RenegadeHeart (6 page)

The ranch house itself was a fairly large, two-story
structure built of wood and native stone. It featured a large parlor, a
spacious, sunlit kitchen, a formal dining room— because Ellen had wanted one so
very much—and three good-sized bedrooms. He remembered how thrilled Ellen had
been when the house was finally finished. Nights, they had sat on the front
porch, listening to the crickets and holding hands as they dreamed of filling the
house with children. Strong sons and beautiful daughters. But after Rachel
there had been no children for a long time. And then, when Rachel was ten, God
had blessed them with a son. But Tommy had lived only a few short years. There
had been no more children after Tommy, and Rachel became dearer than ever.

Lost in thought, Halloran stared at the whitewashed crosses
that marked the final resting places of his wife and son. If only Ellen were
still alive. He needed to talk to her, needed to ask her advice. She had been a
quiet, sensible woman, wise beyond her years, endowed with a keen insight into
other people’s thoughts and actions. Always, when he had needed to make a
decision, he had first discussed it with Ellen.

Halloran glanced at Rachel. She was absorbed in mending one
of his shirts, and he smiled at her fondly. She had Ellen’s incomparable
beauty, but the resemblance ended there. Ellen had been a quiet woman—serene,
peace-loving. But Rachel was a fighter and could be as stubborn as an Army
mule. She would never agree to sell out to Walsh, he knew that without
question, and the thought gave him strength. By damn, they would hang onto the
Lazy H come hell or high water, and if Logan Tyree couldn’t whip Job Walsh,
then, by thunder, they’d find someone who could!

It was shortly after noon when Tyree rode into the yard.
Dismounting, he hitched his horse to the rack, climbed the porch steps to stand
hipshot against the railing, thumbs hooked over his gunbelt. His grin was cold
as glacier ice as he remarked, tonelessly, “Walsh won’t be giving you any more
trouble.”

The words hung in the air like a death knell. For a moment,
Rachel and her father stared at each other, speechless. Then, with a small cry
of dismay, Rachel ran into the house.

“I don’t think your daughter approves of your methods,”
Tyree remarked drily.

John Halloran recoiled as if he had been slapped. Now that
Walsh’s death was an accomplished fact, he felt an overwhelming sense of guilt
at what he had done.

“Neither do I,” Halloran muttered brokenly. “Dammit, Tyree,
neither do I.”

Rachel and Tyree crossed paths in the kitchen later that
day. Rachel’s lovely deep-blue eyes burned with bitter contempt when she looked
at Tyree, and her mouth thinned into a cold line of disapproval.

Walking past her to the stove, Tyree poured himself a cup of
coffee and sipped it slowly. The tension between them was so strong, he would
not have been surprised to see sparks dancing across the room.

Rachel’s flagrant, if unspoken, contempt annoyed Tyree more
than it should have, and he slapped his coffee cup down on the table, ignoring
the fact that the contents sloshed over the rim, making a dark brown stain on
the freshly laundered red-checked cloth.

“All right, spit it out,” he growled. “What’s eating you?
The fact that I killed Walsh, or the fact that your old man hired me to do it?”

Rachel turned on Tyree with all the fury of a treed cougar.
“Both, if you must know,” she lashed out angrily. “I cannot condone murder, not
even the murder of a man like Job Walsh.”

Tyree shook his head in genuine amazement. “Well, I’ll be go
to hell! The man was out to steal your ranch, and now you’re crying because
he’s dead.”

The contempt in Rachel’s eyes turned to pity as she stared
at Tyree. “You don’t hold life very dear, do you, Mr. Tyree?”

“Only my own, Miss Halloran,” he fired back.

“And does your life make you happy?”

“Happy?” There was a note of bewilderment in his tone.

“Yes, happy. Do you like the man you see in the mirror when
you shave?”

“I don’t use a mirror,” Tyree muttered, frowning at her.

“You know what I mean,” Rachel said crossly. “Don’t be
obtuse.”

“Obtuse? What the hell does that mean?”

“It means thickheaded,” Rachel explained in a syrupy voice.
“Slow to comprehend.”

“Thanks.”

“You haven’t answered my question,” Rachel reminded him.

Tyree laughed shortly and without amusement. “What the hell
difference does it make to you whether I’m happy or not?”

“None,” Rachel answered with a shake of her head. “None at
all. Well, I suppose you’ll be moving on, now that you’ve earned your blood
money.”

“First thing in the morning,” Tyree assured her, and stalked
angrily out of the room.

Late afternoon found Tyree sitting on the porch steps,
absently chewing on the end of a long black cigar, content, for the moment,
just to sit back and stare out into the distance. It was good to be free, he
mused. Good to have a belly full of food that wasn’t rancid or half-raw. Good
to feel the weight of a Colt .44 riding his hip. Tomorrow he would ride on,
heading north. Perhaps he would spend the rest of the year with the Apache.
Perhaps he would ride on to Virginia City and try his hand at the gaming
tables. Perhaps not. He had never been one to plan ahead, and he saw no need to
start now. The money he had earned for gunning Walsh made a comfortable bulge
in his hip pocket. Blood money, Rachel had called it. And that was sure as hell
what it was. But it would take him wherever he wanted to go. He glanced around
the ranch yard, surprised to discover he didn’t particularly want to leave the
Lazy H. Or Rachel. He grinned wryly. Especially Rachel. No matter that she
thought he was dirt. He did not want to leave her. What he wanted was to kiss
her pouty red mouth until she admitted she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
She could yell she hated him, insist she loathed his touch and despised
everything he stood for, but the attraction between them was real.

He touched a match to his cigar as the screen door creaked
open and John Halloran stepped out onto the porch.

“Tyree?”

“Yeah.”

“Does my five hundred bucks entitle me to one more favor?”

“Depends,” Tyree answered with a shrug. “Who do you want
killed now?”

Halloran grimaced as though in physical pain. He would never
know another peaceful night’s sleep as long as he lived, he mused bitterly. Not
if he lived to be a hundred.

“I don’t want anyone killed,” the old man answered thinly.
“Rachel went riding an hour ago, and she hasn’t come back yet. She hates it
when I worry about her, but…dammit, Tyree, it’ll be dark soon and she’s all
I’ve got left in the world.”

“Yeah. Don’t worry, Halloran, I’ll find her.” Rising to his
feet, Tyree sauntered down to the corral and caught up the chestnut mare he had
bought in Yellow Creek. Rachel would be less than pleased when he showed up on
her trail, he thought with some amusement, but what the hell. It was a nice
night for a ride, and he had nothing better to do.

The mare was eager to run and she responded to the touch of
Tyree’s heels with a toss of her head as she broke into a comfortable lope. In
moments, the ranch was left behind and they were riding across open country.

The tracks of Rachel’s fine blood-bay mare were as clear as
glass, and Tyree followed them with ease, frowning as her trail veered
southward toward Sunset Canyon. Damn fool girl, he muttered under his breath.
Didn’t she realize she was heading straight into Apache country?

Three miles later he crossed a dry wash and picked up the
tracks of five, maybe six, unshod ponies trailing after Rachel.

Tyree swore softly as he rolled a smoke. The land was flat
here, crisscrossed by shallow draws and gullies and box canyons. The ground was
soft, but not too soft to hold a print, and the tracks left by Rachel and the
Indians were deep and easy to follow.

Lifting the chestnut mare into a slow trot, Tyree swore
again as he passed the place where Rachel first realized she was being
followed. Frightened, she had lashed her horse into a run and the Indians had
quickly given chase. It had been a short flight. The Indians had swiftly
overtaken her, and now one of the braves was leading her mount.

A stand of heavy timber loomed ahead, and Tyree reined the
chestnut to a halt. Dismounting, he tethered the mare to a cottonwood, slipped
out of his boots, and padded forward on cat feet, rifle in hand.

Pausing, he listened for some sound that would pinpoint the
whereabouts of the Indians. Seconds later, a woman’s frightened squeal rose in
the air.

Drawing a deep breath, Tyree picked his way through the
underbrush. He moved as quietly as a mountain lion stalking its prey, careful
not to step on any twigs or dry leaves that would betray his presence. A
clearing appeared some yards ahead, and he caught his first glimpse of Rachel
and the Apaches.

Rachel was spread-eagle on the ground between four grinning
Apache bucks. Her blouse was ripped, giving a tantalizing glimpse of creamy
flesh. Her skirt and pantalets were bunched around her hips, revealing long,
shapely legs. A fifth warrior was stripping away his clout, and the sight of
his swiftly rising manhood caused Rachel to increase her struggles.

Tyree scowled as one of the warriors stuffed a dirty red
kerchief into Rachel’s mouth to stifle her cries.

“She has breasts like the Chiricahua Mountains,” declared
the brave pinning Rachel’s left arm down.

“And I am going to climb them,” boasted the naked warrior
with a lustful chuckle. “Move over and give me some room.”

Tyree mouthed a vague obscenity as he jacked a round into
the breech of the rifle. The harsh metallic sound, unmistakable for what it
was, quickly caught everyone’s attention.

Hope flared in Rachel’s red-rimmed eyes as she recognized
Tyree. If anyone could get her out of this mess, Tyree could. For once she was
glad he was hard and cruel and handy with a gun. He would know what to do.

The four warriors surrounding Rachel sat unmoving, their
expressions slightly sheepish, like children caught playing doctor behind the
barn.

The naked warrior smiled broadly as he glanced past Tyree,
and Tyree felt the muscles tighten in the back of his neck as he realized there
had indeed been six Indian ponies, not five, and that the sixth Indian was now
standing behind him. The sudden jab of a gun barrel against his spine came as
no surprise and Tyree dropped his rifle with an air of grim resignation.

The warrior behind Tyree laughed softly. “You are smart, for
a white man. Drop your gunbelt, too.”

“Six horses,” Tyree muttered disgustedly. “I must be getting
light in the head.”

The Indian behind Tyree came around to face him, and Tyree
swore under his breath as he recognized the broad, ugly face of Many Eagles,
one of the lesser chiefs of the Mescalero Apache.

“Is this any way to treat a brother?” Tyree demanded
angrily.

Many Eagles snorted derisively. “I have no white brothers,”
he said disdainfully. “Only enemies. Dead enemies.”

“You have one white brother,” Tyree retorted boldly. “I
saved your life seven summers ago, in Palo Duro Canyon. And yours, too,
Standing Buffalo.”

A quick smile spread over the face of the naked brave.
“Tyree! I did not recognize you without your face hair.”

“I recognize you, Standing Buffalo,” Tyree replied. “Even
without your clout.”

The naked warrior laughed heartily, and the four warriors
holding Rachel grinned as they exchanged ribald comments in soft, guttural
Apache.

“Go now, Tyree,” Many Eagles said gruffly. “I give you back
the life you once gave me.”

“Not without my woman,” Tyree said firmly. “Or my weapons.”

“It is well-known among the Apache that you have no woman,”
Many Eagles countered. “She lies dead and buried along the Gila, proof of the
white man’s treachery.”

“She has been long dead,” Tyree answered tonelessly,
surprised that her memory still had the power to cause him pain. “I have taken
another woman.”

“I do not believe you.” It was evident, from the tone of the
chief’s voice and the look in his eye, that he wanted Rachel for himself.

“She is my woman,” Tyree said again. “Ask her if you do not
believe me.”

Many Eagles shook his head. “Words prove nothing. She fights
like a mare not yet broke to the saddle. If you are truly her man, she will let
you mount her without complaint.”

Tyree glared at the Indian. “It is not our way to lie
together for the amusement of others.”

“You will do it,” Many Eagles insisted, “or I will keep her
for my own once my warriors have tired of her.”

Tyree scowled blackly, his eyes intent on the face of the
Apache chief. Was the Indian serious, or merely bluffing? Would Many Eagles
truly take Rachel, or was he playing games to see how far Tyree would go? There
was no way to be certain, and Tyree wasn’t prepared to call the Indian’s bluff,
not when Rachel’s future was at stake.

He gazed at Rachel. He could not blame Many Eagles for
coveting her. Even now, begrimed with dust and sweat, her eyes swollen with
tears, she was a sight to take a man’s breath away.

With an effort, Tyree drew his gaze from Rachel’s heaving
breasts and long, shapely legs. “Hear my words, Many Eagles,” Tyree growled. “I
will do as you say, but I tell you now, if our paths cross again, I will cut
out your heart and feed it to the coyotes!”

Without waiting for the warrior’s reply, Tyree strode toward
Rachel. Reaching down, he took the gag from her mouth, gestured for the Indians
holding her to move aside.

Freed of the restraining grasp of the warriors, Rachel sat
up, her eyes intent on Tyree’s face as she drew her skirt over her legs.

“What’s going on?” she queried tremulously. “What are they
going to do to us?”