She stared at him.
“Not that I’m complaining, mind you,” he added. “Don’t guess I thought to mention how grateful I am for your help.”
She nodded, still standing, numbed from their hours of walking through the wilderness as much as from the ordeal that had preceded it.
“You might as well lay yourself down and get some shut-eye,” he suggested. “We aren’t going anywhere till nightfall.”
A small bit of morning light sifted through the lacy leaves of the huisache. “Could we…ah…light a fire?”
“You cold? Put on that cloak.”
“No. I…I would like to look around.”
“What for?”
“Snakes?…”
He stared at her.
“Spiders?”
“For a woman who believed in my innocence enough to risk her neck, you don’t trust me very much, ma’am.”
“It isn’t that. I just don’t like…places like this.”
He laughed softly, not mocking now. “Neither do I. But I don’t figure we have much chance of remaining alive and free if we run around this country in broad open daylight.”
She sat down.
“If you’re not going to wear it, roll that cloak up and use it for a pillow. Get some sleep. We’ll be up all night.” He studied her. “Or at least until we get to…wherever we’re headed.”
Although his tone remained light, Aurelia could tell he was serious about wanting to know their destination. Well, she wasn’t going to tell him. The less anyone learned about her the better. When she got to the ranch, Santos would decide how to help her out of this fix. If she got to the ranch. “What if they come while we’re asleep.”
“They won’t find this place for a while, if at all. I’ll sleep a spell, then I’ll keep watch.”
She eyed him, skeptical.
He grinned. “Don’t worry, ma’am. You’re safe with me. I would never attack a woman who saved my life.”
She gasped.
His voice immediately softened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to call that to mind.”
She felt her face flush. “You saw?”
“Enough to know he wasn’t acting like a gentleman…and that you didn’t cotton to him.”
Her face must surely glow. Obeying him, she hastily rolled the cloak into a ball and lay down. Her back tensed at touching the rocks on the floor, but when nothing crawled beneath her, she relaxed.
“Why don’t you take your boots off…Aurelia? Isn’t that what your friend called you?”
She lay still a moment longer, letting his kindness wash over her. Then she sat up and began tugging at her boots.
“Yes, Aurelia,” she admitted.
“What?”
“What…what?”
“Aurelia what?”
Her first name he already knew. If she could be grateful for anything that had happened during the past night, she supposed it would be that Nuncio Quiroz had whispered her name. This stranger had not heard it. God willing, he would never learn it, although she saw little hope of not dragging her father’s good name through the mud in the long run. She couldn’t expect to keep everything that had happened a secret. Even if Nuncio Quiroz’s attack never became known, spending the night in a cave with a stranger—a wanted man, justly or not—would be enough to ruin her name forever. Her father would never forgive her.
She would be stuck in Real de Catorce, where she should have stayed in the first place. Only now it would be as a ruined woman.
“No last name?”
“No.”
Her boots off, she lay back down.
“Feel better, Aurelia?” His voice was quiet, soft, gently soothing.
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes.
“You know, Aurelia,” he continued as though they were friends, “I’ve been thinking about you. Wondering why a pretty girl such as yourself would involve herself—at such risk—for a perfect stranger.”
She raised her head, curious, resting on an elbow.
“You aren’t a widow like you pretended at the jail?”
“No, I am not a widow.”
“You are either married or you have a lover, and—”
“How dare you!”
“Not married,” he decided aloud. “No lover?”
“Certainly not.”
He sighed audibly. “Maybe I should have said sweetheart?”
“No.” She thought of Enrique. “Except maybe a betrothed.”
“Maybe a betrothed?”
“If my parents had their way.”
“I thought it was either ‘Yes, I am betrothed,’ or ‘No, I am not.’ I wasn’t aware there could be a maybe. But then, I’m not up on all your customs.”
“Like keeping your mouth shut,” she retorted.
He chuckled. “I may be breaking certain rules of conduct, but after all we’ve been through together, I figure propriety doesn’t count for much between us.”
“Then you are mistaken, señor. I may have risked my neck and my…ah…I may have risked my life to help you escape, but we are not bound by anything.”
“That’s the way I figured it.”
“Good.”
“It’s your sweetheart who’s the train robber. He wouldn’t come forward when they arrested an innocent man, so you did, feeling guilty that I, the innocent man, would hang in your sweetheart’s place. Am I warm?”
“You are not within a thousand varas of the truth. And Enrique is not my sweetheart. He…well, he is nothing to me. And he certainly didn’t rob a train.” The thought of it was too much. She laughed. Then once started, her emotions caught up with her and she laughed some more. Soon they were both laughing. Tears ran down her face. “If you knew him,” she said between laughs, “you would know how ridiculous it is to picture him a train robber.”
“Then who? Your father?”
Again she burst into laughter. “Of course not. My father is—” Her laughter stopped abruptly, along with her words. “My father is not a train robber,” she finished, sobered by the fact that she had almost revealed her father’s name and position. If this gringo had been in the country even a short time, he would have heard the Mazón name. Likely, if he knew he was harboring the daughter of the owner of the Mazón mine and of Casa de Moneda, he would tear out of here, leaving her to face the Federales alone.
Or else he would hold her for ransom.
“No, my father is completely innocent of any crime. As is his dear Enrique.”
“Then I’m stumped,” the stranger said. “If someone close to you wasn’t involved in the robbery, how could you be so certain of my innocence? Certain enough to risk…all you did?”
For a long moment she remained deathly still. Thoughts of that chapel quickened her heart and dried her mouth. She reached for the olla, found it, and took a deep swig of cool water. Recorking it, she set it on the ground. In the near darkness, she watched him pick it up, remove the cork, and lift the jug to his lips without wiping off the mouth.
She studied him, drawing strength from his quietness, comfort from his lighthearted jesting.
“Because I am the train robber,” she said.
He sputtered at her words, spewing water over both of them in the close confines of the cave. “You?”
She wiped drops of water from her face. “Do you doubt I could rob a train?”
Their gazes held for a long, long time. She watched the shock in his eyes turn to amazement, then to wonder. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and set the olla aside, still staring at her.
“No, Aurelia,” he said at length, “I do not doubt you could rob a train.”
She lay back down, closed her eyes, and relaxed. She was glad to be here, glad not to be in her own bed crying over Nuncio Quiroz, glad to be with someone who consoled her even amidst the turmoil surrounding them.
“What do I call you?” she asked into the growing daylight.
For a while he didn’t answer. Finally, he said, “Since
we are on a first-name basis, how about Carson?”
Chapter Five
The heat awakened her—midday was always hot in the Sierra Madres in September—the heat and the rocks. Rolling over, she tried to scrape rocks from beneath her. She felt like a trussed-up bird in her corset stays. Then she remembered where she was.
The evening before came back in a rush of anxiety. She looked around the dim cave. Nothing creepy-crawly. No stranger, either.
His name? Carson, that was it. Sunlight streamed through the lacy huisache leaves at the mouth of the cave. She listened but heard no sounds from outside.
Rising, she pushed aside the branches and peered out. Nothing. She studied the river down below, the far hillside. Nothing. She listened intently for sounds—of horses, of men. Still nothing.
Back inside she found where he had left the olla and beside it one of the two cartridge belts.
Her breath caught. She recalled telling him about the train robbery. Had he left, thinking her mad? Or worse, believing her tale, had he decided he would be safer alone?
Again she looked outside the cave. The sun was well past noon. And she was alone.
She studied the far hillside once more. Were the Federales chasing them even now? Had they come this way?
Had they captured Carson?
She sank to the cave floor and drank from the olla. The water felt cool, refreshing. Then from the depths of her consciousness came the memory of Nuncio Quiroz, of his mouth on hers. She wiped her lips furiously with the back of her hand. Recorking the jug, she lay back, her head on the cloak, tears forming in her eyes.
She was alone.
Alone with those dreadful memories.
After the first attack, Pia and Zita had been there to comfort her. Where were they now? What had happened to them? What had they told her parents? Were they looking for her?
Or chasing her?
In the dim interior of the cave, her memories danced to life. She recalled Nuncio Quiroz’s mouth on hers again, his mouth on her throat, on her breast.
She shivered. Tears streamed from her eyes. She sobbed.
She recalled how his hands had felt fumbling with her skirts, felt again his hand inside her bloomers, felt his awful body on hers. The heat, the wetness.
Her sobs intensified, only ceasing when she drifted off to sleep. The next time she awakened it was to sounds outside the cave.
Stopping short of calling for Carson, she scarcely dared to breathe lest the sound give her away to the Federales.
Or to Nuncio Quiroz.
He had vowed to kill her. But she knew what he would do first.
“Aurelia? Are you hungry?”
Relief washed over her, suffocating her for a moment, bringing a return of her tears. Quickly, she dried her face on her skirt and forced the memories of Nuncio Quiroz aside.
Carson was here. Carson would make her laugh.
He had killed a squirrel.
“You risked a shot?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t give me credit for enough sense to get myself out of the rain.”
“Yes, I do. You found us a cave to hide in.”
“I used this.” He held up a piece of leather, as proud as a child with a piñata, she thought.
“A slingshot?” She studied the contraption—a leather strap no larger than the span of her hand with two leather cords, one attached to each end. “Where did you get it?”
“Made it.” He showed her the remnants of the second bandoleer and a knife with an enormous blade, the kind Santos used for skinning deer at the ranch. She winced.
He laughed. “Courtesy of my guards.”
She took the slingshot from his hands and turned it over. “Nice work.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Holding it by the cords, she whirled it over her head, then glanced at the squirrel. “You are that good with this little thing?”
He grinned. “I doubt I would be able to slay a giant like the young shepherd-king David did, but I may be able to keep us from starving altogether. You ready for dinner? I take it you could eat a bear.”
She patted her stomach. “At least.”
“Good. I don’t like to travel with finicky women.”
“You travel this way often?”
He laughed. “Actually, this is the first time I’ve taken a woman…a lady on the trail.” He paused, rubbing his scruffy beard. “As you can see, I’m not prepared for the niceties of fancy living.”
She spread her faded, now hopelessly wrinkled skirt. “We are one of a kind, señor.”
His eyes danced. “Robbers of trains.”
His reminder brought her out of playacting and back to reality, a reality she had created with her own foolhardiness. “I wish I weren’t.”
Watching her come to grips, his eyes softened. “Hey, we’re partners.” He held up the slingshot. “I’m still the armed and dangerous one.”
He had cooked the squirrel over a fire a league or so away, he said, not wishing to draw their hunters to them. “What do you have in that war bag to go with this?”
She brought out the last of the tortillas and some goat cheese. The squirrel was tough and greasy and delicious. Aurelia could have eaten two whole ones, and she knew he could have, too.
“As soon as we reach…ah…our destination, we can fill our bellies.”
He laughed. “Good. Mine’s anxious to see what else you can cook up. Not that the tortillas and beef didn’t hit the spot while they lasted.”
She caught herself short of admitting her lack of culinary skills. “Thank you.”
What would he think to learn she had never cooked a dish in her life? A woman raised with a houseful of servants out robbing trains? He would probably run as fast as his sore feet could carry him.
At his insistence, they spent the afternoon in the cave. “Best get some shut-eye while we can. Before you nod off, you might say a prayer for a few stars to guide us through the dark hours ahead.”
“I’m afraid He won’t listen to me anymore after all I’ve done.”
He smiled at her, a wry, soft smile that warmed his brown eyes. “It can’t as bad as all that.”
His tenderness brought tears to her eyes. “You don’t know.”
She slept then, and when she awakened it was near dusk. Soft noises drifted to her from outside the cave. She smiled, hearing him sing in a hoarse, whispery sort of voice.
“Set me free. Set me free. I thought you were my lover who has come to set me free.”
She found him sitting with a gourd full of water, holding the edge of that wicked blade to his face.
“What are you doing?”
He jumped at her voice, then eyed her fiercely. “Don’t you know better than to scare a man while he’s shaving?”
“Shaving?”
“Shaving.” He swished the blade in the water and began to scrape his jaw.
“You’ll cut yourself.”
“I’m not in the habit of it.”
“You are probably not in the habit of shaving without a looking glass, either.” She glanced around. “Or soap.”
He shrugged, sheepish.
She crossed to kneel in front of him, inspecting the blade, then the reddened streak down his jaw. “You don’t have to shave for me.”
“For you?” He grinned. “I’m shaving for myself.”
She frowned, disbelieving.
“I am.” He ran a hand under his grizzled jaw. “Can’t stand the scratching on my neck.”
“Then let me do it, so you won’t cut your throat.”
“You? Shave me?”
She reached for the knife, but he drew his hand away.
She persisted. “If you thought my cloak would lead the Federales to us, what about your blood?”
“Oh?” He appeared to consider her observation. “I forgot, you’re the expert on escapes.”
“I suspect you are much better at it than I am, since you surely have had more experience.”
He frown
ed. “How’s that?”
She liked the way he frowned, bringing his eyebrows together in the center so that they slanted down at angles almost touching the laugh-creases on his cheeks. He laughed more than any man she had ever known besides Santos.
“Like Zita said,” she answered him, “you were probably up to no good, or you wouldn’t have been in the wrong place at the right time to get yourself caught.”
He stared at her a moment, his frown deepening. “I suppose it could look that way,” he admitted. “For your information, I had never been in jail before.”
She shrugged. “Like I said, you are probably experienced at escaping—if not jail, then apprehension.” While he was distracted, she took the knife and scooted closer to him, inspecting his jaw. “Look up at the sky.”
“You’re crazy.”
She inhaled. “Maybe, but that has nothing to do with shaving. Look up.”
He caught her hand. “I’m not disputing your ability to shave a man, Aurelia. But I don’t have a hankerin’ to get my throat cut way up on the mountain like this. You could never carry me down to bury me.”
“Why would I cut the throat of the man I lost my virginity to save from hanging?” The words tumbled out before she could stop them. Afterwards, she caught her lip between her teeth and closed her eyes to keep from staring into his startled face.
His hand tightened on her wrist. He held her steady, unmoving for what seemed like an eternity. When he spoke, his voice was soft, tired. “Look at me, Aurelia.”
Reluctantly, she complied.
“Did he?…”
She glared at him, angry with herself for blurting out such a thing. “Yes, if you must know. Yes.” Tears escaped the corners of her eyes and rolled down her dry cheeks, burning a trail as they went.
“My God, angel, I’m sorry. So sorry.”
She looked into his eyes and saw the pools of agony through her own tears. He released her wrist and wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs, cupping her face in his hands. She turned her lips into his palm and felt its warmth.
Gradually, a measure of peace like he had given her earlier seeped into her pain. She felt his other hand stroke her hair. Heard him mumble her name again and again, calling her angel.
She looked into his eyes. “I’m no angel. Ask anyone in town.”
Silver Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Two Page 7
