Midnight Rider by Kat Martin Page B

he expected, she ignored it and simply started walking.
    The encampment itself wasn’t large, mostly makeshift houses among the pines at the top of the knoll. Some of the single men lived in tents. The two Yocuts Indians who rode with them had built small willow-branch huts in a clearing at one end of the camp. There was a central corral, and a couple of lean-tos. A fast-moving stream ran along the edge of the encampment, providing water and plenty of mountain trout.
    â€œHow many people live here?” Carly surveyed the women washing clothes in the stream and the children playing ball in the center of the compound. She was surprised to find the place so pleasant, with patches of grass here and there, the simple adobe houses well tended.
    â€œAbout thirty-five,” the don said, smiling down at a child who waddled toward him, a little girl no more than three years old. Laughing he lifted the baby up in his hard-muscled arms, kissed her chubby cheek, then handed her over to the woman hurrying toward them.
    â€œ Gracias, Don Ramon. My Celia is forever toddling away.” The woman was no more than twenty-five, with pleasant features and soft brown eyes. She looked at Carly and gave her a tentative smile.
    â€œMaria, this is Senorita McConnell,” the don said. “She will be our guest for a while.”
    The baby reached toward Carly, trailed her chubby fingers through her thick dark copper hair. She found herself smiling in return. “Carly,” she said to the woman. “My name is Carly.”
    â€œI am pleased to meet you.” Smiling at the don, holding her baby close against her, she quietly walked away.
    â€œI didn’t realize outlaws lived with their families,” Carly said, trying not to be touched by the Spaniard’s easy manner with the child.
    â€œMost of them are displaced rancheros, men who have lost their lands to the gringos. The vaqueros and others who worked for them also lost their homes. They were replaced by cheaper labor, Indian workers bought and sold by the Americanos. They are treated almost like slaves.”
    â€œThat can’t be true. Slavery isn’t allowed in California.”
    â€œNo? Indian wages are ten dollars a month, most of which goes back to the haciendado for room and board. If an Indian is found to be vagrant, he is auctioned to the highest bidder. The money he brings goes to the government. As I see it, my pretty gringa, that comes very close to slavery.”
    Carly said nothing to that. She had seen the Indians working around her uncle’s rancho, but she had never realized how little he paid them. It bothered her to think what the don said might be true.
    The sound of iron ringing against iron drew her attention toward a large wooden shed built on one side of the compound. Hand swaths, broad-bladed hoes, hammers, saws, axes, braces, bits, and planes lined one wall. Two huge horse collars hung from the ceiling, along with several saddles and other items of tack.
    Walking to the rear of the shed, the don introduced her to Santiago Gutierrez, a man she remembered from the raid. Today he was working as a blacksmith, bent over a big iron anvil, his hammer ringing as he repaired a broken wagon tongue.
    He glanced up, eyeing her as warily as she eyed him. “You are feeling better, I see. That is good.”
    Carly hid her surprise. Concern was the last thing she had expected. “I—I’m much better, thank you.” He hardly looked like an outlaw, just a hard-working man with sweat on his brow, his muscles straining to his task. The don asked after his wife, Tomasina, and their two children. Santiago told him they were well.
    Noticing the heavy bandage around his thigh and remembering the wound he’d received in the raid, she started to ask him how his leg was healing, but caught herself just in time. The man was a criminal. He’d been injured stealing her uncle’s horses, for heaven’s sake. It was