As he fought for breath, he heard her siren’s voice, the voice that once had lured him to the rocks.
“If I wanted you to die, all I’d have to do is give up trying,” Annie told him. “Instead, I cooked a poultice for your wound.”
His cough sounded like rattling leaves and racked him with fresh agony
.
“As long as you don’t make me any food,” he said when he recovered.
“Why not? Are you in too much pain to eat?”
Since he was lying on his stomach, he had to turn his head to see her
. “It’s not that. It’s just that . . . well, your cooking smells like shit.”
* * *
Like the creek at spring’s thaw, Anna felt a cool ripple deep within her first. The current intensified, then found its voice, her laughter.
She could not recall the last time she had laughed
. The explosion of sound surprised her, and she would have stopped, except it felt so right.
Notion, who had been lying beside Quinn, leapt to his feet and cocked his head at the strange noise
. For some reason, the dog’s reaction made her suddenly self-conscious. She fell silent.
“You always made me do that,” she accused Quinn.
“Women hav
e
” His speech was interrupted by harsh coughing.
She knew that she should wish him dead, but still she loathed the painful sound
. She helped him raise his head, then held a cup of water for him to sip.
Afterward, he continued
. “Women have laughed at me my whole life. It’s a curse.”
His voice sounded just as amiable as she remembered, but his green eyes glittered with suspicion
. She knew for certain then that he had not forgotten what she’d done, nor would he have trusted her now, had he any other choice.
She wondered what, if anything, she should say to ease his fear
. Any apology she could think of seemed inadequate. Blushing, she turned her gaze away from him, into the fire.
Madre de Jesús.
The events of six years past were as clear as if they’d been part of a play she’d seen last evening or a book she’d read the day before.
Even now, she recalled how a pillow had partly muffled the gambler’s groggy voice.
“I can do better. I swear it.” His words had moved so slowly, like sorghum dripping down the sides of thick, brown bread.
Annie Faith checked the rope that bound his hands behind him
. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she couldn’t risk him getting loose too quickly. Not when so much was at stake.
“Come here, sweetheart
. I believe I’d enjoy another chance t’prove m’self in your bed,” he called.
The slurring in his words reassured her that he’d remember little when he woke
. At least that was what she told herself, since she so desperately needed that much to be true.
She paused a few moments, until the laudanum she’d mixed into his drink set him snoring
. Then she resumed her search through the pockets of the gambler’s trousers and jacket, which had been neatly draped over a straight-backed chair.
Quinn’s rattling cough returned Anna to the present and to the certain knowledge that no apology could ever be enough
. Not for him, not for her, not even for the God whose strength and goodness she drew upon to heal.
Judge Ward Cameron’s dark-haired housekeeper, Elena, smiled at him as she ushered Horace Singletary into the elegantly appointed office
. Ward frowned, certain that whatever news the county land clerk brought him would be nothing to smile about at all.
“I’m terribly sorry to trouble you, Mr. Cameron
─” The young man spoke as cordially as always.
“─ That’s
Judge
Cameron,” Ward corrected, as he did each time the two conversed. He would have liked to correct Horace’s other words as well, for both of them knew the clerk was never sorry to inconvenience Cameron. One might even say he lived for such occasions, since the day the judge bought his family’s property at a tax auction.
Horace nodded swiftly, putting to mind Judge Cameron of a weasel, a skulking little creature that nosed around Ward’s business deals.
“Of course,
Judge
Cameron.” He passed Ward an envelope then waited for the older man to tear it open and remove the sheet inside. Before Cameron could read it, he continued. “As you see, I was unable to process your mining claim. On further research, I discovered the land you specified already has an owner. Very unusual situation, for so remote an area, but I thought I remembered filing a change of ownership for the tax office.”
Cameron felt heat rising to his face
. That worthless Frenchman who’d given him the sample and the map must have known about this! The bastard tricked him and was laughing from his place in hell! Or maybe not. Maybe Luc-Pierre would have been just as surprised as he, had he survived.
Still furious, Ward scanned the letter.
“Who the hell’s this woman, the owner?” he asked after a moment.
Anna Louise Bennett.
That name rang a bell, but he couldn’t place it.
Singletary interrupted the act of polishing his glasses with a handkerchief to nod
. “About four years ago, she was named the legal heir of a Señora Hattie Valdez, a white woman widowed by Pedro Calder
ó
ón Valdéz, a former
capitán
in the Mexican army. The entire canyon was a Mexican land grant, properly registered for transfer after the territory was established.”
Something in the clerk’s expression convinced Ward he was enjoying every moment of this conversation
. The short, slightly built young man had asked too many questions about Cameron’s previous land dealings. He definitely had suspicions about how Cameron had come to be the only bidder for his father’s ranch. Fortunately, young Horace couldn’t seem to find the proof he needed to act against him.
Ward frowned at the letter
. Singletary would have neat copies, in case something unfolded. He was obviously too green to understand how men of standing were sometimes forced to grease the wheels of justice.
Ward had hinted earlier that he could be quite generous if Singletary chose to “expedite” his arrangements
. But Horace couldn’t do that, he’d explained, not while he intended to eventually start up the first newspaper in Agua Fresca County.
Ward swore at the young man more than the situation.
Were Horace Singletary anyone else, they might have come to some mutually beneficial agreement. The land grant registration record might have been destroyed, or the will naming the white woman might have turned up missing.
But Cameron could almost hear the little weasel planning the front page of the first issue of his newspaper
. Nothing would sell it better than a little homegrown corruption. Especially the kind that involved a Presidentially-appointed local judge.
“A Mexican land grant,” Cameron thundered, pounding on his massive desk.
“God damn it all. This is a territory of the United States, not Mexico. Did we whip them in that war or not?”
“I presume a man of your position has at some time read the law,” Singletary told him, his blue eyes glittering as if that weasel nose had scented blood
. As always, he withdrew his fangs after just a taste. “Excuse me, I meant the territorial law regarding prior land grants. As I am sure you know, they are quite valid, once properly registered and proved. All this is in order. Miss Anna Bennett, a United States citizen, now owns the land.”
“And she’s paid taxes?”
He slipped on his glasses. “They’ve been paid in advance.”
Once again, the judge’s gaze dropped to the annoyingly precise handwriting on the letter
. Hattie Valdéz, widow of Pedro Calderón Valdéz, had bequeathed the land to Anna Louise Bennett on March 14, 1883.
He could easily envision how the names would look typeset on a weekly paper, should Anna Bennett suddenly be found dead
. He could picture his new bride, on seeing Singletary’s printed accusations, rushing back home to her father, consigning him forever to this hell.
Anna Bennett
.
Why did that name nag him so? His disappointment ─ and Singletary’s presence ─ made Cameron’s head pound with frustration, for he felt certain some crucial fact eluded him, something that could ruin all his plans.
Perhaps if he took his leave of the land clerk and a
ttended to a few last-minute arrangements for his future bride’s comfort, he would think of it. But he already had in mind a solution to his problem.
The quiet disappearance of this Bennett woman from
his
land.
* * *
En el nombre de Cristo, te voy a ayudar
. In the name of Christ, I will help you.
How many times had Anna used the words the curing woman taught her
? She had spoken them to Quinn today. Did she really mean them? Did she truly draw upon their power when she helped bring forth a child or lanced an old man’s abscessed gum? Did she believe them now?
Her gaze rose to the dark, weathered wood of the carved cross hanging on the wall above her table
. From the time she had arrived, that cross had been the cabin’s sole adornment. She’d been beaten, bled, and nearly emptied when she came here, only to be refilled by an old woman’s skill and faith.
Anna absently grasped the worn silver of the matching cross that once more hung about her neck
. She shuddered with a memory of her first lucid thoughts inside this cabin, near the very spot where Quinn now lay. The pain and almost worse, the stark humiliation. Even the scant comfort of her songs had been denied her. How she had cursed Señora Valdez for prolonging her suffering. Didn’t the old crone know she wasn’t worth the effort of a poultice, the blessing of a prayer?
But throughout those first weeks of healing, the old woman had scorned her patient’s self-pity
. Anna well remembered the withered little healer’s deep scowl of displeasure.
Drawing her striped serape’s worn wool tight about her thin arms, the señora spoke, this time in English
. “You feel bad about what you did and what you were? Then make it up to God, whose power saved you. He has replaced your emptiness with
el dón
, the curing touch. I can see it in you as if you were born to it like I was. Learn with me now. Learn to heal his children, the sinners and the saints. And chop more firewood. God likes a cabin warm, too.”
Heal them
.
So simple, so succinct. A way to pay back God for her existence. But even more importantly, it was a ladder to start climbing, a passageway to peace.
Perhaps
el dón
would serve her now as well. For Quinn’s suspicion, his knowledge of her theft, had her feeling as unsettled as she had been in years. Old fears and recriminations had returned like ghosts to haunt her, and she knew that only the ways she had learned within this canyon would banish them again.
Because she could do nothing to repay her debt to Quinn, she would do her best to help him now
. He might die anyway, and if he lived, he might try to hurt her or have her arrested, but those possibilities were as far from her control as the seasons or the phases of the moon. She could never make amends; she could only heal now. Anna could almost hear the old woman grunt approval at the thought.
The poultice should be warm now, ready to be put on Quinn’s shoulder
. The heat of it might do his lungs good, too. If she could only get him past the smell.
She soaked flannel strips in the reeking liquid and then wrung out the excess moisture
. Quinn peered at her, his bloodless face the picture of distrust.
“You’re not putting that on me,” he growled
. “I can’t let you do . . . more.”
Now that she regarded him more closely, she saw something else, the vulnerability of one near death
. She spoke only to that part of him, for the other was too painful.
“I’m not who you remember, Quinn
. I’m not Annie Faith. I’m Anna.” Her words dropped into the calming rhythm of ancient incantation. “I heal you in the name of
el Hijo de Dios
, the Chris
t
”
“
No! Keep tha
t
that mess away. I was helpless last time, but not now. I can’t let you.”
“What do you intend
? To crawl out of that door into the snow? You’ll die without my help.”
“I can’t let you
. Not this time,” Quinn repeated.
“Fine.” She dropped the steaming poultice back into the iron pot to keep it warm
. A flash of anger rolled over her like thunder. Why hadn’t she cooked coffee, instead of wasting time and effort on a man who preyed on those afflicted with her father’s weakness?
She grabbed a rag and wiped her hands
. So he wouldn’t let her heal him. She shouldn’t care at all. If he died, he’d never have her imprisoned for taking his gold or, even worse, hung as a horse thief.
She bit back a curse, confused by the strength of her reaction
. Why had his refusal prompted fury? Had it been his lack of faith in her or his interference with her plan to buy herself redemption? Did she really believe that God hovered over her with a slate of her sins in one hand and an eraser in the other? She tried to laugh off the idea, but this time, her laughter was a whisper, dried leaves in the wind.
En el nombre de Cristo, te voy a ayudar
. In the name of Christ, I will help you.
She’d promised that to him and to herself when she first found him
. And she
did
believe the words the curing woman taught her.
She would have to win him over gradually, just as she the señora had won her
. Until that time, she would simply do her work against his will.
* * *
Through his haze of bone-deep weakness, Quinn tried over and over to remind himself of what Annie Faith was, of what she’d done to him.
She repositioned him with strong and gentle hands, then placed the stinking poultice on his shoulder
. As dead set as he’d been against it, he felt the warmth of it radiating downward into his chest to ease the deep ache that accompanied his breathing. As she worked, she spoke in flowing Spanish, a prayer of some sort, he imagined, or perhaps some sort of chant.
“Can’t forget,” he told himself, but his whispered words did nothing to ease the suspicion that a stranger now inhabited her body, a woman he had never known before.
Her face and voice might be familiar, but her actions and her words conspired to compel him –
him
, of all people in the world – to trust.
“
De las doce verdades del mundo, decidme nueve
,” she intoned as she lit candles arranged atop a wooden chest. “
Los nueve meses de María.
”
Her voice continued, soft, melodic, as her fingers touched his forehead then massaged his scalp with something cool and wet
. Stubbornly, he fought the spell, his mind lurching from the rhythm of her words, carrying him backward to another place and time.
She’d thought him unconscious, then, too, and he’d been equally helpless against whatever she might do
. That time, there had been no bullet to rob him of his strength. Then, she must have drugged him before the two of them made love. Unable to move, he’d peered through slitted eyes while she had fumbled hurriedly through his belongings. He’d wanted to throttle her for her betrayal, but instead, he could do no more than watch.
With each item she yanked out of his pockets, she had whispered, “San Francisco,” her voice shaking over the two words like a sinner’s deathbed prayer
. First she pulled out a deck of cards and riffled through them, running her fingertips along the edges he had shaved.
He could tell that she’d detected the system he had used to mark the deck, for she turned her head to glare
. The hostility that burned in her eyes had made him realize for the first time that she might prove to be a danger and not just a thief.
“You cheating louse,” she’d muttered.
Next she pulled out a pair of loaded dice and an ivory-handled derringer, which she tossed into the corner without comment. The last item from his pockets was a small, leather-bound book, worn from frequent use. Quinn gritted his teeth as he watched her flip through its onion skin pages. He breathed a prayer she would not tear any of them out.