Spin the Sky Read Online Free PDF Page B

decides.
    However, the kid is handling the gun with an ease born of much practice. Cesar raises both hands up in the air and hopes the youth isn’t trigger-happy. He waits cautiously, but the figure seems content to stand motionless and silent.
    “Son, I’m unarmed and feeling poorly. You got no cause to be worried about me. I’m just passing through,” Cesar rasps in what he hopes is a friendly voice.
    An abrupt wave of dizziness causes him to lurch forward suddenly. The shotgun roars in response, kicking up puffs of dirt not two feet in front of him.
    “Come on, now!” he cries, stumbling back. “Don’t kill an old fool when he’s this close to death. I’m just looking for directions to the Vaquero ranch!”
    He bends over, wheezing light-headedly with his hands on his knees.
    “ Gringo , you a friend of Vaquero?” the figure asks, not taking the gun off him for a second.
    The voice has a soft Spanish burr and is unmistakably female. Cesar jerks his head up in surprise. She is still shadowed by the doorway, but now that he knows what to look for, he can make out the suggestion of gentle curves beneath the bulky clothes.
    “Yes! You know Vaquero?” Cesar replies, his heart leaping as he fights to keep his balance. “You might say I am an old family friend.”
    She makes a very unladylike snort of derision.
    “Mister, an old family friend would know he’s standing in the front yard of the Vaquero ranch,” she snaps, taking a step forward into the sunlight so he can finally see her face. Suddenly, the world seems to tilt on its side and slip away from him. His heart stops and his breath sticks in his chest.
    Cesar knows her.
    He knows the proud curve of that chin and that shining black hair, caught back in a thick braid. He’s spent a hundred nights admiring her smooth Spanish skin. He knows those laughing black eyes, sparkling now with suspicion.
    Even after fifteen years, a man knows his own wife.
    Cesar falls to his knees there in the dirt. His strength is well and truly played out. He feels himself lurch and topple over with fever, overwhelmed. He hears his wife, Penelope Vaquero, run from the porch to stand over him.
    “Hey, mister, you alright?” She shakes him roughly, but he is sliding from consciousness. Cesar fights to open his eyes as the landscape spins like a child’s toy.
    “Come on, gringo , wake up!” she insists as he closes his eyes again. He feels her small, cool palm sting sharply as she slaps him hard across the face.
    “Yep,” he thinks, “That’s my wife.”
    He has one final reflection before the darkness swallows him. “If she knew I was her husband, she’d shoot me for sure.”
     

CHAPTER TWO
    E ven after all these years away from the Earth, Penelope Vaquero still prays in Spanish. Muttering a rapid prayer for patience under her breath, she calls for Lupe and Argos to come help her.
    “ Madre de Dios , do I not have enough to do today?”
    Penelope looks with disgust at the man collapsed in the dirt of her front yard. He is smelly and obviously sick. He looks like an old wild cat, still sharp in tooth and claw.
    “This old man is probably going to die right here and make me bury him,” she says ruefully to Lupe and Argos as they approach.
    She feels a strong temptation to spit or curse, but decides to hang on to the tattered remains of her ladylike upbringing. Penelope sighs and mentally adds this stranger to her long list of tasks for the day.
    Argos helps Penelope run the ranch that he grew up on, just as his father before him helped old Larry Vaquero. He’s the lead ranch hand, gray but spry. Argos walks up in his perennially unhurried way. His dusty jeans and carefully mended cowboy shirt are the uniform of all well-fed ranch hands.
    His leathery skin speaks of years in Ithaca’s strong light and his laughing blue eyes say he’s ready for plenty more. Standing beside her, looking down at the man in the dirt, Argos whistles as Lupe hurries behind.
    Lupe, on the