Nan Ryan (11 page)

“Why did you stay?”

He shrugged. “I like it here. I bought up almost the entire town at bargain prices as the gold-seekers fled. Now Maya is a quiet, pleasant town where gentlefolk can live in peace. It’s a good place to live.”

“And a good place to hide,” Mollie said.

He nodded. “We better be going.”

Mollie was nervous as she and the professor strolled down Maya’s wooden sidewalk on the east side of the plaza. Her throat grew dry when they reached the adobe building with a large sign that read
Maya Emporium
.

At the door, the professor said, “Ready to go inside, Fontaine?” Mollie didn’t respond. “Fontaine?”

“What? Oh, yes, I …” She leaned up and whispered in his ear, “I forgot my new name. I feel like such a fraud.”

He patted the gloved hand resting on his bent arm. “This is Maya, world of illusion. I’d wager you’re not the first person—nor will you be the last—to show up in Maya with something to hide. Or appearing to be whom they are not.”

Mollie loved her work at the Emporium.

Quick-witted and curious, she wasted no time acquainting herself with the merchandise. If a customer came in looking for hat or hammer, salt or saddle, crackers or cradle, bustle or Bible, Mollie knew right where to find it.

The manager, Mr. Stanfield, was pleased with her work, and Willie, his clerk, a freckle-faced young man of nineteen, followed her around like a puppy. The townspeople commented to Professor Dixon that his lovely niece, Fontaine, was an absolute treasure, so sweet and helpful.

Outgoing and lively, Mollie quickly became friends with the young ladies of Maya, and after only a few days had two very dear girlfriends—Patricia O’Brien and Madeline Summers—with whom she could gossip and visit and sit with at church on Sundays.

When Mollie found out that the professor made weekly treks to a little adobe schoolhouse at the edge of town to teach Indian and Mexican children to read, she insisted on going along. It was a new adventure, and she was full of questions.

“Isn’t it hard to teach the Hopis how to read when they can barely speak English?”

“Young minds are like sponges,” said the professor. “They quickly soak up knowledge, and I’m always happy to instruct anyone who wishes to learn.” He winked at her and added, as the big brougham rounded a corner, “Even grown-up, pretty young ladies.”

“Professor Dixon, Professor Dixon,” shouted swarms of boisterous children who came running out to meet them.

Several pairs of small hands reached for the professor. He plucked the youngest of the children, a tiny Mexican girl, up into his arms. The others followed him into the old adobe building, clutching at the hem of his suit jacket.

Mollie, lifted down from the carriage by a tall, shy Indian boy, watched the professor with the excited children. That he loved them was all too apparent. That he should have been a parent was evident. Why, she wondered, had he never married and had a family?

“We go in now?” said the tall Indian boy at her elbow.

Mollie looked up into his eager face and nodded. “We go in now … ah … ah … your name?”

“I am John Distant Star.”

“John, I’m Fontaine Gayerre,” she said, putting out her hand.

His dark eyes widened, and he self-consciously wiped his hand on his trouser leg before taking hers. Mollie smiled warmly and, continuing to cling to his hand, led him inside to join the others.

When spelling and math exercises were completed, the professor called on Mollie to conduct the reading lesson. Flattered, she jumped at the chance. She took up the Brady reader and read in a clear, true voice, adding, with inflection and facial expressions, a dash of drama to the simple story.

She felt happy. Her life had become so full, so busy, she hardly had time to miss the old days with her papa or to worry about the Texas Kid.

Or the mysterious bounty hunter.

As the hot Arizona summer turned into a
cool, crisp autumn, Mollie became more and more comfortable with her new identity. And she began to enjoy being a woman—a young, lovely, well-dressed woman.

She finally stopped having nightmares, stopped constantly looking over her shoulder, stopped feeling as if she were in constant danger. She was no longer jumpy and anxious. Days passed when she didn’t even so much as think of the Kid or the bounty hunter.

She came and went freely from the Manzanita Avenue mansion. She had friends. Life was good. She felt as safe in Maya as the professor had promised.

When the end of October rolled around, bringing with it Maya’s annual
El Día de los Muertos
carnival, Mollie could hardly wait to join in the fun. She went to the carnival with her two best friends, Patricia and Madeline.

The eager young girls strolled among the crowds, eating candy apples and checking out the booths. They soon stopped, their interest piqued, before a small blue tent where a pitchman in a striped coat was enticing revelers inside to have their fortunes read by the all-seeing Madame Medina.

“… Madame can look into her crystal ball and predict your future.” The barker’s eyes fell on Mollie. “How about you, miss? Want to know what’s in store for you? Riches? Marriage? Travel? Danger?” He paused and grinned down at her. “Afraid to find out? Afraid of what Madame Medina might see?”

Challenged, Mollie drew a coin from her reticule, handed it to the flashily dressed barker, told Patricia and Madeline to wait for her, and stepped fearlessly through the blue curtains.

Inside, a woman in a gold satin turban and flowing scarlet robes sat cross-legged on a threadbare Turkish rug. Before her, on a low, square table, was a shiny crystal ball. The woman, whose makeup was garish, motioned Mollie to sit down. Mollie dropped to her knees and sat back on her heels facing the fortuneteller.

Madame Medina looked Mollie in the eye for a long, unsettling time. Then she lifted her hands and spread them over the crystal ball—close, but not touching it. When her hands parted, she leaned directly over the ball and looked into its mysterious depths. When finally she raised her turbaned head and again looked at Mollie, Madame Medina wore a puzzled expression.

“I see very strange things, things that even I do not understand.” Her crepey eyelids, painted bright blue, drooped.

Mollie swallowed. “What kind of things, Madame Medina?”

“Weddings. I see weddings.” Madame’s voice dropped lower. “You in a long white wedding gown and … and …” She looked up again. Mollie started to speak, but Madame lifted a clawlike hand to stop her. “Two weddings. Two men,” Madame Medina continued, her rouged face puckering into a frown. “Two dark-skinned, dark-haired men.”

“Well, that makes no sense at all,” Mollie blurted out, then laughed nervously. “You just take another look inside that thing,” she said, gesturing to the crystal ball.

Madame Medina shook her turbaned head. “It is what I see in the ball. I see you as one person who is at the same time two. You are two women. And there are two men, two weddings.” She fixed Mollie with her half-shut eyes. “Two weddings on the same day.”

“Impossible!” Mollie declared, her intrepid spirit rising to assert itself. “I’ve no intention of marrying one man, much less two. You look back into that crystal ball and—”

“No. No more,” Madame Medina said, cutting her off. “That is all. It is finished. Go now.”

“Go now,” the man ordered coldly. “I’ve had enough of you.”

The woman anxiously scrambled from the rumpled bed. She was afraid of him. All the girls in the Las Viguitas bordello were afraid of him. There was something innately evil about this big, dark-bearded man with the missing earlobe.

The woman remembered how she had cringed the first time the cruel gray-eyed man had visited the bordello and his gaze had fallen on her. In the blink of an eye she had found herself upstairs with him, and a frightening bout of fierce lovemaking had begun with him first cutting off her long bleached-blond hair with a dangerously sharp knife. When finally he’d tossed the knife aside, he ran his strong fingers through the butchered hair, squeezing her head painfully.

“That’s better, much better,” he had muttered, pressing her down on the bed and taking—repeatedly—what he had paid for.

Now, as he lay spread-eagled and naked on the bed, he said, “Your hair needs cutting again. See that you do it before—”

A loud knock on the door interrupted him. He called out, “Come on in, Cuchillo.”

A slim Mexican entered and announced without preamble, “There is reason to believe that the
señorita
may be in Arizona.”

“Where in Arizona?”

Shoulders lifting, the Mexican replied, “I do not know.”

The two men talked, speculating, the Mexican telling what he had learned, the naked man listening with interest. Finally he said, “You and the boys ride on up north and start searching. If she’s in Arizona, it’s just a matter of time until we find her. That’s all, Cuchillo.”

The Mexican left. The woman stayed, afraid to leave until she was dismissed. His head filled with pleasant thoughts of what he would do with her once he found his elusive Mollie, the Texas Kid frowned at the blond prostitute and said, “Get out of here. I’m tired of you. Go now!”

“Go now,” Lew Hatton said to his
segundo
. “Keep trying. Find new informers. Offer more money.”

Chando sighed heavily. “Why don’t you let it go? We’re almost certain Rogers is dead. That leaves only the girl, and—”

“And what, Chando?”

“She is a woman.”

Lew drained his whiskey glass. “That is her misfortune.” Lew was determined. He was not going to stop until all of the Rogers Renegades were either dead or had been brought to justice. He had spent great sums of money for information that might lead him to the missing Mollie Rogers.

A long, frustrating winter had passed with no real progress. Then, as an early springtime touched the Sangre de Cristos, the break he’d been hoping for finally came.

Arriving home after a long night of poker, Lew found Chando waiting up for him. He could tell by the look on Chando’s face that he had news.

“You’ve found Mollie Rogers,” Lew said by way of greeting.

“There’s a great probability that the Rogers girl is in a little town in Arizona. Maya.”

“Maya? Never heard of it. How did you find out?”

“The Pinkerton people in Denver got the word, but none of their agents would go after her, even with the big reward on her head.”

Lew looked puzzled. “Why not? Afraid of her?”

Chando looked him in the eye. “They don’t like the idea of bringing in a woman—a young girl, really—who might spend the rest of her life in prison or … or … even be hanged.”

A muscle jumped in Lew’s tanned jaw. “I have no such aversion to bringing in hardened, dangerous criminals, whether they be male or female. In fact, I’ll take pleasure in bringing in Mollie Rogers.”

“Sí, señor,”
said Chando.

“Now,” Lew motioned Chando to sit down, “tell me everything you know.”

“Miss Rogers made one big mistake,” said Chando. “She kept some clippings of her days as a Renegade. Apparently after she had been in Maya for a year, she decided it was unsafe to have them, so they were put out to be burned, but part of them survived. A beggar found the half-burned clippings and put two and two together. He informed the Pinkerton people and they told our boys. We paid off the beggar, ordered him to keep his mouth shut and get out of town, and told the Pinks we’d take care of it.”

Nodding, Lew asked, “Did the beggar know what name she is using?”

“No. But she is working in an Emporium there in Maya. It’s a small town, there can’t be many stores.”

“There has to be some foolproof way to identify her. I can’t just nab some young woman and accuse her of being Mollie Rogers.”

Chando cleared his throat. “There is a way,
jefe
, but …”

“How? Out with it. We’re wasting time.”

“It is said that Mollie Rogers has a perfect strawberry-red
mariposa
birthmark.”

“A butterfly birthmark?” said Lew, rubbing his hands together. “Perfect. Where is the birthmark? On her cheek? An arm? Where?”

“The
mariposa
is on her back,” Chando said, coloring, “well below her waist.”

“Below her—” Lew shook his head. “How the hell am I supposed to get a look at it?”

“I guess,” said the
segundo
, “you will have to make love to her.”

On a perfect May morning in 1872, Mollie rode her spirited gray stallion, Nickel, across the vast reaches of the Arizona desertlands. Her slender body moving in easy grace with the noble beast, she held the reins loosely, trusting the powerful animal as he loped across the cactus and creosote wastelands, heading up into the chaparral country of the Santa Ritas.

Mollie was dressed stylishly in a riding habit of lightweight ebony gabardine, and her golden hair, which now reached to her shoulders, was tucked up under a flat-crowned black hat. Black kid gloves protected her soft hands and in her jacket’s lapel, one of the first pinkish red blossoms to appear on the native beaver tail cactus added a splash of color.

Mollie Rogers had been transformed. The wild, rowdy gunslinger was now a sedate young lady—on the outside. Inside, she was very much like she had always been—restless, free-spirited, longing for excitement.