by Zack Wyatt
“Oh, we’ve got the word out on him all right,” Caldwell replied. “Now that I’ve got your report, maybe the damned politicians will get off their asses.”
Sands listened as Caldwell explained that a leather pouch had been found on Peoples’ body. “Inside was a plan for an Indian uprising that would correspond with a Mexican army attack along the coast. Peoples was supposed to set up a route to supply the various tribes with rifles. The plans were in Spanish.”
“It sounds like Manuel Flores all over again,” Sands replied, remembering the body of that Mexican agent found among the bodies of a Comanche party the rangers had attacked along the San Gabriel River in 1839.
Flores had been sent to organize an Indian rebellion against the new Texian government in exchange for arms.
The discovery of Flores’s plans had led to a war that virtually eliminated the red man from the eastern forest regions of the republic.
“Exactly,” Caldwell said with a nod. “But these plans weren’t signed. The politicians in Austin have chosen to ignore the whole thing. While they don’t deny the possibility of a Mexican invasion, they’ve set their minds that it will come up from the heart of Mexico, across the Rio Grande.”
“Driving straight for San Antonio,” Sands said. He was familiar with such speculation. His captain, John Coffee Hays, had warned him of the possibility.
“The tactics are simple; while we watch the southern border, the Mexicans send a fleet up the Gulf and drop an army on our shore,” Caldwell said. “With what you and Ferris saw in that cove, we’ve got the proof we need that the Mexicans are up to something. When your report reaches the Congress, maybe they’ll open their eyes. Right now they’ve got only twenty men under the command of Captain Isaac Burton patrolling the coast from Corpus Christi to the border.”
Twenty men to patrol hundreds of miles. Sands sucked at his teeth. Burton’s situation was the same as every ranger captain in the republic. Texas’s citizens and the politicians in Austin wanted protection, so they had recognized and given the various ranging companies official militia status, made them a legal arm of the republic. However, they paid little, if they paid at all, to the men who served, and they kept the companies’ numbers low, ridiculously low.
“I need a messenger to take your report to Burton,” Caldwell said, puffing on his cigar. “And I can’t think of a better messenger than the man who saw it all. I’m afraid you just volunteered for a ride to Corpus Christi, Sands.”
Sands groaned inwardly and silently cursed. However, he offered no protest. It would have accomplished nothing. Whether he liked it or not, he had been impressed into Caldwell’s command. The quickest way to get back to San Antonio appeared to be a several-hundred-mile southern detour through Corpus Christi.
“I’ll get word to Jack Hays about your errand for me whenever I’ve got a rider heading down San Antonio way,” Caldwell said while he shut the barn doors. “Expect you’d like to rest up the night before heading out. There’s a spare bunk back at headquarters; you’re welcome to it.”
“That would be ni—” Sands stopped in mid-word, reconsidering the possibilities—mainly Ann.
The young woman believed he was tracking her brother. If she learned he was heading for Corpus Christi, there would be little chance of preventing her from coming with him. However, if he left now, before she knew what had happened, he doubted she would attempt to follow. After all this was Comanche territory.
“Captain, do you think you could find an escort to take Miss Sharp to San Antonio?” Sands turned to Caldwell as they walked back to his office.
“Reckon that wouldn’t pose too big of a problem. Ordinarily we get one or two wagons a week passing through Bastrop on their way to San Antonio. Shouldn’t be hard to find someone who’d take Miss Sharp along,” Caldwell answered.
“Then I guess as soon as I get those emergency funds and someone will show me to my horse, I’ll saddle up and be on my way to Corpus Christi this evening.”
Caldwell eyed him with an arched eyebrow, but said nothing. Sands smiled to himself, sensing the captain thought that he was running out on Ann after soiling her virtue. The trouble was Caldwell didn’t know about the pistols Ann kept with her constantly to be certain that virtue remained intact.
Chapter Eight
Sands reined his buckskin gelding to a halt atop a gently rolling hill colorfully carpeted with bluebonnets in full bloom. He glanced over one shoulder, then the other. There was nothing behind him except green, spring grass, wild flowers, and a sprinkling of trees.
The ranger sucked at his cheeks, unable to shake the feeling he was being watched, that someone was riding the trail behind him. Five times since noon, he had stopped and surveyed the country through which he rode, not counting the innumerable times he had stolen glances over a shoulder as he rode. Each time, he had seen absolutely nothing.
Perplexed by the feeling, he edged his hat back and nudged the gelding forward. Were he traveling the hill country about San Antonio, the uneasy prickling sensation at the back of his neck would have had him spurring his mount for the nearest cover he could find. On the frontier when a man felt invisible eyes peering at him, it meant one thing: Comanches.
But here? This peaceful country was far from the frontier and Comanche raiding parties.
As the buckskin picked its way down the sloping hill, Sands’ gaze roved over the unbelievable beauty. The terrain rolled in low, lazy hills on all sides. Trees, a variety of oaks sprinkled with sweetgums and cedars, grew here and there in dense stands. Dominating everything else were the brilliant array of flowers.
Bluebonnets covered the ground directly before and behind him. To the left grew a wide blazing patch of crimson clover, its brilliance like a living flame on the land. On the right was at least an acre of Indian paintbrushes, their waxy, orange heads swaying rhythmically in the spring breeze. Mingling amid all were the white and pink of primroses, the violet of vetch, and the deep yellow of Mexican hats.
In late winter a hurricane had slammed into the coast, wreaking destruction in its path. Once on land, the raging fury had dissipated into a roiling storm that had raked its way northward. Gullies and streams, ordinarily bone dry, swelled and overflowed their banks to flood the land as those black clouds released the ponderous burden of seemingly endless rain.
A hurricane and floods—destruction that tore at the land. But in their wake, mere short months later, nature revealed its glory. Nurtured by the water that had soaked the soil, these flowers had sprouted and matured.
Sands smiled with a touch of chagrin. Ordinarily, he didn’t have the time for flowers, except for the occasional glimpse of a prickly-pear blossom. Here, it was impossible not to notice nature’s beauty in full bloom. To have ridden through these rolling hills without soaking in the glory that covered the land like some gigantic patchwork quilt would have been a sin.
Dub’s eyes would be dancing like a child’s on Christmas morning, if he had lived to see this. Sands caught himself, as his thoughts came full circle for the second time that day, returning to the murder of his friend.
The image of Cotton Blue Sharp flashed in his mind. Superimposed over that viciously grinning face was Beau Dupree, his eyes moist with frustrated tears.
“Sonofabitch!” Sands cursed aloud, venting his anger.
The dreaded conclusion he had avoided since Ann had first mentioned her brother’s flight into Louisiana, thrust itself into his mind: he and Dub had delivered the wrong man into the hands of the U.S. Army. Beau Dupree was not the murderer of the Vardeman family. Cotton Blue was!
Sands had no proof on which to base his conclusion. However, he had seen the faces of the two men. Dupree was but a man whose mountainous form had made it easy for him to be mistaken for another man. Cotton Blue was no mere man; he was a demon. Death dwelled in his cold eyes: Sands had stared into them and seen it. An uneasy shiver worked its way up Sands’ spine, one he tried to ignore but was only able to shove partially aside.
Sands’ head turned to the western horizon. The sun hung there big and yellow. Streaks of red already tinted the few, high featherlike clouds that drifted overhead. In another hour it would be dark.
His gaze shifting about him, the ranger noticed a line of drooping-limbed willows about a half mile south of a small rise the gelding topped. Willows were a good sign; a stream ran nearby. He reined his mount toward the stand.
After feeding the gelding and making a small fire for the bacon he planned to eat, Sands glanced at the fiery orb that now sank below the horizon. The sunset ignited the sky with crimson and gold, bathing the land and its wealth of flowers in scarlet.
Walking to his saddlebags, he stooped to pull a coffeepot from them. Instead, his hand poked into his sleeping roll and extracted the brass telescope packed there. The sensation that unseen eyes stared at the back of his neck had returned.
With one quick jerk, he extended the spyglass and raised it to his right eye. He made a quick sweep of the area, then slowly retraced the path. Nothing but sunset, flowers, and trees met his gaze. Still the hairs at the nape of his neck prickled. Someone was out there, following him, and doing a damn fine job of keeping himself out of sight.
Or was his imagination playing tricks with him?
Sands shook his head with uncertainty, cursing as yet another shiver crept up his spine.
Squatting on his heels, he shoved the telescope back into the sleeping roll and pulled the coffeepot from the saddlebags. He tried to tell himself it was just being here alone, so far from anywhere, that had him jumpy. As he took a cloth sack of fresh-ground coffee from the bags, he also admitted to himself that his nerves weren’t on edge: someone was out there. The same someone he had felt following him all day.
Sands stood, eyed the countryside, still found nothing, and walked to the stream to fill the pot with water. Back at the campfire, he unsheathed his hunting knife and whittled several thick slices of bacon from a slab he took from the saddlebags and dropped them into a smoke-blacked skillet. These he fried quickly and wolfed down as soon as they were cool enough to lift from the pan with his fingers.
The coffee, however, he carefully placed on a rock just beyond the flicker of the low flames. There the pot would slowly come to a boil. This was an added incentive for whoever it was out there.
He tested the wind with a moistened finger and smiled. The evening breeze was out of the southeast, steady, moisture-laden air flowing inland off the Gulf of Mexico. The humidity wasn’t important, but the wind direction was. The breeze would carry the aroma of the brewing coffee directly into the nostrils of whoever trailed him.
Sands smiled to himself. There was nothing like the aroma of coffee to tempt a man after a long day’s ride. If his visitor were friendly, it would bring him out into the open. And if he intended Sands harm, it would make his stay in the dark a damned sight more uncomfortable.
As the fire’s flames flickered out, leaving only a small circle of glowing embers, Sands grabbed his sleeping bag and propped it against the trunk of the willow behind him. He then placed his wide-brimmed hat atop it, tipped forward as though it shaded sleeping eyes. As a final touch, he tossed his saddle blanket over the lower part of the sleeping roll.
Close-up, the hastily arranged sleeping roll and hat didn’t look like much. Close-up, they didn’t have to. At a distance, in the glow of the embers, they made the perfect decoy. Josh Sands now drowsed with blanket tucked under his chin—or so it appeared.
For good measure, Sands placed the skillet, now filled with bacon grease, on a stone opposite the steaming coffeepot. Soon the sizzling grease would add another olfactory temptation for his unseen shadow.
Everything arranged, Sands faded back beyond the glow of the red embers and ducked behind the willow. Seconds later, he sat perched in a junction of two thigh-thick limbs ten feet above the camp below. The taunting aroma of coffee wafted upward, and Sands cursed under his breath. He had forgotten to grab himself a quick cup before climbing onto his high perch. There was nothing he could do now except steel himself and wait.
The wait was short. Within ten minutes he heard the hollow sound of hooves approaching from the north. He peered out from the willow limbs and saw nothing. Whoever the visitor was, he was cautious, watching the camp rather than riding straight in.
Another ten minutes passed before the unseen hooves moved again. This time, Sands saw a horse and rider step from the shadows of three oaks standing fifty yards from the willows. Moonlight glinted down the length of a long barrel rifle aimed directly at the decoy sleeping roll below.
Sands’ right hand crept to the handle of his Colt, then pulled away. Cocking his head from side to side, he listened. The night was suddenly still; not even the hum of insects could be heard. His hand dropped to his hunting knife and slipped it from its sheath. He was unwilling to risk the double click of the pistol hammer; it might give his position away.
The rider eased his horse forward, moving directly under Sands. A battered-brimmed hat hid the man’s face from the ranger. Sands tensed, ready to hurl himself downward.
“Sands, Josh Sands.”
The voice startled him. It was feminine!
“Josh, wake up, you’ve got a visitor!”
“You! What in hell are you doing out here?” Sands called down to the woman below.
The jerk of Sands’ head was all that was needed to upset his precarious balance. He tumbled off his perch—just as Ann Sharp’s head turned upward. Her eyes went wide and a surprised “Nooooo!” came from her lips an instant before he landed directly atop her. Together they fell to the ground in a tangle of arms, legs, grunts, and curses.
“Are you trying to kill me?” Ann’s arms wedged between them. Her palms pressed against his chest and shoved his crushing weight off her.
“That’s exactly what I was going to do!” Sands answered as he pushed to his elbows. “You just don’t come riding up on a man at night like that! Not if you intend to live to see another sunrise. And what in the hell are you doing out here anyway?”
“Following you,” Ann said as she sat up and dusted the dirt from the light jacket she wore. “What was I supposed to do after you rode out on me back in Bastrop?”
Sands stood, glanced around, found Ann’s rifle, which had been jarred from her hand in the fall. Scooping it from the ground, he motioned her toward the dying fire. “You were supposed to go to San Antonio!”
“My brother isn’t in San Antonio!” Ann pushed herself from the ground, rubbing her backside. Her pistols tumbled from her belt, and Sands reached down and picked them up. “I heard a couple rangers talking about you heading for Corpus Christi. They said that you were going after a big blond with a birthmark who had killed your friend.”
Sands looked at her and shook his head. “I’m not looking for Cotton Blue. I’ve been assigned to deliver a message to a ranging company headquartered in Corpus Christi that’s patrolling the coast for Mexican smugglers.” Which was the truth—in part. If he came across the man, he fully intended to kill him with the same calculated coldness Cotton Sharp had killed Dub Ferris.
A perplexed expression spread across Ann’s face for an instant only to be replaced by irritation. “You still shouldn’t have ridden off like you did! Besides, I’ve always wanted to see Corpus Christi.”
Sands shook his head in disgust and pointed to her horse, which now grazed about twenty feet away and was slowly wandering away from the camp. “Get your horse and tie her with mine. I’ve got coffee brewing.”
While Ann trotted off to retrieve her wayward mount, Sands placed her small arsenal of weapons beside his saddle and took a single tin cup from his saddlebags. He sat beside a fire ablaze with new branches by the time she rejoined him to share the single cup, which they drank in complete silence.
“You mad?” Ann finally asked.
“No,” Sands replied after a long, thoughtful pause. “I should have told you what I intended. Besides, I’ve kind of grown accustomed to having you aroun
d.”
She grinned. “You know, Josh, whether you want to admit it or not, you’re one hell of a nice man. Maybe the only one I’ve ever known other than my pa.”
It was Sands’ turn to smile. Just how many men other than her father, brother, and the Haskells had she met in her lifetime? Living in the middle of a swamp had certain disadvantages for a young, unmarried woman. He turned toward her, saying, “Maybe you should meet a few—”
At the same instant, Ann leaned forward intent on giving his cheek a friendly peck. It was his lips, not his cheek her mouth met. Sands’ arms reached out and drew her to him; she came without protest, her warm feminine form melting against him as her mouth opened to the probing of his tongue.
In the next moment, her head jerked back, and Sands felt her hands go to her waist, searching.
His arms reluctantly slid from around her waist, and he stared into her aquamarine eyes. “If you’re looking for your guns, they’re over by my saddle.”
Ann’s eyes nervously darted to her left, then back to him.
“If you don’t go for your pistols in the next three seconds, I plan to kiss you again, and then …” His arms eased back around her tiny waist and drew her to him.
“And then?” Her lips brushed his as she spoke.
“I’m going to make love with an angel,” he answered, feeling a tremble of anticipation quake through her. “Three seconds are up.”
His mouth covered hers, and he pressed her tightly to him. For a heartbeat, he felt her hesitation, then her arms encircled him in a willing embrace. Bathed in the warm glow of the campfire, atop a bed of spring flowers, he gently lowered her to the ground while his tenderly caressing hands and myriad kisses quieted her fears and questioning eyes.
One by one, he opened the buttons of her shirt and then those fastening her doeskin breeches. As each button slipped from its eye, he allowed her time to accustom herself to the feel of his hands and mouth on the silky-smooth flesh he unveiled.
To Sands’ delight he discovered that Ann’s life in the swamp did afford him one unexpected advantage. Unlike the majority of women he had made love to, her body was unencumbered by the awkward layers of underthings that were considered fashionable and proper. Beneath shirt and breeches, his angel wore absolutely nothing—as did he!
