Canyon Song

by Gwyneth Atlee

  Faster, until it roared into full flame that brought a rush of heat, a cataclysmic light . . . She heard him cry out with it, and she smiled, feeling powerful and overpowered all at once. Feeling complete, for the first time in all her life.

  That was when she realized she had abandoned her reserve. That secret place she’d fled to while a man was using her. Sometimes she had felt things — as the Quinn of old had moved her — but this time, she’d been present, equally involved. Risking her heart, not just her body.

  The thought frightened her so deeply, she wanted to retreat. To go back to her safety, back to the canyon where both heart and soul belonged.

  April 9,1884

  Quinn watched Anna ride ahead of him and wondered what he’d done to cause her to withdraw into herself. Ever since yesterday, when they’d made love, she’d barely spoken a score words to him.

  It could not have been the physical act that distanced her, not when she had given herself so eagerly. Nor could it have been the fear that that was all he’d wanted. In an attempt to reassure her, he’d told her half a dozen times how much he loved her, how he would never let her go. But that did nothing to thaw the barrier he’d felt rise up between them, nothing to explain her wall of ice.

  When they set out this morning, Anna had claimed the half-breed’s dark bay gelding, a scrawny but less temperamental mount than the roan she’d ridden yesterday. When they’d found the Cortéz family walking among the scattered white-barked aspens, her reticence dissolved into another flood of Spanish conversation, hugs, and shared tears. From outside the circle of their friendship, he’d suggested that they give the couple the roan gelding, as well as their gray horse.

  Anna’s nod was quick, her smile fleeting. He’d thought his offer might touch her, but now, hours later, her silence was complete.

  He jogged his mare past a thicket of stunted live oak to catch up with Anna’s bay horse. Unlike the tall aspens of two hours before, the forest of the chaparral grew no taller than a man on horseback. He disliked it, knowing how easily it could harbor dangerous surprises. The thought of animal predators scarcely concerned him, but the human type was often on his mind.

  “We’ll need to make camp soon,” he said. “We have a long ride tomorrow if we’re to get home by nightfall.”

  She turned her head toward him, and he wished she’d take her hat off, so he could see her eyes.

  “Your home, not mine.” Her words floated soft and sparse between them, like the seed of milkweed or suspended notes from an old song.

  Like her words, the day was fading softly toward its close.

  “Home is not a place. It’s with a person, or the people, you love best.” Why couldn’t she see that? Why couldn’t she come with him and be happy?

  The late afternoon sunlight slanted between a pair of gnarled trees to light her face, to touch her eyes at last. But it availed him nothing, for her expression showed him only pain.

  “Ryan . . . Quinn. I can’t give back what you deserve.”

  “I’ve told you, I love you. You give me everything already.”

  “You know that isn’t true. I can’t. I’m too afraid.”

  “Afraid of me?” he asked her.

  “Afraid of everything. Afraid if I give you my trust, my heart, you’ll break it. Afraid of Hamby and his men. Afraid . . . afraid.” Her eyes rounded abruptly, as if another nightmare gripped her, as if she saw — and felt and heard — things far beyond his reach.

  “What is it?” He asked as the horses walked.

  “I’d forgotten — I’d forgotten what he said!” She whispered, as if she spoke only to herself.

  “Anna, answer me.”

  “When Hamby tried to hurt me, he said that Cameron — Judge Cameron wants me dead.”

  “Cameron? But why? Why after all this time?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ll admit it makes no sense.”

  “How would he even know you’re alive?”

  “I can’t imagine. Wait. Could he have read the papers for the change of ownership?”

  “What change?”

  Twenty yards ahead, Notion barked, sending a startled jackrabbit bounding past their horses. Titania whinnied in fear and danced to one side, but Quinn quickly calmed her. The bay laid back his ears and snorted, but otherwise ignored the chase. Notion, still limping slightly, drew up short, sat on his haunches and whined once, as if a show of frustration might make his prey turn itself in.

  “This looks like a good spot to make camp.” Quinn motioned toward a bald hillock partly ringed by an arroyo. Several deeper pockets in the gully held water for the horses and themselves. If they camped on the hillock, they could see above the undersized trees, so no pursuers could surprise them.

  Anna nodded, then dismounted. As they unsaddled their horses, she continued with her explanation. “Señora Valdez left her land to me. Eduardo Rodriguez — Catalina’s husband — filed papers for me witnessing the fact that she had died and transferring the land into my name. He said he took them to the county clerk of Agua Fresca. Isn’t that in Copper Ridge?”

  He nodded. “What was it she left you?”

  “Her husband’s Mexican land grant, the whole of Cañon del Sangre de Cristo and a bit of the surrounding area.”

  “Didn’t you worry that the judge or the sheriff of Mud Wasp would still be looking for you?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. Annie Faith was left for dead. Who was to know she’d turn up again years later as Anna Bennett? And who’s to care about some remote land grant that this Bennett woman owned? The canyon’s beautiful, but what’s it good for?”

  What’s it good for? The phrase brought back a snatch of conversation he’d overhead while he was waiting to talk to the judge one morning about six weeks before. The assayer was just leaving, telling Cameron, “You see a worthless wilderness, and you wonder what’s it good for, ’cept as spawnin’ grounds for redskins and a coupla sorry Mexican ranchos. Then all a sudden like, it’s a place that turns men into kings. It’s a modern miracle, it’s that.”

  The two had laughed, and afterward, Judge Cameron had emphasized that Quinn was paid to see to law and order only within the bounds of Copper Ridge. He’d spewed out some legal nonsense regarding jurisdictions, but Quinn didn’t pay much heed. He’d ceased to care much about anything since he had learned his family died.

  The memory of those black years fell upon him like a shroud, but he shrugged aside the dark and forced his mind to focus on the conversation he was having now.

  He used a curved pick to clean his mare’s hooves. “Cameron must have somehow found out who you are, or he would have never sent Hamby after you this late.”

  “But how?”

  He frowned at her, hating to bring up the possibility. “Wanted posters? They would give your name and alias.”

  “But I never —” she began, then stopped abruptly.

  “Never drugged and robbed anybody besides me?” He let go of Titania’s near foreleg, and she stamped on his big toe. Stifling a yelp, he watched for Anna’s reaction to his question and moved on to the next hoof.

  Her back stiffened, and her voice grew defiant. “Back in Virginia City. I hired on to be a singer, but he tried to force me to be a whore!”

  “Where else, Anna?”

  “That was all, I swear it.”

  “Anna?”

  Her eyes narrowed at the skepticism in his voice.

  He shrugged. “I told you, what you did then doesn’t matter. It was all so long ago, you won’t be prosecuted.”

  “I did what I had to to survive.”

  “Honey, I did things I’m not proud of either.”

  “But you did none of them to me.”

  “You’ve also saved me, in more ways than I can put into words. I’ve forgiven you for what happened back in Mud Wasp. Why can’t you forgive yourself?”

  She didn’t answer, but instead reached for the hoof pick and cleaned her mount’s hooves as well.


  Ryan continued with his theory. “What if there was something in your canyon Cameron wanted? There’s a lot of copper mined now in these parts.”

  She shrugged. “Seems like awfully far to go for copper.”

  “It might be high-grade enough to make it worthwhile. Or maybe we’re talking about silver, even gold. I may have heard a part of something — Cameron talking with the assayer.” He shook his head. “But it might have been nothing, just a pair of greedy bastards jawing. Happens in saloons all over every day.”

  She nodded mute agreement, then hobbled the horse so he could graze without getting far away. Afterward, she went to her pack and pulled out a pair of blankets that she had borrowed for bedding. After shaking out the first, she kicked aside a few stones and laid it down.

  The sun nestled between a pair of distant hills, its descent painting the sky scarlet and coral with a smudge of indigo. She sat on the blanket and stared up at it, away from him.

  He was hungry, and he knew that he should start a fire so they could cook. But instead, he walked closer, by her side, just so he could watch her looking. Just so he could see the cool light bathe her face, the colors paint her eyes.

  “It’s so beautiful,” she whispered, still staring heavenward. “I’ve seen just a slice from inside the canyon, but out here it’s boundless, isn’t it? There’s so much, it’s almost frightening. It’s just another thing that scares me.”

  She was rubbing at her bruised wrist, and he sat down beside her to take over the task. And the two of them just sat there, watching as the day receded. Watching as the first bright stars emerged.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Copper Ridge

  April 10,1884

  That stupid bastard, Horace Singletary, must not want to live much longer than his papa. Sitting behind his big, black walnut desk, Ward Cameron crumpled up the telegram, his fury escalating with the pounding of his heart.

  So Singletary had wired the office of the United States Marshal requesting an investigation, had he? Too damned bad he didn’t realize the marshal’s deputy, Norris Foster, who’d received the message, was Cameron’s associate in another mining venture down near Tucson. The mine might have played out early and cost them both a pretty penny, but a bond of greed had formed between the two entrepreneurs. No way was Foster going to begrudge Cameron his chance to earn a buck now — particularly not with Singletary helping him earn his old partner’s gratitude, perhaps even a cut.

  Foster’s assistance might cost him dearly, but Cameron was still grateful for the warning, among other things. Foster added a cryptic line about delaying things a bit. That must mean that he had “lost” Singletary’s first request.

  But in the end, that wouldn’t matter. Knowing young Horace, he would bury the marshal’s office in telegrams until he had his inquiry. And then what? Cameron couldn’t hope to buy off the district marshal, too.

  That wasn’t all of it, either. He’d heard from Elena about how Horace had shown up on his doorstep, shouting threats. And just how graciously his new bride had greeted the young man.

  He wondered what the hell Lucy thought that she was doing? If she talked privately to Singletary, he could fill her head with his suspicions. She could leave her new husband then, crying to her father about what a brute he’d been. If that happened, their marriage would last only long enough to give her bastard his name.

  Senator Worthington would be furious when Lucy hinted at mistreatment at his hands. She’d no doubt offer her father the very lie that Cameron had suggested, that they’d secretly married during his earlier visit east, to explain the early birth. And Worthington would use Cameron’s alleged crimes as an excuse to completely cut him off. Without any favors, forevermore, amen.

  They’d laugh at him back East, the senator and all his old schoolmates. And the U.S. Marshal might turn up enough evidence to have him indicted him on a host of charges. If that happened, he’d lose his fine house, even Elena. His life, in essence, would completely go to hell.

  His problems had only one solution, one surprisingly appealing and easily arranged. One so gratifying that he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it months before, when the upstart clerk had just begun to bare his teeth.

  Horace Singletary must join his father. Cameron only hoped it would be soon enough.

  * * *

  “I want to make un trabajo against a man-thief,” Elena hissed. Again and again, she wadded her lace handkerchief into a tiny sphere and prayed that the old man would cast a potent spell.

  The curandero stared at her intently. Difficult to imagine what he thought of her request, peering at her as he did with those cloudy eyes. Blind eyes, and yet they saw things that Elena never could. Their gaze took in the spiritual, if not the physical, world.

  For Elena’s comfort, he lit several candles to dispel the evening gloom. Despite his sightlessness and swollen knuckles, he handled the matches expertly.

  Waiting for his answer, she felt as if the walls and ceilings of the narrow shack were closing in on her. From the rafters, both the scents and forms of dried bunches of herbs hung heavy: sweet basil and vervain, oregano and borage. There were others that she couldn’t name, most harmless, but at least one her mother had warned her long ago would kill goats or sheep, even cattle, if they grazed on it.

  “Who is this woman you would make a spell against?” the healer asked.

  “A stranger who would take the one that I love, Tío.” The curandero liked it when younger people called him Uncle, though they were not related. Perhaps the affectionate name would keep him from asking questions she did not wish to answer regarding Miss Lucinda Worthington.

  “The Americana, is it?”

  How could she have thought she could hide anything from him? “For a blind man, you see all too clearly.”

  “Have I not told you, your judge will never wed you? For you, the future holds another path. Embrace it, and not a man who shows you no respect.”

  She leapt to her feet, suddenly realizing his source of information. “My mother has been coming here to tell her tales!”

  He smiled, his lips crinkling around mostly toothless gums. “Patients often come for help with their disobedient children. Many a conjure have I held over you, and many a pastry has your mother baked in payment. Tell me, do you cook as well as she?”

  Forgetting for a moment that he could not see her, Elena scowled at the bone-thin old man. “You will grow fat on my problems if you will help me with the Eastern bride.”

  He coughed harshly. Then his head swiveled on his corded neck. “Not for a barrel of cuernitos will I do this. Can you not see the evil in this man you say you love?”

  Evil? No, she would not see it. She could only recognize what he could give her. A way to have things no other man she knew could provide. A way to live inside the fine home she deserved.

  She had earned that life. When the judge had come to her, she had learned to be a woman, a woman who could pleasure him as no one had before. Had he not told her that? Had he not whispered other sweet things and given her fine gifts?

  Tears welled in her eyes, blurring shelves filled with bottles of blessed water, candles, and ground roots. Tears that told her that this Eastern woman must have somehow bewitched Elena’s lover into marriage, for she refused to believe all they’d had had been a lie.

  If her judge truly loved this stranger, wouldn’t he have allowed her to send Elena away? Instead, he’d come to her in secret just after the wedding, and he’d asked her to stay. He’d kissed Elena then, in the manner of a man whose heart was filled with love.

  And then he’d left her, to couple with his new wife. She swiped away angry tears with the wadded handkerchief.

  “If you are not my friend, you cannot be my uncle either,” she told the old man.

  She turned on her heel to leave, and the knot of hair behind her head caught in a bunch of drying herbs. Reaching up, she realized that it was the deadly plant.

  She glanced nervously at the old man. Wou
ld he somehow see her? Sometimes, he seemed to know so much. But how much of his apparent sight was based on gossip?

  If she missed this chance, she might not have another. She imagined indignity after indignity heaped on her by this bride. Orders to clean the house in her way, to cook her tasteless recipes, and after awhile, to tend her babies, those she would make with the judge.

  No! She could not bear to think of it! The thought was like a blade thrust through her heart.

  As Elena reached up to disentangle her chignon, she snapped off a section of the plant. Pushing it into a pocket of her skirt, she walked out before she had a chance to lose her nerve.

  Later, in the judge’s kitchen, she pulled out the brittle stem and feathery dried leaves of the weed, which sometimes grew along the water’s edges. She’d been so frightened in the curandero’s shack, she’d taken quite a bit.

  Enough to kill a bull, at least.

  Enough, then, to put a man-thief in the ground where she belonged.

  * * *

  Anna vividly remembered the last time she’d ridden into Copper Ridge. Hands tied behind her, eyes downcast, she’d taken in very little of the town. Still, she recalled some sort of main street bordered by the usual cantinas, a blacksmith shop, and a general store. Besides that, she remembered only a host of blurred faces watching from the street. Some tossed off rude comments; several children had thrown rocks. One stone struck her shoulder, and that had stung, but not as much as coming here a prisoner. She would have been kept in the Mud Wasp jail instead, but Sheriff Baker had no intention of housing a female prisoner for a month until the circuit judge came through. His wife, who fed the small jail’s inhabitants, had taken one look at Anna in her violet silk dress before declaring she must go immediately.