For two more days, she trudged the blazing earth, calling upon her inner strength to push her onward. And then, when she thought that she could go no further, when her food had finally run out and her boots were worn through to the soles of her feet, when her legs swayed with fatigue and her mind began to play tricks on her, she stumbled into a town just after she waded across the muddy Rio Grande.
It was a small, barely populated town with a dozen or so buildings including four white-washed houses and a tiny white church. In fact, all of the buildings were painted white, a striking contrast against the russet surroundings.
But, Savannah did not notice the color of the buildings that she passed as she marched forward, ignoring the mongrel that sniffed her as she went by. She did not notice the two pairs of eyes that watched her pass the sheriff’s office or the man who jingled down the steps, his hand on the butt of his pistol or the other man’s confused expression as he followed the sheriff toward her.
She walked as proudly as her weakened condition would allow toward the two wooden steps of the hotel at the end of the street. All she could think about was a bed and a bath, not necessarily in that order and she hoped against hope that the owner of the establishment would be kind enough to allow her to work off her room and board for a few days at least.
She could not have realized the picture that she presented when she nudged through the screen door of the hotel, squinting her eyes against the darkness of the foyer. Her once black hair was now gray with dust and matted into heaping mounds at her neck, the last two inches of her braid still bound by the ribbon. The riding habit that she wore was tattered and resembled a garment that a beggar would don and her feet were bare since she had tossed her boots the day before because they had become more of a hindrance than a help. Her face was caked with dirt and mud-streaked tear tracks that made a trail from her swollen and pleading eyes to her chin.
She would laugh later at the sight that she must have portrayed but at that moment, all she wanted to do was to beg a meal and a bed from that nice middle-aged man who had come from behind the counter to meet her, his face full of concern for her.
As he offered her a chair to sit in, he asked, “What can I do for you, Miss? Do you speak English? Se habla Inglés?”
Gratefully, she fell into the chair and answered after licking her parched lips, “Yes! I speak English.”
“Well, Miss,” Jake stammered, hurrying to the bar for a pitcher of water and a glass. “Can I get you something? You look like you just crossed the desert.”
Ignoring his nervous laugh, she nodded and thanked him for the water as she answered, “I did.” And without stopping, she babbled, “I was wondering if I could trouble you for a plate of food and a bath. You see, it’s been awhile since I’ve had a decent meal and a bath.”
With an incredulous look on his face, Jake swiped his palm through his hair and said, “Sure, Ma’am.” He hurried to the kitchen and was back before she could blink her dirt-encrusted eyes and he said, “Sorry it’s not more.”
Her eyes widened with delight at the plate of beans and bacon with a side of cornbread and she immediately began to scoop spoonfuls into her mouth. She only stopped chewing long enough to draw upon the glass of water that she kept clamped in her other hand.
Jake watched her eat, saying nothing to her, but letting her get her fill of the food and replacing the beans as the plate emptied and refilling the glass as the water was drained. He watched and waited until she pushed back the plate and leaned back in the chair, finally full and contented. By then, the sheriff and his friend had come into the hotel to watch in amazement while this waif of a woman devoured plates full of beans. The three of them kept their eyes trained on her and the spoon that swept from the plate to her sun-cracked lips.
She tipped the glass to her mouth and lifted her eyes to see her audience for the first time. A blush of purple haze rose against the gray of her cheeks when she realized the savage way in which she had sated her hunger. She averted her eyes and picked at her fingers in embarrassment until the owner of the hotel came to her rescue.
Noting her uneasiness, Jake gave the others a chastising glare of annoyance and took her plate. As he lifted it from in front of the strange woman, he asked, “Ma’am, are you alone?”
She nodded, wiping her mouth with the cloth that he had brought with her plate and then took another sip of water.
“You came out of the desert? How long have you been out there?” one of the men cut in as he scooted closer to her.
She shrugged saying, “I don’t know. A week, maybe two, I was sometimes deliriously uncertain of the amount of time that passed while I wandered through the desert. Yes, I think it was more like three weeks, not counting the time that I was passed out.”
“Passed out?” the sheriff asked, moving in to question her himself. “What happened to you?”
“My husb—my horse died and I walked the rest of the way.”
“What were you doing out there alone in the desert anyway?” another man asked.
“What happened to your arm there?” the sheriff inquired.
She was baffled by the barrage of questions and she began to wish that she was alone again, but she answered, “I left my husband in Mexico and I’m on my way back to Georgia.”
“Georgia?” they all said in unison and the sheriff whistled in surprise.
She continued with her explanation, hoping that she would not have to repeat it again, “When my horse died, I knew that I had to go on or die with him. So, I walked until I could walk no more and then I got up the next morning and walked some more.”
“Are you mad?” a red-headed, dog-faced slouch of a man asked as he leaned over the table to examine her, his gray eyes wide with excitement.
At that moment, she realized that she should change her name so that word did not make it back to Diego that she had survived. Without thinking and taking a cue from the strange little man, she said simply, “Madeline.” It was her mother’s name and now it would be hers she thought, but to her audience, she added, “You can call me, Maddie.” And then, ignoring the others, she spoke to Jake as if he were the only person in the room, “Sir, may I speak with you in private?”
He nodded and ushered her into the kitchen, leaving the other men looking after them with their mouths agape.
“Sir,” she began, whispering so that she could not be heard by the men in the other room.
“Jake,” he corrected. “Jake Olsen.”
“Mr. Olsen, I was wondering if I could ask you for a job. You see, I have no money and I have no place to stay.”
Jake stroked his whiskered chin as he said, “Of course.” He reached for her bandaged arm and patted it reassuring as he told her, “And I’ve got an empty room, too.”
When she recoiled against the pain, he looked down at her arm, which was wrapped in a dirt-encrusted make-shift bandage that oozed with blood and seeped with puss. His eyes widened in alarm before he exclaimed, “My God, girl, you need a doctor! You could have bled to death! You could have died of blood poisoning! Now, you get upstairs and I’ll send for Ol’ Doc Randle. He’ll have you fixed up in no time.”
As he pulled her toward the stairs, she protested, “But, I can’t even pay you for that meal, how can I pay a doctor?”
He waved his hand at her, still urging her toward the stairs as he said, “Don’t you worry about that. Right now, all you need to do is rest. We’ll figure out the rest later.”
He led her to a room at the top of the stairs and as he opened the door, he called over his shoulder, “Margaret! Margaret, come quick. We’ve got a guest who needs your help!”
He led her to the bed and made her sit there while he busied himself with pouring water into a bowl on the washstand. He carried the bowl to the table beside the bed and assured her, “My wife will help you with your clothes. She should be her any minute.”
“Oh, my!” a dainty voice whispered in surprise at the girl sitting on the bed. “What on Earth hap
pened to you, my dear?”
Savannah dipped her head and looked up at the woman who quickly went to work on the bandage on her arm. Try as she might, she could not find the words to explain her situation again and her voice failed her as she opened her mouth to speak.
Coming to her rescue, Jake told his wife, “She’s been in the desert, poor thing, wandering around without food or water or a change of clothes.”
“I had a change of clothes,” Savannah interjected without thinking.
The couple looked at her as if she were talking madly, and then raised their eyebrows in question as she explained, “It’s just that all I could think about for days and days was to find shelter before the desert swallowed me up. I guess I wasn’t thinking.”
“Of course you weren’t, my dear,” Margaret cooed as she patted the girl’s head. “Now, let’s get you undressed and into bed before the doctor comes. Jake, you hurry up now, and get Doc Randle! This girl needs attention!”
Her husband nodded and left the room. Margaret set about pulling off the dirty clothes that clung to Savannah’s tired body and then she tucked her into the bed. She looked again at the bandage and clucked her tongue as she asked, “How did this happen?”
Without thinking, Savannah blurted out all that had happened to her the last few weeks and why she had come to be in the desert, bloody and alone. The older woman shook her head slowly and then quickly brushed away a tear before she lifted her body to her full height and announced, “That man should be shot!”
“I do agree, Margaret,” Savannah began, but then feeling awfully tired all of a sudden, she let her head fall onto the pillow as she yawned, “But, that will have to wait until I am well and can find an army of men to go down there and put him out of my misery!”
A snicker of approval escaped Margaret’s mouth as she nodded enthusiastically and said, “In due time, my dear. He will get what he deserves. In the meantime, you need your rest and a doctor’s attention.”
As she was finishing her statement, Jake returned with Doc Randle, who hurried to her bedside to examine her. He clucked his tongue several times while he cleaned and redressed the wound and told her how lucky she was that gangrene had not set in and how damn fool crazy she had been to cross the desert alone, and then he patted her head and commended her for her courage. He gave her a powder mixed in her water, which was supposed to make her sleep, but she spit it out into the basin next to her when he left her alone. She did not need any help falling asleep and she certainly did not want to have anything more to do with drugs.
As the days turned into weeks, and then into months, Maddie, as she would be called after the first day these people had met her, began to turn back into the person that she had been before she had met Diego. She became more confident and more self-assured again. Word of her courageous trek across the desert had made her an instant heroine and her pride was reflected in her face when she heard the encouraging compliments from the townspeople. Visitors came into the Lucky Dollar Saloon, which was a part of the hotel and where she had gone to work the minute Doc Randle had given her permission to, just to get a glimpse of the gutsy girl who had spit in the eye of the Devil and had come out the victor. A celebrity, she had become and along with her notoriety came patrons and the cash they carry to Jake and Margaret Olsen’s border town hotel.
Madeline, Margaret and Jake became fast friends and when Margaret let it slip to her husband that Maddie intended to go back to Mexico to kill her husband, Jake scoffed at her, telling her that in these parts, there was no army that would go up against a man like that, whether she was a celebrity or not. Of course, Maddie had been disappointed at first, but still relished the idea of heading a large squadron of cutthroats over the desert and into the courtyard of the home of El Diablo.
Now, many months later, as she sat up in her bed after such a frightening nightmare that echoed with the crying of her precious Benito, she wondered if Jake had been right to point out her inability, army or no, to seek revenge on her husband. Thinking back to that awful day when he had taken the baby back and then had cut her arm asunder with a smile on his wicked face, she shivered in fear and trepidation. Her anger at him had softened to apprehension again as the months drifted by and her life had become complacent once more.
Still, she missed her baby, who would be almost two years old now and probably walking. Would he recognize her if she came stampeding into his home and snatched him up like a rag doll and whisked him away into the night? Would he forgive her for killing his father, or would he eventually thank her for the deed?
She went to the dressing table and began to brush her brilliant black hair and as she did so, she looked at the face in the mirror. That woman was not the same girl who had died in the desert, she saw as the face looking back at her, callously called her a coward. That single-minded rage-driven, revenge-crazed woman who screamed through the glass to stand up and grow a backbone, glared back at her as if she could reach through the mirror and shake some sense into her.
And this reflection on her own negligence toward her vow to rid the world of the man who had caused so much pain for so many people, herself included, gave her the incentive to twist her hair into a braid and go outside to practice her shooting. She put down the brush and nodded satisfactorily at the woman who nodded back at her and then she stomped outside to start yet another new life, the life of a killer.
As she loaded the pistol that she had purchased, along with a new horse and gear enough to get her down to Mexico and back, she deliberately set the bullets into each chamber as if she was marking each one with Diego’s name on it. One, Diego, two, Diego, three, Diego, and all the way to the sixth and last bullet, she called out his name, her voice seething with fury and resentment at the man in question. Then, she aimed the gun at the bottles and cans that she had balanced on the fence and squeezed the trigger.
Six times, the pistol blasted out a bullet and six times, the bullet raced passed a target and pierced the cactus plants that lined the fence.
“Damn!” she said under her breath. “How can I shoot Diego if I can’t even shoot a can?”
She reloaded the gun and remembered that she had originally thought that she could hire an army, but had been rebuffed by Jake’s conflicting comment that no one would go up against the devil. Sure, she had enough money now, for she had saved every cent that she had earned from working at the hotel, but how could she get an army to take her side in the matter and risk losing life and limb? She pondered that question as she pointed the pistol at her targets once more. Missing again and disappointed again, she let her arm drop at her side. I used to be so good at this, she thought as she tucked the gun into her skirt waist. My big brother Richard would be so disgusted with my marksmanship now!
She stomped to the fence and with one devastating swipe, she flung all of the bottles and cans onto the ground and then nodded her head once with a heartfelt ‘harrumph!’ before she turned to go back inside the hotel and sulk.
Chapter Eleven
Madeline stood in the doorway of the kitchen waiting to pick up a plate of food that a customer had ordered. She conversed cheerfully with Margaret despite her anger at herself for being such an appalling shot that afternoon. She took the plate that was handed to her and she walked to the table where the man, who had folded himself into a chair and, without looking her way, had ordered his meal. She set the plate in front of him and eyed him for a second or two before moving on to the next table.
This man was a stranger, of that, she was aware, for she knew everyone in these parts and she didn’t know this one. He was a gunslinger, too, she could surmise by the twin revolvers on his hips and the grim look on his face. She wagered with herself that he could shatter a bottle or two off that fence lickety-split and immediately, she became jealous of his obvious prowess with a pistol, or two in his case. He was sort of handsome too, in a desperado-like way with his dark countenance and his cocky posture as he sat straight and proud in that chair. And, for some odd r
eason, he seemed familiar, as if long ago, he had troubled her dreams.
But, no matter, she told herself as she started toward the next table. He would be gone after he finished his meal and she would never have the chance to even wonder who he was or where he was going. That was the way it was in the small border town of El Charro: people came and then they went without as much as a ‘how-do-you-do?’ and she was not concerned with the frivolity of small talk with strangers, so she pointed her toe in the direction that would carry her away from him.
But, just as she took that step, a hand shot out and grabbed her arm, pulling her down onto the table. She gasped in surprise and reached with her free arm to ward him off, but the stranger held her fast as he examined the gash on her forearm. Then, as abruptly as he had grabbed her, he let her go, the force of his strength sending her crashing into a neighboring table.
Madeline rubbed her arm, remembering the pain that once burned there and the reason why it was her mark of championship over the Devil and she stood to her full height and bellowed at the stranger with all her angered might, “How dare you handle me in that way!”
The stranger merely stared at her with his dark and menacing eyes before he turned his head back toward his plate and he said without remorse, “Sorry, Ma’am. My hand slipped.”
“Your hand slipped?” she railed, sashaying toward him in a fit of rage and raising her good arm to strike him.
Jake’s palm stopped her in mid-air and shook his head at her, whispering, “You don’t want to tangle with that one.”
She lowered her hand and then wiped both palms on her apron as she said to Jake, “Very well. I’ll not confront him. But you tell him to keep his hands off me, Jake.”
Jake nodded solemnly, and then smiled as he said, “Take the rest of the evening off and cool off a bit, huh?”
Realizing that she needed a respite to relieve her unpleasant mood, she agreed, “Alright, Jake. I’ll be in my room if it gets too busy.”
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