Spellbound Trilogy: The Wind Casts No Shadow, Heart of the Jaguar, Shadows in the Mirror

by Jeanne Rose

  She cared nothing for comfort, but she indulged the drunken, laughing young men. Neither would be laughing much longer.

  When the bottle was drained, Eusebio made the first move. She watched with slanted eyes as he boldly placed a hand on her breast, pulling her blouse down so he could pinch a nipple. So he enjoyed pain? Her nostrils flared and she gave him a slant-eyed look as she thought of how much she would enjoy his pain.

  She let the men do what they would, stroking, touching, exploring under her skirts. Inside her. They roughly removed her garments, then their own. They were both ready and quite pleasing to look at. She was vividly reminded of what autocratic bastards Hidalgo men were when Eusebio tangled a hand in her hair and tugged her onto her knees – as if he could force her to his will! He arranged himself under her so he could pull her face close to his engorged member. To encourage her, he slid his tongue along her already wet cleft.

  "Are you certain this is what you want?" she asked as the fires began burning deep inside.

  "I want it," Eusebio said.

  From behind her, his drunken brother slurred, "So d-do I."

  Slipping onto his knees, Enrique covered her like a dog. Or a wolf, she thought with a feral grin.

  "Then you shall have more than you bargained for."

  She went at Eusebio with relish, taking his entire length into her mouth, nipping hard with sharp teeth as she released him a tiny bit at a time. He squirmed, he moaned, he shoved his tongue along her fired flesh. It was gratifying to imagine that he was pleasuring not only her, but his brother who was working up a sweat from behind.

  Imagining Eusebio tasting Enrique, she grew more excited than she could bear. While pressing her swelling flesh into the one's mouth, she tilted her hips and buttocks so the other brother could better fill her.

  Being taken like this – both like a woman and a wolf simultaneously -- was more exhilarating than she would ever have imagined.

  "Aiyee," Enrique breathed from behind as he loosened his hold on her. "Your skin is so hot!"

  Indeed, heat poured through and out of her...not that it made him think of stopping.

  She felt herself stretching, tightening, changing, even as Enrique cried out and gave one last powerful shove that sent her tumbling over the edge of her control. When Eusebio grabbed onto her head and thrust his hips higher so she would be forced to take all of him as he released his salty seed deep into her throat, she reacted out of instinct – growling, biting, tearing the flesh at its base.

  His scream of agony and his brother's of horror were only the beginning of her reward.

  AWAKENING A FEW MINUTES after three the next day, Frances dressed quickly. Chaco had joined her sometime during the night. She vaguely remembered his climbing into bed if not his leaving. He'd pulled her body into the curve of his own, and, comforted by his heat, she'd quickly drifted off. Exhaustion had allowed her to sleep deep and long, and but for the sore muscles mostly in her lower back and thighs, she felt better than she might have expected.

  Hunger making her stomach growl, she left her room in search of food and was drawn to excited female voices coming from the hotel lobby.

  "Don't you think it's romantic?" Ruby was asking.

  Magdalena's, "Romance, hah!" stopped Frances cold halfway down the stairs. "Belle will throw another fit when she finds out about this."

  "And I intend to be far away from her when she does," Sophie stated.

  Frances forced her legs to move and joined the girls who huddled at the foot of the staircase. "What's going on?" She feared the gossip was about her and Chaco, though she didn't know why Belle should care.

  "Avandera ran off with her shepherd," Luz told her, the news making Frances grin.

  "I gave her a potion for love," Magdalena bragged.

  "Seems you've been spreading it around," Luz muttered darkly to Magdalena's placid smile.

  Frances stared at the Pueblo woman who knew so much about brujeria. And she was the one who'd originally brought them all the news of the diablera, too. The reminder made all thoughts of romance pale.

  "Magdalena, could I speak with you?" Frances asked. "Alone?"

  "We are not wanted." Giving Frances a questioning look, Luz pushed Ruby and Sophie toward the doorway leading to the saloon and casino. "Let's have a drink for Avandera and you can tell me more about her shepherd."

  Frances drew Magdalena toward a small alcove to one side of the lobby. The area was framed with tasseled red curtains and held a velvet-upholstered couch, two matching spindly-legged chairs and a wooden table with a glass-fringed lamp. Being that the lobby was clear but for the young clerk behind the desk, she figured this was as private a place as any to discuss a sensitive topic.

  No sooner were they seated than she dived right in. "You seem to know quite a bit about witchcraft."

  Magdalena's expression was at once cautious. "Are you angry with me for Avandera's love potion, Senora Gannon?"

  "No, Magdalena, of course not. I'm glad she found some happiness." At least one of Belle's girls had been given a second chance to lead a more respectable and fulfilling life. "It's that I, uh, need your advice."

  The Pueblo woman drew her brows together. "You need a love potion?"

  "I need to know how to recognize a skinwalker."

  Magdalena's eyes grew big and she made a strangled sound. "Searching for a skinwalker? This would be lunacy, Senora Gannon. You must not go looking for such trouble."

  "What if trouble is looking for someone I love?"

  The Pueblo woman swallowed hard. "I cannot – "

  "Please. She's come after him twice. I'm afraid that next time she might succeed in hurting" – she couldn't say killing – "him. Helping me recognize the diablera would be in your own best interests, as well, because if she could be stopped, then you would be able to visit your own pueblo whenever you wanted. I remember your saying you were afraid to after the Navajo was found."

  Silent for a moment, Magdalena gave her a measuring stare, then finally said, "There are different kinds of looking. Gazing into obsidian or rock crystal might reveal her identity, especially if you had something that belonged to her...or something she had touched."

  Frances could think of two examples, but they had both been taken away by their tribes and presumably buried. She swallowed hard. "And say we couldn't determine the witch's identity. What then?"

  "There are certain protections. You can guard your house or quarters with sacred prayer sticks or feathered wands. Or you can burn cachana."

  "Cachana?"

  "Witch root. The Pueblo people gather it in the Jemez Mountains and from nearby mesas. Cachana can also be added to personal medicine bags."

  Well, she'd asked, Frances reminded herself, not knowing what to think. To take Magdalena's advice, she would first need to stretch the boundaries of her imagination.

  "I'm not certain I even believe in such things as skinwalkers," she admitted. How could she when she'd lost the capacity for faith in anything other than the tangible? "I find it far more difficult to think of using rocks and feathers and some mysterious plant as weapons against evil."

  "These things are not simple solutions," Magdalena warned her. "A powerful shaman must prepare them, for it will be his spirit that fights the skinwalker."

  "If that's so, then it must take an even more powerful medicine man to destroy a skinwalker."

  "I am afraid you are correct, Senora Gannon."

  Her flesh was crawling, and Frances was tempted to dismiss the feeling as being prompted by the conversation. But some instinct made her glance over her shoulder to be certain. Just outside the alcove, Ynez de Arguello stood frozen and wide-eyed, her face too pale against the deep green silk of her dress. She had obviously been listening to their conversation, and her demeanor reflected her horror.

  Not knowing what to say to the woman – though she owed her no explanation – Frances was relieved when she heard the hotel door swing open and Don Armando's voice boom, "Dona Ynez, are you feelin
g well?"

  Expression a mixture of embarrassment and confusion, the Spanish woman said, "Yes, Husband, of course."

  "Then why are you standing like a pillar of salt? Have you sent for my son?"

  Ynez's mouth gaped open as if she were about to answer, but Ruby came running back into the lobby, looking around wildly, her relieved, "Mrs. Gannon, there you are!" drawing all eyes toward her.

  "Ruby, what is it?"

  "Trouble in the casino!"

  "WHAT THE HELL'S your problem, Jones?"

  "I don't have one." Though Martinez was trying to change that quick, Chaco thought, staring down at the Mexican who'd been playing poker since noon. "Why don't you let me buy you a friendly drink at the bar?"

  "A drink won't get my hundred dollars back."

  Two of the three other players had a good number of chips stacked in front of them, but they didn't look happy about their winnings.

  "Neither will my giving you credit."

  "You don't know that."

  He didn't, not for certain, but Chaco suspected he would be throwing good money after bad. Normally Martinez was a sharp poker player and came out ahead. If he were a suspicious man, he would think Martinez was cheating.

  To lose.

  Something was keeping the gunman around, and Chaco doubted it had anything to do with Murphy or with trying to change Chaco's mind in helping to bring a swift end to the Lincoln County War.

  "If I lose," Martinez was saying, shuffling and reshuffling his hand of cards, "You get your money in a coupla days."

  "I can't take that chance."

  "You calling me a goddamn welsher?" His hands stilled.

  And the skin on the back of Chaco's neck began to crawl. "I'm telling you policy."

  "For a compadre? We go way back!"

  "I know a lot of men, Martinez." Chaco was watching him carefully now. Though he was aware of concerned voices, of movement around him as people began clearing the area in alarm, he focused on the Mexican. "Fact is, I wouldn't give any of them credit, either."

  "What if I don't believe you?"

  "You're entitled," Chaco said more calmly than he was feeling.

  "An' I don't take insults lyin' down."

  "You're free to leave any time."

  Martinez threw the cards to the table so hard they went flying along the surface and off the other side. "No one throws me out! I leave when I'm ready."

  "As long as you settle down, I don't have a problem with that."

  "Now you're sayin' I'm outta line."

  Chaco eyed Martinez coldly. No matter what he said, the man was bound and determined to start a fight, no doubt his purpose in being at the Blue Sky Palace in the first place.

  "You're out of line," he agreed.

  Martinez gave him an evil grin. "Then I guess you're gonna have to throw me out."

  "If I have to."

  "If you can."

  So that was it. Martinez wanted a face-off. Chaco realized someone fancied him dead and had hired the gunman to do the dirty work. No doubt if he'd agreed to the Mexican's offer to work for Murphy, he never would have made it down to Lincoln. Undoubtedly Martinez counted on jumping him and leaving him somewhere along the trail, his body fodder for the coyotes and rattlers and scorpions.

  A familiar and unwelcome tension gripping him, Chaco suggested, "Why don't you just get out now, while you can?"

  He heard a commotion, and from the corner of his eye, saw a flank of bodies surge into the casino through the saloon. Frances was in the lead.

  Damn it all, anyway!

  "Or maybe we should take it out to the street, Jones, and settle this like men."

  "No!"

  Chaco heard Frances's shout, though he dared not take his eyes off the gunman for a second. While Martinez had given up his gunbelt as required when entering the Blue Sky, he probably had both pistol and knife hidden on him.

  Knowing there was no way out of this, Chaco growled, "Then let's get to it."

  Speculation buzzed around the room. Part of him heard. Part of him was aware of Frances, who stared at him with a mixture of disapproval, disappointment and downright horror. And damn if that wasn't de Arguello and his haughty young wife with her. But most of Chaco remained focused on Martinez as he carelessly downed a whiskey, pushed his chair away from the card table and got to his feet. The Mexican might be half drunk, but you'd never know it, Chaco thought. His eyes burned clear and his hands were steady.

  Martinez started for the door. "You wouldn't shoot a man in the back, now would you?"

  Chaco didn't respond to the insult. He kept a safe distance as he followed the other man. Harder to do, he ignored Frances, who shadowed him.

  "Chaco, please, don't go out there. He's not worth it. You told me you were through with gunfighting!"

  So he'd thought. But he wasn't about to let a man kill him, and Chaco had no doubt that's what Martinez was being paid for.

  The Mexican collected his double-holstered gunbelt and led the way outside. A crowd followed them through the placita and onto the dusty narrow street. Passersby, as if sensing the tension in the air, hurried along, seeking shelter in doorways or other nearby plazas.

  Chaco never took his eyes off Martinez, not for a second. He watched the man's every movement, especially his hands.

  The sun hung low in the west and Chaco tilted his hat forward to keep it from blinding him. He flexed his shoulders, neck, back, arms. Martinez stopped. Turned. His hands slowly moved to his chest. He separated the front of his jacket and drew the dusty material back behind the holsters of his twin Peacemakers.

  Chaco's blood began to rush. His heartbeat drummed in his ears. The taste of fear soured his mouth.

  Fear that this time he wouldn't be fast enough or accurate enough. That this time he would be the one laid in a pine box, hands crossed over his chest for eternity. That he would be the one buried with no one to mourn him.

  A sob from somewhere to his right reminded him that Frances would mourn him.

  The thought steadied him, gave him more reason for living than he'd had since he'd buried his mother.

  "It's your call," he told Martinez.

  The Mexican grinned, revealing a mouth of rotting teeth. "It's your funeral, Jones. Don't worry, I'll give you a good one. And dance on your grave."

  Then his hands moved like lightning. And Chaco went for his Colt. Gunshots echoed along the trazo and the air thickened with the stench of burned powder. Martinez jerked, but his guns were still blazing. Chaco hit the ground and rolled, continuing to fire.

  When the smoke cleared, Martinez was laid out on the street, too.

  Unmoving.

  As Chaco rose, people swarmed out of nearby buildings. A grizzled old man was the first to reach the other gunman. He squatted, checked for any signs of life.

  "Dead as a doornail," he pronounced, closing Martinez's eyes.

  Shouts of congratulations assaulted Chaco's ears. Someone slapped him on the back. More than one man offered to buy him a drink.

  He stood there, staring. Wondering why. Another man dead. More blood on his hands. He hadn't wanted this. Had tried to avoid it. Was, in fact, somewhat sickened by it.

  "I had no choice," he found himself telling Frances.

  She stood a yard away, separated from him by well-wishers, her expression appalled. By the death? The partylike atmosphere that so often followed a shoot-out? Or him?

  "You always have a choice," she was saying. "You can always choose to be a civilized human being."

  Is that what she thought of him after everything he'd told her? That he chose this? That he enjoyed killing? Why did she have to look so damn accusing...and broken-hearted? Why couldn't she try to understand?

  Angry that she turned her back on him without asking him what had happened – if that would make a difference – Chaco holstered his Colt and strode away from the Blue Sky Palace, probably forever.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A SWELL OF PRIDE practically bursting through
his thin chest, Armando de Arguello rushed after Chaco.

  "Don Armando, where are you going?" his wife called. "Husband!"

  Armando was irritated by her wails. No doubt she was upset by the sight of death – she was only a woman, after all – but she should learn to be more stoic. "Stay there, Dona Ynez," he ordered. "Wait for me in the hotel lobby. I shall return shortly."

  He hurried on, desperate to catch up to his son, who was now nowhere to be seen. His old heart was beating too fast as he stepped off the side street and onto the plaza, which was milling with people, many of whom were soldiers. Then he spotted him, a lonely figure near the gazebo, eyes cast to the ground as if he were praying. Armando gave himself a last push lest Chaco decide to move on and perchance disappear back into the crowd. Winded, sweating and near exhausted, he tried his best not to show his weakness as he stopped next to the man who was both his flesh and a stranger.

  "You made me proud, my son," he puffed.

  At first he thought Chaco had not heard him. Or did not want to. And then, expression grim, the younger man turned his head.

  Spooky gray eyes sliced straight through Armando. "If my taking a life made you proud, then you're a sick man."

  He ignored the sarcasm. "Not the death itself. The way you stood up to him. So proud. So unafraid."

  "Who says?"

  He accepted the response as one of modesty. "That could have been me thirty, perhaps forty years ago."

  Chaco's gaze seared him. His son was not at all receptive to compliments. Or perhaps it was being compared to a man who had abandoned him...was he insulted?

  "What is it you want, old man?"

  "You. The land – "

  "I'm not for sale. Not anymore."

  "I do not seek to buy you. I choose to give you your birthright." He spoke straight through Chaco's barked laughter. "I want the de Arguello name to go on."

  The laughter stilled and the eyes grew cold and deadly, making Armando sweat harder.

  "Sorry. Name's Jones."

  Was that all? "This can be taken care of," he began with a regal sweep of his hand.