The Dancer Page 3

  Elena had no choice but to mount Bella, glad the long cloak covered her hoisted skirts. She rode to where she'd left Mike and found him gone. Before she had time to panic, she heard him call her name in a low tone.

  "Elena--over here." Mike was mounted, Patrick clutched in one arm--precariously, or so it looked to her.

  Let me take the baby," she pleaded.

  "No. Follow me."

  They rode south through the dark of night, keeping a slow but steady pace. Unused to riding a great distance, her unprotected thighs chafing, Elena tired long before Patrick woke and began to wail.

  "Pull up," Mike ordered. When she did, he reined in next to her. "You take him," he said. "Get him to shut up."

  She lifted Patrick from his arms. "How can I quiet him?" she demanded. "He's hungry and I have nothing to feed him."

  "If he needs milk, I'll find a cow."

  "He needs his mother's milk, not a cow's."

  "Milk's milk." Mike surveyed the countryside.

  Elena, doing her best to shush the screaming baby, was vaguely aware the sky had lightened a bit and there were rolling hills to either side of them. She had no idea how far they'd gone or where they were.

  "We're on the ranch now," Mike said at last. "Much as I hate to give the kid Burwash milk, I guess I'll have to."

  The Burwash ranch! Could she possibly get away from Mike and ride to the ranch house?

  As if in answer, Mike reached for Bella's bridle and tied a rope to it. "Not that I don't trust you," he told Elena mockingly.

  They rode on with his bay leading the mare. When he finally located, a few head of cattle, several with half-grown calves, near a single live-oak tree, she was ready to fall from her mount in exhaustion.

  "Know how to milk a cow?" he demanded.

  "Yes." Her answer was reluctant.

  "Good. This is gonna take two of us, these range cows ain't used to having people milk 'em. Now don't move."

  He untied the rope, fashioned a lasso, twirled it and sent it flying over the horned head of one of the cows. The bay braced himself but the cow didn't bolt. Using a second rope, Mike cast another loop over the animal, binding her legs. When she tried to run, the cow fell onto her side. With the bay braced to hold her, Mike backed him, then had the horse circle the tree twice.

  With the cow now firmly tethered, Mike slid from the bay. He reached up for Elena and, holding Patrick, she let him lift her down, finding she could scarcely stand. Mike took the baby, now sobbing fitfully, and wedged him into a high crotch of the tree. He reached into his saddle bag and pulled out a tin cup.

  "Okay, milking time," he told Elena.

  With her kneeling by the trapped cow and squeezing the udders while Mike held the cup so the milk squirted into it, they managed to get a cupful. They retrieved the baby and, using a clean cloth from the baby's belongings, she dipped it into the cup and then carefully dribbled the warm milk into

  Patrick's mouth until he wouldn't take any more.

  "You better drink the rest," Mike said. "We ain't gonna be eating for awhile."

  Elena didn't argue. He took the empty cup from her, wadded the cloth inside it and stowed it away. Only then did he release the cow.

  Elena's muscles protested when she remounted and she bit her lip to keep from groaning. He handed up the sleeping baby. Holding Bella's reins, he remounted his bay and they rode on.

  "Got to get off the property before sunrise or the boss'll shoot me," he said. "If I don't shoot him first."

  Tired as she was, Elena's heart began to thump in alarm at the thought of Mike killing Davis. However she felt about Davis, she didn't want him shot dead in front of her.

  "Where are you taking me?" she asked.

  "Tia Juana." Pulling a bottle from his pocket, he uncorked it and took a swig.

  She'd heard of the border town on the Tia Juana Creek. In the old days, they said, a woman had sold tacos and tamales there, a woman named Tia Juana. Tia Francesca had been there once with a couple who'd been looking for an ill cousin.

  "It's a poor place, a shanty town," her aunt had told her years later. "Like the worst slum in Los Angeles. We found the cousin near death in a filthy hut. It was too late to save him."

  "Do you live in Tia Juana?" Elena asked, concealing her distress at hearing their destination. She meant to try to escape with Patrick as soon as possible but in the meantime he must be fed and kept clean. How was she to do either in such a place?

  "For now. Gonna be a matador, make me a lot of money."

  He drank from the bottle again.

  She recalled Meg telling her months ago that both Rory and Mike had learned to fight bulls when they lived in Mexico so perhaps Mike meant what he said. Unless it was the drink talking.

  "Don't believe me, do you? Don't think Mike Dugald's good enough to be a matador. You just wait."

  She shot him a defiant look. "I don't care what you are as long as Patrick is clean and well-fed. He's what matters to me, not what you do."

  "Yeah?" Mike drawled the word into a threat. "You think I'm gonna leave you sitting around nurse-maiding Patrick all the time? Think again. Don't forget I was at the ruins the night Rory was killed. That bastard Burwash thought you was the one running off with my brother and he killed Rory 'cause he was jealous of you. You're my woman now and when you're warming my bed that Burwash son-of-bitch will have real reason to be jealous."

  Chapter Three

  Davis rode Black Knight past Scripps' Miramar Ranch, ten miles north of San Diego. Earlier, from the top of a hill he'd seen the Scripps mansion, four adobe wings around a huge patio. Forty-seven rooms, he'd been told, each with a fireplace. E. W. Scripps was an Easterner, a newspaper man.

  Davis had often thought he'd like to meet the man who'd modeled his home after a palace in Trieste. Hell, here he was twenty-two years old and he'd never even been to New York City, much less to Europe. His father hadn't believed travel abroad was worth much.

  "They're behind the times in Europe," Diarmid had said. "America, especially California, is the land of promise, lad. Your life is easy because I had the sense to leave the old country behind and try my luck here."

  When President McKinley had been assassinated in September, Davis had relived his father's death all over again. Diarmid had been assassinated, too, not by a crazed stranger but by a friend he'd trusted. Unlike the anarchist who'd shot the President, Diarmid's killer had never been brought to justice.

  It seemed to Davis that everything had gone wrong since his father's death. Not with the ranch or the businesses, but in his personal life. Because he couldn't bring himself to tell Stella that he suspected Warren might have killed Diarmid, she overrode his spurious objections to Meg marrying Warren.

  The fact was, he refused to accuse Warren because he suspected Jarvis and Stein as much as he did Warren, so how could he accuse one? Now his sister was the wife of a man he didn't trust.

  As for Elena--he cursed every time he thought of her. Which meant he cursed too damn often. How could she betray them? And how could Meg defend what Elena had done? Distraught as she was over Patrick's abduction, Meg still insisted Elena wouldn't have taken the baby without a good reason.

  "Do you consider revenge a good reason?" he'd asked Meg.

  Meg wouldn't listen and Warren's concern for his son seemed luke-warm at best. Davis didn't understand either of them. He was the one who'd gone white-hot with rage, the one who'd been out searching for Patrick ever since the night Elena had disappeared with the boy. He was the one who'd traced her this far, who'd discovered she was traveling with a man. Her accomplice. He doubted they were still in San Diego, though he planned to make a thorough search. His gut instinct told him they were headed for Mexico--a hell of a country to try to find anyone in.

  He would, or he'd die trying.

  Two of Manuelo's sons, Mateo and Benito, lived in San Diego with their families. They'd help him on this side of the border but once he reached Tia Juana he'd be on his own.

 
Davis grimaced. A tawdry border town, rife with vices more vicious then the worst Los Angeles and San Diego had to offer. He'd been there only once and once was enough.

  Riding into San Diego's business district in the late afternoon, he was surprised at the growth and change in only three years. New stores clustered around the plaza, the handsome brick Horton House to the north dominating the other buildings. The town looked cleaner and was better planned than Los Angeles, with streets laid out on a grid rather than wandering with cow path randomness.

  Davis wondered if Burwash Incorporated had investigated investment possibilities here lately. He had no time or heart to be interested now but, if he remembered, he'd look into it later. After he ran down Elena.

  Mateo Amato had a small ranch east of town where he raised lemons and oranges. Because Davis had known him and his older brother, Benito, he turned Black Knight eastward. He didn't expect Mateo had seen Elena and her accomplice but, with luck, he might know someone to contact in Tia Juana.

  When Davis rode up, Mateo limped from the house and greeted him with an enthusiastic hug. "I thought I recognized that horse. You visit so seldom! Catalina, she's off gossiping with one of our daughters, she'll be home within the hour."

  "You look more like your father every time I see you," Davis said, clapping Mateo on the back.

  "Ah, we miss him." Mateo shook his head. "You will stay with us, my friend, I don't take no for an answer."

  "Thanks. For the night anyway. I need your help, a friend's help." Davis told the story of Patrick's abduction.

  Madre de Dios, a baby only two weeks old? It's hard to believe anyone could be so cruel. Anything I can do, I'm more than willing. Tonight, we'll go to the houses of those I know and ask if anyone has seen this woman and man. The palomino she's riding should make them easy to spot."

  "I suspect they've crossed the border. If I discover I'm right, do you happen to have an acquaintance in Tia Juana?"

  "More than one. I'll ride with you if you like."

  "Ride where?" Catalina spoke from behind Davis. When he turned, her frown changed to a wide smile of recognition as she held out her arms. "Such a stranger, I hardly knew you! You must stay, I have tamales ready, and frijoles."

  "Gracias, I'll enjoy eating with you," Davis said. "You rival Juanita as a cook."

  "I'm not so sure." Catalina glanced at her husband. "That one, he isn't to mount a horse for another month, no matter what he told you. He had a bad fall and the leg isn't mended."

  Mateo's eyes flashed. "I'm well enough to help a friend!"

  "All I need is the names of those you know in Tia Juana," Davis assured him. "Even if your leg were healed, it's best I ride alone." He wanted to be alone when he found Elena. If it was revenge she wanted, he had his own brand to show her.

  Later that evening, Davis learned from a friend of Mateo's that a woman riding a palomino and accompanied by a male rider, an Anglo, had been seen on the road to Tia Juana two days before. The friend wasn't altogether certain whether or not the pair had a baby with them, he'd been eyeing the palomino.

  "A fine mare," he told Davis. "They'll be lucky if the palomino isn't stolen in Mexico. Those in trouble with the law here cross the border to Baja California--" he jerked his thumb toward the south--"where there's no law to speak of."

  His gaze dropped to Davis's holstered pistol. "Except for the law a man carries on his hip."

  An Anglo. Davis clenched his jaw. Who was riding with Elena? She hadn't wasted any time meeting another man, one depraved enough to assist in abducting a baby. No doubt she'd found him in the cantina where she'd danced. Where she'd flaunted herself like the wanton she was.

  He slept poorly, haunted by dreams of Elena in his arms one moment and coming at him with a knife the next.

  The next morning, before he rode south, Mateo warned him, "Stay clear of Tia Juana cantinas and be careful of the women, they're mostly putas, whores, many working with bandidos. My friend, Diego Alviso, has a small pig farm near the town. You smell his place before you see it. But you can trust Diego not to slit your throat for your horse and your clothes. And, once you get used to the pig stink, if you ever do, you'll enjoy his wife's cooking."

  In the dusk of her second day in Tia Juana, Elena stared up at one of the small windows. All she could see was a bit of darkening sky and the cross atop the tallest monument in the graveyard next to the dirt-floored shack Mike Dugald had brought her and Patrick to. The shack was too far from the church for her to try to run to and shelter in with Patrick.

  Not that she had much chance of getting away. Mike slept in front of the hut's only door. The two windows, without glass, were high and small.

  He'd started drinking on the way to Tia Juana and he'd kept drinking ever since. So far he hadn't carried out his threat of forcing her to lie with him but, worried as she was about the baby, that gave her small comfort.

  For the past three days Patrick had vomited almost everything he'd swallowed. Mike had bought a nanny goat and tethered it outside for Patrick but the baby couldn't seem to keep the goat's milk down any better than he had the cow's milk earlier. His crying had lost its vigor as he grew more and more listless. She shifted him in her arms and glared down at Mike, propped across the open doorway, his eyes shut.

  She'd pleaded, she'd shouted, she'd cried, but he refused to believe Patrick was sickening and would die if he wasn't able to keep anything down. What can I do? she asked herself. I must save the baby.

  "Mother of sorrows," a woman's voice intoned in Spanish, "pray for my little one."

  The words expressed her own need so vividly that Elena wondered for a moment if she were hearing voices in her head.

  Then she recalled the nearby cemetery and sidled over to look past Mike. There was no one in sight.

  It would do no good to step over him, she'd tried that and he'd grabbed her legs, flinging her backwards and knocking Patrick from her arms. Luckily the baby hadn't been seriously hurt. She'd tried to find something to use as a weapon but the unfurnished shack offered no possibilities, and Mike carried his gun in a holster at his hip and his knife in a boot sheath. So far he hadn't removed either the holster or his boots.

  Patrick quivered in her arms and began to whimper, a pitiful cry that made her bite her lip in anguish. She rocked him in her arms, tears filling her eyes at her inability to help him. Through the blur of the tears she saw a black figure advancing toward the open door.

  "Pobrecito," the figure said sadly.

  As Elena hastily wiped away her tears, Mike's eyes opened and he pulled himself to his feet, motioning Elena to stay back. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded in Spanish, facing what Elena now saw was a plump woman with a black veil over her head, a woman in mourning.

  The woman tipped her head this way and that, trying to see past Mike. "I hear a baby crying."

  "It's none of your--" Mike began.

  Elena, knowing this might be her only chance to save the baby, cut him off. "His name is Patrick and he's starving to death!" she cried in Spanish. "Can you help?"

  The woman put her hands to her breasts. "I, Benicia Verdugo, have milk to feed him."

  "Get away from here," Mike threatened, his hand on the grip of his pistol.

  "Patrick's dying!" Elena screamed at him. "This woman was sent by Mother Mary Herself to keep the baby alive--can't you understand? Turn her away and you're a murderer."

  Benicia lifted the black veil from her face and looked at Mike without fear. Her dark, strong features showed she was mestizo. "You don't look like a man who'd let a baby die," she said. "I am a woman without a husband and my own child has died. I can do nothing to harm you, I wish only to help the baby."

  Whether she convinced him or whether Patrick's gasping wails revealed the baby's desperate condition, Elena didn't know, but Mike, slowly and reluctantly, stepped back, allowing Benicia to enter the hut. She didn't so much as glance at him, all her attention was on the baby. Without a

  word, she held out her arms and E
lena handed Patrick to her. Holding the baby in one arm, Benicia opened the front of her black dress and freed one of her heavy breasts, positioning him to suck. Patrick's cries stopped abruptly as his seeking mouth closed on her brown nipple.

  "He has to have mother's milk," Elena said as both she and Mike watched the feeding baby. "There's no choice if you want to keep him alive."

  "Shit," Mike muttered. "Now I got her to worry about."

  They spoke in English but, if she understood, Benicia gave no sign as she stood cuddling the baby to her breast and smiling down at him.