With all at the corner, Ivy made her way up an empty ladder unchallenged. From the top of the rickety walkway, she looked over the wall to a small pack reaching for men above.
Ivy felt a flash of apprehension to see them climb on top of their fallen companions, and even those still scrambling, in order to reach higher. All the more reason for constant watch, not this random affair Brownlow oversaw.
More importantly, stragglers from the pack still rushed the wall, drawn at a run by noise from shots, voices, and that bell someone finally silenced.
Ivy lifted her four-round in both hands, tracking a running form, then realized she held her breath due to the rotten stink of them. She lowered her arms, gave her shoulders a shake, took a deep breath. No problem. Relax. Her horse. She had her own horse again. Sort of.
Smiling, Ivy raised the gun. She did not think, but pointed where it seemed she needed the round to go and pulled the trigger as the portly, almost completely naked riser reached the wall to snap at men above.
The electric round struck the base of the neck, across the collarbone. The charge exploded through soft tissue, sending portly into a spasming convulsion, knocking into several others which jerked and shuddered. Men above missed their targets, cursed, and look around in bewilderment.
The thin-faced, beady-eyed Jakes spotted her and led the onslaught in asking what the hell she was doing up there.
Ivy ignored him, finding another. This time, she got a skull. Wonder. First time shooting at moving targets and a skull. They were extremely close. But still. Heartbeat fast, feet weightless, she felt an even stronger surge than when she learned she could have the horse.
Voices interrupted joy as language grew stronger. Ivy looked up to see Jakes bearing down at her along the narrow walkway.
“Git! What in hell’d you mean by it, girl? What is that thing?”
The man’s face was red, his own riser targets forgotten as men behind also turned to her.
“I am assisting,” Ivy said stiffly, not raising her voice. “And what difference does it make what kind of gun I carry?”
“Get off there!” He was almost upon her, his silver Colt waving at her.
A whole different kind of racing heart. Ivy braced her feet, platform wobbly below her, no rail to her right where the wall opened to the inside. Only the ladder, but he was not giving her time to reach that, even had she tried.
With his own revolver, Jakes struck the four-round a savage blow, rocketing the weapon from Ivy’s hand, narrowly missing her fingers. The gleaming brass seemed to spark as it flew over men gathering along the wall.
Ivy was knocked back, stepping away from Jakes with the impact, heart in her throat at the idea of that gun discharging into the crowd.
But someone caught it. As Ivy looked fleetingly that way, grabbing the side of the wall for balance and nearly toppling over, she saw Rosalía. Skirts dusty from having run to see the trouble, Rosalía caught the fiery weapon and, for a split second, met Ivy’s eyes.
Ivy already had the long derringer off her belt. Not nearly as swift as Grip or Melchior drew, but she was back upright in a second, the tiny gun aimed into Jakes’s face. Blood hammered in her ears. Visions of the last time she faced this man beat at her until she could not say if the present watching crowd held their breaths or shouted or laughed.
Jakes grinned, turning into a twisted leer which churned her stomach. “Sure thing,” he said. “Go ahead.”
No, of course. He knew. She knew. Everyone watching knew she was not about to kill a man. Not even this one.
Ivy shifted her aim into his shoulder, never taking her eyes from his, never blinking. She drew back the blued steel hammer.
His smile slipped. His eyes darted from her face to the black gun in her hand.
“I believe you have a job to tend,” Ivy said softly, hardly able to hear her own voice as echoes of screaming children fighting to get inside this same wall pounded her.
Jakes remained still another moment, then turned, sneering, back to his fellows and the last few stragglers of the pack.
Ivy climbed down the ladder, relieved when Rosalía did not meet her and she could walk alone from the sizable group. Buzzing in her ears largely deafened her to sarcastic comments following her footsteps.
She was wet with sweat and still breathing hard by the time she climbed stairs in the boarding house to her room, leaving both doors ajar.
She hardly sat down on the edge of the bed when Rosalía joined her, holding the heavy four-round out, grinning. “Congratulations—”
“Don’t.” Ivy stood to take the gun in a still shaky hand. “Thank you. I—” She shook her head.
Rosalía’s grin faded. “What’s wrong?”
“Besides the obvious?” Again, Ivy stopped herself. “I’m sorry.”
“Maybe you should start with the obvious?”
“That I made myself look a complete dolt in front of half the town? Again.” Ivy paced to the window. “That I can do nothing which does not draw mockery? And whose idea was it to set up a bell on the wall? Do you know what that does? It draws more.” She pulled off her stiff gun belt and dropped it with the guns on the desk.
Rosalía cocked her head. “I’ll ask Mateo to mention it to Zamorano. Anything else?”
“I only wanted the practice. I never should have gone up there. I wasn’t thinking. I was all caught up in—” Ivy stopped, flopping back onto the edge of the bed, recalling the wonderful elation she felt only ten minutes ago. “I was being stupid again,” she finished under her breath.
“I see. That may not have been as obvious as you guessed. We missed you this morning,”
Ivy let out her breath and glanced to the window. No breeze entered the sweltering room. She never should have started going to the occasional Mass. Now Rosalía already seemed to take her presence for granted. It was not even Sunday.
She looked at thread spilling off the desk chair, cotton trimmings scattered across the rug, pieced-together duster, stockings on the floor, wool and canvas on the bed, needles stuck in the top quilt to find again, empty pincushion on the desk.
When did she start living like this? And why did she think it all right for Rosalía to visit the carnage?
Flushed, Ivy stood once more. “I beg your pardon, Rose. I should have come out this morning. I lose track of time and find one hundred.... Thank you for the four-round. I will come with you on Sunday and help with lunch.”
Rosalía, who was not usually slow at taking hints, slipped past her to study her duster in the trunk.
“One hundred what?”
“Dollars. Rose—”
“For your steamcoach?”
“For my horse.”
Rosalía turned. “He didn’t.”
Ivy almost forgot the state of her bedroom as a light feeling rose once more in her chest. “Extended loan only. While I’m here, she’s mine. But, I owe him one hundred dollars.”
“And your gold is gone.”
“Very gone.”
“Show me your work.” Rosalía looked around the mess. “Aren’t you done yet? I’ve been aching to see your outfit.”
“It’s not—”
Rosalía lifted the duster in her delicate hands, feeling along seams. “It’s beautiful. It looks finished.”
Beautiful? It was a man’s coat taken apart and reassembled to fit a fairly average woman while leaving its volume to flare at the bottom as it hung past her knees. Though she had seen women in New Mexico Territory in split skirts to ride astride, Ivy felt her own was an all or nothing decision. The duster was practical and protective against the elements. Not a new fashion.
“It is finished, I suppose,” Ivy admitted. “The tunic is a problem. And I have not tried everything on together. There are still small—”
“Please do.” Rosalía beamed once more as she faced Ivy, holding the duster. “You’ve done wonderful work.”
“You helped. And Winter with patterns.” To avoid looking as if she might be ready to
change clothes, Ivy sat back on the foot of the bed. “They’re not all finished.”
“Almost.” Rosalía waved a hand. “Finish and come to Winter’s on Saturday all dressed up and we’ll have supper. She’ll want to see what you’ve made.”
She would? Ivy could not even admit to Winter she was learning to shoot.
Ivy looked from the umber coat to dark charcoal pants, then scattered, pale undergarments across the bed frame.
She looked back at Rosalía. “These are not town clothes. Maybe you and Winter could come over here to see them?”
“Don’t be silly. You should be proud of what you’ve accomplished.”
Ivy said nothing.
“Then work up to it. Come over Saturday. We’ll help if there are alterations needed, though your work is excellent.”
“Is that why it has taken weeks?”
“Why do you put yourself down?” Rosalía left the duster to sit on the bed beside her, reaching across to feel the soft, rusty red wool of her unfinished tunic.
Criticized now as well as poor and hot and mocked?
“Your Boston dress can be mended again,” Rosalía said when Ivy did not speak. “Wear these a few days and you’ll have a new dress as well. You don’t have to wear your riding outfit in town each day if you’re not comfortable.”
Ivy nodded, not looking at her. “The girl of all work patched it before and did a wonderful job. But she is so busy now with the boarding house always full....”
“I’ll help you, though Xochitl has more than one over on me in this regard.”
“Do you know her?”
“Second cousin. But not well. What’s still wrong?”
“Rose, what do you do when you get a mouthful of dust?”
Rosalía’s brows drew together. “That’s what’s troubling you? You spit it out.”
“I was afraid you would say that. What about in town?”
“You ... turn your back and spit it out? I don’t know why you’re so troubled over that pendejo. You should be congratulated. Do you know, Grip admitted to me you could hit what you meant to with your derringer? Which, from him, is like saying you’re a model student. And Correcaminos is yours—who could have imagined that possible?”
“Not until I pay for her.” Ivy looked at the gun belt on the desk while Rosalía waited. At last she said, “It is difficult to take pride in one’s accomplishments when they lead to the unknown and likely undesired.”
“What journey leads us through that which is known? If it does, what would be the purpose?”
Ivy glanced at her. “Why are you and Winter kind to me?”
“Winter is kind to everyone. I felt sorry for you when we met. Now—” She shrugged and flopped on her back, gazing at the ceiling. “I enjoy talking with you. Unless you are feeling sorry for yourself and futile. My sisters-in-law and friends of my age are all concerned with their homes and husbands and children. I’m the oldest unmarried woman in my family. Not just right now. Ever in family history as far as I’m aware. You’re intelligent. You’re a good listener.”
Was she? Ivy was the one constantly pouring out her problems to Rosalía. Not the other way around.
“I am sorry—”
“Come to Winter’s on Saturday? Two more days to finish. And bring the dress. We’ll give it a good wash. Sus cama es cómoda.”
Was it comfortable? Ivy frowned at the quilt. “Perhaps it is. I suppose that is one more matter of relativities and beliefs.”
Rosalía looked at her. “¿Entiendes?”
“Of course I understood you. You’ve been teaching me Spanish for months. And I hear it everywhere, everyday. I like to think I’m not as slow a pupil as your brother and my cousin believe—I’d be moving backward.”
Rosalía laughed. “You’re always telling me you can’t follow.”
“When multiple people are talking or too fast or the vocabulary is too unfamiliar to catch essentials.”
Rosalía propped herself on one elbow, head on her hand, asking in Spanish what Ivy wanted for supper on Saturday.
Winter had enough cooking to make her living without Ivy thrown in. She gazed around the room, rubbing her sweaty palms into the quilt by her knees, wishing a breeze would ever find its way through that little window.
“Ice. I might stop by the maker’s and get some ice.”
“I’ll go,” Rosalía said. “And I’ll make horchata. We’ll celebrate your new style.”
“Not what it is,” Ivy said, though she smiled ruefully across the room at her coat. It did have a nice, trim waist.
Rosalía prodded her ribs with a finger—something she did to tickle nieces and nephews. “Going to try them on to show me?”
“Saturday.”
“I want to see first.”
“You’re as impatient as everyone else around here.”
“Anhelante, entusiasmado—”.
“Do you imagine poking people will get you what you wish?”
“It works on my brothers. How else would I have learned to shoot?”
“You should have had a sister,” Ivy said, thinking of Kitty and their delicate games as girls. Tiny china tea sets, porcelain dolls.
Rosalía sat up to wrap an arm around her. “They’ll call us Misñorita Ruinson.”
Ivy laughed, almost falling off the bed as Rosalía leaned on her. “Such a ring to it.”
By the time Rosalía left, Ivy had almost forgotten Jakes and needing to come up with one hundred dollars and getting to Arizona. Almost.
By Saturday, it seemed she could think only of these matters. Still angry about the wall, wondering about a possible trip, losing sleep over the fee for her horse, she stitched and ripped out and stitched and finally had her outfit complete on Saturday morning.
Melchior still gambled, even if he could not deal, but Ivy avoided asking him for money since Sam found the gambling so off-putting. She could borrow money from Oliver, certain the maker would gladly hand over a full crate of silver. But what difference did it make to switch the person she owed money?
On Saturday afternoon she spent two hours dressing and rearranging and unable to bring herself to step outside.
By the time she started for Winter’s it was well past siesta time and Ivy had walked up and down the stairs half a dozen times, starting out, then turning back. How could she walk around in public wearing pants? How could she wear a man’s coat, regardless of how modified it may be? How could she hold her head up instead of slinking along backstreets like a thief?
But Winter was waiting—had probably cooked something for her. And what about that ice?
At last, bundle of dress and chemise in her arms, Ivy took a deep breath and plunged into sunlight.
She walked as fast as she could without jogging, her boots, which were also beginning to disintegrate at the seams, moving softly over dusty side roads. Scarcely anyone was about, mostly children, and Ivy stared ahead without giving herself time to notice any glances which might have followed.
As she reached Winter’s, she let out her breath, then gave herself a shake, ordering relaxation upon rigid muscles. Ice. Maybe they had ice.
She reached to knock, though Winter had told her to let herself in whenever she called.
Before she could touch it, the door was snatched open. Rosalía dragged her in.
“Happy birthday!” But hers was not the only voice to call out.
Ivy jumped. Winter, Sam, Melchior, Isaiah, Íñigo, little Buen with Sofía and their cousin Araceli, and Sarita—a woman Ivy knew from church to be Araceli’s mother and Rosalía’s sister-in-law—all faced her.
Clutching her bundle, Ivy flinched back as if someone shot at her.
“We know it’s not your birthday,” Rosalía said, beaming, keeping Ivy in place with surprising strength for her small frame. “English found out a week ago from your cousin that you were overlooked. He says you’re seventeen and should have had a coming out ball and you needed a celebration.”
“You did not�
�”
But Ivy failed to get through another word as they wished her happy birthday and Rosalía asked what a “coming out ball” was and Buen yelled for her attention to a table heaped with not only fried chicken, roasted summer squash, zucchini salad and icy horchata, but a cake. A real golden cake iced on top and between layers in a whipped, fluffy butter frosting. This stunned Ivy more than the sudden appearance of all these people, since she was certain birthday cakes were an unknown custom in New Mexico. It had only been since Ivy herself was a child that they became all the fashion with young people back East. Even Winter may never have had a birthday cake. It took a stupefied glance around to spot Sam smiling at her before she understood: the only person here who had been East in the past few years. The one person besides Winter who understood what seventeen meant in the civilized world. The one person now in her world who would have tried to make sure, if she could not have a ball, she could at least have a cake.
She was still bewildered, mortified that they waited until Rosalía had her dressed like a farmer’s son to surprise her, all talking at her in two languages, when Isaiah pulled out a chair for her.
“My apologies, Miss Jerinson. I cannot stay,” Isaiah said, smiling down at her, holding out a long wooden box. “Miss Ruiz visited the workshop this afternoon and explained the circumstances. You can thank her for the ice. This is from the maker and myself with best wishes for continued success in your adventures.” He bowed his head, thanked Winter for her hospitality, and slipped out, replacing his hat.
After the box from Isaiah, Rosalía gave her a new Stetson with a crisp brim and attractively tooled band. Íñigo, more subdued than usual, informed her she could have his saddle and headstall for Correcaminos as her gift. Buen gave her a bouquet of bright yellow evening primrose, asking in Spanish when they could eat the cake as Araceli, frowning and shaking her head, pulled him away. Sarita and Winter filled plates while Ivy lifted the lid of Isaiah’s box to find no less than three dozen rounds of the precious electric caps for her four-round.
Lightfall Four: Risk, Rise, Rebel (Lightfall, Book 4) Page 4