Dust Devil (12 page)

"Business brings you here?” she asked of Grant as she poured the sangria and
passed him the glass.

"I had hoped to start affair
s with you two lovely ladies.”

Rita’s hand cut through the air in a gesture of impatience. "Bah! Business and politics—they are the only two things you men know!”

Grant laughed, but later, when Rita went to pull a wandering Inez from her precarious perch on the hitching rail, he looked at Rosemary over the rim of his glass and said, "You’ve grown more beautiful.”

Beautiful. Lovely. These were words Rosemary had never thought to associate with herself. And for once she believed Grant was not plying her with his customary flattery.

"One would think you’re in love,” he said.

Rosemary looked at him quickly before averting her eyes. "You must excuse me, Grant, but I need to check the mill. I promised Consuela I’d bring
a bag of flour — ”

"I’ll
help you carry it,” Grant offered easily. "I’m tired of sitting and need the exercise.”

"Well
— ”

"Go on, Rosita,” Rita said with an impish
grin. "I’ll watch Jamie.”

Rosemary wrinkled her nose at Rita and stiffly walked around toward the rear of the Castle with an amused Grant at her side. She had no sooner stepped inside the mill’s dark,
cool doorway when Grant caught her by the shoulders and turned her toward him. "Grant,” she protested, half laughing, "what are you doing?”

He grinned. "Be still
— you know Rita approves of us.”

"Don’t be silly!” She could not believe he was serious. They stood in the open doorway where anyone who happened to glance in that direction would see them.

Grant’s smile left his face. "I’m not being silly. You and I are alike, Rosemary. We’re determined and practical, and when we want something we don’t stop until we have it.”

She
pressed her hands against his chest, feeling the blue wool rough against her fingertips. "Well, ’tis you who is not being very practical now! This is ridiculous!”

"That’s what I’m trying to say. I’m practical about everything
— but you.” He pulled her to him and kissed her thoroughly, and she was not even aware of his mustache abrading her skin as her senses were rendered numb in the suffocation of his kiss.

At last she pulled away
. . . only to look past him and see Lario leading his horse to one of the corrals. His dark eyes looked at her as if she were slime on stagnant water, and he continued on past the mill.

She wanted to pick up her hoop skirts and run after him, but she said calmly, "I told you that you were being silly, Grant.” He chuckled and released her, and she moved toward the bin of flour, feeling the ache that ground against her stomach like the mill’s giant roller against the grain. "Now why are you here?”

"To get your approval of my marriage to Libby next month.”

"You have my best wishes, of course. But I don’t believe ’tis my approval that brought you here today.”

Grant frowned and jammed his hands into his pockets. "You’re right. We’ve trouble. A troop of Rebels — Texas Volunteers—has taken the Mesilla Valley at Valverde. And word has come another troop is marching toward Glorieta Pass.”

She
spun around, dropping the flour ladle. "Cambria —is it in danger?”

He tilted his head thoughtfully.  “You said ‘
it,’ not ‘we.’”

“Did I?”  She
stooped to collect the ladle, glad for an excuse to step away from him.

“
Stephen has chosen well.   You know, rumor has it you are an heiress, while some claim you are a penniless member of Irish royalty.”

“Well, 
rumors are as insubstantial as leprechauns,” she said lightly.

“
Then there is gossip of your sudden appearance in Cambria’s village a couple of months ago, in a torn gown and wrapped in a blanket and sitting before Lario on the Indian’s horse.”  He frowned, his expression perplexed.  She could tell he was trying to pinpoint something that was bothering him.  “There were speculations for that also . . . that you had gone walking and lost your way in a dust storm."

“Does Cambria stand in danger?” she reiterated.

His brows raised, as if he were well aware of her avoidance of the subject he had raised.  “Possibly.  But with the Confederacy threatening to cut off the gold shipments out of New Mexico, Colorado, and California, our War Department will be beefing up the western forts. General Canby has sent for reinforcements from Colorado for Fort Union and Fort Marcy.”

It was Stephen who informed
her a week later how much graver the threat to Cambria had become. The Confederate forces under a Major Pyron had taken Santa Fe and were now encamped at the mouth of Apache Canyon. The congress had been forced to move their territorial capital to the Exchange Hotel in Las Vegas.

She
halted in spooning the mashed apple between Jamie’s rosebud lips. "Can Canby hold the Rebels?” she asked breathlessly.

"The Rebs be like the ants, Rosemary.” Stephen bit off the end of a cigar and spit it into the cuspidor. "They do not stop. They just keep coming.”

Jamie began to squall, and she fed him the remaining spoonsful of fruit, but her attention was now centered wholly on Stephen. "Cambria?” she asked, her breath held in suspense.

On this point, the safety of the land, she and Stephen were united. That and Jamie’s welfare, although the two of them held different viewpoints as to what constituted their son’s best interest.

Stephen blew a cloud of smoke, then smiled. "The Confederacy is one ant I’ll crush beneath my boot. I’m taking Lario and some of his men north to Glorieta Pass. The B troops from Fort Stanton and Raffin’s troops are going also. Raffin wants to be in on this as much as I do. ’Tis a CO’s post he’ll be assured after this bloody war is over.”

Scrappers. That was what the Irish called men like Stephen and Grant. They loved a challenge, a good fight. Too bad, and Rosemary braked her thoughts. Dear God, was it wrong to want someone as malignant as Stephen to die? But who was she to judge? She, an adulteress.

But I don’t like leaving Cambria unprotected,” Stephen was saying. "Perhaps I should leave Lario in charge.”

"No!” Lario’s presence was equally tormenting but in a different way. For the sight of him never failed to remind her that only he could slake the passion in her that his presence ignited. And this shameful knowledge made her hate both herself and Lario.

She caught Stephen’s stare of surprise and hastily wiped Jamie’s food-covered mouth, masking her vehemence. With his enormous ego and pride in his pure Anglo blood, Stephen would probably never conceive of the idea that she could give herself to an Indian. Nevertheless, he was a shrewd man.

"You’ll need all the help you can get,” she said with feigned concern. "You’ve told me yourself that Lario knows this country better than anyone. Cambria will be all right. Just make certain the Rebels do not get this far.”

She played the dutiful wife and stood on the veranda to wave good-bye as her husband rode away with Lario and almost a hundred of Cambria’s men. But it was Lario who held her gaze. Even at a distance, she could separate him from the rest of the men. The red bandana about his head, the carbine sheathed at his saddle holster, the easy way he sat on the Arab horse.

With Stephen and Lario went all her tension. She could relax her guard. Her shamefu
l secret was safe, she thought.

CHAPTER 14

A column of smoke penciled the western sky, and Rosemary frowned. It was hardly likely to be a forest fire. It was too far up in the mountains, above the timberline. But the cabin Stephen had leased to the old prospector was in that vicinity. Her lips tightened. The Rebels—or the Apaches?

She turned her gaze to the southwest. A dark line on the horizon loomed larger with each passing minute. Stephen had ridden out five days earlier, but she doubted the band of riders that she could not yet distinguish would be coming from that direction. She spun and went inside. From the gun cabinet in Stephen’s trophy room she took the Springfield. She had no idea how to use it. But whoever was riding toward the Castle did not know that.

"Mrs. Rhodes!” a voice called out from the veranda. It belonged to Cody Strahan, a boy of no more than sixteen years who had drifted up from near the Texas border when Sibley and his Confederate Rebels had burned out his ranch.

Partly out of pity, partly out of need with all the men gone who were capable of toting a rifle,
she had hired the kid. Cody was mostly legs, the long limber kind that looked like they would buckle at the knees like a jack-in-the-box when he walked. He seemed a pleasant, polite young man until one looked into the eyes . . . there was something that said he no longer belonged to a civilized world.

Still,
she sensed he was a cool and trustworthy young man, the only one she could depend on at the moment, though he was just a boy; almost her age she reminded herself. But she felt eons older.

She
shut the door of the gun cabinet, grabbed up a heavy woolen
rebozo
, and hurried back out onto the veranda. The house servants trailed out onto the veranda behind her.

The peach fuzz on Cody’s face glistened with perspiration despite the brisk winter wind. "Indians,” he whispered as the horsemen in blankets and buckskins rode into the suddenly vacant village below. "’Pears to be Apaches, ma’am.”

"Es Chief Perro Amarillo,” Consuela grunted.

"So soon?” Just that summer Stephen had told her that Lario had given
Yellow Dog four ewes and a ram from the best of the Rambouillet herd, which, she thought bitterly, the chiefs band had no doubt eaten.

She passed the Springfield to Cody. "Wait here.” As she descended the veranda steps the wind whipped her skirts about her. She stopped at the edge of the well-trimmed grounds while the bulky figure on horseback rode out ahead of the other Apaches.

"
Cuidado
, Senora!” Consuela called from the veranda. "Do not trust him.
Es un selvaje
!”

It was the first time Rosemary had seen Perro Amarillo, and he did look like a savage, dressed as he was in a dirty blanket and a black silk top hat. When he was within yards of her he halted. Sitting before him on the mustang was a small child, a boy of perhaps three.

Yellow Dog’s face wore a dull, bestial expression. "Your man — where is he?”

Behind her Rosemary heard the crunch of boots as Cody came to her side. "He will be back soon,” she answered. Would they attack the Castle?
She counted nearly twenty of them, armed with tasseled lances and sinew-backed bows. But she was reassured by the presence of Yellow Dog’s son. Surely they would not attack with the boy there. "What is it you wish?”

"Guns. Knives. It is cold. We must kill more buffalo.”

"I have only the guns for our people, Yellow Dog.” She forced her voice to remain calm, to speak slowly. "But we have sacks of flour in the gristmill I would like to give your people.”

Yellow Dog shook his head, and his braids flopped on his shoulders. "No.”

She inclined her head toward Cody’s, whispering something, and he turned on his heel and disappeared inside the Castle.

"You have
tiswin
for Yellow Dog?”

"No, I have no
tiswin
.” The last thing she needed was for the band to become drunk on corn whiskey. "But I do have this for you, Yellow Dog,” and she took the white buffalo rug Cody returned with and walked forward with it stretched out over her arms for all the Apaches to see its beauty.  Stephen had told her a down-and-out mountain man had traded the rare fur for a Winchester.

Her hair tingled at the nape of her neck as she drew close to Yellow Dog and his men. They could kill her easily. The terrible vision of her brother’s tiny body being tossed from lance to lance flashed before her eyes, and she felt the old fear crash over her like a tidal wave. Still, she moved until she stood next to the mustang, close enough to see the face of the chiefs son, and she shuddered. It was as opaque and unreadable as his father’s. The stone-brown eyes looked right through her. She passed the rug up to Yellow Dog. "As a gift of our friendship.”

The Indian’s dirt-grooved hands held the snow-white rug for a long moment. Then he nodded. He reined his pony in sharply and turned away with the band falling in behind him.

Rosemary let out a sigh of relief. But when she reached the veranda, she found she was trembling, her legs weak. She leaned her forehead against the veranda’s cedar post for support. The rough bark scratched her head. Now perspiration dotted her upper lip, and the chill wind turned the droplets to frost.

"
Senora
,” Consuela said, "it is better that you lay down, no?”

"Here, let me give you a hand, ma’am,” Cody said.

She shook her head. "No, I’ll be all right. Keep an eye on Yellow Dog.” However, she accepted Consuela’s stout arm and let the old woman lead her indoors out of the cold.