The Promise of Jenny Jones (17 page)

She longed to fall into her hammock at once, but she had to wait for Senora Calveras and the cockleburr tea, then she had to let the tea cool, then she had to rouse Graciela, which was no easy thing to do, and coax her to drink the tea.

"Tastes terrible," Graciela protested, shuddering.

"Just drink it. No, all of it."

At last, she snuffed out the candles and fell into her hammock, dropping like a rock. But as fatigued as she was, worry kept her awake. Straining, she listened for Graciela's breathing. Every time the kid moved, Jenny bolted upright and peered through the darkness. It was almost worse when the kid didn't move.

Hands folded behind her head, she stared at the ceiling as anxious thoughts pounded her brain.

It would absolutely ruin her life if the kid died on her watch. Graciela's illness was her fault. Who else's fault could it be? She'd kept the kid in the sun too long, in the saddle too long. She should have done this differently, or that, or something else.

If the kid bit it, then Jenny decided she might as well dig a grave and jump inside because if Graciela died, Marguarita was going to be truly and seriously pissed. If Jenny didn't kill herself, Marguarita would reach down from heaven and do it for her, and Marguarita would make it a horrible death, she knew that. If she let Graciela die, she would deserve a horrible death.

From now on, she vowed to slow their pace. Every other night, she'd rent a room for them. She'd make sure the kid ate three times a day and had fresh milk with every meal.

And from now on, she was going to start praying herself, begging God and Marguarita to keep Robert Sanders alive and in good health. The worst thing that could happen in her sorry life was for the kid to live but for Robert Sanders to die. Then she'd have the kid on her hands for the next fricking twelve years or so, and she'd be worrying herself half to death all the fricking damned time. Cleaning up vomit and God only knew what else that she hadn't run into yet. Damn, damn, damn.

Eventually, racked with guilt and inhaling the strong odor of onions, she fell into a restless sleep. In her dreams, she was a child again, being chased by the cowboy and her mother, who pelted her with onions.

* * *

"I don't know any stories," Jenny insisted for the fourteenth time. She drew a long, long breath, held it,then let the air seep through her lips. Once kids got an idea in their heads, nothing under heaven could dislodge it. "I haven't learned any stories in the five minutes that have passed since you last asked me. Look, I'll read you some of my favorite words out of the dictionary."

"We did that this morning."

"Was it only this morning?" It seemed like weeks ago. Maybe a lifetime. She'd been sitting on a hard stool beside Graciela's hammock so long that her tailbone ached, and so did her spine. The only time she had moved had been to mop up a new splatter of vomit. The rest of the time she'd watched the kid sleep and had struggled to amuse her when she woke.

Graciela unpinned the locket from her nightgown, opened the gold heart, and stared at the pictures inside. Tears gathered in her eyes.

"Let me see the locket." Jenny didn't care diddly about the pictures inside, but it was something to do to eat up a few minutes of this eternally endless day. And maybe if the kid wasn't staring at the pictures, she wouldn't cry.

After Graciela gave her the locket, Jenny hefted it in her palm, testing the weight and feel of real gold jewelry. It irritated her that a six-year-old kid was accustomed to wearing gold when she'd never owned any herself. Not that she wanted to. But every time she glanced at the gold-locket pin, it reminded her of the enormous gulf betweenwho she was and who Graciela was. Sighing, she pried open the little gold heart and looked inside.

"So this is the sainted Roberto."

The tiny portrait revealed a good-looking son of a bitch dressed in a formal jacket and wide tie. He had dark hair and light eyes, but Robert was softer-looking than Ty. Jenny knew at once which brother had the cojones in the Sanders family. There was nothing tentative about Ty Sanders. Nothing indecisive in his gaze. Robert looked like a man born to whisper pretty poetry in the moonlight whereas Ty was a man created in the hard heat of the sun. She sensed that Robert bore ink stains on his fingers where Ty had calluses.

Aside from an anxious concern for his continued good health, Robert Sanders didn't interest Jenny.

Next she studied Marguarita's portrait. It seemed to her that Marguarita's lovely smile beamed encouragement. Guilt rocked Jenny's chest. Things were turning out pretty much as she had predicted. She didn't have a mother-bone in her body. But Marguarita had refused to believe it. Her unshakable faith in Jenny radiated up from the portrait. Jenny didn't imagine it. Marguarita was smiling at her. Sighing, she closed the locket and tossed it back to Graciela.

"You must know one story. Make something up."

"All right," Jenny snapped. "If it will stop you from whining, I'll try. Let me think … okay. Let's say there was—"

"You're supposed to start with once upon a time."

Jenny bit down on her back teeth. "You're pushing. But all right. Once upon a time there were six snotty little rich kids who were stolen as infants by a witch and her evil companion who took them to live on the side of a mountain."

Graciela fixed her gaze on Jenny's face. "Did the witch have red hair and blue eyes?"

Jenny's gaze narrowed into a long slitted stare. "You know, there are times when I'd really like to smack the crap out of you."

"What did the witch look like?" Not a flicker of fear or concern troubled the kid's gaze.Which made Jenny wonder if Graciela had noticed that Jenny did a lot of threatening and blustering without much follow-through. She'd have to think about that.

"Too fricking bad, but the witch did not look like me. She had gray hair and snake eyes."

"Oooh." Graciela clapped her hands together. "Snake eyes!" She shuddered happily. "Did one of the snotty little rich kids look like me?"

"There were three girls and three boys, and one of the snotty little rich girls looked exactly like you."

"What did she wear? Did she wear pretty clothes? Did she have tassels on her boots?"

Jenny cast a sly look toward the hammock. "What do you think she wore?"

While she listened to Graciela describe the little girl's dress, she decided telling stories wasn't as difficult as she'd imagined it would be. In fact, she might attempt this again. It was a good way to use new words and teach Graciela a few.

"The evil witch was a martinet. Do you remember what a martinet is?"

Graciela nodded solemnly. "A mean person with lots of rules, like you."

"That's exactly right, and don't you forget it." The kid had a good memory. They'd only learned about a martinet that morning. This story thing was going to work out very well.

* * *

On the third day, Jenny scoured the village and brought back some yellowed foolscap and a pencil stub. Graciela drew pictures most of the day. One of them made her laugh, and one of them made her cry. Later, Jennyexamine the pages of foolscap. She couldn't make sense of the blobby pictures or figure out why they had made the kid laugh and cry.

She did know the delay necessitated by Graciela's illness made her feel frantic inside, and the pungent odor of onions had deadened her sense of smell for anything else. She was desperate to mount up and get moving again.

On the morning of the fourth day, thank God, the kid's forehead felt normal to the touch, and her eyes were bright and alert. Finally Jenny stopped worrying that Graciela might die and returned to wanting to kill her.

"We'll go for a walk," she decided, eyeing Graciela. "See how you do on your feet. If that works out, then we'll hit the road tomorrow morning first thing."

Graciela brightened immediately at the prospect of escaping the small, hot, onion-permeatedroom. She dressed herself more quickly than she had in Jenny's memory. Watching, Jenny was amazed. If she hadn't known better, she would never have believed the kid had spent the last three daysin the hammock, sicker than a pup.

When they stepped outside into the morning sunlight, Graciela smiled up at her. "The black is all gone from your hair. It looks better. Nice and shiny and the real color again."

"I've been washing it every day," Jenny explained uncomfortably. Even bland compliments made her uneasy. She didn't know how to respond. By now she knew the kid liked to talk about hair and clothes and dumb topics like that, and some of the talk was even mildly interesting. But this was the first time the kid had said something remotely complimentary about Jenny's appearance. It annoyed her to discover how happy she was that the kid admired something about her.

Side by side, they walked along the main dirt road, keeping to the shade, nodding to people they passed. The village was small, with no reason for existing that Jenny could see. There was no industry. The railroad was miles to the east.

"I need an umbrella," Graciela remarked, squinting at the sun.

"Well, you aren't going to get one."

"Why not?"

Each time Jenny heard the word "why," her stomach cramped and her hands curled into fists. She was beginning to loathe that particular word. It curdled her brain.

"Cousin Jorje!"

"What?" Jenny broke from her reverie in time to grab the back of Graciela's cape and prevent her from running toward a man who had whirled at the sound of her voice and now stood in the center of the street glaring back at Jenny.

"Let me go!" Graciela struggled to break free. "That's Cousin Jorje. He's come to take me home!"

"Cousin Jorje?" Slowly Jenny turned her eyes back to the man in the street. He'd shoved his poncho over his hips to expose the guns at his waist. This was going to get nasty.

"Kid…" Jenny said, easing back the folds of her own poncho, "just how many fricking cousins do you have?"

The first bullet whizzed past her ear.

CHAPTER 9

T y reined hard and jerked his head toward the sharp explosion of gunfire. If he hadn't heard the shots, he would most likely have ridden past the village, as it looked too small, too dilapidated, to have attracted Jenny's interest. A grudging respect for her judgment and abilities had soared since she'd tracked him and left him hog-tied in his bedroll. Now, when he puzzled where she had gone and what she was doing, he asked himself where he would have gone and what he would have done.

He would have camped where he could obtain fresh meat and milk for his niece, and that's what Jenny had done. Consequently, she'd left an easy trail to read. He was a couple of days behind her, and that made him crazy, but he could travel faster and longer than she couldhampered by the child. He knew he'd catch up with her sooner or later.

When he did, it was going to be payback time. He'd had a lot of miles to brood about her getting the jump on him, about being trussed up and left for a day and a half with his nose in the dirt. He was feeling ornery and mean, spoiling for a good fight, just itching to get his hands on Jenny Jones.

Being in a brawling mood himself, the gunfire erupting from someone else's altercation attracted his interest. Touching his bootheels to the flanks of his horse, he trotted toward the village to judge if the fracas was worth getting involved in. A good fight would knock the edges off the tension between his shoulders, might allow him a restful night's sleep afterward.

He couldn't believe his eyes. Damned if the first thing he saw wasn't Jenny Jones standing in the middle of a dirt street shooting it out with a mean-eyed, mustachioed Mexican. Even wearing men's trousers and a shapeless poncho, there was no mistaking her. Her hat had flown off and lay in the dust at her feet, exposing a flaming cap of red hair.

If he'd missed the hair, and no man could, he would have spotted his niece. Jenny was shooting with one hand and fighting to hold Graciela behind her with the other hand. As Ty galloped forward, Graciela gave up trying to wrench free of Jenny's firm grip on her cape. She slipped out of the garment, darting around Jenny and straight into the line of fire.

"Graciela!" Ty shouted at the same time that Jenny did, sliding off his horse in a cloud of dust. "For Christ's sake, take cover," he snarled,then he shouted again at Graciela. Ignoring their yells, she ran toward the man shooting at Jenny and now at him.

"Don't shoot Jenny, Cousin Jorje," Graciela screamed. "It's all right. I'm here. You don't have to kill her!"

Swearing a blue streak, Jenny stamped her boot in frustration and waved her gun in the air. "Don't shoot," she warned Ty. "You might hit the kid!" The gun shook in her hand; she yearned to continue firing, but she didn't.

"Get your butt behind that tree!" After giving Jenny a shove, he dived toward the water trough and dropped into a crouch.

She leaned around the tree trunk. "Crud on a crust!There's more of them!"

Lifting his head above the trough, Ty spotted three men running toward the sound of the shots. Smiling and clapping her hands, Graciela called their names.

"More fricking cousins! My God. She's got a cousin in every jerkwater village inMexico. They're everywhere."

Swiftly, he assessed the situation and reached a reluctant conclusion. "We're outnumbered." He glanced toward the tree and saw that Jenny had stepped away from the trunk. He shouted to her over the sound of gunfire. "Damn it, get behind that tree!" She had more guts than brains. "Listen to me. We can't win this fight. Hold your fire and let them go."

She whirled toward the water trough. "What are you saying, you son of a bitch? That we give up and let them take her?"

"We'll get her back. But not if we're dead."

She stared hard at him,then looked toward the street. Ty watched her face as she accepted the inevitable. Her shoulders slumped, her gun dropped to her side, and she covered her eyes with a shaking hand. A bullet chunked into the water trough; anotherpinged the dust in front of the tree. Cautiously, Ty raised his head, burning to return fire, but holding back because Graciela was happily running back and forth between the men. Frustrated, he made a fist and hit the trough hard enough to slop water over the sides.