A Lady of the West (25 page)

She had never before sworn in her life, but she was so enraged at what this had done to Celia that the thought rang in her mind: “Goddamn them, goddamn them all!” She didn't mean it as a blasphemy but as a curse. All of them—McLain, Garnet, all of the gun
men at the ranch who had looked at them as if they were nothing but sides of beef, even Jake, for he had left them to face this on their own—she cursed all of them.

Celia would never be the same again. Her lighthearted innocence was gone and could not be recovered. When she looked at men now it wasn't with childlike faith that they would protect her; it was with full knowledge that there was evil in the world and the very ones she had always thought were her champions were instead those who would harm her.

Celia should have, in a few years, fallen in love with a strong, gentle man, married him, raised a family with him, and died at a very old age having known nothing but devotion from her husband. It was a dream of perfection which Victoria realized few women achieved, but it was the life Celia should have had. It wouldn't happen now. She had seen the ugliness the human spirit was capable of, and it had changed her.

War hadn't touched her, but the bitter, violent atmosphere of the West and Kingdom Valley had.

Sophie stumbled and quickly recovered herself. Victoria leaned forward to pat the satiny neck and murmur encouragement.

“Should we go on or wait until daylight?” Emma asked.

They couldn't have gone far, having been restrained to a walk most of the time, but Victoria felt as if they were a million miles from civilization. She started to say she thought it would be all right to wait until morning when the sharp retort of gunfire rolled through the night air.

It wasn't just one shot. It was a multitude of them, the sharp cracks of pistols, the deeper thunder of rifles, and it went on and on.

They all three looked back in the direction of the ranch, though there was nothing to see.

Emma spoke first. “It sounds like a war.”

“It is. The ranch is under attack.”

“But
who?”

Victoria could barely speak, her throat was so tight. “The Major said it was Sarratt.”

“It can't be. Why would someone wait twenty years for revenge?” Emma tried to sound soothing, but her own throat was tightening.

“Because the Major waited that long to get married,” she answered, and swung Sophie's head around. She was so terribly frightened, but she had to stay in control. If it was Sarratt, would he bother coming after them? He wouldn't even know where they'd gone unless some of the men talked, if anyone was left alive to talk.

The Major had infected her with his maggot of fear, she could no longer convince herself that it was all just in his mind.

“We'll have to keep going,” she said. “For as long as we can. The farther we are from the ranch come morning, the safer we'll be.”

They didn't hit the ranch like a bunch of cowboys hoorahing a town, riding in fast and loud, shooting up the place. They left their horses back a piece and went in silently, on foot. Since it was going to be close fighting they all tied their handkerchiefs around their left arm for identification, so they wouldn't start shooting each other. It would identify them to McLain's men, too, but that couldn't be helped.

It started when one of the ranch hands stepped around the end of the barn and came face to face with one of the Sarratt men. The ranchhand reached for his gun and the Sarratt man's big Sharps rifle slug took most of the man's chest with it when it exited his back.

Jake and Ben fought their way side by side toward the house. It was hard to tell, but Jake didn't think any shots were being fired at them from inside the house and that gave him hope that the women weren't in immediate danger. His attention was centered on
McLain, on finding him and killing him. It had to be; he couldn't afford to worry about Victoria until he'd taken care of McLain.

Someone shot at them with a rifle from the barn loft, the bullet zinging so close to Jake's head that he felt the heat from it and dived to the side. He looked around, saw Luis, and yelled, “Get that bastard in the loft!”

Luis grinned, his white teeth visible in the dark, and started his snaking run toward the barn.

All around them men were dead, wounded, or dying, and still the gunfire split the night from all directions.

“Where's Garnet?” Ben muttered.

“In a hole somewhere. He won't take any risks.”

Wendell Wallace rose up from behind the hitching post where he'd been hugging the ground and drew a bead on Jake. Ben fired and Wendell fell back, his finger tightening convulsively on the trigger and firing a shot uselessly into the air.

Jake cautiously approached him, his .44 ready. When he reached Wendell, he saw that the man was breathing laboriously, with a frothing black liquid bubbling out of his chest.

Wendell looked at him and said, “Roper! Jesus Christ, why'd you do that?”

“My last name isn't Roper. It's Sarratt.”

Wendell blinked, trying to focus on Jake's face. “Jesus Christ,” he said again. “I thought we'd kilt you.”

“No, but we've killed you. You're lung-shot, Wendell.”

Wendell tried to take a deep breath, and the sound rattled in his throat. “Guess so.” His voice was so weak it was almost soundless. “I'll be damned. Reckon I'm gonna die, then.”

“Yep.”

“Better'n gut-shot, anyways,” he said, and his eyes became fixed in death.

Ben looked down at him. “That was Wendell Wallace?”

“Yeah.”

“I remember him. He taught me how to whittle. Then he threw in with McLain and tried to kill us.” “Yeah,” Jake said again.

They rushed the front door together, entering in a low crouch, hammers cocked and their fingers on the triggers. Nothing happened, no one moved. The lamps still burned serenely.

Ben's face was rigid. It was the first time he'd been inside his home in twenty years. He looked at the tiled floor where his mother had died.

They methodically searched the first floor, and found Carmita, Juana, and Lola huddled together in the kitchen. Carmita gasped when she saw Jake.

He didn't have time for explanations or reassurances. “Where's McLain?”

Carmita's eyes were huge. “I don't know, señor.” She swallowed. “He was in the library.”

They stood one on each side of the library door, and Jake tried the knob. It was locked. He motioned to Ben, then stepped back, raised his foot, and kicked in the door. Ben went in first, diving through, rolling and coming up, but nothing else in the room moved. It was empty.

“Goddamn it, where is he?” Ben asked, frustrated.

“Like Garnet, looking for a hole.” Abruptly Jake looked up and his entire face tightened. What if McLain was upstairs, using the women as cover?

He ran up the stairs with Ben right behind. He took the rooms on the right, Ben checked the ones on the left. They were all empty.

Damn him, what had he done with the women? Certain now that McLain had them, he swore that he would carve the bastard up alive if he'd even so much as bruised Victoria.

“Check the courtyard.” It was the last place he could think of for McLain to hide without having to
leave the shelter of the house and face the firestorm of bullets outside.

Ben nodded. “I'll go around the house and come in the back gate.”

Jake waited in the kitchen to give Ben time to work his way around. The three servants were still crouched on the floor, huddled together for comfort. “What is happening, Señor Jake?” Carmita asked.

“We're taking back our ranch,” he replied without looking at her, pistol in his hand as he eased the door open. “My brother and I.”

Lola raised her head, her face strained. “Sarratt,” she whispered as Jake slipped out the door.

Rectangles of light from the window splashed across the courtyard, illuminating some spots, leaving darker shadows in others. Jake could just make out Ben sliding along the wall, gun in hand.

“Major?” Jake called softly.

Hearing, Ben went motionless.

“Major?”

For a long minute there was no sound and Jake took another silent step around a bench, the very bench where Victoria had sat the day after she had married McLain.

“Roper?”

The whisper came from his right, close to the rain barrel. Every nerve in Jake's body tightened.

“Yeah.”

“They said you'd gone.”

“I came back.”

Slowly McLain stood up from behind the barrel. The light from a window fell across his face, starkly etching the physical signs of his mental deterioration. He giggled. “I told 'im, but he didn't believe me. Sarratt's back, isn't he?”

Jake stared in disgust at the ruin before him. “Yeah, McLain. I'm back.”

McLain giggled again. “No, not you. Sarratt. You're back, but so's he.”

“I'm Sarratt.”

“No, you're Roper. You've got to find him and kill him for me. You've got to—”

Jake moved another step forward, also stepping into the light. It hit him from the side, delineating the sharp planes of his brow, jaw, and cheekbones, making dark pools of his eyes. To McLain's fevered brain his face looked like a skeleton's head, a dead man come back to haunt him.

McLain moaned, shrinking back from him, and the sound swiftly escalated into a shriek. “You're dead!” he screamed. “You came back, but you're still dead. Get away, damn you! I need a lamp!
Someone bring me a goddamn lamp!”

Jake felt his guts twist and a bitter taste filled his mouth. The man was a raving lunatic. The moment of revenge he'd waited twenty years for had finally come, the gun was in his hand, but the target was still eluding him, snatched away by madness. He wanted McLain as he had been twenty years before, not this slobbering fool.

Without warning, McLain jerked his hand up, the pistol trembling in his grip. Frozen in bitter disappointment Jake was caught off guard, and even though his pistol was already in his hand he had a split second of recognition that he wasn't going to be in time. Then a shot boomed from behind him, followed closely by another. McLain jerked from the impact of the two bullets, rising almost on tiptoe, the pistol dropping from his hand. He stared at Jake with virulent hatred.

“Die again, you son of a bitch, this time I'll kill you and make certain you stay—” He raised his empty hand, unaware that the pistol no longer filled it, and pantomimed the motion of firing. A look of utmost astonishment crossed his face, then it went blank and he died on his feet. He flopped, rag-doll loose, across the rain barrel.

Jake whirled, his eyes blazing, to confront whoever
had snatched away his vengeance, whoever it was who had saved his life.

Juana stood with one of the Major's pistols held at arm's length, both of her hands clasped around the butt. Her face was expressionless as she stared at McLain's body. Then her lips twisted; she spat at the dead man and whispered, “Good.”

Ben walked up, and he and Jake stood shoulder to shoulder looking at the dead man. Jake was aware of an absurd sense of regret. It was over, the driving force that had dominated their lives for twenty years, but instead of the wrenching battle he had needed and anticipated, he had faced a man diminished by insanity, and the final act of vengeance had been Juana's. In a way McLain had still won, for even though he lay dead at their feet he had robbed them of satisfaction by being less than he had been.

It left a hard core of bitterness, this unexpected defeat.

There was still gunfire outside the walls, but it was more sporadic now. It reminded Jake that it wasn't finished, not until Garnet's body lay at their feet, too.

And where in the hell was Victoria?

He and Ben stepped back into the house. Juana followed them, her face as blank as a sleepwalker's although silent tears tracked down her face.
“Dios,”
she murmured.
“Dios.”

From the way she was acting, Jake guessed at what McLain had put Juana through. He figured her need for vengeance might have been as great as his own and tried not to begrudge her. He bent down and lifted Carmita and Lola to their feet, assuring him that they wouldn't be hurt. “Where is the señora?” he asked. “And her sister and cousin?”

Carmita shook her head, looking frightened. “I don't know. They aren't upstairs?”

“No.”

Carmita clasped her hands.
“Madre de Dios!
If they were outside—”

She didn't have to finish the sentence. He turned on his heel and left the house. If they'd been caught outside, stray bullets could easily have hit any or all of them. It had been a firestorm of flying lead.

It was all over now. Those of McLain's men still left alive were coming out of their various hiding places with their hands high and empty. Jake and Ben searched the area, turning bodies over with their boots, kicking pistols away from outstretched hands. There was no sign of Garnet, or of the three women.

A cold sensation was freezing Jake's insides as he looked around at the vast, dark land. Had Garnet taken them? If he had, Jake knew he would never see Victoria alive again, because she wouldn't sit meekly while Garnet raped her sister. She would fight him and he'd put a bullet in her brain without a second thought. Despair congealed in a hard knot in his stomach at the thought.

He turned back to the small group of men huddled together and picked one out. He thumbed back the hammer, knowing everyone heard the small click, and pointed it at the man's head. “You, Shandy. Where's Garnet?”

Sweat began pouring down the man's face, despite the chilly night. “I seen him ride out, Roper. I swear to God I did.”

“When?”

“‘Bout the time you went in the house. Him and a coupla others.”

“Which direction?”

Shandy lifted a shaking hand and pointed east.