Hours later with the moon hidden behind heavy clouds, they reached the Río Grande. Priscilla plunged in at a speed more suitable for a shallow mountain stream. Joaquín drew up on the bank.
“There’s a safer place to cross downstream,” he called after her. Already she was two horse lengths into the raging water. Joaquín turned his mount south. “You’ll get yourself killed,” he called.
Without hesitating, Will passed Joaquín and spurred his horse into the river behind Priscilla. The horse struggled against the current. Water rushed over his legs and swept between his body and the horse’s neck. He tightened his hold on the reins and wondered at his sanity.
Hell fire. He didn’t need to prove his prowess to this cocky madwoman. Nevertheless he kicked his horse, guiding the swimming animal to the upstream side of Priscilla. “Did you break him out of jail, so you can kill him on the ride to safety?”
She turned stony eyes on him. “If you’re not man enough to cross here, go downstream.”
Will spurred his mount ahead of hers. Gaining the other bank, he kept going. By the time he heard her horse scramble up the embankment, he was disappearing into the foliage. She called to him in acid tones.
“If you’re going with us, you’re headed the wrong way, greenhorn.”
The sky was black with the last hours of night when Joaquín caught up with them. “We should stop for a while.”
“Later,” was the only answer she gave.
Will followed her and Joaquín brought up the rear, grumbling to himself. “I don’t know what the hell you did to rile her, white eyes, but you’d better set it straight before she kills us all, herself included.”
Although the idea was unsettling, Will declined the suggestion to make up with Priscilla. By the time the sun peeked over the top of the nearest mountain range, she appeared to have settled down. When they came to a clearing nestled back in the foothills, she drew rein.
“Why don’t we rest awhile?” She even smiled at him, which, Will realized later, should have been a warning. “You haven’t gotten much sleep the last few nights.”
“More like none,” he replied.
She’d already dismounted beneath a rocky overhang and had begun to unsaddle her horse. “We’ll divide up the housekeeping chores.” She tossed a canvas bag to Will. “After you stake your horse, carry some water for coffee. Joaquín can build a fire, while I see what Jessie sent for nourishment.”
Will dismounted and pulled the saddle off his tired mount. Considering the situation, he realized Priscilla had been thinking of the horses when she stopped to rest. They would never outrun a posse if they wore out their horses.
Taking the bag, he headed for the river. Joaquín gathered firewood, and by the time Will returned, the place had taken on the look of a real camp. He noticed three bedrolls, spaced for privacy, back against the wall of the hill.
Priscilla had a skillet out and was stirring something over the fire Joaquín had built. “Smells good,” he commented. “What is it?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’m not much of a hand at cooking.” She pursed her lips and glared into the skillet, additional signals that things weren’t as harmonious as they seemed.
She dished up the food and slapped a tin plate in his hands. He took it and began to eat the green chile stew. Joaquín accepted the next plate. The three of them sat silently around the fire. Finally Will decided to attempt to bring things back to normal. Whatever the hell that was.
“How far to Victorio’s?”
“If the trip’s getting too hard for you, Radnor, you don’t have to come the rest of the way.” Priscilla’s tone reminded him of summer grapes that hadn’t ripened yet. “You can ride back and help Pa defend Spanish Creek.”
The tongue-lashing was unexpected, and while he recovered, Joaquín jumped in with his favorite topic.
“Since when did Charlie need help with anything?”
“Since his daughter started breaking prisoners out of jail.”
Priscilla glowered from Joaquín to Will. Rising, she didn’t even try to keep the scorn from her voice. “If you get sleepy, there’ll be coffee on the fire, Joaquín. Wake me for second watch.”
“I—” Will began.
“You think we could sleep while some greenhorn kept watch?”
Will stared her down, or attempted to.
Joaquín evidently felt the need to placate her. “I got all the sleep I need for a month of Sundays in that jail cell. You two catch some shuteye. We’ll ride out in a couple of hours.”
Will was still smarting over Priscilla’s rebuff, understandable, though it was. That’s why he was so slow at picking up the signals, he reasoned later, when he crawled into his bedroll and tried to go to sleep. The damned thing was thin as last year’s socks and it lay on top of a slab of solid rock. Some campsite she’d found. If he didn’t know better—
Sitting up, he peered through the juniper shrubbery that separated his bedroll from Priscilla’s. She was sitting on her pallet, staring his way. And then and there he knew he’d been set up.
Resisting the temptation to move his bed, he smiled as sweetly as she was doing, and called, “Night, Jake.”
“Sleep tight, Radnor,” she returned, in that innocently sweet voice that would get her anything—almost.
Will flopped to his side, visions of those blue eyes dancing in his mind—until he hit rock. For a minute he thought his hipbone had cracked. This damned rock was hard as steel. He tossed and turned, as carefully as possible, and by the time Joaquín called them to saddle up a few hours later, Will knew he was black and blue. Fortunately Miss Cowboy Jake McCain couldn’t see the damage she’d wrought.
But it was a lesson well learned, he vowed, as he followed Priscilla on another hell-bent ride which lasted the better part of the day and into the following night. An hour or so past dark she decided to stop again. And he took charge. Choosing his own sleeping spot, he laid his bedroll away from the camp she was busy setting. He didn’t dare comment, for fear of what she would try next.
As before, she made coffee and heated the food—this time it was only tortillas and goat cheese. They sat spaced around the campfire and ate without talking, until Priscilla broke the silence.
“I hope Bart’s gotten to the ranch by now.”
“You’d better,” Will replied. “The Haskels surely have.”
“Bart Ellisor?” Joaquín questioned. “What’s he got to do with this?”
Priscilla explained, finishing with, “Something happened between Pa and Bart a long time ago. Jessie said Bart promised to come to Pa’s aid anytime he was needed. I hope he meant it.”
“Something happened between Charlie and a lot of people,” Joaquín retorted.
Will rose, cleaned his plate with a handful of grass, and wrapped up in his blankets. Lordy, he could sleep a week. The cold, hard ground had never felt so soft. He slept till sunup, when Priscilla began banging on the skillet with a vengeance that would raise the dead.
He sat up, rubbed fists to his eyes.
“Ready for coffee?” she asked.
“More’n ready.” By feel rather than sight, he located his boots and stomped into first the right, then the left. But his toes had barely wriggled into the left boot when he felt something inside. Without thinking, he kicked the boot a good ten feet.
“Something wrong?” Priscilla asked.
Will’s heart pounded in his ears so loudly he could hardly hear her words. But her solicitous tone told the tale. He glared at her.
“Only a greenhorn steps into his boots without shaking ’em out. Never can tell what crawlin’ critters have found a home overnight. Pa says it has something to do with smelly feet.”
“Or spiteful companions,” Will mumbled, hobbling over to pick up his boot. He shook it out. The dried skin of a sidewinder fell to the ground.
“Well, what d’ you know. Even vacated snake skins crawl around here.”
Priscilla didn’t meet his eye when she handed him a cup of coffee. He took it w
ith skepticism. Priscilla McCain contrite? He might be a greenhorn, but he hadn’t been born yesterday.
“Thanks.” He held the cup in his palm, letting the hot tin warm him. His heart rate began to slow. He sipped the coffee.
His eyes flew to Priscilla. She stood her ground, perusing him in an innocent fashion. “Too strong?”
Damnation. Never mind the Haskels behind him and the Apaches ahead, Will entertained the unsettling notion that he might not survive the wrath of this woman. “No, no. An eye-opener. Just what the ol’ body needs after a hard sleep.” Deliberately he took another swallow and almost choked on the fine granules. He’d never tasted coffee so muddy.
“I’m not much of a hand at cooking,” she explained. “Uncle Sog taught me. It’s camp coffee. If you’re not up to it—”
Will stomped into his other boot, then hobbled to the fire, where he lowered himself by increments to a nearby boulder. He’d never been so sore in his life, and there was no way on earth he’d be able to disguise that fact from an ol’ cowhand like Jake McCain.
He watched her pour herself a cup of coffee. She eyed him over the brim, as though waiting to see if he was man enough to drink the same thing she did. Will drained the cup and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Joaquín came up then. When he picked up the coffeepot, Priscilla reached for it, but too late. Joaquín had already filled his cup.
Will didn’t notice the grimace on Priscilla’s face until Joaquín took a swig of coffee. Of a sudden he opened his mouth and spewed the hot liquid over the clearing. The fire sputtered. Will wiped drops off his face.
“Sonofabitch, Jake,” Joaquín cursed, “what’d you put in this coffee?”
Will eyed Priscilla. She smiled that sweet, innocent smile that was beginning to leave him cold inside. “I couldn’t slip and display culinary skills, Joaquín. It might remind Will I’m a woman.”
Will held her angry gaze, noting the hurt beneath it, feeling about as low as that sidewinder that’d mysteriously turned up in the toe of his boot.
“Well, you damned sure didn’t have to make my coffee with mud, too.” Joaquín tossed the cup to the ground and started kicking dirt on the fire. “I don’t know what’s eatin’ you, Jake, but if you don’t settle down, I’m ridin’ off an’ leavin’ you two to fight it out between you.”
By nightfall two days later, they had covered what Joaquín estimated to be most of the distance to Victorio’s ranchería, almost every mile of the way in silence. When they stopped for the night, Will untied his bedroll. He was dead tired; he ached all over, inside and out. What hard riding hadn’t done to his body, seeing the hurt he’d caused Priscilla had done to his soul. “I’ll take care of my own things,” was all he said.
They sat around the campfire in silent contention. Will chewed the stale tortillas and drank coffee. Thankfully it was fresh and tasted more of river water than of mud.
“We’ll reach the ranchería by midmorning tomorrow,” Joaquín offered.
“Do we just ride in?” Will asked.
“Not unless you want to get shot. They’ve had us in their sights all day. Sometime tomorrow they’ll meet us, see what we want, and if they approve they’ll take us in.”
“Why shouldn’t they approve?” Will asked.
“If we’re followed, we would lead the Haskels to them,” Joaquín explained.
“I doubt if the Haskels will waste their time with us, not since they practically admitted setting you up. My guess is they’re already at Spanish Creek.” He looked to Priscilla. “With luck Bart has arrived to help Charlie defend the place.”
“I’m sure he has. Jessie was certain he’d receive the message.”
You can’t be sure of anything, Will thought, except that by the time this is all over, I’m going to have hurt you worse than either of us would have ever thought possible. The idea of it left him as edgy as a riled grizzly bear.
Joaquín, as usual, didn’t pass up an opportunity to slam Charlie. “When did Charlie McCain start needin’ help? He’s outlaw enough for ten Bart Ellisors.”
Will cautioned himself to let it pass. Joaquín’s hatred for Charlie wasn’t, after all, what had him rankled. But suddenly he was fresh out of control. He tossed the dregs of his coffee into the fire. “I’m sick and tired of your bellyaching about Charlie, Joaquín. You’re a grown man. When’re you going to start taking responsibility for yourself? Even if Charlie is your father, so what? As I recall, you rejected his help.” Rising to his feet, Will added. “Be glad he’s still alive. Mine isn’t.” He left the fire, tossing over his shoulder, “I’m takin’ first watch.”
Priscilla watched him go. Her heart ached with the turmoil that man had put her through. Yet she felt strangely sorry for him. His own father dead? She wondered when he had died, and how. How old had Will been at the time? She couldn’t imagine growing up without a father, without Charlie McCain as her father. Her heart beat painfully at the thought. And with sympathy for Will. And with a measure of guilt. She’d given him a real hard time.
Not that he hadn’t deserved it. Some of it. Rejecting her like he’d done. But it wasn’t really her, he’d rejected. Just their romantic relationship. He didn’t seem to dislike her, not really. He just saw her for what she was, for what she’d set out to become, a cowboy. Even if she wasn’t his type of woman, that shouldn’t keep them from being friends. Unless she’d already ruined that with her foolish pranks.
Joaquín refilled the coffeepot with water and she added grounds. While it boiled she cleaned the skillet, plates, and utensils and set them aside for the morning meal. When the coffee was ready, she poured two cups and carried them out to the ledge where Will kept watch.
He turned at her approach.
“Brought you some coffee.”
He didn’t respond or make a move, so she sat beside him, and handed him a cup. He took it. She watched him stare into the contents.
“It’s coffee,” she said quietly. “Nothing else.”
He took a small sip, as if to assure himself. But still he didn’t respond. He stared out into the blackness, toward the north from where the Haskels would come. If they came.
“I’m sorry, Will. I’ve been hard on you, and…I mean, I didn’t know. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Talk about what?”
“Your father. What happened?”
Her question startled him. Hot coffee sloshed out of the cup, over his hand. He ignored it. Turning his attention to the blackness, he stared at it, seeing her face, her blue eyes as they surely looked, feeling her beside him, warm and sensual.
Hearing her, her genuine concern. With surprise he realized that he knew her well by now. Well enough to distinguish between her true nature and the false front she erected to hide her hurt. He knew her well, and she was good at listening when a man needed to talk. He’d found that out more than once.
“I’ve acted really dumb,” she was saying. “I was I don’t know why I’ve been so horrible to you. But you can talk to me. We can be friends.” She paused, then added in her sweet, soft voice, “Man to man.”
The idea was ludicrous. It startled him even more than her earlier offer. Friends? Maybe. Man to man? He turned to her, could just make out her features in the pale light. Moonlight played around her hair, giving her the effect of a halo. He grinned. No halo for impish Miss Jake McCain. But what he wouldn’t give to lay her down on a soft feather mattress and spread that golden hair over a plump pillow…or even here, on a fragrant patch of grass—
Brusquely he turned away. He squeezed the tin cup so tightly he felt it bend beneath the pressure.
“We can—”
“No, Miss Priss, there’s no way on God’s green earth we can be friends, man to man.” And at that moment, their fathers had nothing to do with it.
Jessie shrank into the corner of her room. Her tongue licked at the salty blood dripping from the corner of her mouth, while she considered her chance of slipping through the French doors to
the balcony and shinnying down the support column before Newt could catch her.
With Newt lumbering toward her, the chance was slim. On the other hand—
She moved, still eyeing him. She grabbed the iron knob and Newt grabbed her. His fist clamped around her arm, cutting into her flesh. She struggled; he held on. Like she was no more than a fish on a line, he pulled her toward him. Her slippers slid across the tile floor quite against her volition. She was powerless to stop him.
“What you take me for, Jess? Dumb? You think I’m no more’n a dumb-ass simpleton. Always knew you were sweet on Charlie McCain, jes’ never figgered you for a fool stunt like that.”
“You’re hurting my arm, Newt.”
“It’s more’n your arm’ll hurt when I’m finished.” The anger in his eyes clouded with some softer emotion, which he quickly extinguished.
“Don’t do this,” she begged. “Please—”
“You made me look dumb, Jess. Real dumb. Sittin’ there with you on my lap and those schoolbooks spread all over the place, while that Yankee lawyer broke my prisoner out of jail.”
By this time he had pulled her to eye level. She choked back a gag at his whiskey-soured breath. This wasn’t, after all, the first time she’d been manhandled by a drunk and abusive man.
She’d lived through her husband’s rampages, and even through the beating she received when he discovered that she’d alerted Charlie to his murderous ways. Yes, she’d lived through the pain and anguish before.
Tears stung her eyes. That had been long ago. She’d forgotten the terror. She’d been young and idealistic then, and, yes, probably a little bit in love with Charlie. Not that he’d ever known it. She hadn’t realized it herself until it was too late. After he returned to Santa Fé a married man, she couldn’t reveal such a thing.
She respected Charlie. And she respected Kate. And in the final analysis, she hadn’t been able to let the Haskels destroy him, whether or not he had fathered Joaquín.
Jessie had her doubts about that. Charlie was a one-woman man. And Jessie had known enough men to recognize that trait. But Kate had been sick after Priscilla’s birth. Sick for a long time. And Nalin lived with them. Having recently delivered a baby boy herself, Nalin nursed Priscilla during the time it took Kate to recover. So anything could have happened in those days at Spanish Creek.
Reluctant Enemies Page 17
