The Outlaw's Lady

“I’ll expect you then, Mr. Parrish.” Her voice was brisk, businesslike. A prelude to goodbye. She stared down at the notebook she’d taken out to note the appointment.

He wanted more than that from her, despite his realization that mutual interest might complicate things. “If you like,” he went on, “I’d be honored to take you to lunch at the hotel across from your shop. I’m told they have good food.” He said it to gauge her reaction to him. Both of them would be many miles from Chapin by then, if all went according to his plan.

Her chin jerked up again. “I…I don’t know…I’ll have to think about it,” she said.

“Very well, Miss Hennessy. Until Tuesday, then.” He felt her eyes upon him as he strode away.

“Aren’t you done yet, Tess?” Amelia Hennessy shouted through the heavy canvas of the developing tent. The sudden sound caused Tess to straighten quickly and bang her head on the support post, exacerbating the pounding headache she already had. She didn’t know why her mother thought she had to shout, as if the canvas were a six-foot-thick adobe wall.

“No, not quite, Mama, why?” Tess replied, purposefully vague, though she was brushing varnish on the last picture. If she left at the same time as her parents, her mother would insist on critiquing the party with her—who had worn what, who had been flirting with whom, the quality and quantity of the food, and so forth—which would require Tess to drive her vehicle abreast of the victoria. After spending most of a day with social chatter droning into her ears, Tess was looking forward to being alone with her thoughts. She already knew what—or rather whom—she was going to think about.

“It’s late. Your father and I are ready to leave.”

Under the canvas, Tess pushed an errant lock of hair off her damp forehead, feeling wilted and sticky. She resolved never again to accept any commissions that involved outdoor photography in the heat of a south Texas summer. It was no longer necessary to protect the photographs from the light, but remaining under the hood allowed her to protect the drying photographs from dust and insects.

“You go ahead, then,” she said, praying her mother would do so without further questions. “I’ll drive back when I’m finished. I won’t be too much longer.”

She heard Amelia loose a heavy sigh. “Very well, but be home before dark, won’t you? Have Sam escort you.”

Tess stifled the urge to remind her mother it was only a mile between the Taylors’ place and Hennessy Hall. She was not about to ask Uncle Samuel to saddle a horse and escort her as if she were six years old and afraid of the dark. Would her mother ever treat her as a grown woman? Why, her sister Bess had been married at seventeen!

Tess was the youngest child, the only one left at home. Perhaps that explained her mother’s overprotectiveness. She resolved to be more patient with her.

“You need your rest, Tess. Don’t forget, church tomorrow, and your brother and his family are coming for Sunday dinner.”

She always enjoyed going to the little church in Chapin they had always attended, and it would be good for her mother to see Robert and his family. They lived in Houston and weren’t able to visit often. Having three lively grandchildren around would distract her mother, and surely Tess could gain some breathing room.

“Well, aren’t you going to come out from beneath that thing and tell your parents goodbye?” Amelia asked, her tone reproachful.

It wasn’t as if they were going to be parted for more than an hour, but Tess deemed her last picture dry enough, so she obliged her mother by throwing the flap open and giving her mother an affectionate kiss on the cheek.

When she drew back, she found her mother staring at one of the portraits she had just finished and pinned up to dry. Sandoval Parrish’s image stared back at them, his eyes dark and probing, as if he wanted to penetrate the soul of whoever gazed at the picture. There was definitely something about the man that disturbed Tess’s peace, though she could not have said how, precisely.

Amelia’s peace had apparently been disturbed as well. “Sam Taylor introduced you to that man? He must have done it when I wasn’t looking. Why, I’m going to give him a piece of my mind,” her mother said indignantly, snatching the picture from where it was pinned on the drying board and whirling around.

“Mama, it’s not completely dry. Be careful!” Tess pleaded, following her and hoping she would not have to tell Parrish her mother had ruined the picture and he would have to sit for it again. She couldn’t help glancing around to see if Parrish was still around and had heard her mother, but she saw no sign of him.

Her mother, however, had spotted her husband and Taylor standing by the hitched and ready victoria, and was already sailing off in their direction, her bearing rigid with indignation, brandishing the photograph in front of her.

“Mama, please, he only sat for a picture!” Tess protested, not wanting Uncle Samuel to be the victim of one of her mother’s dramatic scenes. She knew better than to mention that her godfather had practically thrown the two of them together. She was also unwilling to admit—even to herself—that there had been more in Parrish’s eyes than the mere politeness and cooperation a subject would give a photographer.

“Sam Taylor, what were you thinking?” Amelia demanded.

“What’s wrong, Amelia?” Taylor asked, his face honestly confused. He looked to Patrick Hennessy for enlightenment, but seeing his friend looking as surprised as he was at Amelia’s outburst, turned back to her. “Did I do something to upset you, dear lady?”

“As if you didn’t know,” Amelia Hennessy snapped. “Introducing that man to our youngest daughter. Why, everyone in Hidalgo County knows he’s little more than a bandito!” her mother cried. “I could not believe my eyes when I saw him strolling around the grounds today as if he were as good as anyone else. Why on earth would you invite such a man, let alone introduce him to an innocent girl?”

Her father peered at the photograph, and when he looked up, his eyes were troubled. “So that’s who that was. Sam, I hear tell he’s rumored to be a compadre of Delgado himself.” The questioning note in his voice echoed his wife’s concern.

It was no light charge. Delgado was a notorious Mexican outlaw who raided Texas ranches along the Rio Grande, then ran back across the border with his loot—horses, jewelry, guns, sometimes even a rancher’s entire herd of cattle.

“Don’t believe everything you hear, Patrick,” Sam protested. “I’ve known Sandoval Parrish since he was just a sprout, back in my days as a Ranger. You surely don’t think I’d introduce my goddaughter to a bad hombre, do you? I’d ride the river with that man anytime.”

Tess blinked in surprise. In Texas, saying a man was good enough to ride the river with was high praise. It meant he was as trustworthy as they came.

And saying it was enough, apparently, to leave her voluble mother speechless.

Seeing that, Sam pressed his advantage. “And like Tessie said, all she did was take his picture.”

Tess smiled at the nickname, one she hadn’t heard him use in years. But Amelia Hennessy was never speechless for long. Handing the picture back to her daughter, she said, “Tess is our youngest child, and I’ll thank you to ask us before you introduce her to anyone, Samuel Taylor.”

Samuel hung his head. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry, Amelia, I didn’t mean t’ ruffle your feathers.”

Patrick sighed. “No harm done,” he assured his friend. “As you say, she only took his picture.”

“And a fine job she did, too,” Sam said, glancing at it. “Not only Parrish’s, but all the ones she took today. Everyone told me how pleased they were. I’m much obliged to your daughter, Amelia and Patrick. Tess, why don’t you come up to the house and we’ll settle up?”

The sun was sinking behind a distant line of mesquite when the mule pulled Tess’s wagon off the palm-lined lane onto the main road. Despite her most diligent efforts to be on her way quickly, Uncle Samuel and Aunt Lula Marie had been in a buoyant, post-party mood and were loath to let her go until Tess finally insisted she must be on her way or her mother would make her father come back to fetch her.

Tess let Ben have his head, for the mule knew the way home. It had been a very profitable day, Tess mused. With the money she’d been paid today, and the enthusiastic response she’d gotten from the guests that would surely lead to further business, she was that much closer to her goal of traveling to New York City. Portfolio of her best work in hand, she would waltz into the studio of the famed Mathew Brady himself and offer her services. He would be so impressed he’d hire her on the spot.

It was an idea that horrified her mother, who prophesied a dire end to a young lady who ventured anywhere into the Dreadful North, let alone a huge, wicked city such as New York. She would starve to death without the Protection of a Man to see that she ate only in Decent God-fearing Establishments, be accosted by rascals bent on No Good, and her traveling funds would be ripped from their place of safekeeping in the hem of her skirts.

“You have to remember that your mother lived through the War Between the States, darlin’,” her father always reminded her. “And while the Yankees never penetrated as far inland as Hidalgo County, it seemed for a while they might. Then we got word of her cousin Lucretia being murdered by bummers during Sherman’s March to the Sea. You’re her last precious chick in the nest, Tess darlin’, and she’s anxious to see you married and settled.”

“But I’m never going to marry. I want to do something more with my life.”

“Darlin’, darlin’, never say never,” her father advised. “Some nice young man may well come along and change your mind. And it’s not impossible you might meet him in New York,” he’d added, surprising her. “I came ashore there, fresh off the boat from Ireland some thirty-five years ago, and it wasn’t so bad a place. If you must go, I’ll have Robert escort you there.”

Not if, Papa—when. And when she went, she was going alone. She loved her elder brother, but he was just as overprotective as Mama and sure he knew the only right way to do anything. Besides, he had a family to look out for. It would have been fun to have another girl her age along, but once they had become young ladies, all of Tess’s school friends had become obsessed with beaux and clothing, and affected to swoon at the idea of leaving all that for some musty old photography studio up north.

One minute Tess’s wagon was rolling alone along the shadowy, mesquite-and cactus-lined road; the next, figures like ghosts had emerged from the scrub and formed themselves in lines in front of her wagon and behind it. All of them, dressed in the simple, light-colored clothing of Mexican peasants, were pointing rifles or pistols at her.

Chapter Three

“Hola, señorita,” a mustachioed fellow in the center of the road called out, smiling broadly. “Buenas noches.”

Tess began to shake—not out of fear—or at least, it wasn’t mostly fear, but rage. Less than a mile from home, she was now about to forfeit the fifty dollars for which she had labored all day to a handful of banditos. She would have given anything she had for a Winchester carbine in her lap right now.

“I don’t have anything you want,” she said, hoping she could bluff it out. “Just a camera and a wagon full of chemicals for developing photographs.”

The mustachioed man translated her words to the others. Laughter rang out as Tess fumed. She hadn’t been put here to amuse them! One evil-eyed man, standing on Mustachio’s left, sniggered.

“You don’t have anything we want? Ah, señorita, I am not so sure about that,” he countered with an insolent grin that flashed white teeth against his brown skin.

Tess tried to stare him down with her haughtiest look, but failed. Rage was fast transforming itself into pure, unalloyed fear as she realized they could do anything they wanted with her—anything.

With a pang, she made the decision to surrender the fifty dollars and hope they would be content with that. The idea hurt her, but not as much as it would have to give them the camera and supplies. She switched to Spanish. She’d learned it early in a household run by Mexican servants. “All right, I will give you my money, if you’re so desperate, but you must leave me my camera and the wagon. It’s how I make my living.”