Midnight Rider (37 page)

“Your name is Rita, isn't it?”

“
Si,
senora.”

“I need something for his back, Rita. Can you tell me what I might use?”

“
Si,
I have just the thing. We keep it here for the vaqueros, for burns and scrapes and the bite of insects.” She handed Carly a salve that smelled of lard and camomile.

“Thank you.”

Two Hawks winced as she washed the several long thin slashes and spread the salve over the welts, but he didn't make a sound of complaint.

“I'm sorry this happened, Two Hawks,” Carly said when they were finished. “I wish I had gotten there sooner.”

For the first time, he smiled. “You were very brave, Sunflower. Don Ramon will not find another wife so courageous as you.”

A sudden mist of tears sprang into her eyes. Carly blinked hard to push them away. “How is he, Two Hawks?” she asked softly.

“He is different now that you are gone. He does not smile as he used to. I think he wishes for you to come home.”

Oh, God.
“You're wrong, Two Hawks. That is the last thing Don Ramon wants.”

The boy started to argue, but Carly pressed a finger to his lips and shook her head. “Where is your shirt?”

“Those men tore it off.” He scowled. “It was a very fine shirt.”

Carly almost smiled. “Well, this certainly won't be the first time you've gone without one. Don Ramon will see you get another once you get home.”

“He sent me with some of your things, but I think he only wanted me to know that you were not angry with me.”

Carly reached over and took his hand. “Is that what you thought? That I was angry with you?”

He nodded. “Because of what happened in the village … what I did to the white man.”

It was all she could do not to clamp a hand over his mouth. Good Lord, if her uncle knew he had killed one of the men who had slaughtered his people, the boy wouldn't live another day.

“You did what you had to. I'm only just beginning to understand how difficult life out here really is.” She forced herself to smile. “Now, tell me where the things are you have brought me so that I can go and get them.”

He started to rise, but she gently pushed him back down. “I'll get them. You just stay here.”

“I am all right now, senora. I will get your things.”

She wanted to argue, but he was young and strong and she didn't want to insult him. Standing in the doorway, she waited while he fetched the bundle Ramon had sent, along with the swaybacked horse he had ridden to the ranch.

“I want you to wait for me here,” Carly told him. “I'm going to go in and change, then we'll ride back to Las Almas together … at least part of the way.”

He merely nodded. A few minutes later, she returned in her rust-colored riding habit, led him out to the barn, and ordered one of the men to saddle her a horse. They spoke little on the ride back to the rancho. She knew his back must be hurting from the stiff way he sat in the saddle, and because the welt on her own back still stung.

At the top of the ridge leading into the valley where the hacienda stood, she drew rein on her small sorrel horse.

“Tell Don Ramon what happened at del Robles. Show him your back and he'll see it's properly tended. Tell him … tell him I said I was sorry for the way my uncle and his men behaved.”

Two Hawks nodded. “I will tell him. I will also tell him he is not the only one who is no longer happy.”

“No! Two Hawks, you can't—” but already the boy had whirled his horse and begun to gallop away. Carly dragged in a breath, surprised to find her hands were shaking and tears burned the back of her eyes. What did it matter if Ramon knew how she felt?

He hadn't cared about her feelings when he believed her guilty of lying with his cousin, when he'd accused her of being a whore. Still her pride stung to think of it almost as much as the thin line of fire that burned down her back.

Turning the sorrel horse back toward Rancho del Robles, Carly vowed anew to forget Ramon, to put that episode of her life behind her. But living with her uncle didn't seem to be the answer either. Not when each day proved even more clearly how ruthless Fletcher Austin really was.

And with each passing day, she had begun to suspect more strongly that somehow her uncle truly had stolen the de la Guerra lands.

*   *   *

Ramon brought the axe down hard, splitting the two-foot length of oak neatly down the center. He tossed it into the growing pile and mopped the sweat from his brow with the back of a hand.

Three days had passed since Two Hawks's return with his back on fire and his incredible tale of the stolen chicken—and the fact that Caralee had taken a stinging blow herself in order to protect him. She had faced her uncle's wrath and braved the tempers of the men.

“Wah-suh-wi is very brave,” the boy said. “You will not find another wife as brave as your Sunflower.”

Just thinking about it made his mouth go dry. He wanted to wrap his hands around Fletcher Austin's thick neck and squeeze till the life slipped out of him. He hated to think what might have happened to the boy if Carly hadn't stood up to him. He didn't doubt the boy's story or his wife's courage. But in the weeks since he had lost Caralee, he had begun to doubt something else.

Ramon brought the axe down hard, his naked torso straining, his sweat-slick muscles rippling with the effort. He needed the exertion, needed to relieve the tension that had gripped his body since Two Hawks's return from del Robles.

He couldn't allow the anger he felt at Fletcher Austin to govern his next moves. Nor succumb to the soft ache the boy's words stirred in his heart for Caralee.

What if you are wrong?
He had never allowed himself to think it. Not for a single solitary moment. He couldn't afford the chance that he might forgive her.

If he did and she duped him again, he wasn't sure he could survive it.

That was how much he loved her—so much he ached with it every time he took a breath. How had she done it? How had she stolen his heart so completely?
Por Dios,
he had fought it every inch of the way, and still she had become the most important thing in his world.

What if you are wrong?
He should never have let the thought seep into his mind, for now that he had, it festered like an open wound. He wasn't wrong. He had seen them together. Angel was like a brother, had been since they were children. He was a de la Guerra. De la Guerras did not lie.

What if you are wrong?
The axe handle slipped, nearly flew from his hands. It hit the heavy length of wood sideways, sent the piece of oak careening into a nearby tree.
Santo de Christo
—he wasn't wrong. Carly knew it and so did he. But the words she'd said that day at the pool would not leave him.
You're exactly like my uncle. Your hatred is the same, your prejudice.… It blinds you as surely as it does the Anglos you despise.

The heavy axe rang as it severed the last piece of oak in the pile, and Ramon sank the blade deep into the top of the tree stump he had been using to position the wood. Still thinking of Carly, he looked back toward the house and was surprised to see Pedro Sanchez riding through the gate on his big dapple gray stallion.

Blotting the sweat from his neck and shoulders with a coarse linen towel, Ramon grabbed his white lawn shirt and started walking toward him.

“It is good to see you, my friend,” Ramon called out. Pedro had not yet returned from his trip to the valley when Ramon and the others had made their last raid. It had been almost two months since Ramon had seen him.

“It is good to see you, too, Don Ramon.” The old vaquero reined up, then dismounted with casual ease from the saddle. “I am sorry to be so late in returning to the stronghold, but I heard the raid went well.”

“
Si,
very well. But winter is near. We may need to strike one more time while the pickings are so plentiful.”

Pedro mulled that over as they walked side by side to the corral and he began to unsaddle his horse. “Now that Andreas is gone, each time you ride, the threat of discovery is greater.”

“
Si,
that is so. Mariano says Sheriff Layton was here while I was in Monterey. Mariano believes he grows suspicious.”

“And still you mean to continue?”

“Only as long as I have to.”

Pedro said nothing, just loosened the cinch and lifted the heavy vaquero saddle off of the stallion's back. Steam rose up from the damp patch of hair beneath the brightly woven blanket.

“How was your journey?” Ramon asked.

“I would have been back sooner, but Miranda's visit with her in-laws did not go exactly as planned. She decided to return to the stronghold. By then she was resigned to the loss of your attentions … now I learn that she may not have lost you after all.”

Ramon just shrugged, but a subtle tension crept into his shoulders. “My wife is no longer here, if that is what you mean. Things did not work out between us.”

“So I heard.” He loosened the bridle, slid a halter on over the stallion's soft muzzle, and fastened it behind the animal's ears.

“It is hardly a secret. Caralee has returned to her uncle.”

“Because you found your cousin in her bed.”

Surprise flared inside him. His jaw clamped so hard he had to force himself to relax it in order to speak. “How did you learn of this? I have told no one.”

“How do you think I learned? Your cousin Angel was bragging about it … until Ignacio split his lip like a ripe piece of melon. He has not mentioned it since.”

“I cannot believe he would do such a thing.”

“No?” Pedro rounded the horse and came to stand in front of him. “You did not find it difficult to believe the tale he told about your wife.”

“Even if he should have kept silent, he did not lie. I found him in her bed.”

“That he was there does not mean your wife betrayed you. How can you be so sure your cousin was telling the truth?”

“Angel is a de la Guerra. He is my own flesh and blood. Why should I not believe him?”

“Angel swears your wife wanted him to come to her—so of course it must be true. I have known him as many years as you have. Has there ever been a woman who did not throw herself at Angel's feet?”

Ramon grunted at the memory conjured by Pedro's words, images of Angel bragging about the whores who waited for him in every town between San Juan and the border. “Not according to Angel.”

“Whores are not ladies, my friend, and I do not believe there were even so many of those.”

Ramon mulled that over. “Perhaps not.”

“And what of the woman in Santa Fe?”

“What woman?”

“The one who claimed he raped her the night he was arrested for robbery and murder.”

An uneasy feeling began to churn in his stomach. “Surely the charge was false. A lie trumped up by the
gringos
to bolster their other false charges.”

“Was it a lie?” Pedro's eyes held his. “Or would your wife have been another helpless victim if you had not arrived when you did?”

Ramon sank down on a bale of straw next to the fence, his long legs no longer steady. “
Dios mio,
what you are saying cannot be true.”

“Your wife has proven her honor, Ramon, not once but again and again. She knows who you are and yet she says nothing. Perhaps she could even find the stronghold, if that was her wish.” His veined hand reached for Ramon's broad shoulder, gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Can you not see your wife keeps her silence because she loves you? That she is Anglo is not reason enough to disregard her word.”

“You must be wrong. It cannot be true.”

“You have not seen your cousin in five long years, Ramon. Even if he was an honest man before—which I have come to doubt—you cannot know what so many years in prison might do to a man like him.” Ramon said nothing. “Your loyalty to your cousin is commendable, my friend, but I do not believe he feels that same loyalty to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“He is jealous of you, Ramon. It is there in his face whenever he speaks of you. If you had spent the least amount of time with him, you would have seen he is not the man you believe.”

Ramon raked a hand through his sweat-damp hair. “You are telling me I am wrong. That my wife has not done this terrible thing. How can you expect me to believe that when I saw them with my own eyes?”

“Sometimes what you think you see is not what you see at all. Just like the trail leading into Llano Mirada. If your wife says she is innocent then I believe her. I would believe Caralee McConnell long before I would accept the word of a man like Angel de la Guerra.”

Ramon ran his tongue over his suddenly dry lips. Inside his chest his heart throbbed dully. “What if you are wrong?”

“There is a way to know for sure.”

“How? Tell me, I beg you.”

“Look inside your heart, Ramon. The truth lies there. I believe you know what it is. I think you have known for some time. You are afraid to believe, that is all.”

If you loved me, you would recognize the truth even when your eyes say it is a lie.
“Are my prejudices really so strong, Pedro? Is it possible I have let my hatred of the Anglos blind me to what is real?”

“What do you think, Ramon? Only you can know for sure.”

And suddenly he did know. So clearly the air around him rang with it. He stared out over the valley and the truth sweeping through him made the towering oaks seem taller, the golden grass more abundant, the sky a deeper blue.

“Por Dios,”
he whispered, Carly's beautiful tear-ravaged face rising up in the eye of his mind.
I love you, Ramon. I love you so much.
“She was fighting to save herself, not welcoming Angel to her bed.”