Sun God (12 page)

With Luiz’s hands secured and stretched high over his head, Lucas tore the white shirt from his back, not stopping until it lay in shreds on the gravel drive and Luiz was bare to the waist, the sun turning his smooth bronzed flesh the color of brick.

Baron, purposely trailing the bullwhip’s tip in the dust, eyed the gleaming gold Sun Stone medallion resting on Luiz’s chest. He wrapped his fingers around the circular disk and gave it a vicious yank. The chain snapped and fell away from Luiz’s throat.

For a moment Baron held the gleaming gold medallion in the palm of his hand. Staring down at it, he sneered, knowing that the superstitious half-breed believed the medallion was an Aztec amulet against evil and danger. He opened his fingers and let it fall to the ground at their feet. Smiling, he ground it into the dust with his bootheel.

A demonic gleam in his blue eyes, Baron said, “Lucas and I don’t take too kindly to the notion of a barbarian redskin sleeping with our little sister. What have you got to say for yourself, half-breed?”

No answer.

Luiz didn’t make a sound.

Baron wasted no more time. He moved around Luiz, stepped off exactly eight paces, then turned. Standing directly behind the trussed young man, he lifted the black bullwhip high in the air.

And brought it singing down on Luiz’s bare back.

Luiz’s tautly stretched body recoiled from the agonizing blow and his eyes closed briefly from the stinging pain. A wide white welt appeared on the coppery skin and within seconds tiny beads of bright-red blood rose to dot the wound.

His back felt as if it were afire. The rope chafed the tender flesh of his wrists and the muscles of his cruelly stretched arms pulled painfully. His left jaw throbbed from Lucas’s blow and was already swollen and discolored. But most of all, his heart hurt.

Still he remained mute.

The brothers goaded Luiz.

Baron came up close behind him. He blew cooling air on the burning abrasion and said they didn’t really want to hurt him. Told him they would cut him down if he would tell them—in explicit detail—exactly what he and Amy had been up to all those long, hot afternoons.

Was little Amy beautiful naked? Did she claw his back and cry out? Had he shown her all the ways of making love? Was he able to satisfy her?

If he told them everything they’d let him go.

Luiz Quintano was a gentleman.

He’d allow the Sullivan brothers to kill him before he would say one word about Amy. His white teeth clenched, Luiz stared impassively into the flaming red sun, refusing to respond to their vulgar taunts. Not so much as a flicker of an eyelash disturbed the expressionless mask of his handsome face.

For his stoicism, he received more lashes. Baron raised the long black bullwhip twice more and brought it down on Luiz’s back. They jeered him, called him Sun God and Tonatiuh, and asked where was that mystical Aztec power now when he needed it.

Just before applying one final lash of the whip, Baron stepped up behind Luiz, clasped a handful of his thick blue-black hair, jerked his head back, and said coldly, “Maybe this will teach you not to be sticking your stiff Indian cock into high-class white girls.”

L
UIZ HELD HIS DARK
head proudly erect, his slim, battered body rigid. His black eyes remained flat and expressionless. He stared fixedly at the flaming western horizon beyond the cool, blue distant mountains and wordlessly called to the spirits of his ancestors, the brave sun-worshipping Aztec.

The Sullivan brothers were not pleased with Luiz’s lack of reaction. Baron, especially, was disappointed. His hatred of the quiet
mestizo
was intense, and he had hoped to bring the proud mixed blood to his knees. To hear him beg for mercy.

Frustrated that nothing of the kind had occurred, the resourceful Baron quickly came up with a new plan. One guaranteed to produce a response.

Smiling, he stepped in front of Luiz and said, “Don’t go anywhere, old Sun God. We’ll be right back.” He tauntingly hung the evil black bullwhip around Luiz’s neck, then turned and walked away, motioning for Lucas to follow. Baron had decided to bring their sister down to witness her lover’s pain and humiliation.

The brothers hurried back up the long drive, went inside the hacienda, climbed the stairs, and burst into Amy’s room. She awoke with a start to see Baron crossing the sun-reddened room. The chill she had felt earlier returned. Nervously she sat up.

“What is it, Baron?” she said, her breath short. “What’s happened?”

“You’re coming with us,” he answered, offering no further explanation.

The wispy hair at the nape of her neck standing on end, Amy threw her legs over the edge of the bed and got up. “All right,” she said evenly, “soon as I get dressed, I’ll—”

“Dress later,” he said with firm authority. “Somebody wants to see you.”

“Who? I thought everyone had gone.” She looked down at herself. “I can’t see anyone without my clothes.” With dread, she wondered if Baron meant Tyler Parnell was downstairs.

Dread turned to fear when her brothers dragged her from the house. Oblivious to the driveway pebbles bruising her bare, tender feet, Amy was overcome with a blinding, choking terror. She knew instinctively that they had Tonatiuh. That they meant to harm him. Why were they taking her to Tonatiuh when all they had ever wanted was to keep them apart?

Amy winced when she saw, framed against the flaming red sky, the proud, beautiful youth she loved hanging helpless and hurt from Orilla’s tall white ranch gates.

When she was close enough to see the bleeding stripes zigzagging his bronzed back, her first impulse was to scream and run to him, to fling her arms around his dear neck and promise she’d save him from further harm. But she wisely checked herself.

She had always known that her brothers hated Tonatiuh, but she had had no idea how much. Had never dreamed they were capable of committing such a despicable act as this. She fought to keep her wits about her, knowing it was not yet over, that they might kill Tonatiuh if she intervened.

They led her around to face Luiz. Immediately she saw that the protective Sun Stone was missing from his dark throat.

“Why, Baron?” was all she said. Keeping rigid control over her emotions, her blue eyes remained dry of tears as they met Luiz’s. He looked at her. And for the first time his obsidian eyes flickered with deep emotion, a fact well noted by the observant Baron.

“Why have you done this to him?” Amy asked, longing to reach up and wipe the blood from Tonatiuh’s scraped forehead, to brush a bead of perspiration from his dark eyelash.

“We Sullivans protect our women and our land. We won’t hold still for a half-breed putting his filthy hands on either,” said Baron. Closely watching his sister’s face as she looked at Luiz, he asked, “Do you love this uppity redskin?”

It was a loaded question and Amy knew it. If she admitted she loved Tonatiuh, they would send him away forever, perhaps even kill him. If she didn’t admit it, the consequences might be the same. Amy thought fast. If Baron believed that Tonatiuh actually had no hold on her heart, he would surely feel less threatened. And less vindictive. She looked squarely at Baron.

“No,” she said evenly, “I don’t.” Her gaze returned to Luiz. “The Indian meant nothing to me.” She shrugged bare shoulders. She smiled and flippantly added, “I was only amusing myself with the savage Sun God.”

Baron carefully studied her face. Her expression gave nothing away; she appeared completely placid. His gaze shifted to Luiz. He looked stricken, as if Amy’s callous words had caused far greater pain than any meted out by the whip. Baron grinned, reached up, withdrew the bull-whip from around Luiz’s neck, and held it out to his sister.

“Prove it.”

The lump in her tight throat was choking her. Her rapidly beating heart was not supplying enough oxygen. But Amy serenely nodded, took the whip, and stepped around the trussed Luiz. On weak, leaden legs she took several steps, stopped, and turned, the lacy white petticoat swirling about her bare legs.

And smiling as if she were thoroughly enjoying herself, she lifted the deadly bull whip high and brought it cracking down sharply across Luiz’s bloodied, bronzed back.

And felt a bolt of pain shear right through her heart when his beloved body jerked reflexively to the punishing blow. Her face remained composed. She was most convincing. So convincing she was certain that Tonatiuh would hate her for the rest of his days on earth.

Better his hate than his death.

The brothers laughed and applauded their sister’s mettle. Coming to her, Baron relieved her of the heavy whip, gave her an affectionate hug, and said, “Honey, I’ve misjudged you. I thought maybe you cared about the dirty half-breed.” He shook his blond head. “Hell, I can understand physical hunger.” He laughed heartily. “So you tumbled in the hay a few times with the savage. No harm done. I’ve been guilty of amusing myself with the Mexican servants.”

“My favorite whores are Mexicans and Indians,” offered Lucas, grinning.

“No, sir, we’re not blaming you, Amy,” Baron assured her. “I don’t know though.” His smile disappeared. “I think we ought to kill this arrogant redskin for daring to touch our pale, pretty little sister.”

Amy’s pulses pounded. She felt as if she might faint. She had to do something and fast.

“I have a better idea,” she said, sauntering back around to face the prisoner.

Her petticoat brushing the gravel beneath her bare feet, she stood in front of Luiz, hoping for the chance to send him a message with her eyes. She never got it. Baron was right at her elbow.

Devilishly taunting the miserable captive, Amy stooped, picked up the gold medallion from the dirt, and looked at it with mocking disdain. She considered shoving it deep into Luiz’s pants pocket. Instead she handed it to Baron.

Stepping closer to Luiz, she provocatively rolled an ivory shoulder, allowing the delicate strap of her chemise to slide teasingly down her arm. She gave her head a haughty toss, causing her long unbound hair to spill around her shoulders, the dying sun behind her making a fiery red-gold halo of the shiny tresses.

She put out the tip of her tongue, licked her lips wetly, and said, “Send the soft, spoiled half white, half Indian back where he belongs.” She lifted her chin and looked straight into the tortured black eyes.

“Where’s that, Amy, honey?” asked Baron.

“Across the border into old Mexico for a lifetime of loneliness and poverty among his own kind!”

With her cold, biting words, the fiery sun disappeared. A warm red afterglow lingered to bathe the dark face, the smooth chest of her proud Aztec sweetheart.

Feeling a sob threatening to erupt from her tight throat, Amy turned swiftly away. She knew that she would see Tonatiuh as he was now—coppery skin tinted pink, black eyes gone dead—in her haunted dreams forever.

While unshed tears stung her eyes, Amy started back up the long drive, stopping when she had gone but a few steps. Turning, she called nonchalantly, “Baron, make sure that ugly Sun Stone goes with the Indian.”

“We’ll dispose of both in the deserts of Mexico tonight,” he responded. “Now you go on and make yourself pretty. Tyler’ll be coming to see you after a while.”

As twilight descended, Amy stood at the upstairs landing before the huge window and watched three horsemen gallop away from the ranch, heading south. Silhouetted against the violet western sky, Tonatiuh, his hands tied to the horn, turned abruptly in the saddle and glanced back at Orilla.

That’s when they came.

The hot, gushing tears she could no longer hold back. Tonelessly murmuring his name, Amy fell to her knees and wept bitterly, her slender shoulders shaking with her misery.

Pedrico, returning from Sundown, found her hovering in the gloom. Sobbing hysterically, she told him all that had happened. At once he shouted for Magdelena and Rosa, and he told the heartbroken Amy he would go after Luiz.

She clutched at his arm. “I don’t know where they took him. I only know they mean to dump him somewhere in Mexico.”

His one eye gleaming with fierce determination, Pedrico said, “I will find the boy.”

“Please,” she cried, “tell him I’m sorry, that I didn’t mean it. Dear God, I didn’t mean it!”

Magdelena, putting her arms around the heartsick young girl, said to Pedrico, “And if you don’t find him?”

“Then I will never return to Orilla.”

It was past midnight when finally they pulled up on their winded, lathered mounts. They had crossed the Rio Grande south of Esperanza and continued riding until they were deep into the vast, lonely Chihuahuan desert of northern Mexico.

“Far enough,” Baron said, standing in the stirrups, looking out over the hard, lonely country.

Not bothering to dismount, Lucas reached over and untied Luiz’s hands from the saddlehorn, but left them bound together. Grinning, he roughly shoved Luiz off the horse, saying as he did so, “Adios, Sun God.”

Luiz instinctively put out his tied hands in an attempt to break the fall, but one booted foot snagged briefly in the stirrup, and he landed on his back in a cluster of prickly pears. A hundred tiny needles pricked his raw, lashed flesh.

With effort, he rolled away, lay there on his belly, bound hands out before him, waiting, wondering if they would kill him. Not caring if they did.

“Death is the penalty for touching our sister,” said Baron. “You’ll be buzzard bait by morning.”

He reached in his pocket, drew out the Sun Stone, and tossed it carelessly to the ground. The heavy disk landed several yards away from Luiz.

The Sullivans rode away at once, taking with them the spare mount, leaving Luiz Quintano alone without food and water in an empty, dry wilderness of scattered mesquite trees and creosote shrubs and wild, hungry animals.

His face and hands were skinned from the shattered glass of the ranch patio. His jaw was discolored and badly swollen from Lucas’s powerful fist. His bare, dirty back was shredded by the stinging bullwhip’s lashes and stuck by the prickly pears. His heart was broken beyond repair. In physical and mental pain, the wretched young half-breed lay on the hard desert floor under a full Mexican moon.