Behind His Blue Eyes (31 page)

Tipping her head back against the wall, she watched candlelight play across the rocky ceiling and thought of Ethan's lopsided smile, his beautiful blue eyes, and those strong, gentle hands. It wasn't fair that all her dreams should end like this. It wasn't right. There had to be a better way.

Weeping, she looked down at the sharp metal in her shaking hand, wondering if she could stick it into her own flesh.

Then it came to her. A solution so simple it might actually work. Sitting upright, she swiped tears from her eyes as thoughts raced through her mind. Anything that could be screwed in could also be screwed out, right? The looped bolt was the key. And her piece of metal was the leverage.

Hope soaring again, she bounded to her feet, then staggered for balance as sparks flashed behind her eyes. Once the spinning stopped, she slipped the piece of metal into the loop and wrapped a wad of her skirt around it to protect her hands. Then, praying the tine wouldn't break off, she pushed against it with all of her might.

At first, nothing. Then something gave—she was sure of it.

She pushed again. Harder. Slowly, in tiny increments, the bolt began to turn.

A sob broke from her throat. “Thank you, God.”

With renewed energy, she blew out the flame so the candle would last longer, then wrapped her hands around the bolt and set to work.

Thirty-two

D
awn came and went without Thomas.

Ethan's nerves hummed like stretched wire. They had been watching all night, and still no sign of her. What if they were watching the wrong man?

Weems came out of his tent, stretched, scratched, coughed, and spit, then wandered over to piss in the bushes. After he buttoned up, he stoked the fire and set a pot to boil. Soon the smell of coffee and frying bacon drifted up the slope.

Ethan thought about going down there and working the bastard over with Gallagher's whip. That would get him talking. Assuming Weems was the killer and he had Audra.

Damnit, where was Thomas?

He would wait just a little longer, then confront Weems on his own. He wouldn't let Audra go through another day with this man.

After finishing his breakfast, Weems set out a bucket of water and grain for the mule, then headed up the slope toward the latrine.

Ethan sat back, indecision gnawing at him. Wait for the other men? Or go down alone? He was sick of waiting. They had been doing that for eight hours, and Weems had never once taken her food, or water, or done anything to give away Audra's whereabouts. Either somebody else had her, or the prospector had no need to take her anything because she was already dead.

Dead.

His mind reeling at the thought, Ethan bent over and sucked in air, one hand pressed to his churning stomach. When the cramps eased, he straightened, determined to find out the truth. If she was alive, she needed him. If not . . .

He peered over the edge.

Weems was almost halfway up the slope. It was time to make his move. Deciding on the pistol rather than the rifle, he checked the load, then rose.

A hand clamped over his wrist and yanked him back down. “Not yet,” Thomas whispered.

Ethan rounded on him. “Where the hell have you been?” he whispered back.

Instead of answering, the Cheyenne pointed to the camp as Ash, Rafe, Brodie, and Tait rode into the clearing.

Weems saw them, too. He stopped on the trail, glanced up at the boulders, then down at the mounted men below. “What do you want?” he called.

Brodie motioned the others to dismount. “The newspaper lady.”

“I told you I ain't got her.”

“Mind if we look around just to be sure?”

“Suit yourself.” Weems started up the slope again, faster than before. Escaping.

“Now,” Thomas said.

But Ethan was already up and moving to the edge of the slope, his Colt hanging in the hand by his side. “Going somewhere, Weems?”

The prospector stumbled to a stop. He blinked at Ethan, a look of panic widening his eyes. “What you doing up there?”

“Watching you.”

The look of panic increased when Thomas started down behind Ethan, the war ax in one hand, his rifle in the other.

“Don't do anything stupid, Weems,” Brodie called. “Just come down and let us look around, then we'll be out of your hair.”

The prospector's head swiveled as he looked at the men in the clearing, then up at Ethan, who had already drawn level with the boulders. Muttering under his breath, Weems headed back down to his camp. “Don't know what you expect to find, Sheriff. Already told you she ain't here.”

“Then you won't mind us checking for ourselves.” When the prospector reached level ground, Brodie motioned to the rock by the fire. “Have a seat. And keep your hands where we can see them.”

Ethan came to stand beside the prisoner, gun in hand, while Brodie went into the tent and the other four men spread through the camp and into the trees where the mule stood watching.

He wished Weems would try something. Wished for any excuse to get his hands around the man's throat. But until they found out where he had hidden Audra, they had to keep the bastard alive.

Brodie came out of the tent, a burlap bag in his hand and a look of triumph on his face. “Come look what I found, fellows.” As the men gathered around, he dumped the contents of the bag on the ground by the fire.

A long black pigtail. A beaded pouch. A pocket watch. A faded tintype of two children. A gold medallion. A couple of crumpled envelopes addressed to someone other than Weems, and several other items Ethan had never seen before. “I also found Gallagher's whip and that thing that goes on top of a survey tripod. The gold nugget is probably in there, too.”

Rylander studied the man watching them with dark, darting eyes. “Looks like you've been at this for a long time, Weems.”

“I found that stuff. In a trapper's cache other side of the canyon.”

“And this?” Ethan picked up the brass disc. “This belongs to Audra's father. How'd you get it, Weems?”

“Found it,” the prospector said with a nasty laugh. “At the Arlan place. Right there beside your
fi-an-say
's lacy underthings in the bureau drawer.”

Ethan's fingers closed so tightly around the medallion, the hard edge dug into his still-sore palms. “You were in her house?”

“Maybe. Maybe she invited me in. Maybe she even spread her legs for me.”

Ethan cocked his pistol. It took monumental effort not to ram it into that rotten mouth and pull the trigger. Instead, he hunkered on his heels in front of the sweating man. “Where is she?”

“Who?”

“Audra Pearsall.”

“The little newspaper whore?”

Ethan jammed the barrel of the Colt against the top of the prospector's fur boot and squeezed the trigger.

Noise exploded. Weems screamed. The stench of blood and singed fur mingled with the acrid odor of spent powder as the injured prospector rocked back and forth, clutching his foot.

“Damnit, Hardesty!” Brodie stomped forward, but Ash held him back.

“You can tell me now, Weems,” Ethan said, ignoring the others. “And face a judge. Or you can delay and face another bullet. Either way, you'll be telling me where she is.”

“I don't know where she is!” Weeping, the prospector slipped a hand into his boot to staunch the blood seeping through the hole.

Ethan lifted the gun again.

“Stop it, Hardesty!” Brodie shouted. “You're a duly sworn deputy. You can't go around shooting people.”

“He's right,” Ash said. “Waste of bullets. Thomas, you bring that skinning knife with you?”

In a move so fast it caught them all unawares, Weems lurched to his feet, his arm slashing out.

Pain shot down Ethan's arm. The gun fell from his grip. He looked in astonishment at blood welling from a cut in the sleeve of his jacket. Then Weems was on him, throwing an arm around his neck from behind, knocking off his hat and jerking him off-balance.

“I'll cut him,” Weems shouted in a panicky voice, hopping on one foot as he pulled Ethan away from the others. “I swear it!”

Gulping for air, Ethan reached up to pull Weems's arm from his throat. Another slash, another searing pain across his arm. His fingers went numb. Dimly, he heard hammers cock. “No!” he gasped. “Don't shoot!” If they killed Weems, they would never find where he'd hidden Audra.

“Let him go,” Brodie ordered the prospector.

“So you can kill me?”

“We won't shoot, I give you my word.”

“Yeah. Right.”

Ethan struggled to breathe. Darkness pressed against the edges of his vision.
Where is she?
he cried, but no sound came out.

The men advanced, coming from three sides, driving Weems and Ethan back toward the edge of the drop-off. Dimly, Ethan saw that the only one not holding a weapon was Thomas.

“Stay back!” Weems shouted, pressing the knife against Ethan's chest. “I'll gut him like a trout. I swear it!”

The others stopped, but Thomas continued on, his steps calm and measured, forcing Weems steadily back. “Where is the woman?”

“Dead and buried.”

Ethan went cold. An icy fear spread through his chest.

“Where?” Thomas asked.

“You'll never know.”

Another step back. Warmer air swept up the cliff face from the jagged rocks below, cracking the ice that numbed Ethan's mind. “She's dead?” he choked out.

“As a stone.” Weems laughed in his ear. “And a lively little virgin, she was. Tight as a banker's fist.”

Fury exploded. Ethan slammed his head back. Heard bone and cartilage snap. Weems staggered, his arm still locked around Ethan's throat.

Ethan grabbed the prospector's knife hand, and using all the strength he had left, shoved it up and into the face of the man behind him.

A scream. Weems lurched backward, dragging Ethan with him. The ground gave way. Locked together, they started to slide.

Thomas lunged, caught Ethan's ankles. Others grabbed his belt, his legs. For a moment he hung stretched between the hands that kept him from falling, and the arm dragging him down. Then just when he thought his head would come off and his lungs would collapse, the arm around his throat fell away and he was free.

Coughing and choking, he felt himself pulled back up onto solid ground, where he lay gasping, air whistling through his bruised throat. After a moment, he looked over at Thomas, stretched on the ground beside him. “Is he dead?”

Thomas nodded, his own chest heaving.

Jesus, no . . . Audra.

The realization that she was lost to him forever sent his mind spiraling away.

He became vaguely aware of someone working on his cuts. His jacket was off, and he started to shiver as cold from the ground seeped into his back. Voices warbled around him—someone saying he had lost a lot of blood and they needed to get him to Doc—Brodie telling Rafe to untie the mule and Thomas to get the horses.

“No!” he rasped, struggling upright. “We have to find her!”

“Lad.” Ash hunkered beside him. “It's too late.”

“No . . . she's here. She's . . .” He looked around, his mind starting to spiral again. “She's here . . . somewhere.” He looked up at the men standing over him, their faces grim. “I can't . . . I can't just leave her.”

“We'll come back,” Brodie promised. “As soon as we get you to Doc, we'll gather searchers and find her and bring her home.”

Tears clogged Ethan's aching throat. He could make no sense of it—the madness that had driven Weems—Audra's suffering—why God had taken her and not him. Better if he had gone over the cliff with Weems.

Audra . . . I'm so sorry . . .

Time passed in a haze of pain and despair. Somehow, he kept breathing despite the emptiness inside. Moving by rote, he did what he was told to do—mounted Renny, fell into line when the others started back down the canyon—held on with one hand to keep from sliding off.

But with every step away from Audra's resting place, a voice in his mind whispered that it was wrong, he shouldn't leave her, she still needed him.

* * *

The candle guttered out. Clutching the broken pieces of metal in her bleeding hand, Audra watched the lingering halo of the flame fade from her vision.

Hope dimmed with it. With the tine broken, she had no leverage to turn the bolt, and her fingers weren't strong enough to unscrew it from the stone. Using the last of her light, she had searched every inch of the cavern that her tether would allow her to reach, but she had found nothing else she could use.

She had failed. Soon Weems would come. He would humiliate her again, force her to do things that would degrade her to the point that she no longer cared whether she lived or died. And then it would be done.

Three—or was it now two?—days of torture and abuse, followed by a brutal death. That was her future. All she had left.

In some distant, detached part of her mind, she wondered how she should use her remaining hours. Relive memories? Pray to the God who had abandoned her? Devise a way to end her life before Weems could, even if it meant eternal damnation?

A wobbly laugh broke from her throat.
No use burning bridges, old girl. God might still be out there somewhere.
Pulling the foul blanket over her shivering body, she closed her eyes and began the prayer her mother had taught her so long ago.

“Now I lay me down to sleep . . .”

* * *

By the time they rode past Audra's burned-out cabin, Ethan's numbness had faded and the whispered voice in his head had risen to a shout.

He shouldn't be riding away. He shouldn't give up so easily. What if Weems was lying, and saying she was dead had been the final cruelty of a brutal, deranged mind? What if she was still alive?

“No.” He pulled Renny to a stop. “I'm going back.”

Horses bunched up behind him. Ahead, Brodie reined in his sorrel and turned in the saddle. “What's wrong?”

“Weems was lying. She isn't dead.” Saying the words aloud destroyed any lingering doubt. Audra was alive. He was certain of it. He looked from face to face as the other men reined in beside him. “Weems only kills on the full moon. That's three days away. He wouldn't break his cycle now.”

“Maybe he didn't intend to,” Tait argued. “Knowing Audra, she would have fought hard. It could have been an accident.”

“Or maybe he was lying,” Ethan insisted.

“If you want, lad. We'll bring Tricks back with us. He has a verra keen nose, so he does.”

“There's another reason I think he was lying.” Ethan hesitated, then realized disloyalty to Audra was secondary now. “She's not a virgin. She told me she wasn't, and I believe her. Why would Weems lie about that?”

“Maybe just to goad you,” Rafe said. “The man was demented.”

“Exactly. So why would we believe anything he said?”

No one responded. The horses moved restlessly, apparently as ready to head home as their riders were. The men had been out all night and half the day. They were tired, hungry, disheartened. And Ethan could tell by the way they avoided looking at him that they thought he was speaking now from emotion, rather than logic.