“Oh my God—you killed him,” she said in a voice hushed with awe. “You killed Juan Carlos!”
Prophet and Colter shared a dubious glance.
“You killed Juan Carlos,” Marisol said again, in shock.
“Well, hell,” Prophet said, aware that he seemed to have suddenly found himself in a situation far too similar to the one that had transpired in Buzzard Gulch, with Jasmin and Roscoe Rodane, only a short time ago. “I thought you wanted me to!”
“Sí, I wanted you to, but I didn’t think you’d really do it, you crazy gringo!”
It was Prophet’s turn to be exasperated. “It may be all right if a fella points a pistol at you, señorita, but it sure ain’t all right if he points one at me!”
Marisol gained her feet. “Sí. He probably would have killed you. But you might be better off.”
Again, Prophet shared an incredulous look with Colter.
“My . . . aunt?” Marisol asked. “Is she . . . ?”
“Dead,” Prophet said.
Marisol bunched her lips and kicked the dead man with her slippered right foot. “Savage fool. Savage, love-struck pendejo!” She gazed down at the dead man. “He could never get me out of his head. He couldn’t have if he’d lived to be a hundred!”
She sighed, raised her hands, and let them flop against her sides. “Well, we’d better get him back to the rancho. Tía Aurora Navarro, as well. Mi padre will know what to do about Juan Carlos. He’ll want to bury his sister in the cementerio familiar.”
“You want us to take you home?” Colter asked her, skeptically.
The señorita looked at him, scowling. “Sí.” She glanced around. “Who else is there to do it? I take it all of my men are as dead as Tía Aurora, or they’d have made an appearance by now.”
She gave a haughty chuff, then, shaking her head as though she were dealing with morons—fools from America, no less—strode past Prophet and Colter on her way back to the carriage.
Prophet glanced at Colter again. “I warned you.”
“Yeah,” Colter said, raking his thumb across his chin, staring dubiously after the haughty señorita. “You did at that, Lou.”
Chapter 13
The señorita didn’t want to ride in the carriage, because her aunt was still in there, and Tía Aurora had given up the ghost. Señorita Marisol de la Paz might have been unafraid of the old crone in life, but in death the old bird was a whole lot more scary.
Sometimes Prophet thought that Mexicans were almost as superstitious as he himself was.
“Well, I reckon you’re gonna have to ride with me, then,” Lou said, glancing uneasily from the lovely señorita to the appropriately named Mean and Ugly then back again.
He looked at Colter Farrow, who sat in the carriage’s driver’s boot, the team’s reins in his hands. They’d decided that the redhead would man the carriage to the Hacienda de la Paz. They’d laid out Tía Aurora in the carriage, along with Juan Carlos.
Those were the two most important victims of the brutal dustup, the two that must be dealt with first, though, of course in starkly different ways, one being a close relation to the de la Paz family, the other being . . . well . . . Prophet still didn’t know exactly the nature of Juan Carlos’s family’s relationship to the family of the señorita.
He had the uneasy feeling he would know soon enough. And that he might not like what that relationship might mean for him, the man who’d punched Juan Carlos’s ticket.
He just hoped he didn’t end up with another posse on his trail, or worse . . .
The other men, including the señorita’s guards, would be left where they’d fallen. Marisol had said that her father would likely send men with a wagon to retrieve his own men, and that Juan Carlos’s brutal compañeros could molder where they lay. She’d spat in distaste to emphasize her disdain for the men who’d attacked her and her aunt.
“How far to Hacienda de la Paz?” Colter asked from the carriage’s quilted leather driver’s seat.
The señorita pointed southeast. “It is over that second ridge there—a couple more hours. We are already on mi padre’s land, the old Cordova Grant, but the hacienda is in the valley beyond that ridge.”
Prophet drew a breath. “All right, let’s get movin’, then—it ain’t gettin’ any earlier in the day.”
He looked at the señorita. She looked up at him stonily.
“Well?” she said.
“Well, uh . . .”
“Are you going to help me onto your horse, or I am to walk behind?”
“Ah no, no . . . I’m gonna help you up there.”
“All right.” She gave a cordial dip to her chin and held up her left hand.
Prophet wiped his gloved hands on his shirt and then gently took the woman’s left hand. He hesitated, looking from her to his horse and then back at the lovely woman again, who was all trussed up in her gaudy, delicate attire. He sort of felt like he was having to transport a delicate figurine in a hay wagon, and he wasn’t sure how best not to break it.
“Okay, uh . . .” he said.
“Sí, sí,” said the señorita, growing impatient, shifting her feet around beside the horse.
Prophet stooped and started to wrap his arm around her waist then reconsidered. He straightened, tried another tack, abandoned that one, and then stepped back and grimaced down at her.
She scowled up at him, her dark eyes blazing again with her characteristic intolerance. “Señor Prophet, are you going to help me onto your horse or are you going to make me trudge along behind you, like a lowly peon?”
“It ain’t gonna work.”
“What ‘ain’t gonna work’?” she asked, mocking him.
Prophet shucked his big bowie knife and held it up before her. “You gittin’ up on that hoss in that Sunday dress.”
She frowned at him, worried. She started to step back but Prophet quickly crouched, pulled the dress out away from her legs, and cut it down the side from up near her hip to the hem.
She gasped and cursed roundly in Spanish—a few words that Prophet didn’t think he’d ever heard before, in fact. And that was saying something. Before she was done, he’d returned his knife to its sheath, picked her up in his arms, and fairly hurled her onto his saddle.
The movement was so sudden and brusque that she gave another, shriller gasp that was almost a scream. Not so much a scream of fear but a scream of—what?
Pleasure? The female kind . . . ?
Marisol stared down at the big, thick-necked, broad-shouldered bounty hunter in openmouthed shock, her dark eyes wide and round.
“There, now,” Prophet said, grinning from ear to ear, “that oughta . . .” He paused when he caught sight of her left bare leg peeking out from the vertical tear in her skirt. A fine leg it was. Long and creamy with just the right amount of supple female flesh. The skirt had appeared to be the only thing clothing it, he vaguely noted. Which meant she hadn’t been wearing much, if anything, underneath it.
And that she still wasn’t.
Not that he blamed her, riding in a pent-up carriage in the blazing desert heat. But, well . . . hell. That’s all. Just . . . hell.
Marisol stared down at him, still shocked at his impertinence. Speechless, she followed his eyes to her leg. She glanced at him again and then slowly, with seeming vague reluctance, drew one of the torn flaps of the gown over the exposed appendage.
A high, red flush rose in her cheeks as she turned away to gaze straight out over Mean’s ugly head.
Mean turned that ugly head to glance up at the unfamiliar woman residing on his back. He regarded the girl’s leg peeking out from the tear in the gown and slid his vaguely insinuating gaze to his master, still standing there beside the horse, the proverbial cat having suddenly gotten Prophet’s tongue.
Mean whickered, shook his head, and twitched his ears as though in amusement at the typically nonsensical situations Prophet was always getting himself into.
“Ah, shut up,” Lou groused at the horse.
He looked up past the suddenly speechless Marisol to where Colter Farrow was grinning down at him from the driver’s seat of the carriage, and said, “You, too!”
“I didn’t say a thing,” Colter said, still grinning, looking as though he were about to break out in hysterical laughter.
“Shut up, anyway.”
“All right.”
Trying to keep his eyes off that tear in the woman’s skirt, Lou shoved his boot into the left stirrup then awkwardly heaved his bulk up onto Mean’s back, settling himself behind Marisol, on his saddlebags and bedroll. Not the most comfortable place for riding, but he couldn’t very well ask the señorita, obviously a Mexican thoroughbred from the higher rungs of Mexico’s rung-ridden society, to switch places with him. And he didn’t want to take the time to run down one of the dead men’s horses.
Besides, he didn’t even know if she could ride. Such a woman as this was probably more accustomed to being wheeled around in fancy carriages like the one beside him now and which had, due to a typically dark twist of Mexican fate, become a hearse.
A little stiffly, Prophet extended his arms around Señorita Marisol and unwrapped Mean’s reins from the saddle horn only a few inches from her belly. “Um . . . excuse me here, Señorita,” he said tightly, his lips only a few inches from her ear, as he found himself pressed up close against her, almost hugging the girl in his arms.
Her pale, lacy mantilla fluttered back against him in the hot breeze. With it came the smell of the sandalwood scent of the woman’s hair, and the rosewater scent of her body from which he could feel the heat fairly radiating.
Heat from the sun?
Or from something else?
Oh, never mind, Prophet, you copper-riveted, cork-headed moron!
He glanced up at Colter still grinning annoyingly down at him. “You ready?”
“I’ve been ready.”
Prophet grumbled then nudged Mean with his spurs. “All right, then, here we go . . .”
* * *
As he led Colter and the señorita’s carriage southeast along the wagon trail, Prophet tried to ignore the woman on the saddle before him.
Of course, trying and doing are two separate things. It was hard to ignore such a woman even crossing a busy city street two blocks ahead of you. When she was sitting right in front of you—not only in front of you but practically in your lap!—well, that was an almost impossible situation.
Especially when you’d seen her bare leg and were aware of what she was wearing. Or not wearing, as the case may be . . .
Marisol de la Paz appeared to be doing her best to ignore Prophet, as well. She rode straight-backed before him, staring straight ahead, as Prophet held Mean to a comfortable walk for the sake of the woman as well as the horse, who was now carrying double in the harsh desert heat. Lou couldn’t tell if she was mad at him for tossing her around like a sack of potatoes, or afraid of him. He could imagine how he might have looked to her, shucking that big, razor-edged bowie of his and cutting her dress in one violent thrust.
Must have scared the living daylights out of the poor gal. She acted tough, but it was a hell of a situation she’d just been through, having her aunt killed and all, and almost getting killed herself by a spurned lover . . .
He supposed he should say something to put her at ease or to throw some water on her anger, but one thing he was trying to learn was when to keep his big mouth shut.
Now seemed like a good time.
Prophet felt himself sweating inside his clothes. He couldn’t tell if Marisol were sweating, as well. She had to be. But damnit, hadn’t he told himself to stop thinking about her, for chrissakes? Didn’t he already have enough trouble?
He’d have been better off ignoring the sound of the gunfire and just sitting down to a bowl of One-Eye Acuna’s succulent stew and a second glass of pulque. But, no, he had to go fogging the sage and riding into a whole peck of trouble when he could have been continuing south to the dusky-skinned putas of Sayulita.
But if he had, Señorita Marisol would now be dead.
Stop thinking, Prophet. You know that ain’t your strong suit. You get to thinkin’ an’ then you start talkin’, you blame, thick-headed ole Confederate necio!
“Señor Prophet?”
Lou was surprised by the unexpected sound of the woman’s voice.
He looked down at her. She had her head turned to the left, glancing back at him.
“Yes, señorita?”
“I uh . . . I wanted to, uh . . . thank you.”
“You wanted to what?” He wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.
“I wanted to thank you for saving my life. If you hadn’t come along, Juan Carlos surely would have killed me. I apologize for acting so ungrateful before. It’s just that . . . well, the death of Juan Carlos could mean big trouble not only for you but for us—for the de la Paz family.”
“Well, I reckon your death would have meant big trouble, too—don’t you think?” he added with a wry chuff, pleased with his logic. “For you and your family.”
“Not so much for you. Besides, you didn’t owe me anything. At One-Eye’s cantina, I was . . . I was very impolite. I was ¡la cabróna! ”
“I’ve always been a sucker for purty women.” Prophet grinned. “La cabróna, all the better.”
Marisol laughed, her first unguarded moment. “Why is that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I wouldn’t trust a woman who didn’t think I didn’t deserve a good bit of nastiness.”
They both laughed.
“Sure is nice to see you smile, señorita. You’re a pretty woman. Maybe as purty as I ever seen. But you’re a whole lot purtier when you smile. Laugh, even better!”
She flushed and turned her head to stare out over Mean’s head. Prophet had a feeling the woman wasn’t accustomed to blushing, and it made her uneasy.
To break the next ensuing silence, he said, “Tell me about Juan Carlos.”
“He is the son of Emiliano Zapata Amador. The Amadors have been my family’s rival landowners for over a hundred years. The de la Paz family and the Amadors have been feuding for generations. The fight started over disputes over the borders of our respective Spanish land grants. Once that was settled—with guns and blood, as every other disagreement in Mexico is settled—the feuding continued. The killing caused more bad blood, the need for revenge. Bad blood is impossible to wash away in Méjico. Revenge makes it flow all the faster.”
“Sort of like in the Old South,” Prophet remarked, remembering several family feuds that had continued long after everyone involved had forgotten what had instigated the hostility.
“From what I have read about your country, yes.”
“You went to school, I take it?” Most young women from wealthy families in Mexico had a least some schooling. Prophet thought he detected a certain refinement in the señorita—underneath all her sultry bluster, that was. A refinement that came from reading and learning about the ways of the world that were far beyond Prophet’s own experience and understanding, but which intrigued him, just the same.
“Sí. I went to school in Mexico City. A Catholic school for girls, of course.”
“Is that where you’re coming from now?” he asked, remembering that One-Eye had mentioned something about her returning from the city.
Marisol laughed. “No!” She glanced over her shoulder at Prophet, one brow arched. “Do I look that young?”
“I got no idea how old you are, señorita. I’m guessin’ you’re a helluva lot younger than this old gringo.”
“I am twenty-eight.”
“Pshaw!” he exclaimed phonily. In fact, being this close to her, she did look as old as twenty-eight. She’d lost the rawness of youth and was in the full flower of womanhood. If she were a fruit, she’d be the ripest of apples—one of a rare, ever so vaguely tart variety, owning a complexity and danger that enhanced her allure.
“Not all that much younger than you, eh?” Marisol asked him, still peering at him from over
her shoulder.
“Not as much as I thought, anyway.” Wondering why she wasn’t married by now but not wanting to ask the question directly and risk sparking another tantrum, since they seemed to be getting on so well all of a sudden, he said, “This Juan Carlos—he was pretty well gone for you. That much was obvious, though he sure had a strange way of showin’ it.”
Marisol frowned, curious. “Gone for . . . ?”
Lou shrugged. “In love with.”
“Ah.” She nodded and turned her head forward. “Sí. He thought he was in love with me, at least. At one time I thought I was in love with him.”
“How did that work—him bein’ an Amador, your own family’s blood enemy?”
Marisol shrugged as she continued staring straight over Mean’s head, her shoulders moving with the easy pitch and sway of the dun’s walk. “We met when we were very young. Thirteen, fourteen years old. Not formally, of course, but my family’s and Juan Carlos’s family’s ranges abut each other to the south of the compuesto of my father’s hacienda. The compound where our casa sits. I would go out riding, usually against mi padre’s orders, as banditos and the descendants of the Pericúes, a savage native tribe of Baja, were a bigger problem back then than they are now. Juan Carlos liked to ride off by himself, as well. That’s how we met—one day by a small lake in the mountains between our haciendas. At that age, we had little understanding of our families’ hatred for each other. For whatever reason—maybe because there was simply no one else around or because we were soul mates at the time—we fell in love. Forbidden love.”
“Did your families know?”
“Not at first. We’d have been whipped! But later, mi padre ordered one of his vaqueros to follow me. He must have become suspicious of my long sojourns into the mountains. The vaquero reported back and I was promptly forbidden ever to see the boy again. Of course, I didn’t listen. I was very shrewd, very sneaky. I continued to steal out at night, under cover of darkness, to visit my life’s one true love—Juan Carlos Anaya Amador!”
She gave a caustic laugh that sounded a little like a hawk strangling on viscera. “What a fool I was! Juan promised himself to me, I to him. We planned to run off to America together and to be married. But, then . . . I heard from campesinos that were friends of both Juan’s and mine, that he was riding over to the Sea of Cortez and lying with fallen women.”
The Cost of Dying Page 10