To Hell and Back (10 page)

Amanda did not bother to deny it. She was going to have to learn to be more alert. She was learning there was a lot more to a person’s surroundings than just what could be seen with the eye. City life dulled the senses. But long dormant instincts were not lost, they only lay quietly beneath the surface, ready to rouse again given the right stimulus.

“I want to learn to use this.” Amanda let her slender white hand rest on the cool curve of the gun butt protruding from the holster at her hip.

Hollander grunted, then sighed. “Yep, but you do it my way until you learn to handle it so you don’t blow one of us to kingdom come.”

Amanda drew the Remington from the holster and turned it over to Jake who flipped the weapon open, unloading it with quick, deft movements.
 

“First, you’ve got to get the feel of it, test the balance, make it a part of you. Take your time. Pick out targets, sight along the barrel, and pull the trigger. Lift it in and out of your holster some. Do it nice and slow at first, then a little faster, but remember, you aren’t in a race. Then, later, load it and unload it a few times.”

He demonstrated the action, his hand full of shells, swiftly feeding them into the cylinder, snapping it shut and swinging the barrel up.

“Learn how to do it fast, but start slow. When you get around to firing it for real, it’ll pack quite a punch.”

He emptied the weapon into his broad palm again, then repeated the loading, this time moving like he was under water. Then he opened it once more, emptying the shells into her much smaller hand and turned over the weapon to Amanda.

“And, when you’re done, leave it unloaded.”

Amanda accepted the gun and the seriousness of his tone.
 

“I’m going to go check my snare,” Hollander said, “see if I can rustle us up something to eat. One more thing,” he warned as he turned to leave, “unloaded or not, don’t ever point that thing in my direction.”

A bit sheepishly, Amanda lowered the gun barrel she had swung unthinkingly toward him as she had turned. He frowned, shaking his head when he moved off. He hoped this wouldn’t be as bad as he feared it would be.

Vowing to herself that it wouldn’t happen again, Amanda holstered the empty weapon while she followed Jake with her eyes until he passed from sight. She listened intently but could not detect a sound of his passing and marveled at the panther-like grace of all his movements. Also apparent was the fact he needed little sleep. He never appeared tired though there were times when his eyebrows, bleached nearly white by the sun, would knit together, the lines in his angular face would harden, and his gray eyes would darken when patience was wearing thin. Already Amanda could recognize such warning signs. Plainly, she would either have to bend entirely to his will, or start carrying her own weight, and be quick about doing it.

She drew the gun after he’d gone as he said, practicing her lessons, getting used to the odd feel of it in her small, relatively weak, hand. Cactus, tree limbs, and even small twigs and rocks became her targets as she squeezed the trigger, listening to the hammer click sharply against an empty chamber time and again. She lifted the six-gun clear of the holster time and again, in slow motion, until her wrist ached. Then, she sat cross-legged beside the burned out embers of the morning’s fire and fed five shells into the chambers, snapping the weapon closed as she finished. She tried it fast once, fumbling, scattering shells into the dust, then slowed it down as Jake had, repeating the motions, memorizing the feel when she got it right.

She broke the weapon open yet again and was starting to unload it when she heard something. She left the remaining cartridges in the weapon and snapped it shut. Then she held the gun quietly in her lap and waited, listening intently, trying to feel with everything she was.

Hollander chuckled, the sound loud in the weighty silence, then he stepped into her line of vision carrying a rabbit and a couple of quail. Lord, she could swear he materialized out of thin air.
 

“Better. At least you knew I was around somewhere this time. Dinner,” he added, holding up his burden for her inspection. “We’ll eat well tonight.”

Chapter 9

They ate well that night and the nights following. After the first week coffee ran out and they had to do without, but nothing else was in short supply when Jake Hollander went gathering. Their diet consisted of small game and an occasional deer as well as wild onions, flour made from the pulverized inner bark of the cottonwood tree, wild grapes found growing near the pools, prickly pear cut in strips and boiled like beans, and the sweet stalks of the mescal plant. The molasses-like inside of the mescal was of particular delight to Amanda’s sweet tooth.

Time passed quickly, and, safe from pursuit, they had come to live with their situation—and with each other—in a pleasant companionship. No one could accuse Jake Hollander of exactly being a gentleman with his rough-hewn exterior and blunt manner, but where it counted, he was more well-bred than any number of men she could think of.
 

Amanda graduated swiftly from an empty gun to a loaded one. Just as quickly she progressed in her skill at using it. Her aim was true, and as her grip strengthened, her speed with the weapon increased. More, she had that extra something that made some men gunfighters, the lack of which put others in their graves. Quickly she developed a casual, easy manner with the six-gun, the weapon coming into her hand and firing in one smooth, fluid motion. Again and again, by the hour, she drew, aimed and fired, the weapon empty. Then, using their ammunition sparingly, she put the bullets right on target.
 

It was against his better judgment, but Jake began showing her tricks to speed her draw, and to hone her aim. She practiced diligently and seemed a bit too preoccupied with learning to use the gun to suit his taste, but she was also picking up most of the other things he was trying to hammer into her skull. He found it more and more difficult to catch her unaware.

He was fixing their last meal of the day when she came into camp, slipping up behind him, feet enclosed in new knee-high deerskin moccasins he’d made her, gliding on the outsides of her feet like an Indian, carrying the Kid’s rifle. Hollander had been aware of her from the moment she had begun her cagey, almost silent approach.

Hollander arranged the pieces of meat in the pan, then tossed in some wild onions dug up from near the seep and some more prickly pear strips along with a hefty dollop of fresh water, then sat back on his heels and tossed a question over his shoulder at Amanda.
 

“See anything out there?”

Amanda froze, muttered a couple of unladylike oaths, dropped into a cross-legged seat across the campfire from him as naturally as if she’d done it every day of her life.

“Deer are staying farther from camp,” she observed. “Coyotes are coming closer. There’s fresh scat up by the pools.”

Jake chuckled, then stirred their meal, turning the meat over. “They’re wily devils, and bold as brass. More a nuisance than a threat, but we better move our garbage further out.”

He studied her while he kept the food moving in the pan over the fire.

“Don’t get discouraged. You’re getting much better. Did you find my tracks?”

Amanda nodded. “You went over the top at the back of the pools, then circled into the canyon to the west.”

“Any other tracks? Anything we should be keeping an eye out for?”

She shook her head. “There hasn’t been anyone else since that first day on the ridge.”

“You’re right. So tonight you stand night watch alone.”

“What happens if you get killed during the night because I fall asleep or something?”

“Why then I guess I’ll just have to add to the legends surrounding these mountains and haunt you ‘til the day you join me.”

“Which probably wouldn’t be any too long if you’re already dead.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself.”

They fell silent, waiting for their food to cook, sounds of twilight drifting in. A distant, high-pitched cry, almost human cry, drifted on the velvet overtones of sunset. Though it was almost soft in its delivery, Amanda jumped.

“Mountain Lion,” Jake observed as he served up their dinner, now used to the role of teacher and hard-pressed to set it aside.

Amanda accepted the hot, brimming, tin plate from his hand.

“Oh.”

A soft scuttling in the brush brought her head up again just as they settled down to eat.
 

“Probably
chulos
,” Jake noted. “They’ll raid the camp if they get the chance. We best keep things buttoned up tight.”

A couple of coyotes yipped and howled from somewhere nearby. Amanda looked at her companion and grinned.
 

He grinned back.
 

“Never took close note of all this until I told you you’re going to be up half the night alone, did you?”

“Truth be told,” Amanda admitted, “you’re right.”

She’d long since given up pussy-footing around where Jake Hollander was concerned. He could spot a lie a mile off.
 

“It’ll help keep you awake.”

They ate in companionable silence as the night settled in. Jake smiled ruefully down at his plate of food. In spite of himself, and her attractiveness, Hollander was thinking of Amanda as more of a partner than a burden. About the only thing she had not shown an interest in as yet was hunting though she’d taken to learning about the edible plants quick enough. In unspoken agreement, she brought in plenty of wild plants, and he contributed the game and checked the edibility of her bounty.

Amanda gulped down her dinner. Lord, it seemed like she was always hungry these day. She ate like three of her former selves yet nothing changed. Her clothing fit the same, or hung looser. She was lean and hard and sun-browned. She had gained in physical strength, and had learned more in a few weeks than she had expected to in a lifetime, with there was plenty more still to come. She never forgot her goals, and the time they would abandon their hideout was drawing closer with each passing day.

“Have you given any more thought to going back East?” Jake raised the question.

Amanda smiled faintly, then shrugged. “A lot,” she admitted, “but I’m not going.”

Hollander shook his head almost in pity. “You still planning on heading back into Phoenix, proving you didn’t have any part in that robbery?”

“That
we
didn’t have any part in the robbery,” Amanda corrected him with an easy smile. “And you?”

Jake marveled at how much she had changed in the short weeks they had been hiding out. Her darkly tanned skin set off those green cat eyes far more than the lightness of her skin ever had. Her hair she managed by braiding or tying back, then tying the bandanna over her head to give some protection from the sun. The kid’s hat she wore over that, floppy brim drooping down over her eyes. She sat often cross-legged, Indian style. Her new-found, and growing confidence flowed about her like a cloak, and he had, over the past days, found his reservations falling away one by one. Amanda Cleary was head strong and stubborn, no fool, and proving quickly that she could carry her own weight. His only remaining concern was experience. She had none.

All she had learned, she had learned from him. She was planning on walking in with knowledge learned, but not used. Would she, Jake wondered, be able to pull the trigger if another, Berglund maybe, was pointing a gun at her? He believed she could, but there was no knowing for certain until it happened. Then, if she didn’t act within a split second, it would be too late.

“I’ve given considerable thought to the matter myself,” Hollander answered her, stacking the small bones to one side of his plate.
 

“We could try what you’re talking about, together, with certain conditions,” he said, surprising her enough to make her sit up and stare questioningly at him.

“What conditions?”
 

He heard the testy intonation of her voice, sensed the defenses rising, but he plunged on ahead with what he had to say.

“You’ve learned a lot,” he began, “but it’s only been a few weeks, and I’ve been at this for years. We can go after it and worry this thing, take it as far as we can. but if it reaches a point where we can do no more, where all that could happen is we’d both wind up dead and I say we run, we run.”

It was with some effort that Amanda continued chewing thoughtfully on her dinner, her face an expressionless mask, something else she had picked up from Hollander along the way.
 

“If
you
say,” Amanda said slowly. “Why you?”

“Because if it happens, there won’t be time to think about it and there won’t be time to argue about it. I have more experience. My word has to be law.”

Amanda hesitated only because she did not want to even think of the possibility of running again. But, she knew he was right. His experience far overshadowed hers. She was determined to go on with, or without him, but she was not such a fool as to not recognize the odds would be much more favorable if they stayed together.

Jake waited in impatient silence while Amanda considered his offer. By now he knew she was never too taken with anything that had strings attached, even sensible ones. He wasn’t sure what he would do should she refuse. He assumed that if she used the exceptional brains God had given her, she would accept. She was, he had learned her, one of the most logical and practical people he had ever come across.