Deep Purple (5 page)

Lucy grabbed at her hand. “
You won’t say anything to Sherrod, will you?’’

Catherine bit her lip. reluctant to make such a promise, but Lucy seemed not to notice her hesitancy. “
If only Sherrod were like Law,” she murmured, her fingers fumbling at the buttons of her daydress. “If only he would take his pleasures at the
rancheria
instead of . . . he’s so patient with me, really he is.”

When Catherine returned to the dining room, she felt Elizabeth's hooded eyes watching her as she ex
plained that Lucy would be only a few minutes late. Don Francisco frowned and tugged at his beard. Did either of them suspect Lucy’s illness? Probably not, for when their daughter-in-law appeared some minutes later, the table's smoking oil lamp reflected only a woman's shining eyes and gay disposition.

Barely touching her food, Lucy addressed no one in particular. “
You know, I think when Sherrod returns, we should start planning for a European holiday.”

“
Oh, Mama,” Abigail exclaimed, “can we go to Venice and ride those boats—what were they called, Miss Howard?”

“
Gondolas.”

“
Of course, darling!” Lucy said. Her face was full of animation.

“
And those funny humped-back animals—the mammals,” Brigham chimed in.

“
Camels," Abigail corrected. “And they don’t live in Europe.”

“
We’ll see it all, darlings. I’ll talk to Sherrod when he returns, and we'll start making plans at once.”

Seeing the silent faces of her in-laws, Lucy's pert mask seemed to slip. In a tremulous voice she said. “
It’ll be all right for Sherrod to go, won’t it, Don Francisco? I mean. Law could run Cristo Rey until we returned. It’d only be for three or four months.”

Don Francisco patted his lips with his napkin and cast a glance at Catherine. “
I don't think Law has much interest in running Cristo Rey, Lucy. And I don't think Sherrod wants to leave right now while he and Poston are lobbying for a change of capitals."

Emphasizing his wish to change the subject, Don Francisco turned to Catherine and said, “
Charles Poston is our territorial delegate and owns a mining company in Tubac, southwest of here. He and Sherrod feel Tucson, not Prescott, should be the territorial capital.

“
After all, three-quarters of the territory’s population live in Tucson, but because Tucson is predominantly ‘secesh,’ Lincoln’s cabinet refuses to make it the capital.”

Catherine managed to make some intelligent response, but the sight of Lucy
’s dejected face disturbed her. The woman was a younger version of her own mother.

Elizabeth did not help the situation when she sai
d, “Sherrod has no business going to Tucson or Europe. He belongs here at the Stronghold. Cristo Rey needs him.”

A cold film slipped over Don Francisco
’s eyes, and Catherine thought she could almost understand why he would take advantage of the Mormon custom of polygamy. And then there was the fact that Doña Dominica had been a very beautiful woman ... in addition to possessing a prized piece of land.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The continuous clanging of the bell interrupted the poem Abigail was reciting. “Papa’s home!” she cried, and before Catherine could stop them the children were running through the
zaguán
to the front of the house.

Lucy flew from her bedroom, pausing only long enough to say, “
It’s Sherrod, Catherine! Come on.”

Catherine hung back, unwilling to watch Sh
errod’s reunion with his wife and children. The affection exchanged between the family reminded her too sharply of what she did not have. She knew she had to escape the Stronghold at least for a little while; to ride until she had exorcised the jealous demon that possessed her.

That afternoon she rode perhaps farther than she should have, but it was the only way for her to work off the sight of Sherrod and Lucy entering their bedroom together. Lucy clinging happily to his arm and his gift for her, wrapped i
n brown paper, clutched in one hand—a miniature Swiss music box.

Catherine urged the roan into a gallop across the rolling hills of the Whetstones. She wanted only to flee the thought that tantalized her. But when she returned to the stables, resting weakl
y against the stall door to catch her breath, the thought was still with her—like a phantom shadow.

Was she never to know the love of a husband and children?

CHAPTER 7

J
une 24. It marked the beginning of a change in Catherine’s life at the Stronghold. It also marked the Fiesta de San Juan, the Mexican tribute to John the Baptist.

The fiesta started early in the afternoon with the vaqueros presenting feats of daring in the main corral
—riding wild horses and swinging bulls by their tails, which brought hoots of laughter from the
rancheria
families. Catherine, with Brigham and Abigail in hand, walked down to the banks of the Cienega to watch the cockfights and horseraces. “I could do it, I could do it,” Brigham persisted throughout the afternoon, trying to cajole Catherine into letting him race a horse.

Privately, she thought it sad the children were confined to riding within the Stronghold
’s two acres. But then Don Francisco, in warning her how dangerous it was to ride outside the walls, had told about Pete Kitchen, a neighbor, whose twelve-year-old son had been killed by the Chiricahuas only months earlier. Catherine had thanked Don Francisco for his concern but continued her riding.

“
Perhaps your father will let you ride with me tomorrow if we stay close to the
rancheria
,” she told Brigham now, hoping to brighten his spirits.

His blue eyes, warm like his father
’s, danced. “All right!” Catherine had no further problem the rest of the afternoon with the children.

Later Don F
rancisco gave a
barbacoa
followed by an evening of dancing. From beneath a hastily constructed
ramada
, Don Francisco and Elizabeth looked on while the
peones
danced the fandango and other lively native dances. Catherine saw the disapproval in the tight set of Elizabeth's lips and wondered if the woman had ever felt any stirrings of romance.

Her own blood stirred as she watched the sinuous movements of the men and women. A passion flowed in the music that was difficult to resist. She glanced at Sherrod and L
ucy, who stood shoulder to shoulder, watching the gay performance. Did either of them feel that same surge of unidentifiable yearning?

From the Mexican and Indian women gathered to one side, a short, stolid Indian girl crossed to where four or five men sto
od beneath a large fig tree drinking the potent
aguardiente.
She selected one of the men to dance. It was only after the couple moved out of the shadows and into the light of the lanterns strung from the trees that Catherine recognized the man with the butter-colored curls.

She closed her eyes with a sigh, hoping that Law would not make a fool of himself before Don Francisco, but a moment later her eyes opened to find Law performing quite admirably. His movements were graceful and lithe as he clapped his ha
nds overhead, swiveled his hips, and stomped his heels in tempo to the Spanish music. And when the young Indian girl laughed up into the rakish face as she twirled about him—when he looked down over his shoulder at her with a teasing smile—Catherine found herself wishing the girl with the whirling skirts were she instead. She, who had never danced, had never felt a man’s hand at her waist, moving her with him to the romantic spell of the music.

She did not like the direction her thoughts seemed to be taking
more and more often, and she was glad when the evening was at last over and the revelers drifted back to their homes and beds. Catherine herself found no sleep in her own bed that night, for the June heat penetrated even the house’s thick earthen walls, and the perspiration-dampened sheets continually tangled about her cotton gown.

Her restlessness only increased as the hours passed. Thus she was awake when the light knock came at the door, followed by a girlish voice. Catherine inched the door open to mak
e out Abigail standing in her nightgown. Excitement twinkled in the child’s eyes, reminding Catherine of Lucy. “What is it, Abigail?”

“
Oh, Miss Howard,” Abigail whispered, “do you know what tonight is? It’s very special.”

“
It’s almost morning,” Catherine corrected, smiling. “And, yes, I know what was special about tonight—it was the fiesta of John the Baptist.”

“
Yes, but do you know what happens at four in the morning? If you swim at that time, they say your hair will grow thick and long. And also if it rains tonight the rest of the summer we’ll have enough rain—and if it doesn’t, we’ll have a drought!”

Catherine chuckled.
‘‘And you believe all those superstitions, do you?”

Abigail grabbed her hand. “
Come on, Miss Howard. It’s getting late. Please, can’t we try?”

Catherine would have firmly told the girl to go back to bed, but the loneliness in the girl
’s eyes—she could understand it. Neither Abigail nor Brigham received much attention from Lucy, who seemed to take only an occasional interest in her children. Amazingly, it was the humorless Elizabeth who paid the most attention to the children, especially Brigham.

“
All right, Abigail,” Catherine conceded. She tied her blue silk robe about her and slipped into her mules, saying, “I’ll watch you wade. Then it’s back to bed.”

The two stealthily slipped from the house. Catherine half expected the guard at the gate to halt them, but apparently he was too far gone on
aguardiente
, as he sleepily waved them through. Within minutes she and Abigail stood on the willow-laced banks, downstream from the
rancheria.

Catherine thought she had to be the most foolish woman in the world to let a child persuade her to go wading at four in the morning. But as she sat on the water-eroded slope with her arms hugging her legs and her
chin propped on her knees, she decided that for a few moments it was wonderful to be frivolous.

Outside it was much cooler, and overhead the constellations made their nightly swing across the southern skies. The air was sharply pure, fresh and untouched by
human pollution. It was a wondrous night, a night that made her glad to be alive.

Finished with her wading, Abigail trudged out of the creek
’s shallower pool back to the bank. Her gown was wet at its hem where she had held it above her dimpled knees. She dropped down beside Catherine. “Well, do you think it worked?” One hand lifted each pigtail. “Are they any longer?”

Catherine's laughter bubbled up. “
Oh, child, you're delightful! Let me look.” She pretended to study each pigtail. “Mmmm, yes, I do believe they are.”

Abigail smiled and stretched her pudgy arms in a sleepy yawn. “
Just wait until tomorrow. I bet—”

She broke off as pebbles crunched beyond the creek's bend where arrow weed and carrizo, giant reeds, dueled with the cottonwoods and paloverde for s
pace. Before Catherine could scramble to her feet, a tall, rangy figure rounded the reed-shielded bend into view. Catherine sighed with relief when she recognized the wildly curling hair.

She came to her feet, folding her arms before her in a gesture of wa
iting that was really a useless attempt to cover at least a portion of herself. “Evening, ma’am,” Law said, ambling a less than straight line toward her and Abigail. He lifted the wicker-covered bulbous flask he toted. “Care for some lightning? Nectar of the gods, it is, ma’am.”

He reeked of the
aguardiente
. “No, thank you. Law. We were just going back to the house.”

“
We’re seeing if it’s true your hair grows more if you swim on the night of San Juan, Uncle Law.”

Catherine rolled her eyes and sighed. Any id
ea of escaping the drunken man was quite hopeless, for Abigail was holding out her pigtail for Law to examine. “You wait, tomorrow it’ll be longer, I bet!”

“
Abigail, we’d better go back now. It’s getting—”

“
And what about you?” Law asked Catherine. “Did you go wading also?”

“
I don’t believe in superstitions. Abigail, are you ready?”

Law sighed dramatically, but his teeth gleamed as white as the bright stars in the blue vault overhead. “
What a shame. But then maybe I can show you something that will change your mind.” He grasped her wrist and began pulling her behind him.

Perhaps she should have been worried, but she sensed Law meant them no harm. And she knew it would never do to make a scene before the child. After all, Abigail and Brigham did adore
their uncle.

“
All right, Law,” she said patronizingly, “we’ll look at whatever it is you have to show us. Then we really must return to the house.”

She turned to see if Abigail was following, but the child was stretching again and yawning. “
I’m going on back, Miss Howard.”

Catherine hesitated. Maybe it would be better if Abigail did return rather than have the child traipsing through the dead of night behind a drunk. “
All right, I’ll be along soon.”

Already he was pulling at her, and she gave in to his stre
ngth and let him tug her along the bank toward the creek’s bend. He was singing some Spanish ballad in a surprisingly good voice. She found herself scrambling up the bank’s incline in an effort to keep up with his longer strides.

“
Wait,” she gasped and jerked her robe loose from the spines of a cholla cactus. Law continued on, and she gave up trying to protect her gown to follow the liquor-demented man. Somewhere along the way she heard the thud when he dropped his flask, but he plodded on with her in tow.

“
There—there it is," he said, jerking her alongside of him now.

She squinted through the starlit landscape. “
There's what? 1 don't see anything.”

“
The cactus,” he said thickly and pulled her down to her knees beside him.

How ridiculous the two of them must
look! Groveling on their knees in the midst of the prairie at four in the morning! But, yes, now that she looked, she saw among the twining green stems of the low cactus a large white flower. She looked at Law, whose face was only inches from hers. “This is it? This is what you wanted to show me?” she said, her voice growing louder.

“
Sssh! This is a special flower”

She glared at the saturnine face. "Why?”

“Because,” he said with an elephantine effort at dignity, "this prickly cactus blooms only one night in the year! The flowers open at sunset and are closed by seven or eight the next morning. ”

“
I see,” she said, impressed in spite of her cynicism.

Law carefully broke off the white flower and, to her astonishment, wedged it behind her right ear. She looked
into the golden-brown eyes, so close to her own, and for a moment it felt as if her lungs had forgotten to function.

“
Beautiful,” he said in a quiet voice.

The air rushed back inside her. "I
’m not susceptible to flattery. Law Davalos!” she snapped, disappointed, for despite the young man's shiftless ways, she thought she had detected a tenuous thread of integrity.

Law's hands reached o«
either side of her neck to find the one braid she had plaited before retiring that night. "I wasn’t making up to you. Miss Howard,” he said, as his fingers slowly loosened her hair from its braid. “Your hair’s too heavy to knot it back the way you do.” His hands lifted her hair free to let it fall straight and sleek, framing her oval face.

They knelt facing each other, Cathe
rine with her hair mantling her shoulders and the white flower at her ear . . . and Law, his dark face above hers, his hands still buried in her thick mahogany tresses. “You are beautiful, Miss Howard.”

She swallowed. She knew it was the magic of the night
, that she was being totally impractical, but for the life of her she could not turn away when Law bent his head to brush her trembling lips.

At first the drooping mustache tickled. Then she forgot everything
—the odor of
aguardiente
on his breath, the gravel grinding into her knees, the fact that Lawrence Davalos was five years younger than she, and most of all that he was not husband material.

The kiss was electrifying. That two people could touch in such a simple manner and detonate explosions such as rip
ped through her was something that had been beyond her capacity to imagine.

Law raised his head at last. His eyes were shining in the night
’s darkness. “Guess I sort of forgot myself, didn’t I now?”

She cleared her throat. Was her body swaying to some inau
dible music? “I think we both did,” she said in a schoolteacher’s pristine voice. “If you’ll help me rise, I’ll return to the house before it gets any later.”

When he assisted her to her feet, his hands at her arms, she considered for the first time what it really meant to have a man
’s hands on her—the feeling it stirred in her, not romantic, but a purely physical, almost tangible, response.

Walking apart, they
returned to the house. They made no attempt at conversation. Law, with his thumbs jammed beneath his concho belt, whistled softly that same Spanish tune she had heard earlier. He walked along the portico behind her, apparently unconcerned that his spurs clanked loudly in the stillness of the courtyard.