Her skirts swished as she almost ran through the grass; she entered the house from the kitchen, hoping Mamá did not see her. She grabbed a small jícara bowl and scooped salt into it from the kitchen store, then peeked into the great room of the house.
It was empty. Mamá was either on the patio or preparing for bed.
She darted to her room and shut the door quietly behind her. She turned and nearly collided with Didi.
“Oh!” Didi gasped in surprise. She looked down at the bowl of salt. “What’s that for?”
Didi, Alejandra, Javiera, and the dog Pollo all looked up at Nena, their dark eyes glittering inquisitively in the candlelight.
“For protection,” Nena said. She crouched and poured a line across the doorway. “Don’t tell Mamá.”
She stood and went to the window. She closed it, locked it, and poured a thick line of salt across the shallow sill.
Please let that be enough. Somehow, she felt more exposed in this room than she had last night, sleeping on the ground beneath the stars next to Néstor.
She thrust the thought from her mind and turned away from the window quickly. She set the bowl of salt by the head of her bed, then undressed and put on her nightgown. Didi and Alejandra whispered to each other as she blew out the candles and slipped under the blankets of her own bed.
“Protection from what?” Javiera asked quietly. Her eyes and the dog’s glinted at Nena through the dark, wide and fearful. Explaining now would cause nothing but a sleepless night full of nightmares.
“From bad luck,” Nena said. “Now go to sleep. All of you.”
Sleep found the others quickly. Soon the room was filled with their soft snoring.
Though her bed and the weight of its blankets was something she had fantasized about after many nights of sleeping on the ground, though exhaustion weighed heavy in her legs after long days in the saddle, sleep evaded her.
She thought of the shadow of hurt passing over Néstor’s face. Of the cold, condescending way Mamá spoke to him.
She was a coward. All day she had twisted and writhed in her shame, in her attempts not to hurt him, but what good did it do? What did it change? The damage was done. It was as if she had already pulled the trigger and stood there, watching the bullet fly toward him, too frozen to save him.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
HEAT ITCHED OVER Nena’s skin and kept sleep far from her side during siesta the next day; she rose and occupied herself with Javiera’s pile of mending on the patio, narrowing her world to tiny, even stitches. Chicharras hummed in the oaks; the crickets’ song thickened the heat of the afternoon. The aroma of jasmine rose from the bushes next to the patio. A horse’s whinny, thin and curious, rose from far away, perhaps in the direction of the main road.
If someone were to see her, sitting in the shade of the patio counting stitches, it would appear as if the last two weeks had not happened. As if returning to Los Ojuelos had jerked the reins of her life and yanked it rudely back to the beginning. Before the squadron, before the journey. Back to before Néstor had returned.
But there were the saddle sores on the insides of her shins. The ache in her lower back and seat bones from days spent in a too-large saddle had yet to lessen. Deep between her ribs, something had reoriented itself to a new north, not giving a damn what her mind knew was impossible. It hummed, drawing her attention up and out of the corner of her eye, to the Duarte jacal.
So much had changed. So much would continue to change. She was overcome by the sensation that she stood on the lip of a cliff, a broad arroyo dividing what came before and what came next. Against her will, and without warning, something would push her. A sweep of vertigo would rush through her ears; the stomach-flip of a sudden fall. And that would be it. The rest of her life would unspool before her. There would be no going back to how it was before.
The bell of the chapel rang. Once, twice. A third time.
Her needle stilled midway through the cloth.
With the whole rancho waiting with bated breath, that could only mean one thing.
She threw the sewing down on the table and stood. Hitched her skirts and galloped off the patio in three faltering strides, shading her eyes as she rounded the corner of the house and turned to the back entrance of the rancho.
A line of horses was already tethered at the corral.
Papá and Félix were back.
She bolted for the corral.
She arrived out of breath, cursing skirts for existing and yearning for the ease of running in trousers. She wove among the horses and men, nodding and greeting familiar faces. She kept a silent tally of numbers as she went. Were there more coming, on the road behind this first group? Or were these riders all that remained of Los Ojuelos’s contribution to the doomed squadron? She swallowed thickly, then turned and spotted a familiar face.
“Beto!” she cried, running forward to greet him.
“Se?orita!” He lifted his hat to her, a flash of delight brightening his pale eyes. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes! Was Duarte with you? Is he here?”
Nena gestured behind her at the jacales. “We returned yesterday.”
Beto lifted his hands, palms upturned to the heavens. “Thank God,” he said. “Thank God.”
“What of Casimiro?” Nena asked.
“Wounded, but with us,” Beto said. He nodded to the gates, where more horses were filing in from the road. “Bringing up the rear. We could have used you after the battle, se?orita. There were many wounded, and too many infections. And susto,” he added, lowering his voice. “My God. I have never seen anything like it.”
He shuddered as if an uncomfortable sensation had just run through his body.
“Do you feel it too?” Nena asked abruptly.
Beto frowned. “I don’t follow, se?orita.”
Nena tugged the neckline of her dress to the side, revealing her scar.
“Here,” she said, pressing her fingertips to the ripples of the scar. “When they are near. When they are . . . watching.”
Beto’s eyes widened. “I thought I was going loco,” he said, voice low. “Se?orita, I fear . . . they have been following us. They have been waiting. I swear it, but no one would believe me if I said anything.”
Gooseflesh swept over Nena’s arms, sending each hair standing on end.
“I believe you,” she whispered. The sun beat down on their heads now, but when nightfall spread its greedy fingers across the rancho, they would all be in danger.
“Go to Néstor’s abuela and speak to her as soon as you can. Tell all the other vaqueros what she tells you about salt,” she said quickly. “If they don’t believe you, just tell them it’s my orders and they must follow them. That will—”
“Nena!”
Her growing dread made her startle easily; she jerked her head up at the sound of her name.
She gasped at the sight of Félix dismounting his white stallion outside the corral. A bloody bandage was wound around one of his arms.
“Go,” Beto said. “I’ll do as you say. Be careful, se?orita.”
“You too,” she said.
Then she turned on her heel and slung herself through the wooden rungs of the fence, not caring if Mamá would call it inappropriate, not caring who saw her acting like a child. The faster she could get to her brother, the better.
She threw her arms around his chest and embraced him tightly. He smelled metallic: like blood, like gunpowder. He smelled exhausted and sick. She could tell even before she pulled back and looked up at the gray wash of his unshaven face, the beads of sweat glistening on his brow beneath the band of his hat. She pointed at his arm.
“That is infected,” she said flatly. “Come with me to the house.” She waved to a vaquero, took the reins from Félix’s hand and passed them off with a gracious thank-you. “Now.”
“Glad to see you too,” he said, wry humor untouched by whatever injury he had sustained. He fell into step with her as they turned to la casa mayor. “You’re unharmed?”