Adobe Palace

by Joyce Brandon

  Despair filled her. As far back as she could remember, she’d longed and cried for the ones she hadn’t had, leaving her no energy to appreciate the ones she did have. Maybe the problem was in her.

  That seemed like an important realization, but just as quickly as it had come, it was gone, leaving only a bad feeling. She turned off the chandelier and walked to the window, where she could see Steve’s cottage. It was dark, and probably surrounded by people sleeping on the ground. There was no way she could go knock on his door tonight. Unless she didn’t care a fig for her reputation.

  She didn’t really, but she realized she was intimidated by a houseful of Kincaids. She walked slowly up to her room. Alone again.

  Steve spent the night up on the mountain. When the sky started to lighten in the east, he tramped down the hill to his cottage. It was dark inside. He walked into the lamp table, and pain exploded in his shin. Cursing, he grabbed the kerosene lamp before it could fall and break.

  “Dammit!” Fumbling in the dark, he located his matches and lit the lamp. In the bedroom, he lit another lamp, strode to the closet, and pulled out two large satchels. He opened them on the bed and hurled shirts, pants, underwear, and shoes at them until the closet was empty. He walked to his shaving dresser for his razor and soap.

  His reflection in the mirror startled him. The face he saw there was almost unrecognizable. He turned away. The room was a shambles. Clothes he had thrown at the bed lay all over the floor and hung from the tops of paintings. Few articles of clothing had actually hit the satchels.

  Steve looked back at the mirror. His face looked different. Thinner, more intense, as if every muscle and nerve in his face were alert, aware, intensely interested in something or someone…

  “Oh, no!” He staggered to the comfortable chair Samantha Forrester had placed beside his window and sank onto it. It was the face of a man in love. He had seen that look once before, when his partner had fallen in love with the woman he finally married.

  Until Frank met Julianna, he was a careless man with women and everything else in his life. Suddenly, upon falling in love, everything mattered. Frank went from a man who could laugh if he accidentally sent the wrong building materials to a house site, to a man who inspected every rose in a bouquet to be sure it was flawless enough for his woman.

  The biggest change, though, had been in Frank’s face, which took on a look of intense alertness and awareness. He agonized over every nuance of every thought or word affecting his beloved.

  “God!” Steve sank deeper into the chair. He would hang himself before he turned into Frank. But the thought of leaving made him feel sick.

  Dammit! He never should have waited to pack. He should have just gotten on his horse and ridden away. Then he might have had the courage to do it. Now he realized that to ride away might seem like an admission of guilt. Two hundred people had heard him labeled a child murderer. He couldn’t ride away with that stigma hanging over his head. And he couldn’t stay now that he knew he was in love with Samantha Forrester—a woman in love with another man. He didn’t know whether to shoot himself or cry.

  Samantha slept sporadically and woke early. Birds sang in the trees, but no humans stirred. It was only six o’clock, but she slipped out of bed, dressed hurriedly, and rushed downstairs. Juana and Steve sat in the kitchen, drinking coffee. At the sight of her, they stopped talking. Steve’s face looked pale, his mouth tight. Her heart began to pound, her hands to feel cold.

  “I need to speak with you,” she said.

  Steve gestured at the chair across from him.

  “In private, please.”

  Juana picked up a basket. “I go peek those berries I saw last week before them hungry bears find ’em.”

  Samantha waited until Juana closed the door behind her.

  “Tristera ran away last night.”

  “Maybe she enjoyed your party as much as I did.”

  “What set Chila off?”

  “I don’t know. She said I looked like a handsome devil, and when I thanked her, she started to scream.”

  “Well, I guess we know who sent the notes—and probably who tried to kill you.”

  “Yeah, I guess we should send word into town and let Daley know.”

  Samantha sighed. “Last night you said you were leaving,” she whispered around the lump in her throat. “You don’t have to leave just yet, do you?”

  “The house is almost finished anyway,” he said gruffly. “What difference will a week or two make?” He’d already tried to leave and failed, but her asking, the sweet despair he saw in her face, were like balm to his injured pride.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t want you to leave.”

  “What’s the point?”

  Steve’s bleak eyes wrenched her heart and soul. “Don’t go, at least until we find out what’s happened to Tristera.”

  Steve knew as long as he was within sight of Samantha Forrester, he would be in torment. Her cheeks were pale, her eyes soft and luminous. She was so lovely, so wistful and spirited in spite of everything. He had a powerful urge to tell her he’d already tried to leave and hadn’t been able to, but she already gave him enough trouble without knowing that.

  “No,” he said, “I can’t stay.” Samantha’s eyes filled with such misery his heart gave a little leap of happiness. “Well, maybe long enough to find Tristera,” he said gruffly.

  Samantha felt weak with relief. She sat in silence for a moment while the trembling within slowly eased.

  Steve picked up his hat and walked to the outside door. In silence, Samantha watched him walk up the slight incline to ground level. His shoulders seemed more bowed, as if he carried a heavier load.

  As the grandfather clock in the hall chimed ten, Samantha stood up and walked to the window for the hundredth time, hoping for the sight of Steve coming back with Tristera. The sky was covered with clouds. The wind appeared to be blowing in a storm. Samantha wanted to pray for rain, but Tristera and Steve would be caught in it, so she didn’t.

  Juana trudged up the steps from the kitchen and stopped at the top to catch her breath. “Thees house may be cooler, señora, but thees steps weel be death of thees old woman.”

  “Is Nicholas up yet?”

  “No, señora. No one is up.”

  “He stayed up too late last night,” she said, smiling at the memory of how tired he’d looked.

  Samantha went to his bedroom and found his bed empty. Alarmed, she searched the house. Outside, wind whipped the trees. Lightning flashed north of them.

  She found Ian Macready in the unfinished bunkhouse. “Have you seen Nicholas?”

  “No, lass. Not since last night.”

  “Did Steve come back?”

  “No. Still out looking for Tristera, me thinks.” Ian spread the word, and soon laborers were combing the grounds around the house, yelling Nicholas’s name. Samantha climbed the hill behind the house and used a spyglass to search the desert for the sight of Nicholas or Steve.

  She saw Steve riding up the slope toward the house and ran to meet him near the front gate. Steve had been riding along deep in thought. Tired and unshaven, he looked up, saw her, and his eyes narrowed.

  “Have you seen Nicholas?” she asked, panting, leaning against a tree trunk to catch her breath.

  “No.”

  “I’m worried. We can’t find him anywhere.”

  Steve roused himself. Samantha’s lovely eyes looked bright with unshed tears. “You think he ran away?”

  Tears spilled over. She blinked them aside. “I…don’t know what to think. Did you find Tristera?”

  “No. This wind made it hard to do any tracking. And even with the heavy traffic, I didn’t find anyone who’d seen her. I’ll go have a look for Nicholas, though.”

  “I’m going with you!”

  He started to argue with her, but lightning lit the sky and thunder rolled. “A storm’s coming up. Nicholas can’t be out in this,” Samantha said, turning to run toward the barn. Steve’s horse trot
ted alongside. Ian Macready followed them into the nearly dark barn. Wind slammed the door behind him.

  “One o’ me men thinks he saw the boy on a horse, headed down the hill,” Ian said.

  “When?”

  “Last night sometime.”

  Steve and Ian saddled horses. Samantha ran to the house, ripped her gown off, changed into a divided riding skirt and blouse, grabbed a coat for herself, and went into Nicholas’s room. His jacket was gone. More proof that he’d run away. But she couldn’t think why. She ran downstairs, grabbed a blanket, and packed food for Nicholas.

  She knocked on Chane and Jennie’s door. Chane yelled for her to come in. She opened the door and stuck her head in.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but I think Nicholas has run away.”

  “Oh, no,” Jennie said, gasping.

  Chane started to throw off his covers and thought better of it. “Be right there.”

  Rathwick intercepted Samantha on the way to the barn. “Did Tristera come back?” he asked.

  “No. And I think Nicholas has run away, too.”

  “I can muster a dozen or so men to help look for him.”

  “I’d appreciate that, Matthew.”

  Rathwick left on the run. Steve and Samantha led Ramon, Ian, and the Kincaid family of men down the hill in a rising windstorm. Rathwick followed at a distance with a dozen hungover soldiers in dirty uniforms. At the graves of Silver Fish’s family, a few wind-battered yellow cactus blossoms lay on the mound, their stems held down by rocks.

  “Nicholas did that. He’s been wanting me to bring him, so he could put flowers on their graves. I kept putting him off. I was scared…I didn’t want him to…” Her voice failed.

  Steve dismounted and checked for footprints around the grave. Prints showed that a set of small shoes had walked to the grave. Two indentations, half filled by blowing sand, showed where he’d knelt for a while, then stood and walked the horse to a rock, where he’d mounted. The tracks appeared to head north, but were soon erased by sifting sand.

  “What do we do now?” Samantha asked, shivering from fear and cold.

  “The wind has covered his trail, so we split up. Ramon, you and Ian go northwest.” Steve turned to Rathwick. “Can you go west into the desert? There are enough of you to fan out and cover an area.” Then he sent the Kincaids southeast. “I’ll head north.”

  “Nicholas knows better than to ride into the desert,” Samantha said, protesting.

  “Nicholas is a smart boy, but we can’t count on his doing the smart thing. You go back to the house. We’ll bring him back,” Steve said firmly.

  “I’m going with you.” Her jaw was set.

  “All right,” Steve said, relenting. “But this storm looks ugly.”

  Nicholas’s chest ached, and the wind occasionally whipped sand into his face, stinging his eyes and making him cough. He knew his mother would be upset, but he couldn’t seem to turn back. Part of him wanted to be home with her, warm and safe in the house. But the other part just wanted to stay on the horse and keep riding, even though it wasn’t clear to him where he was going or why.

  He untied his cravat, retied it into a bandanna, and pulled it up over his mouth and nose the way his mother had taught him. That helped a little.

  He skirted the Dart ranch and headed toward the mountain that sheltered the hidden valley Steve had taken him to in the summer. Riding was harder here. He had to help the horse more. The desert bushes had given way to trees that made loud whining sounds in the rising wind.

  He rode on and on, until he was tired and cold. Finally he stopped his horse and looked for shelter, but the thickets were so impenetrable he couldn’t find his way through to the cave he was looking for. Part of him wanted to go home, but he knew he wouldn’t.

  Tristera sat in the mouth of the cave where Steve had hidden Ramon when he was wounded. The wind howled overhead, but it was warm enough inside. She was tired and hungry, but she could not bring herself to search for food. She had eaten all the berries she had picked today and drank most of the water she had carried up the hill in the pail she and Steve had left here for Ramon.

  She would have to find more food or die of hunger. Usually that knowledge would motivate her enough to get her up, but it didn’t. She couldn’t go back to the señora’s house. Rathwick knew she was the one he searched for.

  Of all her problems, Tuvi’s death continued to hurt her the most. When she had lived with Samantha’s family, she had not been so aware of the sense of loss, but here, surrounded only by the rocks and the scrubby growth of plants, she felt Tuvi’s loss in every fiber of her being. It ached through her like hunger.

  For uncounted hours she sat so still her body became part of the Earth. Part of the wind blowing through the bushes and tall grasses. Part of everything moving and eternal. Almost effortlessly she pressed her consciousness against the essence of the Great Mystery, the light that glowed like the sun and sounded like distant bells in her head.

  There, in the still place, pain and hunger left her. She watched the play of light within, like violet shadows dancing on a dark wall.

  She thought of Tuvi, of his dying and suffering, of all the things she’d wished she’d done. Love for him was so strong her whole body ached with it. Her mind formed silent words: Please let me die. I want to be with thee. I don’t belong here.

  The glowing light came closer and the internal sights and sounds receded. Tristera’s consciousness moved into a place of perfect stillness. She’d been here before, but this time she remained aware and alert. A great rushing feeling, as if she were being whirled by a dust devil, started at her feet and carried her upward. As her consciousness separated from her body, there was one sharp moment of dizzying sweetness. Then the stillness came again.

  She was aware of a light coming on, or of an eye opening. She saw a narrow white tunnel leading upward and found herself following it. As she rose through the tunnel toward an opening, she recognized the top of a dear, familiar head, then thin, square shoulders. Her soul rose up joyously to where Tuvi sat cross-legged.

  Tuvi stood up and reached out his hand to greet her. She could see him as clearly as she had ever seen him. His dark eyes were very beautiful. He was the embodiment of divine perfection.

  She was so startled she opened her eyes. The rock in front of her was gray in the dim light. The wind still howled.

  “No!” She closed her eyes. “Tuvi, come back!” she whispered. She concentrated hard, but she could not bring him back. Tears streamed down her cheeks, part despair, part joy, that even though he had died and left the body, he was still somehow connected to her.

  Without being aware that another vision had come, she realized she was watching Nicholas riding toward the thickets that separated him from the mountain’s entry. She saw lightning strike the tree directly over his head, saw it falling, and knew that when it hit him it would crush him.

  She recognized the tree as one she had ridden past on her way into the hidden valley. It was only a few yards from the cave’s entrance.

  The vision ended in darkness, and she leapt up, staggered forward on numb legs, and ran awkwardly toward the pivot rock and the tunnel, praying she could get to that tree before he did.

  She raced out of the cave and stopped to get her bearings. Through the thickets, she saw Nicholas rein his horse beneath the tree she’d seen in her vision. She yelled, “Nicholas! Ride away! Get away!” But he didn’t hear her over the wind. He sat his horse tiredly, probably looking for a way through the thickets. She ran forward, not even stopping for the thickets, charging through them like one maddened, screaming as she fought her way against fiery thorns that tore at her skin.

  “Nicholas! Get away!” she screamed again and again, but he still didn’t appear to hear her. When her strength was almost gone she broke through the thickets to freedom and ran at him, waving her arms and screaming. At last Nicholas heard her over the howl of the wind and turned to look at her.

  “Get away!” she sc
reamed.

  “What?” Nicholas yelled, alarmed by the sight of a bloody, screaming Tristera running toward him, mouthing words he couldn’t understand. Icy wind tore at his jacket and scarf. Lightning flashed, and fire leapt out of the tree where it branched directly over his head. As he watched, the tree split in half where lightning had struck; the branch dangled for a moment and fell. Nicholas tried to rein the horse out of the way, but it reared; he lost control of it. Then light filled his head, shone brightly for a moment, and went dark.

  “Where could he be?” Samantha yelled over the howling wind. Nicholas needed to be inside. He needed to be warm and safe. She was so scared she felt paralyzed. She tried to push her fear into a corner of her mind, so she could still think and function, but it was bigger than her mind.

  Steve didn’t bother to answer. He had no trail to follow, but he had assumed the boy was making a beeline toward the mountains north of the ranch. Nothing else made sense.

  “Nicholas is a smart boy. He went with me to the hidden valley. He loved it and wanted to stay there. I think he’s going there now.”

  “Then why did you send the soldiers the other way?”

  “In case I’m wrong.”

  Arden Chandler heard about the tragedy of Silver Fish’s family from his housekeeper. Woman Who Makes Song Magic—Chandler called her simply Song Magic—was a slim, wiry, sharp-faced woman with white hair braided into two thin braids.

  “All dead when they got there,” she said.

  “When did this happen?”

  “Several moons ago. Silver Fish not sure. The Man With Bad Eyebrow told Silver Fish they died of a disease, but I don’t think so.”

  “The Man With Bad Eyebrow?”

  Song Magic nodded vehemently. “Silver Fish said one eyebrow goes up in the middle.”

  Chandler put down his pen. “Maybe I’ll call on Silver Fish.”

  “That good. Silver Fish need all good wishes now. He grieve deeply.”