Mary Read online

  This was not, to her way of thinking, the path to peace. She could not condone the raiding and killing by white men and by the Apaches. But she could sympathize with people who had been dispossessed of all they held dear.

  Sage-covered hummocks blended with thickets of walnut, pine and cedar. Mary loved the quiet walks to gather the abundance of nuts, for the peace of the forest paths were a balm to her wounded spirit.

  A hard land, but one filled with beauty. Toward the south lay the railroad and clusters of mining camps, some of them growing into towns.

  Far to the east, the Rio Grande curved like a massive scythe to cut the territory in half. Her father claimed the old mountain men had called it the River of Ghosts. He had taken her to a gorge where volcanic flows covered with ancient layers of gray, black, salmon pink, brown and orange lichen reached nearly eight hundred feet down. An early lava flow had crystallized into black basalt, but it was surrounded by sagebrush-carpeted benchlands broken by fields and pastures.

  Beautiful and wild lands, which led beyond the river to the Jornada del Muerto—a day’s journey of death. Men who had lived to cross the desert land claimed it was aptly named.

  Closer to the outskirt of town was the hill where the church foundation of stone and adobe had been laid last week. They had collected fifteen hundred dollars from a hat passed around the saloons for donations. The lot next to the church was staked out for a school.

  Children…

  The reminder brought back the dream. Its frequency these past weeks unsettled her. Mary rubbed her arms against the someone’s-walking-on-your-grave chill.

  Turning aside, Mary resisted the temptation to return to bed, aware the choice was hers. She had to remember that. Sometimes it frightened her to once again have the freedom to choose what she would do with every waking moment.

  But it was a heady draft, too.

  She concentrated on that to help dispel the faint unease lingering from the dream.

  After all, she reminded herself, it was not her child that she dreamed about. It couldn’t be.

  Straightening the bed, she gently smoothed the wrinkles from the newly finished quilt. She had taken little more than her clothes and her horse when she was ordered to leave her home after Harry died.

  Each bright square of calico and gingham, every soft velvet piece, was decorated with every fancy embroidery stitch she knew. Her cousin Sarah had offered to help in the evenings, when chores were done and they sat in the warmth of the kitchen, and later Catherine, but Mary had sewn every stitch herself. The quilt was entirely hers.

  The thought came not so much from possessiveness or from pride as the desperate need to reassure herself of her worth. By such small things she was going to rebuild her life.

  Mentally she jerked back from the direction of her thoughts.

  “Stop it.” But it was too late for the whispered warning.

  The old Mary, the one who had survived as Harry’s wife, tried to fill her mind with dreadful memories. All the ones she kept hidden.

  The new Mary—for she thought of herself as that—the one who was supported by Sarah’s strength and Catherine’s determination, refused to give way.

  She stripped off the cotton nightgown, crushing the soft cloth between her hands. Head bent, shoulders bowed, she fought the insidious pull of memories so painful they made her tremble.

  You can’t give in. He’ll win. Even from the grave, he’ll win.

  She was strong, and brave, and had fought this fight with demons from the past too many times to count in the past year.

  Logic said she could not wipe out ten years of her life in one.

  But she yearned with all the recovering spirit within her to do just that.

  Mary poured tepid water from the pitcher into the washbowl. She sponged her sweat-dampened body. Her thoughts focused on the last trimming needed to complete a topsy-turvy doll for Nita Mullin’s granddaughter. The child’s birthday was two days away and Nita was going to visit her in Lake Valley. They were lucky to have a stage line operating from Hillsboro south of the town.

  Nita had proved a good friend to Mary. She owned the dress goods shop and gave her the scraps of material and bits of trimming she was unable to use.

  Like the quilt, the making of the dolls had helped Mary return to a time when she felt secure in who she was.

  She thought of her grandmother’s patience as she had taught her to make the cloth-bodied dolls, whose flaring skirts could be flipped over to reveal another doll’s body and head.

  Little girls loved the dolls, few though they were, and Mary soaked up their pleasure the way the desert soaked up rain.

  Thanks again to Nita, P. J. Crabtree had bought a few dolls to sell in his dry goods emporium. Miners with money to spend might buy them for the children they left behind. She hoped they did sell. The only money she earned was from orders to add delicate embroidery to the dressmaker’s frocks. Most women hereabouts made their own clothing, so the orders were few and far between. Every penny earned, even the little given by a grateful miner for her limited medical skill, was contributed to the household.

  When her father died and she learned that his blacksmith shop, the house and the land had been sold, with the money going to Harry, there had been no stilling her anger.

  By the time Harry died and she discovered that his will left all his worldly possessions to his cousin, Mary could not summon anger, only relief that that chapter of her life was over.

  She refused to dwell on how narrow her choices would have been if Sarah, already widowed, had not insisted that she come here to live.

  It was a reminder that she was lingering overlong this morning. From the bureau drawer Mary removed a pressed pair of cotton drawers, a camisole and two petticoats. She dressed quickly, foregoing the half corset, as thoughts of comfort won over proper lady’s dress.

  The rocking chair squeaked when she sat down to pull on neatly darned stockings.

  Strange, she mused, how life’s paths twisted and turned.

  Despite the difference in their ages, she, Sarah and Catherine had been childhood friends. They had shared all the important first happenings that marked their growing-up years.

  The progression had run from doll’s tea parties to shared giggles over a special look given by a boy after church services. She had lost her parents first, then offered comfort to the others when they were orphaned. She had thought they were lovely, innocent times, as they confided dreams, first kisses, courtships and marriage.

  Married first, Mary went to Harry’s home in the eastern territory. Mary had missed the women’s special closeness. Attending weddings with Harry had ensured there was no time alone with her cousin or her friend.

  They had seen little of each other during the years of their marriages.

  Now, they had come together again, to share their first year of widowhood.

  Guilt sometimes nagged her. Mary had skimmed over the details of her marriage.

  She was twenty-seven years old, and shame still played a part in her silence.

  Retrieving the only pair of shoes she owned, Mary took the buttonhook off the small floral china tray on the bureau to close the buttons on her shoes. She slipped on a faded violet-and-cream gingham day dress and fluffed out the ruffle around the yoke. She had deliberately made the fit loose, for she was uncomfortable calling attention to her body.

  She tugged free her waist-length braid. One of these days she would find the courage to cut it again. The first time had been an act of defiance. Harry, with his possessive love of its red shades and thigh-long length, had forbidden her to ever cut it.

  “But Harry’s dead,” she reminded her reflection in the mirror.

  Afraid of finding telltale ghosts in her eyes, Mary looked away as she brushed out the tangles.

  Minutes later she placed the last hair pin in a neat cornet of braids. Tying on a fresh apron, she smiled as she left her room.

  The old wood floor in the hall gleamed from the waxing she h
ad given it last week. The aroma of coffee drifted up the stairs and told her that Sarah was awake.

  Mary hummed on her way to the kitchen. She had a new day to look forward to, ordered and peaceful, as the past days had been.

  If the secret sorrow of her heart never left, she still had so much to be thankful for.

  She would continue to break the chains of the past. Somehow, some way, she would finally be free.

  And when she was, perhaps the terrible haunting dream would not come again.

  Chapter Three

  Rafe knew every minute of travel stole a moment of his daughter’s life. With the dust-brown warriors riding a grudge against every white man, there was no ridge that he could cross without a careful study of the country around it. Much as it galled him, he had to take time to cover his own trail when it was possible. Already he had doubled back, and changed directions twice.

  It nagged at him that the Apache knew his name. Rafe had had little trouble with the Indians. But that Apache wanted him dead.

  A slow man to rile, Rafe barely contained his fury. Beth was the one who had paid. He rode on to the town of Hillsboro, for he had heard of a doctor there. He made a wide swing around the town to avoid crossing Percha Creek.

  Any stranger riding into town in his condition was sure to draw attention. A man dragging a travois behind his horse drew the curious out to the boardwalks lining the main street of Hillsboro.

  Almost every stone-and-adobe building was shaded by giant cottonwood trees. He searched the shadows as he rode, especially the alleys between the bank and hotel, cafe and saddlery, each one between the stores and saloons.

  It was nothing he had not done before, but now he was doubly wary.

  He filed away the fact that the lone man sitting in a chair tipped back against the outer wall of the saloon paid more than passing attention to his arrival. News could not have traveled this fast of the attack on the army detail, or of the fact that out of the forty men he rode into that canyon with, only five had ridden out.

  It set in his mind that he was not to be one of the survivors. There was nothing he could do about it now. His child’s life was what mattered, not learning who wanted him dead.

  He drew rein before the hitching rail of J. P. Crabtree’s Dry Goods Emporium.

  “Where can I find the doctor?” Rafe demanded as he stepped inside.

  P. J. Crabtree, standing behind the counter, eyed the savage-looking stranger striding toward him. The man’s bloodstained clothing told a tale, and P.J. had never been one to pass up an opportunity to have the who, what and wherefore on a stranger.

  “You’ve ridden a piece.”

  “Gavilan Canyon,” Rafe returned. “Army detail I was with came under attack.”

  “Apaches. Damn that Victorio. He’s plumb hell.”

  “Ain’t my worry. I need the doctor.”

  “Last I know, Doc Sieber’s drinking his lunch over at the Paradise.”

  “Drunk?”

  “Usually is these days. Lost his wife two months ago. She caught someone stealing his supplies and was shot Doc, he was up in the hills patching up some miners. Had a cave-in. But say, fella, your wounds don’t look like they need doctorin’. I get a real fine liniment here that’ll cure most of what ails you. Make it myself.”

  Rafe shot the balding man a cold, forbidding look. “I don’t need him for myself.” He rapidly sorted his options, glancing back toward the open door. “Where is the nearest sober doctor?”

  “Tall order. Mighty tall order. Sober, now? Might be one southwest, at Silver City. Or over east, at Caballo. Hear they had some trouble there. Both a far piece to ride.”

  P.J. leaned out over the counter, but couldn’t see more than a fine-looking horse hitched at his rail.

  “What the devil do you folks do when the doctor’s drunk and you need help? My little girl was wounded during the fighting.”

  “Hell now! Why didn’t you say that right off? You go on up to the merry widows. They’ll fix her up, if she ain’t dying.”

  “She’s not going to die.” Rafe stared at the paunchy man, whose faded red shirt was littered with food stains, and met his pale blue eyes with the force of his own. He knew saying the words did not make them true. But he had to believe them. Yet the thought of taking his daughter to a brothel—for what else could it be?—set ill with him.

  “You sure these widows have some medical skill? She’s hurt bad.”

  “You ask for Mary. She’ll know what to do. She nursed men after the mine cave-in at Kingston. Helped more than a few since she come to town. Nursed her husband, too, I hear. ‘Course, he died, but folks said she took mighty good care of him while he lived. That was near to a year—”

  “Where?” Rafe heard the edge of desperation in his voice. He didn’t like the sound of this, but what choice did he have? Beth couldn’t travel another ten miles, much less thirty or more miles, until he found a competent doctor. If he was not terror-stricken at the thought of losing his child, he might have found some humor in a brothel filled with merry widows.

  “Ride out south of Main Street. Take the road to Lake Valley. Can’t miss the place. Sets back a way from the road. Farmhouse got a fresh coat of whitewash this summer. If you reach the Orchards’ stage corral, you’ve gone too far.” But this last was said to the man’s back.

  “Don’t blame you none, fella. Ain’t too many men walk away from Apaches and live to tell about it. But a girl…” P.J. shook his head. He slipped his thumbs under his suspenders. Folks would be coming by any minute. He would save his opinions until then.

  Rafe hurried outside to his daughter. He crouched near the hitching rail, brushing aside the hair clinging to Beth’s forehead. Her hair was as dark as his, and just as curly.

  She lay as he had placed her on the quickly rigged travois. It was the best transport he could manage for her. Their packhorses had disappeared along with the Apaches. Even the shavetail captain had remarked about the Indians’ disappearance once Beth fell.

  Rafe didn’t care what had made them leave. He was thankful they had gone.

  Beth’s eyes remained closed. Her breathing ragged. It tore at his heart to see her so lifeless. He wiped at the streaks left by dirt and her tears. One hand he closed into a fist, the other trembled, touching his child’s cheek.

  He lifted the blanket. Pain twisted inside him.

  Why? Dear God, why?

  Beth lay on her side, the thin legs beneath her torn skirt drawn tight to her belly. Her small hands gripped the edge of the blanket, slung and tied between tent poles, that formed the bed of the travois.

  Blood seeped from the bandage he had wrapped around her shoulder. The broken arrow shaft protruding from her small body was an obscene sight.

  If the arrow had pierced his own flesh, Rafe wouldn’t have thought twice about yanking it free. He had done so a time or two.

  But this was his Beth…too precious, too small, and too newly reclaimed for him to cause her more pain.

  “It’s a wild land. Savage. Not fit for a decent woman to live in. I’ll not raise my child here. She’ll die. We will all die for your stubborn, arrogant insistence we make our home in these forbidding mountains.”

  Rafe swallowed bile and guilt along with the haunting words. He slowly eased the blanket up to cover Beth.

  “You won’t die, baby. I won’t lose you a second time.”

  With a graceful movement, he rose and mounted. Despite the driving need to hurry, he kept Rebel to a walk so that Beth wouldn’t suffer any more jostling.

  He rode with the thong off his gun, his hat pulled low, always aware of the curious gazes of the silent townspeople who watched his slow progression south.

  If this widow saved his daughter’s life, he’d stake her to a dowry that would make an eastern banker take notice and forget her past. He would never miss the money. Hell, he thought, he would give it all away to see Beth a pink-cheeked, laughing child again.

  Stranger things had happened in the terr
itory than finding help at a brothel.

  Strange things happened in big cities, too. Like a man believing that a lady’s declarations of love and marriage vows meant more than whispered lies.

  Valerie…

  Rafe bolted the door shut on his past.

  Beth was his future. She was all that mattered. All he would ever allow himself to care about.

  The gray skies of morning had not delivered their promise of rain, but kept the day steeped in twilight.

  Mary sat in a wing chair in the front parlor. She leaned closer to the side table scattered with sewing notions, where the lamp’s glow aided her in snipping the thread above the knot.

  Setting aside her embroidery scissors, she held up the completed doll. Dark brown satin stitched eyes framed by a feathering of lashes stared back at her. Red berry juice stained the muslin cheeks, and the wide smile invited one in return.

  Flipping over the tiny pink-checked calico skirt, Mary touched the lace collar below a face meant to convey tiredness, with half-moon stitches to indicate closed eyes. The mouth drooped a bit. Did she look sad?

  Pounding on the front door startled her. She darted a look around the room, touching on the sparse furnishings of the formal parlor suite.

  Sarah and Catherine were away from the house, repairing the back pasture fence. They would never hear her if she called out.

  Mary did not understand where the sudden fear came from.

  The repeated battering on the door held an urgent summons she could not continue to ignore. Unaware she still held the doll, Mary went out into the hall.

  Standing off to the side of the door, beneath the front porch’s overhang, Rafe cradled Beth’s too-warm body against his shoulder. His shirt and vest were stiff with caked sweat, blood and dust. He caught himself swaying.

  The house beneath the giant cottonwoods was solidly built and freshly whitewashed, with Apache plume and columbine planted on either side of the steps. Off to the side, behind the house, stood a barn and corral. Four horses moved restively within the pole enclosure. A steel-dust Appaloosa nickered to his horse. It was a fine-looking animal, but something about it nagged at him.