by Ward, Marsha
She said, “Gracias, Señor O-wen,” which Tom told him meant ‘Thank you, Mr. Owen’.
Tarnation. I’m going to have a hard time of it, traveling alone with this girl, me talking one lingo and her talking another. But James shrugged his shoulders, and ate something called sweet bread, and wished Tom would stop grinning at him.
After the meal, Tom thrust a lamp into James’s hand and bid the couple goodnight at the back door. The blacksmith almost snickered as he pronounced the first part of the word. James grunted, and held the light high as he and Amparo stepped into an icy breeze in the yard between the buildings.
When they reached the wide double door to the blacksmith shop, James gave the lamp to Amparo and pulled the right-hand half open far enough for them to slip inside. Then he tugged the planks shut, and looked for a beam or a bar to secure the opening, but there was none.
Well, maybe these Mexican folks don’t go in for shiverees. I surely hope Tom’s forgot what that is. I don’t want to have to fight off a drunken, teasing crowd tonight.
He took the lamp from Amparo and hung it on a hook near the cold forge, where it cast a flickering, crooked halo of light on the floor. Then he made a mound of the fresh hay Tom had provided, and spread the blankets the girl had brought from Santa Fe upon it. His quilts lay nearby, where he would make his bed off to one side. He was determined to leave the girl with the best kind of bait to catch herself a proper husband.
Amparo was up to some errand of her own that set her satin skirt to rustling—almost creaking—behind him, then the sound stopped. Finished with her bed, James rocked back on his heels and rose to his feet, then turned—and stopped like he’d run into the anvil.
She stood, shivering a little in the meager heat of the lamp, wearing only her white linen shift, her arms crossed in front of her breasts. Her thumb, darting out from between fisted fingers, kneaded at the ring James had put on her hand. For a long time she looked for something on the earthen floor, then she raised those great large eyes to his.
He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand and looked at the girl. The lamplight behind made her curves show through the thin cloth, curves that dried his mouth. He swallowed hard.
“Six little beans! You got you a figure like a china doll.” He lowered his hand and stared at the palm. It was beaded with fresh sweat. He said, “You got me makin’ my hands all moist,” and wiped the palm down the belly of his shirt.
Then he looked into her eyes, soft as brown moss floating on a willow shadowed pond, tender as cat tails sprouting out of black water, eyes that threatened to melt away his resolve, so he put a poker down his spine and tried to get an icy edge to his voice. “I ain’t holding you to your vows.”
It was no use talking. She stood there, straight and silent, and gazed at him. He sucked in a breath and tried again. “I wish I could make you understand. This isn’t a real marriage.”
She dropped her arms, placed her hands on her hips, threw back her shoulders, and spouted some Spanish at him, tapping her foot on the hard packed earth and setting her body into motion.
She had his attention. “Six little beans! I heard that word before. What does ‘marido’ mean?”
“Tu...eres...mi...marido,” she said, repeating the words, spacing them out like he was deaf, which maybe he was, he reflected, from her way of seeing it. Then she said the phrase again, pointing first to the ring, then to him.
“That’s right. We’re married.” He licked his parched lips. “But not for long.” There was something sticking in his throat, and it took him a time to force a swallow past it. “I’m not takin’ you to bed. Once you’re home you can get a real husband.”
It was burdensome talking at that still firmly set, beautiful little face, not knowing how much the girl was taking in, hoping and wishing she was getting some of his meaning. So burdensome it was, thinking of ways to tell her things a man don’t discuss with a girl.
There is a point where a man with a sense of honor knows he’s getting onto dangerous ground with a woman. He could clearly see that point, not far ahead, bright and shining and enticing and deadly as the tip of the bayonet that sliced into him in Virginia, and he knew it was time to retreat.
He leaned over and picked up his quilt so he could cover the girl up, and started toward her, trying to concentrate on the top of her head. The light from the lamp wavered across her face, caressed her sweet form, betraying him, and he felt a throb, an ill omened ache, deep in the base of his belly.
“No,” he said, then gritted his teeth and moved to wrap her in the quilt. She tipped her head back to look at him as he stood there in front of her, holding that quilt in his unmoving arms.
He made the mistake of glancing down right then, and her bright eyes caught his as surely as molasses traps an ant.
“Estamos casados,” she whispered, and reached up to pull his head down to meet her lips. She had strength in those slim brown arms beyond his talent to stand his ground, and he partook of her kiss. Her lips—soft and yielding as rose petals plucked one by one from the bush—tasted of honey and wine. Light from the lamp swirled around the two of them, throwing glints and sparks on the walls as though they were inside a crystal chandelier.
He partook of her kiss, warm as the earth at noontime, forgetting the quilt that slipped from between them to the earth as he put his hands around her back and felt the smoothness of her skin under the linen, rubbing his thumb down the valley of her spine and sensing the quiver of her body under his hand, inhaling the sweet perfume of her waterfall of hair. He hit that danger point and passed it, picked her up, carried her to the bed and let her excite his body, and felt no courage in his spirit to prevent her.
Afterward he rested, trembling, as she lay cradled in the curve of his arm, her heart thumping, thundering against his as she kissed the jagged white scar on his shoulder, and the small round wound in the front of his arm, and the puckered, angry red depression in his side. He felt that her lips, cool on his overheated skin, healed the wounds, sealing the fibers of the muscles together, restoring the lost bone, melting the scar tissue away.
She was still for a moment, breathing as he was breathing, slow and deep. Then she lifted her hand, and moved it so she could touch his mouth with her slim brown finger. He knew a mouth was for eating, and for kissing a girl, but he had never considered it a place for touching, and a wonderment filled his mind as she stroked his lips, slowly, soft as the brush of a spider’s web come upon suddenly in the dark. He held his breath, parting his lips as her finger followed the course of them, from the top around to the bottom lip, then down his chin into the beard on his jaw.
A black veil covered his face as her lips came to his. He needed a breath, and he drew in hers, swallowing as she kissed him, swallowing his pride as passion swelled in him. Then, he did not resist the need in her but replied with the hunger in him, and it was nigh to morning when finally they slept.
~~~
James awoke with the sun high, and felt shame, both for his late rising and for his weakness in the lamplight. Amparo lay curled beside him, her hand resting heavily on his chest. He touched the dead man’s ring on her finger and thought, I’m a fox in the henhouse. He sighed, a long shuddering out-breath of air, then wisdom came to his mind: The girl used a binding knot on me.
His belly tightened as he remembered the warmth of her, remembered rising from the bed to douse the lamp, then returning to her arms and the laughing triumph of knowing himself full a man alongside a woman full his wife.
Caught up in the memory, he kissed her fingertips, then felt a flush hot as the virgin blood she had shed in coming together with him, and thought, James, you’re a poor excuse for a gentleman, but we still go to Santa Fe. Then he put her hand carefully from him and rose and hurriedly pulled on his clothes.
~~~
When Amparo awoke, she found herself alone, a blanket carefully tucked around her. She gathered her arms in to hug herself, remembering the tickle of the Anglo’s moustache on he
r lips. Madre de Dios, he is a true caballero. His hands are gentle as...as a mother’s, no, as a tender lover’s hands. Holy Mother, I feel—what is it I feel? Cherished, protected. Señora Catarina was wrong. I like the touch of my husband’s hands upon me. His eyes are as sapphires glowing in a precious necklace. His hair is black as nightfall overtaking the day. His breath is sweet as pan dulce to the tongue. But María Santa, he is full of pain; not only from the wounds that scar his body, but from a tear in his heart. He called out a name in the night, and it was not my name. Holy Mary, help me to heal him, help me to be a solace to him, for I yearn to hear him call my name.
Chapter 12
“I came to see about the work.”
Angus Campbell stood behind his plow in a field beside a sod built house. James had left Amparo in the road, holding the reins of his horse and the lead line to the pack mules while he tramped across rows of turned under crops to join Angus. The dog licked James’s hand, then turned to chase a chicken back toward the coop.
“However,” James said, “there’s a difficulty.”
Angus inclined his head toward the road. “The girl?”
James hadn’t planned what to tell Angus, figuring an explanation would come to him when he arrived. “I’ve been hired to get her over Ratón Pass to her folks before snow flies,” he blurted out. “But I need enough work for a grubstake, if you’ve got something I can handle in the time I have available.”
“Well, now, what I have in mind is child’s play for you, James. I have some raw three-year-old colts to break for riding. I figured to hire it out, ‘cause I don’t have time, being so far behind with this fieldwork. Andy is too young to do the job alone.”
In Virginia, James had been known as a boy with a knack for gentling horses, and had since picked up the cowboy way of breaking them from his father’s Texas foreman, Bill Henry. It pleased him that Angus remembered his skill. “How many you got?” he asked, a slow grin reflecting the lightening of his mood.
“Four. Can you spare a month?”
James squinted at the sky. Today it was bright and blue, with no trace of the snow he had hit on the way down from Pueblo, but there was no way of knowing how long the weather would hold. He scratched his ear and sighed. Time pressed heavy on him, and a frown settled upon his soul again. “Maybe a week is all I got. I can rough break them all now and top off the job when I get back.”
“I need one real gentle for the wife. I guess that one’ll have to wait until after you get the girl home?”
He nodded. “What are the others for?”
“Riding fence. They only have to get used to a rider on their back.”
“I’ll have time to break three to saddle. Andy can help me catch them, and watch what I do, but he’ll have to ride them enough to train them to rein. I’ve no time for that.”
“Well, do the best you can, and I guess we’ll manage. I’ll stake you to whatever you need when three are done.” Angus looked toward the road. “How did the girl come to be stranded?”
James rubbed his hand across his beard. He didn’t want to tell lies about Amparo, but he didn’t want to own up to the truth, either. He swallowed hard.
“It’s a mighty long story, and if I’m to get those colts started today, I’d best not stand around jawing. One thing, though. The stable is good enough for me, but can you put the young lady up in the house?”
“We’ll find a place for her. She has the Mexican look. Does she speak any English?”
“Not a word, as far as I can tell. But she’s quiet and won’t be any bother, I reckon.”
“What’s her name?”
“Miss Amparo.”
“Pretty name. Well, the colts are in the pasture next to the corral. Plenty of rope in the stable.”
They shook hands, and James went back to the road, mounted, and took Amparo to the house to introduce her to Molly Campbell. When he went out the door, leaving the women to sort out a way of communicating, Amparo was putting on an apron, and he figured she was insisting on helping with the noon meal.
Good. She’s a worker. She’ll fit right in with Molly and her bunch. At least for a week. He wondered how she would stand being in the house with seven young’uns. That made him grin, and he went to work with a light feeling and an even temper.
By the time James chose three colts to break, and he and Andy roped them in the pasture and worked them into the large corral, it was dinnertime and more. James figured Molly would carry on about her boy missing the meal, so he let Andy go to the house to get cleaned up while he dismounted and took care of their horses.
When he got to the house, James was late, and all of the kids but Andy had taken off to do their chores. Molly and Amparo jumped up from their seats when they caught sight of him and bustled about getting his grub together. Angus leaned on his elbows, nursing the last of his coffee, and James figured he wanted a report on the progress.
“Got ‘em in the corral,” he said as he sat down.
“Good, good,” Angus said, nodding his head. “You going to ride them this afternoon?”
Molly added a slice of bread to the food on James's plate and Amparo lowered it in front of him. He took a bite of the bread and looked up at the girl for a fraction of a moment. Then wished he hadn’t, because the look she put through those mossy-soft eyes shook him to his boots. It took him a good minute to recover enough to answer Angus.
“No, I think I’m going to work with them a mite. I reckon it will pay in the long run.”
“How’ll we do that, James?” asked Andy through a mouthful of beans.
“Tie a back leg up to make them less dangerous, then use a gunny sack to mess with them, get them used to humankind.”
“When will we ride the colts?” Andy wanted to know, and James laughed at his impatience.
“When they’re ready. We’ll see how it goes today.”
Then he concentrated on his food, trying to forget that sitting across from him was a fetching young woman wearing a ring he had put on her finger, and that he had neglected to tell Angus the truth about him and her. And if truth be known, his blood was pumping fast and hot—maybe from the exercise, maybe from memories of two nights ago, maybe from the glance she just gave him—and he felt mighty uneasy being so close to the girl. He was glad that come nighttime, she would bunk down in the house, and he would make his bed in the stable.
After dinner, James and Andy went back to work at the corral. James snagged a mouse-colored mustang and led it into a smaller corral. He snubbed the lead rope to the fence and began to rub the horse with a gunnysack he had brought along. The colt was a touch fractious, but it was canny, too, and curious to see what James was up to.
He didn’t let it know anything more that afternoon, for he had two other horses to work with, so he left it tied to the fence while he repeated the process with a buckskin and the third horse, a brown. When he was through for the day, he and Andy led the horses back to the larger corral and fed and watered them.
Molly’s evening meal stuffed James so full he could barely waddle out the door to his bunk. He spent the night dozing and waking, wondering if Amparo was comfortable in the house.
The next morning James put the mousy colt in the small corral, and it stayed calm even when he threw a loop around one of its back feet. It did get a bit worried when Andy pulled the rope through the fence and drew the slack out so its foot was lifted off the ground. Then the colt panicked and fought the rope, and down it went.
When it had struggled onto three feet again, James worked it over—this time with a saddle blanket—letting the colt touch the blanket with its lip and sniff at it, running his hands over its back, and talking it into trusting him. Then he hobbled the horse’s back feet and tied the animal to the fence behind it, loosed the halter rope, and let the colt get used to the back hobbles while he took a breather, squatting on his heels in the middle of the corral.
Andy sat on the fence and watched, prodding him to get on with the job.
; The colt had its ears laid back and its nostrils flared, so when James was ready to start in again, he hobbled the front feet before he began to pat and rub. The horse strained to look at the awful things James was doing to it, pulling its knotted up tail, cutting some of the rat’s nests out of the long strands with his knife, and once in a while, leaning up against the horse’s flank to get it used to him putting weight on. He spelled off work on the mousy colt with work on the brown and the buckskin, and by nightfall, he was bone tired.
The next day James grabbed the blanket and his saddle, and started working the colts, letting them smell and touch the things he’d brought to the corral.
He tied the horses by the halter ropes and back hobbled them again. Since the blanket and saddle smelled of his horse, the colts had nothing to fear from them, and before long, he put the blanket on the brown’s back and left it there. Then James tied the off side saddle cinches up so they wouldn’t bang the colt’s side, and slowly set the leather onto its back. The brown nickered a bit but it didn’t move, so James went on with the job, slowly cinching the saddle down, just barely snug. He slapped the leather, jiggled the saddle, put his foot into the stirrup and stood up, then got down.
Andy yelled, “Oh boy! James is going to ride the colt!”
“Hold on,” he said. “It’s not ready yet.”
“Whadda you mean, not ready?” the boy asked. “You got the saddle on it, don’t you?”
“These horses won’t be cowboy broke. I promised your pa you could ride them, and I don’t mean for them to buck you off every morning.”