Читать книгу The Outlaw's Bride - Catherine Palmer - Страница 9

February 18, 1878

Lincoln County, New Mexico Territory

Isobel stood, her crimson boots side by side like drops of bright blood on the snow. She stared at her feet for a moment, thinking how far they had come from the sprawling pasturelands of her beloved Spanish Catalonia to this slushy trail in the New World. Weeks aboard a wave-tossed ship, days across the Texas prairie to Fort Belknap, miles along the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail toward Santa Fe…and for what?

Sighing, she pulled her lace mantilla closer around her face, lifted her chin and walked on through the scrubby, wind-whipped trees. Her emerald hem swept across fallen, brown pine needles, the ruffle on her skirt rippling along behind.

It had happened here, she thought, near this very place. A shiver of apprehension coursed through her as she looked in the twilight at the secluded forest. Five years earlier, her father—the powerful Don Alberto Matas—had been jerked from his buckboard wagon and shot.

Isobel tightened her knotted fingers inside her muff and squeezed her eyes shut against the sting of tears. As a child, she had believed her father invincible.

Forcing away the fear that haunted her—transforming it to the more comfortable heat of anger—she gritted her teeth. Why had the lawless Americans done nothing to find her father’s murderer? Not only a murderer but a thief. The killer had stolen the packet of land-grant titles and jewels that had been her inheritance—the dowry to secure her marriage to Don Guillermo Pascal of Santa Fe.

She inhaled a deep breath of crisp, pine-scented air. Five years had passed, yet the anger and betrayal still burned brightly in her heart. Despite the pain, the five years spent managing her father’s vast estates in Spain had been good ones. She had overseen lands, governed workers and carved a faith that could not be shaken. And then she had traveled to America.

Though at twenty-three she knew her hopes of marriage might appear dim, she still was betrothed to Don Guillermo. She would see to it that he married her. She would recover her stolen inheritance as well. Isobel Matas was not one to cower when faced with a challenge. Glancing behind, she scanned the scrub oak and twisted-pine woods. The small party of travelers who had accompanied her from Texas to New Mexico—an itinerant preacher, a missionary doctor and his family, a schoolteacher—rested from the journey. Their horses grazed, tethered a safe distance from the trail.

The delay would put them in Lincoln Town after dark, too late for her to speak to the sheriff. She chose not to tarry and drink coffee. Instead she walked alone through the forest and thought about her father. If he hadn’t come to the New Mexico Territory, he would still be alive, his golden hair shining in the sunlight, his deep laughter echoing over the rolling hills of Catalonia.

Hoofbeats thudded across the damp snow. Her eyes darted toward the trail. Highwaymen? Banditos, like the men who had murdered her father?

Alarm froze her breath. Her traveling companions were too far away to be of help, and she had left her pistol in her saddlebag. Clutching her mantilla at her throat, she melted into the shadows of a large juniper. Leaning against the rough trunk, she peered through the lace in the direction of the sound.

“Things are unhappy indeed in Lincoln Town, Noah.” A young voice. English—not American.

“We’re glad you’re back from the trail. Mr. Chisum is wise to let you run his cattle. South Spring River Ranch profits under your management.”

Isobel counted three riders, one dapper in a brown tweed coat, the others roughly dressed, their faces obscured by hats and heavy beards. Livestock behind. More men at the rear.

The man called Noah rode tall on his black horse. He wore a long coat of black leather and was massively built, with broad shoulders and lean, hardened legs. With skin the color of sunbaked adobe, his face was grim beneath the wide brim of his black felt hat. His blue eyes flashed back and forth…alert, missing nothing. This man—and not the dandy—knew a dangerous life.

“Do you suppose Mr. Chisum would take my side against Dolan?” The young Englishman’s voice held a note of hope. He could not be more than thirty years old.

Noah shrugged. “Chisum stays out of a fight until it reaches his own back door.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Tunstall,” the third rider put in. “He’ll come out of that jail fightin’ mad against Dolan.”

“I expect so—” the Englishman began. A raucous squawk shattered the stillness in the canyon. Isobel stiffened.

“Turkeys.” Noah Buchanan rose in his stirrups and searched the gathering dusk. “How about it, boys? Let’s bag one.”

“Sure!” The slender man slid his rifle from his saddle scabbard. “Coming, Mr. Tunstall?”

“No, thank you.” The Englishman beckoned the three riders behind the packhorses. “But go on—all of you. Perhaps Mrs. McSween will cook it for us when we get to Lincoln.”

The men set off toward the nearby ridge. Noah glanced to one side, and his eyes fell on Isobel. He frowned. Reining his horse, he let his companions ride on.

“What have you there, Buchanan?” the Englishman cried out.

The American looked at Isobel an instant longer, as if to confirm the strange apparition in the woods. “Some kind of bird,” he called back.

She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. Bird? She knew the man might do anything. Yet there was something gentle in his manner. Perhaps it was the way he held the reins…as if he were an artista. She had seen the hands of a poet and she felt sure this man’s hands, though large and strong, held no malice.

Glancing at her one more time, his eyes flashed with—what was it—warning? Then he flicked the reins and his horse vanished into the woods.

Isobel licked her wind-parched lips. Looking up, she saw suddenly what the others had not. Forty or fifty armed horsemen guided their mounts down onto the trail from the ridge.

“Tunstall!” A shout rang out from halfway up the slope. “That you, Tunstall?”

The Englishman reined his horse. “Who’s there?”

“Jesse Evans. I’m with Rattlesnake Jim Jackson and a posse Jimmie Dolan sent to round you up. He made us deputies.” The riders advanced to within twenty yards of Tunstall, and Isobel calculated they would meet directly in front of the juniper tree.

“Come ahead, Tunstall,” a second man commanded. The blue light of the setting sun coated his heavy jaw and wide nose. “We ain’t gonna hurt you.”

“What is it you want, Jackson?” Tunstall kept riding as the men facing him lifted their rifles so the stocks rested on their knees. Isobel tensed, willing the Englishman to draw his own weapon. Could he not see these men meant to harm him?

Jackson urged his horse forward.

“Not yet,” he muttered to Evans. “Wait till he gets nearer.”

Isobel’s mantilla buffeted her face, and she struggled to push it aside. She must warn the Englishman. But at that moment, his companions burst through the trees onto the trail.

“Take cover, Tunstall!” Buchanan shouted. “Head for the woods!” “Now!” Jackson raised his rifle and fired. Tunstall jerked backward and dropped from his horse to the frozen ground.

Evans dismounted and ran to where Tunstall lay face down. He pulled Tunstall’s revolver from its holster and shot the fallen man in the back of the head. Then he turned the gun on the horse and pulled the trigger.

Isobel swallowed in revulsion. She realized that Tunstall’s friends had been too late to help him. They dispersed into the woods as the posse crowded forward, a mixture of triumph and horror written on their faces.

“With two empty chambers in Tunstall’s gun,” Evans crowed, “the judge’ll think he fired first. Let’s round up the rest of his men and give ’em the same medicine!”

Trembling, Isobel watched Evans remount and ride away. Jackson and three others remained. They stretched out the Englishman’s body and wrapped it in blankets. Chuckling, Jackson pillowed Tunstall’s head on a folded overcoat. Then he laid the horse’s head on the Englishman’s hat.

“This is abominable,” Isobel muttered, icy fear melting before crackling rage. And suddenly she saw her father—lying just as Tunstall now lay—murdered, with no one to defend him.

As she stepped from behind the juniper, the wind caught her lace mantilla, tugged it from its comb and whipped it across the trail like a dancing butterfly. She caught her breath. Jackson glanced up and snatched it midair. Frowning, he spat, and stepped over Tunstall’s body. “Don’t move, señorita.” His voice dripped with contempt. “Hey, fellers. Looks like we got us a Mexican.”

Isobel swallowed the last of her fear and remembered the raw wound of her father’s death. A familiar anger flowed. If she must die, she would die bravely. Lifting her chin, she stepped onto the trail.

“You…” She stopped before the men. Forcing herself to think in English, she spoke. “I have seen your murder. I curse you—asesinos—assassins!”

“You ain’t seen nothing yet, honey.” Jackson whisked his rifle to his shoulder. But before he could fire, a horse thundered across the trail. Its rider leaned down and swept Isobel from the path of a bullet.

“You’re dead, you little Mexican!” Jackson’s voice rang out behind her. “I swear I’ll kill you!”

“Keep your head down, lady.” Noah rode through the trees, one arm around the woman’s waist, the other controlling his horse. “They got Tunstall, didn’t they?”

“The man called Rattlesnake killed him,” she cried. “Give me your rifle and horse. I shall make them pay.”

“Whoa, now.” Noah reined his horse to a halt beneath an overhanging sandstone ledge. As he lowered his bandanna, he looked the woman up and down. Emerald gown, red ruffles, crimson boots. “Give you what?” he asked.

“Your horse. Your rifle. For revenge.”

Around them, all had calmed—the wind, the horse, the trees, Noah’s pounding heart. He studied her eyes, her nose, the high curve of her Spanish cheekbones and her lips.

“My father,” she choked out. “My father was…” Covering her face with her hands, she folded inward. Her shoulders convulsed as a sob welled from her throat.

Noah set a gentle hand on her back. “Now then, little lady, don’t you know revenge never did a lick of good? The Good Lord’s in charge of that. One way or another, He’ll see that those men pay. You put everything you saw right out of your head, hear?”

She nodded, dabbing her eyes. “They even killed his horse.”

Noah shook his head, then spoke. “The woods are clear. The posse’s gone to Lincoln to tell Dolan they’ve done his dirty work. I’ll take you back to your people. I passed them on the trail. They’ll keep you safe.”

He turned his horse, and the rhythmic gait eased the tension in his shoulders. Darkness like velvet silk enfolded them. Noah knew he must weigh the implications of Tunstall’s murder. But for now, he drank in the stillness, the quiet.

The woman had draped against him, her cheek resting on his chest. He recognized this was an improper, even dangerous, situation for a man in his position—single, bound to a mission and lonely. He had rescued her, and now, by all that was moral, he should move his arm from around her.

But she had closed her eyes. Her breath stirred the hair in his beard. Her hand…each individual finger…warmed the skin on his arm.

The horse picked its way up a hill. Noah watched the moon rise above the pines on a ridge, his heart heavy. John Tunstall had been a good man. And young, maybe in his early twenties. Now a powder keg had been lit. Though Alexander McSween was a citified lawyer, he would go after Tunstall’s killers.

Noah shifted in the saddle, and his thoughts swung away, too. The woman intrigued him. Her accent was Spanish, and she looked the part of a rich Mexican doña—green dress ruffled with red lace, red boots, jeweled comb. All this, yet her hair gleamed golden in the moonlight.

He gazed at the silken ringlet that curled down her back. If he took out her comb, the whole mass of hair would come tumbling down. Its mysterious, spicy scent would waft out into the air and—

“There is my party, vaquero,” she said suddenly. “And your amigos, too. You see the fire?”

Caught by surprise, Noah shook off his wayward thoughts. He had been on the trail with Chisum’s cattle many months. What else could be expected of a man who found his arms wrapped around a fine-smelling lady? He sent up a quick prayer to help him stay on task.

Tunstall’s men were standing with the other travelers around the fire. There was Dick Brewer—Noah’s closest friend and Tunstall’s foreman—along with Billy Bonney and several others.

“Miss Matas!” A young, spectacled gentleman hurried forward as Noah guided his horse into the clearing. “We’ve been worried. Thank you, sir. I’m sure Miss Matas’s family will reward you for saving her.”

“Not necessary,” Noah said. “Glad to help.”

“Oh, Isobel, are you all right?” A pale woman rushed to her side. “When we heard the shots, I was terrified for you!”

Isobel’s expression softened. “I’m all right, Susan. I was walking in the forest.”

“Did you see what happened, ma’am?” Dick asked her. “A man was shot and killed.”

Noah dismounted and lifted his hands. Isobel slipped into his arms, but when her feet touched the ground, he set her aside. He had been distracted by the woman long enough.

As Tunstall’s men gathered around, she lifted her chin. “The one called Rattlesnake shot first. Then Evans. The killers must be brought to justice.”

“Yep, and you belong with your friends,” Noah spoke up. “Leave justice to these fellows.”

“But, Noah,” Dick argued, “she’s a witness. She could help us. She could testify.”

“Dolan’s men saw her,” Noah told them. “Snake swore he’d kill her. She needs to get out of the territory fast. Where are you headed, ma’am?”

“To Lincoln Town,” she replied. “To speak with the sheriff.”

“Someone murdered Isobel’s father here five years ago,” the pale woman, Susan, explained in a soft voice. “Isobel is determined to find out who did it.”

Noah shook his head. “Bad idea. If you’re going to Lincoln, señorita, you can bet Snake will find you.”

“If one of us could protect her,” Dick said, “we could use her testimony.”

“How about you?” Noah suggested. “Your place isn’t far. She could lie low there until the trouble blows over.”

Dick looked away, his gray eyes troubled. “Noah, they killed John. It’s not that I wouldn’t protect a woman, you know that. But I was Tunstall’s foreman and his friend. I’m going after them.”

“We’re all going after them!” Billy Bonney stepped up. “C’mon, Buchanan, you can’t expect one of us to babysit the señorita. You’re not a Tunstall man, and Chisum’s in jail. Why don’t you take the job?”

Noah held up a hand. “Not me, kid. I’ve got papers to deliver to Chisum and my own business to see to.”

“But you told us John Chisum ain’t gonna sell you no land unless you can prove you’re willing to settle down and knock off that reputation you carry around. Now, say you come along with this pretty señorita—hey, what say you marry her? Chisum would sell you the land quick if you did that. You know how sentimental he is about families.”

“Marry her?” Noah felt the blood siphon from his face. “Billy Bonney, you’re a fool. There’s no way—”

“Can you be serious?” Isobel interrupted. “Never would I marry this…this dusty vaquero! I am betrothed to Don Guillermo Pascal of Santa Fe. Nor do I need a protector. I am a better marksman than most of the men in Catalonia and I ride like the wind. I shall go with you on this journey of revenge.”

“You can’t come with us,” Billy exclaimed, eyeing Isobel as if she were possessed. “The men who killed our boss have the law on their side. And the law in Lincoln County is as crooked as this trail. You’d best get on up to Santa Fe and marry your rich muchacho.”

“Not until I find my father’s murderer.”

“Isobel,” Susan broke in, “please consider what these men are saying. The murderers have threatened to kill you, and you have no protectors. Why not take on Mr.—”

“Buchanan,” Billy put in. “His name is Noah Buchanan.”

Lest the conversation erupt into a shouting match, Isobel had agreed to walk a short distance from the men to discuss the situation with Susan.

“Isobel,” her friend said softly. “Can you trust me?”

Nodding, Isobel acknowledged the truth. Though she had not planned to get close to the others on the journey, they had won her friendship after all.

“This is a lawless land,” Susan said. “If you insist on finding your father’s killer and getting your inheritance back, you must have protection. I know you ride and shoot well, but you’ll never survive against fifty armed men. If you won’t go to Santa Fe and get married like you should, let Mr. Buchanan watch over you.”

Isobel glanced at the huddled group of men. Billy Bonney and Dick Brewer clearly were exhorting Noah to action. “Don Guillermo may not accept me now, anyway,” she murmured, finally admitting aloud her fear. “Without my dowry, I cannot push for marriage. By law he should marry me, but his family is powerful.”

“Then you must get your rightful land. And to do that, you must let Mr. Buchanan look after you.”

Isobel knew it was the right decision—the only possible conclusion. She gave her friend a quick hug and hurried across the slushy snow to the men.

“Very well, Señor Buchanan,” she informed him. “If you agree to protect me, I shall bear witness to the authorities about the murder.”

“Sure, I’ll take you on,” Noah said. “If you’ll marry me.”

She gasped. “Marry you? Borrachón! What have you been drinking?”

“Not a thing.” He studied her for a moment, then gave a nod. “We’ll get the preacher over there to hitch us up. I’ll tell folks you’re the wife I brought in from the trail. That’s true enough.”

She stared at the blue-eyed man. “But I am already engaged.”

“And the last thing I want is to get married.” He glanced at Dr. Ealy, a missionary who was standing quietly in the background. “We’ll get it annulled later. Extreme circumstances…marriage without parents’ consent…lack of consummation…we’ll think of something. Once I convince Chisum to sell me the land I’ve been after and you settle your business in Lincoln, you can go to Santa Fe and marry your don. Meantime, I won’t lay a hand on you.”

“Whoa, Buchanan!” Billy laughed. “Don’t get carried away.”

“Naw, kid. It’ll all be on the up-and-up.”

Again Isobel assessed the bearded, brawny trail boss. Did she really need his protection? Probably. Her father had been murdered despite his armed guard.

Could she delay marrying Don Guillermo? Certainly. Her fiancé had never even responded to her letter of intent to journey to America.

Retrieving the stolen land-grant titles was her primary goal. More than anything, she ached to possess those rich pastures on which to graze cattle of her own.

“Very well, Mr. Buchanan,” she declared. “If you will protect me while I search for my father’s killer and recover my family’s stolen land, I shall marry you and prove to Mr. Chisum that you are very settled. And I shall be your witness in the law courts.”

“Then I reckon we’ve got a deal.”

Dick Brewer spoke up. “Stay at my place tonight, Noah, and head for Chisum’s ranch in the morning. We’ve got to get Tunstall’s body to Lincoln, and we can see the others safely into town.”

The two conferred a moment before Dr. Ealy cleared his throat. Accustomed to unexpected weddings, funerals and the like, he had agreed to perform the ceremony and wanted to get on with it.

Isobel barely heard his words. Instead she stared down at the pointed toes of her red boots. What had she done? Minutes ago she had been planning to marry Don Guillermo of Santa Fe. Now this leather-clad cowboy who owned nothing but his horse and gun would be her husband.

The ceremony ended, and Susan presented her friend with a bundle of folded garments. “Not much of a wedding gift, Isobel. But wear them, please. Those killers will recognize you right away if you stay as you are.”

As the shaken group set off down the moonlit trail in one party, Noah explained to Isobel the situation in Lincoln Town.

Jimmie Dolan had profited from his store and vast acreage by keeping the small landowners financially strapped, until the young Englishman John Tunstall had moved to the area. On the advice of his business partner, Alexander McSween, Tunstall had started his own store and ranch.

Dr. Ealy added that he, along with his wife, two young daughters and Susan Gates, had been summoned to Lincoln by McSween. “It looks as if we’re already in McSween’s war,” he observed, “and we haven’t even arrived in Lincoln.”

“Just keep quiet about tonight’s business,” Noah instructed the group. “We’ll do the same.”

As Isobel watched her companions head north in the darkness, she and Noah turned their horses east. Less than an hour later, they arrived at an old cabin with a sagging front porch. With some trepidation, she followed this man who was no more than a stranger up the steps.

Without speaking, he lit two oil lamps and began to build a fire. She watched him work, appraising biceps that bunched as he placed logs on crackling kindling, brown fingers that set an iron pot he had filled with water on a hook above the blaze. Broad back. Shaggy brown hair and beard. Muddy boots. Leather chaps. Such a common man, this Noah Buchanan.

“Like to wash up?” He asked the question so abruptly that she took a step backward.

He dusted his hands on his thighs before pushing open a door and carrying her bag into a small bedroom. She followed, surveying with some dismay the narrow iron bed, the washstand with its chipped white crockery, the window fitted with paper. Noah filled a cracked bowl with heated water, then shut the door behind him.

Isobel walked to the door and listened to him whistling in the other room. Dare she trust the man? She slid her revolver from her bag and set it on a table near the tub. With another glance at the door, she changed into a nightgown. Then she removed her comb, dipped her hands into the water and finally began to relax.

Curling onto the narrow bed, she sighed deeply. But as sleep crept over her, a movement rippled behind her eyelids. Horses cantering up a trail. Men shouting. Gunshots.

Noah sat on a three-legged stool before the fire and warmed his hands. A second pot of water had begun to steam. The woman in the next room would be asleep by now. No matter how hotheaded, she must be exhausted.

He smiled and shook his head as he filled a large basin with hot water and set to shaving his whiskers off with Dick Brewer’s straight razor.

Good old Dick. As Tunstall’s foreman, he was bound to get into the thick of the trouble. Noah peered into a mirror hung by the iron cookstove. If Dick got hurt, he couldn’t stand by, no matter what he’d promised the señorita.

Of course, the way she’d acted today, he’d probably have trouble keeping her out of it.

He dipped his head into a second bowl of fresh water and scrubbed his scalp. She was crazy to come after her father’s killer all by herself. Of course he was just as loco to have married her. John Chisum would take some fancy convincing to swallow that one.

Trail dust was getting a little old. Noah looked forward to settling down and fixing up his own cabin. Then he could really begin to make his dreams come true.

He stared for a long time at the flames, thinking of the small packet he had brought in his saddlebag from Arizona, filled with pens and ink bottles. Soon he would start to put down the thoughts he had been having for years. Stories about trail rides, roundups, cowboys. Images and memories he didn’t want to forget.

The thought of writing sent him searching Dick’s cabin for paper. Maybe he would start right now—the tale of the señorita and the Dolan gang. He wished he had a blank notebook with him, but they were back at his cabin.

Dick never kept paper. He searched the first room and hesitated at the bedroom door, then knocked. When he got no answer, he wondered if the woman had left. He leaned closer, peered into the room, caught his breath.

She lay curled on the bed, asleep. A fan of dark lashes rested on each pale cheek. Her chin was tucked against her arm. Long, golden hair draped around her shoulders and down her side.

Noah took a hesitant step toward the bed. She wore a silky white gown but her feet were bare. He was staring at her slender ankles when she turned. A soft moan escaped her lips as she lifted her head.

Rising up on one elbow, she whispered, “¿Mamá? ¿Dónde está?”

She lifted her hand to her eyes.

“Who…who are you?” Her voice was husky in the night air.

“I’m Noah Buchanan,” he answered. “I’m your husband.”