Cherish (4 page)

There was Cookie, his biscuit roller. Cookie had snow on his roof—where he wasn’t plumb bald—and not much of a fire still burning in his grate. An older, grandfatherly type with a heart of gold, that was Cookie. His worst vices were chewing tobacco and telling whoppers about the amazing things he used to do in his younger days. He still liked to talk about the ladies, of course. But Race figured it had been at least a decade since the old fart’s pistol had cleared leather. No question about it, Cookie would be the perfect person to play nursemaid to a pretty young woman.

Convincing Cookie of that might prove to be a problem, though. Somehow, Race couldn’t see it happening, and Cookie was just ornery enough to collect his pay rather than get pressed into service.

Ideally this young lady should be settled in with relatives until she got well. An aunt, maybe. Hell, even a distant cousin would be a leg up on the present situation. She surely had family somewhere, people who loved her and would take her in. She’d probably get well a lot faster if she had familiar faces around her. With any luck, maybe she and her folks had been journeying west to join relatives who had already settled out here. Only where?

Retrieving his Henry, Race pushed to his feet. Someplace in all this rubble, there’d be a journal that could tell him where she harkened from and where she and her parents had been headed. All caravans kept a roster and daily record. Unfortunately, even if Race found a journal, he wouldn’t know it. He couldn’t read a lick, and none of his men could, either. He recognized only a few letters of the alphabet, mainly those used in cattle brands, the Rock
ing Y and the Circle D and the Triple M, to name a few. A lot of good that did him.

What in the hell was he going to do with her? It wasn’t that he resented the inconvenience. In this country, a man got used to helping folks, his hope being that the favor would be returned if he ever got in a fix himself. It was just that a pretty young female didn’t mix well with a bunch of lonesome cowboys. Sort of like dynamite and a lighted lucifer.

Not only that, but it was Race’s observation that messing with an unmarried woman, no matter how good the reasons, was a damned good way for a man to end up married whether he wanted to be or not.

Galvanized by the thought, he turned a full circle, searching the horizon in all directions. There had to be another woman somewhere in these parts. But try as he might, he couldn’t think of a single one. Between here and his ranch, a two-week ride to the north, it was mostly open country, the only dwellings along the way a few lean-to cabins belonging to trappers. Pretty much the same held true along the trail from Arkansas that he had just traveled, the only exceptions a couple of trail stops operated by bachelors. Four days ago, he and his men had passed a cabin with a dress hung out to dry on the front porch, but that was the only sign of a woman Race could recollect seeing in nearly a week.

Four days back?
Hell’s bells
. Before he could get the girl to that cabin, he’d have every freckle on her fanny memorized. And after riding all those miles to find her a nurse, it would be just his luck that she’d recover her senses about the time he got her there. Where would be the point? No matter how he circled it, he would have to care for her between here and there, anyway. So he might just as well keep heading for home and save himself a lot of aggravation.

Not one to fret long over things he couldn’t change, Race took a deep breath, mentally jerked himself up by his boot straps, and turned to survey the group of nearly destroyed wagons, one of which he would have to commandeer to transport the girl back to his herd, and from
there to his ranch.
His ranch
? That was a highfalutin term, now that he came to think on it. Next spring, he planned to start construction on a house. But for now, all he had was a one room cabin, a bunkhouse for his men, a rickety old barn and some outbuildings, with a few horse corrals and cattle chutes mixed in.

He made a quick tour of the encampment, examining the wagons.
Buckets of junk
. The only one still held together with more than a hope, a prayer, and precious few rusty rivets was the wagon the killers hadn’t had time to rip apart, and even it was in sorry shape. By the time he got a decent means of transportation assembled and had hitched the two surviving oxen into the traces, he was flat tuckered, it was damned near dark, and the girl felt as cold as death when he went to get her. The quilt hadn’t provided her with enough protection. Some caretaker he was proving to be.

Resting his Henry against a wagon wheel, he went to search through the rubble again, his boots slapping the parched earth in impatience as he collected every stitch of bedding he could find. After fashioning a pallet in the wagon bed, he returned to get the girl, drawing the quilt off of her and carrying her quickly across the clearing.

Just as he planted his boot on the backboard of the wagon, a section of the tailgate exploded, splinters of rotten wood pelting him in the face. Almost simultaneously, the report of a rifle exploded in the twilight. Reacting instinctively, he dropped like a felled tree. Catching his weight with his forearms, he landed in a sprawl over the girl, using his body to shield her. Another bullet zinged past his jaw, coming so close he felt his whiskers stir. Dirt shot up.

Tears streaming, he balled a fist and rubbed frantically at his eyes, horribly aware that bullets were striking the earth all around him, chunks of clay stinging him through his shirt.
Christ on crutches
. He felt like a bale of hay at a shooting match.

Stupid, so stupid
. He’d had a feeling from the first that the killers were still in the area. Then he’d found the girl and relaxed his guard, thinking hers was the presence he’d
sensed. He
knew
better than to ignore his hunches. Why hadn’t he taken more precautions? He’d even left his rifle leaning against the wagon, a good five feet away.

Clasping the girl tightly in his arms, he rolled under the wagon and crawled like a panicked crayfish to the far side, dragging her limp body with him. Even with the wagon bed to provide cover, slugs of lead still plowed into the dirt around them.

Crab walking and rolling, he drew the girl into the clearing, then leaped up and pulled three trunks to where she lay, forming a barricade to protect her. That done, he ran a loop around the clearing, dodging bullets as he jerked the dead farmers’ rifles from the wagon boots. En route back to the barricade, he detoured to retrieve his Henry as well. All totaled, he had six rifles hugged to his chest when he dove for cover behind the storage trunks, yet another indication that he had surprised the killers. No one would have left all these rifles behind on purpose. Weapons of any kind cost dearly, and a person of shady character could make a tidy profit selling them to Indians.

Only three of the confiscated weapons were repeaters, two fully loaded. The others were single-action, and God only knew where the cartridges for them might be. Luckily, he had plenty of extra ammo for the Henry in his saddlebags. He whistled shrilly through his teeth, and Dusty, trained from a colt to come at the signal, galloped across the enclosure.

As the horse slid to a stop near Race, the twilight exploded with more rifle shots, bullets thudding into the trunks and raising clouds of dust. Coughing and squinting against the burn, Race grabbed the buckskin’s reins and jerked the animal to his knees.

“Down!” he cried.

All the hours that Race had invested in training his horse paid off now. Dusty nickered in fear but obeyed the command, folding his back legs and rolling onto his belly. Race could only hope the trunks would shield the horse’s huge body. Exposing himself to the rifle fire, Race straddled the buckskin and dug through the saddlebags for his extra ammunition. When he’d gathered all the cartridges
he could find, he dove for cover again, then belly-crawled from one trunk to another until he found the most comfortable rifle rest.

Sighting in on the hillside above the clearing, Race finally had a few seconds to ponder the situation, and with the opportunity cane a question. Why had the bastards waited so long to start shooting at him? Race could only guess at an answer, the most likely being that the killers had hoped he knew the victims and that if they watched him long enough, he would eventually reveal the whereabouts of whatever it was they had been trying to find.

He cast a thoughtful glance over the clearing, noting the wagon contents that had been scattered everywhere, an indication that his first suspicion had been right on target. The men on the hillside had been searching for something. To back that up, there was also the condition of the women’s bodies, which bore signs that they’d been tormented before they died. When Race had first come upon the carnage, he had assumed the no-good polecats had tortured the women out of sheer meanness, but now another possibility came to mind. If the killers had come here hoping to get their hands on something, maybe they had prolonged the women’s agony in an attempt to make them or their husbands talk. If that were the case, though, why in the world had they killed everyone before getting the information they sought?

A chill crept up Race’s spine, for he knew the answer to that question the moment it entered his mind.
The girl
. The killers had probably been following this small group of wagons for a spell, waiting for the right moment to ambush the travelers. If they had, then they’d known of the girl’s existence and that they were leaving one person alive who could tell them what they wanted to know. By a twist of Fate or sheer luck, the girl must have been absent from camp when the attack occurred. Then Race had arrived, forcing the killers to hide. They’d obviously been watching him and the girl ever since, hoping Race knew the whereabouts of whatever it was they wanted. Now they realized he didn’t, and they meant to kill him so they could torture the girl for information.

Crazy, so crazy. What in the hell were they after? Race found it difficult to believe these poor dirt farmers had anything of value in their wagons. As for the girl, those murdering skunks would get their hands on her over Race’s dead body.

He recalled his vow to keep one bullet in reserve for the girl. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but realistically, he knew the odds were against him. By his calculations, there were sixteen men up there, maybe more. He was a damned good marksman—one of the best, even if he did say so himself—but no man was that good.

He glanced at his charge, who lay so deathlike beside him, her face a pale oval in the deepening twilight. If those men circled around him in the darkness, they could sneak up on him from behind. If they did, they would probably rush him, and he might have time to fire only one bullet.

For her sake, he had to make that one bullet count.

Race didn’t have enough hands. While firing one Colt
in the general direction of the hillside, he worked frantically to reload his other .45 and the Henry. He didn’t care if he hit anything. At this point, keeping the enemy busy dodging bullets while he replenished the rounds in his other two weapons was his main concern. The second he backed off, the bastards would be on top of him.

Since the shooting started, he’d lost track of time. The sun had slid behind the mountains, darkness had closed in, and one by one the stars had come out. Judging by their position, the actual time that had passed was probably closer to forty minutes, maybe an hour. If so, it had been the longest hour of his life. Trying to keep the girl safe, shooting almost ceaselessly, reloading with only one hand, and constantly searching the darkness for movement already had him drained. His back ached, and his arms trembled with exhaustion.

So far, he had hit only three men for sure. That left thirteen still out there, and the lulls between fire were few, which provided him with his only opportunities to reload.

A blessing though they were, the lulls worried him, one thought pounding away at him in the sudden silence. What were they up to? In their shoes, he’d be circling the encampment.

Race was in serious trouble, and he knew it. One against thirteen was damned rotten odds, even for a man used to fighting for what he got. When the enemy ad
vanced from two directions at once, he wouldn’t be able to cover himself from both the front and the rear.

Glancing over at the girl, Race grimly accepted the fact that he not only didn’t have enough hands, but that the two he did have were tied. Normally he wouldn’t remain behind a barricade, vulnerable to attack. He’d attempt to turn the tables. They would never expect a lone man to sneak up on them from behind, and with a little luck, he could take them out, one at a time, using his knife.

Only he didn’t dare leave the girl. If something happened to him, her fate would be sealed. He couldn’t allow that, knowing as he did what those animals would do to her.

The possibility that he might have to take her life hadn’t been far from Race’s mind since the shooting started, and with each passing second, it loomed as a bigger threat. God help him, he only hoped he had the guts to do it.

After reloading the Henry, Race resumed his firing position. The metal edge of the trunk was sharp and had creased his forearm, making his wrist numb. He kept seeking a more comfortable rest, but then the first thing he knew, he had his arm back in the same spot again. If he lost the feeling in his fingers, it would be a hell of a note.

A glint of metal in the moonlight caught his eye, and he swung the nose of his rifle to the right, sighting in on the spot and lightly touching his finger to the trigger.
Patience
. The best marksman in the world could pull a shot if he became too eager, and in a battle, there were seldom second chances. He peered at the spot where he’d seen metal flash, his eyes aching with the strain as he took a deep breath, exhaled, and went absolutely still.

After several seconds, his patience was rewarded by another mirrorlike flash.
Slow and smooth, easy does it
. He pulled the trigger, and the bark of his Henry exploded into the night. A man cried out in startlement and pain. Silence followed—a silence so thick that Race felt as if he could damned near sink his teeth into it.

That’s four
. And he’d gotten them all because their guns flashed in the moonlight. Race blackened the metal
on his own weapons. Reflective gun barrels had been the death of too many men. Granted, a nickel-plated Colt .45 in a silver-studded, hand-tooled holster was an attention getter, and a rifle with a carved, high-gloss stock and butt looked real fancy. But fancy wasn’t what separated a man from the boys. What counted was who walked away when the smoke cleared.

He would have bet his last gold eagle that those fellows on the hillside went in for fancy weapons. Lots of flash and short on brains. Looking mean was the only edge some men had.

Just as that thought went through his mind, Race heard the snick of a gun hammer behind him and slightly to the right. With the lightning-fast reflexes of a man who’d been slapping leather most of his life, he dove sideways and brought his Henry around.
Damn
. Just as he had feared, they had circled around behind him. All hell was gonna break loose in short order, with bullets coming at him from both directions. If he wasn’t Johnny-on-the-spot with a slug every time a man showed himself, he and the girl would be eating lead for supper.

Race jacked another cartridge into the chamber. Then, never taking his gaze off the wagons, he shoved forward on his belly to slap Dusty on the rump. “Hee-yaw!” he yelled.

To save the girl’s life, Race would have sacrificed the animal without a qualm. But with men firing at them from a standing position at such close range, the angle was all wrong for the horse to provide protection. That being the case, Race saw no reason to let the loyal buckskin be caught in the crossfire.

With a plaintive nicker, Dusty finally managed to lurch to his feet. Race sent the buckskin on his way with another slap on the rump, then sank back to the ground and drew the butt of the Henry snugly to his shoulder.

For the next few minutes, the explosive sound of gunfire became Race’s only reality, the reports of his weapons imploding against his eardrums. The enemy had come in behind him with a vengeance, and they were deliberately drawing his fire. At one point, Race felt sure he wasted
three bullets on a jacket and hat they draped over a tree limb.
The bastards
. There were so many of them, he had to react instantaneously to movement, and in the darkness, it was impossible to tell if his target was a man or a decoy. He emptied his Henry and one of his Colts, knowing as he began using the second handgun that time for him and the girl was about to run out. The thought made him feel sick, not so much for himself but for her.

From out of the darkness came a sudden burst of orange flame, and a bullet whizzed past Race’s shoulder, hitting the trunk behind him. He returned the fire, cracking off two shots in quick succession at the indistinct outline of a man’s torso. He never heard the first bullet hit. The second struck wood, making a solid
kerthunk
that echoed in the darkness.
Damn
. At this distance, how could he possibly miss?

Race fired three more times, and again he never heard the slugs hit their mark. The muted thud of a bullet embedding itself in flesh had an unmistakable sound, and he always knew when he’d hit a man.

Trickles of sweat ran from his forehead into his eyes. He blinked at the burn and swiped his shirt sleeve over his face. He had only one bullet left in the Colt, and no way in hell were the bastards going to give him a chance to reload. The minute they realized he was no longer returning their fire, they’d advance on him. The trunks and saddlebags would provide no protection when the sons of bitches were standing right on top of him. He’d be as defenseless as a duck in a barrel.

The rapid spat of a six-shooter suddenly broke the quiet, a spray of slugs coming so close that Race ducked his head. Then a sudden volley of shooting erupted from the opposite direction. Bullets spattered into the trunks and
pinged
on the brass strapping.

He cast a glance at the girl, knowing what he had to do. Blessed release, people called it. Race had heard tell of it all his life. In this country, sometimes a man had no choice but to kill a woman to spare her a worse horror. Until now, Race had always considered it a man’s duty to pull the trigger, if and when it became necessary. Only
it didn’t seem so cut-and-dried when you were the poor son of a bitch elected to do the honors. He had killed more men than he wanted to remember, but only because he’d had no choice. Afterward, no matter how deserving his victim, he’d always felt sick to his stomach.

How was he going to feel after taking the life of a golden-haired girl who looked more like an angel than a flesh-and-blood person?

The rushing sound of footsteps brought Race’s head back around. He saw the shadowy figure of a man running toward him. Reacting instinctively, Race took quick aim. But, no. If he wasted his last round on that sorry excuse for a human, the girl would be the one who paid for it.

He had only seconds left. Everything that was decent within him rebelled at the thought of what he had to do.

The strangest sensation came over him. On the one hand, he felt as if the seconds were flying by in a dizzying rush, but on the other, he felt like an ant crawling through sorghum, every move he made taking an eternity. As he turned toward the girl, the killer’s movements seemed sharp and clear and separate, like sketches on the slowly turned pages of a picture book:
bending his knee, pushing forward on the ball of his foot, thrusting out his opposite leg
. The man dipped his head to sight in on Race, his jowls shaking with each footfall, his hat bouncing and then resettling on his head.

Race could hear every beat of his own heart, every swish of his blood echoing against his eardrums like a loud whisper bouncing off canyon walls. He grabbed the girl. Her head lolled as he lifted her, the loosened strands of her golden hair gleaming like quicksilver in the moonlight and catching on his sleeve. Cupping his left hand over the side of her face, he drew her cheek to his chest. His hand started to shake as he pressed the barrel of the Colt to the underside of her chin.

Never had she looked more like an angel. That perfect face, sweetness and purity in every line. When he’d first seen her that afternoon, he’d thought she was too beautiful to draw breath. And now she no longer would.

Race hooked a thumb over the hammer spur, drew
back, and curled his finger over the trigger.

Do it
, he ordered himself. But his hand refused to obey. His arm began to tremble as he strained to pull back on the trigger.

Then another shot rang out. In his side vision, Race saw the man stumble and pitch forward in a sprawl. His hat, knocked from his head by the impact, rolled on its brim and landed just short of Race’s knees.

Dead
? Race couldn’t stop staring at the blood on the back of the man’s shirt. Who had shot him? Race hadn’t done it.
No bullets. No time to reload
. His thoughts dangled in his mind like snipped strands of wire, going every which way and curling back on themselves. Guns seemed to be going off all around him. But no one seemed to be shooting in his direction now.

Bewildered, he glanced first at one side of the arroyo, then at the other. In the darkness, he glimpsed the flare of gunfire on both slopes. Crossfire? Hallelujah! His men? They had heard the shooting and come to help him.

Race couldn’t believe it. Was afraid to believe it. In his experience, that was never the way life worked. Maybe he was dead. A bullet to the brain, so quick and painless, he hadn’t felt the hit, and now he was floating somewhere between heaven and hell, caught up in a crazy dream. That made sense. Sort of. Only the girl felt too real, her slight body soft and sweet where it pressed against him, her hair tickling his fingers like scissor-curled strands of silk ribbon, her breath forming a warm, moist spot on his shirt. Not only that, but his oversize vest had twisted around her, and one of her breasts thrust through the front opening, her chilled nipple as sharp-tipped as a screw shank under the layers of her clothing.

This was
real
. His men were truly up there.

Still dazed, Race stared down at the girl’s face, deciding then and there that maybe she really was an angel.

With the arrival of Race’s men, the killers ceased fire almost immediately and hightailed it, the tattoo of their horses’ hooves thunderous at first and then fading into the blackness. After their departure, the arroyo was cloaked
in silence—the same absolute silence that had so unsettled Race upon his arrival. No night birds. No crickets chirping. Not even the wind seemed to blow. But then, after the almost ceaseless percussions of gunshots exploding in the air all around him for so long, Race wasn’t sure he would be able to hear the raucous cry of a hawk directly above him.

A rushing noise moved through his head, sort of like a creek sounded from a distance, a high-pitched ringing filled his ears, and intersticed with all of that was the frantic repetition of one, singsong thought:
Don’t let her be dead…please, don’t let her be dead
.

Tossing aside his rifle, Race knelt beside the girl to make sure she hadn’t been hit since he’d laid her back down. He trembled like a palsied old man, dying a little with every sweep of his hands over her slender body, terrified that he might find a wet, sticky splotch of blood on her clothing. He was so relieved when he felt no trace of blood on her clothes that his breath stuttered from him, the sound ragged, partly a laugh and partly a sob.

In the wake of his relief came a crushing exhaustion, the weight of it making his arms feel leaden. Resting limp hands on his bent knees, he hung his head, his lungs grabbing for breath with tremulous rasps, his body quaking with shudders.
Okay. Both of them, okay. Thank God, thank God
. Tomorrow would come, after all, for him and for her. Another sunrise, another meal.
Life
. A man tended to take things like breathing for granted until he nearly died, and then the simplest things seemed wondrous.

The stupidest thoughts circled in Race’s mind—like how great johnnycake, burned on the bottom and raw on top, was going to taste for breakfast. Thinking of that—and, oh, yeah, of fresh-boiled coffee, poured from a sooty Arbuckle can, with grounds floating all through it—made him want to shout. No more complaining about the hardships of being on the trail. He’d shave without water, and be damned glad of the nicks because he could still bleed. And he’d bathe in muddy river water, no problem. And when his ass ached from saddle rub, he’d thank God he
could still feel pain. He was
alive
. In one piece. Safe. And so was she.