They’d filled her bed with five snakes the other day. She’d almost died of fright when she’d pulled down the bed covers and seen the reptiles slithering over each other. And the boys had cut their own hair with a knife, sawing off huge hunks in such a fashion that their heads were quite bald in some spots and supported wild cowlicks that pointed to the sky in other spots. That not enough to feed their desire to cut with the knife, they’d cut off their horses’ tails. They hadn’t hurt the animals, but the horses had nothing with which to swat flies away. And there was only half a woodshed now. They’d tried to burn down the whole structure, and if not for her and Archibald’s efforts with buckets of water, the fire would have reached the forest. Half of the shed had been destroyed.
She sighed. Archibald was right. She hadn’t smiled in two months, and her dismal mood wasn’t fair to the children. For their sake, it was time to try and get things back to normal. She lifted her chin and helped Archibald to his feet. Rising beside him, she dried his tears with her apron.
“I’m all right, Chimera,” he assured her, and smiled. “I’m sorry I cried like—”
“Never be ashamed of tears, Archibald. Without them, we could never rid ourselves of sadness. Now, let’s go play with the triplets. Boys, I bet you can’t can’t hit that corn stalk over there with your slingshots!” she dared the three boys loudly. Stepping out into the yard, she gave them the brightest smile she could muster.
They looked at her, then at the corn stalk. Grinning, they pulled forth their weapons and chose their stones.
From the dark shadows of the woods, Willard watched them. He and Everett had only recently returned to the Dragoon Diamond, and for two days, Willard had been hiding in the forest looking for the Mexican marksman. But it was evident the witch’s bodyguard was gone. Sprague would be relieved to hear that information.
Everett Sprague. Willard thought back to the day the Apaches had raided the ranch. He’d been out hunting, and when he’d returned he’d seen the flaming barns, all the dead men, and Everett staggering around the yard. “He was mumblin’ about the witch’s buried silver, Bud,” he whispered to the mouse in his pocket. “That’s why we took him to the doctor in Tucson, y’see. We had to get him well so he could get the silver.”
He stared at Chimera again. “And he was right about her comin’ back here, Bud. That’s why we came back too. Sprague’s gonna kill her after I round up some more men to help him. And after she’d dead, he’s gonna find her silver. He hopes she’ll tell him where it is before she dies, but if she don’t, he says he’s gonna find it anyway. Me, I ain’t gittin’ anywhere near that witch. I’ll let Sprague do all the work, and when he gits the silver back to the Diamond, me and you’s gonna steal it. We’re gonna have us a fine life, Bud. And who knows? Maybe once the witch is dead, you’ll turn back into a man.” He smiled, patted the rodent, and left quickly.
Chimera turned toward the forest and peered into the dark thicket. “Archibald, did you hear anything?”
“I can’t hear anything but the triplets screaming over there. Snig said Snag threw his slingshot up on the roof, and now he’s throwing a fit.”
“Nanny, nanny, boo-boo, you don’t have your slingshot,” Snag taunted. “Nanny—”
“Snag, stop that!” Chimera scolded, and hurried back to the cabin. She looked up at the roof. It was awfully high, and she was tempted to let Snig go up. But after pondering the idea, she changed her mind. If she allowed Snig to go up, he’d stay up there and try to scare her into thinking he was falling. “I’ll get it,” she said with a deep sigh.
Summoning courage, she hiked up her skirt and climbed up onto the porch rail. Grabbing the roof logs, she pulled herself up, the boys helping by pushing her feet. “See it, Chimera?” Snig asked when she was up. “See it?”
Chimera held onto the roof logs for dear life. She didn’t see the slingshot and knew that to find it she was going to have to stand. The thought was not a pleasant one. She may as well have been on a ledge of the highest mountain for all the security she felt.
Bringing her legs beneath her, she knelt shakily but didn’t let go of the roof logs. Then, slowly, she began to stand, the tops of the logs still in her hands.
Snag, from below, took careful aim and shot.
“Oh!” Chimera screamed, her raised bottom stinging viciously. She knew exactly what had hit her, and looked down at the three buck-toothed children who were grinning up at her. She knew she should punish them, but hesitated when she remembered their devastation over Sterling’s abandonment of them. They were releasing their anger in the only way they knew how. Still, she had to do something. They were her total responsibility, and she had no one to help her. Though Antonio had visited three times, always bringing fresh meat with him, he didn’t stay long enough to discipline the children.
Disciplining the children. She’d never been good at it: she was too softhearted. They needed a man. The thought made her eyes sting, but she purposely ignored her sorrow.
She frowned at the triplets. “Who flung the rock at me?” They shrugged their shoulders, and she knew they wouldn’t tattle. “Very well, then, no pie for any of you. I baked one this morning, and I guess Archibald and I will be the only ones to enjoy it.”
She scowled when she saw them look at the ground then at each other. She thought she saw tears in their eyes, but from her high spot on the roof, she couldn’t be sure. Only when Snug sniffed and rubbed his eyes was she certain they were, indeed, crying.
How strange, she mused. They’d been deprived of dessert before, but instead of crying they’d always thrown fits. She watched them walk away, their heads hung low.
And then it came to her. She felt terrible. The pie. She’d unwittingly reminded them of the day Sterling had had them eat the berry pies. “Will it never end?” she wondered aloud, her voice quivering. “Will we ever stop missing him? Will everything we say and do forever remind us of him?”
She sat on the roof for a few moments longer before remembering why she was up there. Carefully, she stood, found her balance, and inched her way around. She spied Snig’s slingshot by the chimney. Upon reaching it, she took a moment to admire the stones Sterling had used to make the structure.
She remembered how many hours he’d spent trying to wear down their sharp edges. They weren’t totally smooth, but neither were they jagged or unsightly. It was a beautiful chimney, she thought, and ran her hand down it.
She caught sight of something beside her little finger. Upon closer inspection, she saw it was writing. She bent and studied it. Her heart seemed to sink to her feet.
Carved in the rock was the name Sterling Montoya.
Letter by letter, she traced his name with her finger. The familiar sorrow rose within her, but she couldn’t ignore it this time. It almost choked her, and she felt light-headed with it. Wobbly, she sat next to the chimney until she could regain her balance.
She looked beyond the treetops and at the distant mountain ranges. Where was he? Near? Far? Was he well? Sweet heaven, was he still the tortured man he’d been when he left her? Had he shed his tears yet?
Sterling, her heart whispered. Please come back. We miss you. We need you. We love you. Come home, Sterling.
Chapter Twenty-two
Sterling drove Gus unmercifully, stopping only when the horse was close to exhaustion or when he ran out of supplies. He wandered the territory aimlessly.
Women hurried to make his acquaintance in each town, and several tried to force their attentions upon him by sneaking into his room at night, but one look at the Colt in his hand and the anger in his silver eyes sent them fleeing. His revolver and his ever-present fury set forth a threat women and men alike did not challenge.
But one woman finally got his attention. He spotted her standing by a small stream he’d just crossed. Her back was to him, and her ebony hair reached the backs of her calves. She was of slender build and wore a bright red skirt and brilliant yellow blouse. Before he’d even realized what he was doi
ng, he’d dismounted and approached her. “Chimera,” he whispered.
He held his breath while waiting for her to turn around and face him. He knew her eyes would be the color of good whiskey. There would be flames in them. He knew it.
But her eyes were green. He stared into them, hating their color, hating himself for caring. Without a word, he mounted and left her standing there. Anger had boiled inside him for days afterward.
He’d wandered for nearly two months when he found himself in Sonora, San Francisco de Sales within sight. He couldn’t understand how he’d gotten there. Unable to decide if it had been himself or his horse that’d made the decision to come, he urged Gus forward.
San Francisco de Sales was just as Sterling remembered it. He directed Gus through the sturdy gate he had built for the sisters, and saw a multitude of orphans come running out to meet him. They gave him a hero’s welcome. The thought sent sorrow spinning through him when, unbidden, came the memory of who else had seen him as her hero. He gripped tightly both his reins and his emotions.
“Sterling, my boy!” a man called from the doorway of the church.
Sterling dismounted when he saw the white-haired, potbellied Father Tom. “Father!” He handed Gus over to an older boy he recognized and turned to meet the priest.
Father Tom waddled into the yard, his stomach shaking, the rope around his waist swaying. When he reached Sterling, he hugged him tightly. “I feel as though we’re acting out the parable of the prodigal son, my boy! But before I kill the fatted calf, tell me, how does everything go for you? Did you find her? Have you seen Brianna?”
“Sterling!” Mother Maria Guadalupe exclaimed, bobbing toward him. “Gracias a Dios que estas bien!”
He kissed her wrinkled cheek. “Yes, Mother, thanks to God, I’m fine,” he echoed her words, and then received hugs from her and the other sisters who had crowded around him.
“See to your duties now, sisters,” Father Tom said. “Sterling and I have things to talk about.”
Their faces, surrounded by their tight, black wimples, betrayed their disappointment at having to part company with Sterling so soon after his arrival, but not even the stern Mother Maria disobeyed Father Tom.
“Come, my boy,” Father Tom said. “Let us talk in the only place here where there is peace.”
Sterling followed him inside the church and breathed deeply of the air that had always seemed so laden with holiness to him. Without thinking, he dipped his finger into the bowl of holy water at the entrance, genuflected before the crucifix at the altar, and crossed himself. He then joined Father Tom in the pew beside the statue of the Blessed Virgin and Child. The sight of it reminded him of the luminous statue he had given Chimera.
Dios mio, why couldn’t he forget? Why did the memories follow him like a second shadow? Almost two months had passed since he’d seen Chimera, and yet her image was as clear to him as if he’d looked at her two seconds ago. He opened his eyes, inhaled a ragged breath, and felt Father Tom’s arm go around him.
“I see by the look in your eyes that all is not well,” the priest said gently. “Couldn’t you find her?”
“I found her.”
Father Tom needed to hear no more to understand. Brianna had rejected Sterling. She’d destroyed all the boy’s dreams. The priest was filled with a fury for which he knew he would have to ask forgiveness. “Will you...are you able to tell me what happened, my son?”
Sterling took a deep breath, then released a torrent of angry and hateful words: “I learned my grandmother was a prostitute. My father was hanged for murder the day of my birth. Brianna informed me that I watched him swing from the gallows. And as for Brianna herself...I wanted a mother’s touch; she had a gun in her hand. I wanted her acceptance; she offered me money to leave. I...wanted her love; she gave me hatred. In her eyes I’ve been dead and buried for thirty years.”
Father Tom felt the anguish that shuddered through Sterling’s body and tightened his arm around Sterling’s shoulder. He straggled in vain to find words of comfort. Sighing, he looked up at the crucifix. “I...Sterling, I’m so very sorry. Perhaps it’s true you have been dead for one woman, but you mustn’t forget that you’ve been alive for many others. I understand your pain and disappointment, but—Sterling, my son, try to remember that this, too, shall pass.”
Sterling listened to the quote and remembered someone else who was fond of quoting. His throat tightened. He bent his head and stared at the floor, recognizing the black smudges ground into the wooden planks. “Antonio,” he murmured. “He and I used to draw on this floor with bits of coal. We—” He snapped up his head. Antonio. As angry as he still was at the man he’d once considered a friend, he couldn’t keep Antonio’s whereabouts a secret from the priest. “Father, I found Antonio.”
“What?” Father Tom exclaimed.
“He’s become an Apache warrior. I was in the Dragoons with—” He broke off when he realized he’d been about to tell the priest about Chimera. “I was in the Dragoons, and that’s where Cochise’s stronghold is. Antonio’s happy, Father. He has a wife and children, and though he’s all things Apache now, he told me he still prays the Hail Mary during times of trouble and that the sight of a goat still makes him sick.”
Father Tom slapped his knee. “The cheese! Ah, Sterling, the Lord has answered my prayers. I’ve always believed that everything happens for a reason, and now I have more proof of the validity of my belief. There is nothing so bad that good doesn’t come from it. God wills this to be so. I realize the hurt you’ve suffered because of Brianna, but if you hadn’t gone to find her, you wouldn’t have found Antonio. It can’t be easy for you to come to terms with your mother’s hatred, but God, in His infinite mercy, has seen fit to reunite you with one who has always loved you—your childhood cohort in evil. I take it you stayed with Antonio for most of the time you’ve been gone?”
“I—No.” Sterling could say no more. He couldn’t speak of Chimera. It hurt too much.
Father Tom heard the hesitation in Sterling’s voice, and realized there was more to Sterling’s story. After a moment of pondering, he suspected he knew what it was. If Sterling hadn’t been with Antonio or Brianna all these months, then there was only one other place he could think of where Sterling might have dallied. In a woman’s arms.
“You met a very special girl, didn’t you, my son?” he asked abruptly.
Sterling shut his eyes. Father Tom had always been so blunt. Just like Chimera.
“Ah, there’s no denying it,” Father Tom exclaimed. “Do you think me stupid? When you reached adolescence, I used to watch and laugh as the girls tried to get you to look at them. As you grew closer to manhood, they began to fight over you. Even the good sisters...how they spoiled you! Out of all the women in this entire world, I often wondered if there was one who would catch your attention and hold it. I suspect you’ve met her. Tell me before this statue of the holy Mother of God that your heart has not been stolen.”
“Father,” Sterling choked, “I cannot speak of her.”
Father Tom finally understood the full depth of Sterling’s pain. Not only had the boy lost a mother, he’d also lost a girl he’d cared about. A sweetheart. Sterling had just cause for such terrible sorrow. Father Tom bowed his head and wondered what God’s mysterious reasons were for allowing such grief to happen to a man so undeserving of it. “For all my experience, I cannot seem to find words that will comfort you, Sterling,” he murmured. “My words are human ones at any rate, and therefore inadequate. But there is One who, without words, will comfort you if you will allow Him. Sit here for a while, my boy. In God’s house. I’ll come back soon.” He stood and patted Sterling’s arm.
Sterling listened to the sounds of Father Tom’s sandals until they faded. He sat for a long while, silent and unmoving. Memories began to stir within him. As he had for the past two months, he tried to push them away, tried to concentrate on nothingness, but still they rose.
Son of a dung-eatin’ fly. Brianna. His m
other. He was a maggot to her. He felt a pain so horrible it made him clench his teeth.
You’re matter-able. Chimera. “No, please, no,” he prayed aloud, and looked at the crucifix. “Don’t make me remember. God, please don’t let me remember.”
Ye’ve no family! No family! Brianna. Her horrible visage slithered through his mind, poisoning him with more pain.
Well, we was wonderin’ if you—We sorta hope that...Sterling, will you be our father? Snig, Snag, Snug. Buck-toothed, redheaded, freckle-faced devils.
“Boys,” Sterling said softly.
The sight o’ ye sickens me! I want nothin’ to do with ye!
“No.’” Sterling shouted, his voice echoing throughout the empty church. “Don’t tell me that!”
You’re the very best friend I’ve ever had.
“Archibald,” Sterling whispered raggedly, the boy’s young and innocent face erasing Brianna’s ugly one. “Archibald.”
I niver want to see yer face again! Leave! I want nothin’ to do with ye! I niver did!
Sterling leapt to his feet. Brianna’s image, her screams, her oaths of hatred, pounded through his brain, hammered at his heart, and crashed into his soul. “I want nothing to do with you either, damn you! Nothing!” He grabbed the back of the pew ahead of him, trying to crush the wood between his bare hands. “Mother,” he whispered, the word making his throat ache, “you, too, are dead. Dead for me.”
He fell back into his seat. The memories seemed to sap all his strength, leaving him weak.
I’ve many weaknesses. Chimera’s voice sang through him. I’ve a weakness for the sound of bird’s wings in flight. One for snow cream. For the smell of old books. I’ve a weakness for you, Sterling.
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