“Sam Taylor, what were you thinking?” Amelia demanded.
“What’s wrong, Amelia?” Taylor asked, his face honestly confused. He looked to Patrick Hennessy for enlightenment, but seeing his friend looking as surprised as he was at Amelia’s outburst, turned back to her. “Did I do something to upset you, dear lady?”
“As if you didn’t know,” Amelia Hennessy snapped. “Introducing that man to our youngest daughter. Why, everyone in Hidalgo County knows he’s little more than a bandito!” her mother cried. “I could not believe my eyes when I saw him strolling around the grounds today as if he were as good as anyone else. Why on earth would you invite such a man, let alone introduce him to an innocent girl?”
Her father peered at the photograph, and when he looked up, his eyes were troubled. “So that’s who that was. Sam, I hear tell he’s rumored to be a compadre of Delgado himself.” The questioning note in his voice echoed his wife’s concern.
It was no light charge. Delgado was a notorious Mexican outlaw who raided Texas ranches along the Rio Grande, then ran back across the border with his loot—horses, jewelry, guns, sometimes even a rancher’s entire herd of cattle.
“Don’t believe everything you hear, Patrick,” Sam protested. “I’ve known Sandoval Parrish since he was just a sprout, back in my days as a Ranger. You surely don’t think I’d introduce my goddaughter to a bad hombre, do you? I’d ride the river with that man anytime.”
Tess blinked in surprise. In Texas, saying a man was good enough to ride the river with was high praise. It meant he was as trustworthy as they came.
And saying it was enough, apparently, to leave her voluble mother speechless.
Seeing that, Sam pressed his advantage. “And like Tessie said, all she did was take his picture.”
Tess smiled at the nickname, one she hadn’t heard him use in years. But Amelia Hennessy was never speechless for long. Handing the picture back to her daughter, she said, “Tess is our youngest child, and I’ll thank you to ask us before you introduce her to anyone, Samuel Taylor.”
Samuel hung his head. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry, Amelia, I didn’t mean t’ ruffle your feathers.”
Patrick sighed. “No harm done,” he assured his friend. “As you say, she only took his picture.”
“And a fine job she did, too,” Sam said, glancing at it. “Not only Parrish’s, but all the ones she took today. Everyone told me how pleased they were. I’m much obliged to your daughter, Amelia and Patrick. Tess, why don’t you come up to the house and we’ll settle up?”
The sun was sinking behind a distant line of mesquite when the mule pulled Tess’s wagon off the palm-lined lane onto the main road. Despite her most diligent efforts to be on her way quickly, Uncle Samuel and Aunt Lula Marie had been in a buoyant, post-party mood and were loath to let her go until Tess finally insisted she must be on her way or her mother would make her father come back to fetch her.
Tess let Ben have his head, for the mule knew the way home. It had been a very profitable day, Tess mused. With the money she’d been paid today, and the enthusiastic response she’d gotten from the guests that would surely lead to further business, she was that much closer to her goal of traveling to New York City. Portfolio of her best work in hand, she would waltz into the studio of the famed Mathew Brady himself and offer her services. He would be so impressed he’d hire her on the spot.
It was an idea that horrified her mother, who prophesied a dire end to a young lady who ventured anywhere into the Dreadful North, let alone a huge, wicked city such as New York. She would starve to death without the Protection of a Man to see that she ate only in Decent God-fearing Establishments, be accosted by rascals bent on No Good, and her traveling funds would be ripped from their place of safekeeping in the hem of her skirts.
“You have to remember that your mother lived through the War Between the States, darlin’,” her father always reminded her. “And while the Yankees never penetrated as far inland as Hidalgo County, it seemed for a while they might. Then we got word of her cousin Lucretia being murdered by bummers during Sherman’s March to the Sea. You’re her last precious chick in the nest, Tess darlin’, and she’s anxious to see you married and settled.”
“But I’m never going to marry. I want to do something more with my life.”
“Darlin’, darlin’, never say never,” her father advised. “Some nice young man may well come along and change your mind. And it’s not impossible you might meet him in New York,” he’d added, surprising her. “I came ashore there, fresh off the boat from Ireland some thirty-five years ago, and it wasn’t so bad a place. If you must go, I’ll have Robert escort you there.”
Not if, Papa—when. And when she went, she was going alone. She loved her elder brother, but he was just as overprotective as Mama and sure he knew the only right way to do anything. Besides, he had a family to look out for. It would have been fun to have another girl her age along, but once they had become young ladies, all of Tess’s school friends had become obsessed with beaux and clothing, and affected to swoon at the idea of leaving all that for some musty old photography studio up north.
One minute Tess’s wagon was rolling alone along the shadowy, mesquite-and cactus-lined road; the next, figures like ghosts had emerged from the scrub and formed themselves in lines in front of her wagon and behind it. All of them, dressed in the simple, light-colored clothing of Mexican peasants, were pointing rifles or pistols at her.
Chapter Three
“Hola, señorita,” a mustachioed fellow in the center of the road called out, smiling broadly. “Buenas noches.”
Tess began to shake—not out of fear—or at least, it wasn’t mostly fear, but rage. Less than a mile from home, she was now about to forfeit the fifty dollars for which she had labored all day to a handful of banditos. She would have given anything she had for a Winchester carbine in her lap right now.
“I don’t have anything you want,” she said, hoping she could bluff it out. “Just a camera and a wagon full of chemicals for developing photographs.”
The mustachioed man translated her words to the others. Laughter rang out as Tess fumed. She hadn’t been put here to amuse them! One evil-eyed man, standing on Mustachio’s left, sniggered.
“You don’t have anything we want? Ah, señorita, I am not so sure about that,” he countered with an insolent grin that flashed white teeth against his brown skin.
Tess tried to stare him down with her haughtiest look, but failed. Rage was fast transforming itself into pure, unalloyed fear as she realized they could do anything they wanted with her—anything.
With a pang, she made the decision to surrender the fifty dollars and hope they would be content with that. The idea hurt her, but not as much as it would have to give them the camera and supplies. She switched to Spanish. She’d learned it early in a household run by Mexican servants. “All right, I will give you my money, if you’re so desperate, but you must leave me my camera and the wagon. It’s how I make my living.”
The man smiled at her fluent Spanish, but his reply was not conciliatory. “Señorita, do you take me for a fool?”
“I—I don’t know what you mean,” she said, setting her jaw so her teeth wouldn’t betray her by chattering. “You’re not…are you saying you want the mule, too?” Ben had been at Hennessy Hall since Uncle James had died, and she hated the thought of handing him over to these outlaws. God, please send someone along this road. Anyone. These men would flee if I wasn’t alone.
You’re not alone. I am with you.
The