The Promise of Jenny Jones (35 page)

It wasn't until the third day that she noticed Graciela was not wearing the gold locket pin. "Wait here," she said anxiously, standing abruptly and reaching to pin on her hat. "You must have lost it at supper. I'll go back to the dining car and search."

"I didn't lose it," Graciela said, turning her face to the window. "I'm not going to wear the locket anymore."

Frowning, Jenny looked down at her. "Why not?"

"Because I don't want to look at her picture. I don't want to be like her. I want to be like you." Graciela stared up at her, the words tumbling over each other in a rush. "My mother was weak. She cried about everything. And she didn't know how to do anything. She didn't know how to shoot a gun or make a campfire! She couldn't have driven a wagon across the desert." Her eyebrow lifted, and her mouth twisted. "If I'd been with her , I'd be dead now. And so would she."

Jenny's arm flew up and she slapped Graciela hard enough to knock her off the bench seat. When she hauled her back to the seat, her fingers bit deep into the kid's shoulders.

"Don't you ever, not ever, say anything against yourmother! Do you hear me?" Her eyes blazed down at the handprint flaming on Graciela's cheek. "Your mother was the bravest woman I've ever known. The most loving and selfless person you will ever know in your whole life. She loved you more than anything else in this world, and don't you ever forget it. Whoever you are, whatever you become, you owe it to her. If you grow up to be half the woman she was, you can count yourself proud. So you talk about her with respect, and you honor her and you love her."

Graciela jerked free and backed against the window. "She died."

"Don't start that again," Jenny warned between her teeth. "I didn't kill your mother."

"You didn't kill her. I did!" Graciela screamed. "I killed her! She died to save me." Her expression crumpling in agony, she sank to the rocking floor and covered her face. "I killed her!" she sobbed. "She died for me. It's my fault!"

"Oh my God." Jenny stared in shock. Of course. She should have looked deeper, should have guessed. She should have asked why Graciela was so insistent that Jenny had killed her mother. It was because she could not bear to confront what she truly believed. Marguarita had died to give Graciela a chance to live. Marguarita would not have explained it that way … but the kid possessed a keen intelligence. She would have grasped the underlying meaning of what Ty and Jenny told her about her cousins, she would have sensed the desperation beneath her mother's plea for a promise from a stranger. "Oh my God."

Dropping to the floor, Jenny reached for her. "Graciela! You didn't kill your mother. No. Never." Jerking the child into her arms, she held her hard against her pounding heart. "Honey girl, your mother was dying of consumption. Taking my place only hastened the inevitable by a few days. She was very, very ill, you must have seen that."

Graciela clung to her, sobbing against her shoulder. "She died to make you promise to save me. It's my fault!"

"No, no, darling." Jenny smoothed her hair with shaking hands. "She just ran out of time. It was no one's fault."

"If it wasn't for me, she would have died in her own bed. I killed her! They shot her because of me!"

Jenny held her, staring over her shoulder at the desert beyond the window. Echoes bounced in her mind. "He wouldn't have died if you'd watched over him like I told you! It's your fault that Billy's dead!" And her own agonized cry, "But Ma, he ran away from me! I didn't see him fall in the lake!" My fault, my fault, my fault. She had been nine years old. Billy had been seven. Jenny shook her head sharply. How many times had she relived the day of her brother's death?

"Graciela, your mother did not go to the firing squad for you." She drew a breath and felt tears gather at the back of her eyes. "She did it for me." Graciela clung to her, sobbing quietly, listening. "I … your mother and I knew each other. We were friends." She stared out the window at the desert.

"Marguarita knew I'd been wrongly accused. And she knew she was dying. She asked me, as her friend, to take you to your father because she no longer could. It was an easy promise for me to make. See, I'd planned to go toCaliforniawith you and Marguarita all along. The three of us were going to go together. I … I was going to watch out for your killer cousins. That's what Marguarita wanted me to do."

Was she babbling? Would this story hang together? Was she any good at this?

"Then I got arrested, and they were going to kill me, so I couldn't go toCalifornialike we planned. And Marguarita got so sick. I told her we should have gone earlier, but she … her aunt Tete needed her, and you know how kind and generous your mama was, so we kept putting it off, and then it was too late because she was too ill to travel."

There wasn't as much cactus outside the window now. Low bushes and scrub grass had begun to appear. But it looked hot, so hot. As hot as hell out there.

"So she came to me in jail, and I begged her to save my life. She was dying anyway. But I could take you to your father. I could protect you from the Barrancas cousins. We could each do something for the other. Graciela, look at me."

She eased the child away from her body. "I was selfish because I wanted to live, and I saw a way to do it. I promised your mama I'd take you toCaliforniajust like I'd planned to do anyway. And your mama, well she loved me because we were friends, and she wanted to save my life. Your mother didn't trade her life for yours, Graciela. She exchanged her life for mine. Because we were sister-friends. Because I wasn't sick, and she was. Because she knew I'd honor our friendship and take care of you. I didn't kill her, Graciela. But I might as well have. She died to save my life."

"Is that true?" Graciela whispered, wiping her eyes to peer hard into Jenny's.

Oh God, oh God, oh God. "As God is my witness, I've told you the truth. Have I ever lied to you? Or to anyone else? If anyone is to blame for your mother's death, it's me for being so stupid as to get myself arrested and sentenced to a firing squad. And it's her fault, too, for being so brave and wanting to save a friend who could help her daughter. But you are not to blame. Not you. Never you."

"Oh Jenny." The kid's arms came around her neck, choking her, holding on tight. But this time her sobbing was softer; a torrent of grief, not blame. Deep sorrow, not fault.

"There's something else," Jenny said after a long time, speaking softly, stroking the child's back. "Don't go thinking you're to blame for what happened to Ty." She waited until her voice steadied. "Your uncle Ty is an honorable man who would help any two people who needed him. Remember how we met him? How he jumped into the fight at Verde Flores? He didn't know us then. His conscience pointed him toward that bullet, Graciela, not you. If Ty dies, and I refuse to believe that he will, it won't have anything to do with you."

"I thought it was my fault that he …are you sure?" Graciela murmured against her damp shoulder. Her agonized whisper told Jenny that she had guessed right.

"I'm very sure. Now. Let's find that gold locket and pin it on your jacket so we can honor a fine and courageous woman who was my friend and who loved you as much as any mother ever loved a daughter."

"Jenny? I love my mama. But I love you too."

Oh Lord. Her arms tightened around Graciela's body and she buried moist eyes in the child's hair. She was strangling. She thought she might die. "It's all right," she whispered finally. "That doesn't mean you love your mama less. It just means that you care for me too." She swallowed hard, hearing her heart crack in her chest. "It doesn't mean you're being disloyal to your mama. I think she'd like it that you care about me a little."

That night she didn't try to sleep. She sat beside the window, watching moonlight shadows slide across the desert miles. She didn't regret lying toGraciela, she would do it again in the same circumstance. But she felt the empty space where she'd taken a chunk out of herself. And she ached with the sweet pain of a child's love.

Toward morning, she raised her eyes to search for Marguarita's star.

I hit her, Marguarita. Funny, isn't it? All the times I threatened to smack her, but I never did. Then she stopped wearing the gold locket and I … well, you know what happened.

Waslying the right thing to do? Or did I throw away the one good thing about myself? I don't know anymore. I just know I couldn't let hergo on hating herself for believing that you died to save her, that your death was her fault. I didn't think you'd want her sitting around at my age hurtingherself with blame and fault during the lonely times.

And I guess you heard her say that she loves me.

Oh Marguarita. This is so fricking hard. I just didn't know anything could be this hard.

How can I say good-bye to her?

CHAPTER 17

S an Franciscowas the largest city Jenny had ever set foot in. There was opportunity here for a woman who didn't shy from hard labor and wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty. She didn't look like that kind of woman now, wearing a trimmed hat and driving gloves and the rumpled skirt and jacket of her traveling ensemble, but soon she would.

She drew the wagon on a rise and narrowed her gaze on the frenzied activity occurring down below at the wharves, listening with half an ear to Graciela's awed babble about the ocean. The only thing Jenny knew about oceans and harbors was that wharf rats were always in short supply, and the pay would be enough to keep her alive.

Satisfied that at least she had a plan of sorts, she clicked her tongue at the mule and returned to the road cutting inland from the coast.

"When will we reach the ranch?" Graciela asked, lowering the dictionary she'd been reading aloud.

"I expect we'll arrive tomorrow. Keep reading. And stop leaning on me."

She rolled her eyes in affectionate exasperation when Graciela ignored the instruction not to lean. It remained a mystery as to the exact moment when she had turned into such a pudding. And a mystery as to how the kid knew it had happened.

"Jenny?" Graciela kept her gaze fixed on the dictionary. "I'm scared."

The air ran out of her lungs, and her chest hurt for a moment before she dropped an arm around Graciela's shoulders. "Sooner than you believe it's possible you're going to feel like you've known your daddy and your grandma forever. And they're going to love you. Have you ever met anyone you couldn't charm?"

"I like it when you say nice things." Tilting back her hat brim, the kid casther a tiny grin. "Do I charm you?"

"Huh! Not very likely." She laughed. "Well, maybe sometimes. But I'm a hard case. Your daddy and grandma Ellen will be pushovers for a manipulator like you. Remember that word?"

Graciela laid her cheek on Jenny's shoulder. "What about Grandpa Barrancas?"

Jenny had also been thinking about Don Antonio. None of her conclusions were fit for a child's ears. "For the moment, at least, you should probably just wait and see if he sends for you." She glanced at the top of the kid's hat. "He might not, Graciela. He was mighty displeased with your mama, and that might extend to you. I wouldn't set my hopes too high if I were you."

"When I get really scared about meeting all of them, I just pretend I'm you and think about what you would do."

Jenny bit down on her back teeth and stared at the mule's ears. "And what would that be?"

"You'd be polite and say por favor and gracias , but inside you wouldn't give a cuss if they liked you or not."

"Well, I guess that's right," she said, holding her gaze on the mule's head. Her innards went to mush. "It doesn't matter if anyone likes you as long as you like yourself. Yessir, that's all that's important. You find one good thing about yourself, and you hang on to that."

"I have lots of good things."

Jenny laughed. "Yes, you do, you little snot." She tightened her arm around Graciela's shoulders. "You're smart and pretty and brave and loyal and you sew better than anyone I ever did see."

"I don't cry much anymore either. You forgot that. And you and me, we stopped cussing. That's a good thing, too."

"Oh Graciela." She couldn't speak for several minutes. "Tonight you'll need to polish those boots and we're going to wash your hair until it squeaks. Send our clothes out to be brushed and pressed."

Graciela pressed her face against Jenny's shoulder, and a light tremor rippled down her small body. "Jenny? They're going to like me, aren't they?"

"Honey girl, you hold your head high when we drive up to the ranch house. You just remember that you're Marguarita Barrancas's daughter, and your mama didn't bow her head to anyone. And you don't need to either. They should be worrying if you are going to like them ."

Frowning, she glared at the road. If anyone dared to look askance at Graciela, Jenny would tear through the Sanders ranch like a tornado.

* * *

They arrived at the ranch shortly afternoonthe next day. Jenny hauled up on the reins in front of the gate. "Well," she said quietly, "we've come a long way, but there it is."

The main house sat back from the road about a quarter of a mile. Ty had described the circular veranda, and she knew to expect two stories, but he hadn't mentioned how large the house was. The impressive size, coupled with a multitude of well-maintained outbuildings and stock pens, suggested the extent of the Sander's prosperity. Seeing the spread, she better understood why Robert had been unable to reject his inheritance. And Ty's rebellion now assumed larger significance.

"Smooth your skirt and sit up straight," Jenny said absently, studying the layout. Eucalyptus and cedar shaded the house, but the lush pastures were clear of trees and brush. The cattle were fat and shiny. The Texans Jenny knew would have trampled their grandmothers to own a spread as green and picture-perfect as this.

Nervously, Graciela touched the gold locket pinned on her chest, then straightened her hat. "We look beautiful," she stated in a shaky voice. "Do you have a clean hankie?"

"It's still in my sleeve, right where you put it this morning." She gazed clown into Graciela's face, noting the smooth light brown skin and brilliant blue-green eyes, the abundance of dark hair pinned on her neck. "You're the loveliest little girl I ever knew or ever saw," she said in a light, choking voice.