Page 16 of The Promise of Jenny Jones
Highborn Mexican women were reared like hothouse flowers, protected and sheltered from life’s unpleasant realities. They were guarded by hawkeyed duennas, fiercely shielded from insult by male relatives. Ty had long pondered how Robert had managed to get Marguarita alone long enough to impregnate her, and what he had seen in her to make him wish to bed her. From what Ty had observed of the aristocratic families in northern California, a patrician Mexican woman was the most boring creature in femininity. She prayed, embroidered, and gazed at the world with eloquent indifference.
What in God’s name had such a woman done to merit a firing squad?
Pushing aside the platter of pozole, Ty leaned back on the legs of his chair and swallowed a long draft of pulque, letting the fiery alcohol burn down his gullet. Removing a penknife from the top of his boot, he lazily pared his fingernails, listening intently.
Gradually he culled the information that the slender man with the proud mustache was named Emil and was apparently one of Marguarita’s Barrancas cousins. Fury twisted Cousin Emil’s features as he shouted and exhorted those in the cantina to join him in pursuing a witch who had cast a spell on Marguarita.
“Think, Emil!” A woman stood, clutching a shawl to her breast though the night was hot. “You knew your cousin. Could the Americana have persuaded the senora to die against her will? The senora could have cried out and exposed the pretense. But she did not. What does this tell you?”
“It tells me Marguarita was bewitched.” Emil gazed at the faces frowning up at him. “Are we to sit idle and allow a murderess to kill my cousin and kidnap her daughter?” He spit on the ground in disgust. “Do the men of this village have no honor?”
Until this moment Ty had not known if Robert’s child was a girl or a boy. So it was a girl. He had a niece.
The woman stepped farther into the light and spoke into a swell of angry voices. “Senora Sanders was dying. Everyone knows this. I have it from the senora’s own lips that it was her plan to switch places with the Americana. In return, the Americana agreed to take Graciela to her father in Norte America.”
Emil flattened his palms on the table and leaned forward. His eyes glittered dangerously. “You lie. My cousin would never have trusted her daughter to a witch, to a convicted murderess. If Marguarita wanted Graciela to go north, which I am sure she did not, she would have asked me or Luis or Chulo to undertake this journey. Never would she ask a stranger.”
The woman hesitated. A sharp reply hovered on her tongue, but she gazed into Emil’s hot eyes and did not speak.
Emil’s anger seared those around him. Spittle flew from his lips. “You all heard. Maria claims my cousin sent Graciela to her Americano father.” His eyes returned to the woman and pinned her. “And where would that be?” he demanded in a voice that told everyone he knew the answer.
“The father is in California,” the woman whispered. She lowered her gaze and sat on a bench against the wall.
“Then why did the witch take the train south? Explain that, Maria Torrez.”
“South?” Shock clouded the woman’s eyes.
“When Luis returns from the hacienda, you will hear it from his own lips. The witch abducted our little cousin for her own purposes. I say we go after the witch, kill her, and rescue Graciela. I say do not listen to a woman’s prattle. My cousin would never entrust her daughter to a stranger. You know this. The honor of the Barrancas family and the honor of this village rest on saving Graciela from the witch.”
Ty folded the penknife into his boot top, then drained the tumbler of pulque, letting it scald his throat. He set the tumbler down hard and stared out the side door at a swarm of gnats circling a tree lantern.
The witch business was clever nonsense. Emil played on the ignorance of superstitious villagers to refute Maria Torrez’s contention that Marguarita had given her daughter to a stranger rather than, family. That much Ty understood.
But there was much that he did not understand. One thing, however, was unpleasantly clear. The knot behind his rib cage told him that he had abetted in the abduction of his own niece. Now he knew the truth about the fracas at the depot in Verde Flores, and he cursed his role in it. Damn his hide, he had helped a female desperado steal Robert’s daughter.
Cursing silently, he tossed some coins on the table, then stood. Cousin Luis was expected at any moment, and Cousin Luis wasn’t likely to have forgotten the cowboy who came to the aid of the red-haired woman. Common sense urged Ty to step out the side door, fetch his belongings, and get the hell out of here.
Halfway to the stables, he spotted the muchacho who had carried his message to the hacienda. The boy slipped off his burro and ran forward, waving an envelope. Without breaking stride, Ty flipped the boy a coin and continued toward the lanterns hanging outside the stables.
After extracting two thin pages covered in flowing female script; he held them to the light. Dona Theodora Barrancas y Talmas begged permission to inform him that her great-niece,SeñoraMarguarita Sanders, andSeñoraSanders’s young daughter had unfortunately succumbed to the coughing disease three days since. Dona Theodora castigated her own rudeness but as much as she longed to offer her great-niece’s brother-in-law the hacienda’s hospitality, grief prevented her from opening her doors. She pleaded for understanding and prayed thatSeñoraSanders would forgive her for not receiving him at this desolate moment of dual tragedy.
In other words: Leave. You no longer have reason to be here.
For an instant, he considered returning to California. He could show Dona Theodora’s message to Robert. Marguarita and the child were dead.
Ty crumpled the pages in his first. Frowning, he glanced back at the lights shining out of the cantina.
Inside, Cousin Emil was striving to incite the village men to rescue Graciela from a witch. Yet, Dona Theodora stated that Ty’s niece had died with her mother.
The answer came in a flash. With Marguarita dead—and all parties agreed on that point—Graciela became Robert’s heir. And Don Antonio Barrancas’s heir.
His narrowed gaze slid down the squalid shacks flanking the main street of the village. What would Robert pay to ransom his daughter? Would he sell the cattle? The ranch? Ty didn’t doubt it. He wasn’t as certain about Don Antonio, as Barrancas had never accepted or acknowledged Robert and Marguarita’s marriage. Still, the old man might turn sentimental when he learned his daughter was dead and this child was his only surviving family. If she survived. It occurred to Ty that the child’s death would lead to an inheritance which was a less cumbersome solution than kidnaping and ransom.
The promise of a hefty inheritance or ransom would strongly appeal to villagers living in shacks built of sticks and mud. If honor didn’t motivate them, Emil would eventually relinquish shares in the windfall and let greed work its persuasion.
Grim-faced, Ty saddled his horse and jerked hard on the cinch.
The Barrancas cousins didn’t know it yet, but a new player had entered the game. If they thought Dona Theodora’s message had duped him into returning to California without Graciela, they were in for an unpleasant surprise.
