All or Nothing Read Online Free PDF Page B

do with it, sir. You were an answer to prayer. I’m very grateful.”
    He frowned. “I’m not looking for your gratitude. Someone shot your sister, almost mortally wounded you, as well. I need to know what happened.”
    He towered above her in a resolute stance. His boots shoulder width apart, his expression grim and official. RuthAnne wanted to pummel him again for his lack of understanding.
    “An explosion caused the rockslide. Dynamite. The stage went over the side, all to cover up a robbery. We lost everything we had to that animal. We barely escaped with our lives. Is that enough information for you, sir?” She shook with anger. How dare he interrogate her at a time like this?
    “Would you recognize him again?” His voice boomed. His hands flexed into fists, as if he already knew the answers to his questions.
    “He wore a mask. Some foul thing he made himself out of sackcloth. Holes for eyes, a red slash for a mouth. I didn’t see his face.”
    “Did he say anything, do anything to you before...?”
    Mariposa shot him a look of warning. RuthAnne caught the significance. If he didn’t stop soon, the woman would surely force him out the door.
    “Do you remember anything he said, before you got away?”
    “I don’t...”
    “Think!” he commanded.
    “That’s quite enough for tonight, Captain.” Mariposa stood, dark eyes flashing with disapproval.
    “No. It’s all right.” RuthAnne waved the native woman off and stared the soldier down. “He said something in Spanish. Words that translated vicious and cruel, just like the man who spoke them. Todo o nada.”
    “El Tejano...” Mariposa’s grave eyes locked on the soldier’s.
    “He intended to rape and murder us, Captain. Thank God he didn’t get the chance to do either. Does that answer your question?” RuthAnne’s voice shook, whether from anger at this man before her or in awe that they had survived such a horror, she wasn’t sure.
    Just then, a man who could only be the priest came into the room through the paneled door. Short of stature but portly enough to fill the brown, coarse robes. His steel gray hair tumbled over his round, kind face. He reassured her with warm and rich brown eyes. “My dear child. Praise the good Lord that you were not injured worse in this horrible attack.”
    “Thank you...”
    “Father Acuña is the priest of this chapel,” Mariposa said.
    RuthAnne’s throat tightened again as the kind priest squeezed her hand, tenderly, in introduction. Mariposa apprised him of RuthAnne’s harrowing experience as the captain stepped back into shadow.
    “Our driver...” RuthAnne could imagine his broken body at the bottom of the chasm. “We’ll need to see to it he gets a proper burial, Father. He was a good man. A God-fearing man.” Suddenly, it seemed very important that they go back and find his broken body.
    “It’s already been done, my dear. Captain Shepherd’s men have taken care of it. He’s a rare man, this soldier.” Mariposa took her hands again, holding them gently.
    “But, I only just told him...” He ran me through the wringer, and he already knew the truth? RuthAnne’s head went swimmy, her breath whooshed out with the violation.
    “You only confirmed what he already suspected.”
    RuthAnne looked up sharply, but the captain had left as silently as he’d entered.
    “You are welcome to stay here as long as you desire,” Father Acuña said. She nodded in thanks as he took his leave.
    Exhausted beyond belief, she accepted Mariposa’s hand and allowed the woman to lead her behind a screen to a wooden stool where a full washbasin and a rough-looking yellow sea sponge waited. A clean muslin nightdress hung from a wrought iron hook on the wall, and a thin towel lay draped over the tri-fold privacy screen.
    “It isn’t much, señorita, but it will help you feel better.”
    “It would be señora , wouldn’t it? I’m a widow...”
    Mariposa’s eyes widened then filled with kind understanding. She