Canyon Song Read online

  “En el nombre de Cristo, te voy a ayudar,” she continued, promising he knew not what. No matter, for even when he’d understood her, her words had all been lies.

  She pulled something on a long cord over her head and placed it in his right hand. “Por valor,” she offered.

  He thought back to his own scant store of Spanish phrases. Didn’t that last mean “for courage”? Yes, he needed that right now. He pressed the crucifix into his palm while she cut away his outer coat, his jacket, and his shirt. She peeled back the sodden layers, and he squeezed the silver cross more firmly so he would not cry out with the pain.

  “¡Dios mio!” she swore a moment after he felt cool air against his back.

  “Speak English, please,” Quinn grunted. “I know that you can.”

  Her gaze met his, the gray-blue of her eyes for a moment a cold fire. He realized his mistake then. Before that moment, she probably hadn’t known he recognized her. Perhaps she did not remember him at all. In the six years since she’d robbed him, she could have had many victims.

  Her expression said she hated him for remembering whoand what she was. The steely flame of her eyes promised he would die soon, most likely at her hand, if the bullet couldn’t kill him fast enough.

  Silently, he called upon the power behind the tiny cross to come to a sinner’s aid.

  * * *

  Anna wrung the damp cloth. The warm water that dripped into the pan blushed deeply with an infusion of Quinn’s blood.

  Such a lot of blood. Even more than Catalina Rodriguez lost the night that she gave birth. And the Mexican woman had been delivered of the growing child within her. Quinn, in stark contrast, had been invaded by a smaller and infinitely more hostile body.

  She thought again of Catalina’s newborn daughter, tried to reassure herself that this infant, like the last two, would be fine. She would have to be, for Anna couldn’t leave here now. Maybe not for a long time, if Quinn survived.

  Anna dug the bullet from his left shoulder as if she were a prospector extricating a rare nugget. She only hoped her mining expedition didn’t kill him. Weak from blood loss and exposure, he might easily succumb to an infection from her makeshift surgery.

  Anna wished the curing woman were alive to help her. Born Hattie Forster in the Appalachian Mountains of Central Pennsylvania, the scrappy blue-eyed woman told Anna she’d learned healing at her own grandmother’s elbow. But Hattie’s father, a trapper, had moved the family ever westward, in search of better furs and wider spaces. Somehow, during the clan’s travels, Hattie met and married a Mexican soldier named Carlos Valdez just outside of Santa Fe. While her husband fought Indians across the region, Hattie lived with his familia. By necessity, she picked up Spanish. As the years passed, she blended what she learned of curanderismo, the local healing art, with her own folk healing. For every ailing or wounded creature she encountered, the old woman had an opinion, some herb or unguent or prayer ceremony that would fix it, if only it were carried through with solid faith and a good heart.

  Señora Valdez would have known just what to do, thought Anna grimly, but her own experience with gunshot wounds consisted only of butchering a couple of deer and a jackrabbit. She hadn’t even been completely certain the man had been shot until he started muttering about it before he’d passed out.

  Quinn’s breath rattled more loudly than the mumbled words, more noisily than the popping of the fresh log she had placed on the fire. He swore again about the bastard who’d back-shot him.

  Judging from his breathing, blood loss and a bullet wound were not his only problems. Time spent lying on the cold ground had touched his lungs with death. Anna half-expected every exhalation to be his last. Yet he had obviously been a man in the prime of his vigor, so he had strength to draw on as he slept.

  She washed his face next to uncover the handsome features she remembered: the wide-set eyes, now closed and shadowed, the generous mouth, its good-natured grin now vanquished, the slightly crooked nose, a memento of a prizefight gone far wrong. She nearly smiled at the memory of Quinn telling her the story. His self-deprecating humor as he spun a half-truth into tall tale to amuse the saloon’s singer, a woman he’d been surprised to learn was not a whore.

  Annie Faith. She could almost hear the way it sounded when he said it, though six years had passed since anyone had called her by that name.

  Not long after she’d gone west, Anna had received the sobriquet courtesy of a love-struck cowboy. He’d claimed she reminded him of a long-lost sweetheart out Kansas way. The name had been as good as any, better by far than her own, too formal appellation. For the thought of strange, drunken men calling her Anna Bennett overwhelmed her with memories of others who had once spoken her name. First her mother, who had died so many years before that Anna didn’t know if her voice was remembered or imagined. Next Grandmother, whose stern, relentless love had been so difficult to bear. And last of all, her father, who had wounded her more deeply than she’d imagined possible.

  For a long time, she’d been Annie Faith, even to herself. Annie Faith could still smile and sing. Annie Faith could even dream. Anna Bennett had lost all those gifts that day when she’d returned for Papa with a handful of stolen coins. And found him — but that didn’t bear thinking of right now.

  Only when she’d come here had she realized that false identity had been her armor, as thin and brittle as a wasp’s carapace. And like a wasp, it had a sting. The smile had been illusory, an enticement for those whose gold might take her from this raw, rough town. The songs had ignited false hopes for a future forever beyond the likes of her. The dreams had been the cruelest though, for these had convinced her that there was no price too high to achieve them.

  She had sold her talent to survive, but she had sunk even further to pursue her foolish dreams. She cursed them now, realizing that her only chance at peace had been to turn her back on them, to live alone inside her canyon. The canyon where she’d somehow found the strength to go on living, despite losing self and song. The canyon, which was now her universe.

  She hated sharing it. The presence in this canyon was all the company she wanted. Her infrequent sojourns to visit the curing woman’s Spanish-speaking patients gave her all the purpose she required. She didn’t need a man, and most especially not this one.

  Yet she had him, as long as he survived. So she put on her coat and went outside to gather what she needed for the poultice she would make to try to cure him.

  Estiércol de la vaca. She needed cow manure, according to what the old woman taught her. But Anna had no cow, and in a pinch she knew the fresh droppings of any plant-eater would do. At first, used to the ministrations of the eastern physicians from her youth, Anna had been horrified at Señora’s suggestion. But she had seen the reeking concoction prevent infection more than once.

  The goats baaed a reminder of their late breakfast. Anna threw them an armload of the bundled dried grasses she stored in the crude feed shed. In return, the spotted billy goat provided her with the most important component for her poultice.

  Carefully, Anna scooped the still-steaming offering onto a shovel and carried it indoors.

  * * *

  “Good God,” Quinn moaned. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  He said the words as he was waking, before he had the chance to recall to whom he spoke. Before pain buried him like a landslide. He felt crushed beneath the weight of it: the pounding in his head, the burning in his left shoulder. His first reaction was to gasp in shock and outrage, but his lungs felt choked with mud, his nose with something worse.

  As he fought for breath, he heard her siren’s voice, the voice that once had lured him to the rocks.

  “If I wanted you to die, all I’d have to do is give up trying,” Annie told him. “Instead, I cooked a poultice for your wound.”

  His cough sounded like rattling leaves and racked him with fresh agony.

  “As long as you don’t make me any food,” he said when he recovered.

  “Why
not? Are you in too much pain to eat?”

  Since he was lying on his stomach, he had to turn his head to see her. “It’s not that. It’s just that . . . well, your cooking smells like shit.”

  * * *

  Like the creek at spring’s thaw, Anna felt a cool ripple deep within her first. The current intensified, then found its voice, her laughter.

  She could not recall the last time she had laughed. The explosion of sound surprised her, and she would have stopped, except it felt so right.

  Notion, who had been lying beside Quinn, leapt to his feet and cocked his head at the strange noise. For some reason, the dog’s reaction made her suddenly self-conscious. She fell silent.

  “You always made me do that,” she accused Quinn.

  “Women have” His speech was interrupted by harsh coughing.

  She knew that she should wish him dead, but still she loathed the painful sound. She helped him raise his head, then held a cup of water for him to sip.

  Afterward, he continued. “Women have laughed at me my whole life. It’s a curse.”

  His voice sounded just as amiable as she remembered, but his green eyes glittered with suspicion. She knew for certain then that he had not forgotten what she’d done, nor would he have trusted her now, had he any other choice.

  She wondered what, if anything, she should say to ease his fear. Any apology she could think of seemed inadequate. Blushing, she turned her gaze away from him, into the fire. Madre de Jesús. The events of six years past were as clear as if they’d been part of a play she’d seen last evening or a book she’d read the day before.

  Even now, she recalled how a pillow had partly muffled the gambler’s groggy voice.

  “I can do better. I swear it.” His words had moved so slowly, like sorghum dripping down the sides of thick, brown bread.

  Annie Faith checked the rope that bound his hands behind him. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she couldn’t risk him getting loose too quickly. Not when so much was at stake.

  “Come here, sweetheart. I believe I’d enjoy another chance t’prove m’self in your bed,” he called.

  The slurring in his words reassured her that he’d remember little when he woke. At least that was what she told herself, since she so desperately needed that much to be true.

  She paused a few moments, until the laudanum she’d mixed into his drink set him snoring. Then she resumed her search through the pockets of the gambler’s trousers and jacket, which had been neatly draped over a straight-backed chair.

  Quinn’s rattling cough returned Anna to the present and to the certain knowledge that no apology could ever be enough. Not for him, not for her, not even for the God whose strength and goodness she drew upon to heal.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Copper Ridge, Arizona Territory

  March 22,1884

  Judge Ward Cameron’s dark-haired housekeeper, Elena, smiled at him as she ushered Horace Singletary into the elegantly appointed office. Ward frowned, certain that whatever news the county land clerk brought him would be nothing to smile about at all.

  “I’m terribly sorry to trouble you, Mr. Cameron ─” The young man spoke as cordially as always.

  “─ That’s Judge Cameron,” Ward corrected, as he did each time the two conversed. He would have liked to correct Horace’s other words as well, for both of them knew the clerk was never sorry to inconvenience Cameron. One might even say he lived for such occasions, since the day the judge bought his family’s property at a tax auction.

  Horace nodded swiftly, putting to mind Judge Cameron of a weasel, a skulking little creature that nosed around Ward’s business deals.

  “Of course, Judge Cameron.” He passed Ward an envelope then waited for the older man to tear it open and remove the sheet inside. Before Cameron could read it, he continued. “As you see, I was unable to process your mining claim. On further research, I discovered the land you specified already has an owner. Very unusual situation, for so remote an area, but I thought I remembered filing a change of ownership for the tax office.”

  Cameron felt heat rising to his face. That worthless Frenchman who’d given him the sample and the map must have known about this! The bastard tricked him and was laughing from his place in hell! Or maybe not. Maybe Luc-Pierre would have been just as surprised as he, had he survived.

  Still furious, Ward scanned the letter.

  “Who the hell’s this woman, the owner?” he asked after a moment. Anna Louise Bennett. That name rang a bell, but he couldn’t place it.

  Singletary interrupted the act of polishing his glasses with a handkerchief to nod. “About four years ago, she was named the legal heir of a Señora Hattie Valdez, a white woman widowed by Pedro Calderón Valdéz, a former capitán in the Mexican army. The entire canyon was a Mexican land grant, properly registered for transfer after the territory was established.”

  Something in the clerk’s expression convinced Ward he was enjoying every moment of this conversation. The short, slightly built young man had asked too many questions about Cameron’s previous land dealings. He definitely had suspicions about how Cameron had come to be the only bidder for his father’s ranch. Fortunately, young Horace couldn’t seem to find the proof he needed to act against him.

  Ward frowned at the letter. Singletary would have neat copies, in case something unfolded. He was obviously too green to understand how men of standing were sometimes forced to grease the wheels of justice.

  Ward had hinted earlier that he could be quite generous if Singletary chose to “expedite” his arrangements. But Horace couldn’t do that, he’d explained, not while he intended to eventually start up the first newspaper in Agua Fresca County.

  Ward swore at the young man more than the situation.

  Were Horace Singletary anyone else, they might have come to some mutually beneficial agreement. The land grant registration record might have been destroyed, or the will naming the white woman might have turned up missing.

  But Cameron could almost hear the little weasel planning the front page of the first issue of his newspaper. Nothing would sell it better than a little homegrown corruption. Especially the kind that involved a Presidentially-appointed local judge.

  “A Mexican land grant,” Cameron thundered, pounding on his massive desk. “God damn it all. This is a territory of the United States, not Mexico. Did we whip them in that war or not?”

  “I presume a man of your position has at some time read the law,” Singletary told him, his blue eyes glittering as if that weasel nose had scented blood. As always, he withdrew his fangs after just a taste. “Excuse me, I meant the territorial law regarding prior land grants. As I am sure you know, they are quite valid, once properly registered and proved. All this is in order. Miss Anna Bennett, a United States citizen, now owns the land.”

  “And she’s paid taxes?”

  He slipped on his glasses. “They’ve been paid in advance.”

  Once again, the judge’s gaze dropped to the annoyingly precise handwriting on the letter. Hattie Valdéz, widow of Pedro Calderón Valdéz, had bequeathed the land to Anna Louise Bennett on March 14, 1883.

  He could easily envision how the names would look typeset on a weekly paper, should Anna Bennett suddenly be found dead. He could picture his new bride, on seeing Singletary’s printed accusations, rushing back home to her father, consigning him forever to this hell.

  Anna Bennett. Why did that name nag him so? His disappointment ─ and Singletary’s presence ─ made Cameron’s head pound with frustration, for he felt certain some crucial fact eluded him, something that could ruin all his plans.

  Perhaps if he took his leave of the land clerk and attended to a few last-minute arrangements for his future bride’s comfort, he would think of it. But he already had in mind a solution to his problem.

  The quiet disappearance of this Bennett woman from his land.

  * * *

  En el nombre de Cristo, te voy a ayudar. In the name of Christ, I will help you.


  How many times had Anna used the words the curing woman taught her? She had spoken them to Quinn today. Did she really mean them? Did she truly draw upon their power when she helped bring forth a child or lanced an old man’s abscessed gum? Did she believe them now?

  Her gaze rose to the dark, weathered wood of the carved cross hanging on the wall above her table. From the time she had arrived, that cross had been the cabin’s sole adornment. She’d been beaten, bled, and nearly emptied when she came here, only to be refilled by an old woman’s skill and faith.

  Anna absently grasped the worn silver of the matching cross that once more hung about her neck. She shuddered with a memory of her first lucid thoughts inside this cabin, near the very spot where Quinn now lay. The pain and almost worse, the stark humiliation. Even the scant comfort of her songs had been denied her. How she had cursed Señora Valdez for prolonging her suffering. Didn’t the old crone know she wasn’t worth the effort of a poultice, the blessing of a prayer?

  But throughout those first weeks of healing, the old woman had scorned her patient’s self-pity. Anna well remembered the withered little healer’s deep scowl of displeasure.

  Drawing her striped serape’s worn wool tight about her thin arms, the señora spoke, this time in English. “You feel bad about what you did and what you were? Then make it up to God, whose power saved you. He has replaced your emptiness with el dón, the curing touch. I can see it in you as if you were born to it like I was. Learn with me now. Learn to heal his children, the sinners and the saints. And chop more firewood. God likes a cabin warm, too.”

  Heal them. So simple, so succinct. A way to pay back God for her existence. But even more importantly, it was a ladder to start climbing, a passageway to peace.

  Perhaps el dón would serve her now as well. For Quinn’s suspicion, his knowledge of her theft, had her feeling as unsettled as she had been in years. Old fears and recriminations had returned like ghosts to haunt her, and she knew that only the ways she had learned within this canyon would banish them again.