Trail of Golden Dreams (6 page)

“I’ll take that
map now.”

Chapter Five

Josie fished
around in her pants pocket for the derringer. Her hand touched the cold metal,
and she squeezed her finger around the trigger of the gun and scrambled to her
feet. 

“Stay right where
you are, and take your hand out of your pockets,” the voice ordered.  “You
won’t get hurt if you do as you’re told. “  When she hesitated, he barked,
“Do it!”

She squinted at
the tall figure standing in the shadows at the mouth of the cave and heard the
click of a revolver. “Are you going to kill me?” she asked in a throaty
whisper, as she showed him one empty hand.

“That depends on
how much trouble you decide to cause. Just hand over that map and I’ll be on my
way.”

Inhaling deeply,
her eyes roamed over the parchment still clutched in her fist. 
The
trail will be long
. 
Don’t give up
.  Her pa’s words echoed
in her ears.  Nothing was going to stop her from going after whatever lay
at the end of that trail. Pa had died so she could have a better life.  No
one was going to take that from her.

“If you want it,
you’ll have to pry it from my cold dead fingers,” she responded. 

The man said
nothing.  The air felt thick with tension.

“Show yourself,” Josie
challenged.  Her fingers twitched as she let her hand creep back into her
pocket.  She gripped the pearl handle of her derringer again. “How do you
know about this map?  Who are you?”

The man took one step
forward, but she still couldn’t see his face.  When he spoke again, she
sensed he was someone with little patience. 

“I don’t have to
explain anything to a girl,” he snapped.  “Walk around that fire and lay
the paper on this rock over here.”  His gloved hand pointed to a stone
ledge, which jutted out from the cave wall.

“I’m not a girl,”
she snapped back.  “I’m nineteen, and this map belongs to me.  I’m
not about to give it to some coward who won’t even show his face.”

Apparently
striking a nerve, the man swiftly strode forward out of the darkness, with his
gun raised and leveled at her. The fire danced upon his features.  She
gasped.   He was the stranger who rode the white stallion—the one all
in black who’d been watching her in Dry Gulch.  Her heart lurched. 
He tilted his Stetson up with a finger to show her eyes the color of dark
molasses. She felt the heat radiating from those fiery pupils as they bore into
her. 

“Is that better?”
he asked.

“It’s you!” she
exclaimed.  “Why are you following me?”

“I think I already
explained.  I’ve come for the map.  Now hand it over.”

She gripped the
parchment even tighter. Needing to distract him while she took a minute to
think this through, she abruptly changed the subject.  “Did you set that
trap back in the forest?”

He blinked. 
“Yeah.  I did that.”

“It was
clever.  Was the marshal and his gang your target, or was I the one you
were trying to ambush?”  She didn’t give him time to respond before
blurting, “I bet you didn’t count on the fact that a mule can jump over six
feet at a standstill, did you?”

The man’s dark
brows furrowed.  “Quit your jabbering, girl, and pass that paper to
me.  I’m not in the mood to play games.”   He advanced, stopping
in front of her.  His tall, muscular frame towered over her. 

Quick as a
striking snake, Josie jammed the map in her back pocket and thrust the
derringer into his rib. Just as speedy, he shoved his revolver against her
temple. 

“You’re fast, but
not fast enough,” he drawled.  “Put down the gun.”

“You put yours
down first,” she countered.

Neither one
moved.  Josie’s chest rose and fell in erratic rhythm. The pistol felt
cold as ice pushed against her skin.

“Are we going to
have a Mexican standoff?” he asked.

She felt his warm
breath on her face.  He stood so close, his musky smell, mixed with sweat,
smoke, and the faint scent of lavender made her woozy.  “I know how to use
this gun,” she replied.  “I’ll shoot you.  Don’t think I
won’t.”  She cocked the derringer to show him she meant what she promised.

The tall, dark
stranger looked down into her eyes. A muscle ticked along his jaw.  After
several long moments, she felt the release of pressure from her temple.

“Toss the gun down
on the ground,” she commanded, as she kept her gun pointed at his ribcage.

“I’ll toss mine
when you toss yours.” 

Josie searched his
face.  “Are you crazy, or just stupid?  You stalk me, attempt to rob
me, and you think I’m going to throw down my gun?  Why should I trust
you?”

“Because I’ve
never killed a woman before,” he said without skipping a beat.  “And I
don’t intend to start now.”

His response sent
a jolt through her body. Maybe he wasn’t a cold-hearted killer.  After
considering his words carefully, Josie removed the gun from his rib.  “On
the count of three, we’ll both throw our guns onto the ground.  Do I have
your word as a gentleman?” she asked.

The man in black
threw his head back and laughed.  “Whatever gave you the idea I’m a
gentleman?”

She rammed the
derringer into his gut again and narrowed her eyes into pinpoints. The gun
pressed into taut, rigid muscle.  She realized he could probably break her
in half with one hand tied behind his back, but she was not about to let him
intimidate her.  She had too much to lose to let him scare her out of a
future she’d only dreamed about before now.

“I’ll kill you
right now, mister. And it won’t bother me none.  Believe me.  I’ll
take my map and hightail it out of here, leaving you as dead as a stone.”

The man grinned,
baring a row of straight teeth.  “You’re a tough little half-breed, aren’t
you?”

“Half-breed!” she
shrieked, lunging at him. Josie pounded on his chest with her fists and clawed
at his shirt.  He grabbed her wrists, and both the pistol and derringer
flew out of their hands and clattered to the hard ground.

The stranger
pulled her close.  Josie struggled under his grasp. “Let me go, you big
ignorant brute!”  She kicked at his shins, but he lifted her off the
ground before her boots could do any real damage.  His hands circled her
waist in a tight hold.

“Calm down,
missy,” he hollered. Keeping a firm grip on her, he danced the two of them
around the cave, trying to avoid her bruising kicks.  “I’m not
ignorant.  It was just a stupid joke.  That’s what Leroy always
called you.  His little half-breed.”

Josie abruptly
stopped fighting and glowered up at him.  His arms were still holding her
tight, squeezing her shoulders together.  “What did you say?” she asked.

He lowered her to
the ground and repeated himself.  “I said that’s how Leroy referred to
you.  But I think he was teasing.”

Shrugging out of
his arms, she backed up and continued to stare. The racing of her pulse began
to slow. Pushing a strand of flyaway hair from her face she stammered, “You…you
knew my pa?”

For the first
time, she took a real hard look at the cowboy.  His mouth drew into a
tight line, but he was awfully good-looking, for an outlaw.  His
sun-soaked face was unshaven, his jaw was square like a chiseled piece of
granite, and his brown eyes were…well, they were so beautiful and mesmerizing,
she felt like climbing right into them. 

She changed her
mind about the mesmerizing eyes when he spit out his hateful answer.  “I
knew your pa, all right,” he growled.  “He was a no-good, low-down, common
thief who got what he deserved when they hung him.”

Shocked by the
venom spewed from the man’s mouth, she opened her own mouth to retort, but for
once, nothing came out.  After staring into his flashing eyes for several
moments, Josie lowered her head, realizing she couldn’t argue with him on that
count.  “What did he do to you?” she asked, softly.  Her lungs
suddenly felt deflated.

“He stole my life,” he
answered, curling his lip.  “All my plans were ruined on account of that
sonofabitch.  He took what was rightfully mine, and I fully intend to get
it back.  Right here, right now.” 

“What was it he
took?”

A few silent moments
ticked by before he spoke.  “I was prospecting at White Oaks a few months
ago. Leroy and I found ourselves camping next to each other, and we occasionally
shared tools.  He was a good one for a tall tale, and he wasn’t a bad cook
either, so I tolerated him, despite the fact that he didn’t consider bathing a
high priority.”

Despite herself, Josie
couldn’t help but smile.

“One day, I was sitting on
a boulder, alone, eating my lunch. My eye caught the glistening of what looked
like crystals in a nearby rock.  Striking the stone with my pick, I
exposed the largest vein anybody had found in White Oaks, as far as I
knew.  I worked like a dog for three long days and kept the discovery to
myself.  I didn’t trust anyone, especially not Leroy. There was a look in
his eye that told me to be wary. He was a drinker, too.  Put a few beers
in the man and he’d blab everything he knew.  Turns out, my intuition not to
trust him was dead on, only he wasn’t the big, dumb fool I thought him to
be.  One morning it was all gone—my money, my future, everything I’d
worked so hard for—and Leroy was gone with it.”

“How do you know it was my
pa who took your discovery?” she asked, unconvinced his story wasn’t more than
a yarn.

“Because another miner saw
him hightail it out of camp before the sun came up the next morning. 
There was no one else it could have been. I figured Leroy followed me to the
vein that last day, saw where I hid my stash, and skedaddled with it under
cover of night when I was sleeping.”

Josie tilted her
head.  “Guess you were pretty stupid to leave your discovery stashed where
anybody could have taken it,” she scolded.  “If it’d been me, I would have
slept with it under my pillow.”

He balled his fists like
he wanted to punch something—or someone.

“You say he took your
money?  How much?” she wanted to know.

He narrowed his eyes into
slits.  “That lying, cheating pa of yours stole five thousand dollars from
me.”

Josie’s eyes
enlarged, and she slapped a hand over her heart. “I don’t believe you! Five
thousand, you say?  Cash money?”

“No.  Not
cash.  Pure gold nuggets.” The man’s stare was defiant, daring her to say
more.

She felt like a
horse had just kicked her in the head.  She blinked her eyes.  “Gold,
you say?”

He nodded.

“Then why on earth
have you been following me?  I don’t have any gold!” she exclaimed. 
“My pa didn’t give me any nuggets.”

His lips drew
tight again.  “No, but he gave you a map.”  His head nodded firmly
toward the parchment. “It shows a trail, and at the end of that trail is my
gold.  I’m sure of it.”

Josie shook her
head.  Her mind spun like a top, and the beats of her heart skipped. 
“I’m confused.  What’s your name?  How do I know you’re not trying to
steal my
pa’s
gold?  Maybe
he
mined the gold and it
rightfully belongs to
me
?  How do you even know about the map if my
pa made it?”

The man drew a
deep breath into his lungs, and then silently turned and retreated from the
cave. Her gaze followed him as he stepped into the dark and sauntered past
Traveler.  When he returned a moment later, his arm was full of tinder. He
tossed the sticks on the dying embers, knelt and softly blew on the ash,
bringing the heat back to flame.  She didn’t realize how cold she’d gotten
until she felt the crackling fire warming up the toes inside her boots. 
Tapping her foot on the ground, she waited impatiently, wanting some answers.

“Sit down,” he
ordered.  He bent over and picked up his pistol from the ground and stuck
it in the holster on his hip. Her breath caught as she watched him flick her
derringer into the palm of his big hand, too. In all the confusion, she’d
totally forgotten about the guns on the ground.

 “I’ll keep this for
now,” he told her.  He slipped the small gun into the waistband of his
tight black pants and took a seat in the dirt.

Josie pursed her
lips and hesitantly sat crossed-legged near the fire, anxious for him to
explain further.

“My name is
Paladin. Grey Paladin.  I’m not going to waste my breath trying to
convince you that gold is mine.  Believe me or not.  I don’t give a
fig.  Either way, I’m taking that map and going after the nuggets. 
You and I both know your pa was a lazy, no account vagabond who probably never
did an honorable day’s work in his life.  And we both know he’s never done
right by you.  But that don’t mean I have to give up what’s mine.”

Josie gazed into
the fire. “Vagabond?  That’s fancy talk for a cowboy,” she teased,
frowning at him.

“The truth hurts,
don’t it?” he replied, harshly.

Her throat
tightened.  Tears wanted to fall, but she wouldn’t let them.  The
stranger had hit a nerve.  Why was he being so mean to her?  Why did
the preacher want to hurt her?  Why was the marshal and Del determined to
hunt her down and ruin her life?  She’d never had anything to call her own
in her whole short life, except the cabin, and now it was gone.  That and
her ma’s porcelain bowl was all she’d ever laid claim to—all that ever meant
anything to her.  Now the bowl was gone in the fire, too.  If her pa
was giving her the opportunity to get out of New Mexico and start over, whose
right was it to take that away?  Not this dude, Grey Paladin, whoever he
was.  That was for
damn
sure.

Josie balled her
fists, and inhaled and exhaled slowly.  “So you knew my pa.  That
proves nothing.  He was a common thief and you’re an outlaw.  There
ain’t no difference between the two of you.”  Her gaze flew to the fire,
dismissing him.