The Gunfighter and the Heiress (20 page)

What was the matter with Crow? she mused in frustration. He didn't have a pistol with him. And
he
called
her
a daredevil? Natalie raised her pistol and aimed at Willy who was trying to get a clear shot at Crow. Willy squawked in surprise when she shot him in the leg before he could fire at Crow. She didn't dare glance in Crow's direction since she had disobeyed his direct order—again.

Her mouth dropped open when Crow hooked his left arm around one of the horses' neck and tossed his left leg over the animal's back. How he kept from falling off the side of the horse she had no idea—his superior strength and practice was her best guess.

He clamped all four sets of reins between his teeth and
urged the horses forward, while George tried to shoot him—twice. George yelped when Crow ran the horses straight at him, knocking him flat and sending his pistol cartwheeling through the air.

Natalie blinked in amazement when Crow maneuvered the four horses so he could kick out with his right foot to land a brain-scrambling blow to Georgie's chin.

The outlaw collapsed. He lay face up and motionless on the ground.

Natalie darted a glance at Charley who had the good sense to turn tail and run. Not that he escaped Crow's wrath. The bandit only had time to retreat ten paces before Crow and his horses plowed over him. Charley screamed his head off when Crow struck out with his right foot and slammed the outlaw's skull into the ground. Natalie winced, certain the hard blow jarred teeth and smashed Charley's nose into the dirt.

Crow's unnerving war whoop echoed around the chasm like a death knell as Willy staggered to his feet, still clutching his bloody leg. His eyes were wide as goose eggs as he hobbled back in the direction he'd come, firing his pistol erratically over his shoulder as he went. Crow ran him to ground and sent him skidding in the outwash of loose gravel at the base of an arroyo. Willy whimpered after he received a kick in the back of the head. He yelped, collapsed and lay unmoving.

While Natalie watched, Crow slid off the horse to retrieve leather strips from the pouch secured to his waist. Quick as a wink he lashed the bandits' hands behind their backs. When he spared a glance at her, his eyes were like chips of ice and his expression was nothing short of ferocious.

“Turn away,” he demanded sharply. “I don't want you to see this side of me. Get up and start walking.” He gestured
to what she assumed was the north. “Bart and the Rangers should be here soon.”

She nodded her disheveled head, then turned her back. One of the men screamed bloody murder while she limped off on her swollen ankle. Another howl rose behind her, then another.

An unholy chant rippled around the canyon walls and she realized this time it was Crow, not the outlaws. The wild, piercing sound sent shivers down her spine. Several more chants mingled with the Harpers' pained howls but Natalie kept limping in the direction Crow had sent her. Whatever was happening in the canyon seemed to be so much more than scare tactics and punishment for the bandits' crimes.

When hoofbeats resounded ahead of her Natalie ducked behind a boulder and grabbed her pistol. She peaked around the oversize slab of rock to see Bart and the Rangers clattering downhill, displacing dust and pebbles as they came.

Natalie shot to her feet. “About time you showed up. Crow is taking care of the Harpers all by himself.”

All four men blinked in surprise. “Did Crow release you already?” Bart asked.

“No. I did that myself while the Harpers were sleeping off their bout with whiskey.”

They gaped at her so she reached into her garter to wave the stiletto in front of them. “Wedding gift from Crow. Contrary to the consensus in New Orleans high society, diamonds are
not
a woman's best friend, a
dagger
is—”

Another bone-chilling wail echoed in the chasm. Maybe it was her imagination but she swore the sudden downdraft of wind sweeping over the caprock sounded like whispered voices.

Bemused, she glanced up at the men on horseback.

“Phantom Canyon,” Phelps informed her.

“Once there was a village where Donovan Crow grew up,” Bart added solemnly. “It's the place where he lost most of his family and many of his friends. The army slaughtered the tribe's horses, cattle and dozens of his clan. Those who survived were marched to the reservation in Indian Territory.”

Natalie suspected the strange chants Crow had uttered were some sort of ceremonial ritual. The unholy sounds had frightened her but she imagined they had really scared the bejeezus out of the Harpers. If the lost souls of the Kiowa and Comanche were swirling around Phantom Canyon, she would not be surprised.

Bart leaned down to extend his good arm so Natalie could boost herself up behind him. “Nice breeches, by the way,” he teased as she settled behind him.

“Thank you. I'm thinking of designing trousers expressly for women. Dresses are such a nuisance when you're cutting yourself loose from ropes and running for your life.”

“Blair Wear?” he ventured with a chuckle.

Natalie giggled…until another ear-piercing scream filled the air. Followed by another…and another.

Phelps nudged his horse forward. “We better check on Crow and his prisoners.”

Natalie looped her arms around Bart's waist and laid her head against his back. “I haven't had much sleep the past two nights. I would give a small fortune for a nap.”

“You can have a nap for free, Nat,” he replied, patting her hand consolingly. “I'll grab hold of you if you start to fall off.”

Natalie closed her eyes, sighed tiredly and dreamed of the Kiowa warrior who had appeared from nowhere to rescue her at the precise moment she needed him most.

 

Van stared down at the Harper brothers, who looked the worse for wear after he had dragged them behind their stolen horses to the stream. They lay faceup, their noses and mouths barely above the water—because he had propped rock pillows beneath their heads to allow them to breathe.

Considering they smelled like stale sweat and whiskey, they were probably suffering hellish hangovers. Van was sure it was the first time in a long while the bandits had bathed—unless they had been rained on. The cool water also cleansed their wounds and that was all the medical treatment they would receive until he had the answers he wanted.

Of all the places the Harpers could have held Natalie hostage, Phantom Canyon had given the best advantage. He knew the area exceptionally well and he had accurately guessed where the Harpers had holed up.

“Now then, let's try again,” Van told his prisoners. “The stolen money? You remember it, don't you? Bank robberies? Wounded bank tellers?”

“Don't recall,” George snarled hatefully.

“Me, neither,” Charley chimed in.

“You can go to hell, Crow,” Willy sneered defiantly.

“Already been there,” Van replied. “I told the devil to expect you. Even as early as today if you aren't cooperative.”

He walked into the water to kick the rock from under George's head. While George struggled to keep his head above water—and couldn't—Crow stepped over him to stare down at Charley and Willy.

“Who's next, Charley? If you refuse to talk and you drown, I'll torture the information from Willy before he bleeds to death from the gunshot wound.”

“You bastard—” Charley sneered before Van kicked the stone away and the bandit's face was submerged.

George lifted his head and gasped for air, but he couldn't hold himself up indefinitely so he grabbed a breath and submerged again.

Wide-eyed, Willy listened to his brothers gasp and then sink beneath the surface. “Let 'em go and I'll tell you,” Willy bargained frantically. “None of us can run off after you slit our hamstrings. I got no chance anyway 'cause your wife shot me.”

Van gnashed his teeth when the bandit reminded him that Natalie had openly defied him—again. Always trying to steal his thunder, the hellion. He wondered if there was any way to break her of that annoying habit. And doubted it.

He looked down at the Harpers when the two oldest brothers burst to the surface simultaneously, huffing and puffing for air. “Change your minds yet?” he asked conversationally. They glowered at him and he shrugged. “We can do this all day because you're long overdue for a good, soaking bath. I'll be here paying my respects to my departed family in Phantom Canyon. You can hear their whispering voices in the wind and their murmurs in the stream. They are chanting for me to sacrifice you to avenge their deaths.”

Crow bit down on a grin when three howling voices erupted in the near distance. Maybe those Rangers weren't such a bad lot since they were playing along with his scare tactics.

“All right,” Willy muttered. “I'll tell—”

“Shut up, kid,” Georgie snarled on a gasping breath.

“I don't wanna be sacrificed to Injun spirits,” Willy protested. “We hid the money in the cave where we stashed your wife. It's back in the tunnel that leads to nowhere.”

“Damn it,” Charley growled on a ragged breath. “Now he'll kill us for sure!”

Van swooped down to grab the front of Georgie's wet shirt, then slung him ashore. He did the same to Charley and Willy. “You're damn lucky I'm letting you live,” he said harshly. “You wouldn't be so lucky if I had turned my wife loose on you. She wanted to shoot all of you and be done with it.”

Leaving the Harpers facedown in the mud, their hands tied behind their backs and their hamstrings half-sliced so they couldn't run from the law ever again, Van hiked off to the cave where he had spent so many hours as a child. He saw the Rangers hiding in one of the ravines and motioned for them to tend to the prisoners.

When he stepped into the cavern, he noticed the empty whiskey bottles Natalie had mentioned. He also saw the frayed rope. He suspected Natalie had spent a sleepless night trying to cut herself loose and he well remembered seeing the nicks and cuts on her hands—from the sharp dagger, no doubt. Wisely, she had taken the precaution of swiping as many weapons as she could before she made her escape from the cavern.

Van shook his head and smiled. Natalie Blair was nothing if not astonishing and resourceful. “You missed your calling, sunshine,” he murmured to the image floating above him in the darkness. “You should have been born Kiowa.”

He crouched down to crawl into the tunnel that was only passable if a man moved on his hands and knees. He found the canvas pouches and tossed them back in the direction he'd come. Then he paused at the seeming dead end and glanced up. The escape route from the cave to the cliff above him zigzagged like a waterless river through the limestone.

Van smiled ruefully, remembering the times he and his friends had pulled themselves up by grabbing handholds in the stone to climb into the small chamber leading to a sinkhole. His smile faded, for it was in the chamber where his mother had sent him after she had been seriously wounded the day of the massacre. She had handed him the headband made from the beads his father, Mitch Donovan, had given her so many years before he vanished from their lives as if he had never been there at all.

After the massacre, Van had cut his hair and changed his style of clothing to become white. It was here that the memories of his past converged with potent intensity.

It was here, too, that Natalie could have died.

The thought struck like an arrow to the heart. The loss of his family and friends had devastated him, filled him with bitterness and resentment. If that vibrant, obsidian-eyed firebrand had died today Van wasn't sure he could have dealt with the tormenting loss.

Funny, he mused as he crawled from the tunnel. He had aptly nicknamed her. She had come to be the very sunshine in his world. If she weren't out there somewhere, he'd be stumbling around in the dark.

“Crow? Are you coming down?” Bristow called out.

Van scooped up the recovered money and walked onto the ledge. The Rangers had tied the Harper brothers to their bareback horses—backward—and secured their feet beneath the horses' bellies. Van smiled when the Rangers tipped their hats respectfully to him.

Rangers or not, he was beginning to like Montgomery, Bristow and Phelps, in spite of his earlier vow to hold the ragtag group of frontier officers in contempt for the sins of their predecessors.

Van tossed the moneybags over the ledge so each Ranger could catch a pouch in midair. “The reward for
the Harpers' capture and the return of the money is yours. I have my wife back and that is payment aplenty. Oh, and don't forget to credit the Harpers for the stagecoach robbery and horse thefts. Wouldn't want to shortchange them.”

Monty tipped his head back to peer up at him. “You coming with us, chief?”

“I'll be along later.”

Van stared over the spectacular canyon that was once a Comanche and Kiowa stomping ground. It was time to make peace with the demons that haunted him, he mused as he watched the Rangers lead the bandits away. Van would always be Kiowa at heart, but the old days and the old ways were forever beyond his grasp. He recalled what Natalie had said about being alone in the world and leaving her past behind to chase her dreams of adventures.

He sank down cross-legged on the cliff and inhaled a restorative breath. From his bird's-eye view, he stared over the chasm, as if looking through the window of time. He could visualize the peaceful village of teepees, grazing cattle and herd of horses that he and his friends took pride in training.

He realized he had never really come to terms with his grief, just stowed it away and carried it with him for more than a decade. He had joined the white's world and had taken from it to compensate for the loss of tribal lands and sacred ground. The money from his assignments didn't lessen the blow to Kiowa pride or self-respect, but he had symbolically regained what his clan had lost—one assignment at a time.