Twelve
Watching Oro from where she sat by Tomás, Antonie could see his tension. She sighed, knowing it was not just the waiting for something to happen. He could not even ease the lustful part of his feelings for Patricia, his love and respect for her stopping him. Antonie understood what he was feeling, at least in part, and she ached for him.
Most of the time she could not really be angry at Patricia, although she felt the girl could have refrained from wheedling her way into joining the drive. She felt for the girl as well, even when she longed to slap her for torturing poor Oro by offering a love he could not take. It was amazing that Patricia’s brothers had not noticed her longing looks toward Oro, but they might yet, and Antonie waited for that event with dread. Love was proving to be an extremely tiresome business.
“I will go on a watch,” Oro said abruptly and started for his horse.
“There’s no need,” protested Cole. “Plenty of men out there.”
“I will go.”
Oro had just reached the remuda when shots rang out. Antonie saw him fall and felt her blood run cold. For a moment he lay ominously still, but then she saw what she had been waiting so tensely for. In a long-ago agreed signal, he put up his thumb to show her that he lived. Unable to go to him, she hoped that whatever wound he had suffered was not too serious.
Antonie threw Patricia to the ground just as the girl started to move toward Oro. “Stay down,” she hissed.
“But Oro,” Patricia choked out even as Antonie pinned her down so neatly that she could not move at all.
“See his thumb? It is up. That means that he lives. Stay down or you will not. Now, crawl. Under the supply wagon. Keep your backside down.” Antonie roughly pushed Patricia’s gently rounded rump down as they started to crawl. “Want it shot off, muchacha?”
This was the attack they had waited for, and Royal looked to see Antonie herding Patricia to safety. Only once did she shoot, neatly taking down the man who had spotted them. Her gun stayed at the ready but silent, so as not to draw any more attention to herself and her basically helpless charge, for this time Patricia was unarmed. He was glad he had assigned Antonie that chore, for it meant that she, too, had to stay under cover.
Raoul had clearly hoped that the element of surprise would be on his side, but it was failing him. Royal knew that seeing how his men were being slaughtered while few of the Bancroft crew fell, Raoul would realize that a full assault was plainly not the answer. It did not surprise Royal at all when, after a relatively brief if furious battle, Raoul rode off into the night, but the man left eight of his men behind, dead or nearly so.
As soon as the shooting had ended, Antonie leapt to her feet. “Stay here,” she ordered Patricia.
Patricia clearly had no intention of obeying, for Antonie heard the girl follow her. Antonie quickly ascertained that Royal and Tomás were in fine shape as she ran to Oro and knelt by his side. Easing his head onto her lap, she gently dabbed the blood away from what was only a graze on his forehead. She spared little more than a glance for Patricia as the girl knelt and touched Oro’s arm. Oro groaned and turned his face into Antonie’s abdomen to hide.
“Por Dios, will you go away? I do not need you.”
Even as a white-faced Patricia retreated, Oro staggered to his feet and stumbled away. Antonie signaled a hurriedly approaching Tomás that Oro was all right and then set out after him. She was worried about Oro stumbling around with a head wound, upset as he was.
Royal had sensed the tension between Oro and Patricia, but had thought that perhaps his sister was pestering the man with an infatuation. Hearing Oro’s words and seeing the way they had devastated Patricia, he knew it ran deeper. Not sure what he intended to do, he followed Oro and Antonie.
Still dizzy, Oro collapsed to his knees just out of sight of the camp. Antonie feared that it was not really the pain in his head that troubled him most, but a deeper, perhaps incurable one. She sensed that he was turning away something he ached to grasp with both hands and hold onto tightly, and that he hated himself for hurting Patricia by turning her away. When Antonie knelt in front of him, thinking that she had not fully realized the depth of what she was involved in, he reached for her blindly.
“It hurts. God, it hurts.”
She knew he was not referring to his head wound as she wrapped him in her arms, her cheek pressed against his hair. When his strong arms held her too tightly, she made no complaint but rocked him gently and wept for his pain. It all seemed so very unfair.
Turning away from the private and uncomfortably emotional scene, Royal slowly made his way back to camp. Suddenly the responsibility he carried seemed too much. Oro Degas was not a man he would have chosen for Patricia, but did he have a right to decide that? Seeing that everything was under control, he sought out Cole and Justin. If nothing else he needed a sounding board for his troubled thoughts.
Seeing Tomás grab a bottle of tequila and go to Patricia, Royal briefly postponed locating his brothers. He hated eavesdropping, but he needed to know what was going on. There was no way he could make any rational decision without knowing. Staying out of sight, he strained to hear what Tomás and Patricia were saying.
“Here. Have a drink.” Tomás offered Patricia the bottle of tequila and smiled a little when she took a sip from it, then grimaced.
“That stuff is disgusting,” she gasped. “I think it has done real damage to my throat.”
“It is Mexican. An acquired taste. Not every gringo likes it.” He took a drink and offered her the bottle again.
“I’m supposed to read something in that, am I? By the way, it does get better, or maybe I just destroyed my throat and can’t feel anything anymore.”
“Sí, it does get better and, sí, I am trying to tell you something. Chica, a gringo will laugh with a Mexican, drink with him, whore with him, and fight beside him. He will slap him on the back and call him friend. This does fine, but he does not want us to touch his sister or his daughter, eh? You are taking bigger sips now, muchacha. Now, did you listen to my words?”
“Royal isn’t like that.”
“No? You have asked him?”
“No,” she replied softly. “You three have made me doubt him and I’m scared to open my mouth.”
“What will he do? Maybe send Oro away or send you away until Oro goes back to Mexico. What is that?”
“That is terrible, that’s what this is. It’d mean I wouldn’t see him anymore.”
“This, now, makes you happy?” he asked incredulously. “Por Dios, you both walk around bleeding. This is no good.”
“Haven’t you ever been in love, Tomás? Haven’t you ever loved anybody?”
“Sí and no. I love, but I have never been in love. I love Oro. I love Antonie. I loved my father, Juan, and Julio. If I was making them hurt so, I would stop it. That is love. I would leave or I would let them go. I would not drag out the agony.”
“I had hoped I could change his mind,” she said in a small voice.
“This would not make him happy, pobrecita. It would not make you happy either, not in the end.”
“It’s just his pride.”
“A man must have his pride or he is no man,” Tomás stated firmly. “Pride is not ‘just’ a thing. Chica, he thinks of you, too. To be Oro’s you could lose the brothers you love, eh? To have them against you and your man would hurt. You would give up too much. When men are set against each other and tempers run hot, somebody gets hurt. You would be in the middle. There would be no happiness there.”
“I will talk to Royal and if he acts like you’ve said, I’ll go visit my cousin for a while. At least I won’t have to see him going to the saloon all the time or hanging around Antonie,” she grumbled and did not see Tomás wince. “My tongue feels funny.” She stuck it out.
“Looks fine,” Tomás said gravely and smiled a little when she giggled. “Can you touch your nose with it?”
There ensued a great deal of nonsense and Royal realized that Patricia was suffering the false euphoria of the inebriated. As he quietly moved away, he suspected that it would not be long before Patricia had to be helped to her bed.
He now felt that he understood the problem everyone had worked so hard to conceal. He just hoped he would be able to solve it to everyone’s satisfaction.
Royal sat down with Cole and Justin and poured himself a strong cup of coffee. He was not sure of what to say. It was still hard to accept that his baby sister was a woman capable of loving. He had to keep reminding himself that she was eighteen now.
“How is Oro?” Justin asked.
“A graze. A little dizzy is all.” He thought of what he had just witnessed and sighed. “Cole? What do you think of Oro Degas?”
Noticeably confused about what Royal was after, but willing to cooperate, Cole replied, “Well, he’s quiet, keeps to himself a lot. Seen a lot in his years which has made him a little hard, but he’s honest and he ain’t vicious. He’s a man of his word. Hell, I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“It’s what you didn’t say that I’m interested in. You didn’t mention that he was Mexican or who his father was.”
“Don’t care about that. Got nothing against Mexicans and he isn’t following in his father’s footsteps. Always sat back with the girl. He said once that his father didn’t want them to follow his ways, but didn’t want them to go away either. Understandable. No, the only fault I can find with Oro and it ain’t really a fault, is that he’s a little hard, a little too cynical maybe.”
Running a hand through his hair, Royal said quietly, “That hard, cynical man is quite capable of being torn apart.”
“Well, it’s clear that he’s real close to Tomás and Antonie,” Justin said.
“No doubt of that, Justin, I even began to believe that he was damn close to Antonie, which was absurd.” He refrained from explaining why. “He’s been using her as a shield, being a hell of a lot more gallant or whatever than I think I could be.”
“I think I’ve an idea of what you’re talking about, but would you like to clarify it?” asked Justin.
“Well, how would you feel about Oro Degas becoming your brother-in-law?” He smiled crookedly when his brothers said nothing, just blinked. “At least it’s not a resounding no.”
“Are you sure that’s what he’s interested in? Pattie’s nice-looking. Could be just lusting.”
“No, Cole. Lust or, rather, the inability to satisfy it does not have a man like Degas weeping like a babe. I shouldn’t have been a witness to it, but I heard him tell a frantic Pattie to go away, that he didn’t need her, watched her walk away looking like someone had died, and thought I ought to talk to him, though damned if I knew what I was going to say.”
“How’d I miss all this?” Cole asked no one in particular.
“I wasn’t any better. I thought it was just an infatuation. I keep forgetting that Pattie’s eighteen, full grown really. Hell, I don’t know what to do. I hate to see Pattie hurting, and I like Degas enough not to want to see him hurting either. Still, he isn’t what I’d envisioned for Pattie.”
“I’d rather him than some of the ones sniffing ’round her lately,” Justin said firmly. “Least you know where Oro stands.”
“That’s true enough. Are you sure the law isn’t after the twins, Cole?”
“Can’t be bothered. They haven’t got a warrant out on them. Never got close enough to be seen save that once, and nobody got killed. Told them Juan and his top men were dead so they’ve turned their attention elsewhere. Can’t arrest a man for his father’s crimes or the company he keeps, and that’s all they could get on Oro or Tomás.”
“I would think that the real question here is what’d make Pattie happy,” Justin said quietly.
“Yes, I think you’re right,” Royal agreed with equal quiet. “It’s Pattie’s future, not ours.”
“Going to talk to her tonight?” Cole asked in a serious tone.
“I don’t think she’s in any state to be sensible,” Royal nodded toward where Tomás was helping their obviously drunk sister into her wagon.
“Damn, where does he keep getting that stuff?” Oblivious to his brothers’ amusement, Cole strode off to intercept Tomás. “Tomás!”
“Ay de mi,” Tomás sighed dramatically as he faced a scowling Cole backed up by his two chuckling brothers.
“Where the hell do you keep getting this stuff?”
“This stuff?” Tomás looked at his well-drained tequila bottle innocently.
“Yes, that stuff.” Cole failed to completely hide his amusement.
“An angel. Sí,” Tomás stressed when Cole groaned in disgust and the others started to laugh. “She looked down and saw that I was feeling very dry and foof, she sent this to clear away the dust in my throat. I think I should tell the church of this miracle.”
The nonsense and argument that followed kept Royal from seeing Oro until he was already settled in his bedroll. He decided that the matter of his sister’s tangled lovelife could wait until morning. Leaving Cole and Tomás to their never-ending dispute over the younger man’s drinking on a drive, Royal settled down on his own sleeping roll and found that for the first time in too many weeks he had no trouble at all in falling asleep.
* * *
When Patricia woke up the next morning and found Antonie watching her closely, she groaned, “I’m dying. Tomás poisoned me.”
Helping the white-faced girl from the wagon, Antonie scolded, “You should have known tequila was not a drink for you, a girl who has a little glass of sherry now and again. Now you pay for your foolishness, eh?”
Reaching the water barrel, Antonie deemed it clean enough and casually shoved Patricia’s face into the cool water. The screeches of protest Patricia made were cut off by the water, and Antonie easily controlled the girl’s struggles with a firm grip on Patricia’s wrists and hair. By the third ducking, Patricia’s brothers had arrived. Antonie decided that Patricia had had enough by then and released the girl.
“Might one ask what you’re doing?” Royal asked with a false casualness.
“She’s trying to drown me,” Patricia gasped as she sank down to sit on the ground.
“I was clearing her head of the tequila.” Antonie frowned at her dripping patient. “I do not think it helped.”
“No, it didn’t help,” Patricia muttered, her head in her hands. “I’m still dying, but now I’m doing it wide-awake and soaking wet.” She spared a bloodshot glare for her laughing audience. “It isn’t funny. God, I’m sure Tomás poisoned me.”
“Where is Tomás?”
Hearing the unspoken retribution in Antonie’s voice, Royal answered not quite truthfully, “I don’t know. Want some coffee, Pattie?”
“I’ll get it,” Justin offered when his sister groaned in the affirmative.
“You should have something to eat as well, muchacha,” suggested Antonie. “It will help.”
“How can eating help when the mere mention of food is killing me?” Patricia wailed, rubbing her throbbing temples.
“It will pass. Then you eat. Now you can lie back down in the back of the wagon while I drive, eh? That may help.” She shook her head as Patricia made her unsteady way back inside the wagon.
“I think Oro will drive the wagon today.” Royal saw but ignored the way that young man, lurking off to the side, suddenly stiffened. “I don’t think he ought to be on a horse, not with that head wound. You can ride up with me, Antonie.”
“But it is my job to be with your sister,” Antonie protested, trying to save Oro from such a trying situation.
“Not today.” He took her by the arm and paused before Oro, looking at the younger man in a way he hoped would convey what he meant without getting too exact. “The wagon is the best place for Oro.”
Oro’s eyes widened slightly. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
“What I want has nothing to do with it, but I do trust you like a brother.”
“Yours or hers, gringo?” Oro rasped quietly.
“Why, mine, of course,” Royal answered in a low voice. “Pattie neither needs nor wants another brother. Come on, Toni.”
“What was that all about?” she hissed as they walked away from the wagon and Oro. “It would be better for me to drive the wagon.”
“Can’t Oro handle a team?” Royal winked at a grinning Cole when Antonie swore in exasperation.
“You know what I speak of, gringo. Do not play stupid with me.” She tried to dig in her heels but he dragged her along. A brief glare at a chuckling Cole who walked behind them did nothing to dim that man’s amusement.
“I wouldn’t even try. I thought I was giving everyone what they wanted. Saddle up, sweets.”
“I am not your sweets.” She began to saddle her horse. “He is Mexican.”
“I noticed. I’ve nothing against Mexicans.”
“He has Yaqui blood in his veins.” She sent him a narrow-eyed look but saw no flicker of doubt or distaste.
“Well, as long as he’s not dripping it on my carpets or my boots, I don’t care what kind of blood he has. That is, of course, assuming his intentions are honorable,” Royal said quietly, but his gaze pinned Antonie to the spot demanding the truth.
“If they were not, gringo,” she swung up into her saddle, “he would have had her by now.” Not waiting for a response, Antonie spurred her horse toward the herd.
“I think she’s probably right,” Cole said as she rode off. “The girls at the saloon were reduced to hair pulling over him.”
“The saloon? That explains Pattie’s mood of late. That and Antonie.” He mounted and stared in the direction Antonie had gone. “Where’d that little blond witch go?”
“Maybe you ought to hold back for a bit.”
“Why? The truth is out now.”
“Yes, but you didn’t accept it from her lips,” Cole reminded him.
“I guessed that something was up, that she hadn’t been lying, just hiding something.”
“I’d give myself some time to put that thought into a pretty speech,” Cole offered.
“To soothe ruffled feathers?” Royal asked.
“She deserves to have a few.”
“A few, but she was not being completely truthful, was she?”
“No, but I can understand why. Oro’s like a brother to her, remember.”
“Yes, and the thing she was hiding could have caused a real messy stir-up.”
“No doubt about it, Royal.” Cole frowned, then shook his head. “The real sorry thing is that they had a right to think it could be downright dangerous if what was going on between Oro and Patricia was not only stopped, but hidden.”
Royal nodded. “If I hadn’t seen how badly they were hurting, I can’t say I would’ve been too happy to find out about it.”
“There will be trouble. Maybe a lot of it.”
“I know. I wonder if Patricia is really aware of what she will be facing?”
“Think what they feel is strong enough to survive it all?”
“With Oro, yes. Patricia? I’m not so sure.” Royal finally spotted Antonie riding with Tomás and cursed softly. “Of course, I could’ve done without the matched set.” He ignored Cole’s hearty laughter.
Antonie glanced over her shoulder and saw Royal watching her. She wished she could guess what he was thinking. He did not really seem to be angry, but she was sure that he would not be pleased about the deception she had been involved in, no matter how well he understood or sympathized with her reasons. He was not a man who tolerated games well. She decided to stay close to Tomás in the cowardly hope of putting off any immediate confrontation.
“Ah, Oro finally got up the courage to speak,” Tomás said as they prepared to stop for a noon rest.
“Considering the shape your brand of sympathy left her in,” Antonie drawled as she dismounted and reached for her canteen, “she has probably only just become able to be talked to.”
Doing the same as she, Tomás said sweetly, “Querida, I was only trying to take the sadness from her eyes for a little while.”
“It worked. Those eyes were no longer sad, only bloodshot.”
Tomás laughed softly. “She has no stomach for the drink. You know what would be sad?”
“What?”
“If Oro discovers that he succeeded in driving the little chica away.”
“You can take that worried frown from your face, amigo. The girl is very stubborn. She has stuck like a burr.”
“Good. It would be bad if, when he is so close, he finds he has lost her.”
“Very bad. She will need some pretty words though. He has hurt her. We have hurt her,” Antonie said.
“Sí. Words and loving. Oro does not know it, I think, but he is good with both.”
“Now what do you frown about?” she asked in teasing exasperation when he scowled.
“Oro will now settle down. He will have a wife, a bit of land, and babies to raise, eh?”
“You do not really think he could put you aside, do you, Tomás?” she asked gently. “You are more than brothers.”
“Sí, I know this. It is jealousy, I am thinking. I am surprised. I was not expecting this to happen.”
“I think we were unfair to these Bancrofts.”
“A little, sí. But, querida, they will understand. Maybe they surprise themselves by being so fair.”
“True. It is nice. Very nice. To them it is more important that people be happy, that the hurting has stopped.”
“I hope the hurting has stopped, chica. I hope the little girl Oro has set his heart on has the strength to keep loving him when the poison starts. And it will. There will be trouble. The Anglos won’t like this.”
“The Bancrofts are a power in that area. That will help. They have said sí to the match and will support it,” Antonie added.
“It will need support. Maybe a lot of it.”
Antonie was very afraid that he was right. With marriage to Patricia, Oro would get a nice little piece of land right in the middle of all those Anglos. They were not going to like that. The few Mexicans who had managed to cling to some land from the time when Mexico had ruled Texas, found it hard. A lot of people felt that Texas should only be for the Anglos.
She saw Royal making his way toward her, and knew she would not be able to mount her horse and get away without looking like a scared rabbit. She cursed and glancing at a rapidly mounting Tomás, scowled. He was deserting her. If there was any sort of confrontation coming, Tomás clearly wanted no part of it. Antonie vowed that she would think of some suitable revenge for Tomás’s desertion. Just as Royal reached her, she mounted her horse in a somewhat frantic attempt to put at least a little distance between them and give her some option for escape if things became too tense.
Royal eyed her warily. She was looking very defensive, as if she expected a fight and had already made her plans on how to handle it. Things would not be settled just yet. He could see that clearly. Nevertheless, he felt a need to speak to her about the matter, perhaps even put the first real chink in the wall that had sprung up between them.
Seeing that Oro and Patricia were back on the wagon seat after their protracted absence, and noting their smiles and subtle loving gestures, he said, “It looks like they have sorted themselves out.”
Looking at the couple for a moment, Antonie turned back to meet Royal’s gaze. “You cannot go back now, gringo.”
“I don’t intend to.” He grasped her reins. “I don’t like games, Antonie.”
She knew he now referred to the way she had stayed so close to Oro, letting everyone think they were lovers. “It was no game. You were my lover. Oro is the brother of my heart. If your brother was in trouble, who would you reach out to and who would you turn your back on and hope maybe that they would understand, trust, and be patient?”
“You could have told me what was going on.”
“To do so I would have had to tell too much. You asked if Oro was my lover, and I said no. That should have been enough.”
“It might have been if you hadn’t shut me out.”
“I told you I would not lie beneath a man who calls me a liar.” She yanked her reins free of his hold and rode away.
“Oh, hell,” Royal muttered, wondering how he could fix things, for he wanted her back in his bed.