Apache-Colton Series

by Janis Reams Hudson

  Travis turned again and stood shoulder to shoulder with her.

  At least, they would have been shoulder to shoulder if she weren’t so short and he weren’t so tall. With their backs to the stallion, Travis ordered, “Get up on Buck.”

  Without taking her eyes off the growling men surrounding them, she answered, “No.” She knew what he was trying to do. He wanted to make sure she got safely away while he took his chances in the wagon, which would be much slower. She couldn’t let him do it. She’d started this mess, and she’d see it through. She’d never forgive herself if Travis was hurt, or worse, tying to protect her.

  She ducked under his drawn revolver and scooted next to the wagon, again without taking her eyes off the other men. “Cover me while I climb in,” she whispered.

  Her skirt and petticoats tangled around her legs while she used the spokes of the back wheel as a ladder. The boys, still crouching behind the flour barrels, stared at her wide-eyed. Poor things, they had no idea what was going on.

  With a flash of black silk stocking, she was finally able to throw a leg over the side and crawl into the wagon bed. “Now you,” she said to Travis as she leveled her revolver on the front row of the crowd again.

  As Travis swung into the saddle, the mob surged forward. Daniella fired over their heads. Not even an instant later, Tucker gave a fierce shout and whipped the team into motion. Daniella grabbed the side of the wagon to keep from tumbling out.

  The wagon pulled away with a jerk. Travis backed Buck down the road to keep the buzzing, cursing men at bay. A shot rang out, then another. He fired into the ground at the feet of the men in front. It slowed them a moment, but he knew it wouldn’t be long before they realized he was only one man. He couldn’t believe they’d made it this far without getting killed.

  If he and Daniella lived through this, he swore he would wring her neck for such a stunt.

  But by God, she was the bravest woman on earth!

  He fired three rapid shots over the crowd as he wheeled Buck around. Crouching low, he let out a short, sharp whistle and gave the stallion his head. Buck took one mighty leap, then broke out into a full gallop. Shots whizzed past Travis’s ears.

  He was gaining on the wagon. Behind him, the crowd broke up as men scrambled for their horses in order to follow. All Travis could do was stay behind the wagon and fire randomly over his shoulder when the pursuers drew near. It might hold them off for a while.

  When he neared the wagon, Tucker glanced over his shoulder and gestured wildly toward the wagon bed. He shouted something, but Travis couldn’t hear over the thundering hooves, the creak of axles, and the rattle of chains and wagon.

  His eyes swept the wagon bed. Where was Dani? My God, where was she? He drew nearer, and Tucker shouted again: “The girl’s been hit!”

  Travis felt his heart stop and the blood drain from his face. No! She can’t be hit!

  When he pulled alongside the wagon, he saw her. She lay face down across a sack of coffee beans. Her right arm and the right half of her back were covered in blood.

  Travis then did something that, in a saner moment, he would never have dreamed of doing. But he wasn’t particularly sane just then. He was mad with fear and anger and grief.

  He reacted without thinking. He tied his reins loosely to the saddle horn, pulled his feet from the stirrups, and jumped into the wagon bed.

  In an instant he scrambled to Dani’s side, muttering a prayer beneath his breath. He grabbed her wrist, but the vibrations from the wagon were so strong he couldn’t feel a pulse. Terrified, he rolled her over onto his lap and pressed his fingers into her neck beside her Adam’s apple. There! Was that a pulse? He couldn’t tell.

  He bent his head to her chest. A soft moan from her lips finally told him she was alive. For now.

  He pulled the bandanna from around his neck and pressed it against the gaping hole near her shoulder blade. It was soaked through in seconds. He flipped her skirt up and reached to tear a strip from her petticoat to use as padding for the wound. He couldn’t put enough pressure on it in the position she was in.

  He pulled her up against his chest and wrapped an arm around her, his palm pressing the pad against the wound. With his free hand, he untied the bow beneath her chin and slipped the straw hat from her head. Her long, black and white hair slid from its pins and tumbled across her back and his arm.

  Beside him, the two Apache boys gasped at the sight. Travis ignored them. He was too busy praying. Please, God, don’t let her die.

  A shot thudded into the wagon seat inches from his ear. He got off a couple of shots that emptied his pistol. Tucker passed him the shotgun. A blast from that, and the riders fell back.

  Travis shouted to Tucker that the Triple C was the closest safety, and Tucker agreed. The ride seemed to take forever as Dani’s blood seeped from beneath his fingers and ran down his arm. Oh God, don’t let her die.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Travis reloaded his pistol and the shotgun with one hand, and fired whenever a rider got too close. Realizing the danger Dani was in, held up against his chest as he had her, he was forced to lay her down out of the line of fire.

  The riders were getting bolder now. One of the boldest was Crane. But with the bouncing and jostling the wagon was taking on the rutted, rocky road, there was no way Travis could hope to hit a target. All he could do was fire at random.

  A rider pulled up on each side of the wagon. Travis shot one from the saddle, but Tucker sat between him and the other one. The man tried to force his mount into the team to turn them, but Buck had other ideas. He ran on the other side of the team. When they started to swerve, he nipped the nearest one in the shoulder.

  Tucker gathered the reins in one fist and groped beneath the seat. He came up with a whip and struck the rider full across the back, knocking him from his horse.

  As the others drew near, Travis worried he’d run out of ammunition. A mile from the ranch house, help came. Five Triple C riders burst over the low rise to the left. Travis waved to let them know he needed help.

  Five men against the fifteen or so who followed the wagon shouldn’t have been enough help, but it was. They swept down on the pursuers, whooping and firing, making as much noise as fifty men. The mob from town fell back. From the other side of the road three more Triple C riders joined in the fray. The pursuers turned back and became the pursued.

  An eternity later, the wagon rattled and jolted to a stop before the Triple C ranch house. Travis shielded Dani’s face as best he could from the thick cloud of dust stirred up by hooves and wheels. He was never so glad to see home before.

  At his shout, Jason, Matt, Carmen, and Juanita, his housekeeper, came running outside.

  “Juanita, turn down my bed and fetch Rosita. Dani’s been shot. Matt, get up here and untie these boys. Tell them they’re safe.”

  Matt’s eyes bulged at the sight of Dani’s blood smeared all over his father. He swallowed and looked Travis in the eye. “Is she gonna die, Dad?”

  “No! Don’t even think it.”

  Travis cradled Dani in his arms and climbed from the wagon while Matt and Juanita rushed to follow his orders.

  Travis placed Dani on his bed and gently smoothed back her hair. God, she was so pale. His stomach knotted and his eyes blurred. When he reached for the buttons on the front of her jacket, Juanita objected.

  “Señor Travis, it is not proper. I will see to the señorita.”

  Travis kept at the buttons without a pause. “I’m not leaving her, Juanita.”

  Juanita gave in and helped him. They unbuttoned the jacket, dress, and corset cover, then gently turned Dani over onto her stomach and slid the clothes down her arms. The blood-soaked corset ties snarled, and Juanita ended up having to cut them with scissors.

  They slid the chemise straps down Dani’s arms and pushed her clothes to her waist. Juanita pressed a cloth to the bleeding wound.

  Travis stepped back to give Juanita room to work on the wound. Only then did he notic
e the three long scars across Dani’s back. Something lurched in his chest. He’d seen marks like those before, but never on a woman. They were lash marks.

  Rosita rushed in carrying bandages and hot water, her lips compressed in a tight line. She had been cooking for and tending the Colton family since they first came to this territory. If anyone could help Dani, it was Rosita.

  “Madre de Dios,” she whispered when she saw the wound and the scars. She examined the wound carefully. The bullet had lodged against the bone, keeping the shot from going all the way through the shoulder and out the other side. “You must hold her still, Señor Travis, while I remove the bullet.”

  Dani moaned and tried to pull away from Rosita’s probing, but Travis held her down firmly against the mattress. He could almost feel those scissors reaching down into his own flesh, trying to grasp a small lead ball that had invaded his body.

  Her pain was his, and he nearly cried out each time she groaned beneath the probing. It seemed to take Rosita forever to find that damn lead. When the bullet was removed and the bandage in place, Travis let out a shaky breath and wiped the sweat from his brow with a trembling hand.

  “You go now, Señor Travis. I will tend her.”

  “Take good care of her, Rosita.”

  “Sí. I will take good care.”

  Travis stepped out into the hall and heard voices coming from the salon. Tucker was telling Jason and Carmen what had happened. Instead of joining them, Travis slipped out into the courtyard and found Matt and the two Apache boys.

  “Is Dani gonna be all right, Dad?”

  “I think so, son. How about these two?” he asked, nodding to the two boys.

  Matt introduced them as Shanta and Natzili-Chee.

  “Tell them we’ll get them home to their families as soon as we can.”

  Travis felt like a coward when he left a moment later. The two Apache boys looked terrified, and justifiably so. He should spend some time with them, reassure them they were safe. But he couldn’t concentrate on talking just then. His thoughts were too full of Dani.

  Dani. He’d been calling her that in his mind for days.

  Since arriving home, Matt had talked so much about “Dani did this” or “Dani did that” that Travis had unconsciously started thinking of her by that shortened name. It suited her.

  He paced the hall outside his room and prayed Dani would be all right. A moment later Juanita came out carrying a clean shirt for him. He followed her to the kitchen, where he washed the blood, Dani’s blood, from his hands. After slipping into the clean shirt, he went back to his room. He couldn’t stay away.

  The women had dressed Dani in a white gown. The sheet, the same sheet he’d slept beneath last night, was pulled up to her shoulders. As his eyes roamed over her colorless features, he saw her bare neck for the first time. Now he knew why she always wore that bandanna. A thin white scar encircled her neck. He remembered talk of Apaches and rawhide leashes. He took a deep breath and forced his eyes away from the vivid reminder of her capture.

  Her hair had been brushed free of tangles and lay spread across the pillow. She was so still and pale, and looked so tiny and vulnerable lying there in his big bed.

  He pulled a chair next to her and sat down. “I’ll stay with her a while, Rosita.”

  “Sí, Señor Travis, but watch her carefully for any signs of fever. It will probably come, and when it does, we must try to keep it down as much as possible. If the fever gets too high, the poor child might loose her baby.”

  His breath caught in his throat. “Baby?” he croaked.

  “Sí…she is expecting a little one. My guess would be that she is about four months along.”

  Rosita quietly left the room, and Travis buried his face in his hands. Thinking back on their trip home with Matt, he knew Dani hadn’t known about the baby then, or she would never have said she couldn’t have children. How did she feel about it? He tried to put himself in her place, but found he couldn’t.

  He knew so little about her, except that she had survived things that would have killed most people. And she was beautiful. The idea of this girl…this woman, giving birth to a half-breed Apache bastard and raising it alone depressed him so much he felt like crying. He had no doubt that the child was the product of her rape at the hands of the Apaches.

  Lord, what was the matter with him? He hadn’t felt this badly for another person in years. As he looked down at her face, he thought she looked so fragile she would crumble into dust if he so much as touched her cheek. A fierce desire to protect her rose up within him, and he found himself wishing the child she carried was his.

  Fool, he told himself. If she didn’t want anything to do with men before this, she certainly won’t want you near her now. What was wrong with him, that he should find himself caring so much for a woman who carried another man’s child?

  But that wasn’t her fault. It was done to her against will. Damn!

  After a couple of hours, Juanita came back to sit with Dani.

  Travis went to the salon and found Tucker alone.

  “More brandy?” Travis asked, indicating the nearly empty glass in the old man’s hand. Tucker had been a surprise to him. On the trail home with Matt, Travis had tried to get Dani to talk about herself, but she was the most close-lipped woman he’d ever met. He’d assumed she didn’t live alone, but he sure hadn’t expected her to be hooked up with this crusty old prospector.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Tucker answered. “How’s the girl?”

  “Rosita says she’ll be fine,” Travis answered, unwilling to repeat the rest of Rosita’s words.

  “Good, good.” Tucker’s eyes crinkled at the corners. The middle of his shaggy gray beard wiggled, so Travis assumed the old man was smiling.

  Travis refilled Tucker’s glass, then poured one for himself.

  He was amazed to find his hands shaking. Now that he was reasonably certain Dani would be all right, he should have felt relieved, but he didn’t. Frustration and anger ate at him until he finally exploded.

  “Damn it, what the hell did she think she was doing taking on a mob like that? She’s lucky she wasn’t killed—that we all weren’t killed. What the hell possessed her to pull something so stupid?” He glared at Tucker as if blaming the old man for Dani’s actions.

  “She’s a fighter, the girl is. You been on the trail with her. You oughta know that. She seen somethin’ that needed doin’, and she done it. That’s just the way she is. You don’t think I could have stopped her, do ya?”

  Travis ground his teeth and let the air slowly out of his lungs. “No, I don’t suppose anyone could have stopped her, short of hogtying her.”

  “Right,” Tucker said. Then he chuckled. “She shore is somethin’, ain’t she?”

  Travis smiled in spite of himself. “Yeah,” he said, “she sure is something.”

  He studied the old man for a moment, then said, “Forgive me, but you and Dani seem like a rather unlikely pair. How did you meet her, if you don’t mind my asking?” Maybe Tucker would be able to answer some of the other questions which had plagued him since meeting the “Woman of Magic.”

  “I guess it does look a might odd, an old coot like me and a sweet young girl like her. First time I saw her was the night them murderin’ redskins brung her to their camp. What a godawful night that was, to be sure.”

  “You were there? In their camp?” This must be the same old man he saw her with that first time.

  “Yep. Been there a couple of weeks by then, and before you ask, no, I weren’t there exactly by choice. They come up on me one day when I was burying poor ol’ Jacob, my mule, God rest his soul. They thought I was crazy for diggin’ that great big hole to bury somethin’ as good to eat as mule meat, but Jacob, well, he was somethin’ special, he was. Well, anyhow, I’d heard tell Injuns don’t harm crazy folks, so I just kept actin’ crazy. They took me back with them and treated me like a guest, ‘cept, o’ course, they wouldn’t let me leave on accounta they thought I might hu
rt myself, bein’ crazy an’ all. That’s how I come to be there that night when they brung in the girl and them two men.”

  “What two men?” Travis tossed off the feeling that he was prying into something that was none of his business. He needed to know more about her. He took another sip of his brandy and tried to appear calm.

  “They was from the stagecoach the girl was on. They’d been wounded, but not killed, so them dad blamed heathens brung ‘em back for a little entertainment, if ya know what I mean. Christ, I wouldn’t do to a snake what they done to them men. And there the girl was, tryin’ her damnedest to keep from watchin’ what was goin’ on, but every time she closed her eyes or turned her head away, somebody’d let fly with one of them nasty little whips across the girl’s back, tellin’ her to watch the fun. I don’t know how she lived through that night, I surely don’t.”

  Travis felt a wave of sickness wash over him as he visualized the scene Tucker described. He wanted to stop this conversation, but he couldn’t. “I saw the scars on her back.”

  He paused to swallow heavily, and took a deep breath before going on. “And on her neck. I’ve heard they use leashes. Is that how she got that one?”

  “Yep. They like to lead their captives around the camp and show ‘em off,” Tucker supplied with disgust.

  “What else did they do to her, Tucker?”

  The old man’s gaze turned hard as he stared at Travis.

  “What the hell else do ya think they did to her? You know what they did without me tellin’ ya.”

  Travis hung his head and stared at the glass in his hand.

  Yes, he knew what they did to her. He was suddenly glad Tucker’s answer had been so brief. He really didn’t want to know all the details. He was prying enough as it was. But there was something else he had to know.

  “What about her hair? I’ve heard their explanation. Did you see what happened?”

  “Well, now, that there is really a strange thing, it is.”

  Tucker settled himself more comfortably against the cushions of the sofa and took on the air of some great orator. “When them bucks was finished doin’ their worst to her, the squaws came next. They beat her with sticks. But that girl, she never quit fightin’. I never seen nobody, man nor woman, red, black nor white, fight as hard as she did. Any time anybody got too close, she spit right in their faces, damned if she didn’t. Well, one of the older women took offense at bein’ spit on and took a great big stick and hit the girl in the head. Knocked her plum out. If they’d done that at the start, maybe she wouldn’t be rememberin’ so much of that night.”