Mittman, Stephanie (8 page)

"Damn,"
the cowboy spat out, getting awkwardly down from his mount. "Sorry.
I should have figured
you couldn't stand like that."

He
rolled her onto her stomach and loosened the ropes on her wrists. Before he
could even back out of her way, she'd pulled the gag from her mouth, and after
spitting out several hours' worth of road dust and wiping her lips quickly with
the dirty handkerchief, she began sputtering at him.

"Of
all the stupid, idiotic things to do. What in the hell did you think you could
accomplish by..."

At
her shouts the baby began to cry. The man looked at him, mildly surprised, and
then turned on Mary Grace. "Now look what your yelling's done. Didn't you
learn nothing from the last time you shouted out?"

"And
did it ever occur to you he might be crying because you've stolen him away from
his family, stuck him on a goddamn elephant, and haven't fed him all day? It's
not my yelling, it's hunger, you idiot! Haven't you got a canteen of
water?"

"Course
I got a canteen," he hollered back, but made no move to get it.

"Give
me the baby and get it," she instructed and laughed at his hesitation.
Pointing to her still-bound feet she asked him, "And does it look like I'm
going anywhere?"

He
clumsily leaned over until his hands could support a good portion of his weight
and pushed himself up onto his good leg. He seemed embarrassed by his efforts.

"What
happened to your leg?"

"Shot,"
he answered without elaborating. There was a strained silence, which Mary Grace
finally broke.

"And
we'll need another strip of my slip. Unless you brought a bottle and a nipple
for the baby?" She stared at him, and he shrugged slightly.

"Your
slip?"

"Yes,
my slip. Did you use all you ripped off?"

"Oh,
you mean your petticoat. 'Fraid he used it all, and then some," he said,
pointing first toward the baby and then to the big wet stain on his shirt.

"Well,
we'll have to rip a little more." Her hands were full of the baby, so she
waited for him to help her.

When
he brought her the canteen, she juggled the infant so that she could reach the
petticoat herself. Then she waited for him to settle himself down, noting again
the embarrassment he showed with regard to his leg. She made no mention of it
but simply handed him the edge of Emily's frilly slip and allowed him to rip
it.

"Make
sure this part is clean," she warned him. "I need just a strip."

He
looked at her oddly but did what he was told. Then she soaked the rag with the
water and let the baby suck on it, which quieted him immediately. While the
baby drank, the man unbound her feet.

"You
want to tell me what the hell is going on?" Mary Grace demanded.
Untrussed, on solid ground, with the baby in her arms, she felt much less
frightened of the man, who couldn't pry his gaze from the child she held.
"If I'm not mistaken about them, I think this baby's uncles are murderers,
and they aren't going to take too kindly to what you just did. We have to go to
the police and tell them what I heard. I'm sure they'll give you some kind of
protection, and I can get the baby to child welfare and they'll find a good
home...."

He
interrupted her. "Nobody's findin' a home for what's mine."

"You
really are his father? They said his father was
dead," Mary Grace said. She
held the baby tighter to her, flexing her feet to get the circulation back.

"Why
else would I have taken him, you little fool? I'm his pa, and he's stayin' with
me. Let the Tates try to take him away. I'll be ready." She noticed then
that he had brought the rifle with him to where they sat, and that he had
another gun strapped to his hip.

"This
is ridiculous," she argued, placing the rag against the baby's lips to
remind him why it was there, and wrapping her skirts around him to keep him
warm. "If the baby's yours, why didn't you just sue for custody? You could
have gotten a court order, now that Emily's..." She stopped midsentence.
Did he know about Emily? Did he know his wife was dead?

"...
dead. So who's gonna say I'm the daddy? Just my word. Besides, we're talkin'
about the Tates. The law don't mean nothin' to them."

Mary
Grace's shoulders sagged. Her side ached and so did her head. She was bone
tired and confused. "Look. We've got Horace. Let's just go to a hotel,
wash up, get some food and some sleep, and we'll go to the police in the
morning."

"Horace?
They named him Horace? Just shows they ain't got a lovin' or sensible bone in
their bodies. His name's Ben, after my father."

Ben?
Could wires have gotten crossed somehow? Had she been pursuing some other child
named Benjamin? "Benjamin?" she said, blinking quickly as though that
would somehow make things clear. "This is Benjamin? You mean to tell me
I've been chasing the fucking wrong child?"

Sloan
looked at the woman holding his son. He couldn't really blame her for being
upset. He hadn't exactly treated her with the courtesy due a woman. Of course,
judging from the mouth on her, the way her
hair was left like she'd just got out
of some man's bed, and the fact that it wasn't just some man but one of the
Tates, she really didn't deserve to be treated like a lady. Still, some kind of
shock seemed to be setting in. Tears were rolling down her face, but she was
laughing.

"You
mean to tell me," she said, nearly gasping for breath, "that I fell
off a goddamn cliff, nearly drowned in a river, walked across the desert in the
middle of the night, had rifles aimed at me, watched a woman die in my
arms..."

She
paused, and Sloan lowered his eyes out of respect for the mother of his son.
When he looked up, she continued.

"...
tried to run away with a baby, got kidnapped, and spent a day across the front
of a horse, and all for the wrong child?"

"The
wrong child?" Sloan asked. He had no idea what she was talking about.

"I'm
looking for Benjamin Weaver. Blond kid, four and a half years old. Somehow my
sources must have gotten screwed up."

"Screwed
up?"

"Do
you repeat what everyone says, or is it just me?"

"Repeat
you? I'm just tryin' to understand you. I reckon the ride jiggled all your
brains loose." He looked at the mess she presented, her hair flying every
which way, her cheeks flushed, her blouse off one shoulder. "Reckon that
wasn't all that got jiggled."

She
looked down and straightened her clothes, embarrassment painting her cheeks
pinker still. "Look, Mister. This is your son? Fine. Let's take him to the
authorities, and you can clear up everything with them. You can drive me back
to my car and I'll go back to looking for Benjamin,
my
Benjamin, if
there's still a trail to follow."

The
baby caught a lock of the woman's hair and put it in his mouth. She didn't
appear to notice, so Sloan leaned over and took it away. Up close the woman was
covered with freckles. For a moment he wondered if they covered every inch of
her. The freckles were one thing he hadn't seen from the distance.

"You
ever talk sense?" Sloan asked her. "'Cause your talk's harder to
follow than a flea on a zebra dun."

"I'm
hard to follow? Am I the one who came riding up on a horse, grabbing an
innocent woman and dragging her across the goddamn desert?"

"Innocent?"
he asked. She blushed and looked away, shifting the baby in her arms and
wetting the rag again, then returning it to the child to suck on. He wondered
what he would have done about giving the baby water without her. He'd have
thought of something. He always did. "You've an interesting way of putting
things, Sweet Mary. And I like the accent, too."

"I've
no trace... I haven't any trace of my mother's brogue. End of discussion on
that." She crossed her arms over her chest.

Damned
if she wasn't red from her toes on up to her hair. What an angry little cat
he'd found, even if all her claws were hidden by her softness. He leaned back
and let her anger burn out, only to be replaced by confusion.

"OK.
I can see how you thought going through the courts would be an exercise in
futility. But can you tell me why we had to spend the whole damn day on a
horse? I realize that the Tate place is pretty inaccessible, but..."

She
rubbed at her hip again. She'd have a beaut of a black-and-blue mark there in
the morning, he was sure. His own leg ached from the ride, and he lay nearly
prone, placing his weight on his elbow while he studied
her. He still
didn't know her name. It was just as well. The last time he'd been with a Tate
woman had been enough for a lifetime.

"Ben
is mine. You can go on and head out. All you got to worry about are snakes.
Walk heavy and they'll hear you coming and get outta your way. You'll be fine,
and the boys'll find you sooner than I'd like to think."

She
looked at him in disbelief, shaking her head as if she hadn't heard him right,
and so he repeated himself.

"You're
free to go. So now, go on." She didn't move, so finally he did. He felt
her eyes on him as he rolled over like some two-year-old on all fours and eased
himself up with his arms, his body bent at the waist to accommodate his stiff
right leg.

"You
gonna tell them which way I'm headed?" he asked her.

"No."

"They
gonna do anything to you for what happened?" he worried. "No."

"Well,
you best get goin' before it gets much later. I wouldn't like to think of you
out after dark."

"I'm
not going anywhere," she informed him, placing a kiss on the baby's head.
"And neither is this baby. You can get on that stupid horse of yours and
find a car and come back for us. This baby needs to eat and have a bath and go
to bed. In fact, so does this woman. There must be a main road here somewhere
where you can flag down a car."

"Flag
down a cart?"
What in hell was she talking about now?

"Not
a cart. A car," she corrected. "You know, four wheels, a motor. You
turn the key, magic! It goes. We take it to a town. We use the phone. I call my
office in L.A. I jump on a plane, fly home...."

He
guessed his mouth must have dropped open, because she stopped talking. Maybe
she had finally run out of things to say.

"Lady,"
he asked, "anybody ever know what it is you're jawing about?" The leg
bothered him so much he tried using the rifle as a cane to help support him. It
was too short, and he cursed the barrenness of the desert. A saguaro cactus
didn't make a great leaning post.

"Everyone
outside of the state of Arizona understands me," she said, rising easily
from the ground, even with the baby in her arms. "But in Arizona... riding
horses and living without electricity and plumbing... when are you people going
to come into the twentieth century, anyway?"

"The
twentieth century!" He laughed. "When it gets here!"

"Not
the twenty-first, you idiot," she yelled at him. "The twentieth! You
know 1994, 1995." She rolled her eyes as though he were the one who was
confused.

"I
know what the twentieth century is," he shot back. "And I'm afraid
we're all just goin' to have to wait for it to get here. But not in the middle
of the desert. It's gonna get cold and I want to get to shelter before dark. If
the Tates are following me, I want half the territory between us by
morning."

He
went to take the baby from her arms, and she swayed, a dazed look on her face.
She gave the baby up without a fight and stood staring at the sky as if she
expected to see something there. She was as white as a stiff, and Sloan grabbed
her arm to steady her. She didn't notice.

"You
all right?" he asked. She was shaking, and her color went from white to
green.

"What
year do
you
think it is?" she asked him. She didn't look his way.
She was searching the horizon for
something, but he had no idea what it
might be. The Tates? He listened but heard nothing.

"I
don't think, Sweet Mary, I know. It's April of 1894. I believe it's Tuesday the
third, but I was on that ridge a long time. It could be Wednesday, the
fourth."

She
turned her head to him slowly. If he'd ever seen eyes that sad, he couldn't
remember them. She spoke to him like she was in some sort of dream, or one of
those trances at a magic show.

"There
aren't any power lines. No wires. Not one plane since I got here."

Sloan's
horse nickered and shook his head.

"Listen
to me," he said, grabbing the woman and trying to get her attention.
"Someone's coming. No doubt the Tates. I'm gonna have to take off with
Ben. You just wait here and they'll find you. It'll be fine. Just give me the
rest of your petticoat, in case, and then I'm leaving." She made no move
to obey him.

"Sweet
Mary, I said give me your petticoat. Now let's go."

"It's
1894?" she asked. He nodded. He didn't have much time.