Wild Sierra Rogue (24 page)

“Lazybones,” she contended while Caballo growled, “you ought to be reported for pawning off your work.”

“Why, you must be Miss Margaret McLoughlin.”

From the wagon came a nasty snigger. “Has your reputation preceded you,
querida?
Do you suppose he recognized you from your tone alone?”

She imparted a quelling look.

“All of us at Eden Roc have been awaiting your arrival,” the gatekeeper was saying. “Netoc said you were on your way.”

The Indian who'd snooped around their temporary refuge, Rancho Gato, must have been Netoc. At the time Margaret had advised against confiding in a possible Arturiano spy, but Rafe had insisted on Tarahumaran integrity.

“See, 'Rita, didn't I tell you we could trust him?”

Ignoring Señor Told You So, she said to the boy, “I assume Mrs. McLoughlin is still on the premises.”

“Oh, yes, the lovely Lisette is with us. But aren't you missing a couple of men?”

What cheek, calling a guest by her given name. How many times had she heard her great-grandmother gripe about hired help? Each of those complaints had been met with a mental “oh, please,” but right now she better understood Maisie, who would have been fighting mad, were she to witness this youth in action.

He approached the wagon; Caballo let him have it with protective barks.
“Bienvenidos.
Rafael Delgado. We heard you are infirm. Let me give you a hand.”

“I don't need any help. I can make it.”

“Like this morning? When you
fell on your face?”

“¡Basta!”
Rafe shouted; she knew she had said enough, too much. “All right,
muchacho,
give me a hand.”

When the offered hand reached into the wagon, she restrained Caballo, lest he try for a chunk the size of an Alsatian's bite out of the intruder's leg.

All heads turned to the man who offered good afternoon. A funny little chap with bow legs, a missing upper tooth, and a shock of coarse gray hair, he bounced toward them, sloshing beer from a pail as he moved.

“Hipólito, little monkey, lend a hand.”

Watching the three men struggle with the cast, Margaret rubbed her tired brow. Caballo took advantage of her loosened grip. In the tradition of many small men gone before him, he leapt like a flying fish from the wagon to challenge the giants. He had the hem of Hipólito's
huipils
between his jaws in no time.

A harsh reprimand from Rafe stopped the attack. Caballo backed off. Amazingly, he didn't try to bite the gatekeeper; he licked the hand that patted his head. “Dogs are good judges of character,” Maisie had said. Perhaps the youth had more to him than Margaret's first impression. Maisie's advice said something about the benign-appearing native, though, didn't it?

Caballo, meanwhile, abused the situation. He gave yapping supervision and canine criticism as his master was helped from the wagon, then nearly toppled to the ground.

Poor Rafe. The crutches under his arms, and the faithful little dog at his heels, he moved slowly and clumsily, favoring his injured shoulder, toward the privacy of a stand of ponderosa pines. With his freedom of movement gone, along with his natural grace, he in no way resembled the celebrated matador of days gone by. He looked his age. And more.

Watching his ungainly efforts, Margaret swallowed a lump in her throat. Poor Rafe. While she'd grown accustomed to being infirm, he didn't handle it well. No better than he handled his advancing age. If the rumors about this place were true, good. He needed a new lease on life.

The youth spoke. “Not to worry. A few days at Eden Roc, and your swain will be fine. You too. I have just the regimen to put the peaches back into a sallow complexion.”

He had more than
cheek,
this one.

“Let me help you down, ma'am,” he said, offering a hand. “Have you gotten a look at the canyon? It is spectacular. The view changes every hour of the day. You should see it at dawn! The walls look like they've been sprinkled with copper and gold. Did you know the Aztec people traveled here from central Mexico because they knew the barrancas have mystical powers?”

Rafe had mentioned its beauty as well as the legends, time and again. Oh, how he loved the Sierras! He might be miserable now, but he must have been terribly miserable, all those years in exile from his native land.

“May I tell you about the Tarahumara Indians?”

Normally, she would have been enchanted, getting a history lesson, but . . . “Young man, how far is it to headquarters?”

“No more than a couple of furlongs.”

“Good. Señor Delgado can walk from here—if you or Hipólito will assist him. We are tired, the sun is setting, and I'd appreciate your opening the gate and being quick about it.” He patted a yawn; she added, “Sleep after we're on our way.”

“Be assured, I don't make a habit of greeting my guests while taking a siesta.” He laughed at himself. “My man Hipólito went down to the caves to purchase that pail of
tesgüino.”
He gestured to the foam-crowned bucket. “The local beer. I keep myself and my guests to a healthy diet and to a set routine of exercise and swimming, but an occasional slip with the
tesgüino
is good for the disposition.”

She and Rafe could use a gallon or two of the stuff, she thought. That aside, she considered what was happening here. The gatekeeper didn't speak as a callow youth. And once she'd brushed the sleeves of her woolen shirt, she took a hard look. This young man had soft brown eyes of the sort often seen in biblical illustrations, a halo of thick and wavy blond hair, and some ancestor of his must have posed for medieval stained-glass artists, when they needed to conjure up the image of an archangel.

“Do you not know me?” he asked in answer to her quizzical stare. “May I introduce myself? I am Isaiah. Isaiah Nash.”

“I didn't know . . . I know your sister Natalie, but I had no idea Mr. Nash had a son of the same name.”

“You mistake me. My daughter is Natalie.”

Confused, Margaret said, “There's something wrong here. My father has known Mr. Nash for many years, ever since they discussed investing in Mexican mining interests. Back in Benito Juarez's era.”
Gosh, Papa, am I glad you didn't get involved in that!
She wasn't above flattery, but she meant it upon saying, “You aren't old enough to be Natalie Nash's father.”

A halcyon smile feathered across his face. “I was born in the year of Our Lord eighteen hundred and seventeen. I celebrated my eightieth birthday last June.”

“Preposterous.”

“No, my dear. Most people don't see such dramatic results, but my repeated exposure to the magical waterfalls keeps the aging process from returning.”

“Do you mean insult, lad? Or is this a boyish prank?”

“The truth is, the Fountain of Youth is mine.”

It wasn't until after they had entered the well-tended complex—consisting of outbuildings, cottages, sporting fields, and a palatial edifice to crown it all—and it was after Margaret had gotten an eyeful of her mother, before she gave any credence whatsoever to his absurd claim, though Lisette, back home, had passed the rumor to the family. Margaret gaped at her mother.

She could barely remember when her mother hadn't carried extra weight at her middle. Ever since triplet Charity had nearly been lynched, Lisette had sprouted silver hairs among the gold. Her face had begun to line and sag. Not anymore.

Trim, slim, willowy, golden-haired. Smooth-cheeked. Lisette resembled the painting that hung in Papa's office in Washington. Lisette McLoughlin had sat for it in 1870.

“What do I think? I think it's strange to have my mother looking younger than myself.”

This made up the entirety of Margaret's verbal reaction.

Having said that, she asked to be put to bed, barely noticing the arrival of Tex and Xzobal, much less the environs. She did nod and smile at Rafe, who sat propped up and pouting in the great room's overstuffed chair.
We both need to sleep it off.

As if from another planet, she heard her brother say to the vision of loveliness floating toward him, “I'll be danged. It's you. Natalie. Oh, Miss Natalie, I've been praying you'd be here.”

Margaret smiled. It sapped the last of her strength.

A staff member showed her to one of several cozy cottages, called
casitas
or little houses, several hundred yards from the main dwelling, where she spent the next sixty hours sleeping, resting, reclaiming lost vitality.

She awoke to news more startling than a rejuvenated mother, and the alarming part wasn't recalling she and Rafe had slept separately for the first time since the second of November. Her triplet Olga, along with the Count of Granada, was in residence in Eden Roc.

“I knew they were traveling,” she blustered to their mother, who'd brought a tray of breakfast to the guest house, “but I had no idea that meant to
Mexico!”

Lisette stopped arranging the peculiar-looking food. “I'd written her about my plans, but it came as a pleasant surprise to me, too, when she and Leonardo appeared one fine morn.” She sighed. “Pleasant but trying.
Liebchen,
I'm sorry to tell you, but Olga's sight is now completely gone.”

A terrible wrenching went through Margaret. For the greater part of twenty-eight years, Margaret Janet Jean Campbell McLoughlin II (named after Maisie) had called Olga, namesake of their maternal aunt and grandmother, every scornful name in the book. Nevertheless, if someone else had used ninny or simpleton or dithering in relation to Olga in front of Margaret, that person—even Charity—would have paid on a corporal level. Funny thing it was, being a third of a mismatched set. Charity was the wild one; Olga was the vulnerable one; Margaret was supposed to have a good head on her shoulders. While they had alternated accusing the other, “You love her more than you do me,” in truth they were the Three Musketeers. All for one and one for all.
Triplet, if I could give you my eyes, I would!

“Shhh,
meine Liebchen,
hush those tears.” Lisette sat on the bed's edge and gentled her fingers over Margaret's weeping face. “We've known for so long about the glaucoma. I promise you, it doesn't hold her back. And—oh, Gretchen, you're going to love this. I do have good news. Two pieces of marvelous news! First off, Olga is with child. After all these years, she's going to be a mother.”

“That's wonderful. She'll make a good and kind one.”

Margaret meant the platitudes, yet she didn't know how to feel. It seemed as if too much was coming at her at once. A jealous question emerged. What would Rafe feel for Olga, now that they were in close proximity?

I shouldn't have left him with my bossiness ringing in his ear
. She searched the walls for a mirror to tidy herself, but didn't find one. Just as well. She couldn't compare to Olga, sighted or not, and needed no reminders. “How . . . how is Rafe? How is his leg?”

“We haven't seen much of him. He stays in his
casita,
but I understand he's doing fine. Isaiah intends to get him started in a fitness program today.”

“That's good.” Margaret paused. How much did her mother know about Olga and Rafe? For most of that fateful period in San Antonio, Lisette had been in residence at the Four Aces Ranch. “Has, uh, um, has Olga gone by to visit him?”

“Not yet. She's waiting until he's on his feet again.”

At least Olga wasn't rushing to him. What was she thinking, doing? While Margaret had quit believing the rape story, what
had
gone on between her sister and Rafe? It hurt to think that he had practiced his specialty on her very own sister. But then, would Olga think the same?

“Mother, you mentioned two pieces of news.”

“Oh,
ja.
Leonardo has accepted the post of Ambassador to Mexico.”

Margaret hadn't even begun to reconcile having Olga blind and in their midst, and now this? “You must be joking.”

“Gretchen, I don't lie. And you know it.”

“Yes, I know.” After adjusting the sheet under her armpits, she reached for the food tray's water glass. “Oooh, this stuff tastes awful. Sulfurous. Never mind, that's not important right now. Mother, listen closely. You can't mean a
Hapsburg
means to represent the Spanish crown. That is the most insane thing I've ever heard in my life. Spaniards aren't liked all that much. And Hapsburgs aren't welcome in this country. At all.”

“Now,
Liebchen,
Leonardo isn't his cousin Maximilian. And all that nasty business with the emperor happened over thirty years ago. I'm sure most people have forgotten it.”

“If there's anything I've learned, it's that Mexicans do not forget anything. There could be trouble. Speaking of trouble—When can you be ready to travel?”

But what about Xzobal? There was no simple answer that would protect both him and Lisette.

“Papa needs you. Another thing, I've heard reports the situation worsens in Cuba. Rafe and I believe you'll be safe sailing from Tampico, but it's in your best interest if you sail no farther than New Orleans. Then take a train to Washington.”

“You and Rafe are in no condition to travel.”

“A couple days' rest, and we'll be fine.”

“You push yourselves.” Lisette nibbled an oatcake. “Why are you here with Rafe? I thought you abhorred him.”

She's being evasive.
“When can you be ready to leave?”

“Like I said, you're in no shape to travel. Neither is Rafe.”

“Mother,” Margaret said, stretching each letter in that age-old tone hardheaded daughters were prone to using with their softhearted parent. It usually got results. Usually.

“You know I don't like ships.”

True.
How did I manage to forget that?
When Lisette the young girl had crossed the Atlantic from the German states, the journey had been horrible. The first Olga died in the ship's dank hold. “All right. We'll beat for Texas, over land. We'll take any route that pleases you.”

Lisette licked her lips. “I won't be returning to the States. I've decided to move with Olga and Leonardo to the city of Mexico. She needs me.”

Shocked speechless, Margaret gaped. Her mother, calm as a summer morning, sat down in a straight chair, adjusted her skirts around her knees, and smiled her brilliant girlish smile.

Somehow Margaret found her voice. “Does this mean you're never going home?”

“I'm afraid it may come to that.”

“You don't love us anymore? What about poor Papa? Does he know what you've done!”

“Gil knows.” A shadow fell over the bright blue eyes. “And don't ever think I don't love you. You know my family is the most important part of my heart and soul.”

“Then why in the name of heaven are you doing this to us?”

“I love your father. I've loved your father through the good, the bad, and the best and the worst of our many years of marriage. He was my friend and my foe. And always my lover.” She blushed. “My love grew with each passing year. But he took a mistress. The new love—”

“Papa wouldn't do that to you. He's never even glanced at another woman. He loves you as much as you loved him.”

“His new love has his attention. I became the old gray mare. That's why, when I dined alone on my fiftieth birthday, I decided to leave home. Possibly for good. The mistress of politics stole my husband.”

I should have suspected, should have known.
Papa ate, slept, and lived politics, and anyone who wanted his attention summoned disappointment. Margaret got out of bed, her head swimming, and started toward her mother. Lisette stood. Their arms wound round each other. There would be no more arguing about a return.

“If Gil wants me,” Lisette whispered, “he knows where I am.”

Margaret wouldn't say anything, but she knew her father and his frame of mind, at least as of the end of last September. He wouldn't be leaving the district along the Potomac.

Where did that leave his family? Margaret wouldn't leave her mother in Mexico, either at this health retreat or in the hands of a member of the hated Hapsburg family. The irony of it all came down on her, and she suppressed a snort of hysterical laughter. Nothing would ever be the same for the threesome that had set out from San Antonio; their worlds have been turned upside down as they undertook this peculiar odyssey of goodwill. They shouldn't, couldn't, wouldn't leave empty-handed.

As well, they couldn't leave until she and Rafe were more fit to travel.
It will take more than a couple of days.

 

 

“Up. Up, up. Up and at 'em! I'll abide no lying about at Eden Roc. Reveille, reveille!”

From the
casita's
porch, the voice boomed like thunder on the mountains, and a series of knocks on the wooden door sounded as if those mountains were crashing to rubble. Rafe jumped. His bed partner roused, dashed with sharp claws across the master's collarbone—right in the same spot where the Arturiano's second bullet had caught him, of course—and shot across the room to shove his nose to the crack beneath the door. All the while, Caballo barked.

“Eagle. Eagle, wake up. We have a regimen to commence!”

What? Rafe shook his head to clear it. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he realized that Isaiah Nash had some sort of plans. Why couldn't it have been Margarita with the wake-up call? Thanks to his injuries and her poor health, they were way behind with lovemaking. A few gropes and licks had their appeal, but he was anxious for more of what they had finally gotten around to, the night before arriving at Eden Roc.

“I say in there, I must insist you look alive!”

“Insist” from the hombre who'd been sleeping like a big dog in front of a Christmas fire, just three days ago? “Be right there.”

If Rafe had a muscle that didn't ache, it had the size of Caballo's dewclaw. After yet another night without Margarita to comfort him, after one more night of not being able to roll and tumble to prevent kinks—not to mention Caballo proving to be a bed hog that, barring eviction from the
casita,
couldn't be kept off the bed—Rafe was in no mood for annoyances.

He longed to fall asleep again and return to his interrupted dream, where his beautiful Valkyrie had carried him from a battlefield to the Valhalla of her loving arms and seeking lips.
Forget dreams. Go after the real thing.

He lumbered to stand, wrapped the sheet around his naked middle, and reached for the crutches. The door burst open. And there stood the proprietor, a bugle in hand. Nash brought the instrument to his mouth, and blew the horrid tune that had plagued many an Army man. Caballo was not amused.

Neither was Rafe. “Gabriel, go blow your horn somewhere else. I'm sick.”

Nash freed his mouth. “How did you know my first name is Gabriel? My parents, God rest their souls, christened me Gabriel Isaiah Nash.” He inspected the bugle, turning it up and down. “During the final days of my misspent youth, I served as bugle boy for old Sam Houston up in Texas. Got me in the habit of rising early.” He reached down and tucked the now tail-wagging Chihuahua in the crook of his arm. “Good habit to be in.”

“I'm tickled pink for you.”

“Yes, yes. Now, we must get down to business. You've got ten minutes to dress and stand attention at the exercise field. We'll start with an easy workout, then—”

“My leg is broken.”

“You can move your arms, can't you? And you have but one injured leg. A bit of stretching, some steam, a massage. Did you know we have a resident masseuse? Big Swedish girl, Helga. Great hands. And she can suck the brass off a doorknob.”

Once upon a time, big, blond, and specially talented would have piqued Rafe's interest.

“Watch her, Eagle. Best not to let Helga get the upper hand. She's one of those gals who like to do the bossing.” Nash tossed his hand up. “At any rate, we must set you up for a visit to the magical waterfall. Don't worry, we have a winch rigged to lower the infirm to the canyon floor, and up again.” Nash eyed the cast. “Don't imagine you'd better get that wet, though. We'll get you in the waters as soon as possible.” He set Caballo to four paws, dusted his hands, then smiled. “Let us set to our designs. Then afterward, a bite of breakfast.”

Rafe took a good look at the rosy-cheeked host. While the temperature outside had a bracing edge, Nash had dressed in cotton
huipils.
The legs and sleeves were cropped. Years ago, rumors of this health fanatic had circulated within the Tarahumara tribe, had been retold to Rafe, but he'd never for a moment believed those stories.
They're true.

Rafe started to tell the man, “Count me out,” but when he caught his reflection in the mirror, he dropped a crutch. He jumped with fright.
That old hombre can't be me!
Just over two months had passed since he'd pulled that first gray hair from his scalp. If he went to yanking them now, he'd end up bald. And his face—he resembled three-week-old cow dung.