Bride of the Baja (20 page)

She crossed the bedroom to the gallery and made her way down to the courtyard. The rancho was quiet—it must have been long after midnight—and the fog high overhead hid the moon and stars. In a few hours the servants would be stirring, and by three-thirty the casa would be abustle, for Esteban planned to leave for Mexico before dawn.

Alitha hadn't been able to sleep well ever since she had realized that Esteban did not intend to marry her even if she went with him. She had tried to ignore him as, during the past week, he had directed the preparations for his journey to the south. Each time she saw him he greeted her courteously, his manner dignified and correct. His eyes, though, told her he was still waiting for her to tell him she had changed her mind and would go with him. When she did not speak, he shook his head sadly, his wan smile fading to a poignant took of reproach and regret.

Luckily, she thought, he didn't know how she longed for him, how constantly she thought of him in the endless hours of nights when sleep wouldn't come, how she dreamed of him when she finally dozed off in the hours before dawn. Dreams she blushed to recall. Her body might be weak, she told herself, but her will was strong. She vowed she would not go with Esteban no matter what he did or said.

Leaving the courtyard, she walked slowly across the wet grass toward the sound of the guitar. When she reached the orchard, the singing stopped and the night was quiet. She drew her shawl closer about her to ward off the damp cold.

There would have been a
fandango
tonight, Maria had told her, if the household hadn't been in mourning for Margarita. Many times in the days since the simple stone memorial was built beneath the orange trees, Alitha had happened on servants brushing tears from their eyes. How they all must have loved Margarita, she thought.

The music began again, and the man's voice was raised not in a dirge or lament but in a plaintive ballad, a love song. Alitha walked ahead and saw a dark figure standing alone among the trees.

"
Mi amor mi amor
," he sang, his voice pure and clear.

The singer paused as he saw Alitha approach and then went on with his song, singing now to her. She had thought she recognized the voice as Esteban's and now she was certain. She stood listening, enraptured yet at the same time sad, enveloped by feelings of loss and the fleeting brevity of life. All too soon the song, like life, was over.

"That was beautiful," she told him.

"My love," Esteban said. "Alitha, you are my love, my only love."

Placing the guitar on the ground, he came to her, his hand reaching for hers, and as their fingers touched, she felt a shock as though a spark of electricity had passed between them.

She gasped. What was she doing here? What had become of her firm resolve of the last week? She knew that if she did not flee now, she wouldn't be able to leave him, that Esteban would take her in his arms and, no matter how much she might try, she could never resist him. With a muffled cry, she turned and ran back to the house.

"Alitha," he called after her, but she didn't stop running until she was in her room.

Sleep wouldn't come. When the first sounds of the awakening house reached her, she rose from her bed, dressed and sat beside the window overlooking the courtyard. The early morning air was heavy with fog, and though lanterns had been hung around the court, the enshrouding mist made men and horses look like phantoms in the night.

Alitha watched as Maria clasped Don Esteban to her, kissed him on both cheeks and then stood to one side with her arms folded as the riders completed the final adjustments to their equipment. Besides Esteban, there were five
vaqueros
and seven extra horses laden with provisions.

Esteban was actually leaving, she realized. All along she had hoped against hope that some miracle would keep him with her. Her future, Alitha thought gloomily, was as befogged as the day promised to be. She rose from her chair, clenching and unclenching her hands at her sides.

For a fleeting moment she thought of Thomas. In her mind she had long since placed him in a niche apart, almost as though she had erected a shrine to his memory. She could think of Thomas with affection, even with tenderness, but he was no longer real to her. It was almost as though he were dead. Biting her lip, she realized that, to her, he was. By falling in love with Esteban, she had killed him.

As for Jordan Quinn, she had not seen him since the night his life was spared by Esteban. When she had visited the mission to say good-bye to Chia, Padre Luis had told her that El Capitan Quinn was still in Santa Barbara waiting for a ship bound for the States.

Going to Chia's hut, she had found that the Indian boy had fled, returning to his people, she supposed. Chia had left without a word or sign of farewell. Whether his sudden departure stemmed from fear of the padre or whether the men of his tribe avoided leavetakings, Alitha did not know. Her hand touched the charm stone she wore around her neck--she would never forget Chia.

Esteban mounted his stallion to lead the
vaqueros
from the rancho. He appeared to have forgotten that Alitha existed, for he, like Chia, had not sought to bid her farewell. She held her head high even though she was close to tears as Esteban raised his hand. The other horsemen mounted and followed him from the courtyard.

As they passed through the gateway, she saw Esteban, his erect figure dark against the first light of the dawn. She would never see him again, never hear his voice, never feel his arms around her, never thrill to his lips on hers.

With a cry that was almost a moan, she ran from her room, along the gallery and down the steps.

"Alitha," Maria said, starting toward her.

Alitha brushed past the other woman and ran through the gate to the road. The men, their horses at a walk, were a short distance ahead.

"Esteban, Esteban," she called, running after them. Unheeding, the men rode on.

She stumbled and almost fell, recovered her balance and ran on, calling Esteban's name. Hearing her at last, Esteban wheeled his horse around. Alitha stopped, gasping for breath as he rode back and drew up beside her.

"Esteban," she said, looking up at him, "I couldn't let you go without saying good-bye."

He reached down and grasped her beneath the arms, lifted her and placed her in the saddle in front of him. The passion of his kiss took her breath away and she clung desperately to him. How could she have thought of letting him go without her? She loved him, he loved her. Nothing else mattered. Nothing.

"Ride with me, my love," he said. "Tell me you will."

"Oh, yes, Esteban, I will, I will."

His arm still around her, he rode to the waiting men. "Return and bring the senorita's belongings," he told one of them.

As they waited for the
vaquero
to return, Alitha heard a voice calling her name. Looking back, she saw Maria hurrying toward her. Alitha slid from Esteban's arms to the ground.

"You will go with him?" Maria asked.

Alitha drew in her breath. "Yes," she said, "I must."

"Wrong though it is, I understand." Maria embraced her. "
Vaya con dios
," she said, her voice choked by sobs.

"And you, too, go with God," Alitha said.

"See that no harm befalls him. Esteban is so rash, so headstrong, as all the Mendoza men are."

"I'll do my best, Maria," Alitha promised.

When Esteban brought her a horse outfitted with a sidesaddle, Alitha mounted and rode with him and the
vaqueros
from the rancho. Pausing beneath the twin oaks, she looked back at the house for the last time and saw, outlined in black against the light from the lanterns, the figure of a solitary woman waving to them.

The sky was brightening as they rode into Santa Barbara, though because of the mist Alitha could see only a hundred feet ahead. The mission loomed beside them, the tops of its twin white towers lost in the fog. Alitha heard the crow of a cock, and somewhere a dog barked.

They left the village and were passing through a grove of trees when Alitha came suddenly alert. Had she heard her name? A whisper that was a hint of sound rather than the sound itself? She shook her head, impatient with her daydreaming.

"Alitha."

This time there could be no mistake. Pulling her horse from the line of men, she rode a short distance to her right. A figure stepped from behind the trunk of a tree, a man made so indistinct by the fog that he seemed a part of the tree itself. Her horse skittered in alarm but she patted his neck, soothing him, and urged him forward.

"Many thanks, Senorita Bradford, for saving me."

Jordan Quinn, captain of the
Kerry Dancer
. As she started to speak, he raised his hand to his cap in a salute and disappeared into the fog again. Alitha stared after him. She had seen Jordan Quinn three times—in Valparaiso, at the rancho with Esteban and now here in the mist. Were they fated always to pass like ships in the night, she wondered, never meeting? She sighed, slapping the bay with her quirt and rejoining the
vaqueros
.

"We will follow El Camino Real
," Esteban told her later in the day when he rode beside her. "The missions of the Franciscans extend along the King's Highway like pearls strung on the shoreline of the Pacific. We will go from mission to mission, to San Buenaventura, to San Juan Capistrano, to San Diego and on south to Baja California. There, in Loreto, my friend
Coronel
Morales commands the presidio, the military outpost." The journey to Mexico City, he told her, would take more than three months, the exact time depending on the weather, the availability of food and water and the degree of revolutionary turmoil they found when they reached the port of San Blas on the western Mexico coast.

That night, camped on a bluff above the sea, Esteban and Alitha unrolled their
petates
, sleeping mats apart from the rest of the company. Now that she was here, alone with Esteban in the wilderness, Alitha realized the enormity of what she had done by cutting her last ties to her past—to Boston, to Thomas. Feeling a twinge of panic, she looked up at Esteban, seeking comfort.

"Do you love me?" she asked.

He pulled her to her feet and held her in his arms.

"How can you ask after I have told you so many times?"

"It's not just because my eyes are blue?" She smiled. "After all, Ines has blue eyes, too."

She felt him stiffen, "How do you know the color of Ines' eyes?"

"Why, I saw her when I was at the Gutierrez rancho."

"You lied to me." His arms fell away from her. "You said Maria told you of Ines, not that you journeyed to see her. How could you have gone there? What must Don Gutierrez have thought? You have disgraced me in his eyes."

He walked away from her, and when she came up behind him, putting her hand on his arm, he shook her off.

"Go to your bed," he told her.

She sank down on the sleeping mat. Esteban did not approach her nor did he speak, and though she was tired after the day's ride, she lay awake long after Esteban's measured breathing told her he had fallen asleep.

She wakened during the night, hearing animals howling among the trees, recognizing the cries as the same ones she had heard when she was searching for Chia's rancheria. Burying her head in her blanket, she turned away from Esteban—she would not wake him no matter how uneasy she became—and waited for sleep to return.

"Wolves?" Esteban repeated her question when she asked him the next day. "No, they are animals of a type between a dog and a wolf. We call them coyotes. They might kill a chicken or two but they are afraid of men."

All that day Esteban was solicitous, like a gracious host. He rode beside her and named the trees and animals they saw along the road to the Pueblo of Los Angeles. But again that night he lay on his
petate
, wrapped himself in his blankets and fell asleep almost at once.

The next morning Alitha woke before Esteban and sat up, watching until his eyes blinked open.

"You have no right to be still angry with me," she told him, keeping her voice firm with an effort.

"You visited the rancho of Don Gutierrez," he said. "You should not have done so."

"You should have told me about Ines."

"She is no concern of yours."

"To tell the truth, I was jealous. I didn't know until I saw her how young she was."

"You have no cause for jealousy. Don't you know you are my heart of hearts, my life and my love? Haven't I told you this time and again?"

"How can you say that when you're committed to marry another?" Anger flared in her. "How dare you try to make me feel guilty for doing something I'd never have done if you'd been honest with me. I wouldn't have ridden to the Gutierrez rancho if you had told me the truth in the first place."

Esteban threw aside his blankets and stood up. "I have heard enough," he said, walking away

Alitha started after him, then stopped. No, she told herself, I won't apologize. If I was wrong to seek out Ines, he's equally at fault. She glared at his back, hearing the voices of the men in the main camp, smelling the smoke from their fire. She thought momentarily of mounting her horse and heading back to the rancho, but sighed and shook her head. Despite her anger, she still wanted to be with Esteban.