“I told you he was good-tempered.”
“If I remember my scriptures, Lucifer seemed that way too-before the fall.” He shook his head. “No, Elspeth.”
Her smile vanished. “I didn’t ask your permission to bring him. I won’t have that animal brutalized or Rafael frightened or upset. I will care for him myself and you need have nothing to do with him.” She grabbed the lead reins of the mule. “Come along, Azuquita.” Elspeth’s mare trotted out of the corral with the mule ambling docilely at her heels.
“Elspeth, there’s no way that you can have nothing to do with a mule on the trail,” he called after her. “They haunt you; they do things that drive you insane.”
“Nonsense.” She didn’t look back.
Dominic began to curse beneath his breath as he mounted his horse. The imprecations involved Elspeth’s soft heart, the mare and the donkey that had begot the mule, and the black entity that was Azuquita itself.
The first day the mule behaved surprisingly well, clipping along at a brisk pace as they turned east and began to negotiate the foothills of the Sierra Madres.
The second day Dominic’s watchful regard registered an imperceptible slowing as boredom began to fester. On the third day Little Sugar began to turn sour. Not toward Elspeth. He behaved with admirable obedience with her. It was with Dominic he attempted to lighten his boredom.
It began with a light, almost playful nip whenever Dominic came within reach, then he began crowding Dominic’s horse into an occasional tree or the wall of a cliff. Dominic countered by moving the mule from behind Elspeth in the column and placing him with the burros bringing up the rear.
On the fourth day Azuquita gnawed at the girth of the burro next to him until the saddlebag fell off his back. Since Dominic didn’t discover it for some time, it took two hours to backtrack and retrieve the saddlebag and another hour to mend the girth. Dominic moved the mule back to his former place behind Elspeth.
On the fifth night a raucous bray woke Dominic in the middle of the night and he opened his eyes to see Azuquita’s hindquarters descending on his face!
“What the hell?” He had time to roll only a few inches before he received the mule’s bushy tail in his face. “You ornery eunuch.” He brushed the tail from his face. “You loco fiend from hell. You evil son of a-” He broke off as he heard Elspeth’s choked laughter. She was sitting up in her blankets across the fire, laughing helplessly. “This is
“I know. It’s very serious.” She immediately began laughing again. “He could have smothered you with his tail.”
Dominic sat up and moved gingerly away from the mule, now sitting placidly and ignoring them, warming his broad backside in front of the fire. “He also could have crushed my skull if I hadn’t moved fast.”
“I think he was just being playful.” Elspeth wiped her eyes on the corner of the blanket. “He did warn you. That bray would have raised Lazarus.”
“Playful! He’s trying to murder me.”
“How did he get free?”
Dominic motioned to the gnawed and shredded rope dangling around Azuquita’s neck. “I don’t mind him breaking loose, but why the hell couldn’t he have run away?”
Elspeth grinned. “He likes you.”
Dominic gazed at her as if she had gone mad.
“No, I believe he really does like you,” she insisted. “He only tolerates me, but I think he regards you as a true challenge.”
“He tried to knock me off a cliff yesterday, tonight he tried to smother me. I hate to think what he has in mind for me tomorrow.”
Elspeth’s smile faded. “I have a confession to make. One of the reasons I brought Sweetness along was that I was a little annoyed with you.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t matter. I admit I found Azuquita’s pranks very amusing, but I realize now it wasn’t fair of me to burden you with him.” She lowered her gaze to the fire. “Perhaps we could find someone to leave Azuquita with until we return.”
“The only people in these hills are bandits and their women. If we gave Sweetness to them, I don’t know if we’d get out of the hills alive.”
Elspeth’s hand reached up to comb through her loosened hair, causing the material of her blouse to tauten over the soft swell of her breasts. Dominic was suddenly conscious of her grace, her supple litheness. He felt a stirring heat and tried to blot it out before it could become the painful desire he had lived with for so long.
Azuquita turned his head and looked at them as if he had understood every word they had spoken. The son of a bitch probably had, Dominic thought crossly, he wouldn’t put it past the hybrid warlock.
The torment of lust had lessened, Dominic realized with a jolt of shock. It had not disappeared entirely, he was still conscious of a nagging ache within him, but his annoyance with Sweetness had at least made him think of something else beside Elspeth. Now that he thought about it, for the past five days the mule had kept his mind so occupied, he hadn’t had the opportunity to think of anything else.
An ironic smile flitted across his lips at the thought of how disappointed Azuquita would be if he realized his downright ugliness was acting in Dominic’s best interest.
“Why are you smiling?” Elspeth asked, puzzled.
“I was just thinking that bringing Azuquita wasn’t such a bad idea.”
She looked relieved. “You’re not upset about it any longer? Sweetness
The mule’s lips pulled back from his yellow-white teeth.
Dominic smiled back at him, mirroring the same toothy menace. “We’ll see if your hope pans out.” He got to his feet and grabbed hold of the shredded rope. Sweetness immediately tried to bury his teeth in Dominic’s hand. “I think I’ll be the one to take care of him from now on. As you say, we have to get to know each other.”
Elspeth blinked. “If you’re sure that’s what you wish.”
Dominic tugged at the rope. Azuquita didn’t move. “On your feet, my little sugar.” His tone was almost affectionate. “It’s back to the other animals with you. You’ve done enough damage for one night.”
It took him thirty minutes to get Azuquita off his haunches and tethered with the other animals. By that time Dominic was annoyed and exhausted enough almost to forget the silken warmth of Elspeth waiting for him only a few yards across the fire, and he fell asleep in minutes.
It was two days later that the heat that had followed them from Killara into Mexico appeared to be on the verge of breaking. Blue-black clouds rolled across the western horizon and in the afternoon the wind carried with it the bite of cool moisture.
Elspeth took a deep breath, letting the pungent dampness flow through her. “Doesn’t it feel like a blessing? It rains frequently in Edinburgh, but I don’t think I’ve fully appreciated it. I feel as if my bones are made of sand. Do you think the storm will come this way?”
“Yes.” Dominic swung off his horse, with practiced agility dodged Azuquita’s attempt to step on his boot, and grabbed the mule’s lead rope. “And we don’t have much time to build a shelter.”
“We’re stopping now? We still have a few hours before sunset.”
“The storm’s close enough. I like my comfort and I don’t have any intention of sleeping in the rain.” He was leading the stallion and mule into a pine grove at the side of the trail.
“What are you going to do?”
“Build a lean-to. I saw some ocotillo shrubs about a quarter of a mile back.”
Ocotillo. She hadn’t the faintest idea which bush he was talking about, but the word had a lovely musical sound. “How can I help?”
“Unsaddle the animals and tether them to a tree that has a lot of protective foliage.” He reached into his saddlebags and drew out a pair of heavy leather gloves and a sheath containing a hunting knife. “I’ll be right back.”
He was back in twenty minutes carrying a huge armload of narrow greenish-brown sticks from three to four feet in length.
“Ocotillo?” she asked.
