The Trailsman #349

The Vallejo place was on the outskirts of Santa Fe. A total of eleven children plus the parents lived in a house no bigger than a shed. They shared it with chickens and three dogs and God knew how many cats. It sat on a two-acre plot. One of those acres was fenced and a cow and half a dozen goats were withering in the heat. A large vegetable garden was a testament to human optimism.

Fargo took it all in at a glance as he drew rein. Several barefoot children darted out of the house and stared as if they had never seen a gringo before. A big-boned woman, as wide as a buckboard, was hoeing in the garden. She stopped and put the hoe down and came over, mopping her sweaty brow.

Sister Angelina was on a mule nearly as old as she was. The only means of transportation the convent owned, she’d told Fargo. If anything ever happened to it, she didn’t know how the nuns would get back and forth from Santa Fe. She slid off with the agility of a woman half her age and met the big-boned woman with a warm clasp and a hug. “Delores. It is wonderful to see you again.”

Delores had eyes as big as her cow’s, which she fixed on Fargo with suspicion. “Who is he and what is he doing here?”

“He is helping me take your lovely daughters to the convent,” Sister Angelina said. “His name is Skye with an ‘e.’ ”

“What sort of name is that for a man?” Delores asked. “They might as well have named him Earth or Water.”

“Despicable,” Delores said. “I do not. Nor my husband or my children. I do not permit it. Drink is the devil’s poison.”

Delores did not find it humorous. She turned to Sister Angelina. “You couldn’t find anyone better than this, Mother Superior?”

“He is a wolf in buckskins,” Delores said. “How can you expect me to let my daughters ride off with a man like him?”

“And you believe him? You are too trusting. You think everyone is good at heart, like you, when they are not.” Delores gave Fargo a scathing scrutiny. “I would not trust him as far as I can throw his horse.”

“As you should be,” Delores said. “But what could you do if he is not the good man you think he is?” She shook her head. “No, I will not permit my daughters to go until I am sure they can make the journey without harm.”

Just then two more of her children came out of the house. To call them children, though, was an injustice. They were young women in the full bloom of life.

The older and taller had lustrous raven hair that cascaded in gentle swells to the small of her back. Her oval face was flawless, her top lip dimpled in the middle. Her eyes glittered with vitality and something else as she gazed up at Fargo in frank inspection. The plain yellow she wore did not seem so plain given the body it covered. Her breasts were ripe melons, her waist sapling thin. Her legs invited images of bedroom nights.

The younger woman was quite the contrast. Her hair was lighter, almost brunette. Her face was round, her cheeks full. She had a dreamy expression, as if she were thinking of things far away. She had nice proportions but her waist was too thick and her legs too short.

Fargo touched his hat brim to them and said, “How do you do?” He smiled at the tallest. “You must be Dalila.” He smiled at the brunette. “And you must be Paloma.”

“Sí,” Dalila said. She boldly walked over to the Ovaro and brazenly put a hand on his boot. Her smile was as dazzling as the sun. “Caramba,” she playfully gushed. “Where did you come from? You are magnifico. Isn’t he magnifico, sister?”

“Those broad shoulders, those blue eyes,” Dalila said. “A girl could lose herself in them, I think.”

Delores had her hands on her big hips and was glaring like a mad bull. Barreling over, she roughly pushed her oldest away from the stallion. “That will be enough out of you. Are you so man crazy that you must throw yourself at this gringo?”

Delores poked Fargo’s leg with a finger as thick as a spike. “I want you to leave, senor. I want you to leave this moment.”

“Un momento,” Sister Angelina said. “If he goes, so do I. And if I go, your daughters stay here with you and you can forget about them joining our convent.”

“Didn’t I make it clear? I have chosen this man to help escort your girls. I cannot take them alone. It is too dangerous. So either he comes or they don’t go.”

Sister Angelina held up a hand. “My mind is made up. Ever since you told me they were going to become nuns, I have been thinking hard about how to handle this.”

“What is to handle?” Delores said. “I want them to go and they will go. It is as simple as that.”

“I don’t want to be a nun,” Dalila broke in. “I have told you and told you, Mother, but you won’t listen.”

“It is my wish and my will and it is final,” Delores declared. “Your sister and you are taking your vows.”

Dalila folded her arms across her bosom and stamped her foot as if she were ten years old. “I hate it. You have no right.”

“Wonderful,” Fargo said. He reined away and went a few feet before Sister Angelina grabbed hold of a stirrup.

Fargo sighed and leaned on the saddle horn. “Lady, you’ve got your nerve. It’s not bad enough you asked me to take lead or an arrow for you. Now I find out one of your would-be nuns doesn’t want no part of it.”

Fargo looked at Delores, who was glaring at Dalila. “Have her go with you. She’s big enough to scare most anyone.”

“It will turn out exactly as I desire it should,” Sister Angelina said. “Do you want to know why?” She slipped a hand under her habit at the throat and pulled out a long silver chain with a crucifix.

“Must you always swear so? Be patient with me, please. There is more to this than you can appreciate.”

Fargo opened his mouth to flat out refuse and noticed Dalila admiring him, a long finger pressed to her dimpled upper lip. He did some admiring of his own; the swell of her large breasts, the sweep of her long thighs.

Sister Angelina squeezed his leg. “I can’t thank you enough. You will be rewarded in the next life for the good deed you do for us.”

Delores was shooing Dalila and Paloma into the house to get ready to go. When they were inside she came back, her hard eyes fixed not on the Sister but on Fargo. “I still do not like this, Mother Superior. But if you say he must go, then I will accept your decision.”

“He does look tough, doesn’t he?” Delores said. “He has a hardness about him.”

Delores grinned a wicked grin. “Do you know what he reminds me of, Mother Superior, with that dark skin of his and his eyes like pieces of flint? A lizard.”

“I went to Hawaii once on a ship,” Fargo said. “There was this whale . . .” He would have gone on but Sister Angelina motioned for him to stop.

“You will not regret this, Delores. We need a protector and he is the best there is at this sort of thing.”

“He is a gringo. You couldn’t find one of our own to protect my beautiful girls?”

“Now, now,” Sister Angelina said. “We must not judge others by the color of their skin. Do you want everyone to think you are a bigot?”

“I do not like gringos and I do not care if others know I do not like them. They are loud and have no manners and they treat us as if we are the dirt beneath their feet.”

Delores nodded at Fargo and made a loud sniffing sound. “And they smell different, too.”

“We can’t all of us be saints like you.” Delores turned back to Fargo. “Listen to me, gringo, and listen good. If anything happens to my daughters, anything bad, I will have you hunted down and killed.”

“I mean it, gringo. My children are everything to me. I love them dearly. They are why I slave as I do to try and give them a good life. Their future happiness is all that matters to me.”

Fargo had had enough. “So you force two of them to become nuns whether they want to or not? You call that love?”

A red tinge spread from Delores’s neck to her hairline. “How dare you? What do you know of having a family, gringo? What do you know of always doing the best for them even when they cannot see it is the best? Yes, I want Dalila and Paloma to be nuns. It is a great honor. I do not know how it is in your country but here nuns are held in great respect.”

“This is my country,” Fargo remarked. “Or did you forget this territory is part of the United States?”

“I forget nothing. I would rather we were still part of Mexico. You gringos come down here and you try to change us. You run around like ants, always busy, always trying to make more and more money, as if money is all that counts in this world.”

Fargo had seen too much of it himself to argue. But he did say, “Not all of us are the same.”

“Do not forget what I have told you. No harm must come to my girls. I trust Mother Superior’s judgment, but I do not trust you.”

“You can take your threat and shove it up your . . .” Fargo stiffened. Two of the boys were rolling a wooden hoop back and forth. They were near a corner of the house and hadn’t noticed a snake coiled in its shadow. He saw the snake’s head rise and heard the buzz of its tail.

Instantly, he drew and fired from the hip, fanning the Colt three times so swiftly the three shots sounded as one. The snake jumped into the air and fell, then commenced writhing in its death throes.

Delores turned. “What were you shooting at? Was that to impress me with how quick you are?”

“No,” Sister Angelina said. “Look here.” She walked to the corner and pointed at the still-convulsing viper. “He saved your sons from being bitten.”

Delores waddled over. She looked at the rattlesnake and at Fargo and at the snake again, and then she raised her foot and brought her heel down on its head and mashed the head into the dirt, grinding her shoe back and forth until the convulsions ceased. She smiled at Fargo. “Do you take my meaning, gringo?”

Fargo began to reload. He could still light a shuck if he wanted, and he was considering just that when the girls came back out carrying bags. Dalila grinned and squared her shoulders so that her breasts pushed against her dress. He stopped thinking about lighting a shuck.

Paloma waggled her bag. “Mother had us pack last night. She said we must not keep you waiting when you came to take us.”

“Not at all,” Paloma said. “I very much look forward to devoting my life to the Lord. To being pure and holy like you.” She gave her mother a radiant look. “And I will owe it all to my madre, who loves us with all her heart.”

“We only have the mule and the horse,” Sister Angelina was saying, “so we must ride double. One of you must ride with me and the other must ride with Senor Fargo.”

Dalila eagerly stepped toward the Ovaro but stopped when her mother sharply said her name.

Fargo twirled the Colt into his holster with a flourish just to show off and then bent and offered his hand. “Here you go, little lady.” Paloma took firm hold and he swung her up behind him. She was careful not to let her body touch his any more than was necessary.

Fargo took her bag and hung it from the saddle horn. It barely weighed anything. “What’s in here? Feathers?”

Sister Angelina was slow climbing onto her mule. She held her hand down to Dalila but Dalila swung lithely on without any help.

“Go with God, all of you,” Delores said. Her eyes misted and she clasped her hands under her chin. “This is the happiest day of my life.”

“You are welcome to visit the convent any time to see them,” Sister Angelina said.

Fargo reined around and gigged the Ovaro. The promise of Dalila’s ripe young body notwithstanding, he wasn’t in the best of moods.

“Take care, Mother!” Paloma called back. “Don’t worry about us. We will be fine.” She let out a contented sigh and said, “This will be great fun, don’t you think, Senor Fargo?”