Against the far wall, gleaming in the lantern light, lay a small golden nugget, the size of her little finger. Propped against the wall were a heavily rusted and dented steel helmet and breastplate, such as Spanish soldiers like Ortiz’s men would have worn. Nothing else was there except dust.
Jessamyn swallowed hard, shaking a little. They wouldn’t have the gold before Charlie arrived. They’d have to gamble it was hidden somewhere in the gully’s rocky maze—and that they could find it before her treacherous cousin did.
“Are you well, Jessamyn?”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
Morgan took her gently by the shoulders, his expression haunting in the lantern light. “Jessamyn, as long as Jones rides straight into this camp, he only knows about the written map, not the stone markers. If so, we can fox him. Can you help me persuade Jones that this cave—the one here—is the only one where Ortiz’s gold could be?”
She stiffened her spine. “It will be a pleasure.”
Ten minutes later, Jessamyn had washed up and was drinking tea beside the campfire. They’d made camp beside the small lake fed by the waterfall and the hot springs, in the center of the box canyon’s horseshoe, which also gave them an excellent view of the wide trail into the canyon. Morgan was sitting beside her, also drinking tea, and they were both pretending to be grieving over the lost gold.
She was also trying not to stare at Charlie and Maggie’s noisy ride into the box canyon, with gravel sliding into the canyon as they came down the trail. Clearly, Charlie was foolhardy enough to ride down that nasty slope rather than walk it. She prayed he wouldn’t injure his mounts in the process.
Her eyebrows rose when the two of them thundered into the small grove, for all the world like a sheriff’s posse come to arrest brigands. Good God, they and their equipage certainly looked travel-worn. And their poor animals…It was hard to tell who looked more starved, Maggie or the horses.
Charlie sprang down from his big stallion, throwing the reins at Mitchell, who happened to be nearby. Mitchell angrily opened his mouth, looked at the Thoroughbred more closely, and instead muttered, “Thank you, sir.”
He collected Maggie’s mount and headed for the picket line. Jessamyn would have to thank him later for gracefully taking those two wretched beasts somewhere they could receive food and cosseting.
“Good evening, Cousin Charlie,” Jessamyn said as pleasantly as possible, clinging to a hostess’s duty. Maggie had settled on a stool by the campfire, as if her legs wouldn’t hold her up. “Would you care to join us for tea?”
She politely poured Maggie a cup of tea, which the female accepted eagerly.
“Where’s the gold?” Charlie demanded. His eyes shifted from side to side with a rattlesnake’s eagerness to kill. “Give me the gold or I’ll kill you when you leave this valley.”
Jessamyn froze, her cup halfway to her lips. Charlie’s words held the ring of truth, not bluff.
“There isn’t any gold in that cave, Jones,” Morgan said flatly. “Your uncle took it all.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re lying.”
Morgan watched him narrowly, his hand not quite lingering on his knife. “Go look for yourself. You can follow our tracks in the dust and see what we did. Your uncle’s tracks are there as well, but slightly muffled by dust and animal tracks.”
“If you’re lying, we’ll kill you all,” Charlie threatened.
Maggie held out her cup for a refill, which Jessamyn shook herself into providing. She also passed a plate of cheese crackers, which were greedily pounced on. If she wasn’t mistaken, there was better than a week’s worth of bruises on Maggie’s face, besides hunger. Much as she hated the slut, she couldn’t bring herself to let another woman starve.
Charlie’s eyes searched them one more time then he and Maggie raced for the cave. Mitchell and O’Callahan were now walking Charlie and Maggie’s horses, with water buckets handy. Daly paced beside them, offering them handfuls of hay.
A howl of rage came from inside the cave, then a woman’s scream echoed through the rocks. Morgan was at Jessamyn’s side in an instant, his hand on his gun. The rest of his men rose, their hands ready on their weapons.
Charlie and Maggie stormed out of the cave, white-faced and shaken, but the sight of his armed audience seemed to shock him back into sanity. “Evans. Dear Cousin Jessamyn. You were correct about the lack of gold.” A bitter smile touched his mouth. “Do forgive us if we must leave immediately.”
Morgan nodded coldly. “Certainly.”
Charlie and Maggie left without another word. Mitchell and O’Callahan had brought the horses up, now cool and collected with noticeably fatter saddlebags. Their two unwelcome guests followed the Lizard downhill, their men edging down the hill to join them and all of them looking down-at-the-heels.
Jessamyn stood to watch them, with Morgan at her side and the rest of the expedition gathered behind.
“How much grain did you put in the saddlebags?” Morgan asked quietly.
“Two days’ ration,” Mitchell answered calmly. “We had plenty to spare. But those brutes can look after themselves.”
Morgan grunted. “Aye, one way or another they will, either by honest hunting or by robbery.” He turned to face his men.
“Double the sentries tonight and tomorrow for when our visitors return, hunting supplies or gold.” He glanced around the intent faces. “The horses will be their first target. Corral them and the mules under the canyon’s lip so they can’t be stampeded. We’ll search the gully for Ortiz’s gold as soon as we can, to see if we must remain or can leave for Santa Fe.”
There was a low growl of agreement, like a pack of wolves. Morgan smiled approvingly. “Don’t take Jones lightly: his men are desperate and their guns, at least, are still in good condition. But we have an excellent position and will prevail.”
A mile downriver at sunset, Maggie ate yet another trout, while dining with Charlie and the rest of their party. Behind them, the horses happily ate their first good meal in days.
No matter how good a cook Hazleton’s younger brother was, he couldn’t disguise the fact that, ever since they’d lost most of their supplies to the thunderstorm, their diet had been meat and hardtack. She had come to heartily loathe trout and ptarmigan, the principal meats. But she hadn’t told Charlie that, any more than she’d told him how she loathed his fumbling hands on her breasts. Or how she hated bobbing her head up and down his limp cock, pretending it might be some use to a female. Or how much she wanted a real man with a stiff cock and the skill to use it for a woman’s pleasure. It was an art that Morgan Evans had undoubtedly mastered, judging by that woman’s contented, cowlike demeanor that afternoon.
She cursed under her breath. Goddamn bitch. The nerve of Jessamyn Evans, offering tea and cheese crackers in the middle of the wilderness, as if she were sitting at a shabby-genteel Memphis tea party! Maggie desperately wanted to be back at her own house in Denver, with the fine dining room copied from that castle in France. There she would show Mrs. High-and-Mighty Evans just who had true money and style!
Charlie tossed his fish bones into the stream. “Listen to me, men.”
There was a rustle of wary interest. Maggie cocked an eye and started nibbling on a piece of hardtack.
“My cousin Jessamyn stole a map from me, which showed where my uncle found gold in these mountains many years ago.”
Maggie snickered at the image of Charlie’s ladylike cousin stealing anything. Then the rest of his sentence hit her. He was confirming his men’s hopes that they were searching for gold? But less money for her would be worthwhile if it meant Mrs. High-and-Mighty Evans rotted in her grave sooner.
She lowered the hardtack in her eagerness to listen.
“That’s right, men—gold.” Charlie smiled at his thugs, clearly enjoying their approval. “They told me they hadn’t found it but I know they’re lying. I’m a miner and, as God’s my witness, there was never gold ore in the cave they showed me. So we’re
going back to take the real treasure from them—so much gold that a man can’t wrap his arms around it.”
Chapter Nineteen
The next morning, everything was quiet—far too quiet for Jessamyn’s taste. High to the east, the distant peaks glowed golden, but here on the canyon floor, the ponderosa pines’ elegant world enjoyed a beautiful summer morning. A chipmunk busily ate breakfast under a chokecherry bush and a mourning dove sauntered over to a pond to drink, while the horses and mules lazed in their corral.
Seven A.M. and not a sign of Charlie or his thugs in this valley.
The men had been rotating back to the campfire from their sentry posts since dawn for a hot breakfast. Morgan, Grainger, and Lowell were just finishing theirs, the last to dine.
Jessamyn sipped her tea, determined to project a semblance of calm. Given the day’s uncertain agenda, she wore her American Ladies’ Mountain Dress, composed of a long tailored jacket with pockets, a matching skirt that ended at mid-calf, and Turkish trousers gathered in a frill above her boots. It maintained ladylike decorum, while simultaneously allowing her the freedom to scramble like a boy up the canyon wall, should necessity demand. Her Sharps carbine leaned against her chair, well within her reach. In addition, she wore her Navy Colt and ammunition for all of her weapons.
Little rode into camp on his mustang, humming an old German drinking song that Grainger promptly joined in. Jessamyn blinked, but Morgan simply raised an eyebrow. “Care for some coffee, Little?”
“No, thank you, sir.” He swung down and handed his horse’s reins to Daly with a quiet nod of thanks, clearly planning to change horses.
“Where’s Jones now?”
“Still watching us from that rise over there.” Little indicated it with a jerk of his head.
Jessamyn frowned. The rocky promontory must be a quarter-hour, maybe a half-hour’s ride south. “Why are they staying so far away?”
Morgan shrugged. “Probably because we have more men, all veterans, and this is a natural fortress.” He finished his biscuit and honey. “Time to look for the rest of the gold.”
“How do we go there?” Jessamyn asked promptly.
He frowned. “You should stay here, where it’s safer from Charlie.”
“Don’t be a fool.”
“Jessamyn…” he warned.
“Morgan…” she mimicked his tone.
Grainger chuckled. They both glared at him. He flung up his hands in a gesture of self-defense.
Morgan harrumphed. “Very well, you’re coming with me. Grainger, I need someone to stand watch.”
“Anyone you like,” Grainger answered promptly.
“Lowell then.”
The young man brightened.
Morgan set down his coffee cup and began to double-check his Colts. He shot a hard look at Grainger. “I’ll be taking two men out of the line, almost equalizing your chances against Jones.”
Grainger snorted in derision. “Evans, everyone here is a combat veteran.”
Jessamyn rose to inspect her own guns.
“Jones’s men are paid killers, proven to stop at nothing—especially when gold’s involved. Don’t underestimate them. They must have something planned to wipe us out.” Morgan shouldered a pair of bandoliers.
Charlie refocused his field glasses very carefully. Cousin Jessamyn and Evans, with the young pup, had now climbed out of the canyon and onto the eastern ridge. They must be heading for that rocky gully, with the tumbled boulders.
Realization smashed into him, making him curse viciously. All those rocks were the perfect sign of a glory hole edged by pay dirt, where the Spaniards would have mined the gold. But where in that maze was the treasure itself? Those self-righteous fools, Evans and Jessamyn, must know.
All he had to do was follow them.
Thank God he’d waited until daylight to attack, figuring they’d be prepared if he came during the dark. If he’d come before dawn, he would never have seen them heading into there.
He’d tell his men to carry on without him; hurling dynamite at these damned teamsters should send them to perdition very quickly. The thunderstorm had left them with plenty of dynamite and other armaments, at least, kept in locked metal chests and thus safe from frantic hooves. Unlike the food, which had been scattered, soaked, and pounded into the ground, until most of it either vanished or was useless.
He closed his field glasses. “Maggie?” The hell he was leaving her out of his sight at any time.
She continued to watch the fools, no doubt ogling Evans. “What is it, Charlie?”
He managed not to hit her. “Plans have changed and you’re coming with me. The rest of you, carry out my previous orders. Anything you find in the campsite is yours.”
“Even the woman?” Donleavy asked.
He didn’t hesitate. If Jessamyn turned back to the box canyon, then rape was fitting punishment for having caused him so much trouble. “Especially her. Come along, Maggie.”
Sweating from the hard climb over the ridge, Jessamyn quietly followed Morgan and Lowell into the gully, using every trick she’d learned from Cyrus, Abraham, and Socrates. She didn’t want to alert any possible watchers by setting off a rockslide. The gully was a rippling piece of ground, perhaps ten acres in size, covered with broken boulders, interspersed with rocks and gravel. It cut into the mountain on the northern and eastern edges, as if the little stream had once been a bigger river. But so irregular was its base and so frequent were the boulders that it was impossible to obtain a good idea of exactly where trails or water had once traveled. In some places, a man could jump from boulder to boulder. In other places, two or more men could hide behind a pair of boulders.
They threaded their way through the maze of boulders until they came to the gully’s northern edge. Here, a large chunk of white quartz, almost as big as a man’s head, blazed halfway up the ridge. The sight of such a clearly man-made object sent a frisson shooting down Jessamyn’s spine. The quest’s end was in sight.
Morgan’s mouth curved mirthlessly at her reaction before he turned to Lowell. “You can take up watch anywhere along this hill.”
Lowell’s pale blue-gray eyes coolly assessed the gully before returning to Morgan. Given his easy grace with rifle and guns, he appeared every inch a warrior, not the coltish adolescent he’d occasionally seemed before. “Understood. Good luck, sir.”
He shook hands with Morgan, then Jessamyn. “Ma’am.”
“Good luck to you, too, Lowell.” Forcing her uncertainties aside, she lit a lantern and followed Morgan between a pair of boulders.
Rifle at the ready, Lucas Grainger stood amid the pines north of the box canyon and listened hard for a bird. Any bird. Flocks of pine siskins should have been flittering through the trees, singing their delicate songs. Steller’s jays should have been making a ruckus with their usual variety of calls, anything from a soft coo to a hawklike screech. Woodpeckers should have been drumming on the trees, like the percussion section of a great symphony orchestra.
A golden-mantled ground squirrel darted out from under a clump of fleabane and almost ran into his boot.
He froze, eyeing the little creature.
It stared at him for a moment, whiskers quivering, then dashed away into the grass.
He spun to the west, facing where it had come from, and listened. A moment later, the flat crack of a Spencer rifle sounded through the hills—and was followed by three more rounds in quick succession.
Lucas smiled faintly, the old battlefield calm wrapping him again. Rutledge had won the bet of who’d fire the first shot against Jones’s thugs.
Another shot sounded, and another. Someone was shooting back at Rutledge with a Henry rifle.
Shots rang out to the south, from below the canyon, where Mitchell was stationed.
Lucas started edging back toward the canyon rim, where he’d be at the center, readily available no matter where the coming battle would rage hottest.
A sudden boom shook the earth to the west.
Dynamite? If Jones’s thugs used dynamite, anything they tossed would cause massive damage—unlike firing a rifle, where a man could hope to only be grazed.
With the numbers in his favor, he’d hoped to come through this battle with only a few men wounded. Now he prayed at least one of his men would survive.
Wood cracked loudly then creaked and groaned. It fell, making the ground shake as if giants walked again. A man’s scream rose but was suddenly cut off.
Lucas hefted his rifle and began to run to the west, heading for a fight to the death.
Morgan and Jessamyn threaded their way through the maze of boulders toward the white quartz blaze. At the end of this rocky labyrinth, they found a cave large enough for two people to stand upright, although completely invisible to anyone in the gully.
The cave bent sharply, dropped, and quickly narrowed into a tunnel, barely high enough for Morgan to walk in and only wide enough for one person at a time. Its edges were very smooth, clearly worn down by water over centuries, although not a trace of damp could now be seen.
Jessamyn followed Morgan silently, the darkness weighing down on her until old nightmares reared up. She held on to her faith in Morgan like a lifeline.
But he wasn’t the dashing young cavalier, slender and bold, she’d once fancied in Memphis. She’d grown to know this man on the long journey west, with his light-filled eyes that saw everything moving past, the crow’s-feet from gazing at the far horizons, the laugh lines from chuckling at his men’s jokes, the strong jaw that could stubbornly set—and not relax until a dozen men and their animals were safely across a raging torrent. This was Morgan, who’d sheltered her in his arms against thunderstorms and helped her cross mountains. Morgan, who’d expertly honed her sharpshooting skills. This was a man to ride the river with.
She bit her lip, the small pain shaking her into a different awareness, like the lantern Morgan carried. He’d always done what he promised on this journey, even when he didn’t believe in the gold. Surely she could place her reliance on him. Surely.
The Southern Devil Page 30
