Beyond Betrayal (38 page)

Her own words echoed back at her.

As soon as Casey saw her, he lifted the rifle in his hand to fire. But Delilah, prepared for the move, fired first. A moment later the gunman lay writhing on the ground. Delilah thought she'd hit him in high on the shoulder, but it was difficult to know for certain.

"Move out," she shouted again. "Leave the big man.” She didn't want to betray the fact that she knew Samson. Not unless she had to. The less Telford's men knew about her, the better.

"Like hell," Telford shouted. Then with a foul curse he asked, "Who the hell are you?” Without waiting for a response he lifted his rifle. Delilah ducked behind the protection of her boulder just as his bullet struck the stone where she'd been standing. Delilah returned fire, but missed. After evading the passage of another bullet, she fired again. He shouted obscenely and she thought perhaps she'd hit him that time.

Cursing softly beneath her breath, she moved to the protection of a different boulder where she could look out into the valley below. Blast! One of Telford's men was missing. Probably gone in search of her. Was there another goat path up from their side that he would be following? But she had no more time to wonder, for the men below had begun to untie Samson. Telford was giving orders, but she couldn't hear what they were.

Refusing to focus on Samson himself, for fear rage would hinder her thinking, Delilah studied the men supporting him. She wouldn't be able to get a shot at the man on Samson's far side, but the man on this side, if she was careful, she should be able to take out of commission without hitting Samson. Praying for accuracy, Delilah sighted down the barrel with painstaking care and fired, then quickly jerked back into the protection of her boulder—hopefully before they spotted her.

The echo of her rifle report was punctuated by a horrible scream from below as the bullet found its mark. The man on Samson's far side continued to hold him up, remaining shielded from her by Samson's big body, and she shook her head in frustration. Then, she noted the man she'd shot in the knee limping toward Samson with a broken whiskey bottle in hand. Were they planning on finishing Samson off, leaving him to bleed to death while they made their escape? Not if she could do anything about it. Gritting her teeth, she fired at the man with the whiskey bottle. He fell, cursing loudly and clutching his thigh. "Will somebody get that son-of-a-bitch?" he yelled.

In that instant, a scraping noise to her left made her aware of the fact that she was no longer alone on her rocky escarpment. Telford's missing man had undoubtedly joined her. Panting with the urgent need to get this over with and to help Samson, she looked around, desperately seeking inspiration. None came.

An moment later a voice very nearby yelled down to Telford. "Hey boss, you ain't gonna believe this: It's a woman."

Damn! So much for anonymity. But what worried her more was that, if he could see her, why couldn't she see him? And, why hadn't he fired yet? Drawing her pistol, a better bet in close quarters, Delilah hastily moved to another boulder. One that, hopefully, offered more protection.

"Kill the bitch!" came the decisive reply. "She damn near shot my goddamn knee off."

So she had hit him. She hadn't been sure.

Telford's previous orders obviously had been for his gunman to find out who was firing at them, but those orders had now changed. An instant later, a bullet whined past her ear just as she caught a glimpse of a grey Stetson scarcely fifteen feet away. She returned fire, but heard her quarry scrambling to one side and knew she'd missed.

Damn! She didn't have time for this. She needed to keep watch over Samson until she could drive these men away.

She strained her ears, listening for the scrape of a booted sole on gravel, or the rasp of clothing against stone. Nothing. Cautiously, breathing shallowly with gun at the ready, she began to move in the direction she thought he'd gone. Suddenly there was a scrape to her right. Delilah whirled, saw a man coming around a boulder scarcely ten feet away and fired instinctively. To her horror the bullet struck him in the forehead and she found herself staring into wide, disbelieving blue eyes as the man slowly crumbled to the ground. As though his gaze had somehow been locked upon her, his dead eyes continued to stare directly at her.

Oh, Lord! She'd killed a man. Closing her eyes, she clutched her stomach to still its sudden rebellion, and then turned quickly away.

"Did you get her, Canfield?" Telford demanded.

Regaining her position at the boulder, Delilah looked down into the canyon. "Your man is dead, Telford," she shouted, not bothering to try to disguise her voice. Firmly shunting aside the picture of the dead man's face, she decided to turn his death to her advantage—if she could. "You've got two minutes to mount up and get out of here,
without
Mr. Towers, or you'll be joining Mr. Canfield.” She prayed they'd heed her threat because she wasn't at all sure she could kill again. Listening to their movements, glancing down every couple of seconds, she reloaded her weapons and waited.

Two of the wounded men had dragged themselves over to their horses and appeared to be leaving. Telford was talking heatedly to the man supporting Samson. Then, he drew his pistol and aimed it at Samson's head.

No! Without a second of hesitation, Delilah pointed the Winchester and fired.

"Son-of-a-bitch!” The gun flew from Telford's grasp as he cradled his arm against his body.

Knowing now that they planned on killing Samson, Delilah was through with giving them time. She kept firing. Kept the pressure on. Until. . . finally. . . Telford and the rest of his men ran for their horses.

Samson stood swaying almost drunkenly on his feet. "This isn't over yet, Towers," Telford yelled. "You're a dead man."

Then the men spurred their horses toward the canyon entrance. At the last moment, one of them turned, Winchester in hand, aiming at Samson. Again Delilah fired, and this time her target was too far away for her to check the shot. He flew out of his saddle while his horse continued on.

Dead? She didn't know. And, with her concern for Samson crowding all other thought from her mind, at the moment she didn't care. As soon as his tormentors were out of sight, Samson sank slowly to his knees and then simply keeled over to lay on his side. Was he unconscious? She prayed not, for how would she get him out of this canyon if he was?

Delilah didn't know how long it took her to work her way down from the ridge. She found the trail that Telford's man Canfield had used, but at times she had to lower herself gingerly from one ledge to another. In other instances she was able to scurry down narrow paths, sending small rocks and gravel crashing down ahead of her. No matter how quickly the descent was accomplished though, with worry and fear gnawing at her, it seemed like forever. Finally, she knelt at Samson's side.

Delilah sucked in a breath. His face was a bloody mess of torn and bruised flesh. His nose looked broken. Both his eyes were swollen almost shut. There was a jagged cut along his neck, right over the jugular vein, deep but not fatal. It looked as though they'd been taunting him with the possibility of a quick death. Her gaze roamed lower, taking in his bruised and battered torso. A broken or dislocated finger on his left hand. A jagged cut through his denims that had drawn blood on his thigh. For a moment, overwhelmed by the extent of the maltreatment he'd suffered, Delilah could only stare. It would be a miracle if he didn't have any broken ribs. And he would almost certainly have a couple of cracked ones. How would he ride? How could she even hope to get him on a horse?

And then, a groan from Samson spurred her to action. She had to stop the bleeding and then get him somewhere where she could tend him properly. Spying his discarded blue chambray shirt and black bandanna laying in a careless heap on the ground, she ran toward them. The shirt was already a tattered rag, so she certainly couldn't do it any more harm by ripping it into strips. Hastily, she tied one strip of cloth around his bleeding thigh, and another around the cut in his throat. Then, she examined his ribs. They needed to be supported enough for him to ride. If she tied a number of strips from the shirt together, surely that would do the trick. She was in the process of doing that when Samson groaned again. "Samson?"

A frown puckered his brows as he tried to focus on her through eyes that were mere slits in swollen tissue. Then, he licked his parched and swollen lips. "Delilah?" he asked in a voice rusty with pain.

"Yes. I'm here. I'm going to help you."

He tried to shake his head, and then winced. "Go away."

His words hurt, but she refused to accept them. "I'll go away when you're better, if that's what you want. But right now you need me. Can you sit up? I need to bind your ribs."

Slowly, laboriously, leaning heavily on his right arm, Samson pushed himself into a sitting position. Without looking at him, without meeting the expression glaring from his swollen eyes, Delilah accomplished her task, binding his ribs tightly and then knotting the strips of cloth together to prevent their loosening. "There," she said. "Now, I have to get you somewhere where I can take care of you. Do you know anyplace?"

Turning sideways, he tried to rise. She quickly moved to help him. Once again, he rebuffed her, so she stood back and let him make the attempt on his own. He didn't make it. Falling back with a curse, he stared up at her. The next time she extended her arm, he didn't refuse it though she knew it galled him to accept her aid.

"Is there some place we can go while you heal?" she asked again.

He nodded, slowly, painfully. "Yeah. There's an old miner's cabin," he gasped as though every word, every breath was agonizing, "about three miles West of here. Did you see. . . a rock that looked a bit like a hat sitting on top of a hill?"

Delilah thought back. "Yes. I think so."

He nodded slightly. "The cabin is right below that rock."

"I'll find it," Delilah promised. "Can you ride."

"I'll damn well ride out of here," he muttered. "Goliath?"

Delilah nodded. "He's here. So are three other horses they left behind.” She didn't bother pointing out that two of these were the horses to which they'd had Samson tied. The third was probably Canfield's horse. He wouldn't be needing it anymore. Since each horse was carrying a small amount of supplies or a bedroll, Delilah intended to take the beasts with them.

As though he'd heard his name, Goliath came clopping over; he was still saddled and bridled. The wild look in his eyes and the nervous rippling of his hide made it obvious that the big horse was spooked. He nudged Samson's arm gently and Samson grabbed his bridle, patting the big horse's neck reassuringly before working his way painfully back to the stirrup.

"Do you need help?" Delilah asked.

He shook his head. "I think I know how to get on a horse by myself," he returned coldly, deliberately misunderstanding her.

Nodding but keeping a watchful eye on him, Delilah turned to the task of stringing the other horses together. All of them remained saddled and bridled so Telford had doubtlessly planned to move on before making camp this evening. When she noted that Samson had managed, by pure force of will, to pull himself into the saddle, she mounted the smaller of the three horses and came along side Goliath.

"We have to stop just outside the canyon for a moment," she said to Samson. "I need to get Jackpot and my supplies."

Refusing to acknowledge her words in any way, Samson merely peered straight ahead through slitted eyes. His body was hunched and tilted in a way that made it obvious that he was in terrible pain, probably from the ribs on his left side. But since there was little she could do for him without her supplies and she wanted to get him to safety and shelter before his body stiffened up or he lost consciousness, Delilah moved out.

By the time they came into sight of the cabin, it was almost completely dark. Samson had been hanging on the edge of consciousness for some time, and a while back, and Delilah had been forced to take Goliath's reins to lead him. Yet somehow, even as injured as he was, Samson had managed to stay in the saddle. Now, spying the small dark cabin, Delilah chafed at the passage of time, wanting nothing more than to urge the horses forward at a quicker pace, but knowing that, for Samson's sake, she could not. Finally, though, they reached it, and Delilah leapt from Jackpot's back.

The cabin was constructed of logs. It had a sagging front porch with a protective roof. A coal oil lantern and a metal box of wooden matches hung next to the door. Delilah quickly lit the lantern and opened the door. A musty smell greeted her, but she ignored it. A hasty inspection revealed a single large bed, a wood stove, an old table, and three wooden chairs that had obviously seen better days. It would do just fine.

Leaving the lamp hanging on a nail stuck into one of the porch roof supports, she returned to Samson's side. "Samson?” She had to call him twice more before he roused. "We're here. Can you get into the cabin?"

After getting Samson into the house—where Poopsy took up residence beside him on the old bed, refusing to budge from his side—Delilah hastily unloaded all the supplies from the horses. Then she led the animals around to a lean-to attached to the side of the cabin where she unsaddled them and got them settled in. Thank heavens the lean-to had had some hay stores in it because Delilah hadn't the time to waste seeking food for them. And there was enough rain water in the bottom of an old trough to keep the beasts content for a time. Later, once Samson was cared for, she'd worry about filling it with fresh water for them.