The Valiant Women (57 page)

“Ewell was quite the hero,” Frost said. “They gave him a place of honor at the convention and proposed to name one of the new counties after him; in fact they laid it on so thick that the good captain retired in confusion. But he enjoyed the big dance got up that night in his honor.” His cold eyes rested on Talitha. “So you've been to visit the other captive?”

“Yes.” Talitha spoke shortly. She was stunned by the news of Leonore's death, and didn't believe Frost's account of it though she couldn't think that even he would murder lovely, warm-hearted Leonore.

“A wonder Mrs. Page lived,” he mused. “She's lucky the Apaches don't scalp the way Comanches do or she'd have to comb her hair over a bald spot for the rest of her life.”

He went on to say the freight line was doing well and that Marc Revier had three mines operating in the mountains south of Yuma. “I need to see him, too, before I go to Mesilla,” Frost said. He glanced quizzically at Talitha. “I can scarce credit that he hasn't been to see you since I left these parts!”

“He came to Colonel Poston's Christmas party that year,” shrugged Talitha. “I haven't seen him since.”

Not to anyone, much less to Frost, would she try to explain how forlorn and desolate Marc's anger had left her. But sometimes even now, after all these months, she dreamed of his hard arms holding her, his mouth turning her blood to sweet fire. She never thought that way about Shea; it would have been a kind of sacrilege to imagine him loving her with his body until he wanted that himself.

It was sundown when they rode up to the corrals. Rodolfo took Ceniza whom Talitha had taken for the long trip instead of Ladorada, and Talitha hurried in to start supper with no real hope that Cat would have left off tagging the twins in time to put the
pozole
on to cook.

She had, though, and was engaged in trying to make tortillas with dough that was too watery. Meal was stuck at the edges of her silky hair where she'd pushed it back impatiently and when Talitha came in, she sighed between relief and exasperation.

“Help me, Tally! This old stuff sticks and sticks! Patrick said I couldn't do it but Miguel thought I could!”

“You can,” promised Talitha. “You can do the hard part, pat out the tortillas. We just need more meal, like this.”

Correcting the
masa
, she joined in the tortilla making. Cat rubbed her hands till they were free of dough, took a piece and started over. Talitha nodded approval as the thin round cake took shape. “Your mother never really learned to make tortillas, Cat. She'd be proud of you.”

Patrick burst in the front door, followed by Miguel. When they weren't tumbling in a Patrick-instigated jumble, that was their usual order of progression. At eleven-and-a-half, Patrick came to Talitha's shoulder and was thin and wiry. Miguel was a fraction shorter and his bones were covered in a supple way that reminded her of Santiago.

Santiago, gone so long with never a word! Marc also. Talitha pushed that lingering sadness away and thought, as she watched the boys, that Socorro would have been proud of them, too, handsome, eager, spirited as young colts.

“I knew you'd need Tally!” Patrick whooped.

“She didn't!” defended Miguel. “Look at that tortilla!”

“Look at the
masa
all over her face!” jeered Patrick. At the sound of voices, he ran to the door to the courtyard. “Why, it's Mr. Frost!”

He pelted out but Miguel, frowning, scraped his sister's face clean of the scrappy meal and started setting the table.

“The silver man?” asked Caterina, jumping up, running to peer out.

In a moment Patrick brought Frost in and Shea poured him a drink while he told Caterina how she'd grown and answered Patrick's breathless questions, behaving like an old, trusted friend. But his eyes, when Talitha met them once, were chill as winter ice.

Had Leonore fallen? Or been pushed? And now that she was out of the way, did he remember his one-time plans for Talitha? She was twenty that month. There was no longer any reason for him not to begin his wooing. When she refused him, what would he do?

Cold to the heart, Talitha put leftover venison on the table, the kettle of
pozole
, and tortillas. She sat as far as she could from Judah Frost but even with Patrick, Cat and Belen between them, she still felt his eyes.

Shea and Frost sat talking long after the twins and Cat had gone to bed. Though she hated being around the man who had menaced her since the day he caught her in the hot spring below the Place of Skulls, Talitha preferred to know what he was saying and doing while at the Socorro, but his talk of railroads and politics, after the long ride to visit Larcena, made her sleepy, and, stifling a yawn, she put down the dress she was letting out for Cat, said good night and went out through the courtyard. A figure rose out of the shadows.

Before she could cry out, hard fingers pressed on her mouth, but lightly. “Talitha!” the man whispered. “Don't say anything! I must settle with him in there, that Judah Frost! But I had to see you first. Just a moment. My God, you've grown up beautiful!”

“Santiago!” She kept her voice down, though she was light-headed with joy. “So Frost
did
lie! What happened?”

“You'll hear about that when I call him.” Hands she remembered from childhood smoothed her face. “Will you kiss me, Talitha?”

She went into his arms. He gave her a lover's kiss, sighed and turned toward the door. As he stepped inside, his face was a rigid mask darkened by shadows, but the candlelight doubled the blaze of his golden eyes.

“So you're here, Señor Frost, Señor Scalp Hunter.” Santiago's voice rasped like a snake in dead leaves. “I do not have to hunt you, then.” He came forward, a Bowie in his hand. “Don Patrick, you must learn how our partner bribed officials into accepting that I was a bandit and condemning me to slave labor in the mines. Six years of it!”

Shea stood as thunderstruck as Talitha, who had followed Santiago inside. Frost had risen. A little smile played about his lips though his revolver was hung by the door.

“I would have died long ago, my partner,” went on Santiago, yellow eyes fixed on him, “if I hadn't endured in order to kill you. You didn't need to taunt me by saying you were with the scalp hunters who destroyed the ranch of the Cantús!”

“One of
those
scalp hunters?” Shea choked.

Santiago's lips parted tightly over his teeth. “And one of those who killed Tjúni's people! The only one who escaped her arrows and those of Doña Socorro.”

“I heard the Yaquis in your region were rebelling,” said Frost conversationally. “I wondered if you might be among the convicts they freed. But then I was sure the overseers would have finished you years ago.”

“The Yaquis freed and fed me till I was strong again.” Santiago shifted the knife. The light streamed off it in a point of trembling fire. “Go outside, Talitha,” he said. “You must not see this. Don Patrick, give him a knife.”

Frost held out his hand as if to receive a weapon, but in a twinkling, there was a puff of smoke. He held a small gun that must have been up his sleeve.

A hole appeared between Santiago's eyes. He took a staggering leap forward, crashed to the floor. Both Shea and Frost made for the guns by the door, but Frost was closer. Grabbing his revolver, he clicked the hammer on the empty, and fired the second cartridge as Shea snatched down a rifle.

Spun halfway around by the shot's impact, Shea fell, bleeding from the shoulder. Talitha reached for his rifle but Frost caught her arm, wrenched her forward.

“Listen, partner,” he told Shea. “Don't follow me, you or your men, and I'll leave the girl safe at some ranch. She dies if you come after us.”

Sweat stood out on Shea's face. “You hurt her and I'll find you even if you're in hell!”

“You'll try that anyway, won't you, for the sake of your friend?” Frost nudged Santiago's body with the toe of his elegant boot. “No, all I need's a few days' start. If you wish to track me, then, on the Devil's Road, the best of luck to you!”

As Belen ran in, Chuey and Rodolfo behind him, Frost held the revolver to Talitha's ear. Under this threat, he made Chuey securely tie the other vaqueros and then marched him down to saddle horses. When this was done, Frost's bedroll and canteens secured, Chuey was compelled to tie Talitha in the saddle. Then Frost crashed the revolver down on the vaquero's head.

“Let's ride,” he said to Talitha.

Mounting, he took Ceniza's reins. They moved swiftly into the dark night.

She must be dreaming. Santiago dead? Shea bleeding? The man in front of her a scalp hunter? But it was no nightmare. Rawhide bit into her wrists though Chuey had tried to tie her loosely. Tied to either stirrup, her ankles chafed.

Shea was wounded in the shoulder, but unless it gangrened he wouldn't die from that. Santiago's wound looked fatal. And all these years of his slavery, everyone had believed him happily married and forgetful of his old friends. Rage at that and his cruel, sudden death warmed Talitha.

“The dragoons will be after you,” she cried above the sound of the horses. “And we've a Justice to hang you here; you won't have a chance to get away on the road to Mesilla!”

“That red-headed Irish surgeon can look after Shea, but no one's coming after me till they know you're safe.”

“So long as you're taken, I don't care what happens to me.”

“Don't you, my dear? We'll see about that!” He laughed softly. “I'll leave you at some ranch as I said I would, but I'll be back for you when circumstances are less pressing.”

“Shea will trail and kill you if the dragoons don't.”

“Good luck to him, if he can,” said Frost airily. “Whatever happens, before I leave you this time, I'm going to have you, Talitha.” He laughed at her involuntary sharp intake of breath. “You may decide you'd like to come with me.”

For a moment she thought of feigning, pretending willingness till he relaxed and gave her a try at a weapon, but her horror of him was so great that she knew she couldn't deceive him. She nerved herself to seize any glimmer of opportunity, though.

If he got his head start into the fierce country of the
Camino del Diablo
, he might never be found.

Marc Revier, unsuspecting, would give him provisions, and from Fort Yuma he could go overland to California or take a boat down the Colorado to the Gulf. Or he could go south on the Devil's Road and lose himself in Mexico. There was every good chance that he'd get away unless she could stop him.

How?

Assessing matters, she decided she'd just have to act quickly if any chance came.

Her thoughts kept going back to Shea. Thank goodness, John Irwin was good at probing and he'd do his best for Shea. But she wished she could have helped.

And Santiago … If only he could have been back with them awhile, if the bitterness of his captivity could have been a little forgotten among his friends, if he could have known Cat and enjoyed the twins! There'd be none of that now. But at least she had kissed him.

“The gun you used on Santiago,” she said slowly. “It's very small.”

“But, as you've seen, it kills. Mr. Henry Deringer of Philadelphia made this one. No good for distance, but effective across a card table or a bed.”

“Do you still have your scalping knife?”

“What a lurid mind you have! I never scalped anyone. Left it to the others.” He chuckled. “Fair money while it lasted.”

“I hope they remember to tell Tjúni about you! If word about you gets around the Papagos, there won't be anything left for Shea or the dragoons!”

He said, strangely, “You hate me so much that taking you should be exquisite pleasure.”

They rode in silence after that, past the hotel, Findlay's ranch, Calabazas, barked at by dogs, but unchallenged. He let her drink once and relieve herself but stayed beside her.

Going west from the river, Frost led Ceniza onward, into the mountains. Night changed to gray light, the east began to flush, fingers of dark cloud kindled and the sun hurled itself above the mountains.

“This is far enough,” Frost said.

He turned to her with a smile.

XXX

He took her, grinding her body between his and the blanket tossed on the sand of a dry wash. Talitha was glad of the pain which kept her from thinking. She fought him savagely but he only laughed, pinioned her arms more cruelly and kept himself locked inside her wildly threshing body.

Then as something gripped him, as he swore, moaning, holding her as he drove sledgingly for his release, she knew beneath her shock and dread that there must be for him, after this, a moment of rest, a time of recovery.

How could she use it?

She didn't know where the little gun was, but the revolver should have several more cartridges in it, perhaps even four. It lay on his trousers a few yards away.

Talitha endured the hurtful thrusts, waiting. His rhythm faltered. “Fight me, damn you!” he gritted. “Fight me!”

The brutal hardness inside her was softening. This man had not had his fulfillment—
could
not, she realized with bitter triumph, unless she gave him her struggles.

She laughed softly, tauntingly, but couldn't afford to enjoy his humiliation if she wanted to seize that moment he would be disarmed by gratified lust.

It wasn't hard to battle him. She tried to bite his wrists that clamped her arms, writhed and twisted, and as she did her best to unseat him, yielding to her hatred, she restored his weapon and he pierced her with it, thrusting with mounting need till he cried out, shuddered and collapsed on her.

His weight pinned her. He lay like one dead. She felt smothered by his breath, drenched by his slime. To give him his pleasure and then not be able to take advantage of his slackening! She could have wept.