Steeling herself to the February cold, she got out of bed and hurriedly swathed herself in a green velvet robe and layers of shawls. Fur slippers protected her feet from the chill floor tiles. She wouldn’t allow the maids in to see to a fire; they would know then that she was sleeping with her jefe de vaqueros.

  Bonita, her personal maid, leaped to her feet as soon as she entered the sitting room next to her bedchamber. “Your té is ready, Doña Cordelia,” she said, dropping a curtsey. She quickly filled a delicate cup from the ornate silver pot.

  Cordelia took the cup and sat in her favorite chair without speaking. The maid moved behind her with a hairbrush and began brushing, careful not to pull any tangles. Cordelia sipped her tea thoughtfully. Hector was not her problem at the moment. It was Fallon. He had healed, and he was talking of returning to San Felipe. The old woman had refused her any help in the matter, saying it was of this world. However it was handled, she must do it herself.

  “Bonita, is Señor Fallon awake yet?”

  “I … I believe I heard him moving about, señora.”

  She looked at the girl acidly. She had likely been in Fallon’s bed already this morning. The maids seemed to dote on his blue eyes and handsome features. She wondered why that angered her; she refused to consider that it was because he had made no move toward her own bed.

  “Help me dress, girl, then bring him to my escritorio. Tell him it is important I speak with him immediately.”

  Immediately, she had said, but even when he walked into the study she wasn’t sure what she was going to say. “Please have a seat, Mr. Fallon.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” She couldn’t avoid the annoying thought that he was being respectful, not flirtatious. “Bonita said it was important, ma’am.”

  “Yes.” She ran a finger along her dagger, thinking furiously. “You intend to leave us soon? Aren’t you enjoying your stay?” She looked up suddenly and caught him coloring. And well he might. She was only sure of Ramona and Yolanda, but she thought Bonita and perhaps one or two others had shared his bed as well. She ignored the fact that she had encouraged it, telling the maids they were to see to his every need.

  “I’m grateful for your hospitality,” he said, “but my ribs are mended enough for me to ride now. It’s time for me to stop imposing.”

  “Not at all.” She cast about for something, anything, to catch his fancy. “Hector Ramirez believes he may be on the track of your horse.”

  He bounded out of the chair. “River Wind? He knows where River Wind is?”

  “Not exactly. He’s asked questions. I think, though, in time, your horse might be returned.” Why not? She cared nothing for a horse. Keeping Fallon there was all.

  “If he finds out anything, ma’am, please send word to San Felipe immediately.”

  “I was hoping you’d remain here, Mr. Fallon.” Why? There had to be a reason. “I had hoped you might consent to … to run my rancho for me.” Yes, that was good. She simpered. “I am just a woman, you know, with no head for managing a large estate.”

  “I thank you, Mrs. Applegate, but I want to make my own way.”

  The fool! “I had thought of making you a partner.” The words were out before she realized. She had thought of no such thing. Letting go of a single unnecessary acre or a coin she didn’t have to was almost physically painful for her.

  Fallon seemed as startled as she. “That’s incredibly generous. Too much so for me to accept. Besides, you have a jefe de vaqueros already.”

  She dismissed Ramirez with a gesture. “A fit overseer, but not a man who understands building and increasing an estate. I believe that you do. You will be a manager above him. As for the terms, don’t think you won’t work for what you get. If you agree to work for me for, say, five years, I will sign a paper stating that at the end of that period you are to receive one quarter of my estate.” That was very good indeed. Much could happen in five years. “I have no relatives, Mr. Fallon. No one to dispute what I do with my property.” That would set him thinking that he might end up with it all. Good, if it made him stay.

  “Five years is a long time,” he said slowly. “You understand I need to think it over.”

  So far as the man knew, she thought incredulously, he was having wealth thrust at him. What could he possibly have to think over? “I understand perfectly. Do say you’ll stay as my guest, at least until you give me an answer.”

  Even at that he hesitated. “Of course, Mrs. Applegate. I’ll be pleased to.”

  After he was gone she sat behind the long table, fondling the turquoise-mounted dagger. On the surface he gave every appearance of being open and straightforward, but she couldn’t read what was beneath. In her experience there was always another person beneath the surface, and another beneath that. Her inability to perceive the true man made him dangerous … . She would have to try to get another sight from the old woman.

  James walked slowly across the courtyard, thinking about Cordelia Applegate. Her offer might be a reasonable one for a man of experience and mature years, but he was painfully aware that he wouldn’t be twenty-one for some months yet. That brought up the possibility that she wanted something else. He knew he was a good-looking man, and he knew aging women sometimes did strange things. He had been approached more than once in New Orleans with clear, if obliquely worded, advances from wealthy widows. He’d managed to ignore those, and he certainly had no intention of ending up in Cordelia Applegate’s bed.

  On the other hand, he had no evidence of any such intention on her part. Embarrassment flooded him at the thought that he might be manufacturing all this out of whole cloth. She didn’t seem to mind his bedding serving girls. In some ways she seemed to foster it, always making sure that the prettiest girls were set to clean his room and tend his clothes. Could it be she was actually encouraging them?

  He threw back his head and laughed out loud, drawing looks from servants bustling about the courtyard. His imagination was getting fevered. He went on into the tackroom, where José Escobar was mending a bridle. He had come to like the diminutive vaquero, often spending an evening with him, sharing a pipe and talking.

  José looked up as he walked in. “You are amused by something, señor?”

  “A stray thought,” James said. He needed to talk to someone about Cordelia’s offer, and he respected José’s opinions. He laid out the bare facts to the man.

  “There is bondad y maldad in everything,” José said when he finished.

  “I certainly can’t see any evil in Mrs. Applegate. I suppose most men would see her offer as a dream come true. What about you, José? Haven’t you ever wanted to be master of thousands of acres?”

  José shrugged. “Always I have followed el patron or la patrona. They gave orders, and I did not question if they were right or wrong. It was enough that they were who they were. To be master of anything more than my own manhood is beyond my dreams.”

  “A man can be whatever he wants to be,” James said earnestly. “In San Felipe there are men with no fewer years than you, who intend to build, if not empires, at least tidy ranchos.”

  “Among my people, señor, a man does not rise from nothing to become a master. I am content.”

  “If you ever change your mind, I’d be proud to have you join me. You are a man to ride the river with.” José gestured in self-deprecation. James recognized his embarrassment at the compliment, and hurried on. “Mrs. Applegate says Ramirez is on the track of River Wind. I may have him back before much longer.”

  José grimaced.

  “Should I accept Mrs. Applegate’s offer?”

  The old vaquero spoke with his face turned away. “Accept it, señor. In the long run it will be best. In the long run, all things are good.”

  24

  Lucille shivered despite her robe and tried to immerse herself in the volume of Byron. The dirt-floored cabin that was her prison—after three months she thought of it so—was cold, even now in March. Cordelia was supposed to see that someone came to cut wood, but even in the depth of winter she had often had to venture out to gather dead twigs and branches.

  With a cry of rage she hurled the book across the sparsely furnished room. James Fallon was warm, living in luxury, and with his fill of women—she heard things from the serving girls who brought her food—while she lived like an animal.

  She went to the door and peered out. Less than half a mile away through the thick undergrowth of mesquite and catclaw lay the old woman’s hovel. Fear of the hex doll in Cordelia’s hands had kept her away for the months past, but now … James Fallon had to be kept alive and used. She wouldn’t argue with the cards, or the old woman’s sight. If Fallon was to be at the hacienda, she had to hide. She accepted that. But she wasn’t a servant. She wasn’t an animal. She had a right to be treated properly.

  Abruptly, before she could change her mind, she left the cabin. There was no real path through the chapparal; thorns caught at her dress. Twice she stumbled into briar patches, floundering out with painful red scratches. With startling suddenness, though, she pushed into the clearing around the old woman’s hut. A thin reed of smoke rose from the smoke hole; otherwise the clearing was still. The only sound was her own breathing. No bird chirped; no leaf rustled.

  “Come in, moza!”

  She flinched at the call from the hut. The crone might have powers, but she had not let Sanité Dédé overawe her; she wouldn’t allow it of a peasant witch woman. She stooped to enter the hut, but once inside her back straightened pridefully. The old woman, leather-skinned and wrinkled, sat in a wooden chair on the far side of the firepit.

  “I am Lucille Gautier. I am not—”

  “Mis mozas address me as ‘mi dueña.’”

  The chill of the old woman’s words arrested her. For the first time she felt the oddness of the hut, as if it weren’t connected to the rest of the world. And there was an aura about the shabby old woman. Power radiated from her. Beside her Sanité Dédé was a worm, nothing.

  “You still doubt.” A claw of a hand gestured. “Let your breathing not disturb your thoughts.”

  Lucille opened her mouth, but no words came out. She couldn’t breathe. Her frantic fingers tore at the neck of her dress, clutched her throat. Her face began to turn blue. Her eyes bulged. Her legs turned to water, and she crumpled. Her face scrubbed in the dirt as she tried to claw her way to the old woman. She had to make her understand. Silver flecks obscured her vision. Fringed shadows channeled her sight to pinpoints. She was dying. She couldn’t! Not like this!

  “Puedes respirar, moza.”

  In her private darkness the old woman’s words were faint, but as she heard, air rushed into her lungs. Blessed, cooling air. She sucked at it as if at the sweetest wine. “Thank you,” she managed. Ominous answering silence spurred her. “Mi dueña! I thank mi dueña!”

  “Good, moza. You live in the world of things, but this small hut is the doorway to a much greater world, the world of los espiritos. The one who dyes her hair and paints her face to hide her years does not understand this. You must, moza. I have been waiting for you.”

  Waiting for her? Cautiously she raised herself to her knees and sat back on her heels. “I want to learn, mi dueña. Will you teach me?”

  “Perhaps, moza. I must examine you. Quitese la ropa!”

  Lucille scrambled to her feet. As her clothes fell in a welter around her feet, the cold raised bumps all over her skin, but for once she didn’t mind.

  The old woman came around the firepit. Her bony fingers poked and prodded and burrowed as if she were examining a horse. Before she was done, Lucille was flushed and breathing hard.

  “Am I acceptable?”

  The old woman took a pair of dingy pouches from the chest against the wall. “That must still be seen, moza. Now, be quiet.”

  Carelessly she kicked Lucille’s clothes aside. From one pouch she took dried snakeskins and laid them in a ring around Lucille’s feet. On each foot was placed a snake skull, fangs lightly indenting her arches. Delving into the other bag she came out with full hands. She began a keening chant and opened her fists. Small bones, tiny animal skulls, something that might have been a dried finger, fell at Lucille’s feet. The old woman rubbed her bony chin with one thin finger and studied the display.

  “Quizas, moza,” she said finally. “Perhaps.” The snakeskins and bones went back into the pouches. Lucille wet her lips and kept silent. “Kneel by the fire, moza.”

  Hesitantly, Lucille knelt. She understood nothing of what was happening, but somehow she knew this next was the crux. From under her dress the old woman took a small leather pouch and sprinkled powder on the fire. Multicolored sparks flew; blue-gray smoke billowed toward the smoke hole.

  “Breathe the smoke, moza. Breath deep.”

  Lucille rubbed her sweating palms. She leaned forward, inhaled deeply, choked and coughed. Nothing happened. She looked at the old woman questioningly.

  “Breathe, moza.”

  Lucille put her face back into the smoke and breathed. And again. Again. She stared at the wall behind the old woman. At the detail in the swirls of mud plastered over woven branches. There were patterns in the mud, patterns that moved and changed.

  One appeared to be a wagon. She could see the horses galloping, the wheels spinning. There were houses, mansions, women dancing in colorful gowns. Boats with towering masts and sails that billowed before the wind like clouds. Steamships with paddlewheels churning. Cannon roared. Men in a mission fought an army and died. Sound boomed in her ears, hollow, impossible to make out, but she thought she was speaking. Or perhaps screaming.

  The images changed. Deserts burned, flames towering to the sky. Mountains melted and flowed like hot wax. Oceans boiled. The air was jelly, swirling in a thousand colors that had no means. Blood rained from the sky. Skulls talked, and dead men walked, and the earth opened and died.

  She became aware of herself, slick with sweat, head on her knees, whimpering like a child. Her throat was sore. Her eyes throbbed. She had a memory of fear, and even the memory wrenched her stomach. The old woman watched calmly from her chair, sipping from a cracked cup.

  “What … what happened, mi dueña? My head hurts.”

  “Never use the smoke unless it is needed, moza,” the crone said quietly. “It eats souls. You will come to need it, to want it more than food or drink. Some have died of thirst and hunger, content with breathing the smoke.”

  “There are people who like that?” Lucille asked incredulously, then the old woman’s words penetrated. “Do you mean you will teach me, mi dueña?”

  “Are you ready for it, moza? If you will learn, then you will know hunger and thirst, cold, heat, and pain. When you are stupid, you will suffer with your face in the dirt.” Despite her words, her tone was not unkindly. “I cannot guarantee that you will learn, moza, but you will survive. I did, many years ago. If these things frighten you, leave. Come to me like the redhaired one, to ask for a sight, or a potion, or the telling of the bones. Well, moza?”

  Lucille shivered under that raven gaze. She was frightened, more frightened than she had ever been before. “Teach me, mi dueña,” she said.

  “Senor Ramirez!” James strode toward the stable, where the jefe was mounting his horse. It was a crisp March morning, and soon James, too, would be riding out to join the vaqueros, but today he had a reason for lagging behind at the hacienda. “Senor Ramirez, por favor. I have been trying to speak to you for two days.”

  “I am busy,” Ramirez replied sourly.

  “I won’t keep you a minute. Have you found out any more about River Wind?”

  “I have more important things to do than look for your horse. Every day you badger me.”

  “Over a week ago I asked,” James said levelly. “You mumbled at me vaguely, and said you had work to do.”

  Ramirez stared at him, jerking the reins. His horse danced a few steps sidewards. “Your horse will be found when it is found. If I were patron—” Abruptly the hawk-faced man dug his spurs into his mount’s flanks.

  James frowned as the vaquero galloped away. It was his opinion that Ramirez feared he would be supplanted in Cordelia’s embraces.

  As Ramirez galloped out of the courtyard, another rider entered. With surprised delight James recognized Henry Cameron. “Henry! How’s the wife and little Denmark? Married life still agreeing with you?”

  “It’s agreeing.” Henry stepped down and tossed his reins to a waiting stable hand. “Why don’t you find yourself a wife, James? It’ll agree with you, too.”

  “Too many pretty flowers,” James laughed. “I can’t pick just one.” He hadn’t thought of marriage since Helene had said no. “Truth to tell, Henry, I just might. After today, maybe I’ll take a trip back home and see if Helene Saint Albin is ready to change her mind.”

  “Why would she, James? You still ain’t got a mansion.”

  James nodded. “But I’ll have one in five years. Mrs. Applegate offered me a quarter of her land to manage her estate for that long. She wants a man to run things for her.”

  “And she come to you?” Henry asked drily. “I ain’t noticed you got a whole lot of experience.”

  “That’s why I took three weeks to decide. It’s too good a chance to pass up, Henry. I’ll never get another like it. And with River Wind gone, it’s the best thing I can see.”

  “It’s too damned good, James. Don’t you wonder why she make an offer like that to somebody your age? I don’t trust her. That woman got a twist in her.”

  “What do you mean?” James said hotly. Though he’d considered his youth himself, the reference still stung. “Do you know something, or are you just talking?”

  Henry shook his head. “It’s just … well, when she looks at you, it’s like one of them quadroon gals back in New Orleans, got her man on a string like a puppy dog.”

  “Damn it, she’s old enough to be my mother. This is a business arrangement. Nothing more.”

  “That ain’t what I meant,” Henry protested.

  “I’m not wet behind the ears. I don’t need you to lead me around by the hand.”

 

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