“How do you know my name?” Startled by that, the rest of what he said didn’t register at first.
“The lady photographer? Señorita, you are famous along the Rio Grande.”
She was getting very tired of his grin. “But I told you, I make my living with that camera. You can’t take it!”
“Oh, but we can, señorita,” he said, almost apologetically. “We are, after all, ladrones—thieves. It’s how we make our living.”
Now, because he was toying with her, she was angry again. “Are you thinking to sell it? Don’t bother—I very much doubt anyone between here and Mexico City would know how to use it!”
Señor Mustachio tsk-tsked at her. “Señorita, it is clear you have no high opinion of Mexicans.” He shrugged. “What you say is true—we would not know how to use it. But el jefe has a fancy to have his picture made, as well as a picture history of his exploits, you see.”
Nothing he was saying made sense, but she was willing to engage him in conversation as long as she could on the chance that someone might happen along to rescue her. “El jefe?” she echoed. “Who’s that?”
“Our leader, señorita. Perhaps you have heard of him? His name is Delgado.”
Delgado, the notorious outlaw her parents and others at the party had been talking about only this afternoon.
“But if none of you knows how to operate a camera,” she said desperately, “or even if you did, how to develop the pictures…”
He beamed as if she had suddenly grasped the secret of their plan. “Then, obviously, you will have to come with us to take the pictures, Señorita Hennessy.”
“C-come with you? Me? You’re loco! I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Mustachio laughed and said something in rapid-fire Spanish to his fellows. Despite the fury that sent the pulse throbbing in her ears, Tess thought she heard the word pelirroja, the same word she’d heard one of the Hennessy housemaids call her. Redhead.
As one man, they aimed their weapons at her again.
“You see, you have no choice, señorita,” he said. “But do not worry. If you come with us, you will not be harmed. When Delgado has his pictures, you will be free to return to your home.”
Tess had had enough of his carefree banter. “Well, that’s just dandy!” she cried. “If you think for one cotton-picking moment I’m going to tamely disappear and frighten my mother to death, you’d better think again.”
They were beginning to advance, guns still trained on her. Frantically she looked backward, then ahead, but there was no one on the road but herself and the bandits. With nothing else to do, she opened her mouth and screamed. Please, God, let someone hear me!
She had not guessed any of the bandits could move so fast, but in what seemed like the blink of an eye Tess had been yanked off the seat of her wagon by the evil-eyed man who had laughed at her. He stank of stale onions, garlic and sweat.
Tess went wild, screaming and kicking. She knew that one of her kicks must have connected with something tender when she heard the man grunt and loose his hold on her.
“Bruja!”
In that instant she broke free and, crazy with hope, began to run.
Tess had only covered a few yards when she was tackled by one of the bandits, knocking the wind out of her. Her cheek stung from sliding against a rough rock and her mouth was gritty with dust, but before she could gather enough air to scream again, Tess found herself gagged and bound at her wrists and ankles. In mere moments she was lifted into the bed of the wagon and laid out in the center, surrounded by her bottles of chemicals. She felt the wagon lurch forward and realized they were moving off the road and into the brush.
Where were they taking her? Would she ever see home again? If only she had listened to her mother and gone home when they had, or had Uncle Samuel ride along with her! Or were they so determined to capture the “lady photographer” that the presence of others would have been no deterrent, and might have resulted in her parents’ murders? Now, bowling along over the rocky scrubland as night fell, covered by the heavy canvas, no one would see her being taken away from everyone and everything she knew. Her stomach churned with nausea and fear.
Tess began to sob, soundlessly because of the gag, but soon her inability to clear her nostrils made breathing too difficult to continue crying. Then she could only lie there, feel the lurching and jerking as the wheels rolled over the uneven ground, and watch the last hints of light disappear from the tiny chinks in the sideboards of the wagon bed. At last, exhausted by terror, she slept.
Tess woke because of a sudden absence of the rocking, swaying movement that had haunted her dreams. Were they stopping temporarily, or had they reached Delgado’s hideout?
Before she could listen for clues to the answer, the canvas under which she lay was shoved back off the wagon bed, blinding her with a sudden blast of sunlight. With her wrists and ankles still tied, Tess could only clench her eyes tightly shut.
“Idiotas! Necios!”
The man went on yelling in Spanish so rapidly that Tess could only comprehend that someone was being berated. She assumed it must be Delgado. After all, he would not want his henchmen to manhandle the lady who was about to make him immortal. Now she kept her eyes closed because she was afraid to have her worst fears confirmed. The voice barked out another spate of words, clearly a command, and she felt the bonds at her wrists and ankles being severed.
Tess knew she could not shut out the reality of her situation forever. As soon as she could shade her eyes with one hand against the brilliant sunlight, she raised herself on one elbow and peered at the speaker.
And saw with astonishment that it was not Delgado or any other stranger, but Sandoval Parrish who stood looking at her over the side of the wagon.
“You!” Before she could put together a rational, prudent thought, she had struggled up onto her feet and launched herself at him, fingers curved into claws.
He caught her easily before she could do any damage, and holding her wrists gently, but with an underlying steely strength, kept them pinioned against the side of the wagon. His body was next to hers, rather than directly in front of her, so that even if she were foolish enough to bring up one of her knees, she couldn’t hurt him.
“Calm yourself, Tess Hennessy,” he said, in the same soothing, low voice one would use to soothe a fractious horse. “No harm is going to come to you.”
“No harm?” Tess cried. “I’ve been kidnapped and transported to who knows where, and my family has no idea what has happened to me, and you call that no harm? Sandoval Parrish, you are every bit the scoundrel my mother said you were!” There were no words for the depth of her hurt and disillusionment with him. To discover he was the one who had orchestrated her kidnapping, when she had already been imagining him coming to her rescue. “How dare you do this to me? I demand that you escort me and my possessions safely home immediately!”
He gazed down at her, his dark eyes serious, but there was an amused little curve at the corners of his mouth that betrayed the fact that he was struggling mightily not to laugh at her.
“Tess, Tess, you are in no position to demand anything,” he told her, and now there was no merriment playing about his lips at all. “As you have guessed, you are many, many miles away from your home, and only I stand between you and a camp full of very rough hombres indeed.”
She looked beyond him and saw that what he was saying was too awfully true. There must have been a score, at least, of swarthy men in ragged clothing watching this interplay between Parrish and her, and each man looked more dangerous than the one next to him.
“How very comforting,” she fairly spat at him. “And my name, as I told you before, is Miss Hennessy.”
“Miss