The Promise of Jenny Jones

by Maggie Osborne

  "They just rode off with her, didn't they?"

  "From their point of view, they rescued Graciela from a stranger who stole her after her mother's death."

  She threw up her good hand. "Mexicans are not as dumb as rocks!"

  "I didn't say they were," he answered levelly, striving for patience. "I'm just raising the point that the cousins may have the same interest in Graciela as I do. She's family. You have no right to her, they do."

  Jenny twisted in the saddle to glare at him. "By now everyone involved in this business knows that Marguarita died on the wall in my place. They know I sure as hell didn't force her to die; it was her choice. They know I didn't ride to the hacienda and steal the kid out of her bed; she was brought to me. They know Marguarita wanted me to take the kid toCalifornia. Count on it. From Dona Theodora on down, everyone knows exactly what happened and why."

  "If this unfolds the way it's setting up, you and I are going to kill some Barrancas cousins," he said stubbornly. "I want some assurance that I'm not killing people without a damned good reason."

  "Marguarita believed the cousins were murdering sons of bitches. She believed it enough to die rather than trust her daughter to one of them. That's enough assurance for me."

  Ty reined in beside a shallow swale, then slid off his horse and walked down the incline to sniff,then sample, a thin puddle at the bottom. "The water's muddy but drinkable," he called up to Jenny. "We'll camp here." After he decided she wasn't going to argue, he returned to unsaddle their horses and handle the heavier items that she couldn't manage one-handed.

  While he worked, he reviewed the scene he had witnessed in the cantina of the no-name village. His impression was that Cousin Emil had wanted Graciela for ransom. In retrospect, he recalled that Emil Barrancas had not actually said anything about a ransom. Perhaps the family loved the child and simply wanted her back home where they believed she belonged. That would explain the message from Dona Theodora Barrancas y Talmas. Dona Theodora expected the cousins to find and return the child to her. She didn't want to lose Graciela to a stranger or to the Sanders andCalifornia.

  It troubled him that events could have a different explanation than the one Jenny put forward. It was equally troubling to consider that she might be right. Marguarita certainly had believed the cousins were capable of evil. She had died because she believed it.

  After eating plates of beans and tortillas, they settled before the flames, drinking coffee as fiery stars burned holes in the desert sky.

  "I'm a brawler and a fighter, a shooter when I have to be," Ty remarked, watching fingers of firelight dance across her strong features. "I'm not a murderer."

  "If you're squeamish about killing, then head on back toCaliforniaand wait for me and the kid to get there."

  He laughed. "Now who's sounding stupid? You're going to face down four men? You aren't that good either, Jones," he said, enjoying dishing back her earlier comment.

  She narrowed her eyes,then suddenly she laughed, ending in a smile. The smile transformed her face. With the firelight rosy on her cheeks and lips, and the smile curving her mouth and lighting her eyes, she was beautiful. Ty stared at her.

  "I've got you figured," she said in that husky voice. "You'll do what you have to because you promised your brother. You gave your word. You aren't going anywhere without the kid, so I'm not worrying about having to fight alone."

  There was nothing to say. She was right, of course. She understood the power of apromise, saw a promise the same way he did.

  "Do you have a family, Sanders? A wife and kids of your own?" Resting her coffee cup on her knee, she gazed at him across the flames, her expression unreadable.

  "Hell no." The question made him laugh. "I'm not the marrying kind." When she continued to look at him, he leaned forward and poured more coffee into his cup. "A man like me can't live with anyone."

  "Is that right?" She raised her coffee cup. "What makes you so ornery that no one could stand to live with you?"

  "My ma said I was born mad." He shrugged and gazed into the flames. "Maybe she was right." He thought about it. "I never met a woman I could stand for more than a week." A grin curved his mouth. "I imagine they felt the same about me."

  What began as charming feminine traits ended by irritating the bejesus out ofhim. Thencame the naive and often silly or boring conversations. And the obsession with all the tiny nuances of etiquette with the inevitability of his forgetting something and offering insult. Not to mention the endless primping and smoothing and patting. The soft helplessness. And, most offensive, the ubiquitous efforts to change him. All women wanted to reshape a man into something other than what he was.

  "So. What do you do with yourself when you aren't inMexico? You a drifter?"

  "I drifted along the coast for a few years."

  "And then?"

  "I always came home to the ranch." His father's ranch, and now his brother's. He frowned. "Why are you asking all these questions?"

  "No reason." One shoulder lifted in a shrug that might have passed for indifference if he hadn't known her as well as he was beginning to. "Talking around the fire, that's all. Passing the time. No one says you have to answer."

  "I have a place on the ranch. Three hundred acres my father cut out a few years ago. I run cattle, try to prevent old man Barrancas's men from stealing them. You could say we've been stealing each other's stock for twenty years." He'd tried his hand at other professions, but he always returned to the ranch. The land was in his blood. "You ever worked on a ranch?"

  "Once, for about a year. The food was good. The pay was lousy. I suppose it's a satisfying life if you own the land."

  "How about you? You ever been married?"

  "Me? Oh hell no." Her laugh sounded rusty as if she didn't use it much. "I haven't had jobs that inspire romantic leanings. Cursing at mules, skinning carcasses, you get the drift." Yawning, she glanced toward her bedroll. "I'm like you. I never met a man that I didn't want to shoot after about three days." Standing, she adjusted the sling around her arm before bending forward to flex the stiffness out of her shoulders.

  "Does your arm hurt?"

  Incredulity widened her eyes. "What the hell do you think? Of course it hurts. Hurts like the devil."

  Then she tilted her head and gazed up at the night sky. For several minutes she didn't speak. "Graciela is all right … isn't she?" she asked in a whisper, her eyes fixed on a distant star. "Make me believe they haven't killed her yet."

  The raw anguish thinning her voice surprised him. This was the first flash of vulnerability and uncertainty that he'd glimpsed. For some reason seeing a vulnerable Jenny Jones made his chest tighten painfully. He cleared his throat and said what she needed to hear.

  "Graciela hasn't been harmed," he stated firmly. "No one's going to kill her. We're going to get her back."

  "I know we will." Turning her back to him, she faced the desert and the tall cacti standing guard like spiny sentinels. Her shoulders dropped, pulling her chin down.

  "The kid asked Jorje not to kill me," she said in a low wondering voice, gazing down at her boots. "You heard her. I didn't imagine it." She stood in silence for a full minute,then she swore softly and kicked a rock toward a clump of scrub oak before she stalked toward her bedroll.

  Ty cradled his coffee cup and studied the flames dying in the fire pit. He would have sworn that Jenny's only connection to his niece was her promise to Marguarita. Now he wondered. A minute ago she'd revealed a glimpse of something deeper that made him suspect he'd misjudged her.

  "Sanders?"

  Raising his head, he frowned toward her bedroll. "What is it?"

  "I've got nothing to offer a man, and you've got nothing to offer a woman. So don't get any ideas about acting on that hankering. I've got my Colt in my blankets. You make a move in my direction, and I'll shoot your butt."

  Indignation ruffled his brow. "Well, for God's sake. Do you really think I have so little conscience that I'd jump a woman with a shot-up arm?"
<
br />   After a long silence, she called to him out of the darkness. "You just stay on your side of the fire."

  Realization smoothed the anger from his forehead, and he laughed. She was thinking about him, thinking about those hankering feelings. Grinning, he gazed toward the saddle she used as a pillow.

  "Darlin', when I'm ready to satisfy this hankering … you'll beg me to crawl in your bedroll. That's a promise."

  Sputtering sounds of outrage erupted from her blankets, and she sat up. "That will fricking never happen!" she shouted furiously.

  "Yeah. It will," he said softly. Smiling, he tossed the last of his coffee on the ground, then walked to his bedroll and kicked it open.

  Whoever broke her hadbroke her wrong.

  He was going to fix that. And she was going to enjoy the experience as much as he planned to. Thinking about it made his groin ache with anticipation.

  CHAPTER 10

  J oy and confusion alternated like twin beacons blinking across Graciela's expression. She was going home. Home to Aunt Tete and her own room and the comforts of the hacienda and the servants who staffed it, home to a secure life she understood.

  But her mother would not be there. Home would never again be the place she had known. A shine of tears dampened her eyes.

  Wrapping her arms around her knees, she sat in front of the campfire, shivering slightly as the sun sank behind the Sierras and the evening chill crept over the desert. Idly she watched Cousin Tito remove a tightly woven sack from a strap on his saddle and carry it toward the fire. Atonce her thoughts focused. Her neck prickled, and she sat up straight when she realized something moved inside the sack.

  "Have you eaten snake before?" Tito asked, grinning at her. Eyes fixed on the sack, Graciela slowly rose to her feet. Nothing on earth frightened her more than snakes.

  Holding the sack by his side, Tito swept a hard glance over Jorje, Carlos, and Favre, and abruptly Graciela became sharply aware of a strange unnerving tension that she had vaguely sensed all day. Now the tension leaped into her as well. Eyes wide, mouth dry, she tried to move backward a step as Tito knelt beside her and placed the sack on the ground, but her trembling legs would not obey.

  "I'll release one of the snakes," Tito explained, smiling at her with a strange expression. "I'll club it. Then we'll skin it and roast it over the fire. The meat is white and juicy. You'll think you're eating chicken."

  Graciela swallowed convulsively. She couldn't wrest her eyes from the horrifying sinuous movement slithering beneath the folds of the sack. Fear dried her mouth to dust and paralyzed her. Her heart thudded so loudly that she was only dimly aware the others had fallen silent.

  Tito stood, inspecting the sliding movements within the sack before he flicked a look toward Cousin Jorje. Graciela didn't see what passed between them as she couldn't take her eyes off of the sack. She couldn't move, couldn't speak. All she could manage was a gasp when Tito grinned and upended the sack in front of her. Three large, thick rattlesnakes dropped to the ground in front of her feet.

  Terror gripped her in paralyzing shock. She couldn't breathe; she thought surely she would faint. One of the snakes slithered past on her left, leaving an S-shaped track as it headed for the desert and darkness. One of the snakes lashed into a coil, its head raised, its tongue flicking and hissing.

  Graciela knew the coiled snake would strike at any movement, so she fought to hold her shaking body still even though every muscle trembled and her brain screamed at her to run. Whispering through dry lips, she prayed that one of her cousins would shoot the hissing snake before it struck her. But none of them moved.

  Shocked and dizzy with horror, she watched the third snake wind toward her. And she shook violently as it glided over the top of her shoe,then disappeared behind her. She desperately wanted to peer over her shoulder to make sure the snake continued toward the desert. Irrationally, she was terrifyingly certain that the snake would slip beneath her hem and twist up her leg before it sank its fangs into her flesh. She could only hope the snake wasn't sliding under her hem at this very minute, but she dared not look to see if it was. The movement would attract the coiled snake, the hissing snake that posed the greatest danger.

  Striding forward, Favre shoved Tito out of his way,then shot the head off the coiled snake. Graciela jumped at the sound of the gunshot. Relief crumpled her bones and she fell to the ground as limp as a pile of rags. Almost at once, she leaped to her feet and shook her skirt furiously, then peered anxiously around her, frantically wiping at her tears in order to see better. Knowing the other two snakes were out there, maybe just beyond the light cast by the campfire, made her shake with fear.

  Favre stared at Tito, and his lip curled. "El Stupido!" Kneeling, he withdrew a knife from his belt and began to skin the snake he'd shot. One of the others laughed,then everyone returned to their tasks and finished setting up camp.

  Deeply frightened, Graciela wiped her eyes and peered at Tito, expecting him to apologize for an accident that could easily have gotten her killed, expecting him to hug and pet her, hoping for reassurance. But he returned her gaze with cold eyes, and all he said was, "You are very lucky, chica."

  Confused and still stunned, Graciela moved close to the fire and extended trembling hands toward the flames. She took care to stand well away from the dead snake.

  After setting two forked sticks, Favre draped the skinned snake above the fire to cook. Graciela could not look at it. And when the time came to eat, her stomach rebelled. She tasted a few spoonfuls of rice and nibbled at a tortilla, but she didn't touch the lumps of wasted snake.

  After the dishes were tossed aside, her cousins brought out a bottle of tequila and passed it among themselves. Occasionally one of them studied her with eyes kept carefully blank. The snakes were gone—she fervently hoped—but her fear remained.

  Now that the incident had receded somewhat, Graciela found terrible thoughts creeping into her mind. As hard as she struggled to banish the thought, she felt a growing conviction that dropping the sack of snakes at her feet had been no accident. In the instant before Tito dropped the sack, he had looked at her with dark greedy eyes, and a small smile of anticipation had curved beneath his mustache.

  None of the cousins had rushed to snatch her away from the snakes. None had drawn the pistol at his hip until Favre finally stepped forward. Shifting her gaze to his fire-lit face, she wondered if Favre had acted to save her, or if he had merely feared that the last snake would escape to the desert and they would have no meat with their beans and rice.

  "Your bedroll is over there," Cousin Jorje said, jerking his head toward the darkness. Twitching, Graciela turned large eyes to him, mute with silent terror. "The snakes are long gone," Jorje said impatiently. When she still could not move, he strode away from the fire, pulling her by the elbow. While she watched, trembling and quiet, he turned out her blankets to show her nothing fanged or poisonous waited within. "Go to sleep now," he ordered in a voice she recognized. It was the voice grown-ups used when they wished to discuss adult matters that children should not hear.

  "Good night," she whispered, feeling abandoned as Cousin Jorje strode away from her, returning to the safety and companionship of the campfire.

  Before she crawled into her bedroll, she walked on top of it even though she had watched Cousin Jorje shake out the blankets. When she felt nothing snake-shaped beneath her shoes, she reluctantly slid inside and turned anxious eyes toward the fire.

  For the first time in her young life, Graciela Sanders did not feel safe in the presence of relatives. Something was very wrong. These men were not cousins she saw frequently, like Luis or Chulo, but she remembered the men around the fire as being talkative and boastful, teasing and gay.

  No one had laughed tonight. There had been no jests or merrymaking along the trail or around the fire. They had not petted her or heaped lavish compliments on her as they had at Aunt Tete's hacienda. They had treated her like an unwelcome stranger.

  After murmuring hasty prayers, s
he wrenched her mind from disturbing thoughts and let herself recall the softness of her bed at home and the row of vividly clad dolls on her shelf. Her books, her slate,the small box of treasures she hadn't thought to see again. These memories cheered her.

  But when she remembered that she would never again run to her mother's room to share cups of morning chocolate, would never say her prayers with her mother kneeling beside her, would not ride in the carriage breathing her mother's perfume or hear her mother's voice, a rush of pain crushed her chest.

  Her mother was dead, and she was afraid of the men at the campfire.

  Burrowing deeper into the blankets, struggling not to cry, Graciela sought something good to think about. She thought about telling her friend Consuelo about her recent adventures.

  Consuelo had never ridden a train or seen a town the size ofDurango, she was sure of it. Certainly Consuelo had never had a day alone withno duenna or family in attendance. Nor had she dressed her own hair or bathed in a stream. Consuelo's eyes would widen and she would gasp when she learned that Graciela had exchanged clothing with a street urchin and that Graciela had eaten food cooked over an open fire and had slept on the ground.

  "Is she asleep yet?"

  When Cousin Jorje came quietly to look at her, she squeezed her eyes shut and pretended not to know he stood over her gazing down. After she heard the chink of his spurs retreating, she returned her thoughts to Consuelo, trying to decide how she would explain Jenny to her friend.

  Jenny had killed her mother and Graciela hated her for that. But it was also true that Jenny had cared for her when she was ill, and Jenny had taught her good things to know. She resented that Jenny treated her like a servant, yet Jenny's approval had become oddly important to her.

  Conflicting views confused her, so she turned her mind to UncleTy instead, wondering if she would ever see him again. Here, too, her mind tugged in differing directions. Uncle Ty had been nice to her, and she liked him well enough, but she had an uneasy sense that uncle Ty didn't particularly like her in return.