McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [91]
“You ever see another monk? Besides the padre, I mean?” Rafe asked.
“I don’t reckon there are any,” Holt said. “The old codger’s short a few rosary beads, for a fact.”
Like a bear, Rafe scratched his back against the corner of one of the four open archways surrounding the gleaming chapel bell. “I wouldn’t say this to anybody but you,” he confided, “but there are moments when I’m not sure the friar’s any more real than his Christian brothers.”
“Now that’s just plain ridiculous,” Holt answered, though down deep he wasn’t so sure. He’d seen some strange things in his travels, things he couldn’t explain, and therefore chose not to think about. Most of the time, anyhow. He straightened, glad of a distraction, as something in the distance caught his eye.
“What?” Rafe asked, coming to attention.
“Indians,” Holt said. There were six of them, mounted on nimble ponies, taking shape out of the shadows. One by one, they drew up, maybe two hundred yards from the gate.
Rafe moved to ring the bell, the agreed-upon signal that would rouse the other men for a fight.
Holt held up one hand to stay him. “Wait,” he rasped.
The braves seemed poised at the outside perimeter of an invisible circle—their horses fidgeted, as if unwilling to come closer.
“What the hell?” Rafe murmured.
“Look at them,” Holt answered, never taking his eyes off the riders. “They’re scared.”
“Scared? I never heard of a Comanche being scared of anything. They’ve been watching us—they know we’d be no threat to them in a fight, with the women and that wagon slowing us down.”
He couldn’t have made a case for what he was thinking. It was instinct, and guesswork, but it rang true, so he said it. “It’s not us they’re worried about. It’s this place.”
Rafe frowned, peered out at the visitors. “I don’t like this,” he said. “Most likely, they mean to jump us as soon as we pull out of here tomorrow morning.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” Holt mused. “They’re superstitious as hell. There’s a good chance they think we’re bad medicine, if we’d spend the night inside this mission.”
Rafe frowned. “Seems to me you’re assuming a lot,” he said. Unconsciously, he shoved a hand through his hair—perhaps remembering poor Horace Jackson’s fate and reflecting that he’d prefer to keep it.
Holt started down the ladder, gripping the rungs with one hand, carrying his rifle in the other.
“Where the devil do you think you’re going?” Rafe growled, starting down after him.
“Out there,” Holt answered, reaching the bottom and striding for the gates, which loomed on the other side of the courtyard.
“The hell you are!” Rafe protested. “Unless you’re looking to get an arrow in your gizzard—”
“If I’m right,” Holt said, raising the heavy latch, “it means we have a clear trail to Laredo.”
“And if you’re wrong,” Rafe countered, in an outraged whisper, “it means you’ll be dead!”
Not bothering with a reply, Holt swung the gate open and stepped through. Rafe followed, but he wasn’t happy about it, and he had his rifle at the ready.
The Indians didn’t move, except to control their nervous ponies. Devils that they were, the Comanches were the best horsemen Holt had ever seen. It was as if they became part of the animal the moment they mounted, took over its mind and heart, made its four legs their own.
“Jesus, Holt,” Rafe ground out, when Holt kept walking toward the little band of Indians. “You’re as loco as the padre!”
“Maybe,” Holt said. He kept an eye on the Comanches the whole time, especially the obvious leader, but none of them moved to pull an arrow from the full quivers on their backs, or reach for a knife.
Rafe stuck with him, though he clearly didn’t appreciate being called upon to do it. Given his druthers, Holt would have preferred his brother to stay inside the gates, where it was reasonably safe, but he knew it would be a waste of time and breath to ask. Disgruntled as he was, it probably never occurred to Rafe to back down.
Since Holt didn’t know just what constituted the edge of that imaginary circle, he came to an easy stop about twenty yards from the Indians.
The leader