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  “A man doesn’t fight over a woman with a gun, Roach,” he said in a cool, lowered voice. “This kind of fight calls for cold steel.”

  “I’m not fighting you with no knife, Wilson. I’m no damn fool.” He started to lift the Colt. “But you ain’t taking her in there, that’s a fact.”

  “I warned you for the last time, Rudy,” said Orez.

  Manning and Hardin took a step back, both knowing from Orez’s reputation that at any second the big knife would whistle through the air and plant itself deep in Roach’s chest. They doubted that Roach would even get the Colt clear of its holster.

  “Wait. Stop, Rudy! It is okay!” Rosa said, pivoting around between the two men. “I’ll go with him. It is okay! I do not mind so much.”

  Do not mind so much? Roach stood stunned. What was this?

  “Really, it is all right with me,” Rosa said. “We will only be a while. I do not want you to fight over me.”

  “But, Rosa, darling! I can’t let him take you in there. You’re my wife. . . .” Roach let his words trail.

  “But I want to go,” Rosa said. “Don’t you see? I want to go with him. It is all right.”

  “Let’s go,” Orez said gruffly, jerking on her arm.

  Son of a—! Roach slumped and watched as Orez and his wife disappeared through the doorway. Rosa smiled and blew him a kiss. Then a dirt-frayed canvas fell closed over the doorway. Roach heard Rosa giggle and let out a little squeal. He turned and looked around at Manning and Hardin.

  “She’s a good-natured one, I’ll say that for her,” Manning interjected. “Has she got any sisters?” He stepped over, looped an arm across Roach’s shoulder and he and Hardin ushered the stunned outlaw out the front door. In the falling rain, he unhitched Orez’s horse and the three led the wet muddy animal to a small plank and adobe barn.

  “I—I can’t believe she wanted to go with him,” Roach said brokenly, stopping outside the barn, staring back toward the adobe.

  “It does seem peculiar, I’ll give you that,” Manning said. Hardin nodded his head in solemn agreement. “Are you sure this woman knows you two are married?” Manning asked.

  “That’s a hell of a thing to say,” said Roach. “Of course she knows it.”

  “No offense intended,” said Manning. “The two of you are indeed legally wed?” he pressed.

  “Damn it, yes,” said Roach. Then he paused and recanted. “We didn’t stand before a preacher or nothing like that, but we both made promises.”

  “Oh . . . ,” said Manning.

  He and Hardin looked at each other.

  “Everything was on the level?” Manning pried. “No trouble of any kind?”

  “No, hell no,” said Roach. “Well . . . ” He paused. “I did sort of, more or less, shoot her pa. But it was nothing. We were trying to leave. He was stopping us—”

  “Whoa, now, back it up there,” Manning said, cutting him off. “You say you shot her pa?”

  “Jesus,” said Hardin, standing listening, holding Orez’s horse by its reins.

  “I was drunk, all right?” Roach shrugged.

  “Let me ask you this, Rudy,” said Manning, holding up a finger for emphasis. “Before you sort of more or less shot him, was she willingly leaving with you? Or did she only become willing after you shot him?”

  “Like I said, I was drunk,” Roach repeated with a shrug. He paused again under their accusing stares. “She seemed more willing afterward than she was before, but that’s only natural, I think—”

  “There it is,” Hardin said abruptly. “He stole her. Orez was right, she’s a captive.”

  “I never stole her, damn it!” Roach said. “She’s no captive, she’s my wife!”

  Manning looked off at the adobe through the cold pouring rain, then back at Roach.

  “Not right now, she’s not,” he said.

  “Damn Wilson Orez for taking her, and damn her for going with him,” said Roach. He raised his Colt from its holster, cocked it and started to walk toward the adobe. But he melted to the wet ground in a splash of water and mud as Manning stepped in behind him and soundly smacked his rifle butt into the back of Roach’s head.

  “Damn, you’ve killed him,” said Hardin.

  “No, I didn’t. But Orez most likely would have,” said Manning. “He hired us on to watch his back. We’re watching it. Help me get this knot-head up and out of the rain.”

  Shaking his head, Hardin dropped Orez’s horse’s reins and stepped around to take Roach by his muddy feet.

  “This right here is the very reason I’ll never get married,” said Hardin.

  “They’re not married, damn it,” said Manning, the two of them stooping to pick up the unconscious gunman. “You heard him—he stole her just like Orez accused him of doing. Sounds like it’s not the first time he’s ever done something like this.”

  “Yeah, but still. Married? Captive? I’ve seen it go both ways,” Hardin said, shaking his head.

  Manning just stared at him as they carried Roach inside the barn. Orez’s horse walked along behind them, its reins dragging in the mud.

  Chapter 10

  In the afternoon, the storms returned. Rosa Dulce had opened her eyes at the sound of thunder slamming down hard overhead, causing the adobe to tremble. She lay still for a moment, gathering her waking thoughts. When she saw lightning flare on the darkened adobe walls, she turned over quickly and looked toward the open window, knowing she had closed and bolted the shutter earlier that morning.

  A feeling of dread and fear came over her as she saw in another flash of lightning Wilson Orez standing naked in the open window. His big knife hung in a fringed and beaded sheath down his right shoulder.

  But in an instant she shed her fear of him and relaxed in the soft, blanketed straw. There was nothing to be afraid of, she reminded herself, recalling their earlier encounter. He had not harmed her. He had forced himself upon her as she had expected. She had surrendered herself to him, if not wantonly, at least not unwillingly, having found out even as a mere child that this was the best way to survive. And yet this man, Orez, had not taken her. When the time came for him to do what she saw his body was prepared to do, he had stopped himself. He had moved away from her and across the darkened room.

  Recalling it, she pulled a corner of the single blanket over herself and lay staring at him. In a flash of lightning, she saw Orez’s big gun lying on the pallet beside her. The canvas money bags sat on one corner of the pallet. But she only glanced at them, feeling a sharp chill of excitement run through her as she realized the gun hammer was already drawn back, fully cocked. God, did he not know the gun was there? she asked herself. If he knew, did he not think she would grab the gun, point it at his back and pull the trigger? He knew she was a captive. Didn’t he realize what an escape opportunity this gun gave her? She decided to make her move.

  Orez stood with his arms outstretched across the open window, his hands on either jamb. He was an older man, and he faced the storm as if he were in some way its supplicant, in other ways its commander. Looking at him, she noted, conjured a coppery taste of blood in the back of her mouth. She saw there was great pain in him.

  She could raise the gun and kill him, and be out the window and on a horse—shoo the other horses away in the storm. She closed her hand around the big gun butt. But after a moment she released it and gasped to regain her breath.

  “What’s stopping you?” Orez asked flatly, staring out at the black, swirling sky. His hair fell silver-black to his shoulders and stirred on an offshoot of wind. In the lightning flicker, deep scars on his left shoulder and lower right side were illuminated, stark and gruesome. They were painful to look at. She winched, knowing her hands would have had to touch those places had he remained atop her and done what he’d first intended to do.

  “Go back to Rudy,” he said, as if he was disgusted that he had
not done what he could have done so easily. He sounded disappointed, she thought.

  She fell silent beneath another slam of thunder, and waited as it rolled off the other end of the earth.

  “Rudy is not my husband,” she said. “I only say it because it is what he says.”

  “I know,” he said, speaking to the passing storm. “Rudy steals women and thinks they’re his wives.” He paused and continued staring out into the blackness. “Go to him. I’m done with you.”

  She lay silent. She never wanted to see Rudy again.

  Orez paused and listened for the rustle of her departure. Not hearing it, he let out a long breath, staring deeper into the rain and its gray, all-consuming darkness.

  “Go on, now, there’s nothing here for you,” he insisted, closing his eyes for a moment.

  She started to speak, but thought better of it. She sighed and reached for her clothes on the corner of the straw pallet. But when she started to stand and dress, Orez turned from the window and stared at her.

  “Wait,” he said.

  She stopped and held her clothes gathered at her breasts, waiting to hear what he’d say next.

  He stood looking down at her, the front of him wet from the blowing rain. Another deep scar across his chest, another on the front of his left thigh.

  She looked up at him questioningly, and she parted her knees slightly to him.

  “No,” he said. He picked up his shirt and dried himself, while from the other room the two of them heard the men’s voices speaking back and forth across the wooden table.

  “Did he kill your family?” he asked her matter-of-factly, in a lowered voice.

  “I have only my papa,” she replied in a whisper. “Rudy shot him, but he still lives, or so it was when we left.”

  “You came with him to take him away from your father, to keep him from shooting him again,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  “I lie down for him, I say I am his wife,” she said quietly. “For you I will say the same thing . . . if you want me to.”

  He stood silently and stared toward the sound of the men’s voices beyond the closed door, as if considering her offer.

  “No,” he said. “Get dressed.”

  She continued staring up at him, her clothes in hand, making no attempt at dressing. She preferred any man to Rudy Roach.

  “Why did you not take me?” she whispered secretively. “As badly as I saw you wanted to.”

  “I said, get dressed,” Orez said firmly. “I told you I’m done with you.” He hooked his thumb in the knife belt hanging down his shoulder. “I thought I wanted you. I changed my mind.”

  She looked almost hurt by his words.

  “Then—then why did you want me to begin with?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said, dismissing the matter. He stopped, then said, “Because you look like somebody I knew a long time ago.”

  “Oh. . . .” She lay silent.

  “Because in the dark I saw myself with her,” he said. “You looked like her, you felt like her . . . you tasted like her—” He stopped himself short. “But you’re not her.”

  She looked at him with interest, sensing there was more to come.

  “No, that’s not why I did it,” he said. “I did it because I felt it might be my last time. All right?” His voice had a ring of finality to it.

  She only stared at him in silence. Lightning streaked and flashed purple-orange on the wall and across his face. Thunder slammed down overhead.

  “Your last time?” she whispered. “What do you mean . . . ?”

  He stared at her without answering.

  Was it death she saw in his face, heard in his voice?

  “Come down here,” she said softly, on an impulse. She patted a hand on the pallet beside her.

  He shook his head no. Yet, as if on second thought, he stooped down and laid his clothes aside. He uncocked the big gun and placed it on his clothes.

  “Perhaps this is the last time,” she whispered. “Perhaps it is only the first of many times to come. Or perhaps we only lie here in each other’s arms until the storm passes.”

  Orez didn’t reply. Instead he stretched out beside her and looked up at the crusty mud and timber ceiling. Above the ceiling, rain spilled like iron nails pitched across the tin roof.

  “Think of me as her if you need to,” she whispered. “I do not mind so long as she is someone you love, someone you are tender and gentle with.”

  “She’s dead,” Orez said bluntly. “Everybody I know is dead.”

  “Oh.” She paused, but only for a moment. She softly touched a hard terrible scar on his chest. “Even so, tonight I will be this woman, and you will not be alone,” she whispered.

  When the storm had let up a little, the rain no longer falling at a slant, Freeman Manning and Evan Hardin sat at the wooden table playing poker. They had left Rudy Roach half-conscious and sulking in the barn with the horses.

  “What kind of fool is this Rudy Roach? He goes around stealing women, thinking they’re his wives?” Hardin pitched in three cards, then drew three more and tucked them one at a time into his hand.

  “I won’t even try to guess,” said Manning, also straightening his card hand.

  “Maybe that smack to the head you gave him will straighten his outlook a little,” said Hardin.

  “I don’t know,” said Manning. “Alls I know is Wilson Orez hired us both for our shooting ability. If he wants us to shoot Rudy, that’s within my makeup. But as for knowing why an idiot does what an idiot does . . .” He let his words trail. “That’s not in my range of understanding.”

  “Well, anyway,” Hardin said under his breath, “it looks like Orez has turned out to be the benefactor of Rudy’s marriage.” He grinned and nodded toward the closed door.

  “I don’t want to even picture what’s going on in there,” said Manning. “It would only serve to make me sorely aware of how some men have all the luck and others of us don’t even get the shavings off the stick.”

  “Amen, I hear you,” Hardin said with a slight chuckle. He laid his cards down and fanned them. Three kings and two sevens stared up at Manning. “This might not boost your attitude any.” He gave another grin. “Casa llena!” he said, beaming.

  “Full house . . . ,” Manning translated bitterly. “Son of a bitch. See what I mean?” he growled, throwing his cards down in disgust.

  Both gunmen turned in surprise when the front door flew open so hard it banged against the wall and stayed there. Roach stepped in, his gun hanging in his right hand, cocked and ready. The two gunmen froze, seeing Roach staring straight at the closed door to the next room. Manning already had his hand on his Colt lying on the table. Hardin’s hand rested on the table edge, ready to drop to his holstered Colt.

  “I can’t stand it!” Roach shouted at the closed door. “Come out, Wilson. I’m going to kill you!”

  “Easy, Rudy,” cautioned Manning. “We talked about all this earlier. Mine and Evan’s job is to cover the man’s back. We can’t let you do this. Why don’t you go on back and try to cool down before—”

  “Both of you stay the hell out of this, unless you want to die with him!” Roach shouted, cutting Manning off. “I ain’t forgot that one of you busted me in the head.” He quarter-turned toward them, his gun still hanging in his hand.

  “All right, Rudy, it’s all your show,” said Hardin, hoping to pacify the enraged gunman until he got a chance to go for his own gun. “We’ve not been riding with you or Orez long enough to go taking sides. Ain’t that right, Freeman?”

  “You’re damn right it’s right, Evan,” said Manning, knowing what was up. “You and me are newcomers here. We need to keep our noses out of it.” He didn’t have to give Hardin a look. It was understood, they would both chop the gunman down as soon as his attention strayed from them.

&n
bsp; Roach turned back to the closed door as fresh thunder rumbled in the distance with a promise of more storms to come.

  “You heard them, Wilson!” he shouted at the closed door. “It’s between you and me! You’re not taking this woman from me. I aim to kill you and take back my wife!”

  Seeing Roach’s wild eyes fix on the closed door, Manning and Hardin started to make their move. Manning’s hand closed tight around the butt of his gun on the tabletop. Hardin’s hand dropped and closed around the holstered Colt on his hip. Both guns started to swing toward Roach at the same instant. But both stopped and froze for a second, seeing Roach buck an awkward step forward. A red spray of blood misted in the air in front of him as a bullet whistled through the open front door and punched a large hole through the middle of his back.

  “Orez?” said Manning. The two stared toward the open front door. But whatever thought they might have formed on the matter vanished as a heavy barrage of rifle fire ripped through the open front door and thumped into the thick wooden window shutters. Bullets zipped in, knocking over chairs, dinging and ricocheting off the large iron pots in the hearth. Splinters flew through the air.

  The two gunmen dropped and took cover, turning the thick wooden table over between themselves and the wide-open front door.

  “Get that door shut, Evan,” Manning shouted, reaching his Colt around the edge of the upturned table and firing.

  Without hesitation, Hardin belly-crawled from behind the table to the front corner of the room. He stopped long enough to peep out through a crack in the front wall from where he spotted four gunmen crouched behind cover in the falling rain, pouring rifle fire at the adobe. Beyond the gunmen, a Mexican peered out around the corner of the barn door.

  “Damn it,” Hardin said in a harsh tone beneath the roar of the rifles.

  “What have we got out there, Evan?” Manning said, hunkered down in a corner, having managed to grab his Spencer rifle and a bandolier of ammunition from against the table. He popped a handful of bullets from the bandolier and dropped them one after the other down the open loading tube of the Spencer as he spoke.