Kid Calhoun (27 page)

Oblivious to her presence, the two men were locked in a fight to the death. Fists pummeled. Fingers gouged. Heads knocked. When the knife appeared in Wolf’s hand, Anabeth knew she had to do something to keep them from killing each other.

When the shots sounded over their heads, both men froze, then looked up at the woman who held Jake’s rifle pointed at them. “Get up, both of you,” she ordered in an icy voice.

The two men disentangled themselves and stood, legs spread, shoulders squared, facing each other on balanced feet, ready to resume the battle when this lesser threat had been disposed of.

“Why are you with this man?” Wolf demanded in the Apache tongue. “You are mine!”

Anabeth bristled. She answered in the same tongue. “I do not belong to you! Or to him! He saved me from those who wished to kill me.”

“So you let him take you in his arms?” he raged.

There was nothing Anabeth could do to stop the revealing flush that pinkened her cheeks. Nor was there anything she could say that would satisfy Wolf, as angry as he was. So she remained silent.

“You will come with me,” Wolf ordered in English.

When he reached for her. Jake’s arm clamped down on his wrist.

“Don’t touch her.”

“She belongs to me,” Wolf said through clenched teeth. “I will return the woman called Claire to you.”

Jake’s heart stopped. “What? You have Claire?”

Wolf sneered and jerked his arm free. “I left her sleeping in my wickiup. You may have her in exchange for Stalking Deer.”

A muscle jerked in Jake’s jaw as he ground his teeth. The choice the Apache had given him was no choice at all.

“How did you get Jake’s sister?” Anabeth demanded. “What is she doing in your village?”

“I came to the white man’s house to get you—and took her by mistake,” he said.

“You would have taken me against my will?” Anabeth was incredulous.

“You do not belong with the white man. You are mine,” Wolf said, as though that explained everything. As far as he was concerned, it did.

“What if I don’t want to belong to you?” she asked. “What if I would rather be with him?” Anabeth nodded her head toward Jake.

“Then I will kill him. And take you with me,” Wolf said.

“She’s not going anywhere she doesn’t want to go,” Jake said.

Wolf turned fierce eyes on the white man. “Then you will never see your sister again.”

“You touch my sister, and if it takes me the rest of my life I’ll hunt you down,” Jake said. “I want Claire back. Unharmed.”

“Then you will have to persuade Stalking Deer to come with me,” Wolf said.

“I won’t—”

Gunshots cut Jake off. He pivoted and saw that the
outlaws had caught up to them. He swore under his breath. When he turned back the Apache was gone. And Anabeth had gone with him.

Or so he thought. As Jake mounted the buckskin and spurred it away, he realized their tracks soon parted and went in two different directions. He followed the Kid’s trail, anxious to catch up to her before the outlaws—or the Apache—did.

In fact, Wolf had grabbed Anabeth and pulled her along with him for some distance. She had yanked herself free and railed at him, “I will not be your woman, Wolf.” They were running full tilt by then, and her voice was breathless as she warned, “If you try to take me to your village, I will only run away.”

“Come with me—”

“No! Go away from me! I do not want you.”

Wolf’s face paled. But he did not argue further. He turned in a different direction and moments later had blended into the terrain.

Anabeth kept running. She knew Jake would come after her. She didn’t intend to make it hard for him to find her. Indeed, it was only minutes before Jake rode up behind her, leaned down, and pulled her up and across his lap.

“I’ll take the rifle, now.”

Anabeth handed it over, and Jake put it back in the boot on his saddle.

“Will he hurt Claire?” Jake asked.

“Apaches don’t make war on women and children.”

“They killed Claire’s son.”

“Sometimes there are accidents. But I don’t believe Claire will be mistreated. It’s only the men who get—” Anabeth stopped.

“—tortured to death? Is that what you wanted to say?”

“The Apache learned what they know of torture
from the Spaniards. And the Mexicans. And the Americans.” She put her hand on Jake’s forearm, a gesture of comfort. “Claire will be all right.”

“Will he let her go?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“Will he—” Jake swallowed hard. “Will he rape her?”

Anabeth turned stark eyes on Jake. “I don’t know. If he decides he wants her …”

“But he would rather have you.”

“Wolf and I grew up together. We were like brother and sister. I don’t feel for him … what I feel for you.”

She felt Jake’s thighs tauten beneath her. She waited for him to ask her what it was she felt for him.

Jake held her tight, but said nothing, just spurred the buckskin into a lope again. The sky was beginning to lighten with pinks and yellows, a beautiful dawn breaking over the horizon.

They rode for most of the day with no sounds of pursuit. At last Anabeth asked, “Do you think we’ve lost them?”

“I doubt it.”

“We’re not far from the valley now. You can let me down here.”

His arms tightened for a moment before he released her so she could slide to the ground. She headed directly for what appeared to be a solid rock wall. She picked up a piece of brush and began to wipe away their trail in the sand.

“What are you doing?” Jake asked.

“We’ve already passed by the entrance to the valley once. When we double back, I’m going to make sure there are no tracks for the gang to follow.”

Jake turned and looked back at the high canyon wall. He saw nothing that looked like an opening. No wonder the valley had remained hidden. Jake turned
and rode the buckskin back in the direction from which they had come, looking for the entrance to the valley. Still he saw nothing. He stopped the buckskin and waited for Anabeth to wipe out the tracks he had left.

She pointed to a slight vertical shadow along the wall. “There.”

It was not until Jake was at the opening that he realized the stone overlapped a deeper wall and that it was possible to ride into the crevice.

“Stop there,” Anabeth warned as she followed him inside. “This tunnel goes on for a while before you reach the valley. There are several booby traps to discourage unwanted visitors.”

The tunnel narrowed in places so that Jake’s stirrups scraped against the walls. At one point Anabeth showed Jake where a rockslide had been rigged. A small rope stretched across the narrow tunnel at ground level where it could be tripped by man or animal.

“What happens if someone triggers that slide?”

“We won’t be leaving the valley again this way,” she said.

“Is there another way out?”

Anabeth opened her mouth to tell Jake the truth, then shut it again. He was still a lawman determined to bring her to justice. She might need the advantage of being the only one to know the one other way out of the valley. She avoided answering his question by saying, “Don’t worry. They’re not going to find the opening. No one ever has. No one ever will.”

“I hope you’re right,” Jake muttered. He saw the light at the end of the tunnel and slowed to let Anabeth lead the way into the valley. He was amazed at the size of it—the sheer cliffs on all sides, the acres of grassy valley that stretched out before him.

Sometime, aeons ago, a volcano had erupted and
mounds of molten lava had split and flowed around this island of land. The lava had cooled, leaving a pristine valley captured within its towering grasp. He saw the stone house backed up against the wall near the entrance to the valley, a fortress against intruders.

“You can stable your horse behind the house,” Anabeth said. “There’s a cave back there that has a seep of water.”

Jake began to appreciate the planning that had gone into the placement of the house, with its protected water source. This must have been a perfect hideout for someone like Booth Calhoun. A tunnel that was hard to find unless you were right on top of it. Booby traps to catch interlopers. And a fortress to fight off anyone who managed to get past that first line of defense.

“Come into the house, and I’ll make us some coffee.” Anabeth busied herself with making a fire in the fireplace while Jake seated himself at the head of the table. Here he was in the valley at last, but finding Sam’s gold suddenly didn’t seem so important anymore. Finding Claire did.

“Can you take me to the village where that Apache is holding Claire captive?”

Anabeth paused in what she was doing to look at Jake with bleak eyes. “Even if I knew where it was, I wouldn’t take you there.”

“Why not?”

“Because you would kill Wolf. Or he would kill you.”

“I can’t just leave her there!”

“Wolf knows how to get here. He’ll come to see me again. When he does, I’ll talk to him. Once he realizes I’m not going to change my mind, he’ll surely let Claire go.”

“What am I supposed to do, meanwhile? Just sit here and wait?”

She gestured to a book on the table. “You could read that. Maybe you can find a clue in there that tells where Booth hid your friend’s gold.”

“What is it?”

“Booth kept a journal. I’ve read it, but it doesn’t tell any secrets.”

Jake grimaced. It was better than doing nothing. Jake read through the day, looking for some clue, some hint where Booth Calhoun might have put the gold he had stolen from Sam. According to the journal, Booth had little to show for his life of crime. What Jake found in the journal were drawings of astonishing beauty.

Of Anabeth. Of the valley. Of Sierra Starr. It gave him an entirely different picture of the outlaw who was Anabeth’s uncle. And explained in part why she wasn’t the hardened outlaw she might have been.

While Jake was reading, Anabeth went out to walk the length of the valley by herself. What was Wolf doing now? she wondered. What would he do if he came to the valley and found Jake here? What words could she use to convince him that Claire must be returned to her home?

Anabeth was gone most of the afternoon. When she returned to the house, she found Jake outside. He had picketed the buckskin gelding where it could crop grass while he brushed its coat to a glossy gold.

Anabeth found a comfortable spot in the grass and sat down cross-legged to watch him work. “Did you find out anything from Booth’s journal?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“What will you do now?”

“Go on a treasure hunt, I suppose.”

Anabeth pulled some clover and sucked on the
sweet juices at the end of the stem. “That sounds like it could take a while.”

“However long it takes, I’m going to find that gold.”

Anabeth twirled the stem between her fingers. “What about Claire?”

Jake’s lips flattened. “Wolf will be coming here—for you. When he does, I’ll be waiting for him.”

“Jake—”

“Don’t waste your time worrying, Kid. You be thinking about whether Booth ever said anything that might give a clue to the whereabouts of that gold.”

It seemed urgent now to help Jake find the gold and get him out of the valley before Wolf returned. Perhaps it was time to reveal the words Booth had whispered as he lay dying. Maybe Jake would understand them. “Booth did say something about the gold before he died.”

Jake’s hand paused in mid-stroke. “What?”

“Just two words.”

Jake dropped the brush and marched over to sink down on one knee beside her. “What two words?”

“I would have told you before, except they didn’t make any sense to me, so I didn’t see how it could make—”

Jake put his fingertips on her lips to quiet her nervous chatter. “Just tell me what he said.”

“Back door.”

“That’s all? Just back door?”

Anabeth shrugged. “See what I mean? It doesn’t make sense. There isn’t a back door to the house, only a front door and a side door that leads to the cave. I can’t imagine what he was referring to if it wasn’t the house.”

“What about a back way into the valley? Does such a trail exist?”

Anabeth lowered her eyes so Jake couldn’t see them when she lied. “Not that I know of.”

“What about that cave behind the house?” Jake asked. “How far does it go? Does it have a back way out?”

Anabeth’s brow furrowed. “It’s only as deep as it looks. We can look at it together, if you like.”

“We? Does that mean you plan to help me search for the gold?” Jake asked.

“The sooner you find what you’re looking for, the sooner this will all be over.”

Jake felt a rush of irritation. “Then what, Kid? You have your Apache friend bushwhack me?”

“I’m not going to march willingly to the gallows, if that’s what you’re asking!” Anabeth retorted.

The argument might have become more heated, but it was interrupted suddenly by the sound of falling rock at the entrance to the valley.

Someone in the tunnel had tripped a booby trap.

Wat would never have found the entrance to the valley if it hadn’t been for the dog. He and the Mexican and Snake had been up and down the length of the stone wall without finding anything remotely resembling an entrance to any secret hideout.

Just as they were riding away, a huge black dog had showed up. It had simply disappeared into the rock as though it were walking through the wall. Wat had rubbed his eyes and looked again, but the dog had disappeared.

“Let’s get back down there,” he said to the other two men.

“No, señor,” the Mexican said. “I do not go down there.”

“You go down there, or you don’t get your share of the gold.”

“A dead man cannot spend gold, señor.”

“Suit yourself,” Wat said. “Let’s go. Snake.”

The two outlaws rode down to the spot where the dog had disappeared. Even knowing that the opening was there, it was still difficult to find. Neither man was happy when they saw how dark and narrow the tunnel was that led inside.

“You go first,” Wat said to the other man.

“Why don’t you go first?”

“I’m boss here. I give the orders,” Wat said.

Snake hesitated for a moment. Then, because he was afraid to say no, he did as he was told. He was careful. He moved slowly. He looked for the trap that he was sure was there. When he found it—a loaded gun on a trip wire—he dismantled it, then remounted and headed farther into the tunnel, confident that he could handle whatever he encountered.