To Hell and Back

by P. A. Bechko

“Whoa, son,” Jake murmured to his appaloosa, pulled the picket pins and started back to camp.

  He was torn between anger and wonderment when he gave thought to Amanda. Gun strapped to her rather shapely hip, she’d quite simply announced she intended to learn to use it—with or without his help. She managed to price him at every turn. Though he had not said as much to Amanda, he would teach her to handle the weapon properly, if for no other reason than he wanted to be behind her when she was practicing.

  The smell of coffee and bacon frying, filled his nostrils and knotted his stomach with hunger as he strode back into camp. Amanda had dumplings sizzling in the pan, coffee boiling and the snake meat neatly sliced along with the assorted greens he’d brought back. He grinned at her.

  “Good start.”

  The dumplings looked plenty brown to him, so he wrapped his neckerchief around the handle of the pan, slid the dumplings onto a warmed, flat rock, and tossed everything else into the heated pan.

  “Son-of-a-bitch stew,” he announced. “Let’s see what we get.”

  What they got proved to be damned good as far as Amanda was concerned, a feast in fact. The meat sizzled and popped along with the greens, roots and wild onions and squash Hollander had provided.

  “My god, this is wonderful,” Amanda enthused.

  “You were hungry.”

  “No—well yes, but this is still wonderful. You have to teach me where to find these things, how to cook them.”

  “Don’t you ever ask for anything? Is it always something close to a command with you?”

  Amanda, plainly nervous, jerked at almost every night sound, or twig snapping.

  “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to be a burden.”

  The cat screamed again in the distance, a bit nearer now. Hollander nodded curtly at Amanda’s apology.

  “We’ll be having plenty of company here all night,” he said, “water draws the animals. Don’t worry. I’m a light sleeper.”

  Amanda shrugged it off, then said apologetically, “there wasn’t much flour.”

  She didn’t know how to talk to Hollander when there was only one thing on her mind.

  “That’s all right,” he replied. “flour is one thing I know where to get more of tomorrow. It won’t be what you’re used to, but it’s filling.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” Amanda said as she poured coffee for both of them. “About our situation.” She handed him the steaming cup. “It really stinks.” She sat back with her own tin cup of steaming coffee.

  Hollander chuckled at her observation.

  “Something has got to be done about it.”

  “We don’t have much room to turn around in. That town has already convicted us both of murder and bank robbery and sentenced us to hang. Our jailbreak only proved to them that we were guilty in the first place which is really stupid since an innocent man is sure gonna run before he lets himself get hung for something he didn’t do. But that doesn’t change anything. Add to that the banker had a hand in it and is lying his fool head off, and I don’t figure we have much choice.”

  “We don’t?”

  “No, we don’t. I’m going after those fellas, see if I can get any of Eli’s money back. Then I’ll light a shuck out of this territory, change my name and settle somewhere else. That’s after I get you to some town where there’s a stage stop where you can head on back where you came from.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No, I won’t have control of my life taken from me again.” Amanda’s features were frozen into the kind of fury Hollander had seen only in times of battle. “I came out here to get a fresh start and suddenly, one day, John Berglund is trying to get me to . . .” she blushed, unable to meet Hollander’s eyes, then finished the sentence, “be his mistress, and the next he’s trying to get me hung for robbing his bank.”

  Jake’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t accept his proposition.”

  “Of course not! He’s a married man!”

  Jake raised an eyebrow and frowned. Now he knew why they were in the fix they were in. She had spurned the banker. Berglund would have been watching from the back office when he had come in late with the money from the drive. For John Berglund it had been so easy, and things could not have worked out better. Their word would mean nothing against his and the only other witness was conveniently dead. He’d gotten revenge and covered his tracks at the same time.

  “We’ve got to prove we’re innocent,” Amanda broke angrily into Hollander’s thoughts. “I don’t intend to leave here until I do.”

  “Lady,” Hollander’s tone was irritable, “the best thing for both of us to do is head in any direction that’s away from here.”

  “But we’re both innocent!” Amanda protested. “You’ve already said you’re going after them to try to get at least some of the money back. And I won’t run.”

  “You already did,” he reminded her, “and, it’s the only sensible thing to do. So you go on back East where you came from.”

  Amanda’s chin came up stubbornly. Her dusky green eyes flashed golden sparks, and for a moment an uneasy silence fell between them.

  “I will not go back,” her tone was even, matter-of-fact. “And,” she added, her voice rising slightly, “I will not leave here until this injustice has been set right; until I prove both of us innocent and show up John Berglund for what he is.”

  She paused, then, swallowing hard, her eyes squarely met those of Jake Hollander.

  “I’d be grateful for anything you can teach me while you’re still here. When you leave, I’ll manage by myself.”

  Hollander gave a snort and set his empty cup aside.

  “You’re in a helluva hurry to write me off. Not wise since you couldn’t find your way out of these mountains without me to show you the way.”

  He was angry and blunt.

  “Even if you did manage to find your way that desert rat hole, you can bet they’d be waiting for you with a real welcoming committee. The only way to prove we’re innocent now, is to prove somebody else is guilty.

  “There’s got to be a way.” Amanda wouldn’t back down or give up. “And I’ll find it.”

  Jake intently studied her profile silhouetted in the glow of the firelight. Her hair, knotted and unkempt, shimmered in the light of the flickering flames, the sable color blacker than the night, her fair skin glowing. He liked the firm line of her jaw and the set of her chin that spoke of determination and worried him about his chances of dissuading her from following the course she had planned. Amanda Cleary possessed a lot of courage, but she lacked the experience needed to draw a line between courage and foolhardiness. In spite of himself Jake Hollander half smiled. He had to admit that if she were not along, he would be the first to be plotting a return and a suitable revenge against John Berglund. He was a man who usually got what he went after, and with three outlaws to choose from, he would have turned up with at least one of them.

  But there was Amanda. He could stall her now. Maybe later, when she had learned a little, she would be more open to reason. He’d done his share of tracking, had ridden on a posse a time or two, but he had never done it with a greenhorn, and a woman to boot, in tow. He wasn’t going to start now.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” Jake told her off-handedly. “We aren’t going anywhere for quite a spell anyway.”

  Chapter 8

  The next morning dawned bold and brassy as those before it, promising to be just as hot. Amanda rolled out of her bedroll. Every bone, muscle and sinew in her body ached. She had overslept, and Jake, damn him, had allowed it. She climbed stiffly to her feet and frowned. What in blazes would it take to convince him that she did not want special treatment? She was determined to tell him just that, again, when she realized he was nowhere in sight.

  Hollander wouldn’t have gone far, but the pulse of panic that beat at the base of Amanda’s throat could not be denied. She stooped and snatched up the gun she had commandeered, then strapped it about her hips as her eye
s drifted slowly around camp. It was, it seemed to Amanda, unnaturally quiet. She froze rigid where she was. Bright, sunlit shadows played along the ground beneath the trees gently tossed by desert air flowing down off the higher peaks.

  A knot, tight as a spring, coiled in Amanda’s stomach, but she saw nothing. He would not have gone far, she reasoned with herself, but the tight dryness remained in her throat when she glanced anxiously about and realized for the first time that the horses were gone as well. Her hand rested unconsciously on the butt of her holstered gun? She slipped the leather loop from the gun’s hammer.

  Amanda turned to the remains of the last night’s fire. What if she had misjudged him? Her eyes fell on the low burning fire almost the same instant her nose picked up the fragrant scent of hot coffee. The pot, propped on a rock beside glowing coals, was properly hot.

  “Morning, gunslick,” a rough voice, his voice spoke from behind her.

  Amanda’s heart leapt into a racing beat and she spun on Hollander, her features a mixture of anger and relief.

  “When are you going to stop doing that to me?” she demanded. “Or do you enjoy scaring me out of my wits?”

  “You wanted to learn.”

  Jake dropped down beside the fire and poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “I’m teaching you. Soon as you learn that seeing out here means more than looking, I won’t be able to do that to you anymore. If you hadn’t been looking so hard, you would have felt me beside you before I spoke. And you shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” Hollander added. “The way you were fidgeting around, you were sure I’d run out on you,” he deduced shrewdly. “Man’d have to be crazy to run out on a woman who looks like you.” He threw in the compliment, heading off Amanda’s furious denials.

  Amanda did not bother to deny it. She was going to have to learn to be more alert. She was learning there was a lot more to a person’s surroundings than just what could be seen with the eye. City life dulled the senses. But long dormant instincts were not lost, they only lay quietly beneath the surface, ready to rouse again given the right stimulus.

  “I want to learn to use this.” Amanda let her slender white hand rest on the cool curve of the gun butt protruding from the holster at her hip.

  Hollander grunted, then sighed. “Yep, but you do it my way until you learn to handle it so you don’t blow one of us to kingdom come.”

  Amanda drew the Remington from the holster and turned it over to Jake who flipped the weapon open, unloading it with quick, deft movements.

  “First, you’ve got to get the feel of it, test the balance, make it a part of you. Take your time. Pick out targets, sight along the barrel, and pull the trigger. Lift it in and out of your holster some. Do it nice and slow at first, then a little faster, but remember, you aren’t in a race. Then, later, load it and unload it a few times.”

  He demonstrated the action, his hand full of shells, swiftly feeding them into the cylinder, snapping it shut and swinging the barrel up.

  “Learn how to do it fast, but start slow. When you get around to firing it for real, it’ll pack quite a punch.”

  He emptied the weapon into his broad palm again, then repeated the loading, this time moving like he was under water. Then he opened it once more, emptying the shells into her much smaller hand and turned over the weapon to Amanda.

  “And, when you’re done, leave it unloaded.”

  Amanda accepted the gun and the seriousness of his tone.

  “I’m going to go check my snare,” Hollander said, “see if I can rustle us up something to eat. One more thing,” he warned as he turned to leave, “unloaded or not, don’t ever point that thing in my direction.”

  A bit sheepishly, Amanda lowered the gun barrel she had swung unthinkingly toward him as she had turned. He frowned, shaking his head when he moved off. He hoped this wouldn’t be as bad as he feared it would be.

  Vowing to herself that it wouldn’t happen again, Amanda holstered the empty weapon while she followed Jake with her eyes until he passed from sight. She listened intently but could not detect a sound of his passing and marveled at the panther-like grace of all his movements. Also apparent was the fact he needed little sleep. He never appeared tired though there were times when his eyebrows, bleached nearly white by the sun, would knit together, the lines in his angular face would harden, and his gray eyes would darken when patience was wearing thin. Already Amanda could recognize such warning signs. Plainly, she would either have to bend entirely to his will, or start carrying her own weight, and be quick about doing it.

  She drew the gun after he’d gone as he said, practicing her lessons, getting used to the odd feel of it in her small, relatively weak, hand. Cactus, tree limbs, and even small twigs and rocks became her targets as she squeezed the trigger, listening to the hammer click sharply against an empty chamber time and again. She lifted the six-gun clear of the holster time and again, in slow motion, until her wrist ached. Then, she sat cross-legged beside the burned out embers of the morning’s fire and fed five shells into the chambers, snapping the weapon closed as she finished. She tried it fast once, fumbling, scattering shells into the dust, then slowed it down as Jake had, repeating the motions, memorizing the feel when she got it right.

  She broke the weapon open yet again and was starting to unload it when she heard something. She left the remaining cartridges in the weapon and snapped it shut. Then she held the gun quietly in her lap and waited, listening intently, trying to feel with everything she was.

  Hollander chuckled, the sound loud in the weighty silence, then he stepped into her line of vision carrying a rabbit and a couple of quail. Lord, she could swear he materialized out of thin air.

  “Better. At least you knew I was around somewhere this time. Dinner,” he added, holding up his burden for her inspection. “We’ll eat well tonight.”

  Chapter 9

  They ate well that night and the nights following. After the first week coffee ran out and they had to do without, but nothing else was in short supply when Jake Hollander went gathering. Their diet consisted of small game and an occasional deer as well as wild onions, flour made from the pulverized inner bark of the cottonwood tree, wild grapes found growing near the pools, prickly pear cut in strips and boiled like beans, and the sweet stalks of the mescal plant. The molasses-like inside of the mescal was of particular delight to Amanda’s sweet tooth.

  Time passed quickly, and, safe from pursuit, they had come to live with their situation—and with each other—in a pleasant companionship. No one could accuse Jake Hollander of exactly being a gentleman with his rough-hewn exterior and blunt manner, but where it counted, he was more well-bred than any number of men she could think of.

  Amanda graduated swiftly from an empty gun to a loaded one. Just as quickly she progressed in her skill at using it. Her aim was true, and as her grip strengthened, her speed with the weapon increased. More, she had that extra something that made some men gunfighters, the lack of which put others in their graves. Quickly she developed a casual, easy manner with the six-gun, the weapon coming into her hand and firing in one smooth, fluid motion. Again and again, by the hour, she drew, aimed and fired, the weapon empty. Then, using their ammunition sparingly, she put the bullets right on target.

  It was against his better judgment, but Jake began showing her tricks to speed her draw, and to hone her aim. She practiced diligently and seemed a bit too preoccupied with learning to use the gun to suit his taste, but she was also picking up most of the other things he was trying to hammer into her skull. He found it more and more difficult to catch her unaware.

  He was fixing their last meal of the day when she came into camp, slipping up behind him, feet enclosed in new knee-high deerskin moccasins he’d made her, gliding on the outsides of her feet like an Indian, carrying the Kid’s rifle. Hollander had been aware of her from the moment she had begun her cagey, almost silent approach.

  Hollander arranged the pieces of meat in the pan, then tossed in some wild onions dug
up from near the seep and some more prickly pear strips along with a hefty dollop of fresh water, then sat back on his heels and tossed a question over his shoulder at Amanda.

  “See anything out there?”

  Amanda froze, muttered a couple of unladylike oaths, dropped into a cross-legged seat across the campfire from him as naturally as if she’d done it every day of her life.

  “Deer are staying farther from camp,” she observed. “Coyotes are coming closer. There’s fresh scat up by the pools.”

  Jake chuckled, then stirred their meal, turning the meat over. “They’re wily devils, and bold as brass. More a nuisance than a threat, but we better move our garbage further out.”

  He studied her while he kept the food moving in the pan over the fire.

  “Don’t get discouraged. You’re getting much better. Did you find my tracks?”

  Amanda nodded. “You went over the top at the back of the pools, then circled into the canyon to the west.”

  “Any other tracks? Anything we should be keeping an eye out for?”

  She shook her head. “There hasn’t been anyone else since that first day on the ridge.”

  “You’re right. So tonight you stand night watch alone.”

  “What happens if you get killed during the night because I fall asleep or something?”

  “Why then I guess I’ll just have to add to the legends surrounding these mountains and haunt you ‘til the day you join me.”

  “Which probably wouldn’t be any too long if you’re already dead.”

  “Don’t underestimate yourself.”

  They fell silent, waiting for their food to cook, sounds of twilight drifting in. A distant, high-pitched cry, almost human cry, drifted on the velvet overtones of sunset. Though it was almost soft in its delivery, Amanda jumped.

  “Mountain Lion,” Jake observed as he served up their dinner, now used to the role of teacher and hard-pressed to set it aside.

  Amanda accepted the hot, brimming, tin plate from his hand.

  “Oh.”