by Martha Hix
“That’s man-talk.” Tex shuffled his feet. “Sis, honey, talking about ole Rafe ain’t gonna help us outta the pickle we be, uh, we are in. With that Hector feller dead, what are we gonna do about getting to Mutti?”
Shame stilled Margaret’s purple snit. “You’re right. I’ve been thinking of myself; it’s Mother we need to worry about.”
“Maggie, we oughtn’ta borrow trouble. Mutti, why she’s a strong lady. She knows how to take care of herself.”
“True. But we aren’t in Mexico to sit on our behinds in a Chihuahua hotel.” Margaret pushed the covers away, got to unsteady feet, and began to organize her belongings. “We must pack. And make Eden Roc in all haste.”
“How we gonna find our way?”
“We’ll find our way.” She certainly wouldn’t depend on Rafe’s mother to find them a guide. “Our mother needs us.”
As Margaret and Tex descended the curving staircase to the hotel lobby, it was the hour of the day when Mexicans stirred from siesta. A man with an overlong face and large ears cut across their path. Instantly Margaret recognized something—she didn’t know what—about him.
She said to her brother, “That man—doesn’t he look familiar?”
“Nope.”
“But he . . . well, I don’t suppose you would know him, now that I think about it. But I swear he looks like Felipe Apodaca of Granada. He’s one of Leonardo’s aides.”
“You’re seeing things, Sis.”
“Maybe you’re right. What would Señor Apodaca be doing in Chihuahua?”
From the street entrance, a mustachioed man of about fifty shuffled toward Margaret and Tex. His clothes could have accommodated another person or two, it seemed. He had mousy hair streaked with gray; he had little of it. So gaunt was he, Margaret thought of Ichabod Crane.
“Are you Señorita McLoughlin?” he asked. When she nodded, he turned a hat around in his hands. “I am Luis Rivera. Señora Paz sent me.”
Margaret whispered in English to her brother, “Apparently the females in Rafe’s family are the more trustworthy.”
“You want to go to El Ojo de la Barranca? Luis, he will take you there.” Luis tapped a finger against his chest. Smiling an uneven smile, he said, “Señora Paz, she says you know El Aguila.”
“Señor Rivera, if you’re interested in earning money, you’ll not mention his name to me. How quickly can you be ready? We must leave at our soonest.”
Luis’s eyes glazed. “What I would give to see the Eagle again.”
Didn’t he hear her? “Let me set you straight, Señor Rivera. You’re lucky you haven’t. I, for one, suffered from being in his company. He stole my money and left me stranded in this foreign country.”
Luis shook his head. “No, señorita, he did not strand you. His madrecita put you in Luis’s hands. And that is as good as his own. I will take very good care of you and your brother.”
He made no sense at all. Who did, when it came to a certain blackguard of healthy bank account? “Señor Rivera, let’s discuss finances. I won’t be cheated again. Thus, I’ll pay you nary a centavo until we reach the port of Tampico.”
“I have a little wife and ten little children.” He grabbed his belly. “They will be so hun-gree if I cannot feed them.”
“All right. I’ll pay half.”
“Sis, you okay? I never knew you to be too generous.”
“Hush.”
Many times she’d cut cardboard liners for her shoes rather than pay the highway robbery of cobblers. And now she would advance money as if it were fool’s gold? You’ve spent too much time around that spendthrift Rafael Delgado. Getting down to business, she inquired of the Chihuahueño guide, “How long do you think it will take to reach the Eye of the Canyon?”
Lifting his palms, Luis shrugged. “In a wagon? A week. Maybe ten days.”
In Margaret’s ear, this had a nice ring. Soon the journey home would begin.
Luis took a forward step. “The great Eagle . . . how is he, señorita? Do you know if he will ever return to his people?”
Margaret had an uneasy feeling about Luis Rivera. She said, “May I make my position glaringly clear? I do not want to spend seven minutes, much less seven days in the company of Señor Delgado’s adoring fan.”
“But, señorita, the great Eagle is my friend. I—”
“If you are going to guide me and my brother, no more mention will be made of the man. Is that agreeable?”
He nodded.
She snapped her fingers to catch a bellboy’s attention; he didn’t respond. Welcome to Mexico. And then she got a look at her guide. The expression on his face? What a pitiable woman not to appreciate the great Eagle.
Luis dug into his shirt pocket and produced a frayed photograph. Olga didn’t simper from this one. “My lady, has El Aguila Magnífico changed since—?”
“That does it.” Margaret swung around. “Your services will not be required, Señor Rivera.”
She ground to a halt, guilt drenching good sense. Ten children. Ten little upturned beaks. Hungry nestlings. “Tex, take him to the market. Buy him some groceries.”
Three days. Three days! Three long days Margaret spent looking for a guide. No one accepted the assignment: No one of any worth, to be specific. On the morning of the fourth day, she told her brother that they had to take the situation into their own hands.
“We need to travel light,” she said, as Tex finished his breakfast and hers. Margaret considered the soda drinks, the various clothes for all sorts of weather changes, and the paraphernalia to make the trip easier. She had a sizable investment tied up in those trunks. “I’m donating the wagon and its contents to the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi. Provided the priest assures me the proceeds will go to needy children.”
The priest, ten minutes later, gave all his assurances.
She felt good for her benevolence. And anyway, who was hungry? Well, Tex, of course. But he’d eat old shoe leather, if need be.
Next she found a street vendor and outfitted herself in the shirt and britches of a boy. “For riding astride,” she told Tex, who picked out fine Mexican saddles and a pair of excellent mounts, a chestnut mare and sorrel gelding. She took nothing but a single valise filled mostly with elixirs, hooking it to the saddlehorn.
Another couple days passed, though, before they could take their leave, for Margaret fainted again. The doctor summoned by the hotel management gave a strong lecture on taking care of herself. “If you wish to live, señorita, you must protect yourself.”
Thus, she spent two days in bed.
Becalmed—she’d had lots of experience with becalmed—Margaret tried to be stoical about the course her life had taken. She couldn’t and wouldn’t blame Rafe for the loss of her virginity. That, she gave away. And she shouldn’t be surprised he’d left her. After all, he’d made her no promises; until lately, he’d never shown an interest in her or made promises, except for one. Special didn’t describe her.
It wasn’t long before she was furious.
He’d taken her money.
Same as stole it.
How dare Rafe Delgado cheat her out of all that cash! If she ever saw him again—and she hoped she wouldn’t—she intended to demand redress, either in currency or in his hide. And she expected full value for her dollar.
Seventeen
“Sis, we’re lost.”
Margaret McLoughlin refused to acknowledge her brother’s statement. She refused to acknowledge her fears, though they were many. She sat high in Penny’s saddle and kept her outward composure.
Yesterday, she and her brother had set out for Eden Roc. They had gotten hopelessly lost by the afternoon. They spent a cold and miserable night in a gulch, treated to a coyote serenade. Breakfast the next morning was no celebration. The urge to scream and cry and pout and stomp her foot had to be reckoned with.
“Let’s follow the sun,” she suggested as they saddled up.
“If we can get back to Chihuahua, Sis, let’s stay put—”
>
“Until we hire a guide,” she finished for Tex, having heard these words several times since dawn. “Let’s follow the sun back to Chihuahua.”
Their path, by afternoon, brought them to a recognizable sight. In the distance was the village of Santa Alicia. Margaret stuck her tongue out in a symbolic gesture.
The sun at three o’clock, she caught sight of something. That something was a someone. Actually, two people wearing sombreros. Two men. Riding on tall black stallions and seemingly in a hurry, they were headed east. Soon they would pass Margaret and Tex. And one of those men was Rafe Delgado.
“Sis . . . now, don’t get riled. You ain’t been outta bed—”
“Enough!” Her teeth ground together before she spat bullets. “I’m going after my money!”
She dug a heel into Penny’s flank and took off in the miscreant’s direction. It wouldn’t have been surprising if he dodged her—he’d ducked out in El Paso, hadn’t he?
Her hair flying loose from the hairpins, she stood in the stirrups and leaned over the mare’s neck. Margaret McLoughlin might be rich and spoiled and frail—and she’d spent years in a sanatorium as well as the sanitarium of a big city—but she could still ride as if a posse were after her. It took less than five minutes to corral Rafe Delgado and his companion between a bluff and her mount. It was no dumb derringer she aimed at the cigar-smoking, black-attired villain. She steadied five pounds of Colt Percussion Revolver at the point between his eyes.
“¿Ay, Margarita, como esta?”
Como esta. He had a nerve, addressing her with the lazy, easy familiarity of a friend. Her chest heaving, her pulse surging in her ears, she steadied all twelve inches of the revolver’s barrel and willed herself not to cough. “If you had a brain in your head, you’d have a fair idea how I am.”
“Heyyy, when did a swarm of wasps bite you?” Flipping his sombrero behind his head and letting it dangle down his back on its string-moorings, Rafe rested his wrist on the saddlehorn. His eyes half-lidded, he rolled the cheroot to the other side of his mouth. A grin jacked up the scarred side of his mouth. Insolence could be his middle name. “I thought I told you not to point things at me.”
“Unless you come up with five grand, preferably in gold and right away, you’re going to get worse than pointed at. Starting with”—she adjusted her aim downward, and caught his squirm—“the origin of your dubious fame.”
“Settle down, ’Rita. Just calm down. We’ll get this worked out. Can’t you see I don’t carry big stacks of money on me?” He jerked his thumb to the right. “Let me introduce you to my brother. Xzobal Paz. Father Xzobal.”
“I don’t mean to be rude,” she said snidely and kept her eyes on Rafe, “but I didn’t catch you for the social graces. Since you are without recompense, I demand you guide me and Tex to Eden Roc.”
“Can’t. I’ve got to take care of my brother.”
“May God have mercy on the poor soul,” she said.
His brother chuckled softly. She dared a glance at Xzobal Paz. Gentle eyes in a tanned face met her wary gaze. His attire was not that of a man of God. Slim and handsome, he wore the straw sombrero, loose shirt, and trousers of a peasant. Leather sandals strapped very dirty feet. He had a placidity that went with his calling. While there was a slight resemblance between the half brothers, they were very different. The holy and the holy hell.
“Good day, my child,” Father Xzobal smiled serenely. “My brother has spoken well of you.”
“Spoken well of his fattened bank account, you mean.”
“Where is Hector?” The reins in one hand, the ever-present cigar in the other, the majestic black anxious to be gone, Rafe looked past her to the approaching rider, asking Tex, “Didn’t you look for him, McLoughlin?”
She did the answering. “Your man is dead.”
Rafe took the cigar from his mouth; his lips moved silently. Smoke waved from side to side as he made the ageless sign of his faith. What a hypocrite.
The Colt kept growing heavier and heavier; it was almost a relief when Tex took it and suggested a sensible talk between the aggrieved and the offender. “Let’s be kind to all this good horseflesh we got, people. They look like they could use some water and a few blades of grass.”
Tex and the priest fell to the chore of hostler, once Margaret and Rafe handed over their mounts.
As if negotiating with a mere acquaintance—and never once offering any sort of apology for stranding two foreigners, one an intimate acquaintance—Rafe tried to talk Margaret into letting him and Xzobal go on for Texas without any trouble.
Over and again, she replied, “Fine. As long as five thousand dollars is in my hand.”
“ ’Rita, I’ll get your money to you, in San Antonio.”
“Not good enough.”
On and on they argued, until it degenerated to a shouting match. Once—once!—she’d found arguments attractive. No more. Feeling faint, she inched over to a boulder and sat down, bracing an elbow on a knee. She set to the business of breathing.
Rafe took a step in her direction. “Is the cough coming on? I’d better get—Where’s your medicine?”
“Don’t need . . . any. Leave . . . me alone.”
Rafe retreated, went over to his brother.
Thankfully she didn’t cough.
Tex rushed up. “Maggie, honey, you’ve gotta stop this stuff. You’re looking foolish, yapping at ole Rafe like he was—well, tell me something. How many times have ya sworn ya didn’t wanna see that ole boy again?”
“More times than Rafe Delgado has tumbled women.”
Tex clicked his teeth. “You know, Sis, that Xzobal, he’s a right nice feller. Drew me a map.” He showed it off. “And he done give me names of some people we can call on along the way. There’s these folks at Rancho Gato—”
“It would be nice if my own brother were on my side.”
The backs of her eyes burned. She shook with the injustice of Rafe. The most hurtful part of all this? His lasting affections and unfulfilled wishes in regard to Olga. The morning after the supposed rape, he’d shown up at the Menger Hotel, begging an audience. Begging to see Leonardo’s wife! From Margaret the only thing he’d begged was relief. All the while he’d been saving Olga’s picture and pining for her return.
Yet Margaret couldn’t stay away. Why? Accept it. Her present demand for money had excuse written in it. It was a bald cover for what she really wanted. She yearned for Rafe to do an about-face—and beg her forgiveness.
No more than a quarter furlong away, he and Xzobal chatted. Rafe stood with an elbow parked on his saddle, one foot crossed over the other, a booted heel propped up. She heard his laugh. The rogue! The wild and annoying rogue! Hurt and mad, she tried to grab her Colt from Tex, unsuccessfully. From between gritted teeth, she demanded, “Give me my gun.”
“Maggie, honey, ease up. If you don’t settle down, you’re gonna be a laughingstock. What’s it gonna take to get through to you? Where’s your pride?”
Laughingstock. She had made a joke of herself, demanding attention. Gooseflesh rose on her arm; she dropped her chin. She straightened her spine and shoulders, pulling her head up. “Let’s ride for Eden Roc.”
Covertly, Rafe watched Margarita swing into the saddle. Mother of God, I’ve missed that girl.
At least a thousand times since leaving her at Pancho Villa’s, he’d thought about his gringa supreme. At least five hundred times he’d been tempted to forego duty, find her, beg forgiveness, then do anything it took to crawl between her legs.
And those legs, at the moment, were encased in britches. Her legs are sure long. Long Texas legs. Long Texas legs wrapped around an hombre’s behind—Rafe cleared his throat and shifted his weight to the other foot. An hombre had to hand it to a mujer who never said die. No coy, simpering virgin, she. She’d wanted to write a book, then did it. Always willing to help her family, she’d sacrificed her time to go after her mother. Never did she shuffle her feet in indecision. And she could not only ride dow
n a man, she didn’t hesitate to lift a whole lot of Colt at him.
“Damn, she’s great.”
“What did you say, Brother Rafael?”
“Nothing.”
Margarita. A woman. A warrior. Half Teutonic, half goddess. One of those Valkyries that he’d read about when he’d been looking up Teutonic gods.
He started toward her, but stopped.
He hadn’t played disinterested to ruin it all now.
She was a sickly woman, not some wild-haired Brunhild carrying Siegfried off to Valhalla.
Thus, it had taken all Rafe’s willpower not to make a fool of himself when he had realized she rode the chestnut. Furthermore, he worried for her. Outside of those long Texas legs, she looked bad, as if she hadn’t slept in days. And whatever weight she put on between Juarez and Pancho Villa had vanished. The pain he’d seen radiating from her blue eyes—
You are a real bastard, Delgado. You know you hurt her. You know you owe her, and it’s more than any five thousand dollars. You should see her back to Chihuahua, make certain she’s put into good hands.
What would he do with Xzobal, while playing a hero straight from fables of old?
Margaret rode up. Dispassion in her eyes and voice, she said, “We’ll let you men be on your way.”
“Margarita, I’m going to take you to Chihuahua.”
Evidently she didn’t hear him. Having turned the chestnut mare in the opposite direction, she called over her shoulder, drowning his words, “Oh, by the way, I don’t know if you’re really interested, but your man Hector Flores stood up to your uncle. Flores died in the dungeon of Chihuahua city.”
No!
“And be warned, Rafe. The Federales are looking for your brother. They know he’s left Pancho Villa’s house in Santa Eulalia.” She kicked the mare’s flank and took off, her brother in her dusty trail.
¡Merdo!
Rafe let her get away. He knew he could catch up. The most pressing matter, deciding what to do next, had to be addressed, because his plans to take the shortest route to Texas, by way of Piedras Negras, must be scrapped.