A Lady Bought with Rifles (9 page)

He spoke with such disgust that I said defensively, “You don't seem to have much use for ladies.”

“I prefer women.”

“And how do you define a woman?”

“She enjoys her body, being with a man.”

“A lady can't?”

“Not and admit it.” He grinned, white teeth shocking in his dark face. “If she admits it, she's no lady.”

“You mean you wouldn't respect her?”

“Now who said that?” he growled. “It's
women
I respect. They know who and what they are. Ladies! Crippled with clothes and rules, all cramped and caged I I'm sorry for the lot of them.”

Was it his scorn or the memory of the stallion thrusting hugely into the trembling mare that drove me to demand in a queer breaking voice that I scarcely recognized, “Am I a woman, Trace?”

“By God!” A vein pounded in his temple. He was out of the saddle, trailing the reins, brought me from my mount. “Let's find out! You've been driving me crazy, but I figured that raised in that fancy school, not much more than a kid …”

His voice muffled in my hair as he caught me up, carried me down to the wash where the sand was clean and bare. My bones melted in spite of vague warnings in my head. I didn't want to resist his hard warm hands, which found their way inside my clothes to stroke my breasts, my tightening loins, smooth my legs and thighs as his tongue teased my nipples. His tongue and teeth nibbled my breasts and belly, nipping lightly in a way that made me moan and lift myself toward him, craving deeper, sharper sensations, the force he was holding back. His hand caressed the soft swollen place between my legs, explored and played till I arched my back, filled with urgent cresting need.

And then he swore.

He straightened, yanked down my skirt, turning away.

“Trace?”

“Goddammit!” He groaned, hit the sand with his fist. “You're a virgin!”

“I don't care. It doesn't matter!” I caught his shoulder, trying to bring him down to me again. “I don't want to be a lady.”

He smiled briefly. “Don't worry, Miranda Greenleaf. You won't be.”

“Then—”

He shook his head, smoothed my hair. “I can't take your maidenhead.”

“Why?”

“The man who has you first should marry you.”

“I don't care about that.”

He stared at the distant mountains. “You will, Miranda. You'll care one hell of a lot when a man you want to marry won't stand up in church with you because you're not a virgin.”

“He won't be one either!”

Trace laughed wearily. “Poor baby, if you think that'll cut any ice!”

It was all so many words, hard and pitiless as hailstones. “Please!” Sitting up, I leaned against him, shameless with ungratified desire and the frustrated rage of a child promised a tabooed delight that's been snatched away. “Please, Trace. Show me.”

Sucking in his breath, the muscles in his face so taut he looked cadaverous, he jerked me to my feet, roughly fumbled my bodice shut, brushed sand from my skirts.

“Come on!” He dragged me toward the horses, almost hurled me to the saddle.

His hand brushed my knee, pressed convulsively against it. Sweet dizzying warmth radiated through me. He was breathing hard. He took his hand from me, knuckles showing white.

“Damn you, Miranda! For damn sure you better save what I didn't take for the man who'll marry you.”

“Damn yourself.” To my chagrin, I was sobbing. “Why did you start what you won't finish? Why?”

He swung away, caught up the reins. “Because of your folks,” he said, once he had vaulted into the saddle. “Because you're a child.”

“I—I'm not!”

Heeling my mare, I shot past him. Not looking back, I hoped fiercely that the ache thrumming deep in my loins was matched by a similar pain in him.

Women, ladies, virgins!

What did names have to do with the sweetness of his hands and tongue tuning me like an instrument he then refused to play?

5

It was late afternoon when Trace had given Roque and Juan, the two remaining vaqueros, instructions about which horses to catch for delivery to the ranch when Sewa and I were ready to go back. He got his old hat from his adobe and some coffee and beans, treating me with the elaborate casualness he had practiced since those incredible moments in the wash.

“Don't like to eat up Cruz's provender,” he explained. “I pretty well keep him in coffee anyhow in return for his help when a horse gets sick or hurt.”

“And because he saved your life?”

“Oh, that'll take a lot of paying back. And the way his people are being treated, I imagine Cruz may ask me to do something for Yaquis rather than just him.”

“What?” I demanded.

He shrugged. “They need guns.”

“But wouldn't that make you a rebel?” In spite of my bewildered anger at Trace, a thrill of fear ran through me.

He grinned briefly. “Dear lady, I sure don't mean to get caught.”

“I hope he won't ask you to run guns.”

Trace seemed to lose interest in the subject. “Don't worry about it,” he advised.

As we rode back into the canyon where the Yaqui lived, we circled to where a small flock of goats was rambling. Kids frolicked and seemed to skip along the small hills.

“Six of the little boogers,” Trace said. “We can tell Cruz he hasn't lost any.”

“What's that beneath that tree?” I asked, leaning forward. Something black moved jerkily in the grass.

We rode closer. “It's a raven,” said Trace. “A young one. He looks big enough to fly. Must be hurt—”

Dismounting, he went swiftly to where the bird frantically tried to escape, fluttering its wings, tumbling sideways. As Trace bent to pick it up, it jabbed him with a beak that was out of proportion to the rest of its body. Trace picked it up anyway, looked up in the tree, then examined the bird with deft fingers.

“He has a broken leg and the wing's damaged,” he said. “Even if the parents would take him back in the nest, he'd get shoved out again, and he can't get away from anything that fancies it as a mouthful. Guess it'd be kinder to wring his neck.”

“Oh, no! Let's give him to Sewa. Maybe she could feed him while she's getting well. It might be good for her to have a pet.”

“We can try.” Trace handed the raven to me, taking great care, I thought, not to brush my fingers: “Hold him so he can't peck your hand in case he gets rambunctious again. He's got a sharp bill.”

Cruz splinted the raven's wing and leg, though he didn't think either could be used much except for balance. He put the bird in an old basket cushioned with grass and fed it meal softened with water. “He'll give the child something to think about,” Cruz said. “But I think he'll never fly.”

And she will never run, I thought, watching the little brown girl. But she can do other things. She still had sight, hearing, hands, everything but a foot. She could be happy someday in spite of the wretched things that had happened. She
would
be.

Cruz had saved some corn gruel for us. We ate that and some of Trace's invincible jerky, then went to bed early, for tomorrow would be a hard one for Sewa and Trace needed to go back to his work till she was able to travel. I told myself I'd be well rid of this baffling, disturbing man, yet all night long I dreamed of him.

I woke to hoarse croaking, frightened till I saw the raven floundering about. Sewa was watching him with interest, though her face was drawn and her skin had an ashen cast. Cruz came in as I sat up.

He gave Sewa some meal pellets and talked to her, evidently explaining about the bird, for she made a sound under her breath and peered at him; then presented him with a bit of the damp meal. The beak closed hungrily on it and the scrawny raven lifted its head, gulping, then looked for more.

Though she must have been in pain, Sewa laughed delightedly and fed the bird till all the pellets were gone, timidly touching the black feathers. I hoped he wouldn't peck her. He didn't, perhaps already understanding that he would be fed, not hurt, by these strange creatures.

Cruz refilled his water shell and fetched a bowl of tea, which he told me to give Sewa. While I propped her against me, she stared at her bandaged stump, eyes very wide, her soft mouth pressed tight.

Did she remember? She turned her cheek against me as if hiding from the sight. “Oh, my sweet,” I said brokenly, though she could not understand. “It's terrible. Horrid! But perhaps we can get you an artificial foot, and anyway you can do lots of things. You must get well and then—”

I couldn't go on and turned my face so my tears wouldn't fall on her. “Give her the tea,” Cruz ordered. And while I blinked and controlled my nervous fingers, guiding the bowl to her lips, he talked to her at length, calmly; matter-of-factly, even with an occasional laugh. Then he picked up the flute and played, a gay trilling melody like the dance of sun on rippling water and changed into birdcalls at dusk.

“Awk! Awwwk!” went the raven. He lurched toward Cruz, perhaps deciding this was some kind of superbird. Sewa gave a small cry of pleasure, looked at Cruz pleadingly.

He smiled and gave her the flute, demonstrating which holes to close. After a few strange discords, she coaxed out a very creditable note, and then another and another. The raven scrambled over to her, splinted wing and lame leg dragging, settled against her side.

It was a long, long day. I bathed Sewa from water Cruz brought in a gourd; brushed her hair, though it was no time to work out the dusty tangles; held tea to her lips when her fever rose. But she played the flute often, even when her face twisted with pain and sweat dewed her forehead and upper lip, and the raven responded with his raucous notes. When I tried to imagine what the hours would have been without the bird and the music, I could not bear it.

I stayed by Sewa all that day, and Cruz sat with us often. He talked in Yaqui to her and I guessed that he was telling stories even before she laughed and repeated, “Ku!” Then she touched the raven's black head and said again, “Ku.”

“So he's named,” Cruz explained. “She has called him after the Ku bird.”

“The what?”

Cruz laughed. “A very handsome creature in Yaqui legend. He had no feathers at all, but the birds pitied his nakedness and each gave him a feather so that he had a thousand colors. In a year, when he would have grown new plumage, he promised to return the borrowed feathers. But he vanished, that most beautiful of birds, and no one has seen him since. Some say he is enchanted and lives in a pool near the sea.” Lightly, Cruz touched the alert black head of the young raven. “It is said truly that love is blind. What else could give this sooty fellow the shades of a jewel rainbow?”

Ku, to me, resembled a raffish bandit of callow years, in black swagger too big for him. But he diverted Sewa all that harrowing day. She never cried, but sometimes her small form grew so tense that I rubbed her arms and shoulders and the back of her thin neck till my own fingers ached.

“I'll give her the sleeping herb now,” Cruz decided when the late sun shone in through the door and dyed the walls ember red. “Her body is healing itself now. The poison has not spread.”

“She would have died without you,” I said.

“Or you,” he added. “Or who knows? Perhaps it was the flute and the Ku bird that made her want to live.”

Cruz brought more meal and a few bugs for Sewa to feed her pet before she had her soup and soporific tea. Trace got back in time to sit by her and hear how her wonderful bird had been named and watch a demonstration of how Ku croaked along with the flute. Trace held the child's hand while her eyelids drooped. When she was breathing deeply, he gently freed himself and motioned to me. I put Ku in his nest and followed Trace to the ramada.

“Lázaro rode back this morning,” he said. “Your sister would like to discharge me, but she can't under the terms of her mother's will.” He managed to sigh, shrug, and grin all at once. “We may be in for interesting times at Las Coronas. I think I'm going to find plenty to do at the different sections.”

I had caused the trouble. As we sat down to share a pot of beans, tortillas, and strong coffee, I told Trace that Reina would doubtless be easier to deal with once I was gone.

“Gone?” Even in the twilight, his eyes shone. “Where can you go?”

“There's money for me,” I answered, fighting the trembling of my lips. “I can go to Hermosillo, perhaps. Mexico City. Somewhere.”

“Alone?” He sounded horrified, which was strangely gratifying, though it didn't say much for his estimation of my survival powers. I knew young women were normally not supposed to be able to endure without a male guardian or formidable maiden aunt, but it was clearly an ability I would have to assume, like a virtue, if I had it not.

“I shall take Sewa,” I explained.

“And the Ku, no doubt!” Trace sounded angry, switching into English. “Miranda, you little fool, women, especially toothsome pretty ones, don't go traipsing around Mexico alone!”

“I can't stay at Las Coronas.”

“Your mother wished you to.”

I swallowed hard, eyes stinging as bitter hurt and regret welled up over my crushed hopes of finding family warmth with Reina. “She didn't know how—how it would be. Las Coronas is my sister's home. I must find another.”

My voice broke. Trace poured my bowl full of the pungent coffee. “Drink up,” he commanded. “Then we're going for a walk and talk this over. For a properly brought-up English lady you don't seem to have any sense at all.”

I tried to fire up at that remark but was too grateful for his concern. Also, there was something in the mood between us that echoed the madness that had sent us into the wash. To be alone in the night …

Now, though tingling with awareness, I was also frightened, half afraid he might decide to take what he had refused. In the sanity following my frustrated desire, I'd realized well enough what it would mean to be “ruined.” But even as I told myself that Trace would observe the conventions and I must hold him to them if he showed signs of wavering, deep in the center of my being, I knew he could take me if he went about it properly, roused those tempestuous feelings that had utterly vanquished my fears and modesty.