Patricia Hagan (33 page)

Neil sighed. “I just hope Sparkwell is able to find those men. How they got so scattered, I don’t know.”

“Saturday night.” Scott flashed him a grin in the moonlight. “They’re doing the same thing you’d be doing if you weren’t out here—drinking and chasing women.”

Neil grinned back. “Me? Chase women? The other way around, my friend,
they
chase
me.
” He decided to seize the chance and ask, “What are you going to do about Bonham? About Holly getting a divorce, I mean.”

“I don’t see any problem, especially when Bonham is going to prison. She’ll get the divorce because of that.”

“Prison? On what charge?” Neil asked sardonically. “All this has been kept top secret. Nobody knows the gold is missing. How can you send a man to prison for a crime nobody is allowed to know was even committed? All we can hope to do is get back whatever gold hasn’t been doled out. But Bonham’ll go free. You can’t charge him with anything, can you?”

“You’re forgetting Talton Pollock.”

“What can he do for us?” Neil asked, truly bewildered.

“He’s running scared. Now that Lisa Lou admitted she lied, admitted everything about us, even said she’d slept with Bonham, Talton isn’t too happy. He’s found out his daughter is about one step shy of being a whore. He also isn’t sure how much I know about his activities back when Lisa Lou was meeting me. Remember, the man was a spy once. He’s got a lot to fear
.
Apply a little pressure, and he’ll tell us anything. In exchange for his freedom, he’ll finger Bonham for all the killings. We’ll have Bonham for murder without bringing out the gold theft.”

The two fell silent, each with his own thoughts. Soon they were approaching the remains of Holly’s burned cabin, and in a barely audible whisper, Scott ordered, “Dismount. We’ll go the rest of the way on foot.”

Not far off, Claudia Maxwell lay in the scrub brush, unconscious. Making her way to the swamp, stumbling, crawling, had taken all of her strength. Her clothes were shredded, her knees and hands bloody. Her breathing was shallow, labored.

Somewhere, deep within Claudia, was a stirring. The hourglass of time turned itself upside down. She was no longer an older woman but a young woman, a new mother, holding her baby. Tears of joy ran down her cheeks and splashed softly on the infant’s face. The baby smiled. Babies smiled when angels talked to them, Claudia had been told that by her own mother. Surely a baby so lovely would be in touch with angels all her life.

Painfully exhausted, lying on the cold ground, Claudia’s hands moved as she yearned to hold that baby again. She gasped, begging God for the strength she needed, knew she didn’t have. Her lips parted to speak, but there was no sound. The words wouldn’t come.

Then, miraculously, she felt contractions within her, contractions like the ones she’d had when Holly was born, so many years ago. Only this time, the contractions brought no pain, only a deep, exulting joy.

Scott and Neil crouched in the brush. They dared not speak or move. Each carried Winchester .44 rimfire rifles, as well as Neil’s Smith & Wesson .44-40 and Scott’s Colt .38-40 Peacemaker.

After what seemed an hour but surely wasn’t, a flickering light appeared in the dense forest of cypress and vines. Behind the light were three men all talking urgently as they approached. Soon they were only about thirty feet from Scott and Neil. The officers were sure they’d seen none of the three before. All were strangers.

“Get them lanterns hung and let’s get started. I ain’t wantin’ to be here all night,” one growled.

“Hell, we need more help. It’s gonna take a long time to dig up that much gold if it’s just us diggin’.”

“Quit jawin’ and start diggin’. You’re wastin’ time,” the tallest man spat.

Scott waited until they had chosen limbs on nearby trees on which to hang their lanterns. Then, when they’d picked up their shovels and begun to dig, he motioned Neil forward. They stepped from cover together. “Hold it right there! You’re under arrest,” Scott yelled.

There was no way to stop what happened then, for Barney Phillips had planned everything too well. The lanterns had been placed strategically, according to his orders, and the clearing was ringed by light so that Scott and Neil offered perfect targets. In the shadows, Barney raised his rifle, aimed at the back of Neil’s head, and fired.

Neil pitched forward. Scott dropped to his knees and whirled toward the sound of the shot, ready to shoot back. But Barney was ready, too.

Two more shots rang out. The first knocked Scott’s rifle from his hand and the other smashed into his thigh. With a gasp, Scott’s hand flew to the fiery pain, and his remaining gun fell to the ground.

He pressed his hand against the wound, trying to slow the bleeding. His mind was racing feverishly. He had one chance, and he took it. Commanding everything within him, he lunged for the pistol and aimed just as Barney fired.

Neither saw Claudia in the brush. She stood, screamed Scott’s name as the bullet intended for Scott ripped into her back.

In that instant, Scott fired, felling Barney with a shot between his eyes. Seeing their leader die, the other two men fled as fast as they could.

Fire stabbing his thigh, Scott struggled across the ground to Claudia. He gathered her tenderly in his arms, beseeching her, “Why? Why’d you get in the way?”

She lifted her hand, pleading. “Holly,” she whispered. “Roger has her on a ship. Save her, Scott. Save her. She loves you so.”

“Don’t try to talk,” he said fiercely, holding her as tightly as he dared. There was nothing he could do for her. She was dying and he couldn’t stop it.

“Must…” She struggled to speak above the black mist enveloping her. “Must tell you. Heard them talking…Roger, Phillips. Knew what they were going to do. Save her, Scott.”

“I will,” he promised, his voice cracking. “You damn well know I will, Claudia.”

She lay very still for a moment, eyes closed, and Scott feared she was already dead. But she spoke again, very feebly at first, her voice getting stronger as she talked.

“I am giving birth,” she told him. “The Bible says a woman walks in the valley of the shadow of death at the moment of birth. I will not return from the valley. But I give birth, in death, because I am giving Holly the one thing that can make her happy—love. Your love, Colonel Colter. I can die in peace now, giving birth to my child all over again…”

Claudia Maxwell Bonham closed her eyes and died.

Scott laid her gently on the ground. He closed her eyes and silently offered a prayer of thanks. He examined his wound and found that the bullet had gone clean through. With no qualms, he tore a piece from the bottom of Claudia’s robe, wrapping it tightly around the bleeding hole. Then he stood and made his way to Neil’s body. There was no time to bury his friend, no time even to pray over him.

Pain knifing down his leg, he limped down to the water, gasping as the sudden, icy chill of the water hit him. Beyond, in the distance, were the lights of a ship. That ship was where Holly was being held prisoner. He was sure of it.

He waded waist-deep and then lunged forward into the water, swimming out to the ship. Claudia, he promised her silently, you didn’t die in vain.

Chapter Thirty

Holly lay, bound by ropes, on the bed in Roger’s spacious cabin, hoping that all the venomous hatred she felt for him was in her eyes. “Goddamn you, Roger,” she whispered. “I hope you burn in hell.”

He was drinking straight from a bottle of rum now, no longer bothering with a glass. “One day, maybe I will,” he shrugged, “but that won’t be for a long, long time. No, precious wife, but there may soon be times when you wish you were dead, because I am going to break that spirit of yours. I am going to make you crawl to me on your hands and knees.” He burped. “Starting now.”

He began to undress slowly, watching her face carefully.

“Do you know what I see before me?” she asked evenly. “I see nothing before me but a naked monster.” She hoped none of her fear showed.

But he knew exactly how frightened she was, and how best to torment her. “By now, your friend Colter is dead. But don’t think about him, dear wife, think of other things, like the ecstasy I am going to offer you in a moment or two.”

Using the knife he had taken from her earlier, he sliced through the ropes that held her. “Don’t try anything you shouldn’t, my sweet,” he warned as he slowly cut her clothes off
of her, his eyes glowing. “Holly, this is a new beginning for us. Be glad for this chance to renew our love.”

As Holly stared at him, her entire life seemed to pass before her. She remembered once condemning her mother for being weak, for depending on a man. Now Holly found herself truly alone. If Scott were dead—and she prayed with all her strength that he was not—then she knew she’d be alone forever. But she was damned if she would surrender.

Death would be better than Roger’s love. She would take her chances with death.

She whispered lustily to him, “You think you’re man enough for me? You think you can satisfy me? Colonel Colter was ten times the man you are. He took me to glory so many times I lost count.” She laughed tauntingly. “You aren’t fit to lick his boots, you bastard.”

Incensed, Roger leaped for her, pawing at her till she cried out in pain. Blind lust had taken him, and he’d dropped the knife on the bed, just as she’d hoped he would.

Roger grunted, panted, telling her in the basest terms what he was about to do to her, and all the while, she was moving her arm slowly toward the knife.

“Now!” Roger moaned suddenly, ready to plunge himself into her. “Now!”

Her fingers closed over the knife and she plunged it downward.

The blade caught him in his shoulder and he shrieked in pain, rolling to the side.

She leaped to her feet, holding the knife before her and making wild, slicing motions in the air. “Enough, Roger!” she screamed, her whole body trembling with rage and despair. “I will kill you, I swear I will.”

He came at her, and she slashed out, the blade cutting into his face. He yelped, leaping backward, blood pouring from his cheek and his shoulder. He lunged for the door and ran out into the narrow corridor and up the stairs, screaming for help.

Holly was right behind him, fearless. She followed Roger’s trail of blood up the stairs, naked, oblivious to the stares of the crew gathering on deck. The men stood as still as statues, staring at the woman who had gone berserk.

She swung with the deadly knife, slicing air, walking toward Roger, who backed away from her, screaming, “Stop her! She’s crazy! Kill her before she kills me.”

One brave soul, or fool, dared to move toward her. He was about to draw the pistol tucked in the waist of his trousers when she brought her knife down, slicing into his arm. With a cry of pain, he stepped back, but not before she grabbed the pistol. She faced the others, pointing the knife in one hand and the gun in the other. “Anyone else care to flirt with death?”

No one spoke, and no one moved.

“Overboard,” she said tersely, waving the gun at them.

One of the men cried, “We ain’t goin’ overboard.”

She fired the pistol at his feet. “Then move.”

Running as one large body, they left the deck and made for the stairs.

Roger was backed against a mast. Breathing heavily, hands pressed against his bloody face, he snarled, “You’re going to have to come after me, you bitch. You’re going to have to kill me. So shoot—if you dare.”

She eyed him coldly, emotion gone. “This will be for Sally, and Norman, and poor Jarvis, and all the others you’ve killed. And for my mother, for Scott, for me. For all the hell you’ve caused on this earth.”

Neither of them had seen Scott laboriously, painfully, pull himself over the railing. They believed themselves alone until, at the moment Holly pulled back the pistol hammer, Scott called out, “Don’t!”

She froze.

“Don’t,” Scott called again. “You’ve never killed, and you might not be able to live with it.”

Leaning against the railing, stooped, his hand on his oozing wound, he glared at Roger, whose face had frozen into a mask of hatred and contempt.

“You goddamn, worthless son of a bitch,” he hissed. “Do you know the misery you’ve caused, you and your goddamn greed? You’ve killed the best friend I ever had in this world.”

Too numb for feelings, Holly merely registered Neil’s death. There would be time for mourning later. “Scott,” she asked, almost conversationally, “what shall we do with him?”

Scott limped forward, straightening as best he could as he reached her. He took the gun and knife from her and embraced her gently. “Your mother is dead, Holly. I’m sorry.”

Holly nodded silently. It was no surprise.

“She gave her life for me,” he said quickly. “She took the bullet that was meant for me.” He related Claudia’s last words about giving birth again, and then told her, “She asked me to save you. But whatever happens now is up to you.”

She understood. “Then what do we do about him?”

“I think,” Scott answered, “we’ll give him the same chance he gave other people.”

Holly looked at him quizzically. “And that will be…?” Her voice trailed away.

Scott barked his final orders at Roger. “Overboard. Alligators may have been following me, after my blood. If so, you can feed them.” He paused long enough to cock his gun. “Or else feel this bullet.” He pointed the gun at Roger. But Roger had made his decision. He preferred anything the sea had to offer to letting Scott Colter take his life. His gaze flickered briefly over Scott, then rested a moment on Holly. Then he walked to the railing and hurled himself overboard.