Hostage Heart (25 page)

Kentucky’s shrill scream brought Lark out of a deep sleep. She jerked into a sitting position. Matt stirred beside her, his hand finding hers.

“What’s wrong?” he muttered, barely opening his eyes. Hours earlier, they had fallen exhausted into each other’s arms.

Lark twisted her head. “I don’t know. I thought I heard Kentucky.” She rubbed her face, trying to clear her groggy mind.

Matt lay back down on the pillow. “Probably just a dream. Come back here…”

But the stallion screamed again, and Lark knew it wasn’t her imagination or a dream. She slipped quickly out of bed and pulled her nightgown over her head. “Let me go check at the office window,” she said, her voice husky with sleep. “It’s not like him to awake at this time of night and make such a fuss.”

“Go ahead,” Matt agreed.

Lark hurried down the hall to the office, which would afford her an excellent view of the barn area. Her hands pressed against the window, she gasped. Beneath the light of the full moon, she saw Ga’n and Bo Shanks leading Kentucky out of the barn. Then terror rooted her. To the west, all along the horizon, she saw fire.

“Matt!” she cried, racing back to the bedroom. He met her at the door. “Ga’n, Shanks! They’re stealing Kentucky! And there’s a prairie fire coming toward the ranch!”

He gripped her arm. “Get ahold of yourself,” he ordered. “Get dressed. Those bastards probably set the fire.” His eyes blazed in the darkness. “I’ll try and stop them.”

“No!”

Matt pulled Lark back into the bedroom. He grabbed his Levi’s and threw on his shirt and boots. “Wake the men in the bunkhouse,” he ordered. “I’ll try and stop Shanks and Ga’n.” Racing down the hall, he cinched the gun and holster around his hips and bolted out the door. His boots sounded hollowly on the porch as he ran to the end and leaped into the yard. At least a half mile away he saw two shadowy riders heading for the safety of the mountains, the stud in tow. “Sonofabitch!” He was too far away to make a clear, safe shot. At this distance, any bullet he fired might hit the valuable stallion instead. Matt saw the guard lying near the barn, either dead or unconscious. He turned, his eyes widening. The entire horizon was a red-orange color, turning darkness into day. Retrieving the horse would have to wait. Right now, every man jack of them would have to work to save the ranch from the oncoming prairie fire.

Lark stood near Matt and the knot of men, women, and children. They had watched the fire growing nearer and nearer by the hour. Half the horizon was now an ugly orange color, and licking yellow flames flared into the sky. For two hours, Matt and the wranglers had worked without rest to build a firebreak around the large ranch. Lark gripped his hot, sweaty arm and shot him a questioning look.

Breathing hard, Matt wiped his glistening face with the back of his arm. “There’s only one way to save the ranch,” he said.

She trembled, remembering their earlier conversation. Matt had wanted to start a backfire that would burn toward the oncoming inferno. The backfire would burn the grass close to the ranch before the main wall of flames arrived. It would be the lesser of two evils, Matt had told all of them. The backfire wouldn’t have the height or intensity of the original fire stalking them. The backfire might mean that the ranch buildings would sustain some damage, or that the restless, panicked horses might injure themselves, but at least they might be able to save the ranch and animals. The fire in the distance was at least six to eight feet high, twisting in shadowy shapes as it bore down upon them.

“Lark?”

She swallowed hard, frightened. “Yes…do it.”

He nodded. “Paco, get the torches,” he ordered.

Paco nodded grimly.
“Sí, señor. Hombres! Pronto!
” They headed toward the firebreak with lighted torches.

Maria clung to Lark, watching the men. “Aiyee,
Patrona
, will this work?”

“I don’t know.”

“If not, our ranch will burn. Oh, the horses! The foals! What are we to do?”

Lark absently patted the head of a child who was clinging to her trousered leg. “I don’t know, Maria, I don’t know.” Her throat ached with smoke and tension. Never in her life had she seen a fire of this magnitude. Matt was right: Cameron must be behind it. Kentucky was gone, stolen, and Ga’n and Shanks had done it. Anger simmered in her. If they could save the ranch from this terrible inferno, she swore to Us’an she’d go after her enemies. Cameron wanted to destroy her, but she would never submit to the bastard. Never!

Buckets of water moved down a human chain of children, women, and elderly Apaches to the buildings closest to the backfire. The dry grass caught quickly. Within minutes, the wall of fire leaped to six feet in height and, like a hungry monster, headed toward the other wall that was now only a mile away. Sweat trickled down Lark’s temples as she threw another bucket on the sides of the barn, trying to keep the wood soaked and therefore less vulnerable to the heat of the fire. Shouts and orders among the men were drowned out as the backfire roared with violent life, reminding Lark of an angry thunderstorm bearing down upon them.

They worked unceasingly for another hour, continuing to drench the buildings. Smoke curled and twisted above the barns, and everyone wore handkerchiefs over their faces to protect them from it. A shower of cinders began falling all across the ranch and Lark grew alarmed. Here and there, where those red-hot cinders floated down to earth, they started smaller fires. She worked with Frank Herter and a number of children, running to each spot and putting out the potential blazes. Sweaty faces blackened by ashes gleamed in the light of the inferno.

Choking and coughing, Lark turned away from the barn when she heard a roar grow louder behind her. The backfire was half a mile from the ranch, about to meet the original fire. The ranch hands suspended their activities, watching in awe and terror as the fiery mating took place.

Matt draped an arm around Lark’s sagging shoulders, holding her hard against him. She was trembling from exhaustion. Everyone was, he thought grimly, blinking sweat from his eyes. The ranch people formed a semicircle around them, watching, waiting.

It was almost dawn, and the sky was lightening above them. Lark watched the rolling white and gray smoke tower hundreds of feet into the air, twisting at the whim of the capricious wind. The roar intensified and she gripped Matt, terrified.

“It’ll be over soon,” he whispered in her ear. “I think we’re saved.”

The walls of fire met and the combustion of air between them made the flames leap higher, wilder. Lark had never seen anything like it in her life. Then, suddenly, an awesome silence descended. She blinked, watching as the eight-feet-high flames dwindled to nothing but a few tiny fires spotting the valley here and there. A hoarse, jubilant cheer went up. She blinked her smoke-filled eyes, her throat too raw to allow her to join in.

Matt embraced her hard, once, then abruptly released her. “Frank, Paco, get us horses,” he shouted over the crowd. “We’re going after Ga’n and Shanks.”

Stunned, Lark cried, “No!” She whirled on Matt, her voice raspy. “
I’m
going after them!”

“Like hell you are. You’ll stay here, at the ranch, where it’s safe.”

Anger raged through Lark as she met and held his glare. “None of you can track like I can. I’m Apache. I know how to live and hunt off the land.” She punched her chest with her thumb. “No, Matt, I’m going. And there’s nothing you can say or do to stop me. You’ll need a guide. You need me.”

“Now, look,” Matt said in a low voice once he got Lark inside the ranch office, “there’s no way in hell I’m letting you go, Lark!” He wasn’t going to argue the point with her in public.

Breathing hard, hands on hips, Lark held his tortured gaze. They were all exhausted from the hours spent fighting the fire, and her temper was short. “I’m not some white woman you can boss around, Matt Kincaid!”

“I’m not bossing you around because you’re white, pink, or purple!” he roared back, pacing the office. What the hell was the matter with Lark? Didn’t she realize how dangerous it would be to track Ga’n and Shanks? He shoved his fingers through his damp, dirty hair.

“You forget, I’m half Apache. I’ve been trained to track!”

“I wouldn’t care if you were
all
Apache, I still wouldn’t let you go.” He turned to her, his hands open, his face pleading. “Dammit, I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Her eyes flashing, Lark muttered, “The only people to get hurt will be Ga’n and Shanks! I need Kentucky back! Without him, our entire breeding program is destroyed. Cameron knows that, too, the bastard!”

Matt was used to white women who meekly did as their husbands ordered. But not Lark. And not now. The defiant angle of her chin guaranteed that. Part of him loved her fiercely for her courage, but another part cowered in abject terror of losing her. Damn her bravery. Damn her Apache blood! “I’ll take Paco,” Matt growled, daring her to challenge his decision.

Lark stared at him. All she could hear was their heavy, chaotic breathing in the room. They sounded like a bear and a cougar in a fight to the death. “Paco’s still injured. He’d never maintain the pace you’re going to set. I know Ga’n. He’ll push his horse until it dies and then he’ll find another one and push it until it dies. If he has to, he’ll go on foot. Believe me,” she added, “no one can match an Apache on foot. We can travel almost as many miles in a day on foot as on horseback and you know it! Paco will never be able to stand the bumping around that wound will take.”

“Then I’ll take Herter.”

“I need him here to help fill in for Paco. He knows horses, Matt. He knows where to find them. We’ve got to breed twenty more mares to the second stallion, Huelga, before this season is over. Frank’s the only one who can oversee all of those things. None of my other wranglers are trained in all aspects of the operation.”

He glared at her, his hands on his hips. “Then I’ll go alone. I will
not
take you, Lark. I won’t lose you.”

She heard the iron will in his voice, but this was one time she would not stand idly by, no matter what Matt thought or felt. She would let him think she was staying behind and track him later. “All right, go,” she declared.

“You’ll stay here with Paco and Herter?”

Lark ignored his question. “You’ll need an Apache mustang for a mount,” she said, opening the door. “He’ll know how to forage for food in any kind of situation when a
pindah
horse would not. If you go to the desert, he’ll be able to survive on cactus. No
pindah
horse can cross that desert without water. Let me get Maria to make you enough food to fill your saddlebags. I’ll meet you in the stud barn.”

Matt stood there, scowling. Exhaustion pulled at him. Time was of the essence if he was going to find fresh tracks on Ga’n and Shanks. Kentucky was shod, so the trail would be easier to pick up.

In the bunkhouse, he packed a set of fresh clothes. A savage pleasure worked through him as he picked up his Winchester rifle. Already his mind was turning toward the hunt, knowing that Lark would be safe here at the ranch.

A murky dawn had arrived on the horizon just as Matt left. Paco stood on Lark’s right, Herter on the left, watching him gallop across the now blackened valley.

Wearily, Lark turned to Paco. “I want a cottonwood saddle put on Four Winds.”

Paco stared at her. “But,
Patrona
…are you going after Señor Matt?”

“Yes.” She looked up at Herter. “Frank, will you see that Maria packs my saddlebags with Apache food?”

Frank gave her a measuring look. Like everyone’s, his face was darkened with smoke and grime. A slight smile hovered below his mustache. “You’re going to follow him, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll see to the provisions and your horse.”

Relieved that at least Frank understood, Lark hurried to the broodmare barn, where she found Ny-Oden. Throughout the fire, he had been with the animals, talking soothingly to ease their panic. The shaman patted the bay mare’s nose affectionately and watched Lark approach.

“You leave now, daughter?”

Lark halted and smiled wearily. “I’ll never understand how you know certain things, Grandfather.”

He walked slowly toward a small room. “Us’an tells me what I need to know. If you follow Ga’n and Shanks, you will need powerful protection.” He opened the creaky door and reached inside the shadowed depths.

“I have to go, Grandfather. I know Matt won’t be able to survive without my help.”

“I understand.” Ny-Oden held a five-foot cedar bow and a quiver filled with two-foot-long arrows between his gnarled hands. The ivory-colored flint tips on each arrow gleamed in the dim light. “Here, you will need these. To use a rifle will tell your enemy your position. Any food you kill must be done silently.”

Reverently Lark took the bow and arrow. When she was a child, Ny-Oden had taught her how to use the weapon with deadly accuracy. The cedar of the bow was strong and smooth beneath her hand. Just knowing she had Ny-Oden’s blessing gave Lark the confidence she needed. “Is there anything else I will need?” she asked in a husky voice.

The old shaman cocked his head, studying her in the silence of the barn. A mare snorted in the background. “Like a medicine person, you walk between two worlds, my daughter.”

With a grimace, Lark muttered, “I’m finding out.”

“The blood in your veins is both white and Apache. Men such as Matt Kincaid and Frank Herter have taught you that white blood is no different from the People’s.”

“You speak the truth, Grandfather,” Lark admitted softly. “Matt has changed my life in many ways.”

“And you are comfortable with yourself?”

“As never before.” She clasped his clawlike hand. “You knew all along, didn’t you?”

His eyes sparkled. “Remember, I told you that if you decided to save Kincaid’s life, many changes would occur within you?”

“I’ve found out what love is, Grandfather. My heart is breaking because I’m not with him.”

“Then, go. Us’an is with you. You will need his strength and endurance, which only he can bestow upon you in times of need.”

Heartened, Lark leaned down and embraced the shaman. “Pray for both of us,” she whispered, and then walked quickly out of the gloom.

Giving last-minute instructions to Paco and Frank, Lark knew the ranch would be in good hands while she was absent. Herter knew of Cameron’s plan to get the water rights signed over to him and would make sure it didn’t happen. As she mounted Four Winds, Lark lifted her hand to the gathered people, her extended family. Outside the group, Ny-Oden stood hunched over, watching her intently. Without a word, she nudged the mare into a ground-eating trot.

Lark knew that if Matt was aware of her presence too soon, he’d try to send her back to the ranch. It was easy to track his horse’s hoofprints through the charred grass. At first the tracks headed north, then they swung east, and finally due south. Once on the slopes of the tree-clad mountains, where pine needles hid the evidence of hoofprints, Lark had to resort to more subtle signs such as broken branches on brush or disturbed pine needles.

By the time Holos was at his zenith, Lark had crested the last ridge. Below her, she could see the beginning of the great desert that spread like a vast red carpet in all directions. Her eyesight was sharp, and she could barely make out Matt, who had reached the edge of the desert. Taking a sip of precious water from one of her two canteens, Lark washed the liquid around in her mouth before swallowing it. She searched for signs of Ga’n and Shanks without success. Worry nagged at her: Kentucky was not a mustang who knew how to survive in the reaches of the vast desert. He hadn’t been taught as a young horse to eat the bitter pulp of cactus for water and food. And even Ga’n could not force a horse to eat it if he didn’t want to. How close was she to Ga’n? He’d sold his honor in her eyes by breaking his word to always protect her. He’d betrayed one of the most sacred trusts between two Apache people. Now Lark considered him an enemy, too.

Starting down the gentle incline, weaving through the pine trees, Lark remained alert, her thoughts always circling back to Ga’n. Like all Apaches, he was afraid to travel after dark, when it was said ghosts walked the land. But she knew Shanks wouldn’t accept Ga’n’s superstition. Traveling at night was cooler and less water was lost from the body. She herself felt uneasy about traveling at night, though her father had often traveled then without ever seeing a ghost. Wishing Ny-Oden had given her a small bag of ash to throw at any ghosts who approached to chase them away, Lark wrestled with her own fears.

When darkness fell, Lark found herself well into the desert. As long as the wind didn’t blow too hard, the sand retained the hoofprints. Proud of Matt’s ability to track, Lark contented herself with making a small camp. She hobbled her horse and shot a jackrabbit with her bow and arrow. After digging a hole in which to build the fire so it would not be seen, Lark skinned and placed the rabbit on a skewer. The food in her saddlebags was emergency rations only. All Apaches were taught to eat off the land and to conserve the food they carried. There might come a place or time during the trip when there was no food available, and the rations would save her life. Lark went in search of cactus, a source of liquid and food for her horse.

Night had almost completely fallen, and cicadas and crickets were chirping and singing. Lark located a small barrel cactus. The long, heavy spines had hooked ends. With her bowie knife, she deftly peeled away the protective covering of spines, then sliced up the cactus and carried huge chunks of the plant back to camp. Four Winds nickered, her ears pricked forward with interest. Lark carved out the pulpy interior and gave the mare her fill. Wanting to conserve her two canteens of water, she sucked on the astringent and bitter liquid of the cactus.

As she sought refuge from the chill of the encroaching night, Lark wrapped herself up in her wool saddle blanket. The cottonwood saddle became her pillow, and she slept lightly.

Matt squinted against the overhead sun. Shimmering waves of heat, reminding him of curtains blowing gently in the breeze, surrounded him. Under his guidance the hardy mustang pushed on at a steady trot. For the second day in a row, there had been little wind. That was good, because the tracks of the three horses were still clear. Judging from them, he guessed Ga’n and Shanks were at least half a day ahead of him. He wiped the sweat from his mouth with the back of his hand.

A rider appeared in the distance like a dancing mirage—an Apache on a spotted chestnut and white mustang. Frowning, Matt drew his Colt. Was it Ga’n? Was it a trap? Had Ga’n joined up with the Yavapai, whose territory this was?

His fear turned to surprise, then fury. It was Lark! She was sitting on her mustang at the base of a small, sandy hill peppered with yucca, waiting for him. Placing the loop back on the Colt .45, Matt reined his horse to a stop a few feet away from her.

“What the hell are you doing out here?”

“Waiting for you.” Lark held his angry gray gaze. Motioning to his horse, she said, “He’s thirsty. Have you cut open a cactus and given him water yet?”

Disgruntled, and realizing Lark had a much better knowledge of the terrain than he did, Matt smarted. “Not yet. You disobeyed me, Lark.”

Her jaw went rigid, her eyes flashing with fire. “That is
my
horse that was stolen! I have every right to track him down!”

Yanking his mount next to hers, Matt reached out and grabbed her shoulder. “I ought to shake that fool head off your shoulders.” His voice rose a notch, vibrating with irritation. “There isn’t a woman alive who can go up against two thieves like Ga’n and Shanks.” He glanced at the bow and arrow she carried. “Those weapons are child’s toys against them.”

Lark jerked away from him. “Stop shouting at me! If I can track and find you without your knowledge, don’t you think I can find Ga’n and Shanks the same way? Arrows are silent. Guns will give away our position.” Her nostrils flared with indignation. “You might as well get used to me being with you on this hunt. I’m not leaving, Matt Kincaid!”

Matt stared at her proud, tense form. She sat straight in the saddle, a warrior now, not just a woman. “I don’t give a damn what you say, Lark, you’re a woman. You don’t have a man’s strength—”

“I don’t need a man’s muscle!” she flared. “Apaches use their brains and skill instead. You may not realize it, but many Apache wives ride with their husbands into battle. They are equally dangerous and courageous. My mother was a chief, and I have her blood in me. To stay at home and let someone else try to get back my horse would bring shame on her and me. I won’t do that.” Dismounting, Lark drew her knife and went over to another barrel cactus, quickly slicing it open. When Matt dismounted and joined her, she prepared herself for his anger. Her hands shook as she gave the black mustang one handful after another of the pulp. Matt towered over her, his hands on his hips, anger radiating from him like the rays from Holos.

“I knew you’d need my help,” she began defensively, risking a look into his dark face.

“I ought to—”

She lifted her chin defiantly. “What? Paddle me like a child?”

He took off his hat and scratched his damp scalp. “You’re too old to paddle.” Despite her Apache garb, she was beautiful in Matt’s eyes. Settling the hat back on his head, his eyes shaded by the brim, he muttered, “Feed the damned horse and then let’s get going.” He jabbed a finger toward her. “The minute you can’t keep up, I swear I’ll hogtie you, ride to the nearest town, and make you stay there until this business is taken care of. Understand?”