Night Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (15 page)

      
This man's black eyes were hard as obsidian, narrowed in insolent appraisal of her person. Melanie returned his inspection while she recovered her voice. She could see a thin scar on his forehead, though it was partially obscured by curling black hair that tumbled to meet his arched brows. His nose had been broken and another small scar nicked his left cheekbone. He needed a shave and a haircut, but despite the harsh new lines and scars on his face, it was still arrestingly handsome in a barbaric sort of way.

      
She searched his eyes. “I scarcely recognized you, Lee. You've changed.” Well, at least her voice was back and even presentably clear.

      
“You still haven't answered my question, Melanie,” he said harshly. “What are you doing here?”

      
She took a deep, steadying breath. “Looking for you. I want to find out if the Lee Velasquez I knew is the same man who fled into the
Apachería
six years ago with a price on his head. A renegade.”

      
His face darkened and he scowled. “The only price on my head now is in Chihuahua, and I don't plan on going back there.”

      
“I know in Texas you're free and clear, thanks to Jim Slade and his friend Sam Houston. If you were innocent, why did you run, Lee?”

      
His sculpted lips hardened into a slash. “You are a naive child. I killed two Anglos—rangers signed up to go kill Mexicans. Do you honestly think a
Tejano
would get a fair hearing in Texas on the eve of the war?”

      
“No, but—”

      
“You're still evading the issue. Why are you here, two hundred miles from your papa's ranch, alone, trespassing on my land?”

      
His piercing eyes made her feel like an insect wriggling on a pin. “It's a long story.”

      
“Try me.”

      
Damn! She was supposed to be interviewing him. “Well, I came to San Antonio with Charlee Slade to live with Obedience and Wash Oakley. I—I had nothing to do at Renacimiento after I came home from Boston. In Boston I worked for the abolitionists and women's suffrage movements.”

      
His harsh face relaxed a fraction, and a smile twitched on his lips. “Still tilting at windmills, Melanie?”

      
Recalling his condescending allusion to Don Quixote ten years earlier, she replied tartly, “I'm no longer an ignorant twelve-year-old schoolgirl who never read Cervantes, Lee.”

      
“But you still feel compelled to raise your standard for the downtrodden. Better to fight for abolition in Boston than Texas, little girl.”

      
She felt her cheeks heat with anger as she shot back, “There are enough downtrodden in Texas to make it an admirable place for me to ‘raise my standard.’ ”

      
“What brings you to my ranch to launch your crusade?” He had moved from defensive anger to condescension, then to frank curiosity.

      
Recalling Clarence Pemberton's description of how Lee had run him off at gunpoint, Melanie knew she had to go carefully. “There may not be many slaves to free in west Texas, but there are other issues—like the way
Tejanos
are treated. You said yourself, a
Tejano
who kills a ranger or any Anglo isn't likely to get a fair trial.”

      
“I never thought of placing myself in the ranks of the defenseless downtrodden,” he said sardonically.

      
Looking at the tall, heavily armed man in front of her, she was inclined to agree. “Don't you care if Texas citizens of Mexican ancestry are denied their rights?”

      
His brows arched quizzically. “And just what could you do about it?”

      
She took a deep breath and plunged in. “I could write a story about you for the
San Antonio Star
, explaining what happened to you and what you plan to do with your life now.”

      
It took a minute to register. Then, his face hardened once more. “That Yankee prig sent you to interview me after I ran him off! Of all the spineless, harebrained, idiotic ideas I've ever heard!”

      
She stood facing him, hands on hips, furious anger lighting her eyes to golden flames. “And why is that—just because I'm a woman? I'll have you know I'm a trained journalist, and there's no good reason I shouldn't be able to talk with you just as well as a male reporter.”

      
“I don't talk to reporters, male or female,” he replied harshly. “So get your pretty little ass back on that horse and ride out of here before I paddle it—that is, if I can find it beneath all those wrinkled layers of skirts!”

      
“You arrogant, crude brigand!” she shrieked at him, furious beyond reason. “Mr. Pemberton was right—you did murder whole villages of Indians for their scalps, didn't you? And now you're back here with your blood money, skulking in these ruins like some wild animal licking his wounds! Mr. Pemberton’s not the coward—you are!”

      
As Lee listened to her diatribe, his face paled beneath his swarthy tan. He stood very still, staring down at the tiny, furious woman in front of him, willing himself to remain calm and ignore his craven itch to put his callused hands around that slim golden neck and squeeze.

      
Sensing the direction of his thoughts, Melanie quieted but stood her ground doggedly. “If you don't talk to reporters, everyone will assume the worst about you.”

      
“They do anyway,” he said tightly.

      
“You're impossible, Lee Velasquez, but I'm going to get your story no matter what. Do your damnedest to stop me!” With that, she whirled and stalked toward her horse without a backward glance.

      
By the time she had ridden halfway back to town, Melanie's heart slowed its trip-hammer beat.
He might have killed me. He's a cold-blooded monster
, she thought to herself. Still, somewhere beneath the renegade's menace must remain a semblance of the smiling young man who had haunted her dreams and fantasies since she was a child. Surely, the real Leandro Velasquez was still there.

* * * *

      
Obedience was up to her elbows in flour, kneading an enormous quantity of bread dough in the boardinghouse's big kitchen. “Give me more flour, Sadie,” she called to the elderly black woman who had worked for the establishment the past twenty years.

      
Sadie scuttled over to the sack of flour and scooped some into a pot. ‘This be 'nough, Miz Obedience?”

      
“Jist dump it on me,” Obedience replied, her rawboned, muscular arms working the huge blob of dough rhythmically. Both women were interrupted in their task when Melanie came dashing into the kitchen. “Yew look whiter'n this here flour. Whut's wrong, gal?” Obedience asked as her shrewd brown eyes took in Melanie's pallor and agitation.

      
Melanie fidgeted, feeling guilty for not telling Obedience about her challenge from Mr. Pemberton to interview the infamous Lee Velasquez. She was loath to confess her failure after having sneaked from the house at daybreak to attempt the thankless task. She sat primly on the edge of a chair and arranged her clumpy wrinkled skirts carefully, avoiding two pairs of curious and probing eyes.

      
”Dat chile done been up ta somethin', Miz Obedience,” Sadie said shrewdly.

      
Obedience just waited, knowing full well her charge would explain in her own good time. Turning back to the dough, she resumed kneading.

      
Realizing the boss and her young charge had some sorting out to do, Sadie nodded to Obedience and excused herself to go and change bed linens upstairs.

      
“Well, you know I wanted to work for Mr. Pemberton at the
Star
,” Melanie began hesitantly.

      
“Yep, ‘n last night yew tole me he wuz gonna give yew a sorta trial job cause o' yew bein' female ‘n all.” The pounding and squeezing on the dough never missed a beat.

      
“What I didn't tell you was the kind of test—er, assignment—Mr. Pemberton gave me...more of a dare really. He couldn't get Leandro Velasquez to talk to him, so he sent me out to his place to try and get a story,” she blurted out all in one breath. “Do—do you know who Velasquez is?”

      
Obedience let out a whoop of laughter and pounded the dough so hard a white floury cloud rose up and surrounded her. “Jeehosaphat! Do I know Lee? Gal, your mama ‘n me come here in ‘thirty-six ‘n thet little tadpole wuz underfoot ever since't, taggin' on Jim Slade's heels ever’where he went. Wash ‘n me run in ta him in Santy Fe last year. Convinced him ta write Jim ‘n git shut o' his trouble so's he cud come home.” She stopped and laughed again, wiping her arms on her apron after she plopped the dough into an immense stone crock to rise. “I kin jist see thet prissy New England prune Pemberton runnin' like a stampeded jackrabbit when Lee fixed them black eyes o' his'n on th' old fart!”

      
She guffawed and then observed the girl's shaken demeanor. “Say, I figgered a pompous ole windbag like Pemberton ta run, but yew? Thought yew cud stand up ta any man!”

      
Melanie flushed in shame, angry and confused over her feelings about Lee Velasquez. “I stood my ground with that—that scalper! He's a crude, mean, low-life, mule-headed...” Her voice trailed off as she ran out of expletives and Obedience's laughter drowned her out.

      
“Always figgered yew two'd tangle when ya met.”

      
“We always have,” Melanie replied. Then, at Obedience's look of curious prompting, she continued, “We met twice before.” Quickly, she gave the older woman an edited version of her earlier encounters with Lee. “I don't understand how someone could change so much, Obedience. He was always full of himself, puffed up with insufferable Hispanic vanity; but he was teasing and smiling. Now, he even looks different, hard and dangerous. When Mr. Pemberton told me he'd been a scalper in New Mexico, I didn't believe it; but now I think it's true. What kind of a man hires himself out to go and kill whole villages of people?”

      
“Mebbe,” Obedience replied slowly, “th' same kinda man who comes home as a twenty-two-year-old kid ta find his wife ‘n unborn baby murdered—her ‘n her friend ‘n three o' his ranch hands all daid. Them two drunk rangers whut done it raped her and abused her somethin' awful, then cut her throat. I ‘spect when a man lives through thet, somethin' inside o' him snaps. He found 'em in town ‘n kilt em—two ta his one. But they wuz volunteers fer th' army ta fight Mexico ‘n his folks wuz from th' enemy country. It made no never mind he wuz borned here.”

      
“So he had to run,” Melanie interjected as her mind envisioned the horror of the blood-soaked scene he had found on the very spot where she encountered him that morning. “But that doesn't erase his becoming a bounty hunter, killing whole villages of Indians for their scalps.”

      
Obedience looked levelly at Melanie. “I ain't sayin' whut he done wuz right, er thet mine owners ‘n traders got th' right ta pay fer scalps; but they's two sides ta ever’ fight, child.”

      
“You mean because the Comanche killed his parents, that gives him the right to kill any other Indians? Well, I don't see it that way.” Her retort sounded self-righteous even to her own ears.

      
Obedience ignored it and said gently, “I seen things whilst travelin' with Wash through th' Rockies ‘n down in New Mexico Territory. Things yew niver dreamed o'—whole towns ‘n wagon trains o' settlers kilt—women, children, babies. Both sides's done wrong. Lee didn't start th' war— he wuz borned dab smack in th' middle o' it. Santy Fe's a rough place. Not much fer a kid with a price on his head ‘n no money in his pockets ta do. Lee's seen whut Apache ‘n Comanche done, not jist when he wuz a boy, neither.” She paused. “He tell yew ‘bout any o' it?” At Melanie's negative nod, she said knowingly, “Didn't think so. Took a quart o' whiskey ta git him ta tell it ta me ‘n Wash. He freed hunnerts o' slaves when they raided in
Apachería
—mostly Mexican women ‘n young’uns.”

      
Obedience proceeded to describe Lee's sojourn in New Mexico and Chihuahua, the men he dealt with, and the situation facing traders and settlers. She told Melanie about the hellish way captives were treated and how the blood lust of his companions as well as that of the Indians had driven Lee to quit and return to Santa Fe. “If'n yew want th' truth o' why he got a pardon from th' gov'ner, yew go ‘n talk ta Jim Slade. He'll set yew straight ‘bout whut kinda man Lee Velasquez is!”

      
Nodding slowly, Melanie agreed to do so. She had a great many things to consider and to learn. And she was going to get that job with Clarence Pemberton! She rode out to Bluebonnet for a talk with the Slades that very afternoon.

      
The following afternoon Lee rode into town, bathed and shaved. He had decided it was time for a haircut and a new wardrobe, and also a talk with Gerhart Grosman, a big mercantile owner who doubled as the town's leading banker. Since Texas law prohibited incorporated banks, the large freighters and merchants provided banking services across the state. Lee had deposited a sizable sum with the German merchant and decided it was time to draw some out and get to work.

      
He had spent almost a week alone since returning to Texas, camping on his land, brooding over the past and wondering if he should rebuild. After all the trouble Jim had gone through holding the title for him the past six years, Lee had felt duty bound to at least confront all the bittersweet, lost dreams at the ranch. Discovering the night flower had awakened a new resolution inside him. He would begin once more. When he was done, the Velasquez name would be one to be reckoned with in Texas.