A Lady Bought with Rifles (19 page)

“See if you can teach that ugly raven how to sing,” he told the girl.

Sewa clung to his hand. “Come back,” she said. “Please be careful.”

He laughed. For a moment I caught a glimpse of how he would look in ten years, if he lived. “I shall grow very old,
mama grande
says. She dreamed she saw me with long yellow teeth like a mule's.” He croaked in Ku's offended face, tweaked Sewa's braid, and ran for his horse, cramming the tortilla into his mouth.

The group, led by Lío and Tula, rode out of the basin. I was torn by sympathy for them, affection for Domingo, and distress over the probable fate of the Mexicans they planned to swoop on, probably men like Felipe or Emilio or Enrique.

Sewa was morose that day, in spite of Camilda's telling jokes and stories. Later that afternoon, I found her sobbing, Ku hopping about in frustrated curiosity as he tried vainly to nestle under her arm.

I sat down and took her in my arms. “What is it, darling?”

She wept in real earnest, rubbing her face against my shoulder. “I—I don't want Domingo to die. But I don't want him to kill anyone either. Oh, Miranda, can he stay with us at the mine? Would Señor Sanders let him?”

The same thought must have been working deep in my mind, for I felt a sense of relief when she asked it. “It's not so much a question of Sanders,” I explained, stroking her hair. “If he accepts us at all, he'll do what I ask. But Lío needs men and Tula—Well, you saw what she did today.”

Sewa's hand crept into mine, so trustingly that it wrenched my heart. “Lío reveres your father. It is possible he will do this thing for you.”

“I'll ask,” I promised. “Now why don't you pay some attention to Ku? He's about to turn somersaults!”

She laughed and I gave her a bit of tortilla to feed him. Just before sunset, when the palisades glowed crimson and the sky was a shout of glory, Lío's troop rode into the basin.

In their midst was a woman, hands lashed to the saddle horn, blindfolded, garments ripped, but head held high. As they halted, she swore at her captors and the last sun gilded her hair.

It was Reina.

9

I ran forward, forgetful of everything except that my sister was a captive and might be hurt. A man hauled her from the saddle and removed the blindfold. She stumbled, bound hands hampering her, and I kept her from falling.

“Reina!” I caught her arms, steadying her. “Are you all right?”

Her head snapped back, her green eyes flashed. “You!” her raw voice grated between cracked lips, but after an impotent reaching of her hands, she screwed up her mouth and spat.

Too astonished to dodge, I felt spittle strike my cheek.

“So this is where you went!” she hissed. “Hiding out with these devils. No doubt you've had the lot between your legs, you with your prissy English rearing.”

“Didn't you find the train?” I asked. “Felipe?”

“We found it, decided bandits had taken you away, and good riddance, too!” Disgust hoarsened her tone. “I never dreamed that even you would become a woman of these Yaquis. I was doing my duty, hunting for you, when this band attacked us.”

“Your men?”

“All dead.”

Dread squeezed my heart. “Enrique?” I asked. “Ramón?”

“Were they your lovers, too?” she sneered. “Ramón is dead. Enrique didn't come.”

Lío, with his bowlegged stride, had come over, observing us. “You know this redheaded one?”

“She is my sister.”

He stared at her, shocked, then gave a shake of his massive head. “You mean she is the child of the Mexican woman. She is not Jonathan Greenleaf's daughter.”

“No, but we had the same mother.”

“She spat on you.”

“She is still of my blood.”

“It is a difficulty then. I learned today that three of our men are captives in Torim. The commandant might barter their lives for that of this
hidalga
. I have sent a messenger with the offer. If the commandant refuses, I have sworn to send him the broken body of a woman.”

“Won't that only cause more reprisals?”

Lío shrugged. “My people are being killed and deported for no reason. And just as this woman is your sister, the three men in the Torim
guardia
are my comrades, valiant fighters.”

“You could have bargained with me.”

His grizzled head moved slowly. “No, I could not.”

“But I must ask you to. Let her go and use me to win your friends' liberty.”

He spread his thick callous hands. “They may not go free. And I keep my oaths. If they die, so must a highborn woman of the Mexicans.”

Slowly I said, “I wouldn't expect you to break your word.”

His lips broke against his teeth in a rueful grin and he rubbed the back of his head with a big hand. “It would be hard for me to keep it—but I would. You believe that?”

“I believe it.”

“Why will you not go to safety tomorrow? It is clear this one hates you, sister or no.”

“Our mother loved us both.”

“You are not your mother.”

“No, but she is in me. I don't love my sister, but our mother in me cannot leave her, maybe to die.”

“Well, I cannot argue.” Lío shrugged. “If you understand that you stand in this woman's place and accept her fate, she can go.”

“I would rather stay!” Reina blazed, standing very straight, gazing around as if to imprint the basin and every person there in her memory. “I don't want to owe my life to this whore.”

Lío struck her face with the flat of his hand. She staggered against Domingo, who had come to listen, pushed away from him, and smiled on Lío with bloodied lips.

“You are a man of oaths, and for that blow, if I live
I
swear that I'll see the birds peck the eyes in your severed head.”

He bowed slightly. “You are brave, lady, but I do not like you. Perhaps I cannot, in justice to my band who depend on me, let you go. I can risk my own head and eyes, but I have no right to risk the others.”

“Your head will do,” Reina said slightingly. “God knows it's ugly enough.”

He eyed her, considering. “You promise not to hurt my people if they fell into your hands?”

She shrugged in her turn. “I can't help what my vaqueros do if they meet your men in open fight. But you know I'll try to find you.”

“And if you do?”

“Your head. Yours only.”

He laughed hugely in a great bull bellowing. “Yours if you can get it, lady! But if you come into my hands again, I will rape you till you do not talk so merrily of lopping off heads. Come now and eat. When you have rested, I will send you away.”

Tula sent Reina a glance of pure hatred and I wondered if Reina would have died, had Lío kept her. “That is a she-dog,” Domingo muttered as we went to Sewa, who was waiting with her heart in her eyes. “It is a crazy bargain, lady. Lío will do as he says.”

“Let's hope the commandant lets the men go,” I said, but I felt sick and couldn't eat.

If I had kept still, we would be on our way to the Mina Rara in a few days. And Reina had as good a chance as I to live, I wouldn't have been abandoning her to certain death. Now it would mean more watching, fearing, wondering.…

But there was nothing else I could have done.

Lío permitted Reina to rest for an hour after supper. Then she was tied in the saddle, blindfolded in spite of the darkness, and sent between two men out of the basin. Lío had placed her in the saddle, his hands had lingered, and I wondered what would happen if they ever met again. I didn't tell her good-bye. If she had hated me before, she would abominate me now and I doubted that she would have consented to the switch if it hadn't been for the vision of Lío's head to kick in the dust. The canyon swallowed her up, and I lay down with the children.

Domingo took Sewa walking around the basin next day. He hadn't spoken of the clash with the Las Coronas vaqueros. Had he killed yet? I couldn't ask. Through the day, as I worked on the shelters, I watched, glimpsing the children now resting on a ledge, now strolling along the canyon, Sewa using the sotol staff Cruz had given her.

“They are fond of each other,” Lío said, startling me since I hadn't heard him coming. “Domingo will miss the little flower—if she goes to the Mina Rara.”

I knew he meant if my life, now in pawn for his comrades, were redeemed. But I refused to worry. I would believe I was going free until the messenger came back with fatal news. And so I took advantage of Lío's pensive mood.

“Domingo's very young. Could he stay at the mine with me and Sewa?”

Lío scowled. For the first time I felt his eyes raking me in a male questing. I couldn't help blushing but I didn't retreat, though he took a step forward till his brawny arm almost touched my breast.

“If you have such a penchant for Yaqui children, lady, you should get some of your own.” He laughed. “They would be half-Yaqui anyway.”

I didn't try to put distance between myself and Lío or answer his crude teasing. “Can Domingo come with me?” I persisted.

Lío shrugged. “You will have to ask Tula. And that will be easy. She's coming this way.” He chuckled wickedly. “She's jealous, you know. She cannot believe that gratitude to your father was enough to make me let you go. And of course she's hoping the Mexicans will not exchange our comrades so that I will have to cut your throat.” He turned to the lithe woman in my riding skirt, who was regarding me, hands on her slender hips, head tilted. “Tula, Señorita Greenleaf wishes to ask you a question.”

I swore, at him silently. Domingo would have done better at getting her consent. Now she might refuse out of sheer hostility to me.

“Oh?” Tula laughed in a brittle way. “Who could have guessed you were discussing me? You seemed absorbed in each other.”

“In truth,” drawled Lío, “we were speaking of Domingo.”

“Domingo?” Her voice rose and her eyes slitted. “What of Domingo?”

Oh, damn Lío! There was little chance now, but I had to try. “He and Sewa are very fond of each other,” I said carefully.

“Yes.
If
you get to go to the Mina Rara, I will care for her, if you like, and they can stay together.”

That proposal startled me into blurting, “Could Domingo come with us?”

“What?” Her face grew terrible.

A cold sensation inched down my spine as I felt her almost palpable hatred. “He's so young,” I pleaded. “You must want him to grow up, have something out of life except killing or being hunted.”

“First and last, he is Yaqui.”

“And what does that mean?”

“He must share the fate of our people.”

“Some will live, surely, though some will die.”

Lío interposed and a look passed between the two of them that made me catch my breath and realize the depth of their bond, a tie of pain shared in exile, comradeship in fighting, that far eclipsed the ordinary experience of love. “Tula means, lady, that Domingo must take his chance with our people, not shelter with outsiders. If he lives, God be praised. If he goes to Glory, he will meet his family there.”

That was what Yaquis called heaven. Glory. It was like their love of flowers, brave in a harsh country, in such a cruel life.

“You will not let him choose?” I asked her slowly. “You, his sister, will not give him the chance to have at least a few years before he must fight?”

“There would be no problem if you had died by the train.” Tula's lips pulled tight across her teeth. Suddenly she threw back her head and laughed. “We talk nonsense. If the Mexicans do not release our comrades, you will die. If I were you, I would not make too many plans for the future.” She slipped her arm through Lío's, moved him away with her.

I watched the youngsters where they rested under a rock outcropping near the canyon mouth, ached with angry frustration and a sense of failure. What would become of them? If they were still alive in ten years, would they be like Lío and Tula? I tried to tell myself that at least they had the day, this time of being together, but somehow that only made it worse.

The messenger did not return that day, but late next afternoon, a silent message arrived when one of the lookouts led in the messenger's horse carrying what was left of him and, it proved, of several other men; after the first horrified shock, everyone realized that no man had eight hands or four heads or shriveled parts that looked like flesh-colored chilis strung on a thong.

“Here is your answer,” Tula said to Lío, gaze crossing him to light on me. Her triumph was more horrible because it was plain she'd rather see her comrades dead than let me go.

Lío's face seemed carved from the mountain. “Yes,” he said in Yaqui. “We have our answer.”

“Then you must—” Tula began.

He gave her a look that stopped her words. “I know what I must do. But leave the time to me, woman. Now we will bury our friends.”

The heads, hands, and privates of the four men were collected and buried under a cairn of copper-streaked rocks at the western side of the basin where the morning sun would touch it daily. While the burial was taking place, I wandered numbly along the palisades.

Lío had to kill me. If he didn't, the others would. Would I die tonight? How? I hoped Sewa wouldn't have to watch. That made me wonder where she was. I hadn't seen her since morning when she and Domingo had gone walking.

They didn't know yet …

And now she would live with the fugitives for the hunted, harried weeks or months or years till soldiers cut them down. At least Domingo would have a care for her and the people, in their fashion, would be kind.

A small hand closed on mine. “Kawah!” greeted the raven, balancing on Sewa's shoulder.

“Domingo and I saw,” the girl whispered though there was no one in earshot. Everyone was gathered at the western side of the valley. “We saw the lookout find the horse out on the plain.”