The Touch of Fire

by Linda Howard

  She stared into the night, so tired her eyes were burning, yet she couldn’t sleep. What could she have done differently that would have changed the morning’s events? She could think of nothing, and yet she kept seeing Trahern’s open, unseeing eyes. He had been a killer, hunting men for money, but he hadn’t seemed particularly mean. He had been polite to her, had at first tried to reassure her, had even, within the realm of possibility, tried to make certain she wouldn’t be hurt. Morals, or had he simply been disinterested because there was no profit to be had in her death? She wished he had been a filthy, brute, but life never seemed to be that clearcut.

  And yet it had been that clear-cut for Trahern. He hadn’t shot Rafe when he’d had the chance because he had known he was dying and thus wouldn’t be able to collect the bounty money. As Trahern himself had said, there was no point in it. For him, it had simply been a question of money and nothing else.

  The stars came out and she stared at them through the trees, wishing that she knew how to tell time by their position. She had no idea how long Rafe had been gone, but it didn’t matter. He would either be back by morning, or he wouldn’t.

  If he didn’t return, what would she do? Ride back to Silver Mesa and pick up her life where she had left it?

  Say that she had been summoned to treat someone a good distance away? She didn’t think she could calmly ride back into town and carry off a charade like that, knowing that Rafe was dead.

  She was acutely aware that he could just keep on going, that he might have had no intention of returning for her, but her heart didn’t believe it. With no real evidence to sustain her, only the love she bore him, she knew that he wouldn’t abandon her like that. Rafe had said he would be back. As long as he was alive, he would keep his word.

  It seemed as if hours had passed and dawn had to be on the horizon before she heard the sound of a horse being walked toward her. She scrambled to her feet and almost fell, for she had been sitting so long that her legs were cold and numb. Rafe dismounted and immediately put his arms around her. “Was there any trouble?” he asked into her hair. “Did anything frighten you?”

  “No,” she stammered, burying her face against his chest and inhaling the wonderful hot male scent of him. Nothing had frightened her except the horrifying possibility of never seeing him again. She wanted to cling to him and never let go.

  “I got fresh clothes for you, and some other things.”

  “Such as?”

  “Another cup, for one thing.” She heard the amusement in his voice. “And another cook pot. Soap and matches. Things like that.”

  “No oil lamp?”

  “Tell you what. If we find another cabin to stay in, I promise I’ll find an oil lamp for you.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” she said.

  He spread a blanket on the ground. “We might as well bed down here,” he said. “Come morning, we’ll head south.”

  They had Trahern’s blankets now, and were below the snow line, so she knew they would be warm enough. The question was whether or not she could sleep. She curled up on her side and pillowed her head on her arm, but as soon as she closed her eyes she saw Trahern’s body and she quickly opened them again.

  Rafe lay down beside her and pulled the blankets over them. His hand was heavy on her stomach. “Annie,” he said, that special note in his voice that said he wanted her.

  She tensed. After everything that had happened that day, she didn’t think she could lose herself in lovemaking. “I can’t,” she said, her voice breaking a little.

  “Why not?”

  “I killed a man today.”

  After a moment of silence he leaned up on his elbow. “Accidentally. You didn’t mean to kill him.”

  “Does that make any difference to him?” Another silence. “Would you hold your fire if you could do it over again?”

  “No,” she whispered. “Even if I knew I was going to kill him, I would still have to shoot. In that regard, it wasn’t an accident at all.”

  “The men I’ve killed were during war or to prevent them from killing me. I learned not to worry about their decision in coming after me; they made it, so they took the consequences. I can’t live my life regretting that I’m the one alive, instead of them.”

  She knew that. Her mind accepted it. Her heart, though, was sick with combined shock and sadness.

  His hand became more insistent, turning her onto her back. “Rafe, no,” she said. “It wouldn’t be right.”

  He tried to see her face through the darkness. All day long he had been aware of her suffering, and though he couldn’t put himself in her place to the extent that he could feel her pain, he had understood the reasons and worried because she was hurting. He had hoped that the sudden action forced on them would keep her from brooding, but it hadn’t.

  Doctors spent their lives trying to help others. The calling had been even stronger for Annie, for she had had to fight just for the chance to learn. His little darling hadn’t even been able to bring herself to hurt him even when she had been terrified for her life, yet she had shot without hesitation to protect him, and now her soul was hurting.

  She had no idea how to handle it. When he had been forced to face death he hadn’t had the luxury of time to reflect on it; the battle had moved too swiftly. Afterward he had vomited and wondered if he could ever face another dawn, but the sun had risen after all and there had been other battles. He had learned how frail human life was, how easily snuffed, and how little difference it made.

  Annie would never be able to accept that. Life was precious to her, and it humbled him that she had killed to defend him. She was mired in remorse, and he couldn’t leave her there. He didn’t know what else to do but refuse to leave her alone with death filling her memories. He leaned over her. “Annie. Our lives didn’t stop.”

  His strong hands were under her skirt, opening her drawers and pulling them down, then he flipped her skirt up and rolled on top of her. His heavy weight held her down, his thighs forced hers open.

  His penetration hurt, because she wasn’t ready for him, but her hands dug into his powerful back as she clung to him. His powerful thrusts moved her back and forth on the blanket. His heat comforted her, inside and out. She caught her breath on a sob, but she was glad he hadn’t stopped. She sensed that he knew what she was feeling, just as he knew that the celebration of life is keenest when faced with the specter of death. He wouldn’t let her wallow in guilt. This is life, he was telling her. With the force of his body he was drawing her away from the death scene being played over and over in her mind.

  She did sleep, eventually, worn out from the demands he had made on her and the explosive reaction of her own body. Rafe held her in his arms and felt her finally relax, and only then did he allow himself to sleep.

  CHAPTER

  12

  “Where are we going?” she asked when they stopped at noon to eat and rest the horses.

  “Mexico. That’ll get Atwater off my trail.”

  “But not the bounty hunters.”

  He shrugged.

  “Trahern said that the bounty on you is ten thousand dollars.”

  Rafe’s eyebrows went up and he whistled. He looked a little pleased. Annie had never struck a person in her life, but she was sorely tempted to slap him. Men !

  “It’s gone up,” he said. “Last I heard, it was six thousand.”

  “Who was it you were supposed to have killed?” she asked in bewilderment. “Who was that important?”

  “Tench Tilghman.” Rafe paused, his eyes on the horizon. In his mind he saw Tench’s young, earnest face.

  “I’ve never heard of him.”

  “No, I suppose not. He wasn’t anyone important.”

  “Then why is there so much money offered for a reward? Was his family rich? Is that what it is?”

  “It isn’t Tench’s family,” Rafe muttered. “And Tench was just an excuse. If it hadn’t been him, they would have pinned someone else’s murder on me. Killing me is t
he whole point of it, not justice. It doesn’t have a damn thing to do with justice.”

  She said, “You didn’t want to tell me before because you said it would be dangerous for me to know. What difference does it make now? I can’t go back to Silver Mesa and pretend I’ve never heard of you.”

  She was right about that. Rafe looked at her, sitting as erect as if she were in a drawing room back East, her blouse buttoned right up to her throat, and he hurt inside. What had he done to her? He had forced her from the life she had forged for herself and now she was on the run with him. But he couldn’t have left her behind or she would have confessed to killing Trahern, and then the men following him would have known, or guessed, that she might know him, might know his secrets, and they wouldn’t take a chance; she would be killed. Maybe it was time that she knew about the others; the bounty hunters and the lawmen weren’t the only ones after him. It was only fair that she knew what they were up against.

  “All right. I guess you have a right to know now.”

  She gave him a disgruntled look. “I’d say so, yes.”

  He stood up and looked around, taking his time, studying the horizon. They were well concealed by trees and rocks, and the only things moving were some birds wheeling lazily overhead, black against the cobalt sky. The white-capped mountains towered overhead.

  “I met Tench during the war. He was from Mary-land, a few years younger than me. A good man. Level-headed.”

  Annie waited as she saw Rafe trying to work out how to frame the story.

  “When Richmond fell, President Davis moved the government by train to Greensboro. The treasury was moved too. On the same day Lincoln was assassinated, President Davis, in a wagon caravan, slipped past the Yankee patrols, and headed south. Another wagon caravan carried the treasury, but it went by a different route.”

  Her eyes widened suddenly. “Are you talking about the missing Confederate treasure?” she asked in a choked voice. “Rafe, is all of this about gold? You know where it is?” Her voice rose in a squeak.

  “No. In a way.”

  “What do you mean, ‘in a way’? Do you know where the gold is or don’t you?”

  “I don’t,” he said flatly.

  She exhaled, feeling weak. She didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed. All of the newspapers had been full of the mystery of the vanished Confederate gold; some had advanced the theory that the ex-Confederate president had secreted it away, others that remnants of the defeated Confederate armies had taken it to Mexico in an effort to raise more troops. Some Southerners had charged that the gold had been stolen by Yankee troops. She had read of theory after theory, but all of them had seemed to her to be nothing more than guesses. Six years after the war had ended, the lost Confederate gold was still lost.

  Rafe was staring at the horizon again, his expression hard and bitter. “Tench was part of President Davis’s escort. He said that they went to Washington, Georgia, and found out that the money was in Abbeville, not very far away. The treasure wagons joined up with President Davis. He ordered part of the money, about a hundred thousand dollars in silver, to be paid to some cavalry troops in back pay they were owed. About half of the treasury was sent back to Richmond to the banks, and President Davis took the rest to use to escape and set up another government.”

  She was stunned. “What do you mean, it was returned to Richmond? Are you telling me the banks have had the gold all this time and didn’t tell anyone?”

  “No, it never made it back to Richmond. The wagon train was robbed about twelve miles out of Washington—Georgia, not D.C.—probably by some of the locals. Forget about the gold. It isn’t important.”

  She had never heard anyone dismiss a lost fortune as “unimportant” before, but his expression hadn’t lightened, so she bit back any other questions.

  “President Davis and his escort, with the remainder of the treasury, split up in Sandersville, Georgia. The treasure wagon slowed them down too much, so President Davis and his party went on ahead, trying to get to Texas. Tench was with the group that stayed with the treasure wagon, and they headed down into Florida to keep from being captured. They were supposed to meet up with President Davis at a prearranged place when it was safer.”

  Rafe paused. She realized that he hadn’t looked at her once since he’d started talking. “Money isn’t all they were carrying. They had some government papers, and some of President Davis’s personal belongings.

  “They were close to Gainesville, Florida, when they heard that President Davis had been captured. Since there wasn’t any point in going on, they didn’t know what to do with the money, but finally they decided to divide it equally among them. It didn’t amount to a huge fortune, about two thousand dollars each, but two thousand meant a lot after the war.

  “Tench somehow ended up with the government papers and President Davis’s personal papers as well as his share of the money. He expected to be stopped and searched—all disbanded Confederate troops were if the Yankees could find them—so he buried the money and the papers, figuring he’d get back to them.”

  “Did he?”

  Rafe shook his head. “I met up with Tench in ’67, in New York, just by accident. He was there to attend some sort of convention. I was there with—well, never mind why I was there.”

  A woman, she thought, and was surprised by a surge of furious jealousy. She glared at him, a wasted effort since he still wasn’t looking at her.

  “Tench met another friend there, Billy Stone. The three of us went to a club, drank too much, talked over old times. Another man, by the name of Parker Winslow, joined us. He worked for the Commodore, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Billy Stone seemed impressed by him, introduced him around, bought him drinks.

  “We got drunk, got to talking about the war. Tench told them that I’d ridden with Mosby and they asked a lot of questions. I didn’t tell them much; most people wouldn’t believe how it was anyway. And Tench told them about what had happened with their part of the treasury, how he had buried his part of it with President Davis’s personal papers and just never gotten back to it. He said he guessed it was about time to go back to Florida. Winslow asked how many people knew about the money and papers, and if anyone else knew where they were buried. Like I said, Tench was drunk; he threw his arm around my shoulders and said that his ol’ friend McCay was the only other person on earth who knew where he’d buried his share of the treasury. I was drunk too, so it didn’t make any difference to me if he thought he’d told me where the money was buried; I just went along with it.

  “The next day, when he was sober, Tench got worried about maybe talking too much. A smart man doesn’t let many people know he has money buried somewhere, and this Parker Winslow was a stranger. He felt uneasy about it for some reason. Since he’d already told the other two that I knew the location, he drew a map showing where the money and papers were buried and gave it to me. Three days later he was dead.”

  She had forgotten about the flare of jealousy. “Dead?” she echoed. “What happened to him?”

  “I think it was poison,” he said tiredly. “You’re a doctor; what will kill a young healthy man within a matter of minutes?”

  She thought about it. “Any number of poisons. Prussic acid can kill in as little as fifteen minutes. Arsenic, foxglove, wolfbane, nightshade; they can kill about that fast if enough is used. I’ve heard there’s a poison in South American that kills immediately. But why do you think he was poisoned? People do get sick and die.”

  “I don’t know that it was poison, I only think it was. He was already dead when I found him. I hadn’t gone back to my hotel room the night before—”

  “Why?” she interrupted, glaring at him again.

  Something in her voice got through to him. He turned his head and saw her expression, and for a moment he looked both disconcerted and sheepish. He cleared his throat and said, “Never mind. I went to Tench’s room and found him dead. Something didn’t feel right, or maybe I was suspicious because he’d been
so uneasy and then died like that. Anyway, I left his hotel room. Parker Winslow was in the lobby of the hotel when I went down; he lived in New York, so I knew he didn’t have a room there. He saw me, but didn’t speak. I went back to my own hotel and it looked like someone else had been there, but nothing had been taken.”

  “Then how do you know someone had been in your room?”

  He shrugged. “Just a few little things that weren’t exactly as I’d left them. I packed in a hurry, but before I could finish there were a couple of policemen beating on the door. I went out the window with what I had. The next morning I read in a newspaper that I was wanted for the shooting murder of Tench F. Tilghman. Tench hadn’t been shot when I saw him.”

  “But why would anyone shoot a dead man?” Annie asked in bewilderment.

  He glanced at her. His eyes were wintry. “If someone had had half of their head shot off, would you suspect they’d died of poison?”

  Understanding dawned. “Poison does take a certain expertise. Not everyone knows what to use, or how much.”

  “Right. Like a doctor.” He shrugged again. “I haven’t had any medical training, so if it were known that Tench died of poisoning, then I wouldn’t be the most logical suspect. I figure someone broke into my hotel room to kill me, too, but I wasn’t there; then I saw Parker Winslow at the hotel, which means I could have implicated him, so Tench’s death was rigged to look like a shooting death and I was charged with it. Since the attempt to kill me hadn’t worked, a murder conviction would have me swinging. I’m not a likely poisoner, but I am damn handy with a gun. Of course, it doesn’t make any difference to me if I’m wanted for murder by poisoning or murder by shooting; either one would have me hunted down.”

  “Why go to that much trouble for just two thousand dollars? I assume you think that was the reason why Tench was killed. As you said, it isn’t a huge fortune, and it’s buried somewhere in Florida. That isn’t the same as robbing someone who has two thousand dollars in their possession.”