Kid Calhoun (20 page)

Jake knew he ought to wait until morning to confront Anabeth about what had happened between them, but he had never been a patient man. He had persuaded himself that the stunning kiss they had shared had been more a result of his anger and frustration with her than his desire for her. He wanted to reassure Anabeth that she wouldn’t have to worry about him losing control again if—when—they traveled to the valley together.

The moment Claire extinguished the lamp in her bedroom, he rose from Sam’s chair in the parlor and headed toward the room where Anabeth had retired earlier in the evening. He knocked softly, but when there was no answer he quietly edged the door open.

“You asleep, Kid?”

No answer. In the moonlight that streamed through the open window, Jake could see the silk taffeta dress had been laid neatly across the foot of the bed. The Kid lay wrapped in a lump of quilts. He crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“I thought we ought to talk,” he said. “Get some things settled between us without involving Claire.”

He put his hand on what he supposed to be Anabeth’s
shoulder. The pillow collapsed beneath the weight of his hand. Incredulous, Jake yanked the quilts away. At first he didn’t believe what he was seeing. The truth hit him hard and fast. “Hell and the devil!”

She was gone.

“Claire!” he bellowed. “Claire!”

Jake was already in the parlor retrieving his gunbelt from the back of Sam’s chair by the time Claire reached the hallway. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”

“She’s gone!”

“Who?”

“Anabeth,” Jake snarled. “I should have known she’d light out first chance she got! I never should have trusted her!” He buckled on his gunbelt and headed for the kitchen to pack some food for the trail.

Claire followed him. “Why would she run away?”

Jake turned on her and said, “I should have told you the whole truth. Anabeth is Booth Calhoun’s niece, but she’s also Kid Calhoun. She rode with the gang that robbed Sam.”

Claire’s brow furrowed. “She didn’t act like an outlaw, Jake. And you didn’t treat her like one. Are you sure she’s so bad?”

“I don’t know!” Jake said in an agonized voice. “One minute I think she’s lying through her teeth, and the next I just don’t know.”

“Where would she go?”

After Booth’s outlaw gang
. Jake’s stomach churned as he thought of the danger she was courting. He should have kept a closer eye on her! He would from now on. He had warned her that he would show no mercy if she tried to run. Now he intended to make good on that promise.

Claire laid a hand on Jake’s sleeve as he grabbed the supplies he had tied up in a kitchen towel. She
could see the signs of temper in the racing pulse at his temple, the jerk of the muscle in his jaw. “You won’t hurt her, will you, Jake?”

“Oh, I’ll be gentle with her,” he promised. Jake was already out the kitchen door when Claire heard him mutter, “When I catch up to her, I’m going to gently wring her neck!”

Claire frowned. She hoped for Anabeth’s sake that Jake didn’t catch up to the girl before he simmered down.

Claire headed toward Jeff’s room to see how it had been left after Anabeth’s abrupt departure. She seldom went into the room because it held too many memories. She didn’t light the lamp. She rearranged Anabeth’s dress over the rocker in the corner. As she straightened the sheets and settled the pillows at the head of the iron-frame bed she thought of the hours she had spent here reading to Jeff and listening to his prayers.

She sat on the edge of the bed and traced the embroidery on the pillowcase with her fingertips, then laid her head down for a moment and closed her eyes. The ache in her chest was as strong as it had been the day she learned her son was never coming home. Now Sam was gone, too. She needed the demands of Window Rock to give her life purpose.

“Please, Jake,” she whispered. “I’m counting on you to find that gold.”

She was so very tired. How many sleepless nights had she spent lately wishing, thinking about what might have been. If she could rest here for a moment, she would have the strength to go to her own bed. Slowly, surely, her eyes drifted closed.

Claire woke abruptly when a heavy hand clamped across her mouth. She stared, confused, at the shadowy specter sitting on the bed beside her. At first she
thought it was Jake. A second later, both sight and scent told her it was not.

The scream caught in her throat as the Apache spoke to her in guttural tones. She clawed at his hand, trying to free her mouth, but his hold only tightened. She arched her back, trying to raise her head from the pillow, but he held her captive.

“Do not fight me, Stalking Deer,” Wolf said in the Apache tongue. “I have come to take you away from this place. You will be my woman. We will be together always.”

The Apache’s words fell on foreign ears. Claire scratched and bucked and kicked, fighting for her life.

“So be it,” Wolf said, his voice hard. He had hoped Stalking Deer would not fight him, but he had come prepared in case she did. He used a piece of rawhide to silence his struggling captive, forcing her mouth open and tying the gag tightly behind her head. He rolled her into the bedding to still her thrashing, then leaned down and whispered, “You give me no choice. I will not let the white man have you. You are mine.”

Wolf hefted the still-struggling body over his shoulder and made his way silently down the hall and out the back door. Moonlight flashed on Wolf’s self-satisfied smile as he emerged from the adobe house with his prize. Stalking Deer was his at last—and forever.

Silently, stealthily, he carried his burden up the hill to the spot where he had left his pony. Wolf threw the squirming bundle over the withers of his pony and mounted behind. He nudged the pony into a distance-eating lope. He was miles from the ranch house before he slowed his mount.

He patted what he thought to be Stalking Deer’s bottom and said, “If you will lie still, I will free you now.”

Claire writhed with humiliation and rage and fear
at the familiarity of the Apache’s touch. She grunted angry noises through the gag in response to the Apache’s guttural speech.

“So be it,” Wolf said, frowning at Stalking Deer’s continuing defiance. “You can stay as you are until we reach the end of our journey.”

After another half hour, when Stalking Deer lay so still she might have been dead, Wolf reconsidered. He knew it was only Stalking Deer’s pride that made her fight him, and he did not want her sick when they arrived at the village. He turned her over and pulled her up into his arms. The pained groan of relief he heard from within the bundle of blankets made him smile. Stalking Deer was often stubborn to a fault. Nevertheless, she would make him a good wife.

Claire had been fighting the urge to vomit for so long she took several gasps of air when she was finally turned upright. She was too sick to resist the Apache as he turned her over and pulled her into his arms. When her head fell against his shoulder, she left it there and closed her eyes trying to recover from the awful nausea caused by her upside-down ride.

The Apache continued speaking to her as though she could understand him. The guttural sounds rumbled low in his chest, and she found them almost soothing. She did not fight him again, afraid to draw his attention to her. She could endure this closeness if it meant avoiding another painful ride over the pony’s withers.

As Claire lay in the Apache’s arms, she was able to detect his man-scent, a not unpleasant, but definitely foreign, musky smell. She was aware of his strength. Only a thin quilt separated her from a body that was hard as rock.

Claire had no doubt of her fate. She refused to think of it. When the time came, she would find a way to end things quickly.

Wolf was not far from home by the time the sun began its ascent. He did not wish to bring his bride into the village in such a way. There would be comment enough when it was known he intended to take a white woman for his wife. He stopped his pony at the edge of the pines that led up into the forested mountains where the camp was located. Taking a firm hold on his bundle, Wolf slipped off his pony.

“Can you stand, Stalking Deer?”

Evidently not. Her knees buckled. He picked her back up and carried her over to a fallen log and set her down on it. The sun broke over the mountains as he slowly, carefully unwrapped his prize.

Wolf’s jaw dropped in shock. The woman staring back at him, her features rigid, her golden eyes blazing, was
not
Stalking Deer!

“Who are you?” he demanded, teeth bared.

Claire’s eyes went wide as the Apache spoke to her in perfectly understandable English. Of course there was no possibility of answering him. She was still gagged.

The Apache recognized his error and roughly released the gag. He grabbed a handful of her golden hair and yanked her head back until she thought her neck would break.

“Who are you?” he asked again. “Where is Stalking Deer?”

Claire’s lips were dry, her mouth sore from having been gagged. She licked her lips painfully and managed to rasp, “My name is Claire Chandler. I don’t know anyone called Stalking Deer.”

“She went into the house with the white man, Jake Kearney. I saw her lie down in the bed where I found you.”

Claire stared at the Apache, fascinated by his sharp, angular features, the fierceness of his dark eyes.

“She is also called Anabeth,” Wolf said.

“Oh. Anabeth left.”

“When? Where did she go?” Wolf was angry with himself for making such a foolish mistake. This woman’s size alone should have told him of his mistake. She was not nearly so tall as Stalking Deer. Claire Chandler’s head barely reached his chin.

“Anabeth left the house sometime last night. I don’t know where she went.” Claire didn’t volunteer the information that Jake had followed Anabeth.

Abruptly the Apache released her and stalked away, muttering under his breath. He turned back and glared at her. “What am I to do with you?”

“Take me home.”

Wolf laughed at the boldness of her response. He was not unaware of the trouble he had created for himself by stealing the white woman. With that silky golden hair and those golden eyes, she was like a tawny cat, fearless, her claws barely sheathed. Yet he had no desire to make her a slave, especially when he planned to bring Stalking Deer to the village as his wife. But how to return his captive? That was another problem entirely. Still, it could be done. If he chose to do it.

“I could more easily kill you than return you to your people,” he said.

Wolf expected her to cry and plead for mercy. He saw her shudder, but she never said a word. Those catlike golden eyes of hers remained focused on something in the distance. He couldn’t help admiring her courage.

Wolf couldn’t know that Claire had already resigned herself to dying. Her only regret was the sorrow she knew Jake would suffer. She was determined to die bravely. She turned to confront the Apache who stood before her. “I’m not afraid to die. Do what you will.”

At that instant a jackrabbit flashed past her foot.
Claire yelped in surprise. A moment later three Apache boys came racing over the hill, bows in hand, in pursuit of the hare. When they saw Wolf and the white woman, they stopped in their tracks.

Wolf cursed under his breath. There was no time to hide the white woman from the three youths who stood gawking at the top of the hill. The appearance of the boys complicated things. Once the tribe knew he had take the woman captive, he would have fewer choices what to do with her.

Wolf’s abilities as a hunter and as a fierce warrior had won him the respect of the tribe over the years. While they might have welcomed him to their campfires now, he was the one who had kept his distance. In the face of the three boys’ curiosity, he almost wished for his former isolation. Almost.

“Wolf! Where have you been? Who is that with you?” one of the boys called as he tumbled headlong down the sheer incline.

Wolf hesitated only an instant before answering, “It is a white woman I have taken captive.” He reached out to put a possessive hand on Claire’s shoulder.

The Apache youths quickly surrounded her, babbling in excitement. Wolf finally stepped in front of the woman to protect her from their stares and said, “Go back to the village and tell them I am coming.”

The boys’ shrieks were unearthly, otherworldly, and Claire shivered with fear. Her eyes were drawn to the last dark-haired boy before he turned and hurried after the others. There was something about him that reminded her of Jeffrey. She turned her eyes away. Jeff was dead. It could only bring her pain to see her son’s features in the face of an Indian boy.

Wolf turned to his captive. “Come. We must go now.”

Claire stood and wrapped the quilt more firmly around her shoulders. “I’m ready.”

Wolf mounted his pony and reached a hand down to pull her up before him. He felt her stiffen when he put his arms around her, but she did not struggle. He wondered grimly what he was going to do with her.

It struck him suddenly that he could trade her to the white man for the woman he wanted. All he had to do was make sure his captive didn’t escape before he could locate Stalking Deer.

Claire was too caught up in what she was seeing to think about escape. She had never seen an Apache dwelling, but she recognized Wolf’s wickiup immediately for what it was. The circular, dome-shaped brush dwelling was several feet taller than a man at the center, and easily as wide as it was tall. It was thatched with bear grass, and there was a cowhide suspended at the entrance on a cross-beam so it could be swung forward or backward.

She knew from the presence of the boys that there must be other Apaches living nearby, but she saw only the single wickiup. “Where is the rest of the village?” she asked.

“We have many enemies,” Wolf said. “Our homes are hidden among the hills.” He pointed to a spot where the landscape rose slightly. “Beyond that rise my mother lives.” One by one he pointed out several wickiups that were concealed by the terrain. “Many of the wickiups cannot be seen from here.”

It soon became apparent that the three boys had spread the word of Wolf’s return. As Wolf and Claire dismounted before his wickiup, Claire found herself the object of a dozen pairs of eyes.