Canyon Song (33 page)

If Anna heard his steps, she ignored them, though he stood so close to her that he could hear her breaths
. A few minutes before, the sun had slid beneath the layer of the clouds beyond the western red rock wall. Its absence gave over this part of canyon to the early evening gloom. He thought of all the years that she had spent here, cast into the premature dusk of this shadowed land, burying herself within this deep rock tomb. For that, more than her burned cabin, he wanted to hold her, to weep with her for all their wasted time.

Yet nothing in her posture indicated she was grieving
. Light enough remained to see that her shoulders did not tremble, her body did not shake. The sounds of her breathing, although rapid, betrayed no quiet sobbing. Perhaps, he thought, she was too shocked to cry.

Notion snuffed frantically, trotting from one heap to another, as if he wondered where his home had gone
.

A spattering of raindrops fell
. Despite the quiet sounds of the creek’s flow and the breezes playing among treetops, Quinn heard the water hiss against the still-hot coals.

He reached out for Anna, but before his hand met her shoulder, she turned to face him
. Her smoky, blue-gray eyes were glimmering with unshed tears, but they were bright, so bright.

“She’s still here,” Anna told him, her voice betraying no surprise that he’d moved so close
. “Can’t you feel her?”This time, instead of fighting the idea, he let the chill ripple over him,
into him
. He felt no fear, though nothing in his Catholic upbringing had prepared him for such a possibility.

“I
do
feel something,” he admitted, “and I believe you when you say it’s her.
Rosalinda
.”

The name tasted of honey, reminding him of her mother’s voice
. Reaching out, he pulled Anna against him. Their mouths moved together; their lips touched in the most delicate of kisses.

Only then did Anna shudder, as if that kiss unlocked some gate
. In a moment, he felt her tears against his face — or perhaps it was only the increasing rain. She pulled back enough to whisper in his ear. “They couldn’t take her from me this time, so they took everything else.”

And they had
. The small outbuildings, too, had been burned, even the timbers of the corral now smoldered, and no trace of Anna’s goats and chickens remained. Except for what she carried, she had nothing left.

She pulled down the brim of her hat, which had been knocked askew as they had kissed
. She used the back of her hand to swipe away the dampness on her cheek.

Relief surged through Quinn’s system. Nothing now remained to tie her to this place
.

“I want to marry you,” he told her
. His words were followed quickly by a forewarning of disaster. Instead of coming out the way he meant it, his offer sounded selfish, like a boy who wouldn’t mind the thought of winning by default.

Anna’s expression, shadowed by the wide brim of her leather hat, was difficult to read
. But there was no mistaking the anger in her words. “Damn you, Ryan! Do you think I want your pity? Just because I love you doesn’t mean that I don’t want my life back! Can’t you feel it? Rosalinda needs me here!”

It was the only time he could remember her swearing, at least in English
. He felt fairly certain she had cursed him in Spanish many times.

She had pulled away, so he stepped closer
. Close enough to touch her — but he didn’t. Mad as she was, he didn’t want to end up looking like his deputy.

“I’m sorry,” Quinn offered
. “That didn’t come out the way I wanted it to sound. I . . . I love you so much, Anna. I have this awful sense of how many years we wasted, how much grief we both went through alone. I don’t want that anymore. I want you . . . but only if you want me, too. If you don’t want to marry me, I’ll help you get started elsewhere. Somewhere you’ll never have to see my face again.”

He stared at her and prayed for all he was worth that she wouldn’t call his bluff.

She shook her head, flinging raindrops from her hat’s brim into his face. “You’re still a gambler, aren’t you, Ryan?”

He tried to look wounded, in the hope that she’d have mercy
. It didn’t help a bit.

“Come on,” she said, flipping the brim of his hat with her thumb
. “This rain is setting in, and we’ll get soaked. I know a place where we can hole up for the night.”

*     *     *

“
Bienvenidos
,” said the old man who bade them into the shack. “I have been expecting both of you.”

Even in the dim light, Lucy saw the clouding of his ancient eyes, but even so, she would swear he really knew her.

“Come inside, Señora Cameron,” Tío Viejo said, confirming her suspicion. “And bring your friend as well.”

If not for Horace’s presence, she didn’t think she could have forced herself to go inside the shabby dwelling
. As it was, she hesitated.

“Go in,” Horace told her quietly, “before someone sees us from the street.”

Horace offered his hand to the old man and introduced himself and Lucy, despite the fact that the old man behaved as if he already knew them both.

Apparently not seeing the outstretched hand, Tío Viejo groped for several cowhide-covered stools.

“Please sit down,” he offered, then took his own advice. “I knew you would come here. I told Manuel already you were safe somewhere and hiding. A frightful thing, what happened with Elena. Who can blame you for borrowing an old man’s mule?”

“I’m sorry, all the same,” Lucy apologized as she sank carefully onto a seat
. “I was afraid you would think that he’d been stolen.”

Tío Viejo waved off her words
. “Bah! You are no mule thief. Only a frightened girl. I tell you what. For my part in this, I give you Paquito.”

“For your part?” Lucy echoed, confused on several counts.

The old man nodded, then sighed heavily. “Elena stole the poison from my home. She confess to me she use it in her baking. Many things I cannot see, but I know others. But
Dios
did not see fit to warn me just how troubled that lost child had become. Or maybe I just close my eyes and hope. For that, forgive me,
por favor
.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Lucy insisted
. “But what do you mean, you give me — what did you call it? — Paquito. What is that?”

Tío Viejo laugh was thin and brittle — and ended in a spasmodic coughing
. Recovering, he said, “Paquito is my mule. So no one can ever say you stole it, I make him
un regalo
, a gift.”

“Oh
! Thank you, but I can’t accept such a gener —”

“— Bah!” he interrupted with that same wave of dismissal
. “I am far too old to ride about on such an animal. He is too much to care for for a dying man.”

“Surely you aren’t dying!”  She didn’t know why the thought should so upset her
. She had only just met him. And besides, he was a Mexican, a man who lived in a cramped shack filled with drying roots and branches, a man who smelled as though he hadn’t bathed in a long while. She was shocked to realize that none of that mattered any longer. All that mattered were his generous spirit and the kindness in his wrinkled face.

He smiled, as if he knew the ways that she had changed
. “I welcome this long night, my daughter. The day has been so tiring. Just take good care of Paquito.”

She didn’t quite know what to say
. She sensed that despite its willful ugliness, that mule was the finest gift she’d ever received.

“Thank you.”  Not the right words, exactly, but they seemed to suffice.

“Now you can ride him home,” the old man said.

“Home
? But home is too far. It’s in . . .”  Where
was
her home? She’d meant to say Connecticut. Now she wasn’t sure.

This time, Tío Viejo found Horace’s hand
. With his other hand, he reached for Lucy’s. She let the old man join her hand with Horace’s, and once again, she felt something powerful pass between them, something she hadn’t fully recognized before.

“You both will know it when you reach it,” said the old man, “but only by journeying together can you find your place.” 

Horace squeezed her hand and stared at her intently. “I think you’re wrong,” he told the old man. “When I look at her I see it. It’s reflected in her eyes.”

He moved so much closer, he shared the vision with her in a kiss so sweet it sealed their future.

*     *     *

Though the day’s warmth had ebbed as the sun met the horizon, Ward Cameron once more mopped sweat from his forehead
. Rain pattered off his hat brim, adding to his damp discomfort. Glancing at the low clouds, he wondered if there was anywhere he might spend the night to shelter from the rain.

He had to admit that riding alone after Quinn and Anna Bennett had been a mistake, the result of panic and not clear-headed logic
. He’d easily followed their horses’ tracks as far as the canyon’s entrance, but afterward, the trail faded and then vanished onto windswept rock.

He had ridden for hours more, believing this to be the same canyon he meant to claim and then mine for its silver
. But nowhere did he find a trace of Quinn and Anna or any other person. Too frustrated to continue, he yanked his horse’s reins and swore in the fading echo of its footsteps.

Mammoth walls towered above him, their jagged ridges unmoved by his fiercest oaths, their smooth red planes indifferent to influence
. Not far away, a small stream tumbled cheerily over round, gray rocks.

His stallion pricked its ears eagerly toward the gurgling water
. Cameron rode the palomino closer, then dismounted, reasoning that both horse and rider could profit from a drink. And in his case, time to think as well, about what he would do now, since he had lost the pair he’d trailed.

Doubt crept up Cameron’s arms, colder even than the water he drank from his cupped hands
. Again, he considered simply riding out of here and heading north for Canada and a new beginning. But going now meant that he would start with nothing, less than nothing since he would no longer be able to resort to practicing the law.

At that moment, his thoughts were interrupted by a glimpse of riders in the distance
. Keeping very still, so as to attract no notice, Cameron watched them. He could make out two, but at this distance, he couldn’t tell for certain whether it was the sheriff with a woman or someone else.

He cautioned himself that out here, he might even come upon Ned Hamby
. The thought caused more sweat to bead on his upper lip and forehead. Hamby in his office, in
his
territory, was one matter, but this place was the outlaw’s own domain, where a judge might be robbed and murdered just as easily as an Indian squaw. No, it wouldn’t do to meet Hamby here alone.

So with that in mind, Cameron decided he would follow carefully to try to identify the riders and if they proved to be his quarry, to find a place to ambush them without risking his own hide.

Cañon del Sangre de Cristo

April 13, 1884

Easter Sunday

Anna held her infant daughter against her shoulder and gently stroked her tiny back
. “Shhh . . .” she urged,  “Don’t cry now,” though the child had been still for hours.

In the bright October moonlight, she walked beside the stream with Rosalinda, where dried leaves whispered with her passage and the music of the water offered up its soothing sound
. Anna wished that she could sing, too, wished she could remember the words to any lullaby, to any song at all. She thought that she recalled a snatch of melody, but when she tried to hum it, the notes spun apart like leaves carried downstream by the swift but shallow flow.

She’d risen from the chair where she’d held vigil to come here, risen in the darkness so she would not have to face Señora Valdez, with her sad and knowing gaze
. Risen so she could walk with Rosalinda’s tiny, cooling form pressed close against her aching bosom, so she could be a mother for a little while more.

Then it occurred to her, she could be
. She could hold on for as long as it was needed. Not by Rosalinda, who needed nothing further. But as long as Anna needed, as long as she stayed here.

She kissed the little forehead, then tucked her daughter’s lamb’s wool blanket more snugly about her. If she blurred her eyes just so, Anna could pretend her daughter was still sleeping . . . for a little while more.

Yet even within dreams, the seasons change too swiftly. This time, her arms were empty as she walked along the stream while it was frozen, in the bright glare of winter sun upon the drifted snow. Her feet punched holes into the icy crust, and the deep chill radiated up both of her legs. Yet Anna felt warmed by something, a breath of a mild October breeze, remembered moonlight from a solemn autumn night. It enshrouded her like lamb’s wool, made her feel protected as a babe herself.