my words.”
Duncan glanced around the room. Not only his clothes seemed to be missing, so were his guns. “Any chance you’d get a message for me across the border? Let them know I’m still alive. It would be worth a double eagle to me if you could.”
Ramon shook his head. “If she found out, she’d turn me out at best; at worst, she’d beat me like she beats that girl now and then. Crazy old Toledo ties the little creature up outside at the hitching post so everyone can see like it was a show we’d enjoy, then she beats her with whatever’s handy until the girl passes out. Some say that when little Anna first came here she’d cry after she was beat, but I’ve been here six years and I’ve never heard her make a sound.”
“Why would anyone hurt that child?” Duncan remembered how the big guy had teased her and asked, “Is she your kin?”
Ramon grinned, showing several gaps where teeth had once been. “I’m a mixture of about everything. My dad was a buffalo soldier at Fort Davis, my mother a native caught stealing food. She claimed her mother was a white woman and her dad a Mexican rancher up near Santa Fe, but I doubt it was true. She was a woman threaded together with lies.”
Duncan wondered if the big man before him hadn’t inherited his mother’s traits.
“I tell you of my mixed blood so that you’ll see how someone like me would know the value of little Anna. She’s pureblood.”
Ramon sat down on the chair next to the bed and leaned back as if he’d been invited to stay a spell on an evening porch. “The girl’s kin to Toledo,” he volunteered, without being asked. “Their blood runs all the way back to Spain. I think I heard one of the cooks say that the old witch is the girl’s great-aunt. Something happened to the kid’s family and they shipped her here, having no idea that Toledo would hate her own kin.”
He shook his head. “The old woman don’t seem to need a reason to beat the girl. Once, when Anna hadn’t been here more than a few years, she tried to run away. Toledo pulled off her shirt looking for any bud of womanhood, saying she’d marry her off and the child would be someone else’s worry. When she found only a child’s body, she stripped the girl completely and used a whip for the first time.
“The old woman was so exhausted by the time she’d completed the job, I had to carry her inside, and then I went out and covered the child with blankets so she wouldn’t freeze. Her back was covered in blood. Toledo had promised she’d beat her with the whip every time she ran away. The girl never ran again, and Toledo went back to using a stick. It makes welts, but it won’t kill her.”
“Why’d you care if she lived? You didn’t care enough to stop the beating.” Duncan had seen something in Ramon’s eyes when he glared at the girl. Not caring, more like ownership.
Ramon grinned. “I’ m the one who caught her when she ran. Toledo says I can have her every night if I want after she gets her monthly bleeds. The old woman wants to breed her, claims she’s no more than a cow who should produce a kid a year once she’s able. Toledo says she’ll tie the girl to my bed at night until she fills with child, and then I can’t touch her until she gives birth.”
The big man puffed up. “But I don’t think we’ll have to tie her. I think once she gets used to me, she’ll stay. I may have a worthless arm, but I’d be better for her than most around here. Once I break her from running from me, she might even take to my touch.”
When Duncan raised an eyebrow, Ramon quickly added, “I try to help her out when I can. It ain’t my job to bring in the wood, but I do and I make sure she eats sometimes even when she doesn’t want to. I’m the nearest she’s got to a friend around the place. If it wasn’t for me she’d be locked in this room every time Toledo leaves the place, but I let her out. I watch her to make sure she doesn’t run, but I let her go about her day, doing her chores.”
Duncan fought to keep his face