Authors: Patricia Hagan
“I’ll be along,” Edward called to him, relief in his voice, “I’m going to give Trella some food. She’s hungry—”
Rance kicked Virtus, moving him to a faster gait. He wanted the hooves to strike the ground hard and loud so he would not have to listen to Edward. Hell, you don’t go around picking up women and taking them home with you like stray animals, he thought furiously. Especially one whose man friend tried to kill you and steal your horse.
He sighed. He knew he had a problem on his hands. Even dirty and tattered, Trella Haynes was lovely. Cleaned up, she was going to be beautiful. Edward was not very experienced with women, and she would be able to handle him like a well-broke colt. He shook his head. The girl was going to be a problem.
They caught up with Rance several minutes later. She was sitting behind Edward, her arms wrapped around his chest. Every so often Edward would laugh softly. The two were becoming close, fast. Damn you, Clark, he cursed silently, we don’t need this on top of everything else.
They did not slow the horses until the ranch was in sight. Once again, Rance had a strange feeling. Something was not as it should be. No one was around.
The hands would be out with the horses, but even the house appeared empty. Where was April? He had figured she would come outside when she heard a horse approaching. He reined to a stop and dismounted. In quick strides, he was across the porch and flinging the door open to call her name—once, twice, three times. Cold apprehension growing, he looked in her room, then his.
He stepped back onto the porch, chest heaving with rapidly growing fury, just as Tom Stilley came riding up from the trail where he had been on watch. He scanned the man’s face, quickly saw the frightened look. He demanded, “Where the hell is April?”
“Boss, listen—” Tom leaped from his horse but kept his distance. “When we got back, only Mulhern was still here.”
Rance waited, teeth and fists clenching. If his suspicions were correct, Hinton was a dead man.
“Mulhern left, too,” Tom Stilley rushed on. “He got scared of what you’d do when you got back and found out—”
Rance forced the words from a throat constricting with rage. “Where did Hinton take her?”
“That’s just it,” he said quickly. “Hinton didn’t take her. She ran away. Mulhern said she left in the middle of the night. They tried to catch her, but couldn’t, and Hinton took off and told Mulhern there won’t no way he was gonna hang around for you to blame him. Mulhern was gonna stay, but when the boys started talkin’ about how mad you was gonna be, he got scared and took off, too.”
Rance whirled around to smash his fist into a post. Tom Stilley backed away, holding his hands up as he stammered, “Look, boss…I didn’t have nothin’ to do with it. I’m just tellin’ you what was told to me.”
“When did she run away?”
“I don’t know. Mulhern said it wasn’t too long after you left. She took that mare she’d been ridin’. They don’t know where she went. Mulhern said they woulda gone after her, but she whopped him over the head and dang near killed him. He was out cold till the next mornin’, and Hinton hung around to see if he was gonna die before he took off after her. By then, it was too late to track her.”
Just then Edward Clark rode in, Trella still clinging to him, her face flushed with excitement. Edward took one look at Rance and knew not to ask any questions. He looked to Tom, who spread his hands in a helpless gesture and murmured, “She’s gone.”
Grimly, Rance walked over to Virtus, mounted, and reined him about. He headed back toward the road.
“Where you goin’?” Tom Stilley yelled after him. “You
ain’t gonna find her now. And Mulhern and Hinton are long gone. Won’t do no good to raise hell with them.”
“Well, where in tarnation does he think he’s goin’?” Tom asked Edward incredulously. “He don’t know where Hinton and Mulhern went, and it ain’t gonna do no good to beat them up.”
Edward quietly replied, “He isn’t going after them. He’s going after her.”
Tom’s eyes bugged out. “Well, what in hell for? She’s just another filly, and he damn sure ain’t never lacked for them.” He seemed to notice Trella for the first time and stared at her curiously. “And who might you be?” he demanded.
Edward answered for her. “This is Trella, and she’s with me. I’m looking after her.”
Tom looked her up and down and smiled. Then he turned his gaze back toward the rapidly disappearing horse and rider. “What in hell is he goin’ after her for?” he repeated in wonder.
Edward took Trella’s hand and began to lead her up the porch steps. “Well, Tom,” he began wearily, the play of a smile on his lips, “It’s like this. Right now, Rance just figures he’s going after something that belongs to him. But the truth, and he don’t even know this himself, is he loves the girl.”
“Rance Taggart?” Tom hooted, stamping his feet in the dust as he danced a little jig of delight.“Rance Taggart in love? Boy, you’re crazy. He ain’t never loved nothin’ but a horse.”
Edward paused on the porch to stare after his friend. He could be wrong. Rance Taggart had confided once when he’d had too much to drink that he had only fancied himself in love with one woman—a little Mexican girl—and Edward had suspected something tragic had happened there. The look in Rance’s eyes had been startling. Edward had never seen him look that way before. Something strange was going on inside his friend.
“Well, when’s he coming back?” Tom Stilley demanded.
Edward looked at him and grinned as though it were all quite simple. “When he finds April, Tom. That’s when he’ll be back.”
Chapter Fifteen
April had lost track of time. Zeke brought her scraps of food from the house, and she wondered if Posie would notice and suspect what was happening. Zeke had tormented her one evening when he had laughingly told of her Uncle James arriving in response to her telegram. Vanessa had handled the situation by explaining how grieved she and everyone else was over April’s disappearance. April had turned into a trollop, finally running away.
Zeke grinned smugly as he described the scene. “That Vanessa is some woman. She stood right there with tears in her eyes and told him how you probably was wanting him to come so you could get some money out of him, ’cause your old pappy quit doling it out to you once he saw your wicked ways. Your stupid uncle believed every word. Just stood there shaking his head with disgust. Ate a big dinner that night and then went on his way home the next morning.”
So now there was no more hope that Uncle James would help. One day blended into the next as her life shrank to the size of the shack.
At first, Zeke had come nightly to torment her with descriptions of what he planned to do with her. He hadn’t carried out any of his threats, however, merely making her cringe with fear as he towered over her, ranting. Why hadn’t he touched her? She guessed it was his fear of Vanessa that stopped him, for his hand moved unconsciously to his face every now and then, fingering the raw scar.
And she dreaded his coming. Some night, he really might rape her.
One twilight evening, she dragged herself out of the hovel as far as the chain would let her go. Zeke wouldn’t be back until later. She wanted to sit in the sun, wanted just to be out of that horrible shack.
She wondered, as she did so often, about her father. Was he still alive? And, if so, what kind of torment was Vanessa inflicting upon him?
She hung her head wearily. She had accomplished nothing in escaping Rance. Nothing.
A twig snapped. April stiffened and began to rock back and forth in dread anticipation. He was coming. It had been two nights, and even though she had long ago eaten the jerky and corn dodgers he had left behind, and her stomach cramped with hunger, she would rather have endured starvation than his insane rantings.
With a shudder, she rose and backed toward the cabin door.
She closed the door and crept through the black cabin to kneel in a corner and wait. But when several moments passed, she dared hope that he wasn’t really coming.
Then, slowly, the door squeaked open. April burrowed her head in her hands. She knew Zeke was inside, but he had made no move toward her. Was this a new game? She strained to see in the blackness. Suddenly, she could stand the tension no longer and screamed, “Damn you, why are you torturing me this way?”
“April, shut up!” The voice cracked like a whip.
She could not believe it. No. It was not possible.
“Get over here. Hurry up. We may not have much time.” He spoke in a harsh whisper, and when she did not move he said, “Damnit, April, move!”
He stepped back to open the door, and twilight rushed in to give some light. He saw her and crossed over to jerk her to her feet. “We don’t have much time. I don’t want any trouble.”
And then his eyes raked over her, and he gasped, then cried. “April! What’s happened? And what is this?” He held up the length of chain, the rattling sound ominous in the stillness.
He shook the chain angrily, trailing his hand down to the cuff about her ankle. “What have they done to you? What’s this connected to? I’ll have to try to break it.”
Impatiently, he gripped her shoulders to shake her roughly. “April, you must come out of it. I’ve got to get you out of here. Now what’s this chain connected to?”
“The…bed,” she croaked. “Over there.”
He released her and walked to the bed, found where the link was connected and began to jerk with all his strength. “I can’t break it,” he said finally. “I’m going to have to shoot it. Stand back.” She obeyed, and he drew his pistol, pointed, and fired. The explosion shook the thin plank walls, but the chain broke open.
“We’ll have to worry about that ankle cuff and the chain dragging later. Let’s go.” He lifted her in his arms effortlessly, then paused to glance about. “I don’t suppose you’ve got anything here you need to take along. It looks like you weren’t left with much.”
“How did you find me?” She struggled to get the words out.
“I hid out in the woods around the house for a couple of days, watching. When I didn’t see you, I finally cornered that little Negro girl, Mandy. I scared the hell out of her, and she told me where she thought you might be.”
He maneuvered her through the door as he said in a gruff tone, “We’ll talk later, April.”
He froze. His eyes narrowed and she turned her gaze and gasped at the sight of Zeke standing a few yards away. His lips were twisted in a sneer that was both mocking and angry.
And he held a gun pointed straight at them.
With a whispered oath, Rance quickly set April on her feet and pushed her behind him protectively.
“Don’t go for it!” Zeke snapped, nodding toward the gun in Rance’s holster. “Don’t make a move till I tell you, and then move real slow. I want you to reach down and unbuckle that belt and let it fall to the ground. Then I want you to kick it over here to me.”
Rance made no move, holding his arms out slightly from his sides, right hand inches from his gun. His feet were spread apart, body rigid.
“I told you to unbuckle that belt,” Zeke’s voice was louder, betraying his own tension. “I ain’t gonna tell you again, you sonofabitch. I’m just gonna start shootin’.”
Slowly, Rance’s hands moved toward the buckle of his gunbelt. Unfastening, he let it drop to the ground, where it hit with a dull thud.
“Now kick it over here,” Zeke ordered.
April suddenly felt herself being shaved roughly to the side, her knees raking the dirt. Rance had hooked his toe in the belt and kicked it upward, sending it into Zeke’s face and taking him by surprise. Rance sprang for him, hurling his body against Zeke’s knees and knocking him backward, just as the gun went off. She heard the whine, the crashing impact of splintering wood as the bullet hit the cabin wall inches from her head.
Zeke and Rance rolled in the dirt, pummeling each other, their guttural shouts and oaths breaking the stillness of the evening.
April came out of her trance. Scrambling for the gun Zeke had dropped, she grabbed it with ice cold fingers. Where were their horses? Now was the time to escape from both of them! She knew these woods. She could find a place to hide during the night, and get help in the morning.
Her eyes darted about desperately, looking for the horses. Behind her she could hear the sound of flesh hitting flesh, the grunts and curses of the desperately fighting men. Then there was a cracking sound, an agonized cry, and she started to spring forward for the cover of the bushes, knowing, somehow, that the fight was over. She had to flee at once. The victor would claim her, and by God, she was not going to belong to any man!
“Hold it, April!”
Rance’s voice. He had won the fight. She turned slowly, hating the tremor of joy that moved through her. Not joy, she admonished herself, it was only relief. Yes, that was it.
“Virtus is tied over there.” He pointed to a thicket. “Go get me a rope, and don’t try anything funny, April. You try to get on Virtus and ride out of here, and all I’ve got to do is whistle. He’ll throw you to the ground. Now move.”
April forced herself to obey his command, knowing that, for now, there would be no escape. Wading through the shrubs, she found Virtus, took the rope from his saddle with quick, jerking movements, then carried it to Rance.
He took it from her in silence. Bending down, he looped one end around Zeke’s left ankle, then dragged him, screaming, across the ground roughly to where two trees stood about four feet apart. He twisted the rope around the trunks, connecting the other end to Zeke’s right ankle, tugging until he was spread-eagled in the dirt.