Texas Woman

had come to Dolorosa, that her son might have fixed his attentions where he should not.

Cruz looked away toward the smooth Talavera jar, his jaw rigid. “Perhaps I should say instead that I choose not to marry her.”

Dona Lucia felt the knot growing inside her. “It is that woman. She is the reason you do not choose to make your vows to Tomasita.”

Cruz tensed, then turned slowly to confront his mother. “Who told you such a thing?”

“Then it is true?”

“My reasons for taking or not taking a wife are my own.”

“I saw you coming from that woman’s room this morning-”

“Enough!” Cruz interrupted. He asked the question that had been foremost in his mind since he had walked through the door. “Where is Senorita Sloan?”

“Who knows?” Dona Lucia said.

“Send someone to find her. I wish to speak with her,” he said, by now equally aggravated.

“She is gone.”

Cruz felt his heart skip a beat. “Gone? Gone where? When did she leave?”

Cruz’s evident concern for the woman annoyed Dona Lucia even further. “Paco came at mid-meal with a message for you about some gringo wagons broken down on Dolorosa land. That woman took it into her head to go there by herself.”

“You did not think to send word to me of this?”

Dona Lucia saw the anger blazing in her son’s eyes and, underlying it, something else very much like fear. “Why should you care-”

He was halfway to the door when he said, “Send someone to Paco’s jacal to find him and bring him to the stable. I will wait there for him.” On his way out the door, he yelled for another servant to send someone to the village for his foreman Miguel and the rest of his vaqueros.

It was clear now to Dona Lucia that her son cared for the gringa a great deal more than was proper for a man who was betrothed to someone else. Dona Lucia began planning at that moment to make certain that this impediment was removed.

If Cruz would not send that woman away, then she, his mother, would have to do what must be done. She would be first in her own home, first with her son-no matter what steps she had to take to accomplish it.

Cruz had cinched the high-cantled Spanish saddle on his golden bayo when Paco arrived breathless at the stable door.

“Patron?” he called out anxiously. He had half expected this summons after he had left the woman by herself to find the gringo wagons. Had he done wrong? One look at El Patron’s face convinced him that his carefully thought out excuses would not serve.

El Patron cared for his people, much as a father cared for his children. But likewise, the pobres owed obedience and service to their master. The old don had been a fair man. His son had proved himself the same.

Yet there was a steely hardness in the son that had not been present in the father, and a fierceness that Paco had seen aroused in Don Cruz but which had heretofore always been kept under control. The vaquero shuddered to think of that ominous wrath unleashed on any man, but most especially on himself.

Cruz led his horse to the stable door, appearing like an avenging devil out of the darkness. “Today you escorted Senorita Stewart to the gringo wagons on my land?”

Paco quickly crossed himself and mumbled, “I only did as the senorita asked. No more. No less.”

“Can you take me there?”

“Si, Patron.”

“Let us go, then. Pronto!”

Cruz vaulted into the saddle even as his vaquero did the same. Once he had collected the other vaqueros, they rode fast, using the light of the full moon to show them the way.

Cruz knew the Comanches frequently took advantage of the full moon, often called a Comanche moon, to travel on their raids of the white settlements. He felt a prickle of unease and spurred his bayo to greater speed, trusting the stallion to make good use of the day-bright moonlight.

While they rode, Cruz questioned Paco about the gringos. How many were there? Were they well armed? How had they greeted Sloan? He jerked his bayo to a halt when the vaquero admitted that after seeing the vultures hovering over the gringo camp, he had left Senorita Sloan to go on to the wagons alone.

“You saw vultures?”

“Si, Patron.”

“And you left the woman to go on by herself?”

The vaquero sat stoically awaiting El Patron’s judgment as he confessed, “Si, Patron.”

It was only with the greatest effort that Cruz kept himself from felling the man with his fist. Instead, he whirled his mount and brutally spurred the stallion into a gallop.

As he rode, his anger with Sloan grew out of control. She had promised she would stay at the hacienda. He grimaced. No, she had not promised anything. He should have known better than to leave her alone. He should have realized she would do exactly as she pleased.

The fluffy white covers sat like grounded clouds on the immigrants’ wagons, yet Cruz breathed no sigh of relief upon seeing them. For there was no cheery fire in the center of the small grouping of tall, swaybacked Conestogas, nor was there the acrid smell of smoke to suggest that a fire had recently been snuffed. There was no movement of any kind. It was too quiet.

Cruz pulled his bayo to an abrupt halt and signaled his vaqueros to silence. He searched the nearly flat terrain that surrounded them and noted there was a stand of brush and mesquite trees along the creek a short distance from the wagons. A perfect hideout for Comanches. Cruz felt himself go cold. He had not waited all these years for Sloan Stewart only to lose her to a Comanche lance.

He dismounted and handed his reins to the nearest vaquero. “Wait here while Miguel and I see if there is anyone in the wagons.”

Cruz’s segundo Miguel slid from the saddle, and the two of them moved in opposite directions yet in tandem toward the silent camp.

Paco watched with disbelieving eyes as his patron and the older vaquero disappeared into the undergrowth. He knew how lucky he was to still be unpunished, but he wondered fearfully what El Patron would do to him if he did not find the woman he sought.

By the time Cruz reached the wagons, he was certain he would find no one alive. In that he was correct, but he was confused by what he did find. The bodies of two men and women, riddled with arrows, and the bodies of another man and woman killed by bullets, lay inside the circle of wagons. Only one of the dead had been scalped, and the job had been half done, as though something had interrupted the Comanches in their gruesome work. Yet the Conestogas had been completely ransacked, their contents spilling from the wagon beds like beans from a broken jar.

Cruz closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He did not want to believe the Comanches had taken Sloan. In such a way had Sloan’s sister Bayleigh disappeared into Comancheria. It had taken three years, and a stroke of blind luck, for Long Quiet to find and rescue her.

Cruz met Miguel at the center of the circle of wagons. “Comanches!” he spat. “Did you see any signs that they have taken the woman I seek?”

He was asking Miguel for a word of hope, but he trusted the vaquero to tell him the truth.

“I cannot tell, Patron.”

“Can we catch them?”

Miguel squatted in the grass next to one of the dead. “The Comanches were here maybe five, maybe six hours ago. They will not stop until they are safe in Comancheria. But there is something else here I do not understand.”

Cruz followed Miguel’s gaze and saw the clothing and tools tossed here and there at random in the circle of wagons. “I know what you mean,” Cruz said. “The Comanches would have taken as many of these things with them as they could carry… and they would have scalped all of these settlers. Unless…”

“… unless someone else was here and ran them off,” Miguel finished. “Bandidos, maybe?”

Cruz pushed his hat off his head and let the tie-string catch it so he could thrust a hand through his hair. “That seems most likely, judging from the condition of the wagons. But who took my-Senorita Stewart? And where are the children Paco mentioned? Do the Comanches have them? Or the bandidos?”

Miguel shook his head. “There is no way of knowing.”

“Then we will have to follow both. You take half the vaqueros and go after the Comanches. I will follow the bandidos with the rest.”

“The roundup-”

“The roundup will have to wait,” Cruz snarled. He left Miguel and stalked back through the circle of Conestogas to where he had left his vaqueros waiting. When he arrived, he simply stood there, his face twisted in a scowl of rage.

“Patron?” Paco’s terrified voice brought Cruz from his nightmarish thoughts.

“Juan, Luis,” he said to the two closest vaqueros. “You stay here and bury the dead. Tomorrow, get someone to fix that broken wheel and find mules to haul these wagons back to the hacienda. Also, send a message to the Texas Rangers in San Antonio to see if they can discover whether these people have any family who should be advised of their deaths.”

He turned to Paco and said, “Tell Dona Lucia what happened here, and that I will not be returning until I have found Senorita Stewart.”

“Si, Patron.”

Cruz’s thoughts were bleak as he watched Paco cross himself in fervent relief and spur his mount away.

Miguel had followed Cruz away from the wagons but had stopped to examine the tracks on the ground. “There is something more here, Patron, that you should see.”

Cruz kneed his stallion over to the spot where Miguel knelt next to a jumble of hoofprints.

“These tracks were not made by Indian ponies,” the vaquero said.