Bounty Hunter

by Michelle E Lowe

  “This is not solely about the oath,” his father rejoined in a gentle, yet firm, tone. “It is about honor.”

  “Honor can get our son killed, Victorio,” Nascha argued, pointing at Itza-chu.

  “He is standing by a man who is fighting to save us all,” Chief Victorio returned. “That should not be forgotten.”

  Nascha folded her arms in front of her and straightened her posture.

  “This mission,” Chief Victorio went on, “is not about keeping Landcross safe from harm. It is to help him as he struggles to save this tribe. For Itza-chu to abandon Landcross is the same as turning his back on our people.” He set his eyes on his son. “Do you understand?”

  Itza-chu nodded. “I do, Father.” To his mother, he said, “I am with Landcross.”

  * * *

  “They’ve already captured two?” Sheriff Flores asked Deputy Ortega at the jailhouse.

  “Si, Emmanuel.” The deputy nodded. “That wily gringo and his so-called posse brought the woman in earlier today.”

  Flores removed his drenched coat and hat and shook water off them before hanging them on the coat rack by the door. His feet were soaked inside his boots, and he felt downright miserable after his hour-long ride in the downpour. They approached the iron door leading to the cells beyond. Deputy Ortega pressed his ear to it and listened.

  “It’s quiet,” he noted with surprise. “Finally. The señorita and Nickel have been screaming at each other nearly all day.”

  He inserted the key into the lock.

  “You should have put an end to it,” Sheriff Flores scolded him. “And you should have informed me sooner about the native’s capture.”

  “I didn’t want to disturb you on your day off.”

  Sheriff Emmanuel Flores had no tolerance for misbehaving prisoners. He possessed a short fuse that easily burned and exploded into a dangerous fury. However, his low tolerance and heavy hand in dealing with criminal matters were exactly what Guaymas needed to keep its citizens safe. Lately, though, he was struggling to tame his temper when around the talkative Englishman, Landcross.

  The hinges squeaked open.

  “Next time, don’t wait.”

  “Si, Sheriff,” his deputy said, standing by the open door.

  Flores stepped past him and entered first.

  The room held eight cells, four to either side with a three-foot wide walkway running down the center. Electric bulbs burned overhead in a perfectly straight line across the stone ceiling.

  “Let’s make this quick,” he grumbled to Deputy Ortega.

  The lawmen walked over to the cell where the native woman, Nata, was being held. They passed a few other inmates along the way, troublemakers who had gotten out of control during the festivals. They reached Harvey Nickel’s cell. He was lying on his back on the cot, picking at his crooked teeth with a toothpick.

  “Hola, Sheriff,” the prisoner greeted. “I’ve done heard you took the day off.”

  Sheriff Flores ignored him and stepped over to the native’s cell, which was adjacent to the gringo’s.

  “Nata,” the sheriff said. “Where is the money you heisted from the bank?”

  The woman sat in the corner. She was dressed in a nice gown that had been torn in many places. Her face had bruises on one side of it.

  Deputy Ortega had explained to him that Nata had fought during her arrest, nearly killing the beautiful señorita, Emma Rojas.

  Sheriff Flores held a deep loathing for Indians. Ignorant savages, and a waste of life that had no place on this earth, save for below it, rotting. He’d never understood why that halfwit, Mayor Nicolás Belén, had granted the Apache permission to form a colony near the city. The mayor held too much compassion for his own good.

  “Where is it?” he demanded again. “Where’s the bank money?”

  “I want to be moved to another cell,” she demanded from behind her folded arms, resting on her knees. “I want to be away from him!”

  “Oh, don’t be that way, pretty girl,” Harvey taunted her as he sat up. “After everything we’ve shared together?”

  Rage exploded like a bomb inside her, turning her complexion pink. She began screaming in her primitive language, which instantly tore into Sheriff Flores’s tolerance. Leaving the warmth of his home for a cold wet night’s ride across town had not helped his mood.

  “Shut up!” he bellowed, banging the handle of his pistol against the bars. “Shut your fucking mouth, savage, and answer my question!”

  “You heard ’im, slut,” Harvey piped up in a nasty tone.

  The sheriff was in no mood for his wise lip, either. “You!” he shouted, pointing the gun at Harvey. “Shut up or I’ll cut open your stomach and pull out your guts!”

  The prisoner threw up his hand. “Shuttin’ my trap, Sheriff.”

  Sheriff Flores returned his attention to the woman. “Answer.”

  She looked strong, with a will to match. However, she had surrender in her eyes. “You will find it in the Sanchez Hotel, inside a safe. Room 21.”

  “There was a key on her,” his deputy explained. “That number was graved on the shank.”

  “And the combination?” the sheriff demanded.

  She told them.

  “It better be there,” he growled. “That money belongs to the people of Guaymas, not gutter trash like you.” He turned to Deputy Ortega. “Sanchez Hotel is on the edge of the city, and the streets are flooding. We’ll see to it in the morning.”

  “Does that mean my trial will be delayed?” Harvey asked with levity and a dash of hopefulness.

  The sheriff actually smirked. Having learned where the funds were had lifted his mood.

  “You’ll face the judge tomorrow even if I have to row you there in a canoe.” Sheriff Flores holstered his pistol and headed out of the room. “Lights out!”

  * * *

  Gog stared hatefully down at Pierce, lying naked beside Taisia. The buckets that had gathered the rainwater were leaking and about to overflow. He took them outside to empty so they wouldn’t disturb his woman. After returning the buckets to their places, Gog resumed staring at the man. He had a plan to be rid of him, which he would execute while the party crossed through the Fire Field.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Is There Something You Need to Tell Me?

  The rains continued halfway throughout the following day before moving east toward the mountains. Everything was soggy and muddy. The air was cooler as if the rains had brought a touch of autumn to the area. Grey lingering clouds dominated the sky.

  Pierce couldn’t be happier. He didn’t even mind the water that had gotten through the hut and soaked the floor. Taisia, on the other hand, was not amused, and it showed as she helped him hang the wet fur bedding on lines behind their hut.

  “Care for a walk?” he offered. “We can go to the waterhole.”

  His question broke her irritating muttering in Russian. Pierce had been learning Russian ever since their journey to Edinburgh. The language was complicated, but thanks to Pierce’s good memory and comprehensive skills, he was able to retain most of what she taught him. In time, he began to recognize words and phrases. And some of what Taisia was saying was very coarse.

  Her agitation surprised him. While on the road together, traveling through the Netherlands and up through Britain toward Scotland, she had never minded the rain and the damp. Her only concern was making sure there was enough food to eat, which made a hell of a lot of sense, considering that a full stomach equaled a focused mind. A focused mind saved lives. Now, she regarded the dampness almost like a disease that was seeping through her skin and breaking her apart from the inside. Pierce reckoned it might be her pregnancy playing a role in her touchiness, but he wisely kept that to himself.

  Taisia smoothed out the top of the furs where they lay over the line and flicked droplets off her fingers. “I think I’ve had enough contact with water for today,” she grumbled tiredly.

  She looked down crossly at the puddle she stood in. The
parched desert soil couldn’t soak in the liquid fast enough, and it was causing flooding everywhere.

  “You didn’t get much sleep last night, eh?” he noted.

  “No.” She rubbed her neck. “But I haven’t slept so well as of late.”

  Her ochre and strawberry blonde hair had grown longer and had become wild and feathery. He loved her hair this way.

  “Sorry, darling,” he said sympathetically. “I’ll see about fetching you a pillow. If not here, then on the Ekta. Chief Sea Wind and some of his crew have gone to the ship this morning. And the firewood I brought ought to warm and dry out the hut.”

  Taisia gave a generous, yet weary, grin. “Spasibo, muzha. Being with child has put a strain on me since you’ve been away, and the fact that I cannot be by your side when you need me—”

  She began to cry. It wasn’t like her to weep so easily. The first time he ever saw her crying was after she shot that bastard lawyer Christopher Ainsworth dead, just before he tried to add another hole to Pierce’s face. Then there was the night he proposed to her, which had made them both misty-eyed. She cried buckets when she’d stabbed him. She wept on their wedding day, but these days, there were these little emotional moments as her pregnancy progressed.

  “I . . . I hate that this is ha . . . happening,” she sobbed out between sniffles. “I can’t be around to watch over you.”

  That was Taisia—his love. She was a natural protector who would do anything to make certain the people she cared about were safe.

  “Oi,” he said soothingly. “Come here, love.” He enfolded her in his arms and held her tight. “I’ll be fine. Really. I have people with me.”

  Since his return, he hadn’t given her many details about the last hunt. After their blissful lovemaking, he’d fallen fast asleep and hadn’t woken until someone came to inform him that Chief Victorio wanted to see him. It was still raining, and Taisia didn’t want to get wetter, so he went to the chief’s hut alone. He had a meeting—or a pow-wow, as it was called—with the chief, his wife, Sees Beyond, Waves of Strength, and Itza-chu. He’d been given a full and disheartening lecture about the Fire Field that brutally sobered him up. They’d advised the group to make it to the cliffs before dark, where they could make camp and build a fire safely. Chief Victorio had also told him about their contingency plan to flee onboard the Ekta in the event Pierce and his gang failed in their manhunt. After the joyless little meeting, Pierce paid a visit to his folks and grandmother to let them know he was still in one piece. By the time he returned with the firewood and a bundle of dry furs that he’d gotten from his parents, Taisia was in a fuss over the dampness in the hut, which he had been helping to dry out since.

  “You have more than Itza-chu with you?” Taisia asked, standing back with a sniff.

  “Aye. An unlikely pair, sure enough, but they’ve proven their salt.”

  “Who are they?”

  Without a second thought, he said, “That Australian snake oil salesman, Jaxton, who came to my aid, and Emma.”

  Resentment settled over Taisia’s face. “Emma? Why is she with you?”

  Pierce instantly regretted saying anything. Mainly, it was due to the kiss. He had planned to confess that to Taisia, let her rage at him or whatever she needed to do, but he’d decided to wait until he didn’t have an entire village of people to save.

  “She . . . erm, feels responsible for what happened with Tarak, so she volunteered to join us.”

  Taisia arched a skeptical eyebrow. “She does?”

  Pierce didn’t care for the hint of bitterness in her voice.

  Unable to face her, Pierce turned away and picked up another fur to hang on the line. “Aye. Erm . . . why?”

  There was a dreadful pause, then, “I saw the way she looked at you when you introduced us, Pierce Landcross.”

  Pierce winced. He hated it when she used his full name in that tone. He knew he was in trouble. He shouldn’t have disclosed anything about Emma joining him on the manhunt. How could he explain the kiss to Taisia when he and Tai were about to get into a tiff?

  He looked up at the smoky sky. It was the first time since they’d arrived that he was able to gaze into the sky during the day without the sun burning his irises.

  “Erm,” he began, unable to think of anything more intelligent to say.

  “Pierce,” she said with worry. “Is there . . . is there something you need to tell me?”

  Taisia had a gift of strong intuition.

  He chewed his bottom lip, deciding to go ahead and confess and deal with whatever came of it. The longer he dragged it out, the worse her wrath would be. Letting it fester did neither of them any good.

  He nervously filled his lungs with air. He felt his heart kicking behind his sternum.

  He began turning to face her when Sees Beyond hollered from the entrance of the hut, “Pierce! Your grandmother wants to see you. She says it’s urgent.”

  The fear that had inflamed his skin instantly simmered to a low boil.

  “Be right there!” he called to her.

  He dropped the fur he held and quickly spun on his heel to face his wife. “Be back in a tick,” he promised.

  He gave her a kiss on the cheek and darted off.

  “You need to do what now?” he asked Grandmother Fey when he arrived at her hut.

  “I must strengthen your protection spell,” she repeated. “Sees Beyond has told me about the Fire Field, and her spirits have warned that there are angry souls lost in there, unable to make their way to the In-Between.”

  He shifted his eyes to Sees Beyond. “Is that true, Sees?”

  “It is,” she answered gravely. “The spirits are in limbo, connected to the terrain which is pure energy.”

  “Why does it concern me?”

  “They’re what Germans call poltergeists. Spiteful spirits that can do nasty things to the living. They will attempt to disorient you, causing you to lose your way within the sandstorms.”

  Pierce reckoned all that methane gas under the earth had something to do with people seeing ghosts. Then again, after everything Pierce had seen in his lifetime, spiteful demonic souls didn’t seem so far-fetched.

  “All right, Grandma,” he allowed. “Do what’s needed.”

  Her placing her protection spell over him was brief and seemingly simple. A slight touch on both sides of his face, some words spoken that he didn’t understand, and that was that. It was as painless as falling asleep, and whether it was real or only something she believed was real, the warmth of safety enfolded him. Grandmother Fey always had a knack for making the family feel protected. She gave them courage even in the worst of times.

  “Be careful out there, Grandson,” she warned. “Do not forget your damaged thread.”

  How the bloody hell could he?

  Pierce headed for his hut to face Taisia. His feet sloshed through the mud, and the damp began seeping through his boots. He was beginning to hate the desert and was looking forward to the tropics of the Pacific. He’d only read stories about the Hawaiian Islands, but he’d also heard Chief Sea Wind rave about it. Apparently, he and his crew had sailed there on numerous occasions. The chief had a friend there, another chief named Ailani, who was living on the island of Maui. Ailani ran a business similar to a safari, where foreigners could come and experience life like the ancient Hawaiians. Chief Sea Wind promised to speak to him about Pierce and his family living on his property. There, they could live in seclusion as well as be within walking distance of the fishing town of Lāhainā.

  Thinking on that reminded Pierce of what Chief Victorio had told him about them leaving on the Ekta. He spun on his heel and went the other way toward the ocean. Along the way, he ran into Waves of Strength, who asked him where he was heading.

  “Going to see Sea Wind,” he answered. “Will you tell Taisia where I am?”

  “Do I look like your carrier pigeon?” she fumed. “Go tell her yourself.”

  Pierce wrinkled his nose at her as she stormed off across th
e slushy ground.

  The walk to the cliffs was a much more pleasant one than the walk to the village when they’d first arrived. The sun did well enough to piss off behind a lumpy patchwork of dark clouds that had a few rips in it, allowing shafts of sunlight through. The mile-long journey seemed more like a leisurely stroll, and he took full advantage of the fine weather to admire his surroundings.

  He reached the cliffs and went down the slope, following the manmade path leading to the Water Bowl. There was a guard sitting on the rocks below who spoke neither English nor French, but, thankfully, recognized Pierce and allowed him to take a dinghy to the ship.

  The Ekta—a Spanish galleon fitted with steam power—was anchored right where they had left her. Nearly fifty years old, she had seen her fair share of action and had the scars marring her elegant exterior to prove it. A crewmember spotted him when he waved to them, and in no time, Pierce had the dinghy secured to the ship and was clambering up the ladder. As he did, he thought he heard the vessel let out a slight groan. The old girl always had her creaks, but this sounded differently, like a melancholic whine.

  “Bonjour, Landcross,” Chief Sea Wind greeted him. “Pourquoi es-tu venu ici?”

  Nearly every crewmember was onboard. Apparently, they favored being on the ship rather than being over in the village.

  “Came for a pillow.”

  The chief arched an eyebrow at him.

  “For Taisia,” Pierce clarified.

  “I see. Is that all you want?”

  Pierce chewed his bottom lip. “No. I also came to speak to you.”

  The chief considered him a moment. “Come. We’ll talk over a glass of wine.”

  Suddenly, Pierce’s mood brightened. “Wine! Aye, let’s!”

  In the chief’s quarters, Pierce took a seat at the oak table near the large cabin windows. Chief Sea Wind brought over a bottle and two glasses from his wine cabinet.

  “The badge suits you,” the chief quipped.