Spanish Serenade (41 page)

“Oh, I'm quite capable of making that rationalization myself, but it doesn't absolve me.”

She swung her head to stare at him. “You were faced with an impossible choice, to let Isabel die by cruel degrees or give her the grace of a swift end. There was no release for any of us so long as she lived, and the longer we remained where we were, the more likely it was that we would be discovered and killed. You were elected executioner by default, a position you did not shirk and scorned to try to pass to someone else. If there is guilt, it belongs to the rest of us, because we were so relieved that you agreed and because we left you to do the task alone. And now we are ashamed of our relief and lack of courage.”

“I should never have left Spain, never have followed after Don Esteban.”

“Now you are encroaching on my regrets.”

“Not at all,” he said politely. “You are included in them.”

“Thank you very much, but I thought we settled this before. I am responsible for what I do.”

“I would like to insist, but I'm weary of fighting, Pilar.”

“Then stop. This Tejas country is an untamed wilderness so big it stretches to the edge of forever. There must be a place in it where Don Esteban cannot reach and no one cares about El Leon.”

“I allowed myself to think so, to even begin to plan, until your stepfather followed after us. But where there are villages, there are authorities, and where there are authorities, there is accountability to the king, and where there is accountability to the king, Don Esteban will have influence and I will always be an outcast, a bandit.”

“You don't know that.”

“How can it be otherwise? Unless I kill Don Esteban. And I am tired of killing.”

“What of your revenge?”

“I have sought it for more years than I can count, and what has it brought me? To live for revenge is a form of death. One by one you lose everyone you love, everything that gives you pride, everything that you are within yourself. All that is left is hate. I am weary of hate and the death it brings. I crave life instead.”

“Is this what you have been thinking about today as you rode?”

“You mean, will it pass when I no longer think of Isabel and how she died?” His voice was soft, less stringently monitored than before.

“Yes, I suppose.”

“Then the answer is no. No, it won't pass. And no, it isn't what I have been thinking of as I ride.”

“What, then?”

He shifted slightly to face her, and his voice was deep and not quite even. “Ah, Pilar, you make it so easy. Is it on purpose?”

“What do you mean?”

He reached to touch her face, drawing his fingertips along the curve of her cheek and down its gentle incline to the turn of her neck before dropping delicately to the round globe of her breast.

“You are life, is what I think, and within you is renewal. I envy you that, for it's a lack in me. Will you let me seek life in you? Will you give me renewal?”

“You mean — you want me?”

“It's what I'm trying to say, in words I can hide behind if you should refuse.”

“I'm only a woman.”

“I meant that, too, but you are more. You are special to me. I have missed holding you, being held inside you. I need you now, this moment, as I have never needed another human being or ever want to need one again. Love me, or kill me, for without you I am — No. Pay no attention to the babbling of extremity. I refused pity, didn't I? Will you love me for the pleasures of the night if I promise to make them as unending as I am able?”

How could she refuse? Besides, she had no desire to deny him. Why else had she followed him away from the others except for this? He had no use for her compassion or exoneration, but there were ways of offering surcease other than by words.

The ground beneath the blanket was rocky and hard, but they did not feel it. The night air was cool, but they did not know. Nothing mattered, nothing hindered; they were mindful only of each other as they came together under the clear white light of the stars and the melon moon. With caresses as subtle as their understanding, as exquisite as their concern, they sought the wellsprings of passion and the forgetfulness it can bring. Prodigal of time and selfless in their joint quest, they remembered past lessons and used them well.

Their mouths clung in slow, deep, sweet searching while they undressed each other. They fitted their naked bodies together, the curves and recesses, hardness and softness, with the care of those studying an ancient and exacting craft, and gloried in sensations unforgotten, yet never adequately imagined. The crisp triangle of hair on his chest tickled and was rough to the tongue, while his half-covered paps were flat and satiny until teased to crinkled nubs. The muscles of his back shifting under her hands were like buried silken ropes. The smoothness of her thighs upon his was a thing of revelation, and exultation. His breath made warm, moist tracks on her skin, and raised the goose flesh of anticipation and delight.

Together they moved, reaching for and finding a slow and steady rhythm that stretched time and space and the limits of endurance. He clasped her hands, palm to palm and fingers entwined, and pressed his lips to the throbbing pulse in the tender turn of her neck. He cupped her breasts and spanned her waist with his long hard swordsman's fingers, and reached lower to send spirals of fiery joy to the center of her being. The joining was heated and liquid and fusing; he was a part of her and she of him.

The tumult grew, an invasion of excitement that suffused her body with urgent need. She lifted herself against him, answering his force with her own, striving with him toward the ultimate completion. The shocks of his thrusts shuddered through her. Her breath rasped in her chest. She wanted him deep inside her, immeasurably deep, soundingly deep. She wanted him to reach that part of her that only she knew, the inner sanctuary of her most carefully hoarded self.

He touched it, and the brilliance burst over them. Weightless and beatific, they soared, knowing each other, two parts of a whole, lost in the wonder.

She had given him as near to what he asked as she could find within herself. He had kept his promise.

20

THEY CAME TO THE Mission San Juan at dusk. The vine-crowned, sun-warmed walls of cream-colored stone that surrounded it enclosed them like an embrace. The sight of the chapel looming in the dimness with the last rays of the sun glazing its belfry, of the padre moving toward them in his dusty black habit while the sound of a choir of rich, beautifully blending Indian voices rose in the evening stillness, was enough to swell the heart with relief and thankfulness. Here was safety, for the first time in weeks.

They could have gone to the town of San Antonio de Bexar, or to any one of the other missions strung along the San Antonio River like beads on a necklace. However, their destination was not the town, but the estancia of Charro's father. San Juan was not only the favorite mission of Charro's mother, where she had learned her catechism as a child and where her peninsular parents, descendants of settlers from the Canary Islands, had always gone, but was the last one below the city on this side of the river. The good padre could be depended on to give them a decent meal and a bed for the night, Charro said, and they would be that much closer to home when they rode out in the morning.

The mission was more than just a chapel. It was a complex of buildings built of adobe, including the house of the priest and his assistant friar and the cubicles of the principal Indian workers against the inside walls, plus a granary, stable, blacksmith shop, weaving shed, and a variety of smaller structures such as fowl roosts and outdoor ovens. The church was, however, the central focus of the community, the reason for its being. The padre invited them to enter to give thanks for their deliverance. The entire band complied, partially as a gesture of respect, but also out of very real gratitude. For some it was their first time in a church in years.

The chapel building was not a grand structure nor a large one, but was curiously satisfying with its rough stonework arches, its solid simplicity. The stations of the cross were hand carved, the altar was of native wood barely touched with gilt, the statue of the Virgin was beautifully and brightly painted. There were two oil paintings which had the look of being imported from Spain, but the rest had the vigor and strength that seemed to suggest the new world. It was easy to see why Charro's mother preferred it.

It was strange, seeing the Indians come and go so peacefully about the mission compound. Many were descendants of tribes from farther south, closer to Mexico City, converts who had journeyed to the area as helpers for the first Spanish priests. Others were members of a half-dozen fairly docile tribes of the vicinity, from the Borrado to the Tacame, though a few were Lipan Apaches who had accepted the teachings of the Christ. According to Charro, there were dozens of different tribes of Apache. Not all of them were dedicated to endless war, though most considered it the only route to honor for a warrior.

The band was provided with food, just as Charro had said they would be. He himself ate in state in the priest's quarters, as became the son of an old friend of the church, and Doña Luisa was also included in that invitation. Refugio and Pilar could have participated in the meal also, since the priest was anxious to hear as much as possible about their long overland journey. Refugio had asked to be excused, however, and Pilar had chosen to do the same. Refugio, she thought, felt uncomfortable pretending everything was as it should be with him. All she herself wanted was a chance at the water provided for bathing, without the distracting presence of Doña Luisa in the cubicle she had been assigned to share with the other woman. She had acquired a grudging respect for Doña Luisa in the last days on the trail, but had had enough of her company to last for a long while.

Refugio had not protested the sleeping arrangement. He could not, of course, without branding her as a woman of loose morals; still, she thought he might have deplored it privately if it had mattered to him. She was not sure it did. The nearer they had come to civilization again, the more withdrawn he had become. Since that night after Isabel's death, she had slept in Refugio's arms and he had held her close, but there was seldom anything more between them. She was warmed by his consideration for her, by his refusal to chance exposing their intimate moments to the others sleeping around them. At the same time, his ability to deny himself, and her, was daunting. She was forced to the hurtful conclusion that she was little more to him than another female presence, one comforting at times, but also burdensome now that her value as a hostage for Vicente's safety was past. As a result, there was a small fastness in her heart that she kept inviolate, where she nurtured her doubts and fears and hid her pain.

What was going to become of her here, so far from everything she knew? The question had troubled her on the long journey, but the worry of staying alive had been too pressing for other problems to seem important. Now that they were nearing their destination, a decision would have to be made.

The first consideration would be money, some means of keeping herself. She would have to find work of some kind, and a place to stay. Perhaps the priest at the mission would have some suggestion, or else Charro's parents might be able to advise her. She did not know where else to turn. Of one thing she was certain, she would not depend on Refugio. Pride made that impossible, if nothing else.

Sometimes she despaired of understanding how his mind worked, of knowing what guilts and emotions, faults and obligations moved him to behave as he did. Still, she had to concede that he was not alone in his sense of constraint. She had worried herself that she would be judged harshly here in this harsh land. Somehow, the people of New Orleans, perhaps because they were so French still, had not seemed as likely to be severe over lapses of conduct. The things Charro had to say about his family, and even his own attitudes at times, had made her think those who lived here would be different.

She could not help wondering how Charro's parents would feel about having their son's friends thrust upon them. He said aloud that they would be delighted, quite ready to overlook any little irregularities of past behavior in them all, for the sake of having their son safely home again. Pilar was not sure that was what he really thought.

Such concerns were the cause, she was sure, of her disturbed night. Also, she had grown used to having the open sky above her, and it was difficult to endure the close walls of the cubicle to which she was assigned. She was troubled as well by nightmare images of Isabel as she thought of how the girl had longed to reach safety. Moreover, it was undeniable that lying on a straw mattress next to Doña Luisa was not the same as sleeping beside Refugio. It was a habit, that was all. Habits were strange things.