“Bring the prisoner back here,” she told Kino and Joaquín. “We will escape together by the staircase. And remember: Two guards will be in the compartment with the prisoner. Do you have cable cutters? And rifles?”
“Sí,” Kino mumbled as he dashed across the tracks behind Joaquín, just ahead of the beam of light from the engine.
Aurelia closed the chapel door and leaned against it. Her heart thrashed wildly. Her friends clung to her on either side.
“Move away from me,” she warned. “He must think I am alone. Hide in the corners by the door, like we planned. When Kino and Joaquín come with the prisoner, lead them to the staircase.” She groped her way up the aisle, praying the train would stop, praying it would not.
Iron wheels screeched. Aurelia clasped her hands over her ears to close out the sounds, to close out what lay ahead.
Footsteps echoed down the aisle. “Where are you, puta?” The footsteps scrunched to a halt on the rock surface of the floor. “I have no time for games. Where the hell are you?”
“Here.” Her voice squeaked. The words broke in two, reminding her of her body broken over Nuncio Quiroz’s arm here in this very chapel. She wanted to run. She wanted to scream.
Rough hands gripped her shoulders. “Had a change of mind?” He jerked her around and began to fumble with her clothing. “What the hell?…You’re dressed up like for a snowstorm.” She felt him tense. “What are you holding on to?” He tried to jerk the satchel from her hand, but Aurelia gripped the handle until at length he relented.
His mouth found hers.
She stiffened, started to pull away, but his arms bound her to him while his hands groped with the back of her dress.
Suddenly, he stopped. She felt him glance behind him. “Are you tricking me?”
She panicked. Throwing her arms around his neck, she buried her face in his foul-smelling chest. Her stomach flipped.
He relaxed. “What have I got hold of? Not a virgin?”
This time when his lips closed over hers she endured the repulsive kiss, while his hands fumbled with her garments. Aurelia could tell he was becoming angry, but she could not bring herself to stand still.
“You have enough clothes on to outfit my entire crew,” he fussed. “Why are you jumping around like a frog? Can’t wait, huh? Like me.”
Then his hands found their mark. She felt them on her thighs. Only her bloomers separated her skin from his hand. Perhaps he did not know about…
The door of the chapel banged open. Footsteps shuffled down the aisle. The prisoner? Was it almost over?
But he did know about the opening in the crotch of women’s bloomers. She would have laughed at her ignorance had she not been so terrified. A man like Nuncio Quiroz not knowing how to get inside a woman’s bloomers?
Footsteps stumbled past them, but Quiroz paid no attention. More footsteps. She tried to count them, but her attention was diverted by her struggle. A minute longer, she prayed. A minute. She wiggled herself away from Quiroz’s groping hand.
Too late.
“Ah, there it is.” His hand stroked her in an intimate, sickening fashion, touching her body as no one had ever done before. Then suddenly he let go. She struggled.
“Hold still. I won’t be a minute.”
Before she realized he had done so, he had unsheathed himself. She felt something fleshy and hot and very hard against her bloomers.
His hand groped and shoved.
She flinched. He found the opening in her bloomers again, pressed himself through it. He felt hot, vile, large. Flesh touched flesh. Hot and wet.
“Aurelia, come on!”
He froze.
She pulled back, stumbling to find her footing.
“Aurelia?” he rasped. “Mazón?” The word was whispered on his foul breath.
She pulled away.
He slapped her. “Bitch!” He slapped her again. “Bitch. You thought to trick me?”
Suddenly, someone jerked her arm, pulling her backward, away from Quiroz.
“Bitch!” he roared. “I will kill you for this.” His hands grazed her neck, scratching, reaching.
Then she was gone. Her feet left the floor. She felt a strong arm around her waist, carrying her past the altar, depositing her inside the narrow stairway. The door closed; she heard the lock turn.
The arm supported her, holding her close, guiding her up the narrow staircase.
“Who?…” Her voice rasped. Her brain felt frozen inside her head.
Strong hands gripped her about the waist, lifting her upward from step to step.
“Couldn’t leave my guardian angel behind, could I?”
The air above ground hit her face, bringing a sense of life and urgency. Her legs buckled when she tried to hurry to the shrine where Pia and Zita awaited.
The prisoner steadied her. “I sent your friends ahead. Those two boys said they would see them safely home.”
“They left me?”
“I told them I would get you home.”
“They wouldn’t leave me alone with a train robber.”
He chuckled. “You must have convinced them I’m not a train robber.” Sounds of boots scrambling up the hillside alerted them. “But those fellers don’t know it. Let’s get down off this mountain. Which way?”
Aurelia glanced toward town. “That—” Suddenly, a group of men cleared the ridge of the hill, running straight toward them.
“I think not.” His hand grabbed Aurelia’s. “We had best hightail it.”
Her brain didn’t start working again until the prisoner had dragged her down the opposite side of the mountain from Real de Catorce, led her into a deep ravine, pulled her in and out among the heavy growth of mesquite and cactus, over rocks and boulders, across the ravine and up the other side, then over it and down onto a stretch of open land at the foot of the hills.
He stopped, dropped her hand, and peered into the blackness around them. “Where are we?”
She groaned. “On the other side of the mountain from my home.”
“Think you can pinpoint it a bit more than that?” His sarcastic question was voiced in a jocular tone of voice.
Was this man mad? Throwing back her head, Aurelia stared into the black sky. They said the sky was always blackest just before sunrise.
As though following her thoughts, he spoke. “Won’t be long till daylight. The Federales will use us for target practice unless we find a place to hide.”
“I have to get to the other side of the mountain.”
“Why?”
“There’s a…a place I know over there. I’ll be safe.”
He grunted. “Safe? From that madman you tricked back there? If you think he’s fixin’ to let you get away with breaking his train robber out of jail, you’re crazy.”
“For your information, that is not why he was angry.”
“Oh? A lover’s spat?”
Aurelia inhaled. “Look. You go your way, I will go mine. I merely saved your life, I didn’t take you on to raise.”
He laughed. “Seems we’re even then, ma’am. I saved your life, too, case you didn’t notice.”
“If it hadn’t been for you, my life would not be in jeopardy.”
“I still owe you? Is that what you’re saying?”
“You owe me nothing.” She got her bearings and started north.
He followed. She stopped.
“Where are you going?” she demanded.
“North.” He shrugged. “There’s one place in this whole cotton-pickin’ country where I might have a friend. Can I help it if it happens to be north of here?”
“If you have a friend in this cotton-pickin’ country,” she accused, “why didn’t you let him get you out of jail, instead of involving me in your…in your criminal activities?”
He studied her with a suddenly grave expression. “I gave my word not to mention his name.”
“Your word?”
“My word,” he repeated. “My honor. Surely you understand…”
<
br /> “I understand honor, gringo. I also understand danger.”
He held up a rifle and fingered the bandoleers slung across his chest. “Which is why you shouldn’t object to me being along. I appear to be the only one of us who is armed.” He screwed his neck around to gaze at her skirts. “Unless you carry a dagger in your garter—or in that satchel you’re holding on to for dear life.”
“Oh!”
“That’s what I thought. You forgot to arm yourself.”
“I didn’t plan to shoot anyone,” she retorted. “But I suppose you do.”
“Only if they shoot at me first, ma’am. Or at you. Way I figure it, we haven’t either one finished the jobs we set out to do tonight.”
“What jobs?”
“Saving each other’s lives.”
She stomped off, and he fell in step.
“Where is the nearest Federales Station?” he asked.
“Matehuala.”
“That close?” She heard concern in his voice.
“Now do you understand why I want to get to the other side of this damned mountain?” she demanded.
He was silent for a while. When he spoke, it was to jest again. “Can’t figure you out. You dress like a widow, cuss like a—”
“I did not invite you to come with me.” Did this man take nothing seriously? No wonder he ended up in jail.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, but his tone didn’t sound the least bit contrite. “Guess I’m naturally the curious sort.”
“You certainly are that.”
“Your voice, on the other hand,” he continued, “is cultured, sort of pleasing.”
“Save your breath, gringo. If you’re coming with me, you are going to need it. Don’t expect me to wait for you to catch up.”
He chuckled.
Strange, she thought. Although she was furious with him and with herself, his jesting calmed her. She hadn’t had time to think back on the ordeal in the chapel. Once the thought came, however, she shuddered, then stumbled.
He caught her shoulders, holding her steady for a moment.
When she regained her balance and continued up the trail, her legs had stopped trembling. But he had felt her tremors, she knew he had, even though he hadn’t mentioned it. In fact, he didn’t speak again for several minutes.
It wasn’t so bad having him along, she decided. The idea of being out here all alone was chilling. She began to think about arriving at Rancho Mazón. What if the stranger insisted on following her all the way to the ranch? How would she explain him to Santos? How would she explain any of this to Santos? Not only the breakout, but the robberies. Her robberies.
And Nuncio Quiroz. Nuncio Quiroz, she would never explain to anyone. Not until…Forcibly, she turned her thoughts to other things.
The fact that she had brought this desperate ordeal on herself disconcerted her further. A scheme to escape Real de Catorce. She had certainly succeeded in that.
At a widening in the trail, the stranger came up beside her. “Figure we have no more than an hour’s worth of darkness left. Come morning, this country will be crawling with Federales.”
She did not acknowledge his statement. What was the use? They both knew it to be true.
And what would the Federales do? Shoot first and ask questions later? Or would Nuncio Quiroz get to her first?
The country was broken and rugged. They stumbled up one ravine and down another, with first Aurelia leading, then the stranger, heading north, following the Star, climbing ever higher and higher.
Daylight found them on a precipice overlooking a gorge, with a fast-running stream a good five hundred meters below.
The stranger glanced to their backtrail. “How far are we from Real de Catorce?”
“Ten kilometers or so.”
He groaned. “Behind us, I hope.”
She nodded, scanning the landscape across the gorge. “And I need to go a good hundred kilometers that way, west.”
He whistled. Hastily searching the area north and west, he turned and looked behind them. “Not today, we don’t. Today we find a place to hole up.” He studied the cliff across the river. “Are those caves?”
“Sí. There are many caves in these mountains. People live in some of them.”
“People? Who?”
“Indians. But not close by. Mostly the Indians are west.”
“Beyond where we’re headed?”
“Between here and the…ah…between here and there.”
He led her along a narrow trail that wound down to the river. “You failed to say where we’re headed.”
“Someplace safe, I hope,” she responded.
Turning, he studied her. In the pale light of approaching day, she watched his brown eyes turn serious. She recalled how he had looked at her when she visited him in the jail.
“I hope so, too,” he said. And she knew he wasn’t teasing as before.
They drank at the river. She pulled a clay olla from the tapestry satchel and filled it with clear, cold water, while he studied the caves again. “These are too obvious. They’ll search up and down here.”
Aurelia inhaled a deep breath. What had she gotten them into? She had set out to save him, but instead she had put both their lives in jeopardy. Their stumbling trip surrounded by darkness had given her ample time to consider the situation. She had only herself to blame. No one else.
Pia and Zita had tried to talk sense into her. Ever since they were kids, Pia and Zita had been the sensible ones, she the bufón. Every time she came up with a foolish scheme, they would try to talk her out of it, but she always won them over. She could not recall a single time in all their lives when they had been able to keep her under control.
And out of trouble.
Why had she been born with such a hard head?
“What do you have in that war bag besides a water jug?” The stranger indicated her tapestry satchel.
Delving into it, Aurelia withdrew a cloth in which she had wrapped two tortillas rolled around slices of beefsteak. She handed him one, which he ate with relish.
“Just what my stomach’s been asking for,” he told her around bites. “You’re a fine cook, ma’am.”
His observation startled her and she looked quickly to the stream, reluctant to admit that she had never cooked a meal in her life. “It doesn’t take much skill to roll up a tortilla,” she finally managed.
But his attention had returned to the cliff that loomed in silhouette beyond them. “Up there,” he said. “We’ll head upstream and find a cave high on that cliff. One with a covering of brush.” He started out and she followed.
Her feet ached. She was glad she had thought to wear boots beneath her skirts. She had worn them to climb the hill to the shrine, never dreaming morning would not find her asleep in her own bed.
A bit worked over by Nuncio Quiroz, perhaps, but…
“What’s wrong?”
She looked up to see the stranger staring at her. For a moment she could but stare back, her thoughts in the chapel, on that horrible ordeal.
“Can’t stop yet,” the stranger encouraged.
She shook her head to clear the unwanted thoughts. “I’m coming.”
The trail he found headed practically straight up from the river where they had drunk. She stumbled along behind him, trying to take her mind off her feet.
And off Nuncio Quiroz. Would he really kill her? Probably, she decided. He would have to kill her before she told Papá that he had raped her. The word settled like a heavy black cloud over her heart. An indelible black cloud.
When Papá found out, Nuncio Quiroz would stand to lose more than his job. Papá would kill him.
Exactly how she would tell her father and what she would say perplexed her. Perhaps she would tell Santos instead. When she got to the ranch, she would tell Santos the whole sordid story. He would tell Papá for her.
By the time they reached the top of the cliff, she was perspiring heavily. Working with the buttons on her cloak, she finally managed to tug
it off, tossing it into the brush beside the trail.
The stranger turned at the sound. He stopped, staring first at the cloak, then at her. “Pick it up.”
“I’m getting hot.”
“Pick it up.”
“It’s heavy.”
“Do you want to lead them straight to us?”
She bent to pick up the cloak. “I didn’t think of that.”
“Don’t tell me you are smart enough to plan and execute my escape, but you don’t know not to leave a trail for our pursuers.”
She glared at him. “Obviously not, señor. If I had been the least bit smart, I would not have gotten myself involved in this mess in the first place.”
His eyes softened. “I wondered when you would decide that.”
An hour later, he found what he was looking for. “This should hide us well enough unless…” He peered into the dark mouth of the cave, then looked back at her, his eyes serious. “Do the Federales use dogs?”
“Dogs?” Her mouth went dry when his meaning became clear. “Dogs? No, I don’t think so.”
He smiled, a wry grin, but soothing nonetheless. “We’ll hope not.” With a flourish then, he pushed aside the branches of a bushy huisache tree. “Welcome to my home away from home.”
“Is it?…” She peered into the darkness, hesitant.
“Inhabited? No varmints, best I could tell.” After Aurelia stepped inside, he walked around the mouth of the cave, going back down the trail a good hundred meters or so, checking the ground, the branches, leaves.
When he returned, he sat on one side of the small cave and began tugging at his boots. “Ahhh,” he moaned, wriggling his toes. “That feels good.” He looked up to where she still stood, clutching the cloak to her chest. “Never was much on walking. What we need is Sunfisher. Pity you couldn’t have helped him escape, too.”
“Sunfisher?”
“My horse.”
“Your horse?”
“An animal,” he explained with care. “Four-legged critter. The kind you ride.”
“We will get horses.”
“Oh?”
“As soon as we reach…our destination. There are plenty of horses there. You can use one to continue to your friend’s home.”
“Bet you don’t have a horse like Sunfisher,” he said. “I raised him from a colt. Taught him everything he knows.”
Silver Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Two Page 6
