by Martha Hix
“No,” was his cross and terse reply.
The skinny witch—buttoned to the throat in her usual garb of brown gabardine—hadn’t stopped eating since Juarez. At the rate she was going, she’d reach the city of Chihuahua and the two hundred-pound mark at the same time. At least she’d gotten some color back in her complexion. And she’d done a lot less wheezing and coughing.
“My goodness,” she commented and dabbed her mouth with a handkerchief, “the terrain does provide intriguing sights. Roadrunners, cactus, white sand. And more roadrunners, cactus, and white sand. On occasion, and with cause for celebration, we find wide fissures in the earth. Arroyos.”
“We’re not down here for the landscape.” He did, however, for lack of anything better to do, launch into a catalog of the city of Chihuahua’s attractions.
Evidently unimpressed with the travelogue, she replied, “Yes, but I really do think we should have taken the train. It’s much more expedient.”
“I’ve lost count of the times you’ve told me that.”
Her single-mindedness never ceased to amaze him. Nor was he unaware of her acute curiosity. When she said, “You never have told me exactly why you’re running from your uncle,” Rafe rolled his eyes.
“Because I—”
Unanticipated, the wagon gave a sudden lurch to the left; traces and harnesses pinged, horses whickering and screaming at the unexpected movement. Baggage slipped. Tex gave a shout. The cookie tin as well as Margarita’s bonnet went flying, though she grabbed the tin as if her very existence depended on it. Rafe somehow got the team stopped and the brakes set. He twisted around and gave a look downward, confirming what he suspected. “We’ve lost a wheel.”
He and Tex hopped to the ground, Rafe giving Margarita assistance. An inspection of the total situation provided bleak news. Several spokes had splintered, were broken. There were no tools to repair it, since Margarita’s collection of steamer trunks had prevented bringing them along. The weight of her possessions had no doubt put too much strain on the wheel. There’d better be gold in those damned trunks.
“I’ll saddle one of these nags and go for help,” Tex offered.
“Do it. Keep to a southerly path, and just before you reach that next squat range of hills, you’ll run into the village of El Sueco.” To ease everyone’s mind, Rafe added, “We’re not too far from Chihuahua city.”
Rafe started to hoist himself to the wagonbed. “I’ll get the wagon unloaded and jacked up.”
Margarita dabbed her forehead with her handkerchief. “None of us is doing anything until we’ve had a bit of refreshment. Rafe, get my green tru-”
“Refreshment?” Rafe snapped and put his foot back on the ground. “Por el amor de Dios, we’re in trouble, woman! It’s at least a four-hour trip to the nearest village. We’re not taking time out for tea and bonbons.”
She rolled her eyes and waved a hand. “Oh, you. Don’t be such a crab. I’ve got some wonderful Swiss chocolates that I’ve been saving for a special occasion, and . . .” She grinned at her brother, who had gotten his saddle from the wagonbed. “Dr. Pepper.”
“Well, shuckums, Sis, why didn’t ya just say so?” Tex dropped the saddle. “Where’re they at?”
“The green trunk.”
Young Siegfried leapt upon the wagon and hoisted the trunk as if he were hoisting a basket of feathers, setting it on the ground as if it were a casket of rubies and diamonds. Or perhaps his adored Natalie. Since Rafe had nearly broken his back putting that trunk into the wagon, it was all he could do not to stomp off. It was no fun getting old. And weak. You’re not so old, Delgado. He’s just younger and bigger.
Right.
On her knees, Margarita opened the treasure chest, revealing row upon row of carefully packed, well-insulated bottles that gleamed in the sunlight and were filled with dark brown liquid. She gushed, “I knew these soda pops would come in handy.”
“Come again?” Rafe asked and feared the reply. “What are soda pops?”
“Soft drinks. Beverages. Libations.”
Speechless, flat-out poleaxed—that was Rafe. Somehow he managed to choke out, “You packed fancy drinks? Drinks! Mujer, we are not on a Nile cruise.” He slapped his forehead with the heel of his palm. “I dread finding out what you’ve got in the others.”
“Oh, stop making a scene.” After removing two sealed tops, she handed a bottle to Tex and then to Rafe. “Enjoy.”
The bottle felt cool, almost cold to the touch. By the time Rafe had brought his to his lips, Tex had guzzled one bottle and was asking for another. Rafe took a swallow. Bubbles of something went up his nose, and that something popped and snapped. He coughed. And like to choked. But, oddly, the liquid was sweet and delicious. He wiped his mouth with the back of a hand, asking, “What is this?”
“Carbonated water and Dr. Pepper syrup. It’s bottled in north Texas, in a village called Dublin. I telegraphed the bottling plant before I left New York, and had them ship these cases to the Four Aces.” He started to put the bottle lip to his mouth, but she cautioned, “Take it easy until you get used to it. Sip . . . and you’ll enjoy the bite.”
Tex, a veteran drinker of Dublin’s finest, didn’t have to take precautions. He guzzled six bottles before he set out for help with the wheel. As he rode away, Margarita seemed to be walking on air, so pleased was she at providing cool soda pops in the desert of northern Mexico. In her excitement she ate half the box of chocolates. As she perused yet another selection—while Rafe was stacking the last of the trunks on the ground—he couldn’t help but chuckle.
“What are you laughing at?” she inquired and sucked the center of one candy into her mouth.
“You. You’ve taken on quite a zest for snacks.”
She rifled through the box. “I’m surprised you noticed, you’ve been so cross.”
“I notice everything about you.”
And right now . . . he forgot all about being testy. He wouldn’t mind if she devoured him like she’d done that bonbon. His eyes melted down her, from her dark hair to her chocolate-smeared lips to the breasts that he had tasted in Juarez. A familiar stirring in his groin roused his smile. Ah, ha. He was still a man. He made the sign of the cross. “Come here, Margarita. Come here and let me kiss you.”
Her eyes widened in surprise, a grin playing at her lips. Never breaking her gaze, she reached to the side and set the box of candy on the driver’s seat. She took a step in his direction. Then froze.
“Look out,” she warned. “Behind you.”
He heard hoofbeats and the sound of men. Immediately figuring his vengeful uncle and the Arturianos were on his tail, Rafe drew his Peacemaker and whirled around. Riding over the crest of a sand dune came three riders, one on a palomino and the remaining two on proud pintos. Good horseflesh, Rafe assessed. Who cared about the grade of the horses?
“Shoot ’em! Shoot their mounts from under them!” Hopping up and down, Margarita jabbed a finger in the air. “Rafael Delgado, don’t just stand there—aim and fire!”
He knew not to shoot first and ask questions later; he’d done that one too many times. He also knew not to order Margarita to take cover under the disabled wagon; it might fall on her. “Get behind those trunks,” he ordered. “Stay low.”
Stalwart as a standard bearer, she stood tall and straight and dauntless. She was either brave or crazy. Or both.
The riders rode closer. Their rifles were drawn. One—obviously the leader, even though he looked years younger than his hard-bitten compadres—rode the magnificent palomino and sat regally upon a Spanish saddle. They were not of the Delgado gang.
This, Rafe knew for sure. He recognized the leader, who ordered, “Throw down your gun.”
Complying, Rafe heard the soundless knock of opportunity.
Eleven
Unlike other of Samuel Colt’s Peacemakers—precision firearms that had won the West—this one bit the dust, literally and figuratively.
In view of Rafe’s cowardice in the face of h
ighway robbers, Margaret seethed. Tex gone, she and Rafe stranded, and now a trio of suspicious-looking, bandolier-wearing Mexicans had them cornered. And disarmed. Dad gum it! If only she could get to her derringer—Don’t be simpleminded. What good would that ridiculous toy do them?
And why, pray tell, did Rafe wear a gun belt, if he had no intention of putting it to practical use?
Worry she might, but as a creature of habit, she made a quick assessment. The one in charge—a stocky young man with a dark walrus mustache and mahogany curling hair clipped above his ears—had to be a son of Spain. The other two, well, Mesoamerican screamed from their russet skin tones, prominent cheekbones, and poker-straight hair.
“Buenos dias,” called Spain’s son.
A specific benevolence drifted from his tone. He motioned for his companions to hold their fire, after which he doffed his silver-studded sombrero, letting it hang by its strings down his back. He gave a saddled bow toward Margaret. “Good day to you, pretty toothpick. I see you have trouble.”
“Yes,” she answered in Spanish, warily, “but my bro—”
Rafe interrupted. “Yes, we have trouble with the wagon wheel. You will help my wife and me?”
His wife? He shot her one of those murderous, don’t-correct-me looks, very like a spouse’s. That was all he’d done since Carmelita’s, given her dirty looks. Between him and the lovelorn Tex, she’d had it to the gills with sulking men.
His arms half-raised, Rafe ambled toward the riders. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Rafael Delgado.”
“The Rafael Delgado of Chihuahua?” the head man reacted.
“I used to be.”
The rider to the leader’s right spoke up, admiration working its way into his Indian-penny frown to display a gold tooth. “Then you are the Eagle.”
“I’ve been called that.”
The smallest of the trio spoke as all three holstered their firearms. “Mexico has missed you, El Aguila Magnífico. Bienvenido. Welcome home.”
Heavenly days.
They might as well have salaamed, so awed were they; Margaret noticed and knew instinctively that they weren’t paying homage to some faded matador. It was the outlaw they respected. Not a comforting thought.
“What do you call your woman?” the top dog asked.
“I am Margaret,” she answered, not appreciating being discussed as if she weren’t there.
“Mucho gusto, Señora Delgado.”
“Equalmente,” Margaret returned, and didn’t bother to keep the snideness out of her I’m-pleased-to-meet-you-too.
He pointed to the left, then the right. “These are my men. This is Javier. And this is Pedro.” Smiling widely, showing lots of strong teeth, the introducer pointed to his own chest, which was crossed by bandoliers. “I call myself Francisco Villa.”
“I have heard of you, Pancho Villa.” Rafe took a step in Villa’s direction. “Earlier this year, when I delivered a prize-winning bull to Nuevo Laredo, I saw you there, from the distance. At the corrida.”
“But how could I have missed such an esteemed personage as El Aguila Magnífico?”
The very picture of humility and modesty, His Excellency the Most Magnificent of Fowls became invested with a puffed chest and a broad smirk. Margaret rolled her eyes.
Villa took a step in the Eagle’s direction. “Thank the Blessed Virgin, you are returned. Your people have been crying for you to fight el pinche gobierno.”
“No, no. My fighting days are over. The fornicating government does need to be unseated, but it will be for younger men such as you, to fight for our people’s rights.”
“Not Pancho Villa.” Villa laughed. “I care only for robbing the rich and helping the poor. As El Aguila Magnífico once did.”
“I am flattered to be remembered.” Rafe parked an elbow on the floorboard, leaning in a relaxed pose against the wagon. “But you are the talk of our border towns. It is said the highwayman has, shall we say, become very concerned for the great unnumbered.”
As the two men continued to fawn, Villa’s associates cried, “Long live Villa! Long live El Aguila! Long live Mexico! Down with Porfirio Díaz and his cronies at the Jockey Club! Down with the hated patróns! Down with Don Arturo—the slave driver of Santa Alicia!”
Even Margaret knew that Mexicans of modest means pegged everything amiss on the Porfirianos, or to a lesser degree on the land-owning patróns such as Rafe’s uncle. Even clerks and flunkies took their share of abuse. Really, to a politician’s daughter, this kind of talk could get to be a yawning bore.
After the accolades died to a roar, Villa smiled at Margaret. “You come with us to our little house. My hombres will come back and repair your wagon wheel. Manaña.”
“Many thank you’s,” Rafe said. “We happily accept.”
I’ll just bet he’ll fix our wagon. Margaret could have thrashed Rafe for falling in with these strangers. And what about Tex? “May I have a private word with you, viejo?”
The riders laughed at the appellation, but she intended to call Rafe a worse nickname than old husband, if he didn’t do something beside play sheep following the leader. She marched to the far side of the crippled wagon, her supposed husband in her trail. She rounded on him, whispering, “What do you mean, ‘we happily accept’? Who are those men?”
“Outlaws.”
“That puts me at ease.”
“Villa can help us. If we work it right.”
“We? We? I’d like to know how you came up with a plural in connection to those desperados. Speaking of which, why didn’t you shoot them when you had the chance?”
“Margarita, I refuse to kill at your command.”
“Well, isn’t this a fine how-d’ya-do? We could both be lying on the ground, dead, for all—”
“Stop it. You aren’t dead. You aren’t hurt. You aren’t even inconvenienced by Villa and his men. And don’t forget . . . your own father trusted your fate to me. So, do us both a favor and quit your hectoring.”
“No one said Papa is perfect,” she returned, and grudgingly accepted—in her thoughts—that Gil McLoughlin hadn’t been wrong. So far. “I think it’s downright yellow to leave our fates to the Fates.”
A muscle ticked in Rafe’s jaw, then above his eye. His tone low, he replied, “It’s too bad you aren’t a man. Blood thirst such as yours could earn you more fame than writing books. You could head armies. Whip slaves into workers. Enter the corrida.”
“I do have my strengths,” she said, refusing to be insulted. She posed another question. “But what about Tex? What about—?”
She had several what-abouts, none of which got answered. Rafe did an about-face, left her to stew, and returned to his new buddies. The one called Pedro gave over his fine mount to the stranded travelers, then jumped upon the bare back of the remaining workhorse. The entire party set out, leaving the steamer trunks behind.
Taking some comfort in their southerly course, Margaret left a trail of crumbs for Tex to follow—the cookie tin first, then pieces of her attire. By the time the band reached a secluded adobe dwelling in the lee of a conical hill, Margaret was on the verge of giving up her shoes.
“I will not!” The picture of indignation in the waning sunlight, Margarita squared her shoulders and stamped her foot, which disturbed a hen from picking through the measly grass in front of Villa’s adobe hideout. “I refuse to wring that chicken’s neck. And if you think I’m doing any cooking, you’ve got another think coming.”
“But, pretty toothpick,” cajoled the lead bandit, “you are a woman. We do not have a chef to make a feast. And it is supper time. Me and my men and your own man”—Villa grabbed his belly—“we are so hun-gree.” Pedro and Javier, who were milling about like trained ducks waiting for a dinner cracker, both laughed. “Would you please do the cooking?”
“Mr. Villa,” she said sternly, “I don’t detect any crippling new diseases keeping you gentlemen from feeding yourself as you did before you found us. And where—may I be so bold as to as
k?—are your manners? My h-husband”—she choked but recovered quickly—“and I are your guests.”
“Sí, doña. But you are still a mujer, and women take care of hombres.”
Combing his hair, then propping a shoulder against the hideout’s outer wall, Rafe watched Margarita have it out with Villa. Her face had taken on the pink of indignation, and her bosom heaved with the same emotion. She’s attractive like that.
From the famed bandit’s expression, he likewise enjoyed her indignation. She thrived on indignation and fusses. Rafe figured to let her and Villa keep arguing. It was harmless enough. Unless they got more excited about each other than in the subject matter, in which case Rafe would step in. Quickly.
Depending on the theory of honor among thieves, Rafe intended to make friends with Villa and his bandidos. The going could get tough between here and the city of Chihuahua without allies. Besides, a couple of ideas had been forming. Until a few minutes ago, when they had ridden here from the abandoned wagon, he and Pancho Villa discussed the miserable conditions at the Santa Alicia silver mine.
A shiver lanced Rafe. As if it were yesterday, he saw the mine. He saw Hernán fall dead. If only he could call back that night—Impossible. He’d had all these years to know Hernán would be alive, if not for Tío Arturo. You aren’t without guilt in the death. Rafe wouldn’t be dragged down by inner voices. He’d settled his mind—he’d make something of his cousin’s sacrifice. That was enough—wasn’t it?—since Hernán had stood on Rafe’s side of right. His cousin would want it this way.
“Do you have a problem with your ears?” Margarita quizzed Villa and pulled Rafe out of his plans. “I said I won’t cook. And I won’t. Case closed.”
Rafe chuckled, wondering the extent of Margarita’s cooking skills. From Olga, he knew their mother had served as trail cook on a cattle drive to Kansas back in ’69, so the daughter ought to have the mother’s talent. That’s the way they did it in Mexico, passed on traditions, and after his years in Texas, Rafe knew norteamericana mothers were not that different from their southerly neighbors in traditional respects.