Apache Runaway

by Madeline Baker

  “I had to do it, Jenny,” he muttered. “I didn’t have any choice.”

  He dreamed of her that night, and in his dreams she was smiling at him again, her beautiful green eyes warm with desire, her arms outstretched. In his sleep, he reached for her, hungry for her touch, her forgiveness, but she only laughed and slipped from his grasp.

  He woke muttering an oath as her image faded from his mind, only to lie awake the rest of the night, smoking one cigarette after another.

  Dawn found him riding farther north.

  Jenny stared at her husband. “Left town?” she repeated. “Are you sure?”

  Hank nodded. “Couple people I know saw him ride out late yesterday afternoon. Does it matter?”

  “No, of course not,” Jenny said. She forced herself to smile as if it didn’t matter, wondering why it did. She never wanted to see Ryder Fallon again. He was a constant memory of a day she longed to forget.

  In the days that followed, Jenny made an effort to pretend that nothing had changed. She rose early in the morning to prepare breakfast for Hank before he went to the store. She kept the house spotlessly clean. She took great pains with her appearance. She often met him in town for lunch, met him at the front door each evening.

  And the friendship they had once shared bloomed again. They spent their evenings at home because Jenny was shy about meeting people. They took turns reading the paper to each other. Hank told her about his day at the store; she complained that she couldn’t make a decent pie crust.

  She’d been home about three weeks when Hank asked her to go to a church social. She agreed reluctantly.

  Jenny dressed with special care that night, choosing a modest gown of dark-blue velvet. She was as nervous as a new bride when they walked into the hall.

  Everyone in town knew she had spent the last four years as a prisoner of the Apache, and even though Jenny knew the townspeople were too polite to ask her what awful trials she had endured, she knew they were wondering.

  She could feel the men eyeing her speculatively, wondering if she had been forced to pleasure the Apache bucks. She could see the women wondering too. Outwardly, they were sympathetic, but Jenny feared that, inwardly, they were condemning her. Any decent woman would have killed herself rather than allow a savage to defile her.

  Hank slid his arm around her shoulder. “Relax, Jen,” he whispered. “Give them a chance. They’re nice people. You’ll like them. And they’ll like you.” Jenny nodded doubtfully. Over the next two hours, she met most of the people in town. And just as Hank had said, she liked them, and they liked her. A few of the men leered at her, a few of the women looked down their noses at her, but for the most part the townspeople accepted her with smiles of welcome. She was Hank’s wife, and everyone liked Hank.

  Later, lying in bed beside her husband, Jenny wished that she had a real marriage, that Hank could take her in his arms and make love to her.

  She bit down on her lower lip, cursing Ryder Fallon for coming into her life. If she’d never met him, she’d be perfectly happy to be Mrs. Hank Braedon, perfectly happy with things the way they were, the way they’d always been. After enduring Kayitah’s touch, she would have been content to live a chaste life. But Ryder had awakened her desire, stirred the sleeping embers of passion that had lain dormant within her.

  She looked at her sleeping husband. She loved him deeply, loved him as a sister loved a brother, as a woman loved a good friend. But it wasn’t enough.

  It would never be enough.

  She was suddenly thankful that Ryder Fallon had left town. He was far too appealing, too handsome, too virile. He had never made any secret of the fact that he found her desirable. In spite of the fact that she hated him for what he’d done, she was suddenly afraid she might have been sorely tempted to betray her husband and her marriage vows for one night in Fallon’s arms.

  Chapter Twenty

  Clearwell was a remote island of civilization set amid a vast sea of grass. Once a flourishing boom town, it was now reduced to poverty, its only redeeming feature and reason for existence the well from which it derived its name. Many a weary traveler, saddle sore and lost in a seemingly endless world of sun and thirst, had found new life in the depths of the clear spring that gurgled in the center of the ruined town.

  Only two buildings remained standing, a rundown saloon that served beer when it was available and a fire-ravaged hotel that had three rooms still intact, including, miraculously, the glass in the windows.

  The town’s only permanent resident was Vic Linderman, who owned the saloon.

  Linderman was a short, stocky man with sparse gray hair, sunken cheeks, a long crooked nose. He stood behind the bar, idly polishing a shot glass with a towel that had once been white, his gaze fixed on his only customer. The man was playing solitaire. Between moves, the tall half-breed took long pulls from a bottle of cheap whiskey, a bottle that had been full when he arrived and was now nearly dry.

  Linderman had wanted to object when the man sat down and started working his way into a bottle that had been purchased elsewhere, but one look into the ’breed’s cold blue eyes had stilled Linderman’s objections.

  Ryder Fallon ignored the barkeep’s mute disapproval as he slapped a black jack on a red queen, a red ten on the jack. But his mind was not on the cards, or the old man. He was far away, two hundred miles to the southwest, in Widow Ridge.

  For months he had drifted aimlessly from one cow town to another, losing too much at cards because he was drinking too much, spending too much time with too many women in a futile attempt to forget one woman. But try as he might, he couldn’t outride the memory of her smile, couldn’t drown the sound of her voice in the endless bottles of busthead booze he swallowed without tasting.

  “Damn you, Jenny,” he murmured thickly. “Damn you, damn you, damn you!”

  Hoofbeats drew Linderman’s attention from the taciturn card player, and he glanced over the top of the swinging doors to see two men riding in from the east. Minutes later, they entered the saloon, slapping the trail dust from their clothes with their hats.

  Vic Linderman eyed the pair warily. The man on the left was tall and lanky, with slicked-down black hair and a pencil-thin mustache. A deep scar puckered his right cheek. His eyes were hard and cold, like the matched six-guns strapped to his thighs, butts forward for a cross draw.

  The second man was no more than twenty. He had a thatch of unruly brown hair and long sideburns. His fair skin was soft and unblemished, like a newborn babe’s, but there was nothing soft in his cold yellow eyes or in the heavy Walker Colt shoved into the waistband of his trousers.

  Troublemakers on the prowl, Linderman thought uneasily. No doubt about it. Fumbling beneath the bar, he set two glasses before the sour-faced pair, shrugged his regret that he had nothing stronger than lukewarm beer.

  “Not much of a town, eh, Roy?” drawled the scar-faced man disdainfully.

  Roy shook his head in disgust. “For sure, Jake. I seen outhouses in Texas bigger than this dump. And they were sweeter smellin’!”

  Jake’s laugh was as brassy as the bray of a mule as his gaze wandered over the run-down saloon, coming to rest on the saloon’s only other occupant. The man seemed totally ignorant of their arrival, his attention apparently focused on the cards spread on the table.

  Noisily, Jake gulped down the last of his drink, wiped the foam from his mouth with the back of his hand as he swaggered toward the half-breed.

  “Mind if I sit down?” Jake asked, and when there was no response, he tossed his hat into the middle of the table, scattering the cards.

  “Yeah, I mind a lot,” Fallon retorted. He didn’t look up as he picked up the man’s hat and sent it sailing across the room with a flick of his wrist.

  Jake’s eyes glowed with anticipation. “Hey, Roy, we got us a uppity half-breed over here. Think we should light a spell and teach him some respect for white folks?”

  “It’s our duty,” Roy sang out. “Our Christian duty!”


  At that, Fallon looked up, his eyes boring into those of the younger man. “You know what happened to the Christians, don’t you?” he asked pleasantly.

  Roy’s brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of the half-breed’s remark.

  Jake was better versed in Bible history. “An uppity Injun with a smart mouth,” he sneered.

  “What’ll we do with him?” Roy asked, enjoying the game.

  “We could make him a good Injun,” Jake suggested with a sly grin.

  A good Indian, as any five-year-old paleface child knew, was a dead Indian.

  Fallon’s only visible reaction to Jake’s implied threat was a faint tightening of his facial muscles as he eased the chair away from the table and stood up.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Jake demanded arrogantly.

  “Anywhere I damn well please,” Fallon snarled, shoving the man aside. “Get outta my way!”

  Behind him, Fallon heard Roy yell, “Let’s take him, Jake!”

  Jake looked startled, but Roy was already reaching for his gun. Excitement and overconfidence spoiled his aim.

  Fallon heard the bullet whine past his left ear as he clawed the .44 from his holster, turned and fired, all in the same smooth, practiced movement. The slug drilled Roy neatly between the eyes. Blood spurted from the wound, staining the lower half of Roy’s face with crimson as he dropped dead in his tracks.

  Fallon whirled around, his gun seeking another target, but Jake stood with his hands well away from his guns.

  “Well?” Fallon asked.

  Jake shook his head, his courage as dead as his partner.

  “Go on, get out of here.”

  “Sure, sure,” Jake said. Keeping his hands up, he backed out of the saloon.

  Vic Linderman swallowed hard as he stared at the gun clutched in the half-breed’s hand. Smoke curled from the end of the barrel, spiraling upward. The ominous black muzzle yawned before him, as big as a cave, smoke still curling from the barrel. All at once the bartender’s muscles seemed to melt and the glass he’d been furiously polishing for the last ten minutes crashed to the floor.

  The sound of breaking glass was thunderous in the deathly stillness of the saloon.

  Fallon grimaced as the barkeep jumped a foot.

  “Relax, old man,” he muttered dryly. “I rarely kill more than one a day.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The sun was low in the sky when Fallon rode down the main street of Widow Ridge. The town appeared to be pretty much as it had been when he’d left four months earlier, he mused.

  Dismounting, he hitched the black at the rail in front of the Double Eagle Saloon, paused at the swinging door. There were only a few customers inside at this time of day.

  Pushing through the doors, he took a place at end of the bar.

  Red grabbed a bottle and two glasses and ambled toward the half-breed, grinning affably.

  “Tarnation,” the bartender boomed. “Unusual for you to make an appearance twice in the same year. Kinda like seeing old Saint Nick drop down your chimney two nights in a row.”

  “You gonna talk my ear off or pour me a drink?” Fallon asked.

  Red chuckled again as he filled Fallon’s glass and then his own.

  “You forget something when you were here last?”

  Fallon scowled, then shook his head. That was the trouble, he thought ruefully. He hadn’t forgotten.

  Red eyed the tall man thoughtfully for a moment, and then sighed. “You want to be alone?”

  Fallon nodded. “Yeah. Leave the bottle, will you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks, Red.”

  Ryder sipped his drink in brooding silence. He had not intended to return to Widow Ridge, not for a long time, if ever. There was no point in it. Jenny was married, happy to be back with her husband. But he couldn’t get her out of his mind.

  He let out a long sigh. After the shootout at Clearwell, he’d intended to ride to Dakota Territory and spend the summer with the Cheyenne, see if he couldn’t find his center again. But the need to see Jenny one more time had drawn him like a magnet, so here he was, feeling as foolish as a boy with his first crush.

  “Hi, honey,” purred a soft voice at his shoulder. “All alone?”

  He didn’t look up. “That’s right.”

  “Wouldn’t you like some company?”

  “Not really.”

  “Buy me a drink?” she coaxed, her voice low and sultry.

  Fallon turned to face her, surprised to find she was almost pretty. Her hair was long and red, her eyes blue and heavily outlined with kohl. For a moment he thought of grabbing her arm and hauling her upstairs, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. He didn’t want just any woman. He wanted Jenny.

  “Just one drink?” she said, smiling.

  “Sure.” He slid his glass toward her, filled it, then lifted the bottle in a silent toast.

  “My name’s Lilah,” she said, batting her eyes at him. “Wanna go upstairs for a while?”

  Fallon shook his head.

  “Maybe it’s me,” Lilah said with a sigh. “Maybe I’m losing my touch.”

  “It’s nothing personal,” Fallon said. “I’m just not in the mood.”

  “Yeah. Well, I sure can pick ’em. If I had to depend on you and that store owner, I wouldn’t get any action at all.”

  She shrugged, then drained the glass. “At least he paid me, even though he couldn’t do nothing.”

  “Maybe he had too much to drink,” Fallon suggested.

  “Hank? Why, he hardly drinks at all.”

  “Hank?” Fallon’s eyes narrowed. “Hank Braedon?”

  “Yeah. Do you know him? Poor thing.”

  Fallon filled her glass again, watched as she tossed it down in a single gulp. “What’s the matter with him?”

  The girl shook her head. “I’m not supposed to say.”

  Fallon filled her glass again. “Is he sick?”

  “No.” Her voice was slurred now. “He was hurt. In the war. He can’t…you know? He used to come see me every Friday night so’s people would think he had the same urges as other men, but we never did it, ’cause he can’t.”

  She held out her glass and Fallon filled it again. “He don’t visit me no more since his wife came back.” She smiled sympathetically. “I feel sorry for her. All that money and a handsome husband…too bad.”

  Fallon stared at the girl, his mind whirling. Why hadn’t Jenny told him? Muttering an oath, he thrust the half-empty bottle into the girl’s hand and left the saloon.

  Outside, he drew a deep breath, remembering Jenny’s near hysteria when he’d tried to comfort her by telling her she’d have other children. She must have loved Hank Braedon an awful lot to marry him, he thought jealously, to be willing to spend her life with a man who couldn’t give her children, who couldn’t…

  Ryder shook his head. It was none of his business. If she hadn’t been happy with her husband, she wouldn’t have been so anxious to return to him. It was none of his business.

  He walked down the street, his hands shoved in his pockets, hardly knowing where he was going until he saw the sign that hung over the boardwalk. Braedon’s General Store.

  And there, standing under the sign, was Jenny. She was wearing a dress of jade green, a white straw hat, white gloves. Her face, in profile, was more beautiful than he remembered. The shock of seeing her was like a blow to his gut.

  He stared at her, remembering that she’d saved his life at the risk of her own, remembering the day by the river when he’d held her in his arms, the worry in her eyes when Kayitah had tried to break his spirit, the loathing in her expression when he gave her son to his father.

  Jenny. He’d tried to forget her for the last four months, but nothing had worked, not drinking, not other women. Nothing. He loved her. He admitted it for the first time.

  Jenny turned, took a step, then came to an abrupt halt when she saw him standing there. For a moment they stared at each other, the memories flo
wing between them.

  “Ryder…”

  “Jenny.”

  He looked older, she thought, thinner, more haggard. She wondered where he’d been for the last four months and three days, who he’d been with, why he’d left and why he’d come back. She thought of all they had shared in the Apache camp, how he’d risked his life to help her get away, how he’d cared for her even when she screamed that she hated him for giving her child to Kayitah. She would never forgive him for that. Never. Every day she thought of her son. And every day her hatred for Ryder Fallon grew deeper, stronger.

  And yet, looking at him now, she felt a peculiar catch in her heart, a suspicious burning behind her eyes.

  “Excuse me,” she said brusquely. “I have to go home.”

  “Jenny, wait.”

  “We have nothing to say to each other.”

  He was as tall and handsome as she remembered. And his voice, that deep husky voice, caressed her like rumpled velvet, making her shiver with longing.

  He fell into step beside her. “Let me walk you home.”

  “No.”

  “Please, Jenny.”

  He held his breath as he waited for her answer, knowing he’d follow her home on his hands and knees if she asked him to.

  Jenny glanced over her shoulder, then shrugged. “All right.”

  “How’ve you been, Jenny girl?” he asked. It grieved him to see the hatred in her eyes when she looked at him.

  “Fine, thank you.”

  She walked briskly, as if she couldn’t wait to be home, to be rid of him.

  “And Hank?”

  “He’s fine. The store is prospering.”

  “Are you happy?”

  She started to say yes, of course she was happy, but the words wouldn’t come.

  “Jenny?”

  “How are you, Ryder?” she asked, hoping to change the subject.