She did not speak until we gained some distance from the nearest people, under an old oak tree, with a chandelier hanging from its biggest branch. “You must go and play poker with the men inside,” she said urgently, putting her fingers on my arm and nodding toward the house. “I heard a woman say that her husband was playing, and there was the strangest golden lamp on the table, part of what another man was wagering.”
I swallowed hard. The lamp? Here? Did that mean that Mendoza was about too? I pulled her close and looked around, feeling a rush of fierce protection.
John and Rafael both caught my worried eye and hastened our way. Quickly, I told them what had happened. “Zara and I will head inside. I want you, John, to attend Zara as I play. Rafael, alert the others that the pirate may be about and then join us at the tables. If this man didn’t bring the lamp to the party, I must find out who did.”
Both men agreed, and Zara and John followed me inside. There were a few other women inside the den, standing about, watching as their men played, so it wasn’t so extraordinary that Zara was there. Still, John gestured to me as I sat down and then to the man next to him, smoking a cigar. “That’s my good friend, Don Javier de la Ventura. Care to make a bet on the outcome of his game? He’s the best in all of Alta California.”
“Not from what I hear from the men of the…” the man said, dropping his tone and turning away so I couldn’t hear the rest of their chatter. I strove to ignore it anyway, now that the man to my right, a heavyset, perspiring man named Señor Manuel, was dealing the cards.
ZARA
We stood outside the gaming room, thick with cigar smoke, in a small parlor with windows open wide. Many women milled about, clearly waiting on their dates, but some men too. John and I chatted with one person after another, but he kindly positioned himself so that I could glance over his shoulder and keep an eye on Javier. There had been no room at the table where my lamp sat in the middle, surrounded by coins as prize, so Javier had taken a seat at the table next to it. Clearly, the stakes had risen at the lamp table. And as word spread of the growing bounty, more crowded into the den, intent on watching the game come to its end. I chafed at so many seeing the lamp and wondering over it.
But my attention hovered on the man John was now speaking with, smoking a fat cigar. Focusing in on the conversation, I figured that he spoke of the crew from the Guadiana. My mind raced, trying to remember where I’d heard the name of that ship before. It was John’s pointed look that helped me remember. It had been the men of the Guadiana who had raced after Javier, the day I first arrived on his shore—the day I’d met John, after I’d stolen Javier’s horse. The men had been set on killing him, it seemed, and crossed from Vargas land onto Ventura land as if they had every right.
“Have you spoken to the men of the Guadiana recently?” I interjected, studying the man in his early forties, puffing on the cigar, next to John.
“As recently as this evening, señorita,” he said, sidling me a curious glance after blowing two perfect O’s of cigar smoke. “Do you know of her captain?”
My mouth went dry. If the men of the Guadiana were here, and they favored gambling, how long would it be before they entered this very room? John’s eyes narrowed, as he obviously came to the same conclusion. If they found Javier here, when he’d once escaped them, would they still be seeking to make him pay? I still didn’t know what that all had even been about.
I knew I had to warn Javier. I stepped into the room, John right on my heels, and made my way through the crowd.
Cards were laid with some flourish on the lamp table, just as we drew near. There was a grumble from one young man about “uncommon luck,” and an older man on the other side of the winner bit out, “That’s not luck.”
I edged around three men to get a better look at the winner. I had been able to tell from the back that he wasn’t Mendoza—his hair was too thin and a lighter brown.
“Gentlemen,” the winner said, gathering toward himself the pile of coins and the lamp and scooping it all into a leather bag, “do you wish to continue bemoaning your own poor luck and make a formal claim about my ethics, or continue playing?”
I gasped, as I registered the lines of the bag. It was the one Mendoza had carried. Somehow, it made the lamp’s presence more concrete, more real.
“Wh-where did you get that bag?” I asked, pushing my way through the remaining men to get to the edge of the table.
The young man paused from gathering his winnings and peered up at me. “I purchased it just this afternoon, señorita.”
“From whom? Where?” I said, my tone more like a shriek, even to my own ears. I saw Javier rise behind the crowd and push his way in, just as John did so beside me.
“A man, down on his luck, outside of town,” said the man, now rising too, eyes shifting warily among us.
“A pirate, you mean,” I bit out. “Captain Mendoza. My captor, the one who robbed the Heron in Bonita Harbor and stripped everything from Javier de la Ventura’s storehouse.” My fists were clenched. “The man who kidnapped me and Mateo de la Ventura, holding us for ransom! A killer!”
The young man was lifting his hands in surrender, but I saw that he already had the bag strapped across his chest, preparing to make an exit.
“And I am Javier de la Ventura,” Javier said, crossing his arms and giving the man a menacing glance. “I believe we should sit down and hear all you have to tell us. If you are truly innocent, we will know. And if you are not—”
“He is not,” cried the man who had lost so badly at the table. “I wager he was cheating throughout our game!” He rose, red-faced, obviously seeing this as an opportunity to regain some of his losses.
“Did someone claim he was Javier de la Ventura?” thundered a man from the doorway of the den.
As one, we all turned to see who had come in, and I instantly recognized the three men who had given Javier chase that fateful first day I arrived in 1840.
It was suddenly hot in the room—dreadfully hot—and far too much champagne and wine had been consumed by those inside. The air was charged, practically sparking.
And then everything exploded at once.
CHAPTER 24
ZARA
John shoved me down to the ground as a chair came swinging through the air.
Women screamed, and men shouted. Others cursed. More chairs flew through the air and a man fell beside me, knocked out cold. Another was pushed across the table and came down four feet away, surrounded by cards and gold coins. But my focus was on the winner—the man with my lamp…and possibly Abuela’s shawl and the fossil, too, in the saddlebag. I thought Javier had put them all in the saddlebag, that day when Bonita Harbor was attacked. I didn’t care about the gold, but there was no way this evening was coming to an end before I had the lamp—and hopefully the rest of my treasures—in hand. Each was special to me, for different reasons. And I’d lost so much in recent weeks, so much, that there was no way I would lose those three things.
I got to my feet and dodged two men who were both trying to choke each other, careening past. Another man lunged for his adversary, narrowly missing me. I saw that Javier and John were fighting the men of the Guadiana, two against three, and others were joining in—some on Javier’s side, some not. A young woman was screaming—simply screaming, eyes squeezed shut, fists at her sides, totally still except for her open mouth.
Meanwhile, the young gambler with Mendoza’s bag smiled a little to himself, as if this was the perfect exit strategy. He, too, ducked past grappling men, refusing to engage anyone who threatened him, with his hands up as if to say, “Peace, I’m on your side.” They let him pass, and he made fast time to the doorway. I dodged to one side behind a column when he glanced backward, obviously to see if anyone was watching his escape.
I bent down and grabbed hold of an unconscious man’s sword, sliding it from the scabbard. It was more an ornament than a true battle sword, but at the moment, it was the best I had. I hid it among my skirts as I hurried
down the hall, as others moved in—led by the portly Señor Casales—clearly bent on ending the spectacle that was about to totally ruin his wife’s John the Baptist feast. The gambler ahead of me again paused at the front door, turning for one more look, but I slid behind an open door and waited, counting to three. After three, I peeked out, and he was gone. In trying to remain unseen, had I given him too much of a head start? I ran forward. If I lost him…if he disappeared into the crowd…
But when I reached the front porch, I saw him entering the stables to my right. More men rushed past me into the house, either excited to enter the fray or eager to assist in stopping it.
I ran to the stables, searching the crowd for Hector, Felipe—any of Javier’s men—but seeing none. Javier would kill me if he knew what I was about to do, but I couldn’t see any other way. If I gave the gambler even another minute, he might be on his way out at a full gallop. I might already be too late.
I crept down the dimly lit stables, with single-flame lamps hanging three stalls apart. I hated the swish of my skirts across the straw and halted, trying to hold my breath, listening. But there was no movement apart from a few horses dolefully swinging their heads my way as if hoping for a carrot or a handful of hay. “Come out!” I whispered loudly. “I know you’re in here! I want only three things from you. Give them to me, and I’ll let you go. Refuse, and I’ll scream.”
“I think you won’t do that,” he whispered back, lifting a sword to my neck. He’d been in an empty stall almost directly beside me.
I stilled and groaned inwardly. Who did I think I was? Charging in here alone? And what did I plan on doing with the sword hidden among my skirts? The closest experience I had with one was watching The Three Musketeers.
“Listen to me,” I said. “All I want is the lamp, the fossil, and the shawl. They are mine. Then give me a bit of information, and I will let you slip away.”
He paused. “Those things are yours?” he said doubtfully. “I thought you said the bag belonged to Javier de la Ventura.”
“I did. But the things within are mine.”
I could almost feel him waver.
“Give me those things and I will let you go.”
He scoffed a laugh. “I can go now. Even if you scream, none will come in time.”
“But some might give chase.”
He stepped closer, considering me, forcing my face toward the light with the tip of the sword. “You are the girl that Mendoza kept captive.”
So he’d lied. Clearly, he knew the man.
“And you are the man who has my stolen goods. Keep the gold. I only want the lamp, shawl and the fossil. The lamp is worth nothing, broken as it is, but it is a family heirloom.”
“And the fossil?”
“Javier gave it to me. It was once his dead brother’s. He has one just like it. He wanted me to keep it always, knowing he had the other.”
This small intimacy seemed to move him. “You also mentioned a bit of information, señorita. What is it you seek?”
I swallowed hard. “Well, I would like to learn anything you know of Mendoza. Where is he hiding tonight? Why did he risk his ship during a storm? Who is he working for and why?”
He studied me, intently, and came around to face me, his sword still at my neck. “That is more than a bit of information, is it not?”
I hesitated. “Well, yes.”
A man shouted outside the stable door, then another. The young gambler’s eyes shifted to the door and he held his breath. We both did. When it became apparent the men were not yet coming in, he said, “Are you a gambler, Señorita?” he asked, stepping closer, so he could whisper.
“Me? Uhh, no. I don’t play cards.”
“Gambling goes beyond cards. We gamblers enjoy a bit of risk in our lives to keep the blood pumping, and testing if we can trust our own intuition, as well as how we read others…”
I considered him. “No. I’m not really a gambler.”
He dropped his sword and patted his pursed lips with his gloved finger. “Pity, that,” he said. “Because I am about to ask you to gamble in order to retrieve what you seek.”
I eyed him warily, waiting.
“I do not have your shawl or fossil here. Allow me to go now,” he said, leaning closer to whisper in my ear, “and I will not only get you your lamp, shawl and fossil, I will tell you of Mendoza’s greater gain in all this. That will prove far more important to you than his current location in time, no?”
He leaned back to watch my eyes widen, and I knew I’d played into his hands. I hadn’t yet managed to hold on to any sort of poker face, and this was a man well-schooled in the art.
“Ahh, yes, I thought that might please you. You already know there is something beyond the Bonita Harbor and the Heron’s treasures that greased Mendoza’s wheel. You just do not yet know who…or how. I can answer those questions.”
“How? When will you tell me?” I said, pulling back angrily, even as my heart pounded with hope.
“That is what you shall have to gamble upon, Señorita,” he soothed. “I shall deliver all to you within a fortnight, back at Rancho de la Ventura. Not here. It would be far too dangerous.” He moved to the next stall, turning his back to me, and threw a saddlebag across a gelding, stuffed his own bag inside one, and swiftly mounted. “If you betray me now, you will lose not only the hidden shawl and fossil—though it mystifies me why they might be so important to you—but also the lamp. If I am captured, you can rest assured that your lamp will be in the sheriff’s custody, not yours.”
“For a time.”
“For a time. Until someone steals it from him. Trust me. This is your best option.”
Trust him? I didn’t even know what a fortnight was! I couldn’t let him go! I whipped out my sword and aimed it at him as he slipped on a low, black hat, typical among the Spanish here.
He stared down at me as if I were a first-grader trying to take on a sixth-grader. “Do you intend to use that, Señorita? I think I shall gamble that you will not. Because you want what I have promised. And your only chance at it—your only true chance—is to allow me to go now.”
With that, he dug his heels into the gelding’s flanks, and I dropped the sword point to keep from stabbing the poor horse. Shouts sounded from the yard as he was spotted, but I heard the clatter of horseshoes on cobblestone for a time until he reached the dirt road.
When I reached the stable door, he’d disappeared into the dark.
CHAPTER 25
JAVIER
I came to and winced, immediately closing my eyes again.
Zara took my hand in hers. “So it’s now my turn to play the nurse and you the patient,” she said.
“Would that a pretty nurse could make a man’s head cease aching,” I muttered.
“Exactly what I said yesterday,” she teased. I laughed until it sent an arrow through my temple and abruptly stopped.
Her tone gentled. “Truly, are you all right?”
“I will be. The Guadiana crew simply paid me what they thought I was long due.”
“And more,” Rafael said, sitting on a chair beside me, elbows on his knees. “Had your men not arrived, I fear they would have beaten you to death.”
“My men and Señora Casales,” I muttered, lifting a hand to my throbbing brow.
Rafael looked down at me. “Señor Casales brought aid. Señora Casales restored order. And you can thank Patricio for convincing her not to toss us outside the hacienda gates with the rest of the ‘troublemakers.’”
“Ahh, yes,” I said, “so I owe the entire Casales family.”
“Indeed you do.”
I turned to Zara. “And what of you, love? Where were you during the melee?”
“I—I escaped outside,” she said.
She was hiding something, not telling me all of it, but I didn’t have the fortitude to pursue it. My cursed head was about to explode.
“Hector,” she said, “see if you can find some feverfew, will you?”
“Ahh
, turnabout is fair play, sí?” I muttered.
“Sí,” she said, taking my hand. “What is it about those men from the Guadiana? Why did they want to kill you as much today as the day I met you?”
“Well, for one, they are friends of the Vargases.”
“Granted. And?”
I paused and chanced a glance, squinting. “Truly, I am not the same man I was the day I met you, Zara.”
Her beautiful eyes narrowed at me, waiting.
“The day I won at the Guadiana crew’s card table in Santa Barbara,” I said with a sigh of confession, “I made certain that I also stole a kiss from every one of their women.”
Rafael laughed under his breath, shaking his head and putting his long fingers on either side of his mouth, staring in dismay at me. Zara was shaking her head too, but was that a hint of a smile about her lips? I hoped so.
I took her hand in both of mine, pulling it to my chest. “Clearly, that would not have happened since. At that time, I simply wanted escape. A reprieve from the long, straight road that Rancho de la Ventura represented for me. You changed that, Zara.”
“I hope I did,” she said, squeezing my hands. “If only to keep you alive.”
“So the young gambler slipped away?” I asked Rafael.
“He did.”
“You have men tracking him?”
“Heading north, south, east and west.”
“I’m sorry, Zara. We’ll do what we can to find him again,” I pledged. I refused to think what might happen if the man managed to escape town with the precious lamp still in the bag. But as much as I wanted the lamp for Zara’s sake, I wanted Mendoza for all of us. “How many hours until daylight?”
“Three, maybe four,” Rafael said tiredly.
“We must rest, then,” I mumbled, blissfully glad for the excuse, as my aching, weary body begged for nothing else.
Four Winds (River of Time California, Book 2) Page 13