Emilio smiled, keeping the cigar in his teeth, looking to Nina like the villainous bandito he had become. “I hope he does get caught. It would serve him right, after preaching to me all the time about obeying the law, acting so pompous and righteous.”
“He never acted that way. That was all in your head. He cared, Emilio! He truly wanted to help. He is a good man, and he loves me.” Her eyes teared. Oh, how she missed Clay! He would be home by now, know she was gone. What was he thinking? He was a smart man. He surely would realize what had happened and would come looking for her, but it was dangerous for him to come back to Texas! If he found her with Emilio, his life would be in danger from her brother and his men; and if she was caught and arrested, he could be arrested himself if he tried to help her and was discovered and recognized. “Emilio,” she said aloud, “I want to go home. I am going to have Clay’s baby. I told you that.”
“You are making it up.”
“I am not! I am going to have a baby, and if you keep forcing me to ride out on these raids, I could lose it! All these months I have dreamed of this, Emilio. Now it has finally happened, and you are making me risk losing my child! How can you do this to me?”
He glowered at her, rising and pacing then. The rest of his men said nothing. They only sat and drank, three of them playing cards. Emilio walked into the dark away from the fire, and Carlos rose from where he sat drinking. He came to sit down near Nina, and he touched her arm. Nina quickly drew it away. “I believe you about the baby,” he told her, his words slurred from whiskey. “But Emilio is right, Nina. You belong with us. And I…I care very much for you. If you are truly with child, I would love it, even though its father is a gringo.”
Nina frowned, turning to meet his eyes. “What do you mean, you would love it? Do you think I would let you be a father to my child?”
He stiffened, his eyes growing angry. “I would be a good father.”
“An outlaw? A horse thief? A drunk?”
He leaped to his feet. “I am not a drunk!” Some of the other men laughed, and Carlos glared at her. She knew by his eyes what he wanted to do, knew it was only Emilio’s presence that prevented him from taking what he had decided in his own mind belonged to him. As he kicked at some dirt and stormed away, Nina shivered.
“You should not have talked to him that way,” Emilio told her, coming back by the fire. “He loves you, Nina.”
“Well, I do not love him, and I already belong to someone else!” She put her head in her hands. “My God, Emilio, please take me back to my home. I want to be with Clay. And I do not want to lose the baby.”
Emilio puffed the cigar, staring at the fire. “You truly are with child?”
She sighed deeply. “How many times do I have to tell you? And I want this baby so badly. Why are you doing this to me?”
Emilio took the cigar from his mouth. “It is all changed, isn’t it, Nina? Nothing is as it used to be. You are changed.”
“I am not nearly so changed as you, Emilio. I always used to understand why you stole. Deep inside you were good. You just were desperate to keep us fed. But now this life is in your blood. You are lonely inside, Emilio, and too stubborn to admit it. That is why you came for me. You want someone with you who is a part of you, someone who would love you; but you have to understand I am more than just your little sister. I am a woman now, with needs of my own. I truly love Clay. We were married by a priest, and our marriage is sacred. I cannot just leave him and turn to someone else. It would be a sin against Christ and the Church. We married for love, Emilio, and for no other reason.”
He puffed the cigar again. “I do not understand how you can love a gringo. How can you let him make love to you without thinking about those men attacking our mother?”
“Because Clay isn’t like those men, Emilio. We cannot judge all the Americans by those men.”
Emilio rested his elbows on his knees. Nina was glad that at least tonight he had not drunk so much. There was no way to reason with him when he was drinking, but without the whiskey, she could still get through to him at times.
“I just…I wanted to be with you again, Nina. It is true. I am lonely.”
“Then stop what you are doing and come and live with me and Clay. He would still let you come, if you would just give up your outlaw ways. You could share the duties of patrón, be a rich landowner with many horses, horses that legally belong to you. Life could be so good, Emilio!”
“Your gringo would never forgive me for taking you away.”
“He would if it was what I wanted. He will do anything for me.”
Emilio shook his head. “No. It is too late for all of that. Riding with these men, I have a certain power. If I came there, your gringo would be the real boss. In a way I would just be working for him. But here, this life, I am my own man. I am somebody. When I quit this life, I will have a lot of money. I will build a place of my own.”
Nina closed her eyes in exasperation. “You will never have a place of your own,” she answered. “This kind of life is what you want. But having me with you will do you no good. It was foolish of you to take me away. It was the whiskey that made you do it. Take me back, Emilio, please. I will explain to Clay. He will not come after you. As I grow bigger with child I will just be a burden to you.”
He puffed the cigar quietly for a moment. “I would like to kill Clay Youngblood. I should never have sent you to find a soldier that day at Indianola. How I wish you would never have met that man.”
“Why! He saved me from years in prison, Emilio! He loves me, and he has made a good home for me. I carry his child.”
He turned dark eyes to meet hers. “I hate him because now the very kind of man I hated for so many years has come and taken pleasure in my own sister. Because he now lives on the land where my parents struggled and died. Because he was a soldier. We have lost so much to the vicious, land-hungry Americans, Nina, and then you turn around and let one come and take over our land!” His eyes moved over her scathingly. “And take over your body,” he added with a sneer. “It is as though I failed our Madre y Padre in every way. I could not help them then, and now the Americans have stolen away their daughter and their land.” He sighed deeply. “He will use you, Nina. He will use you and then throw you away like so much trash. That is how men like that are. But if you insist on learning that the hard way, then I will take you back.”
“No.” Carlos spoke up from the darkness. “I want her to stay with us. She should be with me, not with that gringo.”
“It has to be her choice,” Emilio told him, rising. “I thought that if she was with us for a while, she would see that this is where she belongs. But she is unhappy, and she carries the gringo’s child.”
“I wish he had been home when you took her! We could have killed him. Then she would not have anyone to go back to,” Carlos growled. “I say we go back there and get rid of him! That land is yours, Emilio! Kill the gringo and we can have the whole place to ourselves! It would be a haven for us, a place to take our stolen horses and hide out from the soldiers and the Rangers. If he had been there that night, he would be dead, and there would be nothing more to discuss. If you cannot do it, I will!”
“No!” Nina rose, turning to face Carlos. “I love him, Carlos!”
Carlos glared at her. “He cannot love you the way I do! I was so happy when I found out you were alive and had come back to El Paso. Then you left with the gringo! I could not believe you would do that. If we had known where they had taken you, Nina, we would have tried to rescue you ourselves. We just did not know how to find you. But the gringo did, and he turned you against us!”
“He didn’t, Carlos! I simply chose a life of my own.”
Carlos stepped closer. “The others and I have been thinking that perhaps you are not such a good leader after all,” he told Emilio. “You are a weak fool to let that gringo run your land and get rich off of what belongs to you! We say he must die. We could live a good life down there, Emilio, hide from the Rangers and th
e soldiers anytime it is necessary. We would never be caught! We would be rich men! If you do not kill the gringo then we will do it. If we do, it is one of us who will lead the men, not you!”
Nina felt the panic rising. Not only did Carlos look ready to kill her brother, but she knew what would happen to her if he did. Emilio glared at the man who was once his good friend.
“So,” he seethed. “It comes to this. You plot and plan behind my back! He is my sister’s husband. I cannot just murder him!”
The words struck Nina’s heart. So, there was some bit of decency left to her brother.
“Well we can,” Carlos answered.
Some of the other men rose, but before the confrontation could go any further, someone shouted at them from the darkness.
“Get those hands in the air! Texas Rangers! You’re under arrest!”
Carlos whirled, reaching down for his rifle, which lay near the spot he had been sitting. Nina froze in place at first. She saw the bright fire from a gun barrel spark in the darkness, and at the same time the night air was filled with its bang. Emilio cried out, whirling back toward her with a bloody hole in his chest.
For Nina it all seemed to happen slowly, even though it was only seconds. Emilio fell against her, and she grabbed hold of him, helping him fall to the ground more gently. She remembered the look on his face, a look of surprise, followed by one of brotherly love. In spite of what he had done, she could not help feeling sorry for him at this moment. She laid over her brother to protect him as more shots were fired, the night air roaring with the sound.
She cringed, praying a bullet would not find her. Her own gun lay nearby, but she decided not to reach for it. She did not want to die, not now, not when she carried Clay’s child and had so much to live for. There was always the chance that her beloved would come for her and find a way to take her home again.
She covered her ears against the sound of guns and men crying out. How had the Rangers found this place? It was so remote, so well hidden.
“Don’t let any of them get away!” she heard a man shout. “It’s the Juarez gang!”
“Dead or alive!” someone else yelled. Did that include her?
Someone else cried out, and Carlos fell near the fire. He looked at her with a strange, sorrowful, begging look in his eyes.
Nina gasped, moving to look at Emilio. “Mi hermano,” she wept. “Please do not die!”
Blood poured from the wound in his chest, and more trickled from his mouth. Nina rose up slightly, and her brother stared at her in wide-eyed terror. Nina saw it then, the look she had seen the day their parents were attacked, the look of helplessness, of wounded pride, of terror. He had suffered as she had, but his masculine pride had not allowed him to forgive and forget. It had led him to a life of revenge that he had not been able to abandon. She was part of his childhood, part of the only happy memories he had, and surely he must have felt that she was all he had, the only person who truly loved him.
He could not speak, but she saw it all in his eyes, and she could not hate him. She saw the regret, a begging for forgiveness. She bent closer again, nearly oblivious to the chaos around her. “I love you, Emilio,” she told him, her own blouse becoming soaked in blood as she held him close. “It is all right.”
His body jerked and stiffened, and when she looked at his eyes again they stared back at her in death. “Dear God!” she choked. With a shaking hand she gently closed his eyelids. Just then someone grabbed her from behind, jerking her to her feet. He whirled her around, and immediately all the old terror engulfed Nina when she saw the cruelty and hatred in the eyes of the man who faced her, holding her arms so tightly that they hurt.
“Well, well!” he exclaimed. He looked over at another man, and Nina noticed he wore a badge, a Ranger badge! There were no gringos more dedicated to Texas Americans or more ruthless to the lawless than Texas Rangers. “It’s a woman,” the man called out to the second man. “Hell, we can’t shoot a woman, Craig.”
The man called Craig came closer, moving his eyes over her scathingly. “Can’t we?”
“I am with child,” she spoke up, holding her chin high. She hoped her condition would make a difference to them.
“Who are you?” the man called Craig asked.
“I am Nina Juarez.”
The man put his hands on his hips. There were a few shouts in the background, as some of Emilio’s men were herded into custody. Nina looked beyond the two rangers she faced to see most of the men lay dead, strewn about the campfire area.
“So, you’re the sister,” Craig said. He was a big man, hard-looking, with piercing blue eyes and a bushy gray-blond mustache. “We’ve been told Emilio Juarez used to ride with a sister, but that you were put in prison up in Santa Fe, then taken away by a soldier for extradition to Texas. Nobody ever heard anything about you after that.” The man grabbed her away from the Ranger who held her. “Where in hell have you been, you little female cautrero?”
Nina struggled to think. Emilio lay dead at her feet, her beloved brother! She wanted to scream and weep, to hold him. But now she had to think about Clay, protect him. “I got away from the soldier and have been in hiding,” she told the Ranger. “I was living a peaceful life in Mexico when my brother came for me and made me feel responsible to go with him again. I…I did not want to be a part of this. You must believe me. I was married to a Mexican man. He deserted me and left me with child. Please, just let me go back to Mexico and have my baby. My brother is dead. I am no threat by myself.” Her voice choked as the reality set in. Emilio was dead! She could not forget all the good years that he truly had tried to provide for her and protect her. Poor Emilio had never been allowed a normal boyhood. “With Emilio gone, I will just go home.”
She saw no sympathy in the Ranger’s eyes. “Tie her wrists and put her on a horse. She goes back to Austin with the others,” he told the first man. He looked back at Nina. “You can tell your story to the authorities. You’ve been trouble for years, lady. Baby or no baby, I expect you’ll hang this time.”
“Might as well hang her before the kid is born. Makes one less greaser to cause more trouble,” another Ranger said. They all laughed then while Nina was led to a horse. She felt so sick she thought she might vomit. Emilio, dead! They would bury him out here with no marker, out here in the middle of nowhere. He should be buried at home, at the old farm, next to their parents.
Austin! They were taking her to Austin! How would Clay ever find her before she was hanged! He wouldn’t even know where to begin to look for her. It was over now, the happiness she had found in his arms, living on their beautiful ranch, having his baby. She would not see her beloved again, taste his lips, feel his arms around her. It was all like a strange nightmare. She knew she should hate Emilio for doing this to her, but she could not. She could only think of the devoted brother he had been in the beginning.
She turned a tear-stained face to the man who had tied her wrists and ordered her to mount up. “They will…bury my brother, won’t they?”
“I say leave them to the buzzards, but yes, they’ll be buried. Rangers are expected to do what’s proper.”
“Gracias,” she answered. She saw a hint of pity in the man’s eyes but knew it would not go far. These were Rangers. Texas came first to these men, and she had broken the law in their territory too many times. There was no chance that any of these men could be talked into letting her go, no matter what kind of story she handed them or how hard she tried to make them feel sorry for her. There was no Clay Youngblood among these men.
She watched in bitter sorrow as shallow graves were dug. She had no special feelings for any of the others, except perhaps Carlos. Two of the gang members were still alive. They cursed the Rangers vehemently, as they were forced to help dig graves for the others. One swung his shovel at a Ranger, and quickly three others jumped him and beat him. Nina shivered and turned away from the sight, but she could not shut out the horrible sounds of their blows and the man’s cries for mercy. She k
new her own situation was highly dangerous now, much worse than when she had been taken by soldiers.
“Gather up what you can and put out that fire,” the one called Craig ordered once the burials were finished. “We’ll take the woman and the other two back to our base camp for the night.”
The graves were quickly and carelessly covered with a few rocks, and men picked up the outlaws’ possessions and gathered their horses and riding gear.
“There’s a big herd of horses in the ravine there,” one of them said to Craig.
“You and Jay stay here and guard them. I’ll have a man ride hard to the closest Ranger station and send help. We ought to herd those horses to Austin for evidence and so that the proper owners can come and claim them.”
The other man nodded and walked over to talk to the one called Jay. Nina felt as though this was all happening around her, as though she was just seeing it in her mind but that it was not really happening to her. In moments her horse was led away, toward a rise behind which she suspected lay the Rangers’ hidden camp, from where they must have spied on Emilio and his men. She had heard a lot about Texas Rangers, knew that recently they had become much stronger, taking over a lot of duties that soldiers once handled. She knew now they were good at what they did, as quiet as Indians, as effective as the best soldier.
She choked back tears, reverting to her old stubborn refusal to weep openly in front of such men. They seemed to enjoy such weakness, to enjoy seeing their prisoners frightened and at their mercy. She held her chin proudly. She was Nina Juarez, proud of her heritage, no matter what they thought. More than that, she was the wife of Clay Youngblood, and Clay had always admired her courage and fire. She would keep that courage now. But she could not tell them who her husband really was. No matter what happened now, she had to protect Clay.
Oh for the feel of his arms around her right now, to be back home, lying in bed with him, telling him about the baby. For a little while she had been blessed with more happiness than she had ever thought possible. Now it was all gone, and the only peace and happiness she would know was when they put a noose around her neck and she was blessed with death. Maybe in heaven she could at least have her baby with her. They would both wait there for her beloved to come to them someday when God also took Clay Youngblood to his Kingdom.
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