“You aren’t injured, are you?” he asked. “Do you need medical attention?”
She looked at the fire, then picked up a stick and poked at it. “If there was a medicine for wounded pride, I would take that,” she added, an exotic Mexican accent to her words that Clay found appealing.
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have anything for that. Do you want some coffee?”
She sighed. “Sí. I could use some, if you American soldiers make coffee that a person can bear to drink.”
Clay did grin then. “Well, I can’t guarantee that.” He picked up a cloth to wrap around the handle of the coffeepot that sat on hot coals near the fire. He poured some into a spare cup. “Seems to me you Mexicans ought to be able to eat or drink just about anything if your stomachs can handle those hot peppers you like so much.”
He handed the cup to her, and Nina met his eyes again, their fingers touching when she took the cup. An odd force moved through Nina so strongly that she drew in her breath. What on earth was this feeling this blue-eyed soldier gave her? “You have tried the hot peppers?” she asked, quickly turning to look at the fire again, afraid he would read her eyes.
“Tried them and thoroughly regretted it,” he answered. “I swear, if a man ate enough of them they would burn holes in his stomach.”
This time it was Nina who had to smile. “Maybe in a gringo’s stomach. My father used to say that our people have a special lining inside that white men do not have. Even on the outside we are tougher. We can take the sun better.”
“Well, I think he had a point there.”
Nina sipped some coffee, watching the dancing flames. “My father was a good man. We were a happy family, until the Texans came. They claimed to be soldiers. They burned everything, stole all our livestock, murdered my father. My mother…”
The air hung still, the popping sound of the fire seeming to grow louder as Nina’s clothes burned. “Emilio told me about your mother,” Clay informed her. He set his coffee cup aside and took out a thin cigar, reaching over to pick up a burning stick to light it. Nina looked over at Emilio. “He needs that sleep,” Clay observed. “I imagine you do, too.”
She sighed deeply. “I am so tired that I do not know if I can sleep. Have you ever been that tired?”
Clay took a few puffs on the cigar. “I have—on one particular Indian campaign especially. We were right on the heels of some raiding Comanche, didn’t dare stop to rest. There are times when I think Indians can go for a week without sleeping. We trailed them for three days, taking catnaps in our saddles. By the time we caught up with them, we were in a daze. We managed to subdue them. Killed a few and took some prisoners. But I wasn’t very alert by then, and a Comanche brave sliced his tomahawk across my chest. Worst wound I ever took. I always figured it was because I was so tired by then that I just couldn’t react quickly enough to defend myself. At any rate, it took me about a week to really be able to sleep well again, but it wasn’t just the pain of the wound. It was like my body had been trained not to know how to slow down.”
Nina drank some more coffee, realizing that this was the first time she had ever carried on a peaceful conversation with a gringo. It felt strange. She wanted to rail him with insults and tell him he was cruel and hateful just like all the rest. He was going to turn her over to the authorities, wasn’t he? Yet here they sat, talking as though they had known each other for a long while. She felt no animosity, and that confused her. She told herself she had better be careful. Maybe this gringo was clever at getting information. Maybe he was tricking her in some way.
“If you gringos would stay out of places where you do not belong, you would not find such trouble,” she told him, trying to show him she was not impressed by his skill and bravery. “You call yourselves Texans, but Texas belongs to my people. You came here without permission and stole it all from us. You deserve whatever the Apache or the Comanche do to you. The Indians used to be our problem, now they are yours.”
He watched her full lips as she spoke, studied the slender, delicate structure of her exotic face, the perfect setting of her eyebrows, the high cheekbones and delicate nose.
“It might interest you to know that I don’t consider myself a Texan at all. I’m in the Army, and I just go where they send me. Texas sure as hell isn’t my favorite place in the world, but the Army sent me here, and unless I want to get shot for disobedience, I have no choice but to do what I’m told.”
She laughed bitterly. “Sí, I know firsthand why American soldiers are in Texas.”
Clay sighed. “The war is finished, Nina. You and your brother have to understand and accept that. All we’re concerned with now is keeping the peace and doing something about the Indians.”
“And now the great Indian fighter is in charge of a circus,” she goaded, “a sideshow of strange-looking beasts from another land.”
Clay felt the intended insult, but he knew she was just looking for ways to hurt him, as she feared she was herself going to be hurt. “Well, somebody has to do it. Like I say, I have to obey orders.”
She turned to look at him again, her eyes moving over him. “So, if you do not call yourself a Texan, then what are you?” she asked, feeling secretly sorry for her cutting remark. She wanted to change the subject; more than that, she took a strange comfort in sitting and talking with him. She remembered Emilio’s warning that she should try to appeal to the lieutenant’s softer side, if indeed he had one. She would swallow her pride and be friendly. He made it so easy, for he continued to display only a friendly, caring attitude.
“I’m from Pennsylvania,” he told her.
She toyed with a hot coal. “Where is this Pennsylvania?”
He snickered. “A hell of a long way from Texas, that’s for sure. About fifteen hundred miles or better, north and east of here, and damn cold in the winter.”
She shoved the coal around in the sand. “Do you have a wife? Does she live there?” Why on earth had she asked such a question? She wished she could take it back.
There was a long silence, and Clay puffed quietly on the cigar before he answered. “She’s buried there,” he finally told her.
The bitterness and pain in the words struck her heart. A wave of pity moved through her, followed by her own shock that she would feel sorry for a man who represented everything she had always hated. “I am sorry I asked,” she finally said. She swallowed more coffee.
“A lot of us are sorry about a lot of things,” he told her. He sighed deeply, reaching over to grab the coffeepot and refill his own cup. “But that was almost eight years ago. And we are avoiding a more important subject, namely you and your brother. You’re in a lot of trouble, you know.”
There it was. He was still a gringo and a soldier at heart. First things first—Mexicans, horse thieves. There would be no pity after all. She met his eyes. “My brother is not bad, Señor Lieutenant. Nor am I. We do what we do to survive.”
Her lips pouted temptingly, but Clay forced himself to remain detached, reminded himself he must stop being affected by her beauty and innocence. Still, the sight of her bruised face and the marks on her neck and wrists tore at him. Surely she had been terrified during her ordeal, yet here she sat, looking brave and haughty. He had not seen her shed one tear.
“The Texans left us nothing,” she continued. “We buried our parents and tried to farm our land ourselves, but it is poor land, and my brother and I were so young. We had no other family. Have you been to Mexico, señor?”
He took his cigar from his mouth and studied her. “Only briefly.”
“There are no jobs, and my people still suffer from the losses of the war. If you had seen what Emilio and I saw, your heart would be just as bitter,” she sneered. “The Americans stole from us, so by stealing from them we get some small vengeance for what happened to our mother and father, and at the same time we get good money for the horses.”
“You must know you can’t steal horses for the rest of your lives,” Clay answered. “It has to stop,
Nina. Don’t you want to live like a normal woman, be settled, find a husband, have babies?”
She quickly looked away, embarrassed. Why had he asked that? Could he read her mind so well? And there was that word again. Babies. Never! Never would she do what had to be done to have one, no matter how much she might long at times to be a mother. “The Texans destroyed any chance for us to have normal lives,” she said quietly.
“Did they? That’s just an excuse, and you know it. You steal horses because you enjoy the danger and excitement. The life you’re leading is going to end in death, Nina, maybe in something worse for you. You should know that better than ever now, after what just happened to you!”
She turned, tossing her drying hair and throwing the stick into the fire. “What does it matter to you? If you turn us in to the authorities, Emilio and I have no future anyway. Even if we wanted to stop what we are doing, it would not matter now. They will hang Emilio. Maybe they will even hang me! Do not sit there and pretend concern and sympathy, Señor Lieutenant! You are no different from all the others! You will deliver us like a Judas and that will be that!” She rose, putting her hands on her hips. “Where am I to sleep? I wish to end this conversation.”
Clay threw his cigar into the fire, his head aching fiercely from his confusion and indecision over the beautiful Mexican spitfire who stood before him. He rose slowly, nodding toward an empty bedroll on the other side of the fire. “You can sleep there.”
“Fine.” She whirled, marching to the other side of the fire. She plunked down on the bedroll and removed her boots. She checked under the blanket for a possible snake or spider, then moved her feet into the bedroll and lay down, using a rolled-up blanket for a pillow. Secretly, she wondered if the lieutenant was right. Would she live like this forever? She heard the crunch of his footsteps then as he came around the fire to stand close to her, then knelt beside her.
“Tell me something,” he said very quietly. “I need to know, Nina. Is Jess Humes the first man you’ve ever killed?”
She frowned, propping herself up on one elbow to meet his eyes. The question stunned her and stabbed at her faith. She had been struggling to avoid thinking about what she had done. As horrible a man as he was, Jess Humes was dead, dead by her own doing. What would God think of it? A lump rose in her throat. “Sí,” she answered. Suddenly all her feistiness left her, and that only angered her more. Why had he asked such a question? “I had no choice. He was choking me. And he had done bad things to me. He was a very bad man.”
Clay nodded. “I know that. You told me you were glad he was dead. Perhaps you are. A lot of others probably will be, too. But I can’t believe it doesn’t bother you that you’ve killed somebody.”
The words stabbed at her like a knife. She dropped her eyes and lay back down. “If you are asking me if I am a killer, Señor Lieutenant, I am not.” Her voice cracked, and an overwhelming need to cry engulfed her. She found it humiliating and frustrating, yet she could not stop it. She turned away from his, pulling a blanket over her head, trying to stifle her sobs. She felt a strong but gentle hand on her shoulder.
“That’s all I wanted to know,” he told her. “If I’m going to cover for you, I need to know I have good reason.” He squeezed her shoulder gently before leaving her, and Nina wondered if his remark meant he had sympathy for her after all. Maybe, just maybe, there was hope that he would let them go.
Morning camp was busy. Clay’s men added the outlaw gang’s gear and horses to their own supplies and everyone ate a quick breakfast of potatoes, biscuits, and onions. Nina tended lovingly to Emilio, and there was no chance for her to talk quietly again with Clay, although all night long the blue-eyed gringo who left her totally confused had been on her mind.
Before leaving, Clay gathered everyone around the graves of the three dead outlaws, instructing his men to remove their hats while he said a few words. “They might have been killers and thieves,” he told the others, “but it isn’t our place to judge them now. I’m doing this out of respect for God and His own. Let Him make the final judgment.” He said a short prayer over the graves, and Nina felt a tightening at her heart again. She glanced at the lieutenant, who held her eyes for just a moment before turning away to issue some more orders.
Nina watched him, reminded again, now that the sun shone brightly, just how handsome the gringo soldier was. Her emotions were in a whirl, for she still wanted to hate him, refused to believe she could trust him. Still, there was the memory of his hand on her shoulder last night, so reassuring, so understanding.
“Miss Juarez, you might as well ride your own horse,” he told her. “I believe you said the black gelding over there is yours.”
“Sí,” she replied, sauntering closer. “And he is mine, free and clear. He is not stolen.”
Clay grinned. “That thought never even crossed my mind.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Didn’t it?”
Clay laughed lightly, and Nina took heart in his seemingly good mood. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“To San Antonio,” he replied as they walked to the spot where Emilio was struggling to his feet. “I ought to find some Texas Rangers there. I’ll let them decide what to do with the two of you.”
Nina stopped walking, and Emilio stood glaring at Clay from several feet away, having heard the remark. “You are still going to turn us over?” Nina asked.
Clay adjusted his hat, a strand of sandy hair falling over his tanned forehead. “I am. We’ll drop off Humes’s other two men as well, and their horses and gear.”
Nina looked up at him. “But I thought…”
“You thought what, Miss Juarez? I’m an Army lieutenant. I have certain responsibilities. One of them is to turn in horse thieves, and the other is to get those damn camels to Camp Verde. San Antonio is on the way, so I’ll keep you and your brother with us until we get that far, then I’ll be rid of you.”
Why was he calling her Miss Juarez? Just to impress his men? To show them he had no personal feelings for her? His cool attitude this morning angered her. What kind of fool did he take her for? She drew in her breath, tossing her hair haughtily. “Of course,” she spit the words at him, “do not let reason or feelings enter into the picture! Do not let the fact that my brother and I have never harmed anyone make any difference! Do not consider the fact that it was your kind who put us in this position, or the fact that if you would let us go, we would go back to Mexico and never cause any more trouble for you! We are young, but what does it matter? Why should we be given a second chance, even though it is because of us that you have captured wanted men? After all, we are Mexican, and that is all that matters, is it not?”
She whirled and marched over to Emilio to help him walk to his horse. The young man glared at Clay with murder in his eyes. Some of the other men felt in sympathy with Nina Juarez, unable to keep her exotic beauty from interfering with their ability to think reasonably. They wondered how Clay Youngblood could turn the young woman over to Texas Rangers, especially after what she had been through. Rangers would not be much kinder to her than Humes and his men had been.
Clay led his horse up the bank and mounted up, shouting more orders. No one could understand his dilemma. He told himself he did have certain responsibilities, and he could not think with a detached mind if he continued to let Nina Juarez tear at his heart and guts as she had all night. He had to do what was right, didn’t he? Besides, he was at least covering up the truth of her shooting Jess Humes. He had done that much for her.
Emilio stood close to Nina as she took hold of her horse’s bridle, preparing to walk up the bank. “I thought you were going to talk him into letting us go,” he said. “The way you just spoke, he will never give in!”
“I tried last night,” she answered in a whisper, obvious irritation in her voice. She watched Clay climb up the bank as she spoke, hating him, fascinated by him, feeling an odd longing that infuriated her. “A couple of times I thought perhaps he would soften. But he is just like all the other
s…his heart cold—a gringo’s heart!” She faced her brother, who looked pale and was obviously still in pain. “Are you sure you should ride, Emilio?”
“I have no choice. I want to be ready in case we find a chance to get away. Maybe we can find a way to make trouble with those stupid camels. If there is enough confusion, we can escape. Both our horses are swifter than anything those soldiers are riding.”
Nina sighed. “I do not know, Emilio. He is an experienced soldier. I do not think it will be so easy to get away from that one.”
“We will see,” he sneered, then they walked up the bank together to where Clay was waiting with a long, looped rope.
“This should make it easier for you two to ride,” he told them, tying the rope around a strap on Emilio’s saddle, then bringing it over to Nina’s horse and tying it again, bringing the end of the rope to his own horse and attaching it. “Just in case you’re thinking about running off on us.” He turned to face them. “Now please behave,” he said, his eyes moving to Emilio. “I don’t want to have to tie you up in your condition, and your sister suffered enough injury being tied up by Humes. Her wrists are in pretty bad shape. Don’t try something stupid. Think of your sister’s comfort.”
Emilio just glared at him. Now that he was beginning to feel a little better, his hatred for the gringo soldier was growing, even though Clay had rescued Nina. It was obvious now the man had only done it for the credit. He would turn in not just the Humes men, but two Mexican horse thieves. Just like all the others, he had no feelings for them, no sense of justice.
With great effort Emilio mounted his horse, and Nina followed suit. Clay also mounted up, riding forward, pulling Nina and Emilio’s horses with him, then looking back and shouting orders for the long procession to get under way. Nina watched him, thinking how if she didn’t hate him so, she could be very attracted to the handsome, broad-shouldered soldier with the sky-blue eyes. He grimaced slightly when he gripped the pommel of his saddle with his left hand, and she realized his wounded arm must hurt him.
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