Eyes of the Cat (21 page)

It was a relief even, in a ghastly sort of way, because of the surfacing alien part of her that hadn’t really wanted to leave in the first place. It might have subconsciously made her do something stupid. Like allowing herself to be recaptured. But now she knew that was completely out of the question. Going back wouldn’t mean just the loss of her self-respect and independence, everything she valued about her life. It could well mean the loss of her life itself.

What Kathy had just related was that Alan’s wife had been killed because she’d been trying to run away from him. And according to Alan himself, her death had been horrible.

That was the confusing part. Beyond confusing. Almost unbelievable. Tabitha could imagine him killing in self-defense or unthinking rage, as he might have killed Dunstan that night if they hadn’t stopped him. But to do what he said had been done to that woman? It didn’t seem possible. How could a man who was capable of the tenderness he sometimes displayed also be able to commit such a cold-blooded atrocity?

Perhaps he
was
mad. Not just eccentric like the rest of the MacAllisters, but genuinely insane.

It wasn’t a new idea, of course. Tabitha had considered it the night of that infuriating mock wedding. But then Dunstan’s attack and all that followed had pushed the concern to the back of her thoughts. There had been so many other things about Alan that disturbed her, criminal insanity had seemed just one more drop in an already overflowing bucket. But that was before she had heard the reason for Heather MacAllister’s murder.

And now I’ve given him the same motivation.

She shivered.

Suddenly, even Philadelphia didn’t seem safe. With the modern-day train travel, it was too accessible. And he would know she was heading there. That he might not follow never entered her head. If she was sure of nothing else, Tabitha was certain that Alan would pursue. He had made it abundantly clear he considered her his undeniable property, that no power in or out of creation could induce him to let her go. And that was just one more sign of insanity, wasn’t it? It had to be. What else could prompt such an unyielding, unalterable fixation?

“Tabitha, you’re going to hurt something if you don’t relax. I feel like I’ve got Lot’s wife riding behind me—
after
she was turned into a pillar of salt. You’re stiffer than a new corset.”

“I’m sorry. I know I am.” Tabitha sighed and tried to unlock her spine. Kathy was right. If she didn’t move with the rhythm of the mare, she could rattle her kidneys loose. And she might need them yet.

One step at a time, she cautioned herself. It was a philosophy that had helped her through the dark days immediately following her aunt’s death. Sometimes the only way you could survive was to take it one moment at a time. The first bit of business was to stay hidden for the next several days, until their trail was cold. After that?

Well, she would deal with the future when it became the present.

“Are you certain these friends of yours will be willing to shield us?” A lot hinged on that, of course.

“Absolutely. The Garcias adore me. They’re the ones who clued me in to the MacAllister money and Angus’s search for brides, in the first place. They’re bandito stock themselves. Carmen and I ran some delightful cons together when I was staying in El Paso. But when things started getting a little hot for them there, and she told me her family had decided to go straight, I’m the one who staked them to this ranch we’re headed for. Took me a long grueling night at the poker tables to do it, too.”

“How much farther is it?” Tabitha glanced at the gray predawn sky. They had been riding all night with only a few breaks to rest Esmeralda, but she couldn’t tell how far they’d actually come because there’d been such a tangle of circling and doubling back and detouring over rock hard stretches of earth where hoof prints wouldn’t show. Kathy had left a veritable fox trail for anyone who tried to track them. Unless Alan was a bloodhound—or a genuine Comanche, after all—he’d never be able to follow it.

She gave a humorless laugh at the thought, but quickly bit it back. She didn’t want to laugh too soon. If he had returned earlier than expected, or if Simon had broken loose, there could already be an impromptu posse after them. Alan wouldn’t have waited for daylight. And she doubted that Simon would have, either; he was turning out to be just full of tricks, even for a wizard.

“The ranch is beyond that next knoll. Not too far. We’ll make it before full light,” Kathy said, easing one of Tabitha’s concerns at least.

Regardless of how indecipherable their trail was, a tracker would hardly be stymied by it if they were still on horseback come sunrise. On this open expanse of range, they could be spotted a mile away.

Which was how all three females knew there was trouble, even before the shots.

Picking her way gracefully through the scrub at the top of the low knoll, Esmeralda pulled to a sudden stop, her velvety nostrils flared and her expressive ears at full alert. Ahead and a little below them lay the Garcia spread: a rough, narrow house dug halfway into the sun baked soil, surrounded by a couple of corrals and several large sheds, all lit by the first rosy rays of dawn peeking over the horizon.

And the last smoldering remains of what only hours earlier had been Esiquio Garcia and his three sons.

Before burning, they had been tied to the wheels of the wagon Tabitha had seen them all laughing and singing in on her way to the castle that first day. Somehow she knew it was the same people and the same wagon, even though there was little left to identify.

In front of her, Kathy sat frozen, still as stone, except for the hand that quietly unholstered and cocked one of her revolvers. Her voice sounded like a rusty hinge. “
God
… Carmen was always afraid of something like this.” She swung her right leg over the pommel and slipped to the ground. “It’s why her family relocated up here; they’d made some bad enemies in the south. This could be a payback for an old grievance…or just the work of some bored prairie pirates. Either way, I’ve got to check it out. You stay here.”

“Like hell.” Tabitha half fell out of the saddle to land on unsteady feet beside her. Sudden nausea had turned her legs rebellious and rubbery. She felt like a sailor who’d just touched land after weeks on a rolling deck. “I saw that family happy and smiling barely four days ago. I was going to try to hitch a ride to Abilene Station with them,” she choked out, as though that was reason enough for what she intended. “I’m coming with you.”

Shrugging out of the tartan serape, she slung it into the waist high weeds and began pushing through them toward the homestead, her pulse racing and the gun she’d taken from Simon clutched in her hand.

With quick strides, Kathy overtook her and moved ahead, the barrel of her own revolver sniffing through the tall grasses before her like a hunting dog’s muzzle. “All right then, we’ll both check it out. But keep behind me. And be careful where you point that thing. I hope you know how to use it.”

I hope so, too.

Frantically, Tabitha ransacked her brain for every scrap of information she had ever heard regarding the operation of firearms. Those adventure yarns Dr. Earnshaw used to spin for her had been full of gunfights, hadn’t they? One simply kept a steady hand, thumbed back the hammer, pointed, and squeezed the trigger, right? How difficult could it be?

“I’ve done some target shooting,” she lied, to put Kathy’s mind at rest, if not her own. “But I’m afraid I’ve never fired at…anything
living.”

Kathy gave a small, harsh laugh. “If it comes to that, neither have I. At least not with the intention of doing any serious damage. I can’t stand the sight of blood, particularly my own,” she admitted. “Oh well, hopefully neither of us will have to find out how good we really are.”

Nice hope.

Tabitha didn’t have much faith in it, though. The closer they drew to the Garcias’ home, the more she sensed the danger permeating the area. It stank worse than the charred remains still smoking in the yard.

Left alone on the knoll, and none too happy about it, Esmeralda waited several long, uneasy moments, tossing her head and snorting feathery wisps of steam into the cool dawn air. Then, at a sudden crackling of brush behind her, the mare abandoned her vigil and began a rapid trot down the slope after her companions.

Neither of them noticed her trailing them. Their focus was locked on the scene ahead and the battle to control their stomachs as the sight and stench of charred flesh grew more atrocious the closer they drew to it. All four corpses were mutilated beyond what the fire could account for. Body parts were missing. It appeared they’d been tortured before being burned.

An act of vengeance? A way to relieve the tedium of a dull night on the prairie? Neither of Kathy’s suggestions worked for Tabitha. Only a madman could do such things. A violent new wave of nausea struck. She suddenly found herself wondering where, exactly, Alan was and what he’d been doing these past two days and nights.

Kathy stopped to scan the corrals. Her spine went rigid. “We’re in big trouble,” she whispered. “Whoever did this is still here—and there may be a whole hornets nest of them. Less than half of these horses belong to the Garcias.”

Following her gaze, Tabitha felt the blood in her veins freeze to ice. Even from a dozen yards off, she could see that many of the milling horses bore what she remembered as the MacAllister brand. If that wasn’t enough, right in the thick of them danced and snorted an all too familiar giant Appaloosa stallion.

The bottom dropped straight out of her. It wasn’t until that moment, when she saw the proof, that she realized how desperately she had wanted to
not
believe it, how fiercely she had hoped she was wrong about him. If she really had been the suicidal type, she might have tested her marksmanship against her own skull right then, simply to end the overwhelming sense of loss that slammed through her, nearly knocking her to her knees.

But she wasn’t the type. If nothing else, she was too stubborn for it. Also suddenly too enraged. A series of wild shots shattered the air. And with them, and old man’s agonized pleas for mercy, and a baby’s hysterical screams.

“That’s Rosa! Oh, dear God—
Noooo
!” Kathy raced toward the largest shed, whipping out her second revolver as she went.

Tabitha sped after her. But both were overtaken and passed by the practically fire breathing Esmeralda, who charged forward like a one-horse cavalry. Or perhaps, in the need of the moment, she had agreed to be Petunia again? A steely-eyed figure lay low in the saddle, clinging to her neck like a blond leech.

Or a wizard?

“Both of you,
stay back
!” Simon ordered as he galloped past.

“That idiot is going to get himself killed!” Kathy put on an extra burst of speed and tore forward.

“We’re
all
going to get ourselves killed,” Tabitha groaned, instinct throwing her flat as she rounded the open front of the three-sided shed.

Blinded by dust, shots blazing over her head, shouts ringing in her ears, she snaked belly down over the hard-packed earth, her direction guided only by the higher pitched notes of the baby’s wild shrieks. A spray of bullets tore up the ground to her right. Without thinking, she rolled left, firing off one shot toward something she could barely see.

Good heavens, it worked!

The something yelped and sat down hard, dropping his weapon to clutch at what was left of his kneecap.

More shots sounded from another direction. Whether they were aimed at her or not, Tabitha didn’t know and didn’t wait to find out. Rolling again, she was brought up short against a cool sticky mound—and suffered a near coronary when she realized the mound was the naked bodies of Carmen Garcia and her two older daughters, stacked together like bloody cordwood. It didn’t take a lot of guesswork to figure what had been done to them before death. The bottom corpse was still staked spread-eagled to the ground. Tabitha could feel the lash wounds on all three females almost as if the bullwhips that made them had bit into her.

Battling back cold horror, she scrabbled sideways, squinting into the rising sun’s glare and trying to get her bearings. Somehow she had ended up to the west and almost thirty feet away from her original destination: the open side of the long, south-facing shed, where the baby’s cries were coming from—although the erratic shrieks had leveled out into an unbroken stream of forceful wailing. Little Rosa had good lungs, apparently. That was something at least, Tabitha thought, with a few seconds of relief. Wails like that were from fright and anger, not actual pain.

Which was more than could be said for the man she had shot. He lay where the bullet had dropped him, squealing like a stuck pig. Even his cohorts were giving him a wide berth. Three of them were grappling for a hold on Esmeralda’s bridle, while four more were trying to drag her rider out of the saddle.

Tabitha glanced over her shoulder toward the scene just as Simon hit the dirt beneath them. But before she could attempt any aid, a burst of gunfire cracked out from between two bales of hay at the east side of the yard, driving three of his attackers backward several paces. He sent the remaining one even farther with a sledgehammer fist to the jaw, and dove behind the hay, leaving Esmeralda to her own fight.

Were those bales where Kathy had taken cover, Tabitha wondered, the enraged mare’s screams adding a glass shattering harmony to the other cries in her ears.