Dust Devil (23 page)

She waited to be reignited by Lario’s fire.

CHAPTER 24

Rosemary put her hand above her eyes, shielding them from the sun’s glare. Two figures stood on the veranda and waved their arms.

"Must be Rita,” Stephen said. "When the news came you were alive, she
hustled over to wait for your return.”

He pulled in on the buggy’s reins and turned to her. "See here, Rosemary, if anyone asks
— well, I’ve told everyone that the Navajo sold you and Stephanie to a Mexican family in El Paso. And that the Cavalry found you after you had escaped — wandering the Tularosa Valley.” His sharp eyes fastened on her. "I told them that you were well treated . . . in all respects.”

"Then that should satisfy their curiosity about my matronly virtue, should it not? No breath of scandal must touch the Rhodes name. ’Tis a pity we dinna die, is it not? It would have saved you explanations. I am surprised you took us back.”

But she really was not. As long as she was alive, there was the chance she would inherit Lord Almsley’s fortune.

Stephen’s thin lips stretched
cruelly. "A husband rejecting his wife is not a good image for the Rhodes name — or I would have.”

Her bitter laughter lashed out at him
. "And bribery and misuse of tax funds is? Tell me, Stephen, how did you resolve that matter? Buy off the Territorial Auditor?”

His smile was frightening. "I did not need to. Mr. Stewart met with an accident.”

She drew back, realizing only at that moment the extent of Stephen’s power. "This is the kind of empire you be building for our son?” she asked in a horrified whisper.

"Mama, mama,” Stephanie demanded, pulling on Rosemary’s sleeve. "That boy on the veranda—is that my brother? Is that Jamie?”

Some of the tension slipped from Rosemary. She had carefully coached Stephanie before Stephen’s arrival at Fort Sumner.. .that she was not to mention her father, Lario, under any circumstances but to remember that she had a brother and another home. Yet when it came to teaching Stephanie to call Stephen "father,” it was more than Rosemary could do. Stephen would just have to accept the fact Stephanie had been too young to remember him when they were taken by the Indians, which was true.

"That be Jamie,” Stephen answered. "Look at the boy
— he be almost as tall as Rita and not even six yet!”

Rosemary had forgotten how short Rita was until she stood on the veranda with her arm about the woman. Her friend’s head barely cleared Rosemary’s shoulder. "
Bienvenido, mi amiga, mi hermana
!” Rita said with tears glistening in her eyes.

Rosemary found it difficult to speak with the emotion that choked her. "I’ve missed you, Rita.”

She turned to Jamie, who had backed off at her approach. "Jamie, come here,” she pleaded. She held out her arms, and the tears came to her eyes for the first time since her return.

Jamie shook his brownish red curls. "I don’t have a mother. She left me.”

Rosemary whirled on Stephen. "Is that what you told him?” she demanded.

Stephen scowled. "Should I have told him you be dead? How did I know you weren’t?”

"It would have been better if he thought I were dead,” she exclaimed, "than to believe I dinna care enough to stay with him!”

Rita went over to Jamie and took his hand. "Jamie,
Tia
Rita has never lied to you before. This is your mother, believe me — and your sister. They couldn’t help it that the Indians took them.”

"She kept her with her,” he declared, pointing accusingly at Stephanie. "Why didn’t she keep me?” And he spun out of Rita’s hands and ran around the comer of the veranda, out of sight.

Rosemary bit back her cry, dropped her outstretched hand. Three life-changing years had passed since she had last seen him, she told herself. It might take that long to make him remember her, to make him forgive her.

Later that evening, after an uncommunicative dinner with Stephen,
Rita and she sought out the privacy of her office. For a long time she only rocked, letting the repetitive motion of the rocker ease away the pain and difficulty of adjusting once more to what Libby had called civilization. She only half-listened to what Rita told her about the things that had happened in the three years of her absence.

"We now have daily mail service with the East,
amiga
. And the Sisters of Loretto are building an academy for young women in Las Vegas, imagine! Did you know that a Captain Martin, or was it Miller, he drilled a well in the
Jornada del Muerto
and discovered water? Oh, and did Esteban tell you that the Goldmans sold out their half of the Santa Fe Trading Post to him and moved back to the States — gracias a Dios!”

Rosemary let her ramble on. She knew her friend was trying to make it easier for her and thought she had no wish to talk about what had happened. But Rosemary felt she had to talk to someone or she would go crazy from worry. And at last Rita broke off her discourse, seeing Rosemary’s preoccupation.

"What is it, Rosita?” She laid a comforting hand on Rosemary’s, now browner than her own. "If you wish to tell me anything, you know your words will be safe.”

"Rita, those three years I was away, I
— Stephanie and I — we lived with the Navajo first, then the Apache . . . not as slaves in a Mexican household. And for all purposes I was Lario’s wife those three years.”

Rita’s lips formed an 0, and Rosemary had to smile. "You told me to take a lover, did you not? As I recall, you even mentioned Lario.”

"
Dios mio
,” Rita breathed. "If Esteban ever found that out, he would—”

"He would have me flayed alive. He could never forgive that I willingly preferred an Indian over him.”

She proceeded to tell her friend what had transpired the past three years, everything but the fact that Stephanie was Lario’s daughter. If Rita ever inadvertently let that knowledge slip out, if Stephen ever discovered the truth, Rosemary knew he would kill the bastard girl as easily and with as little compunction as he had had the auditor, Stewart, killed.

No, she would keep that one secret until the time came that she could join Lario
— once he was freed. But this time, she would take both Stephanie and Jamie with her. Together she and Lario would find a place where they could live safely from society’s vindictiveness.

She never let herself think that Lario would not be set free, that he could be executed, hanged or shot before a firing squad. Grant had promised her he would try.

So she waited with trepidation as the month’s end came and April arrived and she still received no word of Lario’s fate. She did know that most of the military telegraph lines were finally completed and that Grant should have been able to contact Brigadier General Carleton, who was in Arizona Territory at that time.

She found herself making errors in the ledgers, dropping stitches if she knitted (which frustrated her worse now than rug-weaving had), and speaking sharply with the servants and children
— something she never had done before

* * * * *

One evening at dinner, Rosemary she snapped at Stephanie for climbing to the top of tamarisk and ripping the sash off her dress.

Stephen said, "You be awfully touchy, Rosemary.”

She looked away. "I suppose I am. After so many years away, ’tis difficult adjusting to life again at Cambria.”

He
inhaled on his Dundee. "Then it’s time you put in an appearance at Sante Fe.”

"Why would I want to go there?” she asked
with obvious listlessness.

"For one, it would be killing the people’s curiosity and getting your mind off things.”

"I don’t care what other people be thinking!” she snapped.

"For another,”
he continued, "I’ve just been appointed president of the First Santa Fe Bank. I’ve been thinking about letting a place there for six months — just so I can be keeping my finger in the pie. Besides, I want Jamie to get an idea about what politics is all about. What better place than the Territory’s capital to learn?”

His
wife glanced at Jamie, who sat silently pushing his food around on the plate. He had inherited the Welsh dark looks. But none of Rosemary or his explosiveness. It irked Stephen to no end that the boy feared him . . . and it also pleased Stephen that their son hated his mother.

"I really think it’d be better if we stayed here,” she said. "’Tis peaceful, and I think we all need to adjust to each other before we try the capital. Besides,” she added, "who would run Cambria while we’re gone for six months?”

"Cody’s been running it for three years now and done a bloody good job of it. Hasn’t he kept the cattle rustlers off Cambria?”

But
he did not press her further.   All too well his imagination summoned the pleasures he had enjoyed in her absence — staying up all night playing monte or chuza, betting an entire flock of sheep against a land grant when he felt reckless. And then there had been the children found in the jacales, the thatched-roof huts, of Santa Fe’s poor district who were easily bought for a night of pleasure.

And the month before he had installed his most recent henchman in the office of Territorial District Attorney
— as easily as dealing a deck of cards. There was nothing to stop him now. He controlled the major businessmen and politicians. His dynasty was keeping up with the timetable he had set. If only his beautiful wife would be more cooperative and play her part. It would look better if she appeared with him. Damn, if he didn’t need so much money to keep the wheels turning. Still, there was something desirable about her that had not been there before.

"Jiraldo and Rita will be in Santa Fe,” he said persuasively. "A bill to approve his land grant will be up before the second session of the legislature. And Grant and Libby are there now, house-hunting.”

Rosemary knocked her wineglass over and hurried to clean up the spreading purple stain. "What — why are they house-hunting?”

"Didn’t I tell you? Heard the news at Las Vegas yesterday.
President Johnson has appointed Grant Territorial Associate Chief Justice. It’ll most likely be in this week’s
Santa Fe New Mexican
.”

“But Fort Sumner . . . who will take over his command?”

“The government is closing Fort Sumner and the reservation there. You seem nervous about our friend, my dear.”  Had there once been something between her and Grant?  Well, if there had been, Grant could only be disgusted by her now.  “Grant will handle the transference well.”

She
spread her hands, gesturing to the spilt wine. "I suppose I am a bit nervous these days. Perhaps you’re right, perhaps we should put in an appearance in Sante Fe.”

CHAPTER 25

Rosemary refused to stay in Santa Fe’s Exchange Hotel, in spite of Stephen’s angry demands. "’Tis no place for a boy Jamie’s age,” she told Stephen the first night they arrived in Santa Fe. From down the hallway at the monte tables came the drunken shouts of the gamblers who had hit a lucky streak or lost a fortune in sheep. From the richest to the poorest, all were caught up in the fascination of the exciting vice.

Occasionally the burst of gunfire could be heard from the plaza as a dispute was settled or a lady’s reputation preserved. Rosemary had noticed the town had grown considerably, owing largely to the great numbers of men mustered out of the military after the end of the Civil War. And most of these men seemed to come from Texas.

“Big, handsome
vaqueros,
” Rita called the cowboys who sported the huge Stetson hats and Colt .44 pistols at each hip.

Stephen told Rosemary to find a place if she wanted to live somewhere else other than the hotel, knowing full well that
with the legislative session about to begin, there was not a room to be let, much less a house, in that small mountain outpost. Nevertheless, she set out to hunt the third morning in Santa Fe, taking Stephanie and Jamie with her.

First, she tried several private residences that fronted the plaza. She met with no success, but everywhere she went the men moved out of their way for her, tipped their sombreros, derbies, or Stetsons. At last she realized she was the only woman in the plaza whose face was not shielded by the
rebozo
.

The men, who had come into the Territory for various reasons
— rumor of new gold and silver deposits, flight from the long arm of the law, or search for work at the growing number of cattle ranches — were all avid for the sight of a woman. And especially an Anglo woman. Even the sight of a child brought gentleness to the most hardened hearts.

Stephanie behaved like a little coquette. "Stephanie, you must not wave at every man that looks at you,” Rosemary told her daughter when an old man in a battered hat and long, white matted beard staggered out of the
calabozo,
from which he had just been released, and swept the child a parody of a courtly bow.