Cowboy Enchantment - By Pamela Browning Page 0,33
frame and held it toward Hank. “Take a look.”
In order to see the tiny screen, he had to slide closer to her and soon he was so close their thighs touched.
“Very nice,” he said, but he wasn’t talking about the coyote. As he studied the picture, in which the coyote was looking straight into the lens and appeared to be laughing at them, the coyote winked.
Winked? He couldn’t have. This was a digital camera, not a video camera. And coyotes didn’t wink at people.
Still, he could have sworn that the coyote had winked at him, and strangest of all, he had the idea that if the animal could have spoken, he would have made one of those comments guys sometimes made to each other when one of them was hot on the chase. Something like “Good luck, pardner.”
Which he didn’t really need. He was lucky already just to have met someone like Erica Strong.
Padre Luis Speaks…
MADRE DE DIOS! What is taking so long? Erica and Hank went to the site of my house, and I can still see it standing, though they cannot. It is a blessed place.
Perhaps that is why they are making progress. And although I can almost see the outline of Erica when she walks through our courtyard now, she is still hoping for the wrong thing. A “fling!” What is this “fling”? I am beside myself trying to understand these people.
Oh, if these two would only surrender themselves to the inner transformation that awaits them in this spiritual place! Instead, this Erica, she wants to change her hair, change her eyes, change the whole outside of her, which I cannot see, anyway. I can see her spirit, however. It is the color gray. That is not the color of a healthy spirit.
I am beside myself, I tell you! Beside myself!
I need my voice. I must speak to Erica. Where is that cat? When I see her, I will push her into the cactus. No, I won’t. God forgive me, I am not a cruel man. But I must make the cat understand that if I do not have my voice, I will have to reveal myself to Erica, and that might make her afraid.
God, I stand before You, Your humble servant. Tell me what to do. Show me what to do. Send me that cat. Help me get back my voice before these mortals do themselves serious harm.
Chapter Six
The battered, hacienda-style house, its adobe walls bleached the color of parchment by the sun, was partially hidden behind a windbreak of tamarisks. Hank had been working to refurbish the old house when time permitted, and he was there now to make a list of needed supplies.
“Is this place the source of the Rancho Encantado ghost?” Erica asked as they drew the horses to a stop at the end of the wooden veranda in front.
“If so, I wish he’d take more of an interest in the hacienda’s upkeep. I could use another pair of hands around here.” His tone was ruefully amused.
“Want me to wait while you go inside?”
“No, I’ll show you around. It’s interesting to see how the people lived, ghost or no ghost.”
As Hank helped her dismount, he told her that the Iversons, Dan and Betsy, were a young couple when they had homesteaded here around 1910.
“They wanted to farm but couldn’t make a go of it. Cattle and sheep had been brought in by miners in the 1860s, and they’d break through the farmers’ fences and destroy their crops. After several years of drought, the farmers mostly went to work in the mines. Finally there were full-fledged range wars, farmers fighting the ranchers, ranchers hating the farmers. The ranchers won, and soon the Iversons moved away.”
“That’s too bad.”
Hank looped the horses’ reins over the old hitching post. “You could say that. On the other hand, Dan went to work at a tungsten mine and in his spare time managed to uncover a rich silver vein in a nearby mountain. He became a wealthy man, one of the pillars of Carson City. He sometimes said that the best thing that ever happened to him was not succeeding as a farmer.”
Erica, while listening to Hank speak, noticed that the front door to the adobe house hung open. “Don’t you lock the door?” she wanted to know.
He chuckled. “This isn’t the city, Erica. No one bothers this place.”
Inside, a wide arched fireplace, its odor reminiscent of long-ago fires, occupied one wall of the large front room. The walls