Pedro turned to face him. “You have blamed the girl for Andreas’s death. And you have blamed yourself. The girl did nothing any one of us would not have done in the same situation. You did only what it was your brother wished. You could not have stopped either one of those things from happening.”
Ramon said nothing, just stared at the small figure huddled in the bed.
“It is time you forgave the girl. Perhaps even more important—it is time you forgave yourself.”
She lay unconscious, her pale face bathed in sweat, the covers kicked off and her nightgown tangled up around her bare knees. The gown was clean, he saw, one Florentia must have provided, borrowed from Miranda or one of the Indian girls. The dirt was gone from her legs and feet, but not the long deep scratches. He could still see the bruise on her cheek. Occasionally, her eyelids flickered, as if the dreams she suffered were even more unpleasant than the journey that had brought her to such a state.
Ramon’s mouth went dry. The air seemed to burn in his lungs. His face felt bloodless and nearly as pale as the girl’s.
“If it is penance you seek, my friend,” Pedro said softly, “this is the crime for which you must pay.”
Ramon leaned forward, gripping the scrollwork at the foot of the old iron bed. Huddled in the center, the girl looked like an innocent child, her small hands fisted beneath her chin, her legs drawn up, her flame dark hair tousled and unkempt around her shoulders.
Ramon’s chest tightened, the ache more painful with each escaping breath. “Madre de Dios—what have I done?”
Sanchez’s tension eased as he walked up beside him. “What matters is that you care. That you are thinking clearly again. Florentia and I will see to the girl. When she is better, you can—”
“I will see to the girl. This is my fault. All of it.Por Dios,I cannot believe I am responsible for something like this.”
“Everyone makes mistakes, my friend. Even you. A wise man learns from them.”
Ramon just shook his head. “I told myself it was her fault, that she was to blame for what happened to Andreas. From the start, I knew it was not the truth, that I was the one to blame. It was wrong, what I did. Unforgivably wrong.” Stripping off the black leather vest he wore, he tossed it over a chair, then sat down at the side of the bed. He leaned over and touched her forehead, which burned beneath his hand.
“Her fever is high,” he said.
“Si.Florentia has tried to bring it down, but so far nothing has worked.”
“Get me some water and several more clean cloths. Tell Miranda to fetch the Indian woman from the village. Tell her to take Ruiz with her and get back here as soon as she can.”
Pedro smiled gently. “I will see to it,patron.”
Ramon looked up at the word, rarely used between the two friends. Something flickered in the old vaquero’s eyes, respect, or perhaps approval.
“Gracias,my friend,” Ramon said softly. There was a shift in the air between them, a moment that said without words whateach man felt for the other. Then Sanchez nodded, backed from the room, and quietly closed the door.
Ramon sat with the girl all that night, bathing her forehead, opening her gown and bathing her shoulders, bathing her legs and feet. He would have liked to remove her clothes, to care for her more completely, but he refused to submit her to any further indignities. He knew how proud she was. How much her pride would suffer if she thought he had seen her naked.
If he hadn’t felt so bad, he might have smiled. Even without breaching her modesty, he knew what a beautiful body she had. It was outlined clearly beneath her thin cotton bedclothes: the tiny waist, graceful legs, and high lush breasts. Her bottom was round and womanly, her neck pale and slender, her feet and hands small and well formed.
He took in her tumbled hair, a cinnamon brown, once alive with fiery highlights. He frowned. Like its owner, it lacked the luster it once had. Washing it would return the fire. As soon as she was better, he vowed, he would remedy that himself.
Sponging her face, he rested the cloth for a moment against her dry lips. Caralee was her name, he recalled. Carly, she had said. A pretty name, saucy and determined just as she was. As he vowed that she would be again.
Throughout the night, she tossed and turned, and in her sleep she began to speak, rousing Ramon from his thoughts as he sat beside her in the chair. At first the words were incoherent, just fever-induced, disjointed ramblings, then little by little the words began to form sentences.
“Pa? Is that you, Pa? I love you, Pa.” She fisted the sheets in her small hands and tears began to slide down her cheeks. “Don’t go, Ma, please don’t leave me.”
He smoothed the damp hair back from her forehead. “You are not alone,nina,” he replied in the English she had slipped into. “Rest easy.”
“I ain’t gonna do it,” she suddenly said. “I ain’t gonna leave her. She’s sick. She’s dyin’. I don’t care if n I catch it, I ain’t gonna go.”
Ramon leaned forward, listening to her words, a frown of uncertainty creasing his brow. Just then Pedro walked in.
“You have been awake all night, Ramon. I will sit with the girl while you get some sleep.”
“She has been talking, Pedro. I have spoken English to her on several occasions, but it sounded nothing like this. Her words were always refined, cultured. The way she speaks now sounds more like the illiterategringoswho come off the ships, headed for the gold fields. Something is not right here.”
Pedro came closer. “What do you think it means?”
