Jeremiah swore again. "My God, he'll kill her if he finds out who she is! I stayed with him, trying to talk him out of this plan. When I couldn't, I left and headed here to warn you, but my horse went lame. Ortega didn't know where I was going, but he wasn't too happy that I left him."
Sensing the new urgency, Josh spurred his horse once more, taking them quickly back to the yard. The other men were waiting, wary and alert, guns at the ready, to greet the newcomer. "Gentlemen, I believe you all remember Jeremiah Logan," Josh said, ignoring their murmurs of surprise at the name. "He's going with us to get his mother back."
"His mother?" the men echoed incredulously, but Josh ignored that, too.
"Cody, go fetch Jeremiah's saddle and cut him out the best horse you can find."
The moon was high, illuminating the dark prairie in a kind of ghostly brilliance, when Jeremiah called a halt to the search. "The camp is up in there," he said, pointing to a huge outcropping of rocks several miles distant, the result of some prehistoric cataclysm.
"He's lying, boss," Grady insisted. "There's no way to get up in there."
Josh examined the possibilities skeptically and came to the same conclusion.
"There's a path up the other side," Jeremiah explained, undaunted. "I found it by accident when I was scouting this area for hiding places. It's steep and dangerous, but it's there. And so is Ortega. See the smoke?"
After a few minutes of careful scrutiny, the other men could distinguish a faint wisp of smoke threading up into the darkened sky.
Sensing that they now believed him, Jeremiah turned to Josh. "They'll have guards posted. We should wait here until the moon goes down. When it's dark enough, we'll move in close. Your men can watch the trail to make sure none of them get away. I figure one man has a chance of making it up to the top. I'll see if I can't talk Ortega into surrendering."
But Josh was shaking his head. "If one man can make it up, two men can. I'm going with you."
Jeremiah made an impatient sound. "She's my mother."
"She was a mother to me, too. You don't think I'll wait down here while you get all the glory, do you?" Josh demanded.
"Damn it, I'm not after glory," Jeremiah insisted, but he stopped when he saw Josh's understanding smile.
"She'll be mighty pleased when she hears what you've done," Josh said.
Jeremiah muttered something Josh didn't catch, and then he said, "I reckon I owe her that much… We better rest the horses," he added, dismounting.
The others followed suit, removing their saddles, too. Josh noticed that Jeremiah paused before pulling off his own saddle, as if gathering the strength to do so. Then he remembered how Jeremiah had approached the ranch.
"How long were you walking?" he asked, stepping over to take the saddle from Jeremiah's unresisting grasp.
"Two days," Jeremiah said wearily.
Two days, carrying a fifty-pound saddle. Josh shook his head. "You must be beat. Why don't you catch a nap while we're waiting? I'll call you when it gets good and dark," Josh offered.
Jeremiah glanced warily at the other men, as if he did not quite trust them.
"Don't worry," Josh assured him. "They won't bother you." For a moment Josh thought that Jeremiah might not quite trust him either, but then the black man dragged his saddle away from the horses and stretched his long body out on the ground, using the saddle as a pillow. Josh noticed the careful way he worked the stiffness from his ruined right arm.
"Does that arm give you much trouble?" Josh asked in genuine concern as he hunkered down beside him.
Jeremiah's wariness instantly returned. "Not since I learned to shoot with my left hand," he replied, eyeing Josh cautiously.
"Damn, I wish we'd had a doctor to set it," Josh muttered. "I hated like hell to mess with it myself. I probably crippled you because I didn't know what I was doing."
Jeremiah did not reply for a long moment during which he studied Josh's face as if measuring his sincerity. "I went to a doctor down in Mexico. He said he couldn't of done any better himself," Jeremiah admitted, no trace of bitterness in his voice. "He said I was lucky to have any use of it at all."
Josh showed his amazement. "I thought you blamed me."
"I wanted to," Jeremiah said simply.
Josh nodded his understanding. He gave his half-brother a friendly pat on the shoulder. "You'd better get some sleep. We've got a long night ahead."
"Josh?" Jeremiah said, stopping Josh before he could move away. "There's something you should know about this kidnapping. Ortega wanted your wife; I told you that. But he didn't just want the ransom. He wanted revenge, too, and the men he hired… He was going to turn her over to them to… to use…"
Josh shuddered as the horror of it washed over him in sickening waves. Felicity… He saw her beautiful face for just a moment and thanked God once again that she was safe. But then he remembered another who was in danger. "Candace?" he asked.
"I don't know what they'll do to her," Jeremiah said, the tightness of his voice revealing his own horror. "I doubt that they'll find an old black woman as appealing as a young white one, but who knows about men like that? And they may have killed her already…"
"We'll get her back," Josh promised, praying that he was right.
Much later, Josh crouched in the shadows at the edge of Ortega's camp, his pistol cocked and ready, aimed at Ortega's heart. Two guards lay dead at the top of the trail, and no one within the circle of the firelight even suspected that their hideout had been invaded.
From his hiding place, Josh could see Candace, gagged and tied hand and foot, but perfectly still. No one was paying any attention to her, but Josh could not tell if that was because they had lost interest or because she was dead.
The outlaws were arguing, their shouts liberally sprinkled with Spanish curses, and Josh understood enough to know they were angry because they had gotten the wrong woman.
At that moment, Jeremiah stepped casually into the firelight. "You fellows having a problem?" he inquired.
The argument instantly ceased as everyone turned to face the black man. Ortega broke into a new spate of cursing. "How did you get here?" he demanded.
Jeremiah shrugged with unconcern. "Your guards were asleep. Lucky for you I wasn't Logan. You'd all be dead now." He glanced with apparent nonchalance around the camp until his gaze lighted on the captive. "That's not Logan's wife," he pointed out impudently.
To Josh's great relief, Candace's eyes opened at this, and Josh saw them widen in recognition. No one else seemed to notice, however. They were too concerned with Jeremiah's presence.
"You can't expect Logan to pay a ransom for that," Jeremiah said, making a contemptuous gesture toward his mother.
Ortega grew defensive, unwilling to admit he had made a mistake in kidnapping the old woman. "She raised him. He will have loyalty."
"For a darky? And an old one, at that?" Jeremiah sneered.
"If a nigger dies, you just go find another one. That's the way it works now that we're free. 'Free' means we don't cost the whites nothing. Some colored folks say we were better off as slaves. At least the whites took care of us then, but those days are gone. She's worthless now. Logan won't give you a cent for her."
This started a new argument in which the other men reminded Ortega of his promises. Now they had no money and no woman, since they considered Candace unfit for their attentions.
Suddenly, Ortega silenced them all by drawing his pistol and waving it wildly, sending them all racing for cover. His black eyes glittered furiously as they searched the camp for any hints of further rebellion. At last his gaze settled on Candace. "I will kill the bitch, then," he said, taking aim.