She tripped over a stone, dropped to a knee, her left foot bleeding and aching.
The short man was on her, breathing hard. “You oughtn’t to do that, little miss. You’re apt to make me mad!” Jerking her to her feet and back toward the horse, moving quickly on his short legs, he said, “What you need is for me to take you off in the brush, teach you some respect. But Edgar wouldn’t like it. He don’t like us messin’ with his girls. You’re damn lucky I follow orders!”
Holding Karla’s right wrist, the short man climbed onto the paint, then pulled Karla across the saddle. She lay belly down between the short man and the horn.
She winced as the man reined the horse around and gigged it into a gallop back up through the steep, winding pass. As the horse lunged, Karla bounced across the saddle like fresh eggs in a buckboard, the horn pummeling her ribs. She tensed her neck to keep her head from slamming against the right stirrup fender. The man held her down with a firm hand on her spine.
She was going to die. She’d been so close to escaping and finding Tommy, but now she was going to die. She was certain of it. She only wished it would come quickly and relieve her of this misery.
Where the trail narrowed and doglegged, her bare feet scraped against the rock wall, evoking a moan. At the same time, she was grateful for the pain. The pain left little room for fear.
She squeezed her eyes shut and didn’t open them again until she felt the horse stop. Her face crumpled as the saddle horn pinched her belly.
“Edgar,” the guard said quietly.
Karla slid a look ahead of the horse. Ten yards away, at the very center of the saucer-shaped hollow, a dozen or so men lay under wool blankets, heads resting against saddles, hats tipped over their eyes. Some were curled on their sides. The fire was out, several ribbons of gray smoke rising gently from gray ashes. Bubbling, drunken snores rose toward the overhanging pine branches from which bloody black scalps had been hung to dry. The sickening smell of blood was relieved intermittently by the wafting pine smoke.
“Edgar,” the guard repeated, louder this time.
A man on the left side of the fire jerked awake with a grunt and snapped a revolver up from a coiled holster, thumbing back the hammer. The sudden movement made the horse shy, and the saddle prodded Karla again painfully. Several more men came alive, then, too, cursing and reaching for weapons.
“Hold it, hold it.” The rider raised his voice. “It’s Ramsay. Got a present for ye, Edgar.”
The man grabbed Karla’s right arm and brusquely tossed her from the horse. She fell on her back. Pain shot through her left elbow. She scrambled back against a boulder and drew her knees up, folded her arms across her breasts.
She raked her gaze across the silhouetted figures staring back at her. The man called Edgar slowly rose, letting his wool blanket fall from his shoulders. His pistol fell to his side as he moved toward Karla on long, skinny legs encased in baggy broadcloth trousers, like those from a man’s Sunday suit. The knees were patched with denim, and he wore red socks with holes in the toes.
Edgar dropped to a knee before Karla, and she recoiled from his cool appraisal. What she first had thought were pimples on his face were actually dried blood splatters. The face itself was long and angular, with an aquiline nose and deep-set eyes under a heavy blond brow.
His hair was blond and curly; heavy peach fuzz mantled his jaws. Karla winced at the fetor of rancid sweat, alcohol, and death wafting from his body.
“Caught her at the bottom of the mountain,” the guard said, still mounted. “Ridin’ like cans were tied to that horse’s tail. Naked as the day she was born, just like she is now.” He chuckled. “Ain’t she somethin’?”
Edgar canted his head this way and that. Set against his blood-splattered face, his eyes were oddly gentle, but in a demented sort of way. Karla flinched, smacking her head against the rock, as he reached up and took her chin in his right hand. He held her gently, caressed her cheek with his thumb.
“Injuns have you?” he asked.
Karla stared at him. She wasn’t sure how to answer. They must not know about Tommy and the other Bar-V men. If they did know, would they help them or kill them?
Instinctively knowing the answer, she nodded and squeezed her shoulders against her fear.
“What’s your name?” Edgar asked. Several other men had walked up behind him now, staring down at Karla. The alcohol and death smell was so strong that Karla’s stomach clenched. To avoid it, she breathed through her mouth.
“Karla Vannorsdell,” she said, her voice brittle. “I was captured by the Apaches.” Tears boiled from her eyes. “Would you please let me go?”
“Seen where she was staked out with the other girl, Edgar,” one of the men behind him said. “The other girl’s dead. Tossed her on the pile with the Injuns. Damn shame. She was near as fine as this one.”
Edgar nodded, his eyes glued to Karla. He gently grabbed her wrists and pulled her arms away from her chest. He stared at her.
“Please . . .” she begged.
“Karla, you are one fine-looking specimen,” Edgar said. “Damn shame. I’d like you for myself, but you’ll bring a nice price from Ettinger.” He glanced over his shoulder. “She needs clothes so she don’t freeze to death, and a hat so the sun don’t fry her tomorrow. Come on, boys. Cough up your spares.”
“Please . . .” Karla sobbed.
Rising, Edgar turned and walked back to his blanket, throwing his lanky arms out and yawning. “Tie her with the others. Good and tight. She’s a runner, that one.”
Chapter 14
When Navarro opened his eyes again, he found himself on a cot, his tightly wrapped head on a pillow. It was a flat pillow, but a pillow, just the same—the cover white and crisp and smelling like starch. The last time he’d rested his head on such a pillow, he’d been in the infirmary at Fort Apache, the stone tip of a Coyotero’s arrow buried in his leg.
Squinting against the dull ache just behind his eyes—he imagined a thin but painful fissure running from his right temple down through his right jaw—he looked around the long, sunlit room he found himself in. To his right and left, cots with wool Army blankets and pillows were lined along both sides of the room. Several of the cots were occupied—blurred humps beneath the blankets. At the left end of the room, two men in white jackets and soldiers’ slacks stood talking quietly, in businesslike tones.
A tall black stove stood two cots down to Navarro’s right, in the aisle running the length of the room. Sun glistened off the iron from the sashed, flyspecked windows cut deep into both adobe walls. A table stood beside the stove, draped with a white sheet and piled with silver trays and medical tools. There was an alarm clock on the table, ticking loudly.
Beneath the ticking, the shouted commands and marching feet of close-order drill rose from outside. A horse whinnied. Closer by, a man laughed, and Navarro gave his aching gaze to an open window across the room and ten feet right.
A soldier in a white shirt, suspenders, and a visored forage cap stood just outside the window, smoking and laughing in the arbor shade with another man Navarro couldn’t see. Tom smelled the rich aroma of their cigarettes. He took a deep breath, yearning for one himself.
He lay back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling, trying to remember what had put him here. Then he became aware again of the tight wrap around his head. He lifted his hands to it, felt the gauze strips.
It all came back to him at once, like a half-remembered dream: Karla, the Apaches, Dallas, and Charlie. There was something unreal about the memory. The sun streaming through the windows was too bright, the sky too brassy blue. The world seemed too calm and orderly, for him to have lost not only Karla, but two of his best friends, as well.