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Chapter 1

1

Texas,

1910

Ana Martin walked along the Galveston seawall, the warm, insistent breeze billowing her cotton frock. She lifted her face to the wind, permitting the waves of moist air to caress it. Newly freed wisps of hair touched then abandoned her cheeks, the rest of her thick chestnut mane governed for the moment by a sky blue ribbon.

She turned from the water and headed up Market Street and, a few blocks later, up the walk to the grand Victorian house where she lived with her father. She was lost in idle thought until a movement on the porch caught her eye and she flinched.

“Sir, you startled me!” she said, holding her hand to her chest and recovering with a quick release of held breath.

“Please pardon me, Miss,” he said with a Mexican accent. He was dressed in a suit once fine but now frayed at the collar and cuffs. He took a step forward, then paused.

His hesitance led Ana to reassure him. “It’s all right. I’m fine, really.”

She stepped up to the porch and stood facing a man a bit taller than she. Quite broad in the shoulders, his appearance was strong, but his manner was gentle. Dark tousled curls, neatly trimmed at the edges, covered his head. Pensive, earnest eyes peered from behind wire-rimmed eyeglasses, which were fogged from the heat of his body and the humid summer air. A few stray curls fell in disarray on his brow.

“Were you not invited inside?” Ana asked.

“I have only just arrived. I came to see Mr. Martin. You are his daughter?”

Ana glanced down the street, then turned back to the stranger. “He should be home soon, Mr.?”

He smiled a bit shyly. “Oh, of course. Please forgive me, Miss. I am Eduardo Guerra Peña, nephew of your uncle’s wife.” He handed her a calling card, along with a letter of introduction signed by her uncle.

“Tío Felipe has married?” Ana looked at the young man with pleasant surprise.

Mr. Guerra smiled. “Yes, two years ago.”

“Two years?” Her confused expression relaxed to understanding, which she hid behind lowered eyes. Ana gasped. “Where are my manners? Please come in.”

The guest made no move to follow. “Perhaps it would be better if I came back when Mr. Martin is home.”

The door, swollen from the moist gulf air, resisted Ana’s pressure. Mr. Guerra hesitated. “Perhaps I could help?” He reached past her, toward the door.

Ana turned and, propelled by a short nervous laugh, sidestepped around him so he could gain access. With a tight grip on the knob and a few controlled pushes, he opened the door and stepped aside with a manner quite formal.

When he didn't immediately follow, she turned. “Please come in.”

He then followed her through a short hallway to the parlor. Once settled, Ana said, “You are a lawyer?” as she glanced at the card, which listed his name and the Escuela Nacional de Jurisprudencia.

“I have a degree,” he replied, his vocal tone trailing up with ambiguity.

“I see,” said Ana, as she looked over a letter of introduction from her uncle, Felipe Martínez Ramos. “Tío Felipe speaks very highly of you.”

“He is a kind man.” He shook his head dismissively but met her eyes when he said, “Your father’s wire said it was urgent—that you needed help. Here.” He reached into his pocket, then another in his coat and his vest. “I’ve misplaced it.”

“You received it when?”

“Yesterday.”

“And you got here so soon?”

“Soon?”

“From Mexico?”

“Oh, of course. No, I came from San Antonio.”

“Oh?”

“I have been staying there for some time.” Ana looked at the date on her uncle’s letter and saw it was a year old.

“Oh?”

Mr. Guerra shifted his position on the chair. “Is your father quite ill?”

“My father? No. He’s fine.” Ana smiled, while her brow furrowed.

“Do you know why your father might have asked for help?”

“No I don’t, Mr. Guerra. We’re both very well.”

“Oh, I see.”

Their eyes locked in awkward silence. Ana glanced downward then back, her attention drawn when Mr. Guerra removed a handkerchief from his pocket and blotted his face. Beneath the wire spectacles, he was pleasant looking. His eyes were rich brown, with a gentle and unassuming expression.

“I must go now.”

“But you can’t,” Ana gently protested.

“Perhaps tomorrow—”

But Ana was already on her feet and halfway to the doorway. “Elena?” Ana called to the maid who walked past the doorway. She came back and stood waiting.

“Would you bring some tea for Mr. Guerra while he waits for Father?”

“But, Miss Martin, you father came home a long time ago.”

“He did?”

Elena nodded. “I saw his carriage come up the drive and pull into the carriage house.”

“I can’t imagine what could be keeping him out there,” Ana said, more to herself than to anyone. “Would you please go and tell him Mr. Guerra is here to see him?”

Elena nodded and left.

Ana returned to her guest. “My father should be in shortly.” Through the slats of the shutters, the light sketched striped shadows that fanned out across the room and then dissipated. The irregular hum of an electrical fan overhead filled the awkward silence.

“You said you’ve been living in San Antonio, Mr. Guerra. What brought you to Texas?”

Mr. Guerra had opened his mouth to reply when a scream cut jaggedly through the afternoon calm. Ana reflexively looked toward the source of the sound and bolted from her chair, rushing toward the back door.

Ana ran to the carriage house doorway. Seconds behind her, Mr. Guerra saw her falter and grasp at the doorjamb. He caught her wrist and put his arm about her waist as her body went limp.

Ana opened her eyes to find Eduardo Guerra leaning over her, his face taut with concern. She looked about the room in which she now found herself and tried to sit up, but firm hands on her shoulders pressed her back down to the sofa. She shut her eyes and remembered. A weak cry came from her throat. “Father?”

“I’m sorry,” whispered Mr. Guerra.

Ana tried to sit up. Agitated, she said, “I must get him. I can’t leave him like that!” She was desperate to go, but Mr. Guerra wouldn’t release her.

“He is being taken care of,” he said.

Ana lay back, weakened by shock, and placated by his kind manner and soothing baritone voice. Pieces of an image began to flash through her mind: her father, hanging from a rope, his head fallen unnaturally to the side. “Who would do that to him?”

Mr. Guerra hesitated, and then spoke with great care. “There was an overturned stool.”

She resisted the damning sound of the words, but the look on his face confirmed their truth. Ana reached out to this man she had just met and clung to him as though he might save her from drowning.

Eduardo Guerra was taken aback as the sweet young woman pressed her lissome, despair-convulsed body against him. The pounding of her heart made his own ache. He stroked strands of hair from her face, wet from tears, and whispered his sorrow.

“He telegraphed for you,” she whispered, “so I wouldn’t be alone.”

“And you’re not alone,” whispered Eduardo, holding her in his arms while the sun abandoned the windows and left them in twilight. He held her until, exhausted, she drifted to merciful sleep. He slept in a chair across the room for the rest of the night.

Ana went through the cruel motions of her beloved father’s funeral in little more than a daze. The weeks following were consumed with settling the estate. The disorder of her father’s affairs came as a slap in the face of Ana’s safe world. Creditors descended like scavengers upon her home and stunned her with their bluntness. How could she not have known? Her father had expressed some concern about certain business interests but never anything as dire as this. He had seemed distant but not unduly troubled. How little she knew.

Eduardo remained close at hand, leaving only to pull creditors aside and speak in harsh tones too low to discern. She knew what he did, but she watched from afar, grateful to be insulated from the business of dying. When the last collector, lawyer and servant was gone, Eduardo was there with her in the hollowed out shell of the only home she remembered.

“He planned it all, and I never knew,” she said, sitting down on one of the few sticks of furniture left, a ladder-back chair.

Eduardo pulled a crate up and sat beside her. He took her two hands in his. “Your family will take care of you. Your uncle has much wealth. You will be well provided for.”

“I would live in the humblest shack just to have my father alive again.”

“I know,” said Eduardo.

Ana stood and walked to the window and looked out at the waves. “I want to walk, one last time, by the seawall.”

Eduardo lingered behind. He had seen how she loved to go walking alone. The sound of the sea gave her solace, or so she had told him. She put her hand on the doorknob and stopped. “Would you come with me?”

Minutes later, they looked out at the gulf, content to let the shore be the only sound between them. A thin gauze of pale gray clouds draped the sky as it dipped down to the sea, a mismatched line of drab green. Small foamy waves rolled into the shore and left a long brown row of seaweed that stretched out in either direction like a pathway of moss.

“I will miss it.” Ana’s throat tightened.

Eduardo surveyed the expansive sea that stretched before them to the horizon. “It is beautiful, and vast like the desert.”

“It is,” agreed Ana. “But the land is too hard. Lately, on days like this, when the sea looks so gentle,” she said, “I wish I could let it just wash over me.”

Eduardo eyed her with concern.

“Don’t worry. I won’t do anything drastic. As much as I’m drawn to it, I’m afraid of its power.”

“Were you here during the hurricane?”

Ten years before, a hurricane brought this same water crashing over the island. Now calm, it merely reflected the sun.

“No,” said Ana. “We were in Mexico, my father and I. My mother had stayed behind. She didn’t like to travel, so when we went to Mexico she would usually stay behind. When the hurricane hit, we know that she headed for Houston with some friends. We never found her.”

Eduardo slipped his hand into Ana’s and lifted it to his lips. Moved by his tenderness, Ana nearly reached out and touched the tousled curls on his head. He lifted his eyes to regard her with unmasked affection. “I’m so sorry.” He lowered his eyes and released her hand gently.

Unsure of how to react, Ana leaned away. His eyes couldn't conceal the compassion that poured through them freely. His affection moved her, but she couldn't match it. “You’re very kind.”

He lowered his eyes and smiled to himself with a tinge of disappointment. “You have been through too much these past few weeks. If I can ease some of your burden…” He gazed into her eyes.

Once more, Ana saw hope in the eyes of this man who had become such a dear friend in their short time together.

The train rattled along through the Mexican desert. In the distance, agave stalks stretched from the sand and rocks to meet the dark blue and gray mountains that touched the sky in dim shadows. This land was forever. Ana looked at the pocket watch in her hand and was reminded of her father. Each day for as long as she could remember, he had pulled this same watch from his pocket.

For several miles,

Eduardo discreetly observed her. Her quiet grief moved him as no tears ever would. Somewhere behind distant brown eyes, quiet yet bereft, she suffered alone. Such a beauty she was, with large eyes the color of coffee, smooth cheeks, and full lips from which spun such a silvery sound. In her presence he suffered in private, his knees inches from hers, and her body within his reach. But her heart was beyond him. And so, he would give her no more than what she desired from him, for he loved her too much press for more.

Ana lifted moist lashes. She looked up at him with a wan smile.

“We will get there in time,” he said.

Ana nodded and looked out the window, but nothing had changed since the last time she had looked.

The train’s rhythm altered,

and then began to slow down with a sharp metallic screeching. Ana looked out the window. There was nothing but desert. “Why are we stopping?”

Eduardo’s eyes were intense as he looked toward the window, then rushed to the opposite side of the car and looked out, then returned to his seat. He leaned forward and grasped Ana’s hands. From a car up ahead, the crack of a rifle shot silenced the passengers.

Eduardo spoke softly. “I cannot see who it is, but it’s best—if they ask—that you say you don’t know me. I got on at the last stop and just sat here. Understand?”

Ana’s face showed her fear mixed with unspoken questions, but she nodded.

The door burst open. Ana flinched. Two men walked in carrying rifles and guns, with large bandanas covering their faces.

Vaquero

hats hung against the backs of white shirts dulled by dust. One stood by the door with his rifle ready to shoot, while the taller of the two went to any passenger who appeared to have money or valuables and collected them into a burlap sack.

Eduardo glanced at Ana, who looked about to unravel. He narrowed his eyes and gave her a slight nod of reassurance. She looked back with a brave, if false, face. From one row to the next, the bandit came closer. With each step, he grew taller. She tried not to tilt her head back to look up at his face. A bandana covered all but his forehead and eyes, which were, Ana thought, very old for a man of such youthful bearing. These were the eyes of a man who had suffered. But how could she know, and of what matter was it at this moment, when her mind was working too fast troubling over thoughts of no use to her now?

Two rows away, a young peasant woman clutched a small boy who held out a centavo. Ana thought she saw a soft look come over him, but perhaps it was only a shadow. When he turned, it was gone. With no notice of the child, he went on to the next person.

Ana looked down, afraid to make eye contact or do anything else that might draw attention. Her money and jewelry were cupped in her hand as she watched him come near her. She rehearsed in her mind what she would do when her turn came. The masked man pivoted to confront her.

As he held out the bag, he assessed her fine clothing. With fearful eyes cast downward, she dropped her handful of money and jewelry into his bag. When he didn't move on, her eyes followed the row of wooden buttons sewn to his coarse cotton, up the shirt to the smooth, tanned skin straining the collar. She looked up past the bandana masking his face to his eyes. They were deep and coal brown. She was lost for a moment. His look bore through her for a moment, and then he reached down to her lap where her hands were clasped tightly. Slowly, he lifted her hand and she opened it to him. He took what it held: her father’s pocket watch. With a gasp, she reached for it. Her father had spent more time with that watch than with her. His hand had touched it so often he had left part of himself in that watch. It was all she had left of him.

The bandit moved past her reach, but Eduardo clamped onto his wrist. “Leave it,” Eduardo quietly instructed the bandit.

A rifle lever snapped across the train car. “What is it?” asked the other one, who was pointing his rifle.

The bandit turned the pocket watch in his hand and said, “Nothing.” He cast a curious look at Eduardo. “A cheap trinket.” He put it in his pocket and went on to the next car.

Ana shuddered.

Eduardo pulled her into his arms and consoled her. Her heart pounded a deafening beat.

“It’s all over,” said Eduardo.

“You took a great risk for me,” she said weakly.

“It was no risk, my sweet Ana.”

Ana and Eduardo were on the last leg of their journey to her uncle’s hacienda, on a private stretch of tracks lain to transport cotton to market from the House Martínez. Her uncle’s private train met them in the busy commerce center of Gómez Palacio. Don Felipe spent much of his time at his business office in Gómez Palacio, where he owned one of the finest homes in the town. For his travels between the two homes, he kept a luxurious private train for his own comfort, as well as that of his family and guests. The train trip was an hour, while on horseback or coach it could take three to four times as long. On this train, Ana now slept with her head on Eduardo’s shoulder, while Eduardo stared through the window. In the distance, he caught sight of the House Martínez.

“Ana.” He nudged her shoulder.

Ana awoke to the sight of her uncle’s plantation, which had changed little from the place she remembered coming to as a child. Like a palace in the desert, it spread out before them in grand splendor, a walled fortress with glimpses of many-colored gardens and brick buildings. Behind stretched several long one-story buildings of adobe, where year-round workers were housed. Beyond the main grounds were thousands of acres of cotton fields, and an empty field where, come harvest, a large camp would bustle with mules and carts, and horses and buggies, while transient workers pitched tents and mud huts and lived through the picking season. At four towers, the White Guard posted four men with bayonets, while others on horseback policed the grounds.

The train crossed over a large irrigation ditch, and Eduardo’s face lit up. He opened the window. Dust blew in but he paid it no heed as he yelled, “Carlos!”

It was then that Ana first saw the young man on horseback, dust rising behind him. He sat tall in the saddle on a white Andalusian going fast as the train in one fluid motion. The sight of rider and horse caught her breath. Dressed in tight black broadcloth pants and a white cotton shirt, he was waving his hat at Eduardo and calling his name. Even from a distance, his smile was arresting, with rows of white teeth that gleamed from full, widespread lips. A fringe of black hair blew straight back to expose a tanned, wind-sculpted face. Carlos.

He rode as if he raced life, dauntless and impatient to challenge his fate. The train slowed steadily until it finally pulled to a stop. The horseman dismounted.

Sudden apprehension gripped Ana’s heart. Eduardo stepped down from the train. The friends greeted each other, shaking hands and patting one another’s backs emphatically.

“My friend. How are you?”

“Good, good. And you?” Carlos stopped abruptly and looked over toward the train. Eduardo followed his friend’s gaze to Ana, who stood at the top of the steps.

“Ana!” Eduardo offered his hand as she stepped down.

Ana Martin stepped down to the hard, dust-covered land that stretched before her. Vast and arid, this was where she now would live. The train was stopped beside the empty loading dock of the large plantation warehouse with equipment storage buildings beside it. Beyond that was the business office, a general store, living quarters for the administrative workers, a chapel, and a school. In the other direction was a carpenter shop, a forge, and the stables and corrals. Overlooking it all was the grand house, a sixteenth century stone castle of a building where don Felipe lived with his wife. Eduardo took Ana’s arm and led her to the horseman. Beneath the

vaquero

hat, coarse strands of black hair brushed against tanned skin.

Eduardo spoke words Ana failed to hear. Señor Barragan glanced toward her, then with evident effort turned his attention to Eduardo, who was finishing the introduction. The men talked. Ana watched, unaware she was staring.

A head taller than Eduardo, he was striking, yet seemed unaware of himself. She couldn't say the same. His face disturbed her, with its boldly hewn cheekbones, above which eyes so deep they seemed lost glared from beneath a dark brow. He looked toward her. She averted her eyes from his guarded aspect, which was paradoxically distant and intense. She felt fearful and yet, when she was sure he would not see, she stole glances. His eyes most intrigued her, as though beset by a long ago sadness that would not be shaken. And yet he was prone to erupt into rousing laughter, which all but hid signs of melancholy. He wasn't easy to judge.

Ana almost remembered him, as though she knew him from childhood visits. She was pondering this when he turned, to her surprise. A broad smile etched new lines in his face, and the laughter that followed shone from his eyes. “Carlos Barragan,” was all that she heard of Eduardo’s introduction. His smile charmed her.

“Señorita.” His eyes were still bright from laughter as he lowered his head. There was no handshake, no touching. His station was beneath hers. Yet Eduardo addressed him as an equal.

“I am pleased to meet you,” she replied.

He brought his head upright. Coal brown eyes, no longer smiling, assaulted her gaze.

Ana tried to look past, but his eyes eclipsed hers, blinding her with their darkness. In that instant, her breath stopped until, the next instant, light softened his eyes. Did he see it in her—sorrow tamped down by a spirit too stubborn to yield? It was only a glimpse, gone again the next moment, or masked by his dashing presence. Even so, a heart without pain doesn’t need such protection, and this man was a fortress.

Herself weary with grief, Ana felt drawn to his kindred soul, the knowledge of which disturbed and enlivened her.

“Your trip went well?” he was asking.

Eduardo said, “Yes.”

With a start, Ana turned to Eduardo, not believing what she was hearing. “How can you say that? We were robbed!”

“Robbed, señorita?”

“Yes, it was horrible! Our train was stopped. If it hadn’t been for señor Guerra—”

“Ana, please,” Eduardo interrupted.

She looked at señor Barragan and explained, “He’s too modest. He was very brave.”

Señor Barragon nodded, intently, and then cast an approving glance at Eduardo.

“Ana!” Eduardo tried to stop her, but she ignored him.

Señor Barragan smiled too broadly at Eduardo. “Muy hombre, Eduardo!” Carlos turned to Ana with a look of tremendous concern. “What heroic deed was it this time?”

“He stood up to a bandit.”

“Really?”

“Yes. He told him to give back the pocket watch he took from me.”

“Did he? And what did the bandit do to him in return?”

Ana looked off in the distance and thought. “Well, nothing.”

“Is that so?” He frowned and shook his head with amazement. “He sounds like a dangerous bandit.”

“Oh, but he was!” Ana continued.

“Oh? How so? Did he put up a fight?”

“Carlos,” Eduardo said, with narrowed eyes, but Carlos ignored him.

“Well, no.” Her eyes brightened. “But he was menacing.”

“Oh? How did he look, this menacing

bandito

?” said Carlos Barragan.

Eduardo rolled his eyes and looked away.

“He was tall—about so.” She held her hand eight or nine inches above her own sixty-five.

“But thin and weak?” asked Carlos.

“Oh, no! Very strong!”

Carlos grinned. “Strong.” He nodded.

“And horrible,” Ana added.

“He must have been very ugly,” said Carlos.

“No, I wouldn’t say that,” said Ana.

A light shone in Carlos’s eyes. “So, you think he was handsome?”

“Well,” Ana exhaled, reluctant to admit it. “Yes, I suppose that he was.”

“But how could you tell—with that bandana over his face?”

Ana was about to explain, when she suddenly took in a breath. “How did you know he wore a bandana?” she asked, peering at him.

Eduardo folded his arms as he met Carlos’s eyes.

Carlos glanced away quickly and shrugged. “He is a

bandito

. They all wear bandanas.”

“Oh, of course,” said Ana.

Carlos nodded, and then turned to Eduardo. “What a hero you are.”

Eduardo looked at him dryly.

“What possesses a man to take such a risk?”

“Carlos—” Eduardo looked at him squarely.

Carlos offered a sly smile in return. “Could you be in love?”

“Oh, no!” Ana said.

He turned his attention from Eduardo to Ana. “He couldn't be in love? Or do you mean you couldn’t love him?”

“It’s not that I couldn’t. Eduardo is a fine man.”

“But no hero.”

“I didn’t say that,” Ana protested.

“So he is a hero, but you couldn’t love him.”

Eduardo snapped. “Carlos, leave her alone.”

Carlos looked at Eduardo and stopped smiling at once.

Ana touched her gloved hand to Eduardo’s shoulder. “I’m very fond of Eduardo. He’s a wonderful man.”

Carlos, now in earnest, nodded. “Yes, he is.”

Carlos looked from one to the other. Eduardo studied the ground.

Ana said, “He protected me in the face of danger. If it weren’t for Eduardo, I don’t know what I’d have done. When I looked in the eyes of that bandit—” She looked into Carlos’s eyes and stifled a gasp.

Don Felipe was done supervising the unloading and was now approaching.

Ana stared at Carlos. Sharply, she whispered, “You!”

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