To Hell and Back (20 page)

“There is something you have forgotten,” the knife man said very softly, and surprisingly, in English. “Your gun, it is empty.”

The instant he said it, Amanda knew it for truth. She wanted to swear again, but she gave him an icy glare.
 

“And if you counted wrong?”

He grinned. Suddenly the blade he held looked twice the size as he came at her, his mustache quirked by the grim smile beneath. He flipped the knife blade back and forth in front of Amanda as he approached almost teasingly, but she had no doubt that he was deadly serious.

The bartender and cantina patrons looked on with interest, none inclined to lend her a hand.

Instinctively, Amanda faded back before the flashing knife. Warily, managed to put a table between herself and the knife. The gun was still in her hand, useless. The knife dipped and swayed hypnotically before her. Her eyes burned and her stomach rolled, but she could not give up her intense concentration for even a moment. Hollander had taught her much, but at the moment she could not think of a thing.

“I did not count wrong. I never would make such a mistake. You are
estupido
! Why do you pursue me?” The gleaming point of the knife sketched a pattern in the air before her.
 

She saw it coming, felt it in the heaviness of the atmosphere between them, and twisted away as he lunged around her fragile barricade. The tip of the knife caught a bit of her sleeve, tugging alarmingly as she jerked clear, spinning away to put another table between them.

She was quick, but he was just playing with her and she knew it. How long did he intend to play?
 

“You do not mess with me, woman! You thought because you had a gun you could do as you would? Eh?”

He thrust at her again, nearly sliding across the table in his eagerness, overturning it with his weight. But he didn’t go down. He caught himself, staggered forward and reached for her with that long blade.

Amanda brought her gun up with a swiftness which amazed even herself, blocked the wicked slash of his knife and caught it on the trigger guard. For an instant they locked, immobile, then she leapt back. The knife followed in a broad arch. She felt the rip of chilled steel against her belly as she sucked it in, reeling backwards.

She hit the floor, rolled, and came up near the end of the bar, putting its width between herself and her adversary.
 

“I’m looking for Rafael,” Amanda said quickly, eyes never leaving the blade of the knife.

The man before her gave a sardonic laugh, and he paused in his assault. A small part of Amanda’s attention focused on the sound of familiar footsteps scuffing across the earthen floor toward them. Her eyes remained fixed on the knife, afraid to glance away for even an instant.

“
You
are but one of many,” the knife wielder told her.

“And
I
found him.”
 

Hollander made the announcement a split second before the hand holding the knife was jerked up and away. Another sharp wrench and the knife fell to the floor with a solid clink. Hollander held the man with ease, keeping the pressure on his arm, then spun him around, throwing him into a chair.

“You all right?” He asked Amanda over his shoulder.

She glanced down at the trickle of blood at the scratch on her stomach and answered “Yes,” on an expelled breath.

She found herself a chair and dropped into it, hastily reloading her gun before holstering it.

“You said you found Rafael. Where is he?”

“In a little adobe across the street. Dead.”

“Dead?”

Amanda felt like a chunk of ice had been dropped through her body and settled in her moccasins.

Hollander nodded. “Hasn’t been that way very long. I found a woman with his body, kind of distraught, babbling something about her husband killing him.” He gave a sharp, knowing glance at their prisoner. “Unless I miss my guess, this is her husband.”

The man in the chair grinned, unperturbed. “
Si
, I am Roberto Hernandez. I slit his throat and I am glad.” He looked up at Hollander defiantly. “First he borrowed money and refused to return it. I am a poor man,
senor.
But even that was not enough for him. While I worked in the fields, he took my woman. Friends of mine saw and told me. I should have killed her too,” he added, “but she is my woman, and I want her still.”

Horror stricken, Amanda glanced at Hollander for confirmation. He nodded grimly.

“Come on,” he said roughly, “we’re pulling out. There’s nothing we can do here.”

He picked up the knife. “I’ll leave this in a fence post down at the livery, but let me see your face down there before we leave and I’ll blow your head off.”

Roberto met Hollander’s steady gaze with a glare, then shrugged, promising nothing. Hollander didn’t care which way the murderous Roberto was inclined. He’d meant what he said, and
his
gun was loaded.

Grasping Amanda by the elbow, he guided her out the door and into the bright sunlight. The town was backing Roberto. They would not be spending the night in the quiet little village after all. They would rest themselves and their horses elsewhere.

Amanda shook off his grip and walked beside him.

“Next time you go after a man with a knife,” he counciled with deliberate calm and touch of sarcasm as they walked, “Make sure your gun is loaded.”

Amanda gave him an inelegant snort in response.

“What about Rafael’s split of the money?” Amanda asked as they walked briskly toward the fallen down livery.

Hollander shrugged. “There’s no telling. It wasn’t with the body. I didn’t find it with his grieving mistress. I doubt our friend Roberto knows anything about it or he would have killed him sooner. Maybe he spent it, or lost it to someone more crooked than him.”

They saddled their exhausted animals and tossed their gear across their saddles.
 

“Village might have it,” Hollander went on while he gathered up the reins to mount. “If it does, there’s no way we’re going to get it back, or even find out about it for a fact.”

Amanda just shook her head and swung wearily up into the saddle. Hollander spotted the blood across her middle for the first time.
 

He paused where he stood on the ground. “Why the hell didn’t you say something?”

“It’s just a scratch.”

“You’re lucky he didn’t tear your guts out.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Hollander swung up with a muted creak of leather, settling into the saddle. In silence they rode slowly out of town.

Chapter 18

With Santa Cruz behind them they rode at an easy pace, spelling the animals frequently. They didn’t even know where they were headed exactly but the horses needed the rest.
 

Amanda rode beneath her own cloud of gloom. How were they going to put the pieces together? They’d played the last card in the hand they’d been dealt and come up empty. Hollander, hat brim pulled low, rode ahead of her, slump-shouldered, plainly blocking out the world.

They should have gotten out of the Arizona territory when they had had the chance, just put the whole thing behind them. Amanda wallowed in her misery, casting glances in Hollander’s direction, then beyond toward the beckoning mountains. She sat less than straight in her saddle and followed at the plodding pace he set.
 

For Hollander’s part, the mountains were ahead. Water and a place where they could camp to rest themselves and the animals beckoned. It would be at least several days before they’d be prepared to push on. What had to be decided was the direction they would be heading.

He wondered what was on Amanda’s mind after all they’d been through together. It would seem that the chase was over, that they had lost. But they had come far, and Hollander, figuring they’d tried everything else, was ready to run a bluff. It would be riskiest thing they had faced together thus far, but that was all there was left.

More than half way up the gentle slope of a dome-shaped hill, the water tanks Hollander remembered to be hidden amongst the rolling dips and swells still high above them, Colorado, went lame. He just stopped dead in his tracks and lifted his hoof pitifully above the ground, head hanging low while he whuffed and chuffed the baking air.

Amanda instantly slid off his back She was speaking softly to the suffering animal, almost in tears, stroking his injured leg, when Hollander joined her.

“Let’s have a look.”

He held his own horse’s reins loosely in one hand as he lifted Colorado’s left right hoof and examined it thoroughly. After a few moments he straightened, dragging his shirt sleeve across his forehead.

“Just a stone bruise. It’ll heal. Just take us a mite longer to get where we’re going. We get lucky and there might even be a cool pool of water to bathe that hoof in when we arrive.” He grinned. “Figured we’d be sitting tight once we get there anyway.”

Amanda nodded firmly. Her hand stroked the horse’s shoulder, more than ever aware of the heat rising up off the ground in waves and the lather that caked her exhausted mount’s coat.

“Whatever it takes. I won’t abandon Colorado.”

“Didn’t even think of asking you to. My horse is too tired to carry two even if I wanted to chance it. For now, we all walk.”

Hollander took the lead again, walking steadily ahead of his horse, the animal following close behind, head lowered, hoofs dragging. The occasional waft of air blowing down from the higher mountains to the northwest of them had in it a suggestion of enticing coolness, beckoning them on. Colorado snuffed at the fresher air and limped gamely in Amanda’s wake.

* * *

Two days outside of Santa Cruz, their course drifting slightly west of north, Hollander found the water he had been searching for and they made camp. Amanda automatically fell to her duties.
 

All that walking and climbing over the last few miles had helped Amanda sort things through and she came to a decision .

While Hollander took care of the worn out horses, giving Colorado special care, Amanda prepared their first hot meal in two days. The bright little campfire did much to lift her spirits and strengthen her resolve. She wasn’t going back East. She wasn’t even considering it, and never would. It must have shown on her face and in the set of her shoulders.

Hollander came up behind her, draping a blanket around her as the sun dipped low in the sky and the inevitable chill swept in behind the day’s sweltering heat.

“There’s only one way left to prove our innocence you know.”

Amanda nodded.

“And you’ve made up your mind already.”

She inclined her head again.
 

The heady aroma of strong coffee on the boil curled up to tantalize Hollander and he dropped down on the ground beside her with a grunt staring at the pan where dumplings and fat back sizzled along with a couple of stray wild onions.
 

“And here I thought we were going to have to have us a serious talk.”

Amanda smiled, a pleasant, weary expression of bemusement, as she split the pan between them, Hollander getting the more generous portion.

“So did I.”

A coyote howled in the distance. A far off, lonely sound. Then a chorus joined in with the lone howler.

“Sane folks would give up and clear out, put as many miles between us and those posters out on us as we could. But,” he looked at her out of the corner of his eye, “we aren’t going to do that, are we?”

Amanda’s green eyes glittered with renewed humor. “We were once, but I believe it’s doubtful now.”
 

“We’re going after Berglund. We’re going to take the banker down.” He hesitated, face sober. “It means walking under the hangman’s noose, and praying it doesn’t drop on us.”

Amanda wanted to eat and talk at the same time. She had to settle for taking small bites and talking around them.

“How?”

“Run a bluff the size of which Berglund would never conceive.”

“You have a plan in mind?”

“Convince that slimy banker we got back all the money from the others and we have proof he was involved in the robbery. We have enough of the money and the belongings of his cohorts to make him believe that and that we killed the others. Convince him we’re planning his end and we’ll scare the bejasus out of him. I figure he’ll spill everything.” Hollander paused. “You have a friend in that town? One who won’t turn you in before she hears Berglund’s admission that he planned that robbery.”

“There’s Laura. We can trust her.”

“You sure? I mean damned sure? We’re going to be in a mighty deep water if we go in there.”

“I’m sure,” Amanda returned firmly, but she was no such thing.

Laura was good and honest, but she was afraid of Berglund. No doubt she’d help them if she could, but it was a mighty big if.

Then, there was this return to Phoenix. She’d planned on returning to the dusty desert town with at least one of the bank robbers in tow and a good portion, if not all, of the money in their possession. That plan had included returning the money to the sheriff while their captured bank robber confessed his crimes and implicated John Berglund.