Read Relic for Free Online Page A

three weeks. I sat down on the creaking little mattress and stroked her shoulder.
    “When are we leaving this place?” she asked, still not looking at me. “I wanna go home.”
    “We can’t go home. You know that.”
    I heard a little sniffle and realized she was crying. My heart sank.
    “We’ll start a new home,” I said, squeezing her arm. “You’ll see. I’ll get some work and find us a nice new place to live.”
    Even as I spoke the words, they felt like an empty promise.
    Ella sniffed again, pulling away from my touch. “Jeb wouldn’t have us stay in this lonely old place.” She was silent for a moment before adding in barely a whisper, “Why couldn’t you pull him up?”
    Her words were like a knife in the gut. We’d been through it before. I’d explained how Yahnuiyo, the Apache warrior, couldn’t have lifted both of us, how Jeb made him take me instead. But I knew those explanations meant little to Ella. She wanted Jeb, not me. And it was my fault he was gone.
    I stepped away from the bed. My vision blurred with tears as I stumbled blindly down the hall, the stuffy mission air suddenly seeming to choke me. I found my way out into the courtyard and pressed my back to the cool adobe wall. Staring up at the stars, I tried to breathe.
    Ella was right. I wasn’t as good as Jeb, and I certainly could never replace Mama and Papa. Maybe if I were older or skilled or smarter, I could give Ella the home she needed. Heavy-hearted, I twisted the rose Álvar Castilla had given me between my fingers. A warm night wind carried the flower’s sweet scent across my face. It was time to accept my situation for what it was and do whatever it took to survive.
    I sighed deeply. Tomorrow I would take the job.

Chapter Four
    Late at night, The Desert Rose took on a solemn mood. Most of the men had either drifted home—drunk and broke—or had slid upstairs to lay down their money for a bit of “feminine company.” A few stragglers played cheerless rounds of poker, sipping their whiskey with furrowed brows. The room smelled of men and alcohol and cheap perfume, but at least the crowds were gone.
    I wiped the empty tables with a white cloth, reveling in the peace that had come at last. The only sound was “The Red River Valley” drifting from the saloon piano, jingling on the air like warm memories. Eddie, the piano player, was a dark, quiet man who didn’t fit in here. We shared that in common. He played the popular ditties and tunes as he was paid to do, but once in a while he’d start making the most beautiful, sad music I’d ever heard. Music so sad it made me think of Mama and Papa and Jeb until I wept.
    Leaning on the edge of the piano, I asked him to play me one of those.
    Eddie glanced around the room. “There’re still customers, Miss Maggie. I’d better give them some cheery tunes, seeing as how they’re probably tired and broke.”
    “Please,” I said. “It’ll help me clean up this mess.”
    It had been an especially raucous night. Adelaide Price had starred in the musical revue, and she always drew a big crowd. Then a large group of railroad workers showed up to make an already full house even fuller. They were passing through town to replace the centaur relic in the engine of the locomotive, a task for which they demanded plenty of fanfare and special privileges. When their foreman commandeered the saloon’s last three bottles of dragon whiskey, however, folks decided they’d had about enough, and a brawl broke out. Now, broken bottles and cards were scattered everywhere.
    Eddie scratched the back of his neck but then smiled. “Okay. One song. Just for you.”
    He understood me. I figured he must have seen his share of sorrows, too.
    As I bent and scrubbed the floors, the melancholy music filled me. I thought about my parents and my poor, sweet brother until I ached all over. It had been more than a month since they died, but the pain hadn’t much gone away. If anything, it had only gotten