Authors: Barbara Ankrum
"But—"
"Get off your horse," he said, pulling his rifle from its scabbard. "Now."
She complied shakily and the others followed suit. All had agreed on their paths and now, silent, carried out the plan. Handing her their reins quietly, Pete and Wade started off at a soundless run, veering to the east.
"Stay here," Jesse, reiterated, and disappeared with the wolf into the fog-shrouded darkness to her right.
For a full two minutes, she stood where she was told, trying to imagine what had happened... Creed bushwhacked, lying wounded... or dead. Her heartbeat pounded through her like thunder.
The crack of a twig nearby made her whirl around. She searched the darkness, but the fog obscured everything. One of the horses nickered and she clamped a hand over its nose to quiet it, then held her breath.
Someone was out there.
Tugging the heavy rifle out of the scabbard of the stolen horse, she wrestled with the cocking lever until it clicked. She wouldn't wait here like a frightened mouse until it was over.
Moving away from the horses, she went in the direction she'd seen Jesse go. In the distance, she could hear the faint sound of voices. Pulse quickening, she moved stealthily across the sprouting spring grass.
She saw the flash of movement beside her too late. Steely arms grabbed her, ripping the rifle from her hands. She could only gasp before a smooth hand covered her mouth.
"Well, well... what have we got heah?" asked the man in a heavy southern drawl. "I reckon we've got us an interloper."
She struggled against him to no avail, trying to scream against his hand.
"Y'all by your lonesome, sugar? Won't Pierre be pleased..."
* * *
Water. Warm, smelly, choking him.
Creed came awake sputtering. He tried to bat away the stream of water being poured on him, but something held his hands.
"
Tres bon
...'ee lives."
LaRousse. Ah, yes. It was all coming back. Creed opened his eyes and surveyed his surroundings. There were two others, outlaw types, throwing a rope over the dead hulk of a tree beside the hot spring.
Pierre hauled him up by his arms and the pain returned with a vengeance. "You must be awake for what I 'ave planned, Devereaux."
Creed's breath came heavily. The bastard meant to hang him. Again. He blinked, fighting back the surge of fear. He had nothing to be afraid of, he reminded himself, except for that first shock of pain. He'd done it before. He was ready. Steering him over to Buck, they forced him up into the saddle. He could have fought them, but he didn't. What was the point?
His ribs burned, but his hands, cinched in front of him, had mercifully lost all feeling. He noticed a third man, standing beside the tree looking grim. Downing was his name. He didn't seem to be enjoying this as much as the others.
The one LaRousse called Snake slipped the noose around Creed's neck. He gritted his teeth as the knot was tightened at the back, instead of the side. So, he thought, it would be slow.
"Deed you enjoy murdering Étienne, bounty," LaRousse snarled, "as much as I weel enjoy killing you?"
"At least as much," he answered. "My only regret is that I won't take you with me, you bastard."
That coyote yip again. The sound tore through Creed's aching head like a dull knife.
"Hey, looky what we got here, Pierre," Snake said, pointing into the wispy darkness.
Creed's heart sank when he saw her, struggling like a snared rabbit in the arms of the card sharp he'd clobbered in the saloon, Erastus Field. He wrenched against the rope, but felt the noose tighten around his neck.
"Creed—" Her golden eyes were desperate, regretful.
"H'llo Devereaux," Field drawled. "I couldn't miss this opportunity to see ya'll paid back for nearly breakin' my jaw last week. Y' see, cards is only one of my talents, as Pierre was quick to discover."
Ignoring Field, Creed turned his haunted gaze on her. "Mariah, dammit! What are you doing here?"
"I... I found the note. I followed you. I had to."
Meeting his gaze, she tried to tell him not to give up. He closed his eyes and swore.
"Was she alone, Field?" LaRousse demanded.
"Ah didn't see anyone else."
"Where ees 'er 'orse?"
"Back in the fog, I suspect. She was on foot when I caught her creepin' in with her gun." He uncocked the weapon and threw it to the ground.
Mariah flicked a glance into the darkness nearby, but she could see nothing.
Jesse, Wade, where are you
? "Please," she begged LaRousse. "Don't do this."
Casting his own look into the shadows, LaRousse cocked his pistol. "'Ow does eet feel to know I will 'ave your woman while your neck stretches, Devereaux?"
If looks were lethal, she thought, LaRousse would have been lying in ribbons on the ground. "So help me God, LaRousse, if you hurt her, I'll come back and drag you to hell with me!"
The half-breed laughed demonically. "Let's get on weeth it. I weel enjoy cutting out your 'eart, Devereaux."
Creed looked down at Mariah, his eyes filled with a thousand regrets. He swallowed hard, and the rope around his throat moved.
"Je t'aime,"
he whispered.
"Je t'aime, ma petite."
Tears sprang to her eyes and tightened her throat. "And I love you."
"A touching scene," Pierre said, and gave Quincy the signal to send Buck off. "
Au revoir
, Devereaux."
"No-ooo!" Mariah screamed at the same moment an explosion severed the rope tying Creed to the tree. Then everything seemed to happen at once. A quick succession of gunshots tore through the air from two directions. LaRousse and his men ducked for cover. When Creed's horse bucked in fear at the sound of the gunfire, she darted for the reins.
"Mariah, get down!" Creed shouted.
She watched in horror as the man beside Buck raised his pistol at Creed's back. In the next second, the other man jerked backward. Crimson exploded from his chest—arms spread, he fell backward into the dirt.
Mariah could just make out LaRousse's dark form beside a rock fifteen feet away, and the flash of his gun as he returned fire to Pete, Jesse and Wade. She saw Field lifted off his feet by a gunshot that came from behind her. He staggered forward in the moonlight, then dropped like a stone to the ground. Another one of LaRousse's men tore off on horseback in the dark with a pounding of hoofbeats.
The other man, Snake, headed for the horses, too, but Mahkwi tackled him at a growling run. The man threw his arm up to protect his face, but the wolf latched on viciously, tearing the fabric of his sleeve.
She held tightly to the reins, trying to calm Buck.
"
Pardieu,"
Creed shouted, clutching the saddle horn of the panicked horse, "get the hell out of here, Mariah!"
"I'm not leaving!"
Mariah gave a cry of relief as Jesse emerged from the blackness at a ducking run and snatched the reins from Mariah's hands. "Dammit, I told you to stay put!"
"I—" Another volley of gunfire cut off her words. Jesse reached up to help drag Creed to safety. Creed threw his leg over the back of his saddle, and shouted, "Forget me, get her out of here, Jesse."
But it was too late.
Mariah gave a strangled cry as LaRousse lunged for her out of the darkness. Before she could react, his steely arms were around her and he was dragging her backward through the stench of gunsmoke and fog, the barrel of his gun pressed against her temple.
"I'll kill 'er," LaRousse shouted above the din.
The firing stopped abruptly, the sudden silence deafening. Mariah forgot to breathe. Eyes wide, her gaze was frozen on Creed.
"Move where I can see you!" Pierre screamed, "and drop your guns." There was a frantic note in his voice.
One by one, they did as he asked. At Jesse's command, Mahkwi released the bloody arm of Snake, who scuttled backward weakly. Mahkwi stalked, growling, toward LaRousse and Mariah.
"Call ze devil-wolf off, or she dies now," he warned.
"Mahkwi!" Jesse shouted. "Come."
The wolf snarled and laid her ears flat, then returned to Jesse's side. All the while, LaRousse dragged Mariah backward toward his horse, tied to a stunted pine twenty feet away. Terror clawed at her as she clutched the arm that both choked her and crushed her breast painfully. His body was rock-hard against hers, and damp with sweat.
Creed stepped forward, his hands still bound in front of him. "You coward, LaRousse!" he shouted, tearing the noose from his neck and hurling it aside. "This is between you and me. Leave her out of this."
LaRousse backed up, her body pulled flush up against his. "I'm not ze fool you are, Devereaux. I warn you. Do not come near." Mariah stumbled backward in awkward unison with him. The scent of death filled her nostrils. Her eyes locked with Creed's.
Frantic, Creed tried reasoning. "My father never wronged you, dammit. He was a friend to your mother. She would have taken you if she could have.. Your father wouldn't—"
"
Inyela, batard!
" he returned in a confused mixture of Sioux and French. "Do not speak of the dead!"
Creed shook his head, taking a step forward. "She is only dead to you because your father wanted you to believe it so. She's alive and living with the Sioux."
"Saa-aaa!" LaRousse edged backward. "I told you not to move." He gasped. "You theenk zees ees about ze bitch who whelped me? Hah! Eet ees for Étienne, you murdering dog. And for my father, 'oos life you destroyed."
"Then fight me fair. Let her go," Creed rasped. "She means nothing to you."
"Ah, but she does to you. I keel her... I keel you, no? I see eet een your eyes."
Creed's breath came in heaving gasps. Don't. Please, God, don't..."You hurt her, LaRousse, and I'll hunt you down to the ends of the earth. There will be no rock low enough for you to hide."
"You can try... you 'ave tried, Devereaux. And you 'ave failed. You will always fail, because you are no match for me." Pierre moved the gun away from Mariah for a brief second to grab the reins of the horse behind him. A shot rang out of the darkness, jerking his head backward, erasing everything but ghastly surprise from his expression. Mariah screamed and stumbled forward as his hands fell away. The half-breed pitched backward with a hiss, dead before he struck the ground.
Too relieved to question where the bullet had come from, Creed ran to her as her knees buckled. Looping his arms around her back, he gathered her in the circle of his embrace. She clung to him, trembling, wrapping her arms around his solid strength. She pressed her face against his shirt, inhaling his scent to reassure herself he was alive.
"Oh, Creed... Creed..."
"It's all right, love. It's all over. You'll be all right now. I'm here," he soothed. As he spoke the words, the truth hit him. LaRousse was dead. It was finally over.
Twisting at the ropes still at his wrists, he called, "Jesse, bring your knife and cut these ropes off m—" The rest died on his lips as he caught sight of the man leading his horse slowly through the darkness toward them, his smoking rifle still in his hand.
Mariah felt the sudden tension in Creed's body and she looked up. "Seth—"
Seth's battered expression was inscrutable as he came toward them. His walk was hitched with a limp as if he, too, were in pain. He stopped a few feet away, watching Jesse slice the hemp that locked Creed's arms around Mariah.
"Are you all right?" Seth asked her quietly.
She nodded, fighting back tears. "You came. I... I didn't think you would."
"I almost didn't."
But his eyes, she thought, revealed, he would have regretted that. She watched the muscles in his jaw bunch as his gaze slid to Creed, assessing the damage he'd done to him earlier. The smoldering embers of the anger that had wrought such destruction were still there, brooding just below the surface.
"Thank the Lord you came when you did," Wade said, slapping a hand on Seth's shoulder. Seth nodded but barely acknowledged either him or Jesse. His gaze was fixed on the two people who had turned his life upside down.
Sensing what was to come, Jesse tossed the hemp aside. "I think we'd better start loading up these bodies," he told Wade and the two walked over to join Pete, who was tying Snake's hands behind him.
Seth's eyes strayed to Creed's swollen hand. "It looks broken," he said without a shred of pity.
Creed's mouth curved slightly as he inspected it. "On your jaw," he admitted. Creed nodded toward LaRousse's body. "That was one hell of a shot."
"Yeah... for a blind man." A note of bitterness sounded in his voice.
Creed shook his head, knowing he wasn't talking about the shot. "Seth... I—"
"She came to me after you left, you know," Seth said, cutting off the apology he couldn't bear to hear. "For a minute, I actually... hoped she'd come to ask for my forgiveness or to offer some kind of reasonable explanation. That it had just been a moment of insanity.
"But she came for you... to tell me you were in trouble and to... to beg me,"—he snorted—"no, shame me into helping you. She was quite brave, considering my state of mind. And quite persuasive."