Rainbows and Rapture (12 page)

Her question sent a sharp burst of longing through him. He recalled all the nights he’d sat by the fire listening to his sister, Lupita, read stories to him. God, he hadn’t thought of those tranquil evenings in years.
Santa Maria
, what was it about Russia that made him remember things he’d all but forgotten?

Russia saw the firm set of his jaw. “Do fairy tales make you mad? Why? They all got happily-ever-afters.”

Not mine
, he seethed inwardly.

Aware of his growing irritation, Russia decided to change the subject. “I got a problem, stranger. I was wonderin’ if you could help me with it. I know this feller? Well, his name’s Santiago Zamora. He’s got him this reputation, see. I’ve seed him live up to it, but…Well, I’ve seed other things about him, too. He’s s’posed to be this real dangerous gunfighter. Folks cain’t even look him straight in the eye. But there’s somethin’ more to this Santiago Zamora, and ain’t nobody gonna tell me there ain’t. Do y’know there’s some real nice stuff about him? Even though he hates me, he feeds me. And he doctored up my ant bites fer me. He—”

“I dressed the bites because of the ants’ poison!” Santiago shouted. “How many times do I have to tell you that? Left untreated, those stings would have festered. The last thing I need is a sick—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we’re almost to Rock Springs now, stranger,” she said, pointing to the main street ahead. “Before we ride in, there’s somethin’ you oughta know. You stayed in a fancy hotel back in Hamlett, but you ain’t gonna be stayin’ in no hotel here in Rock Springs. There’s rooms over the saloon fer rent, and that’s where you’ll be stayin’.” Calmly, she tucked an unruly strand of her hair into her hat.

Santiago stared down at her in complete disbelief. What nerve she had! Imagine her telling him where he could and couldn’t stay! Just who the hell did the obnoxious twit think she was?

“I’ll stay wherever I want, Russia. You’ve bent me to your will several times since we met, but I assure you, regardless of your reasons for not wanting me to stay in the hotel, I
will
stay in it.” He put his hat back on and coerced Quetzalcoatl into a brisk trot.

Left in the dust the stallion stirred up, Russia smiled.

* * *

From the room he’d rented above the saloon, Santiago stared at the mountain of charred wood across the street. “Why the hell didn’t you
tell
me you burned down the hotel?”

Russia removed her straw hat and hooked it on a long, rusty nail sticking out of the wall. “You didn’t ask. Can we order us up some supper? No sense in goin’ out when we can eat right here. And can we git a bath sended up, too?”

He turned from the window and surveyed the room. What little furniture it contained was either broken or stained. The dingy wallpaper was peeling, large sections of it hanging off the wall and serving as dust catchers. A filthy throw rug lay wadded up in one cobweb-filled corner.

Everything about the place reminded him of the room in the brothel.

The brothel. Graciela.
He closed his eyes, every part of him resisting memories of the things that had set him on the path that had eventually hardened him against everything good in the world.

“Zamora?” Russia asked, bewildered by his strange look. “You all right?”

He opened his eyes and looked into hers. They weren’t whiskey-brown. One was blue, the other green. And the lips he saw… They weren’t deep red, but light pink and smiling slightly. And the hair… Not raven-black, but gold like the sun. With bursts of red shimmering through it.

Graciela. Russia Valentine. They were as different as midnight and high noon, and yet they were the same.

Harlots, both of them. He felt sickened with desolation, scalded with fury.

“Zamora?” Russia asked again, unable to understand the shadow of sudden anger that darkened his face. “What’s the matter with you?”

He stared at her. She didn’t speak Spanish with a sultry voice. She spoke English with a voice soft and innocent as a baby’s sigh.

Santa Mari
a, if they were so much alike, why did he continue finding so many differences between them?

He squared his shoulders. “We’re not eating in this squalor,” he informed her curtly. “I saw a small cafe as we rode into town. We’ll eat there.”

His mention of eating out overcame her curiosity about his odd behavior. She began to wring her hands. “Um… No, let’s not.”

“Why?”

“Because…because I ate there once, and the food was spoiled rotten. I almost died! Y’ain’t lookin’ to git poisoned, are you?”

He watched her carefully, taking note of her extreme nervousness. “Did you cause an accident in the cafe, too?”

She shook her head.

He was determined to get the truth from her. “Then does your refusal to eat there have anything at all to do with the hotel?”

She looked at everything in the room except him.

“How did you manage to burn down the hotel?” he asked suspiciously.

“It was a accident.”

“Of that there’s no doubt in my mind. But how—”

“Wiggles got in there.”

He glanced at the cat and became instantly irritated when he saw that the animal was curled up inside his hat, which lay upon the small bed.

Russia saw the ominous glitter in his eyes and rushed to remove Nehemiah from the hat. “Don’t git in his hat no more, Figaroo.”

Santiago lifted his hat from the bed, glowering when he saw all the gray cat fur inside it.
Santa Maria
, how he detested that bushy-tailed, four-legged piece of annoyance! “You let that hairy thorn in my side get anywhere near my hat again, and I’ll—”

“Anyway, back to the story,” Russia hurried to continue, loath to hear his threat. “Pea Cakes here got into the hotel. The hotel manager ferbidded me to chase after him, but—I did anyway. Well, I couldn’t jist let him git lost in there, y’know. It taked me a while, but I finally finded him in some lady’s room. Her screamin’ led me right to him. Jungles, jewelry, and jellyfish, you’d’ve thought little Pippers was a man-eatin’ tiger the way that silly woman was carryin’ on.”

She paused a moment to kiss Nehemiah’s cold, wet nose. “He was behind the curtains. When I bended down to drag him out, my bottom hit a little lampstand. The lamp failed down and catched the curtains on fire. Sweetums coulda been killed, but as you can plainly see, he’s still alive. Nobody could git the fire out, so the hotel burned down.”

“You were held responsible, weren’t you?” Santiago asked, though he already knew the answer.

She set Nehemiah down and picked up a handful of her skirt, brushing dust from it as if that were the most important thing in the world to do.

“Russia, I asked if you were held—”

“Yes, all right? Yes! Marshal Wilkens come. Cobbett Wilkens is his name. Cobbett. Kinda reminds you o’ corn on the cob, don’t it? Anyhow, he’s this tall, skinny feller who acts like he owns the whole damn universe. I hated him right off, Zamora.”

“Well, I doubt he felt much affection for you, either. What happened when he learned what you’d done?”

She placed her hands on her hips and huffed. “He acted like I was some sorta world-round criminal.”

“Renowned.”

“Whatever. I’m tellin’ you, Zamora, he was real excited to git hold o’ me. Grabbed me, puffed all up, and tole me it’d cost around ten thousand dollars fer a new hotel. He actually said I had to fork over the money!”

“What nerve he had,” Santiago replied sarcastically, but knew his sarcasm had gone right over her head when she gave him an I-knew-you’d-understand-my-side look.

“Well, I tole him I didn’t have enough money to even pay attention,” Russia continued. “Then he got more excited, like he was really enjoyin’ the way the crowd was watchin’ him. Said he was gonna throw me in jail and let me stay there till I rotted.”

“But then somebody mentioned that I’d probably find a way to burn down the jail. When Marshal Wilkens heared that, he nodded his fool head and let go o’ me. Tole me to git outta Rock Springs, and warned me never to set foot in his town again. And he— Well, he mighta been tryin’ to scare me, but he said he’d—um…”

“He said he’d what?” Santiago asked, his voice low.

“Well, keepin’ in mind that he was pro’bly bluffin’, he said if he ever catched me here again, he’d hang me.” She cringed, waiting for his reaction.

Santiago gritted his teeth. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you’d been ordered not to come back here? And don’t say it was because I didn’t ask!”

She forced herself to remain calm, no easy task what with the flare of rage in Santiago’s eyes almost blinding her. “You said we was gonna backtrack to
all
the towns I been in, Zamora. Rock Springs is one of ’em. I figgered we’d jist breeze in and breeze out. Now when are you gonna ask around about Wirt so’s we can git on with all the breezin’?”

“I asked! It took you so damn long to bed down that ancient animal of yours that by the time you’d finished, I’d already learned Avery isn’t here! What in God’s name do you do with that ox anyway? Tuck him in and sing him a lullaby?”

“How’d you know?”

He’d asked the question sarcastically, never considering the possibility he’d hit on the truth. He rolled his eyes.

“So Wirt ain’t been here at all?”

“If he has, no one remembers. It could be that he stopped only briefly, realized you weren’t here, and left. Or maybe he hasn’t come here at all yet.”

“So what’ll we do? Wait fer him? We cain’t wait long, Zamora, or Marshal Corn Cob will—”

“We set out for Rosario tomorrow.” He picked out as much cat hair from his hat as he was able, slid it on, and stalked to the door.

“Where you goin’?”

“To that cafe for supper.”

“But I cain’t go there. Lots o’ folks’ll see me. I ain’t lookin’ to admortize the fact I’m here, y’know.”

“Advertise.”

“Whatever. Anyway, I think it’s best that we stay outta sight till we leave tomorrow.”

“We?”
He opened the door. “
I’m
not the one who burned the hotel down, nor am I the one who will be hanged if I’m spotted. So I’m not the one who has to stay in the room and go hungry.”

“
Mean
is what you are, then! Harder’n a boiled cannonball! You’re worthlesser’n a dead possum tail, Zamora, and if I thought I could git away with it, I’d knock the damn tidwads outta you!
Mean!
Mean, mean, mean,
mean!
”

He looked straight into her eyes, momentarily captivated by the way her anger flashed through them. As much as he hated her, he had to admit she had irresistibly gorgeous eyes. “I have no idea what
tidwads
are, Russia, but I’ll thank you to leave mine alone. Have a nice evening.”

Her shouts of outrage echoing in his ears, he left the room.

* * *

Ignoring all the stares and whispers going on all around him in the small cafe, Santiago pushed his empty plate across the yellow-and-white-checkered tablecloth. The fabric reminded him of Russia’s blue-and-white gingham gown and the way it molded to the many curves of her body.

The sensual recollection made him remember her fear of him the morning he’d held her in his arms, touching her, wanting her. Had it really been feigned as he’d thought, or was it real? And if it was real, why—

The question froze unfinished in his mind. The same question that had been haunting him for days. Damn the wench for invading his thoughts! Damn her for getting to him the way she did! For making him smile when he didn’t want to! For making him listen to her when he was so hell-bent on being deaf, for making him break his oath of silence!

And most of all, damn her for making him keep forgetting to hate her.

Vowing to think of anything but her, he lit a cheroot and examined his surroundings. The cafe was clean and well patronized. Healthy green plants in copper pots hung from the ceiling, and multicolored posies in blue jars brightened every table. He refused to dwell on how much they looked like the ones Russia had picked while they traveled. After all, flowers were flowers, and not worth his attention. Instead, he concentrated on the smells of fresh coffee and good food that filled the air.

The fragrances made him think of how hungry Russia probably was.

He took a deep breath, hoping it would blow into his brain and sweep Russia out of it. It didn’t. Not only did her image remain, but the sound of her voice came to him as well.

There’s somethin’ more to this Santiago Zamora, and ain’t nobody gonna tell me there ain’t. Do y’know there’s some real nice stuff about him?

Nice stuff. Ah, hell, he cursed mentally. Who cared what the nice stuff was? It was probably something stupid, anyway. Something really meaningless. Something so completely ridiculous, it was a waste of time even wondering about it.

He wondered what it was.

He raised his gaze from the jar of flowers and saw a painting on the wall ahead of him. It was of a bird. A crimson one, just like the one in Russia’s absurd hat.

“Damn,” he whispered. He’d been thinking about the silly twit for the past ten minutes. Ten whole minutes of his life squandered.

A loud, collective gasp hit his ears. Something crashed to the floor. Knowing full well what he would see, he turned toward the entrance.

Russia Valentine. There she stood, her chin held so high he wondered if her neck hurt. At her feet lay the hatstand he knew she’d just knocked over. Regally, as if she were the Queen of Rock Springs, of Texas—of the whole damn world—she glided into the cafe, stopping at a table full of people and daring to pluck a daisy from their arrangement. Holding the flower in front of her nose, she made her way across the room.

He reminded himself to hate her, but even so, he had to give her credit. She was showing superb bravery by taking the risk of being seen by so many people. Then again, from what he knew about her eating habits, it didn’t much surprise him that she’d taken such a chance. It was more likely that she’d chosen to die by the noose instead of by slow starvation.