Touch the Wind (27 page)

The rawhide slithered to the ground and became motionless. Its snaking, striking fury was spent. A second man walked to the poles, a knife gleaming in his hand, The blade sliced through the ropes that supported the body. She watched him tumble to the ground and lie there inert.

An inexplicable force suddenly pulled her gaze to Ráfaga. His saturnine features were looking back at her, impassively studying Sheila’s face. Her stomach churned. She was going to be sick.

With a roughness unusual to her, Sheila yanked at the reins. The mare half-reared as she tried to relieve the sawing pressure on the bit. When the roan was pointed away from the hollow, Sheila dug her heels into the mare’s flanks, nearly losing her seat as the mare bounded forward.

In the cover of the woods, Sheila dismounted before the mare came to a full stop and fell to her knees. The violent heaving of her stomach didn’t stop until there was nothing left. Sheila knelt there, drenched in a cold sweat, weak and deathly pale.

Finally, Sheila made her shaking legs support her, but she didn’t have the strength to climb back on the roan mare. Clutching the saddle for balance, she walked beside the horse, wavering unsteadily as they made their way through the trees.

I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to get out of here.
The desperate chant kept drumming inside of her, the words hammering at her brain until the pressure was nearly unbearable.

Ahead, her glazed eyes saw the shimmering reflection of the sun in the spring-fed pool. Sheila staggered into the clearing, dropping to her knees beside the pool. She wanted to splash water over her face, but her hands were shaking too badly.

Someone was beside her. She turned to see Ráfaga bending next to her. Before she could recoil, he was pressing a wet cloth to her face, wiping the perspiration
from her forehead and upper lip. Her lashes fluttered down at the soothing coolness. And Sheila suddenly didn’t care what kind of monster was providing this relief.

“You did not enjoy seeing him punished as you thought, no?” Ráfaga rinsed the cloth and applied fresh dampness to her neck.

“It was barbaric and inhuman,” she said and shuddered as the image of shredded flesh flashed in her mind’s eye.

“All punishment is inhuman,” he replied smoothly and with a hint of grimness. “What is the alternative?”

“I don’t know,” Sheila mumbled.

“If you find a punishment that is humane, it would solve a big problem in the world.”

He curled the wet cloth around the back of her neck and left it there. Taking her by the shoulders, he drew Sheila to her feet. When she opened her eyes, she found him looking deeply into them, an enigmatic darkness in his own eyes.

“Perhaps you should not have seen it,” Ráfaga said lowly.

She wished she hadn’t, but wishing did no good now. Still weak, Sheila swayed unsteadily. Ráfaga lifted her off her feet to cradle her in his arms. She didn’t murmur any protest when he carried her back to the house.

The scene in the hollow haunted her for days. One night Sheila awoke from a nightmare about it and Ráfaga comforted her as if she were a frightened child, holding her closely and stroking her hair until the trembling stopped.

During the daylight hours, she spent more of her time in deep thought, considering life, its values, and contradictions. All the while a little voice in the back of her head kept repeating:
You’ve got to get out of here,
as if it knew something that she didn’t.

A full week later, she and Ráfaga were out riding in the warmth of a spring afternoon. Unexpectedly, he led her up the sloping trail out of the canyon. As they
emerged from the walled pass, he turned his horse at a right angle to follow a faint animal trail. Sheila gave Arriba her head, letting the mare pick her own way up the steeply climbing path.

The trail ended on a narrow, rocky plateau, dotted with stunted trees. Sheila dismounted when Ráfaga did, following his lead as he loosened the cinch of his saddle to give the bay horse a breather after the long climb. Letting the reins trail to the ground, she wandered toward the rocky ledge where Ráfaga was standing.

The ledge provided an unobstructed, expansive view of the canyon below and of the mountainous peaks of the Sierra Madre range, stretching northward. Lightheaded from the increase in altitude, Sheila sat down on a flat rock to gaze at the scenery and the canyon settlement.

Her thoughts soon turned to the ever-dominating presence of Ráfaga. He stood near the edge of the ledge, a knee slightly bent as one leg supported most of his weight. The folds of his poncho concealed much of his lean, muscled frame.

Sheila’s attention slid to his profile. His hat was pulled low on his slanting forehead, covering the thickness of his jet-black hair. His dark eyes had a far-seeing look. Bronzed skin stretched over his cheekbones, hollowing down to a strong jaw.

The slashing groove running from the corner of his classically straight nose to the edge of his mouth accented the straight, hard line of his masculine lips and the natural thrust of his chin. He was aggressively male, indomitable, sure of himself and what he wanted. Sheila couldn’t help wondering how he came to be that way.

“Who are you, Ráfaga?” She tipped her head to the side.

He turned in her direction, an inquiring brow lifting, as though he had forgotten she was there. His hooded eyes held her look for a minute.

“I am a man,” he answered simply.

It was an unpretentious statement. It struck Sheila that she knew of no one else who would have answered
the question that way. Everyone she had ever known would have identified himself by his occupation or his accomplishments, elaborated to give himself importance. But not Ráfaga.

“But who are you?” she persisted. “What is your real name? Where do you come from? What did you do? Why are you here?”

His mouth quirked in amusement as if he found her questions foolish. “What tales have the others told you about me?”

“The others? You mean Juan and Laredo? They’ve told me several stories, each one different,” Sheila admitted. “Were you ever in prison?”

“Yes.” Again an answer without an explanation.

“Why?”

“For committing a crime. It is the usual reason.” There was a suggestion of a smile around his mouth.

“What crime?”

“Does it matter?” Ráfaga countered. “I have committed a sufficient number of others since then to make the first pale in significance.”

Sheila realized it was useless to pursue the question. He had no intention of telling her and he was much too sharp to trap.

“And you escaped?” She switched to another line.

“
Sí
.”

“Why?”

“You have not ever been in a prison or you would not ask that.” He studied her impassively. “To be caged like an animal is a torture equal to the physical agony of the whip, especially when those you love must bear the shame of your punishment, too. The condition is worse if neither you nor your family has money to buy the small liberties. Then you live like an animal. There have been improvements, but—” He lifted a shoulder in a small but expressive shrug and left the rest unsaid.

Sheila’s attention had been caught by his phrase “those you love.” “Do you have a family? Brothers or sisters?”

“I had a family.” Ráfaga turned to the range mountains.

“Had? Are they dead?”

“For me they are,” he responded with a complete absence of emotion. “I cannot go back to them without staining them with what I have become.”

“You miss them.” Sheila wasn’t aware that she had spoken her thought aloud.

“I no longer know them, and they no longer know me.” His dark eyes caught her and held them. “We cannot go back to what we once were. A moment that is gone cannot be recaptured. Only a fool would try.”

“How did you become what you are? A—” She searched for the right term. Somehow “bandit” and “outlaw” did not fit him, although she knew they were partially accurate. “A mercenary?” she settled on finally, still dissatisfied with her choice.

“A twist of fate. A man who escaped with me had left a friend behind in the prison. He wanted to go back for him and offered me a small sum of money if I would help. I had no money and could not risk going to my family. I had three choices—to go hungry, steal, or help him.”

“If you had to do it over again, would you still make the same choice?”

“Quien sabe?
Life does not permit its path to be retraced and the direction changed. Today can change tomorrow, but not yesterday.”

Turning, he moved away from the edge to squat on his heels a few feet from Sheila. His arm moved beneath his poncho. Seconds later it emerged, a dark, thin cigar between his fingers. After placing it between his lips, he struck a match head against a rock and used both hands to protectively cup the flame from a teasing wind. The same breeze soon carried the pungent aroma of burning tobacco to Sheila’s nose.

“Are you—were you a revolutionary?” She brushed a strand of sun-streaked hair from the corner of her mouth.

His dark eyes glinted at her. “Everyone in Mexico is
a revolutionary. You can still hear the cries of
‘viva la revolución!’
in the streets at fiesta time. It is the same here as it is in your country. Once the first gun is fired for freedom, the bullet becomes immortal.” Ráfaga paused, inhaling lightly on the cigar, then releasing a thin trail of smoke. He rolled the thin cigar between his fingers, studying it as if he found it of interest. Sheila didn’t speak, sensing that he was considering her initial question before answering it directly. “Perhaps when I came to the Sierras, it was with the dreams of a young boy to right injustices.”

Sheila caught the cynicism, the dry, self-mockery in his voice. “What happened to those dreams?” she prompted quietly.

“The view from a distance, maybe. You have an expression”—his dark gaze lifted from the glowing cigar tip to her face—“about the forest and the trees.”

“You can’t see the forest through the trees,” Sheila supplied with a nod.

“
Sí
, that is it,” Ráfaga agreed. “I saw that freedom was not won at the point of a gun. It is found only when the gun is lowered. And I learned what wiser men have always known—that lasting change is slow to happen.”

“And Mexico?” she questioned.

“It is happening slowly.” His mouth twisted. “But we still have many men who work hard for very little and go to the nearest
cantina
to drown their frustrations while their women go to churches to pray.”

The faint contempt in the last comment forced Sheila to ask, “Don’t you believe in God?”

“I believe there is a god,” Ráfaga acknowledged. “I don’t believe a god is responsible for the way we live our lives. We each take our own steps.”

Straightening, he walked back to the edge of the plateau. Cigar smoke swirled in a thin, gray trail, carried by the wind. He seemed remote. Although he hadn’t answered her questions with specifics, he had confided some of his thoughts. Now he had withdrawn; the aloofness had returned.

“If the questions are over”—Ráfaga dropped the
cigar butt beneath his boot, crushing it under his heel—“it is time we started down.”

“There is one more question I’ve been meaning to ask,” Sheila said, her voice quiet, yet determined.

“What is it?”

“When are you going to let me go?” She watched him intently, but there wasn’t a flicker of emotion behind the saturnine mask.

Without answering, he walked toward the horses, grazing on the clumps of grass growing stubbornly in the rocky ground. He picked up their trailing reins and led them to where Sheila sat. A gold light sparkled resolutely in her eyes. She wasn’t going to let him ignore her question.

“There’s been plenty of time for money to be paid for my release,” she pointed out. “Why haven’t you let me go?”

“No money has been received.” He held out the mare’s reins.

“I don’t believe you.” Sheila shook her head. “My father would have been able to pay almost any sum by now. How much did you ask for?”

Unconsciously, she took the reins from his hand. Ráfaga stepped away, walking to the left side of his bay. He looped the reins over the horse’s neck and raised the stirrup to tighten the cinch. Sheila caught at his arm, her fingers curling into the material of his poncho.

“How much?” she repeated in a voice that trembled.

He looked at her, his dark eyes shuttered, reflecting only her image and none of his thoughts. “No money has been demanded.”

Not relaxing her hold on his muscled arm, Sheila drew her head back. The muscles in her throat constricted and she swallowed.

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said,” Ráfaga replied evenly. “No demand has been made for money from your parents.”

“But—” She was confused, almost dazed. She
brushed a hand across her eyes, as if to clear her vision so she could see and think clearly. “Why?”

Walking around to the mare’s left side, he tightened the cinch on Sheila’s saddle. He was ignoring her question, pretending not to have heard. No, she realized, he wasn’t even pretending. He had heard it, but it didn’t matter.

“You aren’t going to let me go, are you?” Her voice was tight and choked.

His hands spanned her waist. Sheila was too numbed to protest when he lifted her into the saddle. Passing the reins over the mare’s neck, he let them rest on the saddle horn. Her gaze followed him as he walked to the bay and swung effortlessly into the saddle.

“I’m not going anywhere until you answer me,” Sheila warned and reined the mare away from the trail.

He turned the bay around to face her, urging the horse forward until his leg was brushing against hers. His impassive features met her wary expression.

“You will stay,” Ráfaga said briskly, pausing a second to add, “for a while.”

“For how long?” Sheila insisted. “Until you get tired of me? Then what will you do? Turn me over to your men? Sell me?”

His mouth tightened in an uncompromising line. “You ask too many foolish questions.”

“Foolish!” Her voice cracked. “Why is it foolish to want to know what’s going to happen to me when you’re finished with me?”