by Diana Palmer
“Which will go unnoticed in Mexico,” she finished. She smiled. “And our children will be especially beautiful,” she whispered, picturing them in her mind.
It was hard to argue with her. His hands framed her face and he smiled at her. “Beautiful children?” he breathed.
“Beautiful,” she emphasized. “We’ll tell them about their Apache heritage, and make them proud of it. And we’ll love them so much,” she said fervently, reaching up. “Almost as much as we love each other…”
He could find no argument with that. In the end, he began kissing her hungrily—and yielded with grace to the almost unbearable joy of a shared future.
TRILBY AND THORN had a son late in the autumn, a handsome young man with his father’s dark eyes and his mother’s coloring. He was named Caleb, for his late paternal grandfather.
Naki and Sissy, on the other hand, had five children, all of whom favored their handsome and very successful father.
Richard Bates married his debutante, who loved him all her life, despite his tendency to stray.
Teddy Lang grew up to be sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, and little Samantha Vance married a doctor in Douglas.
Ben Bates became a captain of the Texas Rangers.
Caleb Vance married a Spanish girl, ran for the United States Senate, and won.
As for Lisa Morris, she married her Captain Powell and surprised everyone by becoming pregnant the very next year.
FRANCISCO “PANCHO” VILLA, who had become well known in revolutionary circles after the Battle of Juárez, meanwhile, was deserted by Madero, arrested, and placed in jail. He later escaped. In late November of 1911, Zapata rose against Madero. Orozco formed an army to oppose him and was defeated by Huerta, who had deposed Madero and had him put to death.
On March 6, 1913, in the night, Pancho Villa left El Paso and crossed the border into Mexico. He had with him eight men, nine rifles, five hundred rounds of ammunition, two pounds of coffee, two pounds of sugar, and a pound of salt. By 1914, he had raised an army, the Northern Division, and chased the Federales out of the capital city of Chihuahua and the state of Sonora. Several years after Trilby’s experience, there would be a second, decisive battle for Agua Prieta, spearheaded by Pancho Villa on November 1, 1915—the first battle that Villa was to lose in the state of Sonora to the Federales.
Through the course of the revolution, despite his setbacks, Villa led charge after charge with his men and his cannon, El Niño, and was immortalized in a book by Harvard journalist John Reed, who rode with him. Among the foreigners who shared Villa’s joys and defeats was an American who later had a grand career as a motion picture cowboy—a fellow by the name of Tom Mix.
Villa finally surrendered in 1920, three years after a new constitution was legislated that provided for land reform and nationalism. Zapata was killed in 1919, Villa was assassinated in 1923. The revolution was effectively over. Col. Alvaro Obregón became president of Mexico in 1921.
Despite the revolution, nothing really changed very much. There were reforms, yes, but influential foreign investors still controlled much of Mexico’s wealth. The rural Mexican people still subsisted on meager wages. The only real change was the name of the man sitting in the president’s chair.
THORN AND TRILBY sat on their front porch several years after the first battle of Agua Prieta, watching the local aviator’s biplane sail gracefully through the air in the early days of World War I in Europe.
“They say they’ll be using those things in an air war overseas,” he said, his fine dark eyes twinkling. “If I were a few years younger, I might try my hand at aviation. Those planes seemed to work well enough for Villa at the end of the revolution.”
“The planes and El Niño,” she mused dryly.
He leaned back in the swing, sliding an easy arm around her shoulders. Samantha had gone away to school in the East, and young Caleb was out back with Teddy, learning how to mend harnesses. And life was sweet.
“Do you ever miss the old life?” he asked suddenly, glancing down at her. “Louisiana and cotillions and genteel company, I mean?”
She pressed her hand flat against his chest and laid her cheek on his shoulder to stare up at him adoringly. “No,” she said simply.
“Not even a life without dust?” he persisted.
“I like dust. It’s pretty. It goes well with my skin.” She traced his nose and smiled. “I love you,” she whispered.
He sighed, appeased, and rested his cheek on her hair. “You’ve changed.”
“Oh, yes. I can shoot a gun and saddle a horse and wield an ax,” she replied jauntily. “Not to mention stitching wounds and participating in revolutions.”
He chuckled. “And I do at least have a semblance of party manners, so I won’t embarrass Samantha when she brings her young man home.”
“You’d never embarrass any of us, least of all me, my dear.” She slid onto his lap and eased her head into the crook of his arm. “But if you like, we can refresh your memory on manners. For instance,” she whispered, tugging his head down so that she could touch her warm lips to his hard ones, “a gentleman always helps a lady in distress.”
Under her hand, his breathing increased, like his heartbeat. Her ability to rouse him never weakened. “Are you in distress?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” she said fervently. “Great distress. Do you think you could assist me to the bedroom and help me to lie down?”
He chuckled wickedly. “I believe I might.” He stood up, still holding her, and walked back into the deserted house. “I hope our son is very interested in mending harnesses.”
“The door does have a lock,” she whispered, laughing, and nibbled his ear as she clung to him.
He bent his head and kissed her back, smiling against her welcoming lips.
Overhead, the colorful biplane made a lazy loop in the sky and turned back toward Douglas, waggling its wings at two boys who stood watching it far out in the field. It sailed as if on angel’s wings, a giant butterfly in the sun. And far below, on the winding road, the yellow dust blew on.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-1188-9
TRILBY
Copyright © 1992 by Susan Kyle
First Published by Ivy Books
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