Her Inheritance Forever

by Lyn Cote

  But the vultures continued circling, and then the four of them came around a bend and halted. Carson’s heart sped up, raced. He urged his mount forward. Men he recognized were under a tree, one lying and two slumped nearby. But no horses and no Alandra.

  He reached the men and swung down from his horse. “What happened?”

  The slumped man looked up. “Thank God you’ve come,” he gasped. “I’m shot and they are dead.”

  Carson pulled his canteen from his saddle. Hurrying forward, he put an arm around the wounded vaquero’s head and shoulders, held the canteen to his parched lips. The man drank thirstily and then, exhausted, laid his head back against Carson’s arm. “Bandidos,” he said, wincing with pain. “They attacked us and carried away our lady. And took our horses.”

  “Which way did they go?” Carson asked.

  “South, but that doesn’t matter. One of them left this with me.” The vaquero tried to pull something from inside his shirt. Carson did it for him. It was a smudged piece of paper, and words had been scribbled on it in poor script. Scowling, Carson read it, then folded it and slipped it into his inside pocket.

  The wounded man fumbled, trying to grip Carson’s sleeve. “You must find her.”

  “I will.” He looked around. I will. “Antonio and Emilio, first we’ll cover the bodies of the two who died so they’ll be safe from scavengers. Then we’ll head back to the rancho and send some men with a wagon to pick up their bodies and take them back for decent burial. Now we’ll take this man home. My mother will tend his wound and we’ll get packed to head out and bring Alandra home again.”

  “What was the note?” Antonio asked.

  “It’s a ransom note. Let’s get busy and get back as soon as we can.”

  The three of them acted quickly and didn’t waste breath on words. Carson was sick inside as he piled rocks over the men who’d died trying to protect their lady, Alandra, his Lonnie. That’s what he had called her since he was very little. Lonnie. He gritted his teeth and sucked in all the anger and worry. Thinking bad, sad thoughts that didn’t help. I have to find Lonnie. I will find Lonnie.

  A week or more since they’d left Rancho Sandoval, near the end of day, Scully and Quinn were in the midst of a stretch of timber when they caught the faint sound of rapid gunfire in the distance. And not just rifles or muskets, but what sounded like bigger explosions as well. Scully looked to Quinn. Had they found the army at last? But too late?

  Quinn nodded, looking grim. “Sounds like we’ve finally found the army or maybe two armies.”

  “It can’t be Santa Anna. We left before he did. He’d have been behind us.”

  Quinn looked ahead toward the sound. “There are other Mexican generals. General de Cos surrendered to Texians last year. Maybe he’s back in this, and maybe there are a few more.”

  His heart flipping like a fish on a line, Scully moved up next to Quinn. “I kind of hoped we’d meet up and join an army before the fighting started.”

  “Me too. But we may not be too late. It depends on what’s happening. We’ll just have to go forward and see who is fighting.”

  Fear that they’d come too late jabbed Scully in his gut. “I want to fight, but I want to win too.”

  “I’m in complete agreement with you. We’ll go careful. I’m not going to go barreling in just to get slaughtered.” Quinn grinned suddenly. “I am not a buffalo or longhorn. If I must die in battle, it has to make sense.”

  Scully didn’t say anything, but with a rueful grin shook his head. Quinn was no man’s fool. A man didn’t mind fighting if he had a chance of winning. Scully’s doubt that the Anglos could win bobbed up again. He pushed it back down. A man didn’t go to war thinking that way. That way led to early death.

  And I got a wife to protect. He knew that it was in name only. But having Alandra gave him an anchor, something he had lacked ever since he was four years old. It was a good feeling. Having something, someone, to fight for.

  Moving through the close-grown trees, they listened to the sounds of battle. Until now, Scully had never heard big guns fire. “That must be cannon,” he commented.

  Quinn looked toward the sound. “Yeah, that would be my guess.”

  They moved forward, listening and looking. Then they glimpsed black smoke rising. Quinn stopped and slid from his horse. He handed the reins to Scully. “Stay here. I will go forward on foot.”

  “No, I—” Scully started to object.

  Quinn held up a hand. “You are not as good as I am in not being seen. That blond hair of yours,” he joked. Then he moved off.

  Scully remained where he was. Within minutes, Quinn was back and swung back up onto his horse. “I don’t like it. Come.”

  They went forward at a walk to the edge of the timber. From the shelter of the trees, Scully saw it all laid out before him. Far ahead in the billowing black and white smoke, he glimpsed patches of blue and white, the uniform colors of Mexican troops. Just like the ones who’d camped around Rancho Sandoval so recently.

  From Scully’s vantage point on a rise near the Guadalupe River, they watched what must be a battle. It looked like a stormy sea of writhing men, clouds of black and white smoke, flashes of gunpowder, rearing horses. The pounding of big guns was louder now, and the reports of musket and rifles came fast and furious. And on and off they heard a Mexican bugle.

  It was a sight Scully knew he would never forget. The knowledge that men in great numbers were fighting for their lives, some dying, washed over and through him in harsh, shivering waves of disbelief and horror. The gorge rose in his throat. He closed down before this immeasurable horror and looked to Quinn.

  Quinn motioned to him, and they moved around, trying to get a better view. The Mexican troops in the distance had evidently surrounded what might be Fannin’s troops. “The Mexicans must have come from near here toward the Texians,” Quinn murmured. “Not good. No one ever wants to be caught out in the open and on low ground.”

  Scully couldn’t argue. Quinn was right. Why had the Texians left the fort at La Bahia in Goliad?

  Quinn must have been thinking the same thing because he said, “This doesn’t make sense. But they might have been slowed down and cut off before they could reach the timber here.”

  “They might have been heading north toward the river and got caught before they could get across,” Scully added.

  Quinn nodded. “Those big guns we’re hearing must be heavy to move, and the ground is—” He looked down and pushed his toe hard against the earth, and water squished up around his boot. “—saturated. They might have got bogged down, moved slower than they’d reckoned they could.”

  Scully felt ridiculous, pointless. They’d come all this way, traveled nearly two weeks, only to arrive too late to do any good. He glanced at Quinn. “We can’t go there now.”

  “No, we can’t. We’re on the wrong side of the battlefield. We’d just get shot for no reason, and maybe by our own side.”

  Scully imagined that his own expression must mirror Quinn’s grim expression. They’d come all this far—just to watch a battle? It was irritating, maddening. It could make a man crazy to watch yet be unable to do anything.

  Quinn leaned against a tree and settled there. “We’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Either way, we know Sam Houston and the main Texas army isn’t down there. Everything we’ve heard says he’s retreating northeast.”

  Holding the reins of his horse, Scully found himself a broad oak trunk to lean against. Did they know that? Would Houston ever turn and fight? Or would his army of volunteers fall apart? Were he and Quinn watching the end of the Texas rebellion or just another battle?

  Alandra shivered with terror, a raw terror that had not left her since she had been taken against her will.

  “You should be shivering,” Eduardo Mendoza, snapped at her. “You refuse to talk? I am your cousin. You should be trying to please me.”

  She sent him as venomous as look as she could manage, though she was wet, cold, an
d hungry. And wanted to give in to despair.

  “I could hold her close and warm her,” one of the bandits riding with them said, riding closer to her, leering.

  Alandra pretended she had not heard the disgusting innuendo in his voice. The other bandidos were all much younger than her cousin.

  “You know better than to touch her. We have plans. Profitable plans for her,” Eduardo Mendoza crowed, and then began coughing again.

  The men all laughed in the most distasteful way possible. To her, they behaved like young savages. She closed her mind to the callous laughter. Dear God, send help. Send…Scully. She remembered the sunlight gleaming on his golden hair. But he had gone to war. She knew from the sun that they had been heading northeast since she’d been captured within miles of home. Why was Mendoza heading toward the war? Didn’t he know this?

  “Aren’t you curious, mi prima, about where we are taking you and why?” He had stopped coughing and began mocking her again. “Don’t you think it odd that you were kidnapped twice?”

  She glared at him, showing her anger, not her fear. “You were responsible for my being kidnapped by the Comanches?”

  “Yes, it was me who went to that uncle of yours and told him you’d be ripe for the picking with your brother gone. I told him for five hundred gold reals I would kidnap you—”

  “Renegade Comanches kidnapped me—” Alandra interrupted.

  “And who offered to pay them to do that?” Eduardo grinned, leered at her. “I didn’t want to have to do the dirty work. And if I had shown myself, you might have become suspicious of Fernando. It was safer for me to stand back till your cousin Fernando had married you and become the master of Rancho Sandoval. Then I was to be paid.”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  Eduardo chuckled and then began coughing again. When he finally stopped, he said, “You being captured by savages was to soften you up. Fernando thought that you would be even more grateful for his proposal, which would protect your reputation. A lady must be so careful.” He waggled a finger at her and the others laughed coarsely.

  Alandra recalled Ash speaking to Señor Veramendi and alluding to the possibility of her being compromised to explain her hurried marriage to Scully. It still set her teeth on edge.

  “And the kidnapping should also have made you, mi prima, realize how much you need a man to protect you.”

  Alandra forced herself to show no reaction, but outrage flooded her. Then, to insult him, she turned and declared, “You should have realized that Quinn would not rest until he found me.”

  “Quinn!” Mendoza snarled, then cursed the man.

  “So why have you kidnapped me again?”

  One of the bandidos answered first. “Because down in Laredo—when we found out you’d been rescued, your fine cousin Fernando told Mendoza, he didn’t owe him a peso. It was in a cantina there. We overheard them talking. And then we decided that there was money to be had in another way. We talked and Mendoza thought it was a wonderful new idea.” The others laughed in that way that was supposed to fill her with fear.

  She looked straight ahead, refusing to take the bait and ask the bandit what he meant. Mendoza acted as if he were the captain of this band of four bandidos. But she saw how the young savages looked at him with ill-concealed disdain. It was easy to see why. The years had not been kind to her cousin. He limped when he walked and his face was scarred. And yet he still talked big. All those years ago when he had attacked and tried to kill her brother and Quinn, why couldn’t he have died?

  Her brother, whom she’d loved more than anyone, had been wounded and never truly healed, and then died—all because of this man. She thought she had let the need for venganza go. But it rolled through her like the heat from a bonfire. Lord, I know it’s wrong to hate this man. But I do. Help me.

  Then far ahead on the plain they were riding over, she saw a line of black and squinted. Was it just a line of trees or buffalo, wild longhorns or mustangs? At this distance, it was impossible to tell.

  Gazing in the same direction, Mendoza slowed and pulled out a battered eyeglass. Where had he gotten that? She was interested in spite of herself. She almost asked what the black line was when one of the bandits asked for her: “What is it?”

  Mendoza handed the man the telescope.

  He looked through it and said, “Buffalo.”

  Unexpected disappointment hit Alandra right between the eyes. Some part of her brain must have been hoping for…what? An army coming to rescue her? The Texas Rangers? Quinn and Scully and her vaqueros? No one knows exactly where I am. What had the note Mendoza left with her wounded vaqueros said? Would it lead rescuers to her? Or was she being taken to a completely different destination?

  She grappled with renewed despair. I can’t think that way. Dorritt would send someone to find out why I didn’t return from Bexar. I was kidnapped on the road we always use. Someone would come and find my vaqueros. Dorritt will read the note and know what to do.

  Scully was capable of finding her. He would not be stopped or turned from looking for her. Then she recalled the touch of Scully’s lips on hers. It was a moment she would never forget. Yearning to see him again rushed through her like a deluge.

  Now she did have to blink away tears. Three of her men may have died for her. I must be strong. I must survive. Men gave their lives to protect me. And I know Scully will never stop looking for me. Never.

  But in reply came a nasty little voice in her mind, taunting her. What if he dies in the rebellion? Who will come after you then?

  Ten

  In front of the hacienda, Dorritt took the ransom note from Carson. She hadn’t expected him home this soon. Instant fear made her body stiffen. She read the note once, twice. And she had no doubt who had written it.

  With Carson’s help, Emilio and Antonio lifted the wounded vaquero down and carried him past her. She hurried along with them, directing them to take the man to the guest room, then ran forward to get her nursing supplies. In the courtyard, the housekeeper met her bringing the wooden chest.

  Dorritt led her to the room. The vaquero had moaned once and then passed out. Dorritt worked quickly while he was unconscious. For the next few minutes she could think of nothing but cutting away the cloth over the injured leg, cleaning the injury, digging out the lead ball, and dressing the wound.

  When she was done, she sat very still, gazing at the man’s face. In the rush to doctor him, her worry for Alandra had taken a step away. Now it flashed back like a spark on dry grass. She held up the note and looked to the housekeeper. “Mendoza has taken our Alandra.” Mendoza was Don Carlos’s cousin. The scoundrel they’d all hoped they’d never see or hear from again.

  The housekeeper gasped and crossed herself. “Dios mio, no, no.”

  Carson and Ramirez had gathered in the door to the room. With heated rage rising inside her, Dorritt stood and, holding herself on a tight rein, turned to the housekeeper. “You know the mixture of herbs I use to foment wounds.”

  The woman nodded.

  “Do it three times a day until the infection is done. If red streaks start spreading up from the wound, summon the doctor to amputate. But only if blood poisoning starts. Otherwise, keep fomenting until the wound stops draining. Have one of the young girls stay with him constantly and feed him whenever he is conscious.”

  “But señora, why are you telling me this?” the woman objected.

  “Because Carson and I are going after Alandra. To bring her home.” Dorritt headed for the door, ignoring the objections everyone shouted at her in Spanish. She called to her maid to prepare her traveling outfit and then began giving orders to the staff about what should be done while she was gone. Ramirez hurried along beside her, listening and nodding, and still trying to stop her. “Señora, por favor, señora—”

  “Ma!” Carson called over all the commotion, silencing everyone.

  She turned and faced him, raising an eyebrow. Already knowing what he would say.

  “Ma, Pa wouldn’
t want you to go. Think of your…delicate condition.”

  Everyone looked on in silence. The housekeeper was weeping softly.

  The outrage still surged within her, but Dorritt willed herself to speak in a clear, sure voice. “Carson, I understand your concern. But I am well. The baby has started kicking, a good sign. And my mother had early trouble traveling from New Orleans to San Antonio and later safely delivered my brother. No more talk—we’re going to leave within an hour.”

  Carson didn’t take his eyes from hers. “You think we can trust the note? Just because it’s signed Mendoza doesn’t mean it is from him. Everyone in San Antonio knows what he did to his cousin Don Carlos.”

  “This stinks of Mendoza.” Wrinkling her nose, she waved the grubby piece of paper. “He thinks he’s so smart, and he’s just as stupid as he was fifteen years ago. Kidnapping again! It didn’t work for him then and it won’t work for him this time.”

  The anger bubbling up inside her threatened to boil over. Fear swallowed it up, leaving her hollow. I don’t want this to be happening, dear Lord. Alandra is too precious to me. Quinn and I promised Don Carlos on his deathbed to protect her. She looked at her son with narrowed eyes, hauling up her courage like a flag on a pole. Don’t fight me, son. “We can’t waste time arguing, Carson. We will—”

  “But all the way to Matagorda? That’s on the Gulf coast. Pa wouldn’t want me to let you go to meet kidnappers—”

  “We’re not going directly to Matagorda. We’re going to my family’s home near San Felipe northwest of Matagorda. Your father was going to stop there on his way to find Sam Houston’s army. Both of us figured that Houston will put as many rivers between Santa Anna and him as he can, and San Felipe is right along that path. Your father will stop at Buena Vista, my family’s plantation, and leave word for me that he’s well and where he’s going.” Another flash of fear. If nothing has happened to him before he gets there.

  “Ma—”

  She hardened her will against this worry. “I know just why Mendoza has asked for a ransom and named Matagorda as the place to take Alandra. He wanted to get far enough away so we couldn’t take our vaqueros with us. He thinks that will put us at a disadvantage. But no matter how many men he has with him, he’s going to lose. Quinn can outsmart him without even breaking a sweat.”