Wild Sierra Rogue (19 page)

“Is she of our faith?” Xzobal asked. “You've known her, Brother Rafael. Known her as the Bible describes. And I believe you feel more for her than any woman besides your Olga. Will you marry Margarita McLoughlin?”

“You don't put an apron on Brunhild.”

You'd think a woman could depend on her very own and only brother. You'd think a brother would have his sister's best interests at heart, especially after he, himself, had advised her to leave a certain scoundrel be. You'd think so. But what did Angus Jones McLoughlin do—not an hour after she'd made her grand exit from the pond algae called Eagle?

“Well, shore, Rafe ole buddy, you and Father Xzobal can ride along with us.”

If not for recalling “laughingstock,” she would have had a whole lot to say.

The Chihuahueño brothers closed ranks. Riding alongside her mount, Rafe leaned toward her to say, “Hello,
amorcito.
I didn't get the opportunity to tell you. . . I've missed you.”

He wants something
. “If I had a riding crop, I'd show you exactly how much I've missed you.”

He chuckled, picked up the black stallion's reins, and let Margaret guide Penny ahead of him. Ten minutes later, Señor Despicable disgorged with yet another request to Tex. “Amigo, I've got an idea. Let's circle back to Santa Alicia.”

Oh, yes, certainly. Let's do ride into the mouth of the beast. Yes, indeed
. Margaret didn't know how much longer she could keep quiet, but surely Tex would see a detour as dangerous.

He said, “Ain't that where that uncle of yourn has got that silver mine?”

“It is.”

Why don't you just surrender? Why don't you print broadsides? “Here I am, Uncle. Take me. I'm yours. And you'll get the priest thrown in for good measure.”
She shouldn't worry about Rafe's fate, but for the same reason she hadn't let loose in front of Soledad Paz, Margaret had the wholly unreasonable need to protect him.
He doesn't need cosseting
.

“Tex, you and Xzobal ride on to my old hacienda, El Aguilera Real,” he said. “Margarita and I will meet you there. Before sunrise. She and I will go into town now. Together.”

What a nerve!

And what did her very own and only brother do? He asked why they would visit the village, got a vague answer, and he rode off with the outlaw priest, leaving his sister to the man who'd done her wrong.

Stranded as she was in alien surroundings, what could she do but follow Rafe? Well, she could have gone after Tex and Xzobal, but she somehow knew Rafe wouldn't allow it. As he led her toward the village, she realized this was all too strange for reason. Obviously he didn't want to take up where they had left off in Villa's bed, because his were not the actions of a man in need of a woman, though he did, again and again, turn in the saddle and ask after her well-being. Or was he checking to see if she planned to shoot him in the back?

Margaret being Margaret, she could keep mum for only so long. Once she succumbed to her nature, she and Penny caught up with Rafe and the black, then rode in front of them. “I prefer—I order—we go on to Eden Roc, forthwith.”

“After we have visited my village.”

“Think twice. You ask for trouble.”

“Not to worry. My
vacáda
—my old one, that is—is too obvious. No one will search there.” He settled the sombrero on his head, shoving it low on his brow. “The Arturianos will never think to look for Xzobal at Hacienda del Aguilera Real. Not right away.”

“For a man who beggared his way into my company, you're playing fast and loose with my time.”

He chuckled and addressed the sky. “Ah, yes. My 'Rita gets back to her old form.”

“This is no time for joking. This is the first of November. January approaches. And it is a long, long journey between here and New York City.”

“Correct. It is the first of November.
El Dia de los Muertos
.” Reins held high, he halted the black. “I will pay my respects to my father and sister . . . and to my cousin . . . on this Day of the Dead.”

Well, what was one more day of delay?

The hardest part would be keeping a stiff upper lip. Laughingstock, she would not be. Somehow. Someway. In some form or fashion, her dignity wouldn't suffer. This in mind, she followed him to Santa Alicia.

She had expected people—unlike Rafe, who'd made no comment—to stare and point at seeing a woman dressed in the garb of a male. No one looked askance at her. But they couldn't believe their eyes, all right. The Eagle had returned.

As Rafe rode through these busy streets, the shocked citizenry at first stared as if they had seen the dead. A hush fell. Then a roar of approval intermingled with wails of tears. Old women with black scarves wound around their heads offered him rosaries. Young women extended fake flowers. A small girl with a solemn look on her dirty face tendered a watermelon carved into the image of a goblin.

Rafe leaned to accept the gift. His hand patted the girlish cheek.
“Muchas gracias, muchacha.”

She dropped her lashes in acknowledgment, then backed away, still solemn as a judge.

Margaret rolled her eyes and turned her sharp eye to the surroundings, to look for uniformed men. She saw none. She drew a few more conclusions. This was a lovely little village, built into the foothill. The streets were cobbled, the whitewashed houses compact and well kept. The people showed more energy than she'd witnessed to this point in Mexico; they all moved with purpose. That purpose, she discovered, was fiesta, and not only in the plaza area.

Though converted to Catholicism in the previous centuries, these Indians along with those of mixed blood, the mestizos, turned All Saints Day into a celebration of their primitive roots. Music played. Libations flowed freely. The bakery buzzed with activity, patrons leaving with loaf after loaf of
pan de muerto
, death bread.

Margaret saw nary a uniformed official.

She led the mare abreast of the black. “Rafe, if you're so worried about your uncle, you shouldn't make your presence imminently well known.”

“Arturo won't come to the village. He may be the
patrón
, but he doesn't have the people's loyalty. They are my people. No one would call him into town.”

Was this bravery? Or bald foolishness?

“Magnificent Eagle—is that you?” came a youthful male voice as they rode past the church. Hitching up the rope that served as belt for his pajamalike trousers, the boy of about fifteen asked in broken Spanish, “Where have you been? We of Santa Alicia have missed you.”

Rafe answered in some strange dialect, Indian no doubt. He alit the saddle, handed the reins to the boy, then moved to help Margaret to the ground. “Carlos will watch our mounts. It's just a short walk to the cemetery. And it's better to go on foot.” His eyes darkened. Tucking the watermelon under his arm, he took her elbows. “Shall I carry you,
amorcito?”

“Absolutely not.”

It became apparent why he wanted to be afoot. It made handling his tributes easier. Soon Margaret's arms brimmed with straw flowers, her fingers with tiny tinsel-eyed skeletons called
calacas.
Marigolds obscured the watermelon in Rafe's hands. He explained, “The strong odor of the flowers is the smell of death.”

“Strange, if you ask me. I smelled death in the sanatorium, and I promise you, it doesn't smell like marigolds.” Moving with her best effort at no-nonsense strides, she marched on. But stopped. “Rafe, it's getting dark. I think we should meet up with your brother and mine.”

“Later. We haven't been to the cemetery.”

“I am
not
going to some graveyard at dusk.”

“Why? Do you think the ghouls will get you?” he teased.

“I think I have the shivers.”

“Don't. In Mexico this is a day to rejoice. And to grieve,” he added with a shrug. “There is no need to be frightened of the cemetery.” He laughed gently. “We might as well get used to them. If our bones aren't left to the buzzards, we will both end up in one someday.”

“Believe me, I've given it some thought.” She lifted the flowers to bat at a fly. “Dying doesn't scare me.”

“What does scare you?”

Dying without experiencing life to its fullest
. And here she was, already weary from a short walk. “I'd rather not get into a philosophical conversation with you.”

She glanced over her shoulder. Behind them was a procession of silently weeping elderly women, carrying effigies of Christ and the Madonna as well as caldrons of chicken molé. “The traditional food to be eaten,” Rafe further explained. “The leftovers are left for the spirits to enjoy in the wee hours of tomorrow. All Souls Day.”

“That's rather Egyptian, you know.” Caught up in the traditions, she allowed her guard to give. “They packed food into the pyramids for their dead, so that the deceased would be provisioned for the journey into the afterlife.”

“You smiled. You don't do that often enough,
cariño
.”

They turned a corner. A cobbled path, somewhat crooked, led up the hill to the cemetery. The sight of it took Margaret's breath away, and that had nothing to do with her weak lungs. An orange glow lit the twilight with a surreal quality; it was the glow of a thousand candles sitting atop the numerous headstones.

Masks with ghoulish visages were much in evidence. Whole families picnicked around the remains of their loved ones. The scent of incense wound around and through, cloying and too sweet.
Calacas
danced from nimble fingers. And bottle after bottle of the milky-colored pulque tipped to eager lips. She couldn't help becoming enthused. It felt as if she'd been transplanted to some other place in time, to an era having nothing to do with the modern Gay Nineties.

The curious customs of this country—there were many. Margaret didn't find them loathsome. They intrigued her as she hadn't been fascinated since deciding to research the Great Discovery and its implications to Spain.

Rafe stopped at a well-tended grave. “María Carmen.” Laying the watermelon and a bouquet of marigolds on the clipped grass, he leaned to kiss his sister's grave stone. He straightened, his lips moving in prayer as he crossed himself.

After shifting to a more conspicuous part of the cemetery, he opened the gate to a wrought iron fence, waited for Margaret's entrance as well as that of an old woman who left a covered basket and a pot of chicken molé, then gave likewise respect to the crypt of the late Venustiano Delgado, who had died in his thirty-ninth year. Rafe's present age.

“You were very young when you lost your father,” she said. “How awful it must have been, growing up without him.”

“I had plenty of attention.”

“From whom?”

He bent to pluck a weed from the grave. “From Tío Arturo.”

Rafe's expression told a sad story. But how could she not feel sorry for the youth who had lost his father, for the adult who became estranged from the uncle he cared more for than he would admit?

“Let's move on.” Rafe passed the marble statue of a crying angel separating two crypts. He knelt in prayer.

Margaret silently translated the Spanish inscription. “Hernán Venustiano Delgado Ybarra. August 28, 1864—December 14, 1889. Beloved son. Murdered by the bandit who was his cousin.”

Margaret's eyes flew to Rafe. And his gaze was on her already. “He died as he would have wished, in battle. We are a people who've long believed violent death an honorable one.”

Tongue-tied for the right thing to say, she informed, “I read that goes back to the games of the Mayas, where the victor had the honor of being sacrificed.”

“Could be,
querida
. Could be.” Rafe stared at the purple-streaked clouds of twilight. When he continued, his voice bore a ragged edge. “I lied to you about Hernándo, 'Rita. I kill him. It was . . . my bullet.”

“Oh, Rafe,” was all she could say. She went to him and put a comforting hand on his shoulder, and he covered her fingers with his palm. The look they exchanged sent apologies as well as comfort to the other. She knew pain; he knew suffering. The business of living had been difficult for both of them.

“ 'Rita,
querida
, I'm sorry for all that has happened. I wish it could have been different. Mostly I'm sorry for disappointing you. You are all the wonderful entities of this earth. I'd like to have your respect,” he said. “I know I'll have to earn it.”

“But—”

“That you give me the chance is all I ask.” He broke the maudlin mood by levering to his feet and reaching for the basket. “Our dinner grows cold.”

Worried anew about the outside world, she replied, “I won't dine in a cemetery. Besides, don't you think your uncle might show up to eat molé and say a rosary over his son?”

“I've been told Tío Arturo isn't in the vicinity.”

“You could have told me.”

“I'm telling you now. He sent a telegram to Hacienda Delgado. He's on his way to the city of Mexico.” Rafe spooned chicken onto a plate. “Even if he were in the vicinity, he wouldn't celebrate
El Dia de los Muertos.
This is an Indian tradition. My uncle is not Indian.”

“Are you?”

“Some,” he replied proudly. “The mother of my mother is half Aztec.”

“I met your mother. She came to see me in Chihuahua.”

“And what did Madrecita have to say?”

“Not much.” Margaret didn't have the strength to fight over Olga or that cryptic-message business. And she didn't want to. Accepting the offered plate, she took a bite of the delicious chicken with unsweetened-chocolate sauce. “I suppose being part native is the reason you've such zeal for revolution.”