The Dancer Read online

When Patrick was through nursing he immediately fell asleep on Benecia's shoulder. "This child is dirty," she said accusingly, glancing from Elena to Mike. "He needs to be washed, he needs clean clothes. This hovel is no place for him."

  "You're a mouthy one," Mike told her.

  "I speak the truth. We would all be more comfortable in my casita. It's small but clean and I live alone."

  Elena, seeing Mike's scowl, said to him hastily, "Wait, think about it. I can't take care of Patrick here, with nothing. Benicia says she has no husband, that she lives alone. Since she's going to be feeding Patrick, why can't we go with her?"

  Mike glared from Elena to Benicia and back. "Okay," he muttered finally, "but we wait until dark."

  Benicia lived on the southern edge of the town in an adobe casita with a tiled roof, a tiny house but of better construction than most of the wooden shacks. Mike left the goat and the horses in a small stable in back before allowing anyone to enter the house. The floor, the usual hard-packed dirt, was covered with mats of woven reeds. A table, three chairs, a cot with a straw mattress and a cradle were the only furnishings.

  After two days in the hovel, the adobe casita seemed like a palace to Elena. Water was a luxury in Tia Juana, so Benicia bathed Patrick first, then offered the same basin to Elena who was happy to have the chance to wash at least part of herself for the first time in days. Mike, next in line, waved the basin away but Benicia, who'd deposited Patrick in the cradle, would have none of it.

  "It is my house. You are filthy so you will wash," she informed him.

  Mike stared at her, obviously astounded by her blunt tone. Elena expected a tirade but all he did was shrug and accept the basin.

  The meal of refried frijoles and tacos was a welcome change from beef jerky. After they'd eaten, Benicia tried to insist Elena take the cot.

  "No." Elena spoke emphatically. "You have offered enough, I'll sleep on the floor mats."

  Mike laid himself on the mats in front of the door, the only one in the casita. "You got any aguardiente? he asked Benicia.

  She shook her head.

  Elena, who'd scarcely dared to sleep the past few nights, took care to position herself as far from the door as possible. She'd hardly laid down before she was asleep.

  She woke to darkness and whispering.

  "She is not your woman," Benicia was saying. "This is not her child. Or yours."

  "It's nothing to do with you, woman." Mike spoke in a low tone. "You talk too much."

  "I think she does not like you at all. She stays as far from you as she can."

  Elena suddenly realized both voices were coming from over near the door. Had Benicia tried to leave the house and been stopped by Mike?

  "You here to talk or what?" Mike asked.

  Benicia didn't reply. The subsequent grunts and rustlings puzzled Elena until the truth hit her, leaving her shocked. Mike and Benicia were making love! If that’s what it could be called, on the floor by the door. Elena grimaced. How could Benicia? With a man she hardly knew? Though she ought to be grateful, not passing judgement since, if he was occupied with Benicia, then Mike would be too busy to bother her.

  When Elena woke the second time, it was morning. She sat up and saw Benicia sitting on the cot and holding Patrick to her breast. He was sucking so greedily Elena could hear him. There was no sign of Mike.

  "Good morning," Elena said, getting to her feet and stretching.

  "It looks like rain," Benicia replied. "Which is good, rain is always needed. Mike is outside milking the goat. He says we are not to leave the house."

  Remembering last night, Elena decided to tell Benicia the truth. "I'm only with him because he forced me to come. Patrick's my sister's baby. Mike stole him from her, and took me along with the baby, to care for him."

  Benicia gazed down at the child. "He has red hair. I have never seen a boy with hair like this."

  "His father had red hair. Mike's dead brother. My, uh, sister is married to someone else."

  "There will be pursuers, yes?"

  Elena nodded, suddenly realizing as she did so, who would be the most determined hunter. Not Warren. Davis. Her heart sank as she pictured the bitter confrontation between Davis and Mike.

  "Trouble comes, then," Benicia predicted. "Mike can't hide. By tonight everyone in Tia Juana will know you have moved from the graveyard to my casita. And many, for a price, will tell any who ask. I have friends, but--" she shrugged. "It is not their affair, a disagreement between

  Anglos."

  "If I could get away, with the baby--"

  Benicia shook her head. "I'll feed the baby and take care of him. I offer you the hospitality of my home but I won't interfere."

  "In other words you won't help me escape."

  Benicia didn't answer directly. "I'd like a child of my own with such hair," she said, caressing Patrick's red fluff.

  "I heard you last night." Elena, angry and disappointed that Benicia wasn't on her side, spoke bluntly. "You aren't wasting any time trying to start one."

  "You have never lost a child, you don't understand." Benicia lifted Patrick to her shoulder. "I can't keep this one, he belongs to a mother who mourns his loss. I know how she feels. When they come for him, I will give him up. But my heart cries out for a baby and Mike, he needs a woman."

  Mike was crazy, Elena thought, with a madness that had almost killed Patrick. Couldn't Benicia see what kind of a man she'd chosen to befriend?

  "He doesn't trust me," Benicia went on, "but trust will come with time."

  "You may not have any time. I'm sure someone's on our trail by now. Mike may be killed."

  "I don't think so. As long as you're with him, you're his guarantee against death."

  Elena stared at her. "You're as crazy as he is!"

  She was certain she was right when, shortly before noon, Mike picked up the reata he'd brought into the house earlier and ordered her to lie on the cot.

  "I can't trust you an inch," he told her, "and I can't watch two women. I'm gonna tie you up while Benicia, Patrick and I go for supplies."

  "I won't be tied!" Elena protested.

  "Why fight?" Benicia asked. "He'll tie you whether or not you agree. We'll only be gone a few hours."

  Realizing Benicia might well help Mike if she struggled, Elena submitted, with ill grace, to having her wrists tied separately to the metal frame of the cot and her ankles tied together, then to the frame.

  After they left her, Elena fought against panic. Were they leaving her for good, traveling deeper into Mexico to hide with Patrick? What if they never came back and she was left tied and helpless and alone?

  The more she thought about it, the more she came to believe Mike had decided to desert her and take Benicia with him instead--after all, Benicia could feed Patrick. Elena strained against her bonds and found the rope too well tied to give at all. How long would it be before someone found her? Would anyone ever find her?

  Help!" she shouted as loud as she could, both in English and Spanish, over and over until she was hoarse. No one came. Thoroughly demoralized, Elena burst into tears.

  Davis rode into Tia Juana in the late morning and located Diego Alviso's pig farm with little difficulty by it‘s stench. He found Diego helping a hired hand butcher a pig and told him he'd been sent here by his friend, Mateo Amato.

  "A friend of Mateo's is my friend," Diego assured him, wiping his bloody hands on his already soiled pants.

  "I don't want to keep you from your work," Davis said. "I'm looking for my sister's baby, abducted by a woman and a man, both Anglo, who were seen near the border two days ago. The woman rode a palomino."

  "Ah. The town has been talking of nothing else for two days. The pair you seek moved into an empty hut by the graveyard."

  "Is the baby with them?" Davis asked.

  "Yes."

  The helper glanced from Diego to Davis and back. "I heard this morning from the man who brings the water that they moved," he said, more to Diego than to Davis. "Senora Verdugo took
them in."

  Diego's eyebrows rose, then he nodded. "The baby. It would be because of the baby that she did such a thing."

  His worker agreed.

  "Where does the senora live?" Davis asked.

  "She's a good woman, you understand," Diego said. "Her husband is dead and she lost her own baby with the fever less than a week ago."

  "I don't blame Senora Verdugo for what she did. But I must find my sister's baby."

  Diego, with his helper putting in a word here and there, gave directions to the house, telling Davis how to take a shortcut to avoid returning to the town. When he finished, Diego's eyes flicked to Davis's holster. "The man also carries a gun," he added.

  Davis had expected that. He thanked Diego, turned down

  an invitation to have his noon meal at the pig farm, mounted Black Knight and rode away.

  He came on the Verdugo house from the rear, passing a uncultivated field of brown weeds where a tethered goat grazed and, closer to the house, a mango, an avocado and three orange trees. The small adobe dwelling had no door in the back and only one window. Was somebody inside watching his approach? He couldn't tell. The open-ended stable to the side of the house was empty. Did the empty stable mean an empty house? He slid off the stallion and tethered him at the far side of the stable, near a pomegranate bush.

  Pistol in hand, he crossed the space between stable and house at a run, then edged around to the front. Stepping onto the tiny verandah, he took hold of the latch and flung the door open.

  A woman called his name hoarsely. Elena. She lay on a

  cot, her face turned toward him. "Please help me," she begged, not moving.

  Davis saw she was tied to the cot and took a step toward her before having second thoughts. Was it a trap? His gaze raked the one room casita, seeing no place for a man to hide.

  "Where is he?" Davis demanded.

  "Untie me," she pleaded, her voice quivering.

  "Not until you tell me where he is."

  "They tied me and took Patrick. I don't know where they went." Her words were raspy.

  Davis, darting frequent glances over his shoulder toward the open door, strode to the cot. Elena looked up at him from red and swollen eyes. Her hair was tangled, her gown dirty and torn. Despite everything he knew about her, he felt a pang of pity. Holstering his gun, he used his knife

  he cut the ropes binding her and stepped back, keeping an eye on the door and a hand on his gun.

  Elena sat up, rubbing her wrists. She swung her feet to the floor. "I knew you'd come," she said.

  Davis glanced at her. Dirty and disheveled as she was, her beauty still caught at him. He clenched his jaw. "So did he, evidently. Where'd he go?"

  "They left me. Tied, so I couldn't go for help. They didn't care if I--if I died. Thank God you came when you did." Tears trickled down her cheeks and she sat with her head bowed, making no effort to wipe them away.

  Davis hardened his heart. "Where'd you meet him?"

  "He slipped into the Bothwick house in the night. He's crazy. A madman. To take a little baby."

  Davis blinked. Was she trying to shift the blame to the man? "Who the hell is he?" he demanded.

  Elena lifted her head to look up at him incredulously. "Don't you know? Mike Dugald."

  He stared at her.

  "It's been terrible," she went on. "Until Benicia came Patrick was starving to death but Mike wouldn't listen to reason. He kept threatening to kill the baby if I tried to get away. And I couldn't find a way to escape with Patrick. You've got to go after Mike and rescue Patrick!"

  She spoke so fervently he almost believed her. "I can't trust you," he said flatly. "You want me out of here for some reason--why?"

  Elena brushed away her tears with the back of her hand and glared at him. "I tell you Mike's taken Patrick. Can't you understand?"

  "Taken him where? Back to that hut near the graveyard, waiting until you give the signal that I've gone?"

  She spread her hands and he could see her chafed wrists where the ropes had bitten in. "How can you think I'd do anything to harm Patrick?" Despite the angry glint in her eyes, her voice shook.

  She looked so fragile, so bedraggled and woebegone, his impulse was to lift her off the cot and into his arms, to hold her against him until she was comforted. Instead, he scowled down at her. Why did he still want this scheming wanton? Hadn't she done enough damage to the Burwashes?

  Elena rose to her feet. As she tried to walk away from the cot, she stumbled. Without thinking, he caught her.

  "My feet are numb from the rope," she said, trying to pull free of his grasp. His grip tightened. He couldn't let her go. Wouldn't.

  He watched the pupils of her eyes dilate as she looked at him, saw the pulse at her throat begin to throb rapidly, heard her catch her breath. However much she'd lied to him about other things, he could tell being in his arms affected her as intensely as it did him.

  "Damn you to hell," he muttered as he bent his head to kiss her.

  Chapter Four

  With Davis holding her close, Elena felt safe for the first time since Mike Dugald had appeared in the Bothwick house. When Davis’ lips touched hers, his kiss warmed her through and through and she gave up all pretense of resistance, flinging her arms around his neck.

  As his kiss deepened and his hands molded her to him, she melted against him. Was this the feeling that drew Benicia to lie with Mike? No, surely not, she was certain no one in the world had ever experienced the pleasure Davis’ caresses brought her. His touch blotted out the past, the bad times between them. She forgot the terror of being tied and abandoned, forgot the ache of her chafed wrists.

  Her blood sand in her ears, the world receded, all other sounds seeming far away and unimportant…the caw of a crow, the whinny of a horse…

  Davis suddenly wrenched away from her, flinging her backwards onto the cot, spinning to face the door, hand on his pistol.

  “Draw and you’re a dead man.” Mike’s voice, flat and deadly. “Keep your hands in the air.”

  Elena sat up, staring at Mike who stood in the open doorway with his gun pointed at Davis. Neither Benicia nor Patrick were in sight.

  “Sorry to interrupt the touching reunion,” Mike said, advancing into the room. Davis said nothing, his hands lifted shoulder high. Elena hugged herself, cold with dread. Mike was going to kill Davis, she could see death in his eyes, hear it in his voice. And she could do nothing to stop him.

  She must find a way.

  How? With what? Her fingers touched the ropes Mike had bound her with, his reata, now cut into pieces. There was nothing else within reach. Even if the rope had been whole, it was worthless to her, she’d never tossed a lasso. Though she had learned how to tie one. For all the good that might do her.

  Think! she urged herself, sliding the longest length of rope behind her back and coiling it as she watched the two men. Her gaze fell on the empty cradle, with its four posts for draping mosquito netting, on the floor at the foot of the cot.

  “You think you’re better’n anyone else,” Mike snarled at Davis. “Just ‘cause your daddy had money. Ain’t your hard work and luck made that money, ever think of that? What God-given right did a shit like you have to kill my brother?”

  Mike’s been drinking again, she thought, hearing him slur his words. That didn’t make him any less dangerous. As he raved at Davis, slowly and carefully, moving an inch at a time, Elena shifted her position on the cot until she was able to slip the tiny lasso she’d made at the end of the rope over one of the head posts of the cradle, drawing it taut.

  She rose to her feet, the hand holding the other end of the rope concealed, she hoped, in a fold of her gown. Mike shut up abruptly, shifting his gaze to her.

  “Get back on the cot!” he ordered.

  “Please,” she begged as she staggered widely around Davis. “I’m sick, I need air.” She did her best to gag convincingly. The cradle shifted slightly behind her and she knew she’d reached the end of the rope. She was te
rrified Mike would shoot her but she couldn’t stop now.

  Mike turned the gun on her. “You heard what I….”

  “I’m going to faint!” she cried, crumpling to the floor. As she fell, she swung the rope in an arc. The cradle tipped, skidding across the floor mats toward Mike. A gun cracked. Twice. Davis yelled. There was a loud thud.

  Elena lifted her head, surprised she wasn’t shot. Both men were on the floor, pummeling one another. She gasped as she saw blood staining Davis’ shirt. He’d been hit! Mike’s gun, she saw, lay on one of the mats, within reach of the struggling men. She leaped to her feet and grabbed it. Having never fired a gun in her life, she did the only thing she could think of. she flung it out the door.