The trapper who had first stolen her had been a bad man, but not as bad as this one. This man was evil. She narrowed her eyes.
The fire burned low, and night closed in on them tightly. She knew he could not see her, but she knew he could hear. And she knew something else. It gave her the strength she sought from deep within.
“Be afraid, bad man.”
Jake snorted his disgust. How dare the woman speak to him at all, much less issue such a warning?
“Be afraid,” she continued, “because you are a bad man and the Punishers can see you.”
Jake spat into the dying flames again, taking no pleasure from the angry hiss it spat back at him. He was about to tell the squaw bitch to shut the hell up when she repeated her strange words.
“Be afraid, bad man, because the Punishers have eagle eyes and magical powers and can see you through the darkness.”
Hating the fear that churned in his bowels, he tried to steel himself against the chill that crawled up his spine, but he was helpless in its grip. No doubt about it, Injun women were witchy, and the squaw’s words iced his blood. He remembered another woman long, long ago and touched the jagged scar on his face.
She’d been a pretty one, slim but busty. He’d caught her working alone, hoeing something in a planted field, and he did what a man had to do. She’d fought back, hell yes, she had fought. She was a rare one, beautiful and strong, and as she clawed at him and screamed, she screamed a curse at him in his own language. She spoke the white man’s language, and he had been overcome with rage. How could she have known his language, his language? She was less than an animal. It wasn’t right.
He had strangled her until he thought she was dead. But she wasn’t, and she screamed the curse again as her nails dug into his face and tore a jagged hole down his face.
“You are marked by the lightning … lightning will take you!”
Raven’s Wing smelled the white man’s fear. She could almost feel it, a wall of dark emotion coming at her through the night. She sniffed like a wolf scenting the wind, and held the other thing she knew close to her breast to keep it warm.
The Punishers were out there. She had heard them, the small sounds they made as they hid and watched; sounds the scarred man could not hear with his white man’s ears. They were hunters, but it was not game they hunted; it was the scarred man.
It made her wonder if some of her people had come for her, because whoever watched was wise to the ways of the ground, and trees, and wind. It made her smile in the darkness.
The trickster coyote must have put the thought in her head to call them the Punishers and frighten the scarred man. Yet she knew they were here to punish him. Why else did they hunt him? And he was, as she had accused him, a bad man. He must have harmed others; it was his nature.
Now fate had come for him. Raven’s Wing picked up a stick and poked at the fire. In response it flared back to life.
Good. Maybe they could see him better. Maybe they would strike tonight. She hoped so, prayed so. She did not want to feel his hands reaching for her again.
The Great Spirit was with them. He had delivered His word through the mouth of the Sioux woman. The lightning would, indeed, take the devil who had fathered him. He reached out and stroked the white streak in Blaze’s hair. But what about the thunder? Bane’s fists clenched involuntarily.
Then he noticed the darkening of the night. It began at the corners of his vision. The periphery faded, and objects directly in front of him began to lose definition. He blinked and raised his gaze skyward.
The moon was obscured. Even as he watched the stars winked out, seemingly one by one. He sniffed the air.
Rain clouds. An uncharacteristic chill trembled through his limbs. Head still lifted, he scented the wind once again.
It was coming soon. Under its cover they would put his plan in motion; the plan the wise woman had sent him from the Great Spirit.
Although they did not touch, Blaze could feel his tension. She also smelled the coming rain. Intuitively, she knew Bane would use it to aid them.
Moments later the first fat drops fell on the leaves of the tree beneath which they sheltered. Blaze ran a hand lightly over her hair and felt the moisture, then waited for the signal she knew would come from the man at her side. The irony of the moment—the weather—did not escape her.
Bane waited patiently until the rain fell in earnest. The downpour hitting foliage and pummeling the ground would cover all sounds of their approach. With the slightest nod of his head, he motioned Blaze to follow him.
Blaze tightened Lonesome’s cinch and climbed into the wet saddle, soaking the only part of her clothing still dry. Her horse fell in behind Bane’s as the mare picked her way carefully down the mountain slope. Having scouted the camp earlier, they would have no trouble finding it again, even in the driving rain.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THE SIOUX WOMAN HEARD THEM COMING, DESPITE the overlaying sound of the rain, and knew the scarred man had not. The only thing he had heard were the sounds she had made on behalf of the Punishers. Smiling to herself, she kept her head bowed, giving nothing away, as she packed her captor’s few belongings and secured them to the back of his saddle. Steeped in the comforting memory of the fear she had caused the scarred man, she did not hear him creep up behind her.
“Git out the way, squaw!”
She moved away from the horse, but not fast enough. He roughly grabbed her shoulder and spun her in the opposite direction, then punched her between the shoulder blades. The air whooshed out of her lungs, and she fell to her knees, sodden hair brushing the ground.
A grin wrinkled Jake’s scar. He felt a stirring in his loins and drew back his right leg.
Raven’s Wing heard her rib crack. Pain was a live thing eating into her core, devouring flesh and muscle and bone. She could no longer breathe. Blessedly semiconscious, she was barely aware when the scarred man kicked her on the other side.
The silent communication between Blaze and Bane was eloquent. The woman must not die. It was time.
The plan was to simply ride down on him. Mounted or unmounted, he would be no match for the two of them. They would probably even have the Sioux woman’s help. They would overpower him, tie him to his horse, and deliver his stinking hide to the sheriff.
Blaze regretted they had not moved sooner. Her consolation was that the woman would never again suffer his brutalities.
Bane made no signal, just put his heels to the black mare, and both horses barreled down the lower slope of the mountain at full gallop. There was no longer any need for stealth. Under cover of the storm, they had moved in as close as they needed to be. There was no way their prey could elude them now.
Blaze sat as far back in the saddle as she could and gave Lonesome his head. Squatting nearly to his haunches, front legs alternately bracing and moving forward, they sent a rain of rocks and dirt in front of them as they scrambled down the slope.
The black mare was slightly ahead when they reached the bottom. Hearing the commotion, Jake had looked up in alarm, turned, and run for his horse. The Sioux woman lay still.
Out of control, slipping and sliding as she neared the bottom, the black mare was off balance. Trying to help her regain her footing by remaining perfectly still in the center of his saddle cost Bane precious moments. Jake gained his horse and cruelly put his spurs into its ribs. With a squeal the animal leapt away. Bane was directly behind him, with Blaze in hot pursuit of them both. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the Indian woman hobbling along in a semicrouch.
Blaze saw him lean in his saddle and knew exactly what he was going to do. He had told her in the deep of the night.
“It will be easy to take him,” Bane had whispered under the sound of the wind, breath blowing softly on her neck. “We will use stealth and strike quickly.”
Blaze had no doubt Bane could overpower Jake even though the scarred man was much larger. Yet she was not completely at ease with the plan. “What if he gets to his horse
?”
“We will run him down. No horse is swifter than my black. I will take him from his saddle like the mountain lion takes the pronghorn. Then we will bind him and deliver him to his fate.”
No mention of weapons was made. Blaze knew they had to bring him back alive. Not because of the reward, but because Jake was Bane’s father. And Bane wanted to watch him dangle at the end of a rope. Blaze rubbed her neck reflexively. A bullet was too swift, too painless. Jake had to pay. Jake would pay. For all of them.
As Bane had boldly predicted, he took their quarry like a lion pulled down the antelope. Taking a moment to calculate distance and force, Bane coiled and, an instant later, sprang.
“Oof.” Jake grunted loudly when Bane made violent contact with his body. Nearly toppled from the saddle, he saved himself by grasping the pommel with both hands, one on top of the other.
Jake rooted to the saddle, momentum gone, Bane could not dislodge his quarry. Hanging on to the meaty form with his left arm around his waist, Bane drew back his right arm and aimed a punch at Jake’s right temple. He connected with a sickening thud.
Jake swayed, but did not go down. Blaze knew her moment had come. She knew it in her mind and in her body; in the heat that rose from the pit of her belly and coursed through her limbs, driving her.
Lonesome remained steady when Blaze launched herself from the saddle, staying near the black mare as they ran.
It all went wrong in the blink of an eye. Jake’s horse, thrown off balance and laboring under the additional weight, stumbled and went to its knees.
“Blaze!”
She felt him clutch at her, grabbing a handful of buckskin, and then they were rolling over the wet ground. As had been his intention, they were well away from the fallen horse, thrashing as it attempted to regain its feet. The black and Lonesome ran on while Bane and Blaze scrambled on hands and knees in Jake’s direction.
“Git away! Git away, dammit!” Jake howled, kicking with one leg at his still-struggling horse to induce it to get up, using the other to send a spray of rocks and damp sand in the direction of his pursuers.
Bane’s knife appeared in his hand. Blaze’s fingers gripped her pistol.
Bane reached him first and hauled him to his feet, cursing and grunting. Blaze leveled her gun.
“No, Blaze.” Bane had one of Jake’s arms twisted painfully behind his back. His knife was pressed to the man’s throat. “Get my hobbles.”
Their horses were just disappearing in a cloud of dust. Blaze put her fingers to lips and whistled. Lonesome turned around at once, the mare following.
In the meantime, Bane had wrestled Jake to the ground and had him facedown, eating mud, a knee in his kidneys and the knife still at his throat. Blaze’s left hand fisted, and the right had a death grip on the gun. The urge to kill rose in Blaze so powerfully it nearly choked her. Only a nudge from her horse distracted her from the object of her obsession. “Blaze … the hobbles.”
Fingers numb and fumbling, Blaze untied the latigo on the front left side of her saddle, freeing the leather-braided hobbles. She brought them to Bane and knelt at his side.
“Take the knife,” he ordered curtly.
Blaze didn’t hesitate. Braving the man’s stink, she leaned in and took the knife from Bane’s fingers. She couldn’t resist pressing the blade into the reeking, sweaty flesh. The man howled.
“Don’t kill me! What’d I do?”
Silently, Bane secured Jake’s hands with the hobbles, then grabbed a handful of sodden, greasy hair and pulled his head back. Blaze had to move quickly to keep the knife in position.
The Sioux woman had finally caught up with them. She knelt to one side, long, wet hair hanging on either side of her pinched face. Blaze knew she was in pain. But the ghost of a smile flitted across the woman’s lips when Bane thrust his face into Jake’s and bared his teeth.
“What did you do?” he hissed. With a brutal twist of his wrist, he turned Jake’s head toward Blaze. The rain, which had faded to a drizzle, suddenly seemed to renew its strength. A crack of thunder made Jake cringe.
“Look at her!” Bane gave Jake a shake. “Look at her and know what you did.”
Blaze touched the streak of white in her hair.
Jake tried to shake his head in bewildered denial, but Bane held him steady.
“You shot her. See the path of your bullet? You killed every person in her village and you hanged her brother.”
“You’re crazy, Injun!” Jake spat, and a gob of saliva landed on Bane’s cheek. He let the rain wash it away.
“And you’re a murderer,” Bane said quietly. “A murderer and a rapist.” His grip on Jake’s hair tightened, and he pulled the man’s head back farther.
“Gaaaack.”
“Is that all you’ve got to say … to your son? Rapist?”
Blaze flicked her gaze to the Sioux woman and knew she understood everything. She held out her free hand and the woman took it.
Warmth flowed up her arm and into her frozen chest. She breathed again. “Bane …”
“Look at her,” Bane commanded again. “See the mark of the lightning. It has come to strike you.”
This time when Bane twisted Jake’s neck, Blaze thought he had killed him, but he was only stunned. With immense effort, Bane swung him up onto his horse. Using his own rope, he bound his prisoner to the saddle.
“Take him into town, Blaze. Deliver him to the sheriff.”
Blaze shook her head. “Not without—”
“Go. I will take this woman back to her people. She is injured.”
Obediently, Blaze mounted her gelding, then raised her pistol and pointed it at Jake’s head. She thumbed the hammer.
“No, Blaze, no. The man who murdered your family, took my mother’s soul, and created his own fate will hang. Justice is in the rope, not the swift-flying bullet.”
He was right. She knew he was right. Even now she could see the extent and depth of the scarred man’s fear. He, too, knew. The storm had finally found him. She reached down and grabbed his horse’s reins.
Thunder roared, and lightning streaked the sky. Raindrops fell so hard they bounced upward from the desert floor. Bane came to Lonesome’s side. He placed a hand on her thigh.
“It is well done. And it is almost over. Winter comes. Spring follows.”
A hot lump rose in her throat. There was so much to say and no way to say it. Scalding tears were thankfully disguised by the rain. Blaze put her heels to her horse’s sides and they were on their way.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE RAIN SLACKED AND FINALLY CEASED. BREAKing through the clouds, the emerging sun felt good on Blaze’s cold, damp shoulders. Her mood, however, remained dark and chill. Even the steady, familiar sound of hooves hitting the ground held no comfort for her. Though distance to the town lessened, the distance from Bane increased. Blaze shivered.
And then it happened.
The ground was flat in the direction she rode; flat and featureless. Only an occasional scraggly bush or lonely cactus sprang from the dry, stony ground. She had no warning of the arroyo ahead. There was only time enough to feel Lonesome’s muscles bunch before they were flying over the deep, rain-eroded trough in the earth. Then she felt the tension on the reins tightly gripped in her fist.
Jake’s horse, underfed and overridden, hadn’t the same strength and power as the Appaloosa. His leap was late, weak, and the sudden tension in the reins jarred the bit in his mouth, throwing him off balance. His front feet scrabbled on the opposite wall of the arroyo, but could not gain purchase.
Blaze turned in her saddle to see the panicked animal trying to gain a foothold to climb out of the arroyo. All at once his back feet gained traction, and he lunged upward. She heard Jake grunting as he was jostled about, then scream when his mount, now climbing nearly straight upward overbalanced and fell backward. The reins were pulled roughly from her grip.
The sound was horrible. Jake’s scream was abruptly terminated when his horse landed on it
s back, crushing him. The animal’s frightened squeal did not quite cover the sharp crack of bone breaking. Blaze leapt from the saddle, wondering if it had been Jake’s skull, spine, or neck.
It didn’t matter. He was dead. He had to be.
Jake’s horse regained its feet and shook. The man’s body, where it was not tightly bound to the saddle, flopped obscenely. Trickles of blood ran from his nostrils. Blaze did not have to feel for the pulse in his neck.
Blaze remounted and looked skyward, surprised to see the sun still shining. It seemed a black cloud had just passed overhead. She felt chilled to the bone.
Bane. She needed to let Bane know what had happened. The blackness of foreboding was overwhelming and would not allow her to move forward. She had to go back.
Slipping and sliding, Lonesome obediently went down the embankment and stood quietly beside the dead man’s thin, bay gelding, allowing his rider to easily retrieve the animal’s trailing reins.
Blaze tugged gently on the leathers and pressed her heels to her mount’s sides. Lonesome started up the opposite embankment, but pressure on the reins nearly jerked her from the saddle. She turned her horse back and dismounted.
Running her hands over the bay gelding’s legs revealed only minor cuts and scratches. She pulled on the reins to turn him around, and he moved without hesitation. She led him to the arroyo’s steeply sloped side and started upward, stroking his neck and encouraging him all the way. Painfully, grunting and flaring his nostrils, the horse made it to the top.
At a signal, Lonesome returned to Blaze’s side and she climbed back into the saddle. When she started off, the gelding followed, although his limp was pronounced. There would be no going back to Bane. It was too far. The animal wouldn’t make it. He had endured enough as it was.
At least they were on the town side of the arroyo. Once again, Blaze started off.
Blaze of Lightning Roar of Thunder Page 19
