by Lee Savino
“I will be here, when the enemies come.” Juan cocked his rifle with a decisive sound.
The drought, heat and endless waiting wore on Francesca. She spent nights pacing in the dining room until Sebastian picked her up and carried her to bed. Once there, he did his best to wear her out, but even then he felt her leave the bed in the hours before dawn.
“Come back to bed, darling,” he said. They’d moved their room to the office, an inner room with no windows. Sebastian wasn’t taking any chances.
She obeyed, laying on the makeshift pallet, curling into him.
“We can still run from all this,” she whispered. “I can give the cattle to Juan and Ana and leave all this behind. We could go to England.”
He stroked her black hair from her face. “And leave your apothecary? Your mother’s grove, all your work? The townspeople need you.”
“They were certainly quick to condemn me.”
“Only the few faithful to the bishop.” A few townspeople had paid visits to Francesca, offering their help and support. She’d sent them away, reluctant to involve them in the fight. “Without Diego I think the bishop will not be a threat. Think of how many years he wished to persecute your mother?”
“My father wouldn’t let him,” she said.
“And I won’t let him bother you either.”
Francesca sighed. “I live for the day a man will respect a woman, even without another man to protect her.”
“Then you won’t need me,” Sebastian pretended to pout.
“I would still need you,” she purred, and slid her hand down his chest.
He caught his breath, more than ready for her fingers to reach their destination. “Is that all I am to you? A pretty face and a nice, long cock?”
“Yes.” She moved over him, pulling away the blanket and following her hand’s descent. “And if you don’t like it, you can lie back and think of England.”
Their enemies came at nightfall.
Francesca was making her usual rounds of the dining room, fretting. “Acequias almost empty. Fields dry as tinder. Ay Dios Mio, I’m glad my father and husband aren’t alive to see their ranch ruined.”
Sebastian lit a cigaro and smoked one handed, a revolver in the other. He stood guard at the window, watching for signs of movement.
“Hey,” he said in a soft tone. “Nothing is ruined for good. Whatever happens, we will survive, and live to enjoy another day. Together.”
She smiled through her fearful expression, and started to answer, when a gun cracked in the distance. “What was that?”
Sebastian snubbed the cigaro out and took his place at the window. “Get Juan. It’s starting.”
The head vaquero came, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. “In the dark, eh?”
“Seems so, old boy.” Sebastian kept his face neutral, and inwardly cursed up a storm. Their enemies would press forward and try to find a way in, and, if there were enough of the gang members involved, they would almost certainly find it. He told himself it didn’t matter, as long as he killed them off as they entered, or left only a few for Francesca’s gun. If he could stop enough of her enemies, she could handle the rest. It would be a good death on his part. One for the poets.
“I see something moving out there,” Juan said. “I wish the moon was higher.”
“So do they,” Sebastian said. He and Juan stood at ready.
“Barricade yourself in the pantry,” he told Francesca. They’d argued over this, but he hoped now, in the crucial moment, she’d obey.
“There is no need,” she said. “Listen.”
“I hear it,” Juan said.
Sebastian stilled and listened to the distant, hissing sound. “What is it?”
“Rain,” Francesca said.
A few minutes later, the downpour hit the hacienda, pounding the courtyard flagstones.
“The acequias will fill in no time,” Juan called to Sebastian over the roaring rain.
“Bloody good defense, too,” Sebastian agreed. Men could force their way into the hacienda, but their gun powder would be soaked. It would almost put the fight on equal footing.
The men startled as they heard a crisp, stony sound. Sebastian lit a match and they peered through the boards to watch small round pieces of ice pile up on the ground.
“My god. Hail.”
“Gracias, madre,” Francesca said, a smile curving her lips.
They slept in shifts and thanked whoever was listening for the turn of good luck.
The air changed, and morning dawned a bit cooler. A heavy mist lay over the fields.
“Damn and double damn. Perfect weather for an ambush.” Sebastian waited on edge, his gun in hand, watching through a crack in the boards for the ambush he felt was coming. Finally, shots were fired.
Francesca came hurrying.
“Not yet,” Sebastian told her. “They haven’t come close enough.”
“Then who were they shooting?”
Sebastian shook his head. “I don’t know.” He took his position as guard again, gun at ready.
A few minutes later, a cry in the kitchen had them sprinting to Ana.
“Fire, I see fire. At the apothecary. Oh, Francesca, your herbs…”
“It’s a distraction,” Juan said. “We cannot go.”
“Not much damage a fire will do in the damp like this,” Sebastian soothed Francesca.
She nodded, pain across her face. “Those bastards. I will rip out their tongues.”
The sound of breaking glass came from the far end of the house.
“Bar yourself in the pantry,” Sebastian ordered. Ana nodded and pulled Francesca there. He and Juan went, guns at ready, but found only a broken window.
“Another distraction,” Sebastian cursed, and raced back to the kitchen in time to see the door straining to open, beyond the barricade of a heavy cabinet they’d pushed in front of it.
“Come in at your own peril,” he shouted, raising his weapon. Behind him, he heard the pantry door open.
“Get back in there,” he ordered Francesca, cursing when she came to stand by his side, her own revolver at the ready.
From the living room, he heard more breaking glass and Juan’s cry.
Then the shooting began. Their enemies opened fire and bullets fell like last night’s rain. They hit the adobe and the wood barricading the windows, and the glass.
Sebastian pushed his wife behind him, focusing on the kitchen door until he could take it no more. He abandoned patience and shot into the door as a warning.
The shooting continued, but not as many bullets hit the house. Whoever had been outside the kitchen door had stopped trying to force entry.
“This is it. We’ll make a fair show, and see if we can run them off,” Sebastian snarled. “You all right, darling?”
“They are cowards. Shooting into a person’s home.” Francesca’s expression was fierce, but she looked a little ill.
“It’s going to be all right.”
In the dining room, Juan cried out.
Ana came from the pantry, her face wan but determined. In her hands she held a heavy revolver. “Go to Juan. I can hold this door.”
“If it moves, shoot it,” Sebastian said, and grabbed Francesca’s hand. She wasn’t going to cower in the pantry, so he would keep her by his side, and step in front of any bullet meant for her.
Juan crouched behind the dining room table. There was some broken glass and a barricade had fallen, giving them a clear view of the garden.
Sebastian bent over to run to Juan, but his wife rose with a little cry.
“Darling, get down.” He pulled her down.
“Did you see?” Juan asked. “Facedown in the mud?”
“Who?” Sebastian asked.
“Diego.” Francesca tugged at her husband’s hold. “I must go to him! He may still be alive.”
“No darling.” Sebastian dropped his rifle to catch her in his arms. “He’s gone. It’s over.”
“I could help him.” She stru
ggled.
“Wait,” Juan said. “I hear something.”
Sebastian grabbed his gun with one hand, gripping his wife with the other. He wouldn’t put it past her to try to sneak into the garden, even when the Royal Mountain gang roamed about.
Someone was singing loudly, “Farewell and adieu, you fair Spanish ladies…”
Another voice joined in, horribly off key. “Farewell and adieu, ye ladies of Spain…”
Francesca wrinkled her nose. “Who is that?”
Sebastian’s face broke into a smile. “The cavalry.”
Four men came striding out of the mist. Cage, followed by two tall, dark-haired men, and a third, a bearded and shaggy giant.
“Friends of yours?” Juan asked.
“Friends, and friends of friends. Seems my years in America haven’t been wasted after all.”
The song ended.
“Anyone alive in there?” Cage shouted.
“Right as rain,” Sebastian called. “Just stop bloody singing!”
“Is that Lord Chivington?” One of the dark haired men strode forward, grinning.
“It is, Mr. Oberon. Lovely morning for a shootout, isn’t it?” Sebastian bantered as Cage and the rest broke the barricade.
“You wouldn’t know, you lazy git…What were you doing while we ran the gang off? Catching up on beauty sleep? Did the gunfire wake you up?”
“It wouldn’t have, if you’d done the rescue properly. Bloody late, as usual.”
The friends of friends stood with guns at ready as Sebastian stepped over broken glass to greet Cage, and pound the dark haired “Mr. Oberon” on the back.
“We rode all night to reach you,” Oberon said.
“Thank you, my friend.”
“So they’re all gone?” Juan asked their rescuers. “All of the Rocky Mountain gang?”
“Some dead, some shot or rode away,” Cage reported.
“They want easy pickings,” Oberon said.
Francesca nudged her husband. “Who are these men?”
“This is Jesse Wilder. I knew him as Oberon when he was my guide when I first arrived West. We rode together to hunt.”
“My brother, Lyle,” Jesse continued the introductions. The two siblings were alike in height, build, and a shock of black hair. Lyle’s face was clean shaven while Jesse’s sported a few days old beard. Jesse turned to the large sandy haired man. “We left our friend Miles Donovan with the horses, guarding our backs. And this here is—”
“Calum MacDonnell,” the man said in a Scottish accent.
“—though I call him Mac,” Jesse finished.
The Scot nodded, meeting Sebastian’s gaze with serious gray eyes and extending a huge paw to shake the lord’s hand.
Sebastian shook it with a happy grin. “Welcome. Indebted to you.”
“Mac heard of the danger and wanted to ride along. He left his bride of less than a year at home.”
“My pa wouldnae ken why a MacDonnell would help an Englishman,” the Scot said gruffly. “But I heard the tale of the widow, and couldnae stay away.”
“I’m American now,” Sebastian said, pulling Francesca close. “This is my queen and country. I’m only as British as she allows.”
“Hello,” Francesca greeted the lot. “We are very grateful you are here.”
“So the wee widow is married,” Mac said approvingly. “It’s a fine ranch ye have here.”
“Thank you.”
“Bit of a mess now,” Sebastian said. “What with all the bullets in the walls.”
“We can help with the rebuild,” Jesse said. “Though we are all anxious to get back to our wives.”
“And families,” Lyle added. “Just because you can’t make a baby with yours doesn’t mean all of us our shirking at our duties, brother.”
Jesse pretended to punch his brother.
“Come inside and we will feed you,” Francesca offered, a shadow of a smile playing around her face.
The men perked up at that.
“What about Diego?” Juan asked and pointed to Montoya’s body lying in the garden, face down in the mud. “He died with bullets in his back.”
“Diego?” Cage asked.
“He was behind his brother’s death,” Francesca said. “I would’ve saved him if I could. I wonder which bullets killed him.”
Sebastian glanced at Cage, who shrugged and shook his head.
“Perhaps the gang weren’t the allies he thought,” Sebastian commented grimly. “We will never know.”
“We will bury him next to Cyro,” Francesca announced. “He was family, despite what he did. Still, it is fitting, that he died in the mud, for he lived as a worm, letting others do his dirty deeds for him.” She spat, crossed herself, and started striding for the hacienda, calling Ana.
Jesse nudged Sebastian. “I like her.”
“You haven’t even seen her shoot a man.”
Jesse’s eyes widened.
The guests went to fetch their horses and the rest of their party, while Sebastian and Cage took care of the body.
“You’ve got your work cut out for you,” Cage said, viewing the bullet ridden hacienda and the muddy boot prints all over the garden. Across the fields mist was lifting, unveiling the massive mountains beyond.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Sebastian said. “To ride heroically is one thing. To live and love humbly…well, that is the greatest challenge of all. Perhaps I should let the poets know.”
“I’m sure they’d appreciate the truth,” Cage joked along, then clasped Sebastian’s arm. “Proud of you, son.”
Sebastian swallowed the lump in his throat, and went to prepare for his guests, alongside his chosen family and his bride.
Epilogue: 15 years later…
“Señor Sebastian come quick!” A young boy, one of Juan’s sons, came running up to the flaxen-haired man working in the field. “There is trouble—your wife—”
Immediately Sebastian’s long legs started striding towards the town. “My wife? Is she in labor? Is the baby coming?” It was too soon. Midsummer, she said. That was two months away.
The baby would have trouble breathing if born too young. He knew from the last delivery he’d attended with his wife, where the mother had been kicked by a horse and the baby came early. The child was too small, and not developed enough to survive. It had been a sad night in that family’s home.
“Where is she?”
“The town square, with all the children. It is not the baby—”
“What?” Sebastian didn’t stop but slowed his stride. “What then?”
“She found the father of Blanca’s child, the one who left, and is shouting at him. She says she will make him pay—”
“Bloody hell.” Sebastian broke into a run, leaving Juan’s boy behind.
The center of the market square was full of onlookers watching the scene. Francesca was there, one arm around her large belly, the other hand gripping a young man’s ear, forcing him to bend double so she could scream into his face.
“Papa!” Chorused a bevy of dark eyed, blond haired boys. Only little Micajah, named for Sebastian’s friend Cage, took after his father with blue eyes.
“It’s all right,” Sebastian assured his sons before reaching for his wife. “Francesca, my love, let him go.”
She did and immediately slapped the youth across the face before shaking her finger at him. “Lying with her and then leaving. You knew her family would cast her out.”
“I’d run if I were you,” Sebastian advised the youth, who scrambled backwards to do just that.
“Your mother would be ashamed of you,” Francesca shouted after the escaping lad.
“My love, calm yourself, think of the baby.”
“Bah, I am fine. The baby is fine.” She accepted his soothing hug, then faced her children. “You boys know better than to seduce a woman and then leave her.”
“Isn’t that what father almost did?” Young Lyle piped up.
Sebastian just grinned. �
�I thought about it, but it wasn’t the manly thing to do.”
“So you see, you all will be men like your father,” Francesca told her sons. From youngest to oldest, their chests puffed out.
“Come on home, darling.” Sebastian pulled his wife under his arm and escorted her back to the hacienda. He waited until their boys, six in all, were safely inside the garden gate and out of earshot before leaning down to whisper, “I ought to whip you for getting into a brawl when you’re so many months pregnant. That youth was twice your size.”
“With one fifth my brains. He wouldn’t dare fight back, and I knew it.”
Sebastian shook his head, knowing better than to argue further. He kept a tally of all her transgressions and after each child was born and weaning healthy, he took his wife to task. She loved it as much as he did.
“What will the boys think? “
She cast her gaze over their sons. So far, Sebastian had only made male children. “They will learn what it is like to defend a lady. You have taught them this more than I have.”
A few weeks later, Sebastian woke before dawn and knew before opening his eyes that his wife was not beside him. Throughout their marriage, he’d kept the rule that she wake him before leaving, so he could at least know where she was. Most of the time, she acquiesced, unless she was craving a session over his knee. With the moon waxing larger in the sky, he knew where her restless energy took her.
He found her in the apothecary, humming as she ground herbs to fine powder. The candles were lit and the scent of burning sage filled the air. The place was spotless.
“You’ll give birth soon,” he said, noting that even the hearth had been swept clean.
“How do you know?”
“Every time, you disappear in the night to tidy this place, and then, when the moon is right, you scrub the floor. The next day, you go into labor.”
She laughed. “You are a birthing woman now.”
“I could be. I’ve caught enough babies.”
Smiling, she let him pull her into his arms. He’d helped her through each of their son’s births, rubbing her back and, when the time came, cutting the cord and watching over her as she nursed the first time.