Texas Angel, 2-in-1 (52 page)

Half an hour later the job was nearly done. Harvey and Joe were already well away with at least two dozen animals. Jed was a couple of hundred feet behind leading away ten horses, and Micah was about to lead away a dozen more. That’s when it all broke loose.

Micah first heard a shout. He thought it might be the guard having regained consciousness and broken free of his gag. But it was coming from the wrong direction. Then a split second after the shout, there came a shot. Now Micah knew the sounds were coming from the camp.

More shots blasted, followed by loud bloodcurdling whoops that could only be Comanche. He heard a scream. The woman traveling with the drovers? Suddenly his thoughts were distracted when the horses began milling skittishly around him. His own roan sidestepped and whinnied. Micah tried to steer his mount away from the press of the herd in case they should stampede. An instant later another shot split the air, and the mustangs took off.

Micah tried to hold back his mount, but in doing so he jerked too hard on the reins. A stupid thing to do. He knew better. The roan was a good animal but young and nervous. All the sudden commotion was just too much for him. With a wild neigh, he took off with the other horses. Micah reined him hard, and the frightened beast reared. Micah knew he should have been able to control him and would have, given another moment. But just then the horse collapsed right out from under him.

Micah jumped from the falling beast to avoid being crushed under the weight of it. He bounced over grass and rocks until his head crashed against one sharp rock, stunning him. He lay still for several heartbeats, black and white spots undulating before his eyes. He knew he was about to pass out but willed himself to stay alert. He tried to stand, but everything was spinning too much for that. Instead, he crawled toward his horse, the ground seeming to rise up beneath him as he moved. His insides quaked. Hands trembling, he reached for his rifle and powder horn. He might not be able to walk, but he sure wasn’t going to just lie there defenseless. Much to his dismay, he saw an arrow through the roan’s throat. The animal was dead. A good horse, and his only means of escape.

His hands had barely touched the rifle when he heard another scream. It was closer this time, and it was definitely female. Using the fallen roan for support, he pulled himself up to a sitting position. When the spinning slowed, he saw a Comanche race away from the camp carrying a captive. The woman! And they were riding in his direction.

With hardly another thought, Micah raised his rifle and took aim at the moving target. The galloping Comanche was a good hundred yards away. It was a one-in-a-hundred shot, but he’d made harder ones, only this time his vision was still blurry. His finger moved on the trigger, then he stopped. The woman was flailing against the Indian, fighting for all her worth to free herself. A heroic effort, but it hampered his purposes greatly.

“Hold still,” Micah murmured, as if she could hear.

Suddenly the woman sagged. Micah was almost certain the Indian had struck her. No matter, he had a clearer shot now. He squeezed the trigger. An instant later horse, rider, and captive toppled to the ground. Then all was still.

Had Micah killed them all? Forcing himself to his feet, he laid aside his rifle and made his way to the scene with his pistol drawn. He felt steadier now. The ground only quaked a little under his feet, and his vision, though still fuzzy, no longer had those sickening spots dancing before his eyes. Within a few feet of the fallen threesome, Micah saw movement. The passengers had been thrown free of the horse, and it was the woman who was now moving. As she sat up, Micah prodded the Comanche with his toe and found him to be very dead. The horse was alive, but its leg was badly twisted.

“You shot him?” the woman said.

“Yeah.”

“Who are you?”

That was a good question. Micah reached up to scratch his head in thought and realized his hat was missing. He scratched his head anyway.

“Well, I was just riding by,” Micah said lamely.

“I saw . . . no one. W-where were you?” She looked mighty pale, even in the moonlight, and her voice quavered as she spoke.

“The stampede spooked my horse.” Micah jerked his head toward the dead roan. “I was just coming to from being thrown when I saw you and that Comanche.”

The woman stood rather shakily. Micah gave her a steadying hand.

Then she looked at the fallen Comanche and gave a shudder. There was a hole in his left temple. She swayed a bit on her feet, and Micah feared she might go down again, but she hitched back her shoulders, seeming to defy gravity itself.

Her eyes wide and her lips trembling, she said, “Y-you made that shot from way over there? I-Im g-glad you didn’t miss.”

“Oh, I seldom miss. I was a bit worried though ’cause my eyesight was still blurry from knocking my head against a rock.”

“B-blurry . . . ?” That was all she said before her eyes rolled back in her head and she started to topple over.

Micah lurched forward and caught her in time. For a moment he stood there helplessly holding her slender form, now slack-limbed as a rag doll. He glanced around as if hoping for rescue himself. There was still fighting in the camp, but the drovers seemed to be holding off the Comanches. He brought his attention back to his burden and saw by the light of the moon that she was a pretty woman. Well,
woman
was hardly the right description, because she was probably younger than he. Still, she was comely, and the feel of her in his arms was almost as dizzying as his fall from the roan. It had been weeks since he had even seen a woman, and as for holding one this close . . . well, it had been far too long.

She moaned softly, and her eyes flickered open, then closed again.

“Miss . . . ?” Micah murmured rather helplessly, but he could not bring her around.

Getting back his wits, which had been slightly stunned by her sudden nearness, Micah laid the girl down on the grass. Tucking his pistol back into his belt, he waved his hand several times over the girl’s face. The moonlight glimmered off her creamy skin and illuminated a mass of curly dark hair tangled around her face. Her closed eyes were thickly fringed with dark lashes. She was beautiful. But still very unconscious.

Micah noted that the shooting up at the camp had stopped now. Looking in that direction, he saw the Comanches were riding away, and he knew he had to do something. It was a sure bet the drovers weren’t going to buy his tale that he had just been riding by.

“Miss,” he said determinedly, “wake up.” He gave her shoulders a shake and considered leaving her. She wasn’t dead, but he couldn’t leave her lying there like that. He didn’t know, but maybe a woman could die of shock. In any case, with the roan dead and the Comanche’s horse injured, Micah had no hope of getting far.

Finally the girl let out a little moan and lifted her head. “Wh-what happened?”

“Guess you fainted.”

“I’ve never fainted before.” She stated this so matter-of-factly that Micah actually began to wonder if he had been mistaken.

“That’s what it looked like to me.” Micah glanced toward the camp. The men were heading toward them.

“I thank you again, sir.” She smiled and the gesture was sweet, warming her large dark eyes so that he nearly forgot his imminent danger.

He smiled back, stupidly, foolishly, like a gawk-faced schoolboy.

“Miss MacCallum!” called one of the drovers. “You okay?”

“Yes, Pete. This gentleman rescued me.”

“I feared you was a goner when that Injun grabbed you.” Pete turned to Micah. “Thank you for what you done.”

“Weren’t nothing” was all Micah could think to say.

“Sure was fortunate you happened along when you did,” said another drover.

“Yeah, guess so,” Micah replied vaguely.

There were now three drovers standing over Micah and the girl, both still seated on the ground. Micah saw that two of the men were indeed Mexican. One had his hand over a bloody shoulder. They were all armed. Still, he thought there might be a chance of bluffing his way out of this dicey predicament—that is, until two newcomers approached.

“Hey, look what I found!” said one.

“I got jumped,” said the other.

“What’re you talking about, Tandy?” the drover named Pete asked.

Tandy, whom Micah clearly recognized as the guard he had knocked out, brought a hand to his head and, as he rubbed, said with a grimace, “I say, I got knocked out and tied up.”

“By Comanche?”

“No, you dim-witted fool! By a rustler. Leastways—”

Tandy’s eyes suddenly took note of Micah. It had been dark back at that mesquite bush, even with the full moon, and Micah had been wearing his bandanna, but it would not take long before all the pieces fell into place right on top of Micah.

“Who’re you?” the guard demanded.

Before Micah could respond, Pete spoke. “Said he was riding by when he saw the Comanche attack.”

“I’d bet my boots that’s one—”

But Micah did not wait to hear more. Quickly jerking his pistol from his belt, he grabbed the girl and pressed the barrel of the gun to her head. It was her gasp that drew the attention of the men.

“Drop your weapons now,” Micah ordered, “or I’ll have to shoot the girl.”

“You ain’t gonna shoot no girl,” said Pete, who still appeared a bit stunned at the rapid sequence of events.

Micah cocked the hammer of his pistol. “Well, if it’s her or me, I’m not gonna debate it much.”

A tense moment followed. The other drovers looked to Pete, who did indeed seem to be debating in his mind just how desperate this baby-faced outlaw was. Reaching the only logical conclusion, Pete tossed his rifle into the dirt and signaled the others to do the same. That done, Micah gestured for the girl to stand. He rose with her, still holding her with one arm while with the other he held the gun on her. Only then did he really note how steady the girl was. She wasn’t whimpering or crying or even shaking. His own knees were still a little mushy, but he attributed that to his fall from the horse. His head throbbed, but his vision had cleared.

Micah didn’t like to leave the weapons within such easy reach of the men, but he could only handle so many details at once. He had to hope none would be fool enough to shoot at him while he held the girl. Nudging her along, Micah went up to where the saddle horses were hobbled in the remuda. Thankfully these had been unaffected by either the stampede or the Indian attack. On the way past the camp, he saw three bodies sprawled on the ground—two Comanches, one white man.

Nodding toward a nice sturdy-looking chestnut horse in the remuda, he said to the girl, “Saddle that horse up for me. Remember, I got my gun on you, and as you seen before, I don’t miss.”

She licked her lips, the first sign he noted of any stress.

“That’s one of our best animals.”

“If I’m gonna hang for stealing a horse, it may as well be a good one,” he answered casually. “Go on now,” he added, “and hurry up.”

After she did as he asked, he said, “Now mount up.”

“What!”

“The minute I ride away, your drovers are gonna start shooting. You’re just gonna give me some insurance—only for a short distance. I ain’t fool enough to take you far.”

With a resigned shrug, she mounted. She had no difficulty at all with the large animal; in fact, she swung up into the saddle with elegant grace and sat as if she had been born to it. Micah stood for a minute staring in admiration. Then he remembered he was holding a gun on her and that she was his hostage. He mounted behind her, took the reins, and spurred the chestnut away. Again he had to remind himself that this was a desperate getaway. Yet feeling her close, her silken masses of fragrant hair blowing in his face, wreaked havoc with his sense of reality.

After a final warning to the drovers not to follow and assuring them he’d let the girl go soon, he rode about half a mile away before he stopped and let her dismount. The drovers had not followed. They were practical men and no doubt figured Micah was practical, too. He wasn’t about to kill a girl if he didn’t have to. And Micah figured they wouldn’t waste time to go after one rustler when there was hope of still getting back their herd.

“Sorry I had to inconvenience you,” he said as soon as the girl’s feet touched the ground.

“I’m sorry your day was wasted, and you only got away with one horse.” She smiled wryly.

“Maybe I’ll do better next time.” He decided to make no mention of the two or three dozen mustangs he hoped his partners had successfully made off with. The drovers might just think they had been lost in the stampede.

“Then until next time . . .”

Their eyes met and held for a long moment. It was the strangest moment Micah could ever recall experiencing. Her look made him forget who and what he was. It made him feel almost clean, like he might even deserve to have a girl like her look at him in that way.

CHAPTER

3

T
HE MACCALLUM RANCH WAS A
large spread even in a land where everything was larger than life. Located a two-hours”f ride south of San Antonio, it had been founded more than a hundred years ago by Joaquin Vasquez. The land had passed through his male Mexican scions until his grandson had only one child, a daughter. Rosalind Vasquez married an Anglo from Kentucky named Reid Maccallum, a Scotsman with red hair, towering brawny bulk, and a smile that could charm the scales off a rattlesnake.

Reid was a fine man, and his future father-in-law had no qualms about passing his ranch to his daughter to be run by the gringo. Tejas was changing, being overrun by gringos who even changed the name of the Mexican province to Texas. A gringo would better understand these changes and the irascible Americans who had brought them. Besides, Rosalind loved the Scotsman, and the Scotsman loved her. So what was a father to do, especially a father with no sons?

Lucinda Maria Bonny Maccallum, child of this union, thought about her Scottish father and Mexican mother as she rode up to the house where she had been born nineteen years earlier. She was glad to be home. How she had missed her papa, and how she wished her mother could be there to greet her as well. Mama had died two years ago of consumption, taking with her a little of the sweet life that had always infused the Maccallum place.