Trilby. Diana Palmer

replied. “I would have voted for him,” she added, with a meaningful look at her husband. “If women could vote.”

      “A wrong that will one day soon be righted, you mark my words,” Mr. Lang said affectionately, and put his arm around his wife’s thin shoulders. “President Taft signed the Arizona statehood bill in June, praise God, and many changes will now occur as they work to get the constitution ready for ratification. But whatever happens, you’re still my best girl.”

      She laughed and nuzzled her cheek against his shoulder. “And you’re my best boy.”

      Trilby smiled and left with Teddy, leaving her parents to themselves. Years and years of marriage, and they were still like newlyweds. She hoped that someday she would be as fortunate in her marriage.

      Chapter Two

      Thorn was halfway back to the ranch when a cloud of dust caught up to him. He turned his head in time to see Naki, one of the two Apache men who worked for him, rein in to match his speed. The other man was tall and had long, shoulder-length black hair. He wore a breechclout and high-topped buckskin moccasins with a red-checked shirt and a thick, red-patterned cotton band tied around his forehead to keep his hair out of his eyes.

      “Been hunting?” Thorn asked him.

      The other man nodded.

      “Find anything?”

      The Apache didn’t even glance at him. He held up one hand, displaying a thick, bound book. “I’ve been looking for it everywhere.”

      “I mean, did you shoot anything that we could eat for supper?” he said, glowering.

      Naki’s eyebrows lifted. “Me? Shoot something?” He sounded horrified. “Kill a helpless animal?”

      “You’re an Apache Indian,” Thorn reminded him, with exaggerated patience. “A hunter. Master of the bow and arrow.”

      “Not me. I prefer a Remington repeater rifle,” he said in perfect English.

      “I thought you were going to get us something in buckskin.”

      “I did.” He held up the book again. “Leatherstocking Tales, by James Fenimore Cooper.”

      “Oh, my God!” Thorn groaned. “What kind of Apache are you?”

      “An educated one, of course,” Naki replied pleasantly. “You’re going to have to do something about Jorge’s cousin,” he added, the lightness gone from his tone and the smile from his deep-set black eyes as he stopped and faced the other man. “You lost five head of cattle this morning, and not to drought and lack of water. Ricardo confiscated them.”

      “Damn the luck!” Thorn cursed. “Again?”

      “Again. He’s feeding some revolutionary comrades hidden out in the hills. I can’t fault his loyalty to his family, but he’s carrying it to extremes and on stolen beef.”

      “I’ll have it out with him.” He glared at the horizon. “This damned war is coming too close.”

      “I won’t argue.” Naki tucked the book in his saddlebags. He produced two rabbits on a tether and tossed them to Thorn. “Supper,” he announced.

      “Are you coming down to share it?”

      “Share it?” Naki looked horrified. “Eat a rabbit? I’d rather starve!”

      “What did you have in mind, or dare I ask?”

      Naki’s white teeth gleamed in a face like sculpted bronze. “Fried rattler,” he said, his eyes glittering.

      “Snob,” Thorn accused.

      Naki shrugged. “One can hardly expect a man of European ancestry to measure up to a culture as ancient and sophisticated as mine,” he said, eyes sparkling with humor. “Meanwhile, I’ll track Jorge’s cousin down for you and bring him along.”

      “Don’t, please, do anything nasty to him.”

      “I?”

      “No need to look so innocent, if you please. Or wasn’t it you who staked out that drummer on an anthill with wet rawhide when he sold you some snakebite medicine that didn’t work?”

      “A doctor should stand behind his cures.”

      “He didn’t know you were a Latin scholar,” Thorn reminded him. “Much less that you knew more about herbal medicine than he’d ever learned.”

      “He won’t forget.”

      “I daresay he won’t,” Thorn agreed. “And I believe he led a lynch mob after you…?”

      “From which you were kind enough to save me,” Naki recalled. It had been the beginning of their friendship, and it went back a long, long way. Naki had reformed a little. Not much.

      “Bring your snake and I’ll have Tiza cook it for us.”

      “He cooks like he rides,” Naki muttered.

      “I’ll cook it, then.”

      “I’ll bring Ricardo along directly.”

      He turned his paint pony and rode leisurely away.

      The rest of the week passed all too quickly. Trilby dressed for Thornton Vance’s party with fingers that were all thumbs. She didn’t want to go to Thorn’s house. She dreaded the evening as she’d never dreaded anything else.

      The only expensive gown she owned that had made it out from Louisiana with her was a lacy beige one. A vicious dust storm had destroyed most of their possessions on the drive from the train to their new home on Blackwater Springs Ranch. Even now, Trilby could feel the smothering sting of yellow sand as it had blanketed them, almost buried them, on the way from Douglas. One of their acquaintances had only smiled when he was told of their ordeal, remarking that they’d best get used to dust storms out here.

      They had, after a fashion. But Trilby sometimes longed for the cool green bayous of her youth and the sound of Cajun patois being spoken on the streets as she went to the bakery each Saturday for a sack of beignets and to shop for new dresses.

      With a full purse, it had been fun to go to town in the chauffeured T-model that Rene Marquis drove for the family. Her cousins had always been her friends as well, and there were parties and afternoon teas and picnics…and then, so suddenly, there had been Richard. But before he’d done more than hold her hand in his, her uncle had died, and her father had announced that the family was moving to Arizona.

      Trilby had cried for days, but it hadn’t swayed her parents. Richard had gone off to Europe with his own family, with flattering reluctance and a promise to write. But to date, Trilby had written dozens of letters and she had only a card from Richard, from England. It wasn’t even remotely loving. Only a friendly note. Sometimes she despaired of ever gaining his love.

      She pulled herself up short. It really wouldn’t do to let herself look back. This was home now. She had to adjust to being an Arizonan, to a different kind of life. But Richard might still come to stay; he might discover passionate feelings for her. She sighed dreamily.

      She put on the gown, longing for the old days when she’d had plenty of fine clothes to wear. Money was no longer plentiful. She wanted to leave her hair loose around her shoulders, but Mr. Vance being Mr. Vance, it was better, she supposed, to appear dignified and conservative, so that she didn’t give him any special reasons for mocking her. He sometimes looked at her as if he actually considered her in the same light as a lady of the evening. It puzzled and hurt her. Not that she ever let it show.

      She braided her soft blond hair with a blue ribbon and piled it on top of her head, grimacing at the severe thinness of her face. The heat had worn her down just lately. She had little appetite, and her slenderness had exaggerated itself.

      When she finished dressing, she pinched her cheeks and lips to put a little color in them and picked