Velvet Thunder

by Teresa Howard

  Twenty-six

  When the morning wakened, a steady rain was falling outside the cave.

  Stevie stirred in Heath’s embrace.

  “Are you all right, sugar?”

  She moaned. “A little groggy. What happened?” She looked around her. “How did we get here?”

  His smile was soft as dew. “You passed out. I dragged your lovely little hide in here. Which means that I saved your life. And I intend to be paid handsomely for my efforts.”

  She leaned back on his shoulder, blessing him with an innocent smile. “What’s the current cost of rescuing a damsel in distress?”

  He trailed a finger over her parted lips. “I’ll let you know when I have time to collect. We need to get out of here and put as many miles between us and our hosts of last evening as possible.”

  She had almost forgotten the danger that threatened. Reality intruding, she glanced toward the entrance as if a heinous monster lurked beyond. “You don’t think they’re gone?”

  “I highly doubt it, sugar.”

  She frowned, appearing more exasperated than frightened. “Couldn’t you have lied to me and said they were in Texas by now?”

  He chuckled and squeezed her till she squeaked. “I’m sure they’re gone. No doubt they’re in Texas by now. South Texas. Maybe even Mexico.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ear.”

  He hopped up. “My sentiments exactly.” Grinning, he pulled her to her feet. He stood there, gazing down into her shadowed face, thinking how incredibly beautiful she was. His fingers twined in her hair, smoothing the platinum strands over her shoulders. A fist took hold of his heart and simply refused to let go.

  Reluctantly, she prodded him. “Heath, don’t you think we’d better go?”

  He stared a moment longer, then, shaking off the spell she had unwittingly cast about him, he nodded. “I guess we should.”

  He removed the branches from the opening of the den and looked outside. The rain was only a light mist now. He listened intently but heard nothing save the rain caressing the leaves strewn about the forest floor. Taking Stevie’s hand, he led her out of the cave into a heavy fog hanging low to the ground. The earth’s gray cloak made it virtually impossible to see more than fifty feet in any direction.

  “I can’t see my hand in front of my face,” Stevie observed. “They could be close by and we wouldn’t know it.”

  The eternal optimist, Heath responded, “True, but the fog conceals us too.”

  Carefully, he led her down into a gully. They followed the gully to where their horses had been tethered. The animals were gone. Hand in hand they headed north, walking briskly through the thicket. When they approached an open field, the fog lifted partially. The next wooded area was half a mile away.

  “Damn, why couldn’t it last a little longer?” he asked rhetorically, turning worried eyes on Stevie. “Hon, crossing here is gonna be dangerous. But we don’t have any choice. Just keep low and stay close behind me.”

  She nodded.

  They moved out into the open, crouching low in the tall grass. When they reached the woods without incident, they breathed a sigh of relief. But their sense of well-being was premature. A strong arm reached from behind a tree and circled Stevie’s waist, jerking her back into the bony chest of the older of the two men.

  Heath was on him in an instant. Grabbing him by the shoulder, he wheeled Stevie’s abductor around and slammed his fist into his face. “Run, honey.”

  “No,” she cried.

  “Run, dammit. I’ll catch up.”

  She shrieked then fell silent.

  The sound of flesh striking flesh drowned out two sets of pounding footfalls as Heath put considerable weight behind his punch, sending the man down with a ground-shuddering thud. Young and wiry, he regained his footing, faced Heath with a knife in his dirty hand, and waved it back and forth.

  Feinting to the left, Heath seized his opponent’s wrist, pivoted, and gave a sharp twist. The bone broke with a loud snap. Howling, the man flipped over onto his back.

  Satisfied that the man posed no further threat, Heath looked about for Stevie. A trail of broken branches led down into an arroyo that flowed with a swift-moving stream. He followed the arroyo at breakneck speed.

  He hadn’t traveled more than three hundred feet when he came upon the old man and his youngest son fighting over Stevie. Each holding one of her outstretched arms, they beat each other about the face, pulling on her as if she were a wishbone.

  A red haze clouded Heath’s eyes. He ran into them like a steam locomotive. Stevie flew in one direction, her assailants in the other.

  Scrambling to their feet, the old man and his son dove for Heath simultaneously. Heath struck the old man in the jaw, then turned and smashed his fist into the boy’s solar plexus. The boy hit the forest floor like a fallen tree, but the old man remained standing.

  A bullet whizzed past Heath’s head. Diving to the ground, he drew his Navy and shot the old man point-blank, the bullet piercing his heart, killing him instantly.

  Stevie rushed into his arms. He hugged her quickly. “We have to keep moving, sweetheart.” He led her down the arroyo for several hundred yards, where the narrow stream widened. White water rushed over protruding rocks. A mist hovered over the stream, creating a rainbow. It was a peaceful scene, deceptively peaceful.

  They headed north, picking their way over boulders and slippery rocks. Heath searched for an exit from the arroyo, but its high banks hemmed them in. Tension mounted. One false step and they would perish in the rapids.

  Suddenly, the Indian attacked from the high bank. The force of his fall knocked Heath and Stevie to the ground. Gaining his feet, Heath pushed Stevie behind him.

  The Indian held his knife high in the air, slowly turning it, reflecting rays of sunlight, blinding Heath. A cruel smile on his lips caused the hair on the back of Stevie’s neck to stand on end.

  “This time you will not escape. The woman will be mine. After I gut you like a fallen deer.”

  Instinctively, Heath reached for his gun but found an empty holster.

  “It’s over there,” Stevie called. The Navy lay close to the Indian’s feet, partially hidden in a mound of leaves. She made a move toward it.

  “No, little one. You will not help the white man. Your place is with me. With your own kind.”

  “I’m not your kind, you filthy snake. Your kind slinks around on the ground, eating the dust of decent men.”

  The vehemence in her voice distracted the Indian momentarily. Heath reached down, slipped his hunting knife from the sheaf tied to his ankle and held it behind his back. He angled his body, concealing the weapon from his attacker. “The woman has a point,” he taunted.

  The Indian’s face clouded with rage. He rushed Heath, his head held high, rage making him reckless.

  Heath took careful aim and threw his weapon with deadly accuracy. The blade sank into the Indian’s neck, severing his jugular vein.

  The man stopped in mid-stride, a look of horror in his eyes. He dropped his knife and slowly sank to the ground, his blood an ever-widening crimson circle. His eyes stared sightless into the towering treetops above him.

  Quickly, Heath retrieved his gun and led Stevie away from the stream. Climbing into an open field, they found the Conestoga beneath a spreading oak. Four mules were hitched to the wagon, while the horses, including Heath and Stevie’s, grazed nearby.

  The captive’s feet and hands were tied to the front wheels of the wagon. She would be crushed by its weight if the mules moved. No longer under the influence of drugs, she held the reins tightly between her teeth.

  The comancheros’ intent was obvious. If they were killed searching for Heath and Stevie, they didn’t want the girl to live. She would eventually weaken, release the mules, and suffer a cruel, painful death.

  Heath cut the ropes and helped the young woman to her feet. She fell against him, sobbing. “It’s all right now,” he soothed. Glancing at Stevie apologetically, he
awkwardly patted the girl’s back.

  Stevie’s eyes were riveted to where the girl’s lily-white hands clutched Heath’s shirtfront. The sight was symbolic. Her hands were delicate, pale, needy, gentle, all part of something Stevie would never be—a white woman. Was that what Heath really wanted? No. He said he wanted her. But was it what he really needed?

  Stevie hated herself for the intense feeling of resentment and jealousy that overwhelmed her then. To see any woman, especially a white woman, in Heath’s arms, made her physically sick. She turned away lest they see the tears shimmering in her eyes.

  Never let ’em see ya cry. Jeff’s words of warning chanted in her mind like a mantra. He had always told her that as long as the townspeople didn’t know they were hurting her with their rejection, they didn’t have any power over her.

  But Heath wasn’t just anybody. He had great power over her—power she had given him by professing her love. She would have to disabuse him of that notion even if she had to lie. Then he would be free to find a wife like the helpless ninny hanging on to him like moss on a tree.

  How would she live the rest of her life without him? Knowing that he was married to someone else, holding someone else in the night. Doing all the beautiful things he had done to her body—doing them to someone else. It was almost more than she could bear. She wasn’t given to martyrdom.

  But she was strong. She would do what had to be done just as she always had. No matter how badly it hurt, she would do what was right for herself, but more to the point, what was best for Heath.

  Wasn’t that what true love was all about? Caring for someone enough to set them free—free to find love and happiness with another? Stevie sincerely hoped she was woman enough to do that, for above all she wanted Heath to be happy.

  Maybe the Indian was right. She should stick with her own kind just as Heath must remain with his.

  Finally, the girl regained her composure. She didn’t release her hold on Heath, however. Moving closer, she gazed up into his face adoringly. “How can I ever repay you for saving me?”

  He extricated himself from her grasp and stepped back, leaving a good six inches of space and propriety between them. “Miss Johns and I were glad to help, Miss . . .”

  “Hughes. Erica Hughes.” She offered her hand.

  Bemused at the formal gesture, he bowed over it. When she dipped into a light curtsy, he barely hid a chuckle. He looked toward Stevie, expecting to find her grinning and rolling her eyes at Erica’s foolishness. Her back was facing them. There was something about her rigid stance that gave him pause. “Honey,” he said softly, trying to gain Stevie’s attention.

  Stevie spun around, thinking that the endearment was meant for Erica. She found Heath looking at her, confusion knitting his brow. Embarrassed, she cleared her throat. “Shouldn’t we be going?” She looked Erica full in the face for the first time. She was younger than Stevie had thought . . . and more lovely. “Would you show me where the food is? And our saddlebags,” she requested quietly.

  The girl couldn’t seem to take her eyes off Heath. Somehow, she managed. “Come this way” was her flat order to Stevie.

  Stevie followed Erica to the rear of the wagon and retrieved the supplies. Meanwhile, Heath saddled an extra mount.

  Stevie approached him, struggling under the weight of the supplies that filled her arms. Erica trailed her, hands empty.

  Heath frowned. “Here, sweetheart, let me take that.” He secured the bags to the mounts, then caressed Stevie’s cheek lightly. “You okay?”

  She nodded and mounted, not accepting his hand-up.

  Walking away, he released the mules hitched to the wagon. With a slap on the rear they gained their freedom. He returned to the women and found Erica still standing beside her horse, waiting for assistance. “Are you strong enough to ride, Miss Hughes?”

  She lifted a delicate hand to her forehead. “I suppose I haven’t any choice. Mother told Father I wasn’t strong enough to make this journey alone. That a girl as pretty as me was fair game for unscrupulous men. But Father was so concerned about his duty to the army, he just wouldn’t listen.”

  Where had all that come from? Suppressing the need to glance heavenward for divine intervention, he lifted her into the saddle. “Well, ladies, let’s put this place behind us.”

  Without a word Stevie took the lead, providing Heath and Erica a good view of her horse’s behind.

  The ride was taxing that day. Erica was understandably weak. They stopped often to allow her to rest. Her strength returned as the day wore on,

  And that’s when her whining began. At first Heath shrugged off her incessant complaints as the result of being so young, having been through such a harrowing experience, and being a tad spoiled.

  Mentally making excuses for her, he was the soul of comfort, assuring her that he would see that she reached her parents at Fort Bascomb safely at the earliest possible moment—a promise he intended to keep if only for his own sanity—that everything would be all right, that she would forget her experience as soon as she met the handsome, unattached officers at the fort.

  As the day wore on, her complaints began to grate on his nerves. How could one woman find so much to her disliking? he wondered, amazed. She groused about the heat, the food, lukewarm water, dirty clothes, stringy hair, unsightly calluses, broken nails, lack of suitable gentlemen callers—as if she expected to find Casanova beneath the next toadstool—and a dozen other things.

  She complained most vehemently that it had been ages since she’d had a bath. Heath wanted to offer to bathe her in the stream, but didn’t trust himself not to drown the girl, especially when she started railing against the filthy Indians. For a moment he regretted rescuing her.

  But Erica wasn’t uppermost in his mind as the miles drifted by. He was puzzled by Stevie’s behavior. No matter what he did, how many times he sought her comfort in the face of Erica’s verbal harangue, Stevie ignored him. All he wanted was a kind word. If not a kind word, then a small smile.

  Sighing heavily, he shifted in the saddle and tried to tune out Erica’s wailing. Optimistically, he looked ahead to when he and Stevie would be alone. He would demand an explanation for her aloof behavior . . . and insist that she rush back into his arms as surely as she had rushed into his heart.

  “Listen,” Stevie whispered.

  Heath pulled alongside her. “What is it, hon?”

  “I don’t hear anything,” Erica whined. “How much longer before we stop for the night? I’m tired and hungry.”

  Heath and Stevie summarily ignored her.

  Stevie turned her head sharply. “Hear that?”

  “I’m hot,” Erica groused.

  Stevie and Heath both glared at her. “Hush,” they hissed in unison.

  Heath spoke over Erica’s outrage. “Sounds like someone’s crying. A woman.”

  Stevie slid from her mount and headed in the direction of the faint whimpering sound.

  Heath dismounted and pulled his Colt. “Wait, sugar.” She had disappeared. He followed her trail through the thick undergrowth. With each step the whimpering grew louder and—thank the good Lord—Erica’s voice grew dimmer.

  When Heath stepped into the clearing, he was smiling. For the first time in hours he couldn’t hear the sound of Erica’s voice.

  But in the space of a second his expression jelled into one of shock, his mind trying desperately to deny the scene before him. Taut with tension, his heart slammed against his ribs. “Oh, my God!” he uttered, making his way across the clearing. “Honey?”

  His luminous eyes widened. Stevie’s actions claimed his undivided attention. He stood there, for how long he didn’t know, shaken, mesmerized, fascinated, watching as she labored skillfully over a frail Indian girl . . . who was obviously in the last, agonizing throes of childbirth.

  Twenty-seven

  Robert Pridgen sat on the boardinghouse portico, drinking his morning coffee, watching the activities in town with a jaundiced eye.

  T
o the dismay of Pridgen and the other permanent residents of Adobe Wells, the size of the miners’ camp had doubled in a week. Speculators, prospectors, carpenters, freighters, and cowpunchers had streamed into town on horseback and wagons in record number. Striking tent on the first bare spot of earth they could find, each group was rougher than the last. All drawn by whispers of gold, silver, even diamonds.

  A heavy rain the night before had turned the dusty road in front of Pilar’s boardinghouse into a mud trough. Wagons along Main Street bogged down halfway to their axles, cutting deep ruts into the streets. Dangerous-looking men slopped in knee-deep mud, cursing the black gumbo.

  Scantily dressed whores wended their way through the murky soup, trailing the men, in the event that some uncouth miner, successful in his efforts, would part with a bit of whatever it was that Judge Jack had promised him in this godforsaken corner of the country.

  Pridgen suspected that all the fools would get for their labors was a stiff back. Then they would leave as quickly as they had come. Disappearing overnight, shaking the dust—or mud, as the case may be—from Adobe Wells off their feet.

  The small western town would resemble a turkey carcass the day after Thanksgiving. Bare, bereft, as if a hoard of scavengers had fed upon it and cast the slick, naked bones aside.

  The prospect enraged Pridgen. But it was the foreboding that hovered over Adobe Wells, humming with violence, rank with the scent of death that frightened him. Scared the hell out of him.

  A shrill scream drew his attention. The hair-raising sound came from across the plaza. Two drunk miners spilled into the street, pounding each other with bloody fists. They fought over a whore who had emerged with them, obviously to watch her suitors settle their dispute. Shouting obscenities, the brawlers battled feverishly.

  Pridgen found the affair disgusting! He rose, leaned heavily on his cane, and limped down the portico to get a better view of the drunken brawl. Three men bounded down the courthouse steps, carrying a red, white, and blue banner, stretched it across the street, then attached it to buildings on either side.