CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

I resigned my Special Ranger commission by mail the week after Grist’s visit and began devoting all my attention to the ranch. I never recovered my car, but it was a fair trade for my life, so I didn’t complain. Pablo’s nephew found me a metallic gray ’39 Mercury coupe with low mileage. I trusted the kid’s judgment enough that I bought it sight-unseen. I wasn’t disappointed.

One fine, sunny Monday in April I’d been to the doctor in San Antonio. When I pulled up in front of the house in the middle of the afternoon, I found my aunt having coffee on the front gallery with a young Mexican woman who appeared to be in her middle twenties. As I hobbled up on the porch I could see that she was tall and slim, with long, coal black hair pulled in a bun at the back of her head. She had almond eyes and creamy skin and wore a well-tailored dress of dark blue, polka-dotted linen with a white lace collar.

“Come say hello to Miss Perez, Virgil,” I heard my aunt say.

I limped over to where the two of them sat beside the little iron table that resided permanently on the porch, then pulled off my hat and reached out to shake hands. The girl’s fingers were cool, and she seemed utterly poised, with a distance about her that was just as cool and remote as her hand.

“I’m pleased to meet you,” I said.

My aunt sprang to her feet. “I’ll go get you a cup of coffee, Virgil,” she said and disappeared through the front door before I could refuse.

I eased myself into the third rocker and asked, “What brings you to La Rosa, señorita?” I asked.

“I have applied for a job at the elementary school in town, and the principal sent me out here to meet your aunt.”

“Ahhh … I bet you’ll get it.”

“I hope so,” she replied. “Your aunt said she would recommend me.”

“That’s all it takes.”

“Really? How so?”

“Let’s just say that the superintendent of schools values her opinion quite highly. Don’t worry. You’re as good as hired.”

In a few moments Tía Carmen was back with my coffee. “You two go ahead and visit without me for a while,” she said as she set the cup on the table. “There’s something I must tend to in the kitchen.”

“Sure, there is,” I said softly as I followed her retreating back with my eyes.

The girl raised her eyebrows inquiringly.

“There’s never anything in that kitchen that has to be tended to in the middle of the afternoon.”

“No?”

“Definitely not.”

“Then why?—”

“To leave us out here alone together. She’s matchmaking. Or trying to, I should say.”

“Oh, I see,” she said, and then smiled a sly little smile.

I watched her face while I sipped at my coffee. The smile remained and her eyes boldly met mine. “Why do you look like the cat that ate the canary all of a sudden?” I asked.

“Because I know something you don’t.”

“Oh yeah? What?”

“We are cousins.”

“Who?” I asked in amazement. “You and me?”

“Sí,” she said with a little laugh. “I am descended from Rosa Veramendi’s older brother, Arturo.”

“That’s wonderful,” I exclaimed, quickly taken with the idea. “That makes us what? Fifth cousins?”

“I think that’s right. Fifth or sixth.”

“Why haven’t we met before?”

“Don Arturo died in the typhoid epidemic in the early 1870s, and his wife took the family back to Mexico City, where we lived for two generations. During that time our families lost contact with each other. Then my father brought us to Laredo shortly before I was born. It is only in the last year that we learned that Rosa had descendants still living here in Texas.”

“Fascinating,” I said, thoroughly entranced.

We chatted on for the better part of an hour, both enjoying it immensely. I learned about her family and that she’d gotten her master’s degree at Peabody College up in Memphis the year before. She also told me that she loved to read and dance, and we talked about our favorite books. Tía Carmen reappeared twice and then vanished each time just as quickly as she’d come. I found the girl alluring, and she knew it. She found me interesting, too, and I knew it as well. When at last she rose to leave I walked her to her car. “Where are you staying?” I asked.

“I’ve rented a room from old Mrs. Niebling in town. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I thought we might take Aunt Carmen up on her matchmaking.”

“Ahh. I see. Exactly what are you proposing?” The sly smile was back on her face and her eyes were mocking.

“Maybe dinner and a movie in San Antonio this coming Saturday. I would be happy to take you dancing, but my foot…”

She didn’t even pause to think about it. “Yes, I believe I would like that. But you must promise to be a gentleman.”

“Of course,” I said, opening the door of the car. “I’m always a gentleman.”

“I think we both know better than that, Virgil,” she said, using my name for the first time. I closed the door and stood and watched as her little Plymouth dwindled down the lane.

By the time I regained the porch my aunt had returned. “A fine girl, isn’t she?” she asked.

“Indeed she is.”

She smiled knowingly. “Now, that one would make a good rancher’s wife.”

“Tía Carmen?” I said, looking her squarely in the eyes.

“Sí?”

“Mind your own damn business.”

This bought nothing more than a self-satisfied smile.

*   *   *

Two nights later the moon was full. After the blood had been drunk and the fire built, the old men and I sat around passing the bottle among us. Once the tequila had warmed my innards a little, I tried thanking them for standing by Aunt Carmen and me the day Walsh and his thugs came to kill us. But they would have none of it. “Such is our destiny,” Alonzo said mockingly.

“Sí,” Pablo agreed. “Our fate.”

“What are you fools talking about?” I asked.

“Are we not secretly known as Los Caballeros de La Rosa?” Alonzo asked.

“Sí,” Pablo agreed. “We only tend the cattle by day so no one will suspect.”

“Suspect what?” I asked irritably.

“That we ride out by night like the great Zorro to rescue young patróns who have gotten themselves into difficulties with evil men from the outside world.”

“Sí,” Alonzo agreed sagely. “As I said, it is our destiny.”

“After all, are we not young and dashing?” asked Juan, he of the bent back and scarred face and missing fingers.

“To say nothing of handsome,” said Pablo, his one eye gleaming in the firelight, his snaggle-toothed smile like a jack-o-lantern cut by a child’s unskilled hand.

“Make light of it all you want,” I said, “but I will never forget what you did.”

We fell silent while the moon climbed higher in the sky. Alonzo threw more wood on the fire, and the bottle went round once again. At last Pablo began speaking of me as though I were not there. “It is good that Señor Virgil has come home to stay.”

“Sí,” another agreed. “But now it is time for him to take a wife.”

“And he must have children.”

“Sí,” Pablo agreed. “Mischievous little niños like he once was who will liven things up around here.”

“And who will pay him back all the pranks he pulled when he was young.”

“You are right, my friend,” Pablo said. “That would be justice indeed.”

“But who will he marry?” Juan asked.

“Perhaps the pretty young señorita,” Pablo said. “The one who came to see Tía Carmen earlier this week.”

“Was she truly lovely?” Juan asked.

“Aeeee!” Pablo exclaimed. “Such beauty as to take a man’s breath away. Tall and slim, the very image of Tía Rosa as she appears in the painting that hangs in the great room at the main house.”

“Tía Rosa?” Juan asked.

“Sí,” Alonzo answered. “The young señorita and Señor Virgil are cousins.”

“Damn!” I said. “Do you old buzzards know everything?”

“Sí!” Pablo said and cackled wickedly.

“But very distant cousins,” Alonzo added. “Far enough removed that even the priests would not object to such a union.”

“How could the priests object?” asked Juan. “If the law does not care, then why should the priests?”

“Because the Holy Mother Church cannot be conformed to the world,” Pablo explained patiently. “It must have higher standards.”

“No,” countered Juan. “The Church must be subject to the law like everyone else.”

“This is not the case,” Pablo said. “The Church has a very special mission—”

“No, you are wrong, my friend. The law…”

I let my mind drift away and left them to their theological wrangling, these old men who never darkened the doorway of a church except at Christmas and Easter, when their wives’ nagging made it impossible for them not to do so. The evenings were still cool in April, and that night not even a hint of a breeze was blowing. I leaned back against a mesquite stump and watched as the fire flickered and its smoke spiraled upward through the motionless air into the darkness of the night. Down toward the river coyotes began to call out, and somewhere nearby I heard the eerie cry of a screech owl. Yes indeed, I thought—perhaps I would marry the pretty señorita. Perhaps we would have many little niños and the old house would once again echo with the cries of children at play. And perhaps—just perhaps—there was such a thing as destiny. But for the moment, mildly and happily drunk, I neither knew nor cared. For the moment I was content to simply be, safe and secure out under the moonlit sky where the harsh, limitless land stretched far away.