The Barefoot Bride (60 page)

He paced restlessly, caressing the necklace. "Xenia... I heard it told she'd spent some years in Mexico. Could be her treasure is Aztec or Spanish! But then again, where was she before she went to Mexico, Hazel? Was she born in Greece? From Greece did she go to Arabia? Did this necklace belong to some Arabic sheik? Did she go to Egypt? Maybe find a pharaoh's riches? Hell, the treasure could be a pirate's booty, for all that it matters! I don't really give a damn where she got it, or how it ended up buried in these mountains, but I know it's on the land she left to that crazy girl she raised, and I'll find it! The silver will all be mine!"

"No!" Hazel shrieked. "Everett, no!"

At the look of tenor in Hazel's eyes, Everett sighed. She was all bones, and with her hair pulled back so tightly from her face, she looked like a frightened bird. "Go back to your work, my dear."

"Please forget about the silver, Everett! It's just too dangerous! Xenia's curse—"

"Hazel, go, and don't worry."

She bit her lip before scurrying from the room. Everett ambled back to his chair and glanced at his surroundings. It'd been pure hell bringing all of Hazel's furniture out here from Philadelphia. But perhaps, he mused, it was good she'd been so insistent about bringing it. He was a man to be reckoned with now, and a man with the power and wealth he'd accumulated should live in luxurious surroundings.

And he would live in even grander style, he decided excitedly. He'd build an even larger house. He'd make the Dragoon Diamond the most famous, most productive ranch in all the land. He'd make it a legend.

As soon as he had that Chimera girl's land. As soon as he had his hands on the treasure the Greek crone buried on it.

Xenia. He could barely remember her. He and Hazel had come across her only once during all the years they'd been neighbors. She'd been chanting, cackling, doing something strange with the weeds she'd been holding in her gnarled hands. She'd ignored Hazel and concentrated only on him.
You will die lost in silver,
she'd told him, her odd black eyes narrowed.
You will die lost in silver.

He and Hazel had heard the rumors of her treasure for years but hadn't connected her warning with it until several years later when he'd found the silver necklace on her land. Hazel had been, and still was, terrified over the cursed treasure and the gypsy hex. "But not I," he told the vague memory he had of Xenia. "The hex... Bah! Die in silver? What rubbish! Your curse was only to keep me from searching for your treasure, old woman. Your charge, that Chimera lunatic, will sell me that land. She'll sell, or she'll die."

Smiling, he replaced the necklace in the drawer and thought about how easy it would all be. Chimera was totally defenseless, just one girl living out in the wilderness with only a bunch of misfit children and a stranger who would be soon be dead; and he was Everett Sprague, the man who had more power at his fingertips right now than she could ever hope to have in her entire body in a lifetime.

He laughed at that thought. "Ah, the time has come, little damsel," he whispered to her. "Only a knight in shining armor could help you now."

*

Right before Sterling reached Chimera's cabin, he heard a sound like the turning of pages. "She's flipping through those spell books of hers, trying to find one to bring me back, Gus," he told the horse quietly. "Let's have a little fun with her."

He dismounted and crept silently toward the tree where the noises were coming from. When she chanted the spell, he'd leap out at her, he decided. She wouldn't expect him to appear so suddenly, and her fright would be comical. It would also be a very small measure of revenge for all she'd put him through, and all she fully planned on putting him through still.

But as he drew close, he found it was not Chimera sitting against the fat tree trunk, book in hand. It was Archibald. Sterling immediately thought of the Apaches. The triplets, as fearsome as Cochise himself, could possibly avoid being captured. But Archibald, with his useless leg, wouldn't stand a chance running from the mounted warriors. "Son," he said softly so as not to startle the boy, "do you think it's a good idea to be out here all alone?"

Archibald smiled. "You don't really believe in Chimera's werewolves, do you, Mr. Montoya?"

The boy's calm smile spoke of wisdom beyond his years, Sterling thought as he smiled back. Archibald seemed like such a gentle, down-to-earth boy. How he'd turned out like that after being raised by Chimera was a true mystery. "Call me Sterling. And no, I don't believe in the werewolves. But I do believe in those thugs who were out here this morning. I've got the feeling they'll be back."

Archibald picked up a twig. "Yeah, I know. They always come back. We've been lucky with them so far."

"Lucky? I take it you don't believe Chimera's magic has been protecting you."

Archibald grinned. Sterling sat down on the shaded ground beside him and pondered the look of pure devotion he saw in the boy's blue eyes. "You're very fond of her, aren't you, son?"

"I love her more than I can even explain. And the triplets worship her. She's everything to us, Sterling."

"But... well, she's so—so..."

"Yes, she's peculiar," Archibald supplied the word and tossed his stick to Sterling. "But in a
good
way," he hastened to add. "If you had really gone to Tucson... if from Tucson you went to New Orleans, Washington, New York... if you crossed the oceans and went to Europe, from Europe to China, and from China to the moon... never—not once in your travels—would you meet another Chimera."

At that, Sterling grinned broadly.

Archibald massaged his twisted leg. "She sings her own song, Sterling. She might seem out of tune to some people, but I don't think that really matters. The important thing is that she hears it, responds to it, and enjoys it. I don't see anything wrong with that, and I love her all the more because of it."

Sterling nodded and swiped at some leaves with the twig. "In a very profound way, Archibald, you're trying to tell me Chimera is a nut, aren't you?"

Archibald burst into laughter. Sterling joined him, and the sound of their merriment danced through the thick, shadowed woods for a long while before it finally faded.

"I'm glad you came back, Sterling," Archibald said and bent his head. "When you raced your horse out of the yard, I went into the cabin to see what had happened, and I can almost swear I saw tears in Chimera's eyes. It almost killed me. I've never seen her cry."

Sterling felt a stab of guilt. He hadn't meant to make Chimera cry. Hell, she gave the impression she was immune to tears, to sadness! He wondered if he should apologize to her, but then chastised himself for the thought. If he said he was sorry—sorry for wanting to get on with his own life—she'd see that as his consent to stay and do every damn thing she wanted him to do. But there was no way in hell he was going to rebuild, raise children, or conquer knaves for her. To hell with all that hero bit she kept going on about. He'd stay long enough for the baby to get bigger, then be on his way back to Sonora, and from there, to Tucson. She'd just have to accept his decision. That knight in shining armor fairy tale she believed in was just that—fantasy.

That decided very firmly, he switched his thoughts back to Archibald. "How old are you, son?"

"I'll be sixteen on my next birthday. My
invented
one, that is. Since none of us knows when our real birthdays are, we picked them out of hats. Chimera filled one hat with papers that had a month written on each of them. Another hat was full of days. I got August twenty-eighth. The triplets got July fifteenth. And Chimera," he said, pausing a moment to smile, "got February thirty-first. She wouldn't pick again. She said the date was 'simply perfect for a sorceress.'"

Sterling laughed at Archibald's mimicking of Chimera's voice and thought of how well Archibald understood her. His respect for the boy grew, and he decided Archibald might very well turn out to be a good ally. "Come on," he told him. "Let's go see what she's up to."

Archibald struggled to his feet and studied Sterling for a moment. "I don't know you well, Sterling, and you don't know me either. But there's one thing I want to tell you. It's not so awful to trust her, you know."

Sterling frowned. "Trust her?
Trust
her? Archibald, I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw—"

"I'm not saying you should believe in her sorcery or her creations. Take her gnomes, for example.
I
swept the sugar from the floor last night, but I'd never tell her that. She wouldn't believe me anyway. Her Aunt Xenia created this fantastic world for her, and I love her enough to never want to destroy any of it for her. It doesn't harm anyone or anything and it makes her happy. It's all she's got besides the triplets and me, and... well, we might not be here with her forever. So if she tells you the heavens are made of blue icing, and the stars of spun sugar, like she's convinced the triplets, I don't expect you to believe her. But, Sterling," he said, reaching out to clasp Sterling's arm, "when she speaks with her wisdom... a lot of times she's right."

"Her philosophy."

"That, but it's something more, which doesn't come from her hundreds of books. She loves quoting people but... when she's quoting the voice inside her she usually comes darn close to the truth. Sometimes I think her eyes are different than ours. Maybe they see things we don't. But even when she's wrong about stuff, she still manages to get a person thinking along the right lines. I don't know, Sterling. I guess you'll just have to figure it out by yourself. I can't seem to find the right words."

Sterling smiled and then whistled for Gus. When the horse appeared, he mounted smoothly. "She doesn't know enough about me to advise me on any subject. I really, quite frankly, don't need her to tell me right or wrong. And I don't need her eyes. My own suit me just fine."

Archibald's grin split his entire face. "Oh, you need her all right. Sterling. Everyone needs a Chimera."

Sterling chuckled at the young boy's innocent yet rock-hard faith in the lunatic he lived with.
"Bueno.
It's a deal. I've never heard her talk of much more than nonsense, but I'll keep an open mind. Now come on. You can ride with me back to the cabin." He held out his hand.

Archibald's eyes widened, and he took a few faltering steps away from Gus. "No, thanks. I'll walk."

"Are you afraid of Gus, son?"

Archibald turned and walked quickly toward the cabin. Because of his haste and dragging leg, he stumbled. His book fell to the ground.

Sterling urged Gus forward and looked down at the book as Archibald picked it up. "A volume on medicine? Are you studying to be a doctor?"

"Yes," the boy snapped.

"Pero que tienes?
What's the matter with you? I'm not criticizing your desire to be a medical man."

"Chimera says I can be anything I want to be," Archibald growled. He shuffled his feet in the dirt and then sighed. "Do you think I can be anything I want, too, Sterling?"

Sterling's brow knit in bewilderment. What the hell was wrong with the boy? One minute he spoke like a mature young man, and the next minute he was a frightened, doubting child. "You'll make a fine doctor. Study hard, and I imagine you'll—"

"Yeah," Archibald said, his blue eyes glittering with something that looked like hostility to Sterling. "A fine doctor. A real fine one."

"Well, just look at you, Sterling!" Chimera scolded as she arrived and saw them. "I've been standing in the yard for almost an hour calling for you! Why didn't you come?"

He smiled when she stomped her foot to the ground. Apparently, she'd recovered from her unhappiness. "Quick—give me a quote about resignation, Chimera."

"Resignation?"

"Endurance. You know—putting up with aggravation."

"But—"

"Hurry," he urged her, hoping one of the great writers had something positive to say about bearing one's cross—his cross being the insane siren before him.

"'We must like what we have when we don't have what we like.' Roger de Bussy-Rabutin," she said. "'It's a great soul that surrenders itself to fate, but a puny degenerate thing that struggles.' Seneca, Roman statesman."

"Surrender to fate," Sterling mused aloud. Was Chimera his fate? At the absurdity, he smiled again.

"Sterling, answer my question!" she demanded, ignoring the secret joke he seemed to be enjoying. "Or don't you care about what happens to Pegasus? Why didn't you come when—"

"I didn't hear you. Did you hear her, Archibald?"

The boy shook his head.

"See?" Sterling said smugly. "He didn't hear you either."

"Well, of course
Archibald
didn't hear me! I didn't send my mental thoughts to
him,
I sent them to
you!"

"Mental thoughts, you say," Sterling replied, and winked at Archibald in a gesture of conspiracy. "Has it occurred to you, enchantress, that opening your mouth and screaming for me might bring about my arrival far more quickly than sending mental thoughts?"

"What's wrong with Pegasus, Chimera?" Archibald asked.

"Oh, Sterling, hurry!" she pleaded. "A wall of the barn is caving in, and Pegasus is making such a ruckus, I'm afraid the whole building is going to collapse! It's too dangerous for me, and besides, peril is a knight's business!" With that, she raced back toward the cabin.

Before Sterling could inform her that he had no intention of being her knight or ever getting near that humpbacked brute again, she was gone. "Tell him to put on his wings and
fly
out!" he called after her.

"You are going to help Pegasus, aren't you, Sterling?" Archibald asked. "She loves that camel with her whole heart, you know."

"If only the camel loved me in the same way," Sterling rubbed his camel-nipped shoulder, and urged Gus forward.

*

"Que desmadre,"
Sterling swore as he studied the situation with the barn. Just as Chimera said, one wall was caved in. Another wall was groaning and cracking. Sterling decided the structure was still standing only because heaven decreed it should be so.
"Que desmadre,"
he cursed again.