Arizona Embrace (31 page)

Trinity checked the wound.

“He’ll be all right once we get the bullet out. Do you know how?”

“No.”

They both looked down the mountainside to where the Indians had disappeared.

“Do you think they’re gone?” Victoria asked, scanning the apparently empty desert.

“No. They’re out there,” Trinity said. “But you won’t see them again until they try to kill you. You might not even see them then.”

“What happened to their horses?”

“One of them took the horses into the wash. We have to make sure they don’t get ours.”

“What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to wait. The game’s in their hands now.”

The afternoon passed with agonizing slowness. Trinity fired occasionally, as much to let the Indians know he was still there as anything else, but they seemed to have lost interest.

“I’ve already hit three,” Trinity explained as they ate a dinner of jerky washed down with water. There was no wood for a fire. And no coffee. “They don’t want to lose any more men, so they’ll try to outwait us. They know there’s no water up here. We might last several days, but the horses won’t. They expect us to make a break. When we do, they’ll be waiting.”

Trinity didn’t talk like a man who was desperate or afraid. He stated the cold facts and considered the options. He wasn’t giving up.

“What do you have in mind?”

Trinity smiled, a silent acknowledgement that she had come to know him well.

“I’m going to get behind them. Sometime before dawn I’ll move in. I want you to lay down as much fire from here as you can. Shoot from more than one position. We’ve got to make them think they’re being attacked on two sides by a larger force. It might panic them into running away. It’ll take the several hours to get into position, so why don’t you get some sleep?”

“I couldn’t sleep knowing you’re out there.”

Victoria hadn’t meant to say that. She didn’t want anyone, especially Trinity, to know the confused state of her feelings, but this didn’t seem like a time for dissembling. He could die. She might never see him again. She didn’t want her last words with him to be some meaningless lie.

“One of my aunts once told me a woman has two jobs in life. To help and wait. Tonight I get to do both.”

“That seems like an awfully harsh thing to say to a young girl.”

“I’d been acting frivolously. She didn’t approve of frivolity.”

“I’ve never known you to be frivolous.”

“I’m not the girl I was at fourteen.”

Trinity doubted she had ever had a chance to be a girl, to be frivolous, to worry about clothes, flirt with boys, to spend whole weeks pondering such weighty decisions as who would take her to the dance and what dress to wear. Instead she’d been running a household, taking care of a dying father, married as a teen, and driven into hiding. She had never known the little freedoms and innocent joys of being young, of being protected and cared for.

“I’m sure you’ll get the chance again. Soon.”

“I hope so, but first you’ve got to scare the pants off those Indians. How long will it take you to get into position?”

“No more than a couple of hours, but I’ve got a few surprises to set up that will take me most of the night. I intend to attack just before dawn.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Watch. Be ready the moment the first beams of sunlight streak the sky.”

Trinity spent the thirty minutes going through his saddlebags, his bedding, and every bag on the packhorse in search of ammunition. He took all he found.

“Is there enough left?” she asked.

“Red has plenty. Remember, just before dawn. Now get some sleep. It’ll be a long night.”

But Victoria couldn’t sleep. Not with eight or nine savages out there waiting to kill her. Not with Red bleeding to death at her side. Not with Trinity out there risking his life to save hers. It was strange. She had wished him dead, threatened to kill him, had done everything she could to hurt him, but now his life was infinitely precious. Now all the dungs he had done for her seemed so much more important than anything he had done against her.

And it wasn’t just because she needed him to stay alive. She thought of him in a completely different way. He was her companion, her ally, her friend. She might be facing death, but she wasn’t facing it alone.

She had faced the possibility before, but she’d never been surrounded by it, and there was nothing imaginary or phantasmagoric about this night. It was real. When compared to death by torture and degradation, hanging seemed almost a boon.

Yet this Indian attack was just another in a chain of crises which had happened to her during her short life. As odd as it seemed, it wasn’t as momentous as Trinity’s arrival.

His arrival had caused her to reevaluate everything she’d believed for most of her life. It caused her to reject the protection her uncle had provided and the rationale he’d given her for it.

It resulted in her falling in love with a wandering cowboy, so much in love she couldn’t completely turn away from him even when she thought he was a bounty hunter. Now that he had willingly risked his life for her, she had fallen even more deeply under his spell.

She didn’t comprehend why this was love. She’d never felt anything so wild, so untameable. She wanted to be with him all the time, to follow him for the rest of her life. She knew she would risk her safety and the respect of those she loved to remain at his side. It was irrational. She had never felt like this about Jeb.

She had to be losing her mind.

Even when she thought she hated him, when she thought him cruel and unfeeling, she hadn’t had a single thought that didn’t include him. Most of them had him at the center.

Still she could have continued to hold him at a distance If he hadn’t told her about Queenie. It would have been hard since his physical presence was so overpowering, but after Queenie, she saw him as a man who suffered a pain he didn’t know how to escape. All her resistance seemed to wither away. By the time he finished that story, she felt so sorry for him she could have cried.

Victoria leaned her forehead against the rock, letting it cool her fevered brain. She had had the same argument with herself day after day. Now there seemed to be only one possible resolution. As incredible as it seemed, she had fallen in love with Trinity Smith the minute she set eyes on him. And nothing he had done since seemed able to change that.

Now that she knew he was the honorable man she thought from the first, she wanted nothing more than to be with him for the rest of her life.

She sighed and let her body relax further against the rock. She knew what Buc and her uncle would think. Her uncle wouldn’t abandon her, at least she didn’t think he would, but it would be impossible to return to Mountain Valley. Neither Buc nor the crew would accept their marriage. And Trinity wasn’t one to endure the dislike and distrust from others. He’d already told her that.

But she was getting ahead of herself. She didn’t know If Trinity wanted to get married to her or anybody else. She knew he felt strongly attracted to her. She could tell that by the tension between them, by the way his eyes devoured her, by the heat that burned between them. But she couldn’t be sure he felt anything more man lust.

Victoria’s body sagged against the rock.

Stupid woman. You’d think Jeb would have taught you to use your head rather than your heart. What kind of life can you have with a bounty hunter? And he is a bounty hunter, even If he doesn’t take money. He goes after dangerous men who wouldn’t hesitate to kill him.

What are you going to do? Go along with him to keep him safe? Sit at home with the children praying this won’t be the time they send you a letter saying he’s buried in an unmarked grave far from home?

No, that she couldn’t endure. She had lived with death hanging over her head long enough to know she couldn’t endure it for the rest of her life.

Of course, If he didn’t find Chalk Gillet, she would still be under a sentence of death. She might never have the chance to marry Trinity or anyone else. And she couldn’t help him find Chalk. She knew nothing about the man. She had no idea where he could be. She didn’t even know If he was still alive.

Victoria’s head hurt. She had never wrestled with so many unanswerable questions in her life, and each of them seemed to be inextricably intertwined with an equally unsolvable problem. She readjusted her body to be more comfortable. A little longer and she wouldn’t feel out of place on the trail.

Another change Trinity had brought about.

She pushed her tangled thoughts aside. She’d go back to them later. Right now she was worried about Trinity being out there alone. And there was nothing she could do but spend the long hours waiting.

Victoria woke with a start. The inky-blue of the sky above told her dawn wasn’t far away.

She had fallen asleep sometime during the night. For a panic-filled moment she feared something terrible might have happened while she slept. But a quick glance at the hillside below told her the Indians hadn’t yet begun their attack. The night was silent and still.

Red hadn’t moved. That frightened her. She had helped nurse many men, several of them quite sick, and the biggest problem had always been how to keep them still. Red’s breathing seemed slow, his heartbeat weak. She feared either or both might stop at any minute. At least the stone remained in place. He hadn’t bled any more. She wondered how long before they could start for the doctor. Would he be able to stand the long trip? Would the doctor be able to help him?

Questions! She seemed to be surrounded by them. Why couldn’t some of them have answers?

A splinter of light pierced the sky.

In retrospect it seemed to Victoria that with the first light of dawn, the desert simultaneously exploded into crashing, thundering violence. Rifle fire came from at least a dozen different locations. Coming to her senses, Victoria snatched up her rifle and peppered the rock below. She might not hit anybody, but at least the Indians would know they were being attacked on two fronts. Before her astonished eyes, the Indians rose out of the ground like prairie dogs out of their holes. They raced for their hidden horses. Almost immediately two of them fell.

In less than two minutes the Indians had disappeared. Victoria had the infinite pleasure of listening to the thunder of hoofbeats fade away in the distance. She slumped against a rock. They were safe. Trinity’s scheme had worked.

Trinity reached her only a few minutes later.

“Where did you find so many people to help you?” Victoria asked. “I thought you were going to have to attack them alone”

“I did.”

“But I heard all that gunfire. It came from a dozen different places.”

“It did come from different places, but it wasn’t gunfire.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Firecrackers.”

“Firecrackers?”

“Yes. Special ones I had made to sound exactly like rifle fire.”

“I don’t understand?”

“I’ve used it before when I had to stand off a posse or a gang. Your advantage is very brief, but usually That’s all you need.”

Victoria looked at him with total bewilderment.

“I’ll explain later. Right now we have to get out of here,” he said. “The Indians will come back for their dead and wounded. When that happens I want to be as far away as possible.”

“How are we going to carry Red?” Victoria asked, forgetting her curiosity about Trinity’s firecrackers in the face of her real worry.

“Well have to tie him to his horse.”

“He might bleed to death. We need a wagon.”

“Believe it or not, riding on horseback will be easier on him than a wagon. If his condition gets worse, well improvise a litter. The most important thing is to get out of here before the Indians return.”

Trinity tied Red in his saddle and they left. They didn’t eat. She wasn’t hungry. She didn’t wash or change clothes. She didn’t care.

It only mattered that they were safe.

“He’s going to be a mighty sick young man for a while, but he’ll pull through.”

Doctor Urban Mills had been called away from his lunch to take the bullet out of Red. A ruddy-complexioned, obese, cheerful man, he didn’t seem too concerned.

“I see a lot of bullet wounds,” he had commented, “though not as many as in the War. I’ve gotten a little out of practice since “Then, but this is a good place to keep your hand in. Lots of fools who don’t know what to do with a gun except point it at somebody else.”

“We can’t just leave him,” Victoria said to Trinity. “He’ll need somebody to take care of him until he’s well.”

“You and the missus in a hurry?” Mills asked Trinity.

“You might say that,” Trinity replied before Victoria could speak. “We’ve got to give evidence in a murder trial in Texas. Do you know anybody we can hire to take care of him?”

“You can hire me,” the doctor said, then laughed good-naturedly when he saw he had taken them by surprise. “I’m a lot better than any nurse. Besides, I’d like having the boy around. Had two of my own. Hardheaded, troublesome rascals they were, too, but I miss them now they’re gone. One of them got gold fever. The other decided San Francisco was more fun than the Arizona desert. Can’t say I blame him.”