Dance With A Gunfighter (13 page)

"Let go of me!" she cried, fighting for air, her
chest and lungs crushed against his bulk.

"A little skinny," he called to his friends.
"But she wiggles like an iguana." The men laughed.

She twisted around and managed to free an arm. Rearing
back, she punched his nose with such force blood flew out onto his shirt. The
other two men bellowed with laughter.

Lane dropped her and slapped her hard against the side of
her head. She sprawled, dazed, several paces from where he stood fingering his
nose. On the ground, her head rang from the force of the blow.

"Hey, look." The gray-haired man pulled her
belongings out of her saddlebag. "She’s got money. Looks like over fifty
dollars here."

"Damn you!" Dizzy from the blow to her head, she
half-crawled, half-ran toward him, grabbing for her money sack. The gray-haired
man tossed it to Lane.

"To me! To me!" The big blond yelled.

Gabe scrambled toward Lane and got her hands on the small
leather bag. His eyes were flat and lifeless, with something so cruel, so
inhuman about them, it took her breath away. She froze, knowing she was face to
face with death. Her mind raced. She couldn’t let it end here in this lonely
desert, not after what Lane, Tanner and the others had done.

They had taken her rifle, but a Bowie knife was sheathed
to her saddle. If she could get to it without them noticing...

It was worth a try.

Lane smiled viciously, the blood from his nose oozing
through his mustache, around his lips, then down onto his chin. "I’ll give
you back some of this money," he said. "For a kiss."

"Bastard!" She yanked the sack from his hand. He
grabbed her shirt. She smashed her heavy-booted heel into his kneecap, and
slammed the coin-filled sack into his already battered nose. He roared with
pain and toppled over, grasping his leg with one hand, his nose with the other.

Whirling around to run, she smacked right into the big
blond’s rock-hard chest.

"My turn!" With a high-pitched giggle, he
plucked he sack from her hands and held it high over his head. "Can’t
reach it, can’t reach it," he chanted. It looked about ten feet off the
ground.

He was tall, but not so tall she couldn’t knee him. He
screeched and doubled over, dropping the money.

Furious though she was about the money, she had no time to
retrieve it, but broke for her horse, needing to reach the saddle and her
knife, hoping the money clattering over the ground would divert the men. But
the gray-haired man caught the back of her shirt as her fingertips reached the
saddle horn. He was dragging her back toward the others when Lane took hold of
her feet and lifted. The gray-haired man grabbed her arms, stretching her
between them like a hammock. She bucked in fear and fury.

"I’m sick of this horseplay," Gray-hair
bellowed. "We got the money and the girl. Let’s make this fast and get out
of here. You first, Blackie. I’ll go second, and if Big Bob’s figured out by
then what he’s supposed to do, he can go third."

Big Bob walked over, scowling and rubbing his crotch.
"Then can we kill her?"

"You might do it for us, Big Bob, if you’re as big
all over as we expect." Gray-hair and Lane laughed and, after a moment,
Big Bob joined in.

"First, I want to know why she was lookin’ for
me," Lane said.

Gray-hair shrugged. "Ask her."

"Why, girl?" Lane said.

"To see you in hell!"

Lane’s face twisted with fury, hot and sidewinder mean.
"We’ll see who gets there first. Get her ready for me."

"Take her hands, Bob," Gray-hair said as they
dropped her to the ground. Gray-hair knelt beside her, one knee digging into
her belly, as he yanked her big, man’s shirt loose from her trousers. As soon
as he reached for her belt, she arched and twisted her body, slipping free, but
they easily caught her. Each time she broke free, their hold grew tighter. Lane
struggled with the buttons on her trousers as she kicked at him.

"Here’s my knife!" Big Bob yelled, crushing her
arms under his knees to hold her down as he wielded a broad knife close to her
face. "Let’s cut them off her. Let me do it."

Gabe screamed at the same time as a bullet whizzed past
Big Bob’s nose. He jumped back and let go of her. The other two looked up, and
all movement stopped.

Twisting around to look, she recognized McLowry’s stance
silhouetted against an orange sunrise--the outline of his flat-crowned hat, the
serape he wore to ward off the morning chill, and in his hand, his long Colt
.45.

Without wasting a moment, Gabe got up, scooped up her
money and ran toward her horse.

The instant McLowry glanced at Gabe, Lane went for his
gun.

He wasn’t fast enough. McLowry fired once, hitting Blackie
Lane in the heart. The other two men shouted not to shoot, their arms raised
high.

"Throw down your guns, take Lane’s body, and get
out," McLowry ordered.

Quickly, they tossed Lane over his saddle, leaped on their
horses and fled in the direction of Tombstone.

McLowry watched them go, then took a deep breath, knowing
he had to face Gabe. He wasn’t any good at handling hysterical women--and
especially not women who had been brutalized the way she had been. He braced
himself for her tears, her hysteria. Then he turned.

Far in the distance, he saw her astride Maggie, heading
north at a fast gallop.

"Damn it woman!" His head throbbing from too
much drink the night before, McLowry hurried back to his horse.

Chapter 10

Riding hard across the high desert, Gabe glanced over her
shoulder. McLowry was getting closer. He was the last person she wanted to
face.

The morning’s horror swirled around her. Blackie Lane’s
hands on her body...his leer...the stench of his breath...the calculating,
callous look of the gray-haired bandit as he reached out to hurt her...the look
of madness in the blond man’s eyes...the glitter of his knife...

Her stomach roiled and the sunburned desert floor
shimmered as it rose toward her and meshed with the white sky. Her eyes shut a
moment, then she tried to blink away the quivering world, tried to hold down
the nausea that threatened.

Maggie slowed and Gabe leaned forward, dizzy, grasping the
pommel. She had just managed to control her dizziness, and was about to urge
Maggie again into a gallop, when Jess leaned over and grabbed the reins.

She dismounted, but her legs buckled and she fell, hands
and knees to the ground.

"Gabe!" As if from a distance she heard Jess’s
voice, the scuffle of his boots against the sand. Gentle hands touched her
shoulders.

"Stop it!" she yelled. She struggled to her
feet, needing to get away from him. He caught her and she flailed and kicked at
him, unsure if she were more furious at him or at herself. "Leave me
alone!"

He let go, holding his hands out at his sides. "Stop,
Gabe. You know I wouldn’t hurt you."

She lunged for her horse, but he caught her wrist.

"You’re in no shape to ride," he said. "You
could fall off and break your fool neck."

Making a fist, she whacked him hard in the shoulder.
"Get away, damn you!"

Grabbing her shoulders, he forced her to look at him.
"Are you all right? Did they hurt you?"

"I'm fine! Leave me alone!"

"What are you mad at me for? I’m the one who saved
you."

"Yes, you did. And I thank you for that, and for
killing that low-life, hog-breath, vile, stinkin' murderer Blackie Lane. I said
it once, and I'll not say it again." She jerked free, then shoved him. "Now
get out of my life and go back to Tombstone."

Before she got away, he took hold of her arms. "Will
you listen to me? Tombstone is the last place I want to be!"

"Don’t lie to me, Jess." She glared at him, so
furious she was shaking. "Don’t lie about Clara."

"Clara?" A confused, angry glint appeared in his
eyes.

"You don’t have to keep it from me anymore. I know
all about it. So go back and, leave me be!" Even held by his strong hands,
she still tried to hit him, to make him feel a small part of the hurt he caused
her.

His grip tightened and he yanked her close. "And just
what is it you know?"

She felt the heat of his anger on her skin. "That you
love her and want to marry her."

"I what?"

"That you'd be with her except that you feel some
obligation to take care of me. Well, you don't have to feel that way
anymore!" She couldn’t stand here and talk civilly about his love for
another woman. She tried to twist away. "I don't want your help! Go back
to her."

"You’re wrong!" Suddenly he pulled her flat
against him, her breasts crushed to his chest.

Her body tightened and her eyes leaped to his. His gaze
burned, and she felt as if she were melting inside. He let go of her, pushing
her away from him like a man afraid of being singed.

Squaring her shoulders, she looked him directly in the eye
and spoke through gritted teeth. "Go back to Tombstone, McLowry."

"There’s nothing for me there. Not now. Clara
was--"

"I don’t want to hear it!" She shrieked, knowing
she sounded like some harridan, but unable to stop herself. "She told me
more than I want to know already--about the magic the two of you share, how you
would go to the Crystal Palace to be with her, night after night."

His voice was a whisper. "She said that to you?"

"Why shouldn’t she?"

"Because it’s a lie, damn it!" He rubbed the
back of his head, as if unsure about explaining it to her, or if so, how.
"The only thing Clara feels magical about is money. And I won plenty of it
at cards. She’s a pro...a dancehall girl. She’s paid for her time. The last
thing I feel for her is love."

"I saw you kissing her!"

He dropped his head back and looked at the sky as if
seeking guidance. Then he faced her. "What can I tell you? There are two
kinds of women in this lousy world. Those who’ll go with any man--more often
than not for a price; and good women--ones who’d never waste the time of day on
a man like me."

The harshness of his words shocked her. "You’re so
wrong, Jess."

"It’s true. For me, at least."

Breathless, the fight out of her, she struggled against
the urge to throw herself into his arms once more. She had no strength left to
argue. They faced each other a long while before she turned and walked toward
Maggie, all her energy fixed on holding herself together, on not letting
herself shatter into little pieces over all she had been through, over his
words about Clara, over him, and over her feelings about him. She could not
handle all of that now, not when she had to find Tanner.

With a hand on the pommel, she faced him. "I’m
heading for Dry Springs. Do what you want, Jess. It's no mind to me."

He mounted the sorrel and rode beside her.

o0o

The desert was hot and still that afternoon. Now and
again, in the distance Gabe would see a dust devil dance, then lose itself in the
wind. She squinted her eyes against the sun and looked at far-away hills. Dry
Springs was in the valley just beyond them.

The rocking movement of Maggie and the quiet strength of
McLowry slowly lessened the fear that had colored her every second in the wake
of the morning’s violence. The same shock and unreality at the unexpected
attack evoked memories of her family’s murder...at the way Tanner, Lane and the
others had swooped down on them, unsuspecting and without warning.

At times, hysteria bubbled up close to the surface, but
she fought against it, willing herself to be strong. She would see her
vengeance through to the end, whatever it might be.

When the wind died and the sun’s heat grew too intense,
they stopped to rest and to take water in the shade of some rocks or brush.
Gabe didn’t eat. Her stomach still roiled from the morning’s fright and the
nausea and fury that followed. McLowry seemed to sense her state. They moved on
in silence, and slowly her shoulders loosened, the knot in her stomach eased,
and her distress lessened.

When the sky turned to burning shades of crimson, and the
mountains black silhouettes, McLowry stopped. "Let’s make camp in the
rocks for the night," he said.

"Make camp? We’ve still got some daylight."

"We’ve also got a couple days travel ahead of us. A
few minutes more or less won’t matter." He dismounted and began to gather
mesquite twigs for a campfire. He had brought some bread rolls and dried
sausage. One thing he had learned drifting around--never expect things to go right
or to happen on time and you won’t be disappointed.

Before they ate, Gabe thanked him for the food. Her words
startled him. He wasn’t one to provide another person with food or care the way
he was doing for her. That he did so now was puzzling to him, and he grew even
quieter.

He stoked the fire so it would burn slowly during the
night, then made up his bedroll, taking care to place it on the opposite side
of the fire from hers. The temperature in the desert dropped low at night, so
he put on his serape, lay down, and turned on his side, facing the desert.

She looked at his back, then wrapped her blanket snug
around her and lay down as well. It was strange that, despite being out here in
all this emptiness, it somehow it felt even more intimate than had the hotel
room they’d shared. Despite the distance between them, despite the crackle of
the small fire, she could feel his presence.

Somehow, she needed to ignore his nearness, to count the
stars, perhaps. How could it be, she wondered, when everything else in her life
had turned upside down, that high above her now were the same stars as she had
watched in Jackson City, and they sparkled just as bright and true?

The minutes pass slowly, but sleep wouldn’t come. She
rubbed her eyes, trying to rub away the ache of loneliness and loss, and then
shut them, hoping for the reprieve that only sleep could bring. But as always,
when she shut her eyes she saw again the barn, the flash of gunshots, her
father falling, and Henry, then Chad...her darling, handsome Chad...