Bittner, Rosanne (6 page)

He
felt a hot sting across his left arm. Piss on it. If he was hit, he was hit.
That wasn't going to stop him! He was going after that redheaded woman, and he
was not about to have to worry about one or more of these men following.

It
seemed to take forever to get at least halfway down the rocky ledge. He took
cover behind the plentiful supply of boulders, spotted one man behind a small
tent. That tent would never stop a bullet. He took aim, fired. Someone on the
other side of the tent cried out. Good. If that one wasn't already dead, he'd
finish him off later. Now there were only two left. He turned and pressed
against the boulder, taking a minute to get his breath, and looked down at his
arm. There was blood on the sleeve, but he could tell by the feel of it when he
moved the arm it was just a crease. There was no bullet in there. What the
hell? It was too damn hot today to die, so he had nothing to fear.

"Who
is there?" someone called out in Spanish.

"Texas
Ranger!" he answered. "Give yourselves up! There are more of my men
coming," he lied. "Give up now and we'll go easy on you!" He
heard a string of expletives then, about Texas Rangers.

"Why
do you kill us?" the Mexican asked. "We have done nothing wrong. You
can see we were only camped peacefully here."

"You
raided a ranch up in Texas, took horses and cattle, took a woman!"

"Oh,
no,
señor,
" the man answered. "We have done no such
thing."

"Tell
me where they took the woman and I'll go away and leave you alone!" John
told them. "I just want to find the woman! I know you already sold some of
the cattle and horses. Who did you sell them to?"

"Señor,
truly
we did not do this."

"I
don't have time for your goddamn lies!" John began firing a flurry of
shots at the spot where the voice came from, behind a pile of brush and rocks.
He saw a movement to the right of that. A man was running toward the tent. He
fired, and the man dropped without a sound.

"There's
just you now, Mexican!" he shouted. "You're all alone! Come on out
and I'll go easy on you. I just want to know where the woman is."

"Who...
who are you, Ranger?"

John
kept his rifle aimed steadily at the place where the man hid. "John
Hawkins!"

There
was a moment of silence. "Holy Virgin Mary!" the Mexican finally
said. He put up his hands, came slowly from behind the rocks. "They are
taking the woman to a meeting place on the coast,
señor,
" he
shouted. "Truly I tell you the truth. If you hurry, you can catch up with
them before they get there. Once they do, there is a whole village of traders
and Comancheros. You will never be able to help her then. There would be too
many of them."

"Throw
down your gun," John demanded.

The
Mexican obeyed, and John slowly came out from behind the boulders. He heard
someone groan—probably the one behind the tent, he thought. He scuttled down
the rest of the narrow pathway and approached the Mexican, who stood very
still, his eyes wide with fright. Apparently he had heard about John Hawkins.
"How many are there with the woman now?" John asked.

The
Mexican swallowed. "Only six more,
señor."

"Did
they rape her?"

The
Mexican began to tremble. "Only one,
señor."

"Did
you
rape her?"

The
Mexican quickly shook his head, so hard that his chubby cheeks jiggled.
"No,
señor!
I did not do this."

"Is
there a special place where they'll hole up?"

"
Sí
,
Señor Hawkins. We were going to meet them there. It is only another day's ride,
on the Rio de Bavisque. There is some shade there, and the river, she is a good
water supply."

"Who
did you sell the cattle to?"

"I
do not know,
señor.
A man, he just met us. We were not supposed to know
his name. He was tall and dark,
señor,
with a big, hook nose. Very thin.
That is all I can tell you."

John
nodded, then fired the rifle. The startled Mexican stumbled backward, his eyes
wide with disbelief.
"Señor,
I... helped... you!"

"You
watched those men rape a helpless woman. Besides that, I can't afford to have
you along when I meet up with your friends on the Rio de Bavisque."

He
turned away. The man would be dead shortly. He walked over to the tent, where a
Comanche renegade lay writhing in pain from a bullet in his belly. The man
looked at him as though to beg him to put him out of his misery. John just shook
his head. "I need the ammunition," he said. "Why waste it on the
likes of you? You'll die eventually, anyway.

He
turned away and climbed back up the precarious pathway out of the canyon. He
had to get his horse and get going. Maybe he could reach the woman by tomorrow
noon if he hurried.

Tess
wondered who she hated more, the men who had abducted and raped her or her own
husband. It was not likely Abel could have done anything to help her in the
end, but the memory of his cowering under the bed burned in her heart and made
her head ache. She had married him partly for his kindness and gentleness, but
little did she know he was gentle to the point of being a coward. She felt
guilty over her feelings toward him, considering how horribly he must have died,
yet she could not help the disappointment and literal shock over how he had
behaved. Maybe someday, when this was over, she could find a way to forgive
him, and to forgive herself for hating him.

She
tugged at the rope that kept her wrists tied tightly together and then was tied
to a wagon wheel. These men apparently had planned everything well, for not far
back they had come upon two wagons full of supplies, which she had no doubt
were stolen. The men driving the wagons had been waiting for those who had
abducted her, and now they were already across the border in Mexico. She had
given up all hope of being rescued when the first bunch of renegades had split
up not long after taking her, the others taking the stolen livestock with them.
She knew the fact that they had divided themselves would make it more difficult
for someone to follow.

And
who
would
follow? The Army was not allowed to come into Mexico, not even
the Texas Rangers were supposed to come here. What man would bother to risk his
neck in such desolate country for one woman?

Her
abductors had forced her to walk naked in the sun, just long enough to burn her
skin to painful irritation. They obviously wanted her to be uncomfortable, out
of pure meanness, maybe to keep her hurting too much to try to escape.

She
longed for water, had asked for it several times and had received none. And so
far they had fed her nothing. They were deliberately keeping her in a weakened
state so she would have little fight left in her. But so far she had fooled
them. She had kicked and spit and bitten and defied them in every way possible.
If she had a knife she would gladly cut their throats! She refused to think
about what they had done to her. She didn't dare fully acknowledge the reality
of it. Not right now. Survival came first.

So
far neither Chino nor the others had raped her again. They seemed to be saving
her, and she didn't even want to guess for what, nor had they told her. They
spoke mostly in Spanish, three of them in the clipped tongue of the Comanche.
Those three she was almost sure were full-blood Indian. Three others, including
Chino, were Mexican, but Chino looked as though he also had Indian blood. It
was hard to tell. The two men who had met them with the wagons brought to eight
their number, all mean and well armed. How she was going to get out of this,
she was not sure, but she would damn well keep thinking about it. It was the
only way she could keep her sanity.

"Hey,
pretty one, how you doing?" One of the Mexicans approached her with a
canteen. "The boss, he say you can have water now. You want a bath?"
He grinned, licking his lips. "I help you take a bath."

She
sat there, wrapped in a blanket, and he opened it to have a look at her. His
grin grew wider. "You will bring a good price when we sell you." He
poured a little water over her head and face, and she licked at it desperately.
He laughed. "Put your head back and I give you a drink."

Tess
obeyed, but he poured only a little bit into her mouth, making her feel wild
with a desire for more. "Please," she asked, hating to have to beg.
"Just a little more."

The
man grunted in laughter, and Tess fought tears, refusing to cry in front of any
of them. They would love that, she was sure... but oh, how she
needed
to
cry. "Please," she asked again.

He
trickled a little more into her mouth. "Someday maybe you will beg Juan to
give you more in bed, like you beg for the water now, no?"

She
held her chin defiantly. "You're a stinking coward, abusing a woman this
way! I want no coward in my bed!"

He
lost his grin, slowly corking the canteen. "Juan is no coward," he
told her. "Your husband,
he
was a coward! And
you
—where you
are going, you will soon learn not to have such a sharp tongue! You will wish
you
were
with Juan Rodriguez!"

She
spit on him, and Juan clamped a strong hand around her throat. "Where you
are going, someone will cut out your tongue to shut you up!"

"Juan!
Leave her alone!" The order came from Chino, the obvious leader of the
bunch of renegades. He was powerfully built, of medium height, and there was
pure cruelty in his eyes. One of those eyes had apparently been injured once in
a fight. There was an ugly scar beneath it, and the eye kept wandering off to
the left as though he could not control its movement. That eye made him
grotesquely ugly, which Tess supposed was why he was the way he was; but then
he had probably always been mean. His voice reminded her of gravel, it was so
rough, and he seemed not to have a spark of kindness or respect for a woman.

Chino
grabbed Juan's arm and gave him a shove. "Get away!"

Juan
shrugged him off and left, and Chino leaned closer. Tess's stomach turned at
the sight of him. It was Chino she hated most, Chino who had raped her. She
would probably never get over the shame and humiliation of it; she had never
thought it could be possible to hate this much, or possible for men to be such
animals. From what she had heard about Indians, these men were worse. Indians
supposedly tortured and killed as a kind of religion, taking strength from the
bravest captives, doing what they could to keep the white man out of their
territory. These men cared little about the land. They did what they did out of
greed and out of pure meanness.

"The
quieter you are and the more you obey, the kinder we will be to you,"
Chino told her.

"You
don't know the
meaning
of the word 'kind,' " she sneered.

Chino
just snickered. "Believe me, my fire-haired beauty, the way I have treated
you so far
is
kind, compared to what I have done to some. You be careful
with your tongue. I might soon tire of listening to your sass, and perhaps I
will
cut it out! Those who buy you would not mind having a woman who cannot
speak. Your fair skin and red hair will bring much money, and your inability to
speak could bring even more. I will consider it."

He
rose, and Tess wanted to scream. She already knew the man well enough to
believe he would do exactly what he threatened to do. She began to pray she
would die before she suffered any more of this horror.

"Someone
comes, Chino!" The shout came from one of the Comanche renegades keeping
watch. They were camped near a shallow river, and Tess longed to jump into the
water and feel its coolness. Her stomach cramped at the realization someone
else was joining them, for she was sure it was probably just another of the
outlaws own fetid kind.

She
watched him ride in, and immediately she lost all hope of his being someone who
had come to help her. He looked as Indian as any of them, wore only denim
pants, no shirt. He was dark, big, as mean looking as the others. His black
hair hung nearly to his waist and was worn loose, and he was well armed. The
others gathered around him, holding guns on him.