Sun God (32 page)

He did not.

He held her easily in one strong arm as his horse lunged into a hard, fast run. Soon the other half-dozen shouting, laughing braves caught up with them. Racing alongside, they stared at Amy, gleefully examining the fighting, screaming white woman.

They were excited and very surprised to have found her riding alone in the desert. All were well pleased with the pale good looks of their terrified, yellow-haired captive. They nodded to each other and grinned. Happy with their good fortune, they jubilantly raced across the dusty flats toward the cool blue mountains rising majestically against the violet evening sky.

Their home was on the far side of those rugged mountains. It was there they were taking the pretty white woman. They would ride until they reached the remote alpine camp where their impatient warrior chief waited for delivery of the pale-skinned yellow-haired woman he could make his own.

Chief Snake Tongue.

Luiz rode directly into Sundown and Mac’s store.

Assuring the worried Irishman that everything was fine, Luiz patiently questioned Mac’s young son. He smiled and ruffled the boy’s dark hair when Raul had told all he knew. All except about the shiny gold coin buried deep in his pocket.

Thanking father and son, Luiz crouched down on his heels and studied the shoe marks the hired roan’s hooves had left in the sand behind the store. Young Raul squatted down beside him.

“
Señor
,” Raul said, pointing his forefinger, “you see that tiny Y at the right base of each shoe. Yancy the blacksmith gives it to all the horses he shoes. That will help, no?”

“That will help,
sí
,” Luiz said, and came to his feet.

Without another word he swung up into the saddle and rode away. It was easy to follow the roan’s tracks in that parched, desolate land. Luiz spurred the big paint into a rapid gallop, glancing down occasionally to make sure Amy hadn’t suddenly changed directions.

The distinctive hoofprints made a clear trail due west. Relieved she had ridden in that direction, Luiz knew she was heading for Paso del Norte. He figured she had a good two-hour head start on him, but knew he could overtake her. The Pass was sixty miles away. She couldn’t stay in the saddle forever.

He
could.

And he would. He wouldn’t dismount until he had found her. The range-bred paint he rode had the stamina to maintain a punishing pace for hour upon hour. With any luck, he’d find the foolish, fleeing woman before sunset.

Luiz’s jaw hardened and his unblinking eyes narrowed. He was more angry than he was worried. And he was more angry with himself than he was with Amy Parnell. The woman he pursued across the parched prairie had again made a fool of him, just as she had all those years ago.

Would he never learn?

Would he never get it through his head that she was a beautiful, conniving temptress who cared nothing for him? That even as she’d lain in his arms last night and called him darling and cried out in her ecstasy, she had done so to throw him off guard so she could run away?

If she wanted to be away from him that badly, perhaps he should let her go. Maybe he should turn back. What difference did it make? What difference did she make?

None. Amy Parnell was a woman like any other; he’d had dozens as beautiful. There’d be dozens more. He need not spend one night alone if he never got her back. The exotic San Antonio flamenco dancer was still in Sundown. A couple of the young, pretty house servants looked at him with unveiled interest. And then there was the bold, rich Diana Clayton. The day at the La Posada when he’d commented on her stylish gown, Miss Clayton had made it clear she would be more than willing to slip right out of it.

Why ride one more mile? Let Mrs. Parnell go where she pleased. Let her stay forever or return when she wanted. Who cared? He had what he wanted. What he had come back for. What was rightfully his. Orilla.

On he rode.

Black eyes squinting against the savage glare of the Texas sun, Luiz held the long reins looped slackly around his hand. His palm rested on his hard belly, thumb stuck down inside the low riding gunbelt. Lulled by the desert quiet and the monotony, and tired from a night of strenuous lovemaking, Luiz closed his turning eyes and slouched comfortably in the saddle. Confident Amy’s trail led straight on to the pass, he relaxed his body and soon dozed.

The sun went down.

A pale pink gloaming lingered in the west behind the distant Franklin mountain range of the towering southern Rockies. Luiz was suddenly jolted awake when the big paint leapt a wide, shallow ravine, his hind legs coming down inches shy of the rim. Hugging the paint with his knees, Luiz remained in the saddle, but he was again wide awake and keenly alert.

The paint bolted forward, cleared the ravine, and galloped on as if he had never broken stride. The man mounted on his back flicked a hurried glance down at the ground and abruptly pulled the paint up as his eyes widened in alarm.

There were no tracks on the desert sand.

Amy screamed until she was so hoarse she could no longer make a sound. She clawed and kicked until she was too exhausted to lift her tired arms or move her weak legs. When her stocky Apache captor shifted her in his arms and cradled her to his massive chest, the effort to lift her head was too great. Amy couldn’t do it.

As the sun died and darkness enveloped the desert, Amy’s mouth and nose were pressed against the Apache renegade’s bare chest, the offensive odor of his unwashed flesh causing her stomach to churn and roll violently. Gagging reflexively, Amy tried to speak, to say that she was ill. But her voice would not work and she was forced to swallow back the hot bile that poured into her raw, burning throat.

New tears sprang to her red-rimmed eyes as suddenly she was overwhelmed by the contrast of this huge Apache’s horrid smell with that of the clean, unique scent of El Capitán. The agonizing thought occurred to her that in last night’s darkness she had eagerly pressed kisses to El Capitán’s smooth, naked chest, relishing the smell and the taste of his bronzed skin. If she had not so enjoyed being in his arms, she would not now be in the arms of a dirty, uncivilized renegade in tonight’s darkness.

Amy squeezed her tear-filled eyes tightly shut. She continued to swallow and to retch helplessly. She attempted to take only shallow breaths so that she would not smell so strongly the stale sweat and woodsmoke and grease of the bare chest beneath her cheek.

Finally the worst of her nausea passed, and with it a little of her strength returned. Enough that she could turn her head away and draw long, refreshing breaths of the cooling desert air.

The sun had gone completely down. Stars filled the night sky and a big, white moon sailed high in the heavens. They were riding fast toward the southeast and already the terrain was changing. The flatness of the desert was giving way to the broken butte country leading into the Big Bend.

Fort Davis was the farthest south Amy had ever been in that wild, immense triangle of Texas bordered by the Rio Grande. There were rangelands surrounding the fort and a few scattered, remote ranches. But beyond the cool, blue Davis range, the rugged Santiago Mountains sliced across the region from northwest to southeast. And on the other side, the true badlands began.

Few white men had dared venture south of the Santiagos into that uncharted wilderness of rock and desert and mountains. It was said there were canyons so deep and so wide, a man lost inside could roam forever and not find his way out. Indians, outlaws, mountain lions, jaguars, wild horses, and rattlesnakes inhabited the Big Bend of Texas.

None of the species was friendly.

Amy’s desperation grew when her stocky Apache captor urged the big paint pony up a rocky outcropping. They were heading up into the foothills of the Davis Mountains. Once these savages had taken her into the Big Bend, all hope would be gone.

Amy didn’t want to die down there. No one would ever know what had happened to her. Her darling Linda would have no idea what had happened to her mother. Her bleached bones would never be found and brought back to her beloved Orilla.

Fear and despair giving her a fresh surge of energy, Amy whipped her head around and shouted into her captor’s face, “No! Don’t take me across the mountains. Stop and kill me here!”

The silent Apache never even glanced down at her. He calmly continued to rein his paint up a long rocky trail as if he had not heard her speak. The horse turned a sharp corner into a narrow arroyo and the bright moonlight abruptly disappeared. Suddenly it was pitch black. Amy could see absolutely nothing. She felt as if she would suffocate.

She heard only the sound of falling pebbles, dislodged by the horses’ hooves, and the mad fluttering of a frightened canyon wren. Panic seizing her, Amy, for the first time, considered the horrifying possibility that the Apaches might not mean to kill her. If that was their intent, what were they waiting for?

They had left the open desert and the danger of being apprehended. They need not wait longer. It was dark and they were already entering country so rugged they could leisurely kill her. No one would come along. Fort Davis had been abandoned since the early days of the war; blue-coated soldiers no longer patrolled the region.

They were taking her to their home! Dear God, did they mean to keep her alive? To hold her captive for the rest of her life?

The paint emerged from the thick darkness of the canyon and Amy’s breath exploded from her tight chest.

“Please,” she pleaded, the bright moonlight offering a degree of comfort, “don’t take me to your camp. Have the decency to kill me on this side of the mountains.”

No reply. Not a flicker of an eyelash.

Anger swiftly mixing with her terror, Amy doubled up her fist and socked the silent Indian in the stomach. He grunted. And finally looked down at her, his eyebrows drawn together.

“Kill me, damn you,” Amy cried, her hoarseness making it hard to shout. “You hear me? Kill me right here, right now. Kill me, take my scalp and go. But leave me here!”

He stared at her, frowning slightly, but making not one sound.

Frantic, Amy raged on. “I want to be buried at home. Surely even you can understand that. When one of your people is killed in battle, you don’t leave him behind, do you? Don’t you take him home to bury him? Please … please don’t take me down into the Big Bend.”

She fell silent, but continued to look directly into his flat, expressionless eyes, hoping he had understood, praying that he would grant her wish. After what seemed an eternity of waiting for a reply, Amy again shouted at the Apache.

Finally she got a response.

He clamped a broad, dirty hand over her mouth and clasped her cheeks with thumb and fingers. Holding her face in his viselike grip, her jerked her head from side to side so forcefully Amy heard the bones popping. She tasted blood as her bottom lip was pressed painfully against her teeth. Certain that any second her neck would snap and she’d be dead, Amy grew dizzy. The entire starlit sky undulated above her.

Her eyes slid closed and she saw those stars exploding in a kaleidoscope of brilliant colors. Faintly, over a rising roaring in ears, she heard the Indian’s gruff voice. She couldn’t understand the Apache tongue, but his tone was threatening.

Her last conscious thought was that he meant to kill her. She was soothed by the notion.

Luiz wheeled his horse around, retraced their steps, and silently cursed himself for falling asleep.

At the wide ravine he slid to the ground, leaving the paint standing with the trailing reins. He crouched down on his heels and squinted, studying the sand. The distinctive horseshoe marks were missing. He rose to his feet, leapt down into the arroyo, and hurried to the other side. He climbed out and again went down on his heels.

He felt a sudden cold in the pit of his stomach. There were Amy’s tracks and tracks of half a dozen other horses as well. Unshod horses. Luiz jumped back down into the gorge. Cursing the lack of light, he struck a sulfur match and held it low to the ground, seeing it all with a frightening clarity.

Quick as a cat he was up and out of the ravine. He grabbed the paint’s trailing reins, put his hand on the pommel, his foot in the stirrup, and swung up into the saddle. He turned the stallion to the southeast toward the serrated mountain-tops barely visible beyond the dusk-cloaked desert.

Luiz touched his heels to the paint. The big mount plunged down into the sandy ravine and out the opposite side, and broke immediately into a thundering gallop.

Controlling the paint with his knees, Luiz reached up, tugged loose the narrow leather band that held his hair secured at the back of his neck. He opened his fingers and allowed the thong to fall to the ground.

He slipped the blue kerchief from his throat, lifted it, wrapped it around his temples in a tight headband, and tied it. He bowed his head and let his thick black hair swing forward around his face.

When he lifted his head, the aristocratic Spaniard, Capitán Luiz Quintano, was completely gone. A lean, buckskin-clad Indian with harshly chiseled features, cold black eyes, and wildly blowing raven hair rode across the darkening desert toward the distant Davis Mountains.

And the last stronghold of the Mescalero Apaches.

I
T WAS NOON.

The blazing sun was directly overhead. Its scorching heat had sent even the sidewinders and lizards scurrying for shade. The temperature had soared past the century mark over an hour ago. Not a breath of air stirred the leaves on the juniper trees or carried away the thick choking smoke from dozens of roaring campfires.

At the very center of a small, remote valley, high up in the forbidding Chisos Mountains, a pale, terrified woman was bound to a tall cedar pole beneath the blistering noonday sun. Her wrists and ankles tied to the pole with tight bands of leather, she was on display for the entire band of Mescalero Apaches.

Amy felt the sun’s harsh rays burning her face and bare arms. Her wrists, pulled behind her and tied to the pole, were scraped and cut, her hands stiff and numb. Her ankles were rubbed raw and her bare left foot had gone to sleep. It felt as if a million tiny needles were pricking the sole, and she could not lift her foot to stomp away the pain.