After Eden

by Joyce Brandon

  “Oh, please, don’t talk. Save your strength.”

  “Lie down next to me. I need to touch you.”

  Fear and grief swelled inside Andrea with every word he uttered. She slipped onto the bed; she was afraid to touch him.

  “Closer,” he whispered. His warm hand found her lips. Slowly his feather-light touch burned to the core of her.

  “Steve, you need to save your strength.”

  He smiled weakly. “This is how I do it. I feel better already.”

  Andrea forced herself to forget everything except that Steve was alive this moment and that he needed her. She scooted closer to him and concentrated on sharing her body heat with him.

  If he died, nothing would matter anyway…

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The last rifleman had disappeared behind him. They hadn’t killed him. It made no sense.

  Turning in his saddle, Johnny gazed back over the path. He had ridden two miles under the rifles of El Gato Negro’s fierce-eyed, indolent vaqueros, and no shot had been fired. Weak with the effects of prolonged fear, he kicked his horse into a canter. It was a long descent into the Animas Valley—if he could find the way.

  Johnny rode until dark and found a sheltered place to make a cold camp. Under the sheer face of a cliff, in a small indentation that sheltered him from the cold night winds, he spread his blankets and lay down. He was exhausted, but even bone-deep tiredness could not save him from his thoughts.

  An image of Tía appeared in his mind. Her fine golden curls shimmered between him and the stars winking overhead. Her guileless blue eyes mocked him. In torment, he watched again as she lifted her lips to El Gato Negro. The warmth and color in her cheeks had receded. In that second before the bastard had claimed them, her lips had trembled, caused a wild turbulence around his heart.

  Had he imagined it, or had Tía’s face twisted in anguish as he’d kissed her hand? Because she hated him? Because she didn’t want him touching her? Or…because she had cared? At that thought, an exultant flame warmed him. She had wanted him that night in the orchard—almost as much as he had wanted her. She had been as lost as he. Perhaps she had cared.

  Surrender the silver and the girl, and you can go in peace. Tía’s eyes had filled with anguish when he’d tried to shoot El Gato Negro. And then shame when he asked her about the man who had tried to kidnap her at the ranch.

  Tía—soft and warm and responsive in his arms. He wanted to feel his fingers pressing into that fine, light gold skin, forcing small, startled gasps from her half-opened lips, to feel her body resisting his. To hear her cries…to cause them…

  He should be dead now. El Gato Negro, should have given the signal. Why hadn’t he? Johnny’s body felt clenched like a fist. He forced it to relax, but as soon as he stopped consciously willing it, he felt the tension return, like bowstrings pulled tight in his back and chest.

  The moon shone with cold brightness. Tía was with him, with El Gato Negro. Grief and rage swelled in him. Johnny wanted to go back and drag her out of her lover’s bed.

  Stars twinkled like tiny fire lanterns in the dark sky. They had been there before he was born. They would be there long after he was dead, long after his passion for Tía was forgotten.

  He hated her. He hated all women. Love was an accident. It came unexpectedly and completely—as accidents did. Tía had looked at him with that self-assured sweetness in her eyes, and he had loved her, not because he had been touched by the rare beauty of her soul or even by the rare beauty of her sassy, sardonic eyes, but because he had been struck by the accident of love as if it were lightning striking at random or a knife thrown by a madman.

  The shining blade of love had been thrust into his chest like a dagger thrown at a target. The point bit deep. The shaft and hilt quivered, vibrating since the first day he’d kissed her in Tubac. Now the sharp edge cut into the tender rawness of his insides. He could feel the blade rusting, taste the sour, cold metal poisoning his body and mind.

  Johnny paced under the stars. Tía was in her lover’s arms. He hated her. He had never really loved her.

  He paced for hours, thinking his bitter thoughts, searching for the switch that would allow him to turn off his grief and pain. At last he admitted that he did love her—had loved her, he corrected himself.

  Judy had left her scars. Tía would leave hers. Someday his insides would become tough, and he would no longer feel the bite of love. Someday. But not now, not this day. This day he would bleed.

  Long before dawn, Johnny saddled Matador and headed west, working his way back toward the ranch. He rode all day. At the edge of the valley, only two miles from the Burkhart compound, he stopped and made camp. It made no sense to do so, but logic and reason did not seem to matter. Seeing the ranch off in the distance, Johnny realized he couldn’t go back there.

  On the one hand he wanted to be sure Steve had survived. On the other hand he didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. He didn’t want to explain. He was wanted by the army. Rutledge would order his men to shoot him on sight. His escape had given them the right to do that. The bastard would enjoy exercising that right.

  He’d been a fool. He should have headed east or north—maybe into Utah or Colorado. He hadn’t been there yet.

  Jerking the saddle off Matador, he laid it on a level, shale-covered shelf and spread a blanket. He hadn’t been thinking straight. Well, it wasn’t too late. Tomorrow morning would be soon enough. He would strike out for Wyoming. Rutledge wouldn’t follow him there.

  Rita and Tía didn’t stop until they were three hours away from the pueblos. The eastern sky was a dull gray. Soon the sun would be skimming back the darkness.

  A small creek trickled through a ravine, surprising them. Abuelito had led them out of the labyrinthine canyons. The way was clear.

  “Whoa!” Rita said, turning to look at her daughter. “We’ll rest here. Don’t unsaddle the horses.”

  Abuelito shook his head in disgust, but he obeyed. El Gato Negro’s wife could do as she pleased, even to the point of cruelty to dumb animals.

  As soon as their guide’s snores assured them he slept heavily, Rita roused Tía. They filled their canteens, mounted, and made their escape. They did not stop this time until the sun was high overhead.

  When they came to a wide, swift-running creek, Rita dismounted and let her horse drink. Tía gave them the last of the grain, drank her fill, and lay down to stretch her muscles.

  “Tía?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “How do you feel? Are you all right?”

  Tía did not look at her. “Yes.”

  “Then why did you take a piece of that broken bottle?”

  Tía looked away. She didn’t know why.

  Rita felt nauseous. Mateo had done something to the girl, something that had left her feeling vulnerable and trapped. Rita remembered how it was to be young, to feel things so deeply that every wound could kill. Gently, she touched Tía’s chin, forced her daughter to look at her.

  “Nĩna, you know that I love you.”

  “No, you don’t!” She turned away quickly, but Rita had seen.

  “Tía, tell me what’s wrong?”

  Anger flared in Tía’s eyes. “You lied to me! You’ve lied to me every step of the way. You knew Papa was El Gato Negro! You knew he wasn’t my father. No wonder Papa went crazy. The truth would be as out of place in your mouth as a polecat at a picnic…”

  A corresponding anger flared in Rita. “At what point do you recommend that I should have made my confession? When you were two years old? Five? Ten? How could I tell anyone anything without risking all of our lives—just the way I did when Mateo found out the truth? How could I tell you, Papa’s favorite, that your father wasn’t your father? I envy you your simple idealism and pious morality, Tía, but life was different for me.”

  “Morality!” Tía screamed. “How would you like to stand in front of the man who’s just asked you to marry him and let the man you had thought was your father fondle yo
u!? Is that morality, Mama! No girl should ever have to bear such shame!”

  “You’re absolutely right! No girl! Not you and not me! But I had to put up with much worse! Life was harder for me! More…” Rita could not continue. Unexpected tears welled up in her eyes. Anger that she would cry now made her tone harsh. “I would have killed him to save you, you little fool! I’ve protected you every step of the way—the best I knew how. I didn’t have anyone to protect me! I had to survive!”

  Rita glared at her daughter. Tía glared back in stubborn silence.

  The horses finished drinking, moved to the grain, and munched it in a few noisy bites. They walked out of the water and started to graze on tussocks of bunch grass growing along the creek bank. A breeze carried smells of pine and juniper.

  “Sit down,” Rita gritted. “I never told you how I met Mateo, but now it’s time.” Rita stalked to the shade of a mesquite bush and sat down on the sandy ground. Tía followed and sat down facing her.

  “You knew that I ran away from Tyler when I was fifteen. I didn’t just meet Mateo and marry him. He attacked the wagon train I was on, killed all the men, and took the women…”

  Rita told her whole story. She left out nothing. When Rita finished, Tía’s blue eyes reflected horror and disbelief.

  “You never loved him?”

  “I hated him.”

  “But you stayed…”

  “I was pregnant and had no place to go. He took care of me. I was fifteen years old! Later, he was good to Andrea. He adored you.”

  Tía pulled up a blade of grass and tore it in half. “I thought you loved him. You were always happier when he was home. I could see it in your eyes. They sparkled.”

  “Mateo meant nothing to me.”

  “Mama, he was your husband for twenty-five years. He came to see you every two or three months.” Tía glanced quickly at her mother to gauge her reaction. “Sometimes papa stayed for days. You cooked for him, you had his baby, you must have felt something.”

  Rita was stunned by the force of her emotion. Shaking, she turned away from Tía. “He forced me to marry him! You don’t know what it was like. He only kept me because he wanted a gringa slave. Now he has caused you to doubt yourself. How could I love a man like that?”

  A lump in Tía’s throat burned. It was entirely possible to love a man it made no sense to love. She’d had no business falling in love with Judy’s handsome foreman, but it hadn’t stopped her.

  “Papa gave you a home and took care of you and your children. I’m not a baby, Mama. I know how it is between a man and a woman. You didn’t hate him all the time.”

  Rita flashed with anger. “That doesn’t make me guilty of anything!”

  A sudden realization filled Tía. If her mother was guilty of anything, it was trying to survive. Perhaps even Papa had only been trying to survive, too. But it didn’t help her. She could never face Johnny again. Even if Johnny had survived, it was still over between them. Grief welled up in Tía. Papa probably let Johnny ride out of sight and had him killed and buried somewhere. She would never know now.

  Rita misread the grief on Tía’s face, took her child’s cheeks in her hands, and fixed her eyes on her daughter. “Forget Papa and what he did. Whatever happened back there makes no difference. The life you live from today on is the only thing that matters. All we have is today. Yesterday doesn’t matter. Tomorrow doesn’t matter. Mateo set me down in a dirty little town called Tubac twenty-five years ago, and I wanted to die, but I couldn’t. Somehow, I got off my pallet and found a way to enjoy what little bit of life I had left, and I got so busy that I forgot to be miserable. That’s what you’ve got to do.

  “All that’s happened was my fault. It was my fault Mateo took you. He did it to get back at me. I cheated on my husband in spite and anger, and I brought all this down on your head. Even if it had somehow been your fault, which it isn’t, it wouldn’t change anything—not you, not me, not my love.”

  “Who could love me now?” Tía whispered.

  “I love you, Tía,” she said firmly. “There isn’t anything you could ever do to change that. There isn’t any way you could stop it or change it or even make me regret it. Nothing you could do or feel, nothing that could happen to you would ever change my love for you. Do you understand what I’m saying? You did the best you knew how. Just like I did. I made mistakes with you and with Mateo, but I did the best that I knew how.”

  Mama’s words twisted Tía’s insides, but she could not fully accept her mother’s absolution.

  “I know you love me, Mama, but this isn’t like a skinned knee or a cracked head. I’m a woman now. I guess I gotta work this one out for myself.”

  “Are you too grown up to listen to good advice?”

  Tía shook her head. Mama couldn’t understand that she had stood there and let Johnny watch her being handled by El Gato. Johnny wasn’t like the men Mama and her friends talked about. Johnny wouldn’t even make love to her until they were properly married. He darned sure wasn’t going to just hang and rattle like a tied snake after what he’d seen. If he was alive, he’d take one look at her and hit the flats for Wyoming.

  Tía’s unwillingness to be instantly healed angered Rita. She had broken her wedding vows and left her daughter to bear the brunt of it. No shame borne alone could match the fierce pain of watching your child torn apart in your stead.

  “We have to git,” Tía said suddenly. She stood up and looked back over the trail they had traveled. A haze of dust caught her attention. Her mind was distracted with the worry that Papa would catch them and kill Mama. She held her hand out for her mother.

  Rita looked at the cloud. Tía was no longer listening to her, but she couldn’t drop it. “I guess we’ve all been booted out of the garden of Eden.”

  “Innocence can’t last forever, can it?”

  Rita sighed. Tía’s innocence had been jerked away cruelly. Tía had lost Mateo’s love, and she’d never had Bill Burkhart’s. Rita knew the real shame was hers, and hers alone. There could be no life after Eden unless Tía survived.

  Rita’s anger had died. All she wanted now was Tía’s assurance that she would survive her fall. “Tia…”

  “We gotta git, Mama,” Tía said grimly. “If El Gato catches us as mad as he is now, he’s likely to trim a tree with our carcasses.” They had a long way to go—fifty or sixty miles. But her mother’s eyes were clouded with deep regret. Tía took pity on her. “I’m a woman now, Mama. I’ll have to make my own peace.”

  Rita broke into tears. She could have handled anything except Tía shouldering the entire load for her.

  “I can’t run any more…You go ahead. Let him catch me. I don’t care if he kills me.”

  “You don’t really mean that, Mama. You’re just real tired. I reckon the worst is over. Unless he catches us. Come along now.”

  Rita felt old for the first time in her life. She let Tía urge her gently toward the horse.

  They rode until full dark, unsaddled the horses, hobbled them securely near forage, collapsed onto their blankets, and slept fitfully.

  Rita woke first. The sun was about two hours into daylight, which meant they had lost at least two hours on Mateo. He would not oversleep. They saddled the horses, mounted, and headed north west. As they rode they ate the tortillas, beef jerky, and dried fruit Abuelito had procured.

  The sun arced overhead, finally set, and still they fled, knowing now that El Gato Negro pursued them. Rita knew Mateo’s tempers, and when he was angry, he would not come to her as husband, he would come as the avenger. When they rode on high ground she could look back and see his small army raising its dust comet behind them.

  Tía could barely keep herself upright in her saddle. Night came. Mama found a place, and they rested fitfully until first light. The horses were suffering. The only comfort was that Mateo’s horses would be as tired as their own.

  It seemed Tía had just closed her eyes, but Mama roused her. Tía staggered to her horse, and they rode for hours
, finally into a canyon at the western edge of the Chiricahuas. The eastern sky was turning from luminescent gray to dull pink. The mountains were finally behind them. Still shaded from the rising sun, the Sulphur Springs Valley spread out in front of them.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Rita exulted in finding the way. Fear had been a constant companion. A dozen times she had regretted leaving Abuelito behind. It had been a precaution that could have cost them both their lives.

  In her excitement, tiredness sloughed off. Slowing her horse to a fast walk, Rita glanced at Tía to see if she recognized the valley and the tiny lights in the windows that signified the Burkhart household was up and stirring.

  Riding mechanically, Tía’s face was closed. Rita felt a sudden, angry impatience with Tía for reminding her, however passively she did it. Rita wanted to reach through her daughter’s impassivity, to make the girl realize she had not been so irreparably damaged.

  “We’re almost there! Rancho la Reina,” Rita shouted over the clatter of their horses’ hooves. It meant safety from Mateo’s wrath. Surely he would not pursue them in broad daylight, not into the compound.

  “No!” Tía reined her horse, tried to stop its forward momentum. Alarmed, Rita looked behind them. Mateo’s army was even closer. She couldn’t see them, but a small cloud sifted up to the left of the rising sun. Mateo would marshal his horses and his men. And he knew better than she how to do that. She should have shot him when she’d had the chance. Rita reached out to Tía, then thought better of it and let the horses stop. They were blowing hard. Perhaps a short rest would work to their advantage.

  “We must go on soon,” she said. “Mateo and his men are too close.”

  Tía shook her head. “I’m not going back there now.” She could never face Johnny again.

  “There is no other place to go. We’ll barely make it there. Hopefully Mateo won’t dare follow us.”

  “I’m not going back there,” Tía said firmly.

  “Tía, please…” Rita paused. Her daughter’s face was pale but determined. She meant it. For the first time Rita saw Tía as a separate person, not a child whose fears and hurts could be soothed away and dismissed. Even worse, Rita realized it had never been true—her false belief that the hurts of another could be erased. It pained her to see what she and Mateo had done to the girl. Tía had grown up overnight.