Harvest of Fury Read Online Free

unseat the present one. I can’t see that the Yanqui soldiers gave much protection anyway. Don Pedro Kitchen has the right idea. Fortify a ranch and have enough men to fight off attacks.”
    â€œIf you’re agreed to stay, that’s what we must do,” Talitha said. She explained that she wanted them to move to the main ranch.
    After Pedro’s first dismay, he made a gesture of assent. “Behind walls and with provisions and water, all of us could stand off a raiding party that could overwhelm either group taken separately.” He puffed out his cheeks. “A good plan, señorita . You should have been a general.”
    Every one laughed at that, though Carmencita looked with sad resignation about the adobe that had been her home for thirteen years. “We’ll build you another house,” Talitha promised as they embraced in farewell. “Maybe it won’t be too long till you can come back here.” Till Shea comes back from that wretched war.…
    Carmencita smiled and patted Talitha’s cheek and then kissed Cat in a way that made Talitha sure she was remembering that horrible day eight years ago when Shea, Santiago, and Talitha rode in with Cat, born that dawning, and Socorro, dead from that birth.
    â€œIf one has life, health, and love, a house doesn’t matter,” the older woman said. “Besides, it will be good to be near my Anita and her children. They grow past all knowing between one visit and the next.” Carmencita’s glow faded, and she gave Talitha a sharp, look. “You’ll take the news to Tjúni?”
    â€œYes.” Talitha gave a rueful chuckle. “Though the last time I took her a warning, she let me know plainly that her ranchería is prepared to look after itself.”
    It still was. Tjúni herself came to meet them, followed by three little boys, the two smallest dark and naked. The oldest, perhaps six, paler of skin and with a cast of red to his long hair, wore loose white cotton trousers.
    He was Shea’s son Cinco, born the fifth day of the fifth month of 1855. Tjúni had always loved Shea. After Socorro died, she had hoped to be his wife. When he refused this, the Papago woman had angrily taken her infant son back to the Papago settlement at San Manuel, her part of the ranch, and vowed to give him a Papago father. She had, returning gifts Shea sent to the boy. Probably it was better that Cinco be reared purely Papago, but Talitha felt stabbing pain as she looked from Shea’s sons to their half brother, who was ignoring them to stare in fascination at Cat.
    She smiled bewitchingly at him. “Who are you, little boy?”
    He stared at her, eyes wide with puzzled worship. “My son no speak Spanish,” Tjúni cut in. She gave Talitha a hostile look. “Why you come? With these? ” And she stared at the children of the man she’d adored and the woman she’d envied.
    The twins remembered Tjúni, of course; and they had been seven when Cinco was born and knew, with a vague knowledge, never discussed, who had fathered him. Flustered, their usual outgoing friendliness withered under Tjúni’s cold gaze, they reined back with James. Cat’s eager smile faded. Never in all her life had anyone watched her like that, with dislike and bitterness.
    â€œIt’s hot,” Talitha said. “Surely you’ll offer us some water?”
    Grudgingly, Tjúni led them to an adobe-plastered hut with a thatched roof supported on poles protruding from the front of it. They tied their horses to several mesquite trees and sat on the hard earth while Tjúni poured water from a clay jar into gourd dippers. She was nearing thirty but moved as lithely as a girl and her short-nosed catlike face had a sullen beauty.
    â€œNow,” Tjúni said with the air of one who had been wronged. “Why you come?”
    Her face changed only once, when Talitha said Shea had gone off to fight.