“Sure.” He wondered if Hank Billings had gotten the Rangers, if there’d be a showdown in town? But he dare not let on to anything.
There was a shout outside the window. “Hey, Bill,” Mex yelled, “there’s a rider comin’!”
Slade swore loudly and crossed to the window, his spurs jangling as he moved. “What the devil?”
Joe was careful to make no sudden movement as he heard Bill rustle the curtain back from the window.
“Mex,” Slade yelled, “what’s he looks like?”
“Dark,” Mex called in a hoarse whisper from outside near the corral, “and ridin’ the biggest gray horse you ever saw! I’ll get him!”
Joe started but he didn’t move. He knew who it was and why he was coming. His heart pumped rapidly but he didn’t move as he heard Slade click back the trigger behind him.
A gunshot echoed and reechoed suddenly from the corral and Slade swore again, “Damned greaser! Shoulda waited! Now the stranger knows he’s there!”
Joe stood stock still, listening. A pistol shot rang out and he heard Mex scream.
“Dammit!” Slade swore from the window. “Don’t know who he is, but he’s a damned good shot! He got Mex!” Then he laughed a little in his throat. “That’s okay, though; one less to divvy up with. Maybe Trask can handle that stage ’til I get there! Almost dark, can’t get a good shot from here, but looks like he’s comin’ to the house! I’ll nail him when he comes up on the porch!”
Joe listened to him pull back the hammer, laughing a little under his breath. He almost felt a sense of relief. Annie’s boy had come to kill him but Slade was going to ambush the boy first. Then he felt ashamed to be so relieved. But oh, dear God, life was so sweet! If he did nothing at all, Slade would kill Maverick and Joe could quit worrying about having that vengeful ghost from the past continually stalking him.
All he had to do was stay very quiet while the unsuspecting boy walked up on the porch and Slade ambushed him through the open parlor window. And yet . . . this was Annie’s boy. Could he stand by and let Slade kill him in cold blood without raising a hand to stop him, even if his own life were at stake?
His decision was the measure of the man. He listened to Slade grumbling softly under his breath, brushing against the curtains, heard the boy dismount outside. Very slowly, so that Slade wouldn’t notice, Joe’s crippled hands reached up for the ten-gauge double-barreled shotgun that hung low over the fireplace. And it was always kept loaded with deadly buckshot. His hands clenched on the weapon with difficulty, lifting it from its rack.
Disabled as he was, Joe couldn’t stand by and let Slade kill the boy without making an attempt to stop him. He had the old, familiar gun in his hands now. He’d have to whirl and fire quickly. Once Slade realized what he was up to, Joe’d never get another chance.
His hands trembled as he clutched the shotgun, listening to the boy dismount, start up the creaking steps.
“Bill!” Joe shouted, and in one motion, he whirled and pulled the trigger.
The sound exploded in the darkness, the gun recoiling in his hands. Slade swore as the buckshot hit him, screaming in agony as he went down, twisting and kicking. A hole big enough to put your fist in, Joe thought, the old double-barrel always blew a hole big enough to put your fist in.
“. . . sonovabitch!” Slade groaned, “you tricky old sonovabitch! How’d you know I’d really come in here to kill you . . . steal that fancy rifle? Should never have underestimated you. . . .”
Joe stood there with the shotgun hot in his hands, smelling the fresh blood, the acrid powder. Uncertainly, he turned back toward the fireplace as he heard the clatter of boots on the porch, heard Maverick come through the squeaky screen. What did he do now? He still had one barrel. Could he let the boy kill him when Joe had the advantage of the wide pattern of that shotgun?
Cayenne ran out to meet the stage, her little sisters gathering around, people running from businesses and homes as the alarm was raised. “Thank God! There’s been trouble!” She shouted to the driver, “They were going to rob you!”
The driver and the guard looked from banker Ogle’s body to her. “What’s going on here?”
She started to explain even as a dignified, white-haired old Spaniard thrust his head out the stage window. “Senorita, what’s happened?”
“They were going to rob the stage,” she yelled over the hubbub as the old man opened the door and stepped down, followed by the gray-haired Mexican with the crippled hand. She suddenly recognized Maverick’s chief vaquero. “Sanchez, what are you doing here?”
“Senorita Cayenne!” he said, grasping her hands. “Have we come in time?”
She heard shouts off to the east and saw the Billings boy coming in at a gallop over the crest of a butte. Were those Texas Rangers with him?
Sanchez’s words penetrated her consciousness as she looked back at him. “In time for what? I don’t think I understand. . . .”
“Are you Cayenne McBride?” The dignified old man faced her. “Thank God I’m in time! Where’s Maverick? I’m Senor Durango!”
“Senor Durango?” Why on earth would these two be so far from home? “Why, he’s gone out to the ranch,” she gestured south in the growing twilight, “gone to see about my father!”
“Dios!” Sanchez groaned, pulling at his mustache.
The Don grabbed her arm and she was suddenly alarmed at the horror in his eyes. “How long ago did he ride out? We’ve got to overtake him!”
She felt a chill start at her feet, move slowly up her legs. “Why? He’s about ten minutes ahead of us. There’s a couple of gunfighters on my father’s ranch he’s gone out to deal with.”
The Don barked orders. “No time to lose! We’ve got to get out there and hope we’re not too late! You have a horse? Is there one for me? Sanchez, take charge of these children!”
Cayenne had a sudden growing apprehension. She could only point wordlessly to Strawberry and Trask’s dun. “What’s this all about?”
“No time to talk.” The Don grabbed her arm, propelling her along with a brisk step that belied his age.
Sanchez yelled, “Diego, you’re not supposed to ride-”
The old man swore in Spanish. “I’m still the Don of the Triple D and I’m tired of being treated like a sick baby! There’s man’s work to do!”
Cayenne mounted and watched him swing up on the dun. “Senor, can’t you tell me—?”
“Did Maverick ever say anything about revenge? About hunting a man down and killing him?”
“My stars, yes,” she stammered. “Something about a low-down varmint who abandoned his mother to the Indians, but—”
“Senorita”—the old man looked at her a long moment—“the man Maverick’s searched for all these years, the man he seeks vengeance against is your father! And I guess it’s a toss-up as to who will die, since they’re so evenly matched!”
For a long moment, she stared back at him in motionless horror. “No, not Papa!” But suddenly all the pieces began to fall into place and she realized in horror why the grim half-breed had ridden all this way with her. It wasn’t for love, it was for revenge! She hated him then as she had never hated a man. Her deception had been nothing compared to his! Maverick had tricked her into leading him to kill her own father!
“Senor Durango, we’d better get out there as fast as these horses can gallop! It won’t be an even match, it’ll be cold-blooded murder!”
Unable to hold back her sobs, she slapped Strawberry with the reins, leading out at a dead run for the Lazy M.
Chapter Twenty-two
Maverick crouched against the side of the porch, listening to the echo of the shotgun fade away. Seconds passed and darkness deepened. No experienced Westerner would go up against the superior challenge of a shotgun at close range. Silence. Nothing. He had to go in that house and find out what had happened.
Moving silently as the Comanches who had raised him, he entered the hall, then stepped into the parlor. The scent of gunpowder an
d fresh blood made him gasp. Quickly, he glanced around. Darkness cast long shadows, but crumpled on the floor by the window, Maverick saw the form of a man, a ragged hole in his belly. Shotgun, Maverick thought with alarm. He tightened his grasp on the Colt in his hand. Opposite Maverick, a man stood with his back to him by the big stone fireplace. In the growing darkness, Maverick could barely make out the red hair but he knew by the size of him who that man must surely be. With his attention centered on the man, Maverick bumped into a table.
The man did not turn around. “Maverick Durango?”
Maverick cocked the pistol with a loud click. “That’s right. Do you know why I’m here?” Even in the shadows of the twilight, he realized the man held a double-barreled shotgun, which put him at a distinct advantage . . . unless Maverick stood ready to shoot him in the back. He gritted his teeth. No, he couldn’t do that; no honorable man would shoot another in the back.
The man nodded. “I knew you’d come someday; the old Don told me about you.” He sighed. “In a way it’s a relief, I reckon, to have it end, not to be listening for you, waitin’ for you to walk in unexpectedly anymore.”
Maverick looked at the crumpled man by the window. “Who’d you just kill and why?”
“His name’s Bill Slade,” Joe said softly without turning around. “He planned to ambush you as you walked up on the porch.”
Maverick hesitated, reaching up to stroke the jagged scar on his cheek. “You killed him to save my life? By damn, that was a loco thing to do! Don’t you know I’ve come to kill you?”
“I know.”
“You yellow bastard!” Maverick growled, and passion and vengeance made the hand that held the pistol shake a little. “Before I kill you and ride out, I have to know. Why didn’t you come for her?”
“I know you won’t believe this,” McBride said, not moving, “but I thought she was dead all those years, and—”
“Liar!” Maverick screamed, and it was all he could do to keep from pulling the trigger, pumping lead into the broad back. “You goddamned liar!” He tried to keep from sobbing but he was overwhelmed with emotion. “How could you have deserted her when she loved you so! The last name on her lips as she died wasn’t mine, it was yours, you sonovabitch! Yours!”
Annie’s face came to him now and he relived that final moment, holding the thin, tortured body in his arms, listening to his mother whisper, Joe . . . I love you, Joe. . . .
The man in the shadows of the fireplace seemed to shake too. “I loved her,” he choked out. “You’ll never know how much I loved her. I don’t guess you ever loved a woman like I loved Annie.”
“I love Cayenne that way,” Maverick declared through gritted teeth, “and after I kill you, I’m going to take her away from here forever!”
“You’ll go to my daughter with her father’s blood on her hands? Do you think she’ll love you then?”
Maverick swore an oath. “I’ll take her away; she’ll never find out!”
“Sooner or later,” Joe said softly, still holding the deadly shotgun, “someone will tell her, and every day will be a hell for you, afraid this will be the day someone tells her and she leaves you.”
Maverick hesitated and the pistol wavered in his hand. What Joe McBride said was true. Sooner or later, Cayenne would find out and he’d lose her. He could not kill the father and have the daughter. But he had sworn, oh, God, he had sworn!
Joe said, “And what of my other daughters? What about my orphaned little girls?”
“That’s not my problem!” Maverick snapped, but in his troubled mind he saw all those freckled-faced children looking up at him from the buggy.
“Isn’t it?” Joe said softly. “I think my Annie would have raised a son who cared, would have felt responsible. Funny how things turn out. She always promised me a son and now you’ve come to kill me.”
“We waited and waited!” Maverick’s voice rose with passion. “She said you’d come for us, that we’d all be together as a family, that you’d be the father I never had, but you never came! So now I’ve come for you, you rotten sonovabitch! An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth like your Bible says!”
Away off down the road, he heard the sound of galloping horses. Maverick turned, glancing out the window. Two riders were coming at a fast pace. In the growing darkness, he saw only their silhouettes, but they weren’t going to get here fast enough to stop him from killing Joe McBride. “I intended to put you through a Comanche torture,” he said, “but now I’m just gonna kill you clean and leave.”
“Vengeance is mine, says the Lord; I shall repay. But go ahead and shoot,” the man said softly. “My back ought to be big enough for an easy target!”
“No!” Maverick swore, gesturing with the pistol. “Damn you! Turn around! You’re better armed than I am! I’ll give you a better than even chance! Cee Cee tells me you’re a crack shot! Let’s see if you can turn and fire, nail me with that shotgun before I get you first!”
The man shook his head slowly and the first rays of the rising moon glinted in the red hair. “No,” he said, “I’m not going to ease your conscience. You’ll just have to shoot me down in cold blood! Besides, even to save my own life, I don’t think I could pull a trigger on Annie’s son!”
The riders galloped closer now. Maverick could hear shouting but the words were carried away by the wind. He had to move fast or they’d get here in time to stop him. And yet, his emotions were in a turmoil. He’d expected to enjoy this moment when he finally had Joe McBride in his gun sights, had relished the image of the rotten villain on his knees begging for his life. But all he’d heard about this man told him Joe McBride was everything Annie had told her son he was. A man who would face Comanche torture for others was not going to beg for his life.
Tears ran down Maverick’s face. “At the end, they tortured her, hurt her too bad to travel! I couldn’t take her out of there, but she was still alive! I couldn’t take her but I couldn’t leave her there alive!”
“Oh, my God,” Joe said softly, “you poor, poor devil! You had to—?”
“Yes,” Maverick lost control and sobbed, “she begged me to kill her! End her pain! I couldn’t take her with me, she was hurt too bad! I—I cut her throat rather than leave her for them to torture! I held her in my arms as she died and the last name on her lips was yours! Yours! Now turn around, you sonovabitch, and use that shotgun! And when you try, I’m gonna blow your guts out!”
The two horses galloped into the barnyard now. He heard Cayenne’s voice shouting. She wouldn’t get here in time, Maverick thought, his gun hand trembling in indecision; she’d know he’d killed her father. But he’d lived the past ten years only for this moment when he could gun Joe McBride down for failing Annie, failing him.
“No,” Joe said uncertainly, “I—I don’t think I can kill you, even to save myself!”
Maverick heard the riders dismount and run for the house. “No, Maverick!” Cayenne screamed. “Oh, my God! Stop, Maverick!”
He had to finish quickly. “Turn around! ” Maverick ordered. “You talk big, but when you turn, you’ll take that shot rather than die! No man wants to die! Turn around and we’ll see what kind of man you are!”
“And what kind of man you are,” Joe said softly, and he turned around even as Cayenne’s feet pounded up the creaking porch steps.
In that instant as the man turned, Maverick wavered, seeing faces in his mind. the plain, beloved face of Annie; the trusting face of Cayenne, who had led him innocently to her father; even the faces of four little freckled-faced, red-haired girls looking up at him from the buggy.
But, too, in that split second, Maverick remembered all the years he had waited for his vengeance, how he had planned it with relish. His outstretched gun hand would kill the big man at point-blank range and he knew he was faster than the other. Then suddenly, he saw the insane eyes of Little Fox. Was he no better than that—a crazed animal, a burned-out shell of a man?
Maverick’s hand trembled in that split s
econd as Joe turned around. And in that heartbeat of a moment, he made his decision because of the man he was. Very slowly, his hand dropped limply to his side, the pistol useless.
He couldn’t do it. After all these years, he couldn’t pull the trigger on the man the two women in Maverick’s life loved so. Even if Joe cut down on him with that shotgun as he turned, Maverick could not pull that trigger.
They both stood facing each other and Maverick winced, awaiting the loud explosion of the buckshot tearing a hole in his belly, awaiting the agony of slow death. He heard Cayenne’s small feet running across the squeaky porch.
And only then did Maverick blink unbelievingly in the moonlit darkness, taking another look at the man’s face as he realized that neither of them had pulled a trigger. “My, God! Your eyes! You’re blind! Blind!”
Joe nodded, staring back at him with tortured, empty sockets. “You didn’t know? A crazed Comanche did that with a burning stick when I went in to carry the ransom.”
Wave after wave of tumultuous emotion swept over Maverick as he stared. He had almost murdered a blind man! “She forgave you,” he whispered, tears running down his face, “but I never did. . . .”
“Maverick,” Joe said softly, the shotgun hanging from his burned, twisted fingers, “your problem, the whip that drives you, is that you’ve never been able to live with what you did. Even though she begged you to do it, you can’t forgive yourself! God has forgiven both of us, as has Annie. I’m sure of it, Son. Can’t you find it in your heart to forgive me, to forgive yourself?”
Maverick gave a cry like a wounded animal as the truth of Joe’s words knifed into his soul like a hot blade. With a curse and a sob, he brushed past Cayenne as she and the old Don entered the room, staggering outside to lean against an old chinaberry tree in the light of a Comanche moon.
Comanche Cowboy (The Durango Family) Page 39
