Read The Ghost Lights of Marfa for Free Online

with vibrant tapestries, gilded religious pictures, and opulent floor cushions, but neglected the upkeep of livestock and fields. Her words still rung in his ears. “My son, you need marry an heiress with a large dowry.”
    He would not marry a rich woman. To live the life his father had, with only his mistresses and games of cards to keep him happy, with no interest in his wife and son. He thought of the other reason not to marry. “Ana,” he rasped her name into the hard wind. As his linen shirt ruffled against the crisp hairs of his chest, he longed for her fluttery fingers fondling the small whorls of dark hair.
    Every time he coupled with any woman his mind spun with fantasies of the peasant girl, he’d grown up with, the milk maid on the estate. As a Spanish don of noble blood, he could never marry beneath his class. Though he could take her as his mistress, but she left. He didn’t know why or how to find her. Maybe she wed a hardworking peasant. No doubt he’d never see her again.
    A milk maid on the estate didn’t begin to describe the claim she had on his soul. When he first saw her, pink, and wrinkly, a babe laying on a small pile of hay covered with a blanket near her mother milking the cows, he considered her a play thing. As a boy, only four years old, he’d sneaked away from his governess to shake a rattle in front of her until she smiled. As she grew, they played chase, had hay fights, and swung back and forth on a rope in the barn’s loft for fun. As a child he assumed she’d always be there for him, with him.
    A roar of thunder pulled him from his musings as the ship heaved, drenched in a torrent of rain. Ramon’s reflexes saved him as he clung so tight to the rail his knuckles turned white. The barrage of wind and rain sent the wooden vessel careening toward the Earth. The Spanish flag hung limp and sodden from the masthead.
    A woman crawled out of the hold. “Blow it! I’m not going down with the airship.”
    Gritting his teeth against the chill downpour, Ramon glanced at the strange lady. A howling wind swept the rocking deck and snatched the wavering, black-clad woman. She grabbed the rail to save her life before the gush could toss her overboard. Then the ship heaved and she lost her grip. Her screech of terror vibrated in the air even with the roaring turbulence.
    “By all the saints.” Ramon pivoted forward, grabbing the woman’s waist. He yanked her against him, and saved her from a fall to her death. “Get down below,” he shouted against the furry of the wind.
    She ripped the wet veil from her face and gasped, her eyes widened in shock.
    Something about her jogged Ramon’s memory, but the pounding rain obscured the details of her features. Some type of flying debris struck the woman’s forehead, but Ramon managed to hold onto both the rail and the lady, now limp in his arms. When a sailor latched a hemp rope from one side of the ship rail to the other, Ramon grabbed it, waded across to the hold, and crawled inside, still cradling the slender lady.
    As the ship rode the rumbling storm outside, inside the hold the thrashing and hissing of pistons, gears, and steam rattled his ears. He had not thought it possible, but the din sounded noisier than the back streets of Seville.
    He lifted his hand from the woman’s head, glancing at the scarlet splash of fresh blood on his palm. “The dama bleeds. Is there a physician on board?”
    A man, who declared he was a surgeon, took over her care.
    “The wound is slight. She shall soon awake.” In a ponderous tone the surgeon added, “I always thought of the widow as elderly. Who would have known she was so young?”
    The woman released a long, low moan.
    “I am at a loss to comment on her age for I do not know the dama. I was but blessed with the good fortune to be there in her time of need.” Ramon hoped for a real doctor. Surgeons were always cutting off an arm or a leg, so he stayed nearby in case the woman needed rescuing from the