Apache-Colton Series

by Janis Reams Hudson

  Spence, with one eye on the trail and the other on LaRisa, wondered what was going through her mind. All the fire seemed to have gone out of her since the night he’d carried her down to the bed and…

  No. He wouldn’t allow himself to think about that, about how close he’d come to ruining both their lives. “I don’t want a wife, dammit.”

  “I think you’ve made that abundantly clear.”

  Spence swore silently. He hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud until she answered him. If he couldn’t pay any better attention to things than that, this trip could turn into a real disaster. He forced himself to concentrate on the surrounding territory, forced his eyes to scan for movement. They should be safe enough from outlaws and bandits until they neared the border, but he’d be a fool to take unnecessary chances. In this country, inattention could get a body killed.

  Halfway through the gap between the Santa Catalina and Santa Rita mountain ranges, Spence led the way off the trail and up a dry, winding arroyo to camp for the night. If LaRisa had thought her lessons ended once they left the ranch, she was wrong.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know how to cook?” Spence demanded. His fist clenched around the ears of the dead rabbit dangling from his grasp.

  “I didn’t say I didn’t know how to cook,” she snapped. The anger coursing through her at his tone felt good. “I can cook just fine. Better than many. I can make a stew so good you’ll cry for more. I’ll put my bread, cakes, and pies up against anyone’s. No matter how you want your eggs, I’ll get them perfect. Just show me the nearest stove.”

  “This,” he said, tossing another stick into the campfire, “is your stove.”

  There was just enough superior contempt in his voice to get her back up. “Fine.” She pulled the skillet from the bag of supplies he’d laid out near the fire, yanked the dead rabbit from his hand, slapped the hapless animal—feet, ears, fur, and all—into the skillet, then tossed the skillet directly onto the fire. “Dinner is cooking. Anything else you’d like me to do?”

  Spence stared at the mess, smelled the pungent odor of scorching fur, and mashed his lips together. It didn’t help. The corners of his mouth still twitched. He tugged down on them with his thumb and forefinger.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded, her voice filled with suspicion.

  Spence choked and turned his back. “Nothing,” he managed.

  “You’re laughing,” she accused.

  He shook his head hard in denial.

  “Then why are your shoulders shaking?” LaRisa demanded.

  Spence couldn’t hold it in any longer. A whoop of laughter escaped, then another, then another. He turned and glanced at the skillet, then at LaRisa, and laughed harder.

  LaRisa folded her arms across her chest and tapped the toe of one new boot in the dust. “I fail to see what’s so funny, white man.”

  Spence’s laugh dwindled to a chuckle. “That’s because you don’t have a sense of humor. Get that thing out of there before you ruin our supper.”

  Suppressing her own sudden laughter with all her might, LaRisa bent to grab the handle of the frying pan.

  “Don’t!” Spence reached out and kicked the skillet from the flames and onto the ground. “What are you trying to do, burn yourself?”

  “Watch out, white man,” she said. “First laughter, then concern. Next thing you know, you’ll have me thinking you’re a pleasant person.”

  He was still grinning when he said, “I doubt it. Now, let’s teach you how to skin and cook a rabbit.”

  She gave him her best blank stare. “Skin it? You’re supposed to skin it first?”

  “Oh, you are full of it tonight, aren’t you?”

  Yes, LaRisa thought. She was full of it all right. She just didn’t know what it was. She hadn’t meant to make him laugh. When he laughed, the blue in his eyes sparkled. His mouth curved enticingly. His whole face softened until she wanted so badly to put her hands on it, feel his smile with her lips, drink in his laughter.

  Stop it. She couldn’t afford to soften toward him. Not again. Every time they’d touched or kissed, he’d deliberately left her wanting more. That she kept falling into the same trap, indeed, that she occasionally sprang it on herself, made her more determined than ever to resist whatever it was that kept luring her toward him.

  That evening as the sun was setting, LaRisa learned to skin and dress a rabbit, and to cook it on a spit over an open fire. She learned to make coffee so strong it could melt a horseshoe. She learned that an arroyo—indeed, any cut or depression in the land—was a safe place to camp only during the dry months. Only when no clouds were visible anywhere on the horizon. Rain that was miles away in the mountains could send a flash flood over land that had not received any rain at all.

  And when she lay in her bedroll a few yards from Spence and looked up at the night sky, at stars so huge they seemed unreal, she learned how insignificant was man in the greater scheme of the universe. And if man was so insignificant, how much less important must a half Apache, half Mexican girl be, with no family, no home, and no one anywhere who cared about her?

  Somewhere in the distant woods of the foothills a whippoorwill called, its melodious cooing sounding lonely in the night. When the coyotes filled her heart with their song, LaRisa learned that the song was not always one of freedom and joy. Sometimes the song was of confusion. Of sadness. Of loss.

  With a soft moan, she threw her arm across her eyes to block out the sky. She had vowed to stop feeling sorry for herself. She would build a new life at Pa-Gotzin-Kay. She would not miss Spencer Colton in the least.

  Her new resolve gave her the courage to ask a question that had been nagging at her since they’d left the ranch that morning. “Spence?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What about our annulment?”

  “What about it?”

  “Weren’t we supposed to sign some papers or something?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “But…if we don’t sign annulment papers, doesn’t that mean we’re still married?”

  “There’s no point signing them until we see if you’re going to want to stay in Mexico.”

  The notion startled her. LaRisa hadn’t considered the possibility of not staying with The People in Mexico. “Why wouldn’t I stay?”

  Spence stared up at the sky and wondered what kind of game he was playing with himself. He had the papers in his saddlebags. All they had to do was sign them and have them witnessed. “You might not like it there.”

  “But what if I do? What if I stay? You’ll go home and we’ll still be legally married, and you don’t want a wife.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure it out. Go to sleep, will you? I’m tired.”

  The land they passed through the next day was every bit as huge and vast as the night sky had been. Yet here under the sun, among the mountains and prairies, cactus and trees, rocks and streams, LaRisa did not feel insignificant. She felt…at home.

  They came out of the gap into the broad, flat San Pedro Valley and continued southeast along the eastern side of the Huachuca Mountains. They camped that night in the hills just above the border, overlooking the wide valley.

  “Where are we?” LaRisa asked as they unloaded the pack mules.

  “We’re just north of the border. Naco Springs is about twelve miles east of here.”

  “Then why are we stopping? It’s still a couple of hours until sundown.”

  Spence shook his head. “Naco is a border town. Rough, ugly, and mean as hell. I’m not taking you anywhere near it.”

  “Then why not just keep riding and get another couple of hours down the trail?”

  “We can’t make it all the way to Canyon de los Embudos tonight, and I won’t chance camping anywhere else below the border. At least on this side, if there’s trouble, we stand some chance—however slim—of getting help. Once we cross into Mexico, there’ll be no such thing as help. Sonora is crawling with bandits who would like nothing
better than to get their hands on these supplies, not to mention on a woman.”

  LaRisa bristled. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Under normal circumstances, I would agree. How do you think you’d fare against a dozen armed men?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “When we cross the border in the morning, we’re heading straight for the canyon and we’re not stopping for anything. We should reach it by the middle of the day. We’ll wait until the next morning to take the trail up the mountain.”

  LaRisa used her forearm to wipe the sweat from her brow. It was too hot to stay angry. “I never realized how much trouble…I guess I’ve been a lot of trouble for you from the start, haven’t I?”

  Spence gave a negligent shrug and started staking out the mules in the sparse grass near a small seep at the bottom of the crumbing west wall of the ravine he’d selected for their campsite. “None of it’s been your fault.”

  “That’s very generous of you, but it’s not true. I’m sorry, Spence. Sorry my father got you mixed up with me. I wish you would have told me your worries about this trip. It’s not right for you to risk yourself for me. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  Spence didn’t want to have this conversation. “Can we drop it? Humility doesn’t become you.”

  LaRisa frowned. “What the devil is that supposed to mean?”

  Now, that was more like it. She was angry again. He could deal with angry a hell of a lot easier than any of her other moods. “Just forget it. Nothing’s going to happen, so you don’t need to worry.”

  Spence was wrong about nothing happening. He found out how wrong the next day. They were only a couple of hours below the border, miles to go before they reached the hidden canyon they sought, when three leering Mexicans with long mustaches and big sombreros leaped from behind the rocks on either side of the trail and drew down on them.

  In the lead, Spence’s horse reared at the appearance of men suddenly before it. Behind Spence, the mules set up a racket and pulled on the line secured to his saddle. With his gut in a tight knot, Spence hauled on the reins to bring his horse’s head down, and shouted at LaRisa to turn and run.

  He needed to draw his gun, but his horse was demanding the use of both hands.

  He shouted at LaRisa again. The bandits were on foot. By the time they reached their mounts and gave chase, she would have a good head start. She might not have been riding for long, but he’d never yet heard of anyone catching an Apache on horseback who didn’t want to be caught. “Go!” he shouted. “Run!”

  LaRisa thought about it, about running, for maybe half a second, when fear locked her muscles tight and stopped the breath in her throat, but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t leave Spence to be killed while she fled like a coward. Her gun. She needed her gun. She twisted to reach into her saddlebag for the pistol Spence had given her. While her attention was behind her, a bandit rushed in and yanked the reins from her hand.

  With a shriek, she felt the butt of the pistol slip from her hand. The bandit grabbed her arm in a bruising grip and yanked. LaRisa went flying through the air. Her head struck the ground and everything went black.

  LaRisa moaned and rolled her head, then wished she hadn’t. Sharp pain stabbed through her skull and into her brain. She clutched her head with both hands and forced her eyes open. She must have been unconscious. How? What…?

  Suddenly she remembered and bolted up from the ground. A wave of dizziness hit her, and the blinding pain in her head struck again. She squeezed her eyes shut against rolling nausea. A deep husky chuckle made her open them again.

  She couldn’t have been out long, for the dust had yet to settle. Spence!

  He stood beside the trail, an arm’s length from his horse. The holster at his hip was empty. Cold fury was etched in sharp lines across his face, turning the scar on his cheek a livid red. His hands were clenched tight at his sides as his eyes anxiously searched her face. One of the bandits stood behind him and slightly to one side, digging the barrel of his pistol into the soft underside of Spence’s chin.

  LaRisa felt a chill of terror race down her spine.

  “Ah, señorita,” said the bandit in front of her, “you are much too lovely to share your company with a filthy gringo like this one.” He stepped closer, and the smell of old sweat and feted breath nearly gagged her. “You do much better to share yourself with us, no?”

  LaRisa fought down her terror and straightened her spine. She gave the Mexican a look of contempt. “You are right. I share myself with you, no.”

  The man before her laughed and stepped closer.

  Too late, she remembered the third man. He grabbed her from behind and wrapped his arms around her chest just below her breasts. His hold pinned her arms to her sides and left her feet dangling in the air. She knew he could feel her heart thundering behind her breastbone. He held her so tight she felt the shells in the crossed bandoliers he wore over his chest dig painfully into her back.

  Fear tasted like copper in her mouth. Dear God, give me strength, give me courage.

  The man before her obviously didn’t think he needed a weapon to control her, for his pistol remained holstered. The one who held her had both arms around her, which meant he wasn’t holding a weapon. But the man with Spence held a gun on him. With Spence guarded so closely, that meant getting them out of this was going to be up to her. She trembled, and hated herself for it. She was an Apache. An Apache did not tremble before enemies.

  The man before her laughed again. “Ah, but I think you are mistaken, chica. Miguel, he likes pretty girls like you, and Miguel takes what he wants. Like this.” He covered her breasts with his grimy hands and squeezed.

  It was one of those little tricks the mind occasionally played, the ability to make a person think she was suddenly someplace else. The Mexican’s hands on her breasts instantly transported LaRisa back to Miss Latimer’s dark library that night a mere week before Spence had come to take her to Alabama.

  For the length of a heartbeat, the harsh Mexican sun faded to the dim glow of a single lamp. Instead of sage and rocks and cactus, she saw a desk, book cases, a leather sofa and chairs in blood-red leather. Instead of a filthy Mexican bandito, the man leering in her face and fondling her breasts was a gray-headed shopkeeper with wiry side-whiskers and a German accent. Rather than sweat and rancid breath, she smelled bay rum, Macassar hair oil, and brandy.

  Schultz. William Schultz. He had touched her like this, hurtfully, shamefully, humiliating her, terrifying her. She had cringed and tried to run, but he’d caught her. Then Miss Latimer had found them and accused LaRisa of instigating the incident. Miss Latimer had held her bent over the back of a chair while Schultz, proclaiming himself the victim of LaRisa’s evil ways, had beat her with his belt.

  LaRisa blinked.

  Not this time. She would not docilely take whatever these bastards chose to deal her.

  Miguel leaned closer, squeezed harder.

  LaRisa spit in his face.

  The bandit jerked away and swore. Then slowly, with murder in his eyes, he wiped the spittle from his cheek. “Puta.” He swung. The back of his hand connected with her cheek. Pain blackened her vision to two tiny dots of light. Had her head not been flush against her captor’s chest, her neck would have surely snapped from the blow.

  “I will teach you to beg for my favors.”

  “I’ll see you in hell first, Mexican.”

  Miguel’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, so. You are not Mexican, then. I wondered. You look like an indio. Dios mio, you are Apache.”

  She glared, trying desperately to hide her terror with bravado. “And an Apache begs nothing from a pig like you.”

  “Ah, chica, but you are wrong. I will show you how wrong you are. When I take you, you will beg for more. I take you like this.” He grabbed a handful of what he must have thought was a regular skirt, but what was actually only one leg of her split riding costume. He gave a puzzled frown. “I take you like this,” he repeated, pulling harder on the material
.

  LaRisa quivered and took a deep breath. “Then take this.” She swung her foot out and caught him directly between the legs with the pointed toe of her new boot.

  Miguel yelled and doubled over, grabbing his crotch with both hands.

  LaRisa tried to jerk free of her captor’s hold, but it was no use. She kicked back with her heel and was gratified by the sharp oath in her ear as she connected with his shin.

  Before her, Miguel started to swear, hard, vicious words in Spanish, words so vile she barely caught their meaning.

  Terror threatened to strangle her.

  “You will pay for that, bitch.” Breathing hard from the pain of her blow, he motioned toward the man holding Spence. “Bring the gringo here. I want him to watch while I pleasure myself on his woman. Then he can watch while I carve her to pieces.”

  “You won’t carve her up until we’ve had our turn, will you?” asked the man holding LaRisa.

  “No, Julio, you will have your turn first,” Miguel ground out as he advanced toward her again. “Both of you. More than once if you want.”

  Spence felt icy, impotent rage mix with fear and threaten to strangle him. Dammit, the woman had too much courage for her own good. He wanted to shout at her to stand still, to not provoke these bastards. What good he thought that would do, he had no idea. If only he’d been paying more attention, instead of worrying about having to leave her in the mountains if she liked it there. Damn his worthless hide! He had to do something, or neither of them would see sunset, let alone the mountain stronghold LaRisa hoped would be her home.

  If he reached out his right hand he would almost be able to touch the rifle in his saddle scabbard. Almost. The man behind him had taken his pistol.

  The gun beneath his chin dug in and pulled him forward.

  “Easy, amigo, one step at a time,” the bastard hissed.