He would not let them get closer to her. Never again.
Blood pounding, Néstor stepped forward. Pebbles crunched beneath the soles of his boots as he loosened the drawstring of the bag of salt with clammy, trembling fingers.
Every sinew of his body screamed for him to turn and flee. But still he stepped closer. He crept up to the fragile barrier, crouched, and poured more salt onto the ground.
The vampires drew back into the shadows. One released a long, venomous hiss, like that of a vengeful rattler. Néstor’s heart leaped to his throat. But he set his jaw and thickened the salt barrier. With each step he took around the perimeter of the white arc, he added more salt, until it gleamed in the starlight like a vein of spring frost.
He retreated to Nena’s side, heart drumming against his ribs.
The vampires paced. They watched him, assessing him, and paced, languid and watchful—but farther back from the salt than before.
Then, between one step and the next, they vanished. They melted into the night, as if crossing through a doorway from one room to the next. As if they had been a part of the shadows all along.
A single cricket’s voice rose in the night. Soon, it was joined by others. The heat and humidity of the night draped over Néstor’s skin, familiar and uncomfortably close, as if it had never been disturbed.
Still his heart raced.
He crouched, and drew another circle of salt, this time directly around Nena’s sleeping form. He stood inside it, over her, his arms folded over his chest, the bag of salt clutched in one hand.
There he stayed until dawn grayed the eastern horizon.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
IT WAS NEARLY time for the siesta when they turned off the main road onto a familiar, well-trod path. Soon, the line of the roof of the comisaria came into view. Beyond it rose the high wooden fence surrounding the central heart of Los Ojuelos.
“We did it.” Nena’s voice cracked—with exhaustion, with emotion, or both. “We made it.”
Néstor lifted a hand to his lips and whistled. Two high notes, to catch the attention of the men who guarded the gate into the rancho and assure them that the two strange riders were Los Ojuelos people.
He and Nena rode through the gates, side by side. How different it was, returning to Los Ojuelos this time. No dread weighed in his bones, no anxiety tightened its claws around his throat. All he felt was relief as they drew close to the houses and dismounted. He put Luna’s reins in his left hand so that he could walk next to Nena as they approached la casa mayor.
But as his eye fell on la casa mayor, on the older woman who stood on the patio, her hands on her hips, watching them, a profound weariness swept over him. He still had battles left to fight. These might prove the most difficult yet.
“Nena? Nena!” A slim figure tore away from the kitchen of la casa mayor, chickens scattering and squawking in her path. A small yellow dog followed at her heels.
Javiera, Nena’s younger sister, barreled into Nena and threw her arms around her.
“Nena, we thought you were dead,” Javiera cried, her voice muffled from where she buried her face in Nena’s shoulder. Nena swayed backward from the force of Javiera’s embrace; instinctively, Néstor’s right hand rose to her back to balance her.
When he looked up, Do?a Mercedes had stepped off the patio and crossed most of the space to him and Nena. She narrowed her eyes at Néstor’s hand on Nena’s back and shot him a severe look.
So this was how it would begin: immediately, without respite from the road or a chance to explain anything.
He dropped his hand, but he did not drop Do?a Mercedes’s stare. Instead, he touched the brim of his hat and dipped his chin politely.
“Papá wrote saying you couldn’t be found!” Javiera’s voice pitched sharp. “What were we supposed to think?”
“I never meant to upset you,” Nena said, releasing her younger sister. “We had to run.”
“And . . . and . . .” Javiera looked up at Néstor, suddenly shy. “Félix said he was missing”—here she nodded her head at Néstor—“and he hoped that meant you were together somewhere, but that did not please Mamá—”
“Magdalena!”
Néstor took a step back as Do?a Mercedes swept forward and took her daughter into her arms. “Thank God,” she said. “Thank la Virgen that you’re safe.” She released Nena, holding her by the shoulders. Her eyes shone with tears.
His heart twinged on Do?a Mercedes’s behalf. Of course her family assumed Nena was harmed, or captured, or dead. He should have found a way to send a message, somehow.
“How could you do this to me?” Do?a Mercedes said. “How could you let us fear the worst?”
“We ran,” Nena said. “We had to. There was no time for messages. We came back as fast as we could, because—”
“And just look at you. What is this?” Do?a Mercedes said, sweeping a critical look over Nena, from sweat-stained shirt to trousered legs. Both of them were filthy and spent, covered in dust and ravaged by mosquito bites—he could not deny that he had brought Nena home looking decidedly worse for the wear. “Never mind. You need to bathe and rest. News from your father came this morning.”
“He’s safe?” Nena cried. Her whole body was at once alight, alert, as if someone had splashed cold water over her. “He’s well? What happened? What about Félix?”
Do?a Mercedes explained that after the battle was lost, Don Feliciano and Félix had retreated across the river. Félix was wounded, but he could still ride. The squadron split: some continued to ride south to carry on fighting, others retreated home. Don Feliciano and Félix rode to Los Ojuelos and would arrive within a day or so with the surviving Los Ojuelos vaqueros.
“And what of Casimiro Duarte? Is there news of him?”
Do?a Mercedes gave Néstor a cold look, as if he had intruded on a private conversation.
It stung like a scorpion.
He could not be afraid of her. If he was going to marry Nena, he had to prove to her parents that he was their equal. That meant no skirting around them, head down, like another peón. It meant discomfort, and he had to push through it. He looked Do?a Mercedes in the eye and waited for her to reply.
She tilted her chin haughtily. “The patrón did not convey news of the vaqueros,” she said, her tone frosty.
“Thank you, do?a,” Néstor said.
That was enough ground won for the day. He was staring down the barrel of a long, hard battle, and he needed to be strategic. He should not fight when he was half dead from a sleepless night and a long day’s ride in the heat.
“I’ll take the horses,” he said to Nena.
“No, you’re still hurt,” she said, moving her hand—and the reins—out of his reach. “You could barely lift the saddle this morning. You need to go to Abuela and have her look at your shoulder.”
Before Néstor could reply, she took Luna’s reins from him.
When Do?a Mercedes’s gaze snapped to Néstor, for a moment, he saw what she saw: the untouchable daughter of the patrón taking the reins from a lowly peón. From a vaquero. He could see how it would shatter the order of her world, how it would make her want to snatch Nena back protectively.
Instinct pushed him to take the reins back. To placate Do?a Mercedes, to shy away from her and become as invisible as he was when he was just another child on the rancho.
He stood his ground.
“Let the vaqueros tend to the horses,” Do?a Mercedes said coldly. To Nena, she said: “Come inside. Now.”
“Mamá, I said that he is injured.” Nena did not release the reins. “I’ll take them.”
Javiera glanced from one woman to the other, then to Néstor, her eyes wide with apprehension.
The battle of wills was mercifully cut short when Ignacio—one of the vaqueros who had not joined the squadron because he was recovering from susto—approached.
“Se?orita Magdalena. Duarte!” he said. “Thank God you returned safely.”
He took the reins from Nena and tipped his hat to Do?a Mercedes. “Buenas tardes, do?a.”