Clay removed his hat and wiped sweat from his brow. He nodded to Mills. “Go ahead, Corporal. Take them off.”
The corporal obeyed, and Clay ordered Mills, Johnson, and two of the other men to ride on either side and behind the two prisoners and keep a close eye on them.
“Thank you,” Kinkade sneered, glancing at Clay when the cuffs came off. He rubbed at his wrists. “That’s a lot better. I don’t reckon Greg and I have much longer to live. Might as well be as comfortable as we can, right?” His eyes moved to Nina. “Of course, Nina there, she’s been pretty comfortable all along, hasn’t she—left untied, sleeping in your tent at night. If you’re thinking of getting a piece of that poor girl before turning her in, you’d better think twice, Lieutenant. Nina’s not that type.”
Nina reddened deeply, and Clay stepped closer to Kinkade. “One more remark like that and the cuffs go back on,” he warned.
Kinkade just grinned, turning and mounting his horse. The noon meal was finished, and the small group of soldiers was ready to again get under way. Nina glanced at Kinkade, and he gave her a look of assurance. She suspected he was going to try something, and he would expect her to help if possible. She felt the pain of torn loyalties as she remounted her own horse. She would like to see Al and Greg get away. They were her friends. But she would not want it to happen if it meant Clay getting hurt; nor would she want Kinkade to spoil Clay’s own planned escape for her.
They rode for several more miles under the hot sun, and Sergeant Johnson’s head began to nod. He rode at Kinkade’s left side, unaware that Kinkade had been stealing glances at him, noticing that the man’s horse was wandering close enough that a person could quickly whisk Johnson’s rifle right out of its boot. Al had been waiting for a chance to escape, hoping perhaps Nina would find a way by wooing the lieutenant. He reasoned that if he got killed trying to escape, getting shot outright was a lot better than hanging. He had nothing to lose.
One of the soldiers riding behind Kinkade and Johnson pulled up to Johnson’s other side then. “Stay alert, Sergeant,” he told him.
Kinkade knew it was now or never. Johnson grunted and opened bloodshot eyes to look at the man beside him, his head turned away from Kinkade. In a flash, Kinkade jerked Johnson’s rifle from its boot. He jammed it hard against Johnson’s right ear, knocking the soldier from his horse, then fired at the man who had been riding to Johnson’s left. A hole opened up in the side of the man’s face, and he fell from his horse.
The others were startled out of the hypnotic effect of the sun and the heat. By the time they were fully alert, Kinkade had whirled his horse and leveled the rifle on the rest of the soldiers. “Everybody stay real easy!” he snarled. “Drop all your weapons! Greg, you collect a couple of them for yourself.”
Corporal Mills looked helplessly at Clay. Mills had also been riding behind the prisoners. “I’m sorry, sir. It…it happened so fast.”
Clay glowered at Kinkade. “You’re a fool, Kinkade! You might have had a chance before, but now you’ve shot one soldier and wounded another! Every Army man in the Southwest will be after you now!”
“They’ll never find us. You’re the fool, Lieutenant, letting them take those cuffs off me! I think you’ve gotten too soft-hearted being around Nina!” His eyes moved to the young Mexican woman. “You did a good job, Nina, getting his mind all rattled and confused.”
Clay glanced at Nina, who was shaking her head. “I did not…” She looked at Clay, her heart breaking when she realized he believed Kinkade.
“What should we do, sir?” Mills asked Clay.
Rage showed in Clay’s eyes. “Drop your weapons,” he growled.
Kinkade grinned. “You’re a smart man, Lieutenant.” He looked at Nina again. “Come on over here with me and Greg, honey. We’ll get out of here and find Emilio.”
Nina’s breathing quickened, and her mind raced with confusion.
“Don’t do it, Nina,” Clay warned. “That will make you an accessory. Then you will be wanted for murder.”
She looked at him helplessly. If only they could talk! Would he still let her escape later if she did not go with Al now? Of course not! With Al and Greg as prisoners, it would not have seemed so bad that she might get away. But now everything was changed.
She looked back at Al. He and the others had always been good to her, but this was different. Al had deliberately murdered one of the soldiers, and he seemed to be totally unaffected by the act. Suddenly she decided she would rather be hanged than be associated with such a man. And she suspected that if she rode off with him now, Clay would not come to her in El Paso. He would think she was a part of this. She dreaded the risk of being turned in less than having Clay think she had lied to him.
She looked at Kinkade, while Greg rode around collecting some of the soldiers’ weapons. He kept a few and tossed the rest far out into the sand. “I am not going with you,” she told Al.
The man frowned. “What?”
“You heard me, Al. I will not be a part of deliberate murder. That poor soldier was innocent. You gave him no chance at all.”
Al snickered. “The lieutenant has been filling you with promises, hasn’t he? Did he tell you he could get you off?”
“No. I just cannot be a part of this.”
In spite of his embarrassment and rage at the escape attempt, Clay felt a new warmth at Nina’s words. Maybe she hadn’t been a part of the plan after all.
“Emilio will be real furious when he finds out you wouldn’t come with us,” Al warned her. “You picking an American soldier you hardly know over your own brother?”
“I am not making any such choice,” Nina said, holding her chin proudly. “I am simply choosing not to ride with murderers! I did not think you could do such a thing.”
“Yeah? Well, Emilio wouldn’t forgive me if I didn’t avenge the fact that his sister got arrested by American soldiers. The least I can do is get rid of the man who started all of this.”
“What do you mean!” Nina asked, a sick feeling coming to her stomach.
“I mean I’m going to kill your fancy lieutenant. You might as well come with us, Nina. With two soldiers dead, you’re going to hang, whether you come with us or not.”
Nina’s eyes widened. “You cannot kill him. He is unarmed!” Clay! She could not lose him now, not this way! It was all her fault! He would never have even come for them if he hadn’t suspected she was part of the gang.
“Watch me,” Kinkade answered, while the rest of the soldiers all looked on feeling helpless.
Suddenly Clay reached out and shoved Nina from her horse. At first she didn’t understand his reason, but in the next moment she knew it was to be sure a wild shot from Kinkade didn’t find her. As she fell, she noticed that Clay was ducking and reaching into a small leather bag draped over the front of his saddle. She heard shots, and horses reared and whinnied. She rolled to her knees to see Clay pointing a hidden pistol he had taken from the bag. He fired it and Kinkade cried out and fell from his horse.
Another shot rang out, and Clay jerked backward before he slid from his horse and landed hard on his back. Nina screamed his name, looking up to see Greg fire twice more at other men but missing each time. He turned his horse to flee, and Corporal Mills hurriedly jumped from his horse and picked up one of the discarded Army rifles. He raised it and fired, and Greg fell from his horse, a bloody hole in his back.
Nina rushed to Clay. He had rolled onto his side and lay with his legs curled up. “Clay!” Nina whimpered. She rolled him onto his back, then gasped at the spreading bloodstain at his middle. She thought of Santos. A gunshot to the belly, no man survives, Santos had told her before dying.
“Kinkade’s dead,” someone said.
“Go see about the other one,” came another voice. “And do what you can for Sergeant Johnson. He took a pretty nasty blow to the side of his head.”
The voices all seemed far way to Nina. Nothing mattered now—except that Clay Youngblood should not also die. His face
looked gray, and he let out a pitiful groan. “Please, do not die,” Nina begged, kneeling and putting her head on his shoulder. “Do not leave me now.”
Chapter Fourteen
Corporal Mills grasped Nina’s arm, pulling her away. “Stay back, ma’am,” he told her as Private Hanson knelt over Clay’s bleeding body. “Somebody keep a good eye on the woman,” he said louder, casting her a look of scorn. “This is all your fault,” he growled. “The lieutenant never should have come looking for you in the first place! He only did it to protect you, and now see what’s happened! He should have let Clyde Boone and his men catch you on their own!”
Nina could barely see the corporal or Clay for the tears in her eyes. How could she explain that she didn’t mean for any of this to happen? Who would believe that right now she wished Clay had stayed out of this and had left her to Boone.
“What do you think, Private?” Mills was asking as another man held onto Nina’s arm, pointing a pistol at her ribs.
“I don’t know. It looks bad, Corporal Mills. We’ve got to try to stop the bleeding and get him to the fort doctor as quickly as possible. This isn’t anything I can fix. I don’t know if he’ll make it through the day.”
“Damn!” Mills rose and began giving orders to bring some whiskey and gauze, lamenting the fact that they had nothing with which to rig up a travois to carry Clay. “Putting him on a horse will only aggravate the situation,” he complained. “But we don’t have much choice.” He looked back at Clay as another man brought the items. Hanson, who had had a little schooling in medicine back in Sweden, ripped open Clay’s shirt and poured some whiskey into the ugly wound, bringing a moan from Clay’s lips. Hanson pressed some of the gauze against the wound then to try to slow the bleeding.
Nina stood watching helplessly, aching to help Clay, longing to kneel beside him and tell him she loved him, wondering if it would matter to him to hear it.
“What a stupid thing to have happen with only a couple of months left to serve,” Mills fumed. “He’s faced Apache and Comanche Indians, outlaws, you name it, and now he gets shot down by a two-bit horse thief! I knew there would be a problem when he let his attention stray from what’s really important. That damn Mexican wench had him so turned around he couldn’t think straight.”
“This is as much our fault as anybody’s,” Hanson answered with his rich Swedish accent. “We let Kinkade trick us. We will all look bad when we have to report this.” He looked up at Mills. “I am sorry, sir. I spoke out of turn,” he added in the singsong pitch.
“Don’t be sorry. You happen to be right.” Mills glanced at Nina, who stood weeping, her eyes still on Clay. He realized then how much more serious things must be between Clay and Nina than he had originally suspected. She raised her dark eyes to meet his own blue ones.
“Please, let me go to him,” she sobbed.
Mills couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for Nina, in spite of his belief that they wouldn’t be here at all if not for her. One look at her and he could understand how a man could fall under her spell. He remained torn trying to decide if this beautiful young woman was angel or devil, but for the moment, it would not look good to the others to let her kneel like that weeping over the lieutenant. Mills suspected it would be best if the authorities did not know there might have been special feelings between the two of them. He liked Clay Youngblood, who had always been a fair and considerate officer. He didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize the man’s reputation, especially when he was so close to being discharged.
“Get her back on her horse,” he ordered the man who held her.
“Please!” Nina begged. The man beside her squeezed her arm harder and forced her to turn around.
“You heard the corporal,” he told her. “Get back on your horse. And this time your wrists will be tied. After what happened, we’ll have to keep an eye out for your brother. You’re not getting away from us, little lady.”
No one asked if she was all right. Her left arm and shoulder ached from the fall from her horse, and a terrible pain nudged at her stomach and heart at the thought that Clay could die. She winced as she climbed back onto her horse, forcing back the tears, feeling a new coldness set in as the guard began tying her wrists together, paying no heed to a bleeding scrape at her left elbow.
She watched men load Clay up onto Mills’s horse. Mills was already mounted. He would hold onto Clay as best he could. Nina shivered, and new tears came when Clay cried out with gut-wrenching moans as he was moved around. He seemed to be only conscious enough to feel the horrible pain, but otherwise unaware of his surroundings.
“Can you hang onto him, sir? He is a pretty big man,” Hanson told Mills.
“I’ve got to try. We can’t put him on a horse alone.”
Others loaded up the dead bodies. Sergeant Johnson was alert but groaning with pain from the blow to the side of his head. A huge purple welt had already formed just under his right temple. “Keep an eye on the sergeant,” Mills ordered. “He could pass out again.”
The small contingent of men was off, headed for Fort Fillmore. Nina stared straight ahead, unable to look at Clay for the pain it brought to her heart. It didn’t matter now that they were in wide-open country, where even if Emilio was around, he could not help her because he would be too easily seen. It didn’t matter that now Clay’s plans to help her escape had been foiled and that there was nothing ahead for her but an American court and probably the gallows. And it didn’t matter that Clay would not be able to appear on her behalf and speak for her. All that mattered was that Clay Youngblood should not die. She could bear anything but the thought of his death and the guilt she felt over being partly to blame for his pain and suffering.
It was apparently true then. Clay would probably have never volunteered to help Clyde Boone if it were not for the fact that he feared she was part of the gang. She realized now that he had not been lying to her or trying to trick her. He had pushed her from her horse to make sure she was not accidentally shot. He had been ready to help her escape that night.
Clay Youngblood loved her. A gringo soldier loved her! What a twist of fate! Even more unbelievable was the fact that she realized now that she loved him, too, that she knew now she really would have waited for him to come for her. She was equally sure he would have come, just like he promised, and she would have gone away with him, would have let him make a woman of her. With Clay she would have been able to overcome her terror and hatred, she was sure of that now. But all these truths had come to her too late. She would not live long enough to marry any man, and the only one she loved could die any minute. If he did, she might as well be hanged, for now she knew she didn’t want to live without Lieutenant Clay Youngblood at her side.
Nina watched the movement at the fort through one of only two windows in the small cabin where she was being held prisoner. She had cried until she was sure there were no tears left. Not only had Emilio abandoned her, but now she could not even turn to Clay. By some miracle he had made it to the fort alive, but just barely. She had wanted dearly to go with him when he was taken from his horse and carried into the fort’s medical quarters, while she was marched off to this cabin.
That had been two days ago. No one had told her a thing since then, and a Private Hadley, the man who brought her her food, knew nothing about her own fate. She had eaten little, too concerned over Clay, wondering how terribly he might be suffering. All Hadley knew was that he was still alive. She had that much for which to be grateful.
She watched now as a contingent of soldiers gathered in the courtyard and began heading out of the fort. Among them was Corporal Mills, the only man who might have been able to speak in her behalf. She knew he blamed her for what had happened to Clay, but for Clay’s sake, he might have spoken up for her, knowing Clay would have done as much. She had no idea what he had told his superiors.
The fort had been in constant motion since Nina arrived, and she was sure whoever was in charge was much more concerned about the camel exp
edition than about one insignificant Mexican woman who stole horses. Corporal Mills disappeared beyond the gates, followed by a string of camels, a number of horses and mules, and several wagons. Nina’s heart ached at the realization that if not for her, Clay would be going on from here with the expedition. Instead, he lay in agony in the doctor’s quarters, and he could very likely still die. I’ve known some men take weeks to die from a bullet in the belly, Private Hadley had told her just that morning.
It sickened her that Clay could die that way. It sickened her even more that she had been foolish enough to feel obligated to ride with Emilio. Now she was alone in an America she hated and pitted against her worst enemies, with no one to speak in her behalf. She saw Hadley coming again, carrying a pitcher of fresh water, and she rushed to the door, hoping she would hear something new, feeling crazed with apprehension at what her own fate would be. She had asked Hadley to find out anything he could about Clay and about what was going to happen to her. The door opened, and an armed guard let Hadley inside. The guard closed the door, and the private set the tray on a table. He was young, and Nina knew he was taken with her beauty. She had used her physical assets as she had used them before, doing her best to charm Hadley into getting the information she needed.
“Have you seen the lieutenant?” she asked. “Will he live?”
The young man looked around, realizing he couldn’t stay too long. “I finally saw him this morning,” he said quietly. “He looks bad, Miss Juarez. The doctor says he hasn’t come around yet, and he’s got a high fever. If you’re thinking he might say something to help you, you might as well forget it. Personally, I don’t think he’ll live more than a couple more days.”
Nina felt a knot in her stomach. Clay! So much had been left unsaid. She didn’t even know about his background, had never been able to ask him about his wife, or his plans for the future. She really hardly knew the man at all, yet she knew that she loved him. Now her chance at the kind of love and womanly fulfillment Carmell had told her about would never be hers.
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