stepped in front of her. Only inches away, Wes blocked Allie’s view of the advancing couple.
‘‘Wait!’’ His voice was as hard as granite. ‘‘You’ll not touch her.’’
‘‘Who do you think you are?’’ Marvel huffed. ‘‘We is this girl’s family.’’
‘‘I don’t think so. I’ll not have Allie tied up and broken like an animal.’’ Wes raised a gun he’d pulled from the desk drawer. ‘‘And if you take one more step toward her, you’ll be showing little value for your own life.’’
Marvel glanced at Nichole but found no sympathy. ‘‘Who do you people think you are?’’ She almost spit the words. ‘‘We got as much right to take her as you do.’’
Allie moved beside Wes and slipped her hand into the fingers of his free hand.
He jerked slightly and looked down at her fingers resting in his. ‘‘She’s staying here,’’ Wes said calmly as he closed his hand over hers. ‘‘She’s my wife.’’
Marvel started to argue, but saw that it was hopeless. ‘‘Hold on, Harold,’’ she shouted as though she were afraid her shy husband might advance even against a gun. ‘‘There’s another girl down at Fort Griffin that we might take a look at.’’
Harold nodded with relief.
Nichole ushered the Picketts to the door.
All at once, Allie was alone with Wes-and he was holding her hand. His fingers felt warm and protective around hers, not binding.
‘‘You didn’t want to go with them, did you?’’
She shook her head slightly and pulled her hand away. He was still so near, she could feel the warmth of his body. He’d stood up for her once again. He had no idea what it meant to her. This strange man with the thin scar on his face didn’t seem to know how worthless she was. He seemed to believe she was a person of some value. His insanity was flattering.
‘‘You’re more afraid of them than me.’’ His voice was low, only for her ears. ‘‘I guess I should take comfort in that.’’
Allie raised her head and met his gaze. Despite the hard set of his jaw, his brown eyes were warm when he wasn’t angry.
‘‘Don’t worry, little wild one, I’ll not turn you over to anyone but your real family. If they turn out to be like the Picketts, you don’t have to go-no matter what proof they have. I promise.’’
There he went again, she thought, promising. Like he could hold to his word. Like she believed him.
In the days that followed, several people visited. Some were bereaved parents praying for the hope Allie might be theirs. Some were bounty hunters paid by a family back East to find survivors.
Always Allie watched them, a tiny part of her hoping that she would see the family she’d lost. But the memory of her parents’ bodies piled high in a heap to be burned was still too real in her mind to let herself believe in a dream. She knew no matter how hard Nichole tried to help, no family would come.
Again and again, she moved close to Wes and slipped her hand in his, silently telling him that she would stay with him. And as always, he stood beside her, allowing no one close enough to touch her.
Each time, she left her fingers in his grip a moment longer. Each time, he silently accepted her gift.
NINE
WES FOLDED THE MAP HE’D SPENT AN HOUR STUDYing and leaned back in the kitchen chair. ‘‘I have to go,’’ he announced. ‘‘The Goliad treasure is real, I can feel it.’’
Both his brothers, across the table from him, frowned. Long past midnight, coffee and adrenaline had kept them anchored in the conversation.
‘‘It’s a wild goose chase.’’ Daniel folded his huge arms over his chest. ‘‘I’d never thought you’d fall for such a scheme. The map’s barely readable and obviously drawn with a hand shaking of age or drink. Texas is full of buried treasure stories, a lost Confederate gold shipment, Indian burial grounds, miners after ’49 who left their fortunes here until the war was over. How many others are you going to fall for after this one?’’
Wes gave him the look all big brothers give their younger siblings, the look that silently says, ‘‘I’ll always be older and wiser than you.’’ He’d expected them to be skeptical, cautious, logical. Even a little excited. But not blatantly disbelieving.
‘‘How much did you pay for this map?’’ Adam lifted the oilcloth as if weighing its worth and finding it light.
Wes grabbed it out of Adam’s hand, frustrated at them both. They had what they wanted out of life. Adam had Nichole, and Daniel had his daughters. Why couldn’t they allow him his dream? ‘‘I paid nothing. Vince gave this map to me for safekeeping a few nights before he died. He seemed skittish about someone trying to take it from him. He was always glancing over his shoulder as though a ghost followed him.
‘‘Since he died, I guess that makes the map mine. Vince told me once that his only relative was his grandfather, and the old man passed on soon after drawing the map.’’
Daniel shook his head. ‘‘There’s probably nothing there, or it was found twenty years ago.’’
Wes shrugged. ‘‘Maybe. But Vince said his grandfather rode with James Fannin at Goliad back in ’35 when the war with Texas and Mexico began. He said they left the mission with every man they could round up to go help the men fighting at the Alamo. Over five hundred strong, some say, a mixture of Texans and several volunteers from the southern states. Within a few miles, one of the wagons broke down, and they stopped to make repairs. Santa Anna’s army, still excited from their kill at the Alamo, caught up to Fannin and his men in an open field.
‘‘The grandfather told how they fought for hours, but it was hopeless. They were surrounded and outnumbered. Fannin, a West Point dropout, decided to surrender with the understanding that they’d be marched to the border and told to leave Texas forever. But Santa Anna marched them back to Goliad and held them inside the old Spanish mission. There were so many, only a third of the men could lie down and sleep at one time. As the days passed, the men knew their chances of dying grew. They started digging a tunnel, hoping to reach the river. By Palm Sunday of 1836, with the tunnel only a third finished, they knew their luck had run out. Santa Anna began ordering the men out to face the firing squad.
‘‘Frantically, the men pooled all their valuables and stuffed them into the tunnel. Then the last few to leave the mission collapsed the tunnel and placed stones across the opening so that no one would ever find it.’’
Daniel leaned forward with interest. ‘‘Then what happened?’’
‘‘They were all marched out and shot. Fannin was already wounded in the leg. He was carried from the mission in a chair, but insisted on standing for the execution. His last request was not to be shot in the head. The firing squad blindfolded him and twelve rifles were raised to his skull.’’
‘‘What about Vince’s grandfather?’’
‘‘Vince said he was with volunteers from South Carolina called the Rovers. They were told to march out as a unit, away from the others. At first they thought they might be taken to the border, but then they noticed the soldiers carried only rifles, not canteens.
‘‘About a mile from the mission, the Rovers were ordered to stop and kneel in the grass. Vince’s grandfather was toward the back of the company. He said the Rovers refused to kneel, and the army opened fire. In one round of blasting the first rows fell, screaming and crying in pain. Smoke from the old flintlock guns rose everywhere. Vince’s ancestor saw his chance. He ducked low and ran as fast as he could toward the river. He took a ball in the leg but didn’t stop.
‘‘He tripped and rolled in mud until he landed among the roots of the trees that grow along the Guadalupe. He lay there all day listening to the army hunting down the runners and shooting them. Finally, long after dark, he slipped into the water and floated downstream to freedom. He drew the map from memory, but the bullet he took crippled him too badly to let him reclaim the treasure.’’
‘‘But others escaped?’’ Daniel asked, suddenly allowing the boy to show through in the man not yet in his midtwenties.
‘‘I’m sure a few did. If they were healthy, they went on to fight with Sam Houston. But maybe they weren’t among the last to leave the mission and didn’t know where the treasure was buried. Or maybe they were like Vince’s grandfather and never could go back and claim it.’’
‘‘It’s a long shot.’’ Daniel shook his head. He’d never been a risk taker.
‘‘Yeah,’’ Wes agreed, ‘‘but it’s the only shot I’ve got left. That stampede at the Red River not only cost me the
