A Lady Bought with Rifles (6 page)

I marveled at the many kinds of cactus: cardones, rearing tall as small trees; nopal, spreading in thick mounds of prickly oval pads; cholla, drooping strangely jointed clusters that looked like grapes or forked like antlers. The occasional grass was yellow and sparse, except where it outlined stream beds that presumably ran water sometimes, if only after a rain, and along these washes, mesquite grew thick and luxuriant along with ironwood and fragrant cat's-claw.

My lips, chapping from wind and heat, stung when I wet them with my tongue. I longed for a drink but hated to demonstrate weakness to my sister. I was getting tired, too, my knee cramped from being hooked over the horn. The corset had become a torment, biting into my flesh, trapping perspiration.

Like a steamed clam, I thought inelegantly. Reina must be hot, too, in all that leather, yet she showed no sign of discomfort or weariness though I calculated we had been riding at least two hours. Which felt like ten. Sewa was used to heat and the thin cotton chemise let the air reach her. If I lived, I vowed grimly to get some clothes I could tolerate even if they verged on indecency. When Trace finally stopped by a dry watercourse where vanished rains had produced a scattering of acacia and paloverde. I almost tumbled into his arms. He steadied me for a moment while my head spun dizzily.

“All right?” he demanded. “Here, get in the shade. Damn it, girl, if you needed to stop why didn't you say so?”

“I—I'm fine,” I answered with a tongue that felt huge and puffy dry.

He gave me a disgusted stare, lifted my bed roll and forced me into the haven of the largest tree, settling Sewa next to me. He didn't let her walk on the sore foot, but simply carried her. Reina had dismounted and strode over to raise arched eyebrows as she inspected us.

“Strange how those who cannot do a thing will always try it,” she said with a thin smile that gave her rather narrow face a fox look. “You're red as fresh-butchered meat, Miranda. I fear your complexion is no more adapted to this region than your dress.”

Trace took the scarf from his neck and wet it from the leather water bag he then offered me. I passed it to Sewa who drank slowly, only a few sips, before handing it to me. Following her example, I wet my lips, savored the tepid water and let it trickle down my dry throat. It was the first time in my life that I had truly appreciated water, the body's imperative need for it. Reina sipped from her own hide-covered silver flask, but before Trace drank, he wiped my face with the scarf, pressed the wet part against my temples.

“You're sun-burned,” he said and I knew how frightened and bedraggled I must look. “I should have told you to change hats. Wear mine till the sun gets low.”

“But—”

“Wear it,” he said, tossing the battered broad-brimmed gray felt down beside me.

We rested perhaps ten minutes. It galled me that it was on my account, but I consoled myself with the knowledge that the horses were also glad of the break. Humbled to realize I had less endurance and strength than anyone in the party, even a starved child with an infected wound, I resolved to toughen myself to match this new country for thought I had not altered my decision to leave Las Coronas, I still intended to try to live somewhere in Mexico—and not the existence of a sheltered house plant, either.

I rose without the aid of Trace Winslade's extended hand and heaved or dragged myself into the saddle while he swung Sewa into hers. This time I noticed she returned his smile with a tentative surprisingly sweet one. Once again, Reina led. I settled Trace's hat, which smelled strongly but not unpleasantly of tobacco, campfires and sweat salt, snugly over my head, grateful for its protection from the glare of desert and sky. My velvet cap with its feather was tied ingloriously to the leathers at the front of my saddle like some bedraggled trophy.

At sundown we came to where cane grew thick and high along a shallow river. Trace loosened the saddle girths and we watered our horses, then rested while he made coffee in a tin pot and shared out strips of thin exceedingly tough meat. I got the cheese and bread from my valise.

“Beats jerky,” said Trace and for the first time that journey I felt I'd done something that wasn't inept or ridiculous.

As day waned, the moon shone brighter and brighter so that when we started on, it was not much darker than at twilight. We could see the purple bulk of the mountains, the silvered stretch of the desert with cardones upthrusting arms like giant candelabra. They were much like the saguaros that grew further north, only bigger and more squared at the tips. A faint shrill yipping broke out, to be answered by similar choruses from other points, a song I remembered from childhood.

“Coyotes,” Trace said. And I saw Sewa smile to herself as if it were good to hear wild things.

The air cooled fast once the sun was gone. Sewa wrapped my shawl about her and I was glad of my heavy velvet dress, though I swore that once I got the corset off I would throw it away. Why should I squeeze my ribs into my lungs to look a few inches slimmer? Dr. Mattison was right. One might survive on half-breaths in moist English air, but not in this merciless land where man, if he came, must adapt, even though he couldn't grow a waxy thorny shield like the cactus and store water as it did, or develop tiny leaves like the trees, exposing less vulnerable surface. When one considered what plants had to do in order to live here, it was a wonder man succeeded at all.

We'd entered a long wide valley between mountains, watered by a stream. Coarse high grass reached our horses' hocks. A whinny sounded from a distant herd, dark phantoms in a side valley, and Trace's horse threw back his head and answered.

We passed a big round corral of latticed mesquite limbs. Sheds and the unwalled roofed structures known as ramadas were scattered at one end. Beyond these were several small adobe houses. Trace stopped by one of these.

“So here we are,” he said. “I'll help you unsaddle and ride after Cruz. The sooner he sees that little girl's foot, the easier I'll be in my mind.”

Men came out of the other two adobes, welcoming Trace, falling hushed as they recognized Reina. Trace told them Doña Luisa was dead. They crossed themselves and murmured. A man with lean hips, massive chest, and a curious moustache, white on one side, black on the other, approached Reina and spoke in a stilled rumble.

“We have much sorrow, señorita. Your mother was a great lady. May the saints receive her and comfort you.”

She thanked him quite graciously, but when. Trace explained that I was also Doña Luisa's daughter, Reina ignored his proffered hand and swung down by herself. The broad-chested vaquero waited till Trace had helped me from the saddle and then bowed.

“I am Lázaro Pérez, at your orders, señorita. I regret you have had such a sad homecoming.” His gaze moved to Sewa.

The child kept her outward calm, but I knew she must be shrinking inwardly. Lázaro said sharply to Trace, “Yaqui?”

Trace nodded. Lázaro swung from the girl without a word and took Reina's horse and mine while a second man led away Sewa's after Trace lifted her down. He carried her into his house, kicking the door ajar, put her down, and lit a candle.

The dim yellow glow showed a square room plastered with clay, benches of adobe built out from the wall, and a fireplace at one end. There was a rough table, a chair, and a bed spread with a serape in tones of brown and gray. A shelf by the fireplace held a few dishes and cooking staples. Clothes hung on pegs. The floor was hard dirt and there was only one window.

One of the vaqueros brought in the bedrolls, my valise, crumpled hat, and Reina's saddlebag. “Can't you send him after this witch doctor?” Reina inquired acridly.

“No.” Trace shook out the pallets, put one on his bed. I helped spread the others on the floor.

“Why not?” she persisted.

“The men won't ride up his canyon at night.”

The green of her eyes was almost hidden by swelling black pupils. “Then he
is
a witch!” she breathed.

“Wise,” Trace corrected. “Though to be wise or even sensible in this world comes close to magic.”

“Surely it can wait till morning,” she urged.

Trace went to Sewa, who still huddled on the bench where he'd placed her. He undid the bandage. The stench made my stomach turn. Reina gagged and flung away in disgust. Trace's nostrils twitched. He rewound the bandage and said briefly, “I'd better take Sewa with me. Now.”

“It—it's that bad?” I asked, heart constricting. Blood poison, gangrene—terrible names I didn't fully understand thrummed in my head.

“I'm afraid so.”

“Then I'll come, too.”

“Stay here, Miranda. You're done in. There won't be any way for you to help.” But when he spoke to Sewa, her dark eyes sprang to me.

She didn't ask; she never would. But I dragged my body up and said, “I'm going.”

He started to argue, glanced at Sewa, and gave in. He shouted out the door for fresh horses and coffee, if any was left. In a few minutes Lázaro brought coffee that was at least lukewarm. Reina declined the bitter brew.

“You are mad,” she told me. “Trailing about in the dark to find a Yaqui witch.”

“Cruz?” demanded Lázaro. He stared at Trace. “That one is an
onza!
If you have business with him, leave it till morning.”

“We are friends,” said Trace.

“Perhaps by day,” retorted Lázaro. “But once in his cat shape, an
onza
has no friends.”

“Crazy talk,” snapped Trace. “Didn't Cruz set that broken ankle for you? Didn't he cure Roque when he was dying of snakebite?”

“He is still an
onza
,” Lázaro maintained stubbornly. “I beg you. Wait.”

“We cannot.”.

Lázaro cast a hate-filled look at Sewa. “All for this vermin!”

“Enough!” said Trace. He rose at the sound of horses.

“Am I expected to stay the night alone in this hovel?” demanded Reina.

“You may sleep outside,” suggested Trace. “Or ride with us.”

She stared at him, touched her full lower lip with the tip of her tongue. “And if I command you, as your employer, to stay here?”

He said softly, “I would tell you, señorita, to go to hell.”

As her green eyes dilated in shock, he picked Sewa up. We went out, Lázaro closing the door with flowery assurances to Reina that she would be as safe as if she were bolted in her chamber in Las Coronas. She shrieked something that might have made him revise his opinion of her, but I was too frightened for Sewa to care about Reina's moods.

Lázaro helped me mount. My every bone and muscle ached, and this new horse, possibly vexed at being caught up after dark when all decent beasts can rest, moved in a jarring, jolting trot that was torture. Trace had decided to carry Sewa in front of him, which I took as an ominous sign—perhaps he thought she wouldn't be coming back or, if she did, would be unable to sit a horse.

A short distance from the adobes, we seemed heading into, sheer mountain walls, but Trace led through a narrow defile that presently widened into another canyon, so deep that the moon reached only the center, casting a luminous trail with darkness on either side.

The valley of the shadow of death
. Ice closed on my heart. Death hovered over Sewa, I was sure, or Trace would have brought the curer to her.
“I will fear no evil,”
I prayed desperately.
“Fear no evil.…”

Our horses' hooves echoed the words, mockingly pounding them into my mind. For I did fear evil. I feared the infection in Sewa's body, but even more the chilling hate in Lázaro's eyes, the venom in Reina's. I feared the cruelty that could do this to a child more than all those bogies of the litany: battle, murder, and sudden death.

“Good Lord, deliver us,”
I pleaded.'
“Let the child get well.” Onza
or witch, I didn't care what this Cruz was, so long as he healed the small figure cradled in Trace's arms. I envied her that place of comfort as we rode on in the night of black and silver.

Evil, evil, evil. I … will … fear. Fear no evil. For thou art with me. My eyes kept closing from sheer fatigue. Then my raw-gaited horse stopped so abruptly that I would have gone on over his neck if strong hands hadn't caught and lifted me down.

Shaking my head to clear it, I looked into a dark face that might have been carved from mahogany.

“Do not be afraid,” the stranger said. “The child will not die. But we must hurry.” He turned and I followed to the hut Trace was already entering with Sewa.

4

Cruz did not explain how he knew we were coming, but there could be no doubt he was prepared for visitors. A candle burned on a ledge. Water was boiling on a sort of brazier improvised from a Standard Oil can with a grate on top.

Cruz poured this water into a jug. An aromatic smell quickly filled the room. Trace had placed Sewa on a woven straw mat. Cruz, humming to himself, got something from a chest and gave it to her. It was a flute made of cane. I was astounded when he sat down next to the child and began to show her how to coax, notes from it. When she got her first birdlike trill, she gave the first laugh I'd heard from her.

Cruz went to pour his steaming brew into three earthenware bowls that he handed to Trace, Sewa, and me. I noticed he added something to her drink.

Why didn't he look at her foot? Ask how she'd been hurt and when? He'd guessed we were coming, but I didn't want him to guess about Sewa. Urgencies sprang to my lips, but I felt Trace's eyes on me, bit back my questions. He would speak when it was time. I knew that more surely than I knew my name. It was a strange sensation. Following his example, I sipped the brew. Pungent, spicy, slightly acrid, it was amazingly refreshing.

Cruz unwound the bandage. Putrescent ooze showed in the dim light. The smell was sickening. Cruz spoke gently to Sewa. Her eyes seemed to grow even more huge. She drank her tea to the end, set down the bowl, and picked up the flute. Trace asked something. Cruz nodded.