Spanish Gold (22 page)

Now Crockett was shooting. He'd wanted her to save the bullets in the pistol for them, but she didn't. She aimed at the closest of the Apaches. The bullet slammed into his face and knocked him from his feet.

Travis fired at the last of the men out there. Once, twice, three times, finally dropping the Apache. He tried to get to his feet, but Travis shot him again.

Then, suddenly, it was quiet. The last echoes of the firing died and the only sounds were the distant calls of birds and a rustling of the wind through the thick prairie grasses.

Travis scrambled to reload his weapon. He then took the pistol and replaced the rounds. Finished, he surveyed the mountainside. They couldn't go down. That was where the Apaches were. He didn't know if there were others in the cave waiting for them to come back, or if all those who had followed had climbed out.

“What?” asked Crockett. It sounded as if she had sprinted up the mountain toward him.

Travis got to his feet and jerked her up. He pointed at the top of the mountain. “There,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because it's the only direction open to us.”

She began to climb, running where she could. Travis kept looking back, glancing over his shoulder, but no more Apaches appeared there. That began to bother him. Someone should be appearing.

Crockett reached the summit and dropped to the ground. She turned to look at him. Sweat had soaked her hair and her blouse. Her complexion was pale.

Travis knelt beside her, the breath rasping in his throat. He looked down the mountain toward the cave, but the Apaches had not reappeared. Then, looking down to the west, on the floor of the valley, Travis spotted riders. At first it was the cloud of dust kicked up by the horses that he saw. He turned and studied them. They were little more than dark specks against the tans of the desert.

“Apaches?” she asked.

Travis shrugged. “I don't know. Could be.”

“They know we're here?”

“They're not coming this way,” he said. “Echoing of the shots might have confused them.”

A second group of riders appeared. They rode toward the first, coming down on them from over a far rise. Firing erupted and Travis understood.

“That's the army,' he said, his voice rising in excitement.

“You sure?”

Before he could respond, the first group stopped and dismounted. They spread out, forming a skirmish line, a couple of men remaining behind to hold the reins of the horses.

“What do you plan to do?” asked Crockett.

Travis glanced at her and then turned his attention back to the men far below. He watched as clouds of smoke billowed out, reaching for the onrushing enemy. It was a scene that he had witnessed in a dozen battles back east.

The wall of lead slammed into the Apaches, knocking a couple of them from their horses. As the sound from the first volley reached them, there was a second and a third. That broke the Indian attack. The survivors whirled, riding back up the slope.

“What are we going to do?” asked Crockett again.

“Hurry down there,” said Travis, “and join up with the soldiers.”

“You mean that we made it?” she asked, surprised.

“I mean that it looks as if we're going to get out of here alive,” he said.

“We're going to have to do something,” said Emma Crockett. “People are beginning to talk.”

Travis sat at the table in her small cabin sipping a cup of coffee. She stood near the fireplace. He asked, “Does that bother you? That they're talking?”

“No, not really. It did when they called my father crazy because he was looking for the Spanish gold, but it doesn't bother me now. Not after all we've done and seen.”

“Especially since you're going to be a very rich lady in a couple of months.” He grinned and set the cup down. “Very rich.”

She moved from the fireplace to the table and sat down. She looked right into Travis's eyes. “There are ways of stopping the talk.”

“Like me moving into the hotel, or returning to the east?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “That wouldn't stop the talk but make it louder.”

Travis realized that all the gold and silver in the cave along with his leaving would not stop the talk. It would only make the tongues wag faster. And he knew what the only sure cure for the wagging tongues would be. A subject that had never come up between them.

Staring at her, Travis asked, “This what you want?”

She nodded slowly, but was looking down at the table as if afraid to face him. “I never thought we'd get out of that cave,” she said. “I still think about that cave. Dream about it.”

Travis knew what she was saying. He'd thought the same thing, and once they were out, he thought they'd never live to reach El Paso. But the company from the Texas Cavalry had come along, chased away the Apaches, and then escorted them into the city. The escort was large enough that the Apaches, if they had been around, hadn't bothered it. That was the thing about the Indians. They never attacked unless they felt the odds were on their side.

But that was just talk to disguise what was really on her mind. They had been over that end of the rescue a hundred times, and they had talked about how it had been too bad that the cavalry hadn't arrived a couple of hours earlier. They had been there to save Travis and Crockett but not Davis and the others.

Travis decided that he didn't want to think about Davis and the others, about the gold they couldn't get at for the moment, and everything else that went with it. Instead he decided that he'd rather think about Emma Crockett and what life would be like with only memories of her.

“We can afford to do anything you want,” he said. “Maybe not right this minute but in the very near future.”

“Then,” she said quietly, “what I'd really like to do is go back, get a bar or two of the gold, sell it, and travel to New Orleans to get married.”

“There's a war on and the Union has New Orleans,” he said.

“I don't care about the war.”

Travis got up and walked over to the bed they had been sharing for the last few weeks. He reached under the mattress and pulled out a small leather bag. He returned to the table, opened the bag, and spilled the contents on the table.

“I didn't see you take those.”

“You were searching for a way out,” said Travis. “I thought that if we got out, that would keep us in food and clothes until we could get back for some of the gold.”

“You never said a word.”

“One of those could be mounted into a ring and the others used for a honeymoon.”

She glanced up at him and said, “I thought you'd never ask.”

“I take that as a yes?”

“Yes,” she said. “Of course.” She reached up and began unbuttoning her blouse. She grinned shyly, as if it was the first time she had done that for him.

Travis stood and moved to the bed, pulling the cover down. He turned and waited for her to join him. ‘Tomorrow,” he said, “We'll leave for New Orleans.”

Still grinning, she said, “Not too early.”

“No,” he agreed. “Not too early.”