The Obedient Servant [Going for the Gold 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (17 page)

Tallulah brought her cup to her lips. “And what are your feelings for our new Polish president? You fall prey to his monkey business and ruses just as I do.” She sipped, and apparently the wine was pleasant, for she sipped some more. “You don’t strike me as a man who’d put up with a lot of nonsense, but you seem to enjoy being manipulated by that lusty devil, too.”

Reynaldo was uncomfortable to the extreme. He wasn’t accustomed to speaking frankly to begin with, much less speaking frankly with a woman. He knew, though, that this was women’s way, this speaking-frankly claptrap. If he wanted to be with Tallulah, he’d best learn how. “I…I’m not terribly experienced in love, in case you haven’t noticed, Tillie. Hell, the past ten years I’ve spent traipsing around the country with my topographical work, frigging myself more than I was frigged by other men. And I was frigged by other men more than I trucked with women, if that gives you any indication.”

“I figured,” Tallulah said gently. “And I think it’s sweet. All the more reason you’ve become so attached to Milo.”

Attached
. That was a good word. “Yes, attached. I’m very…fond of him.” He could never tell the woman he thought about Milo every other minute of the day, and usually all night long, too, when he wasn’t thankfully slumbering, dead from exhaustion and drink. “For all of his domineering, tyrannical swagger, I’m convinced there’s a gentle creature lurking somewhere. Have you seen how quickly his eyes change? He’ll be pretending to angrily torture one of us, and then the
pleased
look when we comply?”

Tallulah shared a conspiratorial look with him. “Yes, but the look in his eyes when he was the submissive one, when you were fucking him… He utterly gave himself up to the pleasure. So he’s not domineering all of the time. He’s not rigidly unyielding. Drink.”

Reynaldo raised his cup to his lips but recoiled before he even drank. The acrid pungency that seeped into his nostrils nearly made him gag, but he forced himself to sip.

“I think,” he said, not daring to swallow, “that this needs to stay in the barrel much longer.”
Gulp
. “How long do you think it’s been fermenting?”

“Oh, we just put this in the barrel last October,” Tallulah cheerfully admitted.

“Needs much longer. Have you any white wine, by any chance?”

They both turned their heads as someone came banging through the front door and down the hallway. “Corporal Vargas!” Origin Oakley blared. Reynaldo could hear an uproar in the parade ground in front of the house, as though a rider had come roaring into the plaza. “Vargas! Akers has come with an urgent message!” Origin smacked straight into Reynaldo as the corporal tried to race down the hallway. Because Reynaldo still held the wine cup, Origin’s shirtfront was soaked through with the vile, pungent stuff, but the sight of it seemed to cheer him up. He removed the nearly empty cup from between their chests.

“This wine! Mighty fantastic, isn’t it? I helped with the entire process. I did much more for this wine than Leese himself! Did you enjoy it?”

Reynaldo shoved by Origin to emerge onto the front portico. Akers was one of the bear hunters and a Freemason. He was hollering and yammering something fierce. Reynaldo told Tallulah, “Stay here.” He sprinted across the plaza toward the flagpole, where men were pouring from the barracks and the Blue Wing Inn.

Akers had to start his whole story afresh when Milo came manfully from the barracks. Akers saluted clumsily and blurted, “Captain Stephens, sir! I just came from Rancho Cabeza de Santa Rosa! Sympathetic Californios told us that Cowie and Fowler were apprehended near Fitch Ranch by Ramon Carrillo and Mesa Juan Padilla!”

Milo frowned. “Where were they taken? Did you see them with your eyes?”

“No, just the Californio’s report. I figured I’d best get back here and gather more men for a posse. Carrillo is Vallejo’s brother-in-law, so we figure it’s reprisal against us taking Vallejo. The report is that Bernardo Garcia is with them.” Akers looked around nervously. “He’s a barber.”

Tallulah, of course, hadn’t obeyed Reynaldo’s instructions, and now she clung to his arm. “Oh, blue blazes. Garcia is a nasty customer, the terror of the frontier, just the sort you’d want around if you wanted to slit someone’s throat with a straight razor.”

Milo’s eyes flashed on Tallulah clinging to Reynaldo, and he stormed over. He practically tore Reynaldo from the woman. “You come with us!” Quieter, he seethed to Reynaldo, “It’s our fucking fault Fowler and Cowie were captured, Rey. They’re the youngest Osos, and we sent them out to get that powder because they were drooling all over Tillie.”

Reynaldo tended to agree. “Let us take Grigsby, Ford, Swift, and Sears.” They were the heartiest and best-trained men.

“Yes,” Milo agreed as Origin led his saddled mare through the gates. “Origin, can you find those men? Grigsby, Swift, did you hear that? You’re coming with us. And Origin, find Duell and Maliano, in case it’s a trap.” Those two beefy buffaloes were good men to have if it came down to fisticuffs.

“Do you want any provisions?” Tallulah asked.

“Yes,” barked Milo. “Can you get us some jerked beef and fill our
botas
with fresh water from the spring?”

“Of course,” said Tallulah, removing Milo’s
bota
bag from his saddle.

Milo drew Reynaldo aside, away from the curious ears of his handpicked soldiers. “Sutter has protested our bringing him prisoners. He says it’s a violation of his neutrality. Frémont is pressing the prisoners upon him, though. But the outlying ranchers have been in fear since we ran up the bear flag.”

“Yes,” Reynaldo sighed. “It’s that damned pig thing again.”

“Right. Most everyone was prepared to embrace us. But since seeing the flag with the sign of force and domination, they’ve assumed we want to rule at our caprice and not be beholden to any country.”

“Complete anarchists,” Reynaldo agreed. “They’re running scared, and taking Fowler and Cowie is just their way of protecting their lives and property.”

“Yes,” agreed Milo. “But we can’t allow it.”

“Perhaps we should also carry the Stars and Stripes when we head to Fitch Ranch.”

“I thought about that.” Milo cinched some straps on his saddle. “But there isn’t an American flag to be had. When I sent my proclamation to Stockton I also requested a flag. Until then, they’re just going to see a bunch of robbers running over their plains and forests.”

“We should paint a better flag,” said Reynaldo.

Milo hadn’t spoken since ordering the men to stand back on the lip of the ravine.

He just tossed his head at Reynaldo, and Reynaldo knew to follow him down the steep hill. Milo was glad Reynaldo didn’t require a lot of instruction, because Milo didn’t feel like talking. Not that any of the others were particularly eager to inspect the bodies of Fowler and Cowie, tossed heartlessly down this ravine.

Señora Carrillo had told them that the men had been tied to two pine trees overnight. But Milo found some parts of bodies on his way downhill from the two pine trees. A finger. Some coiled intestines. And—he realized in retrospect once he reached the bodies, and saw it missing from Cowie’s face—a jawbone, teeth and tongue still gorily attached.

“
Dios mío
,” Reynaldo muttered, smearing his red head cloth back from his face. “
¿Qué han hecho
?”
What have they done?

Milo was speechless. He couldn’t tell if the mutilations had been inflicted while Fowler and Cowie still lived. But this explained what Señora Carrillo yammered about when she blamed something, and everything apparently, on the mad barber Garcia. Of course her husband and Mesa Juan Padilla, a rancher, were blameless. According to her, the men had merely tied the gringos to the pine trees while they deliberated their fates, and gone into a shed to ponder. That was when the mad barber had gone on the rampage with his straight razor.

He had hacked them with knives, riddled them with bullets, and torn them apart in the worst manner. Milo didn’t particularly care who was responsible. There was no excuse for this. The Osos had taken over California with not a life lost or a fingernail broken and had taken nothing but food and drink from Vallejo’s storehouses.

“
Skurwysyn
,” Milo muttered.
Son of a bitch.

Reynaldo sighed heavily. “I suppose it’s up to us to pick up these pieces. We’ll get these
pendejos
, Milo. We know who they are. They can’t hide from us forever.”

“Yes,” Milo agreed vaguely. “We can’t make the other men put these bodies back together.”

They sent the others back to Sonoma, to warn the garrison of what had happened, send a message to Frémont, and attempt to find Fowler’s and Cowie’s next of kin. They retained the buffaloes Duell and Maliano in case the greaser outlaws tried to attack them next. A couple of men—Akers and Sears, namely—veered off into the valley that led to Padilla’s rancho, probably to burn it down, but Milo didn’t say a word.

It was a strange juxtaposition, the body parts strewn all about this heavenly vale. It was as though the desperadoes had chosen the most bucolic spot to execute their prisoners. Thousands of wild geese and ducks swooped and quacked overhead as the men went about their dirty business of retrieving the bodies. A couple herds of nearly tame deer approached them with curiosity.

They spoke little while working then rode down the valley carpeted with crispy brown wheat. It would have been a pleasant excursion were it not for the grim nature of their task.

“This wheat grain was procured from the Columbia River.” Milo lectured Reynaldo. Because he didn’t want to talk about the day’s events—the month’s events, really—it was easier to discuss mundane matters. “It’s superior to the wheat at my farm.”

But Reynaldo, being a hot-blooded Spaniard, insisted on pressing on intimate matters. “Have you given any consideration to purchasing farmland down here? I’ve investigated the vineyard. With proper care, it could produce wine to rival that of Madeira and France.”

“It’s crossed my mind,” Milo replied but spurred his horse’s sides so he wouldn’t have to discuss it further.

It had crossed his mind many times. He was very isolated up there in Virgin Groves. His closest neighbor, Grigsby, was an hour’s ride away. His only discussions were with Diggers or Californio laborers. Now that he’d spent a fair time roaming over this pastoral countryside that smelled sweeter than honey—and where it didn’t snow in winter—Milo had been giving it serious thought. It took weeks to get things to the Upper Sacramento by sloop, by which time some of the goods were spoiled. The soil of Sonoma’s valley seemed more than suited to a vast array of fruits and vegetables.

And there was Tallulah Crabtree and her little inn. She didn’t like unfaithfulness on a man’s part. That was easy enough to accomplish, and the stunning innkeeper had stolen his heart so completely he would not be tempted anyway. And—one of the best features of this idea—if Tallulah didn’t wish her spouse to cheat, she obviously wouldn’t be cheating either.

Reynaldo didn’t count. Milo had never envisioned such an arrangement before, but toying with Reynaldo seemed to enhance rather than detract from his relationship with Tallulah. No, Reynaldo didn’t count as cheating. They both took pleasure in Reynaldo’s body and his company as well. Although more than a twinge of jealousy had shot through Milo’s stomach when he saw Reynaldo and Tallulah emerge from Leese’s house earlier today, he knew he had nothing to fear.

Tallulah loved
him
. Or did she?

The further Milo rode the more anxious he became about Tallulah. When he had lied to her that he was unmoved by jealousy at her fondling of the Spanish corporal, what had she replied? “A wife? Who said anything about a wife? You did.”

It’s true. I did. She didn’t
. It was Milo who had first linked the name “Tallulah” with the label “wife”!
Skurwysyn
!
Tallulah was the most bounteous, desirable woman in the entire Sonoma Valley! She didn’t need to settle for a surly, domineering Polish farmer. Reynaldo with his transits, levels, telescopes, and his dashing Spanish accent, he was far better husband material.

Then, when Milo became aware he was even
thinking
about how satisfactory he’d be as a husband, he spurred his mount toward a deep pool in the creek so he could bathe.

He had hoped to just bathe away these anxious thoughts of Tallulah. But Duell and Maliano insisted upon splashing and fooling around like obnoxious youths, so when he was done, Milo rested against his saddle and closed his eyes to the sun.

However, that dogged Reynaldo soon fell to the ground beside him. Milo sighed heavily and resumed wrapping his turban about his wet hair, but Reynaldo insisted on speaking in intimate terms.

“Tillie and I were not canoodling in Leese’s house earlier today. We were tasting his wine.”

Milo looked sideways at his friend. “And I imagine the wine wasn’t to your liking?”

“How did you know?”

Milo had to smile. “The way the corner of your mouth crooked up and your nose wrinkled in distaste.” He surprised himself for noticing small gestures like that.

But Reynaldo steered the conversation back to his favorite intimate things. “You don’t need to fear for me, Capitán. I pose no threat to your romance with Señorita Crabtree.”

“Did I say that you did?”

“No. But you strike me as a very possessive fellow and not willing to share that which you consider to be your domain.”