Pure Sin

by Susan Johnson

  “Nice try,” he said, his smile grotesque in his bloody face. “But they’re way down the coulee followin’ Bud Holt.” He waved his revolver. “Move over here now.”

  She debated, trying to distract him with conversation until her father returned. He was wounded too, although she couldn’t gauge the extent of his injuries. But since she had no way of knowing when her father would reappear, she couldn’t take the chance Adam would move or make some sound, so she complied.

  “Now we’re gonna walk over to those two horses there,” he carefully said as she approached, “and take us a little ride. Reckon I might need myself a hostage to get me back to Fort Ellis in one piece.”

  Three fingers of his left hand had been shot off, she noticed as she drew near, and she decided she’d try to ride on his off side if possible. The small .22 single-shot derringer in her trouser pocket could kill him at close range. She found herself remarkably calm, her mind busy with logistics, obsessed with getting Ned Storham away from Adam.

  The man was wounded; she had a weapon.

  It was forty miles to Fort Ellis, and he needed her.

  Adam grew aware of the shining white light first; then he heard the voices. The light held a welcoming warmth, the distant voices triggered essential memory, and his mind struggled to connect the image and sounds. Incapable yet of sustaining thought, his brain synapses shut down, and he drifted back into the comforting oblivion of darkness.

  Until two words registered on the membrane of his collective memory and dragged him back into the light.

  Aspen Valley.

  With Ned Storham’s voice pronouncing the words.

  As if an enfilade of doors opened in his brain, he suddenly knew where he was, what had happened. That his enemy still lived.

  When the familiar sound of Flora’s voice echoed in his ears, all his faculties came to attention, blind necessity pressing every sluggish nerve and afflicted sinew into readiness. Mentally he checked his capacity for movement as he lay on the ground, and, barring excruciating pain at the slightest pressure, his limbs seemed willing. Next he estimated their positions from their voices: south and slightly west, with Flora closer. How far? It took effort to refine and clarify detail, and he found his mind wanting to slip away. Regrouping his consciousness, he began again. How far, dammit? And miraculously the answer fell into place. Two horse lengths. He almost smiled.

  “Mount up now, and slowly,” Ned ordered. He’d removed the weapons from Flora’s horse, and with his revolver trained on her, he held the reins of her bay with the remaining fingers of his injured hand as she slipped her foot into the stirrup.

  At that point she could have swung up, whipped the horse, and probably escaped, and if Adam’s life weren’t at stake, she would have taken the risk. As it was, she carefully slid onto the saddle and calmly waited as Ned Storham heaved his bulk onto the horse. Not daring to glance at Adam for fear she’d draw attention to him, she tensely waited, every second seeming to stretch endlessly.

  She was advantageously positioned on Ned’s off side, her father was sure to follow her, she had her derringer, and Adam would be safe.

  Or at least he would be the minute they rode away.

  Surveying the scene from under his lashes, the sight in his left eye blurred, Adam saw that Ned would pass within a few yards of him. A distinct danger if he chose to finalize his kill with a few more shots into the corpse—a common enough practice after a battle, when the victors often walked the field murdering the wounded where they lay. He had to be ready to move at precisely the right time.

  Not too early so Ned had a clear shot, but not too late either, or he’d be unable to save Flora. With his strength so badly diminished, he’d have only one chance to take Ned Storham down.

  Riding beside Ned, her reins tied to his saddle pommel, Flora couldn’t see where Adam lay, but as they approached the area, she deliberately said, “You don’t look as if you’re going to make the long ride to Fort Ellis.”

  Turning his head toward her and away from Adam’s position, Ned growled, “You might be the one who don’t make it unless you close yer trap.”

  Another few feet, Adam thought, estimating the pace of the horses and the distance.

  “We’ll see,” Flora coolly replied. “You’re bleeding pretty badly.” He couldn’t shoot her yet, she knew. Not until he’d eluded the Absarokee.

  Now. Calling on his last reserves of strength, Adam lunged to his feet. Ned’s horse broke stride at Adam’s sudden movement, and half turning, Ned caught his first glimpse of danger.

  Compelling his body to move, his teeth clenched against the agonizing torment, Adam closed the distance in two great strides. Jerking his bowie knife from its sheath with his good right hand, he reached up and plunged it into Ned Storham’s body.

  Ned held on for a moment as if he were nailed to the saddle, and then Flora struck his damaged left hand with all her strength, and, shrieking in agony, he tumbled from his horse.

  His weight struck Adam’s ravaged left shoulder as he fell, and Adam lurched, then rolled away in reflex action, the intensity of the pain incredible. He clung to consciousness with sheer determination, panting like a wounded animal, his ears ringing, white light flashing before his eyes.

  Reaching for her reins and those of Ned’s horse, Flora turned the mounts, and then, jumping down from her saddle, she lashed them off so she’d have a clear field of fire. Spinning back, she slid her hand into her trouser pocket to extract her small derringer.

  She had one shot.

  One chance to kill Ned Storham.

  Ned was up on his knees, his left arm limp at his side, the revolver in his right hand unsteady but shifting toward Adam, where he lay sprawled on the prairie sod, the left side of his face smeared red from his wound, his painted torso streaked with blood, the bullet hole in his shoulder pouring scarlet rivulets onto the grass.

  Flora raised the small handgun, stabilized her wrist on her left hand, and sighted-in on Ned’s head.

  “You’re dead now, Serre …,” Ned panted, steadying his gun on his target.

  “Say … hello to … Frank,” Adam gasped, pushing himself into a seated position with his knife hand, sweat beading his forehead as waves of pain washed over him.

  “You’ll see him before I will, Injun.” Ned’s finger tightened on the trigger.

  With his last ounce of strength Adam swung his right arm over his head and whipped his knife through the air.

  The bowie knife had a ten-inch blade, so it had to be thrown with delicate precision in order to slide sideways between the second and third ribs directly into the heart.

  Ned Storham died instantly.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Adam regained consciousness that night on the high banks above the Elk River as the travois he was lying on passed under the shadow of Sentinel Rock. The moon was hidden for a time behind the soaring sandstone peak, but the stars were brilliant in the sky, like perfect diamonds, and when he turned his head to gaze at the moon as it reappeared from behind the craggy outline of the landmark pinnacle, he saw Flora walking beside his litter.

  He smiled. “I could smell your perfume, and I knew I was alive.”

  “Just barely, thanks to your damned notions of chivalry.” She knew why he’d charged Ned Storham without a rifle, and her mood had fluctuated wildly between anger and relief in the hours since Ned’s death.

  “I heal fast.”

  “So you’ve been stupid before,” she grumbled.

  “I recall one night in particular,” he said with a grin, “when I took a lady into Judge Parkman’s carriage house.”

  “At least you weren’t going to get shot,” she muttered. “I wasn’t absolutely sure.” She smiled. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “And damned lucky to have you for backup.” He put out his hand. “Touch me so I know this is real. That you’re really here. The sky’s so beautiful it could be a dream.”

  Her small hand slipped inside his, and they felt the s
ame mystical connection that had first joined them long months ago in Virginia City.

  “I shouldn’t have ridden into Storham’s rifle range,” Flora softly said. “You can say I told you so.” He’d warned her about the danger of her presence.

  “It was very brave of you to come to my aid, bia. You were a warrior. And one never knows in battle precisely how to react. I still don’t.”

  “You have to show me.”

  “Maybe we’ll have some peace now instead,” he diplomatically replied. “I prefer raising horses.”

  “I can help you there.”

  “And I can help you interpret our Absarokee culture for your museums in Europe. Partners?”

  “I’d like that,” she murmured.

  A sense of well-being enveloped them, as if they could accomplish anything together, as if they could see beyond the vision of ordinary men, as if the moon were shining for them alone tonight.

  “You shouldn’t be walking,” Adam said. “Let me have someone get a horse for you.”

  “We’re moving so slowly, I feel fine. And I throw up only in the morning. Besides, Spring Lily said exercise is good for the baby.”

  “She probably didn’t have in mind the strenuous kind you just experienced,” he dryly said. “If she’s going to be your authority, I’m going to have to talk to her.”

  “She won’t listen to you. Men don’t know anything about babies, she says.”

  “This one’s definitely going to learn,” Adam said, gently squeezing her fingers. “I don’t want to be left out—”

  “—this time?”

  “If you don’t mind,” he gently said. “The thought of you having my baby …” He paused to steady his voice, his ravaged body, his senses, suddenly overwrought—the image of Ned Storham within seconds of taking his life vivid in his mind, the bitter memories of Isolde’s pregnancy painfully recalled. “I’m overwhelmed,” he whispered. “And very happy.”

  “I know,” Flora gently replied, her own happiness of equal measure. “This is the baby I was told I couldn’t have.”

  “Ah-badt-dadt-deah gave it to us.”

  “You gave it to me,” she whispered. There wasn’t a minute of the day she didn’t joyously think of the baby growing inside her. “A brother or sister for Lucie.”

  “Can I tell her?” His eyes sparkled in the moonlight like an excited boy.

  “Knowing Lucie, she’s probably already overheard a dozen conversations on the subject, but yes, do tell her. Tell everyone, tell the world.”

  “Is Lady Flora mildly excited?” he teased.

  “It’s a miracle, darling, or at least according to the learned physicians of the world it is, so not only am I duly impressed with your virility, I’m ecstatic.”

  “As soon as I can move without crying, I’ll see what I can do about adding to your definition of ecstasy,” he said.

  “Don’t you even dare think of moving for weeks. Do you know how close you came to bleeding to death? And if Henry hadn’t dug that bullet out of your shoulder, you would have eventually died of infection. You are absolutely not to move for a very long time.”

  “Yes, dear.” He had no intention of waiting for weeks. But his smile was accommodating, and when he said, “Whatever you say,” she should have been warned at such contrition from Adam Serre.

  They stayed at Four Chiefs’s camp while Adam’s wounds healed. Since Absarokee culture allowed a warrior more than one wife, shortly after their arrival Adam and Flora married, the simple ceremony witnessed by the entire village and celebrated with two days of feasting and dancing. On their honeymoon night Flora had first resisted when Adam insisted on performing his conjugal duties. But he was very persuasive, and before long he overcame her demur and his pain in a sweet oblivion of mutual delight.

  At the end of two weeks Adam became increasingly restless as a patient, his tolerance and meekness of limited duration. One morning at the end of September, after he’d brooded over breakfast, after Lucie had run off to play with her friends, he stiffly rose from his seat near the fire where he’d been moodily watching the flames and said, “We’re going back to Aspen Valley today.”

  “You shouldn’t ride yet,” Flora protested. “It’s too long a trip.” She turned back to him from her task of arranging the bed. “You’re still having headaches. You can hardly move without pain in your shoulder. No, I won’t go.”

  “You’re going.” He was glaring at her.

  “I don’t take orders,” she tartly said.

  “Fine. Lucie and I will go. Come later. Oh, hell,” he said with a deep sigh. “I’m sorry, but I can’t sit still another day. I’ve done everything expected of me—eaten nourishing food, taken my medicine, rested until I’m soft as a woman. But I’m going crazy. I haven’t seen my horses for weeks, or the ranch. Please come. We can travel in short stages if you like. I just want to go home.”

  He said the last word with such longing, Flora understood how obliging he’d been, how eager he was to see his valley again. “If you promise to go slowly.”

  He smiled, lighthearted, consoled. “Anything you want.”

  “I want to grow old with you, not see you succumb to your wounds.”

  “We’ll take a week. Is that slow enough?” He’d not negotiated over personal issues since his father had died, his authority over his life supreme. That he deferred indicated the great magnitude of his love.

  They compromised on five days, their journey a leisurely progress through an autumn landscape of great beauty. The cottonwoods and aspen had turned to shimmering gold, the kinnikinnick was blaze-red, and the air was so crisp and clear they could see for miles. Since the earl and his party had stayed in camp to continue their work, it was the first time they’d been completely alone, just their small family. When they rode through the mountain pass that opened into Aspen Valley and stopped their horses at the crest of the ascent to gaze down at the lush valley, Adam reached over to take Flora’s hand in his. “Welcome home, Mrs. Serre,” he softly said.

  “Thank you, Mr. Serre.” An overwhelming sense of possession, and a sweet sense of belonging, inundated her soul when she pronounced his name.

  “How come you have drips in your eyes?” Lucie inquired with charming bluntness, leaning over to gaze at Flora from her pony on the opposite side of Adam’s mount.

  “Because I’m happy,” Flora quietly said.

  “Spring Lily said you might be crying a whole lot more now that you’re going to have a baby. Is it because you’re happy about the baby? I want a boy, you know, because he won’t want to play with Baby DeeDee. Baby DeeDee wants a boy too.” She spoke with the utter candor of very young children, certain her wishes were of utmost importance in the world.

  “We can’t be certain the baby will be a boy. Ah-badt-dadt-deah will decide,” Adam said.

  “I hope he decides on a boy,” Lucie emphatically declared, adjusting DeeDee in her arms. “Don’t you wish he will too, DeeDee?” she asked, listened a moment, and then said, “She’s going to pray to Ah-badt-dadt-deah.”

  “Do you feel the pressure?” Adam murmured as Flora tried to keep from smiling at Lucie’s candid preference.

  “If it’s a girl, we could name her Archibald.”

  “I’m not certain that will be satisfactory to Baby DeeDee. Maybe you should think of only masculine pursuits the next few months in an effort to make this work out properly.”

  “We could always have a boy next time.”

  His brows rose. “That’s an idea.”

  “I thought you might approve.”

  “ ‘Approve’ isn’t exactly the word that comes to mind at the moment,” he roguishly said.

  “Something more seductive?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Why don’t I meet you in your bedroom in an hour or so?”

  “Our bedroom,” he corrected, “and why so long?”

  “Because your staff will want to welcome you home, and Lucie will need your attention.”

  �
��Greeting the staff isn’t that lengthy a procedure, darling,” he replied, “and once Lucie sees Cloudy, we’ll be of minor importance. Let’s say our bedroom in twenty minutes.”

  “Two hundred dollars says an hour.”

  “You’re on, you sweet, naive thing. Watch and learn.” And nudging his sleek bay, he led the way down the trail.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The staff was lined up on the drive when they reached the front door, and after Lucie jumped from her pony, ran to greet Cloudy with a big hug, and immediately disappeared with her into the house, Adam whispered, “You’re about to lose two hundred dollars.” As he lifted Flora from the saddle, Mrs. O’Brien immediately launched into a highly charged recital of Isolde’s visit to the ranch.

  Adam politely stopped her after several moments when she paused to take a breath by asking, “How many wagons did Isolde take when she left?”

  “Ten, sir. We couldn’t stop her. Well, short of shooting her, which Montoya said wouldn’t please you, but I wasn’t so sure—sorry, sir, but you know how she is … screaming at everyone and as rude as a mule skinner with a half-dozen bottles of whiskey in him, and, well, come in and see for yourself, sir. There’s nothing left.”

  A short time later when Mrs. O’Brien had been soothed and the staff dismissed with thanks and appreciation for taking care of the ranch in his absence, Adam and Flora stood hand in hand on the threshold of his looted home. Surveying the large, empty foyer, the sitting room and reception room, to the left and right of the entrance hall, similarly devoid of furniture, Adam softly whistled in astonishment. “She even took the drapes. I thought Isolde hated them,” he murmured, then added, “Maybe she didn’t want you to have them.”

  “Drapes?” Flora said with a casual disregard, noticing the bare windows for the first time.