Rosa's Land: Western Justice - book 1 (11 page)

Without warning she was roughly seized from behind, two arms pinning her. Her captor ran his hands down her body and whispered, “Rosa, you need a man to love you!”

Without hesitation, Rosa moved her head forward then flung it back and felt a satisfaction when she felt flesh crush.

A strangled voice cursed and said, “You broke my nose!”

Wheeling quickly, Rosa saw Viro Lopez, a heavyset man with dark piggish eyes, glaring at her. Blood was running from his nose, over his mouth, and dripping off his chin, and from there making an ugly blot on his emerald green shirt. Lopez cursed and reached for her but halted abruptly when he saw the six-inch blade of bright steel in Rosa’s hand glittering under the yellow light of the lamps suspended over the bar.

“Touch me again, you pig, and I’ll cut your liver out!”

The clientele of Pepy’s Cantina was well accustomed to violence, but most of them turned now to see the knife in Rosa’s hand, her face contorted with anger, and Viro Lopez, a man of blood who had killed and battered women until they could not walk.

Suddenly, almost magically, the owner of the cantina, Pepy Garcia, appeared like a ghost. He was short but broad of chest and shoulders, and his neck was thick. His eyes glittered under the lamplight, and he said quietly, “Time for you to go home, Viro. Maybe you can come back some other time.” He waited for the larger man to act, but Lopez cursed, pulled out a bandanna, and began wiping the blood from his face. Pepy nodded. “That’s wise. Go now, my friend. This is not your night.”

Rosa had shown no fear, but she was aware now that her legs were unsteady. She showed nothing in her face, however, but a slight smile. “
Gracias
, Pepy,” she said then added, “but I lost you a good customer.”

“He’ll be back.” Pepy shrugged. He hesitated, stroked his mustache, and then said, “I don’t like it when things like that happen in my place, Rosa. My customers are all drunks, and I can’t control them sometimes.”

“I don’t complain.”

“You never do. Take the rest of the night off. You look tired. Go get some sleep.”

“Thank you, Pepy. I am tired.”

“How is your father, Senior Ramirez? Any improvement?”

“No, sir, my father never seems to improve.”

“Too bad! Too bad! I always admired him. I knew him when he was a young man and able to whip any man in the Territory, and his word, it was always strong. Whatever he said, he would do. Give him my best wishes, Rosa.”

“I will, Pepy, and I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

Rosa left the cantina and made her way down the dark streets of the village, warily watching for men who might be lurking in the darkness. She reached the outskirts of the village and turned into a yard that housed a squat clay adobe house. Two lights were shining through the windows, a feeble yellow, and even as she reached out to knock on the door, she heard the raucous laughter from Pepy’s Cantina. The distaste at the thought of the place where she had worked for two years seized her.

There was no need thinking about that, so she knocked on the door—two knocks then a single knock. This was the code that the family had created. Rough men and women were common here in the village and in Amarillo, and blood had been spilled often enough. The door opened a hair, and she pushed it open saying, “You still up, Juan?”

Juan Ramirez was a handsome boy of sixteen, tall and thin as though undernourished. He had dark hair that needed cutting and the dark eyes of his half-Crow mother. “I was worried about you, Rosa.”

“You shouldn’t do that. You should get some sleep.”

“I saved you some supper. Raquel was sleepy and went to bed early.

Rosa reached out, hugged him, and smiled. “Good! I’m hungry.” As she sat down wearily at the rough table, she looked around at what had been her home for several years and, as always, was depressed. The house had only two rooms. One was a bedroom used by her parents, and the other room was for living. It contained a kitchen, of sorts, a table for meals, and three cots with blankets, which were used as seats and beds for Rosa, Juan, and Raquel.

Juan moved toward a cabinet and brought out a plate covered with a cloth and a bottle. He set both on the table before Rosa, moved back, and got two glasses. “I saved you some beer,” he said, “but it’s not cold, sister.”

Rosa smiled and patted his hand. She removed the cloth, picked up a tortilla, and filled it with meat. She ate without hunger, but Juan was watching her, so she said, “This is very good. What did you do tonight, Juan?”

“Nothing.” The boy shrugged eloquently. “What is there to do in this place? I played cards with Chico and Carlos. We went over to see the new horse Arturo’s father had bought.”

Rosa listened as Juan spoke and was glad that he talked to her. They were the two that held the family together, and it broke her heart that he had so little chance to become something. She had given up on a good life for herself to work at Pepy’s to bring in money for the family. Once she had had dreams, but they had faded a long time ago, and now she had to concentrate on making it through a single day at a time. “How is Papa today?”

“Not so good.” Juan’s smooth face showed a troubled mind. “I wish I could help him, Rosa.”

“You’re helping him by being a good son.”

“No, that’s not enough. I need to do something else. I need to get a job and go to work.”

“No, there’s no proper work here. We all know you would work if you had a chance at it. Just help Mama with the house. Be sure she has plenty of wood and water. You’re a good son.”

He shook his head and said stubbornly, “No, that’s not enough.”

The two sat at the table under the corona of flickering yellow light cast by a single, stubby candle. Finally Juan looked closely at Rosa’s face. “You’re tired, sister. Go to bed.”

“Well, I am tired.” She rose and put her hands on Juan’s shoulders, startled to feel how thin they were. From lack of nourishing food she knew. “We have each other, Juan, you and me. I couldn’t make it without you.” She saw her words pleased the boy and brought color to his face. She ruffled his hair, kissed him on the cheek, and whispered “Good night, brother.”

The two of them went to bed on the cots, and in the ebony darkness Rosario Ramirez tried to pray that God would give them a better life. But she had prayed in that fashion for so long that her faith was small.

The sun had lifted in the west, sending pale yellow beams through the two small windows of the hut and through a large crack over the primitive woodstove. Raquel, a trim fourteen-year-old girl wearing a tattered dress too large for her, had started the fire with bits of wood that she and Juan had collected, and, as usual, the smoke made her eyes smart. “I hate this stove, Mama!” she exclaimed.

“Be thankful we don’t have to cook on the floor or in a rock fireplace.” Chenoa Ramirez was grinding corn with a pestle in a hollowed-out stone. She wore an ancient dress long ago faded to a dull, neutral, noncolor and held together with patches. The sunlight touched her, revealing her unusual racial heritage. Her father, Frank Lowery, was a tall American trapper, but her mother had been a full-blooded Crow Indian. The mixture of races had made Chenoa a beautiful woman. She had lost that early beauty, for now at the age of forty, after years of hard living since her youth, her face showed lines that revealed her age.

She glanced at Raquel, whose dress was almost as worn as her own, and marveled at the blossoming beauty of the girl.
Not a child. She’s on the verge of womanhood
. She glanced over at Rosa, and a sadness came to her.
She’s so beautiful, but what does that get her? The men of this place chase after her but for evil purposes, and it will be the same with Raquel
.

A door hinge creaked, and Chenoa turned quickly as her husband Mateo entered the room. She rose quickly and walked with him to the table. “Sit down, Mateo. I’ll fix you a good breakfast.”

“I’m not hungry, Chenoa.”

As her husband sat down, Chenoa was suddenly reminded of how handsome he had been when she had first seen him. She had been a mere girl, and to her the young, pure Spaniard with dark eyes and lively features and an aristocratic air had been the finest-looking man she had ever seen.

A bitterness came then as she thought of how good their life had been until Mateo had fallen ill with cholera. He had been in charge of a large property owned by a wealthy citizen of Amarillo. She longingly thought of the fine wood house that came to the Segundo and how she had had a new dress for herself from time to time and how the children, who were very young, had been clothed in finery. Food had been plentiful, and she had thought this life would last forever. Mateo had finally recovered but had become so weak he was unable to work. He had lost his position, and everything from that time had become difficult.

As Chenoa began to heat a pan full of rice, she turned to see Rosa rise from her cot and throw the thin blanket back. She was wearing a thin undergarment, and Chenoa remembered how long ago she had been as shapely as this oldest daughter of hers. She turned back to the boiling rice, stirred it, added salt and a little butter, then put it in a bowl and set it before her husband. “Here. Eat this. You’ve got to keep your strength up.”

Mateo began to eat, but he took only small bites. He did finish the bowl and smiled. “Very good, wife. You were always the best cook in the village.”

Juan coughed, groaned, and rolled out of bed. He wore a pair of worn, patched jeans too small for him and a shirt that had once been colorful but now was faded. “Is there any of that pork left, Mama?” he said, yawning hugely.

“Yes, you can share it with your sisters.”

They ate quickly, and then the children left the room—Juan to go fishing in the river, Raquel to visit her friend Sofia, and Rosa to work in the cool of the morning in the garden behind the house.

Chenoa had made a cup of weak tea and put it down before Mateo.

He looked at it, smiled, and tasted it. “That’s very good,” he said.

They sat silently, and finally Mateo said heavily, “I don’t like the way our children are living.” He made a thin shape as he sat watching Chenoa’s face. “Juan and Raquel, they’ve been running with bad companions.”

“Their friends are not as bad as some.”

“Maybe not, but I don’t like it. And I hate it when Rosario has to work in that hellish cantina.” Rosario was the name given to Rosa, but her nickname had become almost second nature. Only her family used her full name at certain times now.

“I hate that she has to fight the men off. She’s a good girl, Mateo.”

“I know that. But what’s going to happen to them, Chenoa? What in God’s name will become of them? There’s nothing good in this place.” He lowered his head and whispered, “I failed you all.”

Chenoa moved at once to his side, put her arm around him, and held his head. “You have not. You’ve been sick. When you are fully recovered, you will get work and things will be better.” They both understood that such a future was highly unlikely, for his weakened condition grew worse, never better. “Don’t worry,” she said, stroking his hair now streaked with white. “The good God, He will take care of us.” Her words, she saw, gave Mateo no comfort, nor did they make the sadness and hopelessness in her own breast go away.

It was two days after this that the Ramirezes had a visitor. It was late in the afternoon when they heard a knock.

“Who could that be?” Mateo asked.

“One of the neighbors maybe,” Chenoa said. She got up and opened the door. She stood there for a moment in shock. “Is that you, Gray Hawk?”

“Yes, your uncle has come for a visit.” Gray Hawk stepped inside at her invitation. He was full-blooded Crow, a handsome man. The Crows were the most handsome people among the Plains Indians, and he was a good example. He was near fifty but erect as a pine tree, and his muscles were still limber and strong.

“I’m glad to see you. Come in and sit down. We have some food left.”

“I will eat, and then I will talk.”

Gray Hawk sat down, and the family watched him as he ate. When he finished, he sat back, belched loudly, and said, “That was good. Now I’ll talk. You listen.”

“All right, uncle,” Chenoa said. “Why have you come?”

“Your father. He is sick. He wants you to come and live with him.”

The family had heard Chenoa speak of her father, who was, by all her reports, a fighting man admired among all the Indians.

“Live with him?” Chenoa said. “How could that be? He has another wife now, not my mother.”

“She is dead. He has a woman to keep house for him, and he needs you he says. He has a fine ranch, a big house.”

“Well, why don’t you help him, Gray Hawk?” Mateo asked.

“Ah, I’m a wild hawk. I do not always keep the law. I sometimes buy whiskey and sell it.” He laughed then slapped his chest. “The Choctaw Light Horse is after me.”

“What is that?” Chenoa asked.

“Indian police.”

For a time he talked about the house, the ranch, and what was there.

Finally Mateo, who had remained silent, said, “You are not telling us everything, Gray Hawk.”

“No, I am not. Your father’s ranch is in Indian Territory, which has more outlaws there than there are fleas on a dog. Evil men everywhere! Your father fought them off while he was well, but he can’t fight now.”