Sweet Autumn Surrender

by Vivian Vaughan

  Here she had learned the reason behind his fretful day in the saddle. She wished she knew the source of Armando’s disgruntlement.

  “We camp here.” He tossed bedrolls and cooking utensils off the packhorse. “Fix some food.” He led the horses to water.

  Mechanically Ellie followed his instructions. Soon she had a fire going and bacon in the pan, all the while admonishing herself to be patient with Armando. He had been dependable and steady since Benjamin’s murder, and now he had come through for her again. He’d gone out of his way to accompany her on this journey, a journey fraught with danger.

  He returned in no time. “Hear that thunder?” he asked. “It’ll rain soon, wash out any tracks.”

  She stared at him, thinking she’d misunderstood. “Are we following tracks? I thought you said the Circle R men had taken Kale straight to the painted cliffs.”

  He stared hard at her. The campfire glanced off his high cheekbones but didn’t reach the dark depths of his hooded eyes. His face, seen thus, gave off an aura of mystery. No wonder he was a noted gambler, she thought.

  “Our tracks,” he barked. “Rain will wash out our tracks.”

  She frowned, wondering at the strange conversation. What did she care about their tracks? All she cared about was finding Kale in time to save his life.

  She handed Costello a plate of food, thick slices of bacon and some spoonbread Lavender had packed, which he carried to the log and proceeded to eat, not with the fork she provided, but by scooping and spearing each bite with his razor-sharp Bowie knife.

  Scanning the area, she was filled with a poignancy that brought tears to her eyes. This place where Kale had proposed marriage to her would always be special and much too intimate to share with another man, even if that man was helping her save Kale’s life.

  Thunder rolled and lightning flashed. Tears welled up in her eyes. Her throat tightened as if someone were strangling her. She fought to control her emotions. Once she let go, she greatly feared she would not be able to regain control. And Kale was in trouble. If he needed her, she must be ready to help him.

  Pouring herself a cup of coffee she sat on the ground across the campfire from her sullen companion. She watched the firelight dance in the night. It glanced off Armando’s steel-bladed knife and flickered around his hooded eyes as he sat on the log Kale had dragged up for the two of them to share.

  “What plans do you have for when we come upon them?” she asked.

  Costello turned his vacant eyes to her.

  “I mean…these are desperate men. Perhaps we should—”

  “Leave that to me,” he barked. His eyes bore into hers with such intensity she diverted her gaze.

  Although Armando’s ego had always been large, tonight it seemed especially fragile. To hell with it, she thought…he would need her help to save Kale from the Circle R killers, so he might as well start getting used to the idea.

  “I asked because I intend to help you when the time comes,” she said. “You can’t be expected—”

  “Silence, woman. I’m listening for thunder.”

  Ellie shivered at the chill in his voice. Did he actually fear getting caught here in a rainstorm? After a while she spoke again, thinking to reassure him.

  “This site will protect us from the rain.”

  Costello stared into the fire again with a fixed gaze. His previous anger seemed to have flared and died. “And from those who follow.”

  Ellie shivered at his second reference to being followed, then immediately chastised herself. Armando had always been a trifle dramatic…hadn’t she once commented to Benjamin how he’d have made a good thespian? But when she asked Armando who he thought was following them, he peered desperately into the night. At his reply the skin along her spine prickled.

  “Those who always prevent me from finding my treasure.”

  “We aren’t being followed,” she tried to assure him. Or was it her own fears she sought to allay?

  “They’re out there,” he persisted. “They always follow me and try to steal my treasure. This time I’ll fool them.”

  “After we find Kale—” He cut her off.

  “Kale!” He snarled the name, then laughed cruelly. “He’s no better off than his brother. Benjamin thought he could trick me, but I showed him. Then Kale Jarrett came along, thinking he had things figured out. Now neither of them can stop me.”

  “What things?” she cried. “Where is Kale? You said he was at the cliffs, a prisoner of the Raineys. What—?”

  A sudden clap of thunder silenced her words. The wind gusted, causing the campfire to sputter. Strange shadows from the thicket skipped like stick-figure marionettes. Another bolt of lightning cracked so close they both jumped as if it had been a gunshot.

  Costello shouted above the noise. “Put out that fire, woman!”

  She obeyed, throwing their bucket of water on the flames, though her arms trembled so badly by now that she wondered at her ability to lift the heavy bucket, much less to hit the campfire with the water from it.

  “Get in your bedroll and stay there.”

  Quickly she chose one of the bedrolls, and somehow convinced her weakened arms and trembling limbs to drag it to the opposite side of the fire from his. She crawled into it, Armando’s words reverberating in her brain: I showed Benjamin…Kale’s no better off…neither of them can stop me…

  Large drops of rain began to splatter the ground. First a few, then more, until they fell in a deluge. The thicket offered some protection, but she could feel rain pelting her bedroll, as Armando’s menacing babble pelted her imagination.

  Her back and shoulders ached from the day’s jarring ride. Yet tired as she was, fear plagued her, bringing memories of her trip to the cliffs with Kale, the cliffs where they’d found Benjamin’s buckle, the cliffs where Armando was now taking her.

  Treasure, he had said…treasure. The only treasure she wanted was to find Kale, alive and unharmed.

  She shivered beneath the still fierce grip of her fear. Alive and unharmed…somewhere out there he needed her, and here she was huddled like a frightened child in her blankets. Yes, she was afraid.

  And she should be. For him. Perhaps that was it, she thought, feeling her muscles relax at the notion. Her fear for Kale magnified Armando’s ramblings. In the morning she would pry the source of his own fears from Armando Costello.

  Feeling no more raindrops on her bedroll, she peered from beneath the blankets. Armando sat across the campsite. Suddenly she realized that rather than having prepared for bed, he had rekindled the fire. Now he sat before it, studying a document…or…

  The fire leapt in the shifting winds. Light played on the parchment in his hands. Her mouth went dry. The plat from her mantel?

  For a moment her heart stopped. Just in time she clasped a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. The plat! He held the plat from her mantel in one hand and that dreadful Bowie knife in the other. The plat from her mantel. How had he taken it? When had he taken it?

  And why?

  Armando Costello sat in front of the campfire all night, studying the plat while raindrops pelted his head and shoulders.

  The rain had not amounted to much. Costello hoped it had been enough to wipe out their tracks. More than that, he hoped Kale Jarrett was dead. He had certainly paid enough to get the job done right—one hundred dollars in gold. But Armando Costello knew better than to trust anyone except himself. He had yet to meet the man who couldn’t be bought if the price was right.

  Take Benjamin Jarrett…now there was a man he’d thought he could trust. He’d gone along with Jarrett for several months, believing he was being led to the treasure, when actually, Jarrett had been deceiving him, leading him away from the treasure.

  Benjamin Jarrett paid for his folly with his life, and Costello vowed that trusting Benjamin would be his last mistake.

  Sitting with the plat, he began to formulate his plans. They were simple: with Kale and Ellie out of the way, he could return to the house a
nd take his treasure.

  Of course there were the Raineys to contend with, but he had a plan for them, too. They didn’t want the Jarrett ranchhouse. He would return under the pretext of taking Ellie Jarrett’s household goods to her. He congratulated himself on that plan. It was perfect, foolproof.

  Armando Costello’s large hands trembled with anticipation. Tomorrow, or the next day at the latest, he would have in his possession enough riches to buy the entire City of Mexico if he so desired. And one thing was certain, he assured himself, he intended to possess everything and everyone his heart desired.

  One last job remained: to do away with Ellie Jarrett. He’d have done it long ago, but people around here looked unfavorably upon men who harmed women.

  He scoffed at that. Given the chance, a woman could be more vicious than a man. Hadn’t it been his grandmother who’d given his own birthright to his cousin, condemning him, Armando, to a life of wandering?

  He had tried to run Ellie off. All he needed was time to retrieve the treasure unobserved. After that the house was of no use to him.

  But Ellie Jarrett would not budge. He ought to have known as much; women were like that. Once they latched onto something they wanted, an explosion from the fires of hell couldn’t shake them loose.

  The rain stopped. The stars came out, then faded before the light of day. Still Costello sat before the dead coals, contemplating his plat, his trusted weapon, his future. Sleep had been impossible in his agitated state. Blood coursed through his veins; his body throbbed with the excitement of this moment, his moment.

  He looked across the charred coals at the sleeping woman. If only he could kill her here and now. Angrily he rebuked his impatience. He must wait, get her completely out of the country—to the painted cliffs—kill her there, where he had killed Benjamin. That way he would be free. No one would be left to destroy his dream.

  It was high noon by the time Kale discovered where Ellie and Costello had camped. That it was the same place he and Ellie had shared both angered and comforted him. At least Costello was keeping to the known route.

  But that did little to assuage his fears, fears which had escalated by the minute since he’d burst into the Lady Bug to be greeted by a surprised Lavender Sealy. She told him of Costello’s ruse while she outfitted him with provisions for the trip, provisions which rode as heavily behind him in his saddlebags as his one remaining Colt rode his hip.

  He had worried about the rain the previous night. But it had been light at the juncture of the town road and the trail along Celery Creek. The tracks were plain as day: three horses—Ellie’s, the packhorse Lavender reported, and Costello’s Morgan. Either the man did not care if they were followed, or he was so sure his men had done their work that he made only cursory attempts to hide his trail.

  At the campsite Kale entertained the same notion, a fact which again reminded him of his own intended fate, and Ellie’s.

  Some effort had been made to conceal the camp, but not nearly enough. With a little work Kale uncovered the tracks where Costello led the horses to water. He found the impressions of one bedroll and the log he himself had dragged up on that miserable, wonderful night he spent here with Ellie.

  Signs showed where Costello had sat on the log all night. Removing the top layer of dirt from the campfire, Kale felt the coals and judged it to have been out only a few hours. If he hurried, he could make up the time.

  Then, in his haste, he almost missed the trail. Closer examination showed where Costello had led the horses out over the soft, wet grass and up the creek a good hundred yards. There the trail suddenly played out.

  It took Kale an hour of hard work to pick up the trail again, and by this time his patience was wearing thin. A murder could be committed in this rugged country, and the body not found for years—if ever.

  Yet he dared not strike out straightaway for the painted cliffs. That might have been Costello’s diversion. He must not underestimate the man. Ellie’s life depended on his own sound judgment.

  Travel was slow and annoying. Kale had never been much of a follower anyway. Tracking Costello, knowing he intended to harm Ellie, waiting for an opportunity to rescue her—that definitely was not his style. Yet he couldn’t be certain of their destination.

  A couple of things he did know for sure: Ellie loved him…and he loved her.

  Strange, how things turned out. He hadn’t had the foggiest notion of settling down when he’d come to this territory in search of his brother. Not that he intended to remain a drifter all his life, but until Ellie, he wouldn’t have given two cents for his chances of ever finding a good woman to love, one who would love him back.

  And now that he’d found her, he wasn’t about to let some madman carry her up a rocky draw and do her harm.

  As he rode through the maze of boulders and ancient slabs of rock which at some time in the distant past had fallen from the cliffs above, Kale knew he had sensed Costello’s guilt all along. But the man’s motives had been vague, and Kale had not been ready to accept Benjamin’s death at the hand of a friend.

  Benjamin was a good man whose path should never have crossed that of a man like Armando Costello. Perhaps Zofie Wiginton had something in thinking that evil forces followed that plat around. But Kale didn’t for a minute believe that. Evil men were found everywhere, in every corner of life, waiting to take advantage of unsuspecting men like Benjamin.

  People cringed at violence, and Ellie with them. Yet out here where the law had not settled in, a man had to take matters into his own hands to protect himself and his loved ones. And also to protect society.

  Someday, Kale knew, there would be courts and laws to take care of varmints like Armando Costello, but right now it was up to him to get to the man who had surely killed his brother. And he must do that before Costello killed again. If not, Kale would have two graves to grieve over.

  The three riders dismounted at the mouth of the canyon. They rested their horses and gave them one last drink before entering the no-man’s-land which lay ahead.

  Holt Rainey drained his whiskey bottle and tossed it away, and it shattered against the trunk of a gnarled oak. He rummaged through the saddlebags on Newt’s horse, then angrily turned to the man.

  “Where’s that damned whiskey I told you to pack for me?”

  “Matt took it.” Newt spat tobacco between his rotted front teeth and knelt beside the creek for a drink.

  Holt turned to Saint. “You bring some?”

  “Nope.”

  The sun was already hot for this time of year. Holt Rainey looked up the trail, thought about the rough ride he faced, then exploded at his companions.

  “This ain’t no goddamned picnic! How’s a man to get through Satan-country such as this without a drink?”

  Both men ignored him. Rainey grabbed his horse’s reins.

  “I’m heading back to town to wait for Jarrett.”

  “Do that,” Newt told him. “We’re damned tired of your bellyachin’ anyhow.”

  Holt glared at Newt, his hand going for his gun.

  When Saint spoke, his Colt already covered his boss’s brother. “Go ahead and draw. We’ll drop your body down between a couple of these here boulders an’ nobody’ll find you till your bones are gone to dust.”

  Holt eased his hand back. “Relax, boys. I was only testin’ you. Anyhow, I gotta come along. Nobody’s gonna get Jarrett but me. I’m due a notch.”

  The two men glanced at each other, shrugged, and mounted up.

  They rode warily up the broken trail.

  Newt and Saint were hired killers, professionals to whom emotion was a forbidden thing. They had stayed alive up to now by keeping cool heads and taking their jobs seriously. Neither of them liked riding with a trigger-happy man they had to call boss.

  They’d heard plenty about Kale Jarrett, and they respected his ability with a gun and his methods of fighting. If this make-believe gunfighter stepped out of line, he could get them all killed.

  “You two reme
mber,” Holt demanded, “Jarrett’s mine.”

  “We’ll take him as we can get him,” Newt responded, “an’ hope he don’t get a chance at us first.”

  “I ain’t impressed with reputations,” Holt scoffed.

  “Since you ain’t impressed, you’d best leave him to us. We’re getting paid for it,” Saint said.

  “Besides,” Newt added, “this ain’t no quick-draw contest. First one gets an accurate shot off wins. And the first one of us to get a chance at such a shot takes it.”

  Holt started to protest.

  “Our orders is to kill ’em all, and if you don’t toe the line, we might just extend them orders to include you,” Saint mused.

  “Now, move on up there in front,” Newt ordered. “That itchy trigger finger of yours is makin’ the hairs along the back of my neck commence to crawl.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ellie followed Costello away from camp the next morning as if through a dense fog. She had slept little, dozing off and on, each time awakening with fright. Whether asleep or awake she saw the same image: Armando Costello studying the plat he’d taken from her mantel…Armando, the plat, and his razor-sharp blade.

  His earlier words plagued her—words about treasure and how he had “showed” Benjamin, how Kale had “figured things out.”

  What things? she wanted desperately to know. What things? Things relating to Benjamin’s death? To Kale’s disappearance?

  To this trip they were making to the painted cliffs?

  Had this friend gone mad? Or had he been mad all along?

  As the night wore on, she watched Costello from beneath a raised corner of her blankets, and she became more convinced of the man’s madness. He sat the night away staring alternately at the plat, into the flames, and then out into the blackness. Ellie’s fears had escalated. Where before she had been frightened for Kale, now her fears centered on herself…the instinct for survival, she supposed.

  If Armando had killed Kale, she could see him punished only if she survived. She became determined to escape before his madness claimed her life.