Authors: Patricia Hagan
He gave her a rough shove. “Now get in there. This is your new home.”
April looked around, then back at Zeke’s grinning face.
“I’m going to bring your things in from the wagon, and then I gotta go into town and get some supplies. You’ll be needin’ food every once in a while, I guess.”
He laughed with real pleasure as she stared at him with increasing understanding.
Here? She was to stay here?
“But…what about New Orleans?” she cried, her voice trembling.
“Vanessa’ll never know the difference. She’ll think you’re there. But I’ll have you where I can get you. This is where you’ll be stayin’,” he chortled, gleeful over his newfound prize and his own cleverness.
Without another word, he reached under the bed and came up with a six-foot length of chain. She turned to run, but he caught her at the door and held her tightly, wrapping one end of the chain around her ankle and fastening it with a steel clip. The other end was double-bolted to the wall. He walked from the shack and quickly returned with her bags. Giving her chain a significant tug, he winked hideously at her and said, “I’II be back in a few hours, and then me and you will start gettin’ along real cozy-like.”
After he was gone, she stood staring out the door, not moving and barely breathing.
Chapter Fourteen
With each plodding beat of Virtus’s hooves, Rance felt a synchronizing pain stabbing though his temples. They should have started back the day before, as planned, instead of sitting around drinking with Stuart’s men, but one thing had led to another, and while he did not often get drunk, he had really tied one on this time. Now he was paying for it.
Several yards behind, Edward Clark was slumped in the saddle, chin drooping to his chest. He had given his horse the reins as he dozed.
Rance had not intended to go all the way up to Franklin, Tennessee. But when General J. E. B. “Jeb” Stuart, himself, had sent for him, he had wasted no time getting there. Rance had a hell of a lot of respect for Stuart, the best horseman in the Confederate cavalry, some said, and already a legend. He was busting proud that Stuart had heard of his horses. He had sat opposite Stuart before a roaring campfire up on that big mountain in Franklin and reveled in the knowledge that the general shared his ideas about the importance of horses to the Confederacy.
Rance intended to supply them, even if he had to steal from the Yankees. General Stuart had slapped his knee and laughed and said if Rance ever got tired of horse trading, he would be proud, by God, to have a man with his grit ride with him.
Rance smiled. He liked the man.
Stuart and his men were headed for Virginia now, and Rance had promised to round up horses and try to keep a good supply available. He had discussed with Edward a plan to send out scouts regularly to locate horses for either buying or stealing.
Now, Rance had a need to get back home. He hadn’t meant to be gone so long. He had done a lot of thinking about that last night with April, wondering why she had suddenly warmed to him.
He did not consider himself arrogant to suppose that she would eventually come around. It had been good between them, so why should she remain aloof?
Thoughts of April brought back memories of another woman, the gentle, doe-eyed, dark-haired Juanita, and Rance tried to shield himself from those memories, which were both tender and raw. Juanita. Good Lord, had it really been three years?
He had never been able to truthfully admit that he loved the beautiful Mexican girl, but who could say that he had not? He only knew that now she was gone from him forever, and he would never know what might have been.
They met when he went to Mexico to buy horses for a man he had been working for in Kentucky. They had shared hot, sweet passion unlike any he had ever known. When it was time for him to leave, she had begged him to take her along. He refused, preferring his freedom, while promising to return to her one day.
But that day did not come until a year later, and when he did return to the squalid little village on the border, Juanita’s mother had tearfully told him that her daughter had died in childbirth. Was it his child? Who could say? The baby, a boy, had also died.
He swam in Tequila for a month, finally fighting his way back from hell by telling himself that fate was responsible. Fate, not him. And he sure as hell couldn’t spend the rest of his life hating himself for something he could not help now.
But on a lonely night, with the wind in the pines and the sound of a bobcat calling lustily to his mate, he thought of those doe eyes and knew that he had loved her in his way. And if he had not left her, she might still be alive. He lived with that, every day.
Rance shook his head to clear it. The past was just that—past. No need to torture himself. Juanita was dead. His son, if it was his son, was also dead. There had been women before and after. And now, there was April.
April Jennings was a beautiful woman. Long, silky hair the color of gold. Eyes as blue as the sky beyond a rainbow. Her body was sculptured to perfection—large firm breasts like honeydew melons with nipples as succulent and sweet as wild mountain berries.
He reflected, briefly, on her twin. Damn, but Vanessa was a cunning bitch. He had sent a scout to check out April’s story. It was all true. Vanessa was running things, and the old man was said to be tetched. The fool he had beat in the horse race was still around, along with his partner, another low-life.
Rance figured he was doing April a favor by keeping her. She was better off away from Pinehurst. There was no telling what a she-devil like Vanessa might do if April got in her way.
And he planned to make April like staying with him. It was going to be good for both of them. He had been sure of it since their last night together.
He looked about him at the rolling hills. Along the road, beside the thick growth of firs, he could see honeysuckle blooming, and plums and blackberries. Beyond, in the distance, balsam forests trailed upward to mountains that tried to kiss the sky. He loved the Alabama land. He once heard an old man say that the state was so pretty God must have spent a few extra hours on creation day to make Alabama extra beautiful.
Rounding a bend, they crossed a rickety plank bridge built over a rolling, silver stream. They were in a valley, and Rance drank in the sweetness of the cool air here. Tranquil. Peaceful. It was hard to imagine a war near here.
Suddenly, he sat upright in the saddle. Something was wrong. Virtus also noticed, his ears twitching slightly as he lifted his nose to the wind.
He spoke Edward’s name, and the man behind him was instantly alert. The two had not traveled the wilderness without learning to sense danger.
Edward knew better than to make a sound. His hand, like Rance’s, moved slowly to his sidearm.
Their eyes darted from right to left and above to the low-hanging branches. Rance saw it before Edward did—the flash of sun against metal. With a movement so quick it was invisible, he drew his gun and fired, and not a second too soon. The shot fired by the man waiting in ambush went wild…the shot meant for Rance.
The man pitched forward, head slamming into the dirt as blood gushed from the hole in his neck. Rance and Edward slipped quickly from their horses, diving for cover.
“What in hell is going on?” Edward whispered as they crouched together in the bushes, tensely waiting. “We aren’t in Yankee territory, for God’s sake. This is Alabama. We’re almost home.”
Rance signaled for him to be quiet. He had heard a faint sound, like someone crying. He called out, “Throw down your guns and come out with your hands up, or we’re going to start shooting.”
“No, don’t shoot!” the female voice screamed in terror. “I don’t have a gun. Please, don’t kill me.”
Rance and Edward watched as a woman stepped out into the road, holding her trembling arms above her head. She was young, slender, and underneath the mud and grime that streaked her face, she was quite lovely. Her hair was the color of coal, and even from where they crouched they could see smoldering brown eyes, now wide with fright.
“There’s no one else here,” she called. “I promise. You must believe me.”
Rance straightened, fingers still tight on the gun. He whispered to Edward to stay down and cover him until he could be sure the girl was telling the truth. Then he stepped out into the road, slowly, his gun drawn but not aimed. The woman dared to hope he wouldn’t shoot.
“Start talking,” Rance said quietly.
She took a gasping breath and pointed to the dead man. “He made me come with him. I didn’t want to. My daddy said he was a traitor and ought to be killed.”
“Who is he?”
“Leroy. Leroy Pearson. We’re from Selma. He wanted your horses.” She lifted the skirt of her tattered yellow dress and showed him her bare, bloody feet. “We’ve been walking. Leroy made sure we stayed in the bushes, off the roads. He was afraid my daddy would come after us, but I told him Daddy would never want to see my face again. He would call me a disgrace to the family.”
Rance waved a hand for silence. “Who are you?”
“My name is Trella…Trella Haynes.”
“Miss Haynes,” he nodded. “Spare me details that don’t concern me. That man would have killed me and my partner. You were with him
.
That makes me suspicious of you. But since I don’t go around killing women, suppose you just get on out of here now.”
Her hands flew to her throat as she cried, “No! You can’t send me back into those woods. I showed you my feet. I haven’t eaten in two days, and, oh—what kind of man are you?”
She crumpled to the ground. Rance watched, expressionless. One thing about women, he thought grimly, they can always faint at the most convenient times. A man can’t just close his eyes and fall down. He’s expected to stay awake and face things.
Edward scrambled from the bushes and knelt down beside the woman. Lifting her head, he looked up at Rance with concern. “We can’t just go off and leave her. She’s telling the truth…”
“How do you know?” Rance snapped. “There’s something about this I don’t like. Someone else will come along to help her out. We’ve got to get home.”
Edward smoothed her long black hair away from her face. “I’m not leaving her,” he said gruffly.
Rance stiffened angrily. He was not used to his men arguing with him. “I said,” he repeated firmly, “that we’re leaving her. Now let’s go.”
The girl moaned, moving her head slowly from side to side. Another thing about women, Rance thought wryly, is that they can also wake up from a faint any time they choose. Like now…with Edward staring down at her solicitously. She opened those warm, brown eyes and looked up at him with all the heart-shattering appeal of a wounded doe.
He waited silently while Edward moved quickly to his horse for his water canteen, then bent beside her to give her a drink. Rance listened without speaking as the girl told Edward that Leroy Pearson had courted her until she learned his views about the war, that he refused to fight with the South, and then she agreed with her father that he was not the man for her. But Leroy was crazy, she said. He had kidnapped her. And look what he had done to her, she was sobbing against Edward’s shoulder now. Her father would never let her come home. She did not want to return, anyway. He was a hopeless drunkard who beat her whenever he took the notion. She had no place to go.
She kept darting anxious glances at Rance, beseeching him to believe her. He looked away, gritting his teeth. The girl was a liar. He had been around enough women in his life to know there was just no truth to the story. It was the sneaky, suspicious look in her eyes and her whining tone that told him. Hell, Edward was so damn dumb.
Too disgusted to listen any longer, Rance turned and walked over to the dead man. He ought to just fire Edward on the spot, he thought. Fire him and get back to the ranch. But he knew he couldn’t do it. The man was his friend, his closest friend. And if he was letting that little vixen get to him, then he was going to need someone who understood her kind to stand by him.
The very dead Leroy Pearson was lying on his stomach, eyes staring sightlessly, ants already beginning to scramble about the thickening blood that covered his face and neck. A puddle had formed on the ground, mingling with the red clay. With his toe, Rance turned the dead man over on his back. He searched him absently, knowing he would find nothing important. He took the gun and stuffed it into his coat pocket. Then he clasped his hands about the man’s heels and dragged him from the road into the thick bushes alongside. There was no need to report the incident to the sheriff. Nor was there time. The death of a would be murderer and horse thief was of no consequence. The only ones who cared were the buzzards hovering overhead in eager anticipation. Let them have him.
Rance brushed his hands on his trouser legs, straightened his hat, and turned to face Edward once more.
“I’m taking her with me,” his friend said with an expression that pleaded for understanding. “She hasn’t got anybody, Rance. She won’t be no trouble. We can use her around the ranch, and she’ll be company for April.”
“I don’t want her around April!” Rance spoke louder than he meant to, and he did not miss the girl’s reaction. Her chin jutted up just a bit in defiance.
“Hell, just keep her out of my way,” he said finally, walking quickly to where Virtus waited. Mounting, he gave the two a final glare. “Do what you want. You know the way home. I’m going on.”