Texas Blue

chapter 22



DUNCAN CLOSED HIS EYES WHEN HE SAW A PRIEST come in.

“Give him his last rites, Father,” Ramon said.

“Is he that near death?” the priest asked.

“He will be,” Ramon answered. “Toledo told me to have you do it before you head back to the mission.”

The priest moved around Duncan, speaking Latin. He thought of trying to whisper something, but feared he might get them both killed.

“That’s enough,” Ramon said after a few minutes. “You’d best be on your way.”

Duncan had missed his chance. He lay still, trying to hear what was going on. There seemed to be more talking beyond the door. Toledo was out probably collecting information. He’d noticed that when the old woman was away, the cooks talked and others came into the kitchen to eat and visit. Duncan tried to make out what they were saying, but he couldn’t. He drifted off to sleep.

Ramon woke him when he unlocked the door, saying he had to take Anna for a walk before she started her duties in the kitchen.

He chased her until Duncan could smell the big man’s sweat. Finally he grabbed her arm. The girl fought him, but he dragged her out of the room.

Duncan managed to sit up, but without clothes or a gun he knew he’d never make it beyond the door even if he was strong enough to stand.

A few minutes after Ramon and the girl had gone, he heard the lock slide open once more and two middle-aged women hurried into the room. Neither looked to be more than five feet tall, and he guessed from the sweet smells surrounding them that they were cooks.

“You see, Sarah J. I told you he was still alive,” the shorter one said.

The second woman leaned close, looking ready to jump back if he snapped at her. The two of them were as out of place as bear cubs in a church. They both had red hair dusted with gray and pulled up in braids circling their heads. Not only their dress, but their talk told him they were from Ireland.

The one called Sarah J poked at Duncan with a wooden spoon. “He looks more dead than alive, if you ask me. All those men next door are eating us out of winter stores waiting to see who kills him.”

“I’m right here.” Duncan glared at them. “I can hear and understand everything you’re saying, ladies.”

The both jumped back a step and stared, as if it never occurred to them that he was in his right mind and could speak.

“What’s your names?” Duncan said, simply because he could think of nothing else to say to these two women who looked like round little gingerbread cookies and smelled the same.

“I’m Rachel Elizabeth,” the first one who’d stepped into the room said, “and this is my older sister, Sarah J.”

“Duncan McMurray, Texas Ranger, at your service.” Curiosity got the better of him. “Mind telling me what you two are doing at a place like this?” He couldn’t see them as whores, and they didn’t fit with the mission trappings at the roadhouse.

“We’re murderers on the run,” Rachel whispered. “After we committed our crime, we loaded up our wagon and took off. I told Sarah J we should go north, but she thought south would be better. Warmer climate. Toledo found us lost, out of money, supplies, and luck six months ago. She offered us both a job as cooks. Apparently, she’d fired the one before, or shot him. We’ve heard conflicting reports. His food was so bad, half her guests and most of her hired help was sick.”

“You can’t arrest us and take us back, can you?” Sarah J asked, obviously finding no need to follow her sister’s chatter.

“No,” he said, not believing a word Rachel said. These two didn’t look like they could murder a goose, much less a person. “But I can’t believe you like it here.”

“We don’t,” Rachel whispered, “but we’ve not enough money to leave, and where would we go? Murderers can’t settle in just any place.”

“Good.” Sarah J smiled. “I didn’t think you could take us back.” She looked like she might break into a dance at any moment. “Well, Ranger McMurray, if you see a crime, you can go stop it, can’t you, even if you’re not in Texas. That is, if you have time before you die or get killed.”

Duncan saw his chance. “I’d need my gun and, of course, my clothes in order to do a proper job.”

“Rachel, go get them,” Sarah J said without moving. “I’ll tell the ranger of the problem.”

Duncan wasn’t sure he could stand, much less solve any problem, but this might be his only chance to get away and he planned to give it his best effort.

Sarah J crossed her hands in front of her, looking very much like one of the mission sisters as she began. “We first thought of asking you to kill Ramon. He’s no good to anyone but Toledo, and he bothers little Anna all the time, teasing her as if she were a mouse on a string. But Rachel pointed out that Toledo would just hire another guard for the kitchen rooms, and he might do more than tease little Anna.”

Rachel rushed back into the room with a stack of clothes and whispered before her sister stopped talking, “We love the girl and can’t stand how she’s treated here. I’ve thought of getting the butcher knife. . . .”

“Now, Rachel,” Sarah J said, “we’re finished with that kind of thing.”

Rachel closed her mouth and smiled sweetly. “Ramon doesn’t have use of all his parts anyway, maybe he wouldn’t mind if we cut off one small one.”

Duncan raised his eyebrow, wondering if he should be worried about these two. For all he knew they were cutting up everyone who crossed them and cooking the bones for stew. “What do you want me to do, ladies?” he asked as the room started to spin. Forget standing, sitting up now became his challenge.

Sarah J must have sensed he had little time left before he passed out. “If we can, we’ll help you escape, but if we do you have to promise to take Anna with you. The old woman will kill her in a fit of anger one of these days. She has no reason where the child is concerned. Some on the place say she’s a fair boss, but in the months we’ve been here she beats the child several times. Just ties her to a pole and hits her with whatever is handy.”

“I was already planning to take her with me,” Duncan managed as the darkness flooded his mind and he leaned back against the pillow.

As if in a dream, he was aware of Rachel shoving his clothes under the bed, and then Anna ran into the room and curled up in a corner, her knees tight against her chest.

Ramon rushed in but stopped when he saw the two cooks were there. “You’re not supposed to be in here!” he yelled.

“And you’re not supposed to leave your post!” Sarah J yelled back. “If you say a word about us bringing this poor man water, we’ll tell Toledo how you chase Anna around every time she’s gone.”

“I’ m not hurting her. Go back to the kitchen where you two belong.”

Rachel followed her sister out of the room. “I’ve heard,” she whispered, “that a finger from a fat man’s hand can sweeten the beans. You’ve a worthless hand. You shouldn’t miss a digit or two.”

Ramon glared at her. “Don’t come in here again.”

“Don’t leave your post.” Rachel smiled. “And if I were you I’d sleep with my hands inside the covers. With no feeling in that arm, you might not even miss the finger until you’re eating the beans and think they taste sweeter than usual.”

The door closed and the room was silent except for the crackle of a dying fire. Duncan drifted in and out of sleep, reminding himself over and over to remember that his clothes, and maybe his guns, were under the bed.

Sometime in the hours of stillness, he felt Anna curl up beside him. “I’ll take you with me,” he mumbled, as if he believed he might find a way out.

“I know,” she answered in a soft voice, almost touching his ear.

When he awoke sometime later he tried to figure out if her answer had been real, or if he’d only been dreaming.

Duncan had no idea of the passage of days or nights. Sometimes it seemed colder; now and then he could see into the other room, which appeared to be a large kitchen, and in there it would be day. He slept on and off, not knowing if he’d been out an hour or a night. The only measure he had was Ramon bringing in wood. Once he’d said something about it being Anna’s daily supply. To the best Duncan remembered, he’d delivered wood three, maybe four times.

Anna brought him soup many times, feeding him a few ounces at a time. She never spoke again, if she’d talked the first time, but he slowly talked more and more to her. He thanked her for the meals and for her care. He told her soon she’d be safe and hoped he wasn’t lying.

Each time Toledo came into the room, Duncan pretended he couldn’t respond to her yells or slaps, but he knew the ruse wouldn’t last long. After a week, when he wasn’t dead, she was bound to notice that he was improving. The wound on his leg was healing, thanks to Anna’s constant care.

Anna stayed locked in the room with him for hours at a time. She didn’t escape even when the door was open. The two cooks were now delivering food to both him and her as well as fresh water for bathing.

Late one night, when she’d washed his body and he’d drifted off to sleep, he awoke, more aware that she wasn’t curled up beside him than of any noise. He slowly opened his eyes and saw her in the light of a single candle she always kept burning. She was taking a bath, one limb at a time, using two buckets of water.

He watched as she soaped and scrubbed one thin arm and then the other. He could see several bruises on her legs. Her back was turned to him, but he noticed the flare of her hips as she washed. When she turned to pick up her towel, her body was shadowed in the candlelight. The child was not a child. She was small and bone thin, but her breasts were fully developed.

The shock of it brought him fully awake.

Through slits in his eyelids he watched, unable to turn away. She lifted a band of thin cotton and wrapped her breasts, flattening them out against her chest. Then, using a thin cord belt, she circled her waist and looped more cotton bandaging between her legs.

Duncan tried to make his mind work as she slipped into the plain, simple clothes all children wear. Shapeless, comfortable. But Anna wasn’t a child, and if he was guessing right, she was in her time of the month.

Not that he knew all that much about women, but he did know animals. He asked his father once about the workings of women, and Travis McMurray said there are things in this world a man shouldn’t learn about and if he does, he’s the sorrier for it.

Once she was dressed, she washed out rags in the clean water, scrubbing all blood away, and then she placed the bits of cloth near the fire to dry.

Duncan closed his eyes and tried to think. Anna wasn’t a mindless child about to grow into womanhood. She was a full-grown woman pretending in order to survive and, thanks to being locked up in a room every night, she’d managed to keep her secret.

When the rags were dry, she folded them and slipped them into a tin box. She lifted a piece of paper from the lid of the box and looked at it a long time in the light, then put it back and hid the box beneath the pile of wood. She crossed to the bed and curled up beside him.

Duncan fell asleep wishing he could ask her questions, but he knew he’d frighten her if she thought he knew her secret.