Bride of the Baja (29 page)

So that was Esteban's plan, Alitha told herself. While she and Esteban rode west to Acapulco with the gold, these two would replace them for the remainder of the journey to Vera Cruz. That was Esteban's ruse within a ruse.

She smiled at Esteban. So
La Coralilla
was an essential part of his plot to outwit the Spaniards, just as he had claimed.
La Coralilla
was to take her, Alitha's, place. She wanted to run to Esteban, throw her arms about him and tell him she should never have doubted him. She would tell him, she promised herself, once they were alone.

After a hurried breakfast of eggs, well-fried chicken, bread and coffee, Esteban led her to the shadowed rear of the inn, where he lifted her into the saddle. "We'll travel light but with much speed," he told her. "You and I and the two horses carrying the gold. There will be risks, of a certainty, grave risks—bandits, revolutionaries. Are you certain you wish to come with me?"

"Oh yes," she said. "I'd rather face danger with you than be safe anywhere else."

"Good.
Un momenta
." Esteban walked quickly back to the inn.

A moment. The words Dona Anise had used when talking of
La Coralilla
and Esteban.

Alitha dismounted and ran to the partly open kitchen door. A single candle glowed on the table, and by its light she saw a man and woman clasped in one another's arms. Esteban and
La
Coralilla
. It was all she could do to stop from flinging herself at them. Trembling, she closed her eyes and drew in a shuddering breath. Finally controlling herself, she turned and stumbled back to her horse and mounted, and when Esteban returned a minute later, she was sitting just as he had left her.

Esteban swung into his saddle and looked across at her. "Are you ready, my Alitha?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, her voice cold.

She found she had no tears left--he would never make her cry again. Instead she was furious, hurt and angry.
La Coralilla
wasn't only taking her place today on the journey to Vera Cruz, Alitha thought bitterly, she had taken her place at least once before. In Esteban's arms.

Had
La Coralilla
taken Alitha's place in his heart as well? No, she didn't think so. Dona Anise had probably been right when she said that, for Esteban,
La Coralilla
was a thing of the moment. But passing fancy or not, Alitha knew that her love for Esteban could never be the same again.

The road from the city of Puebla to the small village of Rio Frio passes through flat and fertile farmland. Rio Frio—Cold River—is in a valley surrounded by woods. Beyond the village the way becomes hilly and even more densely wooded as the trail enters a tract of somber oaks, pines and cedars known locally as the Black Forest. Only an occasional cluster of wildflowers growing in a forest glade brightens the dark and gloomy green of the woods.

It was in the Black Forest that Jordan Quinn intended to ambush Don Esteban.

Jordan lay concealed amid thick brush at the top of a hill thirty feet above a particularly narrow stretch of trail where horses were forced to proceed in single file between the trees. From where he lay he could also see, across a valley and through a gap in the woods, a length of trail two miles farther back. He would have more than adequate forewarning of anyone riding from Puebla and Rio Frio.

The chance that Don Esteban would pass this way Jordan calculated, was better than four out of five. The best and quickest route to Acapulco lay three leagues nearer Mexico City so, with Esteban having every wish to stay as far away from the capital as possible, he would have to ride through Rio Frio and into the Black Forest.

Jordan glanced at the rifle lying on the ground beside him. At a range of thirty feet he could kill Don Esteban with one shot. Mightn't Esteban bring some of his
vaqueros
with him? What then? Jordan thought it more than likely that he would find Esteban and Alitha traveling alone, for that had been his impression from the conversation he had overheard while he stood on the balcony of Esteban's house, before he had been forced to climb to the roof and lie hidden while Esteban searched for him. But even if Esteban brought men with him, Jordan still had the advantage of surprise and an easily defended position.

He saw movement on the distant section of the trail. Raising a spyglass to his eyes, Jordan swept it across thick-growing pines to the open glade. There were two riders, a dark man and a woman, the pair leading two heavily laden horses. Jordan smiled. Good. Even though the woman's hair was covered by a shawl, he recognized Esteban and Alitha. He slowly swept the glass back and forth along the trail, looking for other riders. Finding none, he lowered the glass, returned it to its case and settled down to wait.

It would take Don Esteban at least thirty minutes to reach the narrow trail below him. Impatient, Jordan raised the rifle to his shoulder, sighted and imagined squeezing the trigger. In his mind he saw Esteban jerk back and fall, thrown from his horse by the impact of the bullet. He pictured Esteban lying motionless on the trail as Alitha slid to the ground, ran and knelt beside him, cradling his head in her arms.

Jordan imagined her turning from Esteban's body and looking up at him as he approached to make sure Esteban was dead. He recognized the look in her eyes as one of implacable hatred. As Jordan stared down at the circle of dark blood staining the Californio's jacket, Esteban's eyes seemed to look up accusingly at him.

Damn it, Jordan told himself, he had no choice but to kill Esteban Mendoza, kill him as quickly and cleanly as he could and then bury his body. Esteban had to disappear from the face of the earth, the victim, or so everyone would believe, of bandits or revolutionaries.

If Esteban lived, he would pursue Jordan relentlessly. One of them must die. Better it be Esteban. Better that Esteban die here and now. If Jordan succeeded, the Californios would be denied the gold—the money would be his, Jordan's. Just as Alitha would be his.

Jordan ran his hand along the wooden stock of the rifle. He would kill Esteban with his first shot.

He heard the steady clop-clop of the approaching horses before he saw them. He raised the rifle and aimed at the spot between two pines where Esteban would emerge from the woods. Yes, there he was, dressed in black, with a wide-brimmed hat set rakishly on his head, his eyes darting from side to side, perhaps suspecting an ambush. Jordan sighted on Esteban's chest and his finger tightened on the trigger.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Alitha follow Esteban from the trees, riding side saddle, her golden hair hidden by her shawl, her lovely face expressionless as she stared straight ahead, looking as though her thoughts were miles away. Jordan caught his breath, struck by her beauty as he always was, as he had been on that foggy morning when he first saw her on the deck of the
Flying Yankee
in Valparaiso.

Jordan shook his head to banish thoughts of Alitha from his mind and sighted on Esteban. Again Jordan's finger tightened on the trigger, again he pictured Esteban falling to the ground, mortally wounded. All at once Jordan lowered the rifle. Goddamn it, he thought, I can't shoot him down in cold blood. He watched as Esteban drew nearer—the Californio would pass almost directly below his hiding place—and realized that all he had so carefully planned was slipping away.

Without giving himself time to think, Jordan raised the rifle and fired. Esteban's horse shuddered and fell with a bullet through its eye, but Esteban leaped clear of the horse at the last minute, falling to the rocky ground. Jordan, pulling his neckerchief up to cover his lower face, sprang from the concealing brush, reloading as he scrambled down the hill toward Esteban, who was lying stunned on the trail.

Esteban staggered to his feet and stared dazedly at Jordan. The Californio's hand went to his belt, only to discover that his pistol was not there. Jordan saw it lying a few feet away from where he had fallen. Esteban took his knife from its sheath, advancing on Jordan as though oblivious of the rifle in the American's hands.

"Esteban! Don't!"

Esteban, confused, glanced at Alitha, and as he did, Jordan kicked out at him, his boot striking Esteban's hand and sending the knife flying into the brush. Esteban leaped at him, his arms outstretched, but Jordan stepped aside at the last moment and brought the butt of the rifle thudding down on the back of Esteban's head. The Californio grunted, staggered forward, then collapsed to the ground and lay still.

Alitha slid from her saddle and ran to Esteban, cradling his head in her arms exactly as Jordan had pictured her doing. She stood up and Jordan saw that she had retrieved Esteban's pistol and now grasped the gun in both of her hands, pointing it at his chest.

As Jordan walked toward her, he drew the neckerchief down from his face.

"You!"

Alitha's hands wavered. Jordan gripped the gun by the barrel and twisted it from her hands.

"You killed him," she said.

Jordan put the pistol into his belt and knelt beside Esteban. The Californio's color was good and his breathing was firm and regular.

"No, he's not dead. Far from it."

Jordan went to one of the pack horses, returned with a length of rope and bound Esteban's hands and feet. Alitha watched him in mute anger. When he had finished, Jordan placed the muzzle of the pistol to Esteban's knee.

Alitha gasped. She ran to Jordan and grasped his hand, pushing the gun to one side.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

"I have to lame him to make sure he's in no condition to follow us."

"Us?"

"I intend to take you with me as a hostage. I could have killed him a few minutes ago; I was a fool not to. Now I have to make sure he won't kill me."

"I'll not go with you. I'll fight you every step of the way if you try to take me with you by force. You'll have to cripple me as well as Esteban."

Jordan cocked the pistol.

"Wait," she said desperately, her eyes glistening with tears. "If I give you my word I'll cause you no trouble, if I go with you willingly, will you spare him? Esteban couldn't bear to live as a cripple. He'd rather you killed him here and now."

Jordan hesitated. He'd already spared Esteban's life. To leave him unharmed and able to pursue him and the gold would be the height of folly.

"For my sake," Alitha said.

Jordan thrust the pistol back in his belt.

"Get ready to ride," he told her. He climbed the slope, going past the place where he had
waited in ambush and into the trees. Alitha brought a canteen of water from her saddle, took a handkerchief and wet the cloth and used it to wipe the blood from Esteban's head wound. She held the canteen to his mouth, but his lips remained closed, so the water ran along his cheek and dribbled to the ground. Placing the canteen at his side, she bent down and kissed him gently on the lips.

"Esteban," she said. "I did all I could."

She remembered opening her eyes long ago near the Santa Barbara Indian village and seeing Esteban for the first time, remembered thinking she had never seen a handsomer man.

"Esteban, my love," she whispered.

She rose and went to Esteban's dead horse, took the pistol hidden in his saddlebag. Hearing a sound behind her and realizing that she didn't have time to load the pistol, she thrust it into her own saddlebag. She turned to see Jordan ride from among the trees. He reined in next to her and dismounted, coming toward her to lift her into the saddle.

"Don't touch me," she told him. Her voice was like ice. "I'll come with you because I promised I would, but if you ever touch me, Captain Quinn, I swear to God I'll kill you."

             
                            CHAPTER NINETEEN

They rode from the forest in silence. When they came to a crossroad, Jordan reined in and looked at Alitha. She knew he wanted to ask her which route she and Esteban had intended to take so she turned her head away, determined to keep silent. Jordan said nothing.

After a moment he swung his horse to the left, and soon they were climbing along the side of a mountain on a trail winding among great volcanic rocks. When they reached a treeless crest, Alitha had a sweeping view ahead and behind her of farmland and wilderness, while to her left were villages with their groves and gardens. To her right rose the higher reaches of the mountain, with its dark forest of pines.

They met few other travelers and those eyed them warily, not speaking, riding faster until they were past. As they alternately descended into, and climbed from a series of barrancas, narrow rocky ravines, Alitha noticed that one of their pack horses was favoring its right foreleg. Glancing at Jordan, she almost told him but then closed her lips in a tight line. She'd be damned if she'd lift a finger to help him!

She closed her eyes, picturing Esteban as they'd left him, bound and unconscious beside the trail, and murmured a prayer for him. Would she ever see him again? Her heart ached to be with him, and yet she couldn't hide from herself the release she also felt.

No longer did she have to glance at Esteban, wondering if he approved of what she wore or what she said and did, ready to brace herself against his disapproval. She could say the things she felt without thinking first of how Esteban would receive her words. No longer would she have to try to fit herself into his narrow code of feminine behavior, his unseen but definitely drawn line of what was right and wrong. Yes, if she was to be truthful to herself, she'd have to admit that Esteban never had and never would treat her as equal to him.