A Lady of the West Read online

  He didn’t have time for explanations or reassurances. “Where’s McLain?”

  Carmita’s eyes were huge. “I don’t know, señor.” She swallowed. “He was in the library.”

  They stood one on each side of the library door, and Jake tried the knob. It was locked. He motioned to Ben, then stepped back, raised his foot, and kicked in the door. Ben went in first, diving through, rolling and coming up, but nothing else in the room moved. It was empty.

  “Goddamn it, where is he?” Ben asked, frustrated.

  “Like Garnet, looking for a hole.” Abruptly Jake looked up and his entire face tightened. What if McLain was upstairs, using the women as cover?

  He ran up the stairs with Ben right behind. He took the rooms on the right, Ben checked the ones on the left. They were all empty.

  Damn him, what had he done with the women? Certain now that McLain had them, he swore that he would carve the bastard up alive if he’d even so much as bruised Victoria.

  “Check the courtyard.” It was the last place he could think of for McLain to hide without having to leave the shelter of the house and face the firestorm of bullets outside.

  Ben nodded. “I’ll go around the house and come in the back gate.”

  Jake waited in the kitchen to give Ben time to work his way around. The three servants were still crouched on the floor, huddled together for comfort. “What is happening, Señor Jake?” Carmita asked.

  “We’re taking back our ranch,” he replied without looking at her, pistol in his hand as he eased the door open. “My brother and I.”

  Lola raised her head, her face strained. “Sarratt,” she whispered as Jake slipped out the door.

  Rectangles of light from the window splashed across the courtyard, illuminating some spots, leaving darker shadows in others. Jake could just make out Ben sliding along the wall, gun in hand.

  “Major?” Jake called softly.

  Hearing, Ben went motionless.

  “Major?”

  For a long minute there was no sound and Jake took another silent step around a bench, the very bench where Victoria had sat the day after she had married McLain.

  “Roper?”

  The whisper came from his right, close to the rain barrel. Every nerve in Jake’s body tightened.

  “Yeah.”

  “They said you’d gone.”

  “I came back.”

  Slowly McLain stood up from behind the barrel. The light from a window fell across his face, starkly etching the physical signs of his mental deterioration. He giggled. “I told ’im, but he didn’t believe me. Sarratt’s back, isn’t he?”

  Jake stared in disgust at the ruin before him. “Yeah, McLain. I’m back.”

  McLain giggled again. “No, not you. Sarratt. You’re back, but so’s he.”

  “I’m Sarratt.”

  “No, you’re Roper. You’ve got to find him and kill him for me. You’ve got to—”

  Jake moved another step forward, also stepping into the light. It hit him from the side, delineating the sharp planes of his brow, jaw, and cheekbones, making dark pools of his eyes. To McLain’s fevered brain his face looked like a skeleton’s head, a dead man come back to haunt him.

  McLain moaned, shrinking back from him, and the sound swiftly escalated into a shriek. “You’re dead!” he screamed. “You came back, but you’re still dead. Get away, damn you! I need a lamp! Someone bring me a goddamn lamp!”

  Jake felt his guts twist and a bitter taste filled his mouth. The man was a raving lunatic. The moment of revenge he’d waited twenty years for had finally come, the gun was in his hand, but the target was still eluding him, snatched away by madness. He wanted McLain as he had been twenty years before, not this slobbering fool.

  Without warning, McLain jerked his hand up, the pistol trembling in his grip. Frozen in bitter disappointment Jake was caught off guard, and even though his pistol was already in his hand he had a split second of recognition that he wasn’t going to be in time. Then a shot boomed from behind him, followed closely by another. McLain jerked from the impact of the two bullets, rising almost on tiptoe, the pistol dropping from his hand. He stared at Jake with virulent hatred.

  “Die again, you son of a bitch, this time I’ll kill you and make certain you stay—” He raised his empty hand, unaware that the pistol no longer filled it, and pantomimed the motion of firing. A look of utmost astonishment crossed his face, then it went blank and he died on his feet. He flopped, rag-doll loose, across the rain barrel.

  Jake whirled, his eyes blazing, to confront whoever had snatched away his vengeance, whoever it was who had saved his life.

  Juana stood with one of the Major’s pistols held at arm’s length, both of her hands clasped around the butt. Her face was expressionless as she stared at McLain’s body. Then her lips twisted; she spat at the dead man and whispered, “Good.”

  Ben walked up, and he and Jake stood shoulder to shoulder looking at the dead man. Jake was aware of an absurd sense of regret. It was over, the driving force that had dominated their lives for twenty years, but instead of the wrenching battle he had needed and anticipated, he had faced a man diminished by insanity, and the final act of vengeance had been Juana’s. In a way McLain had still won, for even though he lay dead at their feet he had robbed them of satisfaction by being less than he had been.

  It left a hard core of bitterness, this unexpected defeat.

  There was still gunfire outside the walls, but it was more sporadic now. It reminded Jake that it wasn’t finished, not until Garnet’s body lay at their feet, too.

  And where in the hell was Victoria?

  He and Ben stepped back into the house. Juana followed them, her face as blank as a sleepwalker’s although silent tears tracked down her face. “Dios,” she murmured. “Dios.”

  From the way she was acting, Jake guessed at what McLain had put Juana through. He figured her need for vengeance might have been as great as his own and tried not to begrudge her. He bent down and lifted Carmita and Lola to their feet, assuring him that they wouldn’t be hurt. “Where is the señora?” he asked. “And her sister and cousin?”

  Carmita shook her head, looking frightened. “I don’t know. They aren’t upstairs?”

  “No.”

  Carmita clasped her hands. “Madre de Dios! If they were outside—”

  She didn’t have to finish the sentence. He turned on his heel and left the house. If they’d been caught outside, stray bullets could easily have hit any or all of them. It had been a firestorm of flying lead.

  It was all over now. Those of McLain’s men still left alive were coming out of their various hiding places with their hands high and empty. Jake and Ben searched the area, turning bodies over with their boots, kicking pistols away from outstretched hands. There was no sign of Garnet, or of the three women.

  A cold sensation was freezing Jake’s insides as he looked around at the vast, dark land. Had Garnet taken them? If he had, Jake knew he would never see Victoria alive again, because she wouldn’t sit meekly while Garnet raped her sister. She would fight him and he’d put a bullet in her brain without a second thought. Despair congealed in a hard knot in his stomach at the thought.

  He turned back to the small group of men huddled together and picked one out. He thumbed back the hammer, knowing everyone heard the small click, and pointed it at the man’s head. “You, Shandy. Where’s Garnet?”

  Sweat began pouring down the man’s face, despite the chilly night. “I seen him ride out, Roper. I swear to God I did.”

  “When?”

  “‘Bout the time you went in the house. Him and a coupla others.”

  “Which direction?”

  Shandy lifted a shaking hand and pointed east.

  “Did he have the women with him?”

  By now Shandy was shaking so hard his teeth were clattering together. “No, I swear he didn’t.”

  Jake’s finger tightened imperceptibly on the trigger. “I think you’re lying to me, Shandy. T