Heart of Thunder Read online

  “Mr. Peesley, a smile does not necessarily indicate affection,” she said. “I smiled at everyone that day, simply because I was overjoyed not to have to look at another stagecoach for at least a few weeks. I was delighted that the journey was over. I smiled at everyone. Do you understand?”

  “But your smile for me was special,” he protested doggedly. “I could tell.”

  Damn. She would have to be blunt.

  “I’m sorry,” she said tightly. “But you were mistaken, Mr. Peesley.”

  “Call me Tom.”

  “No, I won’t,” she snapped. “How can I make you understand? I have no wish to know you. I am in love with someone else, the man I came here with. Mr. Allston. That is who I am going to marry. Now will you let go of me and leave?”

  Instead of being outraged, Tom Peesley laughed. “Now I know you’re lyin’. I’ve seen you with him. He pays more attention to his sister than he does to you.”

  That hurt, for it was absolutely true. “That is none of your business. It is him I love.”

  Her insistence was making him angry. “I’d kill him if I really believed that.”

  And then, finally, came the kiss. Samantha was unprepared for the brutal assault. Crushed in his arms, she tasted her own blood where he bruised her lips against her teeth. The scream of outrage that tore from her was trapped in her throat.

  And then he suddenly set her free, but for a moment she was too numb to realize it.

  His tone was icy. “I can be a tender lover, or I can make you suffer. I almost killed a gal once who got me riled. And that’s what you’re doin’, Missy. You’re gettin’ me riled with your teasin’.”

  She should have been frightened, but she wasn’t. She was furious. She had never been treated that way before, and she would not stand for it any longer. She slapped him, using enough force to send a lighter person flying across the room. It didn’t move Tom Peesley, but it did stun him. It was the last thing he had expected, and it left him standing there open-mouthed with shock as she whirled around and ran into her bedroom.

  Samantha slammed the door. There was no lock, though, and she didn’t know whether Tom Peesley would give up or follow her. Dashing to her dresser, she dug through the top drawer for her revolver. In a moment, with the pearl-handled weapon gripped firmly in her right hand, she felt herself in control at long last.

  She could use the gun. Oh, how she could use it. Manuel Ramirez had made certain of that. The oldest of her father’s vaqueros, and Maria’s husband, Manuel was stubborn—often reminding Samantha of herself. When, at twelve, she had insisted that she no longer needed an escort, that she could ride the range alone, no one had been able to persuade her otherwise—except Manuel. He had threatened to shoot her beautiful white mustang if she dared go out alone without first learning to shoot. So she had learned to shoot, not only a handgun but a rifle, as well, and she became expert at both. After that, no one worried when she took off for a whole day, or even spent the night on the range. They knew she had all the protection she needed in her swift horse and the Colt she wore strapped to her hip.

  Unfortunately for Tom Peesley, he had decided to follow Samantha. He opened the bedroom door, and his eyes widened at the sight of the Colt revolver pointed at his chest.

  “Just what the hell do you think you’re gonna do with that, Missy?”

  “Force you to leave.”

  “You think so?”

  “I’m sure of it, Mr. Peesley,” she said very calmly. “In fact, I can swear to it.”

  She grinned for the first time. She was in charge again, and it felt wonderful.

  Only Tom Peesley didn’t know it yet. “I’m only gonna tell you once, gal. Put that gun down.”

  She laughed, moving the gun playfully, flexing her wrist so that the barrel made several half-circles, drawing a wide target from his left shoulder, down his belly, up to his right shoulder, and back again. Her laughter echoed in the large room.

  “I am quite a good shot.” Samantha’s eyes were bright with laughter. “After what you’ve put me through, I really would like to show you.”

  “You wouldn’t,” he said with total confidence.

  Her amusement faded. “Why not? I should shoot you for mauling me. Or for being in my room without an invitation. But I won’t. I’m going to advise you nicely just to leave. Of course…if you don’t take my advice, then I’m going to take a chunk of skin off your inner right thigh.”

  Her matter-of-fact tone threw Tom Peesley into a rage, and he took a step toward her. But he got only as far as that one step before the gun exploded.

  He bent to clutch at his inner right thigh, just inches from his groin. Blood squeezed through his fingers. The bullet had struck right where she said it would, going through him to imbed itself in the door. He stared at her in disbelief, then lifted his hand to stare at the blood.

  “Do you need another demonstration before you leave?” Samantha asked softly.

  Acrid smoke burned her eyes, but she held her gun steady, pointing it at Peesley. He hadn’t moved from his aggressive stance.

  “Perhaps your left thigh now, only a little higher?” Samantha continued.

  “You god damn—”

  The weapon cracked again, and Tom howled with pain as the bullet tore the tender flesh high on his left thigh.

  “Do you understand that I am quite serious, Mr. Peesley? I want you out of my room. And out of my life. Or would you rather bleed more first? Maybe you would like to keep one of my bullets as a memento? Say, in your right shoulder?”

  He glared at her as blood poured down both his legs, spreading darkly over his light gray pants and down into his boots. She could see he burned to get his hands on her, and thought he would probably kill her if he did.

  “I’m losing patience, Mr. Peesley,” she said coldly.

  “I’m goin’,” he replied gruffly, and turned away. He left the bedroom, stopping at the door to the hallway. She followed him from a safe distance, the gun trained on his limping form. When he continued to stand in the doorway, she said, “Do I have to escort you out of the building?”

  His back squared stubbornly as she spoke, and he swung around to face her. Bullet number three slammed into his right shoulder and threw him back against the door.

  “Now!” Samantha shouted above the echo. Her eyes were running with tears from the smoke, and she was furious that he had made her go so far. “Go!”

  He did. Finally he was ready to retreat. Samantha followed him down the hallway, oblivious to the commotion there. Guests had gathered at the sounds of gunshots. She marched behind Peesley, past the guests, to the back of the hotel. The back stairs were on the outside of the building. She waited impatiently for him to open the door, and while he fumbled with it, she got too close to him. As he started down the stairs, he swung his left arm backward and tried to knock her down. But before his fist could touch her, she put her fourth bullet through the thick muscles of his upper arm.

  Though the rest of his face was contorted with pain, there was black rage in his eyes. His hand stretched out toward her, blood dripping on the wooden landing. There was no strength in the wounded arm, but the fingers still reached for her.

  Samantha grimaced and stepped back. “You’re loco!” she gasped, her stomach turning at the sight of all the blood seeping from his arm, his shoulder, his legs. He stood there, a big ox who didn’t have sense enough to give up.

  “I didn’t want to hurt you,” she whispered urgently. “All you had to do was leave me alone. Damn you! Will you go? Will you just go!” she pleaded.

  But the stubborn fool took another step toward her and his outstretched fingers touched the front of her taffeta jacket. Her gun exploded once more, and she choked back a sob. The fifth bullet entered his shin. She didn’t know whether she had been able to miss the bone or not, her hands were trembling so by then. He stumbled backward, then lost his balance on the edge of the stairs and tumbled down the long flight.

  Samantha stood at
the top of the stairs and looked down at Tom Peesley as he landed in the dirt. She held her breath, waiting. Would he move? She didn’t want him dead. She had never killed anyone, and she dreaded the notion.

  He moved. He even managed to pull himself to his feet and stand up, wavering a little and staring up at her. He knew as well as she did that there was only one bullet left. Was he wondering whether he could stand another bullet? Would he follow her back into the hotel and try to kill her? She guessed what he was thinking.

  “You fool!” she yelled down. “Don’t you know I could have killed you at any time? With only one bullet left, I will be forced to. This last bullet is for your heart. Don’t make me use it!”

  He stood there for an eternity, debating. Finally he turned and limped away along the back of the buildings.

  Samantha didn’t know how long she waited there after he was gone from sight. Though it was not cold, she began to tremble. At last she stepped back into the hallway, turning red when she saw all the people facing her at the end of the corridor. With a small cry of shame, she ran back to her suite, slamming the door on their curiosity.

  She rushed into her bedroom and threw herself on the bed, pouring out her frustration. “Damn you, Tom Peesley. I hope you bleed to death!” she cried, completely forgetting that she didn’t really want him to die.

  But Samantha would have been even more mortified had she known that a tall, dark stranger had witnessed the scene on the landing.

  Chapter 2

  THE hotel where Samantha Kingsley had her suite was in a new part of Denver, on the edge of the city, where constant expansion was the rule. At the front of the hotel was a street crowded with stores, several saloons, two restaurants, two smaller hotels, a meat market, a bank, and even one of the new theaters. But at the back of Samantha’s hotel was open country, land still waiting for Denver to claim it.

  Hank Chavez rode slowly toward the hotel from the south, hoping that the size of the building did not mean the rooms were expensive. He wanted to stay there rather than search farther for his lodging.

  He had pulled up his mount under a cottonwood tree when he saw a man and a young woman step out onto the landing behind the hotel. In the bright afternoon light he could see that the man was bleeding. Wounded by the young lady holding the gun? It was hard to believe, yet Hank grimaced as the man reached for the woman and the gun was fired.

  Hank stared in rapt fascination. The woman—no, she could be no more than a girl, seventeen or eighteen—was very lovely. A young girl, but she had a woman’s body. Lovely hair floated down her back and shoulders, dark hair that shone fiery red in the sunlight.

  Leaning forward, Hank rested his forearms on the pommel of his saddle and watched the scene. He would have given anything to know what they were saying, but he was too far away to hear. Soon the man fell down the stairs and then limped away. Hank’s dark gray eyes flew back to the girl, staring at her intently, willing her to look his way so that he could see all of her face. Was she as lovely as she seemed?

  But she did not turn toward him. And after a moment she was gone, back into the hotel, and as quickly as his desire to meet her had come to him, it was gone, as well. The lady with the gun. No, he did not want to meet her. He had important business here, perhaps even killing business, and no time for getting entangled with vixens.

  It had taken months to get to Denver from Dallas, months of pushing himself, of getting lost, of backtracking, always avoiding towns where he might be tempted to rest. He might have caught up with Pat McClure, who had left Dallas only a few days before Hank had found he was gone. But after reading Pat’s note, Hank had been so furious that he had wrecked his hotel room, proceeded to the nearest saloon, and wrecked that, too. Unable to pay for the damages, he had gone to jail for a month.

  He might have got the money from Bradford Maitland. After all, Hank had once saved Maitland’s life, and Maitland was rich. But Hank had been too proud to ask. Maitland had won the woman Hank had wanted, and while Hank had conceded graciously, there was still a resentment deep inside. After all, she was the only woman Hank had ever asked to share his life. But he had never really had a chance with Angela. When Hank had met her, she had already belonged to Maitland, body and soul. Of course, Maitland had been too pigheaded to know that. If only he had continued to be pigheaded, Hank thought again wistfully.

  No, he would never ask Maitland to help him, or Angela, who had her own wealth. He had already taken money from her, actually taken it, when he had robbed the stagecoach she was traveling on.

  That was how he had met Angela Sherrington. Hank hadn’t been able to forget her, and he had gone to find her and give back half of what he had stolen from her. She had been furious of course—oh, such fury—until she saw the jewels he was returning. Later he had used the excuse of returning her money in order to seek her out again. But, by that time, Maitland had come.

  Hank had asked Angela to go with him to Mexico. She had refused. She was a woman who would love only one man in all her life, and that man was Bradford Maitland. Hank admired that. Yet he had waited in Dallas for her to change her mind, hoping Maitland’s cruel treatment would kill her love. She was a woman well worth having, even if she had loved before. But when Maitland had come to his senses, Hank had known he had lost her forever.

  His partner, Pat McClure, had joined him in Dallas, willing to go to Mexico with him to help Hank get back his family estates. But Pat had found a pretty little señorita and had moved into her adobe house on the outskirts of town, while Hank stayed at the hotel. So Hank had been unaware that Pat had left for Denver until he finally had gone to find him and the señorita had given him Pat’s cryptic note, the note that told Hank nothing and everything. Hank could have killed Patrick McClure right then, no matter how close they had been. For Pat had taken not only his own money, but the money he had been holding for Hank, as well, the money meant to buy back Hank’s family’s hacienda in Mexico.

  All Hank Chavez had lived for those many years was that dream. Since the day in ’59 when a band of Juárez irregulars had come to the hacienda and massacred his family, Hank had dreamed of vengeance. The men were bandits, indulging in killing and pillage for profit, using the revolution as their cover.

  The leader of this band had claimed the Chavez lands were church property, which everyone knew to be untrue. But that hadn’t mattered. Since Juárez had declared that the church was to be stripped of its property because of its support of the conservatives, “church property” had been a ready excuse for plundering anything in Mexico.

  Hank could never forget seeing vaqueros he had grown up with shot for resisting conscription into the army. Their wives and daughters had been raped. His grandmother had died from a heart attack after watching her son, Hank’s father, killed for trying to bar the gang from their home.

  There had been survivors. Though a few women had died fighting rape, most had survived, as had their children and the old men not useful to the army. Hank, seventeen, had survived, though many times later he had wished he had not.

  After the horrors he had seen, he had been struck from behind and had woken up to find himself in the army, forced to serve or to die. He had been told that his lands were no longer his, that they would be sold to help the revolution.

  All that had been in the name of revolution—but, hell, it had been all for private profit. And there had been nothing Hank could do. He couldn’t even blame Juárez, blame the revolution, blame an oppressed people trying only to better themselves. He could do nothing except try to get back what was his.

  For a year and a half, Hank had fought for the liberals, fought bitterly, unable to reach Juárez to demand justice and unable to escape. It had been a galling, bitter time, and he had become obsessed with getting his land back.

  Two others of his family had survived, only because they had been away from home at the time of the attack. His grandfather, Don Victoriano, had taken Hank’s sister Dorotea to Spain to meet the Vega side of the family
, and they had stayed on when Don Victoriano became ill. Word had reached Hank that his grandfather was dying, and he had rebelled at being prevented from going to him. He had spent almost two years in prison because of that rebellion. While he was in that stinking prison, his grandfather had died and his home had been sold. He could not have hoped to buy it back, not even when he escaped from prison. He was poor.

  No one knew his true name was Enrique Antonio de Vega y Chavez. The many gringos in prison had called him Hank.

  After his escape, he had left Mexico. There was always the chance that he might have been hauled into the army again. He had worked in Texas until he had had enough money to get to Spain, to his sister. But his sister was no longer in Spain. She had married an Englishman and was living in England. So Hank had gone to England. But Dorotea, who had her own family, did not really need Hank anymore. He had felt useless. And there had been that terrible desire to reclaim the family lands. For that, he needed money, a lot of money, money he didn’t have. He had returned to North America late in 1864. He had been educated very well in his youth, and there were many things he could do, but none would bring him the kind of money he needed.

  Then he had met Patrick McClure and some other men who were making money easily. They were stealing it.

  Becoming an outlaw had gone against everything he believed in, and he had compromised by robbing only people who could afford to lose a little. He would not steal from the miners in the Midwest, as Patrick and his gang had been doing, for those men worked hard for their gold and what they carried was usually all they had. Nor would he rob banks, which meant taking the savings of innocent people. But he had robbed the stagecoaches that crossed Texas. Passengers on stages did not carry all their money on them. It had been important to Hank that he not leave a man destitute. He had even returned money a few times, when someone convinced him that what he was taking was all he had.

  His new profession had been profitable if not likable. Amassing money took a long time because a single stage did not produce a great deal and everything had been split with the other men. But after five years, much, much sooner than it would have taken otherwise, Hank had had enough to return to Mexico and buy back his land.