‘They are not nuns, signor, they are penitentes.’ The last words came out as a hushed breath, a secret he didn’t want heard even in the middle of this garden. ‘They are forbidden to leave their convent … ever.’
‘You mean these women have been sent out to that desert to die?’
He didn’t reply.
‘What did they do?’
‘I cannot tell you, my son.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘It is between their souls and God … I cannot speak of it.’ His face was set. ‘Now, I have answered your question. The Abbess may know where Spruce Tree Mesa is, but I cannot tell you more.’
What on earth could these women have done to warrant such a penance?
22
THREE QUEENS
I sat on my horse and ran through my tactics one last time. From this hill I could see the Galindo hacienda and the stables beyond.
If I was going out into that Godforsaken desert — filled with vengeful hostiles who’d want my vital organs piled in a neat mound at their feet — then I wasn’t going without every advantage I could squeeze out of this particular time and place. I stared down at the hacienda, then urged my gelding down the slope. I wasn’t leaving without what I came for.
I’d made it past the first line of vaqueros who circulated around Ramon Galindo’s ranch, but the hard-faced men galloping up to meet me were another matter. They were his special bodyguards.
Not for him — they were for his livestock.
The Galindo horses were gold on the hoof, bred from lines as royal as any of the kings and queens of Europe. Each one of them had their own private entourage of trainers and grooms, and a phalanx of men who kept them safe in this harsh land where having a good horse under you could mean the difference between life and death.
I halted, waiting for the five vaqueros to come abreast. They didn’t have their guns out, which was a good sign. A wrong move now could see me dead quicker than sticking my finger in a toaster.
The leader, a dark man with deep acne scars, reined his mount down to a slow walk. The others followed suit. He’d recognised me.
I told the leader I’d brought Signor Galindo a gift and patted the bulge in my saddlebag. He didn’t believe me but didn’t want to push the matter. They escorted me back to the hacienda, like I was some kind of dangerous animal they had to try to contain. One rode on each side and three at my back, and they had their hands on their guns all the way down.
I waited on the veranda; it was a cool place on a hot day.
Ramon Galindo limped up the stairs. He was short, muscular and burnt with a driving ambition to show his hidalgo family that even when their son and heir was born with a deformed foot he could still exceed all their expectations. Like the rest of his horse-mad relatives, he wanted to create an equine bloodline that would make the Galindo name immortal.
He didn’t know it yet — but Ramon had been successful.
‘Mr Eriksen, why are you here?’ asked Ramon in a politely neutral tone. He was still trying to work out how to handle me.
‘I have a present for you, Signor Galindo.’ I patted the saddlebag I had over my shoulder. Then I scanned his trigger-happy guards. ‘But I think you may want to have this conversation in private.’
My suggestion terrified him. The bodyguards came on full alert.
I put a hand up. ‘I mean no harm. This is a friendly visit.’ I shrugged. ‘However, if Signor Galindo feels he can trust everyone present to share his private affairs then …’ I left the thought hanging.
Galindo narrowed his eyes. ‘What private affairs?’
I stared at him straight in the eye. ‘I’m talking about the house you own in El Paso.’
He sucked back a deep breath in horror, then frantically searched the five guards’ expressions to see whether they had any hint of the same knowledge.
They gazed back at their master, both perplexed and curious.
‘Leave us!’ spat out Galindo. ‘Go!’
They left the shady veranda, looking back in shock.
‘How do you know about El Paso?’ he asked, confused rather than angry.
I smiled.
El Paso was a small dusty town, in the far western corner of Texas. About three hundred dry miles from this lush hacienda. But that’s how far Ramon Galindo travelled every few months to keep his precious secret.
‘I know your story, Ramon.’ I scanned the magnificent hacienda and over to the expensive stables bursting with choice bloodstock. ‘When your wife and young son were travelling to visit her family, they were killed in an Indian raid.’
He was bemused. ‘But what does that have to do with —’
‘Your wife was forced upon you in an arranged marriage, one that benefited your family’s desire for more land. But your son … little Ramon.’ I nodded to myself. ‘Him, you loved with all your heart.’
Galindo stared at me as though I’d cut out that same organ and stuck my fist in the cavity.
‘As the eldest son, you had a responsibility to provide a suitable heir, so your family tried to force you into another marriage. You refused, claiming bereavement … but, in fact, you already had a love, one you’d had since childhood. But she was the lowly daughter of your nursemaid, exiled from the Galindo lands at the first sign of your serious interest.’ I added gently, ‘And that’s who you keep in your house in El Paso. Your true love lives there with your three little daughters …’
I touched his shoulder. ‘You will marry her, Ramon. And bring them all here.’
My unexpected compassion dazed him. ‘You don’t understand, my family would never accept it. They’d never accept our children as my heirs.’
Ramon didn’t know I was telling him his future …
‘They don’t have to.’ I shook my head. ‘You already have a son, Ramon. You already have an heir they will accept … One who will look after your daughters when you are gone. One who will treasure his three little sisters.’
His vulnerable expression turned razor sharp. ‘How dare you try and trade on my misery!’
I slid my bag down from my shoulder and opened it. I pulled out a child’s toy. It was a big wooden sailor, the paint faded and chipped. I handed it to him. ‘This is my gift to you.’
Galindo’s eyes bulged out of their sockets.
‘It’s your son’s, isn’t it? Little Ramon wanted to be a sailor … he always wanted to see the ocean. And he had his favourite toy with him when he was taken.’
He nodded, speechless.
‘Your son’s alive, Galindo. Your wife hid him from the raiders in the long grass. Later, his cries were heard by an itinerant snake oil salesman, who gave him to the first family he met.’
I knew this … because in eight years’ time, his lost son would find his way home and become a part of the legend of the Galindo mares.
Ramon Galindo clasped his chest, as though his heart was trying to burst out.
‘I know where your son is, Ramon … but I want a gift in return.’
We stood waiting in the exercise yard while the stable hands followed Galindo’s orders.
They brought the youngest, Azucar, out first.
She was black as night, but she glowed with health and vigour — like a fire built on coal.
The famous Galindo mares were the ultimate product of the New World’s attempts to breed the best and fastest endurance horses on the planet. The three mares were sisters, each with an official bloodline name as long as their black tails.
Azucar’s elegant body, finely chiselled head and lush, draping mane and tail came from the finest Andalusian bloodlines. The Andalusian was the warhorse of kings, used by the conquistadors because they were unflinchingly loyal and lion-hearted in battle. Ramon Galindo had carefully mated that noble foundation with the fiery blood of the Barb, the desert mount of the Barbary Coast of North Africa, which gave her unimaginable stamina in this arid climate. This gorgeous girl had the Sahara throbbing in her veins.
The Galindo mares would enter the history books
and make Ramon’s family name famous throughout the world.
Azucar’s high prancing gait said she knew it too.
Added to Azucar’s unrivalled courage and resilience were long, ground-eating legs, a gift from her sire, a champion English thoroughbred. It meant she stood seventeen hands high on legs like steel springs. No horse could beat her.
And with her warhorse temperament, no horse would be game to try.
That is, except for her formidable sisters …
The next black mare brought out was Duquesa, the elder sister. Azucar had pranced before us, delighting in the attention, but her scornful elder sibling refused to pander to vulgar curiosity. She glided up to us as slowly and as royally as her leading rope would allow.
While Azucar had beautiful doe-like eyes framed by thick black lashes that melted my bones with tenderness, Duquesa stared down her long, elegant nose. I was a commoner and she knew it.
Duquesa came to a graceful stop next to her younger sister, then nipped her neck, as though rebuking her for gazing so provocatively at a stranger.
‘You should get to know these two first,’ said Galindo.
I nodded. Horses have to be treated with diplomacy — just like we do. I moved forwards to slide my hand down Azucar’s gleaming neck. She batted her eyelashes at me, trying to entice me closer.
I narrowed my eyes. I knew that tactic!
I whipped my hand away just as Azucar bared her teeth and tried to take a chunk out of my forearm.
Galindo laughed. ‘You were too quick for her … She catches most people.’
Azucar gave me another bone-melting glance as though that strike had never happened and could we still be friends?
‘Yep,’ I replied. Azucar is Spanish for sugar. ‘I’ll bet she catches a lot of flies that way.’
I went on to her elder sister, Duquesa — or Duchess.
I stroked her proud neck but she turned her head away as though humiliated by the imposition. I chuckled. ‘Oh, they’re characters all right.’
‘Wait until you meet their big sister,’ replied Galindo with pride.
There was an enraged equine bellow from the stable and the sound of splintering wood. A stable hand came flying out. ‘Signor, signor, she’s trying to kick down the barrier. We can’t hold her any longer —’
Then Incendio decided to make her entrance …
In English her name was Conflagration — great fire.
A huge black mare streaked into the exercise yard, her lead rope dragging on the ground behind her. Her ears were pricked forwards but she came to an abrupt halt when she saw her two sisters standing there so peacefully. She snorted, as though to say, ‘There you two are! What’ve you been up to without me?’
Incendio scanned Galindo, focused on me and charged straight over.
Galindo got between us, grabbing for her halter. ‘Step back behind the fence, Mr Eriksen, Incendio is very protective.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘She can’t see me back down or I’ll never be able to ride her.’
‘No, Mr Eriksen, you don’t understand the risk. This will take time. I’ve trained all three mares in the old ways … as warhorses.’
‘Yes, I know.’ That was part of the reason I was here.
These three mares were this era’s equivalent of armoured personnel carriers. Just as the knights of old had used armour to protect them, they’d trained their steeds to act as backup. These three mares had been trained to kill anyone who threatened their rider.
The idea of acquiring them had seemed a good one at the time … But now I eyed Incendio with misgiving. She was just itching to get at me.
‘We’ll start working with them tomorrow,’ said Galindo. ‘It will take a few months … maybe even longer, but eventually they will accept you.’ He eyed Incendio with uncertainty, but said nothing.
‘I have to take them with me tonight,’ I stated.
Galindo gaped at me as though I was crazy.
Maybe I was.
I brushed past Galindo, took Incendio’s lead rope in one hand, put the other on her bare back, and lunged onto her.
Incendio rolled her black eyes back at me, tore loose from Galindo’s grasp and screamed with rage. She took off for the fence at a dead gallop.
We flew over it … and headed for the horizon.
23
THE DESERT
Dawn was breaking over the mountains. It was time.
I stood on a hill to the north of Santa Fe, checking my map once again. If Brother Buenaventura was correct, then I could follow the mighty Rio Grande north, using it as my water supply until I had to cross the desert to the plain known as the Plaza del Sol. From the hopeless way he’d given me the directions, Buenaventura had no expectation of ever seeing me again. We both knew why. If the marauding war parties didn’t get me — the desert would.
The Convent of Our Lady of the Wilderness was somewhere in the Plaza del Sol, but Buenaventura’s vague directions and wavering arthritic finger skimming across my map had given me little confidence. But I’d find the bloody place if it killed me.
I looked skywards and muttered, ‘Don’t anyone take that as a challenge!’
I inspected my caravan, checking all was in place. The convent was several days of hard riding from here, but I planned to cut that down to the very marrow. I was going to do that with the help of the famous Galindo mares, this era’s fleshy equivalent of the Maserati. It’d taken me most of a long night to convince Incendio that I should be tolerated and I had the bruises and wrenched shoulder to prove it.
But I knew once I had her, the other two mares would follow.
Incendio had done everything … including trying to roll on me to get me off her back. But I wouldn’t be discarded and I wouldn’t hurt her in trying to gain her compliance. In the end, she’d respected that and we’d walked back to Galindo’s hacienda in a truce of sorts.
I had no desire to break her spirit and, like all animals, she could smell my intentions.
In the end all three mares had come with me willingly — as eager for wide open spaces and adventure as young females of any species can be. They’d smelt freedom on me. No fences, no locked stables, just the distant horizon.
So the Galindo mares cooperated for now, but I had yet to win their loyalty. And they tested me every chance they got. One sign of weakness from me and they’d break free, disappearing into this vast wilderness to find some wild herd to dominate and enrich with their aristocratic blood.
You see what Signor Galindo had really bred was three equine geniuses. These were not dainty saddle mares but warrior queens ready for their own kingdoms. Taking them was a gamble but I needed them to get me to my destination as fast as possible. Incendio, Duquesa and Azucar. One to ride, one to rest and one to carry my arsenal.
I smiled ironically; this was going to be an interesting ride.
With the help of Domenico Torres and his sturdy sons, I’d been very busy. If I had to risk my neck in a bitterly contested war zone I wasn’t going to do it without as much backup and fireworks as modern science could provide in a low-tech setting.
As well as the modified handguns strapped to my side, a high-powered sniper rifle was slung across my back and I carried enough heavy-duty ammunition loaded in the bandoliers strung across my torso to blast my way out of nearly anything. My army officer’s compass and binoculars came to me courtesy of a Civil War veteran. The compass was stashed in my vest pocket and the binoculars hung around my neck. And that’s just what I had on my person. Azucar carried far more ingenious technologies in her saddle pack.
I took one last look back at Santa Fe and we headed north, for the Rio Grande.
Halfway across the stony desert a sand storm surged out of nowhere, a rolling red tidal wave of choking grit and whiplashing debris.
Seeing the towering sandpaper wall heading our way, I turned and fled. We’d passed the only shelter for miles a little way back. We raced the storm. Tumbleweeds sprinted past us as though self-propelled and bu
llet-like pebbles hit our sweating backs as though herding us forwards.
After a fear-ridden few minutes, I managed to locate the low cliff just as the sand storm hit. Azucar neighed in fear and showed the whites of her eyes. These mares were battle-trained but this was nature, not any visible attacker. The frightened mare was getting ready to bolt before the mounting darkness.
I lunged off Incendio, caught Azucar’s lead rope just below her mouth, and forced her into the gap between the low, overhanging cliff and a couple of big boulders. There was nowhere else to go. At least we had shelter here on three sides and a partial roof.
I pulled Duquesa in, then put Incendio on the other side of Azucar; her elder sisters’ familiar scent settled her a fraction. Duquesa nuzzled her like a mother hen; when that didn’t work Incendio nipped her neck as though to tell Azucar to shut up and deal.
I pulled my bandana over my nose and mouth then used my lariat to string a line between the two rocks. I hung my sleeping blanket across the open side, tethering it to the ground with rocks. I didn’t know if it would last but it was worth a try.
The storm hit as I worked, pebbles and God-knows-what hitting my back and neck, and sand and grit shimmering up under my bandana to choke me. I grabbed a couple of shirts out of my saddlebag and got in with the horses, my back to the cliff wall as the air filled with dust. We could just see each other but little else. I ripped up the shirts and tied the rags over the three girls’ eyes and nostrils. They let me. They were intelligent enough to know I was their only hope.
But the gap between the two massive boulders was tight; the four of us just squeezed in. If one — or God help me — all three of them started lashing out, they’d crush me against the cliff face like an insect under a boot heel.
So … as the wind howled like banshees with PMS and the sand tried to bury us, I rubbed the calming energy points on their muzzles, gypsy-style, and keeping my voice low and strong told them a meandering tale of the wild brumby herds I’d come across when I’d wandered around the Northern Territory.
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