Dust Devil (14 page)

"I was getting to that.” Rita put a fingertip to her pink lips as if trying to recall, but the ends of her mouth curved upward in spite of her mock seriousness. "Ahh, si! Now I recall. With a month still to go before the baby comes Libby Raffin has put on much weight. And Grant has sent her back to Santa Fe to have the care of a good doctor.”

Rosemary had heard nothing from Fort Sumner since her visit there in February, but she had supposed that Grant was occupied trying to keep the rebelling Navajo and Apache in check. She tickled Stephanie under the chin to wake her and get her to finish nursing. "Your eyes are too bright, Rita. That is not all, is it?”

Rita chuckled. "It is said that when Grant come
s to visit her, he also visits his mistress — none other than Dona Lura Armadeo! Imagine, she must have at least forty-five or fifty years, Rosita!”

The notorious Lura! She was reputed to have been the mistress of the first Territorial governor. She was noted as a gambler and kept a large gaming house. Rosemary could only envy the woman who defied society’s opinion to live her life the way she wanted.

Jamie came toddling through the office doorway as fast as his little legs would carry him with Inez chasing behind. "Mama!” he cried. "Mama!” He came to a halt before her. His lips quivered when he saw she held the small thing again.

Rosemary looked down at the large eyes whose lashes were spiked with tears and understood at once.
His spot was threatened. She loved her firstborn dearly and wondered if she would ever feel as close to her daughter as she did to him. She handed Stephanie over to Rita, who tried to quiet the baby’s enraged cries at being taken from its source of nourishment.

"Come here, pet,” Rosemary said and stretched out her arms to engulf the little boy who threw himself in her lap. "Shall we go for a picnic today?”

Jamie enjoyed this most of all, but the delightful trips into the foothills to search for pretty bright stones after lunch were no longer taken. Not only did Cambria’s inhabitants have Indian attacks to fear, but reports reached them that, increasingly,
bandidos
from south of the border and the lawless Comancheros were also taking advantage of the soldiers’ absence from the forts.

"We’ll picnic beneath the shady cottonwood, and you can throw rocks in the river and watch them splash,” Rosemary said.

Jamie’s hazel eyes, which had inherited her long thick lashes, lit up. "
Si, si
, mama!”

She
smiled and hugged his little round body. "’Tis raising a bilingual child I am, Rita.”

"This I should hope, Senora Rhodes! Jamie shall have a very difficult time being governor, no, if he does not speak the Spanish?”

Rita was gently poking fun at Stephen’s plan that his son would go to law school in the East and return to govern the Territory, or state, as everyone hoped it would soon be. Yet Rosemary knew Rita was technically right, for the legislature in Santa Fe was carried on primarily in Spanish. Even official documents were still recorded in Spanish, although English records of transactions were now a requisite.

It was a perfect day for a picnic with a light breeze to rustle the pungent cottonwood leaves warmed by the July sun. Consuela’s lemonade and co
rnbread baked with squash seeds and topped with honey went untouched for almost an hour as the two women and children laughed and tumbled and talked. She could almost forget the tiny mound on the far side of the cottonwood. There was only a small stone slab to indicate that there had been a previous child.

Both
Rita and she laughed at how Stephanie drew in her breath each time the unfamiliar sensation of the wind played across the baby’s skin. Jamie and Inez, whose serene beauty grew more evident each day though only a child of three, chased the butterfly that swooped down to rest on the field of wild hyacinth that painted the knoll.
Palomas
sang in the tree’s branches above them.

But the pleasure of the afternoon was soon spoiled for
her at the sight of Stephen riding up the drive from the village. There was something even about the way he sat on his bay that suggested the man’s certainty of his power. With him rode Cody, who in Lario’s absence served as
caporal
, though he was rather young and inexperienced to handle the workings of such a tremendous enterprise as the Cambria Ranch.

Cody,
she was glad to see, but not the Mexican who rode on Stephen’s right. Ignacio was a fat sluggard she absolutely loathed and was happy that Stephen kept the man with him in Santa Fe most of the time. At least Stephen left her alone, but she had the distinct feeling that Ignacio would not should the situation arise to his advantage.

With only the barest greeting to herself and a polite "
Buenos dias
” to Rita, Stephen dismounted and swept up Jamie who immediately stiffened in the gruff embrace. "Tickle. Tickle,” he complained of Stephen’s mustache and tried to squirm out of his father’s arms. But Stephen sat the boy astride his large bay stallion. "We’ll ride back to the house,” he told her.

She saw the fear leap in Jamie’s eyes. "Let him finish his lunch, Stephen.”

"Lunch with a passel of women!” her husband said and grinned proudly at his son. "Hell, no! Right, Jamie? We be having men’s things to do!”

He swung up behind his son. The bay began to dance, and at once Jamie’s little face screwed up, and he started to cry.

"Stephen, put him down! You know he doesn’t like horses.”

Stephen’s furious gaze hit
her like a fist. "I’ll not have you raising a sissy. Don’t ever be telling me what to do with me son.” His glare took in the bits of grass in her messed hair and the twill skirt, which without the support of hoops, clung to her curves, and she caught the sudden wanting in his eyes. "I see I shall have to stay home more.”

He brought his quirt down across the bay’s rump, and the horse shot forward. Rosemary could hear the cries of her son even though the churned-up dust now obscured the riders. It was the first time Stephen had ever shown disrespect in public, and Cody directed a curious look at
her before reluctantly following Stephen and Ignacio.

"I’m sorry,” she told Rita, who tried to cover her embarrassment by lowering her face to smell the clump of
tall grass Inez held out to her like a bouquet of flowers.

"
Ni modo, mi amiga
. It’s all right.”

But it was not all right. Neither for Jamie nor Rosemary. Stephen was home again to make their lives miserable. Stephanie he flatly ignored, though there would be a time when the little minx would not allow it.

However, Stephanie did serve Stephen’s purpose only a few days later when Yellow Dog and some of his men returned for their visit. Cody rode in on a lathered horse with the news just ahead of Yellow Dog. Unfortunately Rosemary happened to be in the yard with Stephanie, letting the baby take the sun.

"Get Stephen,” she told Cody and scrambled to her knees, snatching up both the pallet and a protesting Stephanie. But too soon she spotted Yellow Dog and his warriors and knew he had seen her also. She noticed that Yellow Dog’s son now rode a pony of his own, though the boy could not be more than four or five.

She could not run now and let Yellow Dog see her cowardice. She held her ground as the braves approached. Where was Stephen?

Then Stephen was there, brushing past her as he called in a loud, hearty voice, "Yellow Dog! It is the time for a smoke and big talk, is it not?”

"
Sheegee
,” Yellow Dog said, addressing Stephen in the salute to a close friend. "
Noshti
—the big smoke. We are ready.”

And for all the gifts you can carry off,
she thought. Stephen turned to her. "Bring the whiskey, several bottles.” He could just as easily have ordered Cody or called one of the house servants to go for the liquor, but she had been around Indians long enough now to know that Stephen would have lost face if his wife did not wait on him.

She set Stephanie down on the pallet again, well away from the stomping, snorting ponies, and went inside. When she returned, with one of the house servants helping her carry the bottles, she saw Yellow Dog’s son sitting with Stephanie on the blanket. The boy reached out and touched the baby’s head, which resembled an orange ball of fluffy cotton. Rosemary’s breath sucked in, but the boy smiled—a smile that did not reach his eyes.

She hurried to Stephanie, who stretched out an inquisitive hand toward the bright red bandana about the Indian boy’s head. Setting down the bottles, she swooped up her daughter. She did not care how inhospitable or rude Yellow Dog thought her.

Only later that night, when Yellow Dog’s band rode away, thoroughly drunk and half-hanging onto their ponies, did she realize the impact of her actions. Stephen pushed open her bedroom door without knocking. "What the bloody hell did you think you were doing out there? Your rudeness angered Yellow Dog!”

She paused in brushing the rats from her hair. "I don’t care, Stephen. You can barter all you want with those savages, but I’ll not risk one of them taking a fancy to Stephanie’s hair and making a souvenir of her scalp!”

Stephen laughed shortly, his florid face a deeper pink, and she realized he was as drunk as the Indians. "That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about.”

His eyes told her he had unpleasant news, news that he enjoyed delivering. "I’ve promised Stephanie to Yellow Dog’s son in sixteen summers in return for continued peace here at Cambria.”

"No
ooo!” She screamed. She flew at Stephen and beat at him, one hand still clutching her brush. Stephen’s fist came crashing against her temple, stunning her.

But the fight with
her had sexually stimulated him as nothing before had in a long time. And he pushed her face down on the bed.