On the Mountain (29 page)

“What the hell!!”

She went flying off the fence once again, but this time not from the bull, but from a strong hand seized around her ankle.  Anna’s eyes went wide as she realized she was airborne and would end up landing hard on her backside if a familiar pair of arms hadn’t caught her just before she hit the ground.

“What the hell did you think you’re about to do?”

So relieved to see him, Anna flung her arms around his neck and clung to him in a death grip.  She felt Wade suck in a harsh breath and wondered if she clung to him too tightly.

“Anna.”  He pleaded her name softly against her ear and she felt his hands as they tried to uncoil her grip around his neck.

“Hell, Haddock, he ain’t about to do anything he ain’t never done before.”  Joe’s voice sounded distant, but she could feel Wade as his muscles tensed and knew he was about to get angry.

“Whose idea was this?” he snarled at his foreman.

“The kid agreed.”

Wade cursed and Joe quickly tried to explain.  “Hell, there’s a lot of money layin’ on that kid’s ability to ride the bull.  Ya seen him on Lucy.  He’s a natural.”

“Christ, Joe, I ought to kick your hide far across the country.”  He moved then, still carrying Anna in his arms.

“He was a sure bet.  Would have made me a lot of money.”

Wade stopped to growl back at his lead hand, “You ever pull a stunt like this again, you can find yourself new work.”

She heard Joe muffle a curse of his own before Wade marched away from the corral and toward a secluded spot around a building furthest from the competitions.  There he dropped her legs and reached up to unclamp her arms from around his neck.  This time she relented and slid them back down to her side.  She dropped her chin and waited for her own verbal lashing.

“Why the hell would you agree to ride a bull?”

She didn’t respond and he sighed with frustration.  “I ought to whip your bottom for that stupid stunt.  You could have gotten yourself killed.”

He was right and she knew it.  She knew very well the consequences of climbing on the back of that animal.  Yet, she was willing to take the chance.  She just didn’t know why.

“This charade of yours is going to get you into far worse trouble than if you had remained a girl.”  He placed his hands on his hips and took a deep and steady breath.  “I fear I’m going to spend the rest of my life watching your backside.”

Anna’s brows dipped toward her nose, reminded of the nuisance she had become since entering his life.  He tilted her chin up with one large finger, forcing her to look into his eyes.  They were soft and gentle and had a small teasing light to them.

“If you took the effort to look into someone’s eyes, you’d be surprised what you can read there.”  His blue eyes had the ability to make her feel as if she were being stroked like a kitten.  “Come on, let’s go and enjoy the rest of the show.”

As he led her away and back toward the bleachers, unknown and unseen to both of them, the constable stood only a yard away.

Chapter 18

It was unusually hot that spring day a week after their return from the cattle drive.  The sun was high and burning brightly in a cloudless sky.  The air was thick with humidity and not a single breeze could be felt to help relieve the stickiness.  It was Sunday morning and the wranglers had decided to head into Lantern where it was tradition for them to spend the holy day.  Not in a Christian way, but rather to celebrate the day in their own manner.  With drinking and ladies.

Prescott had joined the group as well as he intended to visit with Elizabeth and Wade had every intention of also going along.  Anna was safely back at the ranch where no harm could come to her and he was free to fulfill his own earthly needs at the saloon.  However, at the very last minute a nagging feeling he couldn’t explain had him deciding to stay behind.

He had allowed her to plant a huge vegetable garden at the back of the house, and it was there that she spent most of her days.  That Sunday morning, was no exception and as the ranch hands rode off toward town, she was none the wiser that he had elected to stay behind.  He decided to leave her be and went into the house to take a cold shower to cool off.  Ten minutes later he was toweling himself dry and returned to his bedroom to change into something cool.

He had just walked by his window that overlooked the back of the house and the river and mountain beyond when something caught his attention.  Stopping he looked closer and realized it was a naked woman standing ankle deep in the river.  With a start, he realized it was Anna.

Proper upbringing demanded he immediately look away, but something much deeper had him standing there transfixed to the scene.  It was a vision like none other he had ever seen before, and if ever an image needed to be painted, it was this one.  The river lay quietly at her feet, not a trickle of movement and the warm sun twinkled and sparkled off its calm surface.  Her naked form was exquisite.  Smooth and ivory white where the heated sun had yet to touch.  She walked slowly deeper into the water, her fingertips caressing the river’s surface as she did, and Wade felt his member jerk to life.

Cursing, he turned from the window.  It took a few minutes, but he was able to get his body under control.  Not that the image permanently stamped in his mind was any help.  With forced grit, he turned from the celestial vision and walked away while a question entered his head.  When had Anna lost her fear of water?

* * *

It began as a warm and beautiful day.  Anna felt a sense of freedom for the first time since arriving at the Circle H.  All the men had gone into town and if she did not allow her mind to think about Wade with the saloon woman, then her spirits would remain high all morning.

The air was hot and sticky and no wind could be felt.  All around her the earth lay still and the calm waters of the river shimmered beneath the burning sun.  Knowing all the men were gone, she slipped out of her clothing and stood naked in the river’s edge.  It felt so cool and refreshing, and it had been far too long since Anna had enjoyed a dip in the water.

When she first showed up at the ranch, she refused to bathe for obvious reasons.   There was the fear she would be caught and her female identity exposed.  She learned early how to best bath herself with a bowl of warm water and soap.  It had been the men who had presumed her dislike for baths was a result of a fear of water.  Since it suited her needs, she went along.  However, Anna loved the river and the surrounding lakes dotted along the foot of the mountain.  She had learned to swim at an early age and became a fish in the warm seasons, hardly ever leaving the water.

Today, the water felt extra wonderful as she knelt down and emerged her body completely from the scorching sun.  It lay calm around her and Anna formed a small game which tested her skill to move with little effort so as not to cause any ripples in the water.  Rolling onto her back, she closed her eyes and enjoyed the warmth of the sun as it touched her body.

What happened next, Anna later would recall the events in painstakingly slow motion.  Time seemed to hover in space and in that instant became her enemy.  Nothing moved and an eerie hush fell over the valley.  Then the silence was shattered when the water around her erupted and she felt her legs snatched in a vice-like grip.  Her eyes flew open, but the hands dragged her through the water and Anna fell beneath the surface.

She gagged and spluttered swallowing mouthfuls of water and used her hands in a desperate effort to resurface.  However, she was not long beneath when she was violently pulled from the river and tossed unmercifully onto the riverbank.

Anna coughed hard, still choking on water lodged in her throat.  She heard men snickering nearby and raised her head to see her assailants.  There were two men who looked unfamiliar to Anna, but she didn’t need to recognize them to know the evil that lurked in their eyes.  She scrambled backwards trying desperately to get away.

“Hey, looks like we got ourselves a real treat here,” one of them said and a familiar chill rippled down her spine.  It was the same voice she had heard in the saloon.

He loomed over her with his huge form and bared both yellow and crooked teeth as he sneered, “Kinda looks like a boy but female everywhere else.”

“Let me have a go at her.”  The other man who stood further behind was unbuttoning his pants.

Anna’s fears intensified.

“Keep your dick in your pants,” the man leaning over her scoffed.  “I dragged her out, I get first rights.”

He licked his lips and reached for his pants and Anna knew she had to escape.  Fully naked, she scrambled up the muddy riverbank and just reached the grassy field between the river and the house when she felt a huge form hit her square in the back and knocking her back down to the ground.  It was the body of the man who had every intention of raping her and Anna felt the terror in her veins resurge.

“Thought you could outrun me, eh?”  He snickered and grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her up on her hands and knees.  Anna heard the sound of his belt being undone and reignited her efforts to escape.  She didn’t make any leeway, but she did force him to stop what he was doing to seize her thrashing body.  Becoming hysterical, she kicked and punched and clawed at her attacker.

“You little bitch,” he howled when the fingers on one of her hands made contact with his skin.  The next thing she felt was a brutal blow to the side of her head.  Her head reeled in pain.  Stars danced across her vision.

“Move aside,” the second man ordered and Anna heard the click of a rifle.  “Let me blow a hole clear through her skull.”

“Put that down, you fool.”  The man pinning her body spun around to smack the rifle out of the other man’s hand.  “Christ, you’ll have the entire ranch out here.”

Anna felt that small semblance of hope that they believed her not alone.  With the man momentarily distracted, she turned and tried once again to run.  However, he was too fast for her and he snared her calves in a steely grip, bringing her down hard on the ground.  She felt blood spurt from her mouth and a piercing pain shoot throughout her jaw.  Her body went limp and Anna knew it was over when he tossed her onto her back.  The man grabbed her legs and forced them apart.  Then in one swift move had his pants down and her body pinned beneath his much larger one.

“Hold still, you little bitch,” he growled into her ear.  “You might have escaped us once up on that mountain, but you ain’t goin’ now.”

His words drew a horrified wheeze from Anna and in that moment she remembered.  She had been in the woods when the most earsplitting scream filled the mountain.  Terrified, she ran to the clearing and saw three men on horseback terrorizing the village.  At the time, they were three strangers, but now a familiar feeling nudged her conscious for one man in particular.  They began shooting their rifles and swinging some form of weapon Anna couldn’t make out.  The woman were screaming and running and the men on horseback laughed as they plowed their weapons into yet another helpless victim.  Anna could remember standing there transfixed with fear.  One of the men leaped from his horse and grabbed the nearest woman by the hair, raped her then slaughtered her without mercy.  He looked up to stare at Anna with the most evil set of eyes she had ever seen.

The same set of heinous eyes that bore ominously above her now.  A fresh flood of terror washed over Anna.  Something pushed against her most private parts and a foreboding chill filled her insides.  Lifting her chin, she looked over her shoulder at the empty house and felt a sense of doom.  And a love she could never possess.

From somewhere down deep, Anna opened her mouth and let out the most chilling scream.

“Christ,” the man above her was obviously startled and angrily pushed himself off her.

“I thought she was a mute.”  The second man declared, obviously just as surprised as the first man.

“Hell,” his evil glare pinned her as he reached for something Anna couldn’t see.  In the next blinding moment she felt an earth shattering pain slice through her chest and realized she had just been stabbed.

* * *

Wade had just sat down with a book in the reading room when he heard the terrifying scream.  A bolt of fear shot down his spine.  Without doubt he knew it was Anna.

He raced from the room and toward the back exit with the good insight to snatch his rifle as he flew out the door.  What he saw first puzzled him, then set off an explosive rage inside.  One man stood with a rifle in his hand behind another man who held a blood stained knife poised over something pale in the tall grass.  It was a horrifying second before he realized it was Anna.

A burning hot fury swept over him and like a madman, he went flying toward the two men.  The one with the rifle looked up first, alarm lighting is eyes before he thought to raise his rifle.  However, Wade was faster and with the barrel pointed directly at his forehead, blasted a hole straight threw to his brain.  The second man looked up stunned and when he saw Wade, scrambled to get up on his feet.  Wade reloaded his gun, pulled the trigger and shot the man.  He fell back dead in a heap in the tall grass.

Wade tossed the rifle and hastened over to Anna’s side.  She lay lifeless, a tiny stream of blood oozing out of her mouth while a larger flow covered her chest.  He lifted her into his arms and felt a dark cloud drift not only across the scorching sun, but his heart as well.  With his emotions squeezing his throat, he rushed her back to the house.

As he neared, he noticed a lone rider coming up the lane.  He sighed with relief when he recognized Prescott.

“What’s happened?”  With a look of dismay, he pulled up in front of Wade who was carrying the naked and bloody Anna.

“Ride back into town and fetch Dr. Patterson.”  He directed, then added more reluctantly, “And the constable.”

Prescott gave a short nod, then turned his mount around and rode out of the ranch at top speed.  Wade kicked open the door and moved swiftly across the house until he reached the grand staircase.  Taking two steps at a time he hurried into his bedroom and gently laid her limp body on his bed.  He then rushed off to fetch some towels and warm water, and returned shortly to begin the process of slowing the bleeding from the large gash in her chest.

As he applied a handful of cloths against the ghastly wound, he laid his fingers against her throat and checked for a pulse.  There was a faint beat and Wade felt an overwhelming surge of relief.  And hope.  “Come on, Anna.  Stay with me.”

The cloth soaked quickly from her blood and he moved only long enough to change them for a fresh set.  He applied pressure and watched as yet another set turned dark red.  An ominous sensation tickled the back of his neck, but he refused to acknowledge it.  He had to concentrate on saving her life.

At last the blood slowed yet not eased, so Wade covered the deep wound with a thick layer of towels.  With another damp cloth he mopped up the blood from her mouth.  Then reaching down, he gathered the woolen blanket folded neatly across the foot of his bed and tucked it warmly around her naked form.  At last all he could do was sit and wait.

Standing there looking at her pale face, he felt a pain so severe like none he’d ever experienced before.  Without even realizing it, she had come to mean more to him than he ever thought possible.  His mind traveled back to that first encounter.  She had been covered in mud and fear filled her eyes.  A fear she had never been able to shake.

He closed his eyes in anguish.  He had wanted to protect her, but didn’t know how from an evil unknown.  He had promised to keep her safe, but in the end he had failed.  Like a blow to the chest, he felt the impact of those words and took a step away from the bed.  Sickened by this very conclusion he dropped down in a nearby chair.  What type of man was he if could not protect a woman?

He sat there silently watching her still frame and the slow rise and fall of her chest for nearly an hour before he heard Prescott return downstairs.  Only then did Wade leave her side.

He greeted his brother and the doctor in the great room.  “I took her up to my bed.”

“Her?”  He turned and gave Prescott a puzzled look.  “I thought you said it was Peter.”

Prescott gave Wade a troubled look, but he ignored his brother and addressed the doctor.  “Follow me.”

As they climbed the staircase, the doctor asked, “Is he still alive?”