Read Online The Last Chance Ranch by Ruth Wind, Barbara Samuel - Free Book Online Page B

here.”
    “You can’t do that.”
    “Try me.”
    His eyes flashed, but he turned the water on in the sink, washed his hands, then flung himself down at the table. Tanya put a new bowl of roasted chilies on the table. Then she leaned close. “Let me tell you something. Where I’ve been, they eat babies like you for a late-night snack. Mind your manners with me. Is that clear?”
    Without Edwin lifting his eyes, Tanya couldn’t tell what expression they held, but he said in a voice seemly devoid of emotion, “Yes, ma’am.”
    The battle was over, Tanya thought, an old blues song running through her mind. The war would continue.
    But today she had fought well.
    * * *
    Desmary was still tired at dinnertime, and took supper on a tray in her room. Tanya sat with her for a little while, listening to stories of the ranch in the old days as Desmary drank an herb tea the
curandera
in the hills above Manzanares had prepared for her.
    When she was finished with the tea, she said, “Go on, child. I’ll be fine in the morning. A battery this old just needs some recharging from time to time.”
    Tanya laughed. Collecting the dishes, she said, “You’ll call me if you need anything, right?”
    “Sure.” She wiggled into her pillows more fully. “Thanks for your help with the chilies, Annie.”
    Tanya froze, her hands gripped tightly on the tray. Annie. The name carried painful associations with the past. “What did you call me?”
    “You don’t like it? It suits you, you know.”
    “No, I don’t.” She leaned on the door. “How does it suit me?”
    “Annie is softer. Tanya just isn’t the right name for you.”
    She swallowed. “I appreciate what you’re saying, but please don’t call me that anymore. It brings back bad memories.”
    “Put those dishes down and come here.”
    Tanya reluctantly did as she was told. Desmary took one smooth hand into her gnarled grip. “Don’t let the past hold you. Not even a tiny piece of it, you understand?”
    “You don’t understand, Desmary, that name—”
    “Oh, I understand all right. I remember Annie Quezada and how they clucked their tongues over her being in the hospital.”
    “How did you know?”
    “I’ve been around forever, child. Back then, Ramón’s mother lived here, taking care of her father. We gossiped like old women will about our children and nieces and nephews and dead husbands. She used to worry about you.”
    “I don’t really remember meeting her.”
    “It’s hard when you don’t come from such a big family, to keep everyone straight. She met you several times, though, at family things. Victor was the child she worried about even when he was little. He stayed at the ranch sometimes when they were all children. He was mean, Annie. Mean to the bone. And jealous of every scrap of attention anyone else ever got.”
    The soft conversation brought too many things bubbling to the top of the steaming cauldron of memory. “I really don’t like to think about these things anymore,” she breathed. She thought of Edwin in the kitchen this afternoon, his beautiful eyes hard, and knew that many adults had probably seen the same thing in Victor’s eyes.
    And yet—
    “I really loved him, you know,” she said to Desmary. “A lot of people don’t understand that. But I did.”
    “I know you did, child.”
    “If there had been any other way to free Antonio and me from him, I would have taken it. I tried.”
    Desmary stroked her hand, slowly, and the gesture was deeply comforting. “I know.”
    Tanya looked down. “Every time I hear of some woman being gunned down in a parking lot, or at work, I’m so thankful that didn’t happen to me.”
    To her amazement, Tanya felt tears streaming over her face. Tears of relief. Tears of anger—outrage for all those girls and women who still lived with that paralyzing terror. “You know what’s evil? When I hear those stories, I get so angry I want to get a gun and kill all of those men who think they can