Amelia

by Diana Palmer

  Quinn hadn't interrupted once. He stared at this terrible outlaw who was wanted by so many people for his lawless actsand he hated the star in his saddlebags for bringing him to this. If Rodriguez was a bad man, where was a good one?

  "I am wrong, you think, no?" Rodriguez asked, staring at the other man with eyes that did not waver or fall. "I shoot up the towns and kill the gringos and steal money and cattle, and for that I must be arrested and tried and hanged in Texas"he pronounced it in the Spanish way, tehas "for my crimes."

  "I think that you have a long way to go before you can qualify as a criminal in the true sense of the word," Quinn said evasively. "Your people would die for you."

  " Sí , that is true."

  Quinn looked around at the Spartan little hut. Rodriguez had very few possessions, most of which were very old. There was a set of spurs and a nickle-plated, ivory-handled Colt .45 which Rodriguez was wearing, and they might have some intrinsic value. But there was nothing here that spoke of ill-gotten gains.

  "Are you looking for the great wealth I am supposed to possess?" Rodriguez asked pleasantly. "Let me show it to you."

  Quinn expected him to pull out a strongbox and open it, displaying coins and jewels. But the bandit got to his feet and motioned Quinn along with him.

  They went through the pueblo then, and Rodriguez began to point to various new additions. There were good oak buckets for the central fountain from which the people got their water. There were carts and good harnesses to hitch, and mules to hitch them to, so the farmers could transport their goods from the fields. There were horses and cattle and pigs, shared between all the families. And most of all, there was a chapel with a gold cross at the altar and stained glass windows.

  "Is it not beautiful?" Rodriguez asked as they stood inside the small chapel, with its long wood pews. "My people made these things. We did not steal them," he added carefully. "We did, I am sad to say, steal the artisan who makes the windows," he murmured, and crossed himself, "but it was in a good cause. We gave to him our prettiest young single woman, Lolita, whom he married. He now has five children, and he is one of us, and his windows are a glory to God and our people. So perhaps it was not such a very bad thing to steal him, huh?"

  Quinn threw back his head and laughed heartily. "Perhaps it was not," he agreed.

  Maria came back while they were walking in the pueblo, scrubbed, with her long black hair brushed clean. She looked very pretty in her white peasant dress and black mantilla and small sandaled feet. She walked beside Quinn, gently grasping his hand in hers.

  "I see that you, too, may someday become a resident of our pueblo, señor ," Rodriguez murmured dryly, glancing at the small hand curled trustingly into his big one. He pursed his lips in obvious calculation and eyed the taller man insistently. "So, tell me, what skills do you possess that will benefit our poor village?"

  Chapter Fifteen

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  Amelia was tired of being bedridden. She hated staring at four walls and feeling so weak and helpless. Her headache was better, although she was drowsy from the medication. But she felt different already. She had been released from the prison her father's illness had made for her, and life even with its uncertainties had taken on a new brightness. She might not even have a place to live when she was recovered, but she could face that. She could work as a seamstress or a nanny or even a governess. It would mean leaving Latigo. But there was no choice about that. King wanted nothing to do with her.

  King had avoided her for the two days she'd been in residence. She had one glimpse of him, dressed in his nice dark suit the day before, as he joined the others for her father's funeral. Rosa sat with Amelia, who cried a little for the father whose memory was just beginning to return to her. But it was the old memories that made her sad, not the most recent one. She prayed for her father and hoped that he would be untormented in the realm he'd advanced to. The man who had beaten her was not her father; he was a product of the killing tumor, and she could not find it in her heart to hate a sick man.

  It was time to think of getting back on her feet, though.

  "May I get dressed and come to the table for supper, do you think?" she asked Enid later.

  The older woman pursed her lips. "If you feel like it, certainly. It should prove interesting."

  "Your oldest son is avoiding me," she said bluntly. Her eyes twinkled. "Do I frighten him?"

  Enid chuckled. "I wonder," she said unexpectedly. "He talks to himself lately."

  "A sure sign of insensibility," Amelia said. She got up and put on her robe, steadying herself by holding on to the bedpost. She tied the ribbons in front. "I can't stay much longer, you know," she said unexpectedly, meeting the old woman's eyes.

  "Alan would very much like to marry you," Enid began.

  "I'm very fond of Alan, but I will not marry him," came the quiet reply. "I have a cousin in Jacksonville, Florida. I can cable her and see if she will have me to stay." The words hurt when she said them, as if she were considering tearing out her heart. To leave King would be like that. She hadn't remembered much, but she had remembered how she felt about him, and that her feelings weren't reciprocated.

  "Oh, Amelia," Enid said worriedly. "It is so far from us and from Quinn. He will be devastated!"

  Amelia smoothed her hands over the silky wood of the bedpost. She was trying to think and failing miserably. "I know he will, but I have very few alternatives."

  Loud footsteps caught their attention. King paused in the doorway, scowling at the picture Amelia made in her lacy night things with her blond hair loose around her shoulders.

  "Peeping Tom," she said icily, her eyes flashing at him.

  His eyebrows lifted. "If you will stand half-naked in front of an open door, what do you expect?"

  "Courtesy, sir, and I get little enough of that commodity from you."

  He leaned insolently against the doorway, half a smile on his lean face. "You might get more if you stop flinging glass objects at my head," he pointed out.

  "What? And give up the only pleasure I have left?"

  King chuckled. "I came to ask about your health. It seems there was little need for it." He shouldered away from the door and walked on down the hall.

  Amelia's cheeks went rosy from the encounter, which rather embarrassed her. "I do beg your pardon," she told an amused Enid, "but he seems to bring out unfamiliar qualities in me."

  "I don't think he minds, Amelia. Let me close the door, and you can get dressed. I was just about to put the food on the table."

  It was a spirited meal. Amelia's appetite was still small, and she was struggling against the effects of her travails of the past few days. But she was more animated than any of the Culhanes had seen her. Alan was watching her with curiosity and faint misgivings.

  "Are you certain that you're better?" Alan persisted. "You don't seem at all like yourself."

  "I haven't been myself for four years, Alan, not since my little brothers died and my father began to have violent spells," she said quietly. "I learned how to keep him calm, at first for Mama's sake, and then for my own."

  "Weren't you afraid?" Alan asked.

  "Of course," she said. "He lost control completely in those moods, but he was my father, and I had loved him very much when he was still in his right mind. One does not desert loved ones, Alan, even when it entails some measure of risk. What would Quinn have thought of me if I had saved myself at my father's expense?"

  King was listening, and watching, without adding to the conversation.

  "We have still not been able to find Quinn. I'm sure he's all right," Brant added quickly, when Amelia began to look worried. "But he's in a part of Mexico that's far away from a telegraph office. I'm afraid it will come as a shock to him, if he knew nothing of your father's condition."

  "I made certain that he didn't," Amelia said. "He had his own concerns, and I was quite capable of tending Father."

  "My God, a paragon of all the virtues," King said flatly. "Had you no thoug
hts of self-preservation at all?"

  She stared at him. "Mr. Culhane, in my position, exactly what would you have done?" she challenged.

  He shrugged. "What you did, of course." He glowered at her. "But you might have told us how serious the situation was. It was stupid of you not to tell us the truth about your father."

  "What King means," Alan said, starting to smooth it over.

  Amelia held up a hand. "What King means," she said for him, "is that I behaved stupidly, which I did. You have no need to gloss over his stinging remarks, Alan, I have no fear of either Mr. Culhane or his nasty temper!"

  Alan flushed and turned his attention back to his food. He didn't look at her again, and Amelia realized that he was intimidated by her. She gaped at him, disbelieving.

  "Have some more potatoes, dear," Enid said quickly. She understood the whole situation, as did Brant. King eyed Amelia with twinkling eyes, animated and relaxed. He enjoyed her spirited repartee. Alan did not. Just as well, Enid thought, that things had happened as they did. Alan would have been miserable when he discovered that his sweet little sparrow was, in fact, a feisty little wren.

  Amelia and King went from one subject to another, debating, fencing over issues as disparate as politics and the Boer War. She found their discussions uplifting, challenging. King lost some points, won others, but she'd never seen him quite as open. She was sorry when the meal was over and it was time for her to lie down again. But she was tired. Being out of bed had weakened her, and she was ready for her pillow.

  "You debate well," King remarked as they passed in the hall. "Who taught you?"

  "Quinn. He enjoys political discussions, and he knows a lot about what goes on," she said. She smiled. "So do I."

  "As I noticed." His pale eyes swept over her wan face quietly. "You have overtaxed. Get some sleep."

  "Do you think Alan would take me to see Papa's grave tomorrow?" she asked without looking up. "I should like to see where he is resting."

  "I'll take you," he replied.

  She lifted her troubled eyes. "But"

  He searched her eyes. His were narrow and dark with pain. "There are things that I must tell you," he said slowly, reluctant to break the accord between them. "Things you must hear, that no one else knows."

  She knew, then, that her memory was covering up something very unpleasant. "Do you know why my father beat me?"

  "Yes," he said heavily. "God help me, I know."

  She wanted to press him, but there were other people within earshot, and she knew instinctively that she wouldn't want to share what he told her. "You will tell me tomorrow?"

  He nodded. He shoved his hands into his jean pockets and stared down at her without speaking for a long moment. "You did play Indians in the backyard with your little brothers, didn't you?" he asked unexpectedly.

  She laughed, surprised. "Oh, yes, and climbed trees and went hunting for spring lizards in the streams," she said sadly. "Those days are long gone. I will always mourn the boys."

  "As long as we remember those we lose, they don't die. Not really," he said. He reached out and touched her cheek, very gently. "Sleep well, Amelia."

  "You do the same." She moved down the hall, a little unsteady on her feet, not daring to look back. He stood and watched her all the way into her room. His eyes darkened as he realized that she was going to hate him when she knew the truth, and he had no option but to tell it to her. Life was sometimes very harsh.

  Quinn was still trying to find some way out of his own predicament. Maria's young brother, Juliano, had also latched onto him, and the village people treated him as if he were already part of their families.

  He was here falsely, but he couldn't, didn't dare, tell them who and what he was. Many Mexicans were afraid of the Rangers, understandably in view of the turbulent past when plenty of them had been killed by the Texas lawmen. Maria would be devastated. And as for his own position, he would be fortunate indeed if he made it to a horse before these loyal men of Rodriguez's cut him to pieces with those horse pistols they were packing.

  Rodriguez clapped him on the back heartily and laughed. "It was a joke, señor ," he said. "I do not measure every man who comes here for a profession. It is simply that our poor village needs so much, you see. If I do not bring talented craftsmen here, how will we become a thriving city instead of a sad little pueblo?"

  "There's a lot to be said for a small village," Quinn felt obliged to point out.

  " Sí , that is so." Rodriguez looked around him with loving eyes, as if every person in the pueblo, every building, every rock and blade of grass was part of him. "We are very lucky, señor . We share, each with the other, whatever we have."

  Quinn turned to the older man, his eyes steady on the other's face. "You steal to feed these people, don't you?"

  Rodriguez shrugged. "A starving man begs or steals bread, señor ." His dark eyes flickered. "I would rather die than beg."

  There was a cold sort of logic in the answer, but Quinn understood what he meant. A man's pride was not lightly cast into the dirt.

  "You think it is wrong. Perhaps it is," Rodriguez agreed quietly. "But there is a drought. We cannot grow our own food, and we have eaten what little was set aside last fall. Some will starve, in spite of what I do. Madre de Díos , the children," he groaned, and tears welled in his eyes. " Señor , I tell you, it is unbearable to watch a child cry for food and have nothing to hand it except promises of a better day." He wiped the tears away angrily with his sleeve. "I swear by our Blessed Virgin, I will not stand by and let these niños go without food, and if it is wrong, someday they hang me, and I don't care."

  Quinn cursed under his breath. How did you argue morality when people were dying? "Still," he said heavily, "there must be some other way!"

  "There is," the Mexican agreed angrily. "We could sit on the streets in El Paso or Juarez and beg."

  Quinn blew out a breath. "Well, even in your situation, I could not do that."

  Rodriguez chuckled. "Pride is Satan's best weapon, no? We have too much. Yet, señor , the wealthy also have too much and will not share with those less fortunate."

  "That isn't always the case."

  "Then why are so many people hungry?"

  "Now that, I can't tell you. It's a crazy world."

  "Fortunately, it contains enough banks to feed my niños and provide a few animals with which to farm, when the rains come again. And they will," he added with certainty, "because we have prayed to the Blessed Virgin each day to intervene for us. She will answer our prayers, señor . She hears the cries of the children. Always."

  It wasn't easy for Quinn to understand that kind of faith, but he didn't argue. He'd seen a miracle or two in his life.

  He'd meant to leave the village immediately. It was impossible. Maria's big blue eyes pleaded, and he stayed. One day turned into two, then three, and finally into a week. All the while, he learned about the people of the pueblo and got to know them, was accepted by them, and by Rodriguez.

  His conscience had twinges, because he felt he was betraying these people already. He was sworn to take Rodriguez in, but he couldn't. The man wasn't all bad. He had a wonderful, generous nature, and he cared about his people. Besides, he was Maria's adopted father, her whole world.

  Of course, Maria was rapidly becoming Quinn's whole world. She was with him from morning until night, and he craved her as a thirsty man craved water. But he would not give in to the temptation to take her to bed. Not when he knew the anguish she'd suffered at the hands of other men. He was gentle and caring and tenderly affectionate. But the time finally came when he had to leave the pueblo, and Maria. It was very hard. Because he was in love, for the first time in his life.

  "Will you not stay with us?" Rodriguez asked, sadness claiming his round face when Quinn stated his intention to leave.

  Quinn ground his teeth together. "I wish I could," he said huskily, staring at a stricken Maria. "I would give anything if I could. But I have business back in Texas. I'll come back w
hen I can," he added.

  Maria's sad face lightened.

  "You will be welcome," Rodriguez said. "Bless you, señor , for saving my girl."

  "She was worth saving," Quinn said, and in his dark eyes were love and anguish at having to leave her.

  Maria went forward and took his hands in hers. "I will wait for you," she said gently, tears in her big blue eyes. "No matter how long it takes!"

  He looked, and felt, torn apart. "I'll come back," he swore. "I'll come back for you!"

  She caught her breath and impulsively hugged him with all her might. Then, before he could speak, she pulled away and ran toward her hut.

  "Women," Rodriguez said with lazy affection. "So emotional." He extended his hand, and Quinn shook it. " Vaya con Díos ," he added.

  "And you."

  Quinn reluctantly mounted his horse. He did have business in Texas, involving figuring a way to bring this pleasant Mexican to the gallows. He didn't look back as he rode away. He didn't know how he was going to live with himself, either.

  When he crossed the border into El Paso, he was dog tired, but he went by the telegraph office to send a wire to his post in Alpine. But he found a message waiting for him, and the fatigue was submerged in an anguish of grief. His father, the cable read, had died suddenly. His sister was at Latigo.

  He forgot to send the telegram to his post in his haste to reach the boardinghouse where his father had lived.

  "But your father wasn't living here," the landlady told Quinn. "He bought a house for himself and Miss Amelia, just down the street." She walked out onto the sidewalk and pointed toward it. "Buried him just yesterday. Not many people came, but he was new in town. Your sister wasn't able to come. She was with him when he died, they say. He treated her like dirt," she added, staring up at him. "Sweet girl, always doing her best to please him. He made her cry all the time. I'm sorry he died, being your father and all, but I was sorrier for your sister. All over town, about her and that rancher at Latigo, King Culhane. Said her father really laid into her when he found out. Pity, it was. Nice girl like that, who'd think she'd be a loose-liver?"