“Samantha…”
Steve’s hoarse whisper startled her. “Steve?” She peered into his swollen eyes. “He’s alive!” she yelled. Joy replaced grief. She wanted to shout, to dance, to run. “He’s alive!”
“I might not stay that way if this hand keeps bleeding,” he rasped in a barely audible voice.
Rathwick had orders to kill Elunami on sight. Tristera, who was looking up at him with her jaws clenched in stubborn determination, could not be Elunami. His mind refused to consider it. He had held this girl in his arms and kissed her. Even now he could feel her warm, soft body pressed against his. He had never disobeyed a direct order…
The wind whipped around them, pressing her tunic against her slim body. Rathwick stepped forward and gripped her arm so hard she winced. “Speak of this to no one. Do you understand me?”
Confused, Elunami nodded.
“Come along. We have to find Mrs. Forrester and Sheridan.”
“Wait, I have to get something.”
She came back a moment later, carrying Nicholas Forrester.
“Where did you find him?”
“Not far from here.”
Nicholas nodded sleepily. Rathwick found a blanket for the boy and handed him to one of his men. Then he helped Elunami up onto his horse in front of him.
South of the Dart ranch, Rathwick saw Arden Chandler, Samantha Forrester, and a horse pulling a travois.
“Mama!” Nicholas cried. He wriggled out of the soldier’s arms, dropped from the horse, and ran to his mother’s side.
“Nicholas!” Samantha flashed a look of gratitude at Tristera and Rathwick, then slid off her horse to envelop her son in her arms. Tears of relief and joy streamed down her cheeks as she embraced her son and thanked God for his safe return.
“What happened to Steve?” Nicholas asked, frowning at the man lying so pale and still on the travois.
“He’s been hurt.”
Nicholas slipped out of her arms and walked to the travois. He touched Steve’s face. Swollen eyes opened. Steve tried to smile. “Hey, partner. Good to see you.”
“What happened to you?”
“It’s a long story, but I’m fine.” Steve’s voice was hoarse.
“I want to walk beside Steve,” Nicholas said.
“No. We have to get Steve to the house. He needs medicine.” Samantha took Nicholas onto her horse in front of her. There was more urgency involved than she had let on to Nicholas. The nettle poisoning was making Steve sick, slowing his heart and threatening to stop it.
An hour later they rode into sight of her Boston House cottage and stopped in amazement. The house had been crushed beneath an enormous boulder. Stunned, Samantha stopped her horse. Everyone stopped in unison and sat their horses, looking at the boulder that had turned the old house into a flattened pile of rubble.
“If Steve hadn’t stayed, we might have been in there,” she whispered, leaning forward to kiss her son’s warm forehead. Nicholas didn’t respond; he was asleep.
Steve was unconscious on the travois. Arden Chandler, who said he was fairly knowledgeable in the ways of medicine, had wrapped Steve’s hand and packed wet clay over his sting wounds. Steve’s only concern had been that someone go back and put Calico out of his misery. Joe Dart had promised to do it. Rathwick had sent Chila, Ham, and Roy into town under guard of six soldiers. He’d also sent a rider to the fort to bring back the surgeon to treat Steve’s hand.
Chandler had said that if he had the ingredients he could mix a purgative to rid Steve’s body of the poison that might otherwise stop his heart. Samantha felt driven by that need.
Arden Chandler rode up next to her. “This was the worst earthquake I’ve ever seen. It was as bad as a Texas tornado for doing damage.”
“I hope the new house is all right,” Nicholas said.
An hour later, the sight of the new house framed between the two stone gate posts brought up a multitude of emotions. They had made it. Steve was still alive. And the house had withstood its first test.
Juana and the Kincaid women ran out to meet them. “Take Mr. Chandler to the kitchen and show him all of our remedies,” Samantha said to Juana.
Elizabeth, Jennie, and Leslie took charge of Nicholas, still asleep in her arms. “We’ll take him upstairs,” Elizabeth said, wiping tears from her cheeks.
Ian Macready yelled for men to carry Steve. Samantha ran up the stairs ahead of them. “In here, please,” she said, directing them to her bedroom.
She turned back the counterpane. Ian stopped. “Aye, lass, ye’ve a generous heart, but it would be a shame to put this lad into that nice clean bed, the mess he is now.”
“I don’t care about bedclothes,” she said, amazed Ian would worry about such a thing at a time like this.
“Well, lass, if yourself would be leaving the room, we could lay him on a tarp and clean him up before we ruined a passel of fine linens.”
“Very well.” Samantha stepped outside and closed the door.
Rathwick carried Nicholas, surrounded by the Kincaid women, into his bedroom and laid him on his bed. “Thank you, Matthew, for everything.”
“My pleasure to be of service, however small.”
“Tristera told me she confessed to being Elunami.”
Chagrin twisted and tightened Rathwick’s mouth.
“We’re a family,” Samantha reminded him. “We share our problems. I need to ask…What’s going to happen to her?”
“I don’t know. And if I did I might not be at liberty to discuss it.”
Rathwick walked downstairs to find Elunami. It felt odd to call her that. He could not reconcile the crazy Indian woman he had envisioned with the girl he had known as Tristera.
He found her in the kitchen with Chandler, who looked up at his entry. Elunami did, too, but quickly down again.
“None of this will do. Do you have any olive oil?” Chandler asked.
“Sí, the señora gets it from the catalog.”
“And chalk?”
“Nicholas has. I will get it.”
Elunami ran from the room.
Chandler nodded to Rathwick. “A good paste of chalk and olive oil will take a lot of that poison out of him.”
“I didn’t know that.” Rathwick knew he was speaking automatically.
Elunami returned with the chalk. Chandler took out his knife and began to scrape off a thin dust onto a saucer.
Rathwick took Elunami’s arm and pulled her aside. “I’m going to the fort. Will you stay here until I return?”
“I don’t know.”
His eyes reflected his misery. She shouldn’t promise, but she had already been a great deal of trouble to him.
“For a time.”
“Thank you. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
She watched him ride away at the head of his ragged cavalry patrol, his strong, handsome back bowed in the slanting sunlight. She was Elunami now. Even if they killed her for it she would not change her name again.
She had expected Matthew to take her with him, but he hadn’t. He would be back, though. He would recover and realize he had failed to do his duty.
Before her experience in the hidden valley, despair might have filled her. All her life she had waited to be in love, and now she was—with the man whose job it was to kill her.
But now, she saw things differently. Matthew had an interesting decision to make. It would be good to see how the Great Mystery used this to educate them both.
At Fort Thomas, Rathwick rode directly to his commanding officer’s building. Ashland looked up from a letter he was reading, glared at the interruption, sighed, and leaned back in his chair. “Captain.”
“I need to know the real reason why you ordered me to kill the Indian woman.”
General Ashland scowled and put down his letter. “So, you’ve finally found her. Have a seat, Captain.”
Rathwick settled his weary body into the chair. He had been riding for two days now without any real sleep, except what he got i
n snatches in the saddle.
“Where is she?” the general demanded.
“I need to know why you ordered me to kill her, sir.”
Rathwick was being insubordinate, but he had been a good officer. Ashland considered the request a moment and decided to tell him.
Samantha sat by Steve’s bed as if his recovery depended upon her full attention. White with bands of Arden Chandler’s paste around forehead, neck, arms, chest, and legs, he had drunk Chandler’s vile concoction, gagging it down until Chandler said he’d swallowed enough. Then Steve had fallen into a deep sleep.
Dr. Aaron Thomas finally came and checked the damaged vein in Steve’s hand. He sent Samantha out of the room, treated the wound, wrapped it, and called her and Chandler back into the room.
“I’ve taken out the blood clot, tied off the ends of the veins, and cleaned the wound. If he develops a fever, and he’s likely to, mix a dram of powdered niter, two drams of carbonate of potash, two teaspoonfuls of antimonial wine, and a tablespoon of sweet spirits of niter in a half a pint of water. If it starts to bleed again, raise the arm and apply cold compresses to the hand to stop the bleeding. But I don’t think it will. If he gets hungry give him beef tea. Do you have everything you need for the fever water?”
“I think so. I’ve made that for Nicholas.”
Dr. Thomas left.
“I’ll be going, too,” Chandler said, picking up his hat.
“Thank you for your help.”
He nodded at her. “He’s in good hands now. I’m satisfied on that score.”
Chandler clumped down the stairs. Samantha checked on Nicholas and then sat down beside Steve’s bed. She reached out to touch his face, where it wasn’t covered by the thick white paste, and her hand shook.
“Have you eaten anything at all today, señora?” Juana asked, startling Samantha, who hadn’t heard her come in.
“No. I don’t think so.”
“I’ll bring up a tray.” Fortunately Juana knew her well enough not to ask her to leave his side.
At four o’clock in the morning, by the clock on the mantel, Peter Van Vleet slipped out of bed without waking his wife. He dressed noiselessly and buckled on the guns he had laid aside when he married.
Nicholas was home safe. Steve was injured but recovering. And Ham Russell was in custody. There was a good possibility that the rest of the rustlers might be careless enough to give away their hiding place.
Peter rode down the hill before dawn and asked directions from Eagle Thornton, who had just gotten up and was standing on the front porch of the old bunkhouse, appreciating the sunrise.
“Which way to the Dart ranch?”
“North,” he growled, pointing with his right hand.
Peter thanked him and kicked his horse into a gallop. At the ranch house, he climbed the hill behind the house and concealed himself and his horse, then settled down to watch and wait.
Finally, at seven o’clock six unshaven men rode in, conferred with a man on the bunkhouse porch, and then all seven of them rode out.
Peter followed them into the hills and through a carefully hidden canyon corridor. There he saw a large herd of cattle, bellowing and milling in a second box canyon, pinned in by less than a dozen men and three strands of barbed wire. As he watched, cowboys roped a steer, brought it down, and branded it with a running iron. Peter recognized three of the men as former members of Dallas Younger’s wholesale rustling operation.
Satisfied that he’d seen enough, Peter rode back to Samantha’s old house and sent Eagle Thornton into town with a message for the marshal. Within two hours Thornton, Daley, and a posse appeared on the horizon.
Peter led them to the herd. The posse surrounded the men, disarmed them, and then prepared to hang them on the spot. Peter singled out the youngest man there, barely seventeen by the looks of his tender stubble, and put a rope around his neck. The boy’s face turned white; he looked like he was going to vomit.
The rest of the posse looked uncomfortable, but Peter ignored them. He adjusted the rope around the boy’s neck and said, “I guess you can say a few words if you like.”
“Tell my mama…” His voice gave out; he started again. “Tell her that I’m sorry,” he croaked.
Peter scowled at him. “How old are you, boy?”
“Sixteen, sir.”
“What the hell are you doing rustling cattle? Don’t you know that’s a hanging offense in this territory?”
The boy licked his lips. “I…my pa died, and Ma’s broke and sick. I…didn’t know what else to do, and the pay was good.”
“I sure hate to hang a boy, though,” Peter said, shaking his head sorrowfully. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to say who you worked for, would you, in exchange for a lighter sentence?”
The boy swallowed and looked at the others. Their stony faces told him nothing. Shame flushed up, darkening his face. “I was hired by Ham Russell,” he mumbled. “As far as I know, he was the leader of the gang.”
“How long have you been doing this?” Peter asked.
“Not long. About two months.”
“How about Joe Dart? Did he have anything to do with this operation?”
“No, sir. Not as far as I know.”
Daley nodded. He was satisfied. “Well, thanks, son,” he said to Peter. “I’ll wager that Russell and his entire band will be sweating blood in prison in Yuma by this time next month.”
Elizabeth and Chantry Two were the first to announce their departure. Now that Nicholas and Samantha and Steve were home, they decided to leave so Samantha could put her energies into nursing Steve. And they were expected in San Francisco by friends.
When their baggage was loaded, everyone followed Chantry Two and Elizabeth outside to where their darkly polished carriage waited. The beautiful, big-footed black Shires, their white manes braided into jaunty upright pom-poms, stamped impatiently in their trace chains.
Chantry Two patted his Shires, rattled a few of the chains, and spoke to his uniformed driver, but his attention was on his wife. Elizabeth had a determined look about her that boded ill for someone. She saw him watching her and walked over to stand beside him while the others gathered around the carriage, chatting. Finally, when the others were laughing about something Jennie had said, Elizabeth eased him aside.
“Just what does that look mean?” she demanded.
“I have no idea what you’re up to, Lizzy, but…”
“Me?”
“You, madam, are about as subtle as a traincock.”
“Samantha is going to nurse that young man back to health and then destroy him…”
“Let it be, Lizzy. If she doesn’t destroy him one way, she’ll figure out another way.”
“Mind your manners, Chantry Kincaid,” Elizabeth said, brushing a piece of lint off his sleeve. She was well acquainted with her husband’s view that a woman’s job in life was to destroy a man.
“Any man who can be brought down by a woman doesn’t deserve to live anyway,” Chantry growled.
“You wouldn’t agree if he were your son.”
“Hell I wouldn’t!”
Nicholas came over and put his small, warm hand into hers. Elizabeth gave her husband a warning look and knelt down to say good-bye to Nicholas. His thin arms clasped tightly around her neck. He hugged her for a long time, then finally stepped back.
“I wish you wouldn’t go.”
“We’ll be back, sooner than you’ll know,” Elizabeth said, wiping sudden tears that had come up at the memory of how close they’d come to losing him. It was a miracle Nicholas had survived, thanks to Elunami…or Tristera…or whatever her name really was. Elizabeth patted Nicholas’s head and stood up to hug Samantha, standing at her son’s side.
“You take care of my grandson,” Elizabeth said.
“You know I will.”
“He’s too skinny.”
“We feed him five times a day,” Samantha said, protesting.
“I like your young man.”
“And a very good one.” Elizabeth took Samantha by the elbow and steered her away from the others. “I’m an old woman now, eccentric, some say, so I can say anything I please. Have you given up your hopes of getting Lance away from Angie?”
Samantha’s eyes filled with consternation and her mouth tightened. Elizabeth could see that she hadn’t. She also knew Chantry would give her hell for this.
Chantry glowered at her. Elizabeth continued before he could walk over and stop her. “I know they’re getting a divorce, and I know you’ll probably get him, if you still want him. And maybe there won’t be anything so awful about that, if it happens.
“But I remember that every time I looked at Angie I saw how much she loved my son—and how badly she wanted and needed his baby—and how aware she was of his need for one.” She paused for a breath. “I know there must have been many nights when she lay beside my son and tried to decide if she could send him to you—a woman who could give him a son.”
Stricken, Samantha cupped her hands over her mouth as if to stop the flow of words that shouldn’t have been uttered.
“But I can see you’re as stubborn now as you’ve ever been. Which brings me to one other thing. I don’t appreciate the fact that all your life you’ve held yourself apart from me. Instead you went to Lance or Mrs. Lillian. You could have let me help you, but you never did. It’s almost as if you blame me and your parents for their dying and leaving you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Samantha whispered, horrified.
“Yes, you do. I was right. There isn’t a portrait of your mother or your father in this house,” Elizabeth said angrily. “Not one! And they loved you so much.”
Samantha trembled with pent-up emotion. “I—”
“I shouldn’t say this, but I’ve said everything else. You remember the other day when you walked in and caught Jennie and Leslie talking about me?”
“How did you know that?”
“I was right behind you, dear. They were talking about me with affectionate condescension—the way we talk about people we love. But it upset you. Do you know why?”
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