A sluggish feeling Monday morning found Kate opening her eyes in her bedroom on a shaft of sunlight that cut its way straight across her face, crushing any chance of a late sleep. She sighed and rubbed the dusty sleep from her eyes as she arose. She dressed sluggishly, almost unable to shake the last feelings of lethargy from her tired body, but when she finally finished, she wandered outside where the bright sunshine banished all thoughts of crawling back under the covers.
The streets were already busy, full of people and children running about, shouting in a language Kate was far from being able to interpret. But she still smiled and waved at any person who looked her way, and they smiled shyly back.
A couple of the Regulators stood by a wall next to the main square, leaning on the mud colored brick and drinking, as usual, Kate rolled her eyes as she noticed. Charley was sitting with that girl, again, Kate couldn't recall her name...Marianela? No, something else. She shrugged inwardly, watching them talk. Doc and Billy seemed to be missing. Frowning slightly, she took a seat on an empty rocking chair on her "hotel" porch and leaned into its frame. A thundering sound made her and most of the rest of the villagers turn their eyes to the sky, almost afraid to hope that it might be rain.
Though a few dark clouds hovered nearby, it was soon discovered that the sound had come from a drum of the band rehearsing for a fiesta tonight.
"A wedding fiesta?" Kate was taken aback, "Are you sure?"
Steve paused to spit before answering a simple, "Yup."
Chavez nodded, as if he needed to corroborate Steve's affirmative.
Kate shook her head. 'Three weeks? Charley and Manuela? Married? Three weeks, three, bloody, weeks.' She couldn't have been happier for Charley, but it still seemed so sudden, so...unlike Charley. On the other hand, she told herself in her inner struggle, any excuse for a fiesta demands enthusiasm! So she wandered over to Charley and his bride to be and hugged them both vigorously, congratulating them over and over again. The band was rehearsing for the party, and Kate listened with everyone else until the guitar player shouted at her. The only words she caught were "Hey, La sombra! Bonita senorita!" and the rest was far too fast for her.
Chavez translated for her,
"He wants you to dance with them."
"I can't dance!" Kate protested, stretching the long 'a' in can't for emphasis. "I don't know the dance."
Chavez called that back to them, but the band protested, saying,
"They will teach you."
Unable to say no, and flattered that they would even ask, Kate mozied over to the band with fake reluctance, kicking off her heavy boots and lifting her skirts. A few of the village girls went through some easy steps several times to the music, and Kate joined in more quickly than she thought she would be able to. Once she had the steps down, they played a faster tune, and Kate and Manuela and the others kept in step. Other girls stopped their chores to join in, despite the chorus of frustrated mothers (who eventually joined as well).
Soon enough the group became a mini-fiesta, a daytime dance on the dusty red Mexican ground, and despite the incredible heat, no one showed any signs of fatigue. Then came the sound again, and everyone looked to th drum player, who was staring at the sky with wide eyes. All others turned their gazes the same way to find that the dark clouds had moved directly above them, and were beginning to cast a dark shadow over the entire plaza. Everyone was still for a moment, the suspense of their shared held breath achingly long. Silence.
Crack
Another loud boom and a razor of lightning split the sky, accompanied by a chorus of cheers. The band had stopped playing, but the dancing began again with a renewed fervor, everyone creating their own song. Kate grinned and raised her arms to the sky as she spun around, thanking whatever power it might have been that sent the rainclouds. She spun blindly, not seeing anything but the darkening sky, lit occasionally by the sharp smile of a lightning bolt, so she didn't notice he was there until she knocked him down.
"Ow!" she stopped, ready to slam whoever it was until she saw him, "Oh, I'm sorry."
"My fault."
"Now that's not like you at all, Billy."
He smiled, accepting her offered hand, and stood. He didn't know what was going on, and when he asked, all Kate did was give him a disbelieving look and gesture at the sky. Billy's mouth parted in slow wonder, then widened into one of his crazy smiles. He lifted a hand to wipe away the dust that covered one side of his face.
"Honestly, Kate, and I just bathed, too..."
"Full of surprises today, aren't we?"
Though the crowd had been overjoyed at the prospect of rain, its actual manifestation had them all retreating to covered porches to watch from a distance. Only Kate remained, arms spread wide, head turned to the sky, full of memories. She could almost hear her father telling her that England was a sad place, that's why its sky never stopped crying.
'Why is it so sad?' she'd asked.
'It's sad because it knows that it can't keep you. Because one day, you'll grow up and go far, far away.''
'I would never!' the eight year old Kate had answered, horrified at the thought.
'I did leave...' she thought, 'and now New Mexico loves me as much as England did.'
"I'm not going anywhere," she whispered a promise to the New Mexican sky.
And she still refused to grow up.
Dick had been the adult in her that she was forced to let out after her father left. She loved him for letting her be that grown up person her father had always hoped for. The rain, she liked to think, was Dick's way of saying that she didn't have to be that strong anymore, not if she didn't want to be.
Her tears mixed with the raindrops trailing down her face, and she dropped her head as she let the rain wash her pain away. The sky flashed a violent shade of turquoise, and she looked up again. She really felt free now, free and herself and alive, for the first time since arriving here. She felt she had died the day her father did, but now...now she could come back. She could be there for those proud and loyal men who needed her; though it often seemed the opposite.
Her feet began moving in a familiar waltz...one two three, one two three...and a song sprang to her lips almost against her will.
I remember
I remember
How to dance
How to dance...
In the rain
I remember
I remember
How to forget
How to forget
The worst pain
How can you
Not remember
You don't recall
When we used to dance
When the rain
Would fall
Once again she flung her arms out at her sides and twirled slowly as she sang...
