“No, thank you.” He does not look up.
Rosalía sweeps inside, past Ivy. “Thank you for your help today, Winter. Don’t go back for more after this, will you? Everyone was there.” Rosalía kisses her cheek and lifts a bowl large enough for an infant to sleep in from the rinse basin to rest on a drying rack. “Hope you don’t mind, I need a word with my brother.”
Winter’s smile slips, eyes widening. Ivy knows how she feels. “A word” between the two never seems to be a pleasant circumstance to witness.
“Of course.” Winter struggles to lift the smile back. “Have a seat. Would you like anything?”
“Not at all. Won’t be long.” Rosalía steps to the sofa while Ivy stands beside it.
Grip looks at her, then out through the bright door.
Rosalía sits at the edge of the cowhide with her back straight, knees together, hands folded in her lap. She takes a breath, smooths her circle skirt, looks at Grip.
Grip glances at her.
“I’m sorry for saving your life.”
He narrows his eye.
“And ... for what I said and being female and being such an inconvenience: always aiding when you least want it, since you’d rather die and appear honorable than live with the shadow of—”
“Right,” Ivy says. She smiles at Grip. “Anything you want to say?”
He stares at her. “Do you suppose we are five years old, Miss Jerinson?”
“I did not. Until you both began acting like it.”
Grip looks at Rosalía. “What do you want?”
“Want?” She raises her eyebrows.
“Rose apologized,” Ivy says, knowing how she sounds, yet unable to think of a way to beat around the bush. “Don’t you feel you owe her one?”
He shifts his gaze to Ivy once more. “I feel she owes me the courtesy of leaving me alone. Yet one seldom finds life playing out the way one feels it should.”
“Yes ... but you have control over this.”
He looks out the door again.
Rosalía stands. “Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.”
“Rose—” Ivy starts.
She walks past Ivy, out the door.
Winter’s dishes stop clattering. Silence fills the little house as all three look toward the empty doorway.
Ivy shifts her gaze to Grip. For a long time she waits until he meets her eyes. She remembers his lecture when he disagreed with her actions. Yet she does not have time. And “cad” does not cover enough ground, while she is not at liberty to use stronger language, though she has learned enough of it lately.
Grip looks away first, back to watching the door.
Ivy is two blocks off before she recalls she has nowhere to go. Boarding house. She certainly needs to check on a place to stay. And what about staying out on the trail? What about the coach?
Should she ask Sam? How can she? Could she just ... go? Luck and a pack horse? How could she manage both, even if she found no other trouble—which, out here, is a laughable thought anyway.
Livery is not exactly on the way to the boarding house, but she makes a stop to inquire. To her surprise, she finds Mr. Quiles present on Sunday afternoon, talking animatedly in Spanish to stable boys in the front alley before the first row of stalls. His harsh tone vanishes when he spots her and he smiles.
“Señorita Jerinson, so pleased to see you!”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Quiles. I’ve come to ask about the loan of a pack animal. Do you have—?” She pauses, watching his face.
The man looks ... nervous. The smile ingratiating. Both stable boys step back.
“What happened?” Ivy asks, shoulders tense. “Are they all right? They were healing well—even the gelding.”
“Oh, fine, fine, señorita. I am sure they are quite well.”
“Sure? What do you mean, you’re sure?”
“They are, you see—not all—only the mare and—”
“What happened?”
“They are ... desaparecido ... missing.”
Ivy blinks. “Pardon me?”
“Since last night. Four horses in the back row were ... quitado—removed—”
“Stolen! Our horses were stolen and you didn’t even find us to tell us?”
“Now, señorita, sometimes these—”
“Where is the sheriff? Where are they? Do you know which way they went?” Panic floods her chest, nearly choking her. What if they are gone ... forever?
What would she do without Luck? Without that balky, shying, flighty, head-shy, crazy mare she has nothing. She has no transport, no freedom, no independence. And she is broke. She needs the horse to get the money to get a new horse. A million horrors rush her until she wants to shake the man, scream at him.
He holds up his hands, smiling nervously as he tells her she still has the bay gelding. None of the horses in the pens were touched.
In the pens. If she left Chucklehead in that pen he would be safe. Now they are down to one crippled mustang between three riders and it is her fault.
She brushes past him, sick, stomach flopping over like a sack of fish. She races down the row, staring at each horse as she goes. There could be a mistake. Melchior was always complaining about having the mare along. Nothing but trouble. So why her? And Chucklehead, speaking of trouble, why would anyone steal either? But they might have been in a hurry; grabbing horses in a row. Besides, despite his objectionable temperament, Chucklehead is a magnificent animal in appearance. They may have chosen for resale. Take the bunch north or east, past a border, sell them somewhere people lost horses to risers. They could charge anything for a striking stallion and healthy broodmare.
Not here. She looks and looks, down the row, out to corrals with Quiles calling after her. Not there either. Her fault. She will never see them again and that stallion could be one of the last of Uncle Charles’s renowned herd and the mare was all she had for her own freedom and life. Her earning potential, her movement, her very existence out here is wrapped up in that horse. All this time she did not know, could not know, what it would mean to be without the only creature standing between herself and total captivity in this desolate place. So much more than Ivy realized. Always there.
Out to the first pen, she finds Elsewhere lifting his face from a manger to watch her, hay drifting off his thick forelock.
Trembling, Ivy clutches the gate. She should have known by now. Should have thanked God each morning for blessing her with a horse. Her most wonderful, most precious commodity out West—anywhere. Gone.
Forty-Seventh
Muchas Chicas
“Ivy, wake up. You’re the last ready.”
Why do people always seem to be wanting her to wake up, get up, and do things she does not want to do?
“Ivy—”
“Rose?” Ivy sits up on the cowhide. Winter’s adobe house is lavender with dawn light and a single ray of white light striking the front wall through the washroom window. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you think? You were in a huge hurry yesterday.”
“What?” Ivy rubs her eyes, keeping her voice hushed. “That was before you stormed off and I found out about the horses and Melchior dressed me down and I tried to tell you about it but you would hardly speak to me either—”
Rosalía waves a hand at her. She wears trousers and her overcoat with vertical slits for riding. “I have a solution for you and your cousin is an ass—it wasn’t your fault—and we’re ready to go.”
“How did you get in? Is Winter even up?”
“Your window is standing open. We’ll tell her goodbye. Come on.”
Ivy struggles after her, pushing back a quilt. “I didn’t mean to keep imposing on her. The boarding house—what do you mean you have a solution? Luck is gone.”
“You’re going to borrow a horse. I told you, Íñigo raises animals. Galleta is getting old now but Correcaminos is a wonderful animal.”
“I thought you weren’t going?” Ivy grabs her dress off the arm of the sofa. “Speaking
of people who are—you know—what about your brother?”
“He’s tacking up.”
“Coming with us?” Ivy starts for the washroom, noting her side is scarcely sore. “How is your shoulder?”
“Fine. He said he expected you’d be going out to find the coach. We talked last night. He came by after supper.”
“He did? The sidesaddle is still at the—”
“Will you run to Harris’s for us? Get bacon, cornmeal, coffee?” Rosalía steps away to the door of the back room as they hear movement within.
“All right....”
“We’ll bring the horses and meet you at the shop in a few minutes.” She murmurs something through the door, reassuring Winter it is only them and they are stepping out, then slips to the front door and vanishes.
Ivy scrambles to get ready. Even so, it is fifteen minutes before her boots are laced and she follows Rosalía out. She dashes for Harris’s, relieved to find neither Grip nor Rosalía yet waiting for her. With the sun just up, several men and a couple of women are already on the streets after the morning’s first egg gathering and milking.
The shop door is locked, but Harris himself pulls it open as Ivy tries an experimental tug.
The ruddy-faced proprietor starts at sight of her. “What do you want?”
“I have cash,” Ivy says automatically.
“Oh, well....” He glances at her handbag.
She would have nothing if she had not managed to pry a handful of silver three-cent, five-cent, and twenty-five-cent pieces from Melchior, hoping to pay for a room from Mrs. Acker.
“Only a few bags,” she goes on. “I won’t linger, Mr. Harris.” She produces the tarnished quarters, leaving the three-cent nickels out of sight.
He grudgingly steps back, glancing up and down the street to make sure no one else gets any ideas. “Not open for an hour.”
“Thank you so much.”
By the time Ivy is back on his porch before the hitching post, arms full of bags, door bolted with a clatter behind her, her travel fellows are still nowhere to be seen. She sighs, staring down at the Arbuckles’ lying at the top of her little heap.
When she looks up, she spots two familiar figures walking slowly along the board sidewalk at the shop’s corner. Isn’t it too soon for Melchior to be on his feet? Sam walks beside him, asking something to which Melchior shakes his head.
“Feel dandy. Scarcely a twinge. Said I should take exercise, didn’t he?”
“I believe he meant around the room, Mel. Not—”
Melchior looks up to see Ivy beside the door with her arms full. “Doing here? Didn’t think Harris was in so early.”
His tone is hostile: a flashback to the evening before, when she had to tell him about their horses. His sympathetic understanding at the news capped when he said her mare was no good anyway and it was about time she got herself a real horse. That was when she left.
Ivy steps to the empty hitching post, looking north to see Grip and Rosalía approaching, leading three horses. Shoulders squared, she faces them, her back to Melchior and Sam.
“Ivy...?” Sam’s hesitant voice. “Are you going somewhere?” He sounds anxious, almost fearful.
“I won’t be long.” Ivy does not look around.
Grip and Rosalía look past Ivy to the two as they approach, Grip impassive, Rosalía frowning.
“Quiles was charging a fortune for a pack horse lease,” Rosalía tells Ivy. “We’ll manage without.” She slings Volar’s rein around the post while Grip pauses with El Cohete and the black mare Ivy saw yesterday in the pen with Volar.
The mare is fitted in a sidesaddle, but not Ivy’s: decrepit, leather splitting, cracked and scuffed. They seem to have borrowed this from the livery. Luck’s saddle would be nowhere near large enough for the black mare—just past fifteen hands and powerfully built, probably two hundred pounds heavier than Luck.
“You’re not coming?” Rosalía asks, again looking past Ivy to the two men.
“They’re here by coincidence,” Ivy says, staring at the horse.
“What is going on?” Sam asks, sounding more uncomfortable than ever.
Grip throws the mare’s rein around the post and drops El Cohete’s bosal rope in dust. He and Rosalía lift sacks from Ivy’s arms.
“You two resolved an inopportune moment to take a walk,” Grip says, turning to fill his saddlebags. “The ABCs were packing at the livery as we left. Drifting out of town this morning.”
“What of them?” Melchior sounds almost as irritable as he did when speaking to Ivy.
Grip pulls a toggle through leather, then faces Melchior. “Are you aware that your cousin saved your life by assuring the Gordons you were unfit to duel? If they spot you in our company now, they shall have little difficulty savvying your identity.” He walks around to El Cohete’s far side to finish packing. “And you will make her appear a liar.”
Ivy holds her hand out to the black mare, then gingerly rubs the velvet nose with her knuckles.
Melchior tries the door of the general store—“How’d you get in there?”—while Sam urges him to return to the doctor’s.
“Ivy, this is Correcaminos,” Rosalía says, stroking the mare’s neck. As if nothing—corrrrrr rolling off her tongue like honey. “Correcaminos, conocer Ivy.”
“How do you do,” Ivy says, but glances imploringly to Rosalía. “You do not expect me to say that, do you?”
Rosalía grins. “Call her Corra.” But she still rolls the R as if adding extra syllables.
Ivy nods. “Thank you for the loan. It means a lot. Was Íñigo all right with you taking her?”
Rosalía shrugs and Ivy is unsure if that means he did not mind or she did not tell him.
“Mel, please.”
“Don’t know what you—” Melchior starts.
Grip steps back around his horse, apparently ready to go. He pulls a rolled cigarette from his breast pocket, glancing up the street. “Already stepping out.”
Sam whips around to see. He grabs Melchior’s arm, dragging him to the edge of the sidewalk where they crouch behind the hitching post, concealed from the road by the dark bulks of Volar and Correcaminos.
“What does it mean?” Ivy asks, stroking the mare’s cheek. Not at all head-shy like Luck, she sniffs Ivy, then stands quietly, ears up.
“After the bird,” Rosalía says. “You know.”
“Sorry...? What bird?”
“Correcaminos, the runner.” Rosalía frowns. Ivy has never seen her at a loss for an English word. She looks around at Grip. “What’s the Anglos’ name for the correcaminos?”
“Ground cuckoo, snake killer.” He strikes a match across a stud on El Cohete’s saddle skirts.
“Those little birds with the speckled bodies and stick tails that seem always to be grounded?” Ivy asks. “We had them at the ranch. I haven’t seen them here.”
“Not many in these mountains.” Grip looks up as two horsemen ride past.
Adair and Boyd Gordon tip their Homburgs to the three as they go. Grip touches his hat, but hardly spares them a glance, shaking out his match. Ivy and Rosalía nod, both staring as rising sun silhouettes the brothers’ perfect profiles, smooth jaws, chiseled features. Their frock coats are dustless and fitted. Their boots gleaming. Any bandages are hidden by new trousers. Even their horses shine in the sun, manes and tails flowing, gleaming like society coach steeds.
With the two on their way down the road, Melchior and Sam half stand to watch them go, heads turning in unison with Ivy’s and Rosalía’s, all four following progress of the outlaws in silence.
Grip flicks away his match, lifts the cigarette from his lips to blow out smoke, squinting in the direction of the sun, then turns to them.
“If we are going we must—” He stops, glaring at the four, then glancing after the riders. “Christ.” He returns the cigarette to his mouth and throws his horse’s rope over his mane. “Viajo con mucho chicas.”
Rosalía laughs.
“What
did he say?” Ivy asks as Grip mounts.
Rosalía shakes her head. “Ready?”
“I ... suppose.”
“Where is it you are going?” Sam asks.
Melchior appears flushed, gazing vaguely across the street, no longer looking after the ABCs or anywhere near Grip. He rubs the back of his neck, below the bandage about his head.
Ivy must stand on the porch, then get a lift from Rosalía in order to mount. The leather feels slick, hard as marble, the brace too large, the stirrup too long. Between the mare’s bulk and extra height from this ancient saddle lifting well over the withers, Ivy feels as far from the ground as on Chucklehead. Being lifted with nothing behind, no back support, not even being able to see the right side of the horse, only adds to anxiety. Delicate Luck with her tiny hooves and small saddle and light movements may be less than perfect in her manners, but familiar. Comfortable.
Ivy takes a deep breath as she tries to settle herself. Rosalía adjusts her single stirrup, telling her she must learn to ride astride.
They will get Luck back. Grip might have ideas. He has been a bounty hunter for years. And Melchior must know what happens to stolen horses—though he did not seem concerned about them being permanently gone, saying Chucklehead would return on his own.
She bites her lip, presses her foot into the stirrup as Rosalía holds it, and thanks her.
“Go on.” Now it is Melchior trying to move Sam along. No one has answered his inquiries about their mission.
Rosalía swings up on Volar and turns him from the post.
“We will only be a few days,” Ivy says to Sam, though she does not look at him.
“Neck rein,” Rosalía says. “She’s a cutter.”
Ivy has no idea what a cutter is, but she knows how to neck rein. Gambit did this. Luck never would. She turns the mare to El Cohete, surprised when he does not lie his ears flat or lash his tail.
“You are intending to pursue the coach?” Sam looks from Ivy to Grip.
“We won’t be long,” Ivy repeats.
“Ivy, they were attacked. It cannot be worth it. It does not matter if it lies just out of the city, it will be swarming—”
Lightfall Three: Luck, Lost, Lady (Lightfall, Book 3) Page 13