The Valiant Women (36 page)

Fighting tears of rage, she met his mocking smile. It maddened her past endurance. She sank her teeth into his arm, brought her knee up at what she knew from vaquero talk was the most vulnerable part of a male.

He dodged. She heard the basket drop, the acorns hit rocks, clamped her teeth tighter. Suddenly there was inexorable hurting pressure on her jaws, digging at the hinge, forcing her teeth apart. She felt his blood on her lips, fought him savagely, but with both arms and hands he held her, and then with his body as he pressed her against a great rock.

Panting, she couldn't move.

“So little, fierce and lovely,” he sighed. “Let's see what else you are!”

His mouth took hers as he held the back of her head in his hand. She could not escape. But she kept her lips tight closed against his though she was trembling, near panic in her fear of what he might do.

After what couldn't have been a long time, though it seemed so, he lifted his head. “You'll give me nothing but the taste of my own blood? But your prim-tucked mouth told me what I most wanted to know. You haven't been tumbled by some vaquero or soldier. No man has kissed you.”

“Shea has!”

“Your foster father. Scarcely what I meant.”

Releasing her, he studied his wrist, marked in a bloody crescent by her teeth, neither helping nor hindering as she knelt and began to salvage acorns. When she had all she could find, she started down the cañon again.

He followed. Unable to believe his presumption, she threw back over her shoulder, “Go on ahead and get your horse! Ride to Tubac or whenever you're headed! You can't go home with me now!”

“But of course I will.” His resonant voice was smooth with irony. “I must meet this foster father you prefer to a husband, see this fabulous rancho where you do exactly as you please!”

“Shea will kill you!” she choked, whirling. “And Belen and Santiago, too!”

“Please!” he begged. “You wouldn't have me killed three times!” His caressing tone angered her more than abuse would have.

“I would if I could!”

“No doubt. But alas, small Talitha, we're all limited by the possible. Much as you'd like to see me shot or horse-whipped, you won't tell anyone that instead of giving you the spanking you deserved, I chose to kiss you.” He unrolled his sleeve till it hid the marks of her teeth.

“I will tell! Unless you leave us alone!”

He shook his head as if grieved by her stubbornness, then asked briskly, “Is your Shea an expert with firearms? Or those others you mentioned?”

“They can shoot! They hunt. And just a few months ago they helped beat the Apaches who were attacking Calabazas.”

“I see. Perhaps every week or two they aim at something. That doesn't put them in my class, Talitha. I have, at times, made my living by killing men. And I practice. Every day.”

Before she could follow the motion of his hand, he had drawn the big gun, cocked it and fired. Sound echoed among the rocks. A squirrel fell from a tree just before them, its head blown away.

“A man's much bigger than that,” the silver-haired man remarked. “Would your foster mother like it for cooking?”

“No,” whispered Talitha. She was used to branding and castrating, had herself helped clean deer, javelina and other game, but she was sickened at this wanton snuffing out of a bright-eyed, frisking little life.

That was when her real fear of Judah Frost began.

His horse, a big gelding, was the color of fog, with a silvery mane and tail. “Think you could ride him?” Frost asked as he put on the bridle and slipped off the rawhide hobbles.

“I don't want to.”

He gave her a mild look. “Well, probably you couldn't. Selim has a mind of his own and still needs a strong dose of quirt and spurs occasionally.” He swung into the silver-mounted saddle which had a rifle scabbarded at one side. “Shall I carry your basket?”

“No.”

“Talitha. I would advise you to practice courtesy with me. Just as I practice the gun.”

“Why?” Her lips curled. “Will you shoot me if you don't like what I say?”

He threw back his head and laughed, but it wasn't a pleasant sound. “What a child you are! No, my dear. Indeed I won't shoot you. But if you're surly to me in front of your people, they're bound to wonder why.” He added silkily, “Questions could prove unfortunate—for them.”

Scanning his face, she realized that this was someone far different from anyone she'd ever encountered, someone completely ruthless with a corruption in his nature that made Apache cruelties she had seen appear crude and of almost childlike simplicity.

If it came to a fight between Frost and the men of the ranch, she believed they could kill him. She also was sure he'd kill one or two of them first.

“Why are you doing this?” she cried desperately. “What do you want?”

“Why, Talitha,” he said, gravely smiling at her. “I want you to be happy.”

That frightened her more than anything else he could have said. Feeling like a captive, she trudged for the ranch while the gray horse, firmly controlled, paced along beside her.

Frost put himself out to be charming. Only Belen took himself off immediately after the evening meal. Talitha, as soon as the dishes were done, offered to put the twins to bed, but they set up a howl, wanting to, see more of the intriguing stranger who'd beguiled them with sleight of hand tricks.

“Here, now!” he chided. “Have a knee apiece, you rascals! I'll sing you all the verses I know of ‘Sweet Besty from Pike' and then you're off to sleep without a murmur!”

Talitha shook herself, angrily feeling bewitched, as the deep rich voice finished the adventures of Betsy, Long Ike and their oxen, hog, Shanghai rooster and small yellow dog. How could this man, so helpfully delivering the sleepy-eyed twins to her, be the same person who'd coolly threatened to kill the men if she told what he'd done in the cañon?

His eyes met hers, searing, like fire-ice, to her bones. Hastily, she swept Patrick and Miguel away. Once they were asleep, she'd intended to go to bed herself, but the things Frost was saying were too interesting to miss.

Grudgingly coming back into the kitchen, she settled in a far corner and began picking over the acorns she'd collected that day, cutting out wormy parts. There'd be a delicious acorn stew tomorrow. Chusma came, purring, to curl up by her. That compensated a little for James's utter enthrallment. At six, he was too big for knees, but he perched on the bench near Frost's chair, Chacho a gleaming black mass in his lap, and hung on tales of mining and travel.

Laughing, Frost recited “The Miners' Ten Commandments,” beginning with “Thou shalt have no other claim but one,” and ending with “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's gold nor his claim … nor move his stake … nor wash the tailings from his sluice's mouth.…”

He told about a Biblically inclined partner he'd had in one “diggins,” who, menaced by claim-jumpers who disputed his tape-measured stakes, put away the tape, brought out his rifle, and told the intruders that if they aimed to set pick in earth, they'd better first make peace with God because he promised them he'd send their souls to meet Him. “And that bunch of hard-cases looked at his rifle a minute and went off like a bunch of shorn lambs,” Frost concluded.

His most important news was that U.S. President Franklin Pierce had sent James Gadsden, a South Carolinian railroad promoter recommended by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, to Mexico that summer to negotiate for a larger cession of land. Northern Sonora was a crucial part of this coveted territory since the best apparent southern route for a transcontinental railroad ran through it, the way searched out by the Mormon Battalion.

“Gadsden's work is being kept pretty secret, though,” Frost continued. “A lot of Mexicans aren't happy with Santa Anna. If they knew he was bargaining more land away to the Americans, he'd have a revolution on his hands.”

Shea gave his guest a measuring look. “If it's such a secret, how do you know?”

Taking no offense, Judah Frost smiled. “My dear sir, I'm an investor in Gadsden's rail interests. I naturally hear a few things that aren't general knowledge. Which is very useful, let me tell you, in putting capital to work.”

Talitha had heard the grown-ups discussing what they should do with the money that was beginning to accumulate from cattle sales and their percentage of the mine. They had bought some sheep and goats from the Calabazas settlers and the
conductas
had brought up pigs and chickens as well as household needs. The pigs had survived fairly well, providing tasty
chorizo
or sausage as well as bacon and ham. But the chickens were all gone in a matter of days in spite of the ocotillo fence put around them. A coyote and skunk dug under it, hawks and eagles swooped down for a picnic, and that was farewell to Socorro's longing for eggs.

If the country ever grew safer, Shea wanted to travel east and buy some good beef stock, Durhams or Herefords to breed with the hardy native stock. Addition of the Texas
Chinos
had helped, but the meat of these tough little cattle was stringy and flavorless. Shea planned to bring back a fine stud, too, and some blooded mares, again to breed to the best of the present animals and improve the strain. But Texas was the closest place fine stock might possibly be bought, and it could be necessary to go a lot farther.

So when Frost mentioned ways of using money, Talitha could feel Shea and Santiago's immediate interest. Politely, with a shade of disbelief, Shea asked, “You wouldn't be looking around here, would you, Mr. Frost, for a place to invest your capital?”

“I'm always on the watch.” Frost's laugh was disarming. “My mining partner, Marc Revier, a Freiburg-trained engineer, is down at Ures right now negotiating for some land near Tubac which he says has great mining potential. And it's high time someone went into the freighting business.”

“Freighting?” Santiago echoed. “Why, who would they freight to?”

“Tubac and Tucson.”

At the incredulous stares, Frost chuckled and went on persuasively, “Not great markets just now, I'll grant! But when the United States acquires this region, as it will soon by war or purchase, a lot of those topographical engineers running surveys, a good many army officers, are going to start mining along the Santa Cruz. And of course the United States will have to establish posts. Bound to be one at Tucson and I expect at least one down in this area.”

Shea nodded somewhat glumly. “I take your meaning. Where there are miners and soldiers, there'll be merchants, and merchants need supplies.”

“Exactly. Why, Louis Jaeger, who runs a ferry at Yuma Crossing where the U.S. has a fort, has gone into freighting and will make a fortune if another Yuma arrow doesn't finish him off.” He told how the Yumas at that strategic crossing of the Gila River had long ago killed the Spanish soldiers and Franciscan priests who'd tried to settle among them, and now were sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile, to travelers coming from or going to California.

“One of the funniest things I ever heard was how the governor of California sent an expedition to punish the Yumas for doing in Joe Glanton. The militia lost one little fight to the Yumas and then settled back to eat up their food. California's still paying the bills.”

“Who was Glanton?”

Dark eyebrows rose toward Frost's gleaming hair. “Never heard of him? He was the worst—or best, depending on your view—of the scalp hunters. When the Sonoran government began to suspect he was selling them more Mex scalps than Apache, he wound up at Fort Yuma in 1850 and helped run a ferry. Got into a fight with the Yumas who had another ferry a few miles away. Kicked the chief and took a club to him.”

Shea shook his head. “Doesn't sound very smart.”

“It wasn't. The Yumas killed eleven of the ferrymen, and the chief personally split Glanton's head open with a hatchet.” Frost said quickly to Socorro whose face had gone pale, “I beg your pardon, ma'am.”

Deftly changing the subject, he added that freighting supplies the one hundred eighty miles from San Diego to Fort Yuma had been so expensive that the fort had closed for a time. After an attack on Jaeger in 1851, the fort was reestablished and efforts to supply it by water proved successful last December when the
Uncle Sam
, a paddle-wheeled steamboat, navigated up the Colorado to the Yuma crossing.

“But
Uncle Sam
ran aground and sank this spring,” said Frost. “So mules are bringing in supplies for the fort, and the freighter's making a pretty penny, you can bet!” He shaped his graceful long fingers into a pyramid. “If the Mexican government would establish a port along the northwest coast of Sonora, goods bought in California could be freighted here much more cheaply than from the port of Guaymas, farther south.”

Shea studied Frost with considerable respect and a touch of wariness. “You certainly seem to have investigated the possibilities, sir!”

“Why, that's the fun of it, looking for a chance, taking the gamble.” Frost shrugged disarmingly. “I've lost as much as I've won, I'd reckon, though I've never kept track.”

For the most fleeting of seconds, his eyes rested upon Talitha. That burning shock went through her again and she got up quickly to discard the wormy bits of acorn, keeping her face averted till the flush left her cheeks. “When I see something I want,” Frost's pleasant voice continued, “I go after it with all I've got. So far, I've always won though the victories may have cost a lot more than the prize was worth. To anyone but me.”

Socorro said abruptly, her dark eyes searching his, “And did you keep your prizes, Señor Frost?”

He gave her a look of admiring respect. “Usually not, ma'am. The fun was in the getting. But I'm older now, more discriminating. I think the prizes I desire are ones I'll hold to.” He patted back a yawn. “A most enjoyable evening! But I'm sure I've kept you from your rest and I'll admit I'm weary. If I could spread my bedroll in your kitchen …”