The Outlaws (20 page)

She heard the kitchen door close. Maria must be back. It was time to get out of the bath and dress.

Tessa stood up and reached for the towel.

Through her closed bedroom door, she heard footsteps along the corridor.

“Maria?” she called, wrapping the towel about her. “I’m in the bedroom, taking a bath.”

The footsteps ceased. After a moment they came on, closer, and Tessa frowned. Maria’s shoes shouldn’t make such a harsh sound on the floor.

The door latch pushed up and the door swung open. Tessa gasped and shrank back, clutching the towel tightly to her.

Mark stood in the doorway. Before she could cry out in protest, he kicked the door closed, strode to her and gathered her into his arms. His lips came down on hers, warm and demanding.

Her anger and outrage withered and died. Passionate desire sprouted in their place, thrusting through her until she was consumed with need.

She reached to hold him closer, and when he eased away to lift her into his arms, the towel fell to the floor. She heard him draw in his breath.

“My God, you’re beautiful,” he said gruffly, carrying her to the bed.

Tessa lay on her side, watching him take off his clothes. His body was strong and lean. Like hers, it was whiter where the sun didn’t reach. His manhood pulsed with his desire for her and a thrill of anticipation shook her.

He lay beside her, stroking her breasts, running his fingers along her body, kissing her mouth, her throat.

“Mark--oh, Mark,” she murmured as she smoothed his hair.

It was as she’d dreamed, only more exciting than any dream.

His lips, his tongue trailed over her breasts, then lower, lower, tasting the soft flesh of her thighs, her womanhood.

Tessa moaned, beyond thought, her body throbbing with delicious enjoyment. She wanted him to go on forever.

He shifted to kneel over her and she reached to touch his hardness, heard his groan and knew he felt the same unbearable yearning to be joined. She led him down to her mid and cried out with exquisite pleasure when he entered.

Mark drew back and she pulled him closer. “No,” she cried, “Please don’t stop, don’t ever stop.”

She arched to him as he thrust deeply, felt the strange and wonderful inner quivering begin that she knew would grow into a rapturous flower.

Mark ceased moving, staying inside her as he kissed her, their tongues entwined, for long, long moments until, unable to wait, she began a circular motion with her hips.

“Tessa, “he cried, thrusting again and again until her flower of rapture exploded into bloom. He shuddered and lay still.

He finally turned onto his side and drew her against him. “I always meant to come back to you if I could,” he murmured. “I never wanted to leave you, but—”\ A door closed.

“Maria!” Tessa exclaimed, sitting up. She jumped from the bed and began to dress hurriedly.

Mark did the same. “It’s all right, Tessa,” he said. “I mean to--”

“Ssh! I couldn’t bear it if Maria finds you here.”

She bit her lip as she looked from him to the closed bedroom door. All her doubts crept back into her mind. What had she been thinking of? All Mark had to do was touch her and she became a wanton.

“I’ll go and keep Maria in the kitchen,” she said. “You can leave by the front door and she won’t--”

“But I don’t want to leave. We haven’t talked. I want to tell you--” .

“You can knock and pretend you’ve just arrived. Oh, please don’t argue, Mark. I don’t want Maria to think I’m—I’m--” She couldn’t finish and began again. “You don’t know what it was like in this town after the fire. Men stared at me on the streets and I knew they were thinking terrible things about me and—and Alex. As if either of us--” She stopped again. “I won’t ever go through that again.”

“All right,” he whispered. “I’ll do whatever you say.”

Mark waited until he was certain Tessa was in the kitchen with Maria, then eased out of her room, walking on his toes so his boot heels wouldn’t click on the floor. He passed through the main room and out the front door, feeling like a fool. Annoyance flickered in him. This wasn’t how he’d planned to do his courting, clandestinely.

He was careful to shut the front door without noise. He hesitated a moment before knocking on it, angry at himself as well as at Tessa.

He shouldn’t have listened to her pleas, should have marched with her into the kitchen and told Maria they were to be married and that best wishes were in order.

He raised the iron knocker and slammed it against the metal plate with unnecessary force, “Where the hell did you spring from?” Rutledge’s voice said from behind him. Mark whirled. Rutledge was advancing up the path from the street “I didn’t see you turn in here.” Rutledge eyed him suspiciously.

Try to hide something and you wound up with one lie on top of another. Damn it, he didn’t owe Rutledge an explanation.

The door opened and Tessa’s eyes widened as she saw Rutledge with him.

“Won’t you come in?” she said rather breathlessly.

Tessa perched on the edge of a straight-backed chair. “Please sit down,” she told them.

Rutledge sat on the settee, but Mark shook his head, moving to stand beside the empty fireplace. He leaned on the mantel, eyeing Tessa sardonically. Now what did she intend to do?

She glanced nervously from one man to the other.

“Did you find out about Ezra, Calvin?” she asked finally.

“I’m afraid Ezra has been with Billy on those cattle raids,” Rutledge said. “He was recognized by two different men.”

She turned to Mark. “Have you heard anything?

“Not much more than what Rutledge just told you. Ezra seems bent on making an outlaw out of himself.”

Tessa clenched her fists. “He isn’t a thief! He only goes along because Billy’s leading him into it.”

“You make him sound stupid,” Mark said. “Ezra’s got a good mind. He knows what he’s doing.”

Tessa tightened her lips, “It’s Billy’s fault,” she insisted. “Look at poor little Violet, the way Billy lured her from her home. God only knows what will become of the child.”

“Violet rode to Sumner of her own free will,” Mark said. “Or so I understand. She wasn’t fleeing her father; she could have stayed here. Wrong or right, Ezra and Violet both made a choice, Tessa.”

“Someone ought to stop Billy,” she went on as though he hadn’t spoken. “It isn’t right to let him corrupt others.”

Rutledge, who hadn’t put in a word since answering Tessa’s question, nodded.

“I know Ezra’s a good boy,” he said. “A fine young man. Billy Bonney’s influence is nothing short of pernicious.”

Mark shrugged. He’d come to know Ezra quite well in the weeks they’d spent with Billy and the others in the hills south of San Patrick. While it was true Ezra idolized Billy and seemed blind to his faults, at the same time the boy had clearly been enjoying himself. It wasn’t as though he was drawn to Billy against his will.

“Something should be done,” Tessa said, looking at neither of them.

“My dear, I’ll do all I can,” Rutledge said solemnly.

Which will be nothing, Mark said to himself. He knew Tessa wasn’t going to like what he meant to tell her, but it was the truth.

‘‘I went after your brother for you once,” he reminded her. “Ezra didn’t want to come back with me, but I shamed him into it because you and Jules were in the McSween house, virtually unprotected. There’s no such reason for him to leave Billy now.”

“But you’re a deputy marshal. Couldn’t you force Ezra to come home?” “Arrest him, you mean?” Mark demanded.

Her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh no!”

“Perhaps our deputy marshal’s afraid to tangle with Billy’s gang,” Rutledge said. “You shouldn’t blame him. It’s well known Billy tends to shoot first and ask questions later.”

Mark gritted his teeth. His impulse was to lift Rutledge by his shirt collar and toss him out the front door. He took a step toward the settee.

Rutledge rose to face him.

Tessa got up hurriedly and stepped between them, looking at Mark. “Maybe you’d better leave,” she said.

“I came here to talk to you. We haven’t had a chance.”

“I beg your pardon,” Rutledge said, staring at Mark over Tessa’s head. “Tessa and I have a standing appointment to meet on Thursday afternoons.” Mark’s fists clenched.

Tessa put a hand on his chest. “If you start a fight, I won’t ever forgive you,” she said to him. “It happens to be true, what Calvin says.”

“Then perhaps it was he you were waiting for earlier,” Mark growled.

He saw the shock in Tessa’s eyes. Her face flamed. She reached up and slapped him across the face.

He turned away, picked up his hat and strode out of the house.

* * *

A week later, when the sheriff of Dona Ana County, on the Mexican border, sent an urgent appeal to Kimbrell for help in subduing Jesse Evans and his gang who were on a rampage down there, Mark joined Longworth and four other deputy sheriffs heading south.

Mark got shot in the leg in a skirmish with the bandits, and the wound festered, keeping him at Mesilla into the fall.

He’d long since realized his dislike of Rutledge had pushed him into insulting Tessa. It seemed as though everything he’d done since he’d come back to the Territory had been the wrong thing as far as she was concerned.

In November, when he could ride again, Mark didn’t head straight for Lincoln, deciding to detour by way of Fort Sumner. He’d heard Billy and his boys had rustled some one hundred head of Chisum’s cattle in the Texas panhandle and sold them to Colorado beef buyers, then hightailed it back to Sumner.

He didn’t plan to nab Billy. The only one he wanted was Ezra. If he brought the boy back to Tessa, she was certain to forgive and forget.

At Roswell his plans went awry. As he came into town, a posse was forming to ride after the Comanches who’d just raided horses on a ranch near town, killing a man and his son. Mark joined the posse and, with a man named Pat Garnett and two others, stuck to the trail long after the rest of the posse returned to Roswell.

They finally caught up with eight Comanches driving the horses, surprised them at a night camp and killed them all. Garrett collected the Indians’ moccasins in a sack and strapped it onto his horse.

“I keep count this way,” he said to Mark. “A sight less messy than scalps.”

As they drove the foot-sore string of horses back to Roswell, the soft-spoken Garrett, who tended to be taciturn, began to talk to Mark when he heard Mark was heading for Sumner.

“Well, I live up Sumner way,” he said. “I was down looking at land when those damn Comanches raided.”

“Mind it I travel up the Pecos with you?” Mark asked. He liked Garrett, a lean and very tall man with dark eyes and a shaggy mustache.

“You’d be welcome. We’ve ridden through hell and high water together already,” He gave Mark one of his crooked smiles.

Mark and Garrett arrived in Sumner just before Christmas. Mark had never been to the abandoned fort before and looked about with curiosity.

The Pecos made a wide turn to the southeast here and the town stood on its north bank, Stores and cantinas backed up against the river. All the old adobe army buildings were in use as houses. Mark saw a Catholic Church and a post office. Most of the residents seemed to be Mexican.

“Hola, Juan Largo,” they hailed Garrett. “Hello, Long John.” He waved back.

“Pete Maxwell lives over there in what was once the officer’s quarters,” Garrett said to Mark, pointing to a large building with a wide veranda across the front and along the north and south sides. “Pete gave me my first job when I came to Sumner. I’ll ask him to put you up—he’s got plenty of room.

Mark nodded his thanks, following Garrett past a rusted cannon outside the picket fence that ran in front of the house.

“I don’t rightly know where Billy and his boys are staying at the moment,” Garrett added, “but I’ll spread the word you’re bunking with Pete and want to talk to Ezra Nesbitt.

When Ezra didn’t show, Mark did his best to find out where Ezra might be staying, but the townspeople didn’t want to talk to a stranger about Billy and his gang.

Mark surveyed the country around the town as best he could, riding north between twin rows of winter-bare cottonwoods to die village of Punta de la Glorietta, then east to small ranches whose Mexican owners viewed him with suspicion.

On New Year’s Day Mark rode through the leafless peach orchard on the northern outskirts. He looked at the frozen Pecos and the dusting of snow over the hills, feeling as cold inside as out. He might as well give up and head back to Lincoln.

‘‘Halloran!”

Mark whirled around and saw Billy, Ezra and Tom O’Folliard riding toward him.

“Heard you were looking for us,” Billy said.

“Looking for Ezra anyway,” Mark admitted.

Ezra looked thinner and far older than his sixteen years.

“Can we have a talk?” Mark asked him.

Ezra shook his head. “I can guess you’re going to tell me to go back to Lincoln. No use jawing about it cause I ain’t.”