Nan Ryan (6 page)

Frowning, she started to speak.

“You will simply,” he continued, “take Princess Marlena’s place on the remainder of the bond tour in Texas. You will, of course, be generously rewarded for your services, and you will have the total support of the royal entourage. I myself will patiently tutor you so that any Texan who meets you will not doubt for a second that you actually are the crown princess of Hartz-Coburg.”

The Queen of the Silver Dollar finally pulled her robe together over her bare crossed knees, and said, “What about clothes? I have some stunning theatrical gowns, but—”

“You are very near the size and build of the princess.” Montillion paused, studying her carefully. “Well, perhaps you weigh a few pounds more than she. Her royal ceremonial wardrobe may be a trifle snug on you, but with a few alterations it should work well enough.”

“I suppose I wouldn’t be allowed to tell anyone that—”

“No.”

She frowned. “Just one person? There is this particular gentleman who is my—”

“Absolutely no one.”

“Absolutely no one,” she repeated to herself, pondering.

The Queen of the Silver Dollar continued to frown with indecision as she asked herself, What about Robert? He wouldn’t know what had happened to her. He’d be sick with worry. Or would he? How long had it been since she last saw him? Two weeks? Three? God, he was a selfish bastard. And arrogant. He assumed that she was his, body and soul. That she wouldn’t look at another man. But he was wrong. She would have done a whole lot more than
look
if that big, handsome Texas Ranger hadn’t fallen asleep on her a few nights back. And it would have been Robert’s fault. He supposed he could neglect her for as long as he chose, and she’d be waiting patiently any time he walked into the saloon, ready and willing to do anything he asked of her. Well, he had another thing coming, the pompous English cad!

Green eyes suddenly flashing, she said to Montillion, “You actually think we could fool all those—”

“You are an actress, are you not?” Montillion quickly challenged.

She immediately rose to the bait.

“One of the best,” declared the spirited young woman who—when in her cups—liked to boast that her mother was none other than the renowned stage actress Lola Montez, and that her father was of European nobility. Wasn’t the annual “anonymous remittance” proof of it?

Montillion quietly studied the lovely young woman, noting the ginger-red hair, the emerald green eyes, the small, well-shaped, but distinctive, slightly protruding ears.

Smiling, he said, “I’m sure you are. Now you’ve a chance to prove it.”

“Monty, you’ve got yourself a deal,” she said decisively. “Let’s shake on it!” She thrust out her hand and told him, “The name is Roberta Ann, but you can call me Robbie or Red or Queenie.”

Montillion took the offered hand in his gloved one, shook his graying head sternly, and corrected her. Bowing slightly, he said, “You are now Her Royal Highness, Crown Princess Marlena of Hartz-Coburg, and that is what I shall call you.”

Robbie gaily giggled.

Montillion learned to his pleasure and relief that the comely dance hall singer was a quick study. Innately intelligent and anxious to play this, the most important role of her acting career, she listened, learned, and tirelessly practiced being a princess. She was determined to make anyone who met her believe that she was Princess Marlena of Hartz-Coburg.

As promised, the pretty impostor had the support of the entire royal entourage. The real princess—sick, jaundiced, and miserable in Cloudcroft—was shocked and distraught when she was told that her royal party would not be staying with her at the remote sanatorium. To her dismay, Princess Marlena learned that she was to be left alone in the care of the nurturing nuns. She would, she was assured, be perfectly safe and comfortable there with the dedicated sisters. When she was quite well, Hantz Landsfelt, her burly bodyguard, would return to Cloudcroft to fetch her. He would then escort her to Texas, where she would take her rightful place on the tour.

Had she felt the least bit better, the outraged princess would have thrown a temper tantrum at such high-handed decisions being made without her consultation, and she would have demanded that her lady-in-waiting, at least, stay behind with her. But she simply hadn’t the energy to scream and threaten.

So, while the real princess was safely, secretly stashed away in the remote sanatorium high in the Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico, the eager impostor was set to play her part with consummate grace and ease.

Coaching her every minute of the day as the royal train made its way across the high plains of Texas, Montillion was well pleased with his pupil’s amazing progress. She was a natural. By the time they reached Fort Worth, he was confident of the Queen of the Silver Dollar’s ability to convince everyone that she was indeed a royal princess.

Captain Virgil Black was disheveled and dead tired when he and his fellow Rangers rode into Ysleta headquarters after two weeks on the trail. He was unshaven, and alkali dust flecked his itchy black beard. His tanned face was shiny with perspiration, and his sweat-soaked shirt stuck to his back. His squinted blue eyes were bloodshot from staring at too many heat-undulating horizons, and his back ached from too many hours in the saddle.

Silent and sullen, Captain Black rode alongside his commanding officer, George W. Baylor, to whom he had said little in the last three days. None at all today.

The exhausting seventy-five miles they had ridden since dawn was not solely responsible for Black’s fatigue and morose mood. It was that the entire two-week campaign had been fruitless. In his opinion, it needn’t have been.

The Rangers had successfully tracked the cunning Victorio and his band of ruthless renegades from the Hawkins stage station down into the rugged Big Bend country of Texas. At the Ranger station at Fort Davis, they were joined by a half-dozen more Rangers and a fully armed detail of soldiers from the fort. The combined forces had numbered more than one hundred men.

The contingent had chased the elusive Apache chief all the way to the border. At the muddy Rio Grande, they had come upon forty head of stolen cattle, mired in the sand. From these hapless animals the heartless Indians had cut chunks of beef and left them in their misery.

Without waiting for the command, Black had immediately drawn his rifle and started firing. Others followed suit, and within seconds the suffering beasts had been mercifully killed.

But before the gun smoke had cleared, General Grierson had turned to Captain Baylor and said, “My men and I have to turn back here. Federal troops do not have the authority to enter Mexico.”

Captain Baylor nodded. “We’ll turn back too,” he said regretfully. “To follow Victorio with so few men would be sheer suicide.”

A bitterly disappointed Virgil Black had had to bite his tongue to keep from hotly protesting the decision. Why in hell couldn’t Grierson bend the army’s rules a little? What difference did it make which side of the river they were on? If they killed or captured the murdering Victorio, would anybody really give a tinker’s damn that it had happened on the wrong side of the border? Damn it to hell, the crafty old Apache chief and his warriors were so close, they were probably watching, laughing at the stupidity of the white man’s laws.

“I know what you’re thinking, Virgil,” Captain Baylor said, reining his mount alongside Black’s.

His firm jaw clenched, his narrowed eyes staring fixedly across the muddy Rio Grande, Black hadn’t trusted himself to speak. After a long, tense moment, his commander sighed wearily, turned his head, and gazed wistfully across the border.

He said, “I, too, am sorry we couldn’t have tried a round with old Vic.”

Black’s head snapped around. “Let’s do it, Captain. We’ve been chasing this bloodthirsty red bastard for—”

“No.” Baylor was firm. “Perhaps you don’t care whether we make it home or not, but I do. I have a family to consider. My wife is too young to be made a widow.”

Virgil Black exhaled heavily. “Yes, sir.”

Now as he rode wearily into the Ysleta compound after the failed campaign, he was still half-despondent, half-angry. Had he been in command, he would have bent the rules just as he had so many times before. The marauding Apache didn’t go by the book, so why should the U.S. Army and Texas Rangers?

A muscle twitching in his ridged jaw, Virgil Black tiredly dismounted as dusk began to settle over headquarters.

“Captain Black, Captain Black.” A young Ranger came running out of the main building.

Affectionately patting his winded stallion’s foam-flecked neck, Virgil Black lifted his head. “What’s up, Logan?”

“British Bob!” said the young ranger excitedly. “He’s been apprehended! They caught him in a Juárez saloon this afternoon and brought him in. He’s here, here at headquarters. And it’s just as you suspected—he has an accomplice. A female accomplice. We haven’t got her yet, but we have him. Isn’t that great?”

Virgil Black ground his even white teeth in frustration. For months he had been tracking the bold bank robber who had hit banks all over southern New Mexico and west Texas. The thief Black referred to as British Bob was an Englishman whose full name was Robert Alfred Campling. Campling was noted for his finely tailored clothes, his courtly manners during holdups, and his uncanny ability to elude the authorities. Now the “gentleman robber” was finally in custody, and somebody else had claimed the satisfaction of capturing him.

This, Black decided, wasn’t his day.

“Yes, Logan,” Virgil Black said finally, “just great.”

7

At sunup, sixty-seven-year-old
Confederate war veteran and retired Texas Ranger William “True” Cannon stood on the porticoed flagstone porch of his small salmon-hued adobe. Hands in the pockets of his gray trousers, a slightly stooped shoulder resting against a rough cedar support pole, True Cannon watched unblinking as a coldly angry Captain Virgil Black rode away into the summer dawn.

True Cannon knew Virgil was quietly furious. To a man like Virgil who regarded danger as the acme of life, it was an insult to be sent after a helpless woman. He didn’t blame Virgil for being mad as a hornet.

Virgil Black was, in True’s opinion, the epitome of the proud and fearless Texas Ranger of legend. He was constantly on the prowl, whether alone or in the company of a score or more.

Los Tejanos diablos
—the Texas devils. That’s what the Mexicans called the Rangers. They had a special name for Virgil Black:
los Tejano sanguinario
—the blood-thirsty Texan.

Fear was totally foreign to Virgil Black. He thrived on taking risks, lived to put himself in peril. True suspected Virgil’s remarkable courage was attributable less to a strong sense of duty than to the fact that he didn’t have much to live for. No wife. No children. No family of any kind.

True was the closest thing Virgil had to a family, and they were not related. It troubled him to know Virgil didn’t particularly care whether he lived or died.

But he understood.

He understood about not caring.

And about caring too much.

Back when he himself had been a strapping, healthy young man, he had also been a daredevil. It wasn’t until he met, then married, the most beautiful girl in Tarrant County that life became so sweet, so precious. He actually started looking before crossing the street. Then, nine years after the wedding his cherished young wife finally became pregnant with his child, and his joy was unequaled.

Until that nightmarish summer day when his frail, darling Betsy had gone into early labor and he had lost both her and his child.

True Cannon swallowed hard, remembering that horrible hot August afternoon as vividly as if it were yesterday.

After that, after he lost Betsy and his boy, he hadn’t cared much about anyone or anything. He’d been half-glad when the War Between the States broke out; had signed up with Hood’s Brigade the minute he heard the news. He came through the bloody four-year battle with only minor wounds, rode home to Texas, and joined the Rangers so he could fight the Comanche and the Mexicans.

True Cannon smiled recalling the chilly autumn afternoon more than a decade ago when young Ranger Virgil Black had saved his life. The boy’s ability to penetrate enemy defenses was downright uncanny. Virgil had managed to slip into the Palo Duro Comanche camp to rescue True, the only Ranger left alive after a bloody skirmish, who was being held and tortured. Virgil quietly slit the throats of the braves guarding True and whisked him away before the sleeping savages knew what was happening.

True owed his life to Virgil Black. He owed him a whole lot more. The two of them had become the best of friends, the nearest thing to family either of them had. When Virgil was at Ysleta near El Paso, he stayed at True’s adobe, which was less than a mile from headquarters. Lived there, really.

It was the only home Virgil Black could remember ever having.

Maybe someday Virgil would have a home of his own. Maybe he would meet the right woman, fall in love, and find out just how good being alive could be.

True watched until the younger man’s shiny black stallion was out of sight, then turned and went back inside thinking that as put out as Virgil was with this latest humiliating assignment, at least it wouldn’t last long. It was simply a matter of traveling the sixty miles up to Las Cruces and bringing the woman in.