Natchez Flame (13 page)

As dawn grayed the sky to the east, Priscilla stood beside the wagon, waiting for Brendan. He had readied
the team and then disappeared. She wondered where he had gone.

His steps almost silent, he approached from behind her, clearing his throat to draw her attention. Priscilla turned to face him and found him watching her with an uncomfortable look on his face. When he held out his hand, her steel-ribbed corset dangled from his long brown fingers. Priscilla flushed crimson and grabbed for the garment, but Brendan jerked it away.

“You can have it on one condition.”

“Which is?” Bright heat burned her cheeks.

“That you don’t wear it until we reach the Triple R. If Egan wants his woman all gussied up, that’s his business. My business is to get you there. Do we have a deal?”

She smiled at that, imagining the trouble he had gone to to find it. “We have a deal.” She reached for the corset, but Brendan pulled it away.

“I’ll stow it in your trunk.” Climbing into the back of the wagon, he unbuckled the leather straps of her steamer trunk, and laid the corset away.

Priscilla watched his movements, appreciating the muscle and sinew that bunched beneath his shirt, then he helped her climb up in the wagon.

Wordlessly, he took the seat beside her and handed her the reins. With a rush of pleasure, Priscilla urged the team forward, and they headed back toward the trail serving as road. Several hours later they passed a flat rock lying at the side of the trail, and Brendan told her to pull up.

“Way stone,” he said, jumping down from the seat to read the words chiseled into the rock. “Triple R
Ranch, Stuart Egan, owner.” Beneath it an arrow pointed west down an even rougher looking path.

“We must be getting close,” Priscilla said, feeling an unpleasant tightening in her stomach.

“Not that close. Egan owns the old Dominguez land grant—right at forty thousand acres. Once we reach his boundary, which is still some distance away, we’ll be crossing his land for some time.”

Priscilla only nodded. They rode along in silence for a while.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Trask finally said. “I figured you might want to know.”

She turned to look at him and found his blue eyes resting on her face. “What is it?”

“The night you were sick … after the snake bite. You were mumbling in your sleep. Most of it I couldn’t understand, but once you said something about your mother. ‘No, Mama.’ Then you said, ‘Mama, I’m scared.’ I figured you ought to know. Maybe something happened you don’t want to recall.”

Priscilla felt a chill that swept her like a wave. “I-I don’t remember.”

“Part of you does. You seemed pretty upset.”

Unconsciously, Priscilla’s fingers tightened on the reins. “Thank you for telling me. I’ll give it some thought.”
No you won’t
, a voice said.
You don’t want to know.
What did it matter? She had been just a child. Her parents were gone—Stuart Egan would be her family now.

“Maybe you’re better off letting it rest,” Trask said.

And Priscilla silently agreed.

The wagon bumped along the rutted, dusty road, Priscilla driving rather competently, she suspected, for Brendan had paid her a rare compliment in suggesting he take the horse up ahead for a look while she kept the wagon moving along the trail.

“I’ll be fine,” she assured him as he regarded her from his seat on the big black gelding, looking tall and handsome—and a little bit worried. “I’ll just take it easy.”

He reached into his saddlebags, resting behind the cantle, pulled out his spare pistol, a little smaller than the one he usually carried, and handed it to her. “If anything happens, cock it and fire off a round. I won’t be far away.”

“I’m sure I won’t need to.” But it did feel good to know she could reach him. She eyed the frightening, heavy-looking weapon. “I guess you don’t need both of them.”

“I’ve got my rifle, too.” He gave her a last brief glance, then nudged the big black forward. “Be careful,” he called over one wide shoulder.

In minutes he had ridden atop a knoll and dropped out of sight. She wondered if he had noticed something that made him wary—or if he was just bored with her company. Either way, she found herself missing his imposing presence already.

Tochoway, a chief of the Kwahadi Comanche, looked down from his vantage point beneath a cluster of live oaks on the top of a shallow rise. Down the dusty trail in the distance, a heavy wagon rumbled along, pulled by a sturdy pair of mules.

As the team drew near, Tochoway saw the full skirts and wide-brimmed bonnet of a woman, as well as several trunks and other supplies. Goods his people could use—and a chance to rain havoc on the man called Egan.

Tochoway’s heavy jaw tightened. The others were afraid of the sandy-haired white man, but he wasn’t. Egan might kill him, but death for Tochoway would be welcome—as long as he got his revenge. The Comanche chief smiled, creasing his weathered face beneath his blue war paint, deepening the tiny wrinkles at the corners of his hard dark eyes.

How clever he had been to leave tracks leading north for Egan to find. How carefully his small band of men had circled around, removing all trace of their presence, before riding south, to the trail that crossed Egan’s land. Sooner or later, Tochoway knew, men would come with supplies.

The Ranch of the Oaks was large, the people who lived there many. Sooner or later, he would find the chance to pay Egan back for the raid he had made on
the Kwahadi—the bloody attack that had killed his family and left him alone.

What did it matter that Tochoway had attacked Egan first? He was a white man, just like the Spanish who came before him. He didn’t belong here—the Comanche knew that, and so did their brother warriors to the west, the mighty Kiowa.

Tochoway watched the lone wagon rumble along and wondered why a woman traveled the dangerous road alone. Perhaps her man had been injured or killed. Perhaps she hurried to Egan for help. What did it matter? She was his now, along with the treasures she carried.

Tochoway smiled. He would take his fill of the woman, capture the goods, and send her lifeless body as a message to Egan. Except for this small band bent on raiding and war, his Comanche brothers had all moved safely to the north, out of the white man’s grasp. Tochoway would teach Egan a lesson. He would flee this land to safety, then return in the spring for more of the white man’s bounty.

Priscilla’s fingers ached from gripping the reins for so long. Yet there was a feeling of pride in accomplishing her first real frontier task. The mules heeded her firm touch, responded to the authority in her voice, and Priscilla felt renewed hope that she would indeed be able to find a place in this new land she meant to call home.

Unconsciously her gaze shifted down to the pistol on the wooden seat beside her. She had never even held a gun—it had felt heavy and uncomfortable in her hands. Still, using a weapon was just one more
skill she must master. Tonight she would cook something special, then convince Trask to give her a lesson on the use of the gun.

Priscilla scanned the horizon, taking in the gently rolling hills covered with chaparral, mesquite, and the inevitable prickly cactus. Along several tiny streams, live oaks grew, as well as dark-green-leafed pecans. Her eyes searched for the tall, broad-shouldered man on horseback, but he was nowhere to be seen. Instead, beneath the blazing Texas sun, the wagon rumbled steadily along in solitude, throwing a cloud of dust in the air, the only sound in the hot summer air the screech of a hawk overhead, and the creak and sway of the wheels.

The road grew rougher for a distance, evidence of another washout, this one not so deep but enough to jolt the wagon and knock the pistol onto the floor of the wagon boot at her feet. Priscilla knew a moment of alarm that the gun might go off, but it didn’t. She breathed a sigh of relief.

That’s when she heard it—at first a sort of high-pitched keening, then several short barks that knifed through the air, then an onslaught of blood-curdling screams and the thunder of horses’ hooves. Priscilla whirled toward the sounds and saw the cluster of hard-riding men astride their lathered mustangs, and her heart slammed hard against her chest.

Indians! Dear God in heaven!
Naked to the waist, their bodies greased and painted, they looked more fearsome than she could have imagined in her vilest nightmare. Shrieking and shouting, they raced across the plain, guiding their horses with their
knees, bows and arrows held aloft, one with a knife blade clamped between his teeth.

Stifling a shriek of terror, Priscilla slapped the reins hard on the two mules’ rumps.

“Hurry!” she cried, and the animals tore off at a gallop that swelled to an all-out breakneck run. Behind her the Indians whooped and hollered, and their horses’ hooves pounded across the earth. Trembling all over, Priscilla fought the reins with one hand and tried to keep her balance while she reached for the pistol with the other.

Groping the floor of the wagon boot with no success, she lengthened her hold on the reins and bent to search the floor again. The butt of the pistol slid into her palm, but the right rein slipped free with the effort. It sailed into the air, floated precariously for a moment, then landed on the ground behind the mules, dragging in the dirt that rushed beneath the wagon.

“Dear God,” she whispered, the other rein useless by itself. It took all of her control to fight down her panic and keep her seat as the wagon raced over the rocky earth. With an iron resolve and a trembling hand, she raised the heavy pistol, aimed it into the air, and tried to squeeze the trigger. It wouldn’t even budge.

Lord in heaven!
Had the gun been damaged when it fell on the floor of the wagon? Or, as with everything else she had tried, was she simply too unschooled to know how to use it?

Brendan, where are you?
She gripped the wagon seat, afraid to look behind her, afraid not to. She
finally swiveled her neck just in time to see a half-naked brave leap into the back of the wagon.

She screamed as the melee of neighing horses and savages in war paint and feathers rushed the wagon, engulfing the bolting team, turning the mules off the road, and slowing their headlong flight. The brave in the back moved forward, his face painted black and red, smelling so foul Priscilla almost swooned.

Instead she raised the useless pistol, realized with sudden insight that she had forgotten to cock it, pulled back the hammer, and fired. With a shriek of agony, the Indian’s face erupted in a mass of bloody gore, and he disappeared from sight out the back of the wagon.

Merciful God, what have I done?
Darkness swirled at the edges of her mind. She tried to fight it down, tried to stay in control, but all she could see was the Indian’s bloody face—or what was left of it. Then the image began to change, twisting and swelling, holding her captive, hauling her backward into the past.

Blood and death.

Terror and mind-numbing loss.

The feelings expanded with crushing force until all else faded away.

Hard, dark-skinned arms gripping her waist jolted Priscilla from her terrors of the past. She heard the wicked whoop of triumph, felt rough hands groping her breast, and the rending of fabric. Then darkness swirled in once more.

Priscilla closed her eyes, and gave herself up to merciful blackness.

*  *  *

Brendan heard the pistol shot, turned with dread from the shoeless-hoof prints he had been studying, and knew in an instant what the ominous gunshot meant.

His chest tight with worry, he swung into the saddle without using the stirrup and pulled his rifle from the scabbard behind the cantle. He checked the breech, assuring himself the gun was ready to fire, then whirled the black horse and dug his boot heels into the animal’s powerful sides.

Damn! He’d been afraid this might happen. Only his belief that Egan would have been waiting in Corpus with an armed escort if there’d been any sign of Indian trouble had kept him from worrying. The man might be ruthless, but he protected what belonged to him—or very soon would.

Brendan swore bitterly at the unexpected presence of the Indians—probably Comanche. Pulling his hat brim lower across his brow, he thought of Priscilla, prayed she could somehow get to safety, and urged the black into a flat-eared run.

As he had promised, he wasn’t far away, just over a low-lying ridge and down at the end of a valley. It didn’t take long to reach the place where the shot had been fired, and when he did, his stomach balled into a harder knot than it was already.

Pulling his horse to a sliding halt in the cover of a cluster of oaks, Brendan swung down from the saddle, tied the horse out of sight, and crept closer. Below the ridge where he crouched, the wagon lay on its side, two wheels still spinning, the mules freed from their traces and being loaded with goods. Priscilla’s trunks had been opened, their contents scattered
across the prairie, some stomped into the dirt by the Indians’ ponies. Several braves wore pieces of her clothing; one paraded wickedly in her beautiful pink crepe gown.