“Is he alive?” she asked in the same voice that had rung with command so short a time before.
Another woman knelt beside him, and slender fingers touched his throat. It was the first soft, cool thing he’d felt in days.
“He is alive,” the second woman said, speaking with a slight Chinese accent. “But he may not remain so for long.” The fingers withdrew. “We must take him back with us.”
“No man comes to Avalon,” she said.
“But, Serenity,” a third, younger, voice said, “he’ll never survive out here! We have to bring him in.”
Serenity. Jacob tried to remember what serenity felt like. He tried to imagine what kind of woman would have such a name. It didn’t go with her hard, merciless voice.
“Very well,” she said. “But only if we can tie him to one of the horses. I won’t have him loose for a moment.”
“He may not survive the ride,” the woman with the cool fingers said.
“It’s the only way,” Serenity said. “If he makes one hostile move, we drop him.”
Smart, Jacob thought dreamily. Smart—and tough. Tough enough to beat Leroy at his own game. But were the men dead? He’d heard those six horses running away, sure enough, but he doubted the outlaws would have fled if they hadn’t been caught by surprise. If Leroy and his men were alive, they might come back at any time.
He had to warn these women somehow. He opened his mouth. His lips cracked. His tongue was like a chunk of stiff rawhide, but somehow he managed to move it.
“G…go,” he rasped. “Get a—”
Lightning flashed inside his skull, and the blackness engulfed him.
SHE HATED HIM.
Serenity didn’t have to know a single thing about the man slung over the back of Changying’s horse. One good look at him was enough. It wasn’t just the way he was dressed, not much different from his tormentors, or the fact that he had been so quick and graceful and handled the gun like an expert in spite of the severity of his injuries. She wasn’t deceived the way Frances had been, assuming this was a helpless victim in need of succor.
No. Helpless he might be—for now—but he wasn’t some innocent passerby set on by outlaws. Killers like those other men didn’t bother to torture a captive for no reason, and this man had been shot and beaten and put out in the sun to fry like bacon on a griddle.
More than likely he was one of them, or someone just like them. His face told the tale. It was young enough. It might even be handsome under the grime and sunburn.
But it was also hard. Hard in the way only a killer’s would be, narrow-eyed, thin-lipped, sharp as the edge of an ax blade. The kind of face people didn’t stare into for long, because they knew one look too many might leave them wishing they’d never seen his face at all.
Serenity touched the butt of her rifle in its scabbard. For a red cent she would untie those ropes and leave him in the dust. He was like a sickness, a rot that would invade Avalon and steal its peace even if he never recovered at all.
Her hand closed around the rifle stock. One move…
Changying shifted behind her, reminding Serenity that she had more than her own wishes to consider. “It was right to take him,” the Chinese woman said quietly. “I know you would never have left him to die.”
Changying was right. She wouldn’t have left him. No more than she would have left a beaten dog.
When they stopped briefly to rest the horses at the well, Changying reported that he was still alive. Serenity permitted the healer to set him upright just long enough to give him water, but the liquid only dribbled over his flaking lips. Serenity pushed on even after the sun had set, torn between wanting the security of home and hoping the man died before they reached it. There was still some danger that the other men might follow, though she knew she had wounded two of them, one badly.
A mile west of Avalon, Frances spurred ahead to warn the others. By the time Serenity, Changying and their cargo reached the ranch house, several of the other women were there: Victoria, Avalon’s blacksmith, her bare arms still coated with ash from her shop; Helene, her belly bulging under her apron; Bonnie, her cascade of red hair falling into her face after a hard day of washing; Michaela and Nettie, both weary from their day’s work. Zora, Caridad and Judith were still out on the southern range but should be returning at any moment. They would be of the most use if the man caused any trouble.
Not that she would let him get the chance.
Bonnie approached Changying’s horse, her green eyes curious. She bent to peer into the stranger’s face. “Frances said you were bringing a man back here, but I didn’t believe it,” she said. “Who is he?”
“He hasn’t been able to speak,” Serenity said as she and Changying dismounted. “He may not last the night.”
“Yes, he will!” Frances said. “Changying will take care of him.”
The other women turned to stare at the girl. “You seem very happy to have him here,” Victoria said softly. “Haven’t you listened to anything we’ve said?”
Frances thrust out her chin. “I’m not afraid of him just because he’s a man! He can’t hurt any of us.”
Helene sighed, and Victoria shook her head. Victoria was right to be concerned, Serenity thought. Frances was their newest arrival, and though she’d defied a domineering father and escaped a forced engagement, she was anything but wise where the male sex was concerned.
We should never have taken her in, Serenity thought. But the alternative would have been to send her home, and in any case, it was too late now. There were more important things to worry about.
“Nettie, Michaela, will you help Changying get him to the barn?” she asked.
The two women fell in beside Changying as she led her horse toward the barn, and Serenity felt vast relief when they’d carried the man out of her sight. Victoria gave Serenity a long, troubled look and took the horses to the stable. Frances ran after her.
Bonnie fell into step beside Serenity as they walked to the house. “I never thought I’d see you bring a man to Avalon,” she said, pushing stray hair out of her face.
“Neither did I,” Serenity muttered.
Helene caught up to them just in time to ask Serenity to take off her boots before she went inside.
“I just swept the floor,” she said apologetically. “If you wouldn’t mind…”
Her meekness was like a constant reproach, though Helene would have been horrified to realize that Serenity regarded it as such. Serenity hated the idea that Helene had to apologize for anything, especially to her. They were supposed to be beyond that here.
They were supposed to be free.
Serenity sat on the bench on the porch and pulled off her boots, leaving them standing against the wall. She, Helene and Bonnie went inside, where Helene had already prepared a pot of coffee. They sat at the kitchen table and talked for a while, speaking of inconsequential things: the baby’s increasingly frequent kicks, Bonnie’s newly completed quilt and the beginning of calving season. There would be hard work aplenty soon, and most of the women, including Bonnie and Frances, would be riding out with the rest instead of helping Helene and Nettie with the domestic chores.
“I never saw myself making a quilt,” Bonnie said wryly, “but I definitely never imagined I’d be working cattle.”
“I wish I could help,” Helene said, looking down at her chapped hands.
Serenity leaned over the table. “You are helping, Helene, much more than you should be in your condition. You’re invaluable to us.”
“Would you like more coffee?” Helene asked with a sudden grateful smile.
“You stay right where you are,” Bonnie said. “I’ll get it.” She exchanged a quick glance of understanding with Serenity. In spite of their vastly different backgrounds, Bonnie and Helene were fast friends, and Bonnie shared Serenity’s frustration with Helene’s humility and shame over her condition.
I could have been like her, Serenity thought. If things had been different. If she’d gone home
with an illegitimate child in her belly, if her family had turned her out as a fallen woman.
Of course, they never would have done that. None of it had been her fault. It wasn’t as if she’d chosen to…
Stop. Sometimes the simple command was enough to keep her from thinking about it. But the stranger in the barn had brought it all back in a way the other men she’d dealt with—her fellow ranchers in the valley, the suppliers and storekeepers, the idlers and drunkards and ne’er-do-wells—never had.
She tried to focus her thoughts on other pressing problems, chief of which was what the men she’d shot at might do. Chances were they wouldn’t be in any condition to look for their attackers, and she’d seen no sign that they’d been following. But there was always a danger that they would decide to salve their masculine pride by tracking the women who’d humiliated them.
They wouldn’t like what they found at Avalon, but that didn’t mean Serenity could afford to pretend the threat didn’t exist.
“You’re worried, aren’t you?” Helene asked. “About that man. What happened?”
Serenity was considering her answer when Bonnie set a plate of beans and freshly baked bread on the table in front of her.
“Eat, Rennie,” she said. “I’m going out to get Frances and Changying. They need to eat, too.” She touched Helene’s shoulder. “You just sit quiet and drink your coffee. The baby needs her rest.”
Her. Serenity wondered what would happen if Helene gave birth to a boy. An infant was born into innocence, but could a boy be properly raised in a world of women?
She picked up her fork and tried to eat. Her stomach rebelled, but she kept at it, aware that Helene was watching her with hesitant but very maternal concern. She took her unfinished dinner over to the sink before Helene could move to take her plate, and went to her room.
Her gun belt was in the bottom drawer of her chest, along with her revolver. She buckled on the belt, readjusting to the weight of the pistol at her hip. Rifles were one thing; they had many uses on a ranch. But handguns were different. She hadn’t felt the need to wear hers on this last visit to town, but she realized now that it would not be wise to leave it behind again.
She returned to the kitchen, admonished Helene to rest, then went out. She passed Frances when she was halfway to the barn. The girl was running toward the house and hardly spared a glance in Serenity’s direction.
“Frances!”
The pelting footsteps slowed and stopped. “I’m in a hurry, Rennie!” Frances protested.
“Why?” Serenity asked, her stomach beginning to churn. “Has something happened?”
“No, but Bonnie said I had to eat. I want to go back and help Changying.”
Serenity didn’t believe that the healer needed any help. Frances’s fascination with the man was becoming worrisome. Under the circumstances, Serenity might have to forbid Frances to go anywhere near the barn.
She waved the younger woman away and went on, measuring each step. She would deal with this man. She would allow him to stay until he was fit enough to be taken into town and not a moment longer. She would keep him tied up at night, and at least one woman would guard him at all times.
It was a damned waste of precious resources, and Serenity hated him all the more for that.
A shout brought her out of her grim thoughts. Caridad rode with her usual flourish into the yard, Zora and Judith right behind. Caridad leaped from the saddle, removed her hat and unbound her straight black hair with a flick of her fingers. She studied Serenity’s face, her grin giving way to a frown.
“What is it, mi amiga?” she asked. Zora came up behind her on silent feet. Her sun-bronzed face showed little expression, but Serenity could see the concern in her eyes.
Serenity told them in as few words as possible. Caridad’s face went slack with astonishment. Judith shot a wary look toward the barn. She was the oldest woman at Avalon and didn’t say much, but her disapproval was manifest.
“I need to talk to Victoria,” Judith said. “I’ll take the horses.”
Once she was gone, Caridad burst into an eloquent string of curses. “Madre de Dios! How can this be, mi amiga, that you should bring such a man here?”
“I am sure Serenity had her reasons,” Zora said. She met Serenity’s gaze. “Do you think he is dangerous?”
“Dangerous enough to warrant careful watching,” Serenity said, glad to dodge Caridad’s incredulous question. But the former bandida wasn’t finished.
“If only I had been with you,” Caridad exclaimed. “I would have stopped you from making such a mistake.”
And Serenity would have been forced to defend the man, which would have been unbearable.
“I’m glad you weren’t there, Cari,” Serenity said, touching the woman’s arm. “You would have gotten yourself killed.”
“Ay! To miss such a good fight…”
“There may be another, if those outlaws decide to come after us.”
“We will be ready.” Caridad glanced at Zora. “We can ride out again and watch.”
“I don’t think they’ll come at night, but we’d better be prepared in the morning. If they haven’t shown up in a few days, we should have no reason to worry.”
“And by then we will know who this man is,” Caridad said. “And whether or not we must be rid of him.”
For a woman who had once ridden on the wrong side of the law in her native land, Caridad was far from merciful to one who might be in the same profession. But then, she had no reason to be, no more than did Serenity herself.
“I may need you in the morning,” Serenity said. “You should sleep, Cari.”
“Not yet. I must see this man.”
Serenity knew better than to argue. Caridad charged ahead, and Serenity might have been worried if she’d thought for a single moment that the Mexican woman would act against her wishes.
But she wouldn’t. For all her wild talk, Caridad accepted Serenity’s leadership, just like the others. Sometimes, in her darkest hours, Serenity wondered why.
“Do you want me to come?” Zora asked behind her.
Serenity shook off the desire to lean on Zora’s quiet, seemingly unshakable strength. “At least you should get some food and rest. Helene has a pot of beans on the stove.”
Zora obeyed without protest. Serenity went on alone, her feet as heavy as Victoria’s anvil. The barn door was open, spilling light from the lantern hung just inside, and she smelled the comforting scent of fresh straw, the warm bovine bodies of their two milk cows, and the newly sawn planks where Victoria and Judith had made repairs to the back wall. A horse nickered from the stable on the other side of the far door.
Ordinarily it was a place of peace, but not tonight. Changying, Nettie and Michaela had settled the stranger in one of the unoccupied stalls where they kept ailing cattle, or calves needing special care. From the look of him, he hadn’t improved. Caridad stood with hands on hips, staring down at him with a ferocious scowl.
“Don’t waste your time, Changying,” she was saying as Serenity approached.
The Chinese woman looked up. “He has taken a bit of water,” she said. “I believe he will be well.”
Serenity closed her eyes. Changying was too good at her craft to speak up if she didn’t believe it.
“Has he been awake?” she asked, joining Caridad.
“Only for a moment,” Changying said. “But he is already better than he was.”
“He is an evil-looking man,” Caridad said. “Un hombre malo.”
It was exactly what Serenity had been thinking, yet the words seemed far more harsh than her private thoughts. Now that the man was out of the glare of sunlight and in such quiet surroundings, he didn’t seem nearly so terrible. Still potentially dangerous, to be sure, and never to be trusted. Hard as the New Mexico desert. Yet his face wasn’t quite so much like a villainous mask, and there was an easing around his mouth as if he knew, even in his sleep, that he was safe.
The inexplicable impulse to defend
him against Caridad’s harsh judgment frightened her. She couldn’t afford to let down her guard. Not ever.
“If he is all right for now,” she said to Changying, “you should go and get your supper. I’ll watch him.”
“And I,” Caridad said.
“You just rode in,” Michaela said. “Let us do it.”
Serenity shook her head. “He’s my responsibility. Cari, get a little sleep. I’ll need you and Zora to do some scouting in the morning.”
Caridad heaved a great sigh. “If you insist, jefa.” Adjusting the twin bandoliers crossing her chest, she strode out of the barn. Nettie and Michaela followed reluctantly.
“If he wakes, try to give him a little water,” Changying said as she got to her feet. “I have treated his wounds as best I can, but he must take proper nourishment if he is to heal.”
“I’ll see to it,” Serenity said. She couldn’t do less than Changying, even though she loathed the idea of touching him again.
Moving almost as quietly as Zora, Changying left. Serenity leaned against the partition between the stalls, refusing to look at the man’s face again, unwilling to see anything in it she hadn’t already judged to be there.
But when she looked down and away, she saw other parts of him that disturbed her just as much. Changying had stripped him of his clothes—a fact Serenity had been trying to ignore—and covered his lower body with a blanket. And though Serenity was able to avoid thinking about what the blanket covered, she couldn’t fail to notice the strength of his arms, the muscular breadth of his chest, the slim, lean contours of his waist.
She didn’t want to notice them. The last time she’d seen a man undressed…
Covering her face with her hands, Serenity turned her back on Changying’s patient. She should have felt utter loathing. She’d deliberately cut off even the remotest physical reaction to any man since her escape six years ago. She had believed herself incapable of experiencing such attraction again.
And she wasn’t experiencing it now. It was only the poison this man had brought with him that had infected her brain like a fever. That made her view his body with admiration instead of disgust.
Code of the Wolf Page 2
