Sundancer (Cheyenne Series) (18 page)

      
Of course she was not allowed to wander far from camp, for raiding Indians were always a threat. This morning she had overslept and hurried to throw on her riding habit, eager, for some unnamable reason, to escape the luxurious confines of Jubal's mobile palace. Without bothering the old man, whom she knew was already poring over surveyor's reports, supply orders and payroll accounts, she slipped out the back and headed for the livery car, where a fleet roan mare was kept, assigned for her personal use.

      
Already anticipating the wind in her hair and the freedom to gallop up to the ridge and look down on the beehive of activity below, she walked briskly down the tracks, passing bewhiskered old teamsters and burly young workmen, all leathered dark by years in the sun and wind. All of them tipped their hats respectfully. Some were bashful around the boss's granddaughter, while others returned her nod with sly appraising looks. She ignored these.

      
The big smithy, Shamus Manion, smiled when she approached the car. ‘Top o' the mornin' ta ya, Miz Alexa. You'll be wantin' that pretty little roan,” he said, putting down his anvil. He directed a gangly youth to fetch the mare from the rope corral and saddle her. Then he turned back to Roxanna. “You be careful out there today. We had a wee bit o' trouble last night. One o' the men, right full of liquor he was, came sashayin' into camp after midnight and picked a fight. A right royal row he started too. Half a dozen men were involved before Cain put a stop to it.”

      
At the mention of Cain's name, she paled. “Was anyone hurt?”

      
“A few bruised knuckles and split lips for the ones left standin'. Cadwallader Cooke didn't fare so well. Himself it was who started the fracas. Cain used his pistol on that thick Welsh head, not that it'll teach that one much. You can be sure he has a fine headache this mornin', though. Cain fired him then and there. Sent him packin', but the blockhead made some pretty ugly threats on his way out o' camp.”

      
“That must've been what I heard when I awakened last night. You don't think he'd return and cause more trouble, do you?”

      
“Niver know with the likes o' that one. Cain packed him on a handcar and sent him back to Cheyenne, but I'd keep a sharp eye out. Stay close,” he admonished as he took the reins of the roan from the stockboy and assisted her to mount.

      
“I’ll be careful,” she said, scanning the ridge which was mostly open grassland with a few clumps of aspen and spruce scattered randomly about. “Not much place to hide up this high.”

      
Since Shamus always fretted about her safety, she saw no particular reason for concern about Cadwallader Cooke. He was miles from here by now, probably nursing his aching head in a Cheyenne saloon. She urged her fleet little mare up the gently sloping ground until she reached a copse of spruce, then turned to watch the activity in camp. Out of the welter of color, movement and noise, her eyes quickly found Cain riding his chestnut stallion between the lines of sweating, straining men who lifted the steel rails from a wagon bed and carried them to the end of the track.

      
Why did he always have to stand out in any group, no matter where it was? She remembered how he had looked in elegant evening clothes that night in Denver, dark and dangerous as an expensive eastern gambler. “I imagine the ladies secretly swoon over him, even when they're pretending to be shocked by his Indian blood,” she murmured irritably to herself, tearing her eyes away as he dismounted at the horse corral.

      
Well, they were both pariahs now, she mused bitterly, feeling a flicker of reluctant kinship for the half-breed. Jubal was constantly assuring her that life would be better once the Union Pacific was completed and they could return east. No one there would have heard the scurrilous rumors about her. After the years and miles she had already spent trying unsuccessfully to live down her past, Roxanna doubted it.

      
She still harbored a lurking dread that Isobel Darby would pop up to unmask her, leaving her bereft even of Jubal MacKenzie's support. Odd, in the brief weeks she had spent with the old man, she had come to respect his canny intelligence and enjoy his gruff company. The thought of seeing betrayal and hurt in his eyes disturbed her deeply. She had never meant to hurt anyone, but already her desperate gambit posing as Alexa Hunt was turning into a disaster almost as bad as her past life as Roxanna Fallon.

      
Deep in thought, Roxanna did not see the figure slip from behind the spruce tree as she dismounted and walked her horse to a nearby outcrop of rocks. While the mare stood patiently, she took a seat on sun-warmed shale, which was sheltered from the wind by a stand of spruce. Then his voice interrupted her solitary musing.

      
‘‘Well, sunbeam, hain't ye a pretty one.”

      
Roxanna gasped, jumping from her perch to face a tall cadaverously thin man with a small head that was sporting an ugly reddish black bruise between strings of greasy tan hair hanging on his forehead. Cadwallader Cooke! Malicious green eyes, set close together in a mean narrow face, stared speculatively at the curve of her breasts. She tugged on her mare's reins as the horse shied nervously, reacting to the ripe odor of sour sweat and sourer hatred.

      
“I’m not your sunbeam,” she said coldly, patting the shying mare's neck to calm her. “Why don't you leave now and I won't report you for your rudeness?”

      
“Report me rudeness!” he sneered. “The Scot's Injun cain't fire me twice. Ye be the old man's granddaughter. A proud un, hain't ye?” he whispered as he moved nearer, stepping between her and the mare.

      
“Cain will come if I scream. This time he'll do a lot worse than crack your thick skull,” she threatened. The nauseating smell of his body swamped her with ugly memories of the prison in Vicksburg. Roxanna felt her knees tremble and fought to keep from gasping for breath as her heartbeat accelerated. She stared him down, knowing there was nothing else she could do, praying this time it would be enough.

      
He laughed. “Hain't nobody down there going to hear ye, least of all that bloody bastard Cain. High 'n mighty ye be for a female who spread her legs fer redskins. Probably fer Cain too. Well, now ye'll give ole Caddy a turn,” he said as one long bony arm snaked out and wrapped around her waist.

      
As Roxanna screamed and struggled, the mare whinnied in fright, then bolted away. Cooke ignored the horse, concentrating on the woman, whom he pulled to the ground in spite of her flailing legs and sharp nails. He held her down, straddling her body, while he attempted to pin her arms and stop her clawing at him.

      
Roxanna could feel his weight bearing down on her, imprisoning her arms and legs. Panic began to engulf her as the old feeling of utter helplessness hovered.
Don 't give in, don't give in,
she repeated to herself as his fetid breath fanned her face. She turned her head away and screamed again, bucking to dislodge him.

      
“Ye be a strong one fer bein’ so skinny,” he grunted as he lost his balance and rolled to one side.

      
Roxanna could feel his long bony fingers digging into her shoulders to stop her thrashing. Then her temple struck a jutting piece of shale and everything faded into merciful oblivion.

Chapter Nine

      
As if it were not bad enough to learn Cooke had overpowered the handcar operator delivering the troublemaker to the Cheyenne jail, Cain had just learned Alexa was riding about unescorted. Then he heard her screams coming from the copse of trees surrounding the rocky outcrop ahead and spurred his horse forward, cursing. Before he reached the cover of the trees her cries ceased abruptly. Then he saw her lying limply as the filthy bastard straddled her body, tearing at her clothes.

      
Cain pulled the chestnut to a skidding halt and leaped from the saddle. “Cooke!” he yelled, to keep the man's hands from baring her breasts. Before Cadwallader Cooke could do more than swivel his head around, Cain was on him, knocking him across the hard rocky ground with a fist planted squarely in the center of his face. Blood spurted from Cooke's nose as Cain felt the satisfying crunch of cartilage snapping.

      
Cooke bleated in surprised pain as he fell backward, then rolled up, clawing at the pistol stuffed in the back of his belt. He was still raising it, his thumb on the uncocked hammer, when Cain's bullet tore into his body. Cadwallader Cooke flew backward against a large sandstone boulder, then slid slowly down and crumpled into a ragged heap in the dust.

      
Giving the corpse only a brief glare, Cain turned, holstered his Smith and Wesson and hurried to Alexa's side. He could see she was breathing and began to check for injuries. The son of a bitch had torn the buttons off her blouse. He did what he could to pull it together, covering the soft delicate mounds, remembering how sweetly they had responded beneath his hands, his mouth. She expelled a little breathy sigh as he picked her up and carried her into the shade of a spruce.

      
Roxanna awakened in Cain's arms. At first she was disoriented, her fluttering lashes rising so that his harsh dark visage filled her field of vision. “Cain, what...where am I?” For an instant she thought they were still in the Cheyenne camp, but then Cadwallader Cooke's assault jarred her back into the present and she stiffened with fright.

      
“Shhh,” he soothed, stroking strands of gleaming hair away from her face with gentle hands.

      
“That awful man—Cooke?” She winced when she raised her head.

      
He felt her shiver and the rage that had seized him when he saw that pig violating her washed over him once again. “Cooke’s dead.”

      
The flatness of his tone matched the shuttered expression on his face. “You killed him.” It was not quite a question.

      
He ignored it, asking instead, “Where are you hurt?”

      
She raised her hand and gingerly touched the side of her head where a small lump was forming. “I struck my head on a rock, struggling—trying to get away from him.” Cain examined the area with surprising gentleness. She felt the urge to let him soothe her with those marvelous bronzed hands, remembering other times when his fingers had touched her...and his lips. His angry voice quickly broke the spell.

      
“If you ever ride out of a rail camp alone and unarmed again, I'll paddle that lovely little ass of yours and lock you in the stock car for a hundred miles. What kind of a place do you think this is—some goddam Missouri plantation?”

      
Roxanna sat bolt upright in spite of the throbbing in her head. “I've been educated sufficiently to know geography. I've even been taught rudimentary politeness. Something sadly deficient in your education, you oaf!” His fierce scowl shifted into a mocking smile, which only added to her anger.

      
“My humble apologies, princess, but you do bring out the worst in me.”

      
“I suspect that's because it's always lurking right under your skin,” she replied tartly.

      
Cain chuckled. “Oh, you get under my skin, all right.”

      
“I don't want anything to do with your skin—or any other part of you. You're insufferably rude—”

      
“And you're a reckless spoiled brat. Any female who steps outside her door without a man to protect her is fair game on the Union Pacific. I can't believe Jubal let you ride around like this. It's a miracle you weren't attacked by half the men in that camp.”

      
“I suppose they all think I deserve it after the gossip that's been circulating about me,” she said despondently, lowering her head into her hands to massage her aching temples. That was when she noticed her blouse gaping open, the buttons torn off, revealing a good deal more of her anatomy than was respectable.

      
When she tried to scramble away from him, clutching the cloth together, he held her in his arms. “Not so fast. You'll hurt yourself more if you fall, little fool.”

      
“Let me go,” Roxanna whispered, suddenly feeling all the violation and dirtiness of Cooke's bestial attack along with the humiliation in Denver and so many others long ago. She craved a bath.

      
Cain held her effortlessly as she struggled to escape his embrace. “Alexa, I'm sorry. I was...frightened because you placed yourself in danger. If I hadn't come up here looking for you...Cooke would have done worse than the Cheyenne ever thought of doing. I should’ve killed him a long time ago.”

      
There was a hardness in his voice when he spoke of Cooke that did not quite register because she was focused on what he said before that.
If I hadn't come up here looking for you.
“Why were you looking for me? To paddle me for riding unescorted, or were you simply going to lock me in the stock car without the benefit of a trial?”

      
She looked so small and vulnerable, sitting on his lap with her hands clutching the remnants of her blouse protectively over her breasts. His smile now was genuine, gentle. “I never thought of locking you up when I rode out here, but maybe that's not a half bad idea.”

      
She looked at him warily. “Why?” she asked. As he released her, she edged off his lap to sit on the ground across from him. Roxanna had hoped for a certain security in placing even a few feet of distance between them, but his dark piercing eyes would not grant it. They skewered her intently.

      
“You know why old man Powell broke the engagement?” he asked bluntly.