“Yes, I will.”
“A wager, then,” he said challengingly. Anything to keep her from crying. Her tears ripped his insides to shreds. Some things about Judy were predictable: She paid her debts, she was loyal to her friends, and she was otherwise totally unpredictable. Who would ever have guessed she would be upset because he intended to leave when she got married?
“You’re on,” she sniffed.
“You’re covered. How much?”
“Five dollars.”
“Piker!”
“Ten dollars.”
“More like it.”
Chapter Thirteen
After supper Tía helped the women with the dishes and then started to leave the kitchen. She was tired. She had gotten up early that morning, ridden seven hours to the ranch, helped Carmen prepare their supper and clean up the dishes, and now she looked forward to collapsing in her own room. It seemed perilously close to her bedtime.
“Tía.”
It was Johnny’s voice, coming to her from the back door. Tía untied the apron she’d been wearing. “What?”
“Take a short walk with me. I want to show you something.” He walked across the dining hall to stop beside her. His nearness seemed to invigorate her, to make the air against her skin cooler. She didn’t feel nearly as tired as she had a moment ago.
“No, thanks. I can’t.”
Johnny laughed softly. “Your beau waiting?”
“No.”
“Then you can.” Without waiting for her reply, he took her by the arm and propelled her toward the door on the exterior wall of the dining room. Outside, the slightly cooler breeze on her hot face felt so good that the protests she’d been about to utter died in her throat. She had been so stifled in the house, so aware of the tension from every direction. It felt wonderful to be outside. The sun hung low above the horizon. A bank of clouds had turned red and purple above the setting sun. Soon it would drop behind the Dragoons, and darkness would fall. Already crickets and frogs chirped a ragged backyard chorus.
“See how nice it is out here? Much cooler than sitting in that stuffy parlor. I want you to see something.”
Without waiting for her to answer, he took her by the hand and led her into the barn, past the stalls occupied by snorting, snuffling horses to the east wall, where rungs had been nailed at intervals on the two-by-four upright supports to make a rough ladder up the hayloft.
“I can’t climb that in this gown,” she protested.
“I’ll go up first and pull you in.”
“I don’t want to go up.”
“I want you to see something you can’t see from down here.”
Noiselessly Johnny ascended the rungs to the top, lifted himself up and to the side, and disappeared for a moment. Tía thought about leaving, but curiosity was too strong in her. Johnny’s face appeared at the hole, and he motioned her up.
Tía gathered the hem of her skirt and stuffed it in her mouth to keep the fabric out of her way while she climbed. At the top Johnny clasped her by the waist and lifted her up and over. “You look mighty pretty with your mouth full of your gown.”
She started to retort, but he shushed her and took her hand. Tía followed in silence. Johnny knelt behind a haystack and motioned her down beside him. Once she was sitting, he turned and looked at her. “You need some straw.” Before she could stop him he picked up an armload of straw and covered her with it.
“Are you loco?” she demanded.
“Hush, they’re coming.” He picked up a load of straw and covered himself with it, then another armload to cover their heads.
“Johnny, I’m not interested in becoming a haystack!”
“Shhhh! Aren’t you curious? Listen.”
Tía listened. After a moment she heard the murmur of children’s voices coming from below. The voices were getting louder. She peered through the straw at Johnny.
“We have to be quiet,” he whispered.
The children scampered up the same ladder Tía and Johnny had climbed. They were only children, no threat, but Tía’s heart pounded with excitement at the thought that they might discover her here, hiding.
As they climbed up into the dimly lit loft, their voices took on hushed, conspiratorial overtones. She could barely make out what was being said. They settled themselves within twenty feet of where Tía lay.
One of the children, a boy who sounded like Carmen’s son, Navarone, took charge. “If you want me to tell you a story, then you have to be quiet.”
“Shhhh!” a voice hissed. Feet scraped and small bodies wiggled around for a moment, and then silence fell.
“Once upon a time…” Navarone told them a story about a ghost who lived at the old mission south of the ranch. As the story ended, Johnny made a low sound in his throat.
One of the kids shushed the other. “What was that?”
“Probably a rat or a chicken.”
“I bet it was the ghost.”
“Ghosts don’t come out in daylight.”
“Sure they do.”
Tía counted six different voices, undoubtedly Navarone, Lupe’s three children, and Cruz’s two little ones. When she’d met them that afternoon, she had been told they ranged in age from five to twelve. Navarone started another story. She liked his voice. He was a good storyteller—he seemed to know how to adjust his story to keep their interest and make them laugh occasionally. As he told tales about the ghost from the mission, each one grew scarier and scarier. Tía wanted to see the children’s faces. She too was spellbound. It called back memories she had forgotten. Andrea used to tell her stories. Sometimes she could prevail upon her sister to tell ghost stories. Then all the kids sat around in a circle, and Andrea told a ghost story that would go on and on and get scarier and scarier. Tía didn’t know why that had been such fun at the time or why she should now remember it with such pleasure, but it had been and she did.
The boy’s voice droned on, and she gave her imagination free rein. The ghost became a headless horseman who punished evildoers.
Once, a long time ago, Tía and a dozen children had climbed up into old man Mackelhenny’s barn and sat in a circle around Andrea, who’d told ghost stories until full dark. There had been something delicious about sitting in the fragrant hay, smelling the barn smells, the animal smells, surrounded by other children as scared as she was. Tía could not believe she had forgotten until just this minute. She felt eight years old again.
Through the loose covering of hay, she glanced over at Johnny. His eyes were closed, and a dreamy look transformed his face. She smiled.
“What are you smiling about?” he whispered.
“I thought your eyes were closed.”
“Closed but still working.”
One of the children gave a little screech. “Aiiii!”
“I heard it, too!”
“What was it?”
In her mind’s eye, Tía could see the children, all straining for some sound, half hoping it would be a rat or chicken, but half hoping it would be proof of a ghost.
Johnny tapped his hand on the wood floor.
“There!” one of the children yelped.
“What was it?”
The storyteller’s voice shushed them. “It is only the ghost of the headless horseman,” he crooned. “Be silent. Let him speak to us.”
Johnny let out a low, moaning sound.
“Aiiii!”
“¡Caramba!”
Children scampered for the ladder. In the commotion they screamed and fought to be the first one out of the loft.
Finally they were all gone. The barn door slammed shut, and outside they yelled and ran. Gradually the usual barn sounds resumed. A chicken clucked as if it had just laid an egg. Horses in stalls snorted and blew. A pig squealed.
Tía sat up and brushed the hay off her. She wiped her face. “I’m going to itch all night. We better get out of here. They’ll bring everyone in the compound.”
Johnny laughed. “Nobody listens to kids, especially when th
ey say they heard a ghost.”
Tía brushed at a piece of straw that defied her. It was true: nobody would believe them. “That was a mean thing to do,” she said, suddenly made crabby with the knowledge that he was right. “You spoiled their fun and fixed it so they’d get yelled at by Carmen for telling lies.”
“Was not mean.”
“Carmen, Lupe, and Cruz’ll swat ’em and make ’em go to bed early.”
“Not Carmen. Cruz will, though. She’d swat ’em no matter what they said to her. But they won’t tell her.”
“They will, too.”
“Nope. I betcha a kiss they won’t go near their mamas.”
“Why would I want to kiss you?”
“The kiss was for me. I’ll give you something else.”
“Like what?”
“Like this.” He slipped a bracelet out of his pocket. It was silver and jade. The silver had a nice polish on it, and the jade was an aqua color that she liked.
“Where’d you get that?”
“That whore I saved from El Gato Negro’s man gave it to me for saving her life.”
“I better not wager.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re Judy’s beau. I don’t want Judy to think I’m trying to cut between her and her beau.”
“I’m not Judy’s beau. I courted Judy three years ago, but she threw me over for another fella. I rode off in a fit of temper and stayed gone until old Bill and Steve asked me to come back.”
“Well, how come she thinks you’re her beau?”
“Maybe ’cause she wants me to be, but I’m a free man. Judy cut me loose three years ago. I ain’t been tethered since.”
That made sense to Tía. And she did want the bracelet. It was the prettiest piece of jewelry she’d ever seen. And she had enjoyed kissing him that day in Tubac. “How would we find out if they told or not?”
“You could ask Navarone.”
“Then he’d know it was us.”
“Don’t ask him direct. You got to trick him into talking about it.”
“I’m not good at tricking folks into anything.”
“Then I’ll trick him, and you listen.”
“Okay.”
Johnny shushed her. Down below, the barn door opened. It sounded as if the children were coming back. The thought of getting caught made Tía want to laugh out loud. She put her hand over her mouth.
“I’m not going back up there,” a boy said.
“It’s broad daylight, silly goose.” That sounded like the storyteller.
“I don’t care. We should have told Mama.”
“You want to get a lump on your head, you go tell her.”
“We still should have told her. What if she comes out here some night and the ghost gets her?”
Johnny let out a low moan, like a barn owl, and the kids screamed and slammed the barn door.
Outside, from a distance, other kids yelled and laughed. Johnny grinned from ear to ear. Tía felt like going into a sulk. She wasn’t going to get the bracelet.
“Well, here’s your kiss,” she said, leaning over to give him a peck on the cheek.
Johnny shook his head. “This is an expensive piece of jewelry. I didn’t wager it for something any kid can get just by promising to sit down and shut up.”
Her sulk lifted a little. Somehow trying to cheat him out of something he felt he had coming made her feel better. “I can’t imagine what you could do about it,” she said. “Not many men would be dumb enough to trade anything of value for a kiss.”
Johnny laughed out loud. From a distance a child yelled, “It’s laughing! It’s laughing!”
Johnny snapped his mouth shut. His eyes still lighted by mischief, he raised his arms and pretended he was going to grab Tía.
“If I scream, they’ll figure out it wasn’t a ghost.”
“Why would you scream?”
“If you try to take too much of a kiss.”
Johnny lowered his arms and frowned. “You were going to take my whole bracelet, weren’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Well, I’ve had one of your kisses before. I know what a whole kiss feels like. I’ll just take one of those.”
Tía thought about that for a moment. He had a way of making it seem so logical. Before she could make up her mind for sure, he lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. He had stopped smiling, and he seemed to be searching for something. “You’ve got the prettiest blue eyes I’ve ever seen,” he said, his voice as low and husky as a barn owl’s hoot.
He pulled her into his arms, and Tía’s heart started to pound. Her mind filled with pictures of Mama being choked by Papa. She felt uncomfortable suddenly and tried to wiggle out of his arms. Johnny tightened his grip on her, then thought better of it and let her go.
Tía stepped away from him.
As soon as she did she felt upset that he hadn’t kissed her and gotten it over with. But it had been her fault for turning so balky at the last minute. He’d made it plain he wasn’t willing to fight her for a kiss. And he shouldn’t have to. A deal was a deal. Maybe if he just wouldn’t hold her. She didn’t want to be held. She could feel herself growing upset again just thinking about it.
Johnny looked hurt. He turned and started for the ladder. Tía grabbed him by the arm and stopped him. “Don’t be mad at me.”
“I’m not mad at you. If you don’t want to kiss me, I guess you don’t have to.” He’d had some experience with women, and he’d learned that usually if a man made it easy, most women would kiss him—if she wanted to anyway. He had made it easy for Tía, but she still didn’t want to. He turned again to walk away.
Tía felt mad at Johnny for making a wager that would cause so much trouble between them. But she felt madder at herself for not being able to give him a simple kiss. She had in Tubac, and nothing bad had come of it. She hated it when she owed somebody something. She didn’t want to see Johnny day after day, him knowing she owed him a kiss. Better to get it done and over with.
He was still facing away from her. She stepped up close behind him and put her arms around him the way she had with Papa so many times. Johnny was as tall as Papa. Somehow that surprised her. He felt as sturdy as Papa. She hated comparing Johnny with Papa, but she’d never hugged any other men. Elmo didn’t count. He was too scrawny.
Johnny expelled a heavy breath. “If I turn around, are you going to run away?”
Tía didn’t like him thinking her a welsher. “I will not. You’ve got a kiss coming, and I’ll see that you get it.”
“That won’t be necessary,” he said stiffly.
Tía wanted to shake him like a dog shook a bone. Now, somehow, he’d gotten his dander up, and he didn’t want her to kiss him! Wasn’t that just like a man? Tía had heard Mama and her friends say that so many times that it just naturally popped into her own head.
Johnny turned around and faced her. He looked stubborn now. “You’re going to be kissed, Johnny Brago, whether you like it or not.”
“I am, am I?”
“Yes. You can close your eyes or not,” she warned.
Tía pulled his head down and pressed her lips hard against his. Somehow nothing much happened this time. His lips felt sort of wrinkled and hard. She pulled back and looked at him. His eyes were open, and he looked like a man waiting for her to be done. “Are we even now?” she asked.
“Even steven.”
“You’re still mad as a hornet, aren’t you?”
“If you want to welsh on a bet, why should I get mad?” He turned to leave.
Tía grabbed him by the arm and jerked him back around. “I’m no welsher!”
“I wouldn’t have paid you with an imitation bracelet, Tía Marlowe. I would have given you the bracelet I showed you.”
He was right. Tía felt a sudden urge to cry. She didn’t know how to re-create the kiss they had shared in Tubac. It hadn’t been something she did, it had been something magical that had seemed to happen because they’d touched.
Maybe she wasn’t the same person he’d kissed in Tubac. She didn’t feel like the same person. Something had gone wrong with her that day, and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it was, but she just didn’t want to be held down and kissed. She felt at a loss to know what to say to him, what to do.
“Then you kiss me,” she said, her voice nearly failing as she spoke.
“I already tried that, and you acted like a rabbit caught in a snare.”
“Well, you held me too tight!”
“If a man can’t do nothing right, it’s time for him to go to bed.”
“It wasn’t you.”
Johnny looked all around the barn. “Who was it?”
“It was me.” Tía felt so miserable she could barely speak.
“Fine,” Johnny said. “You don’t want to be hugged when you’re kissed, you don’t have to be.” He turned to leave again.
Tía stamped her foot. “You kiss me right this minute, Johnny Brago!”
“How am I going to do that without touching you?”
“Your mouth can touch my mouth.”
Johnny sighed. Somehow his simple game had gotten out of hand. She was as agitated as a hen with an egg caught crosswise. “All right, but if you back off, that’s it.”
“I won’t back off.”
Johnny almost walked out. He couldn’t see himself kissing a girl who had to screw her courage up so tight that her face lost its color. He didn’t want his kissing her to be such an ordeal. Somehow this had worked around so that he couldn’t win. Either way she was going to hate it, but he could see she wasn’t going to let him leave without paying him what she thought she owed him. He might as well get it over with.
He leaned down and stopped. “Is it okay if I touch your chin?”
“Yes.” Tía closed her eyes and waited. His warm fingers touched her chin and tilted it up slightly.
“Open your mouth,” he whispered.
Tía let her lips part. Then she felt nervous and had to lick them. His lips touched hers and sort of insinuated themselves inside her mouth and around her tongue.
A wave of dizziness washed over her. She reached out to steady herself, and his body underneath the cotton shirt he wore felt so solid and warm and good that she didn’t want to let go of him. And once she got started kissing him, she didn’t want to stop doing that, either.
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