Читать книгу The Wildcatter - Peggy Nicholson - Страница 12

BY LATE AFTERNOON the crew had cut, raked, then turned as much grass as could be baled on the morrow. Since the weather promised to hold hot and dry, they’d be working straight through the weekend. So the hay boss had given them the rest of this day off.

Half the men were taking siestas in the bunkhouse. The rest had crammed themselves into two pickups and set off, whooping and jostling, for the Lone Star. They wouldn’t come staggering back until closing time.

Miguel put all thoughts of blissful naps and ice-cold bottles of cerveza firmly from mind. Today, at last, he’d make it to the Badwater—no, the Sweetwater—Flats.

Well, he’d thought he would. But when he and Jackhammer came to the bridge over the river, he noticed the trace of a path heading south along the base of the cliffs. Any cut in the earth was a siren song and this one had been singing to him for days, each time he rode the hay wagon past this point. “We’ll go only as far as that first bend,” he assured Jackhammer.

What a lie. Once a man reached a bend, there was always an obligation to peer around it. Who knew that heaven didn’t lie just beyond?

Miguel didn’t find heaven, but he found enough to lure him on. The sedimentary strata through which the ancient river had carved its winding course lay level where the bridge made its crossing. But as he rode south, gradually it began to dip. Good, that was very good; he lived for folds in the earth. He glanced wistfully over his shoulder, since the sediments apparently were rising to the north, but still he continued south. It was just as important to find a marker bed, an identifiable stratum, so he could orient himself. In Texas it would have taken only a glance or two to know where he was, but this was virgin territory.

And he the eager bridegroom. His eyes roved lovingly over the striated cliffs—a layer of dark gray shale lensed out between two layers of limestone—Mancos shale, possibly? He twisted around and dug his rock hammer out of the saddlebag, then sidled his horse in next to the wall of stone. “Be still, you. This will take only a minute.”

The steel spike chopped into the chunk he wanted—a chip ricocheted—Jackhammer’s ears flattened to his head.

“Whoa!” The gelding spun on a dime, took two stiff-legged, jolting hops as his head swung down to his hooves. “So I’m sorry, I didn’t—hey!”

The next thing Miguel knew, he was flying in a magnificent arc, hammer firmly grasped in one hand, mouth rounding to an outraged “Oh.” Off to his left, Jackhammer kicked up his back heels—who knew the brown bastard could move like that?—then shot off toward the—

Miguel hit the water headfirst and forgot about horses. There was a moment of cold confusion, frantic splashing—air, where was the damn air?—then he surfaced, cursing and coughing. “¡Hijo de—!” He burst out laughing.

So a horse wasn’t an unfeeling machine. The sooner he learned that, the better. He glanced around and grimaced. Jack hadn’t waited for an apology. By now he’d be halfway to the barn, blasted brute.

Miguel swiped a forearm across his brow, wiping the hair from his eyes, shrugged and turned back to the cliff. From this low angle he could see details he’d missed looking down from a saddle. And there in the shale, not a foot above ground level—he narrowed his eyes and waded closer—yes, por Dios, there where it had been waiting patiently for millions of years for a man to be thrown from his horse… “You were right, Harry.” Whatever the misfortune, there was always a balancing compensation. Hadn’t he held on to his hammer?

Miguel scrambled out, knelt, commenced delicately to chip stone.

Once he’d pocketed his prize he wandered on, his boots squelching softly. The beds continued to dip southward, layers of shale, limestone and sandstone striping the cliffs in diagonal alternations of gray and cream and gritty pink. He took samples, loading his jeans pockets with rocks, regretting that he couldn’t make notes and sketches of what he found. But Jackhammer had run off with his notebook. Miguel frowned. Wouldn’t want anybody at the barn to look into his saddlebags. He ought to go back.

But there was another bend up ahead. “Just this last one,” he promised himself, and, turning his face to the cliff—the trail had become only a narrow ledge some four feet above the river—he edged sideways along it. As he rounded a bulge of water-smoothed limestone, as luscious to the hands as a woman’s hips, he heard laughter and stopped short. Glanced ahead.

To where two mermaids, astride two sea horses, cavorted and wrestled in the river. Cielo, indeed! Giggling breathlessly, each was trying to shove the other off her swimming steed. Long arms flashing, pale legs twisting, the small, dark one toppled with a hapless screech and a resounding splash. The other mermaid raised her beautiful arms, arching her back as she shook her fists at the sky. “Yes!”

Miguel turned around on his ledge, leaned against the rock and devoured her with his eyes. Tankersly’s daughter. For an instant he hadn’t recognized her. Her hair was so much darker, wet, curling in coppery ribbons over her high, apple-sized breasts. Manzanitas deliciosas. She wore a drenched white T-shirt, which clung to her slender curves like a mermaid’s pearly scales. And below that—he swallowed audibly—only a scrap of turquoise, above legs so long she might have wrapped them twice around his waist with inches to spare.

The little one scrambled up the side of her mount, then froze, propped on her locked arms, her eyes rounding as they met Miguel’s across the pool. “It’s him! Risa, it’s—” She dropped from view behind her pony.

“What?” She—Miguel was beginning to think of her simply as she—spun so fast her hair whirled out around her, chains of copper dripping diamonds.

He laughed softly—how could anything be this perfect?

Her dark eyebrows—surprisingly dark, given her hair—drew together; her golden eyes speared him. She’d taken offense.

He couldn’t blame her. Clearly he’d stumbled into Women’s Magic here. But there was no going back. No way he could unsee what he’d seen. And whatever penalty he must pay in exchange for this vision, he’d pay it gladly. A man was the sum of what he’d witnessed, and he was richer for this sight.

Her far leg arched over the rump of her palomino and she dropped down into the water—spun again to glare at him, chest-deep in the river.

Ah, so that wasn’t a bathing-suit bottom she was wearing. Odd how that realization heated the blood.

“What are you doing here?”

The little one appeared beyond the palomino, swimming toward the far bank, tugging her pony behind her by its bridle. She stopped when she reached waist-deep water, and swung to stare at him, much the way a doe will run, then turn to see if you pursue.

But her elder sister—Risa, was that what the little one had called her?—waded toward Miguel, eyes gold and fierce as a mama wildcat’s. “I said—”

“I’m collecting rocks,” he said easily, before she could scold him. “And better things.” He dropped to his heels with care and fished in his shirt pocket. “Such as this.” He held his find out and waggled it invitingly.

Ah, he had her. Her eyebrows went up. She was dying to see what he had.

“Cretaceous period,” he told her, helpless to stop himself from showing off, any more than a stallion can stop himself from arching his neck and prancing around a ready mare. “Sixty-five million years old, give or take a couple of million.”

“What is it?” shrilled the little one from the shallows.

He closed his fingers, hiding it from view. “An inoceramus.” To fix his gaze on Risa’s face as she waded warily closer took an effort of will. As the creek bottom shelved upward, she was rising like a nymph from the waves. His eyes yearned to melt down over her, praising every swaying curve and hollow.

“And what’s that?” She stopped with the water lapping her slender waist.

“You tell me.” He offered it, cocked his head in challenge. Her bottom lip pushed out a delectable quarter inch in annoyance, but still she reached. He laid it delicately on her palm. Para tú.

“Risa, what is it?” shrilled her younger sister, bouncing with impatience.

“A fossil.” Intent on its ribbed and fluted shape, Risa turned it slowly. “Some sort of clam.”

She hadn’t said “only a clam.” Abruptly it struck him that liking a woman would be more dangerous than lusting after her.

“It’s really that old?” she added.

He nodded. “Waiting here for us all that time.”

“Let me see!” The little one had waded ashore, tied both the horses, and now launched herself across the stream. Heads almost touching, the mermaids studied the inoceramus while Miguel studied them. Such different coloring, sunset and midnight—rubia y oscura. When you looked for it there was not much resemblance, either to Tankersly or each other, but still, they were unmistakably sisters.

La oscura glanced up at him. “You found it underwater?”

“No. Embedded in the cliff. One finds such in shale.”

“But you’re all wet.”

Miguel had to admit he was. “My horse threw me in the creek.”

His wry look earned him a bubbling laugh from the niña, and a twitch of those luscious lips from her elder sister.

“Then you’ll have to ride back with us,” decided the little one. “Risa’s Sunny can carry two.”

“Thank you,” he said quickly as Risa frowned and her lips parted to counter this offer. No way would he pass it up!

He waited on his ledge while the sisters crossed to the far bank. Turning his face gallantly to the cliff, still he could picture Risa shimmying into her jeans.

“What’s your name?” the little one called, her shyness forgotten.

“Miguel. And you?”

“Tess. Tess Tankersly. And this is Risa.”

Señorita Tankersly to him, till she herself made him free of her name. Still… Risa, whatever it might signify in inglés, in español it meant “laughter.” And if you were to laugh with me?

But such a notion was madness. If all went as he hoped, someday soon he’d have to deal with Tankersly. Negotiations would hardly go well if he’d been sniffing about the rancher’s daughter! Business might be one thing, but the old man would have a better match in mind for his crown jewel, his fire opal, than a flirtation with a Mexican half-breed.

While the girls saddled their horses, Miguel let himself down into the river and waded across. On his dignity, he walked instead of swam. At the lowest point, for five yards or so, only his eyes showed above water. He waggled his eyebrows at Tess and earned another outburst of giggles. He smiled underwater. Ay, chiquitas. She was as easy to entertain as his own little sister had been last time he’d seen her, too long ago.

But Risa was not so easily amused and she stiffened when he mounted clumsily behind her. “I’ve never done this before,” he confessed softly in her ear. What delights he’d been missing! Pale as a gibbous moon, her nape with its waving tendrils of reddish-gold was only inches below his lips.

She jammed her hat into place and its rim established a “don’t trespass” perimeter.

“May I hold on?” he asked as they set off at a trot. His hands would almost span her supple waist; his palms itched with anticipation.

“To the cantle—the back of my saddle—please do,” she snapped.

Tess rode before them, chattering over her shoulder. “So you collect fossils, Miguel?”

“Sí. Also stones. I’m a rock hound.” It was close to the truth.

“I found a piece of fool’s gold last year. On roundup. Would you like to see it?”

“Pyrite? With much pleasure.”

“And I have a chunk of something that I used to think was a diamond when I was little. It’s big as an egg! But I reckon maybe it’s just quartz.”

“More likely,” he agreed. And there were compensations to hanging on to the cantle, he was finding. At this pace, over the rougher patches of trail Risa couldn’t help but bounce a little. Her taut, smooth hips brushed his thumbs more than once. Tipping his head to one side to peer under her hat, he grinned. Her nape was now rosier than pale. Were he to brush his lips, rough with his afternoon beard, right…there, he bet she’d go off like a bottle rocket, all sparks and fizz and a firecracker pop! Ah, rubia, you bring out the bad in me!

“What were you doing back there?” she asked coolly in an undertone. “Aren’t you supposed to be haying?”

His smile faded. “Even a peón gets a day off now and then.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“No?” While he spun his fantasies, he should remember not to forget: she was a ranchera rica and he was a wet-back. He had more hope of collecting fossils on the moon than taking such a one as this in his arms. At least, not while he had hay in his hair.

But someday… He glanced over his shoulder. Tess had chosen the easier grade of the road leading to the ranch yard, instead of the cowboys’ trail. From this height, he could see the tops of the Trueheart Hills jutting east of the valley. He’d lost a precious day, flirting with mermaids.

The growl of an engine mounting the grade behind caused him to swing farther around. Uh-oh! Here came that ancient, caramel-colored Lincoln Town Car that Tankersly flogged around the ranch when he wasn’t riding. He’d driven it down to the hay fields yesterday, gunning it ruthlessly through the muddy irrigation ditches.

“Daddy!” Tess cried, reining in as the car braked alongside them. “Look what Miguel gave me!” She waved the fossil that he’d intended for Risa. Ah, hermanitas.

Little sisters could get a man in all kinds of trouble. Tankersly was bound to resent any and all contact between a summer laborer and his daughters. Miguel met the old man’s stony gaze, his own face expressionless.

“See, Daddy?”

“Huh.” Tankersly hardly glanced at Tess’s prize. His shrewd old eyes were measuring the distance between Miguel’s chest and his beautiful daughter’s shoulder blades to the very last quarter inch.

Or so it seemed to his hired hand, who was braced for the worst. What a fool I’ve been—¡qué tonto! To give this merciless geezer an excuse for firing him before he’d barely started… No woman was worth this!

“You’re wearing your stirrups a notch too short,” he growled at his eldest. “You learn that back East?”

“What if I did?” Risa leaned back in her stirrups till her hat brim brushed Miguel’s mouth.

“Should have sent you west.” The massive old sedan rumbled on past and vanished up the hill.

Not once had Tankersly cracked a smile. So why did Miguel have the strangest feeling that the old man had been pleased?