A Lady Bought with Rifles (31 page)

“And I thought you were tamed.”

Laughing exultantly, though his face showed blood from my fingernails, Court gripped my bodice, tore off my dress and underthings. Tossing me on the bed, he clamped my arms and upper body beneath his thighs and legs while he grasped my hips and set his face deep, deep between my legs.

His thrusting greedy tongue flickered and teased, went searching. A great luminous wave crashed over me. I cried out in terror and unbearable ecstasy as the second wave slammed in.

Court wouldn't stop. When I tried to move, he found those hidden nerves, titillated me to a fresh paroxysm. Only after an endless succession of pleasures did he mount me and surge to his own climax, lie resting with one arm thrown over me in claiming.

“
This
is your place,” he said when his breathing calmed. “I'll have you over and over, every way there is. You're learning.”

“I don't want to learn.”

“Liar!” He laid his palm on my belly, laughed as I moved involuntarily.

I couldn't guess whether he loved me or hated me: actually his feelings seemed to change abruptly. Sometimes he was almost tender, but a few hours later might tie my feet and hands to the brass bedstead and enter me without any preamble so that I felt torn and violated.

“When I get you with child we'll have to change our games.” he said once. “So I'll use you to the utmost now.”

I didn't want to tell him, but I almost certainly was pregnant, and it was my second skipped flow unless one had occurred while I was unconscious after the battle.

Could I be carrying Trace's baby?

When that possibility first flashed through my mind, I laughed with joy. Oh, if only that could be! A child of his would make up for some of the cruelty of Trace's death; he would live on in a fashion, joined with me in another being. Then I remembered Court.

If the child came before the time it could be counted his, what would he do? He would hate any reminder that I had been another man's. He might take the baby away from me. That I couldn't bear.

So my hope for Trace's child was mingled with dread. I wished Dr. Trent were back. Drunkard though he was, he exerted some influence on Court. A happier thought struck me then.

Court would never admit to the outside world that I had been impregnated by another man. Pride might force him to keep the child. I was repelled at the notion of Court pretending to be the father of Trace's body, but that was clearly better than the alternatives.

So I taught the children, assumed nominal control of the house, though it ran much as it had in Court's bachelor days, and tried not to think about those hours in the bedroom when Court explored the secrets of my treacherous body, brought me to physical pleasure that left me ashamed and angry.

Dr. Trent rode home one sunset when the mountain shone like gold. I was standing alone on the veranda, recognized the shape of his hat, the hunch of his shoulders as his horse jogged along.

Running to meet him, I caught his hand and squeezed it anxiously. “Did you find Lío, Doctor? Did you get him free?”

Grunting, the doctor slid down from his rawboned bay, turned it over to one of the boys who came running to earn a few centavos by rubbing down and watering the mount.

“Throat's parched, my dear,” coughed the doctor.

“I'll give you some whiskey, anything you want,” I cried in an agony of impatience, trying to hurry his steps. “But please tell me. Lío?”

“Drink first.”

I flew ahead and got out whiskey and a glass, added water, and handed it to the doctor as he came through the arch. His hands shook, but after several deep swallows he looked better, sank down in one of the rawhide chairs.

“Did you find Lío?”

I thought I'd scream as Dr. Trent took several long swallows. He set down the glass and folded my hands in his trembly ones.

“Lío's dead, Miranda.”

“Dead? You—you're sure?”

“You knew him. Can you imagine he would make a slave?”

“He might have if he thought he could get away sometime and fight again.”

The doctor sighed, stroking my head as hot tears squeezed from my eyes. “He interfered with the whipping of a friend too sick to work, killed the manager, and was overwhelmed.”

I bowed my head and wept. Lío had been a brave man and as tender as he dared. “But I bought out his men,” the doctor went on. “Those that were left after the journey by boat and six weeks in the henequen hells. I bought fifteen men for eight hundred dollars each and brought them by train almost to Hermosillo, pretending that they were workers of mine. For a small bribe the train engineer stopped an hour outside Hermosillo and let me and my ‘peons' off. I gave them food and water and advised them to get as far back into the sierra as they could and stay there.”

“You warned them that Ruiz is stationed at the mine? If he knew they had come back—”

“He won't learn from me,” the doctor vowed. “With Lío gone, I doubt they'll do much raiding. There'll be the women and children of their dead comrades to look after, and with winter coming on, they'll care more about surviving than harrowing the
federales
.”

My heart was sore for Lío, but I prayed that somehow, in the afterlife the Yaquis called “Glory,” he could know his men were free and back in the sierra.

“The man for whom Lío killed the manager—did you buy him out?” I asked.

Dr. Trent shook his head. “That one escaped, God knows how. He must have had some outside help. Altogether strange how he got mixed up with them in the first place. He was an American who'd brought them guns—Miranda! What's wrong, child?”

“His name?” I felt as if I were choking, as if iron fingers pressed my throat and heart. “What was his name?”

“Winslade.” Dr. Trent peered at me anxiously, forced me to take a sip of his whiskey. “Miranda, you look as if you have a fever. Come, my girl, let me tuck you in—”

“I—I'm all right. It's just that I—I know this man. He got away? You're sure?”

“He escaped from the plantation. That was all anyone knew.”

“I thought he was dead.”

The doctor shrugged. “He may well be by now. That's wretched country and he'd have to hide from the authorities.”

“But he may be alive.” The blinding joy of that momentarily drove out all other concerns. Trace wasn't dead. He'd survived the battle, escaped the plantation. There was a chance I might see him again. Dr. Trent's watery gray eyes studied me shrewdly, touched my waist, then traveled back to my face.

“Miranda, aren't you going to have a baby?”

“I—I think so.”

“Then shouldn't your husband be the first to know?” chuckled a voice from the arch. Court strode in and drew me to my feet. “Congratulations, love.” Kissing me soundly, he held me close and laughed possessively as he turned to the doctor. “I'm glad you're back, sir, to help me take care of my wife. I could have wished this to be a year or so in the future, but one must needs rejoice in what is, wouldn't you say?”

“Oh, by all means,” fuddled the doctor. “By all means.”

“And we must drink to my son,” proposed Court expansively. “For it
will
be a son.” He filled the doctor's glass, made a drink for himself, and the two of them toasted me while I shrank against the wall.

A baby. Yes, I was to have a baby. It might be Trace's. And Trace was alive—or at least, he might be. He hadn't died in the battle.

Court had lied to me. He had cruelly let me think Trace was dead. In that moment I loathed the tall handsome man who had let the one he knew I loved be sent to Yucatán. While Court had made love to me, yes, even sometimes when I was responding to his skill, Trace was being beaten or forced to brutal labor. Court had known. Known all the time.

He was asking the doctor about his errand, nodding approval that it was completed. “I'm glad Lío's dead. The others shouldn't create a problem, especially not after they've had a taste of Yucatán, eh?”

I leaned against the door, fighting waves of nausea, hatred so bitter that it left a taste like alum in my mouth. “Court, I must speak with you.”

“Of course, darling.” How that proud husbandly smile made me despise him! “I'll join you in a moment and you can give me your news. Here, Doctor, tell me what you thought of Yucatán. Those hacendados live in great state, I'm told. American Cordage Trust buys half the henequen output of Yucatán, and from the way those plantations go through slaves, the demand must be holding up.”

My knees threatened to give way. There was scalding acridness in my throat. I fled to my room and was rackingly sick, vomiting into the washbasin till spasmodic heaving brought up only bile. I was still crouched there when Court came in.

“What, my love? Morning sickness in the evening?” He wet a towel and sponged my face, guided me to the bed. “Lie down. I'll call Chepa to tidy up. Do you want the doctor?”

“N-no,” I managed.

“You had better have just clear broth tonight,” Court worried, drawing a chair up by the bed and taking my hand. “I don't suppose you know much more about this than I do. We'll have to rely on the doctor and take great care of you.”

Skin crawling at his touch, I jerked my hand away and sat up, strengthened by a furious sense of betrayal. “You lied to me, Court. You told me Trace was dead.”

Golden eyes dilated and the edges of Court's nostrils went white. “Isn't he?”

“You knew he wasn't killed in the fight. You knew he was sent to Yucatán.”

“He was?” There was no doubt that Court was as shocked as I had been earlier. Suddenly, he swore. “Why, that money-loving bastard. He sold the same man twice.”

“What do you mean?”

Court didn't answer, but I understood. “You—you paid someone to kill him. He lived through the battle, but you wanted to be sure he was dead.”

“Yes. Not that I wouldn't have been glad for him to taste the lash and crawl, but I preferred to be sure he was out of the way for good.” Court stiffened. “My God, that fool doctor didn't buy him out?”

“No. He got away.”

Court shrugged and looked relieved. “Then he
is
dead. No one comes back from Yucatán. He'll starve or be caught and turned in for the reward paid for runaway slaves. Better for him if Ruiz had ordered him cleanly killed.”

“He's alive. I'll believe that from now on till I see his body.”

“Believe what you please.” Court shrugged. “What difference does it make?”

That mocking question, my impotence, and the danger of Trace's position if indeed he still lived wrung from me the snarling moan of a trapped, defiant animal. “I'll hate you more than ever. And despise you, too, for taking a woman you knew belonged to someone else.”

Court paled, though he retained his jeering smile. “Your ferocity will ebb as your womb grows with my child. A woman needs protection at such a time, a safe nest for her baby. You'll be glad then that you're here with me, not in the sierra with convicts.”

“It may not be your child,” I hissed. “Have you thought of that?”

“Whore!” He brought back his hand, slapped me so hard I reeled backward, fell on the bed. “It is my child. My child, do you hear?”

“Hearing has nothing to do with it.” Raising on one arm, I laughed in his face in spite of the slow warm blood trickling from my cut lip. “Being pregnant by you should sicken me, but not this quickly, I think.”

Court shook me till my wild laughter splintered to silence in my throat. Holding me in his bruising fingers, he spoke in a jerky guttural way. “This will be my child, damn you! And you will never hint again that it isn't.”

Though I was frightened and in pain from his hands, the hope that Trace lived gave me courage. “You think too little of my love,” I said. “And too much of your power.”

“Do I?” The pupils widened till only a rim of hot gold showed around them. He laughed savagely. “Oh, no, beloved. It is you who hasn't understood.”

“Understood what?”

“You will stay with me. You will bear my child. You will study to please me and deserve my favor and forgiveness.”

“I—will—not!”

“But you will, Miranda.” His tone was caressing but edged with steely finality. “This is why. Listen for I won't explain again. Comfort yourself as an obedient wife and mother of my child, or I'll tell Ruiz certain rebel Yaquis are in the mountains, and I'll offer an irresistible reward for the head of a certain
tejano
. This time there will be no survivors, not even that little cripple you doted on.”

I stared at him, wanting to protest, to cry out that he wouldn't do it. But I knew he would. He would kill my love, grind Sewa, in the dust, slaughter Lío's remaining band.

So I must obey him.

The only comfort I had was that Trace might live and that his child was almost surely growing in me. Court placed one hand on my breast.

It was the motion of a lion claiming its prey.

Two

Trace

15

Man is a counting animal. At first Trace counted days. Four days packed in a government ship from Guaymas to San Bias. Twenty days of being driven on foot through the mountains from the port of San Marcos, then crammed into trains that traveled to Mexico City and changed lines for Veracruz. Three days from Veracruz to Progreso in a freight steamer. One day more to the plantation, Mariposa.

Thirty-six days from Mina Rara to Yucatán, from being free to being a slave, from counting days to counting henequen leaves, the lashes that fell on a man's back before he fainted.

Two thousand leaves a day, or the lash. That was the kind of mathematics learned quickly by even the dullest malnourished man. Or woman or child, for they, too, hacked at the thick, saw-toothed leaves.