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  After Eden

  Joyce Brandon

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 1988 by Joyce Brandon

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email [email protected]

  First Diversion Books edition July 2015

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-907-8

  Also by Joyce Brandon

  The Kincaid Family Series

  The Lady and the Lawman

  The Lady and the Robber Baron

  The Lady and the Outlaw

  Adobe Palace

  This book is dedicated to Kristina Lynn Wilson, child of my heart

  This book is dedicated to my former Ballantine editor, Cheryl Woodruff, who loved it enough to eventually publish it, thereby giving me entree into the amazing world of novel writing. And to my agent, Abby Saul, who tracked me down and made this publication possible. And to the team at Diversion Books for their attention to detail and their professionalism. Thank you.

  Part One

  Then said Almitra, Speak to us of Love.

  And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:

  When love beckons to you, follow him,

  Though his ways are hard and steep.

  And when his wings enfold you yield to him,

  Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

  And when he speaks to you believe in him,

  Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

  For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.

  Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

  Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

  So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

  Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.

  He threshes you to make you naked.

  He sifts you to free you from your husks.

  He grinds you to whiteness.

  He kneads you until you are pliant;

  And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

  All those things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

  Kahlil Gibran

  The Prophet

  Chapter One

  “El Gato Negro is coming! El Gato Negro!”

  Squinting against the glare of the fierce afternoon sun, Tía stepped to the window of the small dress shop to peer through the dusty, fly-specked glass. On the wide, rutted road that divided the small town of Tubac, Arizona, three young Mexican boys—their faces contorted as if they had gone insane with their jubilation—ran, waved their arms, and shouted in Spanish, “El Gato Negro is coming!”

  At the north end of town, between the faded wooden store fronts on one side and the yellow stone and masonry bank on the other, a fat, rust-colored cloud rose over the desert.

  Tía pushed pink ruffled curtains aside to get a better look. She could have stood in the center of the window and had an unimpaired view, but she chose to shield herself behind the tied-back curtains.

  El Gato Negro could not be coming here. Nothing ever happened in Tubac.

  Outside, countless Mexicans appeared as if by magic to line the wide road, and their excited voices raised in a fluctuating babble of Spanish and English. Gesturing Mexican women craned their necks and tried desperately to verify their good fortune.

  White men, women, and children ran for the safety of their homes.

  A frown puckering her severe face, Mrs. Gaston, owner of the small dress shop, joined Tía at the window. “What’s going on out there?”

  “They say El Gato Negro is coming,” Tía answered.

  In Tía’s circle of friends and acquaintances, the legendary figure called El Gato Negro—Spanish for “The Black Cat”—though never seen in this town before today, was a king, credited with defending and protecting poor Mexicans from their white oppressors. Tía was white by birth—what Mama called technically white—but for living purposes Mama had found it far more expedient for herself and her family to live as Mexicans. Their surname—Garcia-Lorca—was one of the finest Spanish names in the territory.

  “Good heavens!” Blinking her watery, pink-rimmed, green eyes and sucking in a hissing breath, Mrs. Gaston clasped her hands over the bulging bodice of her high-necked cotton gown. Eyes wide as saucers, she turned and fled, her plump body skittering past the carefully crafted wire mannequin in the plum-colored taffeta gown. She grabbed the money from her money box, ducked into the back of the shop, and then ran out the back door, her reticule clutched in one hand, her skirts in the other.

  Tía turned back to the window and lifted the pink starched curtains and the white sheer so she could see out. Apparently El Gato Negro was not unknown to Mrs. Gaston.

  Tía’s fingers plucked at the wide-bibbed gray bonnet she had been trying on. A thousand unspoken dreams and wishes surfaced for that one moment. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if El Gato Negro saw her and fell in love with her and carried her off? All her life she had heard about his wonderful exploits, how he protected the downtrodden Mexicans.

  Tía realized what she was doing and closed her eyes in frustration. Lately, every time she rode, and other times as well, a strange feeling of excitement came over her—a fever, almost—that made her yearn to dress herself in the most frivolously feminine gown in Tubac and parade up and down until some man noticed her. Unfortunately, the kind of men she could attract in Tubac would smuggle her across the border and sell her to a bordello.

  Very shortly, she feared, she might not regard such an end as unacceptable. She would have to give up riding! Last time this feeling had overwhelmed her she had spent her entire savings on a blue gown, scrubbed herself until she tingled, put the gown on, and sashayed over to the stable to exercise her charms on poor, scrawny-necked Elmo, the only relatively eligible man in Tubac at the moment. Availability was a changing thing in a town like Tubac, where men and women switched partners with relative ease, especially among Mama’s friends. Since the women talked incessantly about their men, Tía knew too much about them to be interested. Elmo’s sole virtue was that he had never lived with any of Mama’s friends.

  Tía picked up a fan, positioned it under her eyes, and practiced flirting at the mirror the way her sister, Andrea, did on occasion, just in case El Gato did notice her.

  The fast-moving horsemen drew closer. At least fifty men, all heavily armed, emerged out of that reddish cloud. Crossed bandoleras gleamed darkly against their rough, dirty clothes.

  The thundering pack galloped into the north end of the small town. Tía determined that the one riding at the fore, dressed as a gentleman rancher, was El Gato Negro. She peered through the curtains at him, but the cloud of dust and his wide-brimmed sombrero shaded El Gato’s face. His features were indistinct.

  As a precaution, Tía deftly untied the sashes that held back Mrs. Gaston’s frilly curtains. Pink ruffles cascaded down to shield Tía from the outside. While they were still far enough away…

  With sure step she crossed the shop, picked up a straight-backed
chair, positioned it under the lamp that hung in the center of the room, climbed up on the chair, and turned out the lamp. People outside, nearly blinded from the sun, would not be able to see into the shop, but she could watch them unobserved. Now sure of her invisibility, Tía again stationed herself at the big, curtained window to the right of the door.

  Suddenly the door of the small shop opened, and a man, his attention riveted on the approaching riders, slipped noiselessly inside. Without seeing Tía, he stepped to the side and closed the door. His booted foot almost covered hers.

  “You step down on my foot any harder, and I’m going to let out a yell heard all the way to Tombstone,” she said evenly.

  The man’s head turned abruptly, and he glared down at her. Then a grin spread across his dark face. “Mighty glad I didn’t step down harder, then.” His voice was cautiously low but filled with easy humor. She liked the way it sounded—richly masculine but with some depth to it. She was sure from its undertones it could become instantly gruffer and more rowdy. She could imagine him the center of attention in a group of raucous cowboys, each trying to outdo the other in the outrageousness of their tall tales.

  “So, you’re what El Gato Negro is chasing…”

  A scowl pulled the man’s straight black brows down in a frown. “I ain’t exactly running,” he growled. His forehead was short, framed between a tan cowboy hat and the heaviest brush of black eyebrows Tía had ever seen. Separated by the bridge of his nose, his thick eyebrows formed a flat ledge over deep-set black eyes. An even heavier brush of mustache covered his top lip. When he grinned, the full swell of his lips flattened and pulled back to reveal straight white teeth, and deep smile lines spread out from the corners of his eyes. His cheeks were clean shaven, except for the crisp black sideburns that grew down to the bottom of his earlobes.

  “Reckon it’s just a matter of time.”

  “Do I look important enough for El Gato to lather one of his fine thoroughbred horses over?”

  “Depends on what you did,” she said dryly. From the stories she’d heard, El Gato would kill a dozen horses to track down a hated enemy.

  The stranger’s lips flattened in another grin. His dark eyes twinkled with mischief. Without taking his gaze from hers, he eased the door shut and leaned his broad shoulders against the wall between the door and the curtained, plate-glass window. A humorous light fairly danced in his cocky black eyes.

  A gun fired outside. The stranger frowned and turned to peer out the window. He raised one arm and scratched the back of his neck. From behind, the smooth swell of his shoulders flattened and tapered into a lean waist. He would look wonderful on horseback. His neck and the curve of his broad back looked just like Papa’s. Tía sighed. She felt sorry for men with scrawny necks and flat backs.

  Looking outside, Tía saw El Gato Negro’s small army ride into the street in front of the dress shop. The man at the head of the plunging riders raised his gloved right hand. At this signal the surging knot of renegade Indians and dangerous-looking Mexicans—bearded and mustachioed, with high-crowned sombreros—reined in their horses. The rattle of stirrups and creak of saddles mingled with the stamp of the horses’ hooves and the exclamations of the crowd as the riders fought the fiery horses to a standstill. Tía loved horses. She could tell these were wonderful, fast, strong-hearted horses. Her hands itched to stroke one of them.

  The stranger turned back to look at her. Warm amusement sparkled in his black eyes. His straight black lashes were so dark and sooty, she nearly suspected he put coal tar on them the way some of Mama’s women friends did. Grinning, he crossed his scuffed boots and hooked his thumbs in his gunbelt as if he had all the time in the world and intended to spend it looking at her.

  “For a hunted man, you look mighty relaxed. With fifty bandidos after you, I’d think you’d be hightailing it out of Tubac.” The stranger grinned his boyish grin, and the heat that had started when she’d ridden Cactus Flower that afternoon pooled in her belly and flushed upward to burn her cheeks. Such startling feelings confused Tía. She had known since she was fourteen or so that her body sometimes did things without her permission. It never seemed to wait for her head to figure things out. It just raced her along, and she had to hang on as best she could. Usually these feelings were caused by riding bareback or taking warm baths or just lying on the warm ground in the sun. A time or two it had been brought on by waking up in the middle of the night and hearing her parents making love. Tía knew what men did to women. She had seen horses and other animals mate. Their frame house was too small to allow real privacy even behind a closed door. In the middle of the night on those rare nights when Papa was home, Tía had heard her parents creaking their bed and whispering gasped-out words. Certain times, when her own body got itself in a dither, she had dreamed of some man making love to her in that urgent, breathless fashion. One time she had even thought of Papa.

  Mama would sure laugh at that if Tía ever told her, which she wouldn’t. Tía knew her body had a way of stirring up its own problems, but the tingling sensation that nearly capsized her now had never been so obviously tied to a man before.

  “What makes you think an important man like El Gato would be chasing a small fry like me?”

  “Because I know everyone else in this town,” Tía challenged. “And besides, you’re hiding.”

  He glanced through the curtains—faded in all the places where the sun hit them and vibrantly colored in the protected creases. “You’re hiding, too. All the white folks with good sense are hiding,” he drawled.

  Tía shrugged. He had the easy banter; he could be a drummer. But he was too relaxed. He looked like a cowboy, but most cowboys lived such a solitary life that they got tongue-tied talking to females. He took off his hat, wiped his forehead with his sleeve, and sailed the hat to the middle of the floor.

  Tía couldn’t begin to explain to him that she wasn’t really white. People who considered themselves white had a hard time understanding how a blue-eyed blonde could be Mexican. “Something’s different in the way you’re hiding, though.”

  Still grinning he shook his head. “Mighty observant.”

  “I’m still alive, aren’t I?” she snapped. Tía had lived in the Arizona Territory all her life. If a woman wasn’t observant, she didn’t survive. He looked like he’d grown up here, too. So why was he treating her as if she were a tenderfoot? Tía glanced back at the mirror. She didn’t recognizeherself immediately. She had momentarily forgotten the bonnet, and her cheeks were as richly colored as ripe watermelon. Not even Papa would recognize her with such fiery red cheeks and her telltale blond curls hidden.

  “Is that really El Gato Negro?” she asked, edging closer to the window. But Tía had lost interest in the bandit. She merely glanced out, then let her attention return to the interesting stranger who must be awfully dangerous himself, else why would El Gato be chasing him?

  The stranger squinted to see through the translucent curtains covering the window and nodded in answer to her question. Even if he hadn’t nodded, she would have known by the way his dark eyes changed. For one brief second the smile died out of them, leaving them as expressionless as black buttons.

  “You better get down,” she whispered, and tugged the stranger’s warm leather vest until he complied.

  Tía knelt on the floor so only her eyes peered over the windowsill. The stranger knelt beside her. “You’re gonna be wanting to put me in one of them contraptions next,” he said, cutting his eyes upward to the rim of her bonnet.

  Tía laughed at the thought of this big, strapping man in a bonnet. His face was the color of terra-cotta—a warm, sun-reddened color that shaded into bronze where the beard stubble showed through from midear to the base of his throat.

  Outside, someone fired a gun. As the dust cleared Tía could see El Gato, dressed in the tight-fitting charo suit of a genteel Mexican horseman—dusty black cloth jacket with silver ornaments and toggles, dark trousers with rows of silver buttons on the side seams, and a whit
e shirt with flowing cravat. He rode past the dress shop and stopped.

  His back to Tía’s window, El Gato, tall and sturdy on his shiny black horse, stood up in his stirrups and appeared to survey the townspeople lining the dusty road. Tía had never seen such excitement and loving admiration on the faces of her friends and neighbors.

  “Find him and bring him to me,” he commanded in Spanish. That jolted Tía. El Gato did not see the love on those faces. He was looking for the man who had violated his code. Tía glanced knowingly at the stranger beside her. He raised his eyebrows and started to crawl away.

  On the street, Elvira Arrabella, as thin and stooped as a splayed donkey, stepped off the sidwalk. In her usual shapeless, faded black garment, she left the crowd and walked quickly to stand before El Gato Negro’s big black horse. Crossing herself, Elvira bent low as if before a king and began to cry loudly. El Gato held up his hand. His men, about to ride away to begin their search, stopped. Tía could not believe any woman would be foolish enough to bring herself to this man’s attention unless she wore her Sunday best.

  “Gracias, patrón,” Elvira sobbed, in her high-pitched, reedy Spanish, which was hard to understand because of her crying. All waited until Elvira could control herself. Tía sighed. They would be here awhile. Elvira had many problems.

  “Thank you for coming. It is true that your powers are great! You have detected much evil here, patrón. The town marshal lies against us. My own grandson has been sentenced to hang for a crime he did not commit.” The old woman burst into fresh sobs, unable to continue.

  El Gato reached down and stroked her head.

  In her mind, Tía could hear Elvira telling her friends and neighbors about the magic of El Gato Negro’s touch. They would hear of nothing else for years. He touched me. Me. Elvira Arrabella. A lowly peasant. His hand barely touched me, but I felt it the length and breadth of my body…