McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [118]
Too weary, dirty and overwhelmed even to speak, Lorelei found the place with her eyes. It was a white adobe structure with a sloping red tile roof, surrounded by low walls. She just sat there, for a long moment, staring at it, riding herd on her thoughts, picking up the strays. She yearned for a hot bath and a soft bed and a meal that didn’t include pinto beans, but she wouldn’t let herself think beyond those things.
“You all right?” Rafe prodded, when she didn’t move.
“Fine,” she lied, and tapped at Seesaw’s heaving sides with the heels of her inappropriate shoes. He took a few tentative steps toward the inn, then brayed and broke into a bone-jostling trot.
Lorelei used the last of her endurance merely to stay in the saddle.
AS SOON AS the herd was secure, Holt set out for the Corrales place, two miles west of town. He’d asked directions at Soledad and would have preferred to make the trip alone, but the Captain insisted on riding along. He’d been Frank’s commander in the Rangers, and that entitled him to go by his own reckoning and, though grudgingly, by Holt’s.
The farm consisted of a crumbling mud hut, a couple of skinny milk cows and a vegetable patch stripped to stubble. An old man in a sombrero, flour-sack shirt, worn trousers and sandals came out to greet them as they rode up. He was unarmed, but he didn’t look very hospitable.
Holt and the Captain reined in at a distance of a dozen yards or so and took off their hats to show they were respectful.
“What do you want?” the old man demanded in rapid-fire Spanish, and spat to let them know he didn’t think two white men on good horses were necessarily a promising sign.
Replying slowly, because he hadn’t had much call to speak Spanish in some time, Holt introduced himself, then the Captain, and asked for Frank.
The ancient Mexican’s leathery face cracked into a smile wide enough and white enough to dazzle the eye. “You are friends of Francisco?” he asked, tossing in an English word or two.
Holt nodded. “Is he here?”
Frank’s father looked back at the hut, and two yellow chickens waddled over the threshold. His gaze swung to Holt’s face again, narrowed. The smile was gone. “Sí,” he said.
Holt and the Captain exchanged glances and dismounted simultaneously. Holt started for the hut, his strides long. The old man tried to grab his arm as he passed, but Holt shook him off.
At the doorway, he stopped, letting his eyes adjust to the dim interior. He made out a fireplace, a table and, finally, in the far corner, a narrow cot. Frank Corrales lay there, still as death.
“Frank?” The name came out of Holt’s throat sounding rusty.
“Shit,” muttered the familiar voice, as ragged and raw as Holt’s own had been. “Am I out of my head from the pain, or is that Holt Cavanagh?”
Holt gripped the wooden frame, weak with relief. “It’s me, all right,” he said, and stepped inside when he figured he could trust himself to let go of the doorway. “What are you doing, laying around on your ass, you lazy Mexican?”
Frank laughed and tried to sit up. “Just resting up for the next fight, you sorry white man,” he answered. He was soaked with sweat and his black hair was matted, but he was alive. Sweet Jesus, he was alive, and just then, that was all that mattered. “Christ, I thought you’d never get here. How’s Gabe? Did they hang him yet?”
Holt crouched beside the cot, laid a hand on Frank’s arm. Behind him, the Captain shooed away the chickens and came inside, his boot heels clunking on the packed-dirt floor.
“Gabe’s still in jail, up in San Antonio,” Holt said quietly. “What happened to you?”
Frank’s fevered gaze strayed past Holt to the Captain. He executed an awkward salute before replying, “The bastards dragged me behind a horse. Must have traveled a mile or better before I managed to get to my knife and cut the rope.”
“Who did it?” the Captain asked, and even though he spoke quietly, his tone was deadly.
“Templeton’s bunch,” Frank said. “Gabe and me, we were out hunting, and we’d just made camp for the night