Cherish Read online

  Just as that thought went through his mind, Race heard the snick of a gun hammer behind him and slightly to the right. With the lightning-fast reflexes of a man who’d been slapping leather most of his life, he dove sideways and brought his Henry around. Damn. Just as he had feared, they had circled around behind him. All hell was gonna break loose in short order, with bullets coming at him from both directions. If he wasn’t Johnny-on-the-spot with a slug every time a man showed himself, he and the girl would be eating lead for supper.

  Race jacked another cartridge into the chamber. Then, never taking his gaze off the wagons, he shoved forward on his belly to slap Dusty on the rump. “Hee-yaw!” he yelled.

  To save the girl’s life, Race would have sacrificed the animal without a qualm. But with men firing at them from a standing position at such close range, the angle was all wrong for the horse to provide protection. That being the case, Race saw no reason to let the loyal buckskin be caught in the crossfire.

  With a plaintive nicker, Dusty finally managed to lurch to his feet. Race sent the buckskin on his way with another slap on the rump, then sank back to the ground and drew the butt of the Henry snugly to his shoulder.

  For the next few minutes, the explosive sound of gunfire became Race’s only reality, the reports of his weapons imploding against his eardrums. The enemy had come in behind him with a vengeance, and they were deliberately drawing his fire. At one point, Race felt sure he wasted three bullets on a jacket and hat they draped over a tree limb. The bastards. There were so many of them, he had to react instantaneously to movement, and in the darkness, it was impossible to tell if his target was a man or a decoy. He emptied his Henry and one of his Colts, knowing as he began using the second handgun that time for him and the girl was about to run out. The thought made him feel sick, not so much for himself but for her.

  From out of the darkness came a sudden burst of orange flame, and a bullet whizzed past Race’s shoulder, hitting the trunk behind him. He returned the fire, cracking off two shots in quick succession at the indistinct outline of a man’s torso. He never heard the first bullet hit. The second struck wood, making a solid kerthunk that echoed in the darkness. Damn. At this distance, how could he possibly miss?

  Race fired three more times, and again he never heard the slugs hit their mark. The muted thud of a bullet embedding itself in flesh had an unmistakable sound, and he always knew when he’d hit a man.

  Trickles of sweat ran from his forehead into his eyes. He blinked at the burn and swiped his shirt sleeve over his face. He had only one bullet left in the Colt, and no way in hell were the bastards going to give him a chance to reload. The minute they realized he was no longer returning their fire, they’d advance on him. The trunks and saddlebags would provide no protection when the sons of bitches were standing right on top of him. He’d be as defenseless as a duck in a barrel.

  The rapid spat of a six-shooter suddenly broke the quiet, a spray of slugs coming so close that Race ducked his head. Then a sudden volley of shooting erupted from the opposite direction. Bullets spattered into the trunks and pinged on the brass strapping.

  He cast a glance at the girl, knowing what he had to do. Blessed release, people called it. Race had heard tell of it all his life. In this country, sometimes a man had no choice but to kill a woman to spare her a worse horror. Until now, Race had always considered it a man’s duty to pull the trigger, if and when it became necessary. Only it didn’t seem so cut-and-dried when you were the poor son of a bitch elected to do the honors. He had killed more men than he wanted to remember, but only because he’d had no choice. Afterward, no matter how deserving his victim, he’d always felt sick to his stomach.

  How was he going to feel after taking the life of a golden-haired girl who looked more like an angel than a flesh-and-blood person?

  The rushing sound of footsteps brought Race’s head back around. He saw the shadowy figure of a man running toward him. Reacting instinctively, Race took quick aim. But, no. If he wasted his last round on that sorry excuse for a human, the girl would be the one who paid for it.

  He had only seconds left. Everything that was decent within him rebelled at the thought of what he had to do.

  The strangest sensation came over him. On the one hand, he felt as if the seconds were flying by in a dizzying rush, but on the other, he felt like an ant crawling through sorghum, every move he made taking an eternity. As he turned toward the girl, the killer’s movements seemed sharp and clear and separate, like sketches on the slowly turned pages of a picture book: bending his knee, pushing forward on the ball of his foot, thrusting out his opposite leg. The man dipped his head to sight in on Race, his jowls shaking with each footfall, his hat bouncing and then resettling on his head.

  Race could hear every beat of his own heart, every swish of his blood echoing against his eardrums like a loud whisper bouncing off canyon walls. He grabbed the girl. Her head lolled as he lifted her, the loosened strands of her golden hair gleaming like quicksilver in the moonlight and catching on his sleeve. Cupping his left hand over the side of her face, he drew her cheek to his chest. His hand started to shake as he pressed the barrel of the Colt to the underside of her chin.

  Never had she looked more like an angel. That perfect face, sweetness and purity in every line. When he’d first seen her that afternoon, he’d thought she was too beautiful to draw breath. And now she no longer would.

  Race hooked a thumb over the hammer spur, drew back, and curled his finger over the trigger.

  Do it, he ordered himself. But his hand refused to obey. His arm began to tremble as he strained to pull back on the trigger.

  Then another shot rang out. In his side vision, Race saw the man stumble and pitch forward in a sprawl. His hat, knocked from his head by the impact, rolled on its brim and landed just short of Race’s knees.

  Dead? Race couldn’t stop staring at the blood on the back of the man’s shirt. Who had shot him? Race hadn’t done it. No bullets. No time to reload. His thoughts dangled in his mind like snipped strands of wire, going every which way and curling back on themselves. Guns seemed to be going off all around him. But no one seemed to be shooting in his direction now.

  Bewildered, he glanced first at one side of the arroyo, then at the other. In the darkness, he glimpsed the flare of gunfire on both slopes. Crossfire? Hallelujah! His men? They had heard the shooting and come to help him.

  Race couldn’t believe it. Was afraid to believe it. In his experience, that was never the way life worked. Maybe he was dead. A bullet to the brain, so quick and painless, he hadn’t felt the hit, and now he was floating somewhere between heaven and hell, caught up in a crazy dream. That made sense. Sort of. Only the girl felt too real, her slight body soft and sweet where it pressed against him, her hair tickling his fingers like scissor-curled strands of silk ribbon, her breath forming a warm, moist spot on his shirt. Not only that, but his oversize vest had twisted around her, and one of her breasts thrust through the front opening, her chilled nipple as sharp-tipped as a screw shank under the layers of her clothing.

  This was real. His men were truly up there.

  Still dazed, Race stared down at the girl’s face, deciding then and there that maybe she really was an angel.

  With the arrival of Race’s men, the killers ceased fire almost immediately and hightailed it, the tattoo of their horses’ hooves thunderous at first and then fading into the blackness. After their departure, the arroyo was cloaked in silence—the same absolute silence that had so unsettled Race upon his arrival. No night birds. No crickets chirping. Not even the wind seemed to blow. But then, after the almost ceaseless percussions of gunshots exploding in the air all around him for so long, Race wasn’t sure he would be able to hear the raucous cry of a hawk directly above him.

  A rushing noise moved through his head, sort of like a creek sounded from a distance, a high-pitched ringing filled his ears, and intersticed with all of that was the frantic repetition of one, singsong thought: Don’t let
her be dead…please, don’t let her be dead.

  Tossing aside his rifle, Race knelt beside the girl to make sure she hadn’t been hit since he’d laid her back down. He trembled like a palsied old man, dying a little with every sweep of his hands over her slender body, terrified that he might find a wet, sticky splotch of blood on her clothing. He was so relieved when he felt no trace of blood on her clothes that his breath stuttered from him, the sound ragged, partly a laugh and partly a sob.

  In the wake of his relief came a crushing exhaustion, the weight of it making his arms feel leaden. Resting limp hands on his bent knees, he hung his head, his lungs grabbing for breath with tremulous rasps, his body quaking with shudders. Okay. Both of them, okay. Thank God, thank God. Tomorrow would come, after all, for him and for her. Another sunrise, another meal. Life. A man tended to take things like breathing for granted until he nearly died, and then the simplest things seemed wondrous.

  The stupidest thoughts circled in Race’s mind—like how great johnnycake, burned on the bottom and raw on top, was going to taste for breakfast. Thinking of that—and, oh, yeah, of fresh-boiled coffee, poured from a sooty Arbuckle can, with grounds floating all through it—made him want to shout. No more complaining about the hardships of being on the trail. He’d shave without water, and be damned glad of the nicks because he could still bleed. And he’d bathe in muddy river water, no problem. And when his ass ached from saddle rub, he’d thank God he could still feel pain. He was alive. In one piece. Safe. And so was she.

  After assigning several men to burial detail, Race and his foreman, Pete Standish, returned to the cattle herd. Pete drove the wagon while Race rode inside with the girl. Half the time, the going was so rough that it was all Race could do to keep his charge from bouncing off the pallet. At one point, when the going smoothed out for a bit, he tried to get some water down her. Just as he tipped the mouth of the canteen to her lips, one of the wheels hit a hole. He sloshed water all over her, soaking her hair and the front of her dress.

  By the time Pete finally drew the oxen to a halt behind the trail-camp chuck wagon, Race was wishing there were a way he might weasel out of caring for her. She couldn’t be left in wet clothes all night or she’d take a chill. That meant someone needed to get her into a dry nightdress. The thought brought Race surging to his feet, and the next second, he was scrambling out the back of the wagon to go find Cookie.

  The cantankerous but good-hearted cook didn’t take kindly to Race’s suggestion that he assume responsibility of caring for the girl. “Hah!” he cried. “You gotta be jokin’. No how, no way. I ain’t gettin’ wrangled into doin’ no such thing!”

  “Now, Cookie,” Race replied, putting as much sternness into his voice as he could muster, “this ain’t a matter of choice. None of them prune-faced Bible thumpers in Cutter Gulch is gonna come huntin’ for you with a preacher in tow. Plus, I have a herd to get moved. I need to be supervisin’ my men.”

  “Well, now, that sounds like quite a wrinkle.” As Cookie spoke, he clanked the ladle on the edge of the pot to rid it of sauce, his green eyes flashing in the flickering amber light of the lantern suspended above him. The lamp hanger, a rusty iron rod with a hooked arm at the top, hadn’t been driven far enough into the sun-baked earth and wobbled a bit with every gust of wind. “A real bad wrinkle, sure enough. But it’s yours to iron, not mine. I’m a cook, not a nurse, and a danged good cook at that!”

  A short, stocky little fellow with long, grizzled hair as coarse as fence wire and a matching beard that billowed over his chest, Cookie put Race in mind of a stump that had sprouted new growth at the top. The tattered gray Stetson he constantly wore, even while sleeping, only added to the effect. Foot-long, corkscrew strands of grizzled hair poked out from under the hat brim like gnarly twigs going in all directions. Unfortunately, Cookie could also be as immovable as a stump when the mood struck.

  “I realize you’re a fine cook,” Race conceded, “and I know that cookin’ is all you wanna do. But this is—”

  “If’n you got ideas about me doin’ somethin’ else, you can find yourself another man to keep your boys’ bellies filled. Put that in your pipe and smoke on it!”

  Cookie always threatened to quit his job when the least little thing didn’t go his way. If any of the other men had dared to speak to Race this way, he would have cut him his pay and told him to ride out. But good cooks were hard to find, and Race couldn’t keep men on the payroll without one.

  “You’re the senior man, Cookie, and you know more about nursin’ sick folks than all the rest of us put together. The girl’d be better off with you tendin’ her than someone like—well, a young pup like Johnny Graves, for instance. Nobody’ll raise their eyebrows over you takin’ care of her.”

  “Johnny?” Cookie’s mouth fell open, his toothless gums gleaming in the lantern light. “You ain’t actually considerin’ him for the job!”

  “Not unless I don’t got a choice. I was just tryin’ to point out that of all of us, you’re the”—Race frantically searched his mind for a tactful way of putting it—“most seasoned.” At the expression that came over Cookie’s face, he rushed to add, “And the most trustworthy.”

  “Another words, too old to be needin’ a poke.” Cookie huffed with indignation. “And the rest of you yahoos ain’t?”

  “No, that isn’t what I meant at all.”

  “Too old to be a threat, then? Let me tell you somethin’, son. I need me a poke now and ag’in, same as the next man. And I ain’t trustworthy. You got no call to be insultin’!”

  Race could see he was losing this argument fast. “Come on, Cookie. Sayin’ you’re trustworthy ain’t no insult! I meant it as a high recommend. Think of the girl, why don’t you? Poor thing, seein’ all her folks get killed that way. Don’t you got it in your heart to feel a little bit sorry for her?”

  “Of course, I feel sorry. I just ain’t so sorry I plumb lost my mind, that’s all.” Cookie dipped a finger in the chili he was fixing for tomorrow, then popped the sauce-coated appendage into his mouth. The sucking sound he emitted reminded Race of a froth-nosed calf rooting for the teat. Cookie gummed the chili particles and smacked his lips, nodding decisively. “If that ain’t a fine chili, I’ll eat my winter drawers. Same goes if I let you hoodwink me into tendin’ that girl!”

  Given the fact that Cookie stitched himself into his longhandles with the first snow and wore the same garments until the following spring, that was saying something. Race bit back a curse and tried again. “You wouldn’t be saddled with her for very long.”

  “Saddled! Now there’s a word.” Cookie jabbed the spoon at Race’s nose. “Pete says her folks was a bunch of them there fan attics! Them there people that quake.”

  “People that what?”

  “Quake!” When Cookie became agitated, he had a way of squinting one eye closed and bugging the other one that made Race worry he was about to rupture a vessel. “You know, shiverin’ and shakin’.”

  “Quakers, you mean?”

  “There you go, Quakers! He said they was all wearin’ black, that they was the thee-and-thou type who talk so peculiar a man can’t figure out what in tarnation they’re sayin’. Call ’em whatever name suits you. Toss folks like that in a gunnysack, give ’em a stir, and you can’t tell one from another. They’re all crazy. That’s how come they’s called fan attics, ’cause they’re drafty atwixt their ears!”

  Race had to admit, as a general rule, people like that did seem a little strange. But by the same token, white folks had felt the same way about his mother, and her only crime had been the color of her skin. “Now, Cookie, there’s nothing wrong with folks bein’ different. Some of them Quaker types is probably right nice people.”

  “Holy and high-minded, more like. Them kinda women got so much starch in their drawers, they crackle when they sit! Last year I seen a bunch of ’em in town—in mid-August, mind—and ever’ last one of ’em was wearin’ black gloves, I reckon to keep their hands hid. Kept their he
ads down, like as if they’d go straight to perdition if they looked me in the eye. If that ain’t crazy, what is?”

  That was pretty damned crazy, no two ways around it.

  “You take a girl who’s been reared by glove-wearin’ fan attics, and you got yourself a girl who ain’t gonna be happy when she wakes up and finds out some man’s been takin’ care of her private needs,” Cookie predicted. “She’s gonna be a handful, mark my words! And I want no part of it. You decided to bring her along.” He jabbed with the ladle again for emphasis. “So you take care of her.”

  Race had never been one to fight for a lost cause. No matter what he said, Cookie wasn’t about to change his mind. That was plain.

  Dusting his black Stetson on his pant leg, Race returned to the other wagon, a loud whack of the hat brim against denim enunciating every thud of his boot heels on the packed dirt.

  Crouched on a bent knee beside the girl’s pallet, Race gazed at the black dress he held clenched in his fists. Not a scrap of lace, even at the collar, and the bodice was plain with none of the tucks and pleats currently in fashion. A girl like her probably did wear gloves in August. He’d seen her kind. They even tacked skirting around a piano to hide its legs and wouldn’t say the word “breast” while naming chicken parts. And here he was, about to lay hers bare.

  No two ways about it, she’d be fit to be tied when she woke up and would probably hate him until her dying day. Why that bothered him so much, he didn’t know. He was doing the best he could. At least he had thought to gather some clothing for her from the arroyo, and she had garments to wear.

  A horrible thought hit him. He wasn’t entertaining silly notions about her, was he? Like, maybe, that this situation would backfire, forcing her to marry him to restore her reputation? Hell, thinking along those lines was worse than silly. Plumb stupid said it better. He didn’t even know her name. And what man in his right mind wanted to be stuck with a woman who’d look down her nose at him for the rest of his born days? Race Spencer, the uneducated, rough-mannered, has-been gunslinger, wasn’t exactly the stuff a beautiful girl’s dreams were made of, particularly not a religious one like her.