by Come Sunrise
Beatriz mourned because the young ones from the barrio wore cheap imitations of the Anglo women's clothes and mimicked their speech and their ways. The dresses they bought from her they kept only for weddings and fiestas confined to their own kind. Be proud, she wanted to shout at them. You have an ancient culture, a wonderful tradition. Glory in it! But no, were it not that the musicians played the music, they would not even perform the old dances.
Now Beatriz fingered with disgust the stuff of her own northern-style gown. She was as bad as they. She too was hiding behind the anonymity of foreign ways. No more. It was time to strike a blow of defiance. It was time for vengeance. Beatriz started back to the house to find a place to hide.
The party lasted until dawn. The way home was long for most of the guests. They might as well enjoy themselves and travel by daylight. Amy had arranged for breakfast to be served at sunrise.
In the courtyard fronting the hacienda they'd created three huge barbecue pits fired with charcoal and fragrant pinon wood. Most of the night the ranch hands tending the fires had grilled steaks and ribs and basted them with fiery chile sauce. Now they lay flat griddles over the embers and fried flapjacks and eggs and rashers of bacon. Maria and the girls who helped her brought an assortment of hot breads and jugs of syrup from the kitchen. There was chile sauce for those who preferred it, and numberless pots of steaming coffee.
"It has been marvelous, Amy," Rick said. "You have made a fiesta that will be long remembered."
Many people had said the same thing to her, but no praise was as sweet as Rick's. "Thank you." Her heart was in the simple words, and her smile belied her tiredness.
"Now you must rest," Rick said. "Those are doctor's orders."
"I will. There are just a few more goodbyes to be said; then I'm going to bed."
He looked around. "Have you seen Beatriz Ortega?"
"I'm afraid I don't know her. You added her name to the guest list, remember?"
"So I did. She must have left earlier. Too bad, I wanted you to meet her. She's a remarkable woman." It did not occur to him that there was something peculiar about introducing them. Amy and Beatriz were different orders of being in his mind.
Amy felt a surge of jealousy. There was so much about Rick's personal life she didn't know and had no right to question. That didn't keep her from asking, "Is she a special friend of yours?"
He smiled at her. "I have many friends," he said. "None are as special as you."
Their eyes caught and held for a moment, then they both looked away. No, Amy told herself. I must not love you or let you love me. She'd had enough betrayal and guilt to last her a lifetime. She would invite no more. Her eyes found his again. "You should get married, Rick," she said coolly. "You're far too dangerous single."
Ibanez recoiled. "Adios, Amy," he said stiffly. "Thank you for a lovely party."
She had to feed the baby before she could sleep. She went to the nursery and lifted him from his tiny crib and loosed the bodice of her gown, pushing it all the way down to her waist so the beaded front wouldn't rub his tender skin. Her breasts were heavy with milk, and she was grateful when the infant's tiny mouth fastened on her nipple and sucked greedily. Amy closed her eyes and drifted into a half-doze while her arms cradled the precious burden of her son.
She opened them to find Tommy standing in the doorway, studying her. "Quite a picture," he said quietly. "The nursing mother still in her party finery."
"He was hungry. I couldn't wait to change." She saw that the baby was finished and asleep and she rose. She didn't understand why everything Tommy said made her feel defensive, but it did. "Anyway," she added, "the party was your idea."
"And you did it beautifully," he said, watching while she diapered the child and returned him to his crib. "I didn't realize you knew so many people to invite."
"Rick helped me with the guest list. I thought it was what you wanted."
"Oh, yes, the handsome doctor." He ignored the reference to his instructions. "Tell me, where does he lay you? Here or in his office?"
Amy couldn't control her trembling. "That's an ugly thing to say. And it isn't true." She glanced hurriedly at the baby, afraid their voices would wake him, but he slept peacefully. "Get out of my way. I have to check on Kate."
"Kate's downstairs with Maria, having her breakfast. She's fine."
"Then I'm going to bed."
"Yes," he agreed. "That's exactly where you're going. "
When the door to their room was closed he fell on her like a rutting bull. The chiffon gown lay on the floor in a tangled crush around their twined bodies. Tommy hadn't waited for them to reach the bed. Amy felt the rough wool of a small woven rug abrading her back and her buttocks. Her arms overreached its borders to rest on the cool tiles.
"That's the way I like to see you," Tommy said, kneeling over her. "Spread-eagled and waiting." He lifted her legs and drew them round his waist. The great strength of his arms supported her weight and the depth of his sudden penetration sent a shock of pain through her body. Worse was the anger apparent on his face and conveyed by his touch.
"Please," she heard herself beg, "please love me just a little. Like you did once."
He didn't answer. All his energies were diverted to a blinding, gut-tearing climax composed as much of fury as of passion.
Amy waited, but he spoke no word of apology, not even of kindness. She stumbled into the bathroom and turned on the shower so he would not hear her weeping.
22
BEATRIZ PASSED OUT A FEW TIMES DURING THE NIGHT. The air in the closet was stale and oxygen-poor, despite the louvers in the door. After the first couple of hours she was only vaguely aware of the passage of time and the terrible cramp in her arms and legs. She had wedged herself into this position when she took up her hiding place. She could not move without making a noise.
Eventually she fought her way to consciousness and sensed that it was morning. She struggled to clear her mind. There were no voices outside and no more party sounds. She waited a few moments longer. Nothing disturbed the silence.
When she'd entered the closet she'd taken the precaution of inserting a fold of paper into the door. It looked closed, but the latch wasn't engaged. Now she felt for it and inched it free. Her drawstring bag lay beside her, and she thrust the telltale sliver of paper into its depths.
Slowly, every nerve alert for danger, Beatriz pushed at the door. A gap of six inches appeared, and she waited, willing herself to patience. There was no sound except the faint ticking of a clock.
She chanced another push at the door. This time it swung out of her control and fell open against the wall. There was the soft but unmistakable sound of wood striking plaster. Beatriz held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut, afraid to look at the face of her accuser. Then the need for air overcame her, and she inhaled in a loud gasp, opened her eyes and looked around. There was no one in the room except herself.
She crawled out of the closet and sat on the floor, rubbing her stiff arms and legs. She had chosen this place because of it was a library of sorts. It contained a desk and a table and numerous hard-backed chairs. Rows of books lined the walls. She'd decided last night that it was not the kind of place likely to be visited the morning after a party. Now the confirmation of her cleverness gave her courage. She stood up and examined her surroundings more closely. It was a beautiful room in the best southwestern tradition. Fury gagged her again, as it had last night. Westerman and his woman were interlopers. They had no right to enjoy such an ambience.
She faced again the question she'd debated during the long night. What did she intend to do? She wanted to kill him, of course, maybe both of them, but she knew she couldn't. It was one thing to plan death from a distance, another to perform the act.
Beatriz went to the desk and touched a heavy paperweight fashioned of a lump of igneous rock seamed with dark green olivene. The semiprecious crystals winked up at her. Next to the paperweight was a letter-opener with a long brass blade and an onyx handle. F
or a moment she fondled the weapons, then pulled back. They would be impotent in her hands; she'd lose her nerve at the last minute.
Panic and indecision overwhelmed her for a few dangerous seconds. She wanted to bolt and run, and she held onto the back of a chair to prevent herself from doing so. It was true that only death could meet all the requirements of her vengeance, but if that was beyond her reach, she could still mete out some sort of punishment. She'd come this far, and she must do something. The man and his wife must be made to suffer as they caused others to suffer.
Her glance lit on a box of matches. Beatriz had a swift vision of leaping flames destroying all this elegance and richness. It pleased her only briefly. There would be risk to the servants and ranchhands who were her own kind. And to the children, the two tiny ninos asleep in their cribs. She could not bear the thought of a holocaust claiming such innocence.
The clock continued ticking, a metronome beating out the rhythm of her deliberations. Suddenly Beatriz sighed with satisfaction. She knew what she must do. She moved stealthily to the door.
* * *
Maria grumbled quietly under her breath while she went about her tasks. So many people, so much food ... and now all the cleaning left to her. Birds chattered in the early morning; apart from them, little Kate outside in her playpen, and herself, all Santo Domingo slept. Rasping snores echoed softly from the bunkhouse.
The ranchhands were unconscious after the labors of the night and the bottles of whiskey Don Tommy gave them when the party ended. The girls who helped Maria were also in their beds. She herself would not rest until Dona Amy came downstairs. Someone must restore order to the hacienda.
Sighing, Maria padded from room to room. Her bare feet made no sound, and her heavy body seemed not to disturb the still air as she went about her duties. In the silent morning she carried a tray of glasses from the patio into the kitchen. The tray made a sharp tinkling sound when she set it on the table; then the quiet returned. Maria looked at the sink, but changed her mind. She would wash the glasses later. First she must look at the child. By now Kate might be growing restless.
She opened the back door and stepped into the sunlight. Its hot, harsh glare blinded her for a moment, and she moved toward the playpen guided only by instinct. It was a few yards to her left, in the shade of a gnarled old cottonwood tree. Walking toward it, Maria made the soothing, crooning sounds which she always used with the children. Her strong brown arms reached into the small wooden enclosure to gather up the little girl, but they encountered only emptiness. Surprised, Maria blinked her black eyes into focus and gazed from the playpen to the surrounding earth.
There was nothing. No tousled fair head turned toward her and no baby words were lisped in greeting. "Madre mia!" Maria muttered aloud. Such a wild one the tiny senorita; little more than a year old and already she had learned to give trouble to her elders!
She called the child by name and circled the area around the door to the kitchen. Still there was no sign of Kate. Puzzled, Maria returned to the playpen and stared into its emptiness.
Normally a favorite toy accompanied the little one everywhere, a stuffed bear whose brown fuzzy body was larger than that of the child herself. Maria remembered propping it in the corner when she put Kate outside. Now it too had disappeared. Even if the little girl had managed to climb over the rails, she could never have dragged the bear with her.
A sound began in Maria's throat and exploded through her gaping mouth. Shouts of pain and fury were hurled into the still morning and rose toward the sky. "See Senor Jesus, see what the devils and witches who stalk the earth have done! They have stolen her away.... Mercy, Senor Jesus! Have mercy on us!"
The words became meaningless cries of grief and dismay, and Maria's screams woke the sleeping hacienda to its agony.
Forty-eight terrible hours passed, but the ransom note the sheriff expected never arrived. Amy kept telling herself it was a nightmare, that any minute she'd wake up and find it was all a dream. Instead it went on and on, and the pain and the anger and the terror got worse. Kate, oh, Kate! Sometimes the words were a silent cry in her head. Other times she shouted them aloud. Then Rick would appear and give her medicine. But nothing made her sleep. She sat in the living room with Tommy and the sheriff and half a dozen strange men who came and went. They spoke in hushed despairing tones.
Once Tommy left with two of them, his face grim and his eyes colder and harder than she'd ever seen them. When he returned, the grief on his face was pitiable.
"Nothing," he said to no one in particular. "Rosa doesn't know a thing about it. I didn't really think she would. "
Amy realized that he'd gone to see if his mistress had kidnapped his child, but the only emotion she felt about it was a terrible sadness because it was not so. If Tommy had come back with that small beloved form in his arms she would not have cared if Rosa Mandago was invited to live at Santo Domingo. This pain was so much greater than the other that the question of pride no longer existed.
"Amy," Rick's voice sounded in her ear, speaking quietly so the others wouldn't hear. "You've got to feed the baby."
She ran to the nursery, prodded by the irrational fear that something had happened to Tom Junior too. He was safe, but when she picked him up and held him to her breast he kept crying in hunger and frustration.Finally she closed her blouse and carried the baby to Rick, tears streaming down her face, "I can't. My milk's gone."
"It's the shock," Rick said softly, taking the child from her. "We'll put him on a bottle. I'll take him to Maria. She knows what to do."
Amy stood in the hall, her arms aching and empty and her children torn away from her. She had a desperate and crazy desire to talk to Luke. She wanted him to pray for Kate. God must be told that the little girl was innocent and mustn't be made to pay for her mother's sins. If He exists He must know, the rational part of her brain said. Reason could not erase the image of herself and Luke planning to run away together while Tommy's child grew inside her.
"But we didn't," she cried aloud in the empty hall. "Listen to me, God! We didn't do it. And that was another baby, not Kate." She realized that she'd shouted, and clamped a guilty hand over her mouth.
Tommy appeared. "What's the matter? Who were you talking to'!"
"Nothing, no one," Amy whispered.
"Ok." Tommy took her hand and led her toward the living room. His touch was gentle, as it had been so rarely these last years. "Come sit down," he said. "It's going to be ok. You'll see."
"Send Luke a telegram," she whispered urgently. "Tell him he must pray for her!"
For once Tommy didn't misunderstand. "Bring on the shamans," he said wryly. "You may be right. I'll do it." He laughed mirthlessly. "No atheists in the trenches. Q.E.D."
They went back to the living room and the shadowy men who were trying to decide on a course of action. After a few minutes Rick returned. "I have to get back to town," he told Tommy. "I'll come out tomorrow and see if there's anything I can do for Amy. Perhaps by then . . ."
"Perhaps," Tommy said. He looked up and his eyes were dull. "Thanks for your help," he said. For Tommy, too, the new terror submerged all the old rivalries.
Ibanez punished the Pierce-Arrow all the way to Santa Fe. His hands were white-knuckled on the wheel, and he pushed the car to speeds over forty miles an hour. It squeaked and shuddered in protest, but he didn't notice.
When he was a medical student in Maryland the police had brought in a child who'd been kidnapped. A six-month-old baby, barely alive and covered with burns and cuts. He remembered how he'd felt at the time: sickened, furious and impotent, because vicious sadists could prey on whom they chose and so-called decent people could do nothing about it. He thought of Kate with her silvery eyes and golden hair. He thought of the way she cocked her head when she listened to him, and the grave expression that always seemed so incongruous on her baby face. Thirteen months old! A toddler who barely walked and talked and she was the victim of ... of what?
Think, godamnit! Do
n't just feel, think. At seven-thirty that morning her father saw her eating breakfast in the kitchen. By eight Maria had her bathed and dressed and in her playpen just outside the kitchen door. Not until close to nine did the woman think of checking her again, because the child had seemed content. There was no noise, there was a lot of cleaning to do after the party, and Maria herself had yet to go to bed. It was all very understandable. Except that when she finally looked, Kate was gone and her play-pen empty.
After that they'd searched everywhere. Maybe Kate had learned to climb out of her playpen. The crew were rousted from their beds to hunt inside and out. Diego even went down into the well. They found nothing. At ten-thirty Tommy sent for the sheriff and dispatched Diego and three others to carry the search in a widening circle beyond the house. In Santa Fe Pete Wilkins, the sheriff, contacted Ibanez. He'd been back at the ranch by five yesterday, no, the day before.