The Black Invader

by Rebecca Stratton

  She stopped short and bit hard on her lower lip when she noticed something half concealed by low-growing branches a short distance back from where the gelding stood. It was a moment or two before she could bring herself to walk over there, and when she saw who it was that lay sprawled in the dust her heart gave a sudden jolt of alarm.

  Rosa Montanes lay still and inert, and there was a large ugly bruise already discolouring the smooth olive skin of her forehead. She looked so horribly still that Kirstie hesitated to touch her for fear of what she might discover, but eventually a brief and very inexpert examination revealed a slow but steady pulse and a reassuring rise and fall under the thin cotton shirt.

  Even so it was essential to get help quickly, and Kirstie wished she had fetched Scheherazade instead of walking. She felt so helpless, for nothing even remotely like this had happened to her before, but she realised that quick action was necessary and that she would have to leave Rosa Montanes where she was while she fetched help.

  Shock made her movements slow and clumsy as she

  Straightened up, and she stood for a second looking down at the woman who made no secret of her hatred for her. It was hard to beheve she had been thrown, for she had shown herself to be an excellent horsewoman, whatever her other shortcomings, and yet she lay there bruised and unconscious and looking alarmingly as if she had been hit over the head with something.

  It was the unmistakable sound of another rider approaching that made Kirstie look up quickly, and it was quite automatic to offer up a prayer that the newcomer would be Miguel. But it wasn't Miguel, it was Rosa's young daughter, Margarita, mounted on Scheherazade, and the moment she saw her mother's still figure she reined in sharply, her eyes widening in horror, too stunned to move for the moment.

  'Mama!' Her voice rose and thinned shrilly, then she looked at Kirstie with a bright glint of panic in her eyes. 'You killed her!' she accused hoarsely. 'You've killed my mother!'

  Shock gave Kirstie's eyes a glazed look and she shook her head emphatically as she stared at the girl. 'No,' she whispered. 'Oh no, Margarita!'

  Automatically she moved towards her without realising that she still carried the broken branch in her hand, and the girl looked at her wild-eyed with alarm as she came close, her fingers clenched tightly on the rein. More intent on reassuring the girl for the moment than on defending herself, Kirstie too gripped the rein tightly.

  'Margarita, your mother isn't dead, she's hurt, that's all, just hurt.'

  It wasn't easy to convince her, for the girl seemed incapable of grasping anything beyond the fact that her mother lay ominously still on the ground while Kirstie stood over her with what must look like a pretty formidable weapon in her hand.

  'You never liked her,' Margarita accused, her childish voice quivering, and she climbed down off her horse at last, clinging to the animal for a moment before she dropped to her knees beside her mother. 'Mama?' She

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  looked up and her brown eyes shimmered with tears. *You hit her; you hit her with that stick; you hit her!'

  Kirstie was growing desperate, not least because someone had to go for help and Margarita was best equipped, being dressed for riding. 'Listen, Margarita, your mother needs help urgently and you have to ride back to the house and tell your grandfather, or one of your uncles. Get them to call a doctor and an ambulance, do you understand?'

  'No!' Margarita crouched over her mother protectively. 'I won't go and leave you with her again, I won't!'

  'Margarita, please!'

  'No, no, no!'

  She was rapidly approaching hysteria, and Kirstie' realised there was nothing for it but to go herself as she had originally planned. 'Very well,' she said with a sigh of resignation, Til go.'

  But Margarita seemed not to hear. She did not even turn her head to object when Kirstie took Scheherazade instead of the swifter gelding because she felt safer on the mare, riding as she was. Her last sight of the girl was of her small figure kneeling beside her mother in an attitude that was uncomfortably reminiscent of prayer.

  It was both inelegant and uncomfortable riding astride dressed in a brief cotton dress, but Kirstie had no time to worry about either as she rode like the wind towards Casa de Rodriguez. Perhaps she had been wrong to leave a young and near-hysterical girl alone with an injured woman, but as she saw it she had had httle choice, so no one could blame her.

  Nevertheless she heaved a massive sigh of relief when she spotted Mi
guel the moment she rode into the stable yard, and she called out to him before he could disappear through the gate into the patio. 'Miguel, Miguel!'

  She didn't stop to consider formalities nor her earlier opinion of him as the desecrator of her old home; he was there when she needed him and she had to admit that she would rather it was him than anyone else. He

  turned the moment she called to him, and seemed to sense that something was very wrong.

  Striding back across the yard, he took note of her dress and reached up to lift her bodily out of the saddle, his big hands almost spanning her waist. Then setting her down in front of him, he regarded her curiously. 'What in heaven's name is the matter?' he demanded, and for a spht second when she glanced up at him, Kirstie wondered which of the conflicting stories he was most likely to believe, hers or his young cousin's.

  'It's Senora Montanes,' she told him, and her hands were flutteringly unsteady as she smoothed down her rumpled dress. 'She's had a fall from her horse and she's unconscious; she's lying in the first row of olives opposite the track.'

  Miguel was already striding through the patio gate with Kirstie hurrying breathlessly after him. 'Is she alone?' he asked, and Kirstie shook her head.

  'I left Margarita with her; she came along just after I found her mother.'

  She didn't mention the girl's opinion of what had happened at that point simply because she wasn't sure how to approach it, and Miguel was swearing as he marched through the gardens with long, urgent strides. 'Damn Luis for being missing when he's needed! Tio Enrique is resting and I don't want to disturb him if I can help it, so I'll have to—No, wait!' He stopped and looked down at Kirstie's anxious face. 'You can ring Dr Sandro and tell him where to find her, and I'll ride down there and see how Margarita is faring. If it's as bad as you say the poor child will be frantic—see to it for me, will you, Kirstie?'

  He didn't wait to see whether she agreed or not, but turned and was gone almost before she realised it, leaving her feeling very small and uncertain, for she knew exactly what Margarita was going to tell him when he got there. Hurrying into the house, she made the necessary call for the doctor, but as she walked home along the familiar ride, she couldn't help pondering on the

  fact that there was a certain irony in the situation. For however reluctant she might be, Rosa Montanes was going to be the one who cleared Kirstie of any suspicion her daughter might arouse.

  It was because she told herself that any enquiry from her would be unwelcome by the person most concerned, that Kirstie had not made the effort of asking after Rosa Montanes during the rest of the weekend. She could do so when she returned to work on Monday morning. She didn't like to admit, even to herself, that it was because she lacked the nerve to walk up to the house and ask after the patient, not knowing what kind of a reception she would get.

  As it happened she was a little later than usual arriving on Monday morning and rather out of breath as she went hurrying across the patio, so that she wasn't sure she wanted to see Miguel. He was leaving the house when she arrived, and he stopped when he saw her, waiting for her to join him.

  Standing as he was under the garlands of bougainvil-lea that draped the overhanging balcony his face was in the shadows and it was difficult to judge what expression was in his eyes as they watched her. But there was a hard line about his mouth that she took heed of, making her heart beat a little more quickly. Only the certainty of her own innocence enabled her to smile faintly as she came up to him.

  *Good morning, Don Miguel,' she said, and noted the way one brow arched, presumably because she had reverted to the formality of a title.

  'Good morning, Seiiorita Rodriguez.'

  They were both being very formally polite, but there was something in Miguel's manner that rang a warning bell in Kirstie's brain, and she tried to read something in those implacable features that would give her a clue as to how things were. 'I'm afraid I'm rather late '

  'Are you? I'm sure my uncle won't complain about a few minutes.'

  Kirstie hesitated. He seemed to have httle or nothing to say to her and yet he still remained, looking at her with that disturbingly intent gaze. *I—I should have asked after Seiiora Montanes,' she ventured. 'How is she?'

  *As well as can be expected—isn't that the phrase?'

  He spoke quietly, but something in his voice made her swallow hard, and there was an air about him that made her distinctly uneasy. The niggle of apprehension gnawed again at the back of her mind when she recalled Rosa Montaiies lying on the ground and her daughter hurling wild accusations at her. She couldn't really be dead, but if she hadn't come around yet

  'She—She isn't still unconscious?' she asked, and the reply was so obviously important to her that Miguel's eyes narrowed slightly.

  'She had recovered consciousness before the doctor arrived,' he said. 'In fact she was coming round when I got there, although she was still confused; and Margarita was babbling away about what had happened.' Kirstie made no attempt to disguise her relief, and again Miguel looked at her narrow-eyed. 'You sound very relieved.'

  'I am,' she admitted readily. 'After the way Margarita

  was talking, I thought you might have ' She shrugged

  uneasily. 'Well, you might have believed her.'

  'And is there any reason for me not to?' Miguel asked quietly.

  Kirstie stared at him, stunned suddenly and unprepared for a turn of events she could not have foreseen. 'But she was making wild accusations about me having hit her mother with a stick I was carrying,' she said. 'I was sttmned at the time, and scared, I don't mind admitting it, but then I realised that the moment Seiiora Montaiies came round she would put her right. Surely—surely she told you what really happened, didn't she?'

  'So she's assured us,' Miguel agreed, and Kirstie had seldom heard him sound so pedantic before. 'It more or less coincides with what Margarita told me.'

  Staring at him in blank dismay, Kirstie knew that most of the colour had left her face and she felt oddly stiff and cold. 'But—she couldn't! How could she '

  'According to Rosa you lost your temper and hit her with the stick you said you were holding; the one Margarita said you were still holding when she arrived on the scene.' His eyes held hers steadily and, although she found it hard to believe, the hard line of his mouth seemed to have softened a little. 'Would you like to tell me your version?'

  Too stunned to take it in properly, Kirstie shook her head. 'It simply isn't possible! I could understand the girl making all those wild accusations, she was frightened and she jumped to the wrong conclusion, but how could—how could Seiiora Montaiies tell such lies? How could she ^

  She couldn't go on, but looked at Miguel with eyes that were shocked and bewildered. 'Quite easily, if she wanted to make things uncomfortable for you,' he remarked, and she shook her head because she was convinced it was Rosa's version he believed. 'At the moment it's a case of your story against hers, and of course, Margarita's.'

  'So of course you all believe them!' Her lip trembled and a haze of tears gave a shimmering blueness to her eyes as she looked up at him, not knowing why his doubt should trouble her more than any other. 'You believe I'm capable of deliberately attacking someone, maybe killing her, if her daughter is to be believed! You think I'm capable of that!'

  'Did I say so?' He sUd a hand beneath her chin and raised her pale and anxious face, his dark eyes scanning her features narrowly. 'You judge as hastily as you accuse me of doing,' he told her. 'I know you're an emotional and quick-tempered little creature, and that you've reason enough to dislike Rosa, but to actually attack her?——'

  If only he had firmly denied that he believed it, Kirstie would have been content, but his seeming doubt was

  more than she could bear. It was the second time she had felt let down by him within a very short time, and she turned on him furiously when she recalled the first instance. Jerking her head aside to avoid his hand under her chin, she tossed back her hair.

  *rm not really surprised; a
nyone who could think of turning Casa de Rodriguez into a paradore is capable of believing anything!' she told him bitterly, and swallowed the first choking tears before she could go on. 'And as Fm under suspicion as a possible murderess I'm sure you none of you want me working here, so I'd better go home!'

  'Kirstie!'

  There was a note in his voice that Kirstie found hard to ignore, but she refused to Hsten to any more. If he really beheved her guilty then it was more than hkely the rest of the family did too, and she walked away from him with her back stiff and tears rolling unchecked down her cheeks.

  *And don't worry,' she called back in a choked Httle voice, 'I shan't run away—I'll be around when the guar-dia come for me! Where else would I go?'

  She had never in her life felt so miserable or so ill-used as she did when she made her way through the garden towards the gate, and she brushed an impatient hand across her eyes when Miguel called after her. 'Kirstie, stop talking nonsense and come back!'

  Kirstie ignored him, although her legs were so unsteady that she didn't know how she managed to walk so determinedly on. It was, she had to admit to herself, not entirely unexpected when the famihar heavy tread of booted feet came after her, and she automatically increased her pace.

  Nevertheless Miguel caught up with her well before she got as far as the gate, and his fingers closed around her wrist, bringing her to a standstill, even though she struggled against him. 'Keep still!' he said sharply. 'Don't be such a little fool, Kirstie!'

  'Let me go!'

  A kind of panic was churning away in her stomach as she fought him, and she was breathing hard and noisily when he eventually put both his hands on her shoulders and swung her round to face him. They were both of them breathing much more rapidly than usual, and there was a curious sense of excitement about the situation that she did not understand at all.

  'You're going to listen to what I have to say,' he insisted in an unfamiliarly husky voice. 'Don't behave as if you've been tried and condemned '