Sundancer (Cheyenne Series) (52 page)

      
Cain tried knocking Weasel Bear's blade from his grasp by slamming his hand against a rock but could not dislodge the weapon from his grip. When they rolled again, Weasel Bear positioned his knife over Cain's throat and slowly, inexorably forced it closer and closer to his target. Beads of sweat popped out on the half-blood's face as he struggled to hold death at bay. The muscles in his arm suddenly felt weak as a newborn foal's. He could not match Weasel Bear's strength in his present condition. He would have to outsmart him instead.

      
Abruptly he released his hold on Weasel Bear's knife arm while at the same instant scissoring his legs to throw off his foe's weight. The blade plunged into the earth, grazing his neck as he rolled free. Blood seeped in a thin trickle down his chest as he gulped in several deep breaths, trying to clear his head. He could see the feral smile of satisfaction on Weasel Bear's face as he recognized his foe's failing strength.

      
“We will soon see which of us the Everywhere Spirit favors, cut hair,” Weasel Bear sneered as Cain backed away, circling to the right.

      
The two men slashed, thrust, parried and backed off, Cain keeping out of the stronger man's reach, Weasel Bear trying relentlessly to wear out his enemy. Although Cain's arms felt leaden and his body was now soaked with perspiration in the afternoon heat, he forced his mind to focus, while he moved in fits and starts gradually toward the edge of the water. As he had knelt earlier he had seen a series of smooth moss-covered rocks hidden inches beneath the surface.

      
“When I defeat you I. will open your belly so you will die slowly,” Weasel Bear said with relish.

      
Cain could see the bloodlust gleaming in his eyes. “You are the one who will die,” he said with quiet certainty, stepping carefully into the water where the bottom was soft and sandy opposite the rocks.

      
Weasel Bear followed him in, making another thrust. At that instant, Cain lunged forward, parrying the blade, knocking Weasel Bear off balance. The big man stepped back to regain his footing and his moccasins came down on the slimy hard surface of the rocks. He started to pitch backward. Desperate to regain his equilibrium, he instinctively threw both arms wide.

      
Cain thrust his blade with every dram of strength behind it he could muster. The knife sank into Weasel Bear's solar plexus up to the haft. He crumpled backward into the water, wrenching free of his cousin's grasp. His own weapon dropped from his nerveless fingers as he went down, all the while staring incredulously at the heavy leather-bound handle of Cain's knife protruding from his body. Heaving a breathless sigh, he went limp in the shallow water, which soon ran pink, fouled with his blood.

      
For a moment Cain stood weaving beneath the blazing heat of the sun, watching his fallen enemy. Then he walked over to Weasel Bear's body and pulled his knife free. As the waters ran red, he said, “I’m still not certain what the Everywhere Spirit feels about me, Cousin. But I'm pretty sure he doesn't care much for you.”

      
By the time he rejoined the other warriors from Leather Shirt's band, they had caught up with Weasel Bear's two companions but had found no trace of Johnny Lame Pony and Powell. Three of Johnny's renegades were dead, the traitors who had misled Dillon into believing Leather Shirt's band was responsible for the sabotage on the Union Pacific. Cain knew the colonel would be eagerly tracking Lame Pony and Andrew Powell by this time. Perhaps the soldiers had already caught them, but he doubted it. Bidding farewell to Leather Shirt's men, whose business was concluded, he set out after the renegade Lakota and his employer. By dusk he picked up Dillon's trail. Within an hour the smell of coffee boiling led him to the cavalry bivouac.

      
As soon as he calmed the sentry, a green recruit frightened enough to shoot first and ask questions later, Cain rode up to where Riccard sat studying a map by the flickering light from the fire. The officer watched him dismount, then poured another cup of the bitter black brew he was drinking and offered it to the half-breed.

      
“Here, looks as if you could use it,” he said, taking in the exhausted slowness with which Cain moved as well as the dried blood caked on the knife wound on his neck.

      
Gratefully Cain accepted the steaming tin cup and took several gulps of fortifying liquid. “I take it you haven't cut Lame Pony's trail.”

      
Dillon gave a disgusted grunt. “No. But I take it you caught up with some of the bastards.”

      
‘Three Cheyenne from Leather Shirt's band who'd already been banished for betraying the People. By now I figure Lame Pony's met up with the rest of his bunch of cutthroats. I'm glad Roxanna is well out of harm's way. By this time she should be on her way back to Jubal.”

      
“I'm certain she is. Corporal Fenshlage left her in good hands.”

      
Cain looked up suddenly, his eyes narrowing. “What do you mean? I thought your men were personally going to see her to the railhead.”

* * * *

      
Roxanna lay down on the hard ground, so bone-weary that the discomfort no longer mattered. They were lost. Larry's men were from California, new to Wyoming Territory, he had sheepishly explained after they had ridden for hours without reaching the Union Pacific tracks. Apparently they had taken a wrong turn in the unfamiliar surroundings and ridden parallel with the rails for dozens of miles, overshooting Medicine Bow, heading south toward Rock River.

      
It would be easier to locate the railroad line in daylight, so they made camp for the night on the banks of a small stream. Poor Larry, he had been so embarrassed and distraught about the debacle, she thought as she drifted into slumber. She knew he sat awake near the campfire, too upset to sleep. If being pregnant had not tired her so much, she would have kept him company, trying to reassure him that everything would turn out all right.

      
When Roxanna awakened in the morning, the men were breaking camp. Weary to the bone, she sat up, rubbing sleep from her eyes, then smiled at Larry. He must have gotten some rest after all, for he returned her smile brightly.

      
“Good morning. After you eat a bite of breakfast, we'll be on our way,” he said.

      
She shook her head as she rose, rubbing her back, which always seemed to ache lately. “No, I don't think food first thing in the morning is such a good idea for me.”

      
“Very well then, I'll—” He broke off, turning at the sound of a rider approaching.

      
Roxanna gasped in surprise when Johnny Lame Pony rode boldly into the camp as if he were expected. What was the renegade doing loose? Last she had seen of him, he was being held along with Andrew Powell in Leather Shirt's camp. Had the old chief released him—and if so, why had he come here?

      
Johnny threw his leg over the saddle and jumped smoothly to the ground in front of Larry as the hard looking men gathered around him. “We no longer work for this one,” he announced peremptorily, pointing to young Powell. “Ride to our hideout and wait for me there. I will explain everything then.”

      
“What the hell is going on, Lame Pony?” Lawrence asked in a cold voice.

      
Johnny turned back to him with a contemptuous smirk on his face. “You are the cub. I work for the old bear now.”

      
“Wait. I'll pay you double whatever he offered you,” Lawrence said to the renegade's men. One of the whites named Gibbs and a Mexican pistolero called Coyote appeared to consider, but all the rest shook their heads and started to mount up. Lawrence turned back to Lame Pony and hissed furiously, “This whole mess was your doing, wasn't it? You double-crossed me, you son of a bitch, after I paid you top dollar!”

      
A slow smile spread across the half-breed's face, revealing crooked blackened teeth with gaps between several of them. “I made a better deal.” He turned to Gibbs and Coyote. “Are you in with me or out?” The smile was gone.

      
“
Sí, jefe
, I am in,” Coyote said. The Anglo nodded agreement and both turned toward their horses.

      
All of the men were starting to ride away. Roxanna was terrified. What would happen to her now that the renegade had them in his clutches? Then, to her utter amazement, Lawrence started to draw his fancy Adams revolver. Johnny Lame Pony turned with a faintly amused look on his seamed face.

      
“What the hell you think—” The Lakota suddenly read death in the greenhorn's calm demeanor. He clawed for the old Army Colt at his side, but it was already far too late. The heavy .450-caliber slug slammed into his guts like a mule kick. As the renegade started to fall, Lawrence fired again.

      
“I should’ve known better than to ever trust a breed,” he said as he watched the Lakota's lifeless body crumple to the ground.

      
“That was a grave tactical error, one of many you've made out here. Your machinations are far better suited to the boardroom than to dealing with dangerous men like these,” Andrew Powell taunted as he rode out from behind a cluster of boulders and dismounted in front of his son. His eyes were as blue as the sky and as dead as agates. The confused gunmen, who had reined in when Johnny went down, now hightailed it away from the two deadly Iron Horse men.

      
Roxanna stood on the other side of the campfire, numb with shock. ‘‘What are you going to do—kill your own son?” she asked the old man.

      
Andrew quirked one gray eyebrow at her and replied, “It would be fitting, considering he's single-handedly engineered my ruin as well as attempted to destroy the competition from the Union Pacific. Tell me, Larry, did you intend to go after Stanford and Huntington when you'd dispensed with me?” he asked, looking back to his son.

      
Lawrence Powell's face turned the color of old brick, but his voice was eerily calm as he stared at his father with hatred gleaming in his pale eyes. “I already have dispensed with you,” he said scornfully. “You're finished on the Central Pacific. But you're right, I am exceptionally gifted at corporate intrigue. A pity you've always held my abilities in such low esteem. It was child's play for me to purchase those supply shipments in your name, then divert the skimmed money to holding companies I'd set up so they'd be traced back to you.”

      
“It might have worked if Cain hadn't come to San Francisco to accuse me,” Andrew replied darkly.

      
At the mention of his brother's name, Lawrence Powell's face lost its smug scornfulness. The cold blue light in his eyes matched that in Andrew's. “Cain!” He said the word like an epithet. “Your paragon bastard. I've lived my entire life in his shadow.”

      
“I gave you everything, him nothing,” the old man said, his voice thick with anger.

      
“Oh, yes, I was the heir, waiting in the background, invisible, powerless. You wouldn't trust me to fill a freight order. My opinions you laughed at, but you listened to him—you respected him—a filthy half-breed gunman. ‘Why can't you be a man like Cain, Larry?’ ” He mimicked Andrew's voice perfectly. “ ‘He's a breed, but he has more brains in his left hand than you do in your head, Larry.’ God, how sick I got of having him thrown up to me. And then the final insult.” He turned to Roxanna, seizing her arm roughly.

      
“Larry, no!” She tried to pull away, but his fingers bit into her flesh like talons as he jerked her closer. She had always thought him mild-mannered, sweet, boyishly awkward and endearing. His round face seemed to take on harsh angles she had never perceived before. There was a ruthlessness in his stance, and the blazing hatred of insanity glowing in his eyes as they raked her, lingering on her belly. Fear such as she had never known ripped through her like a lightning bolt.

      
“You stupid little bitch. I wanted you, would even have married you if you hadn't gone and gotten yourself captured by savages.”

      
“I certainly didn't do it on purpose, Larry,” she replied as calmly as she could.
He's mad. utterly mad
.

      
“But you did fall for Cain, didn't you? I would’ve ignored the ugly gossip about your captivity and made you my mistress once my plans for ruining the Union Pacific and taking over the Central Pacific were in place. But you had to turn to that breed. Do you have any idea how it revolted me to have you tearfully confessing your love for him that night in Denver? I could’ve killed you then with my bare hands.”

      
“Why have you let me live this long?” The instant she asked the question, Roxanna could have bitten her tongue. Was she fueling his rage?

      
His expression abruptly shifted from fury to chilling calm. “You became part of my master plan, the means to get to that breed. First I tried sabotage on that little pleasure jaunt from Chicago. That should’ve wiped out Cain and half the key people on the Union Pacific.”

      
“You sent that man to unhitch the freight cars!”

      
“But, alas, it failed. Your mongrel lover has more lives than a damned cat.”

      
“Yeah, I do, Larry,” Cain's voice cut in. “Your fake train wreck was as sloppy as that gunhand with the faulty aim in the work camp,” he added, walking calmly up to the campfire. He paused when he drew nearer, standing across from Andrew. Lawrence stood between them, with Roxanna tightly in his grasp.

      
“That wasn't Isobel trying to kill me—it was your assassin sent to kill my husband,” Roxanna said to Lawrence, her horror growing.