A Lady Bought with Rifles (44 page)

So I must go.

Once that was clear, my mind flew. Court left early for the mine and didn't always return at noon. If I had horses ready in the morning, Jon and I could be a long way into the mountains before we were missed. Court might even think we'd gone off to Las Coronas or made a dash for Hermosillo. At worst, it would bring the soldiers some days earlier than they would otherwise have come, and this seemed the only way the Yaquis could be warned.

I didn't consider leaving Jon. Whenever I went, I'd take him. If Court or the soldiers didn't take us, I hoped to escape to Las Coronas and perhaps hide out there, possibly in Cruz's old canyon or one of the outposts. That could all come later. The important thing was to warn La Grulla, whoever she was. In my heart I hoped she was Sewa.

“What are you planning?” asked Dr. Trent, white brows knitted. “If I can help you in this, Miranda, I should be glad.”

“Thank you.” I kissed his cheek. “It might help if you'd remember that I've talked a good deal about Las Coronas, said that I'd like to take Jon there.”

The doctor nodded. “I can remember that.” He held my hands to his whiskered face and I knew he was thinking of his daughter who was dead. “
Vaya con Dios
, Miranda.”

21

Jon had been brought up on Yaqui stories Sewa had told me and he knew about her and Ku and Ratoncita. When I told him we were going to try to find her and warn the band about Ortega's hunt, his eyes lit like the deep sea with sun on it and he squirmed in an effort not to show his excitement in an unmanly way before he quieted and frowned.

“But
he
won't let us, Mama.”
He
was how Jon now referred to Court when it was absolutely necessary. They rarely spoke face-to-face. When they did it was “boy” from Court, “sir” from Jon.

“We can't tell him,” I said. “And this is where you must do something important. We should leave as early as we can in the morning. After you get your breakfast, can you coax ahorse and Cascos Lindos out back of the stables? Give them oats and dried peaches and don't let them wander off. I'd like the chestnut mare, but the dun will do. Fill two water bags.” I smiled at him, ruffling his unruly black hair. “I'll be out as soon as I can, we'll saddle and be off.”

“What if Roberto sees us?”

Roberto was nominally in charge of the stable, though in practice even Court usually found and saddled his mount. “If we see Roberto, we'll tell him we're going for a ride,” I said. “But he's not likely to be about.”

Jon laughed, really laughed, for the first time since Caguama was killed. “It's an ad-adventure!” he brought out triumphantly. “Isn't it, Mama?”

I nodded and hugged him. “Yes, Jon. It is that.”

My plans worked without a hitch. Court obligingly dropped the remark that he was going to look at some interesting ore formations an hour's ride from the mine and wouldn't be home till evening. Wonderful! With any luck, by the time he missed us, we'd be talking to Sewa.

Even if Court guessed where we'd gone, he didn't know the way. And it would take time to get soldiers on the march. Ortega might refuse to bring them against alerted Yaquis, at least by night. Chances were good that there'd be no pursuit till morning, and by then La Grulla's band could have melted into the deeper mountains. I had a growing hope that I didn't dare voice to Jon as we rode up the spiraling mountain trail.

If Sewa was La Grulla, perhaps she could be persuaded to come down to Las Coronas with me, especially if Domingo favored the idea. I wondered if she still had Ku and what she and Jon would think of each other. I hadn't known how much I longed to see her till now, when I could permit myself to imagine the joy. Sewa was dear to me not only as a person but as a link with Trace, who had saved her life by taking her to Cruz.

We passed the place where I'd wounded Court a few days before Reina and the soldiers descended on the mine, but it was farther up among heaps of gleaming quartz-studded rock that I reined in the chestnut mare, turned to gaze at Mina Rara, glistening like a mountain of gold.

Women always look back, even when fleeing Sodom. The settlement in the valley looked much as it had when I first saw it six years ago, except for the garrison sprawled above the village.

“Will we be coming back, Mama?” asked Jon restlessly. Boys don't look behind them. Or much ahead either. This was the first question he'd asked about the future.

“I hope we can live somewhere at Las Coronas, Jon.”

“Where
he
can't find us?”

Oh, most especially where he can't find us.

I nodded and we rode on. I wanted to say to Jon, Away from the trail is a shallow cave where powdery sand is blue and gold and crimson. That's where your father made me a woman, where you were conceived by my dear love whose eyes and mouth and hair you have, whom you will never know.

This high stony road I'd traveled with Trace brought him strongly back. His arms and mouth, memories I usually forced away, haunted me now. For a time I again tasted his loss, lived it in flesh that stirred at the thought of him and smoldered when my mind tried to quench its unreasoning need.

I must stop that. He had given me a son, something of him to breathe and laugh and live; he hadn't perished utterly, and for that I must be glad. Bringing my attention back to the trail, I realized that we couldn't be far from where we should descend to the small hills stretching between these mountains and the palisaded ranges to the southeast where the Yaquis hid. As I stared, I seemed to recognize the distant silhouette of peaks by the gorge that led tortuously into the basin.

With that for a guide, I studied the jagged hills between, the maze of arroyos, and tried to plan the best route. I knew all too well that once down where the small hills towered above us, where one arroyo branched into several or ended abruptly, finding our way would be vastly different from spying it at this eagle's height. But it also seemed that if we kept to the right of the most continuous sawtooth of hills, we couldn't fetch up far from the narrow pass leading into the Yaqui fastness.

I pointed this out to Jon, who squinted his eyes and nodded gravely. He had smuggled a melon from the kitchen. Dismounting, I took this from the bag holding it behind my saddle and cut it open. Jon and I had a few juicy bites and he fed the rest to his
burra
and the mare while I got out cheese and tortillas. After a drink of water we left the high trail and started down the mountain.

The only thing wrong with my plan was that ridges and arroyos that had looked unimpressive from above frequently became impassable and we had to loop out from the landmark hills. In spite of this we made good time. The sun was still above the crags when we approached the rearing granite cliffs. But where along this serried mass was the defile?

As we rode along the escarpment and every fissure ended in solid rock, I began to worry. Had I been wrong about the guardian silhouette? Was the passage in the opposite direction? Suppose we couldn't find it by nightfall and had to stay along the cliffs till morning, losing much of our time advantage?

“Mama,” worried Jon dramatically, “do you think someone exploded up the pass and it's not there?”

“You're a comfort,” I said tersely.

“Cascos Lindos might remember,” he ventured.

I smiled in spite of my growing concern. “She's a fantastic beast, Jon, but that's expecting rather much.”

As if to refute my words, the
burra
slanted her ears and speeded its pace, passing the mare to round a spill of boulders and disappear.

“She did remember, Mama!” Jon's voice trailed back. “She found the way through the cliffs!”

Heart lifting, I sent the chestnut after the little donkey. We passed by what seemed to be impenetrable barrier till a sudden jog revealed a narrow way. Not far from that was a spring—what the
burra
must have scented—where our animals drank and we rested for a bit, lying back on-smooth broad stones warmed by sun but not unpleasantly so since it only reached them a few hours in the middle of the day. A breeze whispered.

So good to rest. But we must move along. If we approached the retreat after dark, we might be killed before we could make ourselves known.

“Let's go, Jon,” I said, stretching and sitting up.

I blinked and looked again. Into the barrel of a pointed rifle.

After the first shocked moment in which I instinctively drew Jon to me, I stared into the brown face with a hope for recognition while I tried to remember.

Had I seen this man before? I thought I had but could not be certain. Slowly, I greeted him in Yaqui.

He frowned, glancing about. The rifle never wavered. “You are alone? You and this child?” When I didn't understand all the Yaqui, he repeated in Spanish.

“We are alone. I seek La Grulla or Domingo or anyone of Lío's band.”

“Lío?” questioned the guard sharply. “What do you know of him?”

“That he is dead,” I answered. “Dead in Yucatán. But I believe he was my friend. When I was here six years ago, my name was Miranda Greenleaf.”

The man nodded and uncocked the rifle, swinging it over his back. His eyes lit with excitement his tone tried to suppress. “I remember you now. You were to die at dawn in place of your sister, and you were kind to La Grulla when she was a girl. You are the one Yaquis call the Lady Bought with Rifles.”

He made a whistling trill like a bird, was answered, and gave a satisfied nod. “Rosalio will watch the pass.”

“I have come to say that soldiers will be hunting you. I think they cannot start before tomorrow from Mina Rara, so there should be a day but—”

“Rosalio will guard.” The sentinel handed me the chestnut's reins. “Let us go quickly to La Grulla.”

As we followed the labyrinthine way into the stronghold, our guide asked no questions and answered mine with monosyllables or “La Grulla can tell you better than I,” till I fell silent and watched how the highest peaks were tipped with gold though the rest were in shadow. It took me back to that morning when I waited for the sunrise and thought it my last.

But Cruz had come. And Lío had traded my life for the rifles Trace had brought from Arizona. The day I went to what I thought was freedom was the last time I'd seen Trace, except for that one brief glimpse in the battle.

We were entering a wider part of the canyon and were suddenly in the basin. Maize, beans, melons, and squash grew in fields protected from goats and horses by ocotillo fences. The makeshift shelters of six years ago were replaced with stone and adobe houses.

At sight of us, children stopped playing and ran to their homes or the ramadas, where people stopped cooking or talking to turn toward us.

I strained to make out faces, but none were distinct. Then a young woman came forward, moving with a certain unevenness, using a staff, a raven on her shoulder. It had to be Sewa. I swung down from my horse.

The man behind her—tall, familiar in a way that wrenched my heart even as my dazed eyes refused to believe that black hair, long mouth, blue-green gaze.

My knees went weak. I held to the saddle horn for support, trying to get my breath.

Trace. He wasn't dead. I started to call his name, then realized the shattering truth. He had escaped from Yucatán, been alive these years, and hadn't tried to see me, hadn't sent a message. While I mourned him for dead, felt the vital secret core of my own life had ended with him, he'd been here.

I looked at Sewa, the strong but delicate flower face, the lithe graceful body that was very much a woman's. The maiming of her foot only added a charming hesitation to her walk.

Shocked with pain as if a broad curved sword had ripped me from belly to breast. I watched them come, knew they were lovers, but couldn't hate them, though I ached with jealousy and hurt. They were both my loves; that didn't change, though for pride's sake Trace mustn't know how I felt.

Commanding all my strength and will, I managed to let go of the saddle and clasp Sewa in my arms as Ku flapped down, squawking at being displaced.

“Miranda!” she cried, and we both wept.

But not for long. There was the sound of running feet. Jon's voice shrilled, “I know you. You're my real father. Mama thought you were dead.”

“Jon!” I gasped.

He plunged on, heedless. “Why didn't you come get us?” Then, more slowly as if the terrible incomprehensible adult world was about to deal him another blow he couldn't understand, “Don't you want us?”

Trace picked up his son, holding him close. “I didn't know about you,
niño
.” He stared at me in bafflement. “What's all this, Miranda?”

Sewa looked from Trace to Jon and back to me. “There have been mistakes,” she said painfully. “We must find the truth.”

My head was in a spin. Tears came to my eyes at seeing Jon where he belonged, in Trace's arms. There could be no argument that they were flesh of each other's flesh. But if Trace no longer loved me—I put away that jumble and turned to Sewa.

“I've come to tell you soldiers from Mina Rara are hunting you. Court has bribed their commander to make a thorough job of it.”

She was at once the leader. “How many? When?”

I told all I knew and her brows knit together. “I must find Domingo, Rosalio, and Tomás,” she said. “You also, Trace. But first you and Miranda—and your son—must talk.”

She moved away, collecting her bird. The limp seemed more pronounced, but perhaps that was a trick of my bewildered senses. Trace took a deep sighing breath and put Jon down, gripped me by the shoulders. His touch sent liquid fire coursing through me, burning out the welter of confusion.

“Whatever, whyever, however!” he said huskily. “I'm going to do one thing if I die for it.”

His mouth took mine, his hard strong body pressed achingly close, and I was the cup from which he drank, his sustenance, while my starved self received like physical nourishment his passion and need and tenderness.