Until the Day Breaks (California Rising Book 1) (4 page)

Finally reining his horse to a halt, he stepped down from the saddle in front of her. The damp, foggy air caused a lock of fair hair, escaped from her shawl, to curl against her rosy cheek. Roman restrained himself from tucking the silky strand back under her head-covering. Her eyes were wide with trepidation.

“Who did you meet at the river?” He knew his voice was curt, but couldn’t help himself. She must know that each time she left the hacienda’s protective walls, she was in danger of being eaten by an animal or carried away by an Indian.

She hesitated for only a moment. “God.”

“God? Really? No man waited for you there?”

“Only God was there.” Her guileless blue eyes probed far too deeply. “Do you not pray to the Lord?”

Roman looked toward the river for a moment to escape her penetrating gaze. He removed a cigarillo from his shirt pocket and set about lighting it. “I pray for the Americanos to leave California.”

“You do not like Americans?”

“I’ve killed Americanos.” He puffed his cigarillo to life.

She said nothing until he leveled his gaze on her. “Why?”

“When the Americanos rose up in Texas, I fought for Mexico. I’ll fight the Yankees again when war comes here.”

“Why do you entertain war?”

“There is nothing entertaining about war.” He blew smoke between them. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t back down one bit, but none of her gentle manner escaped her. Or him. Her sweetness took him aback. Sighing, he set his gaze on the distant horizon. “I hope to see California govern herself. Mexico does not deserve her, and America will only pillage her.”

“Not all Americans are greedy.”

He turned his eyes back to hers, longing to shake the innocence from her. “I haven’t met a Yankee yet who can be trusted. Greed rules them all.”

“I think you trust no man. Not just Yankees.” Her words, though kindly spoken, incensed him further.

“You know nothing about me.”

“You are wounded and sick, yet you pretend to be strong and whole.” She pointed to his leg. “There is blood on your trousers.”

He looked down at his soiled pant leg, his ire growing. “Are you a healer?”

To his surprise, she bent down and touched the dark stain on his pants with her fingertips. With her head bowed and covered by the dark shawl, she appeared a servant at his feet. The pressure she put on his thigh with her hand intensified, sending shooting pain through the aching wound. Had he not been so proud, he would have stepped away from her. “What are you doing?” he asked impatiently.

“You have an infection. Your flesh is on fire. I’m praying for God to heal you.” She did not remove her hand from his leg. Instead, she put more pressure on the bandage under his pants. The sensation of her touch deepened. Heat climbed up his thigh, flooded his midsection, and pooled in his chest. For a moment, he found it hard to breathe.

Dragging in a fortifying breath, he grabbed her by the shoulders and abruptly pulled her to her feet. His wound pounded in a rhythm that matched his thudding heart. He felt out of sorts and held on to her for a moment to steady himself.

“How did you acquire the injury?” She put her hands on his upper arms, as if knowing he needed her strength. It almost seemed like an embrace between them.

After a stunned moment, he pushed away from her, gently but urgently. He’d never been superstitious like so many Californios, but something about this woman was otherworldly. His wound vibrated as if it had a pulse of its own now. As if she’d poured something into him. A spirit of some kind. He needed to get away from her.

“Let me help you.” She reached out, but he jerked back. Was it his fever from the infection making him so perplexed in her presence?

With a last look at her standing there with the sun rising behind her, framing her in golden light, he mounted his horse in a hurry. “Leave me alone. You have done enough already.”

Spinning his horse around, he spurred Oro out of the trees and down to the river.

Urging the stallion toward the mountains, he rode hard for over an hour. Across sprawling meadows, through shady redwood glens, and up into the pine and oak-studded peaks and canyons of a sprawling wilderness. When the stallion’s gait stiffened and his ears pricked as they climbed the next hill, Roman knew his mount sensed danger.

Instinctively, he untied his riata from his saddle. Cresting the summit, he saw the grizzly digging in a squirrel hole just yards away. Too close. Much too close to avoid an encounter with the beast.

Roman cursed softly, quickly twirling the lasso up over his head. The big brown bear reared from his digging, standing on hind legs to better view his visitor. Roman threw the trusted rawhide. It uncoiled like a snake and settled around the bear’s thick neck.

The captured brute charged, roaring his wrath. The stallion raced away, leaving the bear barreling close behind.

Nearby stood a massive oak tree. Laying his body over the horse’s neck, Roman galloped Oro under a large limb, tossing the end of the riata over the branch and catching the rope again, allowing Oro to bolt just as the beast lunged at the stallion’s backside.

In a nail-biting second, the bear was snatched back and dangled from the limb, hanging like an outlaw strung up by the town. Its hind feet clawed the ground, keeping the enraged animal from choking to death. Roman trotted his trembling stallion twice around the tree trunk, keeping the riata tightly drawn to hold the bear immobile. The animal roared, slicing the air with its claws.

Roman climbed off Oro and secured the end of his lasso to another low-hanging branch. Walking back to his horse, he realized his knees were shaking, though his leg didn’t hurt as much now. Oro’s muscles quivered too. The stallion dripped and foamed with sweat.

“It’s been a while since we faced a bear together, huh?” He patted the stallion’s soaked neck, feeling some of his manhood restored.

Oro blew through flared nostrils, his eyes never leaving the strung-up beast. Roman took a second riata tied to his saddle and returned to the bear. He lassoed the grizzly’s paws and attached that riata to the tree as well. With the beast firmly bound, he mounted his stallion.

Letting out a breath, he realized he felt sorry for the bear as it twisted around growling in frustration. This bruin would be a perfect competitor for the bear baiting. The bear was young, which meant it wouldn’t kill the bull too quickly. If the bull was old and wise, he might even win the match against the bear, though Roman doubted it. He’d only seen a bull win on two occasions, and those were against juvenile bears.

He didn’t want any part in victoriously dragging this bear back to the Yankee hacienda. He figured the men would find the bear sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.

Two riders from the hunting party found the bear tied to the tree. The
criollos
were ecstatic, calling out to Roman to join them in hauling the animal back to the fiesta. Roman rode in the opposite direction, ignoring their excited summons.

The
criollos
wasted no time. When Roman arrived at the fiesta that afternoon, having spent much of the day at a peaceful glen along the river where he bathed and shaved and spent some much-needed time resting, the bear and bull were chained together for the fight.

Roman slowly walked his horse toward the circle of spectators. From a distance, Rachel Tyler’s golden hair shimmered in the sunshine. He didn’t want to speak to her, but he couldn’t stay away. She stood alongside a female Indian servant who whispered in her ear. It was obvious the little Yankee had no stomach for the savage fight between the animals. She covered her mouth with her hand and turned away as the bruin charged the bull.

By the time he reached her, she was crying softly into her hands. An overwhelming urge to comfort her assailed him. “You do not like the entertainment,” he drawled gently, purposefully getting off his horse between her and the servant so nothing stood between them.

She looked at him in disbelief. “How can they do this to these animals?” She swiped at the tears on her cheeks, struggling to compose herself. The crowd cheered and clapped, egging on the warring beasts. Snarls of the bear and snorts of the bull filled the air. He stood close enough to smell the delicate perfume of rosewater on her skin and found himself at a loss for words.

“Which will win the bull or the bear?” She wouldn’t look at the raging fight.

“The bear almost always wins, but this bear is young and stupid. He might lose,” he spoke gently.

“How do you know he’s young and stupid?” Rachel peeked at the fight and then, clearly regretting her glance, locked wide eyes on him.

“I captured the bear this morning. He wasn’t much trouble.”

“You did this?”

He didn’t like her outrage directed at him. “Your father has done this.” He waved his hand toward the animals trying to kill each other as the crowd roared its approval. “The Yankee takes without asking. Life, land, a woman who belongs to another man. Your father is like the grizzly
.
” Roman scanned the crowd for Tyler and spotted Sarita beside her husband. Both of them cheered as the bear took the bull down by fastening its teeth around the bull’s nose. The bull bawled as the bear muscled it to the ground. It kicked its legs, trying to free itself as the bruin moved his muzzle to the bull’s throat, ripping open the flesh there.

Rachel’s scream split the air, but Roman couldn’t take his eyes off Sarita. She threw herself into Tyler’s arms, kissing her Yankee husband as the bear finished off the bull. Their public display of unbridled passion stunned him. Though he’d been to many bear baitings, often capturing bears with Rancho de los Robles’s vaqueros, never in his life had he been unsettled by the event as he was now. Watching Sarita relish the bull’s death in the lusty embrace of her gringo husband unleashed something in Roman he’d never felt before. A deep, grieving regret over the human depravity he only now recognized in himself and those around him. It sickened him to see Sarita in another man’s arms. True, she thought he was dead, but still it felt like a betrayal, and sliced his soul open.

Beside him, Rachel wept, her shoulders shaking, her face buried in her hands. She seemed so young and innocent, standing there sobbing in the midst of a crowd reveling in the bloodbath. The Indian servant waiting at her side watched him with knowing eyes. He recognized this servant, Sarita’s old dueña, Chula. He’d always disliked this particular Indian. She practiced black magic and had led Sarita into her dark ways. In his younger years, he’d laughed at such nonsense. Now that he was older, and had seen plenty of death in Texas, he did not find the worship of devils so foolish and funny.

“I will see Señorita Tyler to the hacienda,” he told the servant in Spanish.

Chula smiled. The gesture didn’t reach her expressionless black eyes. “She is weak and fragile. A foreigner,” she returned in Spanish. “She won’t survive here. I believe the gringa will die this very year. Certainly, you of all men, Señor Vasquez, know I cannot allow
la niña
to depart with you.”

Wrapping his arm around Rachel’s waist, he pulled her from Chula’s side in a swish of petticoats, leading his stallion nearly over the top of the dueña to get away from her. The servant jumped out of his horse’s way, her cold black eyes suddenly flashing fire.

“The little gringa is safe with me. See to your señora. She is acting the harlot for her Yankee husband.” Roman pointed across the crowd to Sarita and Tyler, relieved Rachel didn’t understand the Spanish he spoke to the servant.

“I see you are alive,” said Chula. “You should thank Tohic for sparing you.”

“I do not thank devils,” Roman returned in Spanish.

After escaping the dueña, he walked with Rachel at a leisurely pace away from the bear baiting. Moving slow eased the pain in his leg. She went along trustingly, tears streaking her cheeks, clutching his billowing shirt like a lost child.

In Spanish, he whispered comforting words he would never say to her in English, his arm firmly about her waist. Everything in him longed to protect this delicate girl. She didn’t belong to her father’s madness. He needed to get her away from the slaughtered bull. Away from the blood-thirsty crowd. Away from her father and Sarita with their passion displayed for all to see. Away from Chula and her devils.

It was late afternoon. A cool breeze pushed in from the coast. He could smell the ocean on the air. They’d held the bear baiting far out in the field, a safe distance from the hacienda in case the animals escaped and the vaqueros required open space to recapture the beasts. On the horizon, the hacienda loomed like a frontier fort, surrounded by high adobe walls with orchards, outbuildings, and stables sprawling across an open meadow ringed by giant redwood trees. Like all Californio ranchos, the wide clearing protected the occupants from a sneak attack. Enemies would be seen well before they reached the homestead.

As Roman and Rachel walked slowly to the hacienda, he led Oro with one hand, keeping his other arm around Rachel’s waist until she stopped crying. He could have released the stallion’s reins and let the horse follow, as Oro was trained to do, but he didn’t trust himself with two free hands with this particular woman. The urge to carry her far away from this place was a feeling he couldn’t shake. It would be so easy to sweep her onto his saddle and ride back to Rancho de los Robles where protecting her was easy. Under her fair skin, a blue vein throbbed in the center of her forehead. Her delicateness reminded him of his mother, who died of the fever when he was a boy. How he missed his beautiful, gentle mother. This girl’s same beautiful gentleness tightened his chest, made him long for what he could not explain.

“How can they do that to God’s creatures?” Rachel stopped walking, lifting her damp face to his. “How can people be so cruel?” Her tear-washed eyes shone as blue and fathomless as the sea. Those beseeching eyes pulled him far from the shore of his resolve to hate all Americans. With the sun on her face, he noticed a light sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks he hadn’t noticed at night. She was taller and slimmer than Sarita. Her head nearly reached his shoulder, her slender figure fitting his six-foot frame as no other woman’s ever had.