She tried to tell herself she was angry with him for ripping up the fabric of her life. She went out into the garden—the new section where the squash and melons were just sprouting—and attacked the weeds threatening to suffocate the new plants. The midday sun beat down on her head and shoulders.
With every whack of her hoe into the soil, she imagined it was Ash’s stubbornness she was destroying.
“Damn you, Ash McCord. Damn you.”
It felt good to take out her pain on the weeds. She repeated her litany with every stroke. “Damn you. Damn you. Damn you.”
She missed with the hoe and took out a tender squash plant rather than the mare’s tail that had sprung up next to it.
“Damn you!”
She knelt in the dirt and picked up the severed seedling. Frantic to save it, she pushed the stem back into the soil. But even as she did it, she could see the tender new leaves start to wilt.
The poor plant reminded her of the life she’d dreamed of with Ash by her side. The sprout, like her dream, was hopeless. Dead.
Right then was the first time she allowed herself to really admit it—Ash wasn’t coming back. Not today, not ever.
“Damn you, Ash McCord!” she cried.
Then the tears came. Hot, scalding tears from the depths of her soul.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ian Baxter was worried. He couldn’t get Sunny Thornton off that damned ranch, and Ash McCord was still around. The sheriff was starting to wonder what the hell was going on. Now William Davis was in town, wanting his money, Ian was sure. Why else would the man be here?
To top it off, his knees ached. He swore out loud in the empty parlor and pushed himself up from his chair. He had to hold on to his desk until he got his knees as straight as they would go.
Despite the pain, he grinned. Damn, but it felt good to stand up and walk around.
The grin faded. How much longer would he play this stupid game? The fools in town would turn on him in a minute if they knew he could walk. If they knew he’d been walking for over two years.
It wasn’t a normal walk, to be sure. He knees would never work right again after being bent to the shape of the wheelchair for those first three years.
But by God, a walk was a walk, and pain or no, it felt damn good, even if he did shuffle like an old man.
Hell. What was he complaining about? He was an old man.
Before he could work up to a full bout of self-pity, Gus came in. Ian didn’t worry that anyone but Gus or Maria would ever see him walking. The rest of the men on the Bar B had strict orders to never come to the house—no matter what.
Gus’s news wasn’t good. In fact, it was the worst.
“They couldn’t get near them.”
“What do you mean, they couldn’t get near them?” Ian demanded, his voice trembling.
“Hell, Ian, Tom Wilson’s no fool. He had guards posted, and every one of his men was armed to the teeth. Our boys were lucky to get away with their lives. No way they could have gotten that herd.”
Ian’s first desperate thought was, try again, you fool! He discarded the idea almost immediately. There wasn’t time. He’d stayed home today to give himself time. But he knew if he didn’t show up in town by tomorrow, William Davis would be out here pounding on his door.
Ian stared out the back window of the parlor, clenching and unclenching his fists. He could lose it all. The ranch, the bank, the prestige he lived to cultivate. And the gold.
He had to get his hands on that gold!
He was sick of the waiting, sick of pretending he couldn’t walk, sick of fifteen years of sneaking and planning and even killing. And he still didn’t have the gold.
His gold, goddamn them all! It was his!
Why should he have to struggle and worry about keeping up appearances when there was a fortune in gold just waiting for him? It was his. No other living person even knew the bars existed.
All that gold. Just sitting there, buried in the ground all these years. So close he could almost touch it. More than once he’d stood directly on top of it. He had almost felt it’s cool hardness in the ground beneath him.
For fifteen years he’d plotted and planned and scrounged and lied. He’d even done murder, by God. More than once. And he’d do it again if he had to. He’d come too far, had waited too long, to lose everything now, simply because Sunny Thornton stood in his way.
The familiar memories rolled over him as he recalled that day back in ‘64 near the end of the war. He had been twenty years old, bound and determined to be somebody, someday. If the bloody war would ever end and let him get on with his life.
At the time, he hadn’t been sure what he would do with the rest of his life. He had only known he would never go back to Atlanta, where everyone knew him as the son of that whore who wasn’t even good enough for the whorehouse—she’d had to take up residence in a shack made of packing crates outside the back door of the place. No, he’d never go back to that.
Someday he’d be respectable. Rich. Important.
And he was those things now, he reflected. Well, most of them. He was respectable and important. Everyone thought he was rich. He swore again. The fact was, he was nearly flat broke. And when he couldn’t come up with the money he owed Davis, everyone would know.
He’d worked too hard and schemed too long to lose it all now. He needed that gold. It was his.
It had been his since that day in ‘64.
He still remembered the scorching heat of the Staked Plains, the utter weariness he and the rest of the troops had suffered. But they were more than halfway to their destination by then. They had been ordered to Colorado where they’d intercepted a shipment of Yankee gold and were taking it back to Richmond.
The hope was that the gold would give a much needed boost to the failing Confederacy. But Baxter knew even then that the mere million and a half they carried wouldn’t save the South. No amount would save them. They were whipped, good and proper.
Baxter hated the idea of losing the war. He’d been a loser all his life, and there he was, losing again. The humiliation was too much to bear.
The column was only a couple of hours from the sparkling waters of Cottonwood Creek when the Comanches struck.
When it was over, the thieving red bastards had taken every horse and pack mule. They’d left all but three men dead.
Baxter smiled. They’d left the wagons and the gold. And they’d left him alive.
Him and two others. Funny, he couldn’t even remember their names or faces after all this time.
With no horses or mules, it would have been impossible for them to move the gold. The three men, all young, yet older than they should have been, decided to bury the gold. Then they would find the nearest Confederate troops and come back and retrieve it.
They dug all day to get a pit big enough, then hauled the heavy bars through most of the night until all the gold was in the hole. But Ian Baxter had decided on a better use for all that wealth than to waste it on a lost cause.
If it was his, it would be put to much better use.
When the other two men lowered the last of the bars into the pit, Ian shot them. One was clean and neat, through the back and straight through the heart. The other was messy, he remembered. The fellow—what was his name?—had bent over and halfway turned at the last second. The bullet had torn up his face on its way through his head.
Ian had shoved the bodies into the hole—guardians for his gold, he thought with a grin—and tossed a canvas tarp over them, then spent the rest of the night filling in the hole.
In the morning he’d paced off the spot, measuring it’s distance from the huge boulder nearby, from the giant lone cottonwood, and from the ravine to the north. He set fire to the remaining wagons and memorized how many steps it was to each landmark, knowing then he’d be able to recover the gold later.
But the goddamned gold is still there. He stared out the back window of his home.
Hah! Home. This wasn’t supposed
to be his home. His home was supposed to be back where the gold was buried, only the damned gold wasn’t supposed to still be buried!
It was all that Nathan McCord’s fault, the bastard.
Ian had headed out on foot. If anyone happened to remember his troop’s orders, Ian had only to tell of the Comanche attack. There were plenty of bodies in the ravine to back up his story.
But in an attempt to give himself a cover and alibi, he’d ended up heading south with Rip Taylor’s troops. That man didn’t know when to quit fighting. The war had been over for months before Ian could make it back to his gold.
Nathan McCord had beat him to it. If he could get his hands around McCord’s throat, he’d kill him again!
Oh, McCord hadn’t known about the gold. No, it was sheer bad luck that the bastard and his whelp already had a barn up and were building their goddamned house not fifty feet from Ian Baxter’s gold.
God, the rage he’d felt upon seeing that house go up.
And the fear when McCord had dug the cellar. But the gold had remained a secret. McCord had missed it by mere feet.
Since then Ian had schemed and plotted and planned. It was his, by God.
His fists tightened again. The gold was his, but Sunny had damned near uncovered it by plowing up that new stretch of garden behind the cellar. She’d planted her squash and melons right smack on top of the hidden stash.
Ian knew now that it was over. The terrible waiting, the frustration, the planning and scheming and hoping.
He’d never get his hands on that ranch now. Not after Sunny Thornton had the gall to bring the sheriff along as her witness yesterday.
His options were dwindling. Right now the only way he could pay Davis off would be to sign over his entire ranch, herd and all. And have everyone in the county know how he’d failed. If Davis would even take the ranch as payment.
No. He couldn’t do that. He hadn’t struggled all those years to end up looking like a failure.
The only other thing he knew to do was take what was his and start over somewhere else. Somewhere where nobody knew him.
And if Sunny Thornton or anybody else at Cottonwood Ranch got in his way, that was just too damned bad. He was tired of waiting.
Behind him Gus paced.
Ian turned to him. “Get the men away from the house. Send them north into the hills. And saddle my horse.”
Gus’s eyes grew wide. “Your horse? In broad daylight?”
“Just do it!”
Hesitantly, Gus nodded. As soon as the man was out the door, Ian went to his room. He dug a carpetbag from the floor of his wardrobe and started stuffing clothes into it.
That’s when Maria found him. Ian cursed. There was going to be a scene—an unpleasant one. Ian hated scenes.
Outside he heard shouts, then a thunder of hoofbeats. Gus had done his job. The men were riding out as ordered.
Maria took one look at him and knew what he planned. No one knew him like she did.
Over the years he’d told her things he knew he shouldn’t have. But who safer to tell one’s secrets to than a woman who loved you—a woman who couldn’t talk?
He’d told her all about the gold. It was safe to talk to her. She couldn’t tell anyone.
Now she hung there in the doorway with panic in her big black eyes. Ian turned back to his packing.
Her bare feet thudded across the floor. She grabbed his arm, her fingers digging in like claws.
“Leave off, Maria. I’m in a hurry.”
With a strength that surprised him, she pulled him around to face her. She pointed to him, then pounded on her chest. He knew what she was telling him. Take me with you.
Ian laughed and pushed her away. “No thanks, not this time. You’d only slow me down. I’m going to take what gold I can carry and get the hell out of this country. I deserve something better than a two-bit town like Cottonwood Crossing and a run-down Mexican whore like you.”
He stepped to the dresser and pulled out his pistol and holster. While he was in the process of strapping it on, Maria came at him again, clutching, clinging, crying, pounding on her chest. Me, me, me! she was telling him.
Fed up with her clinging, Ian shoved her away again. This time she tripped and fell against the pot bellied stove in the corner.
He finished buckling his gun belt. He reached down to tie the thin leather ties at the base of the holster around his thigh. He didn’t see or hear Maria move until her hands clutched at his, scratching him while reaching for his gun.
He tried to push her away again, but her strength surprised him. Her hands closed around the butt of his pistol. She threw her weight at him.
Ian lost his balance and crashed backwards into the dresser. It hit the wall with a loud thud.
He slid down the front of it, feeling the drawer handles gouge into his back. He closed his hands over Maria’s, determined to hang on. The bitch had gone crazy!
They struggled on the floor. Ian managed to roll on top of her. But as he did, he felt the gun slip from his holster. He wrapped his hand around it firmly and jerked, trying to free the pistol from her grasp.
The gun barked and bucked in his hand.
Ian flinched. Maria gasped. The shot was deafening in the small room.
Maria’s eyes grew round and dark.
Ian shoved himself off her. Blood gushed everywhere. It spurted from between Maria’s fingers, where they clutched at her stomach.
Good God, he’d shot her!
Ian staggered to his feet and stood over her, the gun hanging loosely in his limp hand.
Maria’s big black eyes pleaded with him to help her.
The front door crashed open. The sound of glass shattering seemed loud in the aftermath of Ian and Maria’s struggle.
“Boss! Maria!”
Gus. Heavy bootsteps thundered down the hall and stopped abruptly at the door to Ian’s room.
Ian watched dispassionately. Gus stared aghast at Maria. A strangled groaning sound came from Gus’s throat.
Ian could predict what would happen next.
Gus raised his horrified gaze just far enough to see the gun in Ian’s hand.
A primitive roar of rage split the air. “You killed her! You stinking bastard! I’m going to tear you apart with my bare hands.” Gus took a step toward Ian, his hands reaching for Ian’s throat.
Ian shook his head, raised his gun, and pulled the trigger.
Gus flew backward and dropped to the floor. The surprised look on his face was punctuated by the hole in the middle of his forehead.
Ian stood for a moment, thinking. Then he smiled. “Thanks, Gus. You just gave me a way out.”
With weak, stiff knees, it wasn’t easy to drag Gus’s big body onto Ian’s bed, but Ian finally managed it. He brought his wheelchair in from the parlor and parked it next to the bed.
Maria groaned.
Ian stepped over her and retrieved his carpetbag. He carried it to the barn.
Good man, that Gus. Ian’s horse was saddled and waiting, just like he’d asked. He tied the carpetbag to the back of the saddle.
Back in the house, he splashed kerosene from his reading lamp over his dresser, wardrobe, and bed. The fumes stung his eyes.
In the parlor he pushed a hidden lever on his desk and retrieved the emergency stash of cash he always kept. The two thousand dollars, along with the gold, would set him up nicely in a new life somewhere else. San Francisco, maybe.
Yeah. San Francisco sounded good.
He lit one of his favorite cigars.
In the bedroom, he puffed to make sure the cigar would burn, then laid it next to Gus on a dry spot on the quilt. After all, he didn’t want the fire to start too soon, or his men would see the smoke and ride back to investigate. He wanted a head start.
At the doorway he paused and looked back. One final touch, just to avoid any questions.
He slipped the steerhead ring from his finger and returned to Gus’s body.
The cigar had already started burning
into the quilt. He had to hurry.
He jammed his ring onto the third finger of Gus’s left hand, then hurried from the house. Hurried as much as his legs would let him.
Mounting a horse was always difficult, because of his knees, but Ian ignored the pain and swung into the saddle. “Move your ass, horse, let’s go!”
The warm, sunlit breeze in his face exhilarated Ian. It was rare that he’d taken the chance of riding in daylight.
But that was all over now. He was free. Finally. Free to live the life he was born to live. Rich. Privileged. Pampered.
Yeah. San Francisco sounded good.
It still ate at him that he wouldn’t be able to take all the gold, but he’d take as much as he could. Speed was of the utmost importance now. He’d take his cash and his gold and ride like the wind, laughing all the way. While the good folks in Cottonwood Crossing held the saddest funeral in history for that poor, nice, Ian Baxter, who died in a tragic house fire.
Ash was the first to hear the hoofbeats pounding up the road behind him. He and Jamison reined in to see who was barreling down the road in such a hurry.
Ash didn’t recognize the rider, and neither, apparently, did Jamison.
The man drew his horse to a heaving halt beside them. “Afternoon. Name’s Davis. William Davis.” He noted the badge on Jamison’s vest. “If you’re the sheriff, I need to talk with you.”
“William Davis?” Jamison said. “You the one who founded the Confederate Widows and Orphans Fund?”
Davis pursed his lips and nodded.
“You helped Ella—Miz Standridge—start her boardinghouse.”
A slow smile spread across the man’s face. “Lovely woman, Ella Standridge.”
“Well it’s a pleasure to meet you. Ella—Miz Standridge, that is, talks about you all the time. What can I do for you?”
Ash clamped his jaws down on his impatience. He didn’t want to sit around and talk about widows and orphans. He had business at the Bar B that had already waited too long. “Since I’m sure this is none of my concern, I’ll just ride on ahead.”
Jamison’s narrowed gaze said he wasn’t too fond of the idea. “I’d rather you didn’t, McCord.”
Wild Texas Flame Page 27
