Eyes of the Cat

by Mimi Riser

“Sí, Señor Keed,” Tabitha mumbled while counting the corral’s fence posts and the horses inside in a mental wrestling match with herself to keep all other thoughts at bay. Especially the thought that she was being watched.

  Multiplying the number of posts by the number of horses, she began calculating the square root of the resulting sum as her eyes scanned the surrounding shadows. Empty. Nothing to see except the primitive prairie night and Castle MacAllister looming out of it, glowing like some mythical El Dorado. When she glanced back toward the corral, she realized with a start that she couldn’t even see Kathy.

  Kid Connors had vanished! And so had the black mare.

  Gulp.

  Don’t panic, don’t panic, Tabitha ordered herself. She wouldn’t just ride off and leave me…

  Would she?

  “Buenos tardes, mí amigo. Charming outfit. But I think I liked you better as a girl.”

  Drat the man, if he wasn’t a wizard, after all.

  Heaving a gut-wrenching sigh, she turned to meet a smoky gray gaze—gasp—then quickly averted her eyes so he wouldn’t see the shock in them.

  “Buenos tardes, señor. Eez good night for ride, no?” she offered meekly.

  “Oh, it’s a grand night for riding.” Simon shifted the weight of the large silver-studded saddle and bridle he held in his arms.

  “Finally! It’s so nice to find something at last that we can all agree on,” Kathy remarked pleasantly over his shoulder as she cocked the revolver she’d just jabbed into the base of his skull. “And how generous of you to bring us such expensive tack. Now why don’t you be a good little wizard and saddle Esmeralda for me.” With her free hand, she drew the black mare forward by its rope halter.

  Simon’s gray eyes went almost black as the gun barrel bit harder into him. It appeared this was a unique situation for him, one he’d probably never experienced before. He looked like he wished he wasn’t experiencing it now.

  “That happens to be my mare, and her name is Petunia,” he ground out through clenched teeth.

  “Then she’ll be so relieved to become my mare and have it changed. She hates being called Petunia. You can see it in her eyes,” Kathy told him. “Pedro, come hold Esmeralda’s halter while Mr. Wizard saddles her. You like the name Esmeralda, don’t you? Why, she’s as graceful as a flamenco dancer. Her hooves will sound like castanets as we fly across the prairie on her back.” She grinned at Tabitha,

  “Sí, señor.” Moving cautiously around Simon to take the halter, Tabitha tried not to grin too broadly in return. The man looked steamed enough as it was.

  “All right! But get that damn gun out of my neck so I can move properly,” he snarled.

  Kathy obliged him by backing off half a pace, and he reluctantly hoisted the ornate saddle onto the mare’s back—then spun around.

  His eyebrows rose a fraction at the Kid Connors costume.

  So did Kathy’s at the sight of the revolver Simon had been hiding beneath the saddle. Quick as a cat, she switched the aim of her own weapon.

  And Tabitha’s black-dyed brows popped up the highest of all.

  “Drop it—nice and easy,” Kathy purred. “Or you’ll have to explain to Alan how you happened to let me blow her head off.”

  Simon’s gaze turned to steel. “What makes you think I won’t blow yours off first?” he asked in a tone to match.

  “Don’t be absurd.” She laughed. “Everyone knows the famous Smoke Elliott is far too much of a gentleman to shoot a woman.”

  “What woman? I don’t see any women around here.”

  “All right, if that’s the way you want to play it.” Kathy sighted down the barrel of her revolver. “Tabitha dear, remember, you did ask me to shoot you if we got caught.”

  It told Tabitha all she needed to know. She trembled so violently, the mare nearly shied on her. “No! I never meant that! You know I didn’t really mean it! Please, Mr. Elliott, don’t…don’t let her…”

  It must have been the sheer panic in her voice that decided him. With a blistering curse, Simon knelt and laid his revolver on the ground.

  Like lightning, Tabitha ducked down and retrieved it.

  “Very nicely done. For a moment there, you almost had me convinced I was going to shoot you,” Kathy commended her. “If you can’t spot a bluff any better than that, I’d stay away from the poker table if I were you,” she advised Simon.

  He responded with a lethal look and a few curses that made his previous one seem as cool and refreshing as iced lemonade.

  “Spoil sport,” she said. And promptly ordered him to remove his boots. Which was the easiest part of the next few minutes, because he turned out to be a good deal more attached to his trousers than he had been to his footgear.

  “Don’t be shy, pardnuh. You said y’self ain’t no wimmin ’round heah,” Kid Connors coaxed. “Y’think you gots anythin’ Pedro an’ me ain’t a seed b’fore?”

  Pedro turned redder than a basket of ripe chili peppers at a sudden vivid memory. It wasn’t of Michelangelo’s David either.

  “I just didn’t want to overawe you,” Simon said wickedly.

  As his hands moved to his belt buckle, Tabitha speedily decided that she was quite capable of finishing the saddling on her own. There was no sense in embarrassing Mr. Elliott any more than necessary. For that matter, there was a lot less sense in embarrassing herself.

  One, two, three, four… Goodness, look at all the little silver conchos decorating this leather…

  By the time she had finished counting them, Simon’s trousers and boots had been hurled deep into the center of a thick stand of prickly pear cactus, and the rest of him had been tied to the corral fence with his own belt. Oddly enough, however, he didn’t look fit to be tied. Leaning against the corral as though he were simply pausing in the middle of a midnight stroll, he watched Kathy and Tabitha mounting his mare, that lazy grin playing about his lips, and his eyes glinting with a devilish satisfaction. He seemed to be expecting something.

  What, exactly, the riders found out before they’d trotted sixty feet into the scrub. A distinctive whistle fluted over the prairie. The black mare began dancing under them, like she’d suddenly decided to demonstrate the trickier steps of a fandango. Instead of fighting with her, Kathy let the reins go slack. A sharper whistle sliced the air, and Tabitha had to tighten her grip as the mare wheeled about and cantered back to push her soft nose against Simon’s solid shoulder.

  “Good girl, Petunia.” He flashed Kathy a butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth grin.

  She ignored it. “Now listen to me, Esmeralda honey, as one female to another, never come running when a man whistles. It makes them think they own you.”

  “I do own her!”

  “You see what I mean? He thinks of you as nothing but his property.” Kathy stroked the mare’s sleek neck. “All men are like that, you know. The only thing they want from us gals is to be able to dominate us. Is that what you want, Esmeralda, to be some man’s slave? I think you have more horse sense than that.”

  The mare’s ears flicked back as though she thought so, too. But she was evidently a fair-minded sort, and batted her big beautiful eyes at Simon, giving him a chance for rebuttal, apparently.

  He didn’t take it.

  “Do you have any idea how asinine you sound talking to a horse that way?” he asked Kathy.

  “There’s nothing asinine about giving a strong, intelligent creature a chance to make her own decisions. Is there, Esmeralda?”

  She was answered with an agreeable nicker.

  “Her name is Petunia!”

  He received an aggravated snort.

  “I told you, she doesn’t like Petunia,” Kathy said. “Now which will it be, Esmeralda? Do you want to come with me and be treated with respect, or stay here and be treated like you-know-what?”

  The mare pranced a few steps sideways, tossing her head and whinnying.

  “That’s what I thought.” Her rider grinned, and without another look at Simon, reined the mare towa
rd the open range.

  “Petunia!”

  A shrill whistle brought the black head swinging back to the corral for an instant, and Esmeralda gave a final long whinny. It sounded a little like an apology.

  But a lot more like horsey laughter.

  Chapter 8

  There was no way they could go on to Abilene after that, not dressed as they were. Anyone from the castle who came after them now would be looking for a black clad gunslinger and a Mexican youth. Granted, the tartan shawl would have given Tabitha away in any case, but she had been planning on ditching it before they reached the station. She’d only worn it for the ride there, because spring nights on the high plains could be as cold as the days were hot.

  Crowded behind Kathy in the leather armchair known sometimes as a western saddle, she pulled the makeshift serape closer around herself as she considered the “Plan B” they’d chosen. It would delay when she got back to Philadelphia by another week or three, but she could live with that, just so long as she did get back. She could live with quite a bit, she realized, just so long as she could continue living, period. The threat of death had given her a brand new perspective on life.

  “I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you. It was only card game gossip, after all. Geordie doesn’t like Alan very much, you know. And he’d been drinking pretty heavily that night. Maybe he made the whole thing up,” Kathy was saying. “Now that I think about it, I don’t recall anyone else mentioning that Alan even had a wife, let alone that he killed her.”

  “I have. Alan himself,” Tabitha replied bleakly. “He admitted flat out he was responsible for her death.”

  “Maybe he was merely trying to frighten you.”

  “If he was, he succeeded.”

  “And what I just added to the story has only frightened you more.” Kathy sighed. “It’s an old ailment of mine. Hoof-in-Mouth disease.”

  “Don’t be silly. It’s far better that I know exactly what I’m up against,” Tabitha assured her.

  It was a relief even, in a ghastly sort of way, because of the surfacing alien part of her that hadn’t really wanted to leave in the first place. It might have subconsciously made her do something stupid. Like allowing herself to be recaptured. But now she knew that was completely out of the question. Going back wouldn’t mean just the loss of her self-respect and independence, everything she valued about her life. It could well mean the loss of her life itself.

  What Kathy had just related was that Alan’s wife had been killed because she’d been trying to run away from him. And according to Alan himself, her death had been horrible.

  That was the confusing part. Beyond confusing. Almost unbelievable. Tabitha could imagine him killing in self-defense or unthinking rage, as he might have killed Dunstan that night if they hadn’t stopped him. But to do what he said had been done to that woman? It didn’t seem possible. How could a man who was capable of the tenderness he sometimes displayed also be able to commit such a cold-blooded atrocity?

  Perhaps he was mad. Not just eccentric like the rest of the MacAllisters, but genuinely insane.

  It wasn’t a new idea, of course. Tabitha had considered it the night of that infuriating mock wedding. But then Dunstan’s attack and all that followed had pushed the concern to the back of her thoughts. There had been so many other things about Alan that disturbed her, criminal insanity had seemed just one more drop in an already overflowing bucket. But that was before she had heard the reason for Heather MacAllister’s murder.

  And now I’ve given him the same motivation.

  She shivered.

  Suddenly, even Philadelphia didn’t seem safe. With the modern-day train travel, it was too accessible. And he would know she was heading there. That he might not follow never entered her head. If she was sure of nothing else, Tabitha was certain that Alan would pursue. He had made it abundantly clear he considered her his undeniable property, that no power in or out of creation could induce him to let her go. And that was just one more sign of insanity, wasn’t it? It had to be. What else could prompt such an unyielding, unalterable fixation?

  “Tabitha, you’re going to hurt something if you don’t relax. I feel like I’ve got Lot’s wife riding behind me—after she was turned into a pillar of salt. You’re stiffer than a new corset.”

  “I’m sorry. I know I am.” Tabitha sighed and tried to unlock her spine. Kathy was right. If she didn’t move with the rhythm of the mare, she could rattle her kidneys loose. And she might need them yet.

  One step at a time, she cautioned herself. It was a philosophy that had helped her through the dark days immediately following her aunt’s death. Sometimes the only way you could survive was to take it one moment at a time. The first bit of business was to stay hidden for the next several days, until their trail was cold. After that?

  Well, she would deal with the future when it became the present.

  “Are you certain these friends of yours will be willing to shield us?” A lot hinged on that, of course.

  “Absolutely. The Garcias adore me. They’re the ones who clued me in to the MacAllister money and Angus’s search for brides, in the first place. They’re bandito stock themselves. Carmen and I ran some delightful cons together when I was staying in El Paso. But when things started getting a little hot for them there, and she told me her family had decided to go straight, I’m the one who staked them to this ranch we’re headed for. Took me a long grueling night at the poker tables to do it, too.”

  “How much farther is it?” Tabitha glanced at the gray predawn sky. They had been riding all night with only a few breaks to rest Esmeralda, but she couldn’t tell how far they’d actually come because there’d been such a tangle of circling and doubling back and detouring over rock hard stretches of earth where hoof prints wouldn’t show. Kathy had left a veritable fox trail for anyone who tried to track them. Unless Alan was a bloodhound—or a genuine Comanche, after all—he’d never be able to follow it.

  She gave a humorless laugh at the thought, but quickly bit it back. She didn’t want to laugh too soon. If he had returned earlier than expected, or if Simon had broken loose, there could already be an impromptu posse after them. Alan wouldn’t have waited for daylight. And she doubted that Simon would have, either; he was turning out to be just full of tricks, even for a wizard.

  “The ranch is beyond that next knoll. Not too far. We’ll make it before full light,” Kathy said, easing one of Tabitha’s concerns at least.

  Regardless of how indecipherable their trail was, a tracker would hardly be stymied by it if they were still on horseback come sunrise. On this open expanse of range, they could be spotted a mile away.

  Which was how all three females knew there was trouble, even before the shots.

  Picking her way gracefully through the scrub at the top of the low knoll, Esmeralda pulled to a sudden stop, her velvety nostrils flared and her expressive ears at full alert. Ahead and a little below them lay the Garcia spread: a rough, narrow house dug halfway into the sun baked soil, surrounded by a couple of corrals and several large sheds, all lit by the first rosy rays of dawn peeking over the horizon.

  And the last smoldering remains of what only hours earlier had been Esiquio Garcia and his three sons.

  Before burning, they had been tied to the wheels of the wagon Tabitha had seen them all laughing and singing in on her way to the castle that first day. Somehow she knew it was the same people and the same wagon, even though there was little left to identify.

  In front of her, Kathy sat frozen, still as stone, except for the hand that quietly unholstered and cocked one of her revolvers. Her voice sounded like a rusty hinge. “God… Carmen was always afraid of something like this.” She swung her right leg over the pommel and slipped to the ground. “It’s why her family relocated up here; they’d made some bad enemies in the south. This could be a payback for an old grievance…or just the work of some bored prairie pirates. Either way, I’ve got to check it out. You stay here.”

  “
Like hell.” Tabitha half fell out of the saddle to land on unsteady feet beside her. Sudden nausea had turned her legs rebellious and rubbery. She felt like a sailor who’d just touched land after weeks on a rolling deck. “I saw that family happy and smiling barely four days ago. I was going to try to hitch a ride to Abilene Station with them,” she choked out, as though that was reason enough for what she intended. “I’m coming with you.”

  Shrugging out of the tartan serape, she slung it into the waist high weeds and began pushing through them toward the homestead, her pulse racing and the gun she’d taken from Simon clutched in her hand.

  With quick strides, Kathy overtook her and moved ahead, the barrel of her own revolver sniffing through the tall grasses before her like a hunting dog’s muzzle. “All right then, we’ll both check it out. But keep behind me. And be careful where you point that thing. I hope you know how to use it.”

  I hope so, too.

  Frantically, Tabitha ransacked her brain for every scrap of information she had ever heard regarding the operation of firearms. Those adventure yarns Dr. Earnshaw used to spin for her had been full of gunfights, hadn’t they? One simply kept a steady hand, thumbed back the hammer, pointed, and squeezed the trigger, right? How difficult could it be?

  “I’ve done some target shooting,” she lied, to put Kathy’s mind at rest, if not her own. “But I’m afraid I’ve never fired at…anything living.”

  Kathy gave a small, harsh laugh. “If it comes to that, neither have I. At least not with the intention of doing any serious damage. I can’t stand the sight of blood, particularly my own,” she admitted. “Oh well, hopefully neither of us will have to find out how good we really are.”

  Nice hope.

  Tabitha didn’t have much faith in it, though. The closer they drew to the Garcias’ home, the more she sensed the danger permeating the area. It stank worse than the charred remains still smoking in the yard.

  Left alone on the knoll, and none too happy about it, Esmeralda waited several long, uneasy moments, tossing her head and snorting feathery wisps of steam into the cool dawn air. Then, at a sudden crackling of brush behind her, the mare abandoned her vigil and began a rapid trot down the slope after her companions.