Nan Ryan (3 page)

At noon Sarah rallied a little. She opened her eyes and saw her haggard husband leaning over her. She smiled up at him and in a voice so low he had to lean close to hear, she said, “Look after Mollie and promise you’ll not bury me in Mexico. Take me back to Texas, Cord.” A lone tear pooled in the corner of her eye.

“Such nonsense,” he said, he voice soft, soothing. “You’ll be buried nowhere for another thirty or forty years.”

She gripped his big hand. “I love you,” she said. “Where’s Mollie?”

“Right here, Mama,” whispered Mollie, leaning closer, dashing at the tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I love you so much, darling,” Sarah said to her only child. “You’re such a lively, intelligent girl. And so pretty. I wanted to see you grow up.”

“You will, Mama.”

Sarah smiled at her, turned her eyes back on her husband’s grave face, gave a soft sigh of resignation, and drew her last breath.

They buried her that same afternoon. Honoring her wish, they carried her back across the muddy Rio Grande into Texas. They chose for her final resting place a smooth, high spot near the river where the rushing water would sing to her after the summer rains and the tall cottonwoods would drip shade and whisper to her in the winds and scatter their cottony catkins across her grave.

With Sarah gone, Cordell Rogers no longer had any desire to go to Mexico City. It was for her he had wanted to build a new life of respectability. Now he saw no reason to join Maximilian’s army. He’d had all the soldiering he wanted.

As they mounted to leave, he said, “It was for your mother I was going to Mexico City. We’ll join Lieutenant Battles instead. Jeffrey was heading down to Hermosillo and the gold mines. That all right with you, Mollie?”

Despite her grief, Mollie experienced a mild rush of excitement at the mention of gold mines. What an adventure that would be! Hunting for gold in the wilds of Mexico!

“That would be fine, Papa.”

Weeks later, in mid-October, the tired pair finally reached Hermosillo. As they rode down the dusty main street, Mollie felt a terrible letdown. She had expected noise and laughter and gaiety and excitement—a rip-roaring gold town like the ones in California she’d heard so much about.

Instead she saw a somnolent little village with only a handful of Mexican men with sombreros pulled low over their faces, sleeping in the sun outside adobe buildings.

Mollie frowned when her father ordered her to stay outside while he went into the one open cantina. “A cantina is no place for a girl,” he said when she protested.

“But no one will know,” she reasoned, hastily shoving her thick golden hair up under her hat. “I’m wearing breeches; they’ll think I’m boy.”

“Come on, then,” he said, shaking his head, “but keep quiet inside.”

Mollie eagerly followed her father out of the blinding sunshine and into the dim, cool cantina. Blinking, she looked about, curious as only a fourteen-year-old girl can be.

A mustachioed man stepped out of the shadows and up to the long rough hewn plank bar.
“Sí, señor?”

“Whiskey,” said Cordell Rogers.

The barkeep nodded. “And for the
señorita?”

Disappointed, Mollie made a face. “How did you know I’m a girl?”

The Mexican barkeep just threw back his head and laughed. “You want a nice lemonade, sí?”

“I suppose,” Mollie said and jerked off her hat, allowing the rebellious golden hair to spill down around her shoulders, wishing, as she had a thousand times before, that she weren’t a girl.

The helpful barkeep told them they would find Jeffrey Battles at the Bonita Hoy mine seven miles north of Hermosillo. Mollie immediately felt her sagging spirits rise.

“Let’s go, Papa,” she tugged on his shirtsleeve. “We could be at the mine by sunset.”

“A few minutes more, then we’ll go,” he said. He downed his glass of whiskey in one swallow and passed the empty shot glass across the plank bar. “Fill it up, barkeep.”

Mollie frowned. She didn’t recall her papa having such a thirst for whiskey before the war.

On that same October day, Lew Hatton sat in the chilly waiting room of the Overland stage station in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His walking cane resting between his bent knees and his dark head laid back against the wall, he shut his eyes and plotted how he would go about catching up with Cordell Rogers and Jeffrey Battles and the others who had been on the raid that had cost Colonel William Hatton his life.

Lew reasoned that when he finally reached his home in Santa Fe, he would rest and recuperate fully within a few months. When he was again able to ride, he would set out after all five murderers. He had no intention of killing them. He would bring them in and let them hang for their crimes, or else rot away in prison for the rest of their lives.

The thought brought a slight smile to Lew’s lips.

Without opening his eyes, he shifted uncomfortably on the hard bench and stretched his stiff, wounded leg out before him.

“Señor
, excuse me,
por favor,”
came a soft, feminine voice a fraction of a second after Lew felt something bump his foot.

He opened his eyes on the most beautiful young woman he had ever seen. Her hair, as jet black as his own, was parted down the middle and drawn to the back of her head. Her skin was as white and fine as alabaster, and her dark eyes, large and luminous, were shaded with sweeping black lashes. Her nose was small and straight, her lips full and red.

And those lovely lips were smiling at him.

Lew rose so rapidly on his injured leg that he almost fell. The young woman instinctively reached out to steady him. Her fingertips touched his chest for a fleeting moment and Lew knew, in that moment, that he wanted her to touch him there—and all over—for the rest of his life.

Young Teresa Castillo looked up and felt her heart beat erratically. Before her stood a tall, wide-shouldered man in a pearl gray frock coat of fine wool. His shirt was of snowy white silk and his trousers, elegantly cut, had obviously been tailored specifically for him.

An abundance of unruly coal black hair tumbled rebelliously over his high forehead. Thick black brows slashed almost menacingly above eyes as blue as the wool dress she wore. His nose was well shaped, and his lips were full and sensual. There was about him a natural arrogance that Teresa Castillo found appealing.

Suddenly she realized that her hand was still on his chest, and she yanked it away as though she had done something unspeakable.

When Lew had gained his equilibrium, he said, “No,
señorita
, it is I who must be excused. My feet were in the way and I humbly apologize for almost tripping you. Allow me to introduce myself, I’m—”

“Señor
, we do not care who you are!” A short, stocky woman stepped forward and took Teresa’s arm. To Teresa she said, “What would your brother say? Talking with strange gentlemen! Come, we will choose a place to sit.”

“But how will I ever be properly introduced if—” Lew tried, but the scolding duenna glared at him and ushered the pretty young woman away.

Lew sighed and sank back down on the bench. But short minutes later he was smiling again. The beautiful young woman and her clucking chaperon were boarding the stage to Santa Fe! Purposely, Lew waited until the last minute. When the driver climbed on the box and took up the reins, Lew stepped up into the coach, took a seat opposite the two women and smiled with delight at the reactions written plainly on each face.

The aging duenna’s lips were compressed, and her dark eyes were snapping with annoyance. But the beautiful young woman’s face wore an expression of embarrassed pleasure. And when Lew impudently winked at her, she blushed prettily and averted her dark, flashing eyes.

Lew made several attempts at conversation. Each time the duenna looked daggers at him and forbade her charge to respond. He gave up at last, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. But he didn’t sleep. He couldn’t. How could he sleep when the most desirable woman God had ever created sat just across from him, so near he could smell the sweet scent of her perfume?

There was only one kind of woman for whom Lew Hatton had a great weakness—the dainty, feminine, innocent ones. Soft, lovely creatures who were as helpless and dependent as newborn babes. Exquisite, fragile females who wore their vulnerability like a mantle around their lovely, luscious bodies.

Not that he hadn’t had plenty of the other kind. He had. Wild and reckless in his youth, he had spent more than one night in the arms of women who were less than ladies—bold divorcées and wild, spoiled rich men’s daughters and dance hall girls and brothel cuties, even a squaw or two in his days among the Apaches.

But seated directly across from him now was the kind of young lady a man dreamed of. A beautiful, refined, innocent woman whom no man had ever possessed. She was as pure as the Virgin Mary, of that he felt certain. In the depths of her dark, flashing eyes was an unmistakable naïveté.

Hours passed.

The clattering, lurching coach rumbled steadily northward. The sun set. Its afterglow was fading quickly. Lew tore his eyes from the young beauty long enough to notice that the woman guarding her had fallen asleep. To make sure she was really sleeping, he softly addressed her. Her head lolled to one side, her mouth open slightly, and she did not respond.

He looked back at the young beauty. She smiled and shrugged her slender shoulders. Lew grinned and patted the seat beside him. Teresa’s dark eyes blinked and she shook her head. Lew again patted the seat.

“Sit by me?” It was an invitation, not a command.

Still she looked skeptical. She glanced nervously at the sleeping duenna. Then Lew’s heart skipped several beats when she gracefully rose and moved over to sit beside him.

Longing to touch her slender white hand, not daring to do so, Lew said quietly, “Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you. Ever. I am Lew Hatton and my home is Santa Fe. Tell me how I may meet you properly.”

She smiled enchantingly. “My name is Teresa Castillo. My brother is Don Pascual Castillo of Santa Fe. My father has sent me north to live with Pascual until the trouble in Mexico has ended.”

“I will speak with your brother as soon as we reach Santa Fe,” Lew said. “I will ask his permission to call on you. May I do that?”

“Yes, Lew,” she said, and the sound of her voice saying his name made his pulse quicken, “I would like that. But I must tell you that although I attended school in New York City, I still follow the customs of my country.” She lowered her thick lashes and admitted, “If you wish to see me, it must be in the presence of my duenna.”

Impulsively Lew reached out and gently cupped her chin, lifting her face so that he could look into her beautiful eyes. He said, “I don’t mind, Teresa. It will be worth it.”

Mollie sighed wearily
.

They had been in Hermosillo for more than a year, and what she had hoped would be high adventure had turned out to be unending monotony.

Her papa worked from sunup to sundown in the Bonita Hoy mine and made only a pittance. He came home of an evening exhausted, beaten, and uncommunicative while she spent each long, tedious day trapped in their small clapboard shack. She was miserable.

She hated Hermosillo and having nothing to do all day and seeing her papa come home so tired he could hardly eat his supper.

Poor Papa. He had not been the same since her mother died. He never would be again. The vitality, the zest for living was gone. His once-brilliant green eyes rarely disappeared into laugh lines, and his massive shoulders slumped noticeably.

Men’s voices carrying on still twilight air pulled Mollie from her painful reverie. She recognized her papa’s deep voice, smiled, then frowned when she heard Jeffrey Battles.

Mollie didn’t like Jeffrey Battles. Hadn’t from the start. Her papa had told her that women found Battles attractive, and Mollie supposed that he was in a rugged, unconventional way. Not yet twenty-two, he looked much older. Muscular and of medium height, he had thick wavy dark hair and a curly beard that wasn’t neatly trimmed like her papa’s. But in his eyes of slate gray there was a hint of something that frightened Mollie. He was forever teasing her, telling her she was his sweetheart. She didn’t want to be any man’s sweetheart, certainly not his!

For her papa’s sake, Mollie put a smile on her face as the two men entered the shack. Cordell Rogers’s blackened, sweat-streaked face broke into a grin when he caught sight of his daughter. He came directly to the table and proudly laid out the few small coins he had collected for the week’s wages.

“Payday already,” Mollie said cheerfully. “Seems like it rolls around pretty often, Papa.”

“Not nearly often enough,” came the flat, insolent voice from behind Cordell Rogers, and Jeffrey Battles, moving into the lamplight, said, “Mind if I stay for supper?”

She did, but said nothing.

After the meager meal Cordell Rogers said, “Mollie, honey, get me that bottle of whiskey from the top shelf.”

“Sorry, Papa, the bottle’s empty. You finished the last of the whiskey two nights ago.”

“So I did,” he said, remembering. He glanced at the coins resting on the table. “I don’t suppose … no, there’s not enough money to buy whiskey, and—” All at once he slammed his big fist down on the table, setting the plates to rattling. “Damn it to hell!” he roared. “I work seven days a week and still can’t provide my daughter with a decent place to live. All I ask out of life is a good cigar and a drink of whiskey and I can’t even have that.”