Feeling guilty for upsetting her, he threw his arm over her shoulder to comfort her. “No sin in that.”
She dabbed at some tears with her handkerchief. “You didn’t get any bargain in me.”
“Who said I came for one? I was impressed with you the day I met you. I think you’re one of the bravest women I know. You stood up to those outlaws who killed your husband and even challenged me when I rode out with the deputies. I knew that first day I saw you—you were the woman for me.”
She rested her forehead on his arm. “You won’t be upset with me, if we can’t have children?”
“No. We have each other, that’s enough.” He looked across the bunch grass and greasewood toward the towering bluffs looming over them.No need in upsetting her on his last day with her for some time—the matter of their having offspring wasn’t that important to him. “I don’t mind. Besides, when I get back from this Texas deal, why don’t we have us a big shindig? You can invite all your Tucson friends out to the ranch for it.”
“That a promise?” she asked, looking at him with tear drop-sparkling eyes.
“ ’Course, you could always—”
“I could what, Burton Green?” She gave him a jab in the side with her elbow.
“Find a lot better fellah than me to put up with.”
“Nonsense.” She rose up and glanced over at him with a mischievous look. “My new party dress will be ready when you get back. Don’t stay in Texas too long.”
“Why?”
“ ’Cause it’ll be brown-colored from the dust if you wait too long.”
They both laughed.
When he felt satisfied she was settled in, Burt left her at the Tucson house. He checked in a couple of bars and soon learned his former scout was still about town. One Eye Dick supposedly was living in a wickiup somewhere out near Camp Lowell. So Burton rented a saddle horse and rode there as the sun dropped low in the west and the red blood of sunset painted the rustling cottonwoods.
He looked forward to the relief sundown would bring from the day’s soaring heat.
An off-duty soldier directed him to Dick’s camp up the creek.When he approached, a thick-bodied Apache stood up from his place in the shade beside the grass-thatched wickiup. His obvious cloudy blind left eye glared at him.
“Green Burt,” he announced, running over to take Burt’s hand in both of his callused ones and pump it vigorously when Burt dismounted.
“How’ve you been, One-Eye?” He studied the stocky-built, shorter man in his blue army uniform shirt, breechcloth, red headband, and hair to the nape of his neck. One-Eye acted as if this meeting was a family homecoming—perhaps it was.
“Plenty damn good now you come. You got work?”
“In fact, I do have some.”
“Good. Good. Not much to do here.” He tossed his head in the direction of the army base.
“You ever know an Apache scout called Deuces?”
“Sí.”
“He dangerous?”
One-Eye shrugged. “I have not seen him in a few years.”
“He was on his way to prison and escaped.”
“What must you do?” the Apache asked, with a twist of his head and his good eye narrowing with interest.
“Guess the governor wants you and me to go find him.”
Neither man spoke. One-Eye bent over, took a pinch of dirt, and slowly let it slip from his outstretched brown fingers. The trailing stream blew in the wind, and hardly a grain landed close by.
“He’ll be like dust in the wind to find?” Burt asked after the demonstration.
One-Eye nodded with pursed lips. “We can go look, huh?”
“We better,” he said, wondering if the Apache wasn’t right about this business. Deuces might be gone like that dust. Only time would tell. He looked off toward the Rincon Mountains, where the sharp purple peaks stuck out against the darkening evening sky. Then he recalled his grandmother’s old adage, “Just as well to go look for a yellow dandelion flower in a field of bloomed-out ones.”
This sure might be the same case about their trying to find Deuces in Texas.
Chapter 6
MIDDAY, DEUCES CROUCHED IN THE TALL WEEDS and watched the old man and his mule cultivating the half-knee-high cotton. At the end of each long row, the farmer reined up and rested the thin mule, wiped his face on a white rag from a hind pocket, and relighted his pipe.
The harsh smell of pipe tobacco smoke carried to the bushes and tall weeds concealing Deuces. He could even hear the man suck on the moisture in the bowl. Tired, the mule dropped its head and snorted wearily.
“Easy, boy,” the old man said, not realizing the animal actually had scented Deuces and wasn’t simply blowing hard at its own tiredness. The farmer holding up the pistol-like handles of the double-shovel cultivator, the cotton rope reins strung around his sun-brown neck, never knew the difference. A few more puffs on the pipe, and he used a small nail from his pocket to snuff out the fire. He put the pipe away in the side pocket of his bib overalls, then shook the lines and clucked to the mule. He pushed the cultivator shovel points into the ground, and it made a scuffing sound going to the east down the long row.
Deuces spotted a weathered gray board shed fifty yards away—must be where the man’s tools were kept. Since the farmer never looked back, Deuces let him get halfway down the row before he chanced running low and getting alongside the shop unseen.
The night before, the pepper he’d spread on his back trail had stopped the deep-throated hounds’ bawling. First time he heard them in the darkness, his blood froze, but soon they changed their bawls to yelps. Mounted posses still operated on the roads; groups of heavily armed men rode hard up and down them. Many times, they charged by only inches from where he had lain in the tall weeds before he moved on in his quest, searching for a simple file.
Deuces looked around carefully for anyone who might observe his entry to the building. Earlier, the woman had gone around to the front of the wooden frame house. He could hear her rocking and singing hymns from the front porch. She must be sewing or doing something up there. As long as she stayed there. He reached the side of the shed, opened the door, and slipped inside.
The acrid smell of a blacksmith’s dead fire drew a smile to his face in the shadowy security of the shed’s interior, which also reeked of a strong nicotine poison. He glanced down at the hateful chain connecting the two cuffs; he needed to be free of the restraint to continue his journey. All he wanted was one file; the old man and his mule could plow cotton till the next winter for all he cared. Plenty of tongs and hammers like the army far-riers used, as well as an anvil and forge, were crowded inside. He swiftly moved in the dim-lighted space to the bench by the wall.
His fingers closed on a flat file with enough teeth left to wear through the chain. Later, he would cut the chain binding his wrists; for the moment, the freedom of his hands would be enough. With his eye on a crack in the boards, he could see the farmer and the bobbing head of the mule coming back on a new row. The man offered no threat, but he would no doubt quickly tell one of the posse men rushing about if he saw a fugitive Apache and give them a lead to his whereabouts. He must wait a while longer before he eased out of the stinking building. Quietly patting the file in his palm, he smiled for the first time in days.
In late afternoon, with the file wedged in a rotten stump, he drew a chain link held between his fingers across the edge, each time making minute filings that glistened in the shaft of sunlight penetrating the glen. The process proved tedious, but he knew eventually the link would be cut in two, and his hands would no longer be held together. The bracelets could wait to be removed later.
His ear turned, he listened. Something out there. The sound carried above the strong afternoon wind rustling through the treetops. Goats—at last, he clearly heard their bleating. His hard work finally suceeded.With the link cut through, he unhooked his restraint and sighed, letting his arms swing free. Pausing, he located the direction of the bells and bleating
as the approaching herd came over the rise and down into the live-oak-choked draw where he hid.
Goats meant meat. The notion of a cooked meal made him think about all the raw corn he had consumed. For the moment, he decided to withdraw to a safer place and observe them. Among his newly gained objects was an old homemade knife in the cloth bundle where he placed the file, so he could butcher one of the kids if the opportunity came along. Fearing detection, he hurried for cover, realizing only then that he had left the cut link there on the stump. He wrinkled his nose at his own carelessness, but he decided no one would ever know who the small piece of split chain belonged to.
From atop the rock outcropping where he squatted on his heels, he observed the curious multicolored goats.
Many kids in the herd hopped around, more interested in exploring than grazing. The adults reared up on trees to nibble on forage; others simply stood on their hind legs to reach low branches. Then he saw her for the first time—the white girl. Perhaps sixteen or seventeen, straight-backed, with her brown hair cut in a bob. She wore a blue checkered dress, wash-worn and perhaps too snug, which hugged her proud breasts and shapely body. She spoke sharply to the errant goats that wandered too far, and she cut some with a switch for disobeying her.
Her blue eyes shone, even at a distance. They were so deep in color they made his stomach roil. More even than the shapeliness of her body, her eyes were impossible to look away from. Who was she? Married white women did not herd goats. He curled his index finger over his mouth as if to clean it—he must have her for his own.
The threat of the posses, his return to jail, and even death were forgotten. The longer he watched her, the more obsessed he became with the way she walked about barefooted. His heart beat faster at the turn of her white ankles and the firm-looking butt encased in the cloth of the dress. He tried to shake away his hard, fast fascination with her—too late; he was smitten.
Two hours later, he cautiously stalked her back to the ranch house of stone. Smoke issued out the chimney, and two stock dogs barked a welcome to her when she drove the goat herd into a stake corral. A black-bearded man appeared, obviously her father, Deuces decided, watching them talk. He noticed with care how the man talked curtly to her and how the girl acted strangely defensive toward him. Something looked wrong between the two of them. Even from a distance, Deuces could see a void between them.
Wash hung on the lines, and two smaller children ran about making loud noises and teasing her as she went toward the house. Deuces could hear only parts of their speeches. A thin white woman came out onto the porch, threw out a pan of water with peelings for several dusty, red chickens that rushed to investigate, peck, and scratch.
Long after dark, he slipped in close to the darkened house. The two dogs snored under the porch, and he moved by them without disturbing their slumber. On silent soles, he entered the open front door and listened to the man’s grumbled breathing. In the dim starlight, he could see his nightshirt-clad form on the bed, with the smaller shape of the woman in a white shift.Where was the herder girl? Then he turned an ear. Obviously sleeping in the loft with the younger ones. For a long moment, he considered climbing the ladder for another sight of her but decided that might be too much and could expose him. Disappointed that he had no access to see her, or at the least even to look at her in sleep, he began his retreat.
The floor gave small groans under his weight, but they were barely audible. On the porch at last, he skirted the slumbering dogs and soon was in the garden, picking some ripe tomatoes and then twisting off a few ears of ripe sweet corn. He planned to eat his plunder beyond the rail fences. Still intoxicated by her beauty, he schemed about how he could possibly possess her.
Stealing his way to the edge of the woods, he started at the dogs’ barking. The pair at the house began to raise cain, and he tried to see what caused their alarm. Then he heard the drum of horses coming. He saw a lamp being lighted in the house, and the bearded man came outside with the flickering source held up to greet the riders.
“Hans! That Apache ain’t been found yet! Better keep your eyes open, he’s a killer.”
“Ya, I vill. My dogs, they bark good when someone comes around. You find any signs of him?”
“No, he’s gone up like smoke. But he ain’t no ghost. Keep your gun handy. He might try anything.”
“I vill, I vill,” the man promised.
Satisfied with their warning, the posse members rushed away on their hard breathing horses into the night. Good, this information pleased him. Those men had no idea where he was. When Dueces took a large bite from the sun-ripened tomato in his hand, the warm juices ran from his chin. The sweet-acid taste filled his mouth with saliva—the first good thing he’d eaten since he left Arizona.
Mid-morning, Deuces squatted on a rock outcropping, anticipating her return. The goats were coming, and from his vantage point, he would be able to observe her unnoticed. The canyon underneath him led to a creek farther east. A place to water her wards. The night’s coolness was still in the draw. Excited with the notion he would soon be seeing her again, he smiled as he watched the belled leaders begin to search for graze, followed by the others.
He could occasionally make her out through the lacy foliage. He observed her wearing the same blue-checkered dress and using a switch on the laggards, obviously wanting to head them for the water farther down. Clapping her hands made them choke up into a tighter herd and forced them to move on rather than graze. He knew by this time that wherever she went this day, he would follow her. Filled with daydreams about how he planned to ravage her ripe body, he eased himself off his perch and began to steal down the draw, using the dense, pungent-smelling cedar and live oak to shield himself.
At the creek, she chose a place to hike up her dress and waded into the half-knee-deep water. Unaware of anyone spying upon her, she flung water with kicks of her bare feet and shapely legs, then scooped up handfuls to spray in the air. The golden sunlight made rainbows in the droplets, and she threw back her arms in the splendor.
He needed to have her. But how? She would scream and be fear-filled when he abducted her. The notion disturbed him. Afterward, he would have to silence her forever—or risk them finding him. An Apache girl would submit and go with him if he kidnapped her. Most young Mexican women would do the same. But few white women ever accepted capture. He knew one white girl taken captive east of the Chiricahuas in a raid on a small wagon train; she took up with her Apache capturer. His name was Red Deer, and Deuces had always envied Deer’s good fortune, for she made a good mate, but when he was killed by the Mexican soldiers, she went home to be white again. Red Deer’s woman was pretty but certainly not as proud or good-looking as this one. He grinned to himself—not nearly as beautiful, either.
With the larger trees to conceal his approach and moving when her back was turned to him, he crept closer to her. Then, when he could stand it no longer, he rushed in and threw his arms around her from behind, pinning her arms to her side. She tried to break free. He soon learned that she was stronger than he thought she would be.
“Let go of me!”
Bending forward, she grunted and strained to throw him off her back. Her firm butt nestled against him, and he savored his place. Still, she did not scream.
“Let go of me!” she ordered.
“No, now you are mine,” he said sharply in her ear.
“I’m no man’s!”
He twisted her around, holding her arms tight in his grasp. His gaze met her deep-set blue eyes. The rage and the fury he had expected were there, but she never released a scream from her mouth. Only her defiant look bored hard at him.
“Who are you?” she demanded with a frown, and tried to shrug off his powerful hold on her limbs. Kicking his shins with her bare feet made no difference.
“White men call me Deuces.” He grasped her upper arms tighter to reinforce his command.
“You must be the Apache—” She gave him a cross look.
He nodded. She stoppe
d her struggling and stood stiff-backed before him. “Kill me.”
In disbelief, he looked at her, iron defiance written in her fierce gaze. Then, in mild disbelief, he shook his head, amazed at her bold courage. She didn’t understand his purpose. He let go of her arms and caught her dress front in both hands to rip it open.
She quickly caught his fingers. “Don’t tear it! Don’t! I will unbutton it for you. I only have this one dress to wear.” She looked downcast, obedient.Was this a trick to throw him off guard? With guarded care, he watched her sun-browned fingers begin to undo the buttons.
A large rock churned in his stomach as he studied her actions.Would she go away with him? Was she like Red Deer’s woman who had gone with him? Could he be so lucky? He felt his heart race faster as her white flesh began to appear between the dress parting. To see a woman undressed was nothing new for him. Apache women went naked about camp without shame. Somehow this exposure was different, spine-tinglingly different for him.
He nodded his head in approval when she finished and straightened. Her blue eyes stared hard at him when he reached out and pushed the dress off her snowy shoulders. The garment fell in a heap behind her heels. She clutched herself to hide her nakedness. Yes, she was every bit as beautiful as he thought she would be underneath the blue dress.
Chapter 7
“SPECIAL U.S. MARSHAL. WHAT ’S IT MEAN?” BURT asked, seated in the chair before Judge Amos’s desk.
“According to this letter sent to me, the attorney general of the United States, Robert C. Groves, has the authority from Congress to appoint up to a dozen such badge holders.” Federal Judge Averal Amos, a small man wearing a brown suit two sizes too large for him, looked swallowed in the large office chair. Adjusting his gold-rim glasses, he held the letter up to the light flooding in the side window. “Due to the increased criminal activities in the territories, it has become necessary to enlist—well, you know—special U.S. marshals to combat the criminal elements and bring the lawbreakers to justice, whether they be brought to justice in local or federal courts.
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