Treasure of the Sun (43 page)

Katherine saw Mr. Smith's shoulders heave. She guessed he was laughing. In a way, Smith reminded her of the Chamberlains, and she said, "They missed my labor. They missed the money I made for them."

"You shut up, Miz Kathy," Mr. Smith retorted. "Women should be seen and not heard."

"That'll be the day." Lawrence lowered his voice, but not enough. Both Katherine and Mr. Smith heard him say, "If we could have got her to shut up, her life with Father would have been so much easier."

Smith nodded. "That's women. They cut off their noses to spite their faces. They never know what's good for them."

With a bitter inflection, Katherine quoted, "Men have many faults; women only two. Everything they say, and everything they do."

"But I can cure you of that," Mr. Smith said softly.

She didn't know how to respond. She knew better than to respond. She hated to let him think that he'd cowed her-but he had. In a quick gesture for luck, she touched the cool metal of her watch in its pocket.

Satisfied, Mr. Smith called back to Lawrence, "This Miss Smart-5kirt said something about being a lawyer. Being a really good lawyer. Why, she bragged all over hell and California about it. A' course no one believed her. They all laughed at her and called her names, but with you showing up and wanting her back so bad, I can't help but wonder .... "

"She's knowledgeable about the law," Lawrence admitted.

"She helped raise the family's fortunes."

"An' you want me to help you get her on a boat?"

"A ship. Yes. She finds you the treasure. You deliver her aboard my ship bound for Boston. I get her, and she won't be able to tell anyone about your sudden acquisition of wealth."

"But I'm just a dang bit worried," Smith confessed. "What if she can't help find this treasure?"

"She says she saw the map," Lawrence reminded him.

"Yes, but the only reason she said it was to stop me from kicking that husband of hers right off the mountain. That's none too reliable a confession."

The scene rose too vividly before Katherine's eyes, and her own censure made her sway. She'd betrayed Damian's trust by cooperating, and she'd ridden away from her unconscious husband. Surely all would come right, but if it didn't-how could she live with the guilt? She clenched her hand around the pommel of the saddle. ''It's what you wanted to hear."

"It had better be the truth, or these ghouls that guard the treasure will be the least of your problems."

A shiver snaked down her back. He hadn't turned, tried to look at her, or raised his voice. But there was something about Mr. Smith-the way he held his head, the flat toneless quality of his threat-that made her think of rape and murder. At the fiesta she'd wondered if he'd fled a warrant for his arrest. It seemed like years ago, so many things had happened, but surrounded by friends and laughter, it had been a distant worry. Today, in the wild, she marvelled at her own naiveté. ''It's the truth, but my sense of distance is poor. The map pointed to the treasure and said, 'This ye will know by the signs.' "

"What signs?"

"I don't know. I don't know." She heard the shrill note in her voice, and she gulped her panic back. "Nobody knows, but the vaqueros are uneasy. If you keep talking about ghouls, you'll lose them."

"Yes, they're like everybody else in this godforsaken land.

Scared of their shadow." He blew his nose again, but this time he didn't bother with the handkerchief.

"The de la Solas are a powerful family in California. Don Lucian is my father-in-law and fond of me. Don Damian is my husband. He's resourceful and smart."

"If he ain't dead yet," Mr. Smith offered.

Her heart felt like a stone in her breast. She said in a rush, "He'll destroy you."

Mr. Smith whistled in one long expiration. "Whew, you got it bad."

"What?" she asked. "What?" Lawrence asked.

"Can't you tell, Larry? She's in lu-ove." Mr. Smith gave it all the sweet and sticky accent of a prepubescent boy. "Kathy's in love with her greaser."

She hurled her denial like a bird tosses a snake. "No, I'm not."

Lawrence
answered almost as quickly. "No, she's not."

"Oh, yes, Larry. That's why she up an' marries some guy who she's got nothing in common with, who doesn't even like her people."

"I'm not in love with him." She wished she could know what message he'd tried to give her before he was hit, but defiantly, she concluded, "But I think perhaps he has an affection for me. If you harm me in any way, he'll kill you."

"My golly, he's got you bamboozled," he marvelled.

"You're a fool to have challenged Don Damian de la Sola."

Her hands tightened on the reins.

He laughed rudely. "You're the fool. You're the fool if you think he'll have any interest in you after you've stayed overnight with me."

"He trusts me."

"I'm sure he does-a cold fish like you. But he can't trust me."

Her breath caught.

"Now, see here." Lawrence interrupted with his father's best bombast. "Now, see here, I agreed to this on the understanding Katherine wouldn't be harmed."

"Oh, I won't harm her." Mr. Smith sounded as innocent as a boy with a fishing pole hidden behind his back.

"Well," Lawrence said, "good."

"Impressive, Lawrence," Katherine murmured under her breath.

Mr. Smith added, "Anyway, your lovey-pie won't care if we're pure as two nuns. It still won't look good."

"Don Damian is my husband."

Now he twisted in his saddle, laughing out loud in short donkey brays. "You really are a fool. Haven't you noticed how he hates us Americans?"

She stiffened.

"Look at that expression on your face, like you bit into one of those sour, puny lemons they grow around here. So don't you know that greaser would do anything to protect his lands?"

"He wouldn't marry me to protect his lands."

"Didn't your cousin just say how conniving you are? And an American to boot. Marrying someone like that is a winning combination. He couldn't find that in a man."

She almost laughed at such twisted reasoning. Almost laughed, but it did make sense.

"Your wonderful Don Damian would do anything to keep his lands, even marry one of the hated Americans in hopes that such a marriage will legalize his good-for-nothing land grant. Not that that will help," he sneered. "Being married to an American woman won't save Damian's lands. If an American man wants to claim the property, the officials will look only at the name on the title."

"Yes." Lawrence Cyril Chamberlain sounded like a boy in a snit.

"He's just using you," Mr. Smith finished with a flourish.

"That's not true," she protested.

"You'll get the chance to find out. That General Castro is drafting a proclamation ordering all noncitizens out of California. If your Don Damian jumps at the chance to get rid of you, you'll know how he really feels."

"According to your theory, if he doesn't jump at the chance, I'll think he's using me to save his land."

"Yes." Mr. Smith sounded immeasurably cheered. "You can't win no matter what he does."

Damian woke, his fists rotating in useless combat. "Where am I?"

"With me."

Her voice sounded like mission bells, like the most soothing ministration of the angels. "Vietta!" He jerked his head toward her and groaned with the pain. Specks of red and yellow swam in front of his eyes.

''Lie back down," she urged. "Lie back in my lap."

"Where's Katherine? My God, where's Katherine?"

"I don't know. Lie down."

He found he had no choice. The pain in his head throbbed to the rhythm of his heartbeat; he had to swallow to keep down the contents of his stomach. He slipped backwards and clenched his teeth when the swelling on his skull met her lap. With tender fingers, he pressed the goose egg above his neck, wrapped in a clumsy bandage. "Madre de Dios, what happened?"

"Someone hit you. He kicked your ribs, too," she said helpfully. "You've got bruises all over your chest."

He plucked at his shirt, ragged and without buttons.

"Smith."

"What?"

"Emerson Smith."

"Did you see him?"

"No, but it must have been Smith." His hands shook as he tucked the shirttails into his pants. "It must have been Smith. I've always had a gut feeling about him."

"You had an intuition?" The leg beneath him jumped a little. He narrowed his eyes against the light. "An intuition. Yes, an intuition about Smith. Just as I had an intuition about Julio de Casillas. "

"You thought Julio hit you?"

"No, no. Not Julio. It couldn't have been Julio. Not Julio." "Julio ... I never thought about Julio." She patted Damian's shoulder to console him. "I'm sorry."

Not understanding the sympathy in her voice, he tensed in instinctive rejection of her words. "What do you mean?"

"I went by their hacienda on the way up here, and Julio had disappeared. Nacia was crying, of course. What does she ever do?"

"Damn!" he exclaimed. "After the time we had there, I had hoped she was done with that."

"Poor thing, she was all alone."

"Her parents had gone?"

"Oh, yes." She nodded vigorously.

"I would think they'd remain to point out the error of her ways," he said in disgust. "However, that doesn't mean Julio is the culprit. It just means he's off on another drunken spree."

"I saw a man up on the mountain .... " Rubbing her eyes as if to wipe away tears for the loss of her friend Julio, she added, "A man with that reddish blond hair. He was riding ahead, but as I sought to catch him he disappeared."

"This trail is narrow and steep, Vietta," he pointed out.

"Where could he have gone?"

"I don't know. I don't know the area. Julio does."

Grieved, but not at all convinced, he sighed. "Which way do the tracks go from here?"

"Up." She pointed towards the top of the mountain.

"Is my horse gone?"

"Yes."

"Oh, God." He rolled over onto his stomach and buried his face in his hands. "Then he has the map. He knows where he's going." The darkness comforted his eyes; his elbows supported his head. The pain eased, and he could think. Cautiously, he raised his head and squinted up at Vietta- Vietta, that pale flower of Spanish culture. "What are you doing here?"

She ducked her head and pleated the material of her skirt to avoid looking into his eyes. "There were rumors flying around Monterey."

"What kind of rumors?" He was sorry for his sharpness when he saw the way she flushed. He put his hand over hers and gentled his voice. "Vietta, this is important. What do the rumors say?"

"That you have gone after the treasure of the padres and misfortune will follow you." She twisted her hands in her lap, then earnestly apologized, "I'm sorry, Damian, but I had to come. I was so worried."

He was struck by an odd kind of vertigo. Her colors reflected an exact opposite of Katherine--she seemed the exact opposite of Katherine. Her long, black hair was braided down her back. Her dark eyelashes and heavy brows ornamented her hazel eyes, making Katherine's sandy lashes and sea-green eyes seem almost tame. Her perfect, white complexion had tiny wrinkles around her mouth and eyes. It contrasted with Katherine's, with the faint gold and small dusting of freckles that enchanted him. Her riding habit and hat were a stylish red, not blue; the decorative braid on her jacket was silver, not gold.

His gaze settled .on her throat. Her throat was bare, not wrapped in a scarf to hide a scar.

Nervously, Vietta touched her neck with her fingers. "Is something wrong?"

"No." He rubbed his eyes. "No, I'm just confused by this thump I received. How long was lout?"

"I've been here only a few moments," she answered. "I don't know with any certainty."

Crawling up on his hands and knees, he dropped his head and kept it down as he stood up on wobbly feet. He grabbed for a branch; she grabbed for him. ''It's all right. I'm dizzy, but it's getting better." Squinting up at the sun, he estimated the time.