McCrory's Lady (41 page)

      
The hard obsidian gaze questioned her warily, but he knelt slowly, then lay down. Once he could no longer pierce her with his eyes, she felt a bit more steady. Cautiously, she stepped closer, steeling herself to do in cold blood what she had done the preceding night in blind panic. She raised the rifle stock; but before she could bring it down and crack him on the head, he rolled against her legs. With the speed of a striking rattler, he seized one slim ankle and threw her off balance.

      
Eden tumbled to the ground with a yelp of terror as her carbine went flying. He rolled on top of her, crushing the breath from her lungs. His lips curved into a grimace that might have been meant for a smile. He began to caress her body. She clawed and bit, thrashing beneath him, dreading the defilement that was to come.

      
Suddenly, a low feral growl erupted from the stable door and Rufus lunged at the guard. Man and dog rolled clear of Eden, locked in mortal combat. She could see the Apache struggling to free the knife at his belt as Rufus' fangs clamped savagely into his forearm. Eden scrambled quickly to where her carbine had fallen. She tried to use it as a club, but man and dog were thrashing too violently for a clean blow.

      
“Rufus, come!” she commanded just as the Apache freed his knife.

      
The dog released the Indian and jumped back, the glittering slice of the blade narrowly missing him. The guard yelled something in the guttural dialect of the Apache and Eden knew he was summoning help. Aiming the Spencer, she fired just as his knife again swept near the growling dog that stood between them.

      
With a sharp cry, the guard was thrown back against the rough planks of a stall. Red blossomed across his chest, but Eden did not take time to look as she raced past him, searching for Sunglow. “I don't know where you came from, Rufus, but your timing couldn't have been better.”

      
Locating her palomino, she murmured to the frightened horse as she led her from the stables. “No time for a saddle, girl.” Eden vaulted onto the mare's back and raced away, with Rufus at her heels. The sounds of angry voices yelling in English and Apache echoed across the compound as they streaked away. Her pursuers would be after her in seconds.

      
Wolf rode east from Globe, preoccupied with the murder of Sug Rigley. After several days of fruitless searching, he had met a hopeful prospector who had stumbled across the body lying in the bottom of an old mine shaft with his skull caved in. Colin would be disappointed, but perhaps he had learned something in Tucson. For now, all Wolf was concerned about was seeing that Eden was safely back at Crown Verde before they pursued Win Barker and his murdering cohorts any further.

      
Looking into the bright morning sun, he could see the bleak silhouette of the post in the distance. Then, the sound of a shot, followed by hoarse yelling, broke the stillness. Wolf recognized Eden's gleaming silver-gilt hair streaming out behind her as she lay low against Sunglow's neck, racing breakneck away from the stable with her big red dog flying beside her.

      
He saw the reservation police, recognizable in their makeshift uniforms, converge on her, several sweeping down from the hills to the north, two more cutting her off from the south. Mounted Coyoteros seemed to materialize from all across the reservation, chasing Eden, but not firing their weapons. What the hell had happened?

      
With a curse, Wolf kicked his big roan into a gallop. Before he could reach her, she had been intercepted. He reined in just as he reached the milling band of police who had surrounded the palomino.

      
“Why are you pursuing McCrory's daughter?” Wolf asked their leader in the Athapaskan dialect.

      
“The agent has said he wants her returned unharmed to him. He gave us no instructions about you,” the hard-eyed Coyotero replied.

      
“Wolf, Lamp has Dr. Torres. Two dying Apaches, Tome and Echiva, told us he enslaved them—and dozens of others—to work in the coal mines.”

      
“Tome is my cousin,” one of the police said in English. “I have not seen him in two moons.”

      
“That's because he was forced to dig in the mine for Lamp until the smallpox struck. The guards there fled, and the slaves brought their sick to Dr. Torres,” Eden said, looking around the motley group of police.

      
“You all know the doctor, don't you?” Wolf asked. According to Colin, Torres had worked tirelessly among the Apache for years.

      
One man spat in disgust. “He is white and the whites bring us their diseases.”

      
“But this woman has come among you to help. She nurses sick Apaches, and when she found out your agent was an evil man, enslaving reservation men, she tried to stop him.”

      
There was low murmuring among the police. “What the half-blood says is true. She is a medicine woman who taught my sister how to tend the sick ones.”

      
“Echiva was taken from my old village by Lamp's white guards,” another added.

      
“We work for the agent. He pays us with fire water and fine ponies,” their leader yelled out, but several others chorused their agreement with the dissenters.

      
“The Yellow Hair's medicine is strong.”

      
“His heart is good.”

      
“Have any of you seen the men who were sent to work in the mines? Do you know they were forced against their will—beaten, starved?” Eden asked. Several shook their heads.

      
“Will you sell your warrior's honor for ponies and whiskey while your brothers die at the agent's hand?” Wolf could sense the tide turning in their favor as the muttering grew louder and the leader and a couple of his lieutenants were shouted down.

* * * *

      
Back at the post, Caleb Lamp extracted a leather-wrapped bundle from behind several loose adobe bricks in the wall of his office. He carried it to his desk and unfolded a ledger. As he flipped through it, making notations, Aaron Torres watched with narrowed green eyes.

      
“Tallying up what Barker owes you?” he asked from the corner where he lay, bound hand and foot.

      
“Quiet, or I’ll gag you,” Lamp said with a menacing glare.

      
“Since you plan to kill me, I scarcely think a gag is much of a threat,” Torres replied with surprising calm. If only Eden had escaped. Earlier this morning he had heard the guards report their failure to find her to Lamp, but a scant half hour ago a shot had rung out followed by a considerable commotion. As he waited, fearful for her life, nothing more had happened. He was daring to hope again. Lamp was obviously preparing to flee in any case.

      
“Barker isn't going to pay you, Lamp. Don't be a fool. You've become a liability. Too greedy,” he taunted.

      
“I told you to shut up,” Lamp replied savagely, rising and walking over to where Torres lay to deliver a vicious kick to his ribs. The physician curled in a ball, coughing as the air rushed from his lungs.

      
Just as Lamp prepared to strike another blow, the door flew open and Wolf stepped inside, his Colt leveled on the agent. “Don't,” was all he said, motioning Lamp back against his desk, away from the doctor.

      
Eden rushed in behind him and knelt beside Torres. “Oh, Doctor, how badly are you hurt?”

      
“I have a lump the size of a hen's egg on my skull and some very sore ribs, but I’ll survive,” Torres said as she struggled with the ropes binding him.

      
“Well, what have we here?” Wolf asked, glancing at the ledger Lamp was trying to shield with his body as he leaned against the desk.

      
“That ledger contains the real evidence of his deals with Barker—he had it hidden in the wall. I think he was planning to blackmail Barker and his cronies with it,” Torres said as Eden helped him sit up.

      
“Colin will really be interested in this.” Blake whistled low as he shoved Lamp into a chair and turned the ledger so he could glance through it. “Doc, how'd you like to use the ropes he tied you up with to truss up this patient?”

      
“My greatest pleasure,” Torres replied as he stood, stomping his legs to restore circulation. He took the length of scratchy hemp from Eden and approached Lamp. “I heard a shot and sounds of pursuit,” he said, looking at Eden as he bound Lamp's hands.

      
Eden bit her lip as she recalled her Apache attacker's blood-soaked chest. “I killed one of his reservation police when I was trying to escape. He...he attacked me.”

      
“It's an ugly story, Doc,” Wolf interrupted.

      
“But you did escape, Eden. That's all that matters,” Torres said as he finished tying Lamp.

      
“Thanks to Wolf—and your work among the Apaches,” she replied, quickly explaining how between them they had persuaded the reservation police to release her. “Then Tome's cousin and two other men disarmed Lamp's defenders and rode to the mines. Once they see what went on there, I don't think there will be any more workers recruited by force from anywhere on White Mountain,” she concluded.

      
“Especially not now that the agent here's being relieved of his job,” Wolf added, giving Lamp a chilling smile. “I think you have a date with a jail cell in Prescott.”

      
“No one'll believe you. It's my word against yours—'n you're a breed,” Lamp said contemptuously, although his eyes betrayed the fear he was fighting to conceal.

      
“They'll believe me, I imagine—and Eden,” Torres said in a steely tone. “Let me check on my patients here and then I'll ride with you to deliver the agent to the sheriff.”

      
“I think we should take these books to Father in Tucson as soon as Lamp is locked up,” Eden said.

      
“We?” Wolf eyed her with a mixture of admiration and exasperation.

      
“Yes, we. Don't you want to keep me under your protective wing?” she called over her shoulder as she followed the doctor out of Lamp's office.

      
“Barker plays for keeps, Eden. I don't want you anywhere near him. Remember what I told you about Sug Rigley?”

      
“All the more reason for us to stay together. Either I go with you or I ride back here to help the doctor,” she said, turning to face him. “I'm not going to sit home at Crown Verde and repine in the middle of a crisis.”

      
Wolf could not stop himself. Right in the middle of the post filled with people, he pulled Eden into his arms and kissed her fiercely, trying to communicate all the love, the need, the fear that swamped his senses. She returned his kiss with fire, feeling the life-affirming warmth of his flesh pressed against hers. Nothing would ever separate them again.

      
When he finally came to his senses and realized where they were, he released her, whispering against her neck, “You win.”

      
“We both will, just you wait and see, Wolf,” she said, caressing his cheek.

      
Within the hour four riders headed to Prescott. Eden and the doctor rode first while Wolf kept guard on the very reluctant Caleb Lamp, with Rufus loping beside them.

* * * *

Tucson

      
Colin stepped into his hotel room and closed the door, struggling to control the furious surge of jealousy that made a red haze shimmer before his eyes. The trembling was not only from anger but also from hurt. He forced the pain aside and focused his wrath on the foppish Englishman who had been holding his wife. “Am I interrupting something, Fletcher?”

      
“Colin, you're mistaken.” Maggie stepped between them, placing her hand on his arm.

      
He brushed her hand away as if it were a poisonous centipede. “I’ll deal with you later, wife.”

      
Fletcher stood his ground against his larger antagonist, sensing the leashed fury in the big Scot. “I've just come to tell Maggie good-bye, McCrory. What you saw was quite innocent—at least on her part. I offered to take her with me to San Francisco. The lady declined.”

      
“And she was just kissing you good-bye?” Colin asked with a sardonic lift of his eyebrows.

      
“Just so. We are old friends, however much you might wish it otherwise.” He met Colin's blazing gold eyes with his poker player's ice blue ones.

      
“How inconvenient that I happen to be her husband.”

      
“Do not hurt her, McCrory.” Fletcher's voice was very soft, each word precisely enunciated.

      
Maggie watched the exchange between the two men with growing alarm. Both of them were dangerous, on the verge of exploding. Colin was wearing his Army Colt and Bart always carried a gun hidden inside his jacket. “This is absolutely insane! Bart, I'll be fine. Please leave before someone is hurt.” She implored him with her voice and her haunted blue eyes.

      
“You take care, Megs—and remember what I said.”

      
“Good-bye, Bart. I'll never forget you,” Maggie said with tears choking her voice. He nodded with a forced jauntiness that broke her heart.

      
Placing his fancy planter's hat on his head, he turned to the door. “She's made her choice, McCrory. I only pray she doesn't live to regret it.” Bart could not face Maggie's tears. With one last warning look to the Scot, he left the room, closing the door softly behind him.

      
Silence pooled between them as Maggie fought to regain control over her emotions. Dr. Torres had told her that rampant mood swings were to be expected in her condition, but the physician had no inkling about the situation between her and Colin—even before this latest fiasco.