Chasing Rainbows

by Victoria Lynne

  Finally, at the appointed hour, the payroll stage lumbered into view. Jake released his breath in a rush. Walter must have been wrong — in the hours they had been waiting, he had seen no sign of the Mundys. But even as that thought occurred to him, six riders charged out from behind a dense cropping of rocks as the stage rolled past.

  Six.

  There were five men in the gang… and Outlaw Annie. But she wouldn’t be riding with the gang — even Walter acknowledged that she had never actually taken part in the Mundy Gang holdups. She might take care of the gang and pass on information, but never had she been party to an actual robbery.

  Until now, Jake thought, dread lodging tightly in his belly.

  For even as those arguments played through his mind, reality was inescapable. His gaze flew to one particular rider, a rider who was a bit smaller than the others. A rider whose golden brown hair flew halfway down her back as she rode.

  Annie.

  Goddamn her, Jake thought, biting back his shock and his fury. She had given him her word that she would stay on the hotel grounds, but obviously she had lied to him once again.

  His mind shifted, moving past the flurry of raw emotion that poured through him. He forced himself to focus on a rapid-fire search of his alternatives. The fact that she was part of the gang, that his own neck was on the line — none of it mattered. He couldn’t watch Annie die like this. God help him, he might have sent her into the trap, but he couldn’t watch her die. He had to warn her somehow, to get her away from the gang and the stage before the shooting erupted. He raised his rifle to fire off a warning shot, but he was too late.

  The driver cracked his whip and urged his team into a frenzied gallop. The stage roared beneath them. The Mundy Gang, hard on the heels of the stage, rode directly into the trap Walter and his men had set for them. The road narrowed, allowing only enough room for the six riders to ride two abreast. Once they were neatly penned in, the deputies opened fire. A fusillade of bullets showered down on them.

  There was no shout of warning, no chance for surrender, no mercy. The Mundy Gang had been caught in the act, and few would grieve if they were taken in dead rather than alive.

  The riders’ cries of terror and panic filled the air. The front two tumbled from their horses. The remaining four jerked hard on their reins, blood gaping from their wounds. They frantically jostled against one another, trying to turn their frenzied mounts around within the narrow confines of the road. Annie, Jake saw, was still alive, fighting to control her mount.

  He surged to his feet. “That’s enough, godammit!” he shouted to the other deputies. “Hold your fire, we’ll bring them in alive!”

  Beside him, Walter Pogue raised his arm, then abruptly dropped it.

  “You son of a bitch!” Jake screamed as a second explosion of bullets filled the air.

  He jerked his gaze back to the outlaws only to watch in horror as Annie’s slight frame was lifted off the saddle under the impact of the hot lead. Her body jerked sideways, performed a lifeless half twist in midair, then plummeted to the ground.

  “No.”

  The single word was torn from Jake’s throat in an instant of horrified, impotent rage and anguish. Realizing he still had his rifle clutched tightly in his hands, he threw it to the ground and scrambled down the steep bank ahead of Walter and his men. His heart hammered against his chest as he raced across the ravine to the spot where Annie had fallen.

  As he ran, a fervent prayer echoed through his mind. Please, God, he whispered urgently, don’t let her die. Don’t let Annie die. He skidded to a halt and dropped to his knees beside her.

  She lay facedown in the dirt. A pool of blood seeped out from her body, spreading wider and wider with each passing second. With shaking hands, Jake reached out and turned her over, pulling her gently into his arms. He cradled her against him, murmuring soft, soothing sounds that he knew instinctively went unheard. Her head lolled back against his chest. Her body was heavy and limp, unresisting to his touch. Her arms fell numbly to her side and her golden-brown hair tumbled across her face like a curtain of silk. Moving with infinite care, Jake reverently brushed her hair aside so he could see her face.

  His heart slammed against his ribs.

  The woman stared up at the sky, her eyes wide and unseeing, vacant with death.

  Jake lowered her to the ground and let out a deep, ragged breath. Beside him, Sheriff Walter Pogue placed his hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jake. We didn’t have any other choice. You know that.”

  Jake took another deep breath, then came slowly to his feet. He slammed his fist into Walt’s jaw with every ounce of fury and strength he possessed, knocking the lawman flat on his back. Then he strode away without a single word, ignoring the shouts and threats of the deputies behind him. He picked up his rifle, grabbed Weed’s reins, and leapt onto his back, riding away at a full gallop.

  As he rode, an image of the woman’s eyes filled his mind, blinding him to all else around him.

  Her lifeless, empty, soft blue eyes.

  The woman was not Annie.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  She left the hotel with Peyton VanEste shortly after their interview. He had requested a tour of the property, and she had reluctantly agreed. The tour would take even more out of her busy day, but she couldn’t deny that it was a good idea. As VanEste had said, the publicity garnered by the article would likely be excellent, and the surrounding lands were simply too beautiful not to be included in the story.

  They rode across the flat plains and toward the base of the San Juan mountain range, where her property ended. To her surprise, Peyton VanEste rode reasonably well for an Easterner. He had been both amiable and polite, jotting down nearly every word she said in the little note pad of his. He scanned the horizon, as though mentally taking note of the rugged magnificence of the land.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Annie asked, a hint of pride in her voice.

  “That it is.” He pointed to a series of low-lying hills that rose up against the base of the mountains. “What’s over there?”

  “Abandoned mines, mostly,” she replied with a shrug. “I think they were all played out years ago.”

  “Let’s take a look, shall we? It might just add a bit of color to the story.” He smiled and sent her a dramatic wink, urging his horse forward.

  Annie hesitated, watching him ride away. As long as they stayed within the hotel grounds, she wasn’t breaking her word to Jake. Then again, what harm would it do to simply poke around a few deserted mines? She and VanEste would be back long before dark, and besides, Jake had ridden out without so much as a word of goodbye. Although it was perhaps childish of her to interpret that as a personal slight, his sudden disappearance had bothered her nonetheless. With that in mind, she spurred Dulcie on and quickly caught up to VanEste.

  They dismounted and tied their horses, wandering around the abandoned sight on foot. The sky was low and brooding, thick with the promise of imminent snow. As Annie surveyed the dark, gaping mine shafts and squalid cabins, an icy shiver ran up her spine.

  “Something wrong?” VanEste inquired.

  “It seems so sad, doesn’t it?” she replied hesitantly. “Think of all the people who came here, searching for wealth and happiness, only to find nothing but dirt and sweat and pain. What an awful end to their dreams.”

  VanEste shrugged. “They knew what they were getting into.”

  “I suppose.”

  “There’s a price to pay for everything. Anyone who tells you differently, who claims not to have known what he got involved in, is lying. Men may deny their own greed when fate turns against them, but whatever befalls a man in this life is his own doing, no one else’s. There are no innocents, Annie.”

  “That’s a rather harsh view, isn’t it?”

  “Just realistic. Take the Mundy Gang, for instance. Do you truly believe Pete Mundy didn’t know there was a risk involved every time he set off to rob a train or a stage? Of course he knew. To him,
however, the promise of easy wealth and fame was worth the risk.” He glanced at her and raised a brow. “You look surprised, my dear. Didn’t Pete ever tell you that I interviewed him over a year ago?”

  Annie’s heart skipped a beat as a wary note of warning took root in her mind. “No,” she replied cautiously, “he didn’t.”

  “Funny,” VanEste mused, “I would have thought he would have bragged of it to everyone. Then again, perhaps the two of you simply weren’t as close as I imagined. Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter any longer, now that Pete and the rest of the gang are dead.”

  An icy knot of dread lodged in her stomach. Until that point, her insistence that the boys were dead had been met with outright doubt and disbelief. Yet VanEste seemed to be as confident as she was that that was the case.

  “You still don’t understand, do you?” he asked. He smiled pleasantly and lifted his shoulders in an easy shrug. “Who do you suppose had them killed?”

  Annie shot a quick glance beyond his shoulder, judging the distance between her and Dulcie. If she took off in a flat-out run, she might just make it.

  VanEste lifted a gun from his coat pocket and pointed it directly at her chest. “I wouldn’t try it, my dear.”

  Annie swallowed hard. She thought of her own set of revolvers, which she had lately gotten out of the habit of wearing. They were waiting for her back at the hotel, neatly tucked away in her nightstand drawer.

  “What do you want from me, VanEste?” she asked, edging slightly away from him.

  “Why, I want the money, of course. The twenty-five thousand from the stage robbery. The money that’s been missing since Pete died. It’s my money, after all. Who do you think planned all those robberies for Pete?” He glanced at her feet and frowned. “Oh, and Annie?”

  “What?” She edged away from him again.

  He pulled back the hammer of his gun. “Take another step and I’ll kill you.”

  She froze in place, her eyes locked on his. She searched her mind frantically for something to say, for some stalling tactic she could use until she was able to think clearly. “Why did you do it? If Pete and the boys were pulling the jobs for you, why did you have them killed?”

  “Greed,” he answered simply, then clarified, “Pete’s, of course, not mine. He was anxious to impress some little slut of a barmaid he claimed to have fallen in love with, so he wanted more money. He had some preposterous idea that since the gang was taking all the risk, they deserved more than fifty percent of the take.” He shook his head, making a clucking sound with his tongue. “Can you imagine that, Annie? I created the Mundy Gang, I made them who they were, and he wanted more money.”

  Annie nodded as horrified understanding swept over her. It all made perfect sense. The boys had always been small-time, more inclined to rowdy pranks and barroom brawls than actual robberies. But that had all changed almost overnight. She should have realized sooner that someone else was doing all their planning for them, that someone else was picking their jobs. But she never saw it. Not until now, when it was too late.

  “I saw a group of lawmen open fire from that boxcar the boys tried to hold up,” she said, struggling to put together the last pieces of the puzzle.

  “You saw that, did you?” VanEste looked pleased. “Those weren’t lawmen. They were simply the new replacements for the gang, complete with temporary tin stars pinned on their vests. I thought that if one of the original gang should live, that might give him the incentive to get out of town and not look back — especially if he knew the law was that hot on his trail.” He shrugged. “As it turned out, the precaution was unnecessary. But it was a nice touch nonetheless.”

  “So that’s why you did it,” she said. “Your plan had been working too well to abandon completely. After you killed the boys, you replaced them with another gang — a gang that looked and rode just like the Mundys.”

  “Of course. After all, I’m the one who made the Mundys the feared outlaws that they were. No sense losing that edge.” VanEste sent her a cool smile. “Ingenious, wasn’t it? The only mistake I made was in not realizing that Pete would be fool enough to try to hide that twenty-five thousand from the last robbery from me. Unfortunately I didn’t discover that until after he was dead. Had I known, I would have killed him for that alone.”

  As she studied him, the initial surge of fear Annie had felt slowly channeled into fury. Fury at how VanEste had taken Pete’s gullible little-boy fantasies of making himself a big man and twisted them to suit his own brutal ends. Fury at how VanEste had so ruthlessly arranged for the cold-blooded slaughter of the men in the gang. Fury at how VanEste had been tracking her and Jake all along, shadowing their every step. He had had every detail of the boys copied, including their saddles, their horses, and their clothing, she realized with a start, remembering the man she had seen in the smoky saloon who had been wearing Pete’s vest. No wonder she had never been able to convince anyone that the boys were dead.

  “You won’t get away with this,” she said. “Too many people saw the two of us leave together this afternoon. If I don’t return, they’ll come after you.”

  VanEste’s smile turned slightly superior. “How very vain, Annie. Do you really think you’re that irreplaceable? The fact is, there’s a woman who looks very much like you assisting the Mundy Gang rob a payroll stage at this very moment. You see, Annie, you just couldn’t stay straight. After you discovered that your hotel was a broken-down brothel, you went back to running with the gang. It’s all rather predictable and mundane, isn’t it? No one will ask any questions or miss you at all.”

  Annie licked her suddenly parched lips. “May I sit down?” she requested, her voice a hoarse whisper.

  “Why?”

  “I think I’m going to faint.”

  A disgusted look crossed VanEste’s face. “You’re as spineless as Pete, aren’t you? I’m disappointed, Annie, truly I am. I thought you were made of sterner stuff.”

  Annie let her eyelashes flutter shut and swayed suddenly.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” VanEste spit out, “sit down.”

  She sank immediately to the ground, letting her riding skirts whoosh out around her. She allowed her arms to go limp and rested her forehead on her knees, as though struggling to keep from falling into unconsciousness. In truth, Annie had never felt more alert or able minded. Hiding her hands beneath her skirts, she grasped the two weapons she had been edging toward: a sharp chisel used for splitting rocks and a rusty iron spike.

  After a moment, VanEste’s impatient voice rang in her ear. “Where can I find that money?”

  Annie brought her head up, hoping her expression looked sufficiently terrified. “The boys always hid their loot in an old bear cave outside of Black River Canyon,” she lied, naming a spot where she and Pete had played as children. “I’ll take you there, just don’t hurt me, please.”

  “Get up.”

  She attempted to rise, then collapsed back down with a cry of despair. “I don’t think I can stand.”

  VanEste let out an oath and lurched toward her, roughly grabbing her by her arm and hauling her to her feet.

  Now that the man was close enough to physically hurt, Annie didn’t hesitate to do exactly that. Letting out all her pent-up fury, she slammed the chisel against his head with all her might as she simultaneously drove the rusty iron spike into his shoulder. VanEste let out a roar of pain and rage as she took off running. She heard the blast of his gun behind her and felt the breeze of hot lead as it whirled past her ear. At the second blast, she ducked instinctively, stumbling over a pile of rocks.

  The stumble cost her too much time. VanEste was behind her almost immediately. He grabbed her arm and jerked her against him. His blood smeared against her clothing, and his breath came in sharp, heated gasps against her ear. He wrapped his fist in her hair and yanked her head back. “I ought to kill you for that.”

  Annie’s eyes burned furiously into his. “You do it and you’ll never get your money.”

 
VanEste’s eyes darkened. “It might just be worth it.”

  “It’s over, VanEste,” a voice called out from above them. “Drop the gun and let her go.”

  Annie snapped her head up to see Jake standing just twenty feet away, looking both deadly serious and coldly furious. His rifle was cocked and ready, aimed directly at VanEste’s head. To his left were Walter Pogue and two deputies. Like Jake, they stood with their rifles ready, their sights trained on VanEste.

  “Now,” Jake said.

  VanEste panicked, swinging his revolver around to aim at Jake. Annie’s instincts took over. She slammed her boot heel against VanEste’s instep as she drove her fist into the bloody wound on his shoulder. VanEste gave a sharp cry of pain and wavered slightly. She jerked out of his grasp and hit the ground flat as the sound of rifle fire exploded into the air.

  VanEste’s body hit the ground only inches away from her own. Annie tensed, waiting for the feel of a bullet from his revolver slamming her body. But it didn’t happen. Nor were there moans, or cries, or pleas for help. Just a rushed, gurgling sound. She lifted her head to look at him and instantly understood why.

  A bullet had sliced through the middle of VanEste’s throat.

  Jake paced in the front parlor, waiting for Annie. With every anxious step he took, he heaped a mass of fiery self-recrimination upon his head, unable to forgive himself for his blind stupidity. He had relentlessly demanded nothing but the truth from her — truth that she had willingly given him all along, holding nothing back. He, in turn, had not only refused to believe her but had returned her trust with nothing but lies.

  Within the past five days, Annie had faced down both Snakeskin Garvey and Peyton VanEste, and he hadn’t been there to help her against either man — until it had been almost too late. His suspicions and mistrust had nearly cost her her life.