Helen had met Hiram and Frank. In her opinion, the two men had been lowlifes. Mary made a clucking sound of disgust next to her, obviously sharing her opinion.
“Who are you ta be speakin’ fer Rosalinda?” Mr. Stanfield, Mary’s father, spoke up. He was a good-hearted, honest man, but clearly a product of his primitive time and place.
Rafe raised his chin defiantly. “I’m her lawyer. Surely, even a Mexican has a right to a trial in this country. I thought that was the American way.”
Some of the miners didn’t like the challenge at all, and their grumbling threats grew louder.
“Perhaps we should string him up, too,” one red-faced New Englander said in a thick Boston accent. “In fact, let’s get rid of all these greasers in town. They’re always stealing our gold and our women. Maybe we need to teach them all a lesson.”
“Now, now, we’ll have none of that,” Mr. Bancroft said, trying to be a voice of sanity in an insane situation. “Let’s take Rosalinda back to the Empire. Since we got no jail, we’ll lock her in one of my hotel rooms. Tomorrow we’ll call a miners’ meeting, and select a jury ta decide the case. By the law.”
“You kin be her lawyer, if you want,” Mr. Stanfield added, sizing Rafe up with disdain. “And, yes, we got our laws. Even here.” He surveyed the mob. “Ain’t that right, fellers?”
The disgruntled mob soon disbanded, following the keening woman and her captors to her “jail.” Mary went with them to help secure the woman in her “cell.” After a wagon came to cart off the three bodies for burial, Rafe and Helen stood, alone, staring at each other with dismay.
Well, not quite alone. The little Mexican boy stood frozen near the hut, shifting from foot to foot under the heavy burden of the baby he held precariously on one hip. The infant’s cries had faded to a long string of unending whimpers.
Helen went over and hunkered down in front of them. “Can I help?” she asked softly, reaching for the baby.
He clutched the infant even tighter, causing the baby to start screaming again. All the time, his huge black eyes stared at her as if she were the enemy. The only sign of emotion in the boy was the trembling of his lower lip.
Helen patted the baby’s filthy head and tried to calm its sobs, to no avail. “Shhh,” she crooned, “everything will be all right. That’s it, darling.” The baby’s gaunt face reddened and it screamed even louder.
“Hell!” Rafe muttered and walked over to them, dragging his feet reluctantly. He shot out a string of words in Spanish to the boy, who immediately handed the baby over to him.
“What did you say to him?” Helen asked.
“I told him to hand over the kid or I’d kick his ass.”
“Oh, you did not!”
Rafe said something foul under his breath about not being able to escape babies, even in a nightmare.
“What’s wrong?” Helen asked worriedly fifteen minutes later when the baby persisted in crying, even when Rafe cradled it against his shoulder and patted its back in an expert fashion.
“Follow me,” he said, ducking his head to enter the little makeshift house.
It was only a ten-by-ten-foot structure with a dirt floor, a homemade rope bed, a rough table with two chairs, and a Mexican rag rug on the ground. They must have cooked outdoors because there was no stove or fireplace.
“See if you can find some soap and water and a clean cloth to diaper the baby,” he ordered Helen. He told the boy, who hesitantly disclosed that his name was Hector, to prepare a sugar teat until they could take the infant to be nursed by his mother at the Empire.
Rafe laid the baby gently on the bed and undid the soiled cloth tied on either side of its tiny hips. It was a girl. With a grunt of disgust, he tossed the stinking rags to the corner. The baby’s cries died down to soft hiccoughs as she stared up at Rafe, who was alternately blowing on her grubby, sunken stomach and crooning soft Spanish words. “Hush, niña. Hush now.”