. Don’t let them draw you away from the ranch . . . regardless. There’d be nothing you could do for me or Mooney if it came to that. They’re either going to take our goods and treat us as usual, or they’re not.”

Mooney threw the last sack up onto the wagon and let loose a stream of tobacco juice. “Guess there ain’t nothin’ t’do but get on with it.” He pulled his hat down on his head and climbed up onto the wagon seat.

Johanna stood behind the corral fence, and when Burr looked at her, she didn’t look away. He climbed over the railing and took her hand. He looked at her for a moment, then led her away from the group that had gathered to watch him and Mooney set off.

“They expect me to kiss you,” he said, nodding toward the watching eyes. “We’d better make it look right.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” she whispered, her eyes mute testament of the fear churning inside her.

He touched his lips to hers. Her arms went around his body and her lips clung. The kiss lasted a long time. She could feel the pounding of his heart against her breast as his arms pulled her to him. When they broke the kiss, she lowered her eyes in an attempt to hide her tears.

His hands gripped her shoulders and he gave them a gentle shake. “Don’t cry, little wife. If your luck holds out, my hair could be hangin’ from an Apache belt by night,” he said lightly.

Her eyes, now sparkling with anger and tears, came up to meet his. “You’re hateful! You scoff at everything. You . . . you . . .” She drew back her foot and kicked him on the shin. “You make me so damn mad!” She broke loose from him and ran toward the house.

He stood with his hands on his hips and watched her go. God, how he hated to leave her! In time things could be different between them. Ben seemed to think so. But his time might have run out. The smiling, devil-may-care expression he had worn for her benefit was no longer necessary, and in its place came a look of frustration and regret. Regret that he had allowed his pride, and his bitterness toward old Mack, to keep him from being grateful for the precious gift that had been given to him. “Goodbye, little silver fox,” he muttered and climbed back over the rails.

“Hee-yaw!” Mooney shouted and cracked his whip over the backs of the team as Burr climbed into the wagon. “H’yaw!” The yell echoed in the morning stillness. The mules strained at their harnesses, and the wagon moved out of the corral and through the gate. The men being left behind stood silently, a few took off their hats and bowed their heads in silent prayer. They knew that there was a good chance Burr and Mooney would not return.

Burr’s eyes clung to the slim woman who stood beside the house, her hands wrapped in her apron. Her bright hair glinted in the morning sun and he thought suddenly of the straw hat she had worn the day she arrived. Now it hung over the barn door, dilapidated, the faded pink rose a mere piece of tattered cloth. He had nailed it to the barn after the wind had torn it from the peg on the porch.
She’s quite a woman,
he mused. Although he was sure she knew that he was the one who had put it there, she had never mentioned it.
I’ll take it down,
he promised himself—
that is, if I come back.

Burr looked back one more time. Johanna hadn’t moved. She looked lonely standing beside the house. Burr raised his hand and waved and she answered with a wave of her arm. The picture of her stayed in his mind for a long time.

*  *  *

Burr squinted under the pulled-down brim of his hat and studied the terrain. Behind them and a little higher up were the ranch buildings and below them was the Indian camp. The sun was at their back and not yet high enough to give warmth. A cool breeze drifted down from the mountains and waved the long grasses alive with small birds that whirred up from under the feet of the mules. The trail ran alongside the rocky stream. A startled deer bolted when they approached. The snow peak of the distant mountain shone in the morning sun. It was all very peaceful.

The men hadn’t spoken since they’d left the ranch yard. Each was wrapped in his own thoughts. Mooney finally broke the silence.

“Ain’t this a mite more stuff than you usually take, Burr?”

“Yeah, it is, but I figure they’d try to take it all if they had a mind to.” He glanced at Mooney and grinned. “We just might get our hair took today, Mooney.”

The leather-faced cowboy took off his hat and scratched his head. Wisps of sweat-drenched hair were plastered to the near-bald pate.

“I’m a-thinkin’ I got the least likely scalp any ’pache’d ever want,” he said dryly. “Wouldn’t be no pride in hangin’ my bald scalp on a belt.”

“Let’s hope so.” Burr took off his hat and threw it on the floor of the wagon next to the fringed Indian boots for which he’d bartered a few years ago. His work pants were old but clean, as was his dark shirt. The only weapon he carried was a hunting knife tucked into his belt. Mooney wore a gunbelt that held two heavy revolvers. Despite their light chatter, both men knew the seriousness of their mission. The Apache could kill them today and ride on to the ranch.

As the wagon rolled along, Burr thought of the Indian woman, Bucko’s mother. He decided she was probably insignificant enough that she wouldn’t be missed, except by the women she served. If Burr remembered right, the warrior from whom he’d bought Bucko was Black Buffalo. A surly, troublesome man, he just might think he could gain something from the woman’s disappearance.

They stopped for a short time at Luis’s ranch and watered the mules. Burr talked to the
vaqueros
left behind to guard the hacienda.

“Keep a sharp eye on the gap that goes into the lower valley. If a sizable force comes through, hightail it to the ranch and warn Luis. There won’t be anything you can do here, and there won’t be anything you can do for us.
Comprenden?

“Sí.”
They nodded gravely and watched the wagon roll away.

*   *   *

The sun was almost directly overhead when the wagon rolled up and over an incline and the Indian camp came into view.

Mooney whistled though his teeth. “That’s a pretty good size camp!”

“Yeah, you stubborn old goat. I told you it would be!” Burr snorted.

The wickiups had been set up to form a large circle. Inside the circle was a ring of larger wickiups and in the center of that circle was one of tremendous size. This was the lodge of the chief, and a large fire burned brightly in front of it. He was an old man, but he had three young, powerful chieftains. Burr had talked with all of them, and he liked the one called Geronimo the best. He realized that the short, squat man would be a formidable enemy, but he was also a deep thinker and a shrewd man. Geronimo was sure to understand the need to keep the white man alive so as to ensure future supplies for his people.

“Well, let’s get on down there, Mooney, and see which way the wind blows. Don’t let any hotheaded buck bait you into doing anything foolish.”