A Lady Bought with Rifles (8 page)

“Of course.” Trace grinned.

“Not of course,” said Cruz austerely. “Because I began with a clever pair and have always slaughtered off dullards. The goats in my canyon are some of them eight generations of the fittest.”

That sounded rather like Mr. Darwin, but I felt sorry for those dullard goats. Surely they felt the knife as much as their intelligent brethren?

“What are you thinking, Miss Greenleaf?” Trace's voice made me jump. I noticed somewhat wistfully that “Miranda” was gone. He must have called me that last night to give me courage.

I almost choked on a swallow of coffee. “I—I was thinking stupid goats enjoy life, too.”

Trace's blue-green eyes widened. His long mouth twisted in a way that held back laughter. “I'm sure you're right,” he granted. “But it's sadly true that any stupid creature is more likely to fall in traps and be less able to defend itself than brighter individuals.”

“But mightn't there be some valuable traits that don't necessarily go along with ability to survive? Would you call Socrates less valuable to mankind than Attila?”

Trace gave me a long, considering look. “I never heard of either man—if they were men,” he said. “But of course there's more to life than being strongest or richest or smartest—or even most beautiful. There are things we all can do. Breathe good air, enjoy the food we get, look at what's happening in the world and how lovely and cruel and great it is.”

“As if he read my thoughts, Cruz added, “Sewa can do these things and many more. If being lame makes her slower, she may see and savor what many run past.”

“I must look over the horses and pick a few for Court Sanders, who runs Mina Rara,” Trace said. “The ride might interest Miss Greenleaf if you can look after the child till evening.”

“I must watch her closely today in any case,” Cruz said. “Perhaps you could count my goats on your way. There should be six kids.” His ash-colored eyes scanned me. “Señorita, the sun has burned you. Before you ride today, let me give you an ointment.”

“Good idea,” said Trace. “And wear my hat. I've got another I can pick up.”

My face did feel well-boiled and I hadn't done my hair that morning. Just as well there was no mirror, especially after Cruz carefully smeared a greenish stuff on my face and neck, explaining that it was aloes. I sighed ruefully at my stained riding habit, which was by now snagged in numerous places. It was past repair, though my skin should right itself in time. Again I told myself it was lucky I needn't be at pains to spare my clothes: I could follow Trace through any brush without worrying.

“You're sure Sewa won't need me?” I asked.

“You would only tire yourself watching by her today,” said Cruz. “Tomorrow it will be important that you are close, and that will not be easy. Any good hours you can have today will help you and Sewa, so enjoy them with a free heart.”

I went in to see her while Trace was getting the horses. She slept, face tucked against her arm, the flute under her hand. Merciful that Cruz could give her sleep, but soon she would have to face the loss of her foot. I'd do whatever I could. Perhaps an artificial foot could be made. But nothing could restore the bend of her ankle, the use of a living part of her body. Nothing could bring back her family.

Brushing hair from her face, I bent suddenly to kiss her, a deep fierce tenderness rooting itself in me. She would be my sister and my child. I would take care of her. For the first time since my mother died, I felt less alone.

The horses of Las Coronas were loosely separated according to color. There was a predominance of blacks because the primal stallion of these horses, brought over by the Spaniards, had been a magnificent black. But now there were duns, bays, roans, and grays. Each band of thirty to eighty had its own range and was kept in line by a lead mare and the stallion who protected and utterly dominated his harem.

“Court wants a gray gelding about sixteen hands high,” mused Trace as we turned up a box canyon where a gray herd found such graze as it could. “I think Roque has a good three-year-old that'll do, providing it's free of blemishes.”

“Mr. Sanders dislikes imperfections?”

“That's not the word for it. He's near crazy when it comes to things he owns or uses. They have to be the best. He paid a sight of money once for a fancy gun. When it jammed on him, he just tossed it down a gorge.”

“His wife must have a perilous time of it!”

“She would, if he had one.” Trace's lip curled. “He's from some high-powered Yankee family—reckon he thinks nobody south of Boston is good enough for him to marry.”

Gazing out at the horses, he dismissed Court and spoke with the drawl I found so delightful. “Would you believe that all the horses in Mexico and South America came from those brought by the Spaniards, along with most of those in the western United States?”

“The English brought horses,” I argued.

He shrugged. “Sure. So did the Dutch and French, but precious few of them got west of the Mississippi till after the War Between the States. The very first horse to run wild in this country is supposed to have been a colt foaled on one of Cortez's ships a few days before they landed. When its mother died on the march into the mountains, the colt was lost, and when seen again, it was living with a herd of deer.”

“So it found a family,” I exclaimed, charmed.

Trace glanced at me, his eyes serious though he was smiling. “It's surprising how often animal orphans do. I knew a hen that mothered a kitten and a fawn that grew up with dogs.”

“Really? What happened to the fawn?”

Trace's smile faded. “Some strange dogs killed it.”

“Oh!”

He shrugged, reining his horse about. “Don't be too sorry for the fawn. He had a few good years of frolic. Guess he never lived with the fear his wild kin had, always ready to run.”

A short fearless life or a long one bought by constant vigilance? I though of Sewa and wondered if she would rather have died than live a cripple. Saddened, I rode after Trace.

We rode down a box canyon toward a band of horses ranging in color from cream to buff. “The ones with black streaks along their spines are coyote duns,” Trace said. “Some people think they're throwbacks to the first horses in all the world and that they can stand more than other colors.”

“Do you?”

He grinned. “I've had good horses of every shade. This
manada
has the top stallion, though. He has about fifty mares, double what most can handle.”

I gazed at the magnificent silver-gold creature grazing on a rise behind and to one side of the herd. “You mean he's their husband?” I fumbled, felt blood wash up to the roots of my hair at Trace's startled hoot of laughter.

“You might say that,” he managed. “He's a protector-tyrant who keeps the herd together, breeds the mares, and fights off dangers. Only the best stallions can do this, so the heritage from a range sire is usually strong. Trouble is, any mare looks good to a stallion, he's as unparticular as a drunken cowboy at the end of a trail drive.”

“That must not be a mare he's after, then. Look! He's driving that horse away.”

To the far side, a horse had tried to slip in among the stragglers, but the stallion drove at him fiercely, biting the haunch, ramming the stray's ribs with the crest of his neck. The intruder fled. The stallion chased him from the canyon, punishing his would-be follower so cruelly that it flattened almost to its belly in its hurry to escape.

“Yearling looking for a home,” Trace said. “Stallion cuts them out of the herd, even the fillies, when they get to be that age.” He shook his head in rough sympathy as we watched the vanishing youngster. “Reminds me of when I was a kid.”

“You didn't have a family?”

“Just an aunt and uncle who didn't want me.”

His short answer warned me not to question further. “What'll happen to the colt?”

“He'll hang around with other colts or old stallions past their prime or other lonesome bachelors. In another year he'll probably be sold or gelded for use on the ranch. Only the best are kept for breeding.”

The stallion, pacing back triumphantly, snuffed the air as if scenting some totally irresistible odor. He trotted up, arching his neck proudly, to a creamy mare. She tried to evade him in the herd, but he kept after her, nipping her flank and shoulder, driving her to the periphery.

Isolated at last, she sidled nervously, dodging his attempts to mount. Finally she lashed out with her heels. He still pursued. Rearing around, she bit at him, and not coquettishly.

The stallion checked. One could almost sense his bewilderment and thwarted lust. After a moment he went after the mare again—differently, brutally, much as he acted toward the rejected yearling, driving her back into the herd.

“She's like some women,” Trace said. “Likes to keep a male stirred up but won't deliver. It's not safe for a woman to try that game in Mexico.”

With an almost laughable air of self-righteousness, the stallion trotted back, snuffed where I had seen a mare urinate while the stallion was punishing the recalcitrant mare, and pranced up to a small buckskin.

He snorted and sniffed her, nostrils swelling, made eager, whinnying grunts as he lipped her flanks and rump. Then he reared, neck arching, fitting his forelegs over her shoulders to hold her in place. She quivered, bracing. His long thick rod drove into her. She squealed, but his weight held her fixed, except for her head, which moved back and forth. Again and again he hunched himself, and at each wrenching lunge, she shuddered.

That wild energy—that surging, driving power.

My mouth was dry. Something hot, sweet, melting licked through me, centering low in my belly; I was painfully conscious of my nipples prickling, standing out hard and erect against the soft linen of my chemise. I could not look away as the stallion pumped his force into the mare, his tail flaring high, mane tossing as he sought to exhaust his lust.

His haunches contracted; he gripped the mare with a convulsive spasm, his head fell weakly by her side before he withdrew so suddenly that he almost touched the ground with his rump before he walked off, swinging his head dazedly from side to side. His organ, hard and gorged minutes before, now swung limp; emptied, dripping.

The mare had squealed again as he fell off her, and now she stood shivering. She looked after the stallion, who was still running in that peculiar choppy way. He did not glance back at her, I noticed with wry amusement. Then she dropped her head and began to forage.

For the stallion and his mare it was over. I swallowed, trying to quell the hungry excitement in my loins, and turned to face Trace Winslade watching me.

Fearing that my eyes would reveal what I felt, I dropped my gaze to his hands. Long and brown, they held the reins with a light certainty that could harden to steel in an instant. I could not check a vision of them gripping my thighs, readying me for his pleasure as the stallion held the mare.

If he had touched me then, pulled me from my saddle, I could not have resisted him, would not, in the depths of my body, have wanted to. The mating had filled me with awe—and envy. Raw, primeval abandon, the imperative urge that constantly created power and life. When would I feel it? With whom?

Trace, eyes smoldering as if he guessed my almost uncontrollable longing, swung his horse about. “Sorry.” His tone was muffled. “Didn't know that was going to happen. But I guess you'd see it eventually, living on Las Coronas.”

“Has—has Reina?”

His broad shoulders stiffened. He didn't answer for a few seconds. When he did, his voice was dry. “Yes.”

We rode on in silence, but my thoughts ran riot and my body felt imprisoned, tormented, ready to explode. If the coupling had affected me like this, what would it do to Reina? Sensuous, confident, she wouldn't let Trace turn his back to her, ride off like that.

“Trace!” I called.

“Yes, Miranda?” He reined back slightly but didn't turn.

Plea, protest, accusation, whatever it had been, stuck in my throat. Instead, I blurted, “Trace! Why did the stallion chase the first mare off?”

Without expression, he answered, “She wouldn't let him mount.”

I mulled that, part of the mightily intriguing but baffling play that went on between all sexed creatures. If I could understand the stallion's behavior, I believed I'd know more, too, about Trace.

“Does the stallion expect his mares to let him do that anytime he chooses?”

Trace cast me a severely chiding look before his mouth twitched. His head went back and he shook with laughter.

“I don't see what's funny!”

Swallowing his mirth, he scowled again, shoved his dark hair under his hat. “Dammit! I beg your pardon, but—dammit! I don't know what I should tell you, what's fit for ladies.”

“Why not the truth?”

I glowed at his approving look. “Maybe that's the best notion.” He frowned, carefully thinking out each word. “A stallion won't pester a mare unless it
is
the right time. When he smells her, and he can from a long way off, it drives him wild. All he has on his mind is mounting her. If she won't take him, he drives her back and finds another:” He added grimly, “Might be better for people if it was that clear and simple for them.”

Dr. Mattison had been explicit about corsets and childbed fever, but he'd never gone into explanations of what happened inside all those tender parts he didn't want steel and whalebone to compress. We girls had speculated and tried piecing together bits and pieces of information, but nothing had foreshadowed the way I felt now.

“Are people like that?” My cheeks flamed, but I had to ask, try to comprehend what was happening to me. “Do they have a—a right time?”

I shrank from his astonished laughter. He saw that and sobered contritely, though a spark of indulgent humor lingered in his eyes. “Men are generally ready—too ready, I guess. Some women never are, though I'd reckon that comes from what they're taught and trained to, crazy ideas about what's ladylike.”