The Promise of Jenny Jones (12 page)

Graciela picked at the edge of the towel wrapped around her freshly washed body. "Why can't you just take me home to Aunt Tete? You don't want to take me toCalifornia, and I don't want to go there. I want to go home."

Lord, didn't she wish she could dump the kid on Dona Theodora's doorstep and ride away without a backward glance. "That isn't what your mother wanted. Look, kid, I gave her my word. I promised."

Graciela gazed down at her lap, pulled her napkin through her fingers. "Mama won't know if you kept your promise…" she whispered.

"I'll know!" Jenny glared. "When Jenny Jones gives her word, by God the thing is as good as done! This doesn't have anything to do with your mother anymore. Here's how it is, kid. After you give a promise, see, the person you gave it tois out of the deal. It's just you and the promise. If you keep the promise, then you're somebody. You did right. But if you fail, then you might as well stick a knife in your gut because you aren't worth spit. You're a person with no fricking honor. Now that's how it is. And that's why your butt is going toCalifornia."

Graciela lowered her head and stared at her empty supper plate. A tear rolled down her cheek and plopped on the table.

"Now, you wrecked our plan, you worried me half out of my mind, and something terrible could have happened to you. This tells me that we need some rules. I want your promise that you won't run away again."

"I won't promise that," Graciela said in a low voice.

"Kid, I'm not going to cut your hair. I changed my mind. Look over there on the bureau. I bought some hairpins. We'll pin your hair up under a boy's hat. I should have thought of this before. If you don't take off the hat, it should be all right."

"Stop calling me kid! My name is Graciela. I hate it when you call me kid."

Jenny's eyebrows lifted in surprise. She had to stop thinking that Graciela was a miniature Marguarita. Etiquette and convention were making inroads on the kid, but they hadn't yet quenched her fire.

"All right," she said slowly, thinking over the request. "I can agree to that … if you'll agree to stop crying over every little damned thing."

They measured each other, weighing their negotiating strengths.

"I'll try," Graciela finally conceded. "But you don't think anything is worth crying over, and some things are."

"Maybe," Jenny said doubtfully. "At your age anyway. You've got to agree to dress like a boy. And you've got to stop asking 'why' all the time because you're driving mecrazy."

"I'll dress like a boy if you'll stop threatening to hit me. It scares me."

Jenny considered. "Well, I can't agree to that," she said finally. "If ever I saw a kid who needs hitting, you're that kid."

"Why?"

"See? There you go with the why crap. Damn it!"

"I want to know."

"You need hitting because you're a superior, arrogant little snot and you think you're better than … other people." Color rose in Jenny's cheeks. "You don't do what you're told. You think you know everything when you don't know anything. You wish I was dead. You don't believe me or your mother about your greedy cousins. You have perfect manners and prissy ways. You don't know how to do anything useful, and your hankie is always clean. Of course I want to hit you."

Graciela's lips pulled down at the corners. "Well, you walk like a man, and you don't say please or thank you. You got in a fight with my cousins." She shuddered. "You're always angry, and you don't say your prayers at night. You talk bad, and you smoke cigars when you think I'm asleep. You don't know my father, and you didn't even know my mama. You have hair between your legs, and the hair on your head is ugly. You aren't a lady."

Jenny stood and looked out the window. The night was soft and hot; a million stars spangled the sky. She saw only one.

"I guess we know where we stand," she said finally. "That's good. But I've had about as much negotiation as I can stand for one night, and judging from those yawns, I'm guessing you have, too. So get your butt in bed, and we'll talk more about rules tomorrow."

"Why do I have to go to sleep before you do?"

"Because I want to read my dictionary and get my thoughts settled down. And because I'm the adult, and you're nothing but a kid. Listen … you promised to stop asking why."

"I didn't promise."

Kids ran a person around in circles. Jenny didn't know why any woman willingly became a parent. Prior to this journey she had believed that skinning carcasses was the worst occupation in the world. Now she was convinced that raising children made skinning carcasses look like a plum job. When it occurred to her that she might have to spend the next ten or twelve years raising Graciela, despair nearly knocked her to her knees.

"Put on your nightgown and get into bed." Scowling up at Marguarita's star, she waited until Graciela was ready to say her prayers, then she sighed and crossed the room to sit on the edge of the bed.

"You should kneel," Graciela reprimanded her.

"You're the one saying the prayers, not me. So say them and get it over with."

"Atleast close your eyes."

"All right! My eyes are closed. Say the damned prayers."

"Our Father, who art in heaven…"

Jenny heard a soft click and opened one eye,then she sprang to her feet in astonishment. The cowboy from Verde Flores stepped into their room, nudged the door shut,then aimed a Colt at Jenny's chest. Her mouth fell open in disbelief.

"Unbuckle your gun belt. Slide it across the floor."

Graciela screamed, then scrambled up on the bed and pressed herself to the wall. Her eyes widened in fear.

"What the hell?" Jenny tried to sort it out. The cowboy? Here? Moving slowly in case he had an eager trigger finger, she lifted the hem of the poncho and reached beneath it to unbuckle her belt. "If this is a robbery…" But somehow she didn't think it was.

"You have a lot of explaining to do. Now drop the gun belt and slide it over here, or I'll shoot. Don't think I won't. Until I hear your story, I'm assuming the worst. Give me the gun."

The ice in his blue-green eyes told her that he meant it about shooting her. Reluctantly, she slid the gun and belt across the floor.

"How did you find us?" Her mind couldn't make the leap from meeting him at the Verde Flores depot to seeing him here. But clearly meeting him again was no accident. Her gut told her that he'd followed them, but she couldn't think why he would.

"I spotted you both out of the train window."

"Why are you so interested in us?" Jenny demanded.

But the cowboy was staring past her shoulder at Graciela. So that was it. "You filthy pervert!" Jenny's teeth pulled back in a snarl, and she lunged for him, catching him by surprise. Her head slammed into his belly like a battering ram, and the air ran out of him in a rush. When he doubled over, she brought her head up. The collision of head and forehead was harder on him than on her, and she knocked the Colt out of his hand.

Before she could snatch up his gun or her own, he grabbed her and they fell to the floor, rolling, hitting, and punching each other.

The fight was fair as fights went, and they were evenly matched. If Jenny hadn't jerked away to avoid a punch and banged her head hard on the side of the tub, she might have beaten him. But the head bang dazed her for a second, and that was all he needed to pin her.

For two long minutes, he sat on her, holding her wrists to the floor and they both panted hard, sucking in air. A hot trickle leaked from Jenny's cracked lip; his bloody nose dripped on her poncho.

"Jesus," he said, finally, staring down at her. "That's the first time I ever fought a woman." He stared at her bloody lip in disbelief. Then he stood and jerked Jenny off the floor. He slammed her down in a chair and pulled a length of thin rope from his belt.

"Graciela! Run!" Damned if she would make it easy for him. She twisted and thrashed and tried to break free.

He jerked her back hard and tied her wrists together. "Stay where you are, Graciela," he warned.

It wasn't that the kid chose to obey the cowboy over her, Jenny understood that. The kid was terrified. She cowered against the wall watching with huge eyes, too frightened even to cry.

The cowboy tied Jenny's ankles to the chair legs and looped a piece of rope around her chest and the back rails for good measure. Stepping backward to inspect his work, he wiped the blood from his nose, glaring down at her. He swore and shook his head.

"Don't you touchher! " Jenny warned, speaking through her teeth. Her gaze was as frozen as his. "I swear to you. If you harm that child, I'll hunt you down if it takes the rest of my life, and you won't die fast, you piece of scum."

"If I…?"His mouth twisted in revulsion. "I'm not going to … my God! My name is Ty Sanders. Robert Sanders is my brother. I'm Graciela's uncle, for Christ's sake."

Jenny stared. Suddenly she saw the resemblance, the same blue-green eyes as Graciela's, the same wide mouth. Her mind raced backward, replaying Marguarita's story. Robert Sanders had not gone toMexicowith Marguarita; he had remained inCaliforniato ensure that his inheritance did not go to a younger brother. It struck her that the cowboy might be telling the truth.

After checking again to make certain that Jenny was securely restrained, he walked to the bed and stood by the edge of the mattress. "So you're Robert's daughter."

Jenny tried to read his expression, but she couldn't determine how he felt about his brother's daughter. The shortage of emotion suggested that he wasn't exactly overjoyed to meet his niece, and he didn't even know yet what a pain in the butt she was.

"I'm your uncle Ty. Your daddy is my brother," he said in a voice distinctly lacking enthusiasm. "I guess your name is Graciela."

"Don't talk to him!" Even if he was who he said he was,Jenny didn't trust his attitude.

The cowboy considered her, then he walked over and stuffed Graciela's napkin into her mouth before he returned to the bed. "Your daddy sent me down here to find you and your mother and take you both back toCalifornia. He wants you to live with him."

Graciela was still pressed to the wall, but she was listening, not paying any attention to Jenny's rolling eyes or the noises she made behind the napkin.

"You know my daddy?" Graciela asked shyly.

"I've known your daddy all of my life." The cowboy wasn't cold to Graciela, but he wasn't particularly warm either. "I knew your mother, too, years ago. And I know your grandfather, Don Antonio."

Jenny stopped her futile struggle against the ropes to listen. Either the cowboy had done some research, or he was who he said he was. In either case, intuition told her that he was here reluctantly. He might indeed be Graciela's uncle, but he had no feeling for the kid.

"My mama is dead," Graciela confided in a whisper, tears brimming in her eyes.

"I heard about it when I went to fetch you at Dona Theodora's."

Graciela wiped away the tears and continued to stare at the cowboy. To Jenny's horror, she spied the beginnings of trust. Jenny renewed a furious struggle against the ropes that bound her to the chair. The minute Sanders had mentioned going to the no-name village to fetch Graciela, she understood his intention.

"You know my aunt Tete too?"

The cowboy smiled. "I met your aunt Tete years ago when she was visiting your grandpa Antonio. She and your mother were riding in their carriage and a wheel came off. I stopped to help, and your aunt Tete found fault with everything I did. She had a big fan, you know?" Graciela didn't move her eyes from the cowboy's face. "And she kept hitting me with it on the shoulder, right here. And she'd say, 'Con permisso, Señor, but you are doing that all wrong.'"

Nodding and smiling, Graciela slid down the wall and sat on the bed, staring at the cowboy in fascination.

Realizing how easily the cowboy had charmed the kid made Jenny choke.

"Here's what we're going to do," he said to Graciela. "I'm going to take you to your daddy and your grandmother Ellen."

"I want to go home to Aunt Tete," Graciela said in a whisper. Singing the same tune she'd sung for Jenny.

"Your home is inCalifornianow." He studied the kid's expression. "But maybe you and your daddy can visit your aunt Tete or she can visit you. Going toCaliforniadoesn't mean that you won't see your aunt again."

Jenny couldn't believe how easily he swept aside the kid's protest. Why hadn't she thought of that? She had only to glance at the kid's face to know Sanders had given her the perfect reassurance. The kid's face told her something else. With a sinking heart she realized that Graciela was going to go with the cowboy without a peep of a struggle, without a shred of regret, or a twinge of gratitude for what Jenny had gone through so far. The snot.

"All right, here's what I want you to do. You get dressed, all right? I need to talk to—" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

"Her name is Jenny Jones. She killed my mama."

Jenny squeezed her eyes shut and let her head drop forward. Damn it. She should have belted the kid when she had the chance.

"That's what I need to find out. As soon as Jenny and I have finished talking, we'll leave."

Graciela didn't hesitate. The disloyal, ungrateful little brat jumped off the bed and scampered to the bureau, removing the change of clothing Maria had packed for her. As modest as a full-gown lady, she stepped behind the dressing screen, and in a minute her nightgown flew past the side of the screen.

The cowboy removed the napkin from Jenny's mouth and sat down at the table, shoving Graciela's supper plate away from him. "Who the hell are you? And how did you get my niece?"

Jenny told him the whole story, starting with killing the bastard who had attacked her and ending with leaving Marguarita standing in her cell and Jenny hightailing it away from the compound dressed as a priest. She didn't spare any details.

Ty Sanders didn'tinterrupt, he listened quietly and watched her with cool eyes. "If you agreed to take my niece to her father, then what the hell are you doing inDurango?"

Jenny's lip curled in exasperation. "My primary concern was to get away from the cousins. How long did you hang around the Verde Flores depot waiting for them to wake up?"