Beverly Byrne (29 page)

"Ole!"
someone shouted. "Ole! Ole! Ole!" a chorus of voices chimed in. The
violins, guitars, and flutes climbed to their crescendo and then, with one last
spin, it was over. Applause and laughter replaced the music.

"Fantastic!"
Rick said. "I thought you didn't know this dance."

"I
don't, I just followed you." She was flushed with a heat greater than that
generated by the crush and the warm room. I'm so happy, she thought. Then Tommy's
voice snatched it all away.

"You'd
better check with Maria. The ham's running out. "

"Yes."
She disengaged her arm from Rick's and saw the look the two men exchanged.
"I'll go right away."

The
truce she and Tommy established at the birth of their son had evaporated. He
had returned from the south range bitter and silent, and his eyes accused her
at every turn. After Tommy got home Amy wanted to cancel this party, but it was
too late. And if she had she wouldn't have experienced the precious seconds
she'd just known. She hugged the memory close as she made her way through the
crowd to the kitchen.

"It's
like the old days," Rick said to his host.

"That
pleases you, does it?" Tommy asked. He had to look up slightly because the
other man was taller. He could hate him for that alone.

"It
pleases me and everyone. As I've told Amy, this used to be the heart of the
ranches hereabouts. These old walls have seen many fiestas like this. Maybe not
quite so sophisticated," Rick added with a nod to his champagne glass.

"And
the ranch wasn't as big." Tommy flung the challenge in Ibanez's face. He
knew what the locals thought of his recent acquisitons.

Rick
refused to be baited. "It wasn't the same," he said easily. "There
was less concern with boundaries. The size of the herd was more important.
Santo Domingo had the biggest and the best."

Tommy
smiled. The doctor was clever and very cool. "Personally I am concerned
with boundaries," he said. "What's mine is mine."

"A
man keeps what he has as long as he cherishes it," Ibanez said.

Tommy's
smile faded. "That's one way. There are others." The music started
again. The dance floor created by clearing all the furniture out of the living
room filled with couples. Moving out of their way gave Tommy a chance to
recover his poise.

"Enjoy
yourself, doc. I have to see to my guests. Truth is, I don't now who half of
them are."

"Amy
said you wanted to invite everybody." Rick drained his glass, eyeing
Westerman over the rim.

"Indeed
I did," Tommy agreed. "Noblesse oblige, and all that sort of thing.
Just like the old days."

Ibanez
watched Westerman limp away. It must hurt, a leg like that, but Westerman never
let on. It was courage of a sort; the kind that congealed into a hard lump of
defiance, and spread until every part of a man was hard. A vision of the couple
alone together in their bedroom, as they must be later, came into Rick's mind
and stayed to haunt him. What must Amy endure at the hands of her husband?

"You
have not danced with me, Don Rico."

Beatriz's
voice interrupted his thoughts. Ibanez hastened to erase his scowl. "It will
be a greater pleasure for being postponed," he said gallantly. Beatriz
took his hand and they began the first steps of the fandango. He felt no
familiarity, no warmth at her touch. That they had once been lovers made no
difference now.

Ibanez
knew a moment of guilt about his indifference to a woman who had given him
much, and his eyes sought hers. "How have you been, Beatriz?"

"I
have been well, Don Rico, but lonely."

He
was glad when the formal movements of the dance separated them for a few
seconds. Unwittingly he scanned the room to see if Amy had returned. When he
and Beatriz came together again he read in her face that she had noticed his
preoccupation.

Beatriz
held herself in strict control. They parted and came together in the measured
ritual of the dance, and she made her expression a polite mask which betrayed
nothing. Behind it her thoughts were seething. If she'd needed confirmation,
she had it now. She'd come reluctantly to this fiesta, but it was making clear
many unwelcome truths. They made a tight band around her heart and caused her
to breathe with difficulty. When the fandango ended she curtsied gracefully and
drifted toward the patio.

Outside
it was cold, and her breath hung frosty in the air. Beatriz pulled her gray
wool shawl closer. Like her black dress, it did nothing for her mouse brown
hair and sallow skin, and disguised her beautiful body.

After
she made up her mind to come here there had been a moment when she considered
wearing one of the gorgeous gowns from her shop. Her hands had flitted lovingly
over brightly colored silk and taffeta. She could wear a dress that lifted her
breasts, hugged her waist, and clung to rounded hips and buttocks, one that
ended in tiers of ruffles swaying around her ankles. She could pull her hair
back into a coil and pin flowers behind her ear. She could carry a fan and wear
a fringed shawl. What would they make of her then'? But no, she had decided, it
was not yet time for such revelations.

Now
she was glad she'd resisted temptation. She had only to look at Diego and see
the friendly intimacy between him and his employer to know that Eustaquio had
failed her. The Indian boy worshipped his Anglo boss. The sight saddened her.
The sadness mixed with fury when she saw the longing in Don Rico's face. He
gazed at Amy with hunger, and Beatriz trembled with rage that it should be so,
and because of the way her people mingled with the Anglo guests. It was not
friendship between them; how could it be when they did not meet as equals?

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. For 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! Don'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.

Rick
passed a hand over his face and noted the stubble of beard. His eyes felt like
they'd been dipped in sand. No sleep and a lot of worry was a recipe for
disaster. Think, he told himself again. They'd been waiting for a ransom note,
but none came. Wilkins had hemmed and hawed a lot, and finally told Westerman
that the kidnapping might be personal, an attempt to get at him. So they'd made
a list. Rosa Mandago and the two ranchers Tommy had squeezed out were on top.
Only nobody produced results. Not Tommy and the guys who went with him to see
Rosa, or the Spanish-speaking deputies who went into the
barrio
asking
questions.