by Jeanne Rose
LOUISA KEPT TO THE fringes of the camp, though she remained near the captives. Tezco and Xosi questioned Monte Ryerson and the mustached man, who claimed they'd been tracking the bandits to get Roberto and Shorty back. Monte tried to bargain for everyone's release. But as Louisa expected, Tezco sneered at the offer of money and cattle.
"And how many other men rode with you?" He remained angry that no one would say for sure. "Are they waiting to attack us tomorrow?"
"Don't think you'll have to worry about that," drawled Monte with a shrug, keeping Tezco on edge. "I'm sure they're long gone."
Tezco swore, getting impatient again. And as before, Xosi calmed him with one touch.
"Perhaps you will change your mind about telling the truth when you are hungry," she told Monte Ryerson. She waved a spoonful of beans before his mouth. "Perhaps you will not eat again until you tell us everything we want to know."
Monte looked a bit uncomfortable as she swiped the spoon right across his lips. He turned his head, quickly wiping his mouth on his shoulder.
"You do not like our food?" Xosi asked. "Then go hungry."
Xosi moved away, Tezco following to speak with her.
In spite of her anxiety, Louisa yawned. It was getting late. But neither could she allow herself to sleep nor could she make plans with the other captives. She remained very aware of Sam, who seemed equally cognizant of her. At least his eyes were focused on her every time she glanced at him...until he got hold of Xosi's discarded plate. Having a difficult time attempting to feed himself with his hands tied together, he managed to take an awkward bite.
"No!"
Horrified, guilt-ridden because she hadn't warned him, Louisa bolted to Sam's side, kicking the tin plate over in the dirt, and stomping on the beans.
Sam appeared as astonished as Tezco and Xosi, who both turned to look. The bandit leader came closer.
And Louisa said sheepishly, "You said the captives couldn't have any food for a day or two, right?"
"You are enforcing my commands now, querida?"
Shrugging, she turned and walked away, figuring Tezco could puzzle it out. Hopefully, he wouldn't have time to dog her for the truth. In case he thought to anyway, she traveled even farther from camp, avoiding the skin of the jaguar stretched out and weighted down by stones. Even in her strained circumstances, she felt another twinge. The beautiful hide had covered a living creature such a short time ago.
Perhaps she'd soon be dead as well – she'd meant what she said about either gaining her freedom or dying. She only hoped she wouldn't cause someone else's death. She couldn't help worrying a bit about the amount of jimsonweed she'd mixed into the beans. Magdalena had said the plant could be very toxic.
But what other choice had she had?
Shivering in the chilly high desert night, she wrapped her arms about herself and walked out to visit the horses. Defiant nickered a welcome and she leaned into his warmth, stroking his nose.
"Good boy. I'm going to get you home if it's the last thing I ever do."
She glanced up when another horse snorted nearby – a black one who nearly blended with the darkness. Yet, she could make out the familiar shape...
"El Tigre!" She could hardly believe her eyes. "What are you doing here?"
The stallion snorted again and tossed his head.
"Tigre!" She hugged his neck and made over him, noting the spirited animal was secured with two ropes, not one. Then she ran her hands along his withers and over his back, the hair on which was matted down from a saddle. "Who's been riding you? Sam?"
Of course. No one else could do so.
The same way no one else could ever possess her heart, no matter how much she wished differently.
CRAMPED AND ACHING, Sam wished he could stretch out on a nice soft bed. A bed? Slowly coming to on the hard ground of the bandit camp, he realized he'd dozed off.
And someone was groaning nearby. A bandit staggered by, dropped his rifle to the ground and vomited. Then the man collapsed in the mess.
What the hell? Sam tried to raise his head, swallowed back a wave of nausea and dizziness. Damn, he didn't feel too good himself. His hands were numb from his wrists being tied, but it was his stomach and his head that were driving him crazy. How could he plan their escape when he felt like this?
The world stopped spinning long enough for him to glance about the camp. Everything seemed quiet. And a line of light edged the eastern mountains. Dawn. Why weren't the bandits getting ready to ride? He noticed a couple of others lying a few yards away.
One of them moaned. "What is the matter with us, amigo?"
"I think I am dying," the other gasped. "Poison."
Poison?
The beans.
Sam remembered Louisa kicking the plate away from him. He'd been stunned by the action, had wondered if her captivity had finally driven her a little off in the head. But now it was his own mind that was muddled – he could recall very little of what happened the rest of the night. Everything had seemed a little dreamlike. Still did. Like the image of Louisa flickering and wavering above him right now.
"Sam."
Her voice was solid and real and sounded concerned. "Louisa?"
She knelt beside him, slid his head in her lap, stroked his brow with gentle hands. "Oh, my God, why did you have to eat?"
He wished he felt good enough to fully enjoy her ministrations. "I'm dying?"
Her dark eyes filled with tears. "Surely not. You didn't have that much."
Which didn't reassure him a whole lot, though somehow it didn't seem to matter. "Well, at least I can die in your arms."
"Oh, Sam!" She choked back a sob.
His heart swelled. "And at least you care. I've never seen you cry before."
"Of course I care," she said, lips trembling. "I love you, Sam. I always have."
Someone nearby cleared his throat, making Louisa stiffen.
"What kind of poison was in the beans?" Monte Ryerson asked.
For a moment, Sam had forgotten about the other prisoners, had forgotten where he was and that he intended to get Louisa out of here, not die in her arms.
Louisa sniffed and straightened her shoulders. "Jimsonweed."
"The leaves?" asked Ryerson.
"A few seeds. I crushed them, mixed the juice in the big cooking pot."
"Only a few seeds shouldn't kill anyone," the rancher said. "Most jimsonweed isn't lethal, especially at this time of the year. It just makes you sick as a dog."
Monte Ryerson didn't sound sick at all. Once again, Sam tried to raise his head, noting his surroundings didn't rock quite so crazily.
"You'd better get busy and cut us free," Ryerson told Louisa. "I don't know how long the bandits will be down."
She helped Sam sit up, then got to her feet, picking up a knife she'd laid on the ground. "I already cut the Pueblos loose."
"I saw," said Ryerson.
"They took off like the devil hisself was after 'em," added Jake O'Brian.
He and Roberto and Shorty all seemed fully awake and in charge of themselves.
"That wasn't very grateful of those Indians," groused Louisa, working at Ryerson's bonds. "After I went to all the trouble of warning everyone last night."
Though his mind worked slowly, Sam started realizing the full import of what had gone on. Louisa had poisoned the beans in an escape attempt. And she'd obviously warned the other captives, which is why none of them were sick.
Except him.
His soft mood changed as he wondered if she'd been weeping out of guilt, rather than true caring.
"You warned everyone but me?" he asked angrily.
"Sorry, I just didn't get the chance."
The same words he himself had used when he'd tried to apologize the night before. His stomach clenched again. His head pounded. "Poisoning me is a bit far to go for revenge, don't you think? Because I couldn't say I loved you exactly when you wanted me to?"
Making a disgusted noise, Louisa turned to scowl at him. "Don't
flatter yourself. I don't have time to think about revenge for something so petty."
With a savage movement, Ryerson broke the cords Louisa had been sawing at. "Suppose we can wait until we're on the trail back to Texas to finish this lovers' spat?"
Flushing, Louisa threw Sam a filthy look and moved on to Jake O'Brian.
But thinking of how sick with worry he'd been over her since she'd been taken, Sam remained angry, slightly dizzy, not caring that he was making a scene. "How about cutting me loose first? At least you owe me that."
"Go ahead," Ryerson told her as he helped himself to a knife and a pistol from a fallen bandit's belt. "I'll take care of Jake and the others."
Louisa scowled ferociously as she cut Sam's bonds. He scowled back, rubbed his wrists and shook his arms. She backed up, didn't offer to help as he got to his feet. When the world spun again, he stood still, squeezed his eyes shut for a second.
When he opened them again, a man seemed to leap out of nowhere to grab Louisa. Tezco.
She cried out, "Oh-h!" and dropped her knife.
One hand twisting her long braid of hair, the bandit leader savagely jerked her back against his chest and held a blade to her throat. The feathered bear claw necklace popped out of the neck of her shirt.
"Throw down your weapons or I will kill her!"
Ryerson stood still, frozen in the process of freeing the last captive, Shorty. Roberto paused, as well, looking stricken.
"I will slit her throat, I swear!"
Knives dropped to the ground and Ryerson threw aside his pistol. While Sam attempted to gauge the distance between himself and Tezco, tried to decide if his wobbly reflexes were fast enough to take the other man. He might be ticked as anything at Louisa, but he still loved her.
As if second-guessing him, Tezco dragged Louisa backward. His unusual knife had an inlaid handle and a very sharp-looking dark blade. He glared at Sam. "Move over there with the rest of them, soldier."
Sam did as ordered, his mind churning. Perhaps he couldn't use force but he could try to reason with the man. "You wouldn't really kill her," he told Tezco. Not when the Mexican was so enamored of Louisa.
But Tezco appeared unmoved. "I do not want to harm her, but you have left me with no choice." He assessed the group, settling on Roberto. "Tie up the big man, then the soldier." And when Roberto didn't immediately obey, he shouted, "Now! This woman saved your life. Would you sacrifice hers?"
That threat put the cowboy in motion. Roberto had tied Sam's hands again when Louisa cried out.
Sam went rigid. "You're hurting her!"
"She deserves some pain. My men and my sister are too sick to walk."
Ryerson said, "They'll be better in a coupla hours." Then he asked, "What about you – didn't eat any beans?"
"I wasn't hungry." And when Roberto had finished tying up O'Brian, Tezco told the man to throw him the pistol. With a smooth motion, he finally released Louisa and scooped it up. "Now tie the hands of this wild cat," he told the cowboy, pushing her toward him. "I do not trust her for even one minute."
"You're smart not to," spat Louisa. "Because I'd do the very same thing again."
"I have been far too kind to you, querida. You do not deserve such treatment."
Meaning the Mexican was going to mistreat her from now on? Sam gritted his teeth, knowing he'd never be able to stand that. He'd either kill Tezco or be killed himself.
"KILLING, taking a life is sacred when it is done to feed the gods." Beaufort pointed out a scene of sacrifice in the carvings of the sacred wheel. It lay in three pieces on a makeshift table in his personal quarters.
"So beautiful!" breathed the comely female servant Beaufort had brought in to amuse himself today.
Of course, she was probably far more impressed with the sheen of the gold than the true significance of the ancient artifact upon which she was gazing.
"But the wheel is broken -- will you join it together, O Great God?"
"As soon as the fourth and last piece reaches our new city." And as soon as Beaufort himself inserted the most important part, the center with its sun god face and hollow interior meant to hold a still-warm heart. Of course, until it was time for that final ceremony, he'd stored the center in the pyramid's treasure-laden Tesoreria. And now he threw a cloth over the rest of the wheel. "Tezcalipoca should be arriving any day."
Smoking Mirror would be surprised to see the wonders Beaufort's followers had wrought in the narrow valley. Working day and night, they'd uncovered an entire side of the stone pyramid, dug irrigation ditches that snaked out from the springs and nourished grassy plants and newly planted crops. They'd caught birds bare-handed, had torn off feathers and sewed until their fingers bled to fashion splendid costumes for their god. They'd built a mudbrick house for him and several smaller ones for his highest ranking warriors.
The common people did whatever he bade them, were filled with rapture if they could but breathe the same air as their exalted leader. They didn't care if they had to live in crumbling shelters fashioned of brush or stones or wood. They lived to serve.
Which was as it should be.
The number of his followers having swelled with the addition of entire villages of Indians from isolated villages in the mountains, Beaufort/Quetzalcoatl provided for them all. Though out of season, tomatoes, yams and others delicacies ripened with supernatural briskness in soil that had been blessed by sacrificial blood. Flowers bloomed that were usually not seen beyond spring or summer. In awe, the peasants bowed before him, most flattening themselves completely against the ground.
But the miracles were just beginning.
Courageous hearts had already been cut out on the altar at the top of the pyramid; yet the completed sacred wheel would need the bravest heart of all. Then and only then, when that steaming organ occupied the wheel's center, when the correct incantations were said, would the gods truly live again, breath in the flesh, bless the Mexica with plenty and splendor.
Beaufort felt himself ready to take on this highest task, to truly become Quetzalcoatl. King of the gods, he would raise the world out of darkness, stop the sun from dying, give his people the strength and courage to dominate the earth.
He had only one niggling doubt...and that concerned his holy celibacy.
Even a god sometimes had needs.
Thinking about that now, Beaufort turned to his pretty servant. "Now you will amuse me, sweet one. Take off your clothing."
"Yes, O Great God." She shimmied out her tunic and skirt, revealing voluptuous brown thighs, rounded hips, and high firm breasts with dark nipples. She presented herself proudly without a blush, was certainly no maiden.
Actually, Beaufort suspected the woman had been something of a lightskirt in her own village. Which was good, considering his taste as an observer had become increasingly demanding. He hardened beneath his robe.
"Now sit down on the bed and part your legs – I shall call in the young men who are to be your partners."
Both Zapotec Indians from the south, they were captives slated for the altar. And, as such, were to be indulged in any kind of diversion, allowed anything but their freedom. Beaufort stepped discreetly into the shadows but watched intently as his eager servant seduced the young men with her mouth and tongue and hands, soon had them naked, aroused and panting.
She glanced Beaufort's way, sloe-eyed as she rolled the most excited of the captives onto his back and mounted him. Rocking her hips, riding him, she parted the lips of her sex so that the slippery pumping movement of the man's engorged penis could be plainly seen.
Beaufort nearly lost hold of his senses, caught himself at the very last moment.
Turning away for the first time since he'd begun his little voyeuristic rituals, he assured himself that captives deserved every joy. Their paltry lives would soon end, their blood would soon seep into the earth, their hearts would be small, barely significant gifts for the gods.
Still, what a price one had to pay for eternity.
CHAPTER FIFTE
EN
THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS crept by like eternity for Louisa. She'd come so close to winning freedom for herself and the other captives, so near to escaping the clutches of the bandits. The bandits had recovered from the poisoning, of course, and only Tezco's protection had saved her from their angry revenge.
Having threatened harm himself, she was surprised when the worst he offered was separation from her fellow prisoners and a cold attitude. But then, however violent his band might be, she'd come to believe Tezco himself was truly no worse than a desperate thief.
Not that the knowledge completely banished her fear of him.
Or made her desire him.
For Louisa wanted only Sam. She agonized over his ill-timed declaration of love. Could dream of nothing else but trying to heal the rift between them. What she would give to talk to him, argue with him, simply lie beside him and exchange sweet words in the night.
But she had no occasion to speak to him at all for some time after the poisoning. Never had a chance to approach him until the afternoon the bandits lined up no more than two abreast to file through a particularly narrow pass. Tezco had left her behind and rode on ahead, an uncharacteristic action. She slowed Defiant and nudged him into a shallow area off to the side until she spotted Sam on El Tigre. The man looked grim and haggard, had a big bruise on his jaw.
"Are you all right?" she asked, moving Defiant over beside him. She wanted to touch Sam, to tell him she loved him.
"I'm alive."
"You've been eating?" She was worried because Tezco had threatened to let the prisoners go hungry.
Sam gazed at her as if to ask why she should care. "We had food." He added, "And it wasn't even poisoned."
She swallowed guiltily. "I told you I was sorry." Though he'd made her angry at the time, too annoyed and distracted to tell him about the beans. "I wouldn't poison you intentionally, you know that."
And hadn't he remembered her telling him that she loved him? But he said nothing now, didn't say he forgave her, rode along gazing straight ahead. She sighed.
