Wild Sierra Rogue

by Martha Hix

  “Spain has planted spies in our home state,” Villa announced. “They use us for their Cuban gains.”

  Javier lurched to unsteady feet. “The bell for freedom tolls in Cuba.” It was almost a sob.

  “Down with the Spanish and the lovers of Spain!” Pedro shook his fist. “Cuba libre!”

  Now they trod on family ground.

  When Villa added his like opinion, she started getting hot under the collar.

  Then Rafe agreed with the idiots, and Margaret exploded. “Not one of you knows what you’re talking about.” She jumped to her feet, the chair wobbling behind her. “Why should Spain turn over Cuba to a bunch of ridiculous rebels? I’ve been told the majority of the islanders are lazy and shiftless, that they want to be hand-fed from the plates of their betters.”

  “Are you making a joke?” asked Villa. “You joke about ‘betters.’ ”

  “Absolutely not. I feel—”

  “¡Margarita, silencio!” Rafe set the guitar down.

  “I will not hold my tongue. I’ve read about your country. And my father serves the United States, so I feel I’m in a better position to gauge the political situation, in a worldly and general scope, than a bunch of outlaws. Robbing from the rich won’t settle Mexico’s problems.”

  Villa’s men looked on the verge of murder. Villa had a shocked expression. Rafe clenched and unclenched his fists. Margaret kept talking. “You ought to be thankful for President Porfirio Díaz. For the first time since you demanded independence from Spain—and that was almost ninety years ago!—Mexico is experiencing peace and prosperity.”

  “Do you know that many of Mexico’s children have never tasted meat?” Rafe asked in the voice of restrained fury.

  His question took her aback. Yet a good debater didn’t quail. Furthermore, he no doubt exaggerated. He, himself, had called her attention to the well-being of those Indian tykes in Juarez. “There are two schools of thought on the meat issue,” she said. “Many authorities believe meat bad for the digestion.”

  “One authority being the ace of the Jockey Club,” Villa said with a cynical chuckle, and looked at the other men for acknowledgment. “The mestizo Porfirio Díaz has turned on his own.”

  His men were not chucking. Shouting imprecations, Pedro leaped from his place in front of the fire. Javier, the bigger of the two, lunged at Margaret, his knife raised.

  Her fearful side demanded she scream and cower. Her brave front took over. “Put that thing away.”

  Metal glinted in front of her eyes. She flinched.

  In a flash Rafe knocked the knife to the ground. All hell broke loose, Pedro pouncing at him and Javier diving to retake his possession, but Villa stopped the fray, demanding, “Enough!”

  Margaret shook. Why had she felt it necessary to lower herself to their level? The drunks retreated, thankfully. Rafe shot her a look of aggravation. Great God in heaven, here she was in the middle of nowhere with Mexican desperadoes, any one of whom would slit her throat. If she made it alive to Eden Roc, she was going to give her mother a large piece of her mind for taking a holiday in this wretched country.

  Be honest, Margaret McLoughlin. You go too far with wretched. For all his crankiness and aloofness of late, Rafe had given many glowing descriptions of this land of Moctezuma, and she found beauty in it all, thanks to his clear love for his native land.

  He stepped toward her. “Margarita, back off.”

  Villa shook his head in disgust. “El Aguila, why did you marry such a woman?”

  Rafe put a protective arm around her. “Please excuse my wife. She is of a rich family, and doesn’t understand the plight of the poor.” His fingers cut into her upper arm. “Apologize, so these good men will know you meant no insult.”

  Since she wished to see Manhattan again, and not from the interior of a pine box, she forced down another serving of crow And, to tell the truth, she was feeling somewhat awful about that meat remark.

  Margaret glanced from one man to the next. She saw pride and determination. They would fight for their beliefs. Would Rafe be among the combatants? Images of blood and fallen bodies swam before her eyes, causing her stomach to lurch with dread. And what about a more serious threat? Rafe’s uncle would have vengeance. She lectured herself to keep such worries under control. “I apologize. This is your land. You know it better than I.”

  Remarkably, Javier offered an apology, too. “For—give me for my rash temper,” he said in a surprisingly sober voice. “But, lady, mi doña, I do not apologize for flying to the defense of poor people.”

  “We are God’s forgotten.” Pedro stood tall. “But the people of Mexico will rise to fight for freedom.”

  Villa suggested, “Shall we cut the evening short?”

  Everyone agreed.

  As the bandits made preparations for beds under the full moon, Margaret didn’t worry that her life might be at stake, that Javier would slink in under the dead of night to slit her throat. Rafe would protect her, come what may.

  Protect her. And more. She craved the succor of his arms . . . and trembled with expectation. If there was anything to give thanks for, Rafe was it. Twice he’d flown to her defense, even if he didn’t appear too keen on his stance at the moment. What woman wouldn’t be both flattered and gladdened?

  “Margarita?” Her gaze climbed to Rafe’s troubled visage, and he asked, “Are you so callous that you have no regard for the plight of innocent children?”

  “Rafe, must you make me feel guilty?”

  “Someone needs to.”

  “Well, I think you overstated the situation.”

  He took a backward step. “Don’t blind yourself, Margaret McLoughlin. This isn’t a perfect world.”

  Everything in his voice spoke to her heart, and she stared at the darkened ground. “I’ve spent my life studying various subjects. But maybe I have a lot left to learn.”

  “That you recognize this is to your credit.”

  She coerced her eyes to his. “I can’t understand what I don’t know. I recognize little children shouldn’t suffer, whatever the state around them. But I stand by what I said on other scores.”

  “Which proves you have a lot to learn.” Rafe grimaced, took her hand, then exhaled. “No more arguing, okay? Let’s go to bed.”

  Thirteen

  Rafe’s was an excellent suggestion, going to bed, Margaret thought, though he could act more enthusiastic. You ask too much. Okay, these stinkers may have riled you, but you do ask too much, Margaret McLoughlin. Tonight, she wanted . . . much.

  His hand going to the small of her back, she inhaled around the anticipation forgotten during the fracas with the Villanistas, and followed him toward the one-room casita.

  “Wait, El Aguila. If you do not mind, I would like a private word with you.” Pancho Villa tossed his bedroll to the ground and brandished a flask. “Join me in a drink?”

  Oh, no. She groaned.

  “I won’t be but a few minutes,” Rafe promised in a whisper.

  While Javier and Pedro snuggled down in their makeshift beds, Margaret entered the house. Already a kerosene lamp burned on the table next to an iron bed of wide proportions. Guns and ammunition were stacked in corners; vests and britches hung on pegs. The bedclothes appeared clean. Margaret stripped out of what was left of her well-used traveling suit. She panicked. What did a woman wear to lose her virginity?

  Heavenly days, was she up to all this? Her nerves jumped like Mexican jumping beans. Be sensible. The rest of the night is for you and Rafe. Don’t waste it. Again she wondered what a virgin wore to offer herself up. Even if she’d had her trunks, she supposed nothing appropriate lurked in the confines.

  Should she strip naked? That seemed too brazen, even for this woman who decided to behave as wantonly as any Jezebel who hawked her wares on the streets of Juarez. She shucked everything save for her pantaloons and camisole. Her topknot unpinned, she brushed her hair for more than the required hundred strokes.

  “Where is Rafe?” she mumbled af
ter putting the brush back in her valise.

  More time passed. She stretched out in bed and pulled the sheets up. Crickets sang from outdoors. From the distance she heard a coyote bay. While she heard no voices, she knew conversation progressed. What could Villa say to Rafe that was so interesting?

  “The church turned its back on Father Xzobal when he was given the death penalty.”

  The hand holding a glass of pulque, which Rafe had been bringing to his lips, froze midway to his mouth. He couldn’t breathe. His head swam. He let go the cigar Villa had given him. During the past half hour, as the bandit had spoken of this and that, Rafe had given perfunctory answers, for his thoughts had been on Margarita and the dangers of her speaking too much of her opinionated mind. Mostly, though, he’d been thinking about bedding her.

  She now dwindled from Rafe’s thoughts.

  For years he’d yearned to see his younger, only brother. Certainly, he’d had no idea of finding the gentle Xzobal in trouble. Mother of God, don’t let Xzobal be martyred, like Hernándo. Akin to many of his Mexican brethren, Rafe believed violent death an honorable estate. Yet a brother was family.

  It took his all to ask, “Is he dead?”

  “No. I saved him. He is well.”

  “Thank the Holy Mother.” Suddenly drained, yet ebullient, Rafe crossed himself before he grabbed hold of the corral fence to steady himself. “What does he want? How can I help him?”

  “What all chihuahueños should want—what you and I have yearned for. The removal of the richling Arturo Delgado.”

  “Yes, but how can I help my brother?”

  “That is for you to decide.”

  “True.” Brow furrowed, Rafe voiced his curiosity. “What happened that he fell from ecclesiastical grace?”

  “Ach, what do you think? Since the days of Benito Juarez, the church has been running scared in Mexico. The archbishop shies from controversy. Father Xzobal organized a walkout at the Santa Alicia silver mine. The picketers were fired on. When the smoke cleared, most of the strikers were either dead or wounded. Father Xzobal, despite his injuries, managed to flee. Your uncle, the mine owner, demanded his own nephew’s arrest and execution.”

  Rafe exhaled harshly as Villa added, “The Federales found the good Father Xzobal a week later. They hauled him to the prison in Chihuahua city. The church, by law, refused to support your pious brother. There was no hope of saving him from the firing squad. Until we helped him escape.”

  Rafe broke into a cold sweat. He hadn’t set foot in his home state since December of ’89, yet he knew his uncle’s way of thinking. It wasn’t a pretty thought. He licked his too-dry lips before saying, “Let’s clear up a misconception. Xzobal isn’t Tío Arturo’s nephew. Xzobal is my mother’s son, not my father’s. My uncle seeks vengeance against me. He blames me for Hernándo’s death. It’s me he’s truly after. Xzobal is but an excuse.”

  “He does blame you. Arturo Delgado shouts the loudest for your death.”

  “Have charges been filed against me?”

  “El Grandero Rico says vengeance will be his. And his alone. He is out for blood.”

  Rafe laughed without mirth. It hurt, knowing one of his own familia would have him dead. Of course, he’d had years to become used to it. But the most hurtful part was remembering his boyhood, when he and Xzobal and Hernán had played together—engaging in games of war, cards, and acting out the roles of Dumas’s musketeers. Tío Arturo, never far away, had been the adult to cheer them on.

  “The Eagle will soar above his tragedies,” said Villa.

  Rafe didn’t doubt future success. He was returned. And that had been the biggest step in conquering the unconquerable. What he needed was a plan. He swallowed pulque, the nectar from hell charring a path to his stomach. “I saw my uncle in El Paso.”

  “Ah, sí. He went to reclaim his woman.”

  “How do you know this?”

  Villa smiled, wide and slow, and blew out a puff of cigar smoke. “One of my mamacitas works for the exalted señor. She tells me everything.”

  “Is it for curiosity’s sake, your interest?”

  “Oh, no, El Aguila. Oh, no. I watch the activities of your uncle, so that I might rob him.”

  Giving a dry laugh, Rafe mentioned, “He’s away from his interests now. Why haven’t you moved?”

  Villa lifted his hand to point at the midnight sky. “An eagle flying overhead bade me pause. And now I know why. I was to wait for El Aguila Magnífico. You will ride with me and my boys against Don Arturo.”

  All afternoon, all evening, Rafe had figured Pancho Villa could help him. Not inclined to this particular suggestion, though, he frowned. “Tell me where my brother hides.”

  Silence.

  “Don’t just stand there, hombre.” It was all Rafe could do not to grab Pancho Villa by the ear. “Where is Xzobal?”

  “Near Santa Alicia.”

  “We must hurry there. At first light.”

  Villa took a puff from his cigar. “If you’re willing to meet my price . . . that has nothing to do with money. First, we will rob the offices of the Santa Alicia. Manaña.”

  “Arturo is greedy.” Rafe took a contemplative swig of hell’s nectar. “Robbery might impress him as no peaceful strike did. But it would take more than one robbery to bring him down.”

  “It is a start.”

  Yes, it would be a start. The idea began to grow on Rafe, then wilted. “Count me out. For now. Once I’ve taken care of my brother, then you and I will talk.”

  “El Aguila, if you do not ride with me, and now” Villa threatened sharply, craftily, “I will not tell you exactly how to find Father Xzobal.”

  “The eagle doesn’t rule the skies by quailing at threats, even from other birds of prey.” Rafe took a message-laden step forward and patted the carved-irony grip of his Peacemaker. “This Eagle needs no help in finding what he seeks.”

  Rafe wheeled around, making for the hideout. He felt compelled to find his brother—immediately—and make certain Xzobal was gotten to safety. This would kill two birds with one stone. Xzobal would be out of jeopardy. And that would spoil Tío Arturo’s hoped-for revenge: both Rafe and his brother would thwart him.

  Grand plans, but they left out one crucial detail. What would, could, and should Rafe do about Margarita? Courageous, fearless Margarita. Aggravating highbrow Margarita. In the wake of El Paso, he’d been of a mind to abandon her in the core of Chihuahua, and they were within a few hours of the city, but he now wondered if he had the strength to turn his back on her.

  This was something he needed to sleep on.

  Sleep?

  His ideas had in no way included sleep. Should he bed her, though, when he wasn’t certain what he would do in morning’s light? Sweat popped on his brow. It would take a stronger man than Rafe Delgado to do the right thing. He could try, though. Do whatever it takes.

  Make her angry Rouse her temper. Insult her. Whatever it took.

  He could start by staying away from her and her bed. Right. And what would he say to Villa, once the separation of “husband” and “wife” came to notice?

  In a sumptuous hotel room in the city of Juarez, Natalie Nash sat alone and cried. Yes, Arturo had been waiting for her at the train station in El Paso. Yes, he’d gotten her across the border and arranged for the amply suitable accommodations. But the widower had refused to marry her.

  “When I marry again,” he had said as they stood beside the untouched bed, “it will be to a young woman. A woman who can give me sons to replace Hernándo.”

  She stared. Stared at sixty years of Latin perfection. He neither looked nor acted old. His straight hair-the rich brown of sable—had been clubbed back neatly from his unlined face. He was almost as handsome as his nephew. Further, Arturo’s body many times had been taken for one of a man less than half his age, thanks to the curative powers of Eden Roc.

  It was natural that he would want to start a new family.

  “I’ll give you sons,” Natalie sai
d.

  Arturo looked at her as if she had just dragged herself through excrement. “You have the dew of youth in your face and between your legs. But you are forty years old.”

  She wasn’t going to allow his insult to hurt her, nor would she point out that he could have fathered a daughter of forty. “There’s still time for children.”

  “May I be brutally honest with you? When I marry again, it will be to a young woman from a fine Mexican family.”

  “There is nothing wrong with my bloodlines. The Nashes are of high society. And my father is rich and respected.”

  “It’s not the same. You are the melange of norteamerica. A land of curs. I want the purity of Spain,” Arturo exhaled. “I refuse to make the mistake my brother made when he married Rafael’s lowborn mother. I will not marry beneath my station.”

  Dear God. Natalie realized that Arturo was serious. Panic and desperation grabbed her, yet she called up bits and pieces of strategy, discarding one after the other, before she said, “Your ideal of the perfect lady—would she be a loyal helpmate? What guarantees would your ideal give you? In the name of having your best interest at heart, that is.”

  “You have a strange look in your eyes, Natalie.” He dusted the sleeves of his cashmere coat. “And it doesn’t flatter you, falling to the machinations typical of your gender.”

  “I’ve missed your guiding presence.”

  “You should have thought about that before you left me for the high life.”

  “Yes, I left,” she replied, then took the biggest gamble of her life. “When I was returning to you, I saw—” She paused for emphasis. “I have seen your evil nephew. He’s left the protection of San Antonio.” Interest and fury replaced the indifference in Arturo’s chiseled face, and it was all she could do not to grin like a Cheshire cat. She buffed her nails. “I know where you can find Rafael.”

  Arturo cut the distance between them and grabbed her by the hair. “Tell me everything you know”

  She did.

  Arturo, obviously, felt no obligation or gratitude. After he’d listened to everything she had to say-damn him to hell!—he left anyway.