Shadow of the Hangman (20 page)

Chapter Thirty-seven

“Patrick!” Lorena yelled. She kicked her horse forward, and water cascaded from its high-stepping hooves. Behind her Sarah sat her mount, pointing, her mouth open in a soundless scream.

Patrick got to his feet, looking for his gun. The mustang had fallen onto its right side, and the gunbelt lay under the motionless body. He dropped to his knees, and his hands reached under the saddle. The holster was nowhere to be found.

Anyway, it was too late.

A huge man with a horrifically burned face pointed a rifle at Patrick's belly and said, “Get your hands in the air or I'll drop you right where you stand.”

Patrick saw Lorena struggle with another man, slashing at him with her riding crop. Suddenly, Lorena relaxed in the sidesaddle, but it was no submission. She kicked her horse into motion and was almost clear of her attacker when the man dived on her back, and the two hit the river, sending up fountains of brown water.

“Go get 'er, Luke,” Lum yelled, grinning. “Throw that filly.”

Lorena rose to her feet, and again her riding crop slashed at the tall man. He raised an arm to protect his face and waded close to her. When he judged the distance was right, the man backhanded the woman across the face, and she fell at his feet.

“Damn you, Lum!” Caldwell yelled. “The other one's getting away!”

Sarah had regained the bank, bouncing awkwardly on a frightened horse. Lum threw his rifle to his shoulder and fired. The bullet thudded into a cottonwood, and then Sarah was among the trees and out of sight.

“Let her go,” Lum yelled. “You've got the one we want.”

Patrick had been fishing again around his dead horse. This time he found what he needed: his round spectacles glinting on the river's sandy bottom. He settled the dripping glasses on his nose and yelled at Caldwell, “If you've hurt Lorena, I'll see you hang.”

“Told you it was her,” Lum yelled.

And Patrick knew with terrible certainty he'd made his second mistake of the morning.

“Oh, you poor dear, you're soaked, just soaked,” Dora said, her hand on Lorena's shoulder. “Lum, bring her to the fire and let's get her dry.”

Lum pushed Lorena to the fire, then pushed her onto her knees. He grinned at Dora. “When?”

“Soon,” Dora said. “But take her into the woods somewhere. I don't want to see it.”

“She's a beauty, though, ain't she?” Lum said.

“Yes,” Dora said, “she is very beautiful indeed.”

Lum looked at Caldwell. “After I'm finished you can have a taste.” He grinned. “If there's anything left of her by then.”

Caldwell said nothing, but he reached up, grabbed Patrick by his shirtfront, and dragged him off Lorena's horse. “What do you want done with him, Dora?” he said.

“And which O'Brien are you?” Dora said.

“Patrick. What do you want from us?”

“Much.” Dora smiled. “Much will be expected of you.” She waved a hand. “Tie him up, Luke, and put him in the cave with his brother. You'll be company for each other, Patrick.”

“My brother is being held prisoner here?”

“Not a prisoner. He's my guest, as you are.” After Patrick was dragged kicking into the cave, Dora smiled at Lorena. “Now we can talk woman to woman. Won't that be nice?”

“What do you want?” Lorena said. Her mouth was bruised and her bottom lip split and bleeding. “Ransom money?”

“Oh, dear, no,” Dora said. “I have much bigger plans for you.” She raised her slim, elegant hand and ticked off fingers. “And Jacob and Patrick and . . . Samuel and Shaun . . . and Shamus and baby Shamus.” Dora let her hand drop. “Oh, I have so many plans.”

Lum took a knee beside Lorena. With his forefinger he traced her porcelain skin from cheekbone to chin. When Lorena shrank from him, eyes filled with horror, he scowled and said, “You'll make it easier on yourself if you make nice to me. It won't hurt so much, you understand?”

“Lum, not yet,” Dora said. “Lorena and I have so much girlie talk to get through.” She kneeled. “Now, I just love your riding habit. English, isn't it? And the silk top hat is just too, too precious. Who is your dressmaker? Pray tell.”

“If it's not ransom money you're after, then what do you want?” Lorena said. Her voice was steady, but her eyes were bright with alarm.

“Ah, such a modern woman,” Dora sighed. “I do declare, all business, all the time.”

“What do you want?” Lorena said, her voice rising.

From inside the cave, Jacob yelled, “Leave her alone, damn you.”

Dora looked at Caldwell. “Keep him quiet. Don't kill him, but gag him with something.”

To Lorena she said, “You asked me what I want, and the answer, to state the case clearly, is revenge.”

“I never did anything to you,” Lorena said.

“No, you didn't, but your father-in-law did, and by proxy, your husband and now you.”

Lorena's eyes were frantic. “I don't understand,” she said.

“What's not to understand, my dear? Shamus O'Brien hanged my father as a rustler, and now it is my plan to destroy the gallant colonel and all he holds dear.”

“But . . . but why me?” Lorena said.

“Ah, because you are part of my plan, are you not?”

“Plan . . . ?” Lorena said. She'd been thinking of something else.

“Yes, my plan,” Dora said. She stared hard at Lorena again. “Now, how to explain it to a simpleton? Ah, yes, start at the beginning, I suppose. Well, listen, dearie. You're married, so you know what intercourse is? Huh . . . don't you? Or should I use that horribly common word? Do you know what that is?” Dora nodded, smiling. “Why, of course you do. I think I see a little blush on your pretty cheeks.”

“You're mad,” Lorena said.

“Mad with anger, mad with rage, whatever you want to call it. Yes, I agree. Now here's what's going to happen, and I apologize beforehand because I know it will be most unpleasant for you. You see Lum, standing there, grabbing his crotch? Yes, that's right, dearie, look at him. Why, just seeing the fear in your eyes makes me shiver all over. It really does.”

“Let me go,” Lorena said. “I'll say nothing of this.”

“Oh, that's quite impossible at the moment. But be of good cheer, we do intend to send you back to Dromore. But alas, you won't be the same person who left there this morning. Like me, you'll be quite mad, but in a different way, you understand?”

Now Lorena was genuinely scared. “What are you going to do to me?”

“I'm not going to do anything to you, my dear, but Lum is,” Dora said. “He's going to take the little princess into the dark woods and have his way with her until she's quite mad.”

“You're right about that, Dora,” Lum said. “I never had me a fine lady before, and I'm going to enjoy this one.”

“Bring her back here alive, Lum,” Dora said. “I don't want you dragging her dead carcass behind your horse.”

“Oh, I'll carry her, Dora,” Lum said. To Lorena he looked like a living, breathing monster from the worst kind of childhood nightmare.

Suddenly Dora looked bored. “Take her away, someplace far,” she said. “I don't want to see or hear your damned rutting.” She stood. “Wait, strip that riding habit off her. I wish it for myself, and I don't want it damaged. Oh, and her boots and that absolutely precious hat.”

Lorena screamed and struggled as Lum, being careful not to tear the riding habit, removed her clothes. When the woman was stripped to her underwear, Dora picked up the dress and hat.

“Go now, Lum,” she said, her voice lashing across the morning like a whip. “And don't bring her back until she's had a foretaste of hell.”

 

 

Lum grabbed Lorena by the wrist and dragged her away from the cave to his horse. He stepped into the saddle and effortlessly pulled the woman up in front of him.

“You and me is going to a place where we won't be disturbed,” Lum said.

“Please,” Lorena said, “don't do this. I have a baby at home, and he needs me.”

Hope fled from Lorena as Lum rode deeper into the foothills of the Santa Fe Mountains. She knew there would be no rescue, no escape, and she wondered if she could will herself to die—just close her eyes and let her soul flutter free of her body like a rising dove.

When the time came, she was determined to try. Lorena knew it was cowardice on her part, but then she'd never been brave. Even spiders scared her.

“My poor baby,” she said.

“Shut your damned trap,” Lum said.

And Lorena was surprised that she'd spoken aloud.

As they rode, Lum's hands were all over her body. She shuddered, and Lum whispered, “Ready, girlie? Well, not much longer now.”

The man's entire attention was centered on the woman's body, the smell of her, her perfume as sweet as wildflowers.

When he saw the arroyo, Lum's heart leaped in his chest. He'd found it, the ideal spot for his rustic boudoir. He swung his horse toward the opening, shielded from prying eyes by the branches of a wild oak.

For the first time in her life, Lorena knew true fear.

Chapter Thirty-eight

Sarah Elizabeth Walker, known in the past—when men called her anything—as Letdown Lizzie, rode out of the Pecos and onto the bank among the trees.

She saw the two men ride away with Lorena and Patrick, people who'd been kind to her, and suddenly she was adrift, without direction.

Her obvious choice was to head back to Dromore for help. But she was a poor rider and she'd have to make the trip at a walk, if she could even find the trail. She'd let Patrick do the leading and had paid little attention to landmarks. Besides, by the time she reached Dromore, Lorena and Patrick could be dead.

The man with the burned face had terrified her, and Sarah knew what Lorena's fear must be because she was grappling with her own.

Then the realization came to her in a rush. She was now part of Dromore and all it stood for, and she could not be weak. The colonel would not expect her to turn and run and abandon Lorena and Patrick; none of the O'Briens would.

Fighting down the fear that curled in her stomach like a green snake, Sarah kneed her horse into the Pecos again. She patted the sorrel's neck and said, “Easy now, horse. Don't go too fast.”

Keeping to the shallows, Sarah rode in the direction taken by the kidnappers. She wished she'd someone with her, somebody wise like Luther Ironside, who'd say, “You're doing the right thing, Sarah. I'd do the same.”

But Luther wasn't there. There was only Sarah, and she was scared almost out of her mind. Then she remembered the Remington derringer that she'd bought a few years earlier. But it was in her room at Dromore, wrapped in an oily cloth in a dresser drawer. It was of no use to her here.

“Nice horse,” Sarah said, but only because she needed to hear the reassuring sound of her own voice.

 

 

Sarah was not a tracker. Her only relevant experience was to avoid stomping boots as she cut a trail across a crowded dance floor. But a horse with two people on its back leaves deep hoofprints, and the kidnappers had made no attempt to keep their destination a secret.

Sarah followed the trail as best she could, lost it a couple of times and had to cast around, riding back and forth, before she picked it up again.

She'd never been in this part of the country until now, a raw, untamed wilderness of pine forests, high rocky crags, and shadowed canyons. The sun was high in the sky and the day was hot, and dust settled on Sarah's face and chafed her neck. In the distance the flats between the hills shimmered, waves of heat that crowded closer around her.

She removed her borrowed top hat with its pink chiffon band and wiped her forehead with a scrap of handkerchief. The cloth came away yellow with dust.

“Do you know this country, horse?” she said, patting the sorrel's sweating neck. “No? Well, that makes two of us. Neither do I.”

Sarah followed the tracks again, easier now that she rode across grassy ground that was softer from the recent rains. After a few minutes she caught a down-home drift of wood smoke. At first Sarah thought she was imagining things, but then an errant breeze reassured her that she was correct. It was wood smoke, and the odor was strong enough to be close.

Now Sarah faced a dilemma. She realized the need to scout ahead on foot so she wouldn't be seen from the kidnappers' camp, if that were what she had discovered. But if she wanted to get back on the horse in a hurry, would he stand or shy away from her? Mounting and dismounting in a barn was one thing, doing the same thing in the middle of a vast wilderness where a horse might spook was quite another.

She had to take a chance that the sorrel was well trained enough to stand. He was a cow pony, Patrick had told her, and fairly mannered.

Well, she couldn't sit and think about the pony's demeanor all day.

Sarah lifted her leg over the sidesaddle's top pommel, removed her left foot from the stirrup, and slid to the ground. The horse swung his head around to look at her, but apart from that he seemed disinterested.

“Nice horse,” Sarah said, relieved. She gathered up the reins, stepped into a stand of trees, and tied the horse to a juniper branch. “Stay,” she said, backing out of the trees. “Good horse.”

The sorrel tossed his head, the bit chiming, and ignored her.

 

 

Crouched low, Sarah took advantage of every scrap of cover as she followed the smoke smell. Her heart hammered in her ears, and fear tied her stomach in knots.

She was unarmed and had no idea what she'd do if this were indeed the outlaw camp. She'd once read a dime novel about a prairie girl who'd rescued her soldier beau from a band of Indians by creeping up on the bloodthirsty savages' camp and untying his bonds.

It was a thought, Sarah decided, something she could try. And right now it was all she had.

But she was about to discover that the reality of what she faced was much more terrifying than anything even Mr. Buntline could imagine.

 

 

Sarah's riding habit was a dark green color that helped her blend in with the landscape. The silk top hat with its chiffon band she'd left behind with her horse.

Two paths led ahead of her, winding upward through ponderosa and scattered juniper. Between them rose a massive rock that looked like the prow of a steamship, its north side scabbed all over with yellow lichen. Here the smell of smoke was much stronger, and above the rise Sarah saw a veil of gray lift into the sky, straight as a string.

She took the nearer path and scrambled in the direction of the rock. With every step she smelled a growing stench, the cloying odor of something long dead.

And then, close and loud, the scream of a terrified woman . . . crying out for help, begging to be let go.

Sarah reached the base of the rock and looked over the rise. About fifty yards of meadow sloped gently away from her and ended in a grassy flat that stretched another hundred feet or so to an overhanging cliff face. Doubting her own senses, the woman took in the horrific tableau unfolding beneath her at a glance.

She recognized Dora DeClare, who stood near the entrance of a hollow in the rock, smiling, admiring Lorena's damp riding habit. Her brother sat near the fire, his legs crossed in front of him like bent twigs. A man who had the stamp of Texas gunfighter all over him stepped out of the cave and said something to Dora that Sarah couldn't hear. But what caught and held her attention was the burned man, his face as grotesque as a carnival mask, grinning as he dragged Lorena toward his horse.

In that single, horrific moment as her breath stifled in her throat, Sarah knew that she was in the presence of evil she could not comprehend or fight.

Her instinct was to run back down the path and keep running until she reached her horse. Let Colonel O'Brien deal with it. He was a man of wealth and power with strong sons and a small army of vaqueros . . . and she was . . . just a scared, two-dollar whore . . . a nobody.

Sarah's body tensed as she prepared for headlong flight. Then Lorena screamed again, begged for mercy, her hands beating uselessly against the burned man's chest, and Dora DeClare laughed at the spectacle . . . laughed!

There was little doubt in Sarah's mind about the fate that awaited Lorena. The burned man was hulking and strong, and he'd use her hard, toss her around like a rag doll as his lust dictated.

Then she saw the man ride out, pawing at Lorena who was draped facedown across the pommel of his saddle. He headed north, in the direction of the Santa Fe Mountain foothills, and Sarah turned, hiked up her skirt, and ran down the path as though hounds were on her heels.

 

 

To Sarah's relief, the sorrel stood while she mounted. She'd ride south, back along the canyon, then swing north again toward Dromore and tell the colonel what she'd seen.

By then of course, Lorena would be . . .

Sarah drew rein. She sat with her head bowed, her heart racing. No, she couldn't tell the colonel what had happened . . . face the accusation in his eyes, the whispers and sidelong glances of the people who depended on Dromore for their livelihood and loved all that it stood for.

She'd have to take the coward's way out—slink back to Georgetown, like the faithless whore she was.

It was the sorrel that settled things.

He turned smoothly and headed north, his head high, eyes on the trail. Sarah tried to rein him in, but the horse would have none of it. He tossed his head, fighting the bit, and walked on.

Later, looking back on it, Sarah thought she'd drawn strength from the horse. Or maybe it was a sign . . . from God, providence, whatever.

But if the sorrel was willing to go back, then so was she.

She let the horse have his head. Sarah's experience with horses was limited, but she'd heard cowboys say that they were notional animals that didn't always do what their riders wanted. She was willing to accept that the big red horse was just being ornery and that she wasn't rider enough to correct him.

But he was headed in the right direction, and so was she. And that was all that mattered. The next time she saw Colonel O'Brien she would be able to look him in the eye . . . and suddenly that mattered to her very much.