“Maybe you could stick around and see that we don’t,” Mary suggested. He looked pained.
“Ma’am, I got two more places to go tonight. No one’s been hurt here, hasn’t even been assault or robbery.” Tipping his hat, he drifted off.
Mary swore with color and feeling. “It probably is that sneaky Fricks bastard. But you can bet he won’t be traipsing around where he might get hurt.”
“Tivi and I will camp by the crossing,” Roque planned. “No fire or light. Then if a stranger comes across, we’ll cream him.”
“Try to get him to say who sent him,” Tracy urged. She rummaged around till she found her battery-powered tape recorder. “Keep this handy and start it if he’s talking.”
“He’ll talk,” said Roque. Tracy decided from his expression that he could be as mean a dude as his cousins once-removed when events warranted it.
After supper he went down to stand guard and wait for his brother. Tracy commanded Le Moyne to go with him.
“Isn’t this a note?” Mary shook her head as they barred the cabin door. “Here we are forted up like the good old days, except what the hell is an Apache doing on the inside?”
“Slow-ground justice.” Tracy laughed. She thought of the cruelly killed animals and lost her grim amusement. “This really is a pretty clever ploy. They’re not hurting or threatening us, not even breaking in. If the trapper gets caught, he’ll probably get off with a fine for killing a doe out of season and another for trespass.”
“And if he gets nailed, it sure won’t be by the sheriff’s department!” Mary pulled the curtains, though usually, with the cabin so secluded, they left them open at night. “No offense to Roque and Tivi, but I wish Geronimo and Shea were on lookout.”
“Not Shea!” said Tracy. She hadn’t told Mary about his proposal. It still hurt too much, was too shaming. “He thinks I can’t hang on to this place without his help. I’m going to show him!”
There was the sound of a motor, then a shutting door, and soon after, the faint sound of the Sanchez brothers calling to each other. “It’s going to look like a parking lot across the stream,” Mary pointed out. “If our poacher’s smart, he’ll take one look and forget it.”
“Maybe for the night, but if Fricks would try such tactics, I doubt he’ll fold up so easily.”
By ten o’clock, when they went to bed, there had still been no commotion. Tracy was divided between hoping her tormentor would be caught and the fragile chance that perhaps he’d decide it was too risky and quit. That was no real answer. Fricks or whoever was behind the harassment would just find another ploy.
She was absolutely determined not to appeal to Shea.
Tivi and Roque came up for breakfast. They had taken turns on watch. About midnight, Tivi had heard a truck coming and seen its lights, but it had turned around and retreated.
“Can’t have much guts,” said Tivi, draining his third cup of black coffee. “Guess we won’t have to call in Mama’s mean cousins after all.”
“Don’t be too sure,” cautioned Roque. “Sneaks are harder to handle than machos. Tracy, you want one of us to hang around today? Papa said it would be okay.”
Tracy looked at Mary, who chuckled. “I’ll be here, boys.”
“Only at night,” said Tracy quickly, “please arrange that someone comes—and I’ll be perfectly happy to pay your mother’s cousins.”
“Don’t worry about a thing,” Tivi grinned expansively.
“Nice guys,” said Mary as the women watched the brothers, one skinny, one plump, both bowlegged, head for their truck. “But I’d still rather have Geronimo.”
“You just want an excuse to see him without his thinking you’ve weakened,” Tracy accused.
Mary wrinkled her pretty brown nose. “It’s a good excuse.”
“Too good.” Tracy shook her head apologetically. “I’m sorry, my friend, but there’s no way to call in Geronimo without Shea’s knowing.”
“You’ve had a fight,” Mary diagnosed.
“A doozey. You could put all the confidence that man has in women on the head of a pin and have room left over.”
“Geronimo says his wife gave him a raw deal.”
Tracy shrugged. “And his mother left him. But I happen to be neither of the above.”
“Men are devils,” Mary said with such a droll look of intrigued disgust that Tracy chortled.
“I think I’ll go see if our feathered friend is still in his nest. One day soon those little rascals should start flopping out on branches and trying to fly.”
“Should make good pictures,” Mary nodded. “You deserve some exclusives after the way mom and pop almost scalped you.”
Tracy climbed the stilted blind, grateful that though her ankle was still tender, it was reasonably trustworthy again. She squinted through the eyehole. No valentine faces peered out of the hollow, nor could she see either parent roosting close by.
From all she had read and heard, it wasn’t possible for the babies to have learned to fly and desert the nest so quickly.
Worried, she hurried down, froze as she noticed two bundles of feathers beneath the tree. Going slowly over, she nudged one body gently with her foot. It turned over; a half-devoured mouse in its claws.
One of the adults. Dead, but she could see no cause. The mate was equally lifeless. Some disease? If both parents were dead, the owlets would need food, and quickly.
Tracy scooted the blind’s ladder over to the tree and climbed up. No wonder she hadn’t been able to see the fluffy owlets. They were huddled in the bottom of the nest. They hadn’t died of starvation. Mice, shrew and rabbit parts lay about.
Dazed, Tracy scrambled down and sat on a rock with her head in her hands, ignoring Le Moyne’s snuffles of sympathy. She hadn’t exactly loved the family of owls, but she’d admired them. Hours of patient watching and the rescue of the lost one had made them familiar, individuals who mattered.
It must be disease. Yet all of them? In such a short span? She stiffened at a horrible thought. Birds died from eating insects dosed with pesticides. It figured they could die from poisoned mice.
She shook off her baffled mourning, started to the house for a sack. Diseased or poisoned, the owls mustn’t be left to feed and kill other creatures. She’d take them to town and get a veterinarian to determine what had killed them.
If they’d been poisoned—She fought back furious tears. She could call Fricks and tell him his campaign wasn’t working, that if she had to, she’d get the sort of guards who’d maul his hirelings till he couldn’t get any more. But he wouldn’t care how many men were beaten up so long as he could get more, and for money there’d always be some.
Damn it! He could sit in his Phoenix office and claim innocence no matter what happened down here. Unless one of the poachers could be made to implicate him. Cagey as Fricks was, he probably had two or three middlemen between him and the actual pawns.
For a second Tracy thought of appealing to Judd. This should be right up his alley. But she didn’t want to get involved with him again, and it went against her grain to ask for the protection she’d repudiated before things got touchy.
Explaining to Mary all that had happened and that she was taking the owls to town, Tracy asked if her friend wanted to go along.
“I’d better mind the store,” Mary said. “Leave me Le Moyne and I fear no man.” She added vehemently, “It’s bad luck to kill owls and if someone did it, I hope they have all there is!”
Tracy got her purse and a bag. She was scooping the baby owls into it, grimaced as she realized she’d better take the dismembered mice, too, both for analysis and to keep them from being eaten. Holding her breath, she used a twig to roll the ugly bits into the sack. She was collecting the adults when Shea’s pickup roared to a stop across the stream.
XIX
Her ridiculous heart lifted but she quelled it immediately. Damn it all, had the Sanchezes told him what was going on? Caught literally holding the bag, there wasn’t much she could
do but face him as he took the foot-log in a couple of pantherish strides. His gray eyes blazed as he caught her by the shoulders.
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“I can handle it myself.”
“Sure! You called in the game warden, the sheriff and the Sanchezes! Hell, if Inez hadn’t had more sense than you or Chuey, I wouldn’t know now!”
“Inez told you?”
“She sent Lupe over.” He sniffed in distaste. “What have you got in that stinking sack?”
Tracy showed him. “I’m taking them to the vet to see if the mice they ate were poisoned.”
He put the sack down. “I don’t think you need to do that.”
“But—”
He grinned savagely. “When Lupe told me Tivi and Roque would be here, I decided to put off giving you hell and go give it to Hal Fricks.”
“You what?”
“Routed him out of bed. Told him I knew he wasn’t setting the traps and shooting, but if any more of it happened, he’d need plastic surgery, if not an undertaker.”
“Shea! What if it’s not him?”
He shrugged. “Well, that’s the chance we take, but he let enough slip to convince me.” Shea grinned down at her. “I scared him so bad that if there are any incidents, I’d hesitate to maul him without more proof. But I’m betting there’ll be a swift end to trapping around these parts.”
“I didn’t ask you to help,” Tracy muttered. “And we’d have handled it some way. So don’t start thinking I can’t manage without you!”
He shut off her words with his lips. Her indignant sputter faded into the sweet, aching delight of being in his arms, till she remembered his insulting proposal and tried to struggle free.
“I can’t manage without you,” he said against her throat. “Marry me, Tracy.”
Her heart was pounding and her knees felt as if they had melted. “Because you want to be sure I don’t sell out?”
“You’ve proved you won’t.” He touched her hair, caressed her cheek. His eyes seemed almost black. “No, I guess I gave myself that reason, but it wasn’t true, even before. I want you to marry me, honey, because I’m sick of reaching out in the night and finding you’re not there.”
Almost unable to contain her joy, she answered with her kiss. “Oh, Shea!” Her voice was tremulous but now it didn’t matter, she didn’t have to pretend around him. “I thought you never would!”
“So did I,” he said a bit ruefully. “But, damn it, I guess the only way to get you off my mind is to get you in my arms.”
“Not a bad solution.” She laughed.
He put the owls in the truck, saying he’d burn them, and they wandered up to the spring. Helping each other undress, they bathed and played in the big rock tub, dried in the sun, admiring each other though she ached at the scars on his torso, which she traced with her fingers and kissed.
“It’s too late to kiss them and make them well,” she whispered.
“Scars don’t count, honey.” He spread his clothes and drew her down, holding her tenderly. “Only new wounds do. Let’s be kind to each other.”
She nodded.
This time, there was not only the passionate rapture, but a sort of healing, a sense of being completed, no longer a lonely fragment of humanity but a part of wholeness. It was the most perfect peace and quiet joy she had ever known. It seemed impossible now that they had distrusted and misunderstood one another.
After a long time, they went to the house to tell the news to Mary and to have lunch, for they were both ravenous. Mary hugged them both, but held Shea off a minute to admonish him.
“This lady deserves some luck. Be sure you give it to her.”
“I’ll try.” He grinned inquisitorially. “What about Geronimo’s luck?”
“He can try it again when I’m certified,” Mary said firmly. “Now when’s the big day so I can get the tiswin brewing?”
“Let’s stick to beer and bourbon,” Shea pleaded.
“Sissy!” jeered Mary, then dimpled. “It is awful. And you have to drink gallons to get a buzz. Let’s drink your Jack Daniel’s.”
Before Shea left, they agreed to be married in the sala of the old ranch house by the priest who’d buried Patrick. Sunday afternoon would be the best time, so all the vaqueros could come.
“This Sunday?” asked Shea.
“First, don’t you think we’d better decide where we’re going to live?”
He looked comically surprised. “Guess we can’t sleep under the ramada with the guys,” he admitted.
“I’d love to move into the old house before we have children,” Tracy said. “Though it seems a shame to oust the Sanchezes.”
“They won’t have to move far,” Shea reminded. “We can renovate the old compound and give Inez that shiny newfangled kitchen she wants. Tivi and Roque need houses of their own, too, so it can all be taken care of in one swoop.”
“I hate to leave this place,” Tracy murmured, glancing around the cabin.
“We’ll keep it for a getaway,” Shea promised. “And we can live here till the old house is ready.”
“I can be out tonight,” Mary offered.
“It’ll take me a few days to get things straight at El Charco,” Shea said. “When do you get certified, madam mechanic?”
“Two more weeks.”
“Sanchezes would make room,” Shea considered, “but how about spending the time at El Charco? We could slick the adobe up enough for it to serve till you’re ready to listen to my buddy’s honorable intentions.”
Mary thought a minute, then nodded her smooth black head. “Sounds like a good idea. It’ll give me a chance to check that man out.”
“Just don’t break his finger,” Shea urged, eyes dancing. “We’ve got work to do.”
He kissed Tracy and left. Only then did she realize that he hadn’t said he loved her.
Nor did he during the next few hectic days as they got blood tests, a marriage license, and made arrangements. It was a tiny mar on the shining glory of Tracy’s happiness, but she told herself he’d already risked beyond what she’d dreamed possible.
He must love her. Actions were more than words, weren’t they? Yet she hungered for the words.
He slept at El Charco but stayed late every evening with her. The summer evenings were warm and pleasant, so it was no hardship to leave the cabin to Mary and walk in the moonlight or spread a blanket and sit and talk till the moment came when he drew her into his arms.
The first night, as they melted into each other with excruciating sweetness and then rested peacefully, blissfully in each other’s arms, she murmured against his cheek, “I love you.”
He smoothed her hair, traced her eyebrows and nose and mouth, before he raised on one elbow to caress her body. “You’re beautiful,” he said huskily. “Head to toe! And one helluva woman with it!”
In spite of his tenderness, she felt denied, longed for him to say he loved her. Another night they decided to soak in the hot spring.
What began as a frolic ended in wild urgency, climaxing in a strange sensation of weightless, almost bodiless union. When they had toweled each other off and lay in the tree-filtered light, he said slowly, “Tracy, life here is different from the city. Sure you won’t get bored?”
She laughed at such absurdity. “With you? And I’ve got my work.”
“That’s just it.” Rolling over, he held her chin and gazed down at her. “I can’t believe anyone as pretty and smart and wonderful as you will find me a good long-term proposition.”
“You’re wonderful yourself,” she laughed. “Anyway, I love you.”
He kissed her. Soon, they wanted each other again. But at no time could she bring herself to ask, “Do you love me?”
If he said yes, she’d be ashamed at having had to extract what should have been a gift. Worse, she simply didn’t know what she’d do if he admitted plain sexual desire had driven him.
What was so awful about that? she asked herself roughly. There
could be passion without love, but she didn’t believe, in a man-woman way, there could be love without passion. If he didn’t love her now, that might come later. She had to face the fact that perhaps the desertions of his wife and mother had left him unable to love in the way she wished. But she could love him. She would love him.
Sunday afternoon, the sala was thronged with vaquero families, from grandparents to babies. Little browneyed girls looked like flowers in their ruffly pink, yellow, blue and white dresses, and there were flowers in vases, flowers lovingly tended by women who longed for color and softness in the harsh desert.
Mary and Geronimo stood up with Shea and Tracy, but as the priest spoke the beautiful timeless words, Tracy felt that unseen presences blessed them, too.
Patrick, who had raised them both, able to see now, and to walk. That first Patrick, the San Patricio, flaming-haired, with his arms around Socorro whose sweet smile was like that of the dark little Guadalupana in the niche above. Santiago of the golden eyes and panther grace. Steadfast Talitha; Caterina united in eternity with the man for whom she’d died; their grandson Sant, with Christina, grandmother to Shea, great-grandmother to Tracy.
And surely Johnny Chance was no outcast here when his blood ran in Tracy. Even the giant ghost of Mangus Coloradas might tower in the door a moment with the host of other spirits who had been part of the life of the ranch.
The only person whose presence seemed strange was Pardo. After the ceremony, he wished them well and drank to them, but he refused to stay for the early dinner which in fact was more like a feast.
“Think I make these good folks nervous,” he said with a swaggering grin that faded to grimness as he stared at Tracy. “You’re getting one good man, lady. Take care of him.” He thumped Shea on the shoulder. “Happy days, sarge—lots of them!”
“Thanks. Let me know when you decide to make an honest man of yourself, and we’ll sure come to see the ceremonies.”
Pardo shook his Pharaoh-like head. “It’s not for me. But I sure wish both of you all the luck.”
A Mating of Hawks Page 21