Merline Lovelace (13 page)

Through the screen of branches, Suzanne saw the men whip out rifles and pistols. Her own hand slid into her skirt pocket.

“Stay here,” Jack ordered fiercely. “Don’t come out unless I tell you.”

“All right, boys,” Big Nose was ordering. “Let’s go in after ’em. Alejandro, you ’n Pete swing left. Me ’n Curly here will….”

He broke off, whipping around at the sound of a branch cracking. When the big roan picked its way out of the trees, every outlaw had his gun aimed at Jack’s chest.

“Well, hell, Sloan! You near ’bout got yerself punched full of holes.”

Calmly, Jack rested one hand on the pommel, the other held the Colt steady. “So did you, Big Nose. Care to explain why you’re tracking me?”

“Well, now, we are and we aren’t. It’s the girl we’re after. We heared she’s riding with you.”

“How’d you hear that?”

“Curly here was hanging around Custer City after the holdup,” Big Nose explained. “Word came down the telegraph line ’bout you and Miss Bonneaux walkin’ back to Ten Mile Station. So Curly come to find me, and we come for her.”

“Why? You got her purse and her luggage. What do you want with her?”

“Well, it’s like this. There weren’t no more ’n five hundred dollars in the strongbox, a good sight less ’n that in the bags we picked through. The girl’s worth at least that much. More. The way I figure it, Colonel Garrett will pay real sweet to get her back.”

“Garrett? Andrew Garrett?”

“Hell, man, didn’t you know you done took up with the daughter of the meanest horse soldier that ever rode?”

Enjoying the fact that he had one up on Sloan, Big Nose elaborated with some glee.

“It was Garrett who hunted down Spotted Tail years back. Brung him ’n a whole passel of his braves to Fort Laramie in chains. Took all the fight right out of the Ogalalla Sioux with that one raid, he did.”

Suzanne could have told him that wasn’t the way it had happened at all. But it
was
true that her stepfather had convinced Chief Spotted Tail to make peace against all odds. As a result, the colonel had caught the fancy of the Eastern press and his reputation as an Indian fighter and frontiersman had grown to gargantuan proportions.

Parrott obviously placed great faith in the written word. “If you’ve messed with Garrett’s girl,” he predicted cheerfully, “he’ll string you up by your heels, carve out yer liver and eat it raw, with you watchin’ the whole time.”

“He’ll do the same to anyone who kidnaps her and holds her against her will,” Jack pointed out.

“Hell, we ain’t gonna hurt her none, less’n we have to. We’ll just take her to the Badlands with us ’n keep her fer a while, till her pa comes up with the cash.”

The affability faded from his voice.

“Tell her to come outta the trees, Sloan, or we’ll go in ’n get her.”

S
uzanne didn’t wait for Jack to call for her.

She didn’t dare.

So far, Parrott hadn’t mentioned Matt or Ying Li. Maybe the outlaw didn’t know about the other two. Maybe he didn’t care. She couldn’t take the chance.

“Stay here,” she hissed. “If you get away and make it to Fort Meade, go straight to the commander and tell him what happened.”

“Jack said to let him handle things,” Matt reminded her in an agonized whisper.

“I’m the one they want. They’ll shoot him to get to me.”

“But…!”

He made a grab for her reins but Suzanne jerked them out of his reach. Digging her heels into the chestnut’s sides, she shouted a warning.

“I’m coming out!”

Bending, she dodged the low-hanging branches and cleared the trees. When she took the gelding down the grassy slope and drew up beside Jack, ice had formed in his eyes. The look he gave Suzanne sliced right through her skin, flaying her to the bone.

She’d hear about this, she guessed. Later. Right now, her main concern was leading Big Nose and his gang away from Matt and Ying Li.

“I heard what you said,” she told the outlaw.

“’Bout holding you for ransom?”

She dipped her head in a regal nod. “You know, of course, that if you persist in this foolish scheme, the colonel will cut you into bite-size pieces and feed you to the crows.”

Big Nose grinned. “He’ll have to catch me first, missy. Every lawman and blue-belly in three territories been searchin’ for George Parrott for a good ten years. No one’s caught up with me yet.”

“You haven’t had Andrew Garrett on your trail.”

“Well, I have ’n I haven’t. He sent a patrol after me once, when we hit a train down south of Fort Laramie. We got away, but me ’n the boys run four good horses into the ground while we was doin’ it.” Still grinning, he gave her a once-over. “You look a sight different from the last time we seed you.”

“Indeed?”

Her frigid accent and tightly pursed lips had considerably more impact on the outlaw than they did on Jack. Hastily, he assured her he meant no disrespect.

“It’s not that you ain’t pretty as any picture. It’s just that hat…” He waved a hand at the floppy gray felt. “And them boots…”

“If you’ve quite finished discussing my raiment, Mr. Parrott, may we please proceed? I should like to get this unpleasant matter done with as quickly as possible and continue my journey.”

“Lordy, how you do talk! All right, we’ll proceed. Alejandro, grab aholt of the lady’s reins. We don’t want her deciding to make a run for it, now, do we?”

Deliberately, Jack kneed the roan and put it between Suzanne and the Mexican.

“She’s not going anywhere I don’t go, Parrott.”

“Now, hold on, Sloan! This here ransom was my idea. Why should I cut you in?”

“Because she’s riding with me. I’ve got first claim on her.” Casually, Jack thumbed back the hammer on the Colt. “And I’ll put a bullet in anyone who thinks different.”

Parrott’s eyes narrowed above his bushy black mustache. “You can’t take us all. One of my men will surely to goodness get you.”

“One of them surely will, but when I go down, you go with me, George.”

Suzanne’s heart banged against her ribs. Every bit of air squeezed out of her lungs as the seconds stretched interminably. Slowly, so slowly, she let the reins slip through her fingers and inched her hand into her skirt pocket, already planning her shot.

When Big Nose let out a booming laugh and tipped up his pistol barrel, she could have wept with relief.

“I ain’t ready to eat lead yet, Sloan. Not as ready as you are, anyway. Tell you what. You and the little lady come along friendly-like, and I’ll give you a share of the takin’s. That way, no one gets hurt.”

The click when Jack released the hammer and let it down was as loud as a rifle shot. When the rest of the outlaws followed Parrott’s gruff order and holstered their weapons, Suzanne felt every ounce of starch go out of her. Boneless with relief, she had to clutch the pommel to keep from sliding right out of the saddle.

“Well, missy, how much do you think we should ask for you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I have to send a couple of men back to collect yer ransom. I’m thinking maybe five thousand.”

“Five thousand dollars!” Recovering, Suzanne tossed her head. “Obviously you don’t have any
idea how much army officers receive in pay each month.”

“I got drunk ’n signed up once. Could only take it a month or so afore I went over the hill, but I know officers make a damn sight more ’n privates.”

“Not five thousand dollars more!”

“All right then, a thousand.”

“My parents don’t have that kind of ready cash,” Suzanne lied.

“Then they kin go to the bank ’n borrow some.”

The absurdity of the fact that she was sitting here bargaining with a stage robber over the amount of her own ransom raised a bubble of near hysteria in her throat. With some difficulty, she countered Parrott’s argument.

“One has to offer surety for a loan of that amount. Land or cattle or a business of some sort. My stepfather’s a military man. He doesn’t run cattle or hold title to any land.”

Her mother did, however. After a lifetime of following the drum, Julia Bonneaux Garrett had insisted on purchasing a sizable tract of land outside Cheyenne, which she held in her own name.

Big Nose Parrott didn’t need to know that, however. Nor, as it turned out, did he particularly care about such small, annoying details. His jaw jutting, he set her ransom at a thousand dollars and dis
patched two men with instructions to obtain the money from Garrett without getting their necks stretched in the process.

“All right, boys, let’s ride.”

“Wait a minute,” the one called Curly protested. “What about the kid they said was riding with Sloan? He’s probably still up in them trees.”

Suzanne’s heart thumped. Tipping her chin, she forced a cool, haughty tone.

“If you’re referring to Mr. Butts, we parted company some miles back, where the road forked. He was anxious to get to the gold fields.”

“We’d better go have a look-see,” Curly insisted.

Suzanne was fumbling for a more convincing lie when Big Nose made it unnecessary.

“Hell, if it’s that overgrowed farm boy from the stage you’re talkin’ about, I ain’t got no interest in him. ’Sides, we’ll be lucky to make the Badlands before nightfall. I don’t fancy tryin’ to find my way through them gulches in the dark. Let’s ride.”

Anxious to reach his hideout, Big Nose set a brutal pace.

For the first hour, Suzanne felt only relief that Matt and Ying Li hadn’t been forced to come along. Neither of them could have stayed in the saddle. For most of the second, third and fourth
hour, she concentrated all her energy on staying in hers.

Veering southeast, the fast-moving riders soon left the wooded Black Hills and reentered the vast, treeless plains. Gradually, what seemed like a distant hump on the horizon gained size and definition. It was The Wall, a barrier of striated rock that ran from north to south for a hundred miles. Originally a flat escarpment cut by the White River as it meandered across the prairie, The Wall had been eroded by wind and rain, gradually losing layer upon layer of topsoil. The same wind and rain had then sculpted the uncovered rock into an endless maze of knife-creased slopes, turreted pinnacles and tortuous gullies.

Settlers traversing the Great Plains cut north or south to go around The Wall. Homesteaders avoided its barren, windswept slopes. Even the Sioux claimed only a small portion of the Badlands at its southern end, near Wounded Knee Creek. Outlaws such as George Parrott and his gang, however, could lose themselves indefinitely among its twisting ravines.

Up close, Suzanne found the endless stretch of cliffs and spires even more formidable than when viewed from a distance. She had no idea why Big Nose chose to head for a particular ravine. There was nothing to mark it as the entrance to his hide
out. No tree branch stuck in the rock, no symbol painted on the cliff face, nothing.

With Parrott in the lead and Jack right behind him, they passed single file through the narrow opening. As quickly as that, the prairie behind them disappeared. Ahead loomed an unending maze of rock, crowding so close in spots that Suzanne couldn’t imagine how they’d get through. When her right stirrup scraped the side of the narrow gully, she heeled in as tight as possible and reached down to yank the canvas duster around her calves and ankles for added protection. Only then did she notice that her stirrup had gouged a long scar on the soft rock surface.

Suddenly, her breath hitched. She slid a quick glance over her shoulder, saw that the man directly behind her was scanning the upper ridges. Searching for familiar landmarks, she guessed.

Surreptitiously, she gave the long coat another twitch. The canvas settled over the top of her borrowed boot. At the next branch in the ravine, she guided the chestnut close to the wall and used the cover provided by the duster to mark the rock wall with her heel. She had no idea if she and Jack could escape, but if they did, they’d never find their way out of the maze without something to guide them.

She repeated the dangerous maneuver whenever the gully narrowed enough to allow it. With each
scrape of her heel against rock, she expected to hear an outraged bellow from the rider behind her. She could only thank God for the rapidly descending dusk that bathed everything below the very tips of the rock spires in deep shadows.

She was a quivering mass of nerves by the time they rounded yet another sheer outcropping and faced a ravine so narrow and arched with overhanging ledges that it looked like a tunnel. Big Nose drew up at the entrance, pulled his rifle from its scabbard and fired twice into the air.

Instantly, a monstrous cloud of birds swarmed up from the surrounding crevices. No, not birds, Suzanne saw with a gasp. Bats. Thousands of them. Squeaking and beating their wings, they made such an ear-shattering din she had to jerk hard on the reins to check the frightened chestnut.

The horrific noise had barely died down when an unseen sentry boomed down from above. “That you, Big Nose?”

“It’s me.”

“We wondered if you ’n the boys was going to make it back tonight.”

“Took us a while longer than we expected to find Miss Bonneaux here. Let the others know we’re comin’ in.”

The sentry fired three shots in quick succession. Bending low over his pommel, Parrott entered the tunnel. Even Suzanne had to duck to keep from
hitting her head on the overhanging rock. She’d never particularly enjoyed exploring caves or narrow spaces. This one stretched her already screaming nerves as taut as new rope.

After what seemed like miles, the tunnel debouched into a small box canyon. With night falling swiftly now, she couldn’t make out its exact size, but the darker shapes along one side of the canyon indicated the presence of a few scraggly cottonwoods. And where there were trees, there had to be a creek or underground spring of some sort.

Wondering how in the world Big Nose had ever managed to find water in this arid maze, Suzanne followed him and Jack across the canyon to the cluster of buildings set against one sheer wall. She counted a cabin, a barn of sorts, a corral and what she sincerely hoped was a privy. She didn’t particularly care for the idea of attending to life’s basic necessities with an audience of outlaws looking on.

Light spilled through the open door of the cabin. Two men waited in the dirt yard.

“Did you git her?” one called out eagerly.

“We got her.”

“Whooee! I ain’t had no woman under me since that half-breed whore down to Durango. Is she as young and ripe as we heared?”

“She’s young ’n ripe enough, but we done talked about this. We ain’t gonna hurt her none
less’n we have to. Besides, Sloan’s already laid claim to her.”

“Sloan? Black Jack Sloan? Well, shee-it! You brung him, too?”

Chuckling, Big Nose swung out of the saddle. “He brung himself. Now, don’t get yer balls in a twist, O’Reilly. With the money we get fer this little filly, you kin buy yerself a dozen half-breed whores.”

Ambling over to where Suzanne sat stiff-spined and thin-lipped, he gave her a wide grin.

“Don’t fret, missy. None o’ my men is crazy enough to draw down on Black Jack Sloan. Long as he’s claimin’ you, you don’t have to worry.”

Not particularly reassured, Suzanne dismounted.

“The cabin ain’t got but one room ’n a sort of woodshed,” Big Nose warned, escorting her inside. “We’ve cleaned out the shed so’s you kin have a bit of privacy.”

The rank odors of stale sweat and unwashed long johns assailed Suzanne the moment she stepped into the cabin. Drawing in shallow breaths, she surveyed the litter of discarded clothing, old horse blankets and dirty dishes with distaste.

“You and your men don’t appear to have benefited significantly from your chosen occupation, Mr. Parrott.”

“Well, we have and we haven’t, missy. We rob us a train or a stagecoach, live happy as hogs in
slop for a spell, and afore we hardly know it, the money’s done gone.”

“Indeed.”

Grinning beneath his bushy mustache, he looked to Jack. “She talk like that all the time?”

“Near about.”

“Kin she cook as fancy as she talks?” one of the outlaws asked hopefully.

Suzanne was damned if she was going to fry up so much as a single johnnycake for this sorry lot of murderers and robbers. Sending Jack a warning look, she answered for herself.

“I’m afraid cooking isn’t one of my particular skills. But I should be happy to sketch your portrait if you’ll supply paper and a pencil.”

Big Nose hooted. “I expect you should! And make a copy to be printed up in every newspaper in the territory, I’m guessin’. Hobbs here wouldn’t be able to walk down a street without someone tryin’ to shoot him in the back for the reward money.”

“I would think that is a natural hazard of your profession,” Suzanne said coolly.

“Well now, it is and it isn’t. Most of these boys could stroll into a saloon and no one would recognize them, ’cepting maybe Alejandro here, on account of those silver conchos of his. ’N me, of course.” He tapped his beak with a forefinger. “None of them Wanted posters show this jest
right, though. You kin draw me if you have a hankerin’ to, ’n pass the picture to the newspapers with my welcome. Show the world what a handsome fellow George Parrott really is.”