Trail of Golden Dreams

by Coverstone, Stacey

  It felt like she’d just been punched in the stomach. “Don’t you have a woman somewhere who can help you? Or one of you can remove the bullet,” she pleaded to his friends. She searched their faces, but they only stared back, blankly.

  “You,” Taza stated firmly. The way he said it led her to believe he was a man used to getting his way and not being argued with.

  Josie sighed. She owed these men her life. How could she refuse to help? She climbed off Traveler and tied him to a bush, because he wasn’t as well behaved as the Indian ponies. Then she knelt on the ground in front of Taza and accepted the knife. “I’ve never done nothing like this before,” she warned. “You could bleed to death if I cut a vein or an artery. Do you understand what I’m saying? There’s nothing I could do out here to stop the bleeding. We’re far from a doctor.”

  “Understand,” Taza answered. He gazed, stone-faced, into her eyes, causing her to shudder under their intensity.

  “Have you got any water on you?” she asked, glancing between the three of them. “I should clean this knife. It doesn’t look so clean.”

  “We have no water,” the young one answered. “I have mescal.” He pulled a small bottle out of a bag that was tied around his waist. When he handed it to her, she popped the cork and poured some of the liquor over the knife, and then wiped it good with her shirtsleeve. Then she did something she’d never done before—tipped the bottle up and took a long drink.

  “My hand needs steadying,” she explained, while wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her lungs suddenly felt like they were going to explode. She coughed, and her eyes filled with tears. The liquor burned her throat from the inside out. The Indians chuckled, including the injured man, Taza.

  “Alright,” she said, once she’d recovered sufficiently, “you’d better tell me what to do.”

  Taza picked up the mescal bottle and guzzled the remaining liquid then said, “Poke inside hole with blade. When you feel lead ball, fish it out.”

  “Easy,” the youngest brave offered, as he crossed his arms over his chest.

  She tossed him a sideways glance. “Sure. Easy,” she repeated. There was no hiding the tremors in her hands.

  “Dig quick,” Taza suggested.

  Josie met his dark gaze and then let her eyes swing to the wound. She inhaled deeply and stuck the blade into the angry flesh before losing her courage. Taza’s muscles tensed, and his eyes fluttered shut. His lips drew back, but he didn’t scream or make any noise whatsoever. She peered at the young Apache, who dropped to one knee at Taza’s shoulder. He nodded, encouraging her to continue.

  She nodded back. With all the courage she could muster, she pushed the blade down into the hole and began to probe. After several minutes of tentative probing, perspiration peppered her forehead and salt water dripped into her eye. For a moment, her eyes went blurry and she thought she might faint. This was much more difficult than she had imagined—digging into a man’s flesh this way.

  Taza’s low voice snapped her back to the here and now when he commanded, “Push deeper.”

  He was the bravest man she’d ever known. He didn’t even flinch as she cut into his arm. Josie blinked and forced the tip of the blade deeper into the welling pool of blood. At one point, the knife was almost buried to its handle. “Where’s the damn bullet?” she said aloud. She suddenly wondered if the other two would kill her if she failed to retrieve the lead, or if Taza died.

  A muscle spasm racked his arm. A moment later, she felt the tip of the steel scrape against something. Was it bone? No, it had to be the lead ball. “I think I’ve hit it,” she cried, excited and thankful. Taza’s eyes rolled open.

  Josie focused all her attention on the lodged bullet. She imagined it in her mind, lying there, flattened from impact, waiting to be lifted out like a splinter. She gently began to pick at it with the tip of the knife, twisting at the flattened edges of the lead. The blood flowed out of the wound, but she felt she was very close to removing the bullet, even though it was slow in coming.

  What if Taza lost too much blood? How much was too much? She gazed into his face again. Perhaps it was her imagination, but he looked pale. Dear God, she prayed, help me.

  She couldn’t let the man die. She had to do something now! Sliding her finger down the edge of the blade, Josie felt around until she touched the lead with the tip of her finger. The blood pounded in her ears as she hooked her nail under the flattened piece of metal. Then she pushed it against the edge of the blade and started to draw it up and out.

  When the bullet slid into view, she felt such exhilaration she had to bite her tongue to keep from shouting for joy. She choked out, “I got it! I got it!”

  The young warrior untied the bandana wrapped around his head and thrust it at her. “Use as bandage,” he said. Josie tied it as best as she could around Taza’s shoulder. Although a little blood soaked through, it seemed to do the trick. After a couple of minutes, the blood flow stopped.

  Taza stood, without assistance, once his arm was bandaged. Josie stood, too, despite her legs feeling wobbly. When she saw her hands were stained red with the Apache’s blood, her head went woozy, but the last thing she wanted to do was faint. After all, the worst was over. She hadn’t killed the Indian, Kendall and his men had been run off, and she was alive. Leaning over and bracing her hands on her knees, she drew a deep breath into her lungs and then blew it out. When she wiped her hands on her pants, she pretended it was red paint and not a man’s blood.

  The three Indians leaped onto their ponies with the fluidity of gazelles. Her eyes grew large with admiration. When Taza was sitting straight with reins in the hand of his good arm, he looked down at her and asked, “You have name?”

  “Yes. It’s Josie Hart.”

  Taza thought a minute and then said, “I call you Lolotea.”

  When she angled her head, the young warrior translated. “My father gives you a new name. Apache name. You are now Lolotea, gift from God.”

  Josie was rendered mute. First of all, she was stunned to have an Apache name bestowed upon her. Secondly, it came as a shock that Taza and the young man were father and son. Taza’s face was as smooth and unwrinkled as his son’s, and his body as muscular and lean. She didn’t know what to say, except, “Thank you, sir.”

  Taza jerked his head once, and then yipped as he kicked his pony in the sides. He, his son, and the sour-faced buck galloped to the crest and spiraled down the canyon wall, out of sight. In the brief moment she stood there alone, it all seemed surreal, like the warriors had been phantoms—here and then gone in the blink of an eye.

  She walked over to Traveler and untied him from the bush. As she hauled herself into the saddle, she suddenly felt a hundred years old. So much had happened between yesterday morning and today, but there wasn’t time to fret or ponder. She just prayed the marshal and his bandits were long gone and not waiting to ambush the Indians at the bottom.

  Josie clicked her tongue, leaned back in her seat, and Traveler started down the far side of the hill. She had many miles to travel in order to reach her destination. She hoped this first morning wasn’t a bad sign of things to come. She shot up a little prayer, as she rocked back and forth on the big mule’s back.

  “Dear God, please let me ride this trail with no further incidents. I need to get to San Francisco more than anything in the world. Thank you.”

  Faith and her own good sense had gotten her through a lot of hard times in the past. She knew that was all she could count on now.

  Chapter Seven

  When Grey heard the gunshots ringing out from the canyon, he spurred Lightning toward the bottom of the hill. For several miles, he’d been keeping out of sight, following the four horsemen, and was perplexed when they veered from the trail and rode into the canyon. It hadn’t taken him long to guess they’d spotted the girl and were going after her. He sure wished he’d caught up with her first. If the marshal and his men killed her, they’d have the map now. He needed that map, and intended on
getting it back, no matter what the cost. At the same time, he didn’t wish the pretty little half-breed dead, either.

  For a moment, he’d considered riding up and facing down the men with her. Then his common sense had kicked in. It would have been suicide to ride into that blaze of gunfire for no good reason, except to get his head blown off. So he’d reined Lightning behind a clump of brush and waited—hoping Josie Hart’s big mule could outrun those horses like he’d done in the forest.

  After the shooting stopped, Grey waited a little longer. Before there was time to consider his next move, three of the four riders came racing back down the canyon like a twister was chasing them. One wore a huge Mexican sombrero. That would be the tracker, Reno King. The others he saw clearly as they passed by his hiding spot. He’d had words with both Marshal Kendall and his deputy in Dry Gulch.

  Grey felt confused when the trio reined their mounts south, back the way they’d come. If they had the map, wouldn’t they head north? What the hell was going on? An idea occurred to him. Maybe the Hart girl had gotten away, and something else had scared the posse. Despite the desert sun being as hot as Hades, chills danced across his neck, conjuring up a bad feeling. He had to find out what had happened up there.

  He was just about to walk Lightning into the canyon when three pinto ponies and their riders trotted around the curve and came into view. Squinting into the brilliant sun, he glimpsed black hair and bronzed skin. Apaches! Clicking his tongue, he was able to maneuver his horse behind the brush without being spotted. When the Apaches reached the bottom of the hill, they kicked their animals into a gallop and struck out across the desert. Grey noticed one had his arm wrapped up.

  “What the hell,” he mumbled again.

  Now he was really concerned. If Josie had got caught between the posse and killer Apaches, there was no chance she was still alive. But where was the map? It was obvious Marshal Kendall didn’t have it, or he and his men would be heading north right now. And he doubted the Indians had it. As far as Grey knew, Indians couldn’t read English. They wouldn’t know what the map stood for. If Josie was dead, the parchment must still be on her, he thought. He had to find out.

  He trotted Lightning up the canyon, braced for what he was sure he’d find on top, a ravaged, dead young woman. It made his skin crawl to think of those Indians touching her. Grey didn’t know her well, but he knew she didn’t deserve to be butchered by those Apache animals. She’d had a hard enough life as it was. He hoped to God they’d murdered her quick so she hadn’t had to suffer.

  Once he reached the top, there was no sign of Josie Hart. But the fourth member of the marshal’s posse lay on the ground, bloodied and battered with his legs twisted under him like a rag doll. Grey gazed into the azure sky. Buzzards circled above, waiting to devour the man’s flesh.

  Grey clambered off Lightning, knelt, and studied the tracks to find three unshod ponies and four sets of horse tracks on the ground, and one pancake-sized set of hoof prints heading down the other side. He turned to his stallion and sighed. “I’ll be damned. I guess that girl really is as sneaky as a crocodile.” A hint of a smile crossed his lips.

  * * * *

  Blood surged through Josie like a speeding freight train. Shaking with fatigue, she’d pushed Traveler as hard as she could, and now even he was panting with exhaustion, which was rare for the mule. There’d been no one following her for miles, so she stopped at some adobe ruins, eased out of her saddle, and fed him another handful of grain from her pouch. After taking a swallow of water from her canteen, she poured some into her hand and let the mule lick it off. She wished she had more water to give him, but fortunately, mules could go a long time without drinking.

  Sweat rimmed her forehead, and pieces of wet hair stuck to her face. She took off her cowboy hat and wiped her head dry with her shirtsleeve. The insides of her thighs were sore, and she was starving. But there were miles to go before resting. There was no telling where Marshal Kendall’s posse was, or what they were up to. They could creep up on her at any moment. It was crucial for her to be on the lookout at all times. Her life depended on being aware of her surroundings and reacting at a moment’s notice.

  No sooner had she reminded herself of that fact, a rider galloped out from behind the ruins and slid to a stop next to Traveler. The horse whinnied, and Traveler jumped and returned a loud bray. Josie’s spine went as rigid as a steel shaft. Even if she’d not been momentarily paralyzed by fright, her reaction was still slow. She didn’t even stick her foot into the stirrup and try to get away.

  A silky smooth voice greeted her. “We meet again, Miss Hart.”

  Staring down at her was the tanned face of Grey Paladin. His mouth stretched into a grimace. Despite the scowl on his face, she exhaled in relief. “Thank God it’s you. I thought you were Wade Kendall. I was sure I was a goner.”

  “What makes you think you still ain’t?” He bounded off his horse and strode toward her. Standing toe-to-toe with her, he seemed as tall as a tree. When he bent his head, his cowboy hat blocked out the sun for a moment, like an eclipse. He growled, “God’s not gonna help you out of this one, girl. You took something from me this morning and I came to get it back.”

  Relief turned to irritation quicker than a flea could hop off a dog. Anger flared in the pit of Josie’s stomach. She shot daggers into him with a steely gaze. When she whirled to stomp away, Grey grabbed her arm and spun her back around again. “Not so fast, you little crocodile.”

  “Let go of me,” she spat. Wriggling free from his grasp, she backed away and took some steadying breaths. “How’d you catch up to me so fast? Where’d you come from, anyway?” Glancing around, she wondered how he’d snuck up on her without her or Traveler hearing. She’d need to prick her ears better from now, or she might end up dead. The mule, too.

  “Never you mind that,” Grey replied. “My traveling habits are none of your business. Where’s the map?” He stretched out his long arm and opened his palm out flat.

  She’d left the map in her saddlebags and made the fatal error of glancing over at them. Paladin’s gaze followed hers. When he reached for the latch on the bag, she pounced, jumping onto his broad back. She threw her arms around his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his muscular torso and tried to knock him off balance.

  “Get off me, you crazy wildcat!” Grey spun like a top while prying her hands off. Josie flew to the hard ground. She rubbed her hip and glowered at him as he unlatched her saddlebag and pulled out the map. A broad smile filled his face. “Don’t try anything like that again,” he warned.

  “Give that back to me!” she shouted, scrambling to her feet. She attempted to snatch the parchment from him, but he pushed her away.

  “Lower your voice, girl,” he said. “That posse could be closing in around us right now. That big mouth of yours will lead them directly to us if you don’t shut up.”

  Though she hated to admit it, the cowboy had a point. She clamped her mouth shut and gazed in all four directions; suddenly fearful of seeing Kendall and the others appear out of thin air like Paladin had.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled. “You sure know how to get under a girl’s skin.”

  Grey shook his head, like he was aggravated, and walked to the crumbling adobe walls and leaned against one of them. He crossed his ankles, opened the map and perused it, ignoring her, as if she weren’t even present. Josie marched over and stood in front of him.

  “You got any food?” she asked. “All I had with me was jerky, and that’s all gone.” When her stomach grumbled, she slapped a hand across it and puckered her lips.

  He didn’t bother to look up, and he took his time answering. After he’d studied the map thoroughly, his dark eyes bored into her from under the rim of his Stetson. “Do you know this place?” He tapped the paper with a finger. “The place marked with an X, north of Santa Fe? Do you know it?”

  Josie could be as stubborn as her mule, especially when it came to rude men. “Give me something to eat and I’ll answer yo
ur question.”

  Grey shook his head again. Their eyes locked from behind the shadowed brims of their hats. Something in the man’s stare gave her pause. Her stomach flipped over, and she realized it wasn’t entirely due to hunger. When he looked at her that way, a tingle crept along her neck and shoulders and ran down her arms. It wasn’t an altogether bad feeling, but it was a strange feeling. How could he captivate her and make her blood boil at the same time? She’d like to put her hands around his neck, caress it with her fingertips—and then strangle him! She felt emotionally mixed up. It was something she’d never experienced before.

  Grey sauntered to his horse and pulled something out of his saddlebags and handed it to her. It was a cold biscuit wrapped in a piece of newsprint, which she grabbed and gobbled in four bites as he watched with amusement.

  “Thank you,” she managed to say, while brushing crumbs from the corners of her mouth.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Do you know how to read?” she asked, curious about the newspaper.

  “Yes. I went to school.” It was apparent he wasn’t interested in chitchat. “Now, I fed you. Keep your end of the bargain. Tell me about this place your pa marked with an X.”

  Josie cleared her throat and armored herself against the pull of his vibrant dark eyes. “I’m pretty sure that’s Nambe Falls. My ma was a Tewa Indian. She grew up in the Nambe Pueblo below the falls. That canyon was a special place for her. I guess my pa was feeling sentimental when he ended the trail there.”

  Grey kept his gaze fastened to hers. “You say your ma was a Tewa? Did she pass away?”

  “Yes. About seven years ago.” Josie didn’t like discussing her mother, even though she thought about her every day. Her ma had been such a sore subject between her and Pa for so long. She’d grown accustomed to not talking about her at all. It’s not like she’d had any close friends or people to talk to, anyway. It felt wrong to be speaking about her mother with this cowboy—a brash man who intended on ruining her one chance at a new life.