by P. A. Bechko
“It’s me,” Hollander called softly, then slipped into the firelight carrying their gear and noting with hard satisfaction that Amanda had withdrawn.
With recognition, Amanda scooted into the warmth the fire offered. She had been able to remove many of the spines, but there were many more broken off and deeply imbedded in the skin.
Hollander dropped their plunder and went down on one knee beside her, wincing when he got a good look at the arm. The sleeve was soaked through with blood from shoulder to wrist.
“You better get that shirt off and we’ll get your arm cleaned up. Can’t risk an infection.”
Amanda just about worked herself up to a blush thinking of disrobing in front of him when he tossed her the outer blanket from her bedroll.
“Wrap up in this. I’ll get the whiskey and my knife.”
“Knife?” Amanda whispered, but lost no time in shedding the shirt, some more spines going with it, then drawing the blanket closely about herself.
Hollander returned and sat down beside her, examining her arm closely. The skin was speckled and streaked with blood and roughened by the stubble of thorns still protruding from the skin.
“Stings I bet,” he said with false humor. He handed her the uncorked whiskey bottle. “Here, take a swig. Won’t seem so bad then.”
She’d never touched whiskey in her life, but Amanda heeded his advice, gasping as the searing liquid spilled down her throat into her gut where it launched a warm, mellow feeling.
After the second small gulp, Hollander took the bottle from her.
“That’s enough. It’s medicinal.”
“I’ve seen you take a sip now and again.”
“That’s what I said. Medicinal.”
Amanda smiled and Hollander got to work. With a technique perfected over years of taking care of his own, he worked his way up her arm, trapping the nubbin of a thorn between thumbnail and knife blade, jerking it free with a short pull, and going on to the next.
The cactus thorns removed, Hollander washed the arm with some of their precious water, then poured a liberal splash of whiskey over the abused arm from the shoulder down sending a blaze of stinging warmth in its wake. Amanda clamped her teeth shut against a gasp of pain and surprise, then breathed her question.
“The other one got away?”
Hollander nodded. “We’ll go after him at daybreak. He won’t be hard to track.”
Amanda got her only clean shirt from the saddle bag and shrugged into it beneath her blanket buttoning it closed. Then started fixing something to eat. She wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity for a hot meal while they had a fire.
“His friend wouldn’t tell me anything. All I got was his first name is Ben.”
“Not surprising, but it doesn’t matter,” Hollander watched her efficiently put together a stew of dried meat and roots, blobs of dough on top cooking into small, hard, dumplings. “We’ll catch up with him again, soon.”
Abruptly, he fell silent and frowned, listening.
It took a few seconds, then, she heard it too. A distant movement, the sound of approaching horses.
“You think he’s coming back?” she whispered.
Hollander shook his head slowly. “There’s more than one out there, plenty more.”
Amanda had learned a few lessons, but Hollander was different. His senses were as finely honed as an animal on the prowl.
“Get out of here,” he snapped suddenly without preamble.
“What?” Amanda asked, startled, but already rising to her feet beside the fire.
Something was wrong. Hollander had told her she would learn to feel it, like electricity on the air before a storm. And she felt it now. But, instead of being an aid, it confused her, raised her heart rate and made her want to flee. An emotion at war with the loyalty she felt toward Hollander.
“Get out of here,” Hollander repeated. “Find yourself a hole where you can’t be seen and climb in it. I might be wrong, it could be a troop of cavalry coming down that canyon, but they don’t usually do much traveling at night. Comancheros do.”
“Comancheros?” Amanda whispered the word.
She had heard them discussed before in hushed and trembling voices by women in Phoenix. They were hated and feared in every quarter.
He nodded grimly. “It’s not unusual for them to be in these parts, passing through on their way south into Mexico. Now get yourself out of here. Cover your tracks. When you find a hole to crawl into, drag it in after you and stay put. If they find out there’s a woman around here we’ll have more trouble than we can handle.”
“Here,” Hollander tossed her the small bag containing some dried meat and hard-tack. “And for God’s sake, chew quietly.”
Loyalty held her stubbornly rooted to the spot for a few seconds.
“Get a move on!”
Hollander spoke to her gruffly and didn’t move from his position beside the fire.
Amanda turned and disappeared into the night shadows.
Hollander watched her dark form moving against the blacker shapes of rocks and trees until she blended with them, fading into the shadow of a tree that swayed with the wind as if it had swallowed her up. The soft cooings and scuttlings of the night settled in. The wind picked up a bit and an owl hooted softly from a tree top. Hoofbeats sounded louder in his ears. Hollander would have preferred to fold their camp and steal off into the darkness in Amanda’s wake, but the camp fire would have been seen. The Comancheros would be determined to track it down.
Damn it, he’d made a mistake allowing the fire. A bad one. Focused on their quarry, he’d forgotten there were other predators around. Comancheros. There was never a right way to confront them, but running was no choice at all. They’d run him down for the sport of it.
* * *
Picking her way up the slope, Amanda headed up canyon. He’d sent her in the safest, most defensible direction. She moved easily, lithely slipping up over rocks and around the brittle brush that grew in clumps here and there along the slope. Her blood pounded through her veins, her heart was in her throat. She had to find a place to shelter, to settle down before whoever was out there arrived.
The sliver of a moon, brilliant against the velvet blackness of the night sky, cast a pale silver light to guide her footsteps, and she moved swiftly onward, the soles of her moccasins making not a whisper of sound. She glanced frequently over her shoulder, keeping the camp within her line of sight and at a distance where a pistol could do some good.
What Hollander planned she did not know, but if it was something stupidly noble, like sacrificing himself for her, she wasn’t going to allow it. She skirted the slope looking for that hidey-hole. A place where she could be near enough to execute her own ambush in necessity dictated.
A little higher, she found a hollow between some boulders that had broken loose from the slope above some time in the distant past and wedged together against the bent and gnarled trunk of an ancient mesquite tree forming the perfect nest for a desperate Pistolera. Only a chance ricochet could reach her there.
Amanda eagerly disappeared completely into the black shadows they cast. She made herself as comfortable as she could, checked her gun, and sat back chewing thoughtfully on a piece of jerked meat as a chill of apprehension washed over her.
* * *
When he caught first sight of the riders bearing down on him Hollander’s muscles tightened. It was no troop of cavalry. These men rode with a precise rhythm, but in no formation, strung out behind the leader in a loose mob. There were all manner of men, wearing all manner of dress, armed to the teeth and riding like they were lords of the land they crossed. Comancheros. About fifteen of them.
They were a strange lot, the Comancheros, just as likely to ride on, taking no notice of a lone man and his camp as they were to kill him and plunder his few belongings. And they were at high gallop. Perhaps he would not be worthy of their notice.
Hollander was standing, the Henry rifle cradled in his arms, muzzle pointing f
orward when the riders swerved from their course, coming straight for him. Their leader rode a paint horse worthy of some notice and he himself was unmistakably Mexican though his followers were a mixture of Indians, Mexicans, Americans, and a variety of half breeds who would have doubtlessly been trying to kill each other under other circumstances.
The riders swept up to camp in a rush, spreading out in a semi-circle whose edges disappeared into the darker shadows beyond the firelight. With deceptive casualness, Hollander shifted his rifle until the muzzle centered on the leader’s chest in subtle threat as to who would go first if there was trouble. For the moment, though, they seemed more bent on enjoying themselves than on attacking him.
The leader grinned broadly, revealing teeth yellow, stained, and broken. He urged his horse forward until he confronted Hollander squarely. There was a sparkle in the depths of his black eyes. The poncho he wore against the chill of the night defined twin bandoleers crossing over his chest when the wind blew. His hat hung by its cord at his back allowing straight, black hair to blow free. He regarded Hollander coolly for long seconds before he spoke in heavily accented English.
“I see, Senor, that you are not one who likes company.”
“I’m something of a loner,” Hollander drawled.
“But a loner with three horses!” the Comanchero chief commented cheerfully.
His penetrating gaze swept over the small camp, collecting knowledge, adding to what he had already gleaned from the tracks he had studied as they had come into the canyon.
Hollander shrugged as if the matter was of no importance at all.
“I said I was a loner, not that I was alone.”
The leader guffawed, rolling back in his saddle, slapping his hands on the broad flat of his saddle horn, and the men at his back chuckled softly.
“That is true!” he agreed with good humor, then turned more serious. “Where are the other two whose horses you have here?”
Hollander knew the Comanchero Chieftan was digging for the soft underbelly. If he found weakness his pack would move in for the kill like jackals.
“One died.” Hollander responded bluntly, “The other is in the canyon nearby—hunting.”
The Comanchero shifted in his saddle, leather creaking softly. He raised his chin, scratching thoughtfully beneath it.
“The one who died. Perhaps you killed him?”
“Perhaps.”
“The one who is hunting. He must not be very successful. I have heard no shots.”
Hollander merely lifted a shoulder again.
“Perhaps there has been nothing to shoot at—yet.”
“You think this friend of yours will find something soon?”
“Hard to tell. Do you think he should have reason to shoot?”
“He is very small, this friend you say is hunting. His horse did not carry much weight, and the boot prints are small. Is this a boy perhaps?
“A man would be a fool to bring a boy out into this country.”
“And you are not a fool, Senor?
“I’ve been accused of being many things,” Hollander told him, “but never that.”
“You know,” the Comanchero said brightly, “I have many friends, very many friends.” There was a low muttering of agreement from all around. “And they must be very much like your friend, because some of my friends went hunting as well. Two went that way,” he gestured up canyon along the eastern wall, “and two went that way.” He gestured up canyon, again, this time along the western wall. It takes much to feed so many,” he rambled expansively. “Perhaps,” he added as if it were of little interest, “my friends will run into your friend and they too will become friends even as we are becoming so now.”
A knot jerked in the pit of Hollander’s stomach, but he gave away nothing.
“Perhaps,” he mouthed the word quietly.
The Comanchero’s eyes narrowed to glittering, black slits. “I theenk you are running,” he said with shrewd deduction. “Running from something, or maybe after someone, eh?”
Jake Hollander’s face remained closed.
“Believe what you like.”
Hollander fought the urge to blow this insane butcher right out of the saddle. Christ, he didn’t want to think about what would happen if Amanda was flushed from cover. They usually amused themselves with women captives for awhile then sold them, either to the Indians or south of the border. He could only pray she’d learned enough and wouldn’t panic while the leader played his light-spirited game of cat and mouse. It would in all probability end here, unless his scouts turned up Amanda.
* * *
Seconds ground past like hours for Amanda sitting amongst the huge boulders, thoughtfully chewing the jerky she had stuffed in her mouth before the Comancheros had come into clear sight below. She drew her gun and laid it across her lap. Below, the men were moving and talking. Hollander kept the Henry rifle pointed unwaveringly in one man’s direction. The leader. Amanda felt the tension from the camp emanating all the way to where she sat sheltered by rocks and darkness. Her nerves strung tight as fiddle strings, she remained absolutely still and quiet.
Some of the men turned their horses and galloped off. She waited, aware there was someone close by. Then, tinglingly, her senses snapped into focus and she heard it. The slow, soft steps of a horse walking only a few steps at a time, guided by an expert hand. A hoof clicked sharply off stone. She’d been schooled about men who could keep even their horses so quiet as to make their passage unnoticed. This night, though, seemed to be conspiring to protect her.
Time dragged. The band of Comancheros was restive, eager to be away, but nearby she could still hear the horse walking in that slow, muffled, searching gait. Long silences were punctuated by a click or a scrape of iron shod hoof against stone. Amanda held her breath. They were close, very close. Silence. The skitter of a pebble down rock. One rider was above her and a second below. A horse snorted so close by she felt the hot, moist breath whip across the back of her neck.
Frozen in place, her gun in her lap, her hand curled around it, Amanda did not breathe. For one breath-taking moment her heart was beating in her throat and she was sure the frantic pounding of it would be heard by the searchers. Then, they passed on, as slowly as they had come up on her, still searching. Her breath hissed out in a strangled, muffled sigh and the knotted, burning muscles the length or her body begin to slowly relax.
Amanda licked her lips and settled back into the rocks a bit more, fighting the urge to gulp air like a half-drowned woman. She lacked Hollander’s experience, so she decided to make up for it in patience. She thought of the stew she’d been forced to leave back in camp and stuffed another piece of jerky in her mouth, chewing slowly and leaned forward slightly to keep watch on the scene below.
* * *
“Well, Senor, it has been a pleasure meeting you, but my friends and I, we must be going. We only came this way for water.”
He wheeled his horse, then stopped, looking at Hollander thoughtfully. “Perhaps, if we see each other again and do not find it necessary to attempt to kill one another, you would like to join me and my friends?”
“Perhaps.”
The Comanchero slapped his big-rowled, Mexican spurs to his horse’s sides and took off at a gallop, calling back over his shoulder as his men followed and the drum of hoofbeats began again.
“I will signal you if we find your friend!”
Hollander watched them go, and then the waiting began.
Chapter 15
Hollander had slept only fitfully, alert to any sound signaling Amanda’s return. She still wasn’t back near dawn when Hollander saddled their horses, turned the extra loose and loaded their supplies. The campfire long dead, he’d made several trips up and down the creek scouting for sign to be sure the Comancheros had cleared out, each time finding nothing other than tracks leading out of the canyon.
And no sign of Amanda.
At first he had credited her with playing it smart, but Hollander was beg
inning to worry. What if the Comancheros had caught her unaware somewhere and dragged her off?
He had just about decided to pile into the saddle and follow the tracks left by the renegades when he heard the low bird whistle coming from nearby upslope. The unexpected sound made him jerk as if he’d been shot. He answered it, and a moment later saw her slipping and sliding down the slope toward him, skirting the low, ground-clinging brush and heftier trees that grew nearer the water.
He couldn’t help the sigh of relief which escaped him at her approach.
“Planning on going somewhere without me, partner?”
“What happened out there?” he demanded, catching her in his grip.
“Riders.” Amanda returned bluntly. “I could feel them more than hear or see them. They passed close enough for me to reach out and touch them. I couldn’t follow their movements very well, kept thinking they’d circle back, so I stayed where I was.”
“You did the right thing.” Hollander stepped quickly away from her, averting his gaze. “We better mount up and get out of here.”
Amanda gave a short nod and accepted the reins from his hand, glad to be putting the place behind them. She swung up, settling into the saddle as a wave of weariness passed over her. Until that moment she had not realized how exhausting the night just past had been. She had barely dozed, dropping off only a couple of times, always half listening for some faint sound that would warn her before it was too late.
Then, from somewhere deep inside, Amanda felt a surge of new energy. It left her wide awake, her limbs tingling, her mind clear.
Hollander mounted up, casting a concerned glance in Amanda’s direction. She’d had a rough night. One that could play havoc with even a strong man’s nerves. But she wasn’t one to be coddled.
“All right. Let’s go. He’s already got a jump on us. We’re going to have to move fast. You going to be able to handle it?”
“Don’t baby me, Hollander. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”
With a last glance in Amanda’s direction, one which she parried with a solemn, steadfast look of her own, he led out, heading for the ridge where he had lost their quarry the night before.
