Rescuing Diana (21 page)

After registering the seamstress’s haughty disapproval, Macky glanced at herself in the mirror and bit back a very unladylike oath. The dressmaker was right. The blouse needed altering, but with the cape to cover it. nobody but Macky would know that it gaped open between the buttons. There was nothing she could do to hide a skirt that fell two inches short of covering her heavy work boots.

So be it. The people in Promise didn’t matter anymore and the citizens of Denver wouldn’t care what she looked like. She’d just keep traveling until she found a place where she could belong.

When the driver, Jenks Malone, crawled up on the stage, he cast a dubious eye on the odd-looking young woman who ran from the dress shop to the stage office, then boarded the coach at the last minute.

“Females,” he muttered, “always late.”

She was looking around as if she were searching for someone. Another minute and he’d leave her behind.

The only other traveler was polite and well mannered enough. According to the stationmaster, he was a preacher, “Brother Brandon Adams, headed for Heaven.”

But most preachers didn’t wear fancy clothes or a black patch over one eye.

And most preachers didn’t carry a Bible in one hand and a gun in the other.

Still, everybody along the line knew that the folks in Heaven were expecting their new minister. And if this man looked like the devil instead of a messenger of the Lord they wouldn’t care. But he made Jenks uneasy.

Jenks wasn’t sure that even a man of God could do much about the trouble in Heaven. If the federal marshal couldn’t find out who was running the miners off their claims, Jenks doubted the Lord would care.

Trouble was no stranger in the West. Lately the stage line had suffered a mess of it on the weekly run from Leavenworth to Denver to Salt Lake. Five days ago, Jenks had lost his own coach to an Indian attack. He’d managed to make his way to the next way station to wait for a new assignment. When the driver on the incoming stage came in roaring drunk, the stationmaster sent for Jenks to finish the western run.

Giving the horses a flick of his whip, Jenks moved the coach out. They were due in Denver by the next day, and there was Indian country to get through first. Indians and the Pratt gang who’d broken out of the territory prison and robbed the bank in Promise only minutes earlier. The deputy and one of the outlaws had been killed. But the sheriff had caught one and wounded another. Only Pratt and a young boy who’d been riding with them had escaped and they were likely heading west.

Jenks had a bad feeling about the trip, even if the Lord was on their side.

Read on for an excerpt from Sandra Chastain’s
Raven and the Cowboy

Spring, 1877

Raven Alexander knelt by the dying man, her clasped hands resting against her knees, her head bowed. The coals of a mesquite fire burned down, breathing little warmth into the shadows. But she did not feel the cold.

From outside the tepee came the sound of low, muffled drumbeats, growing slower and slower, like the ebbing of the old man’s heart. Then came the keening of voices, high, tight with grief, blown by the wind.

Death was no stranger to Raven. Her mother had lost her life bringing Raven into the world. Her boisterous Irish father had been killed in a mining accident. Now she was losing Flying Cloud, the man she’d always called Honorable Grandfather.

Suddenly the old man Opened his eyes and reached out to clasp her by the arm. “Come close, my child,” he said, gasping for breath, “I have little time.”

“Be still, Grandfather, you must rest.” She tried to ease him back to the rug on which he lay, but he continued to hold tight.

“No, you must listen. I have told you of the wealth of our people hidden in the sacred mountains to the south. The time has come for you to go there, to claim the treasure.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The spirits will protect you, Raven. You must go.”

Flying Cloud let go of her arm and collapsed back to the ground.

“Grandfather? Please, I can’t leave you.”

“I have prepared you for this journey all your life, Raven. You will find two men. One comes to you,” he rasped, “in the form of the cougar.”

“Cougar?” Over and over in recent weeks, she’d dreamed of a sleek golden mountain lion.

“He’ll take you to the other, the keeper of the sacred treasure who will guide you to the place where the light of the moon touches the light of the sun.”

“But I don’t want to leave you now.”

“Go, my child. Promise me that you will do this thing.”

She had no choice but to follow the wishes of this man who’d been her rock in a changing world. “I promise, Grandfather.”

With a heavy heart, Raven stood and backed away from the man she’d loved all her life. His last words followed her from the dwelling.

“Beware the bronze dagger.”

In a small cantina just south of the border, Tucker Farrell watched the slim Mexican across the table blatantly deal his Spanish friend a card from the bottom of the deck. The Spaniard wore an open jacket, displaying crossed silver-trimmed leather straps filled with cartridges for the pistol at his hip. Not only was he a crooked card player, he was a bandit as well.

The dealer gave a sharp laugh as he slapped a card on the table before Tucker and moved on to the grizzled old half-breed miner who’d turned up earlier, and who, in order to get into the game, had bragged about finding a lost treasure.

Nothing new about that along the Rio Grande. Tales of lost mines and treasure were routine. Tucker studied his cards. He was holding a pair of fours. Another time, he might have stayed in, but he weighed the possible loss of his drinking money against his chances and threw in his hand. He might have won, but a sure bottle was worth more than a few hundred maybes.

The miner studied his cards, took two. When the old man raised the bid, he shuffled his cards several times, then pulled a nugget of gold from his pocket and threw it into the pot.

The two remaining cardplayers looked at each other and nodded. The onlookers grew quiet. Tucker would have moved away had he not been caught up in the tension of the play. The hand progressed. Consternation was obvious on the old Indian’s face. Now the pot held two nuggets and what looked like a heavy gold watch fob set with a ruby.

A sick feeling hit Tucker in the pit of his stomach. The prospector was heading straight for trouble, and he seemed oblivious to the danger.

“The bet, it is to you, old man,” the dealer said in heavily accented English. “What do you say?”

Tucker wondered why the miner took such a chance. If he had actually found a treasure, it had to be worth a lot more than a meager pot in a poker game.

Must be; pride, Tucker decided. Hell, he could understand that. He’d felt the same way, until he’d lost his own self-respect and given up on finding it again.

“I have a name,” the old man said, a sudden burst of excitement giving him courage. “I am called Luce, the keeper of the mountain.”

Just as quickly the bravado turned to uncertainty as he wiped perspiration from his forehead with the worn sleeve of his shirt. “I—I cannot cover the bet, not with what I have But I give you my marker. I will return with the money, I swear.”

“We don’t take no markers,” the dealer’s sidekick said. “You’d better have money or it’s all mine.”

Tucker groaned and laid his hand on the pistol strapped on his left hip, hoping he wouldn’t have to use it. The old Indian had been showing off. No telling how he’d come by his precious loot, but he was in the stew now.

“But I have more,” the old man insisted. “I do. I will make my mark.” He reached inside his pocket.

Tucker heard the sound of a pistol being cocked.
Ah, hell
. The bastards weren’t going to let him get away. If Tucker didn’t act quickly, the bandits would have more than the old man’s IOU. Without thinking, Tucker reached for the bottle in front of him, knocking it over on the cards. The dealer turned his eyes on Tucker in disbelief.

“What the—?” the bandit swore, scrambling backward.

“Sorry.” Tucker took his bandanna from around his neck. “I’ll just wipe it up.” He lurched to his feet, slurring his words just enough to convince onlookers that he was drunk.

At the same time, he stumbled, swept the nuggets and the watch fob into his pocket, and collapsed across the table, determined that the bandits not profit from their cheating.

Then, as if he were trying to right himself, Tucker pulled the table toward himself and, shoving the miner out the door, sagged backward, blocking the exit as he fell. “I think I’ve had too much to drink,” he said with an affected laugh.

“Get out of the way, you idiot!” The two men tried to get past him, one of them firing at the escaping prospector. But in his efforts to apologize and stand, Tucker managed to delay both men long enough for the old miner to get away.

The tirade that followed was in Spanish. Tucker didn’t have to understand the exact words to know the men weren’t going to let him leave the cantina peacefully. It looked as if the half-breed wouldn’t get his treasure back after all. Still, it wasn’t until until they forced Tucker out of the saloon and into the plaza beyond that he realized what they had in mind.

The saloon emptied as the customers followed, expecting to be entertained by what was obviously a common occurrence in the village.

“You know what we do in Mexico to people who get in our way?” the dealer asked, a cruel grin exposing the stark white of his teeth against his swarthy complexion.

“It was an accident. I wasn’t even playing. I’d already folded.”

“You and the old man were in cahoots. I saw you steal the ruby,” the sidekick said. “Get a rope for the
americano
outlaw,
compadres
. Then we go treasure hunting. Si?”

Suddenly the situation wasn’t so funny anymore. Tucker opened his eyes and took in the circle of men. He was a lot bigger and stronger than the Mexicans, but the guns pointed at his chest evened that difference.

“You can’t hang me.” Tucker drew himself to his full height and looked the cocky little bastard straight in the eye.

“Oh, but we can, señor,” the man with the pistol boasted. “We surely can.”

Tucker swallowed hard. He might as well give them the nuggets. Unless a miracle occurred, he didn’t have a chance in hell of living to return the gold. After all the bad things he’d done as a soldier in the name of duty, he was going to die for helping a man he’d never seen before.

“What the hell,” Tucker said. “This place has definitely lost what little charm it had. The whiskey’s bad, the games are crooked, and as for women, haven’t seen one I’d mess around with since I left Amarillo.”

Tucker didn’t know whether his stomach, his pride, or his manhood was suffering more. As his captors slipped a rope around his neck, he knew he’d never satisfy any physical need again. Returning the booty wouldn’t change anything. The only way he’d get out of there was to sprout wings and fly.

Then suddenly he heard a low rumbling sound, like the ripple of sails in the wind, that grew louder and louder. The onlookers grew quiet as angry shrieks cut through the air. The sky filled with hundreds of large, yellow-eyed, black birds. They settled in the tops of the gnarled mesquite trees surrounding the plaza and on the roofs of the buildings. Soon the hard-packed ground was black with the querulous birds, while others hovered above the circle of men.

The Mexicans looked at each other in alarm. Two of them dropped to their knees, crossing their chests. The others followed.

The birds continued to appear as if they’d been summoned, closing out the sun and leaving the plaza dark and cold. For a moment Tucker was stunned. Then, seeing he’d been given a chance, he slipped the rope from his neck and ran to his horse.

“Get me out of here, Yank,” he whispered, throwing himself into the saddle and leaning against the animal’s neck. The birds scattered before them as, for once, the horse followed orders and together they raced away from the village toward the safety of the hills to the northwest.

Behind him the unnatural shrieks of the birds still filled the air. Then, as quickly as they’d come, the flock swept across the sky before him in a dark swirling mass, blotting out the setting sun like a black-gloved hand.

A ripple of unease ran up Tucker’s spine. He didn’t understand what had just happened, but he knew that it was unnatural as hell, and maybe as close as he’d ever want to be to the place. If he’d been a religious man, he might have been unnerved, Now he galloped along an unfamiliar trail in the burgeoning darkness; his freedom in peril should the Mexicans decide to come after him instead of the old prospector.

After several hours of hard riding along the rocky terrain and through shallow streams, Tucker reached a point where he could look back over the area he’d covered. He couldn’t see any evidence that he’d been followed. And there was no sign of the half-breed Indian miner.

The horse Tucker had given, in a moment of irony, the name of Yank was breathing hard. Tucker was edgy, not only from almost losing his life, but from the way in which he’d been saved. He’d seen buzzards and he’d seen crows. The flock that had dropped like a cloud over the plaza was neither.