by Smith, Bobbi
Rick glanced over at Juan. “They’ve seen us.”
Juan put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “It is not over yet. If they are out of our range, then we are certainly out of theirs.”
“For right now, anyway,” Rick commented, and his eyes narrowed as he followed Malo’s advance. Steadying himself, he watched their oncoming maneuverings with the practiced, cool detachment that had earned him his reputation, and all thoughts of possible defeat were banished from his mind as he focused only on killing Malo.
Chapter Twenty-one
It was still dark, but the morning star, shining brightly in the blackened heavens, offered proof that the new day would soon be dawning. While Jennie and Carrie slept on, the men of the M Circle C gathered together in a tight group to discuss their plans for continuing the chase.
“There’s something I’ve hesitated to tell you,” Jake began, knowing that he could delay no longer in revealing the truth about Rick.
“Jake?” Mac looked at his son quizzically. “What is it?”
“It’s about one of the outlaws—Cazador.”
“What about him?” Mac’s voice cut through the momentary silence, as he wondered what his son knew about the bandit who’d held Jennie captive.
“He’s the one who had Jennie, right?” Todd asked.
“Yes,” Jake answered and quickly went on to explain. “And although he is known by the name El Cazador, he is, in reality, Ricardo Peralta—Juan Peralta’s grandson.”
“What?” The question rose from all the men.
Jake nodded as he continued to speak. “I ran into Rick in Mesa Roja the night before Jennie disappeared. He told me that Malo had raided their ranch in Sonora and kidnapped his grandfather.”
“But why?”
“The Peraltas used to have title to these mountains, and supposedly there’s a very rich gold mine located in here, somewhere. Anyway, Malo heard that Juan was the only one who knew the location, and he was forcing the old man to lead them to the mine.”
“But how does this Cazador thing fit in?”
“Rick was riding as a hired gun at the same time I was. He helped a posse track down a killer one time, and they thought he was so good that they nicknamed him El Cazador—the hunter.
“After the word got out about how quick Rick was on the draw, though, every fast gun artist in the Southwest started looking for him. He gave it all up a few years ago and went back to live with his grandfather, but after the raid he resumed his identity in order to infiltrate Malo’s gang and win his confidence.”
The men listened intently to Jake’s explanation, and they were stunned by what they’d just learned.
“You’re serious?” Mac’s expression was incredulous as he looked at his son.
“Very. He swore me to secrecy that night in town, otherwise I would have told you sooner,” Jake replied, glad now that he’d revealed Rick’s true identity to them.
“Then we do know that Jennie was protected while she was with them,” Todd added thoughtfully.
“Completely,” Jake assured him, confident of Rick’s ability to keep his sister safe from the likes of Malo and his gang.
They exchanged looks of relief and then settled down to business.
“So you think that all the shooting that’s going on may be your friend Rick trying to escape from Malo with his grandfather?” Steve ventured.
“I’m almost positive. When I spoke with him in town, that was his plan.”
“All right,” Mac said as he stood up to pace nervously about. “We owe Rick Peralta, and I intend to see that we pay him back for safeguarding our Jennie.”
“Good.” Jake was glad that they were all in agreement. “We’ll ride out at sunup.”
Todd went to wake the women while the others prepared to break camp.
“Carrie?” His voice was husky as he stared down at her. In repose, he found her even more attractive, and it was only with a fierce effort on his part that he didn’t reach out to touch the silken length of her blond hair.
“What?” Carrie came awake slowly. Her dreams had been of Todd and their passion-filled moments together, and when she opened her eyes to find him standing over her, a knowing smile curved the fullness of her lips. “Todd.” His name was a caress, and she longed to pull him down to her for a morning kiss.
“We’re breaking camp now. It’s almost dawn.” His tone was gruff as he tried to hide his conflicting emotions.
The sound of his indifference sliced through Carrie’s mellow mood like a knife. Struggling to a sitting position, she glared up at him. “Fine. I’ll be ready to go when everyone else is.”
Todd wanted to say more—to pull her into his embrace and kiss her pouting mouth, but he knew it was impossible. Turning on his heel, he made his way across the encampment to where Jennie lay, still sleeping.
“Jennie.” Again, as he watched her rouse from sleep, he was amazed at the difference in the two women. It bothered him greatly that he didn’t feel that same overwhelming sense of desire for Jennie that he felt for Carrie, but he dismissed it from his mind. Why was he so concerned? He had loved Jennie from afar for years and, at last, she had agreed to marry him.
“Todd? Good morning—I think.” Jennie woke quickly and sat up, staring about her into the darkness. “Are we breaking camp?”
“Right away. Jake wants to be on their trail again as soon as it’s light.”
“I’ll be ready,” she told him as she stood up and stretched wearily. Though she had finally managed to fall asleep, it hadn’t been until the wee hours, and what little rest she’d gotten had been filled with torturous dreams of Cazador and Malo and Lucia. “Thank you.”
Todd nodded, not knowing quite what else to say to her, and hurried off to get his own gear ready.
They had been riding for over an hour when a sudden volley of shots fired just over the next rise halted them. Pausing just below the crest of the next hill, they regrouped, quickly plotting what to do next.
“Whoever it is, they’re right over there,” Steve said, restraining his restive mount with a firm hand.
“We’d better take a look before we go any farther,” Mac ordered as he reined in next to his foreman.
Jake nodded as he joined them. “I’ll go up first on foot so I can see what’s going on.
“All right,” Mac agreed.
“Steve, you want to come with me?” Jake asked as he dismounted and retrieved his rifle.
“Sure,” he answered, pulling his rifle from its scabbard and checking to make sure it was loaded, before following Jake up to the top of the ridge.
“Where are they going?” Jennie asked as she rode forward to join her father and Todd.
“Since Jake knows what Peralta looks like, he’s going to see if he can pinpoint him,” he explained. “You’d better ride back with Carrie and stay there. I don’t want you in any more danger.”
“But Pa, I’ve been riding back there all morning!” she protested, outraged at being left behind. “Let me go with you! I know what Juan looks like, too, and I can shoot as well as most of these men.”
“Jennie, I don’t have the time or patience to fight with you. We’ve worried enough about you these past few days to last us a lifetime. Now, stop arguing with me and get back there.” His face reflected his steadfastness of purpose.
Jennie knew that expression well and looked quickly to Todd for support, but he was in full agreement with Mac.
“Go on, Jennie. We want you to be safe.”
She found his attitude equally as irritating and angrily turned her horse around, heading back to where her sister patiently waited.
“They didn’t want you with them?” Carrie couldn’t resist the jibe.
Jennie shot her a quick, questioning look, but Carrie’s carefully schooled features revealed nothing. “No. Pa said I should stay back here where it was safe.” She added the last word in disgust.
Carrie bit back a smile, pleased that they had been relegated to the same stat
us. “Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll be able to handle it without you.”
“I don’t doubt that for a minute,” Jennie replied, ignoring Carrie’s sarcasm. “It’s just that—” She stopped, catching herself before she revealed too much of her real feelings: her concern for Cazador.
Would she ever be able to forgive herself if anything happened to him during the shootout? Wild thoughts raced through her mind. He had never hurt her. He had protected her when the others would have raped and possibly murdered her. Did she want him to die just because he had found Lucia attractive?
“Just that what?” Carrie’s curiosity was aroused now.
“Oh, nothing.” Turning away from her sister, Jennie focused on Jake and Steve as they climbed the steep hillside, leaving Carrie to wonder at her cryptic remark.
Staying low and close together, the two men finally reached the summit. Crawling forward on their stomachs, they crept unobserved to a vantage point that gave them a panoramic view of the embattled canyon below, and from where they lay, they had no trouble spotting the combatants.
“There! On the opposite wall from us, up on that flat rock—that’s Rick and his grandfather,” Jake told Steve excitedly as he spotted Rick and Juan firing across the canyon at the outlaws who had them pinned down on their ledge.
“It looks like there’s someone laying down behind them. A woman?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re sure that’s the Peraltas?” Steve wanted no mistakes made when they rode into this fracas.
“Positive, and it looks like Malo’s got them pinned down real good. Look.” Jake indicated a place near the Peraltas where Luis and Ramon were working their way down from the top of the ridge. “There’s a couple of them trying to move in on them now.”
“Damn! We’d better hurry!”
Drawing quietly back, they hurried down the slope to where the others waited.
While the sounds of the sporadic gunfire echoed eerily around her, Chica rode slowly back the way she’d come. The trail she’d followed in hopes of finding a way out of the mountains had ended in a box canyon, and she had been forced to retrace her steps in order to save herself.
As Chica neared the site where Malo had been stalking Cazador, it surprised her to find the spot deserted. She had automatically assumed that the gunshots were coming from there, and she wondered what had happened. Had Cazador managed to make an escape? Was Malo still chasing him?
Urging her horse up the far slope, Chica went to investigate the place where Cazador and Lucia had been hiding, and she was greatly relieved not to find them lying dead in the dirt. They had gotten away! But to where? Glad that she carried a rifle with her, she hurried in the direction of the shooting, hoping to be of some help to her friend and possibly gaining some revenge of her own.
Mac and Todd and the rest of the men were waiting anxiously for Jake and Steve’s return.
“What did you see?” Mac demanded as they raced back down the hillside.
“It looks like he attempted the escape, but Malo caught up with him,” Jake explained as he faced them. “They’ve got him pinned down across from us about a half mile up the canyon.”
“We’re going to have to be careful,” Steve put in. “Things could easily get confusing once we get caught up in the middle of this.”
“We’ll divide up,” Jake instructed the men. “Steve will take half of you and attack the men on this side, while I work my way around and try to pick off the ones who have Peralta trapped from above.”
“Be sure not to shoot at the people up on the ledge. That’s where the old man is, and it looks like there’s a woman up there with him, too.”
Jennie had been hanging on their every word, and at the mention of a woman, she wondered if it was Lucia or Chica.
“There should be two women with them,” she added, urging her horse closer to where her brother sat, giving directions.
“We only saw the one, and she looked to be injured in some way.” Jake frowned at her news. “We’ll just have to be careful.”
“Everyone ready to ride?”
The men all nodded as they pulled their rifles from their sheaths and prepared to do battle.
“Jennie and Carrie!” Mac’s voice cut through her thoughts of following them, and she looked up somewhat guiltily. “You stay here.”
With that, they were gone, splittng up into two groups and riding cautiously toward their respective targets.
Rick got off his final rounds in the direction of the two men who were lodged in the rocks above him before seeking better shelter to reload. Juan was still holding his own, firing at the outlaws directly across from them, and though his shots were well taken, the outlaw’s cover was too protective to allow for a good hit.
As bullets were ricocheting viciously about them, Rick wondered seriously for only the second time in his life at his chances to elude death. As logically as he could, he tried to calculate the most aggressive move he could make in order to shock Malo and perhaps gain an advantage, but the desperadoes’ constant barrage allowed him little time to formulate a plan or make a move.
“Ricardo!” Juan’s call was low yet imperative.
“What?”
“I’m running low on ammunition.”
Knowing that the end was near and knowing that there was no way to avoid it, Rick scrambled back to his side. “If you want, I can tie you. That way they’ll think I stole you from them in order to get the gold for myself.”
Juan’s eyes misted at his offered self-sacrifice. “Ricardo.” His voice was hoarse with emotion. “If I am to die, it will be fighting by your side.”
Their gazes locked, and Rick clasped his grandfather’s shoulder in a moment of total love and devotion. Then smiling undauntedly, he added, “But we are not dead, yet!”
“You have a plan?”
“Only not to give up easily!” And with that he grabbed his revolver, determined to do everything within his power to save them.
“Cazador, can I help?” Lucia called out, knowing that Malo’s men were pressing in on them.
“Here.” He slid a loaded weapon to her. “If they get passed me, you’re going to need it.”
And then, in a lightning move that stunned both Juan and Lucia, Rick ran from their refuge, firing automatically in the direction of the outlaws who were in the rocks above him. Darting quickly from cactus to rock, Rick continued to run, constantly seeking a better angle from which to shoot. Juan had resumed shooting, too, providing the necessary distraction Rick needed to advance on the desperadoes’ position.
The brazenness of Rick’s charge shocked Ramon and Luis. They fired at him rapidly, but their shots missed their mark time and time again as he zigzagged across the landscape and finally dove behind a pile of rocks, safely out of their line of fire.
“Cazador will not get away from me this time!” Luis swore to Ramon. “You circle back to get the old man away from Lucia, and I’ll take care of him.”
Ramon moved away hurriedly, thinking that it would be a simple matter to outsmart Lucia and recapture Juan Peralta. No doubt, Cazador had him tied up anyway, so all he had to worry about was disarming one woman. Confident of his eventual success, Ramon worked his way nearer to the outcropping.
At first, Chica had concealed herself a safe distance from the scene of the action, but when she saw Luis come out of hiding to chase Cazador, she knew the time was right for her to seek her vengeance. Unnoticed by the others, she moved ever nearer.
Finally, Jennie could stand it no more. Though the men had been out of sight for some time, the gunfire had not abated; if anything, it had grown more intense. Her nerves stretched to the breaking point. She knew she couldn’t sit back and wait any longer. Kneeing her horse forward, she headed toward the crest of the hill.
“Jennie! You’re supposed to stay her with me!” Carrie reminded her.
“I can’t stand not knowing what’s going on over there!” Jennie shouted as she continued on. “What if they
need my help?”
Carrie debated for only an instant before the thought of Todd’s being in danger spurred her to action. Putting her heels to her mount, she hastened after her sister.
Jennie paused briefly at the top of the rise to get her bearings. She had heard Jake say that Juan was on the far side of the canyon, and she spotted him right away, lying flat on a ledge, halfway up the steep wall. He was armed with a rifle and shooting at the bandits who had positioned themselves opposite him.
“Is that Juan Peralta over there?” Carrie asked, pointing in his direction.
“Yes, that’s him,” Jennie replied, her eyes scanning the rugged terrain for some sign of Cazador.
And, as if her thoughts conjured him up, she caught sight of him, then, as he darted across the sloping hillside, running away from Juan. Jennie wondered why he was running from the old man. Surely, as one of Malo’s men, he should be trying to get to Juan. What had happened? What was going on?
“I’m going down there!” she told Carrie, her expression fierce with determination.
“Well, I’m not staying here by myself!”
“Then get your gun ready. We might need it,” Jennie stated, pulling her rifle and urging her horse forward toward the action.
When Rick dropped down out of sight behind a boulder to reload his revolver, it gave Luis the opportunity he needed to shift his own position. Racing at top speed, he circled around behind Rick and waited for him to show himself.
Unaware that the outlaw had moved, Rick charged boldly forth from his temporary shelter, firing in the general area where Luis had been before.
Jennie stiffened in the saddle as she spotted Luis among the boulders. Anxiously she glanced around for some sign of Jake and his band of men, but they were just now topping the ridge and were too far away to be of help.
“Cazador!” Jennie screamed his name in terror.
Luis grinned in silent victory as he stood up behind Rick and aimed his rifle at him.
