Paxton Pride (60 page)

Jaco walked slowly from the hut. His hand shook from the deed and from the inescapable truth, the irreparable harm done. Manuel backed away from him. “You killed her,” he muttered. “Your mother and your sister. Two women Your own people You are
chacal
, as the
gringo
said.…” Jaco ignored him, and oblivious to the commotion filling the outlaw settlement of Rio Lobos, headed for the creek. Behind him, Manuel shouted in a broken voice. “You are no
general
. Just
un chacal
, a jackal, killer of women!”

The waters of Rio Lobos carried the ignominious tale downstream as Jaco strode along the bank. There in the brush, the mustang, ground-tethered, cropped at sweet grass, raised his head and shied skittishly as the man approached. Jaco pulled the ground pin free and tried to force himself to calm down.
I
will kill them. I will kill them
.… Unspeaking, he freed the reins, subduing the animal by force, whipping him into quiet submission. Once into the saddle, he guided the gelding along the river and away from the blazing
granero
and
tienda
, away from the bandits searching for their own mounts. He followed the watercourse until it crossed the familiar trail leading to the North Pass, then guided the animal out of the draw and without so much as a glance at the flames that signaled the final fatal culmination of his plans and dreams, rode away forever from the town of Rio Lobos. The
gringo
and his
señora
would be difficult to track at night, but he would continue on, trusting in his hate to guide him … as he had since he could remember.

CHAPTER VI

The smoke from the campfire sought the air with tentative, vaporous tendrils, invisible in the darkness. Great tides of clouds swept across the sky, cumulus barkentines drifting on a sable sea of outflung stars. Somewhere beneath the sparkling depths, like a patch of phosphorescence on the surface of the ocean, small flames of a campfire trembled and danced. Karen had built the fire well within a
cul-de-sac
of huge, barren boulders. She found some scrub cedar, and peeling a strip of bark from one, provided them with a crude vessel for heating water. As long as the flames did not rise above the water level, the bark would not burn. The makeshift pot held enough to bathe Vance's wound and little more.
Vance …

Karen looked at the pain-beset countenance of her husband. She was lucky. The bullet that had tugged at her blanket left only a long reddened burn on her upper arm. She dipped his bandana into the hot water, withdrew it and slid over beside the wounded man. Arcadio's bullet had struck him in the back on his right side just below the belt, plowing a deep bloody furrow through his flesh, glancing off the top of his hip and exiting obliquely, leaving a gaping horror of macerated flesh. Field-dressed with no more than a strip from the bottom of the blanket Karen wore, the bleeding had been arrested for the first few miles, then started again shortly before they made camp. Each mile ridden had been naked, wrenching agony for Vance. Now, the wound exposed and the bleeding stopped again, he winced as Karen applied the steaming compress. The heat soon soothed the ravaged flesh, however, and for the first time since they rode away from the burning town, he knew relief. Twisting his head, he stared ruefully at the wound. “Should have taken his gun. My own damn fault.”

“It's too late to worry about that now,” Karen chided. “What's done is done.”

“You're right,” he agreed. “And it could be worse.” He chuckled grimly. “Look at that. A brand new army shirt, a gift from Jaco, and already ruined. Saving beautiful women sure is hard on a man's clothes.” He lay back, serious again in a wash of pain-induced exhaustion. “Good thing True isn't along. He'd have my neck for being three kinds of a fool.”

Karen removed the compress. The flesh clean, the extent of the wound could more easily be seen. “How serious is it, Vance?”

“Bad enough. I've got less blood than I ought to have. I'm weak and slow, but I'll hold up. A wound like this isn't dangerous unless it gets infected, or slows us enough for Jaco and his men to catch up with us.” He reached out and gripped Karen's arm. “If that happens—or if we run into Apaches—if I get too weak to continue, you may have to go on without me.”

Karen's eyes widened, her mouth set in indignant refusal. “No.…”

Vance waved aside her protest. “I want you to promise me you will. It's important.”

“But I couldn't …”

“You can and you will,” he insisted, his voice stern and commanding. “When I say ‘run,' you run. Fast. What Jaco'll do to me won't matter any more. Hell, I'll probably be past caring. But you've got to get back, tell True and the boys.” His head lolled back and he closed his eyes against the jetting spasms of pain defeating his efforts to continue.

“No more talking,” Karen said. “I'll check the snare.” Quietly, she slipped away from the fire, into the blackness.

Vance forced himself to relax his leg and hip, let the pain have its way and so more quickly subside. What had she said? Snare? He looked around. She was gone. Snare? Of course. Ted would have taught her about snares.
Good old Ted. Should have taught her myself. Man shouldn't be running off all around the country. Ought to stay at home and teach his wife to set snares.…
The fire flared to his right and he stared dully at the leaping tongues of orange, hoping the hypnotic dance would lull him. The cedar bowl was on fire.
Better do something about that bowl. Just reach right over there and …

Warily searching the night for menace, Karen stepped from the
cul-de-sac
and followed a dry watercourse to a thicket of mesquite, the most likely place for game in the area. The snare, though admirably constructed, was depressingly empty. Disappointed because Vance badly needed fresh meat—anything to build his strength—she picked her way back up the slope, pausing every few yards to listen for suspicious sounds. The night was full of noise, but she could discern no threat. But what specific sounds could she expect an intruder to make? What silences—insects near a man in the dark would fall silent—were the harbingers of pursuit? Would she hear an Indian if he were creeping up on her? The wind sighed around rocks and through crevices, and a soft whoosh told her a bat had passed overhead. She started at the creak of … what? The sound came again, and to her right she saw a mesquite branch rub against another. Relieved, she sighed and leaned against a boulder, trying to relax. The moon, gibbous and nearly full, peeped from behind a barrier of fleecy gray and white, illuminating the landscape. Before her eyes the sand, rock and shale slope turned the color of bleached bone. She looked south across the ghostly painting toward the distant broken pass through which they had traveled. Might they not be hunted this very moment? She felt the beginnings of panic, but forced the emotion to subside. Vance had assured her they would have some hours before the bandits could hope to recover their horses and begin the pursuit. Even so, he had turned off the main trail and followed a less likely looking path which would take them through the mountains to a river crossing west of the one they had used two days earlier. There was little chance the outlaws were close at all, especially given the explosion, the burning of their supplies and their lack of horses. Still, Karen felt she knew better. The others might give up the chase, but not Jaco. The bandit leader would find them. Sooner or later he would realize they had turned off the trail, backtrack and find their route. She had glimpsed the fierce turmoil of his spirit, experienced the deep well of his bitterness, cringed from the absolute determination which drove him beyond the bounds of normal men. Jaco would never let them escape. Somewhere in the night he followed, implacable and not to be denied.

Jaco … the ferocity of his kisses and the hunger of his hands as they explored her brought a grudging heat to her body. How powerless she felt against him. Yet despite his contempt for her, she realized he also loved her in a strange and inexplicable way. But such love … and such hate … fear caught at her heart and she found herself on hands and knees, shivering and staring into the night like a trapped animal. She wanted to be away, to take her chances with flight and the dark, eager pitfalls of the trail rather than wait for.…
What can I do against him? What will happen when he finds me?
Alone on the rocky slope, her imagination went wild. Everv rock, every branch, every cactus …
staring at me?! No! Stop it. Stop. Vance is hurt. He needs me, depends on me.… Jaco! No. I'm afraid … afraid …
The admission helped.
All right then
, she thought angrily,
be afraid. But do what needs to be done! Just start at the beginning and keep on going and doing until the task is finished. The Hampton way. Keep on … keep on.…

Clouds were piling up from the south in ever increasing numbers, moving more swiftly now. Overcome by the roiling barrier of scudding gray, the moon quickly fell before their onslaught. Karen got to her feet and continued up the trail, carefully choosing her way back to the hidden campsite.

Vance was asleep beside the fire and she noticed with dismay their bark vessel, the water boiled away, had fallen into the embers and become food for the flames. “Keep on,” she muttered softly in an undertone of resignation, more than a little tinged with doubt. Removing her blanket
serape
, she stood quietly and let the cool night breeze lave her naked torso. Thank goodness there was another stolen army shirt in the bundle taken from the
granero
. The wet blanket had irritated her skin, left her itching and red. Suddenly tired, she slipped on the smooth cotton shirt, and wriggling with delight as the soft fabric covered her skin, wrapped herself in the blanket again and lay down to a well-earned rest.

Morning brought only token light, for the airy battlements of the previous night had accumulated in angry, tumultuous proportions that any moment threatened to unleash the fury of a storm on the fugitives. Karen saddled both horses and returned to the fire to find Vance awake and standing up, some color showing in his face. The night's rest had done him good. “Are you sure we should leave?” Karen asked, worried the wound on his hip would open again.

Vance nodded. “It'll rain before too long and wash out our tracks. It's worth the chance, so long as we don't get caught and washed out ourselves. Every trackless mile we put between us and them will be just that much more time we've gained.” He unconsciously kicked dirt on the remains of the campfire, stiffening as the simple action rewarded him with searing spasms. Cursing silently, he forced one foot before the other and crossed to the chestnut gelding stolen from the bandits. Karen mounted her gray and watched with consternation as Vance laboriously swung into the saddle, his wounded right side slowly easing over the cantle. A drum roll of thunder from the south punctuated their departure. They topped the ridge below which they had camped, descending immediately into a narrow crevice splitting the next hill. Vance looked up at the walls stretching high overhead. They were riding between the jaws of a trap, and should the heavens choose this moment to …

And then they were free. Sloping up a wide saddle to a broad, swayback crest. Karen gasped in surprise, reined in the gray without thinking. Falling away to either side and in front of them lay a barren, hostile vista of trackless land and lowering sky forming a gray and enclosing horizontal void stretching ahead to the north.
I can't.… I can't
…
there's too much to cope with … too much
.

Vance stopped at her side. “One day we'll come back,” he said gently. “You'll see then how beautiful all this is.” Struck dumb by the vastness, Karen could find no words with which to answer. “We'd best keep on. We'll want to cross the Rio Grande before dark.” His brows knotted against the pain, and gripping the pommel with both hands, he nudged the gelding into a walk.

Keep on
…? Karen sucked in her stomach, drew a deep breath.
Keep on
.… Ahead of her, the chestnut led the way, cautiously picking a path across the slope and down to the empty land before them.

The storm broke. Jagged spears of lightning tore asunder the clouds and loosed a heavy downpour. Karen shivered under the sudden onslaught and pulled the
serape
blanket close around her. Ahead, Vance's outline blurred. Once she lost him completely and experienced a rush of panic. She dug her heels into the gray and the game little steed, anxious for company, trotted forward.

After the first numbing moments the fury of the storm subsided and the cloudburst turned into a steady, drenching rain. Karen pulled up alongside Vance, her gray matching the chestnut's gait. She bowed her head, cringing each time the wind at their backs sent a trickle of water down her spine. Glancing over, she could see Vance's face white with pain and cold against the gray background which surrounded them. He must, somehow, be kept warm. Already suffering from loss of blood and the shock of excessive pain, the cold would weaken him dangerously. She reached out and grabbed the chestnut's reins, brought them both to a halt, and while Vance sat quaking, pulled the ties on the extra blankets stolen from the
granero
and draped them tent-like over him. The steady hiss of rain half drowning her words, she tried to get him to agree to a stop, but he gritted his teeth and gestured to the trail ahead. The horses plodded on.

Time stood still, went unnoticed like the shadows of night. Gray mud, gray sky, the constant droning chant of the rain and the rocking movement of the animal beneath her lulled Karen into a dream world of another time and place, far removed from the wilderness around her. She was in a lurching carriage racing through the streets of Washington, tossed from one side of the interior to the other, the coach door banging open. Details stood out clearly. A button on the seat opposite her … a piece of shining brass on the front wall … the frozen image of a tree, bent in the wind … a leaping figure loomed in the doorway and she glimpsed his face.
The Texan …!
One moment he was there, the next atop the carriage and straining to subdue the madly racing team, then standing in the sea of mud at the carriage's side, smiling bouyantly, expansively, his cheeks splashed with mud and dirt. Fading from memory, the city became more a vague recollection of a time, a place and a girl she no longer knew. Far easier to bring to mind the clear scent of sunwashed cedar carried on the wind, or the late night cry of the killdeer winging to her nest. More recent faces swelled from the mists to fill her fantasy. Vance, True, Elizabeth, Maruja, Ted and Jared. Bodine? Yes, he too. And poor Marcelina—what would Jaco do to her? And Marquez, Manuel, Arcadio and … Jaco himself. More friendly faces replaced the latter; the men of the PAX. The laconic Harley, gentle Emilio, eager and smiling Billy Harmony, esaygoing Shorty. Faces known and cherished, cared for and lost. Lost?
Elizabeth is lost. Maruja is lost. No! No, not lost. Not as long as my heart beats and earth moves
.