Desert Dreams (6 page)

"Are you related?"

"I—I'm her niece f-from Natchez."

"Oh, dear, won't you come inside?"

"No," Anne said, taking another step back. She
didn't think she could bear to be inside that bright, cozy-looking home, to see
the way other people lived and to know that it would forever be a dream for
her. She couldn't bear this woman's pity. "I just need to know—"

"Who is it, Sarah?" A man came to stand behind the
woman. His eyes were wide and kind-looking, his demeanor and appearance as
comfortable as the house they lived in.

The woman placed a hand on the man's arm. "It's Maggie's
niece, come all the way from Natchez." She directed her next words to
Anne. "It's been two months since Maggie took sick—"

"Two months?" Two months ago, she'd been living in
Natchez with her father, only vaguely aware that Ubiquitous, Texas, and
Marguerite Tremaine even existed.

"Consumption. She died about ten days ago."

"She was dead before I sent the letter," Anne
murmured.

"It must be a shock to you, dear," the woman said.
"Won't you come inside and have some tea? Perhaps some dinner?"

"By all means," the man insisted. "Maggie was
a dear friend."

She was already off the stoop and on the sidewalk, gasping
for breath, struggling to make sense of it all. "Thank you anyway, but I
have to—"

Her throat closed, and she couldn't finish. Turning away, she
picked up her carpetbag and hurried back toward the stage depot.

Rounding a corner, she stopped and leaned against a pole for
support. A sob escaped her control, and she clutched a fist to her chest. She
would not cry. Crying did no good. It changed nothing. She was alone, more
alone than she had ever been in her life, and she needed to decide what to do,
not give in to tears.

The sky was darkening. She certainly couldn't stay here. She'd
have to go back to the hotel she had scorned earlier. 

It just cost money, something she had precious little of.
Money for a bed. Money for food. She didn’t know if she could go another day
without eating, and what did it matter? What was she going to do now?

She’d think of something, but not now. It took all her
strength and resolve to straighten her spine, to turn away from her dream and
head back to the hotel.

* * * * *

She didn't know what time it was when she finally gave up
trying to sleep and got out of bed. Somewhere in the town, a rooster crowed, so
it must be nearly dawn. Lighting a lamp beside the bed, she rubbed her face in
an attempt to clear her head. Exhaustion and hopelessness lurked in the
shadows, ready to swallow her if she allowed it.

She had to be strong. She'd always had to be strong.

With a weary sigh, she went to stand by the open window. What
was she supposed to do now? The prospect of trying to make some kind of life
for herself alone in this foreign place filled her with dread.

In all the world she had no one. Her mother's wealthy family
in New Orleans had turned its back on them when her mother had married someone
not of their choosing. Her father had no family. She had no one, nothing.
Hopelessness and stark aloneness crushed her.

I could die and no one would care.

Swiping angrily at the tears that welled in her eyes, she
knelt on the floor beside the bed, shoving her hand underneath the mattress,
thinking about her father and reliving the night of his death over and over in her
mind.

Until her father had been shot on the street in Natchez, she
hadn't realized that blood had an odor or that death had an odor. Smelling it
again just last night had brought back a flood of memories.

She closed her eyes tightly. Her mind played the "what
if" game. What if Papa hadn't gone back out that night? What if he hadn't
cheated at cards in order to win? What if Borden McKenna hadn't caught him?
What if Borden McKenna had truly loved her?

As her hand closed around the object she had been groping for
beneath the mattress, she tried to empty her mind. She pulled out the worn
leather pouch and sat on the bed once again, stroking the bag's soft surface.

She'd made the running bag in Baton Rouge. So much had
happened since then, she wasn't sure which of the fifty or so women who had
taken refuge in the orphanage during the bombardment had come up with the idea.
It didn't matter anymore. Whoever thought of it had made all of their lives
easier. The next time they had to flee, their hands were free and their
belongings hidden and secure inside their petticoats.

Even now, she could almost hear the cannon fire from the
ships on the river that had sent her and the rest of the population fleeing
through the streets in the middle of the night.

The running bag could be attached to hooks sewn inside the
waistband of her skirt so that she could flee at a moment's notice without
leaving behind her most prized possessions. At the same time, she could keep
her hands free. It had worked well, and she had kept it, even after her father
had sent Borden McKenna to Baton Rouge to find her and bring her to Natchez.

Opening the bag now, she spread its contents on the bed,
trying not to think of the past. She had enough to worry about in the present.

She picked up a folded piece of paper, a letter from her
father. He'd written it to her in Natchez while she was in Baton Rouge, but he
had never gotten around to posting it. She'd only found it after the funeral.
She couldn't bear to look at it. The pain of his death was too fresh still, so
she stuffed it back inside the pouch and went on to the next item, a small
bottle of perfume. Uncorking the bottle, she held it beneath her nose.

"Jasmine," Borden McKenna had said. "It suits
you, Anne. Lovely, delicate, but strong."

A growl rumbled up from her throat. She might shed a tear now
and then over her father's death, but she'd be damned if Borden McKenna would
ever make her cry again. She placed the bottle on the bedside table and
returned the rest of her possessions to the pouch, all except her money.

She'd been hoarding money and hiding it from her father all
her life. If she had not, they surely would have starved to death. She had
managed to save a small nest egg, most of which she had been forced to use in
Baton Rouge to support herself and later in Natchez to support both of them.
But she still had most of the silver and gold her father had won that last
night. She'd left the folding money behind. Confederate money was hardly worth
the paper it was printed on. Silver and gold, now that was a different story.
Harder to carry, true, but silver and gold would always hold their value.

She knew how much money she had left. She'd counted it
earlier in the evening after she ate a modest dinner in the hotel restaurant.
Even so, she counted it again. "Thirty-six dollars," she said aloud
when she'd finished counting, thirty-six dollars and whatever she had in her
reticule. She'd started out with much more than that, but there had been so
many men to bribe just to get across the border into Texas.

Thirty-six dollars wasn't going to last long, not when a
stagecoach ride from San Antonio to Ubiquitous cost ten dollars. She didn't
have nearly enough money to go back to New Orleans, even if she wanted to.

There weren't many things she could do to earn a living. She
could sew, but she hated sewing almost as much as she hated being poor.

The only other skill she possessed was gambling, and she
would only stoop that low once she exhausted all other options. But did she
really have options? Or had she already exhausted them?

A million dollars in gold.
The words of
the Mexican haunted her. She'd tried all day to forget them. She'd told herself
she didn't want the gold, she would be perfectly happy with a simple life with
her mother's sister.

But that wasn't to be. Marguerite Tremaine was dead. And Anne
had nothing. As always she would have to rely on herself. If she wanted that
house, and she wanted it desperately, she would have to have money. In fact, if
she wanted to
live,
she would have to have
money.

It is hidden in a small church in the town of Concepción,
near Chihuahua. Mexico. No one could find it if they did not know already where
it was.

Where on earth was Concepción, Mexico? How far? How would she
ever get there? Defeat settled heavy on her heart. She couldn't do this alone.
The only person in Texas she knew by name was Rafe Montalvo, a professional
killer. She could never ask him for help. Could she?

She blinked wearily. Her eyelids were heavy, and suddenly she
wanted to sleep and not wake up for two days.

Her hand closed around the perfume bottle on the bedside
table, and she carried it across the room to the open window. The sky had begun
turning pink and soon the sun would be high overhead. If she allowed herself to
fall asleep now, she wouldn't wake up until late afternoon, and she needed to
be at the bank when it opened this morning.

Leaning out the window, she dropped the perfume bottle. It
shattered on the wooden sidewalk below her window and she smiled with
satisfaction. Why she had kept it for so long, she couldn't say, but it felt
liberating to let it go. She made a silent vow then and there never to think of
Borden McKenna again, never to look back, to keep her eyes fixed on the future.

She reached up to touch the locket that wasn't there, and the
pain of loss twisted in her heart. It was the last thing her father had ever
given her, that and the money spread on the bed before her now. She would go to
the bank and try to turn that inheritance into a home. Perhaps her father could
provide something for her in death that he never could have given her in life.

, * * * * *

The crack of a gunshot echoed across the empty desert.

Rafe sat Bolted upright with a gasp, suddenly wide awake. He was
panting and covered with sweat. It took him a moment to get his bearings and
remember where he was.

Texas, yes, Texas. Five years separated him from that hideous
memory, five years and a thick wall of defenses.

"It was just a dream," he said aloud, as if they
could protect him, as if they could wipe out the past and the pain that was
every bit as strong today as it had been then.

He squeezed his eyes shut and ran a hand through his damp,
tousled hair, then threw off the covers and got out of bed.

In the early morning darkness, he stumbled to the washstand
across the room, poured water into the basin, then splashed it over his face
and bare chest.

"Goddammit!" he said aloud, bracing himself with
his hands on either side of the washstand, shivering in the aftermath of the
dream. It was always like this afterward: the tremors, the nausea, the impotent
fury.

The dream had haunted him for five years now, but lately it
seemed to be visiting him more often than usual, as if his own mind were attacking
him. It would give him no rest until he took the vengeance that had been his
single reason to go on living and fighting, even in the darkest times when he
would have almost welcomed death.

Grabbing a towel, he dried his face and chest. Useless regret
and guilt twisted in his gut until he found it almost impossible to breathe.

Even time couldn't dull some memories.

He studied his reflection in the cracked, faded glass.
Running a hand over his
stubbled
chin, he tried to
remain detached, tried not to study too closely the man who looked back at him,
afraid of what he might find there. He'd been chasing after animals for so long
he had almost become one of them. His single-minded quest for vengeance had
left a permanent scar on his soul. It showed in his eyes, he didn't have to
look to know that.

He walked across the room to the corner where he had dropped
his saddlebags, closing his mind against the vestiges of the nightmare, against
any emotion. It was his only defense, and it was getting harder to maintain
with every day that passed. A constant battle raged inside him, a battle for
control. If he ever lost control, he didn't want to contemplate what might
happen.

As he unfolded the clean shirt he took from the saddlebag,
something fell out and hit his bare foot. He bent down and retrieved the locket
by its gold chain. Looking at the trinket made him think of its owner, and a
bitter smile twisted his lips.

His cracked thumbnail worked at the catch. It still smelled
of her, a faint, hauntingly feminine scent that was hers alone.

"Empty," he said aloud.

The locket was of the finest gold, crafted with care by a
master jeweler. The piece might easily be an heirloom. And yet its owner could
not find one image among all her possessions dear enough to wear close to her
heart.

Nothing about her made sense. She was like a puzzle, and none
of the pieces fit. He shouldn't care. The less he knew about her, the better.

But the memory of her soft skin, her dark violet eyes, and
the way she'd felt in his arms made him forget for a moment that she was a
complication, nothing more, a complication that had already cost him four
hundred dollars in bounty money. When he realized she was leaving San Antonio
on the stage, there was no way he could have waited long enough to collect what
the sheriff owed him.