Tender Touch (32 page)

“Yes, I was—”

“No more lies, you conniving bitch. You’ve put me through enough. You framed me for your own murder. Hell, I wish I had killed you.” He moved closer. “I’ve let my business go to hell, running after you. I’ve been beaten, robbed, and left on the prairie to die, all thanks to you.”

Brianna felt vulnerable huddled there on the rock. A feral gleam in his eye, a wildness, told her he teetered on the edge of sanity. Slowly she sat up and lowered her legs until her toes touched ground. Then she braced herself.

“Remember Marv, my sorrel?” he asked.

As though anticipating her next move, he stepped to the right, blocking her most direct route through the sagebrush to the safety of the crowd below. “A goddamn Indian stole him. I still have Maisy, though. If you’re nice, I’ll let you ride her home.”

Brianna straightened and slipped her hand into her pocket. The cool grip of the pistol gave her a faint sense of security. Why had she never noticed the cruelty so plain in the hard line of her husband’s mouth? The flicker of madness in his eyes? “I’m sorry you suffered because of me, Barret.”

His thin lips stretched into a grisly caricature of a smile. “Not half as sorry as you’re going to be.”

His gaze touched every part of her, as if inspecting her for Col’s fingerprints burned into her flesh. She blushed with shame, then scolded herself. What she and Col had done was not wrong, not like what Barret had done to her. He was only trying to intimidate her as he used to, but she knew how to fight him now.

“You look good,” he said. “Younger.”

You look old, she thought.

It was true; new lines marked his eyes, his shallow forehead and mouth. The hair at his temples had grayed.

“Maybe it’s because you’ve filled out,” he said, running his eyes over her. “You look more like the girl 1 married.”

Brianna stiffened at the way his gaze caressed her body. She knew that look. Being hit, she could handle. But she couldn’t bear the thought of having his hands on her in a sexual way.

“Remember the cellar?” His smile was a sneer. “It’s waiting for you. The spiders, those wonderful little creatures with their wiggly little legs, all waiting for you. They’re almost as hungry for you as I am.”

She forced herself to smile, hiding the shudder that raced down her spine.

“Spiders are God’s creations, did you know that?” She edged away from the rock, and him, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “Col taught me to appreciate them. After all, they have their place in the world, just as we do. They keep the insects down and that’s a good thing. What good do you do for the world, Barret?”

His sneer turned to a scowl. “I could rid the world of the lying, adulterous whore you’ve become. That should be worth something.”

“Truly? Do you recall the old saying about people in glass houses . . . how does it go? Oh, by the way, how is Glory? Does she still live in the place you bought her on Locust Street?”

His eyes widened. “What do you know about Glory and the house on Locust?” His fists flexed as though itching to clamp around her neck.

“You told me.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I never told you anything.”

She smiled. “You told me a lot of things, actually. In your sleep. Things about your mother, for example.”

“What about my mother?”

Brianna swallowed. Her heart was slamming against her ribs like an axe on wood. His voice had been hard, threatening, but he hadn’t cringed at her words, as she had expected him to. Doubt fingered down her spine. She felt for the trigger on the old cap lock in her pocket and kept the smile plastered on her face. “You said she was in love with someone, a man she wanted to marry.”

That he had been prepared to hear her words was confirmed by the next words he spoke. “You made a grave mistake burying the silver where you did.” He chuckled. “No pun intended.”

He bowed, mocking her with his composure. His smile was as lethal as rattlesnake venom. “That’s how I knew you weren’t dead. You had me fooled until then, but I would have figured it out eventually. You can’t outsmart me.”

“I was smart enough to write down everything, including the new location of the skeletons, and leave it with someone who could turn it over to the sheriff if anything happened to me.”

At last she had the pleasure of seeing his confidence shaken.

“Tell me,” she asked, “am I correct in assuming that the second skeleton was your mother’s lover? The one you caught doing to her what you so disgustingly yearned to do yourself?”

His hands balled into fists. “He had no right to touch her. I was the one who loved her most. I quit law school for her, even broke off my engagement to Cynthia Van de Brake so I could devote my life to taking care of Mother. She betrayed me. She was going to abandon me.”

The madness in his eyes reminded Brianna of a rabid wolf she’d seen on the prairie. She almost expected to see froth appear at the comers of his mouth.

He moved closer, nostrils flared like a predator catching scent of its prey. “But 1 taught her she couldn’t treat me that way. I’ll teach you, too. Maybe, if you beg me prettily enough, I’ll let you live. But you’d better start now.”

Brianna’s heartbeat thrummed in her ears, as loud as the tornado she’d witnessed at Windlass Hill. It deafened her to everything except the rasp of his heavy breathing and the crunch of sagebrush under his feet as he advanced on her.

Resisting the urge to scream, she said, “I’m not going to beg you, Barret. Not now, not ever again. You can beat me all you like. You can even kill me. But if you do, Marshal Rainey and everyone else back home will know about your unhealthy affection for your mother and how you murdered her.”

He moved so rapidly, she hadn’t a chance to escape or draw the gun from her pocket. The first blow connected to her jaw, knocking her to the ground. He snatched her back up b
y the arm and struck her again.

“You great big traitorous bitch! You mailed that little story of yours to someone, didn’t you?”

Her mouth opened but all she could get out was a squeak. Her head spun crazily and brilliant pinpoints of light blurred her vision.

“Who did you mail it to?” he screamed in her ear. “Tell me!”

Her
head snapped as he slapped her.

“Tell me!”

Everything had gone wrong. All she had accomplished by mentioning his mother was to trigger his madness; the two went together like thunder and lightning. Now he would kill her. With his bare hands, he would tear her apart until there was nothing left, not even enough to bury. Col would never even know she was gone.
Oh, Col, save me. I don’t want to die.

***

Columbus Nigh pulled on the reins, bringing Tobias’s buckskin to a halt. Frantically he stood up in the stirrups and studied the terrain.

He had been so sure he had heard Brianna’s voice calling him.

Was he too late? Had Barret already found her?

The North Platte was a silver ribbon in the morning sunlight. Wagons lumbered past him along the dusty trail, creating a cloud that nearly obliterated the distant landscape. All around him dogs barked, men cursed, chains jangled. A woman called to her children.

But Brianna’s voice was silent.

One more mile would bring him to the Mormon ferry. Dropping back into the saddle, he jabbed his heels into the horse’s sides and bolted forward, praying he hadn’t failed Brianna the same way he had Little Beaver.

***

“No!” Brianna screamed silently in her head. The rock bit cruelly into her back as Barret bent her backward, his hands at her throat. But she would not give in. He might kill her, but she would not make it easy for him.

Her hand tightened on the handle of the gun.

Barret laughed, the sound every bit as demented as his mind. “It doesn’t really matter if you mailed it, does it? I don’t have to go back to St. Louis. Shit, I’m halfway to Oregon, I might as well go the rest of the way.”

His grip on her neck loosened as he considered his options. “No. I like the idea of going to California better. With all the people going there to hunt gold, no one would ever find me.”

Gratefully, Brianna sucked in air as his thumbs eased up on her windpipe. Her head cleared. Bit by bit she edged the pistol out of her pocket, fighting for strength, praying for time.

Praying to see Col
one more time before she died.

Barret’s laughter sounded shrill and maniacal in her ear. “It doesn’t matter what I do with you, either, bitch. I can kill you right here, right now. No one’s paying us any mind. I’ll just squeeze the life out of you, slowly, the way I’ve dreamed of so many nights on this filthy trail you dragged me over.”

His fingers tightened once more on her neck. She nearly had the gun free. One more minute, she prayed.
Just give me one more minute
.

“By the time someone finds your body,” he went on, “I can be well on my way. No one will ever be able to prove it was me.”

He was cutting off her air again. She could feel her strength fading. Life was sliding away.

“Die, bitch,” he whispered against her cheek. “Die.”

The gun came free. It seemed to weigh more than the buffalo bull Col had shot on the South Platte. Fighting to keep her eyes open, to stay alive a little longer, she struggled to raise the nose of the gun. Her finger closed over the trigger.

The blast rocked her body.

Surprise and confusion widened her husband’s eyes. His hands slid from her neck, down her chest, over her breasts. Then he staggered back and let out a bellow of pain.

Brianna dropped the gun. She slid off the rock onto her knees, rubbing her neck and gasping for air as he clutched at his injured leg. A bright red stain spread from his groin to his knee. Disappointed, she moaned. Her shot hadn’t hit anything vital.

“You shot me,” he said, his voice childish now. The madness was fading from his eyes. “Why? Why did you—?”

Horses pounded up the hill toward them, but she didn’t have enough stamina to lift her head and see who was coming. Not until Col’s name burst in her mind, as beautiful as a fireworks display she’d seen as a girl in St. Louis. She looked up, a smile already forming on her lips.

But three men rode toward them, not one.

And none of them were Col.

Two were naked except for breechclouts, their dark copper skin daubed with paint. Feathers fluttered from their ebony hair. They carried lances, bows, and quivers, and held short-barrel carbine rifles across their laps. As they grew closer she saw that the third man, dressed in fringed buckskins, was white, with dark brown hair rather than black.

All three came to a halt directly in front of them. Brianna held her breath, waiting for them to pin her to the ground with their lances. Never had she seen such savage-looking men, like demons from hell.

No one spoke. The entire world seemed to have come to a standstill. Dust puffed feebly about the horses’ feet. Even the wind had stilled, as though afraid its bluster would pale in comparison to the furor these three ferocious men could unleash.

One of the horses pranced to the side and she heard the tinkle of tiny hawk bells attached to its mane. The sound seemed so out of place in the tense setting, it brought her perilously close to laughter.

Finally, as though realizing they were no longer alone, Barret tore his gaze from the wound in his thigh and glanced up. Surprise registered on his face, then pleasure as recognition set in. “Antoine. Look, she shot me. My own wife shot me.”

She felt the man’s fierce scrutiny on her face and neck where bruises had already begun to color and swell, and she shuddered. Death dwelt in those dark eyes.

“
Madame
,” he said with a strong French accent, and a polite nod. “I am Antoine Robidoux. To you I give my sympathy, and heartfelt gratitude for your poor aim. It would have been a great
desappointement
to find our friend dead after we have traveled so far to find him.”

“Good Christ, Antoine,” Barret complained. “Get over here and help m
e. I’m bleeding to death here.”

The Frenchman merely stared at him, eyes like agates of purest black. “You remember
mon jeune fille, monsieur
? My little daughter?”

The color fled Barret’s face, leaving him as pale as Brianna’s wet drawers. “Sure, I-I meant to say goodbye to her before I left, but she wasn’t around.”

“This is strange,” Antoine said, rubbing his bristly chin. “She say, to her you give a very special farewell. Ah, 1 am being rude. Allow me to introduce my companions.” He gestured to the shorter of the two Indians. “This man is Runs the Buffalo, brother to my wife. The other is Yellow Fox. You remember, I mention him to you at my post, oui?”

Slowly, Barret shook his head. His eyes had grown so round Brianna could see white all around the pale irises.

“Yellow Fox is the best marksman of my wife’s people,” Antoine continued with a cold but proud smile. “It is said he can shoot the balls off a man running for his life. This fall Yellow Fox was to have taken my sweet daughter for his wife. You notice he has cropped his hair, eh? You know what this means?”