Chapter 2
Zak holstered his pistol, climbed up onto the seat of the old Concord. The woman lay on her back, her eyes closed, her face drained of color, a grayish tint around her lips. She was a beautiful young woman, with coal black hair, a patrician nose, fine structure to her cheekbones and jaw. Her lips were full and lightly rouged, and her cheeks bore a faint tint of vermillion, just enough to enhance her smooth, unblemished skin.
Zak straddled her, took her chin in one hand. He leaned down and blew gently on her face, then placed his hands on her shoulders and shook her.
“Ma’am, ma’am,” he said, his voice low, slightly husky.
Her eyelids fluttered, then opened, closed quickly again.
The sun splashed on her pale face. She wore no bonnet and a strand of hair drooped over her forehead like a brown tassel. She wasn’t down deep, he decided. Just floating beneath the surface of wakefulness. Maybe afraid to free herself from the darkness. Afraid of what she might see, of what might happen to her if she opened her eyes and kept them open.
“Miss,” he said. “You can come to, ma’am. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Her eyelids quivered. It was almost like a little spasm, a trembling manifested only on that part of her anatomy. As if, somewhere down where she was, she wanted to swim up, step from the dark ocean into the blinding sun. He wasn’t touching her, just straddling her, one knee on the floorboard for balance, the other leg pressing against the seat. He touched her face, smoothed his fingers down one cheek as if stroking her back to life in the gentlest way.
Her eyelids stopped quivering. Then they batted open and her blue eyes fixed on his face. He held up a hand to shield the sun from beaming down into her eyes. A shadow painted that part of her face.
“You got to wake up, ma’am,” he said. “Might be time you told me what happened on this coach.”
She closed her eyes, then quickly opened them again. Wider this time, as if she were alarmed, perhaps afraid. He eased away from her, scooted up on the far side of the seat. The sun struck her in the eyes and she winced, turned her head so the light no longer blinded her.
“Did you…”
“Did I what?”
“Kill that man. Jenkins.”
“He played the card.”
“Played the card?” She put one hand on the seat and pulled herself into a sitting position on the floorboards. She pulled the strand of hair away from her face, tucked it away in the folds of her hair.
“He called it. Opened the ball.”
“You mean he…”
“It’s not hard to figure out. You saw him. He had two pistols he wanted to draw on me pretty bad. It could have been me down there on the ground.”
“He’s dead? Jenkins?”
“Yes. If you mean that man on the ground there. I didn’t know his name.”
“He was driving me to Fort Bowie when we were attacked by some Apaches.”
“Did you see the Apaches?”
“Yes. Of course. They were all painted. They were brutal.”
“Did you see them scalp the two soldiers?”
“Yes. It was horrible. They—They cut their throats first.”
“I’ve never known the Apaches to take scalps,” he said. “Are you sure they were Apaches?”
“Mr. Jenkins said they were.”
“When did he say this? When they attacked, or after they had left?”
“I—I don’t recall. I think he said it when they rode up and he stopped the coach.”
“Did you hear the Apaches speak?”
“Yes. A few words.”
“Have you ever heard Apache speech before?”
She shook her head. “But, I did understand a word or two they said. They spoke Spanish, and I’ve heard Spanish before.”
“Were these men Mexicans trying to look like Apaches?”
She wrinkled up her nose and squinted, as if trying to think. “They might have been. I don’t know. It all happened so fast. Or seemed to.”
“How come you threw your baubles off the coach?”
He reached into his pocket, drew out the items of jewelry and handed them back to her. She put them in her lap as if reluctant to put them back on her person.
“I—I was afraid of Mr. Jenkins.”
