A Lady of the West

by Linda Howard

  “Stop him!” she gasped, trying to pull free of his grip. “Get him off her!”

  He shook her a little, swinging her around so his body blocked her view of the horses. “I can’t stop it. What’s wrong with you?”

  Her face was white, her eyes huge as she stared up at him. “I didn’t want her bred,” she said in a strangled tone. “You knew that. Not now. Especially not to him!”

  Her missishness irritated him; it was common sense to put the best stallion on the best mare to get the best foals. His hands were rough as he turned her around and began forcing her back toward the house. “Did you think we’d breed her to some scrub?”

  His fingers were biting into her arms; he was almost dragging her in his haste to get her inside, out of the sight of the other men. Some deeply possessive instinct was outraged that they had seen her witnessing a sexual act, even one between two animals. He didn’t stop until they were on the patio. “Get back in the house. You shouldn’t have come out here.”

  His total lack of understanding was like a slap in the face. She didn’t expect sympathy, but she did expect at least an acknowledgment that she had a right to feel as she did. She pulled away from him and turned her head from the sights and sounds of the two horses mating. “I thought she was my horse,” she said in a small, clear voice. “I didn’t give permission for her to be bred.”

  “I suggested breeding her to Rubio before the Major ever bought her,” Jake said impatiently. “That’s the only reason he bought her, not to give you a pleasure mount. I talked him into letting me train her for you; otherwise you’d be riding something like Emma’s gelding. We decided yesterday to put Rubio in with her. This isn’t hurting her, and you’ll have a fine foal out of her.”

  “No, I won’t.” Her eyes were clear and stark as she stared at him. “The Major will have a fine foal from her.” Her back was rigid as she turned away from him to go into the house.

  He clamped his hand on her shoulder and jerked her back around to face him, angered by the way she’d turned her back on him. “Stop acting like a fool. This isn’t your precious South; we can’t afford to let a good animal go to waste. Did you really think she was bought only for you to ride?”

  Victoria lifted her chin, pride keeping her hurt from her face. She wouldn’t have been so upset if it had been any stallion other than Rubio, but he’d scoffed at her objections to the horse. Her voice expressionless, she said, “I suppose I did. After all, Emma’s gelding hasn’t been used for ranch work, nor has Celia’s mare.”

  “They aren’t the same quality as Sophie.” He tamped down his impatience and tried to get her to see reason. There was just no sense in this kind of behavior. “Like I said, this isn’t hurting her. When I’ve found whoever shot at you yesterday and it’s safe again, we can go riding just like before.”

  Her expression didn’t flicker. “I’m afraid not, Mr. Roper,” she said, and once again turned to enter the house. “I don’t have a horse.”

  So it was Mr. Roper again, was it? Anger burned in his gut as he stalked back to the corral. The horses were finished, but none of the men would approach Rubio and Sophie was acting up whenever one of them got close to her. The unfamiliar situation had made her nervous, and a nervous Sophie was a biting Sophie.

  Still fuming, he put Rubio back in his stall, patting the muscled red neck and telling the stallion what a good job he’d done. Rubio snorted, his ears back a little. Jake didn’t turn his back on the horse as he left the stall and shut the door. If the foal’s temperament was a mixture of sire and dam, he thought dourly, they might as well shoot it when it was born because no one would ever be able to ride it.

  Sophie moved awkwardly away from him, lifting her hobbled feet high as if trying to step out of the rope. She had blood on her neck where Rubio had bitten her; it was black against her dark chestnut coat. Damn him, the stallion was always rough on a mare. Jake murmured soothingly to Sophie until she finally stood still and let him approach. He patted and stroked her, watching the wild look fade from her eyes. When he bent down to remove the hobble, she butted him affectionately with her head.

  Damn it, was everything female just naturally contrary? He wanted to give Victoria a good shaking. She’d acted as if she would never be able to ride Sophie again and had taken it out on him.

  Patience. He just had to have patience. But it was hard, and getting harder.

  During the days that followed, Victoria didn’t leave the house. Neither did Celia nor Emma. The three women passed the time with the mundane chores of everyday life, giving each other strained, silent looks but carrying on with an outward air of calm. What else could they do? Hysteria wouldn’t solve anything.

  Celia remained close to her sister and cousin, instinctively seeking the safety of their company. She could barely remain in the same room with the Major long enough to take her meals.

  McLain looked increasingly awful as the days passed. His eyes seemed permanently red and swollen, his face haggard and unshaven. Victoria doubted that he was bathing, because a persistent sour smell clung to him. She could hear him at night, pacing on the other side of the door and muttering to himself, and the sound made her shiver. He was mad. She couldn’t manage to feel any pity for him; this punishment seemed all too fitting to his crimes. But she did fear what could happen when he made the final descent and reality no longer had any meaning for him. He could convince himself that one of the Sarratt boys was in a room with them, and start shooting. Or, even worse, he might decide that she was the Sarratt woman, the one he had raped and murdered, and reenact his deed. She would rather be killed outright than endure his touch.

  She didn’t know how much longer she could bear it. The days were spent close to the house, making certain Celia was always watched, unable to ride out as she longed to do. The nights were also spent watching the connecting door, listening to the Major’s increasingly crazy mutters and bursts of laughter. The very air was full of menace and she was helpless to escape it, because it was outside as well as in. No matter which way she turned, there was danger.

  Narrow-eyed, Garnet watched McLain. The damn fool was going crazy, talking to himself about the Sarratts coming back to kill them all. Things hadn’t worked out as he’d planned. He’d missed his shot with the woman, and since then she hadn’t been riding at all. Damn Roper, too, while he was at it. Garnet had sweated until he’d been able to reshod his horse, knowing Roper had looked real good at the hoofprints leading away from the failed ambush. Now he couldn’t get a shot at the woman, and McLain was getting the men all stirred up with his howling about Sarratts coming back from the grave to get them.

  Maybe he should do what he’d originally planned and just kill the Major. At least it would shut him up. Only problem was he couldn’t do that until he’d found some way to get rid of Roper. Garnet never allowed himself to think that he was actually afraid of Roper, he thought of it as caution, because the man was cat-quick with a gun and as mean as a wounded grizzly. Will Garnet prided himself on not being afraid of no man walking, but he also prided himself on being smart enough to know there were some people you just didn’t mess with. Roper was one of them.

  Jake Quinzy halted beside him, also watching the Major reel back toward the house. Quinzy spat in the dust before he spoke. “Major’s gettin’ spooky. I been here a long time, but I been thinkin’ maybe it’s time to be movin’ on.”

  Garnet sneered. “That crazy talk about the Sarratts scare you?”

  Quinzy spat again. “Don’t reckon.” His eyes were cold slits. “Don’t reckon I like workin’ for no crazy man, neither.”

  Garnet didn’t like telling anyone his plans, but he needed Quinzy’s gun. “The Major might not be around much longer.”

  Quinzy grunted and rolled that around in his mind. “You thinkin’ of takin’ over?”

  “Don’t see why not, do you?”

  “No skin off me.” He paused. “Unless you plannin’ on hurtin’ Miz McLain. Guess I’d have to part with you on th
at.”

  Startled, Garnet looked at him. He couldn’t remember Quinzy balking at anything before. But now wasn’t the time to buck him on it. Instead he said, “I got plans for the little sister, not Miz Roper. Good plans.” He laughed.

  Quinzy chuckled, too. “Yep, she is right purty, ain’t she? Reckon the fuzz a-tween her legs is as yeller as her head?”

  Just thinking about it made Garnet start breathing faster. That was something else he was mad about; he hadn’t seen Celia leave the house in days. The women were holed up inside like Injuns were attacking or something.

  “When you plannin’ on makin’ your move?” Quinzy asked.

  “Don’t know.” Now he wished he hadn’t said anything, because if he didn’t do something it would make him look like a coward. On the other hand, he couldn’t do anything until he could get at the Major’s wife.

  So all he could do was wait it out.

  A lone, dusty rider approached the ranch late one afternoon, slumping in the saddle with fatigue. Angelina Garcia was the first to see him and her eyes brightened at the thought of having a new man, but she didn’t move from her languid slump against the barn wall.

  The next one to see the rider was one of the gunhands. He nudged Garnet, pointed out the stranger to him. Garnet looked without much interest; it was just another down-at-the-heel wrangler, one of the thousands who had poured west after the end of the war, drifting and looking for work.

  Jake watched the man ride in and made no effort to speak or attract his attention. Time enough for that later. What the hell was he doing, riding in here like this? If anyone noticed their resemblance, people would get suspicious. But when the rider turned his head, Jake stifled a grin as he saw that the man had grown a short, dark beard. Smart.

  Work was what the man asked about, and Garnet considered it. He didn’t have to ask the Major every time he hired a cowpuncher because they tended to drift out as often as they drifted in. But, as dirty and tired as he was, this man didn’t have the look of a cowpuncher. Maybe it was his eyes, cool and guarded; maybe he just looked a mite too comfortable with the iron strapped to his hip, the handle worn smooth with use. If he guessed right, this was a gunnie, maybe on the run. They could always use another gun, but the Major liked to look them over himself. Of course, the Major had been acting so loony lately, Garnet would be surprised if he could talk sense.

  To hell with the Major. What he liked wouldn’t make a difference much longer, anyway. “Yeah, find a place to bunk down,” Garnet said. “You any good with that piece you’re wearin’?”

  “I’m alive,” the man said flatly as he swung down from the saddle.

  “How’re you called?”

  “Tanner.” He offered just the one name, and Garnet didn’t ask if it was the front or the back one. Hell, it probably wasn’t his real name, anyhow.

  Tanner took care of his weary horse before seeking any sort of comfort for himself. He watered and fed the animal, brushed the dust from its coat, and put it in an empty stall. Slinging his saddle onto his broad shoulder, he went in search of the bunkhouse.

  Like all of the buildings except the wooden barn, the bunkhouse was made of thick adobe, so it was cool in the summer. Regardless of that, weather permitting, a lot of the men preferred to sleep outside rolled in their blankets. Tanner had his choice of empty bunks. They didn’t look too dirty, and he didn’t much care. He was so tired he thought he’d probably be able to sleep standing up. Figuring there wasn’t anything he could do or find out that wouldn’t wait until morning, he pulled off his boots, slid his .44 under the thin pillow, and went to sleep. He didn’t feel the lumps in the mattress.

  It was a little after midnight when he woke, feeling human again. Not wanting to disturb the men nearby—including Garnet, he saw—he silently slid the .44 back into his holster. Patting his pockets for the makings of a cigarette, he carefully rolled, licked, and lit it with a straw he’d stuck into the stove. He then picked up his boots and tiptoed out like a man who just wanted a smoke in the middle of the night. Outside, he pulled on his boots and started wandering around, smoking and looking at the stars. It was a moonless night, but that made the stars just that much brighter. It was the kind of night when sound carried for long distances.

  He walked to the corral and leaned against the fence while he finished the cigarette. Only then did he go into the stable to check on his horse, which was dozing comfortably. Still wandering, he next visited the barn.

  “About time you woke up,” a low voice said, and he turned to look at his brother.

  “Anyone around?” Ben asked in an equally low voice.

  “No.” Jake had waited through the long hours to make certain no one entered the barn. Still, he and Ben walked deeper into the building, away from the doors. Rubio snorted and stamped a hoof, a signal that he didn’t like being awakened.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Ben felt he was entitled to the ill-temper in his voice. “Your telegram said to get here as fast as possible, that things had changed. I started rounding up the men we’ve hired, then left the rest of it to Lonny with orders for him to get them here pronto, and I lit out. I damn near rode my horse into the ground, then I get here and everything seems quiet. I figured they’d found out who you are.” He didn’t say that he had halfway expected to find his brother dead, but both of them knew the consequences if anyone found out who they were before their men got there to back them up.

  “The Major has got himself a wife.”

  “So?”

  “So when he dies, she inherits.”

  Ben was silent as he absorbed what this meant to their plans. “Shit,” he said.

  “Yeah. She’s a lady, young enough to be his daughter. Her cousin and little sister live here now, too.”

  “So what’re we going to do? We can’t kill an innocent woman.”

  “No, but a widow can remarry.”

  Again Ben was silent, thinking it through. “You’d marry her?”

  “Can you think of any other way?”

  “No, but there’s another side to it, too. Will she marry you?”

  “Yes,” Jake said. Victoria was still pouting over that damn horse, but he’d held her in his arms and felt the strength of her response often enough to know he could make her do whatever he wanted.

  “There’s going to be some shooting when we take the ranch,” Ben pointed out. “There’s a chance the women might be hurt.”

  “Not if I can help it. When we have some backup, I’m going to call McLain out, make him face me. If I go up against him while you and the men watch the others, there shouldn’t be any wild shooting.”

  “Hold it right there.” Ben moved around to face his brother. “You’re not going up against him alone.”

  “It makes sense.”

  “The hell it does. This is my fight, too, and I’m going to have it, not stand around while you take all the risks.”

  In the darkness Jake couldn’t see Ben’s face, but he didn’t have to. There was no way he could keep Ben out of the fight. “All right. How long will it be before the men get here?”

  “A few days, maybe a week. Lonny will push ’em hard.”

  A week at the most. Everything in Jake tightened at the thought of it finally ending. He wanted McLain dead so much it hurt. He wouldn’t even let him be buried on Sarratt land. A week, then the land would be theirs again—and Victoria would be his.

  “McLain’s going loony,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. He was tired, but every nerve in his body had been jumping since he’d seen Ben ride up. “There’s no way of telling what he’ll do. He’s started running around and babbling about the Sarratts coming back—”

  Ben stiffened. “Well, hell, he’s right, but how did he know?”

  “He doesn’t. That’s just it. Every time something happens, he starts slobbering and muttering about the Sarratts getting him. If a steer dies, he thinks it’s been poisoned. If he hears a shot, he thinks it was fired at him.”

  “
Looks like the bastard’s sins are coming home to roost, after all.”

  “The point is when we move we’ll have to move fast. We’ll have to come in at night quiet and slow. Most of the men are out with the herds at any one time, so we’ll only have to deal with about a third of them here at the house. We’ll take the bunkhouse first, and we’ll have to do it without any shooting. When those men are taken care of, we can get the house. McLain sleeps in the big front bedroom.” It had been their parents’ bedroom. “We’ll go in quiet and bring him out.” Victoria would be in the bedroom, too, he thought. He didn’t want to see her in bed with McLain, but he’d do whatever he had to do, even if it meant killing McLain in front of her.

  Ben nodded. “We can’t take a chance on anyone seeing our men, then. I’ll leave in a couple of days to meet them. But once I leave, I won’t be able to just wander back in without making Garnet suspicious. I’ll hold the men at Parson’s Pass. We can’t move without knowing if you’re ready or not, so you’ll have to come tell us.”

  Jake didn’t like the idea of leaving the ranch even for the four days it would take to get to Parson’s Pass and back, but there was no other way. The women would just have to do what they’d been doing anyway and stay inside the house.

  “This is the one and only meeting we can have,” he said. “It’s too risky; someone might see us together. From now on you don’t know me.”

  Ben yawned. “Never saw you before in my life, feller,” he said as he walked away.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Who’s that?” McLain asked suspiciously, looking at the new gunhand.

  “Says his name’s Tanner.”

  “Where’s he from?”

  “He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.” Garnet moved a step away from McLain; the man stank of sour whiskey.

  McLain’s eyes were even redder than usual, the pupils contracted to tiny points. “Get rid of him. I don’t want any strangers around here. He might be one of Sarratt’s spies.”