Читать книгу Apache Fire - Elizabeth Lane - Страница 11

Latigo woke to a spill of amber light through the barred window of the tiny room. Sunset. He muttered a bewildered curse. Had he slept for a day? A week? His blurred mind had lost all sense of time which, for him, could make the difference between life and death.

A mélange of mouth-watering smells drifted through the crack beneath the door. Chicken soup, richly laced with garlic and onions. Freshly baked bread. Hot coffee. Latigo’s empty belly growled in ravenous response to the delicious aromas. If the violet-eyed Widow Colby had chosen to torture her prisoner, she could not have devised a more exquisite punishment, unless she were to—

His thoughts scattered as the bolt clicked open on the other side of the door. In a flash he was fully awake, every muscle tense and quivering.

As he struggled to raise his body, the door swung open. Latigo’s breath stopped as he saw Rose Colby standing on the threshold, the light making a halo of the sun-colored hair that she wore in a loose bun.

She hesitated, then stepped into the room. Only then did he notice that she was carrying a tray with a bowl, a spoon and thick, buttered slices of bread on a china plate. Latigo’s vacant stomach emitted another loud rumble, causing her left eyebrow to twitch in wary amusement.

“I, uh, see you’re hungry.” She was wearing a calico apron over a faded chambray gown that narrowed enticingly at her slender waist. She looked young and tender and vulnerable.

“How long have I been asleep?” Latigo eased his painracked body upward as she put the tray down on the nightstand and bent close to adjust the pillow behind him, washing his senses with the subtle aroma of lavender soap. He imagined reaching up and tugging the pins from her hair, letting it fall around his face in a cascade of fragrant, golden silk. He imagined fondling it, smelling it, tasting it.

But those kinds of thoughts were crazy, he reminded himself harshly. Rose Colby was a white woman, pretty, pampered and spoiled. She wouldn’t condescend to spit on a man like him, let alone allow him to touch her. His time would be better spent figuring out what she’d done with the pistol and how he could get his hands on it.

“You’ve been asleep for nearly twelve hours, and I can see it’s done you a world of good,” she said briskly, pulling a chair up to the bed and sitting down. “Are you able to feed yourself?”

“Won’t know till I try.” He inched higher in the bed, the friction of fabric against bare skin reminding him that he was naked beneath the bedclothes. “Give me the tray,” he said. “I’ll manage.”

“In a minute.” She unfolded a linen napkin from the tray and spread it over his lap to protect the bedding from spills.

“You’re being awfully good to me, Mrs. Colby,” he ventured. “Why?”

She glanced up sharply. “Maybe I’m curious. Or maybe I just like a good story, and I do intend to get one, you know.” Her answer was flippant, almost careless, but her trembling hands jiggled the spoon in its bowl as she lifted the tray and set it across his legs. She was still afraid of him, Latigo calculated, even though she was trying her damnedest not to show it. Colby’s widow had courage, he conceded, for a white woman.

Dizzy with hunger, Latigo took the spoon awkwardly in his right hand and dipped it into the soup broth.

“It’s all right,” he muttered, determined that she would not see him spill. “Go about your business. I’ll manage fine.”

She waited in stubborn silence. When she did not leave, he focused his attention on raising the spoon to his mouth. But it was no use: he was as weak as a newborn colt. The soup dribbled from the shaking spoon and splattered back into the bowl.

“Here.” Her warm fingertips brushed his knuckles as she slipped the spoon from his hand. Latigo watched uneasily as she picked up the bowl and raised it close to his face.

“Don’t worry,” she said with an air of crisp bravado. “I’m an old hand at this. I had to feed John this way for four months before he…passed away.”

She dipped into the soup and thrust the first spoonful between Latigo’s parted lips. The delicious warmth trickled down his throat, jolting his deprived system to ravenous hunger. He gulped eagerly, noisily, shamelessly, as fast as she could spoon the precious liquid into his mouth.

She fed him with a practiced efficiency, but he could not help noticing that her hand trembled as she raised the spoon to his lips. Her gaze flickered away at every meeting of their eyes. Was she truly afraid of him or only repelled by his dark Apache features? Latigo could not be sure. He only knew that winning her trust would be like gentling a high-strung mustang mare. He would have to approach her gently and cautiously, and he could make no false or sudden moves that would startle her away.

Meanwhile, there was food and warmth and beauty here, and he could not resist savoring it all. Latigo filled his belly with nourishment and his eyes with the sight of Rose Colby, and little by little, he began to feel like a man again.

Rose put the bowl and spoon down on the tray, shaken by Latigo’s darkly intense gaze. “You can manage the rest,” she said, breaking off a hunk of bread and sopping it in the dregs of the broth. “Here—you’re going to be fine. I can tell you’re already feeling better.”

He accepted the bread in his elegantly long fingers, eating slowly now that the worst of his hunger had been slaked. “I’m obliged to you, Rose Colby,” he said. “And now, if you have any common sense, you’ll fetch my boots and clothes and give me leave to ride out of here.”

“You’re not strong enough yet,” she said. “You wouldn’t last an hour in the saddle.”

“Why should you care? I’ve invaded your home, held you at gunpoint, been as surly as a three-legged coyote with the mange—”

“I care because you saved John—at least that’s what you claim.” Rose caught the dark flash of his eyes. “If you’re telling the truth, I owe you for my son’s life as well as my husband’s.” She exhaled nervously. “I want you to tell me how it happened.”

Latigo had finished his meal. A twinge of pain flickered across his face as he sank back against the pillows. Rose stood up, lifted the tray from his lap and placed it on the nightstand, her breast brushing his shoulder when she leaned over him. Her face felt prickly hot as she lowered herself onto the edge of the chair. “Go on,” she said. “I’m waiting.”

“Do you want the pretty version of the story, or do you want the truth?” His hard eyes glittered with irony. A dark knot of premonition tightened in the pit of Rose’s stomach.

“Tell me the truth,” she said.

“You may not like it.”

“Go on. Tell me how you met John, and how you saved him.”

A cactus wren piped its evening song through the open window. Latigo hesitated, swallowed, then spoke slowly into the silence that followed.

“Your husband’s company had a reputation for fighting Apaches who couldn’t fight back,” he began, his voice as expressionless as book print. “Old ones, young ones, women—it didn’t matter as long as they were Apaches. This time they’d been chasing a bunch of Diablo’s squaws they’d spotted out foraging in the brush. They’d followed the women up a box canyon, bent on Lord knows what—”

“No!” Rose burst out in spite of her resolve to listen. “That can’t be true! John’s militia fought armed Apaches on the warpath! He was a hero. He was even awarded a medal by the territorial governor. I have it upstairs.”

“You wanted the truth.” His eyes had narrowed to piercing slits. “Do you have the courage to hear it?”

Rose stared down at her clenched hands, passionately wishing she had never asked him to tell her this story, wishing she had sent him on his way to take his chances in the desert.

“Go on,” she said, willing her voice to be as emotionless as his.

Latigo exhaled sharply. “One of the men in the company told me what happened. They’d managed to kill one woman and wound her baby when Diablo and his braves started shooting from the rocks above. The women scattered, and the Apaches blocked off the mouth of the canyon with a rockslide they’d rigged. By the time we came along, they had your husband’s company pinned down with rifle fire and were closing in to finish them off.”

Rose listened numbly, her hands clenched in her lap. The story was preposterous, of course, she told herself. John Colby had been a brave and chivalrous man, while this Latigo had shown her no sign of being anything but a lying desperado.

“I was leading a scouting party two hours ahead of the main column,” he continued in the same dispassionate tone. “We heard shots and guessed what had happened. There were only four of us, and we knew there was no time to get help. But one thing was in our favor—I knew the country, and I’d been in that canyon before. There was a way out, a side branch, hidden by rocks. The other scouts set fires to create a diversion while I went in after the trapped men. I had to save them. It was my job.”

“And you led them out, I suppose. You saved John and the whole company all by yourself.” Rose’s pulse hammered as she challenged him. “You’re lying!” she snapped.

“Lying?”

“John would never have pursued a band of helpless women and babies! And your story—it’s too neat, like something out of a dime novel! You didn’t save my husband’s life or anyone else’s! You’re making it all up so I’ll feel obligated to—”

The blaze of cold fire in his eyes shocked her into silence. “Your husband was wounded when a bullet grazed his left thigh,” he said. “I bandaged it myself. The wound wasn’t deep, but it would have left a scar.”

“No, you couldn’t possibly…” Rose remembered the raw, pink groove, newly healed, along John’s upper left leg. She had seen it whiten with time. She had touched it every day as she tended his all-but-lifeless body.

“Listen to me, Rose Colby.” The last rays of the dying sun blazed their reflected fire in his eyes. “I don’t know where you were during the Apache wars, but nothing about that time was noble or heroic. It was dirty and bloody and just plain, damned awful, and each side was as bad as the other.”

“My parents were massacred by Apaches,” Rose whispered, gazing out the window at the bloodred sky. “We were on the way to Prescott, and I’d left our camp to gather some nopales. I came back just in time to see them die. John’s company found me the next day, wandering through the brush, half out of my mind.”

He stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

“You were part of it, too,” she lashed out at him. “You were with the army, fighting against your own people. If things were as bad as you claim, why didn’t you leave?”

Something hard slipped into place behind his eyes. “Let’s just say that I had nowhere else to go.”

Chilled by the cold finality in his voice, Rose stood up and reached for the tray. “You can rest the night here. I’ll give you breakfast in the morning and enough food and water to get you to the mountains.”

“And a gun. I’ll find some way to pay you for it.”

“You can have some of John’s old clothes,” she continued, ignoring his demand. “They should fit well enough. I had to burn yours, except for the boots—” “You’re not listening to me, Rose.”

Her breath caught at his use of her given name. “No,” she said. “No gun. Supplies are one thing, but what if I’m wrong about you? What if you really murdered those two men? How can I, with any good conscience, give you the means to kill others?

“Anyway, your story doesn’t make sense to me.” Rose paused in the doorway, the tray balanced on her hip. “Why should white men ride onto the Apache reservation and shoot down agents from their own government?”

“Does it make any more sense to you that I would shoot them?” he asked. “I was responsible for their safety! I would have been the first one blamed.”

“Unless you’d somehow managed to be shot along with them.”

“From behind?”

Rose had no answer for that. She set the tray on the kitchen table and turned back toward the door, still hesitant. Lock him in and walk away, her common sense argued. She had already heard enough of this stranger’s talk to shake her world.

“Was there something else you wanted?” he asked.

The edge in his voice unnerved her. “No,” she said. “I only meant to tell you there’s water in that clay pitcher on the dresser, and there’s a necessity under the bed if you need it. Be careful getting up.”

He gazed at her in mocking, slit-eyed silence. Flustered, Rose spun away, swung the door shut and jammed the bolt into its slot. Then she wilted against the wall, eyes closed, heart slamming her ribs.

How could she let the man unsettle her so? Everything he said, everything he did, threw her off balance, causing her to question things she’d always been sure about, leaving her vulnerable, exposed and shaken.

Even now, his image flashed through her mind as she had last seen him—Latigo, half Apache, half devil, sitting up in bed, his beautiful, tawny chest and shoulders naked except for the dressing on his wound, the bedclothes scrunched around his hips—his jet-black eyes seeing her secret thoughts, thoughts no decent woman should be having.

It was as if, suddenly, she no longer knew what she believed, or even who she was.

Her thoughts flew to the baby. She had left him upstairs, fast asleep, less than an hour ago. He could be awake and crying, needing her.

Rose crossed the kitchen to the hallway and raced upstairs, urgently needing the comfort of her child in her arms. Mason was her anchor. He was her link to reality, to John and to her own duty.

Rose stole inside the bedroom to find her son still fast asleep beneath the soft lambs-wool blanket she had crocheted before he was born. Tenderly she bent over the cradle, her gaze caressing every delicate curve of his tiny face. She ached to gather him up, to hold him close and lose herself in the bliss of cradling his precious little body. But Mason needed his sleep, she reminded herself. He would be cross if she woke him too soon.

As she glanced up, her eyes caught the last glimmer of sunset on John’s medal where it hung on its blue ribbon above her son’s cradle.

Pride…Honor…Courage…Duty.

The words mocked her as the image of John and his cohorts, riding down on a band of helpless squaws and papooses, flashed through her mind. She slumped over the cradle, her whole body quivering. If Latigo was to be believed—and the evidence of the scar was too strong to deny—John’s militia had gunned down Apache women and children with no more mercy than the Apaches had shown her own family.

She had always believed John to be brave and honorable, and she had vowed to raise Mason by his father’s code. Now that code had crumbled away to reveal something she could not even pretend to understand.

Rose struggled to rationalize what she had heard. How could she judge what John had done? Terrible things had happened on both sides of the conflict Even Latigo had said so. John and his fellow volunteers had done no more than repay the Apaches in kind, following the old biblical law of an eye for an eye. Was that so wrong, in view of what Apaches had done to her own family?

Torn, Rose gazed down at her sleeping son—John’s son, too, she reminded herself. In a few years Mason would be old enough to ask questions about his father. How could she tell Mason the truth about his father when she knew so little of it herself? The quest for answers would be long and painful, Rose knew. And her search would have to begin now, before the trail grew too cold to follow.

She had not known many members of John’s militia. Of those she had met, most of the older ones had died, and the younger ones had moved on. There was Bayard, but— no, she could not go to Bayard! Not now!

Rose sighed raggedly as she realized her one sure source of knowledge lay downstairs, locked in the little room off the kitchen. For all his rough manners, Latigo was the one man she could count on to give her honest answers. He might hurt her. He might outrage and offend her, but he would not lie.

Tomorrow he would be gone. She needed to talk with him now, tonight, while she still had the chance.

Crossing the room, she raised the lid of the chest that stood against the far wall. Inside, John’s clothes lay clean and neatly folded. John was gone. Why had she kept them?

Maybe this was why.

Piling everything on the bed, she selected a cotton union suit, a soft gray flannel shirt, some woolen socks, and a pair of new Levi’s to give to Latigo.

The thought of opening the door and seeing him there in the narrow bed, his black Apache eyes as fierce and alert as a hawk’s, sent a strange hot chill through her body. The man was everything she hated and feared. All the same, she burned to know the secrets that lay behind that bitter face, behind the anger, behind the sadness that seemed to steal over him at unguarded moments.

Hurrying across the room, she discovered Mason awake and cooing. He smiled up at her as she lifted him.

Then, she kissed one rosebud ear, clutching the fresh clothes under one arm and cradling her baby with the other, Rose made her way down the darkening stairs. This time, she vowed, she would ask all the difficult questions, and this time she would not turn away from the answers.

Latigo’s pulse leaped at the sound of Rose’s footsteps. Strange, he mused, how he had already come to recognize the light, graceful cadence of her walk, the agitated rush of her breathing, the husky little catch in her voice when she spoke. Even blindfolded, he would know this woman from all others.

Sitting up in the bed, he waited tensely for the sliding of the bolt. He had not expected Rose Colby to return so soon, but he was far from dismayed at the thought of seeing her again.

Time seemed to stop as the door swung open.

“I brought you some clothes,” she said, stepping into the room. “You can have your boots in the morning.”

“Are you that determined to keep me prisoner?” he asked, half-amused.

“It’s for your own good. You’re still very weak.”

“For my own good, I should be leaving right now. I don’t fancy the idea of playing tag with that posse in broad daylight.”

“Then stay until nightfall tomorrow.” She tossed the bundle of clothes onto the foot of the bed. A wry smile tugged at Latigo’s lips as he noticed the union suit—one trapping of white civilization he had stubbornly rejected.

“Your husband’s?” he asked.

“Yes.” Taut and expectant, she lowered herself to the edge of the chair. Nested in the crook of her arm, the baby gazed at him with innocent, violet-blue eyes. Her eyes.

“You never told me how your husband died,” he said.

“You didn’t ask. It was an accident.”

“An accident?” He stared at her.

“Why should that be so surprising?” she asked.

“You’d mentioned hand-feeding him. From that, I assumed it was an illness, maybe a stroke.”

She shook her head. “It happened last summer. John had ridden out alone to check on the herd—something he often did. When his horse came back with an empty saddle, I sent the vaqueros out to look for him. They brought him back in the wagon just before nightfall, unconscious. Evidently he’d fallen, or been thrown, and struck the back of his head on a rock.”

“I’m sorry,” Latigo said, reminding himself to be gentle with her. “If it’s too painful—”

“No, it helps me to talk about it. Most people don’t seem to understand that.” Rose sat in near darkness now, her beautiful, sad face obscured by shadows. “At first we didn’t expect him to last through the night. But John was a strong man. He lived for four months, if you could call it life. He was bedridden. He couldn’t stand or speak, and he didn’t seem to know anyone, not even me.”

“And you took care of him?”

“I was his wife.”

Latigo gazed at Rose Colby’s delicate face through the soft veil of twilight. Pampered, he had called her. Spoiled. Lord, how could a man be so wrong?

“Of course, I couldn’t have cared for John all alone,” she added swiftly. “I had Esperanza to help with the housework and cooking, and Miguel to keep the ranch running. And there was Bayard, of course.”

“Bayard?” The name triggered a taste as bitter as creosote in Latigo’s mouth.

“Bayard rode out from Tucson as soon as he got word of John’s accident.” She paused, head tilted, lost in thought. “You know, I truly can’t imagine what got into him this morning. Bayard was wonderful the whole time John was dying—sitting with him by the hour, bringing us things from town…”

“If he was so wonderful, maybe you shouldn’t have been so quick to run him off!” Latigo growled.

He regretted the remark instantly, but it was too late to call it back. He saw her body stiffen and, even in the darkened room, caught the fire, like flecks of Mexican opal, in her splendid eyes.

“My relationship with Bayard Hudson is none of your concern!” she retorted sharply. “You asked me how my husband died, and I was telling you. That’s all you need to know!”

Silence hung between them. Then, deliberately, Latigo allowed himself to laugh. “You have a fine way of slapping a man’s face without touching him, Rose Colby,” he said.

“If that’s true, maybe I should do it more often!”

“It is true, Rose. Everything I’ve told you is true.”

“How can I be sure of that?” The anguish in her voice was real. She wanted to trust him, Latigo sensed, but she was still fearful.

“Would it be easier if I were a white man?” he dared to ask.

“That’s not a fair question,” she answered. “There are different kinds of white men and, I suppose, different kinds of Apaches.”

“That’s very generous of you,” Latigo said dryly. “So, what kind of Apache am I? Have you decided?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know you.”

She made a move to rise, then settled uneasily back onto the chair as if she’d changed her mind. Once more the darkness lay heavy and still between them.

Latigo battled the urge to reach out and demand to know what she was doing here. Her husband’s clothes had only provided her with an excuse to come to him—she could just as easily have delivered them in the morning. If she were a different sort of woman, he might have construed it as an invitation. But Rose Colby was not bent on seduction. Her modest, distant manner and the presence of her child were enough to tell him that.

“Light the lamp,” he said. “I want to see your face. And I want you to see mine.”

She hesitated in the darkness, then rose from the chair with her son in her arms. “The lamp’s in the kitchen. Wait here. I’ll go and light it.”

“You’ll need both hands,” Latigo heard himself saying. “Give me the baby. I’ll hold him for you.”

Her lips parted as her arms tightened around the blanketed bundle. Only then did Latigo realize what he had done. In his readiness to be helpful, he had demanded the ultimate token of her trust, a trust he had yet to earn.

“It’s all right, Rose. I would never harm your son.”

“I know.”

Despite her words, she did not move, and Latigo knew better than to push her. “Never mind about the lamp, then,” he said. “Darkness makes it harder for each of us to know what the other is thinking. Maybe that’s not so bad after all.”

For a long moment, the only sound in the tiny room was the soft rush of her breathing. Then she took a step toward him and very carefully held out her baby.

Latigo’s heart jumped as she thrust the small, squirming bundle toward him. His outstretched hands received the precious weight like a blessing.

“I’ll get the lamp,” she said, and walked swiftly into the kitchen.

The baby whimpered, then relaxed, gurgling contentedly as Latigo settled the tiny body awkwardly against his chest. In all of his adult life, he could not remember having held an infant.

An alien sweetness, frighteningly close to tears, stole through him as he cradled Rose Colby’s son in his arms. Most men his age had sons of their own. Daughters, too, and wives and homes. But a family had no place in the life of a man caught between two worlds. He was alone and destined to remain so, a fugitive spirit, tied to no place, bound to no other human soul.

Light flickered in the kitchen as Rose struck a match and touched it to the lamp wick. The glow moved with her as she crossed the tiles to stand in the doorway.

“Mason seems to have taken to you,” she said as she placed the lamp on the dresser. “He’s settled right down. You should be flattered, he doesn’t do that with everyone.”

“Well, let’s hope the boy acquires better sense as he gets older,” Latigo remarked dryly.

A wan smile flickered across her face. “I can hold him now.”

“He’s fine where he is.”

She settled back onto the chair, making no move to take the baby from him. Latigo watched her, savoring her gentle beauty and the fragile warmth of her child against his heart.

This was foolhardy, his instincts shrieked in the stillness. John Colby’s widow had lost her family to the Apaches and he could not afford to trust her. True, she had not given away his presence this morning. But under different conditions, she could easily betray him. Lovely, brave and gentle she might be, but he could not allow himself to fall under her spell.

“What are you doing in here, Rose?” he asked, his voice unexpectedly rough. “You could be taking an awful chance, you know. I could overpower you, force you to get me the gun, take you and your baby hostage to use against that posse.”

“You don’t hide behind children, or women, either, I take it. At least that’s what you said.”

“But what if you’re wrong about me?” he persisted. “What do you want so much that you’d take this kind of chance?”

“The truth.” Her eyes, reflecting the lamplight, held tiny gold flames. “I want to know exactly how you came to be on this ranch, and I want to hear everything you know about my husband.”

“Even if you don’t like my answers?”

Her pale throat moved as she swallowed, then nodded. “I need to know for my own sake, and for Mason’s one day, when he’s old enough to understand.”

Latigo shifted his body higher on the pillows. The baby stirred in his arms, turning to gaze up at him with wide indigo eyes, and he knew that whatever he said, it would be for both of them. And whatever he said, it would be true.

But would it be the whole truth? Could he trust her with everything he knew?

Gazing at her through the amber haze of lamplight, he cleared his throat and began with a question.

“Rose, how much do you know about the so-called Indian Ring?”