Bride of the Baja

by Jane Toombs

  Jordan glanced at the rifle lying on the ground beside him. At a range of thirty feet he could kill Don Esteban with one shot. Mightn't Esteban bring some of his vaqueros with him? What then? Jordan thought it more than likely that he would find Esteban and Alitha traveling alone, for that had been his impression from the conversation he had overheard while he stood on the balcony of Esteban's house, before he had been forced to climb to the roof and lie hidden while Esteban searched for him. But even if Esteban brought men with him, Jordan still had the advantage of surprise and an easily defended position.

  He saw movement on the distant section of the trail. Raising a spyglass to his eyes, Jordan swept it across thick-growing pines to the open glade. There were two riders, a dark man and a woman, the pair leading two heavily laden horses. Jordan smiled. Good. Even though the woman's hair was covered by a shawl, he recognized Esteban and Alitha. He slowly swept the glass back and forth along the trail, looking for other riders. Finding none, he lowered the glass, returned it to its case and settled down to wait.

  It would take Don Esteban at least thirty minutes to reach the narrow trail below him. Impatient, Jordan raised the rifle to his shoulder, sighted and imagined squeezing the trigger. In his mind he saw Esteban jerk back and fall, thrown from his horse by the impact of the bullet. He pictured Esteban lying motionless on the trail as Alitha slid to the ground, ran and knelt beside him, cradling his head in her arms.

  Jordan imagined her turning from Esteban's body and looking up at him as he approached to make sure Esteban was dead. He recognized the look in her eyes as one of implacable hatred. As Jordan stared down at the circle of dark blood staining the Californio's jacket, Esteban's eyes seemed to look up accusingly at him.

  Damn it, Jordan told himself, he had no choice but to kill Esteban Mendoza, kill him as quickly and cleanly as he could and then bury his body. Esteban had to disappear from the face of the earth, the victim, or so everyone would believe, of bandits or revolutionaries.

  If Esteban lived, he would pursue Jordan relentlessly. One of them must die. Better it be Esteban. Better that Esteban die here and now. If Jordan succeeded, the Californios would be denied the gold—the money would be his, Jordan's. Just as Alitha would be his.

  Jordan ran his hand along the wooden stock of the rifle. He would kill Esteban with his first shot.

  He heard the steady clop-clop of the approaching horses before he saw them. He raised the rifle and aimed at the spot between two pines where Esteban would emerge from the woods. Yes, there he was, dressed in black, with a wide-brimmed hat set rakishly on his head, his eyes darting from side to side, perhaps suspecting an ambush. Jordan sighted on Esteban's chest and his finger tightened on the trigger.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Alitha follow Esteban from the trees, riding side saddle, her golden hair hidden by her shawl, her lovely face expressionless as she stared straight ahead, looking as though her thoughts were miles away. Jordan caught his breath, struck by her beauty as he always was, as he had been on that foggy morning when he first saw her on the deck of the Flying Yankee in Valparaiso.

  Jordan shook his head to banish thoughts of Alitha from his mind and sighted on Esteban. Again Jordan's finger tightened on the trigger, again he pictured Esteban falling to the ground, mortally wounded. All at once Jordan lowered the rifle. Goddamn it, he thought, I can't shoot him down in cold blood. He watched as Esteban drew nearer—the Californio would pass almost directly below his hiding place—and realized that all he had so carefully planned was slipping away.

  Without giving himself time to think, Jordan raised the rifle and fired. Esteban's horse shuddered and fell with a bullet through its eye, but Esteban leaped clear of the horse at the last minute, falling to the rocky ground. Jordan, pulling his neckerchief up to cover his lower face, sprang from the concealing brush, reloading as he scrambled down the hill toward Esteban, who was lying stunned on the trail.

  Esteban staggered to his feet and stared dazedly at Jordan. The Californio's hand went to his belt, only to discover that his pistol was not there. Jordan saw it lying a few feet away from where he had fallen. Esteban took his knife from its sheath, advancing on Jordan as though oblivious of the rifle in the American's hands.

  "Esteban! Don't!"

  Esteban, confused, glanced at Alitha, and as he did, Jordan kicked out at him, his boot striking Esteban's hand and sending the knife flying into the brush. Esteban leaped at him, his arms outstretched, but Jordan stepped aside at the last moment and brought the butt of the rifle thudding down on the back of Esteban's head. The Californio grunted, staggered forward, then collapsed to the ground and lay still.

  Alitha slid from her saddle and ran to Esteban, cradling his head in her arms exactly as Jordan had pictured her doing. She stood up and Jordan saw that she had retrieved Esteban's pistol and now grasped the gun in both of her hands, pointing it at his chest.

  As Jordan walked toward her, he drew the neckerchief down from his face.

  "You!"

  Alitha's hands wavered. Jordan gripped the gun by the barrel and twisted it from her hands.

  "You killed him," she said.

  Jordan put the pistol into his belt and knelt beside Esteban. The Californio's color was good and his breathing was firm and regular.

  "No, he's not dead. Far from it."

  Jordan went to one of the pack horses, returned with a length of rope and bound Esteban's hands and feet. Alitha watched him in mute anger. When he had finished, Jordan placed the muzzle of the pistol to Esteban's knee.

  Alitha gasped. She ran to Jordan and grasped his hand, pushing the gun to one side.

  "What are you doing?" she demanded.

  "I have to lame him to make sure he's in no condition to follow us."

  "Us?"

  "I intend to take you with me as a hostage. I could have killed him a few minutes ago; I was a fool not to. Now I have to make sure he won't kill me."

  "I'll not go with you. I'll fight you every step of the way if you try to take me with you by force. You'll have to cripple me as well as Esteban."

  Jordan cocked the pistol.

  "Wait," she said desperately, her eyes glistening with tears. "If I give you my word I'll cause you no trouble, if I go with you willingly, will you spare him? Esteban couldn't bear to live as a cripple. He'd rather you killed him here and now."

  Jordan hesitated. He'd already spared Esteban's life. To leave him unharmed and able to pursue him and the gold would be the height of folly.

  "For my sake," Alitha said.

  Jordan thrust the pistol back in his belt.

  "Get ready to ride," he told her. He climbed the slope, going past the place where he had waited in ambush and into the trees. Alitha brought a canteen of water from her saddle, took a handkerchief and wet the cloth and used it to wipe the blood from Esteban's head wound. She held the canteen to his mouth, but his lips remained closed, so the water ran along his cheek and dribbled to the ground. Placing the canteen at his side, she bent down and kissed him gently on the lips.

  "Esteban," she said. "I did all I could."

  She remembered opening her eyes long ago near the Santa Barbara Indian village and seeing Esteban for the first time, remembered thinking she had never seen a handsomer man.

  "Esteban, my love," she whispered.

  She rose and went to Esteban's dead horse, took the pistol hidden in his saddlebag. Hearing a sound behind her and realizing that she didn't have time to load the pistol, she thrust it into her own saddlebag. She turned to see Jordan ride from among the trees. He reined in next to her and dismounted, coming toward her to lift her into the saddle.

  "Don't touch me," she told him. Her voice was like ice. "I'll come with you because I promised I would, but if you ever touch me, Captain Quinn, I swear to God I'll kill you."

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  They rode from the forest in silence. When they came to a crossroad, Jordan reined in and looked at Alitha. She knew he wanted to ask her which route she
and Esteban had intended to take so she turned her head away, determined to keep silent. Jordan said nothing.

  After a moment he swung his horse to the left, and soon they were climbing along the side of a mountain on a trail winding among great volcanic rocks. When they reached a treeless crest, Alitha had a sweeping view ahead and behind her of farmland and wilderness, while to her left were villages with their groves and gardens. To her right rose the higher reaches of the mountain, with its dark forest of pines.

  They met few other travelers and those eyed them warily, not speaking, riding faster until they were past. As they alternately descended into, and climbed from a series of barrancas, narrow rocky ravines, Alitha noticed that one of their pack horses was favoring its right foreleg. Glancing at Jordan, she almost told him but then closed her lips in a tight line. She'd be damned if she'd lift a finger to help him!

  She closed her eyes, picturing Esteban as they'd left him, bound and unconscious beside the trail, and murmured a prayer for him. Would she ever see him again? Her heart ached to be with him, and yet she couldn't hide from herself the release she also felt.

  No longer did she have to glance at Esteban, wondering if he approved of what she wore or what she said and did, ready to brace herself against his disapproval. She could say the things she felt without thinking first of how Esteban would receive her words. No longer would she have to try to fit herself into his narrow code of feminine behavior, his unseen but definitely drawn line of what was right and wrong. Yes, if she was to be truthful to herself, she'd have to admit that Esteban never had and never would treat her as equal to him.

  She knew she couldn't have stayed with him much longer. How free she was now! Yet she still missed Esteban terribly, and for some strange reason she felt guilty, as though to be free was wrong. Why is it wrong? she asked herself. I am free. From this time forward I mean to be beholden to no one but myself.

  They stopped in a grove of pines off the trail and ate dried beef and drank wine. When Jordan spoke to her, Alitha turned her head, and he soon fell silent. As she remounted, she saw him watching her with frank admiration, and her hand briefly caressed the leather flap on her saddle where she'd hidden Esteban's pistol. She couldn't harm Jordan without provocation, but she knew that if he touched her, she meant to kill him. Shortly after they left the grove of trees, the pack horse that had been favoring his foreleg began limping noticeably.

  "Damn," Jordan said, slowing their pace.

  He has no choice, Alitha thought, but to go on, hoping for the best while trying to replace the injured animal in one of the Indian villages along the way. She also knew that horses were scarce because of the banditry and the fighting.

  They were riding along a dusty trail with a sloping field rising to their left when a horseman rode from the trees at the field's upper boundary some two hundred feet above them. The man, lean and dark and wearing a black sombrero, rode parallel to their trail while glancing down at them from time to time. She saw Jordan's hand slide along the stock of his rifle as he urged his horse on.

  Another rider came from the trees into the field. As soon as he had galloped past the first man, he slowed his pace to match theirs. Alitha felt her heart begin to pound as she spurred her horse to a trail lope.

  "Bandits," Jordan said.

  A third rider left the woods on the hill above them and followed the first two. Alitha's gaze searched the trees but she saw no more men. All at once the lead rider spurred his horse to a gallop until he was well past Jordan, then raised a musket over his head and, at the signal, all three men wheeled down the hill and galloped toward them.

  "Cut the pack horses loose," Alitha shouted to Jordan. "Let them have the gold."

  Jordan shook his head. "This way," he called to her and wheeled his horse to the right down a steep slope. They rode in and out of a gully and over a rise into a waterless arroyo, a dry creek bed, the pack horses scrambling after them. Behind them she heard horses' hooves thudding on the hard-packed earth and the shouts of the bandits.

  The lame pack horse stumbled and fell. With a curse Jordan reined in, waving her past him as he cut the rope leading to the fallen animal. He sprang to the ground and opened a pack on the horse's back, and Alitha saw the glint of gold in the sunlight.

  She spurred her horse up the side of the arroyo to the crest of a small hill, stopping and waiting a short distance farther on until Jordan, leading the other pack horse, joined her.

  "This way," she said, pointing to a defile between the high rocks ahead of them.

  "No." Jordan clambered to the ground and looped the reins of his horse around a dead branch. "Get down," he ordered her.

  She hesitated, but when she saw him start toward her, she swung from her horse. Jordan, using his rifle to motion her to follow him, climbed back to the top of the rise, where he threw himself to the ground. Alitha dropped to her knees and crawled up to lie beside him.

  Below them the injured pack horse lay on his side on the rocky bottom of the dry creek bed. As they watched, the horse tried to struggle to his feet but with a whinny of pain he fell back, his legs kicking futilely in the air. Gold coins and jewelry lay scattered on the ground near the open pack.

  "They'll find the gold," she whispered.

  "I intend them to," Jordan said.

  The first of the three black-garbed riders crested the hill at the top of the arroyo. The rider, seeing the fallen horse, rode cautiously down the gully with his eyes scanning rocks on both sides of him. "Do you know how to use this?" Jordan handed her a pistol.

  Alitha nodded, grasping the gun in both hands.

  "It's loaded," Jordan told her. "Here's the fixings to reload. Can you do that, too?"

  "Yes."

  The second rider came into view farther up the arroyo, and they heard the hoofbeats of the third horseman off to their right.

  "Oro! Gold!" The first rider rode into the creek bed, leaped from his horse and reached into the pack, his hands coming out clutching gold ornaments and coins.

  "Oro!" he shouted again to his two companions. They spurred their horses toward him.

  "When I tell you," Jordan said, "shoot the man kneeling next to our horse. Shoot to kill."

  "I can't ..." she began.

  "Do as I tell you," he insisted, "or they'll kill us both. Or worse."

  The other two men dismounted and ran to where the first rider was scooping gold from the injured horse's pack. They knelt on either side of him and plunged their hands into the pack, laughing and talking loudly.

  "Now," Jordan said.

  He fired as he spoke and the bandit on the left spun around and fell to the ground. Holding her pistol in both hands, Alitha pulled the trigger and the gun bucked back. She saw the center man jerk upright, a black hole in the upper shoulder of his jacket. The man on the right whirled about, his musket in hand. A bullet zinged past Alitha's head, and she smelled the acrid odor of gunpowder. The man she had wounded was firing now, and a bullet struck a rock a few feet from her and ricocheted away.

  Jordan fired again. The man on the right dropped his rifle, grasped his stomach with both hands and plunged face first to the ground. The bandit with the shoulder wound fired again, wildly this time, then turned and ran to his horse and leaped into the saddle.

  Jordan came quickly to his feet and stood taking careful aim as the bandit, riding low in the saddle, urged his horse up the arroyo. Jordan fired, and as the man spun from the horse to the ground, his foot caught in the stirrup and he was dragged until his body struck a boulder and he tumbled free to lie motionless in the dust. His riderless horse galloped on out of sight.

  Grunting with satisfaction, Jordan scrambled down into the gully with his rifle reloaded and ready. He used the toe of his boot to turn the three men over. As she watched, Alitha felt bile rise in her throat and she stumbled a few steps away, where she leaned against a boulder and was sick.

  When she returned to the gully, Jordan had pulled the three bodies into a ditch, where they lay pil
ed on top of one another in a grotesque tangle of arms and legs. He began covering the bodies with rocks as she stared first at him and then at the three dead men. She had shot one of these men, she reminded herself. Perhaps she hadn't killed him, but she knew she had meant to. She shook her head.

  "That last man," she said to Jordan, "the one who rode off. Did you have to kill him, too?"

  Jordan finished piling rocks on the bodies before he answered. "If I hadn't killed him," he said, "he'd have spread the news of the gold from here to Mexico City. Every bandit, revolutionary and government soldier in the country would have been on our trail. Besides, don't you think they would have done the same if they had managed to ambush us?" When she didn't answer, he asked again, "Don't you?"

  "I suppose they would have," she said. She slumped down to sit on a boulder facing away from the grave.

  Jordan came up behind her, his hand gripping her shoulder so tightly she winced. "Listen to me," he said angrily. "We're in a foreign country in the middle of a revolution, carrying a fortune in gold in our packs. Do you think bandits are going to stop and ask for our calling cards or that we should do the same?"

  When she didn't answer, he swung her around and tilted her face up so that she was forced to look at him. "This is American gold now, and you and I are going to see that it gets to Acapulco and aboard a ship bound for the States. If you're not going to help, I'll go on atone I don't have the time to wait while you sit around feeling sorry for yourself."

  As she stared up at him, a seething rage coursed through her. I shot one of those bandits, she told herself, what does he mean about not helping? He's being unfair. She took a deep breath. That's what he wants, to make me angry, she thought. I won't give him the satisfaction.

  Brushing his hand aside, she stood up, hiding her clenched fists in the folds of her gown. Her eyes stung with tears she refused to shed. She longed to strike out at him, to hurt him, while at the same time she longed to have someone comfort her. She turned away and stared up at the barren rock hill and the pine-covered mountain beyond.