A Warrior's Vow

by Marilyn Tracy

  He still hadn't met her eyes. Except for that brief and poignant touch on the ledge, when he'd slid his hand beneath her wet hair and pressed his lips oh so tenderly to her forehead, calling her by the Apache name he'd given her, he hadn't shown her any indication that he was even aware she was still on the mountain.

  Stone was waiting for them in the meadow. He managed to look embarrassed, as if he'd deserted the army just at the moment of battle. But he perked up when he spied Daggert, whickering and shaking his great head.

  Once they'd dismounted, Daggert caught his horse's reins and murmured something to him. Stone pawed at the ground and tossed his head up and down. He gave a couple of prancing steps and rolled his liquid eyes.

  Sancho threw himself into the grassy meadow and tumbled about, as if shedding any taint of the cliff side from his sable coat.

  And Daggert smiled, watching his animals play. But the smile had a haunted quality that made Leeza's heart stumble. What was going through his head?

  The helicopter arrived before she could ask him, and then, with all the commotion, she couldn't say anything personal.

  A paramedic ran up the mountain, carrying a portable gurney. Jack Dawson would help him bring the wounded Thompkins back down.

  Chance Salazar stepped from the chopper and, in a ducking run, came to join Leeza and Enrique. He stopped just shy of them, his eyes shadowed with worry, and looked as though he wanted to grab her, but instead held out his hand.

  Leeza ignored the hand and stepped straight into her friend's husband's arms. She could feel his surprise as he hesitated before clasping to her with a firm, sure grip.

  "You had us plenty worried, Leeza," he drawled into her ear.

  She could see why Jeannie loved the man so. He was tall, warm and as solid as a brick wall. Leeza's eyes filled with tears. She had a lot to make up for, she thought. A lot of moments to recapture.

  "Thanks for coming for us," she said, holding on. As far as she knew, this was the first time she'd hugged this wonderful friend.

  Anyone keeping track might have noticed that she'd clung to Daggert, then to Enrique and now to Chance. It was a Leeza Nelson record. She smiled and let Chance go.

  He studied her carefully and used the tip of a finger to tilt her chin, so as better to view the marks Thompkins had left on her cheek. "You okay?"

  She smiled. "Just a scratch," she quipped.

  He shook his head, released her and bent over Enrique. "And you, little Ricky. You are so grounded."

  Enrique grinned up at him, wholly unafraid of him. None of the children were fearful around Chance. "Leeza came for me," he said.

  Chance gave her an amused glance. "That she did, son."

  "And she rides pretty good now," Enrique confided. "You shoulda seen her galloping straight for the caves. Just like in a movie. And then she jumped off right onto the cliffs."

  Chance straightened and gave her a somewhat bemused smile. "I wish I had seen it," he said. And looked as though he meant it.

  Leeza blushed. "It wasn't quite that smooth," she said.

  "It was, honest," Enrique insisted.

  Chance ruffled his hair and moved on toward Daggert. The two men spoke in lowered tones, their voices not carrying across the grassy field. Finally Chance made a cursory inspection of Daggert's gunshot wound. The two men clasped hands and Chance raised his free hand to Daggert's good shoulder, squeezing it tightly.

  They all heard Thompkins's protests before they saw him being pulled into the meadow on the gurney-turned-travois the paramedic and Jack Dawson had attached to Thompkins's horse.

  The paramedic applied an ointment to Leeza's scratches, adding a few butterfly bandages to a couple of deeper gouges on her chest and belly. He did the same for Daggert, then treated the gunshot wound.

  Seeing Daggert in the sunlight, his naked torso shimmering golden, Leeza felt her mouth go dry and her limbs languorous.

  The paramedic pronounced the wound serious and quickly bound his shoulder with pads and adhesive tape. He handed Daggert the remainder of the roll of tape and deftly fashioned a sling. "I'd tell you to get to a hospital, but you wouldn't do it, would you?"

  Daggert didn't bother to answer and Leeza knew it was only his superb physical condition that would save him.

  Thompkins was loaded in the helicopter first. Chance secured him to the bed with the safety straps and finished by effectively hog-tying his prisoner with an intricate series of interlocking hand-and-foot chains. And Leeza heard him tell the man that if he said so much as one single word, he'd gag him as well.

  Thompkins began to cry, but didn't speak.

  Leeza and Enrique got in next, and John Jenkins, who had a large footprint on the back of his jacket, followed, and finally the paramedic. Chance hopped into the copilot's seat and slammed the door shut. He gave the pilot a nod.

  The man started the chopper's blades whirling, while Leeza cried out for them to wait for Daggert. Before Chance even spoke, she understood the significance of the paramedic's handing Daggert the medical supplies. Daggert wasn't coming with them.

  "Someone's got to take the horses down," Chance called over the screeching wail of the helicopter blades.

  "But he's been hurt," she yelled.

  "He wants to do it," Chance said, his face serious and his eyes never leaving hers. "And Jack's riding with him."

  "But we're out of food," Leeza said.

  "We brought him some rations," Chance said. "They'll be okay."

  "But—" And she saw the finality in the lawman's set mouth. He'd argued with Daggert about it, undoubtedly wanting to perform the task himself.

  "He needs the time," Chance said.

  He needed to find a bridge to the future, she thought. He needed time to let go of four years of vengeance. He needed time to mourn Donny without the anger that had kept him moving.

  Three days. It would take three days to bring the horses down off the mountain.

  "Wait," she said, leaping for the door. She fumbled with it for a few heart-breaking seconds before it sprang open, nearly spilling her to the grass below.

  The whirling blades seemed mere inches above her and whipped her hair into her eyes. "Sancho," she called.

  The dog heard her even over the roar of the helicopter.

  "Here, Sancho. Come here, boy."

  The dog eyed her questioningly, took a step in her direction, then looked back at Daggert for permission.

  Daggert flinched as some unspoken emotion seized him. But he lifted his hand and waved toward the helicopter. Sancho shot across the meadow and leaped into the aircraft in one fluid bound.

  He wagged his tail at Enrique. Grinned at Leeza. And sniffing, growled at Thompkins.

  The paramedic helped her close the door, shutting out the two men in the meadow—the former lawman who hadn't believed Daggert four years earlier, but who stood by him now, and the tracker who had saved her life.

  Chapter 14

  Leeza understood how her friends must have felt when she was out on the mountain for three days; the time was interminable. Each hour passed at a maddeningly slow crawl. The sun rose too early, set too late, and when overhead, seemed to hang there forever.

  The moon hung lopsided and low in the star-studded night and taunted her with its unhurried journey across the sky. It made her sleep fitful and restless and she longed for the deep sleep she'd found in the mountains, in the arms of the man she was waiting for.

  She didn't know how many hours she stood with Sancho on the veranda, the handsome dog panting at her side while she squinted toward the west, hoping to see two tired men and four horses come riding in.

  Her friends had gathered around her that first night, and soon everyone at Rancho Milagro had packed on to the veranda to pelt her with questions about the journey, about Daggert, about the man who used to work at Annie's Café. All the children had tales about him—his many weirdnesses, his snide manner. And all the adults were oversolicitous, hovering around Leeza as if she'd been diagnosed wi
th a rare form of cancer.

  She felt as if she had a disease, all right, but one that could only be cured by the sight of one rigid tracker on his big horse.

  The second day, all but the children began to go about the routine tasks of maintaining the orphan's home. The children stayed with her, eyeing her candidly, overtly curious about the changes they sensed in her. And Enrique and Sancho never left her side, except to eat or sleep. Sancho wouldn't leave her even then.

  By the morning of the third day, only she and Sancho sat vigil on the empty veranda, eyes trained on the western horizon.

  In the way of New Mexico Septembers, the weather had turned cold and another storm was brewing in the mountains. The dawn had bloomed red and angry. And Leeza had felt tears stinging the back of her eyes.

  In midafternoon, a truck kicked up a cloud of dust diving down the long ranch road, and Leeza stood, her heart beating with an almost painful dread. The ranch Labradors barked and raced around the yard. Sancho pressed against Leeza's leg.

  When the dust cloud cleared and the pickup stopped, a broad-faced, dark-skinned, solemn woman stepped down and went around to the passenger door. She opened it for a little girl of about two who looked like every lovely drawing of a Native American cherub. The woman lifted her down from the seat and hitched her to her waist.

  She stopped when she saw Leeza in the shade on the large front veranda. "I am Alma TwoFeathers. You are Leeza Nelson?"

  Leeza nodded. This was Daggert's wife? Ex-wife.

  "They told me in town that you went into the mountains with James to find the man who killed my Donny."

  Leeza shook her head, not knowing how to correct the woman. She felt wary and pierced with sorrow concurrently.

  The woman's eyes dropped to the dog at Leeza's side and widened slightly. Then she smiled, and the expression transformed her face into one of rare beauty. Leeza struggled against a fierce stab of jealousy. This woman had shared Daggert's childhood, his culture, his bed. And his son.

  "I came out here to say thank you," Alma said.

  The jealousy left her as abruptly as it had arrived. "I didn't—"

  The smiling woman interrupted her. "Doreen, down at the post office, told me that you saved the little boy who ran away. And how you saved James's life, too."

  Leeza shook her head. Doreen was the local gossip and a brassy delight. But she had it wrong this time. It hadn't been that way at all. "It was Daggert who saved me," she said honestly.

  Alma studied her and, after a silent appraisal, nodded. "Good." She turned back to the pickup.

  "Wait," Leeza said. "Would you like some iced tea? Or something else?"

  Alma slowly turned around, her dark eyes steady, like those of the toddler she held in her arms. "No, I have to get back to the reservation to make dinner. Tell James that we'll have a sing for Donny next week. My husband has brought in a cacique. James hasn't come to any in the last four years. This time, I think maybe he will."

  "I'll tell him," Leeza said, mystified.

  "It will bring him peace."

  Leeza's heart constricted. She didn't know what a cacique was or what a sing might be, but if it would bring James Daggert any measure of peace, she was all for it. She thought of the way he'd chuckled in her embrace, the way his voice rasped in his passion. But it wasn't peace.

  "Well, goodbye," Alma said, and deposited her daughter back into the pickup and fastened her seat belt.

  They were gone almost before the original dust cloud had fully settled.

  Sancho barked, perhaps in farewell.

  Leeza resumed her chair and stroked the dog's silky ears.

  "He'll come," she said. "We just have to be patient."

  * * *

  Daggert pulled Stone to a halt at the Rancho Milagro border.

  He could feel Leeza calling him.

  "Something wrong?" Jack asked.

  Daggert looked at the ground, then at the man who had ridden with him for the past three silent days. "I'm going to let you take the horses on in," he said. "Can you manage both of them?"

  "Hell, from here, they'd wander in on their own. No problem." Jack didn't say anything else for a minute, then said, "I take it you're going home."

  Daggert thought about his house—the walls plastered with clippings, maps, notes, any scrap of information that might lead him to Donny's killer. Home? It had been command central for four long years.

  "Yes," he said, and offered no explanation.

  "We didn't talk about what happened four years ago," Jack said suddenly. "Not your boy's death, but the way I handled the investigation."

  Daggert's stomach clenched. It took all his will to maintain eye contact with the man on the horse beside him. "It doesn't matter."

  Jack said slowly, carefully, "To me it does. I was wrong and I'm sorry for it."

  Daggert closed his eyes, staggered by the man's admission. Prior to Donny's death, he'd admired Jack Dawson. The man had always treated him squarely, never giving him the grief so common to those who worked law enforcement without any badge. And the man had never made him feel less of a man because he was Apache. I was wrong and I'm sorry for it.

  Daggert opened his eyes to see Jack's outstretched hand waiting for him. He took the older man's hand, palm to palm, and held on.

  He looked at their clasped hands. "Jack…for what you did four years ago—trying to stop me from seeing my son that way. For what you did three days ago, and riding with me since…for all that, I will always thank you," he said. His voice sounded raw even to himself.

  Jack cleared his throat and gave Daggert's hand a final pump before releasing it.

  "Go on now, son. I'll make the explanations."

  Daggert found himself smiling at the man.

  Jack winked at him, tipped a finger to his cowboy hat and whistled to the horses. "You take it slow now, y'hear? There's stormy days ahead."

  Daggert waited until he couldn't see them anymore before turning his horse away from Rancho Milagro and heading toward his empty little house on the outskirts of Carlsbad. A house that would seem so much emptier now than it had when vengeance had lived there with him.

  He tried not to think of Leeza Nelson and her beautiful eyes and unknowingly warm heart. He tried not to remember the way she felt beneath him, around him. He tried to forget her smile and the sharp little comments that always made him want to chuckle.

  He tried, but he failed miserably. Painfully. Because he remembered every nuance of her scent, her taste, her feel. He remembered each word she'd spoken, each silly or wonderful thing she'd said. Like Donny, she was carved on his heart.

  He knew Leeza would be hurt by his absence, confused by his disappearance. But he was also sure she'd be hurt a lot worse if he took her with him on this journey to find his soul. Because that was a hard trek a man had to make alone.

  "Go on now," he told Stone.

  The big horse shook his head and stomped a large hoof, as if arguing with him, as if trying to tell his rider he was every kind of a fool. Daggert dug in his heels, and the big horse quit his recalcitrance and started forward, hanging his head low against the desert sand.

  Daggert urged Stone to a canter, as if wanting to leave the memories of Leeza at the miracle ranch's property lines.

  And still he heard her calling, "Daggert!"

  Chapter 15

  Two weeks had passed since Jack Dawson rode into Rancho Milagro alone, leading two extra horses by one of Daggert's hackamore ropes. And Leeza still couldn't shake the numbness that had invaded her body and mind.

  Jack Dawson had told them the tracker was exhausted and had decided to head straight down the river to his home. But Jack hadn't met her eyes during his little speech, and when she'd seen him lock gazes with Chance, she'd known that he lied.

  Daggert hadn't been exhausted, though he probably needed a month's sleep; he simply hadn't wanted to come to Rancho Milagro. And there could be only one reason for that: her presence there.

  "If you see him," she
'd said, "tell him his ex-wife was here and said that a cacique was coming and they were performing a sing for Donny next week. She thought he might like to know."

  Dawson had nodded and, in the midst of farewells, assured her he would relay the message to Daggert. "Anything else?" he'd asked.

  "Tell him…no, never mind."

  "It takes some time to come down from a four-year search," he said in a voice so low that no one else could have heard his words.

  She'd wanted to believe Jack. She'd clung to his words for the next several days. She watched the waning moon and the later sunrises and earlier sunsets. She'd made popcorn for the children on a stormy night, and sat up with them while one of the cats delivered kittens.

  But one day she gave up her spot on the veranda and coaxed Sancho to join her in her quarters. The dog seemed as listless as she felt. He whined in his sleep, his paws twitching, and she knew that, in his dreams, he ran for home, for Daggert.

  She'd taken the silky coated dog as a pledge of security that the man would return to her.

  But taking Sancho hostage had backfired. Daggert had done everything he'd vowed. He'd saved Enrique and he'd saved her. And he'd confronted his son's killer. She'd taken the dog so Daggert would come back for him. She'd taken Sancho hoping he'd come back for her.

  But he hadn't.

  Poor Sancho was as confused as she was, and as sad. But unlike her, he couldn't begin to understand why he'd been abandoned. And she couldn't explain it to him. She couldn't explain it to herself.

  She heard a knock at the door to her quarters, a lovely three-room suite in the far eastern wing of the primary ranch headquarters.

  "Come," she said.

  Sancho didn't even lift his sable head or wag his bushy tail.

  "Can I come in?" her friend Jeannie asked.