“Reckon when it comes to doctoring I’m more Indian than white,” Johnny said.
Dap Parker walked over and joined the group around Tía. “I seen that scratch on your arm, Brago. And I could almost see that nick on Slim’s leg. Seems to me you boys’re making a big fuss over such little bitty troubles. Why, I’ve had worst pimples than them.”
“Seems little ’cause it ain’t on yore leg,” Slim retorted.
“Why, when I was a young-un’ like you, a bear near tore my arm off, and I just wrapped it in a kerosene rag and forgot about it till it healed itself.”
Johnny took Tía by the arm and led her toward the door. “I’d best get you out of here before these tales get so tall you won’t be able to walk without it coming over your shoe tops.”
The warm pressure of Johnny’s hand on her elbow distracted Tía until they were outside. “Maybe you should look at this wound. Might be infected or something.”
He led Tía to his cabin and followed her inside. Tía checked the cut and found it healing nicely—the skin was a little raw from the kerosene, but there was no sign of pus in the wound.
“Your arm is fine.”
“Walk with me, Tía,” he said earnestly.
Tía hesitated, but she had regretted not walking with him so much last night that she was too weakened to resist. “Where?”
Johnny took her by the arm and led her outside. The sun was so hot and the glare so bright that Tía’s eyes watered. She shaded her eyes with her hands and squinted up at him. He turned her so the sun would be at her back. “You like peaches?”
“Yes.”
In the orchard the air was cooler. Tía stayed in the shade, and Johnny stayed close beside her. In the distance a pig squealed. Sounds of children playing drifted up from the barn. Tía could imagine them up in the hayloft, telling ghost stories.
“I thought you said the peaches were as green as gourds.”
“I did.”
“I don’t like green peaches. Which one of us are you lying to?”
“Carmen.”
“How come?”
“’Cause Carmen likes to work better than anybody I ever seen. She’d take a perfectly good peach and cook it until it goes limp and then pour it into a jar so’s we can eat it. All a man has to do is just pick it off the tree and eat it.”
“You might be crazy. Have you ever had yourself checked over?”
Johnny stopped walking and reached up and pulled down a peach. He scrubbed it back and forth on his pant leg to rub the fuzz off and handed it to Tía, then reached up for another.
Tía bit into the peach. Juice ran down her chin. “Why, these are ripe enough to can.”
Warm from the sun, ripened to a soft firmness, the peach tasted better than anything she’d eaten in weeks. It reminded her of being back in Tubac. She had loved to lie under a peach tree and gaze up at the clouds overhead and eat sun-steeped peaches.
“They’re too good for canning. There’s barely enough here for the Parker boys.”
“If I know Carmen, she’ll be out here cleaning them off the trees, too.”
“She’d try. If she knew they were ripe.”
Tía laughed. “Guess that’s why you got away from El Gato Negro. You’re just full of tricks. I’m surprised he didn’t hang you.”
Johnny frowned and bit into his peach while he thought about his answer. “I think he forgot about me. I hid until El Gato’s band rode out of town, and I stayed low for a while, waiting to see if they’d come back, but they didn’t. How’d you get away?”
“We borrowed a couple of horses and caught the stagecoach on the road.”
“Why’d you leave town so sudden?”
“Mama made me.”
Johnny started to ask another question along that line, but Tía stopped him. “Do you believe in God?” It was the only question she could think of.
“God’s kind of a highfalutin word. I have a cousin who’s Sioux. The Sioux speak of the Creator as the Great Mystery. It’s easier for me to believe in that way.”
“Do you like being Indian?”
“I’m not full Indian. I’m just enough to make most men a little suspicious of me. Course it’s taught me to shoot straight. Being Indian just means I have more fights than a man with no Indian blood. You like being white?”
“I’m not white.” The answer came so instinctively that Tía didn’t realize she’d said anything wrong until Johnny stopped chewing and looked at her.
“You sure look white.”
“Do I?” Tía groped for an answer. “I’m part English and part Scandinavian. Is that white?” she asked as innocently as she could.
“I don’t know what a Scandinavian is, but Englishmen are mostly white. Once I saw a black man with an English accent in Silver City.” He lifted her chin and looked her over. “You don’t look black.”
Johnny’s hand on Tía’s face took her breath away. She wanted to turn and run, but she couldn’t. His dark eyes softened and looked at her with such lambent purity that the birds seemed to sing louder and more musically, and the sky looked bluer. Even the heat seemed to cool. Johnny leaned down and kissed her lightly.
The warm softness of his lips sent a shaft of thrilling sensation more powerful than a horse ride between her thighs. Tía didn’t know how it could happen, but each time she had contact with Johnny Brago, her body seemed to respond more hungrily to his touch, his kiss, the look in his eyes, the sound of his voice. Without her willing it, her arms were winding around his neck and her body pressed tight against his. Her mouth seemed intent on devouring him before he could devour her.
“Tía! Tía! Tía!” a woman’s voice shouted at her.
At first Tía had ignored the command, but on the third shout her eyes opened. It was Andrea’s voice. Tía disengaged herself from Johnny’s kiss and drew in a steadying breath.
“Yes?” she croaked at the insistent voice.
“Yes!?” she said, louder this time.
“Where are you?” Andrea demanded.
“I’ll be right there,” Tía yelled.
“Come back,” Johnny whispered.
“No, I better not.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then come back.” His lips were pink and smooth beneath the brush of his mustache. Tía wondered why she forgot to feel the coarseness of his mustache when he kissed her. He turned his head at a sound to the left of them, and Tía was struck again with the handsomeness of his sturdy profile. Coarse black hair, recently cut, barely touched the collar of his red plaid shirt. Her hands tingled with the desire to touch his hair, to stroke his sturdy muscles with her fingers.
Then an image of Judy slipping into Johnny’s cabin surfaced in her mind. “I can’t come back,” she whispered.
Johnny watched the stubborn little blonde walk quickly back toward the house. Maybe she’d come to Rancho la Reina with the intention of consolidating her holdings by marrying Steve Burkhart. Was that why she couldn’t make time for him?
Judy could not remember what day it was. She tried to count back but couldn’t decide if three or four days had gone by since the arrow had entered Grant’s body. Just as she realized this, Grant opened his eyes and caught her pressing a damp cloth to his forehead.
“Well,” Judy said, amazed and relieved. His eyes were clear at last—focused and alert. She struggled to compose herself, to think up something ordinary to say. “The slugabed stirs. We thought you’d decided to cash in your chips.” They seemed like words she would choose, but even to her ears they sounded strangely inadequate to express the gratitude she felt.
“I guess my money was no good. They sent me back.”
Grant appeared not to notice how Judy struggled to seem normal, to seem as if she had expected him to be fine all along. The warm twinkle in his gray eyes was more than she could bear. Tears welled up from some deep place and spilled over.
“Hey, pretty lady! I didn’t mean to work you so hard.”
<
br /> Grant pulled her head down and held her against him. Judy cried as if she would never stop. She cried so hard and so long she embarrassed herself and finally scared herself that she might cause him to have a set back. It was this thought that finally helped her to stop crying.
“I’m…sorry…I…didn’t…mean to…”
“There, there,” he crooned. “You’re just plain exhausted. You’ve been here every time I woke up. You’re worn to a frazzle. I want you to get in your bed and not get out until I send for you.”
“You’d never send for me,” she sniffed.
“Course I would. I couldn’t stand to be without you for more than an hour or so. Now, you run along. I’ll be fine, but you need some time to curl up in your own bed and sleep. A day or so I’ll be up and around. You go, or I’ll get up and carry you.”
“I’ll go. You just stay there where you belong.”
Judy wiped her tears. Tremendously relieved, she kissed his forehead, straightened his covers, and kissed his forehead again, then walked to the door.
“You’ll be all right, won’t you?”
“I promise.”
Finally convinced that Grant would survive, Judy walked out to the kitchen. Carmen lifted a stove lid and poked at the fire within. “Did that indito bring more wood?” she demanded over her shoulder.
“Don’t call Johnny that,” Judy scolded. She hated it when Carmen called Johnny indito, which was her way of saying friendly Indian as opposed to hostile Indian. The hostiles she called indios. “Grant is awake. He’s going to be all right.”
“Ahhh, that is good. You look tired, pequita.
Judy knew she was tired, probably more tired than she had ever been in her life, but she felt such virtuousness that her exhaustion buoyed her spirits.
“I am glad to hear Señor Grant is better. Now you go to bed. I will have Lupe sit with the señor.”
“You sit with him. You need the rest,” Judy said.
Carmen turned the stove lid over to Lupe and shooed Judy to her bedroom.
For the first time in days, Judy took off her gown and stretched out on the bed in her camisole. Lying down felt so good she sighed in comfort. Within minutes her eyes closed, and she couldn’t open them.
Judy woke slowly. At first all seemed well. Then she remembered Grant. Oh, God! He may have died! Sitting bolt upright in bed, ignoring her state of dishabille, she ran all the way to his room, only stopping at the door to open it quietly, just in case.
The sight of his chest rising and falling with even breaths caused her heart to leap in joy. He was alive. Thank God.
Weakly, leaning against the door, Judy caught her breath, then walked over to stand looking down at him. His color was good. In sleep he looked so vulnerable that a small ache started in her throat. Reaching out, she felt his brow. It was cool. Gratefully she closed her eyes.
She walked back to her room and took advantage of the basin of water Tía had left for her. Seeing the clean washcloth and towel on the chest of drawers called up a vague memory of Tía, covering her, moving around the room like a wraith. Judy realized she hadn’t talked to anyone in days, but she had been aware of Tía, her fragile face tight with worry, her round blue eyes hooded against showing the fear she must have felt for Grant. Judy remembered Tía bringing soup and trying to get her to eat it.
Finally, washed and dressed in a simple green gown, Judy brushed her hair, thanking the powers that decided such things that she didn’t have unruly hair. Long and heavy, it curled just enough to look good flowing loosely around her slender shoulders. In the mirror she looked gaunt, tired, older somehow. What a hateful idea! Then she realized that she hadn’t eaten in days. She’d sent back the trays Tía had brought almost untouched.
Judy walked to the window. The windowsill was wiped clean. Her whole room was clean. Marks that had been plainly visible on her walls were gone, no doubt scrubbed away by Tía’s industrious hands.
Judy found Tía in the parlor, her head bent over Judy’s pink gown, her left hand patting and smoothing as her right hand pushed the heavy iron. Tía had spread heavy sheeting over the table, using that as her ironing board, probably because the parlor was the coolest room in the house.
Judy stopped at the door, feeling so good she could forgive Tía anything. “I see you’re still using your little magic wand to tidy up all my messes.”
“Judy!” The welcoming light in Tía’s eyes warmed Judy’s heart. A smile to match Tía’s flooded her face and made her mood suddenly soar. Judy swept into the parlor and plopped herself onto the heavy Morris chair left of the empty fireplace. “Would you lend me your magic wand?”
“Of course,” Tía said, a mischievous sparkle in her usually innocent blue eyes. “But it does have its disadvantages.”
“Like what?”
“Well, for one thing, you have to use it standing up.”
Surprised and tickled at Tía’s wit, Judy laughed. “Well, I’m willing to suffer a little, but that’s too unreasonable. I hate even watching drudgery.”
“Well, don’t look, then, because I’m going to finish pressing your gowns.” Tía giggled.
“Hmmm. Maybe I’ll just bring my things out here and visit with you while you work.”
“I’d like that.”
It took four trips to the kitchen and her bedroom for Judy to make herself comfortable in the parlor. In the kitchen the women were already busily preparing the evening meal. They shouted to one another and banged pots and pans. With forty hungry men to feed, meal preparations started early and ended late. The routines had been disrupted since the Indian attack because of the men’s injuries, so the ironing, normally done on Tuesday, lay stacked in tall piles.
Judy ate two pieces of chicken, distractedly tossing the bones on a plate on the floor beside her. Satiated, she turned her attention to her friend.
“Tía, are you ever lonely?”
“Oh, sometimes, maybe. Are you?”
“That’s a strange answer. If you were ever really lonely, you’d know it.”
“Are you lonely?”
“Sometimes I could die of loneliness.” Judy felt a sudden pall, as if the mere mention of the feeling could somehow recreate it.
“Before I came here I lived with my uncle and his housekeeper,” Tía said. “I couldn’t do anything right. I guess I felt lonely then.”
“Have you ever let a fellow kiss you and hold you?”
Tía’s cheeks vibrated with heat. She’d rather eat cut straw and molasses for a week then answer that question.
“I love the way you blush!” Judy said, twisting the sash of her gown. “I don’t blush at all. I’ve let men kiss me and hold me and sometimes more, but it only really helps me feel better when I’m with them. That seems unfair, doesn’t it? It should help for a long time and leave you filled with sort of a glow. Maybe I shouldn’t let them even touch me. Doesn’t seem to help me feel any less lonely. But if you don’t let men kiss you and hold you and things, then you’d be lonely all the time.”
Judy glanced at Tía to see if her admissions had horrified her. Tía’s round blue eyes mirrored only her desire to help her friend.
“Well,” Tía said innocently, frowning at the skirt that wouldn’t lie completely flat. “Maybe you just found the wrong fella. The world is full of the wrong people. Just thinking about them will make you feel bad. But other people, just thinking about them will make you feel good. Don’t you know someone who makes you feel good?”
“Sure,” she said easily. “Grant.”
Tía smiled pointedly at Judy. Flustered, Judy looked away. “That’s only because Johnny’s been gone so long,” she said defensively. “Or I would have thought of him.” She shrugged. “Grant’s always around. Why, he’s my dearest friend. It doesn’t mean anything, though.”
Smugly, her wide blue eyes cool and knowing, Tía looked up from her ironing and smirked at Judy.
Judy squealed and covered her head. “Noooo! I am not in love with Grant Foreman.
”
“I didn’t say a word!”
“You don’t have to. I know what that look means. I know myself, too. I could never fall in love with a man who wasn’t absolutely gorgeous! Grant’s nice! He’s a really good friend, but he’s barely taller than me! I like him, of course. He’s very understanding. He talks real proper—almost like a book or a newspaper. He knows just about everything, but he’s not…not…I love Johnny,” she said wistfully.
“Grant has a really wonderful looking chest, doesn’t he?” Tía asked, glancing sideways at Judy.
“I don’t know. How do you know?” Judy challenged.
“I saw him through the window before they bandaged him. He’s got a marvelous build for a small man. Broad shoulders, narrow waist,” Tía said, flushing, “and long smooth muscles.”
“Why, Tía Marlowe! You’re positively indecent!” Judy cried in mock alarm.
“That’s what everyone says,” Tía said smugly, “but they’re wrong.”
“Are you sure?” Judy asked doubtfully.
“Of course,” Tía said firmly.
“But,” Judy challenged, “there are thousands of them and only one of you. How do I know I can trust you to tell me the truth? If you were an indecent woman, you wouldn’t admit it, would you?”
“Of course I would. I may be many things, but I’m not a liar. If I were completely indecent, I would tell you,” Tía said, her face resolute.
“Well…” Judy laughed, enjoying their discussion. “I’m glad that’s settled.”
When Andrea walked into the parlor Judy was wandering away to check on Grant, and Tía was pressing the last gown. Seeing the clutter on the floor—a plate with chicken bones and bread scraps, another plate with cake crumbs, a half-empty glass of milk, three magazines, two books, a comb and brush, three hair ribbons, and a cold cup of coffee—Andrea sighed.
“You’re losing ground, Tía. Now the rest of the house looks like Judy’s room has sprung a leak,” she said dryly.
After Eden Page 25