The Enchantment (17 page)

He watched the images for a moment, a small, sad smile lurking in the wrinkled corners of his mouth, and then, slowly, he turned to look at the two men sitting with him. Their dark eyes were on him; he felt the silent burden of their stares. Effortlessly he read the sum of each man's thoughts.

Long, silent seconds passed before he spoke. "Falls with a Laugh and Pinched Face are like the other crazy white men who have come before and who will come again. They will fail. What seeks to stay hidden will not be found."

152

Kristin Hannah

Ka-Neek leaned toward the old man. "But—"

He held up a gnarled hand for silence. "My mind is strong. We will not stop them yet. We will wait. And we will watch."

Ka-Neek grimaced, but said nothing. He knew better than to argue with his leader. Any words of disagreement would be wasted, and they would be disrespectful.

They would wait.

But when the order came to stop the intruders—and the order would come—he'd be ready.

A mourning dove cooed. The sound vibrated through the still, cold predawn air.

Sunlight caressed Larence's closed eyelids, urging him gently to waken. He yawned lazily, taking a deep, satisfying breath of the cleanest, purest air he'd ever known.

He blinked away the last sandy vestiges of sleep and opened his eyes. An immediate stab of disappointment made him frown. He'd missed the sunrise. Mentally vowing not to make the same mistake again, he lifted his arms for a nice early morning stretch.

Every muscle in his body shrieked in protest at the movement. He grinned and kept stretching, reveling in the burning ache that accompanied his every move.

For once in his life, he'd earned his pain. He didn't hurt because of a carriage accident that had happened too long ago to remember; he hurt because he'd pushed his body too far.

God, it felt good.

Levering himself onto his elbows, he took another deep breath and looked around. In the crisp morning air, the desert glittered around him; everything seemed

THE ENCHANTMENT

153

sharper, clearer, closer. Hoarfrost turned the bosque's new spring grass into a bed of diamond-bright silver-gray spikes. A soft gurgle of sound drew his gaze to the river, and he watched, mesmerized, as a fallen leaf spi-raled through the current and disappeared from view.

His gaze climbed, and what he saw made his breath catch in his throat. Above and all around him was the biggest, brightest sky he'd ever seen. Cloudless, vibrant, it didn't start at the mountaintops, nor even at the treetops. This endless New Mexico sky began at his feet and washed across the world in an infinite sea of pale blue.

Awe filled him. Nothing stood between him and his God except the rising sun.

The realization brought with it the most profound sense of peace Larence had ever known. Here, on the trail to Cibola, he'd found the church he'd sought all his life.

He crawled out of his sleeping bag. With every movement, the sheen of white hoarfrost that layered his bag crinkled and crackled.

Shivering, he rubbed his hands together. Breath shot from his mouth in a steady stream of white as he grabbed his boots. He was just about to put them on when he remembered Diamond Dick finding a rattler in his boot on the trail to Taos. Gingerly Larence tilted both boots and checked. Nope, no snakes.

Grinning at his own ingenuity, he shoved his stockinged feet into his cowboy boots and crawled toward the ashes of yesterday's campfire. Kneeling, he started the fire.

Moments later, the hardy snap and crackle of the cook-fire echoed through the otherwise silent air, and the dusky scent of smoke wafted across his nostrils.

Emma fought consciousness with every breath. She

154

Kristin Hannah

tried valiantly to ignore the crackle of the fire and the soft melody of Larence's whistling. All she wanted to do was burrow deeper into her woolly bag and sleep for another twenty-four hours.

"What time is it?" she mumbled.

A watch clicked open. Larence stopped whistling long enough to say, "Five forty-five."

She groaned. "Wake me at eight."

"Yesterday it was seventy-five degrees by eight."

And ninety degrees by ten. She groaned again. God help her. She was living a nightmare.

Something clanged. After a few moments, she heard a pop, hiss, pop. And then she smelled it: the aroma of cooking bacon. Her stomach rumbled loudly as she unsnapped a section of her sleeping bag and sat up. At the movement, a cry of pain shot past her lips.

At the sound, Larence looked up suddenly and smiled at her. "Morning. Sleep well?"

She squeezed her eyes shut. It was too early in the morning to look at Larence. His kid-in-a-candy-store good humor irritated during the day; at this hour of the morning, it was enough to make her contemplate coldblooded murder.

No jury in the world would convict her. . . .

"I did," he said, and immediately the whistling started up again. "My Darling Clementine."

"If you have to make that racket," she grumbled, "whistle something appropriate."

"Like what?"

"How about the death march?"

His rich, rumbling laugh floated her way.

Emma scowled. Suppressing another groan of pain, she rolled gingerly onto her left side and eased to a sit.

"How does a cup of coffee sound?" he asked.

THE ENCHANTMENT

155

She licked her lips in anticipation. "Wonderful."

"Good. I thought so, too."

The coffeepot hit the ground beside her with a thwack and a clang. Her eyes popped open.

He answered her unasked question. "I'm making bacon. Fair is fair."

God, she hated it when he was right. She watched him through narrowed, resentful eyes as he pushed to his feet and headed toward the animals. He was limping along just as he always did. And he was whistling. Whistling.

Why wasn't he in pain? The man should be crawling, for God's sake, not ambling along as if he didn't have a care in the world.

She frowned. He had to hurt as badly as she did. He had to.

He hunkered down and started unbuckling the hobbles on Diablo's forefeet. "The coffee's there by the stove," he said without looking at her.

Coffee. The word made her mouth water.

It was time to get up. Grimacing, she curled into the fetal position and rolled onto all fours. Pain radiated through muscles she hadn't even known she had. Her breath came in short, hacking gasps.

After a few agonizing seconds, the fiery pain in her legs melted into a dull, thudding ache. She waited a few minutes—just to be sure it had abated—then dressed.

Coffeepot in hand, she staggered to her feet. At her first step, a white-hot shaft of pain shot from her heels to her groin. Her teeth clamped together and bit off a strangled cry.

"Hurts like a son of a gun, doesn't it?"

156

Kristin Hannah

She grimaced. Leave it to Larence to come right out and admit his pain.

Ignore him. Gritting her teeth, she inched to the river and filled the coffeepot, then turned around and tottered unsteadily back to the fire. Inch by painful inch.

Larence took the pot from her and set it on the stove's grilled surface. With a sigh of relief, she collapsed on her sleeping bag. Moisture droplets from the melted hoarfrost seeped through the thick wool of her skirt and brought goose bumps to her flesh.

She drew her legs up and hugged herself, dropping her chin onto her knees. In some distant part of her mind, it dawned on her that she looked awful. Her hair, unbound and unbraided, hung down her back in undulating, leaf-and-twig-infested waves. Dust darkened her bare feet and discolored the hem of her skirt. No doubt there were circles the size of bowling balls under her eyes.

Not that she cared, of course. Who was there to impress out here in the middle of nowhere? Certainly not Larence. All she cared about was getting a drink of coffee, eating a few strips of bacon, and sitting absolutely, positively still.

Larence handed her a blue can and calmly walked away.

She took it in her scratched, sunburnt hands. The label read Maxwell House Coffee. She turned it round and round, searching for directions, but there wasn't so much as a tip for the unschooled chef. Apparently if you didn't know how to make coffee on your own, you shouldn't be drinking it.

Oh, why hadn't she ever watched Mrs. Sanducci in the kitchen? Emma cast a surreptitious glance at Larence, who was busy rolling up their sleeping bags. He

THE ENCHANTMENT

157

was still whistling, and he looked suspiciously happy— like he might break into song at any moment.

No way would she ask him for help. If Dr. Dimwit had been able to make coffee last night, then she could make it this morning.

She grabbed a handful of the coarse mixture and tossed it in the boiling water. Cloudy white bubbles foamed to the surface. She eyed it questioningly, then added another handful for good measure.

She liked her coffee strong.

A half an hour later, Emma felt almost human. She'd brushed most of the tangles and leaves from her hair, rewound the mass into a nice, professional-looking Roman knot at the base of her neck, and washed her face and brushed her teeth.

Behind her, the coffeepot's lid clanged and clattered. Puffs of steam spiraled up from the bouncing lid and melted into the warming air.

"Bacon's ready." Larence slapped crisp strips of bacon on two tin plates and smiled at her.

She crawled over to the fire and reached eagerly for the coffeepot.

Larence's hand snaked out with lightning speed and grabbed her wrist in an iron grip.

"Ouch! Damn it, Lare—"

He let go. "The pot's hot. Here, use this rag to pick it up."

Color climbed up her cheeks in hot waves. Saved by Larence. A new low. "I knew that."

He grinned. "Of course you did."

She wrenched the blue and white checked dishrag out of his hands and wrapped it around the pot's metal handle. Careful not to spill a precious drop, she poured

158

Kristin Hannah

two cups of the steaming, pit-dark brew and gave one to Larence.

"Thanks," he said, handing her a plate with four strips of crisp, done-to-a-turn bacon.

Emma closed her eyes and breathed deeply of the rich, mouth-watering aroma of the bacon. Beside her, she heard Larence reach for his cup and take a sip of coffee.

He set it down fast. She opened her eyes and looked at him questioningly. "Everything okay?"

"Sure."

"Good." She reached for a piece of bacon.

"You want a spoon?"

Her hand halted midway. "No, thanks. I don't eat bacon with a spoon."

"How about soup? You eat that with a spoon?"

"Of course. But what in the world does that—"

He shot a meaningful glance at the coffee. "Take the spoon."

The next morning it was ninety degrees by eleven o'clock, and the dust churned up by Diablo's huge hooves was even worse than usual. The dust Larence never saw . . .

Emma sat as stiff as a knife blade on Tashee's back. The once gay and now grayed parasol lay limply against her shoulder, its dirty blue and white dome a dismal barrier to the blinding sun.

The burro picked a careful path in the rock-strewn, steadily rising plain. Swallowing thickly, Emma tried to dislodge the layer of dust and grime that clung to her tongue and teeth.

A cloud moved across the sun, giving Emma a brief moment of respite. She took a greedy drink from her canteen. The hot, metallic-tasting water seared her lips and burned a trail to the empty pit of her stomach.

Wincing, she backhanded the moisture from her cracked lips and retied the canteen in place.

Idly she stared at the scratches and scrapes on her hands. A small frown tugged at her mouth. Her hands hurt. Everything hurt. She felt like a dog that had been kicked six ways to Sunday and left to die on the side of the road.

Except the dog was luckier—he got to lie down. She 159

160

Kristin Hannah

swallowed thickly, disgusted by her own train of thoughts. Things were bad when being left for dead on the side of the road actually looked good.

She was falling apart. And not just physically—a few cuts and bruises, she could handle. What scared her, terrified her, in fact, was what this expedition was doing to her mind. Never in her life had she experienced this kind of eyeball-searing, lung-sapping heat, and it was beating her down, weakening her.

"Look, Emmaline—a pancake prickly pear in full bloom."

She squeezed her eyes shut and ignored his steady stream of gibberish. Through a distant, detached part of her mind, she heard the quiet thud of his boots hitting the dirt.

"Over there—look!" he cried a moment later.

The perfect campsite . . .

"It's a kangaroo rat."

Emma tightened her hold on the reins and battled the tide of disappointment rising within her. Her eyes opened slowly, reluctantly, and veered away from Lar-ence, who was squatted down by some dirt-weed, drawing. She tried to think of something—anything—that would take her mind off her partner's irritating cheerfulness and her own aches and pains.

"Gold," she whispered aloud, letting the word work through her like a balm.

Gold.

Every horrible, too-hot second of this trip was taking her closer to the gold. That's what she had to hold on to and take strength from. She had to remember that Larence was nothing, her own discomfort even less. Gold was the important thing. And for enough of it,

THE ENCHANTMENT

161

she could endure any hardship New Mexico could fling at her. Even two weeks with Larence.

Soon they'd be at the city and she could shower herself in gold doubloons, curl her fingers around the cool, metallic—

A rousing, whistling rendition of "Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair" sent the kangaroo rat bounding toward the nearest rock.

Gold. She'd get her gold and get the hell out of this godforsaken heat. Away from Larence.

After a few interminable moments, Larence closed up the notebook and remounted.

They were off again, moving at their snail's pace across the desert. Gradually the heat wore Emma down, liquified her bones. She closed her eyes, giving in to the gentle sway of Tashee's step. Sleep beckoned her, promising the cool of darkness. The slow, painful panting of her breath melted into an even rhythm.