Chapter Eighty-Eight
Jack knew she was still there, he could feel it. His shoulder throbbed. Despite his wound, his wrists were still shackled behind his back, and because he could lie only on his back, it made the pain in his shoulder worse.
Why was she there?
Had she betrayed him again by betraying his people?
He heard a baby crying. Started, he sat upright, knowing beyond a doubt that it was his daughter.
An ache swept through him that had nothing to do with his wound, and he stood, shakily, almost falling, but managed to stagger to the wall where mere was a narrow, barred window.
He gazed out, across the parade ground, toward where the baby’s crying had come from.
She was quiet. Candice was probably nursing her.
By now they had to know who she was. Had she already been questioned, interrogated? Had she told them what they wanted to hear? She was his wife, but she was also his enemy.… He was sick with doubt, with fear.
He had been so furious and hurt that she’d left him, he had been careless, and he now knew he had fallen into a trap.
Had she stayed to be a willing part of that trap?
Had she known all along that he would come after her?
Had she led him there, right into the hands of the army, in revenge?
Did she want to see him hang? Hadn’t she stopped loving him a long time ago?
He cursed.
“That won’t help,” Major Bradley said as the door to his cell was unlocked.
Jack moved weakly toward the cot, almost falling onto it.
“You should be conserving your strength,” Bradley remarked, entering the cell with two soldiers, one big and brawny, the other carrying a revolver, which he had trained on him. “You’ll need it.”
Jack looked at him without expression.
“We can do this the easy way,” Bradley said, “or the hard way.” When there was no response, he said, “I want information. If you give it to me, you will be released. If not, you will die.”
Jack smiled slightly.
“Where is the stronghold?”
There was no reply.
Bradley made a barely perceptible gesture.
The brawny soldier moved forward implacably.
Jack tensed. The man reached down, grabbed him, and then a fist came smashing into his face.
There was a simultaneous explosion of pain and sparking lights, then a black fog tried to descend.
Jack sought it, did not try to resist. But cold water dumped on his head brought him back to consciousness, sputtering and coughing.
He tasted blood. His own. With cold eyes, he met Bradley’s impassive gaze.
“Shall we try again? Where is the stronghold?”
Jack smiled. The next blow cracked his jaw and brought another brief respite of black oblivion. He tried to hang on to it, but his mind surged out of the gray mists with a kind of determination, and with one overwhelming coherent thought. He was facing death.
For he would have to be beaten to death before he would tell them anything that might betray Cochise.