Comanche Cowboy (The Durango Family) (37 page)

But Maverick’s anger would not let him leave the scene until the man collapsed. “I want to make sure he’s dead,” Maverick snarled through clenched teeth, “after the way he put his dirty hands on you, after what he did to Molly. . . .”

Cayenne grabbed his arm, struggling with him. “We can’t pay the price for your revenge, Maverick; we’ve got to get out of here now!”

Maverick stopped, realizing she was right, although he wasn’t sure the warrior was dead. He dropped the limp body and put the thong back on his gun belt. “You always got to be right, don’t you Rebel? I don’t think he’s dead. . . .”

Cayenne half dragged him out of the tepee into the darkness. “We don’t have time to find out. What happened, anyway!”

Maverick looked around. The camp was silent now at this late hour. Even the dogs were asleep, the fires banked into small mounds of glowing glows. “He knows I’m not Quanah’s brother,” he gasped. “He was willing to let me get away if he could have you.”

She looked at him a long moment. “A lot of men would have taken him up on it. Anything beats being tortured by Comanches.”

“There’s something worse,” he whispered, looking around at the silhouette of the sleeping camp, “and that’s thinking of you in any man’s arms but mine.”

“Maverick, I—” her voice quavered, “there’s something I need to tell you about why I’m taking you to Texas. . . .”

“We don’t have time,” he snapped tersely. “Let’s see if we can get the hell out of here! He said our horses were saddled and waiting.”

He crept along with her behind him toward the grazing pony herd. He wasn’t going to tell her what he suspected about Little Fox laying a trap for him, probably having someone waiting in the shadows to finish him off. By damn, he should have made sure he’d killed that loco brave before he got out of that tepee!

In the moonlight, he saw the two horses standing saddled over by a big rock. He gestured toward them and Cayenne nodded to show she understood. He wasn’t going to tell her their chances of getting away were almost nil. That rocky, steep trail up the canyon wall was a long ride and they were sure to be spotted by a sentry before they got safely to the top.

Was there a warrior waiting in those rocks with a deadly bow or lance?

“Cayenne,” he whispered, “Little Fox may have laid a trap with those horses. If there’s a warrior there, I need to draw him out, hold his attention. How brave are you?”

He saw her lip tremble but her head came up defiantly. “Braver than any damned Yankee,” she smiled. “You want me to lure him out?”

Maverick hesitated. It would be dangerous. If there were a man in the rocks, he might shoot first before he realized he was dealing with a desirable, harmless woman. “No, I—I can’t ask you—”

“Ask me? My stars!” she scoffed. “Just watch this Southern girl work!”

Before he could reach out and stop her, she slipped past him, walking with a tantalizing gait out along the path toward the horses.

Maverick held his breath, the sour taste of fear choking off his air. But he dare not run out to drag her to safety.

It was a hot night, he thought, or was it only because he was so scared for her that he felt sweat
beading
and running down his war-painted dark
skin?
Somewhere in the distance, a coyote howled and some of the horses in the herd snorted and moved restlessly. Maverick realized then that his fists were clinched so tightly his nails were cutting into his calloused palms.

A shadow stood up behind the rock, watching the girl for a moment as Maverick blended into the rock wall.

The man called out in Kiowa. “Who’s there?”

Yes, it was the Kiowa from Little Fox’s war party, all right,
Maverick thought, watching the man scamper out of the rocks. His metal bracelets that the Kiowa favored reflected the light, and when he turned, Maverick saw the Kiowa hair style—long on one side, cut short on the other.

Cayenne pirouetted, putting her hands on her hips. In a mixture of sign language, border Spanish, a little English, and a smattering of Comanche she’d heard from Maverick, she let the warrior know that she’d seen him before, had a yen for him.

Maverick could see the sudden gleam of the man’s teeth even from here as the Kiowa smiled.
That’s it, baby, charm him like you
do me;
make him unable to think of anything else but you!

Maverick moved now, as soft as dew upon the buffalo grass, putting one moccasined foot before the other as he crept around behind the man in the shadows. The Kiowa had his back to the rocks, looking down at Cayenne. She reached up and touched the bow, smiling at him. The Kiowa made an obscene gesture, indicating what he wanted.

She smiled at him, nodded, and reached up to stroke his bare arm.

Maverick crept up behind him and took a deep breath. If the man managed to scream, the whole camp would be alerted and then they’d find Little Fox in the tepee. His hand went to his pistol for reassurance. He’d never let them take her alive.
One chance
.
That’s all Maverick
would get—one
chance.
He gritted his teeth, took the rawhide loop in both hands, and crept forward. He could smell the rank sweat of the big Kiowa’s body now as he crept up on him.
Now.
Now!

With a movement as quick as a scorpion stinging, Maverick slipped the loop over the man’s head and jerked hard. The man gasped, tried to cry out, but Maverick jerked both ends, cutting off his scream.

The Kiowa was a big, powerful man and he struggled, trying to break free. The thong cut into Maverick’s hands until they bled while he hung onto the cord, garroting the man. If he let go now, one cry would bring hundreds of Indians running.

Over the Kiowa’s shoulder, he saw Cayenne’s frightened face as she watched helplessly. The Kiowa struggled again and Maverick pulled hard on the thong, cutting into the man’s neck. And then he smelled the stink of urine as the man’s muscles relaxed and the Kiowa died.

Maverick was surprised to find he actually shook. He pulled Cayenne to him and found that she trembled, too.

“Maverick, I was so scared! So scared!”

“Naw! A Rebel scared! Naw!” He tried to soothe her, stroking her hair as he looked around, assessing their chances of getting out of here alive. “We’ve got an argument to continue about old Sam and that traitor, Jefferson Davis, remember?”

It had the desired effect. The redhead forgot about her fear as her eyes flashed. “When we get out of here, Yank—”

“Later,” he whispered, “later!” He helped her swing up on Strawberry, mounted Dust Devil, and rode out behind her on the narrow, dangerous trail. They might make it to the top in less time because he knew that trail from his childhood, but one false step and a horse could fall kicking and twisting in terror to the bottom of that canyon floor.

Cayenne looked down as they moved up the trail.

“No, Cee Cee,” he cautioned. “Stop looking back; look ahead. That’s what’s important, what’s ahead of you not what’s behind you.”

She turned in her saddle, looking at him. “That’s not a bad plan for life, Maverick.”

If they had any kind of
life
ahead of them
, he thought, looking down at the sleeping Indian village. Minutes had passed but it seemed like hours. Anytime, he expected a sentry to spot them, call out, alert the whole camp.

There were almost to the top now, he realized, looking up at the rocky edge. His heart began to pound with hope. They might just make it out of here after all! They might be miles away before the Indians found the dead Kiowa and Little Fox in tomorrow’s daylight.

And then far below him, he saw Little Fox stagger out of the tepee into the light of a campfire and shout a warning, pointing up the side of the canyon.

Instantly, the camp began to come awake, dogs barking, people running, horses neighing.

“By damn!” Maverick swore. “I knew it was too good to be true!”

He glanced at Cayenne’s pale face, saw her lips moving in silent prayer. “Baby, we’ve got to chance finishing this trail at a full gallop!”

“But if the horses slip and go over—”

“You rather die a quick death by falling or have the Comanche get you?” With that, he slashed out with his reins, caught the startled Strawberry across her roan rump, and sent her galloping up the trail ahead of him. Then he dug his heels in the stallion’s sides and bolted on up the trail behind her.

Dust Devil stumbled once in the rocks, and Maverick hung on, unsure for a moment if the stallion would fall and go over the edge. He heard a rock under the big stallion’s hooves clatter down, strike an outcrop, and fall off into the canyon. He had a sudden vision of himself and the stallion falling end over end, the horse’s mane and tail streaming out in the darkness as it fell eight hundred feet. But then the powerful mount regained its balance and galloped on up the path behind the little mare.

They were out and on top of the canyon rim. Maverick could hardly believe his good fortune as he reined in, looking back. Below him now, warriors were running, trying to catch up with their neighing, rearing horses.

Her face hone pale in the moonlight. “Maverick, now what? Can we outrun them?”

“No, but I’ve got a plan.” He dismounted and reached into his saddlebags. Good! Everything was still there! He reached for the Lucifer matches. The wind came up suddenly, hot and dry as the Devil’s breath on his half-naked body. He struck a match. It flickered and went out. Already below him, he saw mounted warriors starting up the crooked trail.

Maverick swore under his breath and struck another. The breeze caught it and blew it out as if the Devil were playing a joke. He turned and looked up at Cayenne. “If you believe in prayer, pray, baby! I only got one left!”

He saw her lips move silently and he was almost awestruck. The wind stopped for a brief moment as if God Himself had reached down to help them. In that split second, Maverick struck the last precious match, dropping it in the dry buffalo grass along the edge of the canyon.

Even as he remounted, slashing the stallion with the reins, the grass caught fire along the canyon rim and the rushing wind came up again, turning the area around the trail entrance into a sheer wall of flames.

“Come on, Cee Cee, we got to get to the Lazy M!” he shouted exultantly, and she dug her heels into the mare’s flanks, galloping along with him. They took off south at a run while behind them the warriors, unable to get through the wall of flames, shouted in anger and frustration as Maverick and his woman rode away at a gallop from the Palo Duro canyon.

The old Don Diego de Durango sat enjoying the early morning sun near the fountain in the courtyard of the Triple D hacienda.

In another hour, the heat of this first day of August would turn the patio into a sweltering oven here in the Texas Hill country. But he would be seventy-five years old this September and the morning sun felt good on his arthritic old bones.

He tipped his flat black hat over his dark eyes and looked around, wishing some
vaquero
would happen along to talk about old times. All the household help seemed to be occupied, with no time for the old patriarch of the giant spread. He smiled, as cagey as an old gray fox. In that case, he could sneak a cigar without being scolded because the strong smokes he liked were bad for him.

He bit off the tip and spit it out. Then he lit the strong cigar, exhaling with a loud sigh as he readjusted his girth to the chair, listening to the musical splash of the fountain into the little pool.

A good cigar! He nodded agreeably to himself. After a while, he might go into the deserted study and have a good drink of whiskey. Pleasures were few and far between for the old, and even then, if his lovely daughter-in-law weren’t upstairs with a new baby, she would gently lecture him about his health. He wished Trace were home. But he’d gone off to visit another ranch and discuss the price of some fine-blooded cattle he and the Don had agreed to buy. Then, too, Trace was so preoccupied with the responsibilities of this ranch, which covered most of two counties and had been in the family for three generations, that he would not often sit and discuss old times, old
compadres
with the Don.

Diego frowned, stroking his white mustache as he enjoyed the taste of the fine cigar. Most of his
compadres
were dead anyhow.

A small brown Chihuahua dog trotted through the open French doors of the house, its nails clicking across the paved courtyard of the sprawling
hacienda
as it came up to him, wagging its tail.

“Ah, Tequila, there doesn’t seem to be much to occupy two old gentlemen like us today, is there?”

At the sound of its name, the old dog cocked its small head, wagging its tail, and hopped up into Diego’s lap, where it settled with a satisfied yawn.

Diego stroked the tiny dog’s gray muzzle and tasted his cigar. He wished Maverick and Sanchez would get back from the trail drive. They were long overdue, them and the whole crew. Probably they had gotten into a saloon brawl and ended up in jail again. He made a fist and took an imaginary swing, remembering the wilder days of his youth.

He petted the dog absently, thinking about Comanches and the snatches of news he’d heard about the Uprising. When he was around, everyone lowered their voices and he knew they wished not to worry him about the happenings in Texas.

By our Lady
, he thought with annoyance. This old white-headed lion had fought Comanches, dealing with the loss of his wife, every kind of plague, prairie fire, and pestilence in the many years since he had inherited the Triple D from his father, who had carved it out of wilderness.
Si
, Papa, too, had fought the Comanche to hold onto the ranch.

The dog in his lap stiffened suddenly and stood up, looking intently toward the northern horizon.

Diego craned his neck to see, too, but his eyes were not as good as they once were. “What is it, boy, Indians?”

He felt guilty that he almost half hoped a shrieking war party might come across the horizon so he could show everyone that Don Diego de Durango was still capable of action, that he was still a fair hand with a gun even though his eyes and hearing were not as good as they once were. No one really needed him anymore to do much of anything.

But the small dog’s tail started to wag, slowly at first, then faster. Diego tipped his Spanish-style hat back and stared at the approaching riders.

The tiny pet bounced off his lap, barking excitedly as it took off at an arthritic run toward the riders trotting over the crest of the hill.

Diego stood up, shaking his cigar at the elderly pet as it limped out toward the riders. “You’re too old for that, Tequila. Your rheumatism will give you fits tonight for trying to act like a young dog. You should wait and—”

His voice trailed off as he realized he lectured the elderly dog in the same manner that the humans around here lectured him.

The riders crested the hill and came closer to the
hacienda
. Diego’s pulse beat faster. The trail crew was finally home! There’d be lots of good talk, lots of tales about past drives tonight!

Most of the riders split off to ride toward the bunkhouse, but a lone rider—a heavy, graying man—rode at a trot up to the courtyard where he reined in, the old Chihuahua bouncing excitedly while it barked and danced around the bay horse.

Diego limped forward with a glad cry. “Sanchez, old
compadre!
We’ve been worried about you! Where’s Maverick?”

He caught the old
vaquero’s
arm, pulling him toward a seat on the patio. “Come, come, sit down, tell me everything.”

Sanchez pulled at his gray mustache with his crippled hand, looking wistfully toward the house where his plump wife, the head housekeeper, would be. “Now, Diego? You want to talk now? I thought I might go in, have a plate of tamales and eggs. . . .”

“You can eat later.” Diego waved him to a seat, offered him a cigar, and lit it for him. “No one has time for talk anymore. Why are you so late returning?”

“There was a small fight at the Red Garter.” He grinned, accepting the cigar. “So we were forced to enjoy the hospitality of that Wyatt Earp’s jail for a few days. Then there was news of war parties between here and there, so we hung around Wichita awhile.” Sanchez took the cigar between his maimed fingers, leaned back with a tired sigh, and inhaled it. “I forgot how good one of your fine cigars taste, Diego. My wife sees me, I get a lecture.”

Diego grinned with devilish delight. “You think I wasn’t checking to see who that was coming so I could throw away my own if the rider was my son?”

Sanchez laughed, tipping his sombrero to the back of his graying head. “We are two conspirators, no?”

“
Si
,” Diego winked and nodded. “Later we will go into the study and have a big drink of whiskey.”

Sanchez crossed his legs with a smile. “I will get a big lecture if they smell whiskey on you later.”

Diego muttered and smoked his cigar. “When those who lecture us were still dirtying their drawers, we were fighting Injuns, rounding up mustangs and breaking them to saddle. You are still young enough to be useful,
compadre
, but me? No one thinks Tequila and I are good for anything except to lay in the sun and warm our bones. Sometimes I wish I had a friend who had lots of time to sit and talk of the good old days.”

Sanchez looked wistfully toward the house again, shrugged, and took another puff of his cigar.

Diego knew he kept his old friend from his wife, but he was lonely, eager for news. The two had been
compadres
since both were very young men, although Sanchez was not nearly as old as the Don was. He looked toward the bunkhouse. “Where’s Maverick? Did I miss seeing him ride in?”

Sanchez rolled the cigar around in his mouth. “No, he didn’t come.”

“Didn’t come?” Maverick of all people would give every glorious detail of the drive as if he sensed the lonely isolation of the old patriarch. And yet, even he who had raised the orphaned boy could not say he knew him well.

Sanchez winked at him in a knowing way. “A
Senorita
.”

“Ah! ” Diego leaned back, crossing his wrinkled old hands across his girth. “Oh, to be young and hot-blooded again!” He thought wistfully of his beautiful Cheyenne wife, so much younger than he. He had loved her so. “So you left him in Wichita?”

Sanchez shook his head. “No,
amigo
, he took off with her across the Indian Territory, across the Panhandle.”

Diego felt alarm. He paused with the strong cigar halfway to his lips. “With the Indian trouble, our young stud did such a thing?”

Sanchez grinned. “The
Senorita
was very beautiful and very persuasive, I think.”

Diego laughed, remembering his own young days. “Maverick has always stayed so detached from women, always enjoyed and enticed them with his easy charms. I never thought one would come along that could make him think seriously.”

Sanchez smoked, obviously remembering the girl as he smiled. “She had green eyes a man could get lost in,” he sighed, “and hair the color of fire.”

Diego leaned forward. “Ah, a redhead! A Texas girl, I hope! ” He would miss Maverick if he went very far from the Triple D so that he could not visit him several times a year.

“
Si
, and what a firecracker! I think I have never seen such a fiery one! Her name’s Cayenne!”

“Cayenne,” Diego rolled it around on his tongue. “Now why does that sound familiar? Do we know the family?”

Sanchez shrugged. “The last name meant nothing to me. Oh, Maverick told me to give you a message.” He stood up, yawned as he took one final puff, and threw the cigar down to grind out beneath his boot heel. “He said he’d be home in a few weeks. Our young Romeo’s escorting the red-haired beauty back to west Texas. Maverick said you’d understand.”

Diego didn’t have the least idea what his old friend was talking about. He was a little annoyed and disappointed that Maverick was not here to enjoy a drink with, to tell him all the news when Sanchez was obviously so eager to go into the house. “Why did he think I’d understand?”

Sanchez’s crippled fingers rubbed his swarthy face. “
Dios, compadre,
I don’t know. He said to tell you the girl’s father was McBride. Joe McBride. He said you’d understand.”

For a long moment, Diego felt a pain grab his chest and he almost doubled over.

Sanchez stared at him anxiously. “Diego? Are you all right? What in the name of our Lady is wrong?”

“
Nada
,” Diego managed to shrug. “It is nothing. I’m not even sure I ever met a McBride,” he lied, averting his eyes. “
Compadre
, I am thoughtless, keeping you away from your lovely wife.” He stood up, clapping the old
vaquero
on the back. “Here it is Saturday morning. She’ll want you to take her into the village this afternoon shopping and visiting.”

The other paused, looking wistfully toward the house. “Ah, old friend, I’m in no hurry if you want to talk some more. . . .”

But Diego wanted to be alone to think, to decide what to do. “No, you go on, I insist,” He waved him away toward the house and stood looking after him. The small dog trotted at the
vaquero’s
heels as he crossed the patio to the French doors.

When he had disappeared inside, Diego collapsed limply in his chair, tossing the cigar away.
Joe
McBride
. What was he to do about this terrible thing that was about to happen or might even have happened already?

Joe McBride
. He had kept the information from the boy for a year now, lighting a few candles to the Virgin in hopes that Maverick’s trail would never cross that of the big Kentuckian. It had been too much to hope for. Diego stared at the water bubbling in the fountain with unseeing eyes.
About one year,
he thought,
about one year ago I met him at the Cattleman’s Association meeting in Austin.

Maverick
. He considered the strange, distant boy he had raised since the age of fourteen. There were more scars deep within him than just the one of his dark face. Now the half-Comanche was a grown man, as tough and rugged as the Texas Hill Country itself. No one knew Maverick well, although Diego and Trace had both tried. He seemed to keep people at arm’s length, as if he feared intimacy of any kind. Maverick could be kind and generous to a fault. But he had a dark side, this adopted son. The
vaqueros
whispered about Trace that while Maverick never forgot a friend, he never forgave an enemy. And he could carry a grudge longer than anyone the old Don had ever known.

He ran his tongue along his wrinkled lips, stared down at his arthritic hands. Once he’d been a good shot, as were Trace and Maverick. Last year, of course, his hands had shaken too badly to enter the shooting contests at the association meeting, even though the prize was a fine Winchester ’73 rifle that had just been introduced. That was why he’d stopped by the table in the hotel to admire the gun and congratulate the man who had won it.

He remembered now holding out his hand. “
Senor,
my heartiest congratulations! Never have I seen such skill with a rifle!”

The red-haired man took his hand and shook it warmly. “You are too kind.” His ruddy complexion colored with modesty. “Do sit down,
Senor
—?”

“Durango. Diego de Durango.” He pulled up a chair, gesturing for a waiter.

“Ah, the Triple D in the Hill Country.” The handsome stranger nodded, “Of course, your place is well-known.”

Now it was the old man’s turn to become embarrassed, flustered. The waiter came over. “Whiskey,” he ordered, “since my son and old Sanchez are off looking at a display of new saddles and aren’t here to lecture me.” He looked into the other’s wide green eyes, liking the honesty and the open friendliness he saw there. “Amigo, may I buy you a drink?”

“Thank you, no,” Joe McBride gestured toward his coffee cup and the waiter refilled it. “Enjoy your spirits,
Senor
, but I’m a man of the Lord and I find liquor causes me more trouble than it’s worth.”

Diego glanced around to make sure there was no one in the crowded dining room of cattlemen who would tattle on him before he lit a cigar, offered one to the other man who shook his head. “A minister who shoots so well? How can that be?”

The other man laughed good-naturedly. “I only felt the call three years ago after my wife died,” he admitted. “But I’m from Kentucky and I was always able to knock a knothole from a tree when no one else could see it. Too poor to waste the powder, you know.”