A Lady Bought with Rifles (22 page)

“I like exquisite things when I can get them,” Court said, pouring out and giving me the first goblet. “The trouble is that beauty is hard to find in this wilderness and harder to preserve.” He raised his wine to me. “May your loveliness flourish, Miranda, even in this desert.”

I poured half my wine into the water fetched for Sewa. “The desert is beautiful,” I told Court. “And the sky, the sunrises and sunsets. Sometimes the mountains are melting fairy blue, or deep purple, almost black. Sometimes they're brown, and at sunset they can be ember red or glow as if fire blazed under their crust. I miss the green of England, but now it would be too lush, too verdant, too gentle.”

Court tasted his wine, watching me speculatively. “I've been in Mexico too long. Nothing could ever be too lush or gentle or soft. I hunger for such things.”

“No one would guess it,” Trace said dryly. “There's nothing gentle in the way you run the mine.”

“If there were, it wouldn't run.” Court's half-smile challenged. “Are you lodging a complaint?”

Trace finished his food and drained his wine as he got to his feet. “Miranda has eyes. She'll use them. Thanks for the food, Sanders. I'll be back in a few weeks and take her to my friends.”

Court frowned. “This is her property. Why shouldn't she stay here?”

Without smiling, Trace said, “I don't see you as a likely chaperone, Sanders.”

“In this country a beautiful woman needs a defender more than a prayer-chanting
dueña
who can only fulfill her duty if there's a strong hand to protect it.”

“My friends can both defend and chaperone when I can't be with my wife,” said Trace.

Rising, not quite as tall as Trace but broader, especially about the neck and shoulders, Court grinned. “Who knows? Maybe she'll stay.”

“Then she'd better not let Reina know it till she's eighteen.”

“You worry a good deal about this lady,” Court said, still smiling. “You can leave it now, Winslade. I'll take care of her while you're running guns or whatever.”

“I'm counting on that.” Trace hugged Sewa, ruffled Ku's head feathers. “Good-bye,” he told them. He took my hands in his. “Good-bye, Miranda my love.” Releasing my fingers as if they'd grown into his flesh, he embraced Sewa and me with his eyes. “God keep you,” he said in Yaqui, and strode quickly out, the heavy door creaking shut behind him.

I moved after, stepping into the veranda, lifting my hand as he rode off. Where was he going? Into danger, that was sure. Would he be back, ever, at all?

“He didn't see you,” Court said. He had come noiselessly up beside me and took my still-raised hand in a gesture of pity. “He doesn't look back, not Winslade.”

But he would now. He must. I loved him.

Holding the great door, Court took me inside, hand cradling my elbow. I didn't try to pull free; some instinct warned me that resistance on a small matter could trigger the violence he now held leashed. His brow wrinkled at Sewa as if he'd forgotten her existence and was annoyed to recognize it.

“There are a lot of Yaqui families at Mina Rara,” he said. “Many of them would be glad to take the child. Shall I send for some of the women so that you can select a good foster-mother?”

I did break from his hand. “She is
my
child, Mr. Sanders. I want her to make friends with her people, but unless she chooses otherwise, she stays with me, sleeps in my room.”

Court's eyes blazed for a moment. He took one quick step after me, halted, picked up the wine decanter, filled my glass, poured his own, and tossed it off.

“So,” he said, grimacing. “You're intent on having the little Indian with you, and that stinking raven, too, I suppose?”

“I slept with them on what I thought was the last night of my life. Of course I want them with me.”

“You'd better change your mind before you marry,” Court said. “No husband would share his room with that pair.”

“Since I have no husband, that's not a worry,” I said with an acid sweetness I hoped would cover the strain I felt. Court's touch and eyes sent a tingling sense of danger through me, not totally unpleasant. My situation depended on how much Court ruled his impulses. I told myself that he wouldn't play too hard and fast, if only because Trace would be back, but I wasn't soundly reassured.

“The guest room is ready,” Court said. “I'll have a small bed set up for the girl. You have no baggage, do you? One of the women makes my shirts and does the mending. She could put some clothes together for you out of goods from the company store.”

“That will be splendid,” I said with genuine delight. “Sewa can have some dresses, too. How kind of you to think of it, Mr. Sanders.”

He laughed outright. “My dear, it wasn't hard. The things you're wearing look exactly as if you'd been abducted by bandits and held in the wilds. How does a bath sound?”

“Like heaven,” I sighed. “And Sewa needs one, too.”

He led down the hall to the end of the way, opened the door on his left. “The girls will bring water,” he said. “Ask for anything you need. When you're refreshed, I hope you'll join me on the veranda.”

It was a long narrow room with a fireplace, large bed, stern wooden armchair, dresser with a mirror, and a nail-studded leather-bound chest. Behind a Japanese screen painted with monkeys and birds was an elegant tub, fluted at either end to resemble a shell.

While Sewa and I undressed, the women brought pails of water and a stack of towels, a bar of perfumed soap. I couldn't imagine Court using it; in fact, this room, from lacquered screen to rose satin bedspread, had an air of being used by women, and I doubted that they were there on mining business.

I washed Sewa's hair and helped her scrub and dry off while two boys carted out the tub and brought it back to be refilled. I apologized to Raquel for all the extra work. She shook back her long black hair and said it was nothing, of course we must bathe after our journey. And she carried off our stained things and returned with a shift for Sewa and what I guessed must be her own Sunday clothes, a white ruffled blouse and black full skirt.

Sewa was asleep in the bed the boys had set up in a corner by the time I had dressed and brushed my hair with a silver-backed brush from the dresser. I would have preferred to slip into the big high bed, lie between the white sheets that looked incredibly cool and inviting after weeks of sleeping rough, but the fact that I wanted to avoid seeing Court made me decide I must get it over with.

He'd been cordial, thoughtful of our comfort. And if I ran from him like a rabbit mightn't he prey on me like one? Against this lion, I had better try to seem at least an extremely agile deer, or a
burro
who could kick when harassed.

A headstrong tough little
burro
seemed the best bet. So I carried the image of Ratoncita with her lovely ears down the hall with me and out on the veranda.

It was full dark now. Outdoor cooking fires glowed from the ramadas of many of the miners' houses. Guitar notes and plaintive songs came faintly from the cantina and a lamp burned in the infirmary, revealing the occasional passage of a dark silhouette.

“A little world,” said Court, rising. “Fairly cut off from the storms rising in Mexico. A good place for you to be, Miranda.”

“I'm certainly glad to be here right now,” I said, laughing. “The bath was marvelous, and a real bed—what luxury!”

He only came a step closer but cut out my view so completely that I felt overwhelmed, wished I hadn't mentioned the bed. “Sweet Miranda! If you're as innocent as you look, you don't know how luxurious a bed can be. Would you like more wine? Perhaps some peach brandy?”

“I'm so thirsty. Could I have water with just enough wine to cut the taste?”

“So you prefer to use wine to make plain water drinkable rather than take it full-bodied?” Court called an order, sat down across from me, far enough away to let me relax a little, too close to allow me to forget his physical immediacy, and again I experienced him as a great cat, watching its intended prey till its hunger reached a certain stage and the victim had strayed into proper range.

I would stay out of his reach if I could—do nothing to trigger a sudden spring. And hope that Trace came back before Court wearied of the subtle hunt.

Raquel brought water and wine, murmured a soft good night. “It was kind of you to loan the señorita your clothes,” Court told her in the way one approved a child's generosity. “You shall have those earrings you've been wanting.”

“Gracias, señor.”
She ducked her head as if embarrassed and moved away, her bare feet making a gentle sound like small waves on a soft beach.

I was sure, from the casual intimacy of his tone, that he slept with Raquel, that it was on the same level as her serving him food. What she felt, I could not guess, but she'd displayed no jealousy. She didn't seem to fear him. Perhaps he was kind enough, provided he was not thwarted or challenged. I decided to appear a benign, sweet-tempered
burro
as long as he kept distance. If he got too close—well, Cruz had told me
burros
could fight off mountain lions.

Court poured the water and wine into a goblet, gave it to me, and sat in the chair nearest mine. “Miranda,” he said. “You strike me as an intelligent young woman who can adjust to circumstances. When you see a situation is fixed, as in Reina's hatred of you, you don't exhaust yourself in battering at it. And in the Yaqui camp you must have made the best of what would have seemed brutalizing captivity to most women.”

“I had Sewa and Domingo. And I had seen Yaquis after soldiers finished with them.”

He made a brushing motion with his hand. “Nevertheless, few people are that philosophical.”

I said nothing, uneasy at this reasoned approach.

Court's laugh, hard and small, cracked the silence. “Miranda, do you like your watered wine?”

Something in me contracted like an eye shocked by strident glare. “It quenches thirst.”

“Not the kind I have.”

I could think of no safe answer, tried to turn the subject completely. “If so many Yaquis work here, are they never bothered by federal authorities?”

“The Mina Rara Yaquis have been here for a quarter of a century. No fool, even a military or bureaucratic one, could pretend they are warlike, and they don't, most importantly, occupy land the Mexicans want.”

I thought of Lío. “But they must have relations among the Sierra Yaqui.”

“True, but for now the government is busy with killing or selling those Yaquis who are in the way or who are fighting. Mina Rara may remain self-contained and cut off from the troubles that are coming.”

I shivered, remembering the slaughtered Yaquis, the massacre at the train. “But if there's a civil war—”

Court shrugged. “It won't be the kind you studied in school, my dear—Napoleon and Waterloo, large pitched battles involving huge armies. Mexico's revolution will be hundreds and hundreds of raids, skirmishes, looted trains. What are now smoldering grassfires will fan into blazes with the rising wind. There will be dozens of leaders, some patriots, some bandits. And the war will last for years, if not decades.”

“If there's no strong central leadership, it would seem the federal troops could stamp out small rebellions.”

“It can, so long as there are not too many. It would be simple for Don Porfirio if his foes were unified in one force, for he could surely put it down. It's the difference between chopping down one large tree or thousands of saplings scattered over thousands of miles. The strength of the revolutionaries lies in being elusive, small, far-flung. They will be a swarm of bees stinging the great bull, Don Porfirio, buzzing away from his assaults.”

I considered. “You meant there will be groups like Lío's all over Mexico?”

“Yes. And after Díaz falls, the struggle will be between leaders while the country goes ungoverned. There will be anarchy for years. You are fortunate, Miranda, to have a quiet spot at Mina Rara.”

“But I'm not staying.”

“My sweet, of course you are.”

“Trace will be back in a few weeks. Then he'll take me to his friends.”

Court leaned forward. Before I could detect his motion in the dark, he had caught my wrists. “Trace will
not
come back, Miranda, unless you consent to be my woman and tell him that.”

Those steel fingers tightened till I could have gasped with pain. It was like being pinned by a great cat, the soft parts of my body exposed. I tried to speak; it was only after several efforts that I could push around through my constricted throat.

“Your woman? I can never be that.”

“You will.”

“If this is your idea of courtship—”

He gave me a shake with enough violence in it to slice off my words. “I'm not courting you, Miranda. I'm revealing your situation, counting on that tough mind of yours to accept it.” He gave a harsh laugh and his breath quickened. “I have eyes and ears. I know you fancy yourself in love with Winslade.”

“I
do
love him.”

“Then indeed you'll take me or he'll surely die.”

That threat and the strength of this man, felt in the night, when I couldn't see his face, terrified me. And there was Cruz, who'd pledged the rifles for my life.

“You'd have Trace killed for nothing?”

“Not for nothing. For my love.”

“Love. Call it something else.”

“If it were only lust, my dear, I'd enjoy you and let you go to Winslade or the devil. But I want you in my life. To see you every day, hold you every night.”

“When I hate you?”

“That's because I've put what you want out of reach,” he said coolly. “Of course you'll tantrum like a child, but that'll pass. I can wake the fire that Winslade never fanned, make you live and die in my arms till they will be your real home, till I become your lover, not your master.”