Chapter Eight #3
Hours passed. Pulling the blankets off her bed, she fashioned a makeshift bedroll, stuffing the shawl the don had given her inside along with a second skirt and blouse Florentia had provided and a partially burned white tallow candle.
The two-foot-long candleholder was made of heavy wrought iron.
It would serve well as a weapon. She’d been hoarding food for the past two days.
She rolled it up in the coarse linen towel beside the water pitcher on the dresser and tucked it in with the rest of the supplies.
Plaiting her hair into a single thick braid, she tied it with a piece of string and lay down on the bed to sleep. Instead she tossed and turned and stared up at the ceiling, praying she was doing the right thing.
At four o’clock, she gave up. She scribbled a note to Florentia, telling her not to make breakfast, that she had left at dawn with some of the women to bathe and wash her clothes in the stream. She would eat something later with Tomasina.
Anything to delay them.
It was colder than she had imagined so she took out the shawl and wrapped it around her shoulders, then pulled on her sandals and climbed out the window, makeshift bedroll in hand.
There was no one near the wagon. She climbed in the back and pulled the canvas tarpaulin over her head.
Every minute dragged, turned into long, nerve-wracking hours.
Finally she heard voices and the jangling of harnesses as a team of horses was hitched into their traces.
The wagon creaked beneath the heavy weight of the man who climbed up on the rough wooden seat. Francisco Villegas, Miranda had said.
It was still cold outside, but a trickle of perspiration ran between her breasts.
Her palms were damp, and her heart beat fiercely.
As the wagon picked up speed, she slid the long wrought-iron candle stand out from inside the bedroll and hid it beneath the bundle.
Then she waited, ignoring the pounding her bones were taking against the hard rough wood as they bumped along the dusty road.
For the first time it occurred to her the wagon hadn’t turned toward the entrance to the compound, but rolled off in the other direction. It also dawned on her that a wagon couldn’t make the steep descent down the mountain on the trail that she had traveled up.
There must be another entrance to Llano Mirada. Don Ramon had lied.
Some of her uncertainty in leaving slipped away.
She couldn’t trust Ramon de la Guerra, no matter how charming he pretended to be.
She had trusted him before and she had wound up as his prisoner.
He had promised she would be safe from his advances and then he had kissed her savagely, fondled her breasts, and perhaps meant to take even more liberties than that.
Leaving—by whatever means she could—was the only choice she had.
The tarpaulin rustled, lifted at the front near the wagon seat. “Stay down and be silent,” a gruff voice said. “There are guards along the trail. None of them must see you.”
Carly just nodded, and the canvas fell back into place, but the image she had seen of the big, burly man with the shiny gold tooth who was driving the wagon remained.
Her fears returned full force and nothing she could think of made them go away.
* * *
Wearing a worried frown, Pedro Sanchez pulled the cinch tight on his saddle and swung himself aboard his dappled gray stallion. In the doorway of the lean-to, Florentia wrung her chubby hands.
“Where could she have gone?” she said. “None of the guards saw her leave.” It was almost ten in the morning. They hadn’t begun the search until nine, when the housekeeper had spotted Tomasina heading toward the stream to wash her clothes. Neither she nor any of the women had seen Carly.
“There is only one way she could have left,” Pedro said grimly. “In the wagon with Cisco Villegas. He has been restless lately, eager for more spoils or a chance to spend his share of the money from the horses.”
Florentia made the sign of the cross over her large plump bosom. “Madre de Dios. Cisco is the worst of the lot. The girl would be safer with a mountain lion.”
A commotion outside the corral drew Pedro’s attention. He glanced up to see Ramon de la Guerra riding toward him, astride a tall bay horse.
Relief rolled through him, mingled with regret for his failure to keep the little gringa safe. “I am glad to see you, Don Ramon.”
“What is it, Pedro? I can see by your face that something is wrong.”
Pedro sighed wearily. “The girl is missing. Villegas is the only one who could have taken her.” Ramon’s face went pale beneath his dark skin. “Ruiz and I are going after them. I am sorry, my friend, to have failed you, but I will see she is returned.”
For a moment, Ramon said nothing, but the lines of his face looked harsh and his eyes were dark wells of anger.
“The blame is not yours. I wanted her to have some measure of freedom. You could not have known Villegas would take advantage.” He shoved his hat back off his head and it slid down his back, dangling from his throat by a thin braided strap.
He raked a hand through his wavy, black hair.
“The bastardo means to sell her. How long have they been gone?”
“It was his turn to go in for supplies. He left with the wagon at dawn.”
Ramon swung down from his tired horse, handed the reins to Ruiz Domingo who had just walked up, and prepared to ride with Sanchez. “Saddle Viento,” Ramon said to him. “Do it quickly.”
“Si, Don Ramon.”
He turned to Sanchez. “You have supplies in your saddlebags?” he asked.
“Si. Enough for at least three days.”
“I will need them.”
“I will have Florentia bring more, if you are coming with us.”
Ramon shook his head. “I am riding alone. I can make better time by myself. Besides, this is between Villegas and me.”
Pedro wanted to argue, to remind him what a dangerous man Cisco was, but he did not argue. He had seen the don look this implacable only one other time—the night his brother had died. The night he had taken the girl.
“I will need my weapons,” Ramon said.
“I will get them for you.” By the time Pedro returned to the corral, Viento was waiting saddled and ready, a bedroll tied behind the cantle, bolas filled with supplies, and a heavy Sharp’s rifle shoved into the sheath near the horse’s flanks.
Accepting the brace of pistols Pedro carried, Ramon swung aboard the big black horse. “If I am not back in three days time, take some of the men and head for Nogales. Find the girl and kill Villegas—for it is certain that he has killed me.”