The Bastard (11 page)

When Rosa was finished,
Concepcion
lay back, exhausted. Between her thighs, the child whimpered. Pain cramped her stomach and she knew more blood ran from her. As though a voice spoke inside her head, she suddenly realized she was going to die. Diarmid would succeed after all.
He'd
be rid of her and have the land he so desperately craved.

"Rosa, listen to me
,"
Concepcion
pleaded. "I know I'm dying. We
can't
let him have the baby. You take little Francisco and keep him safe."

Rosa said nothing, confirming
Concepcion
's vision of her own death. Strangely, she
wasn't
afraid.
She'd
live on in her son and Diarmid would never find him, never inherit her father's land. True, neither would the boy, but that
didn't
matter, as long as she triumphed over Diarmid. She dare not ask
Rosa
to try to contact her father. If Don Francisco took the boy, Diarmid would find out, would know he had a son.

And
the land would be his.

 
"Take the boy to your people," she told
Rosa
.
"Now.
Tonight.
No one knows
you've
been here, Diarmid will never suspect. You must never tell anyone about the boy, even my father."

 
"I can't leave you."

 
"Can you save me?"

 
"The bleeding--"

 
"Tell me the truth, as you always have."

 
"Your life is in God's hands."

 
"He's already told me I won't live. Raise
my
son, Rosa. I trust you as I do no other."

 
Rosa
leaned over her. "I'll stay with you until--"

"No!
I'm
afraid Diarmid will come. If you love
me
, take the boy and go.
Now."
She thrust the Bible at
Rosa
.

"This goes with you." Fumbling with the clasp of the gold chain at her neck, she finally undid it, opened it and plucked out Diarmid's hair.

"Take the locket, too,"
Concepcion
insisted. "It has a lock of my hair inside. Give it to Francisco when he's grown."

"It breaks my heart to leave you alone,"
Rosa
said.

"It will give me peace to know the boy is safe."

Rosa sighed, kissed her on the forehead and, after a few moments, lifted the child from between
Concepcion
's thighs. Because of the dark,
Concepcion
couldn't
see what her old friend was doing but eventually she heard a horse riding away and knew it was
Rosa
leaving.
With the boy.

She was truly alone now. Taking a deep breath,
Concepcion
made the sign of the cross, folded her hands and prepared to confess her sins to God. A terrible pain gripped her, taking her by surprise so that she cried out.
She'd
thought the hurting was over.

"Please," she begged. "No more."

But
the pains continued, as hard and grinding as before, until at last everything faded and she knew no more.

Diarmid smelled the smoke when he reached El Doblez. The
Santa Ana
winds had begun sometime in the night, hot and dry. With so little rain, it was no wonder a fire had started in the hills. He was tying Bruce at the rail in front of the cantina when, to his surprise, he saw Anna Morales come out of the cottage next door.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he called to her.

She stared at him defiantly. "I'm a
midwife,
I go where I'm needed. Is your wife a child that she can't be alone overnight?"

"Alone? You mean the others came with you?"

Anna shrugged. "How can I stop them from doing as they please?"

Diarmid cursed, untied Bruce and remounted. No matter how much he wished to
be rid
of
Concepcion
, it appalled him to think of her alone at the rancho. "Don't bother to come back," he told Anna.
"None of you.
And don't expect any wages."

Who cares?" she shouted after him. "Everyone knows
it's
bad luck to work for that woman."

At the summit of the first hill, Diarmid spotted the source of the smoke and drew in his breath. He kicked Bruce into a gallop. By the time he flung himself off the buckskin outside the
smoldering
ruins of the hacienda, Bruce's lathered sides were heaving.

"
Concepcion
!" Diarmid shouted
again and again
. He probed through the burned house as best he could,
knowing
she couldn't have lived through such a blaze. At last, he turned away and walked toward the corral to check on the horses. As he passed by the barn, he heard a faint, strange sound, like a kitten's mewing. Puzzled, he strode into the barn and stopped, shocked beyond speech.

Concepcion
, her thighs spread, lay in a welter of blood. In the midst of the gory mess, a tiny infant whimpered. "My God, my God," Diarmid muttered as he flung himself onto his knees beside her and reached for her hand.
Cold.
Her open and staring eyes confirmed she was dead.

But
the child lived. Diarmid tore off his jacket and laid it on the ground. When he tried to lift the baby, he found it
was still attached
to the afterbirth. Not knowing what else to do, he wrapped everything into his jacket and tried to think what to do next.

Stella was the only answer he came up
with
.

Since Bruce
couldn't
be ridden again so soon, Diarmid saddled the chestnut mare and, his son snuggled in his left arm, set off for El Doblez.

Stella bit her lip as she looked down at the baby boy wrapped in the serape.
She'd
never seen a baby quite so tiny--he looked unfinished.
Lucita
had tied and cut the cord, washed the blood from him and fashioned a diaper from a soft cloth.

"Too small,"
Lucita
muttered to her, shaking her head as she tried to coax him to suck at a milk-soaked nipple made from a piece of wool. "We might get Maria Gomez to wet-nurse him if he has the strength to suck."

"What do I tell Diarmid when he returns?"

Lucita
shrugged. "The boy still lives. What else can I say?"

"What are his chances?"

Lucita
shrugged. "I'll take him to Maria and we'll see what happens." She lifted him into her arms. "Pobrecito," she murmured, "to have such an unlucky mother
."

Stella watched her leave.
Yes, poor little thing.
She prayed the tiny boy would survive.
And
certainly
Concepcion
had suffered more than her share of ill fortune.
But
even if the child died, Diarmid's luck held. As she understood it, the rancho would be Diarmid's because the child had been born alive.

And
would Angelica, too, be his?

Stella had done her best to convince herself she
wasn't
jealous of the girl but she was. Not that she
hadn't
grown fond of Angelica. The girl was like a friendly kitten--capable of scratching
but not really meaning
to hurt.

She still
couldn't
understand why Diarmid was so taken with Angelica, he all but worshipped her. Unless it was because of the
girl's
supposed resemblance to an old portrait of his mother.

What kind of a wife would Angelica be? Stella smiled one-sidedly. Angelica had a distinct prudish streak--she might not take well to
love-making
. If so, that would disconcert Diarmid. He might wind up on her doorstep just as he had after marrying
Concepcion
. She hoped he would--how satisfying to be able to refuse him!

If the baby lived, no
doubt
Angelica would spoil him, she had no sense of discipline. As for other wifely duties,
the girl would manage a house well
,
she was used to servants
.

Once she had a house. Diarmid would have to build one before he could ask Angelica to marry him.
All in all
, marriage to him would be a solution for the girl.

But
, ah, that poor woman who'd died in pain and alone--somehow it was always the women who suffered.

Stella and
Lucita
rode to the rancho to lay out
Concepcion
and Diarmid had
Lucita's
husband dig a grave inside the ruined courtyard. Diarmid brought a priest from
Los Angeles
to say the burial prayers. Father Lugo also baptized the baby, Charles Francisco Burwash
..

Bonny Charlie, as Diarmid called him,
didn't
thrive. He was too weak to suck, so milk had to
be dribbled
into his mouth with a dropper and he often choked on it rather than swallowing. He whimpered rather than cried and failed to gain weight. Two weeks after Diarmid found him in the barn, Bonny Charlie died.

Word of his death
was sent
to Don Francisco, as word had been sent about
Concepcion
two weeks earlier. The baby
was buried
beside his mother.

Diarmid,
who'd
been careful to get a baptismal certificate from the priest, didn't pretend to suffer deep grief over the deaths. He regretted the way
Concepcion
had died but he
hadn't
loved her. He did mourn his son. Still, he
hadn't
known the baby long enough to grow attached to him. With so much work to be done at the ranch, there
wasn't
time for brooding over what had happened.

As the site for a new house, he chose a saddle between two rounded hills not far from the barn and corral. Two other small outbuildings, one a cottage where the Gabaldon vaqueros lived, had survived the fire. The only relic he uncovered in the debris of the demolished casa was the silver crucifix, twisted and blackened, that had hung over their marriage bed. His first impulse was to throw it away but, instead, he placed the crucifix into one of the straw-filled storage barrels that
he'd
found in the rafters of the barn.
He'd
never have to see it again.

When Manuelo returned, the remaining cattle
were killed
; their hides brought more money than expected. Diarmid bought sheep but set some money aside to begin building a new house.

Manuelo's wife, Juanita, a plump and practical young woman, cleaned and refurbished the cottage so she and Manuelo could live in it for the time being. Diarmid slept in the barn.

Juanita also brought with her twenty-five small orange trees, a wedding gift from an uncle. Manuelo planted them near the cottage so Juanita could water them from the well.

In January, the first rains came and for two
weeks
it rained at least part of every day. Green sprouts appeared everywhere, even in the burned courtyard. When the skies cleared,
Tio
Tomas arrived on a visit, bringing a rooster and five hens as a gift for Juanita and condolences for Diarmid.

"A strange thing happened last year," he told Diarmid before leaving. "A man came asking for you and I told him the way to the ranch. Then, later, another man arrived to ask about the first." Tomas shrugged. "I told him what little I knew."

"The second man must have been the one who came to the rancho," Diarmid said. "Apparently an acquaintance of mine from
San Francisco
planned to visit me. He never got here. I understand he
didn't
return to
San Francisco
either and so inquiries were made. I have no idea what happened to him."

Tomas shook his head. "Bandidos overrun
Los Angeles
these days. As
I
warned both men, no stranger is safe. But they were Anglos and did not listen."