Bed of Roses (31 page)

Knowing he was going to find and destroy Maclovio’s still, Zafiro longed to accompany him. Nothing she could think of at that moment would have given her more satisfaction than breaking apart the contraption that had caused so much grief at La Escondida.

But her people needed her. Tia and Azucar still wept beside the rose garden, Lorenzo’s blistered hands needed attention, and Pedro was far too pale for her liking. The old man was clearly exhausted from his fight with the fire.

Struggling to tame her own sorrow, worry, and anger, she ushered her four elderly charges into the house, leaving Maclovio to sleep in the yard. Once inside she quickly tended to Lorenzo’s hands, then made a pot of tea.

Overcome with sadness as she was, Tia could do naught but watch as Zafiro took charge. “We will be hungry this winter,
chiquita
,” she said when Zafiro handed her a cup of hot tea. “Without the garden—”

“We have never had very many vegetables,” Zafiro reminded the sniffling woman. “The rabbits have eaten them year after year. The fire destroying the garden is no different—”

“It is different,” Tia argued. “The rabbits always left a bit. The fire has eaten it all.”

Zafiro hugged Tia, then moved to comfort Azucar, who sat in her chair with a look of unmitigated stupefaction on her wrinkled face. “Tia, you forget the berry patch I told you about,” she said, forcing herself to present a bright, encouraging smile while still hugging Azucar. “The berries, they are many and they are ripe for picking. And do not forget the good sisters. They—”

“The holy sisters must be in the same situation as we are,” Pedro declared. Holding the keys he wore about his neck, he hobbled around the room, stopping here and there to shake his head before continuing his pacing. “They have brought us nothing in weeks. And Mariposa has brought no meat. There is not even enough for our animals. I have watched Sawyer bring in fresh grass for them, but he cannot continue to do that after the winter snows. The only thing I have seen in the barn is a bag of shriveled corn for the chickens.”

“I am hungry,” Lorenzo said, the thought of having no food causing his stomach to growl. “Zafiro, what are we going to do?”

A sigh collected within her breast, but she dared not release it for fear of further upsetting her charges. Still trying to smile, she dipped out a bowl of Tia’s stew and handed it to Lorenzo. Her heart tripped when the old man devoured it as if it were the last food on earth.

“Zafiro, what are we going to do?” Azucar asked. “No food… And there is also Luis.”

“Luis,” Zafiro whispered. As if she could ever forget him. He remained in her mind like an ugly stain she couldn’t scrub away.

She battled her fear, then after a long moment, she saw her people staring at her, looking into her eyes and hoping to find a bit of reassurance there.

Somehow she pushed down her apprehension. Her chin tilted upward in a gesture of confidence, she walked to the window and peered through the glass.

Eggs, she thought as she looked at the chicken coop in the yard. Eggs, fish, a smattering of dried berries, what little the sisters might provide, and whatever game Mariposa decided to share—that would be the extent of the winter food.

Asking Sawyer for further aid was useless. Strong, capable, and efficient as he was, he could not plant and cultivate another garden this late in the season. The first frost was only about a month away.

Nor could he hunt for fresh meat. The memories that haunted him would not allow him to handle a gun.

Sawyer had done and was still doing everything he was able to do for her and her charges.

Money was the answer, she knew. With hard, cold cash, she could buy everything La Escondida and its people needed to survive the harsh winter of the Sierra Madres. She wouldn’t even have to take the risk of being seen in any towns or villages. Sawyer or the nuns could see to the task of shopping.

But there was no money. Gone were the days when her men could easily steal the money needed to survive and have enough left to share with the poor.

Finally, she released the sigh she’d kept captive within her breast. The warmth of her breath as it escaped her lips made a foggy circle upon the windowpane.

It was true what was said about life.

It was not roses to sleep on.

Chapter Fifteen

D
awn was well on its way
to becoming full morning when Sawyer finally returned from the dusty hills behind the house and walked into the yard. He looked filthy and felt dirtier, for he’d spent most of the night looking for Maclovio’s still, then a good hour destroying the damn thing after he’d found it hidden in a drafty cave.

Even while breaking the still apart, he had to admire Maclovio’s genius in making it. Simply designed, yet obviously quite serviceable, the whiskey-making contraption was skillfully fashioned with odds and ends Maclovio had found lying around La Escondida: a sturdy wooden barrel, a big copper pot and hollow coil and pipe, a glass jug, a cap and plug, and rags. Scatterings of animal feed and a few dried-up berries and roots told Sawyer that Maclovio had used whatever edible thing he could find to make his lethal brew.

But Sawyer hadn’t seen any more of such odds and ends anywhere on La Escondida, and because he’d completely demolished the items Maclovio had found and used years ago, he doubted seriously that the man could make another still.

The man in question was no longer lying in the yard, where he’d passed out the night before, Sawyer noticed. Maclovio had probably awakened with a pounding headache and gone to the stream for a dip in the refreshing water.

Hunger gnawing at him after his busy night, Sawyer entered the cabin, but found no one in the great room. Strange. Tia was always doing something here in the kitchen.

“Zafiro!” he called.

In the next moment he heard someone descending the staircase. “Zafiro, where’s Tia—”

“Sawyer!” Azucar greeted him as she wobbled off the last step and started toward him. “It is a perfect time for you to have returned. Tia and Zafiro have gone to gather berries. Mariposa went with them, but then she returned and is now cleaning herself upstairs in your room. Maclovio has left to bathe, Pedro is in the woods praying, and Lorenzo fell asleep in the barn when he went to visit the animals. We are all alone, my handsome buck. Free to indulge in all the many pleasures of the flesh.”

In no mood for her advances, Sawyer began to step away from her, but suddenly remembered his decision to be kinder to all the elderly inhabitants of La Escondida. Smiling down at the crimson-draped hag, he took her frail shoulders into his hands and bent to place a tender kiss on her wrinkled cheek. Her gasp of pure joy told him he’d made her truly happy.

“We’ll have to talk about this later, Azucar, darling,” he murmured into her ear. “Right now I’ve got to make a much needed visit to the stream.”

Azucar drew away and examined him, not missing all the dirt and sweat stains that coated his clothing and skin. “Yes, I see you are very dirty. All right, my anxious stallion, go wash, and then we will go to my bedroom for a little morning delight.”

Gently, he tweaked her nose, grabbed a bar of soap from a basket attached to the wall, then crossed to the door. Outside, he headed straight for the stream.

And met Maclovio in the forest.

“Sawyer,” Maclovio said, blinking as water dripped from his clean hair into his bloodshot eyes.

“Maclovio.”

Maclovio bowed his head and watched his feet shuffle in the brittle leaves. “I saw what I did.”

Sawyer remained silent.

“I am sorry,” Maclovio muttered. “I do not even remember doing it. It was Pedro who told me when I woke up. I cannot believe—”

“You won’t do anything like that again, Maclovio.”

Maclovio had no need for further explanation. The sound in Sawyer’s voice was sufficient. “You found it.”

“And destroyed it.”

“I cannot build another.”

“I know.”

Maclovio lifted his head. “I am sorry, Sawyer. If I could undo what I did, I would.”

As Sawyer looked into the old giant’s eyes he felt compassion surge through him. “I know you would, Maclovio.”

“We will be hungry this winter.”

“Maybe not.”

Maclovio’s eyes widened. “No? What are you going to do then?”

It was Sawyer’s turn to bow his head. While absently looking at the toes of his dusty boots, he ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know. I just don’t know yet.”

Maclovio wrapped his hand over Sawyer’s shoulder. “I will help. Now that I cannot drink anymore, you will see how I can help.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Money is what we need, Sawyer,” Maclovio said, then wiped a dribble of stream water off his neck. “With money we could buy—”

“But we don’t have any, Maclovio.”

“I could steal again. About ten miles south of here there is a road that is well-traveled by wealthy people on their way to Mexico City. And to the north of here are several fine haciendas owned and lived in by wealthy Spaniards. I could—”

“And how would you get there?”

Maclovio smiled. “There is Coraje. No horse I have ever known could run as fast as he.”

Alarm flashed through Sawyer’s mind as he imagined the old man trying to mount Coraje.

The horse would kill him. “If I catch you anywhere near that monster I’ll smash your face, Maclovio. And that’s not an empty promise.”

At Maclovio’s crestfallen expression, Sawyer tempered his next words. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”

On impulse, Maclovio reached out and gave Sawyer a quick, strong hug, then released him. “You are a good man, Sawyer Donovan. It is an honor to call you my friend.”

Sawyer clapped Maclovio on the back before resuming his trip to the stream. Once at the bank he swiftly took off his clothes, and with the bar of soap in hand he dove into the rushing water. After soaking for a few moments, he rubbed the soap between his palms to create a lather, then began to wash.

A flash of red in the woods suddenly stole his attention.

“Sawyer,” Azucar called as she exited the forest and tottered toward the stream. “I have brought you a towel.”

He sank low into the stream; water flowed beneath his chin. “Uh… Thank you, Azucar.” Watching her warily, he wondered if she would soon rip off her gown and join him in the creek.

“Oh, I see you did not bring clean clothes with you, my handsome buck.” Laying the towel on the shore, Azucar picked up Sawyer’s dirty clothes. “I will take these away and bring you back some clean ones.”

When she doddered back into the woods with his dirty clothes, Sawyer relaxed and smiled. She really was a kind person, he thought. Insane, but kind.

Insane. The word made him wonder where Zafiro was, where she’d gone to pick the berries with Tia. Well, wherever she was she’d be back soon, he decided, lathering his hair.

He could hardly wait to tell her he’d found and destroyed Maclovio’s still. She needed to hear some happy news.

Yes, today would be a good day for Zafiro.

“S
ee, Tia?” Zafiro asked, standing
in the midst of a lush patch of vegetation. “I told you we would find berries here.” She looked around the area, a small grassy field that was about a ten-minute walk away from La Escondida. “Are you happier now?”

“I am happier,
chiquita
,” Tia answered, bending over to strip another hill of plump red berries. “If I can get enough sugar I will make jams and jellies. And I will dry the berries too, and make berry candies, and of course we will have fresh berry pies.”

“But you will need more flour, Tia.” For a moment Zafiro glanced over the landscape, frowning without really understanding why. She wondered where Mariposa was, then decided the cougar had returned to the cabin.

For some reason she wished the mountain lion was near.

She shook the peculiar feeling off. “I will see if I can get flour for us. I have not visited the nuns in a while, so perhaps I will…”

Her voice trailed away when she detected what sounded like a distant rumble of thunder. Strange. Not as much as a whiff of clouds broke the blue of the vast Mexican sky.

“It is too bad that we cannot pick other foods off plants the way we can with these berries,” Tia said. “Imagine if we could go pick a pig off a bush or shake flour, salt, and sugar from the trees.”

Zafiro barely understood a word Tia said, so intently did she concentrate on the faraway noise that continued to hit her ears. It wasn’t thunder. She didn’t know why she was certain that it wasn’t, but she knew it was not thunder.

The mountain wind whined past her, picking up her hair and blowing it all around her face. Her cheeks stung as the tresses whipped at her skin, and still the remote noise taunted her comprehension.

A fine shiver crawled over her, not one of cold, but of apprehension. Her heart seemed to tumble, as if missing its rhythmic footing.

“Tia,” she whispered.

“I think we should bring Azucar, Maclovio, Pedro, and Lorenzo to this patch tomorrow morning,” Tia continued merrily, dropping another handful of berries into her basket. “There are so many! And we will ask my sweet Francisco to take some to the good sisters at the convent. The nuns, they will enjoy—”

“Tia.”

Slowly, Tia straightened from her hunched-over position. A slight frown wrinkling the wrinkles on her forehead, she looked at her young companion. “Zafiro.” She, too, looked in the distance, in the same direction as did Zafiro. “What do you see?”

Zafiro parted her lips to answer, but stopped suddenly when her throat began to close. “Run,” she whispered.

She struggled to breathe, to take in enough air to be able to shout. Deep foreboding caused her to drop her basket.

Finally, she gulped in air. “Run! Tia, run back to La Escondida!”

Tia’s basket flew into the air, spilling berries everywhere as she turned and fled toward the entrance of the hideaway. Hearing Zafiro’s racing footsteps behind her, she prayed they would find safety before the coming danger caught up with them.

“Faster, Tia, faster!” Zafiro yelled. The noise became louder, her fear deeper. She turned to look over her shoulder.