Desert Dreams (23 page)

Anne stirred from a deep, bottomless sleep, a low moan
in her throat. Before she could open her eyes, a hand clamped over her mouth,
the same hand that had pinched the breath out of her earlier. She was lying on
her side on the ground, a man's body pressing against hers from behind. She
trembled and tried to pull away, not knowing who it was but knowing it was not
Rafe.

"Senorita," a voice said close to her ear.
She could feel his warm breath against her neck. "I am a friend. Be very
still and don't make a sound or you will get us all killed."

Her memory returned in a rush. She had run out into
the street at the sound of gunshots from the direction of the livery stable.

Rafe. Where was he? Where was she, for that matter?

It was nearly dark, so she must have been unconscious
all day. She was on a hill, looking down into a small canyon at a group of men
gathered outside a ranch house. One man struck another hard in the face. He did
it again, and Anne flinched involuntarily. The assaulted man crumpled to the
ground, but someone threw water on him and he was hauled back to his knees.

Rafe!

The name stuck in her throat. She tried to rise, but
the man who held her kept her still. He pinched her nostrils with his thumb and
forefinger again, and she began to struggle with all her might. If he cut off
her breath again and she passed out, she wouldn't be able to help Rafe.

"Are you loco?" The voice rasped in her ear.
"Be still and quiet like I told you or I will smother you again.
Comprende
?"

She nodded and went still, fighting against the
dizziness, beating at his arm with her fist until he released her nostrils. He
kept a firm hand on her mouth, though.

"I will let you speak if you promise not to make
noise. If those men find out we are up here, they will catch us and then Rafael
is done for.
Si
? Can you be quiet?"

He released her in response to her nod of agreement.
When she was able to breathe normally again, she whispered, "We have to
help him."

"There is nothing we can do," came the calm
reply.

She faced her attacker for the first time. He lay on
the ground behind her, but even so she could see that he was a short, rather
round man. Thin, wiry brown hair sprang out of his head in disarray, which was
also the way he wore his clothes. He was
Mexican, that
much was evident from his appearance and his accent.

The gleam in his eyes when he looked at her sent a
shudder of unease through her body. They were round and brown and intelligent,
completely emotionless. She didn't trust him, but then she turned and looked
again at the scene unfolding beneath them, and she knew he was
Rafe's
only chance for survival, whoever he was.

"Who are they?" she asked.

"Those men? Filth, scum. They have been trailing
you since Ubiquitous."

"How do you know?" she asked sharply.

The man smiled a bit sheepishly, revealing a
gold-capped tooth. "Because I have been following them."

"Who are you?"

"I am Jose
Carvajal
.
Rafael and I go way back."

"He mentioned you."

"Of course he did. We are like brothers."

Her attention returned to the canyon. Someone rode up
to one of the men who stood over Rafe and dropped a rope to him. He made a loop
and dropped it over
Rafe's
head, careful that he
placed his captive's bound arms over the rope. He jerked on the rope but Rafe
didn't move. Two other men grabbed him by the arms and dragged him to his feet.

Anne tried to rise, but Jose grabbed her and held her
down. "What are they doing? We have to stop them!"

"There is nothing we can do," he said again.

The other end of the rope was tied to the pommel of
the saddle. The leader stepped back and gave the signal, and the rider took the
slack out of the rope.

"They're going to drag him! They'll kill
him!"

"Be quiet,
senorita
, or they will
hear," Jose
Carvajal
urged. "They will not
kill him unless he tells them what they want to know. Rafael knows that."

Tears slipped unheeded down her face. If only she
could run to him, somehow make them stop. She hated this feeling of
helplessness and terror. She fought with all her strength as Jose dragged her
away. He carried her to the other side of the hill and lay on the ground almost
on top of her, his hand still covering her mouth.

"It is better that you do not watch,
senorita
,"
he said.

She sobbed beneath his hand, quaking with the force of
her emotions. How could anyone endure something like that? She could only pray
that he would.

"You must eat something," the Mexican said
between bites of cold beans. He ate them straight from the can because they
couldn't chance a fire. The outlaws were still searching for her, or so Jose
claimed.

Huddled in a ball of misery, Anne watched in disgust
as he ate with his fingers, licking them clean every now and then. Her gaze
swept over the small camp, stopping on two men who sat tied to a tree, their
hands and feet bound, their mouths gagged.

She nodded toward the men. "Who are they?"

"Because of them, I wasn't around this morning
when Rafael was captured. The older one almost got away from me, and I had to
chase him down. He is a
comanchero
named Diego
Munoz. The boy is Carlos Delgado, the cousin of Rafael's old enemy."

"El
Alacran
."

"What do you know about El
Alacran
?
Rafael told you about him too?"

"Yes."

"I do not believe you."

"Then how would I know about him?" She kept
her eyes on the boy, who sat a few feet away, and wondered if he was hungry.

"Rafael would never... so what do you know about
El
Alacran
?"

"He's the one who stole the gold. He set a trap
for Rafe once and left him to die in the desert."

"El
Alacran
is a very dangerous
man because he is loco. Men who are crazy and have power are always
dangerous."

"They have been enemies for a long time."

"Rafael made it his business to put an end to El
Alacran's
crimes in Texas and New Mexico as soon as he
returned from West Point."

"West Point! No wonder—"

"What?"

"He just isn't what he seems to be."

Jose laughed softly. "He is exactly what he seems
to be, senorita. He was
un
aristocrata
.
His father was a powerful
American soldier who married a Mexican woman, daughter of a ranchero, and
settled in New Mexico. Rafael had every privilege. Of course, I didn't know him
then. I knew of his family. Everyone knew the Holden y
Montalvos
."

"But if his father was American, why is his name
Montalvo?"

"He changed it after—after the trouble. He took
his mother's name."

She looked at Carlos Delgado again. When he caught her
eye, he glanced away quickly. "Do you think he's hungry?" she asked.

Jose shrugged. "So what if he is? He should be
dead."

"Dead? Why?"

Jose threw the bean can on the ground beside him and
wiped his hands on his pants. She saw dawning comprehension in his gaze, but
comprehension of what she couldn't imagine.

"I killed the other two men who were with them.
Diego, I figured we could use him to bargain with if we needed to. I took the
boy prisoner as a gift for Rafael."

"A gift?" The implication in his words sent
a shiver down her spine.

"Si.
The boy's life could have settled an old score
between El
Alacran
and Rafael. But Rafael, he is getting
soft."

"But he's just a boy. How—"

"In the old days, Rafael would have killed
him." He looked at her with accusing eyes.

"I don't believe you."

Jose studied her so intently she wondered if her
feelings for Rafe were written clearly on her face. Finally, he shrugged.
"Believe what you want. It takes a hard man to survive what Rafael has
survived. A soft man does not live long in the desert. If you do not want to
eat, you can get some sleep. There is only one bedroll."

She cringed. She wasn’t sure she could crawl into a
bedroll where this dirty little man had been, but the air was already beginning
to grow chilly.

"What about you?" she asked.

"I will see to the horses and then keep
watch."

"You've got to sleep sometime."

"And let those
bast
—and
let those outlaws sneak up on us?"

"You take the first watch, then wake me up for
the second."

Jose laughed. "I don’t think so."

She pulled the gun out of her pocket, and Jose's eyes
widened. "
Dios!
You had that the whole time?"

"I can use it too." She smiled. "You've
got to sleep or you won't be of any use to Rafe."

Jose glanced at the gun and then back to her face.
"
Si
," he said, and walked away to take the first watch, but
Anne's words halted him.

"If you'd made camp at the top of the hill
instead of here with the hill between us and them, we could have watched them
from the camp," she pointed out.

"But if I had made camp on top of the hill, they
would have been able to hear the horses," he replied. "Get some
sleep, senorita, and do not try to outsmart a fox."

Anne crawled into the bedroll but found it impossible
to sleep. She kept thinking about Rafe and what he must be going through. She
couldn't bear it. Had they fed him? Was he still bound, lying on the hard
ground, hungry and cold like the boy who slept nearby? Was he even still alive?

No, she couldn't allow herself to think he might be
dead. He was alive, he had to be. He was alive, and tomorrow they would save
him.

If she thought she could find her way, she'd go down
to that ranch house tonight and find him.... And do what? Jose was right, as
much as she hated to admit it. There was nothing they could do right now.
They'd have to wait for better odds. She only hoped Rafe could hold out that
long. If he died, she would want to die too.

She closed her eyes and rolled onto her side, and the
tears came freely. She didn't know how long she lay there before she finally
cried herself to sleep.

***

If Rafe had done one good thing in his life, he just
might have saved Annie's life, he thought as he slipped in and out of
consciousness. If she'd done what he'd told her. Maybe Jose had found her. He’d
given Jose the same instructions—to get Annie to Las Cruces. He had been unable
to save Christina, but maybe he’d had saved Annie. It seemed somehow fitting
that he should give his life for her. It would absolve him. If only she made
it, it would be worth it.

He welcomed death, even though he hadn't been able to
carve El
Alacran's
heart as he'd planned. El
Alacran's
punishment would have to wait for hell, he
decided, slipping into a velvet darkness where he dreamed of holding Annie and
making love to
her and hearing her whisper his name.

"I'm
tellin
' you,
Frank, he don't know
nothin
'."

"I say we kill him and—"

Voices floated around Rafe, but he didn't know who was
speaking or even where he was. The longer it took him to die, the more time
Annie would have to get away. But even though he had told her exactly what to
do, he couldn't help feeling betrayed. She'd said she loved him, yet she'd been
willing to leave him behind. It was irrational, but all rationality had been
long since beaten out of him.