March 1995
Reissued May 2008
Prologue
1868
It was spring and all the world was in bloom, but the woman standing at the water's edge was oblivious to the natural beauty surrounding her. Her thoughts were troubled, her eyes sad, and a long shuddering sigh escaped her lips as she stared at the Indian lodges scattered across the valley floor.
Captured by Apaches! Once just the thought had made her blood run cold. But that had been two years ago; two long years since a dozen painted savages had attacked the stage coach carrying her west to join Hank. The other passengers had been killed. At the time, she had considered herself lucky to be taken alive. But no more.
Her heart was heavy in her breast as she gazed at the high purple cliffs that enclosed the emerald valley like loving arms, their craggy peaks as impenetrable and confining as prison walls.
In despair, she raised her great green eyes toward Heaven and whispered, "Oh, God, please send someone to rescue me from these savages..."
Chapter 1
1870
Ryder Fallon reined his trail-weary gelding to a halt in front of the squat, unpainted building, shading his eyes with his left hand to read the weather-beaten wooden sign that hung slightly askew over the sagging double doors:
ACE HIGH SALOON
LAST WATERING HOLE THIS SIDE OF HELL
There was truth in that, Fallon allowed with a wry grin, seeing as how there was nothing but sand and cactus for over a hundred miles in any direction once you left the protection of the dilapidated Army post that crouched in the shadow of a tall yellow bluff less than a stone's throw away.
Dismounting, Fallon tossed the gray's reins over the hitch rack. Slapping the dust from his battered black Stetson, he entered the saloon, his mind set on a bottle of rye whiskey and maybe a friendly game of poker to while away the time until the sun went down and the desert was fit to travel.
The saloon was crowded with men, most of them clad in sweat-stained Army blue. At the bar, Fallon ordered a bottle of whiskey and after taking the edge off his thirst, he relaxed with his back against the bar, a wry grin playing over his lips as he listened to a half-dozen troopers seated at a nearby table complain long and loud about the new shavetail at the fort, then go on to gripe about the food, the weather, Indians, stubborn horses, rank mules, standing guard duty, and the idiocy of drilling in a hundred and fifteen degree heat.
A quarter of an hour later, Fallon bought his way into a card game. He nodded briefly as the players were introduced: Sergeant O'Hara, Corporal Donaldson, and Corporal Harris. O'Hara, Fallon noted, appeared to be the big winner at the table.
Sergeant Beauregard O'Hara grinned broadly as the stranger took a place at the table and produced a sizeable bankroll. Old Beau was a big man, solid as a Kentucky oak. Clad in duty boots and sweat-stained shirt, there was little to indicate he had once been a dandy. or that he had once dealt for the house in the infamous Crystal Palace in Dodge City. But then, that had been twelve years ago. Since joining up with the Army, old Beau played Sunday School straight poker. Most of the time. But now and then he couldn't resist palming an ace, or sliding a few off the bottom, just to prove he could still do.
And now was one of those times. China blue eyes twinkling like one of Santa's elves, his thick lips parted in a disarming smile, Beau adroitly manipulated the deck, assuring himself of a full house, aces over queens.
An hour later, Beau was still grinning, and still winning. Feeling generous, he called for a bottle, smiled graciously as he poured all around.
"Southern Comfort," he purred, his soft drawl indicating roots in the deep South. "You just can't beat it."
Hands moving swift and sure, O'Hara shuffled the deck and dealt a new hand: a pair of deuces to Harris, who would bet on anything; a pair of sixes to the stranger, trash to Donaldson, a straight for himself.
"Cards, gentlemen?" he drawled.
Corporal Harris asked for three, thinking he was a fool to stay in with nothing but a pair of deuces; thinking, too, that a good part of the money carelessly stacked in front of O'Hara had been his when the game started.
"I'm out," Donaldson growled, tossing his cards into the center of the table. "I haven't had a decent hand all night."
Still muttering to himself, Donaldson pushed away from the table and elbowed his way to the bar.
O'Hara's placid gaze settled on Fallon. "How about you, stranger?"
"Two," Fallon requested mildly. "Off the top this time."
The smile on the face of Beauregard O'Hara froze and died there as the implication of Fallon's words struck home.
"Are you calling me a cheat?" the burly Sergeant demanded in a voice aquiver with righteous indignation.
"I'm not calling you anything," Fallon countered evenly. "Just making a friendly suggestion. Deal the cards."
"Not until you apologize for your slander, sir!"
"No chance," Fallon replied in the same soft tone. "Deal the cards.
O'Hara rose stiffly to his feet, bristling like an enraged porcupine. "Why you dirty, half-breed sonofa..."
Ryder Fallon uncoiled from his chair with the smooth easy grace of a sidewinder. "I don't care for the term half-breed," he interrupted, and now his voice was silky smooth, strangely at odds with the rising tide of anger visible in his midnight blue eyes.
O'Hara's face was livid. "I don't give a tinker's damn in hell what you like!" he roared furiously, and there was a sudden hush throughout the saloon as all eyes focused in his direction.
There followed a moment of taut silence as the red-faced Sergeant and the cool-eyed half-breed glared at each other.
For all his outward bluster, O'Hara was as cold as ice on the inside. During his years at the Palace, one of the first things he had learned was that a gambler who stayed calm and gave himself an edge usually lived longer than one who didn't. Some dealers liked to carry a sleeve gun, others preferred a knife, but old Beau put his faith in a
.44 Remington and a fast draw. He was good, and he was fast, and he had no doubt he could outdraw the dusty half-breed saddle tramp facing him
across the table. No doubt at all.
He was grinning confidently as his hand closed over the smooth, pearl-handled butt of the double-action revolver holstered at his side, and his last conscious thought was that he'd outgunned the arrogant redskin.
It was a thought shared by every other man in the room.
Until Ryder Fallon made his play. Later, no one remembered seeing him draw. One moment he was standing easy, his arms at his sides, and the next the Colt was in his hand dealing blood and death, as much a part of the man as his arms and legs. Or the color of his skin.
A startled look spread over O'Hara's face as the slug from Fallon's Colt slammed into his chest. Surprisingly, he stayed on his feet although his gun, suddenly too heavy to hold, slipped from his hand, unfired, and skittered across the rough plank floor.
"Well, I'll be damned," O'Hara drawled, and fell face down across the table. A bright red stain blossomed beneath him, soaking the faded green baize cloth, edging the cards and greenbacks with scarlet.
Ryder Fallon eyed the awe-struck crowd, but no one moved to take up old Beau's fight. Repelled by the bold challenge in the half-breed's eyes, they turned away, suddenly intent on their own business.
There was a quick resurgence of noise and conversation as the saloon's occupants gathered at the bar to rehash the shooting. Two troopers stepped forward and carried O'Hara's body out of the saloon.
Fallon was reaching for his winnings, unmindful of the blood curling the edges, when the solid thrust of cold steel against his spine jerked him upright.
"Drop your piece, easy like," Major Darcy Miller ordered curtly. He jabbed the barrel of his service revolver a little deeper into the half-breed's back, adding emphasis to his words.
With an air of grim resignation, Fallon laid his .44 on the table and slowly raised his hands over his head.
The Major relaxed visibly. "Corporal Harris, please bring Mr. Fallon's sidearm and his winnings to my office immediately." Darcy Miller prodded Fallon in the back. "Move it," he commanded brusquely, and Fallon obligingly headed for the swinging doors.
The Major's office was small and austere, consisting of
little more than four whitewashed adobe walls, a badly scarred mahogany desk, a pair of straight-backed chairs, a filing cabinet, and a limp American flag.
Darcy Miller waved Fallon into one of the chairs before settling himself into the big black leather rocker that was the room's only concession to comfort. Wordlessly, he took a pipe from the rack on the desk top, silently chewed on the stem while he contemplated the man seated across from him.
Ryder Fallon was a big man, six foot two inches of bronze flesh stretched over a lean, hard-muscled frame. Broad-shoulders and narrow-hipped, with high cheekbones and a nose that proudly proclaimed it had been broken more than once, he was a man who looked like he could hold his own in a fight. But it was his eyes that held Darcy Miller's attention. They were the coldest blue eyes the Major had ever seen.
"Would you care for a drink, Mr. Fallon?" Miller inquired at length.
Fallon dragged the back of his hand across his bearded jaw. "Why not?" he said with a shrug. "It's your party."
Without taking his eyes from the half-breed, Miller pulled a bottle and a pair of shot glasses from the top drawer of his desk and poured two drinks.
"Water?" the Major asked, nodding toward the carafe on the corner of the desk.
"Just like it comes from the bottle will be fine," Fallon allowed, reaching for the glass nearest him. It was good whiskey, better than what he'd been served at the saloon, and he sipped it appreciatively, wondering how Miller knew who he was.
"Do we know each other?" Fallon asked after draining his glass.
"We've never met," Miller replied curtly. "But I know all about you."
"That so?"
"Exactly so. Would you care for another drink? A cigar, perhaps?"
Fallon shook his head. "Just what is it you want from me, Major?"
Darcy Miller leaned forward. He was a tall, angular man with graying brown hair and wide-set brown eyes. A purple scar, souvenir of an Apache knife, puckered his left cheek, marring an otherwise handsome face. His service revolver, still clutched in his right hand, pointed at Fallon's chest like an accusing finger.
"I need a scout," Miller said, biting off each word. "A man who knows this country like the back of his hand. Perhaps you've heard that Kayitah and his cut-throats are on the warpath again? No? Well, they're raising hell from here to the Mexican border, burning homesteads, butchering innocent women and children, destroying everything in their path, including my last five scouts."
Miller's eyes glittered savagely, as if each incident of Apache treachery were a personal affront. "I want them stopped once and for all, if you know what I mean."
Fallon stood up, his head wagging slowly from side to side. "Get somebody else," he said flatly. "I won't scout against the Apache."
"You will," Miller countered firmly, "or I'll see you hanged for the murder of Sergeant O'Hara."
Fallon snorted disdainfully. "There's no way on God's green earth you can make that charge stick and you know it. Hell, he drew first. There must have been twenty men, including yourself, who saw the whole thing."
"All true," Miller readily agreed. "But if I say it was murder, I think my men will back me up. I am, after all, in a position to make their lives, shall we say, uncomfortable, if they refuse to see things my way."
A thin, humorless smile curved the corners of Darcy's Miller's mouth. "You will scout for me, Mr. Fallon, or you will be tried for murder tomorrow morning at seven by the clock, and hanged at precisely seven-fifteen!"
Fallon's eyes narrowed with impotent fury as he heard the Major out. It was no idle threat. The man meant every word, there was no doubt of that. Darcy Miller was all the law there was in this part of the territory, and his authority was absolute.
Fallon muttered a vile oath, knowing the Major had him right where he wanted him.
"I've been told your word is reliable," Miller remarked skeptically, "so I will accept your promise to lead my men to Kayitah's camp. Once they have sighted the hostiles, you're off the hook so to speak. Do I have your word of honor?"
"You've got it," Fallon growled.
"Good. You will ride out at dawn with Lieutenant Terry. Your sidearm and your money will be returned to you at that time. Corporal Harris will look after your mount."
"Whatever you say, Major."
Miller nodded; then, knowing the half-breed would not like what he was about to do, Miller cocked his pistol and stood up. "Until that time," he said smoothly, "you will be a guest of the United States Army. Corporal of the guard!"
Ryder Fallon's face was a mask of bitter outrage as the Corporal of the Guard and two troopers entered the Major's office, their rifles at the ready, their faces grim. Fallon had the distinct impression that the whole thing had been prearranged and that, one way or another, Darcy Miller would have maneuvered him into accepting his proposal whether he had killed O'Hara or not.
"Escort this man to the stockade and make him comfortable," Miller ordered tersely. His gaze lingered on the Corporal of the Guard. "if he escapes, I'll have your stripes."
Ryder Fallon fixed the Major with a cold stare as the Corporal of the Guard cuffed his hands behind his back. "Dammit, Major, I gave you my word."
"I know," Miller said with a sigh. "But this way we'll both rest easier until morning."
"How the hell do you figure that?"
"It's quite simple," the Major exclaimed as he holstered his weapon. "I won't have to worry about where you are, and you won't have to spend the night resisting the temptation to hightail it out of the fort before dawn. Goodnight, Mr. Fallon."
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CHASE THE WIND
Sequel to Apache Runaway
