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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, Jenny examine 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-permeated room. 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 days in 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 admiredsomethingabout 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 Nine

Ty 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 could hampered 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.