by Jeanne Rose
"Behold, I am Quetzalcoatl!" he thundered in Spanish, then repeated the phrase in the Mexica's older language, Nahuatl. And he propelled himself from the raft even as it touched land.
Not that he much looked like the plumed serpent of the Aztecs. Yet. Even so, a few wide-eyed peasants immediately fell to their knees. More laughed and muttered amongst themselves as their numbers swelled.
How dare they? Didn't they know that Quetzalcoatl had been predicted to return from the far east on a raft of snakes? The ones he held wound their bodies around each of his arms and rattled their tails in annoyance. Others slithered off the raft, no doubt seeking a warm dry place to sun themselves.
"I am the incarnation on earth of the great god!" he shouted. Just as priests had been in more ancient times. "I can lead you safely through the earthquakes that will destroy the fifth empire of the sun!"
"Fifth empire? What is he talking about?" asked a woman.
"Do not concern yourself with his nonsense," one man said.
And another demanded, "Do you really think we would follow a lunatic?"
Curling his lip, Beaufort sought the man who'd uttered it. His gaze narrowed. Burned. He was incensed by the smile that quivered below a thick, drooping mustache. "Sacrilege!" he intoned. What did this dirt-streaked native know about gods and what they expected of mere humans?
"If you are Quetzalcoatl or any god, then show us your magic." The man's mocking grin revealed rotting teeth.
Beaufort held out the snakes. "These creatures who travel with me do me no
harm."
"Bah! You have removed their venom."
"Then you will not be afraid to take one of them from me and fondle it so." Beaufort demonstrated, rubbing his cheek against the reptile's head even as it flicked its fangs.
The man's skin paled, but others pushed him forward, urging him to respond to the challenge. Beads of sweat that had nothing to do with the blazing sun gathered on his broad forehead and his breath came harshly, lungs pumping in his barrel chest. Trying to hide his fear, he strode forward and snatched the rattler Beaufort had used for the demonstration.
"You see!" the man cried, holding the snake away from him. "Anyone could do this."
Seemingly gaining courage, he turned the rattler's head toward his face and grinned. His mistake. As Beaufort had known it would, the irritated snake struck out, its fangs meeting his fleshy neck.
"A-a-ah!"
The man tossed the snake aside. It slithered toward the dusty town awaiting Beaufort. His burning eyes turned on the doubter, who was sinking to his knees.
Though he still gasped for air, he was as good as dead.
A small gift for the gods, Beaufort thought, dreaming of far greater as he looked into the faces of several converts.
Northern New Mexico
"I SHALL DIE IF I do not have one of your smiles," Javier Zamora told Louisa with an exaggerated sigh as he watched her fasten the gate of the pasture where she kept the wild mares. "All I do is think of you."
Finished working with a half-dozen of the new horses – and that after spending more than an hour following sunrise further cultivating El Tigre – Louisa had just let another mare loose to join the rest of the small herd. The pretty little pinto kicked up her heels as she loped toward her companions, a few of whom greeted her with welcoming nickers.
Oddly enough, the hot-blooded black stallion was coming along faster than his brood, due, no doubt, to the fact that she'd isolated him so completely. He depended on
class=Section2> her for everything. Food. Water. Companionship. He couldn't help himself. She'd caught him watching for her arrival by the gate that morning. And though he'd immediately turned his back on her once she'd entered his corral, Louisa figured he was merely playing hard to get.
Taking her cue from the stallion, she airily said, "And what kind of things do you think about me, Javier?" reflecting only a mild curiosity rather than a passion she didn't feel.
"Your beauty haunts me day and night," the good-looking young Spaniard went on.
Truth be known, she didn't care about Javier romantically, but she really did like him in addition to the half-dozen other ranch hands who seemed to adore her. They were all honest, hard-working young men with respectful attitudes. Any one of them would be her devoted suitor if only she would indicate her willingness to be courted by him. Sometimes her lack of serious interest in any of them made her feel guilty, but she couldn't help but enjoy the attention. The pretty words. The flirtation. For that was all she allowed herself. A few smiles. A carriage ride into town. Perhaps even a dance. Having her heart broken once had been enough to put her off from getting deeper involved in another relationship.
So far, no one man had tempted her to change this attitude, and Louisa sometimes thought she was destined to be alone forever.
Javier's dark eyes looked as sad as the ones on that old hound Ma had let her keep when she was a kid. "Say you will allow me to escort you to Don Armando's fiesta, please," he begged, referring to the estancia owner's eightieth birthday celebration to be held the following weekend.
There would be a dance and tables of food following the charreada. Louisa would perform in the exhibition of horsemanship and if the truth be known, it would be her favorite part of the evening. She could be herself, not have to pretend.
"Say yes, Louisa, and put me out of my misery."
"I'll put you outta your misery, Zamora," Ben Riley threatened as he stomped toward them, "with my trusty Colt here." He slapped his gun for emphasis. Belying his freckle-faced boyish looks, Ben was a bit hot-headed and therefore no one to mess with when aggravated. "Louisa's going to the fiesta with me!"
"My heart, you have betrayed me?" Javier mourned.
Looking from the bull dog back to the hound, Louisa forced herself to hide a grin. "Not exactly –"
"Whyn't you get to work before Adolpho comes lookin' for you," Ben told Javier. "Louisa and I got plans to make."
"Ben Riley, don't you be starting trouble," Louisa admonished him, keeping her tone sweet. "You know very well I did not accept your invitation."
A ghost of a smile touched Javier's wide mouth. "Then there is a chance for me, yes?"
"No!" Ben insisted.
"Let Louisa decide for herself which of us is the better man."
"You insulting my manhood?"
Javier gave him a contemptuous glare. "You call yourself a man?"
"Why you –"
Before Louisa could stop him, Ben swung out and landed a fist on Javier's jaw, making the Spaniard's head snap back.
"Cut that out right now!" she insisted, but the rivals ignored her.
Javier came back swinging and popped Ben a good one. His nose spurted blood.
"I'm not going to the fiesta with anyone!" she protested, appalled.
Not that it seemed to matter, so intent were the men on besting one another. Both went flying and landed in a tangle on the dusty earth mere inches from where she stood. They'd been growling at each other for weeks over their interest in her, and now they seemed bound and determined to take their frustrations out on each other physically.
Well, let them.
Most of their punches missed target, but they kept at each other like two rabid dogs.
Louisa stood back and fumed. Why couldn't they get it through their thick skulls that she wasn't some damn prize to be won. Surely they couldn't think she would go to the fiesta with the winner of this brawl. As was her way of keeping things light with the young men who would court her, she had promised not only Javier and Ben but several other ranch hands some of her time and a dance at the fiesta. She could hardly make good on her promise if she arrived with an escort. But try to get that notion into their thick heads. She hoped they were both black and blue and sore when they finished. A little physical misery would serve them right.
"What the hell's going on here?" came an angry bark that made Louisa jump.
"Chaco!" Not wanting the two young men to get into trou
ble with their boss over her, she smiled in the face of his scowl and said, "Oh, they're just having a friendly disagreement about branding or some such."
"Friendly, my eye," Chaco muttered, already entering the fray, grabbing both men by the back of their clothing and hauling them to their feet.
Javier was the first to realize what was happening and immediately straightened out, while Ben took one last wild swing that landed smack on the side of Chaco's head. Louisa winced. Now he'd gone and done it.
"You through, Riley?"
Finally seeing through his haze of anger, Ben went slack. "Y-yes, sir!" Blood from his injured nose trickling down to his mouth, he looked about ready to choke.
Chaco had that effect on most men.
"And what about you, Zamora?"
"Anything you say, Senor Chaco."
"What I say is...get back to work before I bust your heads myself!"
Ben whipped off, while Javier moved more slowly, giving Louisa a last, lingering look that assured her of his undying love. "Your eyes reveal your soul to me," he said softly as he passed her, "and the wildness waiting to be savored."
Louisa started, but immediately pushed away thoughts of another man who'd said almost those exact words to her.
Figuring on getting while the going was good, Louisa started for the neat cabin that was her home. A mistake. Chaco's hand wrapped firmly around her upper arm stopped her midstride.
"So what was this all really about?"
"Don't make more of it than there is," Louisa begged, fearing for Ben's and Javier's jobs. "They work real hard. You know that. They were just letting off some steam." When Chaco continued to aim that spooky gray gaze at her, she finally admitted, "It's my fault. Something I said. Please, don't blame them."
Letting go of her arm, Chaco shook his head and sighed. "Louisa, what am I gonna do with you?"
She sighed, too. It was going to be all right. She should have known. Chaco had always been more than fair and tolerant.
"There's nothing to do. Unless you're not satisfied with my work."
"You know I am."
He'd better be. She was the best at gentling wild horses as opposed to breaking them. Better even than Adolpho, who'd taught her everything he knew long ago.
"Mind if I go now?" she asked. "Thought I'd wash up before supper."
Aiming a look at her that would quell most people, Chaco said, "Don't dawdle. I'm starving."
She took the opportunity to escape to what had been her home for the past three years. Opposing the Jones's adobe hacienda on the other side of the pastures and corrals and outbuildings, situated beneath a couple of old cottonwoods and backed by hills, juniper-dotted rock striated with colors that changed with the position and intensity of the sun, her cabin awaited her. She imagined it might have been a bit cramped when Chaco and Frances had lived there while their house was being built, especially after Phillip, their first-born, came along, but Louisa felt the snug single room was perfect for her, giving her glorious privacy and enough space to spread out.
And she was close enough to her beloved horses if one of them needed her, and far enough from her Ma so she wouldn't be nagged about her chosen life on a daily basis.
An hour's hard ride north and west of Santa Fe, the de Arguello spread was one of the largest in the mountainous northern half of the territory. Though his health was failing and he was now mostly confined to a chair with wheels because he had such difficulty walking, Don Armando, Chaco's widowed father, still ruled the original estancia his family had built, and he did so with an iron fist. The living areas of father and son were nearly fifteen minutes apart.
Entering her cabin, Louisa figured it was because Chaco didn't like to be nagged any more than she did.
She and the former gunfighter had a lot in common, starting with their ancestry, her father being Comanche and her mother Anglo, his father Hispanic and his mother a half-breed -- half sister to Geronimo.
Little more than a month before, Louisa had mourned with Chaco when Geronimo and his small band, the last of the free-roaming Chiricahua Apache, had been rounded up by the Army and sent off to some godforsaken swamp in Florida, far away from their mountain desert homeland that encompassed northern Mexico as well as the southern parts of both Arizona and New Mexico territories. She'd had more than a taste of separation from home herself, having been shipped off to finishing schools in various parts of the country. Every time, she'd grieved and vowed she would never leave again.
As she poured water into a washbasin, Louisa allowed her mind to wander away from New Mexico Territory, all the way to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where Sam had been transferred from Santa Fe's Fort Marcy -- and all because he'd come along to protect her when she'd run away. She wondered if he was still there. If he was happy. If he ever thought of her.
Damn Javier for making her remember!
It had been that last comment of his, the one about her eyes revealing the wildness of her soul...
"You're a wildcat," Sam told her, his blue-green gaze intense as he took her in his arms. "I knew it the first time I looked into your eyes and saw your soul."
"You can't see a person's soul!" Louisa protested, laughing. He might be a pretty tin soldier, but Sam made her heart pound wildly as no other young man had done. Then, he wasn't like the others. "Only God can see that."
"You're wrong, or how could I know you so well?"
He accepted her for who she was, didn't care if she was a half-breed. Didn't care that she'd been accused of murdering Eusebio and Enrique Velarde, that half the town thought she was a diablera, an evil witch. Louisa had liked him from the first -- stuffy and by-the-book as he could be, he was a superior horseman able to ride almost as good as she, which in her mind made up for a lot.
Now, the way he was standing by her, accompanying her on her flight from a lynch mob that would hang her for horrible murders she hadn't committed, she was certain she loved him.
So when he kissed her, Louisa didn't quickly end the embrace and move away as she was wont to do with other young men who'd tried the same. Blood rushed through her and her head went all woozy and she held onto Sam Strong like she might fall if she didn't.
That she liked his tongue invading her mouth surprised her. When Eusebio had tried as much, she'd bit him.
But she allowed Sam to do what he would, and with enthusiasm sought to learn the things her mother had sheltered her from, and that she herself had thought to reject. Because she knew too much about what went on between men and women -- though she was only sixteen, Louisa had no illusions about The Gentlemen's Club Ma ran -- she'd vowed never to let any man get too close unless she someday chose to marry.
Now here she was moaning, begging for more when Sam touched her breast...
Louisa's breasts tightened as if Sam had stroked them a moment ago rather than six years before. She hated this torture, hated remembering. She tried not to. Sometimes it was harder than she could bear. She was twenty-two and only one man in her life had ever engaged her heart, her body and her soul.
One man who, in the end, had abandoned her.
The transfer might not have been Sam's idea, but he hadn't fought it, hadn't fought for her. He'd left town and hadn't looked back. Hadn't even written.
She could almost see him now, sitting straight and proud in the saddle, blue uniform spotless, golden curls bright in the sun, handsome face almost too perfect. She remembered the very first time he'd kissed her, after she'd won a horse race she'd forced him into.
Unexpectedly, her eyes pooled and twin tears rolled down her cheeks. Angry, she swiped them away. She wouldn't cry for Sam. Never again.
Never for any man.
She had her horses. And they would be enough.
LEADING A ROAN pack horse loaded with the remainder of his supplies and bed roll in addition to his leather satchel, overloaded saddlebags and a case containing the heliograph equipment, Sam rode into Santa Fe looking for changes and finding few.
The central plaza was
exactly as he remembered – an open square of paths and trees with a gazebo, a modest covered pavilion used as a bandstand. The Palace of the Governors, a sprawling seventeenth century adobe fronted by a great portal – an overhang spanning the length of the building – sat on one side of the plaza and still housed the offices of the U.S. Territorial government. The Army occupied buildings north of the Palace, while a virtually empty Fort Marcy lay beyond on a hill overlooking Santa Fe.
He headed down a familiar narrow side street laid out in a trazo pattern. The structures built around small courtyards or placitas had common walls that formed a continuous facade on either side. A pretty young mestizo woman carrying a basket glanced up at him. Her eyes widened slightly and she averted her face as she rushed away. Though used to an occasional like reaction from the fairer sex, Sam tightened his jaw and got down to business.
First thing after looking up Major Anderson in his office, Sam asked, "Why me?"
"This Montgomery fellow is stirring up the Injuns and breeds around the border between Texas and Mexico." The middle-aged Anderson hunched forward, hands fisted on his desk. "You've successfully dealt with their kind before."
True. At times, to his shame. "You could say the same for any number of men stationed in this part of the country."
"Not all have your experience. Not all have as much guts. I was told you could work pretty much alone and fast. And that I could trust you to make whatever decisions were necessary."
Like killing if he had to? "I'm only doing this as a personal favor –"
"Yes, I got a telegram from old Hart himself. Says this is your swansong and hopes you survive it."
"Then it's dangerous?"
"Could be deadly, I won't lie. That's why I want you to look up a man named Monte Ryerson in West Texas. He fought for the Confederacy, saw Montgomery's work first hand. Even testified to get the man committed."
Major Hart went over the details of Montgomery's crimes. Details that threatened to make Sam sick. Someone had to stop the bastard. Might as well be him. Nothing more to lose but his life.