Part Three

“Ai,” said Toledano, wincing in sympathy as Señor Scott made another attempt to turn a recalcitrant cow back into the herd where she belonged.  “He looks uncomfortable.”

“He isn’t used to our saddles,” said Cipriano, watching critically as Scott tried to get his cow pony to obey his commands. 

“Still,” said Toledano, “he does not give up.”

Cipriano grunted and rode over to join the Señor.  “You are trying to ride him as a cavalry officer, Señ… Scott,” he said, seeing that one of the problems came from how upright and straight Scott was sitting in the saddle, “You must relax, and learn to use your weight as well as your knees and bridle to give the horse his instructions.  He’s a good cow pony and he wants to work with you.”

“I’m trying,” said Señor Scott, breathless. 

“I know.  Look, like this.  The horses are trained to respond to the rein.  I want my horse to go right, so I press the rein against the left side of her neck and she turns away from it.  Just the slightest signal is enough.”

Scott nodded.  “I see.  They’re better trained than the cavalry mounts I remember, even an officer’s mount.  A couple that I had in the War had very hard mouths and were difficult to work.”

“Si, but cow ponies are trained to respond to the neck rein, not the bit.  They are much better trained.  The Army takes only green-broke horses even now, and during the war they would have spent even less time on them.  But a cow pony is as much part of a vaquero’s tools, a cowboy’s tools, as his boots or hat or rope."

"Or his gun?" Scott touched the butt of his borrowed Colt with a wry grin.  The Patrón had made him wear it; it was unthinkable that a man would ride the range without one.  He wore the gun high, as he would have carried his Army Colt during the war, and was obviously still very conscious of the unaccustomed weight.  It didn't look comfortable on him yet.

"Si.  Or his gun."  Cipriano's hand drifted to the smooth, comforting handgrips of his own pistol.  "There is a gunsmith in Green River.  We have time to see him before we start the hiring tomorrow.  He could help you decide on which pistol would suit you best and find you a better-fitting belt."

Scott gave him a sideways glance.  "Rather than wait until I can get Johnny's advice, you mean?"

"Whatever suits you," said Cipriano, surprised.  "It may be some time before your hermano will be well enough."

Scott stared out across the Lancer range for a few moments.  "I'll wait for Johnny, Cip.  He has to know as much as the gunsmith does."

"Si.  Well, even if you don't get a gun tomorrow, you should buy yourself some work gloves." Cipriano remembered Scott's attempt to rope a calf and how he'd been dragged, his low-heeled boots skidding over the hard ground. "And order some boots."

"Yes," agreed Scott, looking ruefully at the reddened palm of his right hand. "I will."

Cipriano waved the signal to Toledano to cut the cow out of the herd again.  "Now, Scott, try again.  Use the rein as I showed you and see how it works.”

Scott obeyed, and the sharp little cow pony he was riding turned smartly to the right, allowing him to haze the cow back to her herdmates.

“¡Bueno!” said Cipriano, pleased.

Scott smiled.

 

 

Cipriano was surprised at how quickly Johnny was up and about.  Only the day after his visit, Maria Morales told him, Johnny had got up for a couple of hours, moving slowly with his hermano's help from his bed to the chair in the window.  Within a day or two of that he was venturing downstairs with Scott and the Patrón hovering anxiously in case of still-shaky legs.  Their solicitude seemed to goad Johnny, but in deference to the injunction to watch his language where Teresa might hear him, the one remonstrance he made that Cipriano had overheard was positively mild—"I ain't going to fall over, Boston!  Go away!"—and consequently was ignored by his brother as he was helped to the long seat on the hacienda's loggia.  Johnny spent that morning reclining there in the warm Spring sun, cleaning his gun and reading de Samaniego while awaiting the doctor and the chance to protest that he was in perfect good health and should be allowed full liberty.  Cipriano thought the entire estancia must have heard the Sam Jenkins's emphatic rebuttal of that particular proposal.

Four or five days after Cipriano had visited the sick room, he was surprised and pleased when Señors Johnny and Scott returned the visit.  It was probably the longest walk that Johnny had attempted since getting up for the first time, and the young one was breathing hard (and attempting to hide it) when he and his hermano arrived on the west-facing porch of Cipriano's house after supper, just as the last of the sun dipped towards the horizon.

Bella was indoors settling the sad little Bocanegra ninos into their beds, while Cipriano and Jaime were indulging themselves in a final, post-supper pipe—Bella having set her face against smoking in her house.

"You are very welcome, Señors," said Cipriano, knocking out the embers of his pipe onto the soft earth of the garden and carefully grinding them into ash.  Jaime followed suit, grinning with embarrassment.  He stared openly at Johnny until Cipriano coughed to remind him of his manners.  “Come in!  My wife will be delighted to see you.”

“It’s the Señora that we’ve come to see,” said Johnny, with a friendly grin for Jaime.  “Boston here says he’s seen far too much of you, the last few days.”

“Your hermano is doing very well,” reproved Cipriano.

“Actually, seeing Cipriano isn’t the problem.  It’s my horse I’d rather see less of.”  And Señor Scott sighed.  “It’s been years since I spent so much time in the saddle.”

“You’ll harden up,” said Johnny.

“That’s what worries me.  I’m hoping for more resilience, not a rear end as hard as granite.  Believe me, brother, there are places where I don't want calluses.”

Cipriano chuckled.  “Come on in, Señors, and take some tequila with us.  My wife has soft and comfortable cushions.”

“Good,” said Señor Scott, taking his revenge.  “Because Johnny was only supposed to visit the barn so he could kiss that horse of his goodnight but he insisted on coming down here.  He’s walked too far and he needs to rest before starting back.  I’ll be damned before I carry him home.”

“I'm not that tired, Boston, and I'm not that heavy.”

“It’s a bad habit you’re getting into with that, Johnny, and it’s my duty to break you of it.”

Cipriano waved them into the house, grinning.  He noted that despite all Señor Scott said, he hovered protectively over his younger brother.  Señor Johnny, as seemed to be universal with younger brothers, rolled his eyes derisively and, of course, allowed the attention.

They paused on the threshold to have a brief, but intense, fraternal discussion about Johnny's gun belt.  Scott persuaded him to take it off. 

"I don't see why you have to wear it at all on the ranch," said Scott, exasperated.

"You want me to wear pants around the ranch?" enquired Johnny.  " 'Cause to tell you the truth, it's more likely I'd not wear pants than not wear my gun."

"You can't need it, surely.  You're on the ranch, Johnny, not a saloon in town.  It's safe here."  Scott paused, evidently remembering where his hermano got shot.  "Well, it is now Pardee's dead."

Johnny's eyes danced with amusement.  "I've been shot in a barn before now," he said.  "Fact is, I've been shot more times out of towns than in 'em."

Scott's mouth thinned down, lips compressing until he looked astonishingly like the Patrón, but he said nothing more.  Cipriano was interested to see the likeness.  Until then, he had thought Scott more like the first Señora Lancer, with her pale Northern complexion and her pale hair and her pale blue eyes.  It was good to see some of the Patrón's strength and will there alongside her cool reserve.

They watched in silence as Johnny took a deep breath and held it, tensing his stomach muscles enough to give him enough play on the leather belt to allow him to unbuckle it.  He relaxed with a little whoosh of air, swinging the belt free of his hips and coiling it around the holster.

"How can you wear it so tightly?" asked Jaime, fascinated.

Johnny grinned at him, hefting the gun in his hands.  "Just the way it has to be, amigo.  You get used to it."

Cipriano hoped devoutly that Jaime would never get used to anything of the kind.  He ushered in his guests, calling for his wife to come and see who was visiting, and telling Johnny to leave his gun on the table by the door.  Johnny obeyed, with obvious reluctance.

Bella was delighted to see them.  She had met Scott already and had approved.  He was a young man of good sense and manners, she thought, her only doubts being that he was an Easterner and, she understood, one of great education.  She didn’t know what the estancia could offer to hold such a one here, and that fear, that they’d once again lose an heir, nagged at her as it nagged at all of the estancia.  She had been a little reassured by Cipriano’s account of Señor Scott’s dogged determination, these last few days, to learn the skills he'd need if he stayed.  That promised well, but none of them would breathe easy until the partnership agreement was signed.

She hadn’t seen Johnny, except from a distance as he lay on the long seat on the loggia, complaining to Sam Jenkins.  When he walked into the room behind his brother and she came to meet them, her smile was warm and open, Señora Isabella's formality not as evident as it would normally be in company.   It was so uncharacteristically open of her, that even Cipriano stared.  She held Johnny's hands a little longer than necessary for strict politeness, too.

“I am so happy to see you, Juanito, and that you’re getting well," she said.

Johnny grimaced slightly at the name, but Cipriano was pleased, and a little surprised, at his display of good manners.  He swept off his hat and bowed over Bella's hands, kissing the right with grace and rather more charm than Cipriano (who was a careful husband) was strictly comfortable with, and greeting her with a flow of idiomatic Spanish that expressed polite enquiries after her health; even though, said Johnny, he could see that she was blooming.  That Bella was charmed was obvious to everyone, even her smirking younger son.

"You could learn some good manners yourself, you pillo," said Jaime's mother good-naturedly, not having missed Jaime's grin.  She tousled his hair as she passed him, leading Johnny to the most comfortable seat in the room.

"You don't mean to use Johnny as your example, do you, Señora Isabella?" Scott demanded incredulously, and Cipriano wondered idly as he collected the tequila and the narrow little caballito glasses, whether his hermano or his father had explained the nuances needed when addressing married Spanish-Mexican ladies. 

"He has very good manners," approved Bella.

"I should," said Johnny, laughing.  "My stepfather whopped me until I learned some and then the priests took over.  Guess you didn't use the belt on Jaime then."  He ignored the strained, almost palpable curiosity that followed his words and turned that all-too-charming smile back on.  "You have a real nice home, Señora Isabella."

He wasn't mocking them, but seemed to mean it.  He sat back carefully on the sofa, smiling at her when she took the seat beside him, looking around with appreciative eyes.  

"The Patrón is very generous," said Bella.

"Reminds me of houses back home to Mexico," he said, with one more look around the little whitewashed room.  He laughed again.  "Not that I ever lived in one this fine or this big, but it's nice.  Real nice."

Cipriano thought of the hacienda great room and its many other rich and comfortable rooms, and sighed.  He supposed that comfort was a relative thing, but he hadn't considered before that it might be intimidating.  He pulled a small table closer and put down the tequila.  Scott, who had been watching his brother, turned the same troubled look he'd been giving Johnny onto the bottle. 

"I've been warned about tequila," he said.  "Murdoch says it kicks like a bad-tempered mule with a headache."

"The Patrón has no head for tequila," said Cipriano.  "But then, I have none for the whiskey he likes."

"Me neither," said Johnny, with an appreciative glance at the bottle in Cipriano's hands.  "Now you're a Californian, Boston, you have to learn how to take shots.  Some people up this side of the border just toss it back, and suck on limes and salt to wash it down.  That's okay for the rough stuff, the blanco – makes it taste less like it'll blow your head off – but not for what Cip has here, not for a tequila reposado.  You don't just toss this back.  Treat it like the Old Man's good sippin' whiskey."

"Should you be having any at all?"

"Try and stop me, Boston." 

"I could," mused Scott.  "You aren't armed."

"I'm always armed," said Johnny, grinning.  He nodded to the table near the door and the coiled up gun belt that Jaime could barely take his eyes off.  "That's just the gun you can see."

Scott stared then shook his head.  "You're carrying that Derringer?  On the ranch?  Don't tell me you have the knife in your boot too!"

Johnny took his tequila, still grinning at his hermano over the rim of the glass, and didn't answer.  "Oh this is good, Cipriano.  A de Cuervo, huh?  I didn’t think they sold their reposado this far north.  I've never seen anything but their blanco for sale north of the border and they never send the best of that."

"I brought a case back from Tijuana, my last trip buying horses for the Patrón.  I bought the most wonderful stallion, Johnny.  A buckskin.  You would have liked him."  Cipriano watched Señor Scott's cautious sipping at the tequila.  "Pardee stole him, and shot O'Brien and the Patrón when they went to Morro Coyo to get the horse back.  Pardee rode the horse himself."

Johnny looked up.  "I saw the horse he was ridin'.  Fine animal.  Did you get it back after Boston here killed him?"

Cipriano nodded.  "We did, but Pardee hadn’t been able to cope with him and had him gelded.  He's still a good horse, but he won't help improve our stock, as we had hoped."

"Shame."  Johnny grimaced and looked at Scott.  " See, you don't need to have Pardee on your conscience, Boston."

"He isn't."  Scott sipped again at his tequila.  "This is very smooth," he said, and Cipriano approved at the good manners that kept the surprise out of his voice.

Jaime had given his mother a small glass.  "It's a special occasion," he said, raising his own glass in salute to her.  " A celebration."

"We are glad to have you back, Juanito," said Bella, sipping delicately at the tequila.  "You have been much missed."

Johnny saluted her back.  "That right?"  He changed the subject immediately.  "We really came to see you tonight. Señora Isabella."

She smiled at him, after one swift glance at Cipriano.  "Indeed?"

"I have you to thank for these," he said, gesturing to his clothes.  "Murdoch told me you helped him get the right things."  He was wearing the blue-flowered shirt and the new bolero, decorated, like his old one, with gold braid.  The shirt made his eyes look intensely blue in his tanned face.

Bella smiled.  "I was happy to do it.  What woman does not enjoy shopping?"

"Well, I'm real grateful.  Murdoch's insisted on giving me the jacket and he said you're working on stitching a new white shirt for me for best."

"It is finished," she said.  "I was going to send it up in the morning."

"Well, I tell you, I'm grateful.  Murdoch says you're the finest embroideress in the San Joaquin and well, according to Boston here, I'm a flashy dresser, so the more stitching the better.  'Course, I'm still wondering why Murdoch thinks he has to give me a new shirt and jacket at all—"

"I heard you wondering," remarked Scott.  "I should think the entire San Joaquin Valley heard you wondering and then the entire San Joaquin Valley heard Murdoch wondering right back at you."

Johnny was very still.  "I get my own stuff, Boston."

"We know, Johnny.  Mind you, I think Murdoch's having to cut your old jacket and your shirt off you is a good enough reason for getting you some replacements."

"It weren't Murdoch shot me in the back.  Come to that, ol' Day's the one owes me a new shirt."

"Good luck with getting him to pay up."

Johnny relaxed.  His laugh sounded genuine. "You shot him.  You dig him up and make him pay." 

Scott smiled.  "He paid, Johnny-my-boy.  He paid."

"That was some good shooting," conceded Johnny.  He accepted a second glass of tequila.  "This is really good stuff, Cip.  Well, Señora Isabella, I'll be pleased to have a new shirt.  A man can't carry too much around with him in his saddlebags and three shirts is more'n I usually have."

"You are settled now, Juanito,  You are a land-owner, a ranchero." 

"Well, I aim to be, anyway," said Johnny.

Well that was closer to the truth than Bella's hopeful certainties.  Cipriano watched as Bella smiled at Johnny and patted his hand, relieved that she didn't mention the other shirts she was working on.  Cipriano had shared his misgivings with her about Johnny's likely reaction and both had wondered how the Patrón would handle it.  Indeed, Cipriano wished he knew how the Patrón had persuaded Johnny to accept the blue shirt and the jacket; that was one discussion he was sorry he'd missed. 

"You will be a good ranchero," said Bella.  "You need to look like a fine caballero now."

"Yeah," said Johnny with a wry grin and a small, almost inaudible sigh.  "Takes some getting used to."

Scott gave him a sharp look and turned the conversation to his travails as the 'greenest of greenhorns' as he said ruefully, making Bella laugh with his plaintive complaints about Cipriano's training methods.  Jaime, who was a little wide-eyed at the thought that in Boston there were no herds of cattle at all, joined in with encouragement and advice; most of which Cipriano, on the general principle that the young needed constant correction, negated and argued against even when, as he magisterially admitted, Jaime was right. 

"Is he asleep?" Cipriano asked after a few minutes in which he and Jaime had explained and debated the finer points of hazing, bull-dogging and branding, with particular reference to the coming Spring round-up, Cipriano having decided that Johnny would find a discussion about the vaquero method of breaking and training horses too interesting and stimulating.

"Yes." Scott took the empty glass from Johnny's slackened grasp, gently unclasping the long, lax fingers.  "I'm sorry Cip, Señora Isabella.  It's just that he's not as strong yet as he thinks he is and he's tired himself out walking this far—"

"Don't apologise," Bella offered a cushion and, as Scott eased his hermano down against the sofa's arm until he was half-sitting, half-lying, slipped it under Johnny's head.  "It is barely ten days since he was injured.  I think that he is still in pain, also."

"I think you're right, but he won’t admit it if he is," said Scott, his smile rueful.  He put the back of his hand against Johnny's face for a moment.  "Well, he's not feverish, at least.  I think he just wore himself out.  I'll let him rest for a few minutes if you don't mind, before trying to get him home."  He took a watch from his vest pocket.  "Murdoch will be wondering what's taking us so long."

Cipriano nodded to Jaime, who tossed back the remains of his tequila in a way that made Cipriano vow never to give his son the good tequila again and slipped out, grinning at Cipriano's threats.

"Thank you, Cip," said Scott.  He looked at his hermano with a bemused expression.  "At least he doesn't snore.  It just concerns me a little, because he must have really worn himself out to fall asleep like this.   I hope I'm not around when Sam Jenkins hears about it."

"Do not tell him," said Cipriano, with a shrug, and like Scott, leaving unsaid the speculation about how Johnny's exhaustion must have overcome the ingrained gunhawk caution, although Cipriano would rather hope it signalled that Johnny was beginning to trust them.  He thought that was Scott's hope, too.  "I do not think your hermano will.  Now, we were talking of the Spring round-up—"

They resumed their talk, keeping their voices low as they discussed the new hires and Cipriano explained in detail how the estancias worked together to bring all the roaming cattle together and brand the calves, and how those calves with no obviously branded mothers were dealt with.  Bella, uninterested, picked up her embroidery, working on covering the front plackets of the dark green shirt with stitching in silk of the same dark green and some of the coppery brown, picked out with gold.  Only the good Dios knew how the Patrón would get Johnny to accept that one.  Or the others.  Bella caught his eye and smiled, serenely.

Scott's eyebrow hitched up as he listened.  "It's like planning a military campaign," he said,  "I hadn’t realised that it was so complex."

Cipriano nodded.  "We have obligations to the other estancias.  It is a matter of pride that we fulfil those to the best of our ability.  The other rancheros know how badly Lancer was hit by Pardee, and it will not do to display any weaknesses."

Scott blinked at that.  "Do you mean that the other ranchers aren’t friendly?  They'd take advantage?"

"Well, they may seek to push the Patrón harder over things like water access, if they think he's weakened and cannot defend Lancer; or try and charge for us driving a herd over their land, or be more grasping when it comes to us replacing stock.  It's a matter of business, Scott, and they are all business men."  Cipriano glanced up as the door opened.  "Patrón," he said, rising in greeting.

Bella looked up and smiled a welcome, but she did not rise, careful not to disturb Johnny beside her.

The Patrón nodded, looking a little grim.  "Is he all right?"  he demanded, as soon as he'd greeted Bella.

"Just worn out, I think," Scott said.  "I didn't mean for you to trail down here, sir."

"I thought you might need some help to get him back."  The Patrón sounded gruff and half-annoyed, but his expression said worried and concerned.

Scott nodded.  "Let me wake him."  He slipped onto his knees by Johnny's half-recumbent body, and put his hand firmly on his brother's right wrist, holding it down against Johnny's side; he'd learned that much already, then.  With his free hand, he shook Johnny's shoulder lightly.  "C'mon, Johnny.  Time to go home."

Johnny came awake shockingly fast when he was shaken, sitting bolt upright, his breath hissing between his teeth in surprise or (more likely) pain.  His right hand made an abortive move towards his hip where his gun should be, but Scott's grip was firm and held him still.

"Uuuuh," he said.

"Easy," soothed Scott.  "Easy.  It's just me."

Johnny stared, so tense that Cipriano's bones ached in sympathy.  He breathed deeply and quickly, before slumping back against the sofa.  That brought another hiss of pain. He ducked his head, but not before Cipriano saw in his eyes the flash of fear and… what?... chagrin, perhaps.

"I was asleep?"

"Like a baby," said Scott, releasing his hold on Johnny's wrist and sitting back on his heels.  "All right?"

Johnny nodded, his mouth twisting briefly.  "Getting too comfortable," he said in a savage undertone, before turning to Bella and turning the grimace into the charming smile.  "Lo siente, Señora—" 

"There is no reason for you to be sorry," she said, and put a hand over his.  "You have done too much today, Juanito.  You need to be more careful of yourself."

Johnny shot a glance at the Patrón, who leaned on his cane watching, his face not showing much of what he thought.  "I'm fine, Señora.  But I am sorry for sleeping on your sofa.  Ain't right, in company."

Bella smiled.  "It isn't the first time."  She looked up at Jaime and the smile broadened.

"I've picked you up from here before," said the Patrón suddenly.  "Sometimes your… sometimes you were here when I came in from the range and I'd come down to get you, and you and Jaime would be fast asleep on the sofa, curled up together like a pair of puppies."

Johnny's shoulders rose defensively.  He swallowed, and his tongue flicked out over his lower lip, but he didn't seem to have anything to say.  He looked away, his fingers tapping restlessly against his thigh where his holster should be.  He'd tensed back up again, until Cipriano was reminded of nothing more than a bow, the string pulled back taut with the arrow trembling on the nock.

Scott got to his feet.  He looked from his hermano to the Patrón and the resemblance was there again, in the way he and the Patrón both tightened their mouths and narrowed their eyes when they were angry.  And Scott was angry, Cipriano realised with a shock of recognition for the momentary blaze in the pale blue eyes the young man had inherited from his mother.  It was the mirror of the look he'd seen in the pistolero's eyes when Johnny had jumped down from the back of the wagon, the day they'd arrived.  Cipriano couldn't be certain why Scott shared Johnny's anger—that was something to reflect on, to ponder, that both, perhaps, resented abandonment and lies.  He was certain that he was seeing the same anger, the same bitterness, but where Johnny Madrid had fairly thrummed with it, here it was hidden so much more effectively under the pale, civilised veneer. 

It was gone again in an instant, shuttered away behind those pale eyes.  Scott said, his tone easy again, "You know, brother, you must have been the oddest looking baby.  Every time Murdoch mentions you, he talks about puppies.  And you without the soulful brown eyes, too."

Johnny shot Scott a dark, savage look.  "Yeah  You reckon the brown eyes would've saved this puppy a kicking or two?" He pushed himself to his feet suddenly.  It was too much, too fast and too soon: he wavered visibly, and Scott leapt forward to catch him by both arms to steady him. 

"Take your time," Scott said, frowning.  "What's your hurry?"

Johnny looked down at the hand on his biceps, then up into Scott's face.  He studied it for a few seconds, his own expressionless.  Scott's expression changed under Johnny's scrutiny, from concern to a slow realisation that he'd said or done something with far more weight to it than he could have intended.  Bella watched them, looking distressed.

"Johnny," the Patrón said, very softly.  "John."

Johnny glanced at him.

"Not here, son," urged the Patrón.  "Not right now."

Johnny returned to studying Scott.

"What is it?" asked Scott, looking from one to the other in bewilderment, the bitterness no longer visible.  He released Johnny now that his hermano was steady on his feet.  "What did you mean—"

"Let's get Johnny home," interrupted the Patrón, in the tone that made it clear he wasn't going to brook any argument or allow any more discussion.  He glanced at Cipriano, who nodded and rose, and just for a moment his frustration and something of the old pain and anguish showed, the pain that had been distilling for twenty years.  "Thank you, Cip, Señora Isabella.  Jaime."

Bella stood and took Johnny's right hand in hers.  The other she laid gently on his left shoulder for an instant before cupping the side of his face to pull his attention to her.  "No se enoja con su hermano, Juanito," she said softly.  "Él no sabe.  Él no puede entender."¹ She let her hand fall away again.

Johnny turned the intense gaze from his brother's face to hers.  For a moment he looked so dangerous that Cipriano's heart juddered and he took a step forward to pull Bella away.  Then Johnny's expression softened, the cold-eyed pistolero was gone and the charming boy was back.  He smiled the heartbreaking smile that Cipriano remembered.  "Yo sé, Señora Isabella.  Yo sé.  It's all right."  He left his right hand in hers and raised the left slowly and hesitantly, as if it pained him to use it, and rubbed it over his face.  "I'm just a mite tired.  Lo siente." ²

"Murdoch?" queried Scott, quietly.

"Later.  Johnny, you're worn out.  Come on back to the house and rest."

"Yes."  Johnny glanced at Scott.  "It's all right, Boston."

"Go and rest," said Bella, squeezing his hand and reaching up to kiss his cheek as if he had been Jaime. 

He looked startled and, suddenly and very briefly, incredibly sad, the smile dying as the corners of his mouth dragged down. It was only an instant, then all expression was smoothed away again and he was safe behind his gunfighter's mask.  "If I sleep as well as I did on your sofa, Señora, I'll be fine."  Johnny glanced at Jaime, and grinned.  "On my own, if you don't mind, Jaime."

Jaime nodded and grinned back.  "Ciertamente, Señor Johnny.  Mama said all we did was fight anyway."

"Not always, Jaime," protested Bella.  "Only sometimes, and mostly over the wooden horse."

"His or mine?" asked Johnny, pulling the bolero straight and fastening it. 

"That was the problem," said Cipriano, puzzling over the way the stresses and frictions between the three Lancers came and went almost as if they were living and breathing wild things, and certainly as skittish and unpredictable.  It was as capricious as a flame's dance.  "Ownership was disputed."

"It was Jaime's," said the Patrón, watching Johnny with the same intensity that Johnny had watched Scott.  "You never wanted to give it back."

With a nod of thanks, Johnny took the gun belt that a subdued Scott brought him.  He hefted it in his hand, grimacing.  He didn’t put it back on, just looped it over his arm.  "Do I owe you a horse, Jaime?"

Jaime laughed.  "No, Johnny, no.  The little Arturo, Eduardo's son, has Barranca now."

Johnny allowed his hermano and the Patrón to guide him to the door.  "Barranca?"

"That's what you insisted on calling him, Juanito," said Bella.  "It stuck.  Buenas noches, nino.  Duerme bien."³

"Buenas noches," said Johnny.  And through the chorus of goodnights and good wishes, he said, trying to laugh, "Barranca?  What sort of name is that for a horse?"

 

 

Toledano straightened his back, holding the bawling calf firmly by the head to stop its struggles.  This was an indisputable Lancer calf, its anxious mother branded with the distinctive circled L (a florid and grandiose letter, Cipriano thought, privately) that marked all the Lancer stock.  Toledano had spotted the calf the previous day limping slowly along behind the herd.  And while they wouldn't brand the calf to match its mother until the following week's Spring Round-up with the neighbouring estancias—there was an etiquette to these things that Cipriano found quite satisfying and wouldn't break—they were going to take it into the corrals near the ranch to treat the gash on its left hind leg and allow it to heal.

"Is that Señor Johnny?" asked Toledano, with a jerk of his head to the left of them.

Cipriano followed the direction of Toledano's gaze, seeing the Patrón's son dashing across the far hillside on a golden horse.  He nodded as the distant horseman put the palomino at a fence, watching the tiny figures sail over the obstacle as if winged.

Cipriano knew very well that while the Patrón's youngest son had finally been given a measure of freedom from the doctor's restrictions, that measure was intended to be a small and carefully regulated one.  Talking nearby with the Patrón and Señor Scott, Cipriano had heard the doctor give his instructions: You can ride a little, Sam Jenkins had said, but not that half-wild palomino you've been talking my ear off about and if I hear of you going faster than a sedate trot before I tell you that you can, then you and I shall have words, young man.  The Patrón had stopped speaking to listen anxiously, and had been gruffly defensive when he caught Cipriano's knowing glance.

"Si," he said, mildly enough.  "Juanito's idea of a gentle ride does not seem to match exactly with Doctor Jenkins'. "

"He rides fast, that one," said Toledano, always one to state the obvious.  "Ai, but remember that morning!"

Cipriano was unlikely to forget it.  His finger had been squeezing the trigger of his rifle when the Patrón recognised his errant younger son as the lead horseman in the mad dash to the hacienda.  Cipriano had been within a hair's breadth of shooting the prodigal off the horse and he had had to exercise great control to slowly release the tension on the trigger so the gun didn't fire.  A few seconds later and Johnny had tumbled hard from the saddle with Day Pardee's bullet in his back.  Cipriano had thanked the good Dios that it hadn't been his bullet that had brought the boy to the ground.  It had been too close.

Cipriano glanced over to Scott.  The young man was sitting in the saddle, as rigidly as he had that first day when he'd started work on the estancia, back straight as a ramrod.  Cipriano touched his heels to Amaranthe's sides, and the mare stepped lightly over to join him.  Scott's face was set as rigidly as his back as he watched his hermano take another fence before disappearing over the hill and out of sight.  Scott continued staring for a few moments, but Johnny and the palomino didn't return.

"Tell me, Cipriano, do you have brothers?"

"Si," said Cipriano.  "Two.  Both younger than me."

"Are they still alive?  And if they are, would you mind telling me how you managed not to strangle them?"

"I am a man of very even temperament, Scott."

Scott turned and stared at him.

"Although," admitted Cipriano, keeping his face straight, "it's true that my brother Eduardo still has a scar from the time when my temperament was tried to the point when it became a little less even and, I remember, we ended up in the creek.  We started the fight in the barn and to this day neither of us know how we got to the creek.  Still, it was effective.  Whatever it was that Eduardo did to annoy me never happened again."

"That's very helpful, Cip.  Thank you."  Scott sighed.  "No creek near the house, though.  That's a drawback."

"I think the well may be too deep, but we have a horse trough," remarked Cipriano. 

Scott nodded.  "Very true.  You know, Cip, I may find a use for that horse trough later."

Cipriano smiled.  Scott was an apt pupil.

 

 

Johnny was lying at full stretch on the long seat on the loggia, when Cipriano and Scott arrived to discuss with the Patrón the final arrangements for the Spring round-up.  They thought he was asleep but just as Scott, who was still tense with whatever emotion had wracked him when he saw Johnny and the palomino, stepped onto the loggia, Johnny spoke without opening his eyes.

"You might want to wait a couple of minutes, Boston.  Frank just brought the post in and Murdoch's got something there he isn't too happy about.  I'd reckon it was a bill, only it's too thick for that.  Maybe it's a love letter.  I hightailed it outa there before he could work himself up over it and look around for someone to blame.  I was too handy."

"You're joining us for this meeting, aren't you?" asked Scott, all affability.

"Sure.  Afternoon, Cip."  Johnny sat up slowly.  His eyes showed no sign of sleepiness that Cipriano could see, although he thought that Johnny looked stiff and he certainly eased his back and shoulders carefully.  Johnny added, sadly, "Mind you, I don't think the Doc is gonna let me ride the round-up much."

Scott snorted.  "Well, you just keep up with those sedate trots on the gentle fully-broken non-palomino horse that Doctor Jenkins ordered to build up your strength, and we'll have to see, won't we?"

Johnny looked down at his boots, his mouth turning up. "Sure."

"You might want to take your sedate trots over on the west pastures for the next few days, away from where we're working," said Scott, still affable.  "That way no-one will see you not jumping your gentle, fully-broken non-palomino horse over fences that aren't there."

Johnny glanced up quickly.  His eyes were bright with amusement.  "Good advice, Boston.  I'll take it."

"I don't know why you should.  You don't take other people's good advice."

"Well," said Johnny in a reasonable tone, "If I knew what a sedate trot was, I'd be sure to take it."

"I'm sure you would."  Scott put out a hand and pulled to help as Johnny got to his feet.  "In fact, you'd better, because I'm damned serious about not hauling you around California on my back if something happens to you."

"That so?" said Johnny, softly.

Cipriano smiled, and stroked his moustache.  "You may have to use the horse trough, Scott."

"I'm tempted.  No more, little brother.  I'm not happy about you not listening to what Sam Jenkins tells you."

Johnny looked bewildered.  "Why?"

"Are you serious?  You almost died!"

"I'm fine."

"You're pushing yourself too hard, Johnny, and it's worrying us.  For heaven's sake, take it a little easier and let yourself heal.  Do what the doctor wants."

"I've had worse, Boston, and I know what I can handle and how far I can push."  Johnny looked from one to the other, and shook his head, exasperated.  "You don’t get it.  Look, I gotta keep pushing.  It's taking too long for me to get back and it ain't safe.  Most times I don't get to sit around getting fattened up by the likes of Teresa and Maria.  Most times I just gotta get myself picked up, real fast.  I can't be laid up.  I just can't.  There's too many would like a chance at me."

"Here? On Lancer?  You're safe here, surely?"

"You think they gonna stop at that arch out there and think, nope, won't try and take ol' Johnny today, he's on Lancer land?  It'll be anywhere and anytime.  It ain't ever safe."

Cipriano sighed.  The nino meant it.  It was sad, and enlightening.  He remembered the conversation he'd had with Bella when Johnny was still sick, and he still wondered what it was the nino wanted.  He thought that what Johnny was then and was now, what Johnny did then and wanted to do now (they all hoped) were still in conflict.

Scott put out his hand again to grasp Johnny by the forearm, but this time his voice was gentler.  "I asked you once why you chose that life, Johnny.  If this is what it's really like, why did you?"

"Oh, Boston," said Johnny, and sighed.  "You really want to know?"

"I wouldn't ask if I didn't.  Tell me, Johnny."

Johnny looked at him intently before turning his head to stare out over Teresa's flower garden to the wide land beyond.  His mouth twisted. "Because I got blue eyes."

"What?"

"Because I got them blue eyes that damned dime novel was using' language about, that you thought was so funny.  They're blue, Boston!  Not soulful brown puppy dog eyes.  They're god-damned blue."

Scott raised both hands in bewilderment.  "I don't understand."

"I know you don't."  Johnny stood for a minute, his right hand tapping patterns against his gun holster, and again Cipriano thought the patterns were of anger and bitterness and distress.  He took in a deep breath, and said, visibly calmer, "And you know, I'm glad you don't."  He turned to walk away.

"Johnny—"

"Just give me a minute, okay?  Just a minute."  He walked to the other end of the loggia and leant up against one of the pillars, looking out across the wide, fertile valley land to the mountains, to where they reached up into sky as pale and translucent as distant ghosts.  Cipriano noticed that he leant on his left shoulder, even though that couldn't be comfortable, and kept his gun hand free.  He sighed, wondering if the nino would ever feel safe in his own home; in what he hoped and prayed would be the nino's home.

Scott turned to Cipriano.  "Wha—?"
 
"His eyes mark him as a mestizo," said Cipriano, reluctantly.  "A half-breed.  The life of a mestizo child in the border towns with no-one to take care of him and protect him, no-one to stand between him and the people, both Mexican and gringo, who hate half-breeds… I can’t tell you how hard that is, Señor Scott.  Many do not survive it.  And those that do, many are broken by it.  All they know is hate and blows and hunger."

"Because his mother was Mexican?"

"And the Patrón is a gringo, si."  Cipriano added, very softly, "He was very young, your hermano, when he was left to face this alone."

"How young?"

"Eleven."

Scott's mouth thinned right down until his lips were white.  He nodded and blew out a noisy, sad breath.  "Damn," he said, very quietly but with emphasis.

Cipriano nodded.  "Si."

Scott nodded his thanks, although Cipriano knew he couldn't have any real understanding of the hell that had been the nino's childhood.  But Scott, he thought, would try.  Scott would always try.

Scott gave Johnny his minute or two and went to join him.  "It was a stupid question," he said.

"No," said Johnny.  "It was a stupid choice."

"You said that the life chose you, remember."

"About half and half, I'd say."  Johnny turned his head, and the blue eyes that had been his curse and his damnation were sombre.  "It's not.. it was a long time ago.  What did Cip tell you?"

"That it was hellishly bad for you, as a child."

Johnny's gaze met Cipriano's.  "Did the Old Man give you the Pinkerton reports to read?"

"Si, when I became Segundo.  And because he knew that Bella and I wanted you back almost as much as he did.  Every trip I have made to Mexico, I looked for you, Juanito.  I saw how it was along the border, how it must have been for you."

"Yeah," said Johnny, and his eyes darkened.  He looked back at Scott.  "It hasn’t been like that for me for a long time.  Because you know what?  When I realised I was good with this—" he tapped the grips of his pistol "—it stopped.  They didn’t like me any better, but they stopped.  They stopped calling names.  They stopped spitting.  They stopped beating up on me.  They fucking walk small, Boston.  They let me be, and they walk small and that's all I want.  It's all I ever wanted." 

"Nino," said Cipriano, softly, gently, feeling something in his chest lurch with pain.

"It's okay, Cip.  It's done with. "  He tapped his gun again.  "This's just a trade, that's all, and I get along.  I get along just fine.  I'm good at my job."  

"I'm glad you were good at your job, Johnny," said Scott.  "And I'm glad you're here."

Johnny straightened up and turned to face them properly, everything behind the mask again.  He nodded.  "Yeah.  I was thinking that this isn't anything like the border.  It's real pretty here, isn't it?"  He gestured towards the ghost mountains holding up the distant sky.

"Yes," said Scott.  "It's nothing like Boston either.  I'm only just coming to realise that I've been looking for a place that isn't anything like Boston, to start again."

Johnny looked surprised as if wondering what his hermano had to put behind him.  "Is that what you want?  To start over?"

"I'm tired of Boston, Johnny.  I'm tired of having nothing to do.  You'd think it would be a great life, wouldn't you, having so much money that you didn't have to do anything, didn't have to work or do anything but enjoy yourself.  I hated it.  It wears you down, in the end, so you don’t even want to get out of bed in the morning.  There's nothing to get out of bed for.  So, yes, I want to start over.  I want to do something different and build something new.  This is going to be a good place to do that."

The French windows were flung open.  "Johnny!" roared the Patrón.

"Of course," said Scott, without missing a beat.  "It isn't going to be a quiet place."

It surprised a choke of laughter out of Johnny that sounded more real than anything Cipriano had heard so far.  Scott grinned back, his eyes bright.  The tension drained away.

"Reckon he has a tune he wants to call," drawled Johnny, his smile warm and open. They turned to watch the Patrón stamp towards them, every second step punctuated by the sharp stab of his cane on the tiled floor.  The Patrón had a sheaf of paper in his cane-free hand.

"Hot damn," breathed Johnny.  "That letter!  Told you it was firing him up.  Wanna run for it?  He'll never catch us."

"Do you know what this is?" demanded the Patrón, waving the papers at them.  One detached itself from the sheaf and floated gently to the ground.

"I don't read other folks's letters, Murdoch," said Johnny, as virtuous as one of Padre Pedro's choirboys.

The Patrón glared.  "It's the final Pinkerton report on their contacts with you two, that's what it is."

Cipriano bent to retrieve the loose sheet.  The Pinkerton's unsleeping eye was printed prominently on the top.  He saw the words invoice attached for your convenience and earliest attention and handed the sheet over.  This was one Pinkerton invoice that he thought the Patrón would pay without complaint.  Possibly.

"Indeed?" said Scott, raising an eyebrow.

His hermano was even more sardonic.  "Good reading, Murdoch?"

"You were in a Mexican prison!" said the Patrón, and Cipriano could almost hear his teeth gritting. 

"He must mean you, little brother."

"Guess so.  Don't reckon a Fancy Dan Easterner would know about ending up in jail."

"Give me time to get to know my provoking little brother.  I have a feeling you're going to lead me astray."

The Patrón's nostrils whitened with temper, and not just because he wasn't getting their full attention.  "Stop being a fool, Johnny.  The Pinkerton agent said he found you just as you were about to be shot by a firing squad!  Literally just as you were going to be shot!"

"Yeah.  Lucky that, eh?"  Johnny sounded unmoved, but the expression in his eyes was wary.

Scott took a sharp breath.  He looked intently at his hermano and put his hand, very briefly, on Johnny's arm.  Cipriano wondered whether it was to comfort Johnny or himself, but whatever was meant, the fingers that Johnny was tapping restlessly on his holster again were stilled when Scott touched him, as if his hermano's touch gentled the wildness in him.  Cipriano took a few steps to one side.  This probably wasn't for him to hear and it was best to put on some semblance of discretion.  He could watch from a little distance and he had sharp hearing.

"You were in prison because you were helping some Mexican peasants rebel?  Why?"

"Because the Rurales caught us?" offered Johnny.

The Patrón's mouth worked and thinned down into the hard line that had become all too common an expression in the hard, lonely years.  "I meant, why were you helping them?"

Johnny shrugged.  "They asked me to and God knows they needed it.  Don Castañeda was taking every last thing they had and coming back for the empty sack.  They didn’t have a hope.  Their kids were skinny as fence rails."

The Patrón waved the papers some more.  "How could they afford you?  The way I heard it, you're... you were an awfully expensive gun to hire."

"Well now," said Johnny, softly, "You know how expensive I am, old man.  Hiring my gun this time's costing you one-third of this place.  Seems a high price.  Best one I ever made, anyway."

The Patrón snorted.  "I am not hiring your gun, Johnny!  Having both of you home at last isn't costing me anything that I wouldn't pay ten times over."

Johnny stared, his expression for once revealing his surprise.

His father nodded at him, acknowledging everything that was unsaid.  "Still, I'd be interested to know how those peons could possibly afford to pay you."

"I hired out for short money."

"How short, brother?" asked Scott.

"They had nothing left.  I hired out for tamales and beans."  Johnny grinned suddenly, ruefully.  "It turned out to be beans, mostly."

"You could have been killed, son!  Dear God, but you were only a minute away from it!  It wasn't even your fight."

"It never is my fight until I sign up," said Johnny.

"Why this one?" asked Scott.  "Why did you help them?"

"They were nice people," said Johnny.  "They didn't deserve what Castañeda did to them and they couldn't afford more."  He shrugged.  "There's worse things to die for, I guess, and plenty of the poor bastards died in our little revolution, especially after someone ratted out on us.  The Rurales are the real bastards.  They're more banditos than real law and they're in the pay of the landowners, to put down any of the peons who try to rebel.  They don't care who they kill or stuff into one of the hellholes they call prison."

"Watch your language," said the Patrón, automatically.  "You should have told us."

"You're the one who says that the past is past, sir," said Scott reasonably. before Johnny could do more than stiffen.  "I don't see that either of us was under any obligation to explain our movements before we came here.  After all, what difference does it make now that Johnny was in prison or I was in a lady's boudoir when the Pinkerton agents delivered your invitation?  What's important is that we came, surely."

"A lady's what?" queried Johnny, grinning.

"Precisely," said Scott, and grinned back, but there was a strained expression around his eyes and the banter wasn't coming easily.

"I only hope she was pretty, Boston."

"Very pretty.  Unfortunately, we were interrupted."

Johnny's smile broadened.  "So were we.  But I was damned pleased to see that Pink, I can tell you.  I was next up."

"I don't know how you can joke about it," said Scott, shaking his head. 

Johnny shrugged, his smile unwavering.  "Makes me glad that was one Pink I hadn't given the slip to.  They've been chasing after me for months."

"Did you know I was looking for you?" demanded the Patrón, astonished.

"I didn't know what it was about or who'd sent them, but I wasn't letting them close enough to ask.  I knew it wasn't to hire me.  No-one would use Pinks for that.  And no, I didn't think it might be you.  Why would I?"

The Patrón looked weary, suddenly.  "It really wasn't my choice she went, Johnny."

Johnny ducked his head to look at his boots with a fascination they didn't warrant.  He let the Patrón's words lie there, unanswered.  Instead he said, "Pinks aren't good for business but mostly they're real easy to dodge when you want to."

"Thank God this one found you, Johnny.  I'd have hated to have missed the chance to know I had a little brother."

"Well, it was close."

"How long were you in there?"

"Three weeks or so, I reckon.  Kinda lost track of the days, after a while.  There's no light and no clocks."  He rubbed at his chest, where the faded bruise was.  "I kinda measured time by other things.  They was regular about that."

After a moment in which both the Patrón and his elder son looked almost murderous, the Patrón sighed.  "Well, I suppose it explains the bruises and why you were—"  He broke off.

"I guess it does," said Johnny, flatly.  "The Rurales don't like half-breeds much either."

"I wish the damned Pinkertons had found you sooner," said the Patrón.  He crumpled the invoice in his hand.  "I wish you'd let them find you sooner."

"Yeah," said Johnny.  "Can't change the past, Old Man.  It's done with, you said."

"I was wrong," said the Patrón.  "And even if we're done with the past, it's not done with us."

Johnny let out a little huff of laughter, but there was no mirth in it.  "Yeah," he said again.  "We just have to play out the hand, Murdoch."

The Patrón's smile was reluctant.  "Yes."

Johnny nodded and looked away and Scott stepped in to fill the silence.  "You know, Johnny, I'll admit that I thought the dime novels made unlikely heroes out of gunfighters, but that's really something, helping people like that.  It would make a good plot for a novel, you know."

"Are you gonna write it?"

"If I ever understand you well enough," said Scott, rather dryly.  "Capturing you in words is hard enough, little brother, without trying to work out why you do things."

"Me?  It's simple."  Johnny opened his eyes very wide.  "Sometimes you strap your gun on for a third of a ranch and sometimes it's for beans.  It's all work."

Scott shook his head, smiling and Johnny laughed.  For the first time that Cipriano had seen, he reached out and touched his hermano.  He got a hand around Scott's neck and pulled him briefly towards himself, ruffling Scott's hair.  It wasn't a full hug, but it was something; a gesture and a promise, maybe.

"You write it and I'll tell you what you get wrong."

"That'll be a job of work, all right," said Scott, but he was smiling.

The Patrón sighed, very loudly, and stuffed the report into his shirt pocket.  "We have a round-up to plan, boys, and that will be real work.  Let's get to it."  He paused, and added, "Now you're stronger, Johnny, we'll go into Green River tomorrow and get that deed signed at the lawyer's.  You'll be fine in the wagon."

"I'll be even finer on Barranca," said Johnny.  "I can ride, Murdoch.  It's only an hour or so, and we'll only be going at that sedate trot the Doc's so keen on."

"Barranca?" Scott grinned.  "I thought you wondered what sort of name that was for a horse?"

"Well," said Johnny, with a rueful smile.  "It kinda fits him.  I'm riding him tomorrow, Murdoch, okay?  Me and Scott will both ride.  Right, brother?"

Scott stared, then the smile broadened until all the Eastern reserve was gone.  He looked delighted, as if Johnny had given him a present of something he'd always wanted.  "Right."

The Patrón, surprisingly, didn't argue.  The expression on his usually stern face softened and he nodded his agreement, giving his sons a smile that left both of them looking faintly surprised.  Cipriano understood, though, and the tight feeling in his chest that he'd had since he'd explained the curse of blue eyes to Scott, eased and stopped aching; a warmth spread there instead, filling him until he had to turn aside and wipe his eyes.  The dust must have blown into them.

He looked out across the land that was as much his home as the Patrón's and knew it was safe now and that the scars would heal at last.  When he got home that night, he told himself, he would kiss both of his Bella's hands in homage.  She had said, his clever and lovely wife, that what would matter wouldn't be just what Johnny said, but what he did to show what his intentions were, to show who he wanted to be.  Bella was, as always, a perceptive and wise woman.  She would understand, as he and the Patrón understood, that both the sons were home at last.

Because Johnny Madrid had never had or known about or wanted a horse called Barranca.  But Johnny Lancer?  Johnny Lancer had fought for one.

And because Johnny Madrid had no brothers, only an Eastern stranger called Boston.  But Johnny Lancer?  Johnny Lancer had a brother called Scott.

 

 

"I've been thinking," said Bella, as Cipriano halted the wagon in the shade of the oak trees in the square outside the church.

"A dangerous pastime," remarked Cipriano, lifting her down and setting her on her feet.

She dusted down her Sunday-best silks; there had been no rain for a couple of weeks now and the roads were dry and dust-blown.  "Juanito looked very handsome in his new white shirt, when he went with his hermano and papa to sign the agreement," she said.  "He's going to turn the head of every girl in the Valley."

"Mmn," said Cipriano. 

Bella unfurled her parasol and tilted it to shade herself, just so, slipping her left hand through Cipriano's proffered arm.  "But it's too soon," she said.  "He needs time to learn to be a son and a brother before he's distracted by learning to be a husband.  Were you distracted, Cipriano?"

"I still am," said Cipriano, patting the little hand on his arm.  "As you know."

She smiled her special, only-for-him smile.  "Yes," she said.  "So.  I'll enjoy watching Juanito become a fine caballero and in a year or two perhaps, when he's settled and happy and Señor Lancer is less,,, less apprehensive, then I'll think again about who may make a suitable wife for him."

"I thought you had Maria-Cruz Baldomero in mind?"

Bella shrugged.  "An owner of an estancia as fine and big as Lancer will look higher than a shopkeeper's niece."

Cipriano, one eye on the gaggle of women on the church steps, wondered if anyone had told Señora de Baldomero that.  She had just seen them crossing the square and was bearing down on them, her capacious silk dress billowing around her equally capacious frame.  He mentioned her approach to Bella.  "She looks very excited," he commented.

"She must have heard about the partnership," said Bella.  "It will be all over the Valley by now."

That, Cipriano did not doubt.  He had seen the power of women when it came to communication and was in awe of it. 

"My dear Señora de Roldán!  My dear, dear Señora!  How happy I am to see you again!" 

Bella smiled her most Isabella-like smile.  "Good day," she said primly, closing down her parasol in order to press briefly only one of the hands held out to her.

"My dear!  What an exciting time!" Señora de Baldomero affected not to notice Bella's coolness.  "Both Señor Lancer's sons home and joining him at the estancia!  How pleased you must be."

"But of course," said Señora Isabella,

"I'm so looking forward to the fiesta… there is to be a fiesta, you said?"

"I believe so," said Bella.  "Señorita Teresa calls it a 'social', but we will celebrate with all our friends."

"Maria-Cruz is so looking forward to it, I can’t tell you!  She can barely sleep, she's so excited about meeting Señor Lancer's sons."  Señora de Baldomero laughed, and added, archly.  "Both his fine sons."

Bella frowned, as if in bewilderment.  "Maria-Cruz?"

This time the Señora faltered.  "But…"  She took a deep breath and capitulated completely.  "But Señora Isabella, you know Maria-Cruz!  Señor Baldomero's niece!"

"Maria-Cruz," said Bella, pensively.  "Ah yes, of course.  Your niece, Maria-Cruz.  A pretty girl, I remember.  I'm sure that if she comes to the fiesta, Señora, there will be no shortage of respectable young men to dance with her."

"Señora Isabella!" said the Baldomero woman, faintly.

"Do please excuse us, Señora, but the warning bells are sounding and Señor Roldán is eager to get to Mass—" (which piety was news to Cipriano) "—so perhaps we may speak later?"

And Bella smiled her cool smile again, dismissing Señora de Baldomero's repeated bleatings of "But Señora Isabella!" with a nod, and got Cipriano moving with the slightest of tugs on his arm.

Cipriano paused on the steps of the church and looked down into his wife's lovely face.  Bella beamed up at him.

"I think she knows, now," she said, "that she's too late.  That will teach her to think Juanito isn't respectable enough."

Cipriano laughed.  "Ah, Isabella Muñoz de Roldán!  You're quite magnificent!"

"I know," his Bella said, her mouth curving until he wanted to kiss it, right there on the church steps.  "I know."

 

 

~End~
September/October 2008
32,721 words

 

 

Footnotes : Spanish to English

1. No se enoja con su hermano, Juanito. Él no sabe.  Él no puede entender.
Don't be angry with your brother, Johnny. He doesn't know. He can't understand

2. Yo sé, Señora Isabella.  Yo sé. ..... Lo siente
I know, Señora Isabella. I know. .... I'm sorry.

3. Buenas noches, nino. Duerme bien
Good night, child. Sleep well