A Lady Bought with Rifles by Jeanne Williams Page A

vermin!”
    â€œEnough!” said Trace. He rose at the sound of horses.
    â€œAm I expected to stay the night alone in this hovel?” demanded Reina.
    â€œYou may sleep outside,” suggested Trace. “Or ride with us.”
    She stared at him, touched her full lower lip with the tip of her tongue. “And if I command you, as your employer, to stay here?”
    He said softly, “I would tell you, señorita, to go to hell.”
    As her green eyes dilated in shock, he picked Sewa up. We went out, Lázaro closing the door with flowery assurances to Reina that she would be as safe as if she were bolted in her chamber in Las Coronas. She shrieked something that might have made him revise his opinion of her, but I was too frightened for Sewa to care about Reina’s moods.
    Lázaro helped me mount. My every bone and muscle ached, and this new horse, possibly vexed at being caught up after dark when all decent beasts can rest, moved in a jarring, jolting trot that was torture. Trace had decided to carry Sewa in front of him, which I took as an ominous sign—perhaps he thought she wouldn’t be coming back or, if she did, would be unable to sit a horse.
    A short distance from the adobes, we seemed heading into, sheer mountain walls, but Trace led through a narrow defile that presently widened into another canyon, so deep that the moon reached only the center, casting a luminous trail with darkness on either side.
    The valley of the shadow of death . Ice closed on my heart. Death hovered over Sewa, I was sure, or Trace would have brought the curer to her. “I will fear no evil,” I prayed desperately. “Fear no evil.…”
    Our horses’ hooves echoed the words, mockingly pounding them into my mind. For I did fear evil. I feared the infection in Sewa’s body, but even more the chilling hate in Lázaro’s eyes, the venom in Reina’s. I feared the cruelty that could do this to a child more than all those bogies of the litany: battle, murder, and sudden death.
    â€œGood Lord, deliver us,” I pleaded.’ “Let the child get well.” Onza or witch, I didn’t care what this Cruz was, so long as he healed the small figure cradled in Trace’s arms. I envied her that place of comfort as we rode on in the night of black and silver.
    Evil, evil, evil. I … will … fear. Fear no evil. For thou art with me. My eyes kept closing from sheer fatigue. Then my raw-gaited horse stopped so abruptly that I would have gone on over his neck if strong hands hadn’t caught and lifted me down.
    Shaking my head to clear it, I looked into a dark face that might have been carved from mahogany.
    â€œDo not be afraid,” the stranger said. “The child will not die. But we must hurry.” He turned and I followed to the hut Trace was already entering with Sewa.

4
    Cruz did not explain how he knew we were coming, but there could be no doubt he was prepared for visitors. A candle burned on a ledge. Water was boiling on a sort of brazier improvised from a Standard Oil can with a grate on top.
    Cruz poured this water into a jug. An aromatic smell quickly filled the room. Trace had placed Sewa on a woven straw mat. Cruz, humming to himself, got something from a chest and gave it to her. It was a flute made of cane. I was astounded when he sat down next to the child and began to show her how to coax, notes from it. When she got her first birdlike trill, she gave the first laugh I’d heard from her.
    Cruz went to pour his steaming brew into three earthenware bowls that he handed to Trace, Sewa, and me. I noticed he added something to her drink.
    Why didn’t he look at her foot? Ask how she’d been hurt and when? He’d guessed we were coming, but I didn’t want him to guess about Sewa. Urgencies sprang to my lips, but I felt Trace’s eyes on me, bit back my questions. He would speak when it was time. I knew that more surely than