Lord Apache (6 page)

Miss Larkin was certainly an odd person; he suspected she was not even a proper lady. As for that story of living in New York City, it was an obvious fabrication. But there had been no need to lie to him; what did he care about her past?

Near one in the morning, to judge from the position of Orion's belt, he woke the weary Eggleston and lay down himself, hands clasped behind his head. Around the distant Mazatzals forked lightning played, shimmering silently against the dark clouds. Long moments later he heard a cannonading of thunder. But she
was
beautiful! Not the patrician handsomeness of Cornelia Newton-Barrett, but instead a kind of coltish attractiveness, a careless charm that seemed unaware of its own beauty. Closing tired eyes, he finally slept, exhausted by the events of the day.

In the first flush of dawn he awoke. A single ray of sunlight crept through a notch in the sierra, lighting the disorder and confusion of the camp. Eggleston lay propped against a boulder, Sharp's rifle across his knees, sleeping. Poor Eggie—the valet was done in too! But soon they would be on the cars at Bear Spring and out of this infernal wasteland. Drumm yawned and stretched his arms. In spite of cramps in his legs and an aching back, he felt almost cheerful. Home, soon—the green hills of Hampshire!

The morning was yet chill, and he did not care to leave the scanty warmth of his blanket. As he lay there, he was puzzled by a faint rumbling, so faint he seemed almost to feel it rather than hear. He raised himself on an elbow and looked around.

Miss Phoebe Larkin had also heard the strange noise. In the gray of dawn she hurried from the reed hut with a blanket about her shoulders, otherwise dressed only in camisole and lacy petticoats. Her feet were bare.

"What was that?" she called to Drumm.

"I don't know," he said, and sat up—looking, listening.

Phoebe stood in the shaft of sunlight, tumbled red hair falling about her shoulders and glistening sleekly, like the brush of a fox in autumn. "There! I heard it again!" She raised a slender finger. "Listen!" She wore a lot of rings; though Drumm was no expert, many of them were heavy with what appeared to be diamonds.

He got up quickly in his drawers, his own blanket held modestly about naked legs. Now there was no doubt of the queer sensation. Under his feet the hard-baked earth quivered, trembled, rolling slightly so that he felt giddy. It was almost like his attack of mal de mer on the stormy passage from Marseilles to Alexandria.

Eggleston woke up and stared at them. "What is it?" he called. Then he felt the rumble and jumped to his feet.

"In my guidebook," Drumm said thoughtfully, "there is an account of a dreadful earthquake that occurred near the city of Los Angeles, west of here, in the year seventeen hundred and—"

The rumbling grew; the earth shook.

"Seventeen hundred," Drumm repeated, "and—"

Hair done up in curl-papers, Mrs. Glore rushed from the reed hut. "Lordy, Lordy, Lordy!" she quavered. "What's happening?"

"Mr. Jack!" Eggleston shouted. "Look!"

Down the valley of the Agua Fria, rolling like a steam locomotive, came a wall of water as high as their heads. Boulders, trees, and uprooted bushes caromed in the muddy torrent. The last thing Drumm saw as the great tide reached them was Eggleston's reed hut, riding high on the crest.

He opened his mouth to cry a warning but there was no time. The waters reached him, bowled him over, filled his mouth with sand and mud. The world turned, the Mazatzals wheeled into the sky, and dawn-flecked clouds fell to earth, or where the earth should have been. Carried along like a chip of wood on the Thames, he paddled madly, trying to avoid obstacles looming in his path; a giant boulder, a towering saguaro, a smoke tree. Traveling at express-train speed, he closed his eyes in horror as the desert Niagara raised him high on its crest to fling him at a patch of spiny cholla. At the last moment a freakish shift of the current deposited him with a splash into a shallow pool at one side of the main course of the Agua Fria.

Stunned, he lay in the mud and ooze until he realized he was drowning. Thrashing, he staggered to his feet, drawing gasps of air into his lungs. Someone was screaming, a shrill insistent female keening that hurt his ears. He ran toward the sound.

"Phoebe! Oh, Phoebe! Dear Lord, where is she?"

The roar of the water had grown fainter. Against its diminishing rumble he heard Mrs. Glore scream again, saw her white face, her open mouth, the pointing finger paralyzed with horror.

"There! There she is!"

The great wave had scoured out a pool in the once-tranquil bed of the river. On its foam-flecked surface Drumm saw something floating, a white flower unfolded on the surface. Desperately he threw himself into the water, now well over his head, and swam to the white blossom. It was Phoebe Larkin's petticoats; he grabbed a handful of silk and started to backstroke with one arm, holding the petticoats with the other. Faintly, above the frantic splashing of his efforts, he heard shouts, commotion, Mrs. Beulah Glore still screaming with fire-whistle intensity.

"She's drowned! She's drowned!"

Blackness engulfed him. His arm felt leaden and he gasped for breath, feeling his mouth fill again with the muddy water. But Eggleston had splashed into the pool to help him.

"You're almost there, Mr. Jack!"

Just as he could swim no more and was about to release his hold on the floating fabric, Drumm's feet touched bottom. He staggered from the water, hauling Miss Larkin by her petticoats. Depositing her on a grassy hummock, he collapsed. Dimly he realized that the roar of the waters was almost gone. As he listened, it dwindled downstream, the sound like that of a goods van passing into the distance.

Eggleston turned Miss Larkin over while Mrs. Glore vainly patted Phoebe's face, trying to rouse her. Drumm pointed. "Get that keg over there!"

Mrs. Glore did not understand, but Eggleston had lived in Brighton and knew how to handle drowning victims. Quickly the valet snatched up a small barrel that had held preserved herrings. Drumm picked up the recumbent figure like a rag doll and flopped it over the barrel. With Eggleston taking Phoebe's bare feet and himself the limp arms, they began to roll her back and forth.

"What are you doing?" Mrs. Glore cried.

"Reviving her," Drumm explained.

"I never seen anything like that!" Mrs. Glore sobbed. "Is that a proper way to handle a female?"

Drumm glanced at the camisole, the lacy petticoats, the exposed thighs.

"At this moment," he said, "I do not give a tinker's damn if she is male or female or something in between! What matters only is to save her life!"

Phoebe Larkin made a hiccuping sound; a gout of water drained from her bluish lips. The rescuers paused in their frantic seesawing.

"She's alive!" Mrs. Glore cried. "She's alive!" Sinking to her knees, she raised her hands in a prayer of thanks.

The limp body stiffened, seemed now to oppose their flailing. Miss Larkin hiccuped again; her body twisted under their hands. A small object fell from her bodice onto the muddy ground. It was a derringer pistol, a two-barrel weapon with a pearl handle glinting in the growing sunlight.

Afterward, what with the emotion of the moment and the quickness with which Mrs. Beulah Glore snatched up the tiny gun and dropped it into the pocket of her wrapper, Drumm was not even certain he had seen it. A derringer was certainly a peculiar item for a lady to carry in her bosom. He was trying to assess this development when their subject curled herself into a ball, like an eel. Eggleston lost his grasp on her ankles. Jack Drumm slipped on the muddy ground; he and Miss Larkin fell heavily together, her wet body plastered against his.

It was an awkward position. She lay across him, pinioning him to the ground. Exhausted from his own near-drowning and his efforts to rescue her, he could only lie there, panting and helpless, her face against his. He saw with great clarity the sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, the delicately shaped eyebrows—plucked, surely—the glorious red hair now hanging dankly about her face.

"Let me help her to her feet," Eggleston suggested. "I think she is coming round."

Drumm waved him off.

"She had better not be disturbed," he explained. "It is dangerous to awaken unconscious people too quickly. It can lead to disorders of the brain."

Phoebe opened her eyes, stared into his. Bemused by their cerulean depths, he could only stare back. She hiccuped. "Where am I? What-what—"

"You come back from the dead, dear!" Mrs. Glore told her. "Mr. Drumm here threw himself into the water to pull you out!"

Phoebe continued to look into Drumm's eyes. He was uncomfortably aware of his maimed mustache and the blood-caked scar. But she seemed bemused.

"You saved my life!" Her lip trembled.

They lay together in the bright sunlight, the valet and Phoebe's traveling companion hovering over them. Jack Drumm cleared his throat in embarrassment. "I—I suppose so." He turned to Mrs. Glore. "If you will help her up now, ma'am—"

Eggleston and Mrs. Glore hauled her to her feet and supported her between them. She continued to stare at Drumm with admiration.

"At the risk of your own life!"

In the dry air his drawers were clammy. Embarrassed at her show of emotion, he shivered and looked about for his blanket.

"Nothing," he muttered. "It was nothing! I am a good swimmer. And Eggie here helped me."

Phoebe pulled away from them and rushed to Drumm. Throwing her arms about his neck, she kissed him hard on the lips. Astounded, he could only stand mute, hands dangling at his sides, feeling the soft body pressed against him, the full red lips wetly on his. He tried to speak but found it difficult. Finally he managed to disengage her.

"Thank you!" she gasped, looking into his eyes.

Embarrassment spoke for him, put words into his mouth he did not intend.

"I—I—well, I guess I would have done the same thing for anyone that was drowning."

Her face changed; the blue eyes became wide and hurt. She drew back.

"But—but I'm not just
anyone
! I'm Phoebe Larkin! You risked your life for me, and I'm bound to be grateful!" When she seemed to step toward him again, he stepped awkwardly, warily, back.

"Well," he muttered, "I'm—I'm glad you're all right, anyway."

A flush came into her pale cheeks. One hand attempted to arrange the wet strands of hair. When she spoke her voice trembled slightly.

"I—I'm sorry! I didn't mean to—to bother you!"

Frustrated, trying to find the proper words, he shook his head. "You didn't bother me! You didn't bother me at all! That wasn't what I meant!"

"I know what you mean," Phoebe said icily. "It's my fault, Mr. Drumm. You see—I have a very loving nature. Sometimes it betrays me. I am grateful you saved me, but sorry you misunderstood my gratitude!"

Almost desperately he looked around at the camp, devastated once by an Indian raid and now by a perverse flood. Everything was coming out wrong. He had planned the Grand Tour well, but the Arizona Territory had a way of upsetting things.

"Eggie," he muttered, "we must get some order back into things."

For the first time Phoebe Larkin seemed conscious of her scanty attire. Mrs. Glore found a blanket that was not too wet and drew it about Phoebe's shoulders. Even in the warm sun the girl shivered.

"There, there!" Mrs. Glore soothed. "It's only the after-effects of your dreadful experience! Come sit with me on that box under the tree."

Phoebe accepted the blanket, and an opportunity for the last word.

"Mr. Drumm," she said bitterly, "whatever you think of me, I must say—you're a damned cold fish! I heard Englishmen were like that, but so far I never had the bad luck to meet up with one!" Tossing her head, she turned her back on him and went to sit with Mrs. Glore.

Discouragement only brought out the stubbornness in Jack Drumm's character. While Phoebe sullenly watched, and Mrs. Glore searched downstream for enough unspoiled food to nourish them, he and the valet worked to bring order out of chaos. Noontide came and went, and they were sweating and exhausted. In the late afternoon Mrs. Glore squinted into the distance and pointed.

"There! Do you see that? Something is coming—a stage, maybe —or wagons!"

In the distance they could see a plume of dust in the mouth of Centinela Canyon. Drumm snatched up his spyglass. Shaking water from it, he focused on the distant disturbance: wagons, several wagons, escorted by a patrol of cavalry.

"Thank God!" Mrs. Glore said. "Now maybe we can leave this Godforsaken place and travel to Prescott, like we planned!" She glanced at Jack Drumm. "No offense meant—you've been kind and helpful, Mr. Drumm. But there
is
Phoebe's Uncle Buell in Prescott! He'll be worried."

"That's right," Phoebe Larkin agreed, tossing her head. "I'm anxious to mingle with some kind and understanding people for a change!"

Safely out of the canyon, the train crawled forward while the cavalry escort galloped toward Drumm's camp. Moments later Lieutenant George Dunaway reined up his mount and dismounted, hat in hand as he spied Miss Phoebe Larkin.