While Joaquín dragged the guard into the hollow where he and Kino had waited, Kino produced the same clippers he had used the time before and began cutting the cables that bound the crates of coins to the side of the car.
“¡Andale!” Pia whispered.
“How many crates do you want?” Kino questioned.
“Only a few,” Aurelia told him. “Just enough to make my father feel vulnerable.”
In the end they took five crates of minted coins. The boys lugged them into the hollow behind a stack of rocks. Since the powerful beam of the train’s headlamp pointed straight ahead, it was unlikely the hollow would be noticed in the darkness.
According to plan, the three girls blended into the darkness, then merged with the men who exited the chapel grumbling about the priest not showing up.
Excitement erupted the moment the engineer stepped into the car and found the crates and the guard missing. The girls worked their way back inside the now-empty chapel, to the sound of pebbles flying against the rails as the crew dashed ahead toward the far end of the tunnel. The whistle blew.
Surreptitiously, the girls tiptoed through the chapel, extinguished the candles on the altar and the lantern beside the door, then headed for the passageway beside it.
Not until she had locked the door behind her did Aurelia recall her serape, which lay forgotten on the front pew. Although she doubted it could be used to identify her, she dared not take the chance.
“Wait for me at the shrine,” she called to the girls, who were already halfway up the steps.
Quickly, she darted back into the chapel, rushed to the pew, and felt for the forgotten clothing.
An arm grabbed hers.
“So, I catch a thief.” The words echoed menacingly through the pitch-dark chapel. “Where were you hiding?”
“Hiding?” she whispered.
“And the coins?”
“Coins?”
The arm jerked her around. She fell against a taut, muscled body. “You are no thief.”
“Thief?” Aurelia felt weak. Her heart pounded so hard it hurt, or was that her fear? She had heard of fear causing a person’s heart to stop. Was her heart stopping here in this dark chapel?
“You are nothing but a damned woman.” As if to be certain, he jerked both her arms, throwing her chest against his own.
Aurelia froze. The dismay in her assailant’s voice did nothing to conceal its familiarity. She knew this man.
Nuncio Quiroz.
She struggled to free herself, fearful now to speak lest he recognize her voice as well.
Nuncio Quiroz, her father’s mine superintendent.
He gripped her arms tightly, hurting her. “Where is your lover, puta? Or were you waiting here for me?”
Desperately, she kicked at his shins with her booted feet. The word puta, whore, rang like a funeral dirge inside her head. Nuncio Quiroz had molested her with his eyes every time she’d gone into the miners’ camp with her mother, until at length she had stopped going.
“Your lover cannot meet you tonight, puta,” Quiroz gloated, maneuvering her flailing arms behind her. “My men are chasing him down the tracks even now. And we are alone. Your lover stole my load of coins. How ’bout I steal his piece of fun?”
Aurelia felt like a caged animal, frightened, panicked. Her fear of Nuncio Quiroz had nothing to do with the robbery now, nor even with the fact that he worked for her father. Her fear of this man stemmed from the way he always made her flesh crawl by the very lust in his eyes.
Now he held her in his hands, and she struggled to free herself.
“Have you no voice, my little thief? No matter.” His shaggy hair touched her face in the darkness and she jerked her head away, wrenching her neck in the process.
“Hold still now.” His greater strength overpowered her and his lips slid across her face, wetting her cheek, while his hands worked behind her, transferring both her flailing arms to one of his large, work-strengthened hands.
She had heard it said that the double-jack hammer created muscles out of the weakest flesh. Nuncio Quiroz was known as one of the best double-jack men in the territory.
Struggle as she did, his one free hand was so strong he soon overpowered her. Gripping the back of her head, he forced her mouth to his and pushed her lips apart with his tongue, entering, violating, sickening her.
Her heart pumped painfully. She had never experienced anything as terrifying, until his hand left her head and began to fumble at the neck of her shirt.
She struggled; he persisted, jerking her arms so violently she began to fear he would wrench them from their sockets.
“You’re a hellcat for sure,” he mumbled. She felt his hand rip her shirt, try again, then rip her chemise.
His hand touched her flesh. She flinched.
“Come now, puta. You came here for a little fun. That is what I will give you. Where do you want it? Behind the altar where you were hiding?”
His words brought to mind the door. Pia and Zita.
His hand gripped her bare breast. She screamed, but the sound was muffled by his mouth as he closed his lips over hers again.
What if Pia and Zita returned? What if they called her name? She struggled, trying to kick him, trying to free herself.
She would be ruined forever if this monster discovered who she was.
She would be ruined forever anyway if he had his way.
Roughly, he kneaded her breast in his hamlike fist. “So ripe and firm. No sagging old mother, you. Who are you, anyhow? An Indian wench from El Astillero?”
With a great heave, he lifted Aurelia off her feet, bending her backward across his forearm with such force she expected to hear her spine crack. Her feet thrashed in a feeble attempt to inflict injury on this demon.
Suddenly, she felt something wet on her breast, a suckling sensation, teeth. A shudder convulsed through her body at the vileness of his touch. Then his hand moved downward, between their bodies. She felt him fumble with the band on her breeches. If he weren’t the strongest man she had ever seen…
“Quiroz? You in here? Find anything?”
“Nada.” Nuncio Quiroz grunted. “Nothing except…” He gave her breast one last suckle. “I’m coming.” He shoved her away. “Next time, puta, I’ll get them breeches off you.”
“We must tell your parents.”
“No, Pia. We can’t.”
“You can’t stay in bed crying forever, Relie. We have to tell them.”
For one brief moment this morning after María, her maid, awakened her with a glass of orange juice, Aurelia had felt fine, as though today were an ordinary autumn day. Then María had drawn back the heavy damask draperies, letting in the sunlight, and Aurelia uttered one word.
“Don’t.” An innocent word intended merely to alert the maid that she wished to sleep a while longer. An innocent word that brought vividly to mind the disaster of the evening before.
An innocent word, calling forth the geyser of tears that had kept her in bed the entire day.
She had not cried last night, at least, she couldn’t recall crying. After escaping the chapel, the three girls had run until their hearts struggled to pump, reaching the cathedral in time to relieve their stand-ins for the last half hour of the novena.
She had not told the others what had happened in the chapel; at least, she didn’t think she had. The only thing she could recall of the trip home was the overwhelming need she felt to cleanse herself.
Time after time she had stopped and spat onto the ground in a furious attempt to purge all traces of Nuncio Quiroz from her body. Arriving home, she had drunk glass after glass of water, swishing the liquid around in her mouth, spitting out the residue.
Then before retiring, she repeatedly bathed the breast that monster had violated, rubbing it with oil of roses. Finally, she gave up cleansing herself and went to bed, finding a measure of security in the massive carved walnut four-poster with its damask and lace canopy. Snuggling into the feather mattress, she protec
ted her body with a mound of fluffy pillows and closed her eyes.
Only then had she realized how badly her body trembled.
It had been her mother who summoned Pia, after María summoned her. Although Doña Bella was adept at dealing with the most appalling problems brought to her by the miners’ wives, she had never had much luck with her own daughter.
“Relie is your daughter, not mine,” Doña Bella was fond of telling her husband after an especially trying bout with a young, unmanageable Aurelia.
Which to Aurelia’s mind was one more piece of evidence that her mother had completely forgotten her own youth. For in Aurelia’s heart, she knew she resembled down to the most minute detail the youthful Bella Lopez at the Court of Maximilian.
The only thing she lacked was a chance to prove it.
Now that no longer mattered. Now she never wanted to leave the safety of her own bedchamber again in her entire life.
“Relie,” Pia implored, “we must get you some help.”
“Help? What kind of help? If I told my parents what happened in the chapel, I would have to tell them why I was there. You and Zita would be exposed, too.”
“We will take our chances,” Zita told her.
Although Pia arrived at mid-morning, having been summoned by Doña Bella, Zita didn’t come until after siesta, bearing news of the town’s uproar over the latest train robbery.
“I won’t let you do that,” Aurelia replied. “The whole thing was my fault.” She stuffed a lacy pillow over her face and let it absorb a new rush of tears. “I refuse to ruin your reputations, which is the only thing that would come from telling them.”
“Your father would fire Nuncio Quiroz,” Pia retorted. “Or hang him.”
Aurelia shook her head. “Nuncio Quiroz is a vile man. He would deny anything ever happened. And what proof do I have? My word?”
“And ours.”
Aurelia sighed. “No one would believe us. Not after all the pranks we have pulled through the years. Papá would think I made it up to escape Catorce.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Zita objected. “The whole town is upset over this second robbery. That guard reported seeing three, maybe four bandits. And Nuncio Quiroz said he suspects one of them to be a woman.”
“Suspects!” Aurelia shuddered, recalling the events of the evening before. “He knows.”
“You are certain he didn’t recognize you?” Pia asked.
Aurelia nodded, twisting a corner of her sheet in nervous fingers.
“If he had,” Zita added, “you would be in a peck of trouble. He would also know you could get him fired.”
“He called me an Indian puta.” Her tears returned. “I hate him.”
Pia sat on the bed. Taking Aurelia’s hands, she pulled them away from her swollen eyes. “It’s you I’m worried about. What are we going to do?”
Aurelia threw her arms around Pia’s neck. “Stop playing foolish games, that’s what,” she said between sobs. “I’m sorry, truly I am. I never knew how stupid my ideas were. I never thought of…of the consequences.”
The girls jumped like the conspirators they were when the door burst open and Doña Bella bustled in.
“Relie, dear, the doctor is on his way. I cannot imagine what disease you must have picked up. Why, you haven’t stayed in bed a full day since you learned to crawl about on your own.”
“Doctor Perez?” Aurelia envisioned him looking into her mouth. Could he detect signs of the horrid ordeal she had experienced the evening before?
Or worse. What if he insisted on examining her body? She crossed her arms over her breasts in a protective fashion. “No. I will not see the doctor.”
“Yes, you will, dear. No daughter of mine is going to lie abed with a possibly deadly disease without me doing my best to cure it.”
“Doña Bella,” Pia began, “the doctor isn’t necessary.”
Doña Bella frowned at her future daughter-in-law. “¿Qué dice?”
“I said…” Pia looked quickly to Aurelia, who noted the trepidation in her eyes. Soft-spoken Pia came from a family of quiet people; her mother probably never raised her voice to so much as scold her children.
Sitting up in bed, Aurelia inhaled a deep breath for courage. “Pia is right, Mamá. I was just saying how I must be up in time for dinner. I’m…I am famished. It was a passing thing, something in the air at Vespers last night.”
Doña Bella scrutinized her daughter. Then she turned a sharp eye to each of the friends. Although the girls had exasperated most of the populace of Real de Catorce during their childhood, Doña Bella prided herself on being possibly the only person in town to stay ahead of them and their little schemes. “¿Es verdad?”
The girls nodded, solemn.
“It is true, Doña Bella,” Zita assured her quickly. “I was not well this morning myself.”
“Nor I,” Pia interjected.
“And we are perfectly well now, Mamá. All of us. Perhaps we can invite the girls to dinner.”
Long past feeling a social compunction to keep the three girls together twenty-four hours a day, Doña Bella shook her head. “Another time, my dear. Papá is bringing Enrique home for dinner. Get dressed now.”
She dismissed the girls. “You may call tomorrow.”
After hugging Aurelia, Pia and Zita followed the señora from the room. Aurelia called Pia back.
“Help me find something to wear,” she suggested. Then when her mother’s footsteps echoed down the hall, she buried her face in the pillow again. “Enrique! If they had their way, I would be married to him even before your own wedding.”
Pia was already going through Aurelia’s wardrobe. She held up a peach-colored gown with a deep décolletage. “How about this?”
Aurelia’s eyes riveted on the low-cut neckline. Tears gushed from her eyes. She crushed a wad of twisted sheets to her face to stem the flow.
Pia threw the gown to the bed and hugged her friend. “What is it, Relie? What have you not told us? That vile man kissed you, yes? What else? Did he?…I mean, he didn’t?…”
“No, he didn’t. But he…Oh, Pia, did you talk to Santos? I mean about—?”
Pia shook her head. “I couldn’t work up the courage. And when I tried to show him, he misunderstood.”
“Praise Saint Cecilia! Don’t ever take my advice again. Not ever. I was so wrong. Being with a man…like that…is disgusting.”
“You said he didn’t—”
“He didn’t, but he did more than I said. And I don’t ever want a man to touch me again. It’s disgusting. Sickening.” She grabbed the gown Pia had taken from the wardrobe and threw it across the room. “I will never wear anything to expose my…my…” Suddenly, she crossed her arms over her breasts to control her shaking. “I will marry Enrique. He doesn’t look like the sort who would try to touch me.”
“What did that man do, Relie? Do you want to talk about it?”
Aurelia lifted her eyes to her friend’s. “He put his tongue inside my mouth!” She shuddered. “I tried to bite him, but he held my jaws so tight I’m surprised I don’t have bruises.”
At the thought, she lifted her chin and turned it from side to side for Pia to inspect. “I don’t, do I?”
Pia shook her head, her eyes sad, thoughtful.
“And then he…he ripped open my shirt, and he…he grabbed me…here.” She covered the offended breast with her hand. “He hurt me, Pia, but that isn’t the worst of it. He put his…” She stopped, took a deep breath for courage, then continued. “He put his mouth over me…here.” She continued with a face so screwed with disgust that her words were barely audible. “He suckled like a babe, except that he bit me and he hurt…”
“Stop, Relie. Stop.” Pia embraced her friend, holding her head tight. “That’s enough. Don’t talk about it anymore.” She smoothed Aurelia’s hair against her head. “It’s over. He won’t ever touch you again.”
“No one will.”
Pia tightened her hold on her friend. “Don’t
say that, Relie. Someday you will fall in love. When you do, you will feel differently about things. I am not sure, but I don’t think it was so much what he did as how he did it. And who he was. When you fall in love, things will be different.”
“No, Pia, you were right to be frightened. Even if you do love your husband, it is something to be endured, not enjoyed, as I thought. There is nothing romantic about it.”
Tears streamed down her face. “There is nothing romantic about life. I was foolish to believe so.”
Dinner was a trial to be suffered, beginning as she had known it would when she descended the stairs.
“Relie, dear, whatever were you thinking, wearing that old gray morning gown?”
Aurelia glanced at the expanse of skin showing above her mother’s properly low-cut dinner gown.
Doña Bella’s frown deepened. “You have no time to change now. Yolanda has already called us to dinner. Did you not hear the first bell?”
Aurelia followed her mother into the drawing room, where Enrique and her father waited.
Enrique took her arm to escort her to the comedor behind her parents. “I’m sorry you are not feeling well, señorita.”
She tried to smile, but most of her energy was engaged in keeping herself from flinching at his touch. Fortunately, her arms were covered, preventing the contact of his skin on hers.
At the table Don Domingo launched immediately into a discourse about the latest robbery and the efforts to catch the perpetrators.
Enrique’s enthusiasm echoed her father’s. “The Federales will apprehend those men before sunup.”
“That is what Don Domingo told us at breakfast,” Doña Bella agreed. “Except he predicted the culprits would be incarcerated by lunchtime.”
Don Domingo cleared his throat. “Some things are unpredictable, my dear.”
“Quite so. The robberies, however, appear not to be among them. They are becoming all too predictable.”
“Which is precisely why I am sending you and Relie to Guanajuato first thing in the morning.”
Aurelia raised stricken eyes from her plate of carne asada. “There is no need, Papá. The outlaws have not shown themselves a threat to anyone in town.”
Silver Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Two Page 3
