Helen handed Rafe a tin basin with a scrap of cotton fabric and a pottery bowl of soft, pungent soap. Little by little, Rafe washed the still whimpering child from dark silky hair to perfect toes.
He inhaled sharply when he was done. “Get a load of this.”
The little girl’s sallow skin was covered with flea and mosquito bites, and her bottom was raw with diaper rash.
“And she’s sick, too. The color of her skin isn’t right.”
“What do you think it is?”
He shook his head hopelessly. “I don’t know. Maybe jaundice. Maybe worse. Her ribs are practically sticking out.”
On Rafe’s advice, Helen rushed back to their hotel room to get her ointment. She asked around for a doctor, but learned there was none residing in the town. Returning shortly, she stopped in the doorway, frozen with disbelief. Her heart expanded almost to breaking and her eyes burned at the sight before her.
Rafe sat on the bed with his back propped against the headboard, softly singing a Spanish lullaby. The baby was cradled in one arm against his chest, sucking rhythmically on the hunk of sugar-coated cloth he held at its pursed lips. Hector cuddled against his other side, fast asleep, with a skinny arm thrown over Rafe’s waist, holding on for dear life. In sleep, tears made white tracks down his grungy face.
Rafe looked up, noticing her for the first time, and their eyes locked for a long moment.
“It doesn’t mean a thing,” he said finally. His face was blank, but his voice was raspy.
“How can you… I just don’t understand you, Rafe. I mean, how can a man who is so good with children not want any of his own?” she cried out.
“If I’m good with kids, it’s because I’ve been surrounded by them all my life. I had no choice,” he said bitterly. “But I’ll be damned if I make the same choice for my own future.”
Hot air choked Helen’s lungs. She could think of no words to convince him he was wrong.
The baby girl sighed, and the makeshift teat fell out of her darling angel-bow mouth. Then, reflexively, her tiny fist closed over Rafe’s finger, clutching. Her lips settled into sleepy exhaustion, her sunken chest wheezing up and down.
Rafe gazed down at the infant and his lips curved with tenderness as he traced a knuckle along her downy cheek. He seemed to catch himself immediately. Glaring at Helen, he repeated, “It doesn’t mean a thing.”
But Helen was hopeful for the first time in days. And she couldn’t love Rafe more than she did at that moment.
The baby died the next night.
They hanged Rosalinda four days later.
Helen sat at the Indiana House with Mary afterward, shaking from the ordeal. “How could they? Oh, it was horrible!”
“I told you not ta go,” Mary said gruffly, patting her on the shoulder. They were sitting in Mary’s small sitting room off the main dining area. “Besides, Rosalinda wuz a no-good slut. She din’t deserve yer pity.”
“That’s not the point,” Helen said. “Over the past few days, you and I have gotten to know Rosalinda well. You’re right. She was a coarse, immoral, totally unlikable person. I couldn’t believe how unfeeling she was when her baby died.”
“Yep. All she said wuz, ‘She’s better off dead.’ The woman was lower’n a snake’s belly.”
Helen nodded. “Even so, I can’t fathom a society that would hang a woman — or a man — on so little evidence. That ‘trial’ yesterday before the Miners’ Committee was nothing but a kangaroo court.”
Mary shrugged. “I mus’ say that yer man’s lawyerin’ wuz mighty fancy. I could see how puffed up with pride you wuz fer him.”
“He did do a good job, didn’t he?” Helen beamed. “It’s not his fault that the jury was predisposed to convict any Mexican who killed an American. All they were interested in was rushing off to the nearest saloon to celebrate.”
“Now, let me give you a bit of caution, honey,” Mary said sternly. “I wouldn’t be talkin’ thataway. Folks’re already fired up at yer husband fer interferin’ with the trial. And the feelin’s toward Mexicans is running high. Don’t be rilin ’em up no more. It’s over, and you gotta be thinkin ’bout yer own future.”