Golden Roses

by Patricia Hagan

  Amber held out her hand to him, but he continued to regard her warily. “Okay,” she said to him gently.

  She looked at the children, admonishing them with her gaze, assuming they did not understand Spanish but asking anyway, “What were you doing to him?”

  Amber didn’t even ask herself why she had gone toward the circle of children, or why she refused to watch the little boy being taunted. Perhaps it was the haunting presence of Armand, so recently gone, so cruelly killed. Perhaps it was Allegra’s bravery before Valdis. It was probably all those feelings gathering around her, forcing her to take the child’s hand in a firm grip and lead him away from the others.

  By the time Amber seated herself on the ground, a few feet from her horse, the boy had lost his hostile look. But he was wary, watching her carefully, never taking his gaze from her face.

  Dolita hurried over. She gasped. “Señorita. What are you doing with…with the bastard?”

  “What are you talking about?” Amber asked stiffly, holding the child tightly. “Can you find his mother, Dolita?”

  Dolita suddenly looked frightened. “He has no mama,” she answered quickly, nervously. “She died in birth. It was just as well, for she was treated much worse than this little one. She brought much disgrace upon the tribe.”

  Amber looked at her hard. “You mean to tell me this little boy has no mother? Who takes care of him?”

  Dolita bit down on her lip, and, for an instant, Amber thought she was going to cry. Avoiding Amber’s gaze, she murmured, “The padre looks after him when he can, but he is old and sick. The boy sleeps in the mission. He is given food. You must not concern yourself with him, señorita. He lives with his shame. He knows this.”

  The child tried to pull from Amber’s grasp, but she held him tightly as she stared up at Dolita and cried, “That is the most barbaric thing I have ever heard. How can the padre allow such a thing to go on? It isn’t this child’s fault he was conceived out of wedlock. Who is the father? Does he even know he has a son?”

  Dolita turned tear-filled eyes upon her. Amber had never seen the girl so overwrought. Gesturing wildly with her hands, she said, “His father is dead. We must go now. You must not concern yourself.”

  “Dolita, what is wrong?” Amber searched her face for some clue. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

  Dolita whispered, “Señorita, we must leave. Do not interfere with custom. You will only bring more trouble for the boy.”

  Then, so suddenly it caught Amber off guard, Dolita screamed at the boy, waving her arms wildly. He bolted, running away, disappearing around a nearby shed.

  “Oh, why did you do that, Dolita?” Amber got to her feet, trembling with fury. “What is wrong with you? I have never known you to be cruel!”

  Dolita lifted her chin in defiance. “There are things you do not understand. Come, please. I want you to meet my uncle, señorita. I have tied our horses behind his hut.”

  Amber followed silently, vowing to ask Dolita more questions later.

  Dolita’s uncle was polite to Amber, respectful and distant. When he and Dolita had established that the two women could stay in his home, he bade Amber a polite welcome and the two left him. When they were out of his hearing, Dolita said, “Valdis was here some years ago…and two of the children disappeared. My uncle is afraid. The rest of the village will be afraid of us too, of our being here, for if Valdis finds us here, it will go hard for them. They know this. Valdis is well known for a great distance around.”

  Amber sighed. Until Cord could be reached, they would have to stay here. But she hated bringing danger to these people.

  “Tell your uncle I don’t wish to bring trouble,” Amber said quickly. “I don’t want to stay here any longer than necessary. Make him see that.”

  She stared into the gathering dusk. No, she did not want to be here long. Cord Hayden would help. He had to.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dolita looked up at the ominous black clouds, moving like giant hands to consume the azure sky. “I do not like it,” she said worriedly. “Flash floods through these deep arroyos can be deadly.”

  “We had to go today,” Amber told her as their horses picked their way along the rocky trail. “We’d been there for almost a week. I have to know what’s going on, whether Valdis has been arrested, and if I can get a message to Cord.”

  “I know, I know.” Dolita sighed. “But I wish you had waited one more day. I do not like the looks of those clouds. Let us hurry. I will leave you on high ground while I go down to see if Señor Mendosa’s housekeeper is still living in his house. If anyone would know where Señor Hayden is, it would be Jualina.”

  They rode for a ways in silence, and then Amber spoke sadly, “I just can’t get over the way that child is treated. Why would his own people be so cruel?”

  Dolita was silent, and Amber turned to look at her. “Dolita, I have the impression you are hiding something. I’ve felt that way since I saw the child.”

  “No, no, señorita,” Dolita said quickly.

  There was something going on. Dolita was frightened, and Amber was determined to find out why.

  Dolita finally murmured, “The boy does not speak. The elder ones say he is cursed.”

  “You mean he can’t talk? I thought he was just scared of me.”

  Dolita shook her head. “No one has ever heard him.”

  Amber persisted. “But surely, there is some medical reason. He might be cured, and—”

  “Oh, señorita, I wish you would not concern yourself. You do not understand the ways of these people.”

  “Then perhaps you would like to explain ‘the ways,’” Amber said, bristling.

  After a long silence, Dolita nodded. “I will try to explain to you. As you probably know, Mexicans are a new race, offspring of the conquistadores who bred with the Indian women so very long ago. The Indians were Aztecs or Mayans or Tlaxcalans. The conquistadores just took what they wanted. The sons they sired grew up to hate them—as did their mothers! The conquerors looked on their mixed-blood offspring as worthless animals. They bragged of their own, pure Castilian blood. As the years passed, the offspring also began to brag of their Spanish blood, dismissing their dark Indian skin as the stain of the tropic sun. Those of Spanish blood, born in ‘new Spain,’ scorned the lowly mestizos.”

  “Very well, I understand about the Spanish blood.” Amber was exasperated. “But what does all this have to do with that little boy being persecuted? It sounds as though there were a great many bastards in the days when the conquistadores were raping women.”

  “I am coming to that,” Dolita said sharply. “But we must move faster. The first drops of rain are starting. There is a cave up ahead. We may have to seek refuge there, for it is not safe to be in the arroyo if it rains hard.”

  They urged their horses onward, finally reaching the safety of the cave in a jagged cliff near a deep arroyo. Just as they got inside, the sky opened and rain began falling in torrents.

  “It is going to be bad,” Dolita said as they sat down in the cave. “I have seen these storms, and when they come so quickly, they are bad.”

  Amber leaned back against the cool earth wall. “There is nothing we can do about the weather, so please finish your story.”

  “Very well.” Dolita sighed. “You see, señorita, with so much mixed blood, it has become great pride to any tribe to remain pure, free of Spanish blood. The village of Cora Indians are such a group of people. It is their law that neither man nor woman mate outside their race. Condina, the little muchacho’s mama, broke the law. She was not a whore. She only loved someone not of her people. I know this because my uncle told me the story. But her love broke the law, and it was a shame on the Coras.”

  “So why didn’t she marry the man if she loved him?” Amber wanted to know.

  “He was of another race. Mexican.”

  “But Mexicans are actually a race originally mixed with Indians,” Amber cried incredulously. “So he was part Indian, wasn
’t he?”

  “Not by Cora code,” Dolita said. “The Coras consider themselves to be pure. The Mexican race is not pure.” Amber looked exasperated, but Dolita merely shrugged. “It is the way people think, señorita. As the story was told, Condina did not tell her lover she was going to have a baby. He had never come to her, she had always slipped away to see him. He must have known—as she did—that their union could never be, and when she did not go to him anymore, he probably thought she had fallen in love with one of her own, and thought it best.”

  “So her people hated her?” Amber felt so tired. How she hated rigidity, customs that caused misery. “They probably let her die in childbirth.”

  “No, no,” Dolita remarked quickly. “Her heart broke. That is what the shaman said.”

  “And what is a shaman?” Amber didn’t mask her contempt, for she suddenly found herself disliking anything to do with Indian ways.

  “The shaman of any tribe is very important, because he has a knowledge of sickness, sickness of body or soul. The Cora shaman was with Condina at her time, and said she died of a broken heart before her baby was born. The baby had to be cut from her body, and he almost died too. It would have been better if he had,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “But where is the father? Wasn’t he told? Why didn’t he come and take the baby? Was he married? Or was he ashamed because he had fathered a baby by an Indian?”

  Dolita was silent for a long time, and there was no sound except for the relentless pounding of the rain. Finally, she decided a hedging reply was better than none. “If he knew, then he also knew the Coras would not allow him to take his son. If he knew, he did the wise thing by staying away. The Coras are peaceful people, but they might have become violent had he tried to take the baby.”

  “Oh! They would keep the child and torment him rather than give him up? I don’t think I have ever seen a group of people who needed educating more than they do!”

  “I think,” Dolita finally said after watching her warily for a time, “you should forget about the boy. He is used to his life. He expects nothing more.”

  “Well, he is going to get more,” Amber said with more fiery determination than she had ever felt before.

  Dolita was silent.

  After a time, she said, “The rain is slowing. There has not been enough to cause a flood, and I think we can go. We may still get wet, but it is better than spending the night here. This cave may be a shelter for wild animals.” She and Amber walked back to where the horses had wandered, farther back in the cave.

  They mounted and rode out and into the slow, cool drizzle.

  It was nearly dark when Dolita’s scream interrupted Amber’s reverie, and they saw two riders thundering toward them down the arroyo.

  “Bandits!” Dolita crossed herself, and Amber jerked her mount to a halt. Every instinct told her to turn and run. But the men were faster than her horse could ever be. In a moment, they were upon them, and Amber found herself staring up into the mocking face of Valdis Alezparito.

  He threw his right leg up and over his saddle, landing solidly on the ground. Tipping back the wide brim of his sombrero, he placed his hands on his hips, legs wide apart, and flashed a triumphant grin up at Amber. She froze.

  “Tell me,” he laughed above Dolita’s screams, “did you know I would be coming this way? Did you plan your journey so that we could meet?”

  His grin was so infuriating that Amber’s fear was overwhelmed by anger. “Stay away from me, Valdis,” she hissed, gripping her reins tightly. She nodded toward Dolita, who was struggling with the other man. “And tell him to leave her alone.”

  He continued to grin up at her. “It is amusing that while the law looks for me, I look for you. Now I have found you! I promised you something when we met again, so come down off your horse now. I wish to make good on my promise. There is a cave not too far from here, where we can be dry and cozy.”

  He took a step forward, and Amber yanked the reins, jerking the horse so that he reared in the air, thrashing wildly. Valdis lunged and grabbed the reins, pressing his weight on the horse’s neck as he brought him down and under control. Then, as Amber beat at him with her hands, he jerked her from the saddle and flung her to the ground.

  “I tell you this,” he vowed, eyes wide as he towered above her, “this night I shall have you. I offered you wealth, power, as my wife, but you thought you were too good for me. Now I will take you like the slut that you are.”

  Amber rolled to one side, but Valdis brought one booted foot down to stomp upon her streaming silver hair. She cried with pain as she tried to pull away.

  “I think I will have to hurt you to make you obey me,” he said, grabbing a handful of hair and twisting it, forcing her up onto her knees. Bending her neck back, he leaned over her face and said, “You will go with me to the cave. We will build a fire, for I want to see you naked in the firelight. I have waited a long time for this. You will dance for me. You will pleasure me in a hundred ways that I will teach you. And when tomorrow comes, you will beg not to leave me. You will want to stay with me and be my whore, as you might have been my wife.”

  “You cowardly son of a bitch, I won’t go anywhere with you,” Amber bellowed in rage. “I would rather die than have you touch me.”

  She saw only a flash of steel before she felt the knife pressed against her throat; felt the sting as the razor-sharp edge cut into the soft flesh ever so lightly. “You may get your wish, but only after you have pleased me. I shall make you want to die!”

  His breath was hot and sour. She could feel a stickiness trickling down from the cut on her throat. She could not move.

  Valdis and Gerras took the women to the cave, Gerras guarding them while Valdis handled the horses. When they arrived, Gerras dragged Dolita off to help him search for firewood, for anything dry enough to burn. Valdis took a bottle from his saddlebag and tilted it to his lips. Once, he saw Amber watching and held out the bottle. “You want a drink to get you in a good mood?”

  Amber sank back against the cave wall, hoping her blazing eyes transmitted her message of hate.

  “Ahhh, but you shall beg for a drink before long.” He chuckled, tilting the bottle again. “You will want to drink to give you strength to keep up with me, for I will show you what it is like to have a real man take you. Armand Mendosa was no real man. He gave what strength he had to the bulls, and look what happened to him!” His laughter was infuriating.

  “Tell me,” he taunted. “What was it like with Armand? Did he say ‘please’ when he wanted to touch your breasts? Did he ask your permission to spread your thighs? He was such a gentleman, was he not?”

  When Amber remained silent, he went to her and, cupping her chin, whispered, “After tonight, no other man will hold any interest for you. You will want only me…love only me. If you pleasure me, then we will be together always.”

  He knelt before her, his tone suddenly gentle, his eyes mellowed. “I tell you this. I have yearned for you since first I saw you, but not always in the way that you think. If I had”—he jerked his head toward the outside of the cave—“I would have taken you as Gerras is taking that one. I want to give to you, and I wish more from you.”

  He trailed his fingertips gently down her cheek, but she jerked her head away and he gasped angrily. “Never turn from me again, you little fool! Do you not understand what I am trying to tell you? I am in love with you! Do you hear me?” Amber continued to stare at him, her face unreadable. A shadow crossed his eyes. “Do not make me angry. I have told you of the feelings I have for you, but do not make me lose my temper. You have seen what happens when I lose my temper.”

  Slowly Amber ran her fingers through her hair, shaking it about to swing freely about her face. She was stalling him, knowing she needed to catch him off his guard. She had seen what she needed—the glint of steel as the knife slipped from his boot and fell into the dirt. Gauging the distance from herself to the knife, she reached for it while pretending simply to allow Valdis
to embrace her. As he kissed her, her hand touched the cold steel, fingers inching around the handle. There would be one chance and only one. If she failed, he would kill her.

  Just as she brought her arm down in a swinging arc, Gerras and Dolita entered and Gerras screamed a warning. Valdis twisted to the side, and the blade missed the back of his neck, plunging instead into the flesh of his shoulder.

  Amber felt the sickening thud as steel sliced into muscle, and Valdis fell away from her, falling backward, clutching his shoulder as blood streamed out of it. Amber wriggled from beneath him, screaming to Dolita, “Run!”

  Valdis was swaying to and fro on his knees, blood gushing down his arm to pour from his fingers. His face was twisted in pain and shock.

  “I will kill the whore!” Gerras bellowed, but by then, Amber and Dolita were almost to the mouth of the cave.

  “No!” Valdis cried to Gerras. “Help me before I bleed to death.”

  “But she will get away!” Gerras hesitated, looking from his bleeding partner to the women disappearing into the night.

  “The wound is deep,” Valdis told him. “It bleeds badly. You must make a fire quickly. Take the knife and stick it into the fire, then to the wound. Make a fire from anything you can—anything.”

  Gerras stared at him.

  “Do it, goddamnit! You want to watch me bleed to death? I will deal with her later. The cut is deep. You must do as I say. Hurry! Burn anything, even our clothing if you must.”

  Gerras did as he was told, and when the steel had turned white with heat, he looked at Valdis with pity.

  “Do it!” Valdis gritted his teeth.

  Amber pulled Dolita along in the darkness. Rain had begun again, in a steady, pattering downpour. They felt their hair plastered to their faces, but Dolita did not care. She hoped the rain would wash all the way through her skin into her soul to cleanse and purify, for she wondered if she would ever feel clean again.

  Dolita sobbed, “I do not know the way in the dark. We must reach the high country and hide in the brush. It is our only hope.”