Train From Marietta (11 page)

“Just try it, you guttersnipe,” she said again, goading him recklessly.

Squirrelly took two big steps toward her, pulled back his hand, and slapped her so hard her head bounced back against the wall. Pain shot through her skull. For a moment, she was dazed, her eyes unfocused. When reality returned, he was there, his knees on the bed, grinning at her.

“How do you like that, Miss Prissy-Tail? Maybe you’re the kind that likes it rough.”

“My father will kill you,” she mumbled through the pain and shock. She could taste blood inside her mouth.

“Yeah? He won’t be able to swat a fly when we get through with him.”

“We? Who do you mean?”

“Who do you think? Your old papa is so smart he don’t know what’s right under his nose. In the meanwhile, I’m gonna have me some fun with the cream of New York society. You can tell your snooty friends about it when you get back home—
if
you get back home—that you were screwed by a real man.”

When he slapped her, the bottle of alcohol had slipped out of his hand and landed on the bed. The dark liquid had soaked the mattress, the strong stench filling her nostrils. The odor mingled with Squirrelly’s foul breath and unwashed body.

“Don’t touch me! Get away!”

“Not on your life. I’m about to plow you. It’s somethin’ I’ve wanted to do from the moment I saw you.” He grabbed her and yanked her close to him. “Mmmm, you smell good, sweetie. How do you want it? Rough? Or are you going to lay back and spread your legs for me?”

Kate pushed against him with all her might. Squirrelly smirked at her attempt to push him away and stepped away from the bed. When she looked again, he was taking off his belt. Desperate to stop what was about to happen, she grabbed for the whiskey bottle. Her hand grasped the wrong end to swing, so she threw it at him. He dodged. She swung her fists at him with all the strength that she had left. Still smirking, he shoved her down on the cot. As his weight pressed down on her, she grabbed a handful of his hair and screamed and screamed and screamed.

God help me. He’s going to rape me!

Out of the corner of her eye she saw something, and Squirrelly collapsed on top of her.

Chapter 10

P
ANIC-STRICKEN, KATE TRIED FRANTICALLY
to push Squirrelly off her, but his dead weight pinned her to the bed. Suddenly he was lifted up and tossed to the floor like a sack of grain. A man stood next to the cot, his hand extended toward her. Kate looked up into a face that was strangely familiar, but she wasn’t sure. The man’s hat was pulled low over his forehead.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” his gruff voice ordered. “I’m not going anywhere with you.” Kate was still dazed.

“Do you want to stay here and let this animal rape you?” She looked down to see Squirrelly lying limp on the floor, his britches almost to his knees. Blood oozed from the side of his head.

The man grabbed her hand. “I said come on.” Finally Kate recognized the unmistakable gentle drawl of the cowboy from the train.
The cowboy from the train!
He looked the same as he had when they boarded the train together: same clothes, same rudeness. Her shock at seeing Squirrelly lying on the floor, however, was greater than her surprise at seeing the cowboy. “Is he dead?” Her mouth was dry, making it difficult for her to talk.

“What do you care? He was going to rape you, and probably kill you.”

“How do I know you’re not one of them?” she said defiantly, yanking her arm free from his grip.

“You’re Miss Tyler, aren’t you?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Your father contacted the Texas Rangers. They’re looking for you.”

“Are you a Texas Ranger?”

“No. Now, are you coming or not? Make up your mind. I’m not waiting around here until Hayden gets back. He’s one mean son of a bitch.”

“I’m coming.” A quick thought passed through Kate’s mind. Going off with this strange man couldn’t possibly be any worse than waiting around for Eddy and Hayden to come back. Besides, the farther she was from here, the better. She reached for her bag, flung it over her arm, and hurriedly followed him out the door.

The sun clung to the very top of the hills, its disk a deep red. The purple color of twilight filled the sky. Shadows on the ground were growing larger by the second. Soon it would be dark.

Out in back of the cabin, the cowboy stopped and looked down at her feet. “Are those the only shoes you have?”

“Here? Yes.”

“Well, come on. They’ll have to do.” He grabbed her arm again and pulled her across the yard and into the dense bushes at the back of the cabin. Kate stumbled along behind him, her heels digging into the soil.

“Hurry up, I hear the car coming.” He stopped and pushed her down behind some underbrush.

“Stay here and don’t make a sound, no matter what you hear.”

“You’re leaving me now?” Eddy and Hayden were coming back!

“You’ll be all right. I won’t be gone long,” he said gently. “Don’t move, or I won’t be able to find you when I come back.” He was gone without a sound.

Kate stared blindly into the darkness. When she heard a pair of car doors slam, she had to will herself to keep breathing. The door to the cabin creaked, and then a string of obscenities reached her ears. Hayden was in a rage.

Where is the cowboy?

“You goddamn stupid fool! You let her get away!” Hayden shouted at the unconscious man on the floor. He drew back his foot and kicked Squirrelly “I should kill this useless son of a bitch!”

Eddy stared down at Squirrelly and gritted his teeth. His pants were unbuttoned and bunched around his knees. No doubt he had intended to rape Kate, but there was no evidence that he had completed the job. How had Kate managed to fight him off and get away? Blood oozed from the wound on Squirrelly’s head. Eddy hoped that the little shit had a headache for a month. The important thing now was to find Kate. Hayden snatched a lantern from the wall, lit it, and headed for the door.

“What are you going to do?” Eddy asked.

“Find her. What else?”

“Don’t hurt her.”

“I’d like to wring her damn neck,” Hayden muttered. He spat a stream of tobacco at Squirrelly’s motionless body. “She got the jump on him while he was thinking with his pecker, or maybe somebody helped her.”

“You said nobody knew about this cabin,” Eddy accused.

“Don’t be stupid, Jacobs! Damn cabin’s been here for fifty years or more. Fella named Castle knows about it.”

“How would he have found out Kate was here?”

“Probably snooping around, looking for me. He found the cabin, saw her, and figured she must be my woman, so he snatched her.”

“Do you know him?”

“He’s been doggin’ me for years. I owe that bastard plenty, and he’ll get it as soon as I catch up with him.”

“Would he hurt Kate?”

“What do you think?” Hayden said with a chilling laugh. “Him and me ain’t like you city fellas. Soon as he gets her alone in the woods, he’ll take his, just like I would’ve took mine.”

“Oh God! Poor Kate.”

“To hell with her! All she means to me is money.” Hayden flung open the door. “Stay here while I look around. I don’t want your tracks messing up hers.”

Before Eddy could say anything in reply, Squirrelly groaned and blinked his eyes. Slowly, and with great effort, he managed to lean up on one elbow. His hand rubbed the growing knot on the back of his head.

Eddy bent down beside him and nudged him with his hand. “What the hell happened here?”

“Ohhhh, my head,” Squirrelly moaned.

“What happened here?” Eddy repeated.

“The son of a bitch hit me. I’ll kill him.” Squirrelly drew his fingers away from his head and looked at the red stain of his own blood. “I’ll kill him.”

“Who?” Hayden uttered the word sharply as he came back inside the cabin.

“How in the hell do I know? He looked like one of the clods that live around here.”

“An Indian?” Eddy asked.

“No, he wasn’t no Indian. I just got a glance at him before he whopped me.”

“I know who he was,” Hayden said as he went to the door and stood looking into the dark night. “Castle.” Inside, he was seething.

“Can you find them?” Eddy asked nervously.

“Yeah, but there ain’t much point in startin’ now. I could spend the whole damn night lookin’ for tracks with this lantern and not find a thing. I hate givin’ Castle a head start, but I’m gonna have to wait till mornin’.”

“But they’ll get away!”

“They ain’t gonna get far,” Hayden sneered into the dark night. “This land’s hard enough to get around in during the day. Movin’ around at night’s gonna be slow. ’Specially if he has to drag that woman with him.”

“But you said he might rape her,” Eddy protested.

“I ain’t goin’ till mornin’,” Hayden said with a tone that signaled the discussion was over.

Eddy stood in the room that had been Kate’s with anger burning in his belly. He knew that he shouldn’t have left her with Squirrelly But now Kate was out there in the wilderness with a man cut from the same cloth as Hayden!

“I need a doctor!” Squirrelly moaned.

“This is all your fault!” Eddy shouted at Squirrelly. “I knew I couldn’t depend on you. All you’ve got on your mind is fornicating.”

“Fornicating? What’s that?”

Eddy looked at him in disgust and turned away.

The seconds went by like minutes, the minutes like hours. Kate burrowed down into the bushes like a creature of the wilds. She had never known such utter darkness. Something had bitten her arm, and she itched. She breathed steadily to let the terrific pounding of her heart subside a little.

What if they kill this man who came to help me?

She heard the men enter the cabin, and the night was filled with the curses from Hayden’s foul mouth. “You goddamn stupid fool! You let her get away! I should kill this useless son of a bitch!”

Kate pushed herself up and waited for the cramped muscles in her legs to relax.
Quiet,
she told herself.

“Shhhh …” The hiss came from beside her. “It’s me. Give me your hand.”

The relief Kate felt almost opened a floodgate of tears, but she held them back. When the man’s calloused palm met hers, she squeezed it with all her might and followed him. In the scant light of the rising moon, she could see that he carried a bundle under his arm and saddlebags over his shoulder. They walked on uneven ground.
How does he know where we’re going? Can he see in the dark like a cat?

Small bushes scratched against her legs as she struggled to keep up with the stranger’s long strides. The thin moon rose steadily in the night sky, but he never slowed.

As they walked on through the darkness, Kate couldn’t help but think about the strangeness of her situation. A week ago she had been thousands of miles away working in a clinic. Now she was deep in the Texas wilderness with a man who had no doubt saved her life, and she didn’t even know his name.

She stumbled on an unseen branch and threw her arm out to catch herself. The cowboy steadied her and then kept on walking. A short time later he stopped and listened. She stood with her forehead resting on his back, so exhausted she could hardly move.

“You all right?”

“Just tired.”

“Let’s go on. I turned my horse loose. Let’s hope Hayden will follow him. That will give us a little time. We’re headed east. Hayden won’t start tracking us until morning.”

“How do you know Hayden?” she asked, looking up at the side of his face.

“He’s wanted to kill me for a long time,” the stranger answered without looking at her. His eyes scanned over the area they had covered. “That doesn’t matter now. Come on, let’s go.”

“I can’t even thank you. I don’t know your name.”

“My name is Tate Castle.”

“How did you know where I was?”

“We don’t have time for this. Come on.”

Kate clutched the cowboy’s arm. The events of the last few days had left her dazed, and it seemed he was the only real thing left in the world.

“We’re going to have to walk out of here. I’m going to break the heels off those shoes of yours.” He knelt down to slip a shoe off. He stepped on the high heel, and it snapped off. He put the shoe back on her foot and lifted her other foot to take off the shoe. With both heels off, he said, “That better?”

“It feels strange, but I’ll get used to it.”

Without another word, the cowboy started walking. Kate followed blindly along. It was as if her mind had set her legs the task of carrying her and they kept stubbornly moving forward, incapable of deciding to stop. She stumbled, bumped against a tree, pushed herself away from it, and staggered on.

When, sometime later, Tate stopped, she bumped into him. He dropped the bundle and caught her arm, steadying her against a tree trunk. “Careful!”

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“We’ll stop here. Hold on to the tree.”

He picked up a stick and began to move it around on the ground.

“Why are you doing that?” Kate asked.

He continued raking the stick over the ground, making large circles through the sandy soil. Finally he tossed the stick away and knelt down and loosened the ties of the bedroll and spread it out under a small tree.

Kate, thinking her bladder would burst any minute, moved toward the bushes for some privacy. She was embarrassed to have to seek privacy to relieve herself, but she didn’t have any choice. It was all so unreal! Her life was in the hands of this man, and she’d never really seen his face, except for that brief time on the train and at the cabin.

“Where are you going?” he asked harshly.

Kate looked at him over her shoulder and kept going. She parted the bushes and stepped into a clearing that would afford her some privacy.

“Wait,” Tate said sharply. “Damn it! I said wait!”

“I’ll not go far.”

Tate moved past her with the big stick still in his hand. He threw his arm out to hold her back while the hand holding the stick swooped down and flipped a small snake out of her path.

Her screech of fear was cut off suddenly when Tate’s hand clamped down over her mouth.

“Quiet. Keep your voice down. Sounds carry here in the hills.”