McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [92]
Holt grinned. “Why don’t you come inside?” he asked, in his rusty dialect. “Plenty of good scalps in there just going to waste.”
The brave looked him over with contempt—most likely for his faulty command of the Comanche language—but his manner was sending another message, too. Fear.
“Of course, there are ghosts, too,” Holt went on. He took one more step, well aware that he was risking a hell of a lot more than his own hide. All these Comanches had to do, if they took a mind, was ride him and Rafe down. They’d get off a couple of shots, bring down as many as half of them before they bit the dirt, but the battle would be lost just the same, and the people inside might be slaughtered. On top of that, there were probably a hundred more renegades waiting out there in the darkness.
The Indians hesitated, then backed up their ponies.
Holt felt a rush of triumph. “For all you know,” he went on, “the two of us are ghosts, too. Bad medicine. Very bad medicine.”
Rafe didn’t say anything, but Holt could feel the tension coiling him up like a spring. Chances were, if the Comanches didn’t kill him and do some barbering, Rafe would, once this was over.
All of the sudden, the head warrior let out a blood-curdling whoop and thrust one fist toward the sky.
“I’d say it’s been nice knowing you,” Rafe breathed, knowing you,” Rafe breathed, “if it didn’t mean I’d go straight to hell for lying.”
The moment itself seemed to shiver with a variety of unsettling possibilities. Then, yapping like a pack of coyotes after a rabbit, the Indians reined their ponies around and scattered into the night. As the chilling cries and the hoofbeats receded, a stirring rose from inside the mission walls.
“We won’t see them again this side of Laredo,” Holt said.
Rafe gave him a hard shove to the shoulder. “Goddamn it,” he snarled. “If we weren’t standing out here in the open like the pair of fools we are, I swear I’d kick your ass on the spot!”
“You’re welcome to try,” Holt said, listening for the sleek whistle of arrows before turning his back on the vanished war party. When he was satisfied that he wouldn’t catch a shaft of supple wood between the shoulder blades, he started back for the gates.
Lorelei and Melina were waiting inside, both in nightgowns, with blankets around them. John and the Captain were handy, too, suspenders dangling, armed with rifles.
“Injuns?” the Captain asked, facing Holt while Rafe latched the gates again.
“Crazy,” Rafe muttered.
Holt nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said, out of habit. He’d ridden with the Captain for a long time, after all, and taken orders from him. “Six of them. More out in the countryside waiting for a signal to attack, I figure.”
Lorelei stood close enough that he could have reached out and pulled her into his arms, and the desire to do just that shook him the way a half-dozen Comanches could never do. “Attack?” she whispered. “I didn’t think they would make war at night.”
“They’ll ‘make war’ anytime it’s convenient,” he told her. “I don’t think they’ll bother us again, at least not until we’re on the other side of Laredo. By then, they’ll have figured out that we’re bluffing.”
She frowned, one hand clenching the blanket closed at her throat.
Holt felt an unholy need ripple through him. He’d wanted plenty of women in his life, and he’d had most of them, but there was something different about the way he wanted this one. There was an element of need about it, more than physical, and that scared the bejesus out of him.
“You damn fool,” John rasped, lowering his brow at Holt. “I ought to horsewhip you for going out there like that!”
The Captain grinned. “Now, John,” he soothed. “It was a stupid trick, no saying it wasn’t, but it worked. That’s what matters.”
John stood face-to-face with Holt, with the back of his hand raised, like he meant to use it.
Holt stood his ground. There were two men in all the world