Desert Angel (22 page)

The Indian slowly lowered himself to the chair, his glance bouncing continuously between the woman and the man. Jim lowered the point of his rifle to the floor, but his very stance stated louder than words that he was prepared to attack at the slightest provocation.

He watched with amazed irritation as March serenely served the Indian, adding jelly to the golden biscuits and offering another bowl of beans. She talked to him quietly, even though he didn’t reply. But from the expressions that crossed the dark face, Jim was sure that the man understood everything she said.

Jamie squirmed in his bed, drawing everyone’s attention to him. March casually walked to the baby and lifted him from the crib. He was wet and hungry, which created its own dilemma. If she left to go upstairs to change and feed him, she knew that the two men would no longer refrain from attacking each other.

The Indian was desperate and would have no concern for his own life. Therefore he would fight with every bit of knowledge and skill he possessed. Jim, on the other hand, would be fighting to protect her and the baby. He would feel no compunction about killing the intruder.

March didn’t want Jim to be hurt or killed because of her. She also didn’t see any reason to kill the other man, simply because hunger had driven him to her back door.

Jamie whimpered and nuzzled against her full breasts. She turned and looked at Jim, who stood on the alert just inside the back door.

She’d never seen such determination on his face, even during his confrontation with Fred Hamner.

Never patient in the face of hunger and uncomfortable with a wet bottom, Jamie’s whimper became a cry as he arched against her.

“Take the baby upstairs,” Jim instructed gruffly.

“No.” She hugged the child tightly. “If I leave this room, I have no doubt that you two will try to kill each other.”

“March, do as you were told!”

“No,” she repeated defiantly. “I’ll not have you two fighting in my kitchen, tearing everything apart and leaving the mess for me to clean up.”

“A woman should do as her man tells her,” the Indian said quietly.

“A great time for you to prove that you know English,” March muttered as she patted the baby’s back.

A twinkle entered the black eyes as the Indian crossed his arms over his chest, his rifle clutched in his hand. His gaze moved across the room to Jim. “She is a giving woman, sharing her food with others in need, and I think she is a good mother, but is she always so sure to have her own way?”

Jim nodded in response. “She is generous to a fault, and my son could not have a better mother. But I have an old mule out back who’s only half as stubborn, and, until now, he’s the most stubborn creature I’ve ever seen.”

“If I were not running from your army, I would trade for her. She would be a wife to be proud of.”

“If it weren’t for my son’s need of her, I just might consider your trade,” Jim replied solemnly.

“Well, I never — I can’t believe — “ stammering with anger, March stamped her foot on the hard brick floor. “Trade for me? Trade for me! You arrogant … overbearing …
men
!”She said the word as if it were the greatest insult in the world.

“I refuse to stay here and listen to another minute of you talking like I’m some mare you want to possess. If you two want to kill each other, go ahead, you have my permission. I won’t try to stop you. But before you die, you had better take the time to clean up the mess you’ve made in my kitchen, or so help me I’ll … I’ll … well, I’m not sure what I’ll do, but you won’t like it!”

Clutching the baby and her remaining dignity to her, March walked past the two men and rapidly ascended the stairs. She was so angry that she slammed the bedroom door, before she realized that she wouldn’t be able to hear what was happening in the kitchen.

Well, let them kill each other, she fumed as she changed Jamie’s wet towel. Let them beat on each other until their fists are bloody and their bones are broken. She had done nothing more than to offer food to a hungry man. If they couldn’t live with that, that was their problem.

In the kitchen Jim casually leaned his rifle against the wall. It was a risk, but he didn’t think that the other man would attack unless pushed into a corner.

“Do you need some supplies to take with you?” Jim asked quietly.

“My journey was unplanned. The chance to go was there, so I left. It was a foolish thing to do, but I could no longer live on the place the white man says I must live. There is no food, the water is bad, and the young children cry for their mothers who have died.”

“It is wrong for your people to suffer,” Jim agreed. “I would invite you to stay here, to make this your home. But the army would come and take you away, and then they would punish me. I can, however, give you a grubstake and a good horse.” A smile creased his face. “If questioned, I can always claim that the horse got lost. Where will you go?”

“Some of my people still roam free in the mountains. I will try to find them.”

“I wish you luck. If the army comes, I’ll tell them you headed east.”

“I think you are a good man. You protect your woman and child, and have the wisdom of a warrior. We could be friends.”

“Another time, another place, I think we would be as brothers,” Jim agreed somberly.

“But now you must hurry before the army picks up your trail.”

Dark eyes traveled up the stairs. “She is a good woman, a gentle woman. Protect her from those who would use that against her.”

“I will.”

“Maybe I will return with many horses, and we will trade.”

“No, my friend.” His gaze also traveled to the stairs. He knew that March would be sitting in the rocking chair, lovingly nursing his son. Her voice would be gentle as she spoke to the baby, and the look on her face would be so filled with love that it was impossible to describe.

“You could come back with every horse ever to roam the desert, and you would still not have enough. She is my woman.”

FOURTEEN

Jim waited patiently at the buckboard for March. They were heading into town for the day. Since the confrontation with Fred Hamner they had made the trip several times, but this one was special. In fact, this time she was so excited about going that she had been all thumbs as she tried to ready the baby.

He knew that some of her excitement stemmed from the fact that she had written the supply list last night, with only a little help from him. He was pleased, but not surprised, at her progress with reading and writing. Never before had he seen someone so determined to learn, and that determination was paying off. She could now read simple books and could write in a childish scrawl that was improving day by day.

The only problem he could see was her spelling. It was atrocious. She spelled words by sound, totally ignoring the fact that some words had silent letters, and that she sometimes mispronounced words due to her gentle southern accent. Some of her errors were so bad that he wasn’t able to figure out what the word was supposed to be.

Jim grinned when he remembered their discussion the night before over a word. He still wasn’t convinced that she believed him when he had told her that shoe was not spelled with a
u.

He suspected that March and Mazie Wright, who had befriended the younger woman, had some plans up their sleeves for the Fourth of July celebration. Jim was so pleased that Mazie had taken March under her protective wing in such a motherly fashion, that he could overlook her occasionally autocratic demeanor. March missed her mother, though she rarely mentioned it, and she badly needed a woman friend. Mazie willingly filled both positions.

He hadn’t apologized to March yet for his reaction the previous afternoon, when he’d walked into the kitchen and found the Indian eating at his table. Sometime during the long trip to town, he hoped to find the perfect opportunity to try to explain to her the danger she faced by so generously feeding total strangers. There were far too many drifters roaming around for her to continue opening her kitchen to them.

Not that it would do much good, he acknowledged wryly. March was too intimately aware of hunger to let anyone else do without, if she was in a position to prevent it. Maybe he’d be wiser to buy her a single-shot derringer that would fit into her apron pocket. She probably wouldn’t be able to hit anything with it, but the noise alone would send someone to investigate.

He grinned when he thought of her actually shooting someone. She’d be on her knees trying to patch them up before help could arrive.

His expression sobered as he watched Breed approach. The grim look on the foreman’s face warned Jim that he wasn’t going to like what the man had to tell him.

“We’ve found three more.” Breed stopped in front of Jim, his forbidding expression deepening.

“Like the others?” Jim questioned.

“Two cows and a calf, shot once through the head. Figure it happened sometime early yesterday or the afternoon before. Another calf was still beside its mama. We heard it crying, and that’s how we found them. The calf was too far gone to save. I had to put it down.”

“Damn!” Jim swore softly. Someone was almost systematically killing his herd. One of the cowhands had discovered the first carcass a couple of weeks earlier. Since that time, they had found eighteen more. Breed’s latest find increased the count to twenty-one, plus the calf that had had to be destroyed.

Every rancher expected to lose a percentage of animals each season; the very young or the older ones who couldn’t survive the stress of a hard winter or hot summer. A few were killed occasionally by an itinerant family, or by a roving band of Indians on the run from the army. Jim could accept and even tolerate those losses, because the animals provided sustenance. So far, except for two or three calves, all of the dead animals had been young cows in prime breeding condition. These weren’t being killed for food; the carcasses were left where they fell.

“Did you find a trail?”

“Like all the others, nothing.”

Jim knew that Breed was frustrated because he couldn’t pick up a trail on the man or men doing the killing. They suspected that it was only one man, using a powerful rifle, perhaps a Sharps or a Winchester, that let him shoot at the animals from such a long range that no traces of his passing were left for evidence.

“Have any of the men heard anything in town?”

Breed shook his head. “Nobody’s talking about killings going on at other ranches, and nobody’s bragging about killing your stock. Whoever’s doing it seems to have a grudge against you and means to make you suffer.” The only man Jim could think of who might have hard feelings against him was Fred Ham- ner, but Fred wasn’t in the area. The elder Ham- ner had refused to join the rancher’s consortium, claiming that he didn’t want to lend his name to smaller outfits who were destined to go under. He had sent Fred East to locate outlets for his herd this fall.

“We’re going to have to move them closer in,” Jim stated quietly. He hated to move the herd,

but he knew of no other way to protect them. “And we’ll increase our night watch.”

“I started the men on it before I came in.”

“Good, that’ll save some time.” The horses hitched to the buckboard moved restlessly, reminding him of the planned trip to town.

He hated to disappoint March, but it would have to be postponed until another day. He couldn’t very well go into town and leave his men to do the work of rounding up the livestock.

“I’ll change clothes and meet you at the barn.” Without waiting for a reply, Jim turned and headed for the house.

He heard March humming cheerfully when he entered the kitchen, and found her packing a basket with food for their noonday meal. She smiled merrily when she saw him.

” ‘Bout ready. All I need to do is gather up your son and all his belongings, and we can leave.”

“We’re going to have to go another day, angel,” he said softly, watching the smile leave her face. “There’s been some trouble and I’m needed here.”

“Trouble?” March stopped tucking the towel in around the edge of the basket. “What kind of trouble?”

“Nothing serious,” he replied lightly. “There’s always something coming up unexpectedly on any ranch operation and sometimes only the boss can make the necessary decisions.”

He began unbuttoning his shirt as he walked past her. “I’m sorry to disappoint you. I know how much you looked forward to the day in town. We’ll go tomorrow or the next day.”

“Don’t worry about me. It’s not your fault that you’re needed here.”

Jim had seen her quickly masked disappointment, and his respect for her increased when she didn’t try to force him to change his mind. He’d make it up to her, he decided, as he climbed the stairs. Maybe he’d take her into Tucson. They could make it an overnight trip and he’d take her to supper at the nicest restaurant in town.

When he returned to the kitchen March was talking with Hank. Jim stopped long enough to ask the old man to unhitch the team from the buckboard, and to tell March not to wait supper for him. Locating several hundred head of cattle strung out over several hundred acres of land was going to take some time. And a lot of patience.

“Leave the wagon, Hank,” March instructed as Jim walked out of sight. “I think I’ll just go ahead into town on my own.