Midnight Rider (29 page)

Ramon clamped a hand on the youth's thin shoulder and gave it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “I will make certain you earn your keep. There will be tallow to make into candles, hoeing and weeding to be done in the garden, hogs to butcher … but perhaps later on,” he said, knowing exactly what would lift the boy's broken spirits, “Mariano can find time to teach you something of the horses.”

The man was Ramon's
segundo
now that Pedro had returned to the stronghold. “You would like that, no? To learn the ways of the vaquero?”

Two Hawks's expression changed, shone with a glimmer of hope. “
Si,
Don Ramon. I would like that very much.”

“In the meantime,” Carly said, “you can come with me.” She forced a bolstering smile, her heart aching at the loss of the friend she had made in the village and the pain the young boy suffered. “You'll need something to wear and I'll find you something to eat.” With a glance at Ramon, she led him off toward the outdoor kitchen, certain Blue Blanket would have enough left from breakfast to feed him while she searched out proper clothes.

Along with the food, she also hoped Blue might be of some comfort. That Two Hawks was a Yocuts while Blue was a Mutsen seemed of little importance. The tragedies their people shared made them one as nothing else could.

Leaving the boy in the old woman's care, she went about her tasks, then returned with the clothes and waited while he went down to the stream to bathe and change.

She smiled as he came walking toward her. Though the clothes were a little too large for his thin frame, he looked like a different person. Dressed in buckskin breeches and a white muslin shirt, a pair of scuffed leather boots on his feet, he had washed his coal black hair and bound it behind his neck with a thin leather thong.

“I am ready to work,” he said simply.

“You've been through a terrible ordeal, Two Hawks. Why don't you rest for a while? You can start work in the morning.”

His shoulders sagged and the corners of his mouth sagged down. He forced his head up at Ramon's approach.

“There is work to do in the corral,” Ramon said. “Mariano is waiting to show you.” He was the vaquero who had spoken up for her the day she'd heard the men talking about the don's unwanted marriage. Carly had a soft spot in her heart for the big rugged man. Still, the boy was young, and he was grieving.

“I think he should rest,” Carly said. “I told him to—”

“That is your wish,
muchacho?
” Her husband's gaze swung to the boy, who looked at him and smiled, the first Carly had seen.

“I wish to work, senor.”

Ramon simply nodded. “Go then. There is much to do. When you have finished, I will take you to meet Bajito. I think perhaps the two of you will get along.”

“Bajito?”

“
Si,
but not until later. Now go.”

The boy raced off with a spring in his step, his swatch of long black hair bobbing against his back. Carly gazed up at Ramon and realized he had been right.

“He needed to work,” he said with a shrug of his wide shoulders. “It will help him to forget.”

“Yes … and Bajito will be good for him, too. I'm glad you came when you did.”

But she was always glad to see Ramon. Lately he had seemed equally glad to see her. It made her heart swell with love and hope, yet there was always a part of him that he held back. He didn't love her, but he cared for her.

It was as much as she ever would have had with Vincent.

Somehow with Ramon it wasn't enough.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

Carly watched Ramon walk away, wondering at his thoughts, thinking about how much she had come to love him. He'd been good with the boy, but then she had seen him with children before. How would he feel about the children she might bear him? Would he love them as much as if they were born of pure Spanish blood?

It was an unsettling thought, one that haunted her as she worked beside his mother and aunt that afternoon. They were melting the last of the steer fat into tallow, finishing with the final remnants of slaughtered beef. It was hard, sweaty work, but at last they were done, and Carly left them, meandering down to where the stream emerged from the trees. She sat down on a big granite boulder, picked up a handful of shiny black pebbles and began tossing them into the creek.

That was where Ramon found her, staring off into the water, her thoughts more troubled as the day wore on.

He sat down on the rock beside her. “What are you thinking, Cara, that has made you so forlorn?”

She looked up at him. “I was thinking of Two Hawks and Lena. How could such a terrible thing have happened? Why would the soldiers want to kill them?”

Ramon leaned back, propping his shoulders against the trunk of an alder tree. “I spoke to the boy about it. He says two of the young men from the village went raiding. They stole half a dozen horses from a rancho at the base of the San Juan Grade. The man who owns the place was shot, wounded in the shoulder, and the militia was called in to help him. Unfortunately, they trailed the young men back to the village.”

“His people must have needed those horses very badly. I saw only a few when we were in their camp.”

A corner of Ramon's mouth curved up. “That,
querida,
is because they eat them.”

“What!”

He nodded. “For many years, horses have been the main source of food in the Yocuts's diet. In the old days, tens of thousands of wild horses roamed these hills and the great valley beyond. It is where most of our own horses come from.”

“They actually … eat them?”

“
Si.
They also eat gophers—they roast them hair, fleas, and all. Grasshoppers are a delicacy eaten in the spring. They boil big fat grub worms, and eat the larvae of wasps. They roast lizards, snakes, moles—”

“All right!” she said, cutting him off. “I can see their diet is far … broader than our own.” She swallowed down the queasiness that had risen in her throat.

“You are lucky we brought our own food with us to the village.”

“And I wanted to go to one of their feasts,” she mumbled, making Ramon chuckle softly.

“They are different than we are. That is why there is so much prejudice against them. And they can be vicious at times. They fought with deadly skill against the early rancheros, murdered a number, and occasionally still raid and kill.”

“But shooting women and children … it just isn't right.”

“No,
chica,
it is not right. I am sorry about Lena but I am glad Two Hawks is safe.”

So was Carly. If the boy reached his potential, if he worked hard and learned what he could from Ramon and the vaqueros, he would grow into a strong, intelligent man.

“It was kind of you to help him,” Carly said.

Ramon just smiled. “Perhaps I did it just to please you.”

She shook her head, moving a tendril of hair at her cheek that had come loose from her braid. “I don't think so. I think you would help anyone who asked you. It's just the way you are.”

Ramon said nothing but his dark eyes glinted with pleasure that she would think so. He took her hand and they started walking back toward the house.

“I was speaking to your mother this afternoon,” she said, broaching a subject Ramon had not mentioned. “She told me you're leaving in a couple of days … that you have business in Monterey.” She prayed it was nothing to do with El Dragón.

“
Si,
that is so.” A moment of unease flickered in his eyes, and Carly's chest went tight.

“How long will you be gone?”

“A little less than a week.” His gaze came up to her face. “I thought perhaps … you might wish to join me.”

“You want to take me with you?”

“It is not a difficult journey. I thought I could accomplish my business and afterward, we could spend some time together. There is a good hotel in Monterey. A few days to ourselves is not too much to ask for a man and his new bride.”

“Oh, Ramon!” She threw her arms around his neck and he held her tightly against him.

“If I had known you would be so pleased, I would have planned such a journey long ago.”

She laughed with pleasure, then thought of Two Hawks and suddenly felt guilty. “Maybe I should stay … help Two Hawks get settled. He's suffered a terrible loss.”

“Mariano will see to the boy. It is Two Hawks's greatest wish to be a vaquero. Your interference will not help him accomplish that goal.”

She mulled that over. She had seen the truth of that earlier in the day. Still, he was bound to be feeling alone. “I-I don't know. He's so young and—”

“You will have time to mother the boy before we go. After that your attention belongs to me.”

Carly grinned. “When do we leave?”

“Day after tomorrow. Two Hawks should be settled by then, and this is a matter of some importance.”

“What is it?”

His glance grew a little bit wary, darkening the gold in his eyes. “Nothing to concern yourself about. De la Guerra business, that is all.”

She ignored an unwelcome pang.
I'm a de la Guerra now,
she wanted to say, but in her husband's mind, she probably never would be. “I think I'll go on ahead,” she said, her smile a little less bright. “Blue is making
carne asada
for supper. I'd like her to show me how to cook it.”

Ramon caught her arm as she turned to leave. “There was a time we had three serving women to prepare each meal. Perhaps that time will come again.”

Carly eased away. “It doesn't matter to me, Ramon. As long as you are here, that is all I need to make me happy.”

Ramon's dark head came up, surprise flaring in the ink black pupils of his eyes. Surely he knew how she felt. Then again perhaps he didn't. If that was so, in a way she was glad. She had seen him with Isabel Montoya and Miranda Aguilar. Both of them were beautiful and obviously in love with him. It was just as obvious he didn't love them back.

She was Ramon's wife—but not by choice. Whatever feelings he held for her did not include love.

A soft ache rolled through her, making her heart tilt painfully inside her chest. What
did
Ramon feel for her? He wanted her, there was no doubt of that. But he had wanted other women too. He had always had a number of mistresses. How would she feel if he left her for someone else, or went back to Miranda or Isabel Montoya? Why should she believe there would never be anyone else?

Carly's stomach knotted. There was a time she might have endured it. Now she knew that part of her would die inside, leave her less than the whole woman she had become since she had met Ramon.

For the first time it occurred to her the terrible risk she had taken in giving Ramon her heart.

The smile on her lips turned falsely bright. “You mustn't worry about me,” she said. “I don't mind a little hard work. You treat me well, and sleeping with you is certainly better than sleeping with Vincent Bannister.” With those cool words she left him, her stomach tied in knots, her heart aching with painful uncertainty.

But her smile remained in place. In a single instant, she had come to a decision. As much as she loved Ramon, as much as that love grew deeper every day, she couldn't let him know. Not until she was certain she could win his love in return. Perhaps in Monterey, they would grow closer.

But in her heart, she wasn't sure he would ever let that happen. She wasn't sure any woman could win Ramon's love.

Especially not a woman who wasn't of pure Spanish blood.

*   *   *

For the next two days, Carly shoved her fears aside and immersed herself in preparing for the journey. She had never been to the old Spanish settlement of Monterey. To be traveling there with Ramon, to be alone with him for almost a week, seemed the height of self-indulgence. She was a little bit worried about Two Hawks, but the boy seemed to be adjusting as well as could be expected and getting along with the men. Blue Blanket hovered over him like a hen with her chick, and there were several other Indians on the rancho; one even worked as a vaquero.

Still, Two Hawks was different here than he had been in his village. He was quiet and withdrawn most of the time. Except for the moments he spent with little Bajito, he wasn't at all the happy carefree child he had been in the mountains. Though he was just as endearing. He was always there to lend a hand when it was needed—and he was always hungry. She wondered how long he had gone without eating on his journey from the village for it seemed the boy could never get enough to fill him up.

Which was why she wasn't surprised when one of Tia Teresa's wild blackberry pies came up missing.

“I cannot imagine what could have happened,” Tia said fretfully to Anna. “One minute it was sitting on the window sill out in the
cocina,
the next it was gone.”

“What was gone?” Carly asked, carrying one of Ramon's white shirts into the
sala,
along with a needle and thread.

“My pie,” Tia said. She didn't cook often, but her pies were a specialty, a rare and delicious treat. “At first I believed some wild animal must have stolen it, then I found these little round stones sitting up on the sill. I cannot think what they could be.”

Carly eyed the polished round stones thoughtfully. “I have no idea. Perhaps Ramon will know.” But already she was thinking that she knew where the pie must have gone. She just hoped Tia wouldn't see the blackberry stains on Two Hawks's slim brown hands.

*   *   *

Two days later, they set off on their journey to Monterey. Sitting astride his silver-trimmed saddle, Ramon ducked his head beneath an overhanging branch, a bronzed leaf fluttering down as he held it aside so Carly could ride underneath. The morning had dawned clear and bright, a lemon yellow sun and a vibrant azure sky. He smiled to himself and thanked the Blessed Virgin for the gift of such a day for his bride.