Harvest of Fury (32 page)

She brought back her arm and slapped him as hard as she could. His head snapped back. The white prints of her fingers showed in the redness staining his tanned cheek.

The music drowned out the sound. No one had noticed except Jordan, who was making his way toward them. Frazier's breath came in a hiss.

“So you want to be a squaw?” he said in a murderous voice, beneath his breath. “I would have married you, made you a lady. Maybe, when he's tired of you, I'll buy the use of you for a bottle of mescal.”

Rising as Jordan loomed above them, Frazier bowed low and said very softly, “I hope I have the privilege of shooting your buck and bringing you his body.”

“Be sure I'll kill you if you do,” Cat said just as quietly beneath the strum of guitars. “I'd rather have James dead than you alive, or twenty like you.”

His eyes blazed down at her before he straightened. “Need help getting your horse?” Jordan asked.

“I can manage, Scott.” Swinging brusquely away, Frazier made brief good nights to Marc and Talitha and was gone.

Jordan gazed down at Cat. “Want to tell me what that was all about?”

Tears choked her. She stumbled to her feet and started blindly for the door, needing to escape the crowded noisy room, to go where she could vent her frustration and anger—her fear, too. For Frazier was an officer in an army committed to hunting down Apaches.

Jordan put a hand beneath her arm and guided her out on the long front veranda where he'd kissed her that night of her sixteenth birthday which seemed so long ago. “What's the matter, Katie? Should I go after Frazier and give him a trouncing?”

She shook her head. “I'm afraid I've done enough to stir him up. He called James a half-breed again.”

“Now why would he do that, knowing what hot water it got him into last time? I'd have sworn he came in tonight bent on behaving mild as a lamb.”

“He probably did,” Cat said dolefully. “But when he asked me to a dance, I said I was engaged and then—
Caray!
What a mess I made of it!”

“And lied, too, Katie. You're not engaged.”

“I am!”

He watched her steadily in the light splashed golden from the window. “I think you mean you coaxed, bedeviled, and beguiled poor James into agreeing that at some distant date you'd seriously talk about getting married.”

Exactly right. How could he know? She glared at him, spun away, and burst into tears.

“Here.” He brought her against his shoulder. “I'm better to cry against than that adobe.”

He let her sob till the storm was over, then got out one of the handkerchiefs Talitha kept the men supplied with and mopped her face, made her blow her stopped-up nose. “Want to tell me about it?”

Haltingly, she told him everything except how James had taken her that night by mistake. “And he promised to try to come for the Roof Feast,” she finished. “Maybe something's happened to him. Maybe—”

Jordan said roughly, “Lord's sake, Katie! He's hoping you'll get enough sense to see it wouldn't work.”

She jerked away with an outraged cry, but he caught her wrists and held her inexorably. “He hasn't said he'll marry you. You badgered him into agreeing to
talk
about it after your birthday.”

“You—you don't want me to marry him!”

“You bet I don't. I want you myself.” He brought her hard against him. She heard the heavy pound of his heart, was overpowered by the male longing that radiated from him, barely under control. “Katie, Katie! I'm sure James loves you. But he's man enough to want to save you from the troubles he's pretty sure to have. By himself he can manage, move on when a place gets impossible. But with a wife, maybe children? Let him go, honey, for both your sakes.”

She said as if it were a vow, “I'll marry him.”

Jordan sighed. “I want you to be happy. Whatever that takes. If you ever need me, Katie, don't be too proud to ask.”

Her heart swelled with feeling for him. If it hadn't been for James, she could have loved this man with the honest hazel eyes and kind, strong hands. He loved her with his body and with his heart, and both were sound and good.

Humbled, saddened, she lifted his hands to her lips and kissed them. “Thank you, Jordan. You'll find a girl who's lots nicer than I am—”

As if something had snapped in him, he turned up her face and stared at it as if he'd fix her forever in his mind. She closed her eyes to escape that desperate searching. His mouth took hers, achingly, savagely, before he turned away violently, striding off into the darkness.

Jordan was strong. He'd do very well without her. But James—James had no one of his own. She faced the bitter wind and fought back her tears.

Since he hadn't come to her, she'd go to him. In any case, he needed to be warned that Frazier might make trouble for him if he found out where he was. Cat didn't want to spoil tonight's celebration, but tomorrow she'd talk to Talitha.

XVII

Once again Cat rode down the cañon trail into the mining camp. Marc had come to inspect the mine and Belen was along for protection. Patrick was preparing to leave on a prospecting trip to the north, so he'd stayed at the ranch. Don Buenaventura once again yielded his house to his visitors, and while he and Marc talked Cat hurried across the clearing in the twilight to invite James to eat with them.

Had he seen them ride in? Would he be glad to see her? Heart thudding till she felt choked, short of breath, she paused in the doorway and softly called his name.

No answer. He wasn't there. And as she peered into the almost dark room, she saw that the madonna no longer hung above his bed. The cushions were gone from the
bancos;
gone, too, the mats, glass jug, baskets, and mirror she'd chosen so happily and arranged while pretending this was their house, hers and James's.

She shrank against the wall. Why had he put her gifts away? Didn't he want to be reminded of her?

Did he still live here? Kneeling, she touched the serapes on the pallet bed, recognizing the broad black and brown stripes. They were his, the blankets they'd slept beneath. She pressed her face to their roughness, trying to find some sense and smell of him.

What did it mean? Perhaps he
had
seen them coming and slipped away. That thought jerked her erect. A rush of angry hurt brought her to her feet. After he'd taken her as he had, called her
gídí
, and talked all night long, he hadn't come to the Roof Feast. He'd even put the things she'd placed around his house out of sight. She'd go home tomorrow and forget all about him!

Yet, as she crossed to Don Buenaventura's house, she remembered the renegade Apache who'd kidnaped her collapsing with James's arrow through him, and how James had been shaking when she threw herself into his arms. She remembered how tenderly he'd nursed K'aak'eh, how he'd defied his Apache kin to save Patrick. And that night when, at last, he'd loved her with his strong, hard body, admitted that he cared for her.

Forget him? As well forget the blood in her veins, the air she breathed.

After the old woman and the girl had cleared the table, Belen went to visit friends, while Marc and the manager lingered over brandy and
cigarros
. Cat retired to the manager's bedroom and looked across to James's house.

No light showed. Maybe he'd gone to bed while she was at supper, or maybe he was staying out till he thought she'd abandon hope of seeing him that evening. Either way, he'd learn that when she came to see him, she was going to.

Determinedly advancing on the bed, she arranged the coverings and pillows to look like a reclining form in case Marc glanced in, took the packet of candies and little cakes Talitha had sent, and scrambled out the low, wide window.

James hadn't come home. After putting Tally's gift on the table, Cat paused by the bed. Should she wait for him there as she had before?

No. The way he'd used her as an importunate whore wasn't a thing to bring to his mind. Besides, if he guessed who she was, he might go away and leave her sleeping.

Shivering, Cat took a serape, wrapped in it, and settled on a
banco
to wait, leaning against the molded adobe of the fireplace. There were no embers. Either James hadn't eaten at home or his meal had been cold. When they were married, she'd see he had a hot supper every night, all the things he liked.

Smiling, Cat pictured straight-backed little boys with James's startling eyes, at least one with her father's flaming hair; and a girl who'd look like Socorro, the mother she'd never known. Tired from the long day's journey, she began to drowse and had to keep waking herself when her head drooped.

Late. So late. Why didn't he come?

She roused to sounds of undressing. In the dim light from the door she saw a tall dark figure bend to lie down on the pallet. A heavy odor of mescal filled the place.

Cat had often seen vaqueros, even her brothers, drink themselves senseless at fiestas. She remembered her father's methodical, steady drinking. Drunken men didn't shock her, though they caused a certain disgust. She was realistic enough to know that the mescal might be her ally this night; it might loosen James's iron control.

When he'd been breathing heavily for a time, she stood up and came to the bed. Putting the extra serape at his feet, she undressed, prickling from chill, and lay down with him, trying to escape the sour taint of mescal.

His body was strange at first, but, emboldened by his heavy slumber, she pressed closer to him, let her breasts touch his warm chest. That strangely frightening yet vulnerable part of him began to stiffen. She touched it wonderingly, and it throbbed beneath her fingers, a delicate velvet pulsing constrained and restricted by his flesh.

He groaned. Murmuring what sounded like her name, he raised himself to enter her, lunged deeply, quivered, buried himself within her, and was emptied.

His fluid laved the parts hurt by the violence of his possessing. Cat held him, head on her breast, oddly touched with pity. So much of a man went into that act, his whole force and energy, leaving him spent. But James was straightening now, shifting his weight from her.

“
Gídí!
It's you, not a dream!”

She laughed softly, caressing his lips, his eyes, the strong high bones of his cheeks. “If that's how you behave with dreams, I hope I'm in all of yours.”

He didn't answer. She said reproachfully, “I hope you haven't become a drunkard. Do you have mescal every night?”

“No. But I saw you riding into camp when I came off work. I was afraid to face you,
gídí
. So I went to a friend's and didn't come home till I was sure you were long asleep.”

A lump swelled in her throat. “That's not nice of you, James. And it wasn't nice not to come to the Roof Feast.”

He sat up heavily. “Caterina, I'm trying to let you forget me.”

“You promised—”

He placed his fingers on her lips. “I know. You make everything seem possible. You dazzle me, like sun in the eyes. I think it might work. But when you go and the world turns dark, I see clear again.”

“Is that why you hid the madonna? Put away the things I got for the house?”

“How could I bear to see them,
gídí
, when I was telling myself I must let you go?”

The pain in his voice took away her old anger, but a new kind was growing, along with a fierce determination. She sat up and flung her arms around him. “You might as well stop thinking like that, James! I'm not going to let you go! You say it's dark without me. How do you think I feel? Now, are you going to keep your promise to marry me my next birthday, or shall I just make you do it now?”

“I said we'd
talk
on your birthday, not
marry,
” he protested, then chuckled. “And how would you make me?”

“Like this.”

She touched that amazing independent part of him. He caught in his breath. “
Gídí, gídi,
” he said against her throat. “You make me drunker than mescal.”

They sat down. He loved her sweetly, and they slept, waking, rested, to love again. Then she told him of the grudge Claybourne Frazier bore him and warned him to keep out of the way in case soldiers came scouting near the mine.

“Poor
nantan
.” James shrugged. “It must be hard on his pride to know you prefer an Apache to him.”

“You're as much white as Apache.”

“Not in my heart. That's why you shouldn't marry me.”

“You've promised!”

He kissed her. “On your birthday we'll decide. But you must promise, too, not to come again. That'll give you time to think.”

She nestled against his shoulder, wishing she never had to leave. “But, James, what if I have a baby from tonight?”

She felt his heart stop before it leaped and started to pound. He placed his spread hand upon her belly, covering it. “If that happens, send word. We'll marry at once.”

With that and a long embrace she had to be content and go back in the faint graying to Don Buenaventura's bed.

Cat's monthly flow had always been irregular. She scarcely noticed its absence in January, but as Feburary ended her breasts were painfully tender and all she felt like eating for breakfast was a little hard bread, much as Talitha had been doing. Talitha, whose graceful figure was just beginning to round with her second child.

Holy mother! Was she herself with child? The thought struck Cat with blinding force one morning as she saw Talitha outlined against the window. Involuntarily her hand slipped to her own stomach and rested there as James's long fingers had that night, as if promising to protect anything he might have started there.

He had said to send for him, had promised to marry her. That was what she wanted, wasn't it? Then why didn't she feel triumphant?

She knew well enough. James hadn't taken her of his own will. She'd seduced a drink-befuddled man still half dreaming. He loved her, yes, but, in a way, she'd tricked him. It was a long time till her September birthday, but Cat wished passionately that she could have waited till then, or till he'd felt it was all right.