RIO GRANDE WEDDING

by Ruth Wind

  "Nasty infection, isn't it? My wife couldn't kick it for weeks, either." He agreed to phone it into the pharmacy at Judson's right away.

  The pharmacist was solicitous when he filled the scrip, and again Molly felt a little guilty. But not too guilty. Her patient would be in trouble without the antibiotics, and the consequences of letting him go to the authorities was higher than he ought to pay. A white lie. Just a small one.

  Still, it bothered her. People trusted her.

  There wasn't anything else she could do tonight to find the mysterious Josefina, and she took the bottle of pills back home.

  It had grown dark, and as she drove toward the house on the narrow, two-lane blacktop that wound toward her land, she instinctively slowed down. At a particularly nasty curve, she passed the descanso, a white painted cross and wreath that marked the spot where Willie Chacon had died in his '62 Buick seven years ago, and slowed down again.

  Her driveway was not paved. It cut through uncultivated fields thick with sage, the gravel holding up, but the red clay beneath it beginning to waffle and pothole.

  Looking at the wide bowl of black sky, at the depth of the darkness, she wondered about the little girl, where she was, what she was doing tonight. It broke her heart to imagine how terrified an eight-year-old would be on such a dark night. "Keep her safe," she prayed silently, turning off the engine of her car.

  The house looked exactly the same as it had when she left it. A lamp burned in the back room where she'd left her patient, and the light cast a faint wash of gold over the spirea bushes at the side of the house. A ripple of nervousness, of the vastness of her actions, suddenly struck her, and she sat where she was, a little stunned with it.

  Was she nuts? Taking a stranger, however wounded, into her home, with no protection to speak of, isolated out here on her one hundred acres where no one could hear her scream if he turned out to be a mass murderer? For one moment, the fanciful side of her imagination conjured up a gory picture of herself slaughtered in her bed, a statistic for the ten o'clock news. On the screen of her mind, a grave-faced anchorman said somberly, "In other news tonight, a young woman was found murdered in a small town in northern New Mexico this morning…"

  She heard her late husband snort in laughter, a memory, but one that brought her back to earth. He'd found her wild imagination both endearing and exasperating, and that gentle snort had always helped her reassert her practical side.

  As it did now. Even if her patient were of that ilk, tonight he couldn't walk, much less chop her to pieces. She knew from her days as a surgical nurse that it wasn't as easy as it looked to wield a knife. It took quite a lot of strength, actually.

  And besides all that, her bedroom door locked.

  Chuckling to herself, she went in and checked on the man. One hand was flung out, and the covers had tangled around him, as if he'd been restless, but he still lay flat on his back, that black-licorice hair scattered over the pillowcase.

  At his feet, curled in a big ball of fluffy black and white fur, was Leonardo, who had evidently decided the stranger was safe enough. Molly chuckled again, scrubbing his head lightly. "Taking good care of him?"

  The cat purred, then yawned and jumped down, off to find food. Molly turned her attention to her patient, reaching down to tug the blanket over a long brown leg that had come uncovered. It was lean and dark and muscular, lightly adorned with black hair that looked silky, and to her amazement, Molly found the sight positively electrifying.

  A leg, Moll, a wry voice said. Just a leg. With a sigh of exasperation at herself, she poured a glass of water, then squatted beside the bed to wake him. Only then did she realize she didn't know his name. How odd.

  "Señor," she said quietly, touching his forearm.

  He didn't stir in the slightest. She shook his shoulder lightly. "Señor," she said again, more loudly this time. Still nothing.

  Suddenly worried, Molly put her hand on his face and swore at the fever burning in him. "Damn." Not good. Not good at all.

  Putting the water down on the table, she raced to the kitchen for a clean washcloth and pot of water into which she cracked a tray of ice cubes. Carrying those supplies, she dashed into the bathroom for a bottle of rubbing alcohol and back into the bedroom.

  Her heart was racing with fear, and pouring liberal amounts of sharp-smelling isopropyl alcohol onto the cloth, she tried again to rouse him. "Señor, wake up!" She tossed the covers off his body and washed his face, his neck, his arms. "Señor! Can you hear me?"

  He stirred a little, and Molly redoubled her efforts. The scissors she'd used earlier on his jeans now lay on the table and she grabbed them, quickly slicing away the thin tank top he wore. She spilled fresh alcohol on the cloth and washed his chest methodically. "Señor!" she cried, then more quietly, "Come on, guy. If you die on me, I'm in really big trouble."

  * * *

  The voice came from far, far away. Soft, like music, like morning. Alejandro reached for it, but it slid away, and he was back home, on his uncle's farm. Confused but pleased, he greeted his cousins and explained that he didn't know how he'd got here, but he was glad. Then one asked about Josefina.

  Josefina!

  A sharp splat hit his forehead, and he bolted upward, fighting. A strong arm caught him midchest and pushed him back down, and roaring pain jolted through his ribs and from his leg, simultaneously, and he groaned, falling back, dizzy and nauseated.

  "Take it easy," a woman's voice said. "I'm just trying to bring down your fever, okay? Easy."

  The cold cloth fell on his neck, and he protested, or thought he did. It came again, across his chest, his shoulders. Finally, the sharp odor penetrated and he found himself beginning to shiver. Protesting, he opened his eyes.

  His saint bent over him, worry on her face now as she patiently washed his flesh down, rubbing his chest, his neck, his face, then his shoulders and arms, then each leg, and back to his chest. Lost just beyond the ability to speak, he only watched her. The braid, glossy and long, fell over her shoulder as she worked, and he noticed that her nose was very straight and a little too big for her face. And he saw that her eyes were strange – tilted down a little at the inner corners. It made her seem otherworldly.

  At last she seemed to feel his gaze and jerked her head up. There was deep worry in the gray eyes before relief claimed it. She sighed. "Thank God," she whispered. "Señor," she said, "I must give you a pill. Can you take it with my help?"

  He could not quite recall how to speak, but he made some motion she must have taken for yes, because one strong arm came behind his shoulders, bracing him. A breast, giving and warm, pushed into his shoulder. A pill landed in his mouth. It was slippery on his tongue. She put a glass to his mouth and he drank. Then another pill. More water.

  Water. He closed his eyes. In his disoriented state, he thought of it as cool silver, thought of it rushing over the orange fire in his throat. Then the glass was gone. He drifted away. Josefina came to his thoughts again. He had to get well. To find her.

  * * *

  Molly was afraid to leave him. Washing him with alcohol brought the fever down some, and in time the ibuprofen and antibiotics would begin to work their magic. In the meantime, he was obviously delirious and restless, his fingers sometimes fluttering up as if to capture something just out of reach, his head turning side to side in blind seeking.

  Her belly went hollow as she examined him, finding the wound red and inflamed, his skin dry and hot, even after the rubdown. She would have to remain vigilant until his fever broke. In a few hours, she would awaken him again, give him some more ibuprofen and antibiotics and water, and pray he could keep them down. It had been at least a full day since he'd eaten, probably closer to twenty-four hours, and the meds might not sit well.

  He moaned and threw back the covers. Patiently, Molly replaced them and then went to the kitchen to boil water for tea. She made a huge mug of sweetened black tea with milk, then found the novel she was reading and settled in the small back room.
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  In the silence of the desert night, in the quiet of her own house, Molly told herself she ought to be worried. If her patient died, she'd have an awful lot of explaining to do. The people she'd lied to this evening would know she'd lied, and they would not trust her again so quickly.

  But he would not die. She wouldn't let him. He might be pretty miserable by morning. He might curse her before she was through with him. But he wasn't going to die.

  As she sat in the cozy "mama" chair she'd purchased in hopes of having a baby that had never come, it wasn't worry in her mind. Now that the crisis was passed, she felt … anticipation.

  Anticipation for what?

  Did it matter? No. She granted herself permission to admire the blackness of his hair and realized she would very much like to put her hands into it. She eyed the length of a shin sticking out of the covers and liked the silky-looking hair glazing his coppery-colored skin, liked the strength in that calf. She liked his foot, graceful and clean, and the oval silver saint's medal glinting on his chest and the long swoop of collarbone.

  But over and over, she came back to his face. It was not traditionally or even classically handsome; the shape was long and narrow, wider at the top than the bottom. Taken one by one, the angles were too sharp – a blade of a nose jutting aggressively from between high, piercingly slanted cheekbones. An authoritative jaw leading to a narrow chin.

  She sipped her tea and inclined her head. Painting was her hobby, and line had become something of a fascination for her. Why did all those sharp angles work? His face was drawn like a coyote's, almost too severe and lean. And yet, the effect was undeniably riveting. Why?

  The lines balanced, slant to slant, in perfect harmony. His skin was clear and dark, blunting the shadows. And there was balance to the severity, in the softness of lashes and eyebrows, in the wide mouth graced with lips that were drawn extravagantly, almost lushly.

  And around that sharply etched face fell hair as black as a silk scarf, loose and curling in places, a tendril breaking that bold cheekbone, another curling along his neck.

  She closed her eyes, aware of a vague heat along her inner thighs. Stop.

  But why? How long since she'd felt this quivering thrill at even looking at a man? Forever. And ever. There had not been a man in her life in four years, and for six before that, her husband had occupied – and satisfied – all of her fantasies.

  That was all she indulged tonight: the simple pleasure of finally feeling a stir in those places she'd thought dead with her husband.

  A fantasy, that was all.

  She had no illusions about the reality of the world. He was an illegal immigrant – which meant poor and even more poorly educated. He would know nothing of the things that she loved – her books and poetry and music and art. She would not deny the native intelligence she had glimpsed in his eyes, but she didn't confuse education with knowledge. She didn't confuse beauty with goodness, either.

  But the fantasy, now … the fantasy was quite different. It did not involve anything but direct physicality. Alone in her chair, with no one to see her, she could admit to herself that it would be very pleasant, very very pleasant to lie naked against that long, lean body, lie with him and touch him and feel his hands and mouth on her. She would like it very much.

  But they would never have a thing in common. In a few days, he would be well enough to walk, and he would take his Josefina and wander to the next town, to the next harvest, the next dodge of the law.

  In the meantime, he quieted, and Molly let herself simply look at him, resting her eyes on his beauty in much the way she would gaze at a sunrise. Peacefully, without demand.

  At last, she opened her book. Propping her feet on the end of the bed, and covering her shoulders with the blue and green crocheted afghan she'd made the first year in the house, she read. Leonardo wandered in, jumped up on her lap for a nice rubdown, and having achieved it, leaped from her lap to the bed, curling at the stranger's side and settling in to lick a paw.

  Molly thought about shooing him away, but it somehow made her feel better that the skittish Leo had decided the stranger was okay. She went back to reading, and after a little while, she dozed, then fell into a much deeper sleep, her head comfortable against the back of the chair.

  Something startled her awake, and she dropped her book, blinking in disorientation when she found herself in the chair. In a rush she remembered her patient, and saw that it was he who had awakened her.

  He was struggling to sit up, and had reached out a hand to touch her leg. "Señora," he said in a rough voice, "I am sorry but…"

  Immediately, Molly bolted forward, putting her hands on his cheeks to test his fever. She found the skin damp and hot. Damn. "Let me help. What do you need?"

  He looked abashed, and raised a hand to gesture toward the room across the hall, where the light still burned. "I cannot get up."

  "Oh! Excellent." She patted his shoulder gently. "Let me get a bedpan. Don't move." She rushed out of the room and found an old tin pot that would serve the purpose, and mindful of his privacy, held it out to him, ready to turn her back when he took it.

  "No, no," he protested, and pushed himself up. "Help me."

  "It's all right. I'm a nurse." She didn't really know how much he understood of her English. He seemed to be quite fluent and until he proved otherwise, she'd stick to her usual conversational style. "You don't have to get up."

  A dark flush crossed his cheekbones, and he looked away. "No." With what appeared to be Herculean effort, he managed to swing his legs over the bed and sit up. "Please." He held out a hand to her. "Help me."

  Molly nodded and bent down to allow him to put his arm around her shoulder. Together they rose, and the bedspread fell away, leaving him in clean white briefs, nothing fancy and somehow all the sexier for it. Rotten of her, she thought with a half smile, to be admiring the fit of a patient's underwear. Sensing he might be embarrassed, she tugged the afghan from the chair and with one hand, wrapped it around his waist. With his free hand, he captured the ends to hold it in place, and Molly lifted her head to smile at him.

  He looked at her gravely, and she saw that his eyes were very large and dark and liquid – limpid. The word sounded in her mind, a poet's description. His mouth was tight, and a paleness marked the flesh around it, but he managed a faint twitch that might have been a smile. "Thank you."

  "De nada." She helped him across the hallway and he grabbed the door, bracing himself on the sink with arms that trembled visibly. "Are you sure you're okay?"

  He stood there, head bent. Light melted along the tense muscles of his back, showing the effort it took for him to stand there. After a moment, he nodded, and she reached for the door to close it for him. "I'll be right here. Cry out if you need me."

  Leaning on the wall outside, she wondered again if she'd lost her mind. As if he wondered, too, Leonardo peeked around the edge of the wall, alarm on his face.

  * * *

  The woman, tousled, and weary by the look of her face, helped him back to his bed and tucked the blankets around him. He had been overheated and now felt very cold. Was that good? He thought so.

  "Can you eat a little?" she asked him.

  He could. His stomach felt as empty as a dry arroyo, but she had been kind enough already. "Go back to sleep. Morning is soon enough."

  Her smile was quick and friendly. Alejandro liked the way her eyes crinkled with it. "I'd much rather you ate, so I can give you some more medicine. Just a little broth or something?"

  "Broth?"

  "Soup. ¿Sopa?"

  And though he knew he should not accept more of her kindness, his stomach ached for something. "Yes, please."

  "Bueno."

  He smiled at her attempts at his native language. Like most gringos, she flattened it with her American accent, but it was kind of her to make the attempt. She bustled out and Alejandro lay back on the pillows, pulling the blankets more tightly around himself and closing his eyes.

  He'd tosse
d Josefina bodily into a copse of bushes and taken off himself into the darkness, bolting like a wolf, away from the raid. He'd believed he'd made it, too, until the bullet caught him. Even then, he kept running as long as he could, determined he would not leave Josefina to the authorities as long as he had breath in his body.

  But even a shallow bullet wound was enough to make him bleed too much, and the running made it worse, and he was weak and stumbling by the time he'd thought to pack dirt and grass into it. He'd taken a few minutes to clear his head, listen in the darkness to the faint sounds of the raid. Intending to circle back toward the lights and the place he'd hidden Josefina, he got to his feet and leaned into a small run.

  In the darkness and his confusion, he made a wrong step and found himself suddenly hurtling through the darkness. Not a long fall, but it had not been easy on the way down. And the wind had slammed out of him, harsh and shattering. And he had not been able to get back up, no matter how the screams of Josefina echoed in his head.

  Josefina. It made him sick to think of her alone tonight.

  The woman came back with a tray she set on the bedside table. As she bent, the soft lamplight caught on strands of her hair, turning them to a silver-gilt shade that disappeared again when she straightened. "Here we go," she said.

  There was a bowl of thin soup and a glass of milk and a cloth napkin. "Do you need help?"

  He shook his head, but she did help him to sit up properly, putting piles of pillows behind his back so he could lean against the wall. The tray had little legs that fit over his lap. But now, shirtless, he was cold, and rubbed his arm. "Where is my shirt?"

  "Oh! I had to cut it off. Your jeans, too, I'm afraid." She turned, as if looking for the shirt, and he thought she was more unsettled than she appeared at first. "Let me get you one."

  She left and came back with a denim shirt with pockets. A man's shirt. Was she married? "Your husband's?" he asked as she helped him put it on.

  "Yeah," she said shortly.

  "He will not mind?"

  Her smile was sad. "No."