Love and Glory: The Coltrane Saga, Book 3 (10 page)

“He won’t,” Nancy sounded happy and contented. “I know enough about him to put him in jail. He’ll keep his mouth shut, believe me. You don’t have a thing to worry about. Just take her and go.” She looked down at Kitty with smug satisfaction, watching her squirming on the floor.

Luke chewed his lower lip thoughtfully for a moment, then said, “I reckon it’s all right. I’ll be so damn far away it won’t matter nohow, and you say that sonofabitch Coltrane won’t be back?”

“I told you about the scene at the train station,” she snapped impatiently. “If he does come back, it will only be to get their brat.”

“He will come back,” Kitty shrieked, beating at the floor with her fists, “and he’ll kill both of you.”

“Oh, shut up, damn you. I’m sick of listening to your squawlin’.” He reached down and twisted his fingers in her hair and yanked painfully. She continued to scream, and he yanked harder, warning, “I’ll pull every bit of it out if you don’t shut up, woman. There’ll be plenty of time for you to yell later, and you can bet I’ll give you somethin’ to yell about!”

Kitty fell silent, and Luke released his grip. Reaching down, he jerked her to her feet. “Now we’re leavin’ here, girl, ’cause I want to put some distance between us and this town by daylight. If you make one sound, I’m gonna stop ridin’ and beat the hell outta you. You understand?”

She nodded, head aching, face stinging yet from his slap. She stared at Nancy silently, conveying her hatred in a look that made Nancy step backward, startled. “I will get you for this, Nancy,” Kitty said in a low, ominous whisper. “And if I don’t, you can be sure you will answer in hell one day for all your evil.”

She screamed sharply as Luke gave her hair another vicious yank. “I told you to shut your mouth, and I mean it. Now let’s get goin’.” He gave her a quick shove in the direction of the mare. “Get on that nag and don’t try nothin’ funny, or I’ll tie you across the saddle.”

Kitty stumbled, throwing her arms around the mare’s neck for support. Looking at each of them in turn, she could feel the heat of her own hatred emanating from her eyes. She knew she should feel terror, for the memories of past encounters with Luke Tate were branded on her soul. But for the moment, she was too enraptured with fury to be scared.

“I’m not afraid of you, Kitty,” Nancy sneered. “I never was. You deserve everything you’re getting. Maybe now, with you out of the way and Travis Coltrane out of the South, poor Nathan can rest in peace.”

“You’d better be afraid of me, Nancy,” Kitty retorted, forcing herself not to leap for that smug, spiteful face. “Your day will come.”

“I told you to get on that goddamned horse.” Luke took a menacing step forward and Kitty quickly mounted.

He began to lead her from the cabin, and Nancy hurried alongside. “I’ll follow you back to town.”

“No. Hell, we ain’t goin’ back through town. We’re movin’ in the other direction.”

“But…but you said you’d see me back to town,” Nancy stammered, whining, suddenly frightened. “It’s a long ride, and it’s nighttime and raining, and I’m all alone. It’s not safe for a lady to be out alone.”

Luke snorted his laughter. “Pity the man who happens upon you, Nancy. It’d be the best thing that ever happened to Jerome Danton if lightnin’ struck and killed him on his way home tonight. Then he’d never have to put up with your misery again.”

“That…that’s a fine thing for you to say after I set you up with all that money,” she sputtered. She slipped in the mud, almost falling, then righted herself quickly as she rushed on. “I set you up good, I did. And you got Kitty. You said yourself you’d always wanted her.”

“Makes me feel even better to know I’m taking her away from that sonofabitch Yankee that killed all my men,” Luke mused aloud.

“Listen to me,” Nancy shrieked as the rain and wind snuffed out her lantern. “You can’t just ride off and leave me here. I gave you the money to get all the way to Nevada.”

“Damn right you did. You wanted her out of the way, and I’m obliging you. That money ain’t gonna last forever, you know, and I want to go after silver. Folks are gettin’ rich findin’ silver in Nevada. But my main concern right now is gettin’ the hell out of these parts as quick as I can before people start lookin’ for her, and that won’t be long.”

Kitty listened to them argue as the rain pelted down. It no longer mattered that she was cold and wet and hungry. She could think only of John. What would he think when his mommy did not come home? What would Mattie tell him? How could she hope that anyone would search for her when no one but Nancy knew what had happened?

Think!
She commanded her weary, angry brain.
Think! You’ve been in bad situations before, and you’ve survived. Four years in that damn war and you survived. You’ve got a son to think about now.

Suddenly hope sprang all the way up from the depths of her tormented soul, and she cried out, “Have either of you thought about Travis? He’ll move heaven and earth to find me. And he’ll kill both of you.”

“Keep talkin’, woman, and I swear, I’m gonna gag you and tie you across that saddle,” Luke cried. “You can forget about that bastard. He won’t know where to start lookin’.”

“I certainly won’t tell him,” Nancy spoke up in her high-pitched voice. Then she begged Luke once more, “Please ride with me back to town. You can’t leave me out here.”

They had struggled through the mud and reached the dark outline of a grove of trees just across the road. Luke found his horse tethered there and mounted. He stared down at Nancy and said evenly, “I’m not goin’ back to town and that’s final. Now if you’re scared to go by yourself, the best thing for you to do is go back inside that cabin and wait till daylight. We’re gettin’ out of here.”

Her shrieks and curses carried above the wailing of the storm as Luke headed in the direction opposite town, leading Kitty’s mare by the reins.

They had not gone far when Kitty realized she had a chance to escape. Nancy was sure to have left a horse somewhere nearby. All she had to do was leap from the mare, run into the darkness and follow Nancy, then take the horse from her.

Gasping, Kitty threw her right leg over the back of the horse and jumped to the ground, miring ankle-deep in mud.

“Hey!” Luke cried, and as she ran she could hear him scrambling from his horse.

She ran through the muck as fast as she could, desperation driving her.

“You’re gonna be sorry you did that!” Luke cried hoarsely, close behind. “I’m gonna fix you good, woman.”

The sky turned a bright yellow for just an instant, but it was long enough for Kitty to spot Nancy about fifty feet down the road, struggling to get on her horse. Kitty moved faster through the quagmire, reaching Nancy, and did not hesitate to shove her aside, ignoring Nancy’s cry of pain as she struck the ground. Then she grabbed the horse around the neck, swung herself up, and kicked him hard in the flanks.

“No, hell, you don’t!”

She felt hands groping for her. The horse reared on his hind legs, hooves frantically thrashing the darkness above and around him. Then Luke got his fingers into the horse’s mane. Yanking, pulling, he got the horse’s front legs down and took hold of the reins.

“You won’t give me no more trouble, you bitch.”

Luke sprang upwards, hands closing about her throat as he yanked her from the horse. She felt his fist smash into the side of her head, and then her face struck the cold, muddy earth and she felt herself slip away into a deep, dark void. Just before she gave way to it, she saw John’s little face floating before her.

Kitty felt a sharp, probing pain from the other side of that heavy drape that was keeping her from the real world. Her head hurt. She did not want to leave where she was and go to the other side of that drape. Something inside was telling her to stay here, here in this inky black world, but pain was pulling her, awakening her, forcing her to open her eyes.

She looked up and screamed, screamed until Luke Tate’s hand closed around her throat.

“Now listen to me,” he said in a reasonable tone. “If you’ll notice, it’s daylight. We’re a good piece from back yonder, and we’re deep enough in the woods so’s I don’t imagine nobody could hear you scream, but I’m tired, and I just plain don’t feel like listening to you. So I want you just to shut up.”

She made deep, rasping sounds as she struggled to breathe.

“You’re chokin’, Kitty, honey, and I don’t want to kill you. I want to enjoy you for a long, long time. So I’m gonna let you breathe, but if
you start screamin’, then I may just have to go ahead and shut you up for good. Bad as I’d hate to kill a fine piece of woman-flesh like you, I’ll do it. You understand me?”

He released her abruptly, and she gasped, clutching at her aching throat. He knelt over her, watching her with glittering eyes. She glanced around and saw that they were in a thicket. She could not see beyond it. Where they were, she had no idea.

“Now what we’re gonna do, Kitty,” he spoke as though she were a child, “is get somethin’ from my saddlebags and you’re gonna fix us some vittles. We’re gonna eat and rest a spell. Maybe even take some time for some lovin’. You like it, and you know you do.”

He looked down at her and chuckled, reaching to pinch her nipple and laughing out loud as she cringed.

“We’ve got a long way to go,” he continued, watching her intently. “All the way to Nevada. I’ll bet you don’t even know where that is, do you?”

She did not answer, but lay still, staring up at him in mute terror. The anger had turned to fright. Fear, grasping as surely as his fingers had grasped her throat, was inching its way through her, taking control of her.

He talked on, fondling her breast gently, then moving his fingertips down to caress her belly. “Well, we go up through Tennessee and then head due west. We’ll go through Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, and then Utah. It’s pretty country, Kitty, real pretty. I’ve been there once, when I was on the run after that Injun raid. Decided I’d had my bellyful of war and all that went with it. So I know the way. Now I hear there’s a silver boom goin’ on, and I want in on it.”

His fingers slid down to her thigh. His touch was possessive yet tender, and she continued to lie there motionlessly and stare at him blankly.

“I plan to get rich, Kitty. You’ll live like a queen. I promise you that. You’re gonna be my woman. For always and always.”

He smiled at her fondly. She was bewildered. Luke Tate was evil, surely a spawn of the devil himself, and yet he was stroking her gently and speaking softly and smiling as though…he cared for her. He must know that she would plunge a knife into his heart if given a chance. What was wrong with Luke? Why was he acting this way?

He leaned over to brush his lips against her cheek before saying in a strained voice, “I gotta tell you somethin’, Kitty, and I want you to know I’m tellin’ the truth. All them times I was mean to you, I didn’t like doin’ it to you. I swear I didn’t. You was always special to me.”

He leaned back, an incredulous expression taking over his grizzled face. “I swear it. I know you think I’m mean and rough but you made me be that way ’cause you always fought me. I liked your spirit, sure, but not your fightin’ me off. Just one time, I wanted to see you use that spunk to show me how much you enjoyed what I was doin’ to you.”

He trailed his fingertips down her face as though touching a delicate work of art. “Beautiful. I swear you are the most beautiful woman I ever saw. Back when I was overseer for them snooty Collinses, and that young buck, Nathan, was courtin you, I’d watch the two of you and I’d want you so fierce I’d have to go find me a nigra gal and take my pleasure with her. All the time, it was your face I was seein’…your body I was touchin’.”

He sat up, his brown eyes wide, gesturing in a plea for understanding. “Kitty, you just gotta believe me. What I’m tryin’ to say is that despite the way I’ve treated you, I think underneath it all, I loved you. That’s why I want you with me now. That’s why I aim to keep you with me always, and I’ll kill any sonofabitch that tries to take you away from me. Nobody ever will, Kitty. I promise.”

He clamped his hands on her shoulders and pulled her up to a sitting position. “It’s gonna be good times from now on, Kitty, darlin’. You’ll see. Now, I know you’ll miss that youngun o’ yours, but we’ll have kids of our own. I don’t care so long as you don’t get all fat and loose on me, you know?” he laughed shakily. “I love that body o’ yours, and I don’t want nothin’ changin’ it. We’re gonna have the good life out in Nevada. You might not think so now, but if you’ll just relax and believe in what’s gonna be, then you can be happy.”

He cocked his head to one side and stared at her, eyes squinted as he studied her face quizzically. “Hey.” He gave her a little shake, and when she did not respond but continued to look back at him silently, blankly, he shook her harder. He kept on shaking her till her head bobbed like a cornshuck doll’s.

“Hey!” he yelled finally. “What’s wrong with you? Say somethin’. I been sittin’ here pourin’ out my guts to you, woman, and you’re starin’ at me like one o’ them loonies. Answer me. You tell me what I been sayin’ is just fine with you, that you understand that’s the way it’s gonna be, that you’re gonna be my woman from now on, and you’re gonna like it, ’cause you know I mean what I say, and if you let me, I’ll be good to you.”

Kitty felt herself somewhere far, far away, staring down at herself from someplace up above. The mute creature with that evil man was not she, but a living thing that was also dead. The spirit was gone. The body breathed on but the soul could no longer feel pain or dread or worry. It was as though all that was Kitty had gone away.