2
She eased the door shut behind her. “They are only vaqueros. They come to visit some putas in this village.”
“No problem?”
“They won’t bother us. I am sorry they interrupted us.” She helped smooth the shirt he’d buttoned, then she traced her fingertips over his chest.
He swept her tight against him and kissed her. “Not your fault.”
“Where will you go now?” She tossed her slightly waved hair back over her shoulder.
“To see my amigo and help him.”
“May I go along with you?”
He thought about it for a split second. “It may be dangerous for you.”
She smiled. “I am not afraid.”
“Where can we get you a horse?”
“My neighbor has one. She would sell it cheap. Five to seven pesos?”
“Is it any good?”
“Good enough to ride out of here on.”
“I have some money.” He dug in his pants pocket for it.
“Let me go buy it. She will ask too much for it from you.”
He agreed and counted out ten dollars. “I can wait here,” he said. “But not too long.”
With a wink, she shared a grin with him, then hurried off to secure the horse—he sat on the pallet and drank more wine. The wind was still blowing strongly outside. She soon returned through the back door.
He scrambled up and went to see her purchase. There was another woman who’d come back with her standing in the porch area. Dressed in a wash-worn dress, a rawboned woman with a square jaw and none of Angela’s beauty held the reins while Angela put woven pads and a Mexican saddle on the gray horse.
“Valrey, meet Slocum,” Angela said and quickly cinched the girth on her horse.
“Here, can I help?” Slocum asked, nodding to the woman.
“No, I have it done. I must go get your horse now.”
Before he could protest, Angela hurried off. Slocum and Valrey were left alone with only the wind still protesting at the corner of the shedlike porch.
“She is a good woman. She says a bruja has you in her spell.”
Slocum chuckled. “I guess she did have anyway.”
“Angela is a good one to help people. She has helped me. My first man was killed in a train crash. She found me another: Martino.”
“He is a good man?”
“Oh, yes, very.” She blushed. “He wears me out when he comes home from his job deep in Mexico.”
“Does he work down there?”
“Sí, in the San Phillipe Mines. He sends me money and takes good care of my other children from my first marriage.”
“Does he come home often?”
“No, no, it is a long ways down there and back. But he comes home often enough that I am always pregnant.” She cradled the bulge of her low belly in both hands and grinned at him.
“You must be blessed then,” he said to make small talk.
Angela returned with his horse and he tossed on the pads and saddle. Then he began to buckle it down.
“I will get some bedding and food,” Angela said.
He agreed and dropped down the stirrup. Valrey came over and spoke to him, looking off at the gust-swept, dusty desert. “If she is ever not here next time, come to my casa. I am not as pretty as her but—you know what I mean?”
He nodded. “That is very kind of you to offer.”
She shrugged. “Someday you may see your way back here, huh, hombre?”
Then Angela was ready. She tossed the blanket roll for him to tie on behind his cantle and hung two sacks of things over her horse and then bound them on.
In a flash, she hugged her friend and kissed her cheek, then she ran to her horse, ready to ride out.
“Good-bye,” Slocum said to Valrey and pulled down the brim of his hat. Then he swung Jocko, his big bay horse, around.
They set out in the dust storm toward the southwest. His biggest dread was that the storm might increase, shut off all their vision and cut off their chance to get to his friend’s place.
With his head bent into the gritty blasts and hers under a scarf, they moved through the sharp wind that cut a swath out of Mexico. They reached Villa Verde by sundown.
“Ah, mi amigo Slocum,” the patrón, Don Juarta, said from the lighted front porch. “My men will take your horses. And to you good evening, señora.” He bowed and swept his hat on the floor to her.
“Gracias,” she said, looking all around as if to take everything in.
“Her name is Angela,” Slocum said, giving his reins to the man waiting for them, who held his sombrero over his heart.
“Ah, such a lovely lady. Welcome to my hacienda, Angela. Tomorrow I will show you the entire ranchero.”
“I am afraid that we must continue in the morning to Mitch McCarty’s. He sent for me. A boy said someone had kidnapped his wife.”
“Oh, yes, I know. That is so terrible. Yesterday I sent four pistoleros over to help him find her.”
“Good. What happened up there, and who did this?”
“I only heard short bits, but they were all bad. I have guards posted all around my holdings. McCarty lost his left arm and took some more bullets, they said. The leader was a bandit who calls himself La Cucaracha.”
“Never heard of him before this.” He looked at Angela.
She made a slight “no” sign to him and then smiled for their host. “Ah, such a great hall,” she said after her first view of the two-story open room.
“I have many lovely things, my dear.” He boasted with pride and told the woman standing in the doorway at the side that they had guests; she must bring them wine and food.
Slocum was amused at how Angela acted so impressed with the place. He handed his hat to a young maid who also took Angela’s shawl and scarf.
Juarta showed them to the high-backed seats at the great table, Angela on the left and Slocum on the right of his head chair, which was larger and more kingly than the others. When they were seated, Juarta reached over and patted Angela’s forearm. “You are lovely, my dear. It is so nice to have you here as my guest. Where do you live?”
“San Antonio,” she lied, unfolding the linen napkin.
“Ah, where civilization abounds, no?”
She nodded.
“Someday you must invite me to your casa. I go to San Antonio quite often.”
“My casa is being remodeled,” she said. “Perhaps when the work is complete you might come by.”
“When will it be done?”
“Next year, they promise, but you know lazy workers.”
“Ah, I have many. Slocum, you are very lucky to have such a fine lady to accompany you down here.”
“She was tired of the hammering,” he said, hardly able to contain his amusement at her fabrications. He toasted both of them with his wine goblet. “To good health.”
“Such a shame this incident happened at the McCarty Hacienda,” Juarta said. “I hope you can sort it out for him. First the Apaches, now bandidos. They need to send some soldiers up here.”
“The Apache days aren’t over either,” Slocum said as the servants brought out enough food for an army.
“But most of them are over in Sonora. Not like the old days, when the Comanche came down here as well.” Juarta shook his head.
Throughout the meal the conversation went on about taxes and the central government in the federal district and its lack of concern for everything but the gold and silver brought out of the Norte. Juarta made several passes at Angela, which amused Slocum. The poor man had no idea she was a bruja—perhaps she had sprinkled stardust around the room to attract him. Juarta was, for Slocum’s part, close to embarrassingly struck by her beauty.
Slocum and Angela retired to their own room at last. Their host had offered them two bedrooms, but Angela had told him one was fine. The notion did not faze him, and a maid showed them to the larger quarters.
Slocum toed off his boots. “Tell me, do you have plans for Juarta?”
“Do I hear a jealous tone in your voice?”
“No, I simply wondered.”
“This would be much nicer quarters than my casa, wouldn’t you say?” She held out her hand to the rich items in the soft candlelight and the great feather bed in the center of it all.
“Nicer, not better.”
“Ah, but I must think about such things. Someday I will be old and wrinkled. Only old winos and whoremongers will want me. Before my looks die”—she began unbuttoning his shirt—“I would like to live under such a roof.”
“Ah, I agree that you should. I can leave you here if you wish.”
“No, the time is not right. That is why I took your room—well, partially why. I didn’t want to spoil Juarta’s greed for me by letting him climb in bed with me tonight and having a wreck the first time.” She hung her dress on the ladder-back chair and turned back to Slocum with the candlelight flickering over her ripe body.
He dropped his pants and stepped out of them. “What kind of a wreck?”
She winked at him. “Juarta would get so excited in bed that he’d spew his cum all over my belly before he even got inside me. Besides, I have you, and I know I will sleep tight when you finish with me.”
He kissed her and drew her nakedness against his bare skin. There was no end to what a witch would do to get what she desired—he’d seen one in action that evening and understood her ways. This hacienda would be much better than her casa in a settlement that had no use for her. Hugging her to him, he felt his erection grow between them. Morning would come too damn early, and it sounded like his amigo McCarty was in tough shape. But that was tomorrow’s worry. For tonight, Slocum put his concerns aside and lost himself in a wild lust for Angela’s flesh.