A Lady Bought with Rifles

by Jeanne Williams

  Court frowned. “This is her property. Why shouldn’t she stay here?”

  Without smiling, Trace said, “I don’t see you as a likely chaperone, Sanders.”

  “In this country a beautiful woman needs a defender more than a prayer-chanting dueña who can only fulfill her duty if there’s a strong hand to protect it.”

  “My friends can both defend and chaperone when I can’t be with my wife,” said Trace.

  Rising, not quite as tall as Trace but broader, especially about the neck and shoulders, Court grinned. “Who knows? Maybe she’ll stay.”

  “Then she’d better not let Reina know it till she’s eighteen.”

  “You worry a good deal about this lady,” Court said, still smiling. “You can leave it now, Winslade. I’ll take care of her while you’re running guns or whatever.”

  “I’m counting on that.” Trace hugged Sewa, ruffled Ku’s head feathers. “Good-bye,” he told them. He took my hands in his. “Good-bye, Miranda my love.” Releasing my fingers as if they’d grown into his flesh, he embraced Sewa and me with his eyes. “God keep you,” he said in Yaqui, and strode quickly out, the heavy door creaking shut behind him.

  I moved after, stepping into the veranda, lifting my hand as he rode off. Where was he going? Into danger, that was sure. Would he be back, ever, at all?

  “He didn’t see you,” Court said. He had come noiselessly up beside me and took my still-raised hand in a gesture of pity. “He doesn’t look back, not Winslade.”

  But he would now. He must. I loved him.

  Holding the great door, Court took me inside, hand cradling my elbow. I didn’t try to pull free; some instinct warned me that resistance on a small matter could trigger the violence he now held leashed. His brow wrinkled at Sewa as if he’d forgotten her existence and was annoyed to recognize it.

  “There are a lot of Yaqui families at Mina Rara,” he said. “Many of them would be glad to take the child. Shall I send for some of the women so that you can select a good foster-mother?”

  I did break from his hand. “She is my child, Mr. Sanders. I want her to make friends with her people, but unless she chooses otherwise, she stays with me, sleeps in my room.”

  Court’s eyes blazed for a moment. He took one quick step after me, halted, picked up the wine decanter, filled my glass, poured his own, and tossed it off.

  “So,” he said, grimacing. “You’re intent on having the little Indian with you, and that stinking raven, too, I suppose?”

  “I slept with them on what I thought was the last night of my life. Of course I want them with me.”

  “You’d better change your mind before you marry,” Court said. “No husband would share his room with that pair.”

  “Since I have no husband, that’s not a worry,” I said with an acid sweetness I hoped would cover the strain I felt. Court’s touch and eyes sent a tingling sense of danger through me, not totally unpleasant. My situation depended on how much Court ruled his impulses. I told myself that he wouldn’t play too hard and fast, if only because Trace would be back, but I wasn’t soundly reassured.

  “The guest room is ready,” Court said. “I’ll have a small bed set up for the girl. You have no baggage, do you? One of the women makes my shirts and does the mending. She could put some clothes together for you out of goods from the company store.”

  “That will be splendid,” I said with genuine delight. “Sewa can have some dresses, too. How kind of you to think of it, Mr. Sanders.”

  He laughed outright. “My dear, it wasn’t hard. The things you’re wearing look exactly as if you’d been abducted by bandits and held in the wilds. How does a bath sound?”

  “Like heaven,” I sighed. “And Sewa needs one, too.”

  He led down the hall to the end of the way, opened the door on his left. “The girls will bring water,” he said. “Ask for anything you need. When you’re refreshed, I hope you’ll join me on the veranda.”

  It was a long narrow room with a fireplace, large bed, stern wooden armchair, dresser with a mirror, and a nail-studded leather-bound chest. Behind a Japanese screen painted with monkeys and birds was an elegant tub, fluted at either end to resemble a shell.

  While Sewa and I undressed, the women brought pails of water and a stack of towels, a bar of perfumed soap. I couldn’t imagine Court using it; in fact, this room, from lacquered screen to rose satin bedspread, had an air of being used by women, and I doubted that they were there on mining business.

  I washed Sewa’s hair and helped her scrub and dry off while two boys carted out the tub and brought it back to be refilled. I apologized to Raquel for all the extra work. She shook back her long black hair and said it was nothing, of course we must bathe after our journey. And she carried off our stained things and returned with a shift for Sewa and what I guessed must be her own Sunday clothes, a white ruffled blouse and black full skirt.

  Sewa was asleep in the bed the boys had set up in a corner by the time I had dressed and brushed my hair with a silver-backed brush from the dresser. I would have preferred to slip into the big high bed, lie between the white sheets that looked incredibly cool and inviting after weeks of sleeping rough, but the fact that I wanted to avoid seeing Court made me decide I must get it over with.

  He’d been cordial, thoughtful of our comfort. And if I ran from him like a rabbit mightn’t he prey on me like one? Against this lion, I had better try to seem at least an extremely agile deer, or a burro who could kick when harassed.

  A headstrong tough little burro seemed the best bet. So I carried the image of Ratoncita with her lovely ears down the hall with me and out on the veranda.

  It was full dark now. Outdoor cooking fires glowed from the ramadas of many of the miners’ houses. Guitar notes and plaintive songs came faintly from the cantina and a lamp burned in the infirmary, revealing the occasional passage of a dark silhouette.

  “A little world,” said Court, rising. “Fairly cut off from the storms rising in Mexico. A good place for you to be, Miranda.”

  “I’m certainly glad to be here right now,” I said, laughing. “The bath was marvelous, and a real bed—what luxury!”

  He only came a step closer but cut out my view so completely that I felt overwhelmed, wished I hadn’t mentioned the bed. “Sweet Miranda! If you’re as innocent as you look, you don’t know how luxurious a bed can be. Would you like more wine? Perhaps some peach brandy?”

  “I’m so thirsty. Could I have water with just enough wine to cut the taste?”

  “So you prefer to use wine to make plain water drinkable rather than take it full-bodied?” Court called an order, sat down across from me, far enough away to let me relax a little, too close to allow me to forget his physical immediacy, and again I experienced him as a great cat, watching its intended prey till its hunger reached a certain stage and the victim had strayed into proper range.

  I would stay out of his reach if I could—do nothing to trigger a sudden spring. And hope that Trace came back before Court wearied of the subtle hunt.

  Raquel brought water and wine, murmured a soft good night. “It was kind of you to loan the señorita your clothes,” Court told her in the way one approved a child’s generosity. “You shall have those earrings you’ve been wanting.”

  “Gracias, señor.” She ducked her head as if embarrassed and moved away, her bare feet making a gentle sound like small waves on a soft beach.

  I was sure, from the casual intimacy of his tone, that he slept with Raquel, that it was on the same level as her serving him food. What she felt, I could not guess, but she’d displayed no jealousy. She didn’t seem to fear him. Perhaps he was kind enough, provided he was not thwarted or challenged. I decided to appear a benign, sweet-tempered burro as long as he kept distance. If he got too close—well, Cruz had told me burros could fight off mountain lions.

  Court poured the water and wine into a goblet, gave it to me, and sat in the chair nearest mine. “Miranda,” he said. “You strike me as an intelligent
young woman who can adjust to circumstances. When you see a situation is fixed, as in Reina’s hatred of you, you don’t exhaust yourself in battering at it. And in the Yaqui camp you must have made the best of what would have seemed brutalizing captivity to most women.”

  “I had Sewa and Domingo. And I had seen Yaquis after soldiers finished with them.”

  He made a brushing motion with his hand. “Nevertheless, few people are that philosophical.”

  I said nothing, uneasy at this reasoned approach.

  Court’s laugh, hard and small, cracked the silence. “Miranda, do you like your watered wine?”

  Something in me contracted like an eye shocked by strident glare. “It quenches thirst.”

  “Not the kind I have.”

  I could think of no safe answer, tried to turn the subject completely. “If so many Yaquis work here, are they never bothered by federal authorities?”

  “The Mina Rara Yaquis have been here for a quarter of a century. No fool, even a military or bureaucratic one, could pretend they are warlike, and they don’t, most importantly, occupy land the Mexicans want.”

  I thought of Lío. “But they must have relations among the Sierra Yaqui.”

  “True, but for now the government is busy with killing or selling those Yaquis who are in the way or who are fighting. Mina Rara may remain self-contained and cut off from the troubles that are coming.”

  I shivered, remembering the slaughtered Yaquis, the massacre at the train. “But if there’s a civil war—”

  Court shrugged. “It won’t be the kind you studied in school, my dear—Napoleon and Waterloo, large pitched battles involving huge armies. Mexico’s revolution will be hundreds and hundreds of raids, skirmishes, looted trains. What are now smoldering grassfires will fan into blazes with the rising wind. There will be dozens of leaders, some patriots, some bandits. And the war will last for years, if not decades.”

  “If there’s no strong central leadership, it would seem the federal troops could stamp out small rebellions.”

  “It can, so long as there are not too many. It would be simple for Don Porfirio if his foes were unified in one force, for he could surely put it down. It’s the difference between chopping down one large tree or thousands of saplings scattered over thousands of miles. The strength of the revolutionaries lies in being elusive, small, far-flung. They will be a swarm of bees stinging the great bull, Don Porfirio, buzzing away from his assaults.”

  I considered. “You meant there will be groups like Lío’s all over Mexico?”

  “Yes. And after Díaz falls, the struggle will be between leaders while the country goes ungoverned. There will be anarchy for years. You are fortunate, Miranda, to have a quiet spot at Mina Rara.”

  “But I’m not staying.”

  “My sweet, of course you are.”

  “Trace will be back in a few weeks. Then he’ll take me to his friends.”

  Court leaned forward. Before I could detect his motion in the dark, he had caught my wrists. “Trace will not come back, Miranda, unless you consent to be my woman and tell him that.”

  Those steel fingers tightened till I could have gasped with pain. It was like being pinned by a great cat, the soft parts of my body exposed. I tried to speak; it was only after several efforts that I could push around through my constricted throat.

  “Your woman? I can never be that.”

  “You will.”

  “If this is your idea of courtship—”

  He gave me a shake with enough violence in it to slice off my words. “I’m not courting you, Miranda. I’m revealing your situation, counting on that tough mind of yours to accept it.” He gave a harsh laugh and his breath quickened. “I have eyes and ears. I know you fancy yourself in love with Winslade.”

  “I do love him.”

  “Then indeed you’ll take me or he’ll surely die.”

  That threat and the strength of this man, felt in the night, when I couldn’t see his face, terrified me. And there was Cruz, who’d pledged the rifles for my life.

  “You’d have Trace killed for nothing?”

  “Not for nothing. For my love.”

  “Love. Call it something else.”

  “If it were only lust, my dear, I’d enjoy you and let you go to Winslade or the devil. But I want you in my life. To see you every day, hold you every night.”

  “When I hate you?”

  “That’s because I’ve put what you want out of reach,” he said coolly. “Of course you’ll tantrum like a child, but that’ll pass. I can wake the fire that Winslade never fanned, make you live and die in my arms till they will be your real home, till I become your lover, not your master.”

  “No.”

  “Then Winslade won’t come back. You condemn him to death.”

  “You—you unbelievable—”

  He set his fingers over my mouth. “And it won’t keep me from having you, Miranda. Nothing will. What we’re debating is whether you put a good face on it and let Winslade live.”

  Sudden hope rose in me. “Is it the mine you want, Court? I’ll make you co-owner if you’ll let me go away with Trace.”

  “What if only sole title would comfort me for my loss?” he drawled.

  Then I would be penniless, with Sewa to look after, dependent on the charity of Trace’s friends. But for Trace to die—or for me to yield to Court …

  “I’ll sign it over to you as soon as I’m of age.”

  Court let me go and swore explosively before he calmed. “Well, Miranda, that means you really must love Winslade and have a strong dislike for me. It’s not the mine I want and I swear that even if you marry me I won’t use your money. But willing or fighting, married or not, I will have you. Soon.”

  “When Reina finds out—”

  “She won’t. She thinks you’re dead, my sweetheart.”

  “How can she?” I demanded. “We all expected the commandant to let the Yaquis go instead of sending back their heads.”

  “Not Reina.” His tone was grim. “One of my informants heard her send a messenger to the commandant to tell him to execute the prisoners since she had gotten away.”

  My head whirled. Reina had tried to hurt me before. But to cause my death when I was at risk for saving her. “You’re lying!”

  Turning my head, I retched, spewing out the watery wine and supper, wracked till my empty stomach heaved, humiliatingly conscious of Court holding my head, supporting my shoulders.

  “Makes you sick, doesn’t it?” He wiped my mouth with his handkerchief, called for Raquel, and scooped me up. “No, little fool, I’m not taking you to bed—or at least not with me. I was sick, too, when my man told me what that bitch had done. I was starting for Las Coronas, ready to choke the life out of her, when you rode in.”

  “So that’s why you were so surprised.”

  He put me down in a big chair in the main room, sponged my face with clean water Raquel had brought. “Yes. And when I heard you were almost surely dead, that’s when I knew what you were to me. My woman. You rode back to me from the dead. I’ll never let you go again.”

  Weak and spent, I said desperately, as if I were shouting at him in a foreign language, “You don’t love me or you’d care what I feel!”

  “I do care. In a year you’ll love me.”

  Even in that moment, when I hated him, my blood quickened as he smiled. I cried defiance as much to my treacherous body as to him. “I won’t. I’ll hate you more than I do now.”

  “We’ll see.” He cupped my chin and raised my face. I felt devoured by those tawny eyes. “You’re tired, darling. Sleep now. You can give me your answer in the morning.” At the hopeful lift of my head, he gave a thin little smile. “No, Winslade won’t be out of reach. If I don’t get him on the way to Arizona, my men will finish him before he rides through the pass into this valley. There’s no way he can come unless I permit it.”

  With amazing tenderness Court helped me up, walked down the hall with his arm around me. At my door he
said, “Good night, love,” kissed my forehead, and swung quickly away.

  It was almost better when he was menacing.

  I couldn’t let him kill Trace. But submit to those muscular, gold-haired arms? Let him do the things Trace had? And it wouldn’t be for one time only, I was sure of that. Court might, after a season, let me go, but I had a frightening dread that if he possessed me long enough, he would drain me till I became his thing, his creature—that I wouldn’t want to go, even if he allowed it and Trace would take me.

  That possibility, not rape or death, was the real nightmare. But how could I resist him if that meant he would murder Trace?

  11

  During the next days Sewa and I grew acquainted with Mina Rara. Court was often with us, but when he was not, I felt we were watched. He hadn’t pressed me further, and though his menace towered over me, tangible as the mountains about the mine, he seemed possessed of the certainty of ultimate success, which allowed him to wait. Meanwhile, he was a perfect host, indulgent, spicing his conversation with humor and fascinating lore.

  He even produced a burra for Sewa, quickly beloved, cherished and named Cascos Lindos, Pretty Hooves, because its ears couldn’t compare with those of Ratoncita. Ku, his leather nest fastened to the saddle, rode through the village, staring haughtily as a general reviewing troops.

  About ninety men worked at Mina Rara, most of them Yaquis. The company doctor, Edwin Trent, gaunt, gruff, and given to drink, though he had been a minister before he turned to medicine, was the only other American. Not everyone worked at the mine. One Mexican family kept cows and lived by selling cheese and milk. Several widows baked bread, tortillas, and cakes for those who didn’t want to bother as well as for the bachelors. There was a shoemaker and a man who hauled water around to the dwellings.

  Services were held each Sunday in the little church by a Yaqui maestro and Court said the main fiestas were celebrated here just as they were in the Eight Sacred Pueblos.

  “You’ve missed San Juan Bautista, June 23 and 24, when there are cockfights and horseracing,” Court said. “San Ignacio’s past. So is Virgen del Camino, July 1, when people often marry after maybe having lived together twenty years. The Easter ceremonies come to a crescendo Holy Week. The mine closes down from Good Friday till the Monday after Easter. A deer dancer comes from one of the pueblos, but Mina Rara has its own maestro, chanters, and pascolas, which are sort of clown dancers.”