Marshal of Hel Dorado (31 page)

 
    
Sam’s heart broke.

 
    
The younger Quanto lifted the infant up,
freeing her fingers from her mother’s and uncaring of her soiled state, he
cuddled her close. Familiar green eyes stared around the room as she shoved a
plump fist against her mouth, desperate for succor and terribly upset at the
same time.

 
    
Sam watched as the younger Quanto cleaned
her, changed her and carried her away from the carnage of her family. But the
vision wavered until he and his guide stood at the edge of the town. The
younger Quanto was mounted, the babe snug and asleep against his chest.

 
    
“I called her Scarlett, for her hair. I
never found anything that told me what her birth parents might have called her.
They had little in the way of possessions. I even searched for a family bible
as some of the boys were listed in theirs by their births, but this family had
nothing.”

 
    
“And you brought her back to the
mountains.” Sam watched the solitary figure ride off into the mist, the smoke
rising from the town obliterating the trail.

 
    
“It was a safe place for them. My wife
helped me, but when she too was carried away by the fever and our son survived,
I was glad for the home we had made here. It protects them, shelters them from
the world and shelters the world from their gifts.”

 
    
They were walking alongside a crystal clear
lake. The landscape was rich and lush with life and littered with half-naked
children racing in and out of the water. He searched for a splash of red hair
amongst them, but they all looked the same, even the young pup gamboling with
the boys at the water’s edge.

 
    
“How old was she when she first burned
something?”

 
    
“Three.” Quanto laughed, the vision misting
and changing until he recognized Scarlett’s upturned nose on a pixie haired
waif. She was standing in the middle of the yard, yelling. The boys were on
horseback, riding away from her and great gouts of flame shot up in a circle.

 
    
Despite his transparent form, Sam leapt
back as the flames raced out of her circle and consumed the grass beneath his
feet. He caught a glimpse of wicked amusement in Quanto’s patient gaze.

 
    
“Always when she was upset, always when she
did not get her way, the fire came to her.

 
    
As she matured, the fire came more readily
and it took time, time to teach her how to call it and how to send it away.”

 
    
Sam nodded gravely. He’d already seen the
fire was linked to her emotions. The angrier she grew, the hotter it burned.
He’d witnessed sheer beauty at the pond and when she’d caught him, it had
unleashed her fury. But despite the heat, the flames never licked over his skin.

 
    
At least not those kind of flames. He
studied the girl, after the initial explosion of wrath, she was repentant,
overwhelmed by the destruction her gift wrought.

 
    
“She hates it.” Sam wondered.

 
    
“She always has.”

 
    
“Why are you showing me this?” The visions
fed his curiosity, but they didn’t ease the ache to see Scarlett as she was
now. The images blurred away, leaving the pair alone in an endless, shapeless
fog.

 
    
“Because you must understand that which you
desire.” Beneath Quanto’s easy guiding tone emerged a harder edge. The edge of
a man who’d walked into those dying towns, who had looked into the face of
death and not turned away.

 
    
Sam shifted, focusing his gaze on the older
man. Even in this
dreaming
, Quanto’s
age weighed upon him, the years leaving their mark in the deep grooves around
his mouth, the spider web of wrinkles around his eyes crowned by a head full of
silver hair.

 
    
“Why are you here Marshal Kane?” Quanto
folded his arms across his chest, the thick biceps suggesting years of hard
physical labor. Sam glanced at the mottled skin on the left shoulder and how it
twisted and streaked down the bicep to his elbow.

 
    
“Your sons stole a great deal of gold.” He
held up his hand to ask for more time to explain the charge. “I caught Scarlett
in the bank and many in Dorado know she was arrested. I also sent for the
circuit judge and cannot undo the charges against her.”

 
    
Quanto cocked his head to the side, musing.
“I did not approve of my sons choices. The land is not something that can be
taken or granted by any one, yet they feared the loss of their home.”

 
    
“And I appreciate the distinction. My
brothers and I would die to the last man to protect our ranch and our father.”
Until the words slipped free from his lips, Sam didn’t realize just how much he
empathized with the gifted little gang of thieves. Quanto reminded him of his
father, after a fashion, a wisdom earned through years of hard living and
focused expectations. “But it doesn’t change the consequences of their actions
and that the only known capture is Scarlett.

 
    
There will be bounties and men who will
want to collect them.”

 
    
“You believe you can protect her better
than we can?” The cagey question was a dangerous one. From what Sam had already
witnessed, Scarlett could easily defend herself, but would she? And how many
would die if her brothers waded into the fray?

 
    
“Times have changed, Quanto.” Resignation
slumped his shoulders. “The Federals are here to stay, they will enforce their
laws. But my father has influence and he’s already taken up Scarlett’s cause.”

 
    
“And you?”

 
    
Mouth twisting into a smile, Sam laughed.
His father had taken up her cause on first hearing of it. Even Micah and Kid
wanted to help her. He was slower on the uptake, but Sam couldn’t get her out
of his mind and even if he was charged with bringing her in. he would shoot the
first man who offered to put the noose around her neck.

 
    
There had to be a way to repair the damage
his arrest had wrought. To clear her name.

 
    
Quanto said nothing, letting Sam sort
through his thoughts. His unease at the dreaming had passed. If he could accept
that she could set water on fire and control that volatile element, he could
accept her father’s gifts. Surprisingly, that was easier to accept than the
crimes her brothers had committed.

 
    
“Yes.” He nodded slowly, finding the echo
of truth in his chest at the commitment.

 
    
“What if her cause is best served by you
taking your brothers and returning home? Never to see her again?”

 
    
His heart squeezed in his chest and despite
his seemingly ephemeral state, Sam’s stomach rebelled. He had to see her again.
He wanted to see her again.

 
    
“Before you answer hastily, Sam. Consider
that Scarlett’s gifts are also a curse. She will never be free of them. She
will always have to control her temper, control her abilities and that she can
be a threat to those around her when provoked. Consider that there are those in
this world that would use her for their own purposes, who would seek to take
control of her gifts and her, whether to create mischief or power.”

 
    
Sam nodded solemnly. Scarlett had told him
that.

 
    
“Protecting her, championing her cause, is
a lifelong commitment. One you will not be able to just dismiss when the burden
becomes too heavy, when your frustration is too difficult to bear. To be close
to her is to risk the wrath of her flames and to accept that any children she
may bear may be so gifted.”

 
    
The last statement drew him up short. The
soft, pliable lips that beckoned his kisses in the cave, the ease with which
she fit to him and the desire to fill her belly with those children crashed
over him.

 
    
“You carry passion for Scarlett, but
passion, like fire, is fleeting and must be fed throughout the years to sustain
its warmth. If you cannot grasp this, then it would be better for she and for
you, to leave our mountain, to never return. She will never know you were here
and her heart will mend in time.”

 
    
Her heart.

 
    
Sam frowned.

 
    
“Does she feel the same way?” It was an
awkward question, a step off the precipice into the unknown. She’d seemed eager
enough in the cave, but her eagerness had been tempered by caution and
reluctance. The more he learned of her brothers, the more he thought he
understood that reluctance.

 
    
An odd smile turned up Quanto’s lips and
Sam felt the world step sideways. Smoke bruised his lungs, filling his eyes
with tears until he had to lean away from the fire to cough.

 
    
He was in his own body. The muscles in his
back shivered with the force of his coughs, his legs were numb and his hands
like lead at the end of his wrists. Quanto leaned away from the fire, tossing
the remains of the cigar into the flames.

 
    
“Allow your spirit to accommodate itself
back into the body.” The older man advised. He rose with the grace of one half
his age and circled the fire to offer his hand.

 
    
Sam grasped it, allowing Quanto to pull him
to his feet. The moon-drenched landscape tilted threateningly before settling.

 
    
“The secrets of my daughter’s heart are
hers to share, not mine.” Quanto’s grip was strong, grinding the bones in Sam’s
hand together. “But she is
ours
to
protect. You will have to prove yourself to her, to her brothers, but most of
all to yourself. I will afford you that one opportunity, Samuel Elijah Kane.
One opportunity and no other.”

 
    
One chance.

 
    
He was going to see Scarlett again.

 
    
“Understand that this is a gift that I am
offering you. A gift that you will treat more precious than your own heart, or
I will find you in your dreams and if you were to die in them, then you would no
longer walk this world.”

 
    
Sam met Quanto’s serious gaze. It was a
promise, not a threat, an oath to rend harm upon one who would hurt his child.
His throat tightened as he nodded slowly. “I think we understand each other,
sir.”

 
    
“I think we do as well.” The man’s slight
smile returned and he loosened his grip on Sam’s hand to clap him on the
shoulder. “Come. We have much to plan and we must discuss how the gold is to be
returned.”

 
    
S
carlett
stared at the train of three covered wagons with bemusement. Three days of
being trapped at the house with only Wyatt for company left her eager for the
ride down the mountain when he woke her early in the morning. He’d instructed
her to pack for several days, but that food was already accounted for.

 
    
Her saddlebags bulged with fresh clothes
and a spare pair of boots. She embraced the unexpected opportunity after all
the threats to keep her on the mountain where she had only her dreams of Sam to
keep her company. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get the Marshal or
the memory of those stolen kisses out of her mind.

 
    
A pang of regret clanged in her heart.
She’d not seen Cody since she burned him either.

 
    
He’d vanished that morning and hadn’t
returned. Wyatt wouldn’t answer her questions about it either. She cast a look
at her older brother who sat silent sentry at her side. She picked out her
other brothers one by one as they loaded heavy crates onto the wagons.

 
    
They were swearing good-naturedly, but her
curiosity hadn’t prepared her for the familiar face of Kid wrestling a case
with Cody. Her jaw fell open and she skated a look over the rest, standing up
in the stirrups. At the front of the first wagon, hitching the horses was
Micah. His gaze clashed with hers, a wide smile blooming across his beautiful
face. He touched a hand to the rim of his hat and nodded to his left.