Wild Sierra Rogue

by Martha Hix

  Shaking with frustration, she shouted, “Triumph? Better call it tragedy. Don’t you realize you could get killed in that mine!”

  “Diablo could kick me right now, and I could die from it. We have no life guarantees.”

  “Oooh.” Her hands made fists that she pounded against Rafe’s chest. “Rafael Delgado, damn you to hell! You’re too much like my father.”

  “How so?” He closed his fingers around her fists, holding them to his heart.

  “He always made my mother second in his priorities. She deserved better than her constant hoping against hope that he’d wise up.”

  “He wised up.”

  “It took him almost thirty years to do it. You and I, we’ve lost the dew of youth, save for that which Eden Roc gave us. We don’t have thirty years to waste.”

  Her arguments were getting to him. But if he went along with her, what would happen? He saw himself as what he would be: an hombre who’d done nothing to honor his sainted cousin.

  He had to make Margarita understand. “I love you, mi corazón. I love you more than the stars in the heavens or the air that we breathe. You are the song in my heart. You are the light of my life. You’ve given me hope and happiness, and a reason to look forward to growing old. In return I will give you anything you want, anywhere you want it. You’ll have it all . . . except for one thing. I won’t surrender my principles.” Blood surged in his ears. “Thirty years or thirty minutes or for whatever life I’ve got left, I have to live with my conscience—and do penance for my sins. I refuse to abandon my mission until the people of the Santa Alicia know a better life.”

  Tears welled and her chin trembled. “You thrive on violence.”

  “Not so.” Trying to appease, he said, “ ’Rita, mi dulce, once Arturo is routed, we’ll have the rest of our lives for children and picket fences. I promise.”

  She yanked her hand from his heart, and backed away, almost stumbling. She grabbed hold of a support post. Taking a restorative breath, she stood to her full height. “You’ve forgotten something. You’re forty years old. Already, you’re old enough to be a grandfather, yet you aren’t ready to be a father? Fine. That’s your prerogative. But I’m not getting any younger. I want children. Your children. If you go face off with the Arturianos at the mine, you’ll never see being a father.”

  He glared at her.

  “You don’t stand a chance”—she batted at a tear—“because there’s a place in your heart that still beats for your uncle. Do you know why you can’t kill him? Because you haven’t quit loving him! Unless one of you gives in, though, you’ll be carried out of that damned hole in the ground! Because his hired guns damned sure don’t have any love for you.”

  “Are you through?”

  “If I can’t have you the way I want you, I might as well go back to my Persians.”

  He stomped around her, quitting the stable. Given his limp, she didn’t have any trouble catching up, which she did, not twenty feet outside the stable. He ordered her off. She stopped.

  He took another ten steps, then halted when she shouted to him, “I’m not through with you!”

  Wheeling around, he started toward her but she withdrew. The distance separating them might as well have been a continent in length, when she said, “You would cut down your uncle in the chivalrous name of honor, yet it wasn’t his bullet that struck Hernándo Delgado.”

  A bullet couldn’t hurt any worse than the sting in Rafe’s chest. At that moment he hated Margaret McLoughlin. It was too bad she’d ever left those damned cats, because she damned sure didn’t belong in Mexico.

  Loathing in his tone, he said, “Congratulations. You’ve finally done what you set out to do, years ago. You’ve cut my nuts.”

  She’d made a mess of trying to reason with Rafe. He hated her, and she couldn’t blame him. All she’d wanted was to open his eyes! No matter what she did, he wouldn’t accept her apologies.

  Not an hour after their pitched battle, he had collected his brother, the bandit Pancho Villa, and the rest of their party, and they had ridden away from Rancho Gato. Rafe, without a backward glance.

  She knew his plans, and they scared her. Tomorrow, as soon as they could fetch the guns and ammunition Villa had stockpiled at his house in Santa Eulalia, Rafe and his partners would stand and deliver at the Delgado silver mine.

  On second thought, Margaret decided she should have told Rafe about the baby. If he knew fatherhood wasn’t just a concept—On third thought, she was glad she hadn’t. She and their child didn’t need him, if he had to be coerced into staying with them.

  This was the longest night of Margaret’s life.

  She rolled and tossed and trembled. Then she cackled like an idiot at the irony of the situation. They had begun in San Antonio. And their love affair had ended in another San Antonio. Two towns a world apart. Just like Margaret and Rafe were worlds apart.

  She did no more laughing, not when she drew mental images of all the terrible things that could happen to Rafe. Along with all these gruesome scenarios, she had terrible stomach cramps. The reason became apparent when she left the bed where she had spent that sleepless night. Her flow had begun.

  Damn.

  Double damn.

  She wouldn’t even have a child to remember Rafe by.

  It was tempting, the urge to take to her borrowed bed and cry her eyes out. After all, she’d wanted Rafe to want her more than anything in the world. “It’s better this way,” she told herself. “He could be killed today, and where would I be?”

  Rafe—killed!

  Today.

  And he would die with her hateful remarks ringing in his ears.

  The trouble with issuing an ultimatum, Margaret had to live with the negative results. Going back to her cats held little appeal. Oh, Lord, what am I going to do without Rafe? She’d lived all these years without him, but the prospects of the future . . . Her stomach pulled into knots having nothing to do with monthly flow.

  Wait a minute.

  Without a baby, there was no reason why she couldn’t ride after him.

  Esther Vasquez, as she cooked breakfast and Margaret worked as assistant, took on the voice of her conscience. “But, amiga, you said you are sickened by the violence you’ve seen in Mexico.”

  “Leonardo was an awful man. A philanderer and a rapist and a murderer. He deserved to suffer.” Margaret mixed tomatoes to chiles and onions to make salsa. “Rafe is a wonderful man.”

  “Sí.” Esther tossed a tortilla on the hot griddle. “The Eagle is a special man. But he is human. If he gave you another chance, could you accept him as he is? A rogue with a string of lovers.”

  Margaret stirred the salsa. Could she accept him? The romantic part of her heart said yes. The practical part of her brain had a positive thought: So what if he’d done this and that with who-knew-what, no telling how many times. Considering his mastery at lovemaking, she ought to be glad he was no green fumbler.

  “I wouldn’t want him if I could change him,” she answered. “He wouldn’t be appealing if he were timid and meek, or if I could henpeck him. I fell in love with Rafe for Rafe. He’s brave and courageous and determined. And not bad-looking, either.”

  “Very true.”

  “Excuse me, Esther. I’m going to my man.”

  “What if he won’t take you back?”

  Anxiety spiraled. “I—I . . . I don’t know if he’ll forgive me. If he’ll allow me, I’ll stand by him through thick and thin, through revolution and times of peace, no matter the price.”

  Esther smiled. “Andele, muchacha. Hurry, girl. Before it’s too late.”

  After packing the bare necessities into her saddlebags, Margaret rode hard for the Santa Alicia silver mine. Don’t let it be too late for us, Rafe, my darling!

  Thirty-four

  The terrible ache of losing out on love twisted through Rafe to tie knots in his head and his muscles and his heart. When he’d been standing stalwart by his principles in the argument with Margarita, t
hen had quit her as well as Rancho Gato, he’d neglected to consider the consequences of breaking up. He hadn’t realized how much it could hurt.

  A half-dozen times that day, he turned Diablo around. A half -dozen times he turned the stallion back around. Dying on the inside—dying without any help from the Arturianos!—Rafe persisted on his path to the Santa Alicia.

  Anyway, it was too late to turn back.

  He collected the armaments Villa had been stockpiling. He headed his band of men onward. They reached the foot of Santa Alicia Mountain just prior to the day shift leaving the mine. Already they knew Arturo had returned to the mine, thanks to a spy for Rafe’s cause.

  Rafe pulled in Diablo’s reins. “Villa, my brother and I—Sean, too—will follow behind the slave drivers.” Any minute now the overseers would escort the night crew to the mouth of the mine. “Villa, take your men and surround the office. Clean out the safe and be gone.”

  Villa waved, kneed his palomino, and pointed his men up the hill.

  Rafe, his saddle creaking when he turned to the mining engineer, said, “Sean, you know what to do. Get into the mine and place the charges. But wait for my signal to set them.”

  As he and his brother waited for the line of workers, Rafe couldn’t help getting maudlin. You’ve lost her, you fool. She was the best thing that ever happened to you. And now you’ve turned your back.

  What if he quit right now? What if he begged forgiveness? He didn’t expect her to be waiting, when he circled back to Rancho Gato. Probably-no doubt-she was long gone by now.

  “I’ll find her,” he vowed to his brother. “I’ll make it up to her. Once I get rid of Arturo, I’ll do anything ’Rita wants. I’ll even move to”—he gulped—“New York City.”

  “If you are alive to offer up the whole of yourself.”

  “You sound like ’Rita.”

  “Smart woman, your gringa. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Rafe frowned. As if she rode next to him, he could hear her voice. Tell your uncle what to do. He’s not unreasonable. He’s inclined to agree to demands. Sure, and Porfirio Díaz would be sainted by the Mother Church! Despite his cynicism, Rafe swallowed and remembered the Tío of days gone by. He remembered his boyhood, when his uncle had been like a father to him. A fist clawed at his chest.

  Xzobal glanced over Rafe’s shoulder. “Here they come, the night shift.”

  Rafe alit the saddle, hobbled Diablo, then replied, “Hold the drivers back. I’m going in to talk with my uncle.”

  Fearing what she’d find on arrival at the Santa Alicia, Margaret put her spurs to Penny and rushed to the mine. She caught a glimpse of Father Xzobal as she started to climb the hill. A group of slaves sat on the ground, their overseers standing with arms raised in front of the clergyman’s borrowed six-gun.

  Margaret checked the open side of her saddlebag, making sure her passenger rode safely, then kicked Penny’s flank. Pancho Villa and his men, bulging sacks thrown over their saddle horns, cheered as she approached.

  Villa patted the sacks. “Ay, Señora Eagle. The poor will eat well tonight.”

  “Will they now?” Arturo Delgado’s finances wouldn’t be ruined by one spell of robbery. And the bandit would do honor to his spoils. “Good for you, Pancho Villa!”

  “Hasta luego. pretty toothpick.” Villa and his Villanistas carried on.

  Darkness. A pit of darkness, stinking and reeking of dust, sweat, vomit. Making every effort not to add her own gorge, Margaret held tight to the pulley; it creaked as she descended to the inferno of Dante.

  A single lantern lit the bottom, a cavern of wide dimensions. Three cages of canaries hung from hooks in the ceiling. Slaves huddled in one corner. A man—she recognized the slave driver—lay prone and hog-tied on the rock floor. Cantú and Martín were also restrained.

  A gash in his head, Sean Moynihan sat stunned, his back to a wall. Coils of detonator wire were stacked askance to his left. And Arturo had a pistol leveled on his nephew.

  Likewise, Rafe had the Peacemaker trained on him.

  Tension stretched even tighter in Margaret’s nerves.

  In the muted light she knew Rafe watched her from the corner of his eye. Those eyes demanded she leave. I’m with you, Rafe. Come what may.

  “What are you doing here, lovely Margaret?” asked Arturo.

  She couldn’t say, “I’m here to prostrate myself to Rafe and his any decision.” She couldn’t fall to the ground and grab his ankle, kissing it over and over in remorse. Could she? This was a matter of pride.

  “He forgot his dog.”

  She reached into her pocket and extracted a handful of black Chihuahua, who yipped.

  Arturo laughed.

  Rafe groaned.

  “You braved this mine to deliver a dog?” the uncle asked. “What a woman. Too bad you love this rogue. I would have enjoyed having you as my own. Are you sure you won’t change your mind about me?”

  “I would love to love you. As an uncle.”

  “Get out of here,” Rafe ordered her. “Get back to your cats.”

  Her hopes plunged. What had she expected, though? A wet kiss, a wag of tail, and doleful eyes begging for a reconciliation?

  She turned her attentions to the uncle. “Put down the gun. You can’t shoot him. You can’t shoot Rafe any more than he can shoot you. Thank God.” She walked up to Arturo and put her hand on his free arm. “You love him. That’s why it hurts so much, isn’t it? Because you lost two sons that night eight years ago.”

  “Basta, mujer!”

  “No, Arturo, I’ve not said enough. Stop this infernal feud. Stop it right now.”

  “I wouldn’t listen to my nephew when he said these same things, why would I listen to you?”

  Startled, she glanced at Rafe. You went with my idea? His telepathic reply: Yes. Her heart danced a jig of joy. A grin did the polka across her face. All wasn’t lost!

  If the Delgado men didn’t shoot each other, that is.

  Determined to keep at the elder Delgado, she pivoted around to face him. Caballo held to the right of her breast, she stepped up to Arturo. He held out his left hand to ward off the dog, but Caballo’s long pink tongue darted out, laving the side of the human’s hand.

  “He likes you,” Margaret commented. “And I’ve found him to be a fairly good judge of character. Would you like to hold him?”

  “No.”

  She leaned toward Arturo’s ear, whispering in a no-nonsense tone, “I am ashamed of you. Unwilling to bend with your nephew. And now you insult his little dog. I’ve had enough of the Delgado family feud. You will call it off. You will give Rafe his rightful legacy. And you will atone for your wrongs.” She straightened and held out her palm. Her voice rose. “Hand me the gun. And I mean it!”

  He placed the cold steel in her hand.

  Neither Rafe nor his uncle had been able to fire on the other, and, as it were, neither man ever again leveled a firearm at another person.

  It was difficult to believe that the horrors of the Santa Alicia would end, but end it did. After reconciling with his nephew, Arturo Delgado went to see his attorney He renounced all claims to the estate of Constanzo Delgado.

  “In Hernán’s honor,” he told Rafe and Margaret after signing the documents, “and yours, too.”

  The happy couple smiled at each other, Rafe snaking his arm around her waist. Once Arturo handed over the firearm, they had fallen into each other’s arms.

  It was Arturo who pleaded for mercy. He got it.

  The Delgado family was once again whole. Even Soledad—who had hated her brother-in-law for as long as she’d known him—appeared at the fiesta Rafe organized for the people of Santa Alicia. The festivities were held on the thirteenth of February, 1898.

  Yes, Arturo attended the fiesta.

  Helga accompanied him.

  With his personal fortune—he did have some money and property in his own right—Arturo Delgado promised to build a school for the children of Santa Alicia. He also promised to leave
Mexico, to make a start in another country. Cuba might be the spot, he said. Already Cantú and Martín—both now recovered, as was Sean Moynihan—had offered to go with him to the West Indies.

  Arturo hugged his nephew before he took his leave, then kissed Margaret’s cheek. “Thank you, dear lady, for showing me the way.”

  “I imagine your son would be pleased to know how everything has turned out,” she said.

  Arturo’s eyes glistened. “Yes, he would be pleased.”

  On the bedside table in the master suite at El Aguilera Real, sat a Spanish-language copy of Christopher Columbus and the Catholic Kings. Rafe had finished reading it an hour ago. It was the first book he’d ever finished. The author was pleased and proud, even before he had given her a left-handed compliment: “It’s much better than most of the crap I’ve tried to read.”

  Later that night, atop the erotic red coverlet at El Aguilera Real, Rafe held his enamorada in his arms. Lodged high in her womanly place, they were joined as he’d always wished . . . to where she could never get away. It all seemed too good to be true, life.

  “Xzobal leaves day after tomorrow for Spain.” Rafe nibbled her neck, drawing shivers of excitement. “Are we, or are we not, going to ask him to marry us?”

  Her fingertips drew invisible hearts into his thick mat of black chest hair, her toes making circles on the top of his feet. Oh, how she loved this man. Thank you, Papa, for sending me to him! “My darling rogue, you have the best ideas . . .” She licked the scar at his lip. “What a fabulous way to spend Valentine’s Day.”

  They sealed it with a kiss.

  Epilogue

  It was an hour before the doors would open to the public.

  Tall stacks of The Tears of Cuauhtémoc by Margarita Delgado de McLoughlin lined the Manhattan bookstore. This time the publisher hadn’t insisted on a male pseudonym, thanks to the author’s prominence as an expert on Mexico.

  Nonetheless, a nervous Margaret stood at the back of the store, wringing her hands. “Our family is so scattered. Do you think everyone will get here on time?”