Renegade Man

by Parris Afton Bonds

  “I don’t remember asking for a character analysis, especially from someone who didn’t exactly excel in character in high school.”

  He saw the stricken look in her eyes and felt like a real SOB. What really upset him, though—even frightened him—was that he would never have let his anger get the better of him if he hadn’t been falling for her again. Damn! How could he be so stupid as to let himself get tangled up with her once more? For all his fluency in languages, he couldn’t come up with any kind of intelligent explanation for his behavior. If he tried, he’d end up babbling like an idiot. So, without a word, he swung away and stalked off across the flat to peace and privacy—and safety.

  Chapter 6

  Carefully Rita-lou spread the black tarp over the grid she was digging. Magnum knew better than to disturb the excavation, but the wild animals that prowled at night—raccoons, foxes and cougars—didn’t. Then too, an occasional and unexpected rainstorm could do as much damage as night predators.

  What she heard next was no night predator, but the clip-clop of a horse’s hooves. She straightened, rubbing the small of her back, and watched Magnum trot past her parked Chevy to see who was approaching. The Lab’s ears were cocked, and his tail was stiff. A low growl preceded the appearance of a man astride a magnificent buckskin quarter horse.

  When the rider came into view, Rita-lou’s mouth tightened into a thin line. C. B. Kingsley. She might have known he wouldn’t let her alone for more than two or three days.

  As he stared down at her, the evening sun was b¬hind him, making his silhouette shimmer like some ghost from the past. The brim of his hat didn’t hide the bitterness in eyes hooded by wrinkles. “How’s the digging going, girl?”

  She folded her arms. Beside her, Magnum paced nervously, sensing the antagonism that crackled in the twilight air. “I didn’t know you had an interest in anthropology, Mr. Kingsley.”

  “I have an interest in everything that happens on my land.” His voice was rough, like a dirt road corrugated by wear and weather.

  “This piece of land hasn’t been in the Kingsley family for years, not since the turn of the century.”

  “But the grazing rights have been, and in my mind that makes this Split P land. Anyone in Silver City’ll tell you the same.”

  She was thirty-five years old, but standing before the imperious old man, she felt fifteen again—and just as frightened and alone as she’d been then.

  “You know, girl, I remember the first time you showed up at our house, asking for a job. Your black eyes all hollow, tangled yeller hair, cast-off clothing. My wife thought you looked like a stray cat. She felt sorry for you. But I knew better. I saw through you. Tough and out to get your own way, that’s what you were. I knew you’d be sashaying around the place, arousing my son.”

  “That’s not true!”

  I warned Mildred. And by God, didn’t it go and happen! Next thing I know, you’re prancing up and down the stairs with Chap’s high school ring dangling on some kind of cheap chain around your neck like some gol-durned trophy.”

  Her old anger surged back, hot enough to break through the shell of control she’d built. “And you took his ring from me!” But he hadn't taken the ring she had given Chap, her grandmother’s Eastern Star ring, which Grandpops had left her. Chap had kept her ring hidden inside his shirt, next to his body, that warm, smooth, beautiful body.

  Did Chap still have her ring?

  In the dying sunlight, Kingsley’s eyes glowed with rage, and the blue veins in his temple pulsed. “And you took Chap from me, just as surely as if you two had run off to marry!”

  She moved a step closer and caught his buckskin’s bridle. “You drove him from you, trying to control him, trying to control everyone and everything. But you’ll never control me!”

  “Girl, what—”

  “Ms. Randall.”

  He grunted. “What happened is over with and past and there’s not a—”

  “No, you’re wrong there, Mr. Kingsley. It’s still very much alive in my mind. You insulted me, offering me money to leave town after Chap told you he wanted to marry me,”

  “The money was for the kid.”

  “Your grandchild, Kingsley!”

  The old man’s face seemed to sag. “Why didn’t you just take it and go, girl? It would have spared a lot of heartbreak all the way around.”

  She stared at him, knowing he was right. Either way, he would have talked Chap out of marrying her. And God knew she could have used that money those first four or five years, when she didn’t even have enough change for bus fare. She had been a fool not to take the money.

  What it had come down to was a matter of pride, because that had been all she had left.

  Kingsley’s gloved hand swept toward the tarp-covered pit. “Why don’t you just pack up your gear and leave? No good is gonna come from this!”

  She raised a mocking brow. “Are you going to offer me money again?”

  “Would you take it this time?”

  “No.”

  The cattle baron shook his fist at her, and in response Magnum barked menacingly at him. “You’re making a mistake, girl.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s a warning.” Tugging on the reins, he backed the horse away. “You didn’t learn the first time, but you will now. Mark my words.”

  With uneasiness prickling her flesh, she watched him ride away. C. B. Kingsley hadn’t ridden over to see her just to vent old feelings. Out of the dusk, a bat swooped down, emitting its tiny, shrill cry and breaking into her gloomy thoughts.

  Disgusted with her own timidity, she whirled and stalked into the main tent, where she banged the skillet and coffeepot down on top of the burners. After a few minutes her temper burned itself out. While corned beef and hash browns fried and coffee perked, she wrote in her journal. Every professional kept a journal of the day’s findings, but most of the time personal asides crept in, too.

  There were certain principles that she held dear, and one of them was that she enjoyed speaking correctly and writing badly. She believed a person should use the King’s English in conversation but write any damned way she pleased. A writer should have the right to use colons, semicolons, dashes and anything else she pleased as whim dictated. She figured if the newspapers could delete sentences in their entirety, then she should be able to dangle participles till hell froze over. And she did.

  A hot rush of feeling. Jonah’s kiss was so unlike the awkward ones we shared as adolescents—or the sweet, searching ones Chap and I exchanged—or even the mature, loving ones I experienced with Robert. Jonah kissing me left me --- what? shaken . . . and hungry for more. Like my ravenous hunger for a caramel and chocolate Twix. I feel driven by a need so fierce. I don’t think I can maintain an indifferent front around Jonah in the future. It would be best all around to keep our meetings to a minimum: don’t think I’ll offer him a ride on my next trip into Silver City.

  Writing rapidly, she penned her confrontation with Chap’s father under the appropriate date of June 21, sparing as few lines as possible on the loathsome old man. She paused, biting on her pen, and considered the very real possibility that Chap might come back to Silver City. Jonah had; Soren had. And so had she. But Chap—would he be willing to face his father again? She shrugged. Chap was a piece of the past, and the past was where he belonged.

  She finished with: Despite C.B.’s intimidating manner and veiled threats, I won’t leave Mimbres Valley until I find my Renegade Man!

  After dinner she took her flashlight and eating utensils, along with a washcloth and bar of soap, and walked down to the creek. The beam of her flashlight sent a white-tailed deer leaping from the brambles, startling her, then shooting off into the darkness. Above her, something moved in a tall pine, and her flashlight picked out a hawk, flapping its wings derisively.

  The water was freezing, and she vowed that next time she was in town she’d check into a motel for more than just the cursory scrubbing that the creek offered.
She would have her hair done, too. Nelda’s haircut had looked sassy, all short and curly. She wanted something like that.

  The hot springs were ideal, but they lacked privacy. Next time she might not be so fortunate in the man she ran into. Thinking of Buck, she shuddered.

  Once she had finished her bathing and dishwashing, she hurried back along the path. The Gila wilderness was one of the few places in North America where the grizzly bear still lived, and she didn’t want an introduction to one tonight. Racing clouds crossed the moon, and her flashlight picked up a scurrying green lizard.

  At last she reached the safety of her tent, where she changed into her long johns. Night moved in, full of sounds. Outside, the Renegade roared over its stony bed, and the crickets and frogs took up their nocturnal communication. The high country crackled with cold at night. Most evenings she was so exhausted that she retired almost with the sun, because there was no point in sleeping late in the summer. By nine in the morning the air would be boiling.

  Despite her anxiety, the night passed uneventfully, with only the hoot of a horned owl to awaken her sometime around one in the morning.

  The next day she worked steadily. Neither C.B. nor Buck Dillard came around to bother her, and she told herself that she had been worrying about nothing.

  Downriver, she could hear the continuous low drone of the dredger’s engine. Obviously Jonah was still occupied in his quest for his elusive dream. The desire his kiss had generated in her apparently hadn’t raised similar feelings in him, because he had made no effort to seek her out again, despite their proximity. That was fine with her. It would do no good to resurrect bittersweet memories.

  Late in the afternoon, black, angry clouds boiled over the Burro Mountains. The thunderheads roiled across the sky, blotting out the sunlight. With work impossible, she suppered early, washed up, changed into her long johns and sought out her air mattress. For a while she jotted down her day’s field notes, but then she extinguished the kerosene lantern. Over-head, thunderclaps exploded. Raindrops rattled like buckshot against the tree leaves and the tent canvas, then turned into a steady drizzle. She snuggled deeper into her sleeping bag, relishing the good feeling of being protected from the fierce storm.

  Twice in succession, noises that sounded like jets breaking the sound barrier rent the air. She sat bolt upright. Thunder. Next to the air mattress, Magnum laid his muzzle between his forepaws and whimpered. She scratched at the base of the dog’s furred head. “You and I have overactive imaginations, fella. Go to sleep.”

  Then, from outside, came the sound of something thrashing in ropes and tarp. At first she thought the wind had risen, but the tent canvas wasn’t whipping noticeably. Then she heard the bawling of panicked cattle, and she knew instantly what had happened. “Magnum! Stampede!”

  She scrambled to her feet and dashed outside. Cold rain pelted her face. A bolt of lightning filled the sky with white-hot light. Through the blur of slanting rain, she saw six or seven shorthorns, their eyes bulging with fright. Like bumper cars, they collided with each other as they stomped frenziedly through the grid she had so painstakingly laid out.

  “Oh, God!”

  Waving her arms, she advanced on them. Between her and a snapping Magnum, the milling cows took to their hooves again, heading straight for her tent this time. “No!” she cried out. “Oh, God, no!”

  With a crunch and a whoomph, the tent disappeared beneath the trampling hooves. Next the work tent went down amid the sound of snapping aluminum poles and flapping canvas.

  She buried her face against her clenched fists and shuddered with cold and rage, disbelief and helplessness. Her fingernails dug half-moons into her palms. When she raised her head, the cows were charging off toward the flats.

  Tears streamed down her face, mixing with the rain. “Damn C. B. Kingsley to everlasting hell!”

  A light flashed through the darkness, blinding her. She shielded her eyes with her arm and stared through the drizzle. The flashlight beam came closer. Soon she recognized Jonah’s tall, rangy frame. He was shirt less, and his jeans weren’t even snapped. “What the hell!”

  “A stampede,” she explained. Foolishly, now that it was all over, she started to sniffle. “Kingsley stampeded a half a dozen head of cattle through here. The damned cows destroyed everything! All the work I’ve put in, all the time and effort!”

  “Six cattle do not a stampede make, Ritz.”

  “Jonah, I heard the gunshots!” She sank to her knees in the red mud, her hands groping through the smashed cigar boxes and soggy paper sacks that were falling apart between her fingers. She came up with a brass button she had carefully cleaned. “Damn him!” she sobbed.

  Jonah gripped her shoulders and hoisted her up. “There’s nothing you can do about this mess tonight except make sure you don’t go and get sick.”

  She shook off his hands. “Leave me alone!” She turned on him, her chin jutting forward. “This is just what you wanted! Why don’t you admit it? If I had found anything, Tomahawk Flat would have been swamped by anthropologists and news people from all over the world, and your dream of a paystreak would have been blown to pieces!”

  His jaw hardened. “You haven’t changed a bit. Still bullheaded.”

  Great shivers rippled through her. She felt chilled all the way through. The flannel long johns clung to her, and her streaming hair was plastered to her face. She sneezed twice.

  “Ahh, hell!” he muttered. He ducked one shoulder, scooped her over it and started off across the flat. A large hand clamped across her bottom anchored her to her unstable perch. Each step he took jarred the breath from her diaphragm.

  “Put me down, Jonah Jones!”

  He just kept walking. She tried to wriggle away, but it was hopeless.

  Magnum yipped ineffectively at Jonah’s boot heels. “Coward!” she scolded the dog. “Attack!”

  In response to her command, Magnum sneezed, then shook the water off his coat.

  “I can walk!” she yelled at her captor.

  “Barefoot? Not a chance.”

  It was the longest quarter mile she had ever traveled. Her ribs felt fractured. A low pine branch slapped her in the face. Her neck hurt from craning her head, but when she lowered it, the rush of blood made her dizzy.

  “Damn you, Jonah Jones.” She doubted he heard her, but she was too breathless to curse him again.

  At last she detected the squeaking of a door. After negotiating a step, he shifted her slightly and edged her into his camper. She blinked against the sudden light; then she was dumped onto a narrow bunk. She sat up quickly. “Now just a minute—”

  “Get your clothes off.”

  She glared up into his obdurate eyes. His water- spiked black lashes made the irises glitter a pistachio green. “You may have been a member of the military, but I wasn’t and I won’t obey your commands like some dumb private!”

  “I said get your clothes off. You do it, or I will.” She saw the unyielding set of his jaw and knew he meant what he said. “Turn around.”

  “Here.” He tossed her a shirt from a narrow closet wedged between the two bunks. “Put that on.”

  He began unzipping his jeans. “What are you doing?” she asked in alarm.

  “The same thing you’d better be doing. Damn it, Ritz, you’re getting the sheets wet. Now get undressed.”

  Shirt in hand, she scurried to one corner of the cramped camper, turned to face what looked like a pantry and began unbuttoning the top of her long johns. She peeled it off and shrugged into a mercifully dry and warm shirt. Then she stepped out of the bottoms. The hem of the green woolen shirt dragged around the back of her knees.

  She was still wary about turning around. She had seen only one man nude in her life, and that had been Robert. What had happened between her and Chap had been a hurried thing in the dark of night. And, of course, she didn’t count Trace. “Are you dressed yet?”

  “As much as I’m going to be tonight. Give me your long johns.”

  W
ithout looking, she picked up the sodden mass at her feet and thrust it behind her. “Here.”

  “You can stand in the corner all night, or you can get in that bunk.”

  Annoyed, she turned to face him. What she saw literally took her breath away. Jonah wore only black briefs. His body was gorgeous. A golden, toasty tan all over. Gilded hair matted his long, ropy thighs and formed a broad T across his chest and down his hard, flat stomach—and whorled even farther downward to disappear beneath the briefs. She could feel her too-long dormant arousal blossom.

  Jonah wasn’t even looking in her direction. He had tossed her long johns atop the other clothes piled in a corner next to a pair of mud-crusted boots. When he turned toward her, his eyes homed in on the length of leg exposed beneath the hem of his shirt. “This isn’t going to work,” he mumbled.

  “I need a towel.” She indicated her dripping hair. Still staring at her bare legs, he jabbed a thumb in the direction of the mound of clothes. “There.”

  “A clean towel.”

  His unflinching eyes inched up to her face. “Clean?” He straightened, his head brushing the camper ceiling. The corners of his mouth turned down with his mustache. “You better understand one thing now. I like chaos. I have a mortal fear of being housebroken. So don’t start cleaning up or anything. You’re here for the night. Only.”

  “Believe me, I don’t have the slightest desire to play housemaid. Not tonight, or ever.” She tried to slide past without touching him, but it was impossible. Her breasts brushed his chest. Swiftly she ducked back into the bunk and flashed a glowering glance up at him. “A dirty towel, then, please.”

  He leaned over and retrieved a yellow towel from the pile. Her eyes fastened on his long legs. “Stovepipe legs,” Grandpops would have called them. She took the towel with a muttered, “Thanks.”

  While he tried to fold himself comfortably into the other bunk, which was half a foot too short for his rangy frame, she sat there towel-drying her hair. She mused about the grueling things that powerful body had undergone in the elite SEALs commando force. It looked very capable of hand-to-hand combat behind enemy lines. And equally capable of hand-to- hand encounters in the line of seduction.