A Lady Bought with Rifles (7 page)

Muscles stood out like steel cords in Trace's jaw.

He spoke again, almost pleadingly. Cruz's answer was terse. To me, in English, Trace said, “He says the foot is gangrenous. It must come off or the girl will die.”

“Off? Her foot? You mean—cut it
off?
”

“Yes.”

“No!” My voice started to rise. I choked it down, swallowed, looked from Cruz to Sewa to Trace again. It couldn't be. A child that young to lose her foot, hobble all her life? She was watching me, big eyes grave but not fearful. “Does—does she know?” I asked.

Trace nodded.

“It really
is
gangrene?”

“Yes, Miranda. The infection has cut off the blood supply. What it amounts to is that the foot is dead, rotting. And if it isn't removed, the gangrene will spread and kill her.”

I wet my lips, sicker by the minute. “How will Cruz do it?”

“He has a little saw.” Cruz was putting it in the kettle of boiling water.

“Is there anything to dull the pain?”

“Cruz put a narcotic in her tea. Jimsonweed. It can kill, but used with Cruz's knowledge it will help. And he has a sort of hypnotic power.” Trace smiled thinly at my anxious scrutiny of the hut. “She'll fare better than in most hospitals, I promise you that. Will you go outside or can you help?”

How I cravenly wanted to stay out of sight and sound. But Sewa couldn't leave. And she must live with the results for the rest of her life.

“What shall I do?” I asked in Spanish.

Cruz told me to sit by the girl and talk to her, hold her if necessary. I sat on the mat beside her, trying not to wince as Cruz put a poker in the fire. A saw—red-hot iron. Instruments of torture. And this
would
be torture, though done with merciful intent. Trace knelt beside us, took the flute, and after a little testing made bird sounds from it. Sewa laughed and reached for it, trying to imitate his notes. He showed her which holes to finger.

Soon she was making sounds like some of the birds we'd heard that evening, soft and plaintive or brisk and chatty. Cruz had been making another potion and handed it to me. “She should drink it slowly,” he cautioned.

So Sewa drank and played and sipped and fingered the flute, but her motions grew uncoordinated. Her eyes were brilliant, widely dilated. Cruz washed her leg with an astringent-smelling liquid, then placed it on a scrubbed board.

She did not seem aware of what he was doing. He talked quietly to her. Her body relaxed even more. I moved closer and she settled into my arms, still clutching the flute, though she no longer seemed able to hold it to her lips.

Trace stepped to where he could hold her leg and also block our view, for which I was grateful. He spoke to Sewa, who opened her mouth and let him slip a piece of wood between her teeth. He wrapped his doubled scarf a few inches above Sewa's ankle, knotted it, put a stick through it, and twisted it tight as Cruz came over with the little saw.

The tourniquet stick between his teeth, Trace gripped the child's leg so she couldn't move, clamping down the other leg with one of his. She twitched. I knew the blade had started; I cradled her against me and spoke in her ear, English, Spanish, anything I could think of, just kept talking while clammy sweat rose on both of us, her teeth clamped on the wood with a grinding sound, and her heart pounded against mine, wavered, faltered, seemed to stop for those hideous moments while the saw gritted through bone, then beat faintly, distantly.

She went limp. I saw through my tears that her eyes had closed. If she could stay unconscious—For Cruz was bringing over the glowing poker.

I drove my teeth into my lip to keep from screaming but could not check convulsive sobs as there was a sizzling sound, a smell of searing flesh. The small body in my arms contracted and a moan came from her. I fought back the hotness that rose in my throat. Couldn't get sick now—not yet. Pray God she'd stay in merciful blackness awhile.

Trace loosened the tourniquet, wiped his face with the scarf. Some blood had spattered on it and left marks on his face. It didn't seem to matter. I felt drenched with blood, though it was only sweat, mine and the child's.

Cruz was busy with salves and a coarse white cloth he got from a chest. “I think we are in time,” he said in slow Spanish as he bandaged the stump. “We will keep the leg raised for a day to keep the pressure off the healing part.”

“Will she wake up soon?” I asked, pressing my ear to the scrawny chest and receiving the slow dulled sound of her heart.

“Not for some hours. And for a few days I will ease her pain as much as possible with my brews.”

The body pain would go. But never to walk free and light again, to be maimed, reminded of it every time she tried to take a step—what a thing to happen to a girl named Flower.

“She can use a crutch,” Trace said roughly.

I cried out at that, a wail that made the drugged child flinch. “You must all sleep,” Cruz said. “Señorita, you and the girl rest here. Trace and I can spread mats in the ramada.”

“We have bedrolls,” Trace said.

We put Sewa on hers, injured leg propped on a folded poncho, the flute beside her. Trace put my pallet touching hers. I didn't expect to sleep, but either weariness or Cruz's tea sent me into quick heavy slumber with only a passing thought of what Reina would say about the necessity of staying here for several days. Compared with Sewa's ordeal, Reina's opinions seemed of very little consequence.

I woke with my sister's voice in my ears, blinked, sat up, glanced around the dim room, knowing that for some reason I didn't want to wake up. Then my gaze fell on Sewa huddled next to me and I remembered it all and broke out in shuddering cold sweat.

Reina shrilled on. She'd wake Sewa at this rate, a thing I hoped to postpone as long as possible. I had slept in my chemise and petticoat. Slipping into my thoroughly draggled riding habit, I fumbled shut the most strategic buttons, shoved my hair back, and hurried out to the ramada.

Cruz was nowhere to be seen, but Trace had apparently been repairing a saddle when Reina appeared. Lázaro, a good hundred yards from the ramada, stood between Reina's handsome black and a jugheaded sorrel. Even in daylight he wasn't getting closer than necessary to the witch's house.

Reina's green eyes swept over me. “You!” she exploded. “Dirty, crumpled, in company with outcasts, men even Texans and savage Indians reject—”

“Don't shout,” I told her, too astonished at the grounds for her attack to be immediately angry, though I could feel blood heating my temples. “That child is sleeping. You can thank heaven
you
don't have to wake and get used to having only one foot!”

“If it weren't impossible, I'd think she was yours, got in a bush someplace. What a fuss, all for a Yaqui whelp!”

“Be quiet,” I said. The words broke in my throat. I heard the saw again, hacking bone, glimpsed the poker, smelled seared flesh. “Go away, damn you.”

“And leave you with
him?
” she demanded, pointing at Trace.

I walked some distance from the house. She hesitated, then with a toss of her fiery head, she came after me. “You must come back to Las Coronas at once,” she decreed “The witch will see to the girl. But no one can mend your reputation if this gets about.”

It was a good time to make it clear that my behavior would shortly cease to be any of her concern. “Sewa cannot travel for several days,” I said. “I want to bring her back to Las Coronas till her leg is fully healed. But then, my sister, I will take her and go away.”

Surprised relief showed in her face before her eyes narrowed, swung to Trace, who was out of earshot, then back to me. “Where? Where can you go?”

“Hermosillo is the capital of the state, is it not? I might live there. Do not concern yourself. It's plain you don't want me at Las Coronas.”

Reina's jaw dropped. “But our mother asked—”

My eyes stung and my throat ached. Why did it have to be this way with my only kin in all the world? “Mother didn't know you hated me,” I said. “I can't help it. Maybe you can't, either. But it's plain we could never live at peace. So ride home. Put your mind at rest about my good name. It's none of your concern.”

“That
pistolero
,” she said between her small perfect teeth. “Has he made you brave? Offered protection?”

There was no use talking to her. I turned to go. She caught my wrist, snapping me around. That did it.

“Take your hands off me,” I said.

Her fingers dug into my skin. I raised my free arm, meaning to hit her as hard as I could. Trace Winslade, who had come up soundlessly, stepped between us, moving Reina forcibly away.

“That's it,” he said. “Miranda, the child is waking. Better go to her.” As I started for the house, he said to Reina, “Señorita, shall I tell Lázaro to escort you to Las Coronas?”

“Suppose I order you to take me?”

My ears strained for his answer, given in a politely expressionless tone. “I should tell you, señorita, to, as we
yan-qui-tejanos
say, go chase yourself.”

What she said to that I couldn't hear, but as I stepped inside the hut, I heard voices, including Lázaro's rumble, then hoofbeats. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, I saw the girl's eyes were open, though she didn't seem to be aware of anything.

“Sewa?” Dropping beside her, I took her small brown hand in mine. It was limp, gave a chilling impression of lifelessness. “Sewa!”

Cruz spoke from the door. “I have some soup for her, also a little honey. Can you hold her while I feed her?”

I raised her against me.' She took wooden spoonfuls of a tasty-smelling broth, opening her lips when Cruz touched them like some sort of spring-wound toy. But after the honey had dissolved in her mouth, she chewed the comb as if to obtain more sweetness. So she could still taste, still desire, and when I moved a bit to ease my cramped legs, her fingers tightened on mine.

“She should drink a lot,” Cruz said. “And I will steep manzanilla, a plant that brings sleep, into her tea for this day and tomorrow. Sleep heals. But it cannot last too long.”

“What if you hadn't been here?” I asked. “Or if Mr. Winslade hadn't known you?”

“To ponder ifs is trying to find the first sand of a desert.” His face creased into deeper lines that I took for a smile. “If I were asking questions, I would wonder what brought you from a far country in time to save a life. For saving life is a heavy obligation.”

“I don't understand.”

Cruz brought a bowl of tea and together we got Sewa to drink it. “Her life would have ended without your intervention. In a way, you gave her life. So you are responsible for what she does.”

I didn't like his idea at all. “That's frightening,” I said. “Anyway, I don't believe it. It's natural to help other people but quite something else to be held to account for whatever they do.”

Cruz's smile only grooved deeper. I had been too disturbed to notice him much last night, but now I saw that he moved with the lithe wiriness of a young man. He wasted no motion. His plentiful coarse black hair was clubbed in back with a piece of rawhide and his eyes were a strange pale gray like the flake left on charred wood.

“Tell your heart not to pound so fast, señorita. Lives are so bound together that at the last we are both responsible and blameless, the bow that bends and the string that draws the arrow that is our will.”

While we were speaking, Sewa had drowsed. Cruz helped me to ease her to the pallet. He adjusted the poncho beneath her stump so that it was lowered slightly, studied her for a moment, nodded. “She will recover. She is strong. And if it daunts you to be responsible for her, señorita, remember that Trace and I share that with you. In a way we have become her godparents.” Those light eyes twinkled. “Among Yaquis that is a serious relationship. And I'm sure that makes us
compadres
. Could you have dreamed, in England, that you would be related, even ceremonially, to an ancient Yaqui and a Texas horse tamer?”

Following out the door, I said dryly, “I'm not sure that I am. I suppose Mr. Winslade told you I am from England. But how did you know we were coming last night?”

He shrugged. “It is something that happens. I was asleep and suddenly I was with you in the canyon. I could see the child's wound. So I got up and made ready.”

“Can you see like that anytime you want to?”

“No. It is like a veil that moves back and forth. Sometimes I can draw it at will. Other times it hangs there, so thin I can almost pierce it, so fragile it seems my breath should move it, but utterly impenetrable.”

“Then it's no use asking where Mr. Winslade is?”

“Use your ears,” Cruz advised.

When I listened, I heard the crunch of footsteps, and in a few minutes more Trace came in sight. “I watered the horses,” he explained. “There's enough grass that I think they'll stay in this end of the canyon without being hobbled unless your goats run them off.”

“My goats are peaceable,” said Cruz. “But they're protective of their young.”

“I noticed,” said Trace, laughing and rubbing an elbow. “I went over a pile of rocks like a jackrabbit when that biggest one took after me. But I guess I'll forgive her if that's her cheese you've got there.”

Cruz had been putting tortillas and cheese on a wooden slab by the bowls we had used for tea last night. He now filled these with steaming coffee from the pot sitting on the can stove in the ramada.

“After breakfast I must go count the kids,” he said. “They are young and foolish and sometimes get caught in thickets or wedged between rocks.”

“And they never get very smart,” said Trace, wrapping a tortilla around the pale soft cheese.

“There you are mistaken.” Cruz wagged a reproving finger at Trace. They seemed excellent friends who respected each other but did not have to weigh words. “Goats are like people. Some are stupid, some are crazy, most ordinary, and a few highly intelligent. My goats are intelligent.”