10

Picnicking on the Precipice

Grace found it difficult not to stare at Rico. Those tight leather trousers were distracting, but to see them mounted on such a horse was hypnotic. The congestion of foot and burro traffic on the main road out of town meant that the cars could not travel very fast. Rico and the gray paced them the whole way, cantering just ahead and to the right of the Pierce. Lyda, who sat next to Grace, had two words to describe the view of him.

“Lordy, lordy.” If Lyda knew the meaning of sotto voce she had no truck with it. “Doesn’t rico also mean delicious?”

Grace was sure Captain Martín had heard that. The tinted driving goggles hid her eyes, but she wanted to sink down in the Motorette’s seat anyway.

As Grace watched Jake McGuire help the women descend from the big Dodge town car, she wondered what it was about rogues that made them so irresistable. Lyda’s new beau, in his tooled cowboy boots and battered Stetson hat, had rogue written all over him. No wonder Lyda giggled like a schoolgirl for no apparent reason these days.

Grace had had a run-in with McGuire the first evening he came into the Colonial and headed for the cantina. Grace had noticed the bulge of a shoulder holster under his jacket. Her job included noticing things like that.

“Mr. McGuire,” she had said. “We will be happy to look after your weapon for you while you sojourn with us.”

“What weapon?” He had looked confused, although Grace suspected the word “sojourn” was what had thrown him. He had pulled out a 32-caliber pistol and held it up close to his nose, as if its diminutive size made it difficult to see. “You mean this?”

“I do.”

“Why ma’am, if someone were to shoot me with one of these, and I were to find out about it, I would surely be annoyed.”

“All the same, Mr. McGuire…”

He had bowed and given in with good humor, but he didn’t fool Grace. She could tell from those eyes set like pale sapphires in twin deltas of squint lines that giving in was not his usual response.

Jake McGuire drove the expedition’s second motorcar, one he had borrowed from his boss. The Dodge was a town car with room for six passengers in the tonneau. Five more followed in a rented, horse-drawn station cab called a victoria. Jake, Rico, and Juan helped unload the picnic baskets and the passengers, the women in long, canvas dusters, the men in leather ones.

The guests took off their hats and driving goggles and trailed after Grace to the small park laid out along the top of the cliff. This was as close to Mexican wilderness as some of the women had ever ventured. A few of them fussed about that dreadful menace, Emiliano Zapata, creating problems in the countryside.

“Don’t you worry about that little indio, ladies.” Jake winked at them. “He’s all hat and no cattle.”

María and some of her kitchen staff had arrived ahead of time. While they finished setting out the lunch on linen tablecloths, Grace led the guests to the best place to take in the view. She doubted that any of them had noticed it no matter how often they drove across the bridge on their way to and from the railroad station.

She enjoyed hearing people’s “oohs” and “aahs” at their first sight of the Barranca Almanaco. She liked to watch the looks on their faces as they stared into its green depths. Parrots soared among the trees below this overlook. Dozens of clear springs cascaded from the walls.

Grace asked them to note the bridge from down here, below the highway that crossed it. Porfirio Díaz had had it designed in the French style, and the graceful strength of its slender, eighty-foot-tall arches always awed her. She explained that like all monuments, public buildings, and the town’s bandstand, the bridge was dedicated on September 15, Porfirio Díaz’s birthday.

Grace left them clucking about how shabbily those ungrateful indios had treated President Díaz. They agreed he had been a brilliant, progressive, enlightened leader. More than a quorum of them thought he should return from exile and take control of a country that was obviously veering off into social and economic ruin.

Grace heard enough of politics in the Colonial’s restaurant and lobby. This was not the place for it and she walked off on her own, following the rim of the barranca. Cuernavaca was built along the ridges separating seven parallel canyons, but she considered this one the most beautiful. It was a secret garden, wilder, lovelier, and more luxuriant than anything men could devise. She was listening so intently to the music of the springs and waterfalls that she jumped when Captain Martín spoke just behind her.

“Mrs. Knight, if you intend to go to San Miguel, we should leave now.”

Grace turned to find Lyda with him. “Before lunch?”

“Jake and Annie and I can entertain the guests,” Lyda said. “Rico says San Miguel isn’t far, but the road is rough. You don’t want to have to return after dark.”

No, Grace thought. I definitely don’t want that.

“Shall we take the motorcar then?”

“I understand a rock slide is blocking the road.” Rico glanced at Grace’s high-button patent leather shoes. “Can you ride a horse?”

“Impossible.” Lyda laughed. “Grace says if God intended people to ride horses He would have equipped the beasts with an off-lever.”

Grace was chagrined. “It’s all those teeth, don’t you know. And if only they weren’t so big.”

“The teeth or the horses?”

“Both.”

“You can ride sidesaddle with me.”

Grace took several deep breaths while she pondered the pros and cons of the invitation. The vases from San Miguel brought in steady revenue to the gift shop with little outlay of cash. She needed as much revenue as she could get. The rebellion of 1910 had broken out just as the hotel was becoming a paying proposition. All that shooting had frightened away tourists and driven her into debt to the bankers in Mexico City.

She shot a sideways look at Captain Martín. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back and stared at the tiny puffs of smoke from the train chugging up the distant mountain toward Tres Marías. He seemed to have little interest in her and hence, no ulterior motives for this excursion.

Then there was the debit side of the ledger, the gossip that an afternoon alone with Captain Martín would generate. Before she answered, Grace had to decide where on the horse she should sit. If she rode in front of Captain Martín his arms would be around her. If she rode behind him her chest would press against his back. Her face heated up at that prospect.

She realized that her worries about what people would think, or even what Captain Martín might think, didn’t matter. She had to talk to José and the villagers about setting up a manufacturing facility for the vases.

Best to put a good face on it. This was, after all, the twentieth century. Grace headed back toward the car to retrieve her coat. At least it would insulate her somewhat from physical contact with the man.

“Tallyho, Captain.” She flashed him a bright smile. “Let’s be off then, shall we?”