Then, suddenly, the argument subsided. The corporal did not dismount. One of the privates turned to Skye, talking heatedly, but Skye could grasp none of it. The man pointed at the wounded foot, unsheathed a small knife, and sent fear rocketing through Skye. But the man pantomimed what he intended: there would be some minor surgery on the trail. Reluctantly, Skye extended his leg, and the private placed the foot in his lap, with surprising gentleness. He ran a hand softly over the wounds, grinned at Skye, and held his knife ready.
Skye clenched his teeth, waited. The soldier’s deft plucking with the tip of his knife extracted the stub of the thorn, which had run deep into Skye’s sole. He held it where Skye could see it. It looked like something off a cactus. Blood oozed. The other private rummaged through his field kit for a bandage, and wrapped Skye’s foot tightly. He wished they would have cleaned it first. The bandage would help, but wouldn’t last long, not in this flinty rock. They helped Skye to his feet, a definite kindness in them, even though the corporal stared darkly at the whole process.
And so once again they began, pacing themselves to Skye’s limping. Santa Fe looked even farther away than before, but maybe there was hope in that.
twenty-nine
Victoria listened carefully but could not understand a word. That didn’t faze the pretty young Mexican woman though; she obviously expected Victoria to understand everything, and if she wasn’t understood, then she would talk louder and faster and wag her hands and flail her arms.
Instructions, orders, explanations, sweeping gestures. All Victoria got out of it was the sense that she and Standing Alone were expected to do things. Then the sweet-voiced young woman tried talking very slowly, as if to an infant, but that did not yield understanding.
Meanings did pervade that flood of Spanish words and gestures helped. The young padre’s woman was expecting help in the kitchen. Victoria and Standing Alone were supposed to toil there, peeling vegetables, cooking meat in the kettle hanging in the fireplace, shelling peas, fetching kindling, scraping pots, and in between, scrubbing clothing and hanging it to dry.
The padre had been gone all afternoon, for what reasons Victoria did not know. But that was all right: it gave her a chance to survey this place. She had swiftly learned that it was a very private and peaceful place, with a high-walled garden, and only a few small windows on the second floor. It seemed grand; much larger and better than most of the houses of Taos. No wonder the padre wanted women to care for it.
That morning, the young woman had admitted a stiff older one dressed in black and summoned Victoria and Standing Alone. Then the dour older woman did a strange thing with a string. She took measurements; that was plain. The older woman wrapped the string around their waists, and made some marks on paper; then she did the same at the bosom and the hips, and finally she measured from the neck to the floor, and then she vanished out the barred patio door, which had a mysterious locking mechanism.
That afternoon, the stiff-backed old woman reappeared, this time with a bundle of clothing, some of it well worn and mended, some new. Now they made Victoria and Standing Alone pull off the shifts they wore and don this new clothing: drawers, a light and very full underskirt, a sort of tight blouse. The two Mexican women nodded, and with gestures told Victoria and Standing Alone to put their shifts on over all this other clothing. And so they were dressed very like the Mexican women, in layers of clothes, except that they were barefoot. The two Mexicans talked back and forth, nodding, looking pleased with what they had wrought, and then the older woman was let out into the narrow street.
As the afternoon unfolded, the Mexican woman set them to work in the kitchen, building up the fire, kneading dough, peeling carrots and potatoes, and finally slicing up pieces of beef the woman had produced from some cool place. All these went into a black cast-iron pot along with some salt. Ah! Victoria knew all of these things, and so did Standing Alone, so the work went easily. But it was irritating not to know how to talk to this woman of the padre, or learn anything. And the woman was not interested in learning Victoria’s tongue, either.
But the padre’s woman didn’t press them hard, and there was time to explore. Victoria wandered into a large room in which the smooth walls had been coated with white, and found little niches in the walls, and carved wooden statues in each niche, each carefully and brightly painted.
“Ah! The gods of the Mexicans,” she said, surveying each one. The males had black beards. One beautiful woman was larger, dressed in blue, and had a sunburst of gold behind her, and before her were two candles. She smiled into the room and blessed it with her serenity.
“The mother god of the Mexicans,” Victoria said, even as she beckoned Standing Alone along. “See how they honor her. I like that one better than the one on the cross.” But then she remembered the words given to her by Skye once, about this god who willingly sacrificed himself so that others might be welcomed and made whole by the Above One, and she felt a strange respect flow through her. She wished Skye could be there to explain all these mysteries.
On the wall was the hanging god, the one dying on a cross, but there were no candles before him anywhere. He was everywhere, in each room. She had seen this god before, too, and thought him very strange.
There was a table and a chair where one could make the marks on paper, and a woven basket with the money of these people lying in it. There were many coins, and some paper too, but Victoria had no idea whether this was much or little money. She had seen such things in Saint Louis, but not these coins or this paper. They explored the other rooms, believing that this holy man had great wealth, and then the patio.
In the garden, she discovered Shine sitting on the high wall with the fat man’s hat in hand. Shine chittered his greeting, swung down, and Victoria knew instantly what to do. When the young Mexican woman was not looking, she plucked up two little round loaves and dropped them into the hat. Then she pulled her medicine bundle from her neck and put it into the hat as a sign. Someday it would come back; she didn’t doubt that. Standing Alone stared, alarmed, but Victoria laughed. In moments, the monkey was gone, two graceful bounds from a tree to the wall.
Now Childress knew where Victoria and Standing Alone were. Aiee! It was good. Skye and Childress would come. Maybe they would have rifles and food and moccasins, and maybe fleet horses and saddles and a cooking pot and flint and steel and blankets. She thought of Skye, and ached for him, and ached to know where he was. He would come for her, or she would come for him, and they would escape. But for now, she needed to plan: to know how to get food to take with them, to learn how to escape, to learn a few words of these people.
She did not see Skye or Childress during that long day, and as evening approached, the Mexican woman kept them busy in the kitchen. Then the padre, this Martinez, appeared, looked the Indian women over carefully, nodded, said things to his woman.
The women put things on a table for him, savory meat and vegetables, some hot-baked bread, which Victoria liked, and a porcelain bottle of amber liquid. She wondered what that was, sneaked a sniff and discovered a sharp tang, but she dared not drink it. Then the padre sat down alone, and poured the amber liquid from the bottle into a cup and drank.
He sighed, sipped more.
She knew what it was! Firewater! Whiskey! She could see him relax and enjoy the hour. He swept one cup and then another into him, drinking as prodigiously as he ate. She and Standing Alone peeked from the cooking room until the Mexican woman hustled them away. The holy man and the Mexican woman talked much, but Victoria couldn’t grasp a word of it. She sensed the talk was about herself and Standing Alone.
The padre Martinez disappeared up a stair, and the Mexican woman watched as the dishes were cleared off. But all that interested Victoria was where that brown bottle of the firewater was going. The Mexican woman put it into a cupboard. Ah! Victoria saw the place.
At the last, the Indian women were shown to a small room where things were stored. With gestures, they were made to understand that they
should sleep there. But there were no blankets, nothing but a clay floor, and it was a cold place, the chill of the evening radiating through the earthen walls. Victoria sighed; she had slept in worse places, and this one would keep the wind and rain away.
The Mexican woman padded away, and Victoria furtively watched her progress through darkened rooms and up a stairway. So she would sleep up above, like the padre. Good!
Victoria waited, but not long, and then collected the brown bottle and a cup, and made her way back to the storage place.
“See what I have,” she said.
Standing Alone looked doubtful.
“Whiskey!” Victoria unstopped the bottle, poured some of the amber fluid into a cup, and tasted it.
“Aiee!” Pure fire smoked down her throat. She had never tasted anything so awful.
“Have some of this medicine,” she said. “Big medicine!”
But Standing Alone shook her head, and made signs with her fingers that Victoria could barely interpret because it was so shadowed. But the Cheyenne woman was telling her that she never had tasted white men’s whiskey because it destroyed her people, and she wouldn’t start now.
“Take a little just to warm you. It is cold,” Victoria replied.
But Standing Alone shook her head.
Victoria sighed. Ah, if only Skye were there to share this bonanza with her! She tried again, another sip of that fierce and wild amber liquid that inflamed her tongue and mauled her throat. It slid down with a heated rush, and she gasped. The Mexican firewater was ten times more violent than the American firewater.
But, ah! What a good hot pleasant feeling was building in her belly! She sipped again. And again. Finally, she fell into rhythmic sipping, letting the firewater shoot joy through her veins, and letting herself relax after a taut and terrible day. She was a prisoner, stuck inside a place from which she could not escape, but this was a solace.
“Take this,” she said, thrusting the cup at Standing Alone, but the woman pushed it away.
“It is good. I am not cold now.”
Victoria started laughing for no reason at all. She drank much more, for several hours, as sleep overtook her, but the good feelings gave way to dizziness and nausea, and she did not feel well at all. She tried to stand, but could not. She needed to find the place where she could relieve herself, but could not remember it.
Finally, she lay on the cold clay ground, which whirled around and around, and she could not sleep well because her head hurt and her body was rebelling against the Mexican firewater. She had consumed half of what was in the bottle.
Beside her, Standing Alone slumbered peacefully.
Aiee! She would pay for it in the morning!
thirty
Colonel Childress hastened back to the plaza. There was so much to do, so little time. He circled it until he discovered a tailor wedged into a southside corner, and then tugged the reins.
“Fetch,” he told Shine. “I’m going inside.”
The monkey plucked Childress’s Panama from his master’s noggin and began scouting the deserted plaza for easy marks, while Childress barged into the small, cool shop, where a horsey-faced young man, pale as a winter moon, was sewing.
“Ah, my good man,” Childress began in Spanish, “I shall want you to put all that aside and perform a great service for humanity, God, and the universe. And what is your name, señor?”
“Laroccha.”
“Ah, Senor Laroccha, the finest tailor, I am told, in all of Mexico, am I not correct?”
Laroccha scarcely nodded.
“I am Governor, Sir Arthur Childress, British administrator of Barbados, the Lower Antilles, British Guiana, and the Windward Islands. I was set upon by savages, as you can see, and need proper raiment at once. A black worsted suit, two white shirts, a cravat, stockings, smallclothes, and you will please direct me to a cobbler. Important! Official business. Have it all mañana.”
“Mañana! But, señor! Sir Arthur!”
“Mañana!”
“I cannot do such a thing.”
“Hire help. Hire every seamstress in Taos.”
“But the cost!”
“Damn the cost. It’s all to be charged to the government.”
“The government?”
“Yes, Government House, Office of Administrator, Trinidad and Tobago. Post it the day you complete my order. I’ll sign. Charge what you must! Levy extra! But set to work, man.”
“But … I can’t wait so long for payment. It will be half a year. I am a poor man.”
“My friend, how well I understand all that. The queen of England will vouch for my purposes. I’m here on the most delicate of international missions, one that will benefit the Republic of Mexico, and I need a set of clothing pronto!”
“Ah … could you not give me a surety, say half?”
“My old friend, go to your prefect, Juan Andres Archuleta, and see about me. He will vouch for me, you can count on it.”
Laroccha sighed. “I will take your measure, señor, and think upon it.”
“Do that! I’m a busy man; negotiating for a large estate.”
Laroccha pulled out a tape, and began measuring, mumbling to himself, penciling figures.
“Gobernador Childress, you are a hombre of heroic dimension, and you will consume a veritable shipment of fabric … you will forgive your poor clothier for adding something for your noble size, as well? I will require the toil of eight or ten others.”
“Why, I would not want you to deprive yourself of a suitable and fitting reward, my friend.”
Laroccha sighed. “Tomorrow at dusk? For the fitting?”
“Bueno, consider it an agreement,” Childress said. “Be sure to check with the prefect. He will put you at ease, viejo.”
Laroccha nodded tentatively.
“Now I must acquire some duds for my ladies, who were set upon by the Apaches as well. Who would you recommend?”
“Ah, Madame Vollers, wife of the late French consul, señor. Just across the plaza, and up the narrow stairs.”
“Bueno. Mil gracias. You shall have your reward.”
Childress hurried out into the morning sun, and cut straight across the clay to the upstairs shop of madame.
He saw Shine, hat in paw, jabbing it at people who were taking their paseo this bright new day.
“Soak ’em good,” he muttered.
He hastened up the stairs, scarcely noticing the effort to hoist his bulk one story, and entered a salon with a great jangle of bells. Within were half a dozen elegant gowns, all on dressmaking dummies, all completed as far as he could see.
A birdlike woman emerged from behind a curtain, patting her graying bun of hair with feathery hands.
“Señor?” she said.
“My dear duchess,” he said, “I have come to purchase two of your finest gowns, your most noble creations, for two ladies in distress, who were put upon by the Jicarillas a few days ago.”
“Ah, poor dears! I trust they are brave?”
“Very brave, señora. Now I don’t have their dimensions, but they are small and slender, and come up about to here.” He pointed at his chin.
She smiled. “I have just the dresses,” she said. “See, I have several that are ready but for the hems. Now, how shall we proceed?”
“Señora, I am Governor Sir Joshua Childress, administrator of Barbados and Bermuda and Corpus Christi, here on important diplomatic business.”
“But aren’t you the hombre with the red cart and monkey?”
“Why, señora, that is no ordinary monkey. It is a Frangipangi Ape, the only such creature in captivity, a rarity that your eyes will never behold again. Admire it with all your heart and soul, for you have seen one of the miracles of God.”
“Well, yes …”
“Bill the British Government, señora. Government House, the Province of the Caribbean, Barbados.”
“Ah …”
“And those hats! Yes, the ones with the broad brims and fruit about them, I shall
require two. And slippers. Half a dozen small, medium, and large.”
“But gobernador, I require cash. I will not accept any other. I am a recent widow, much abused by people of little kindness or courtesy, and therefore careful.”
“But, señora, the circumstances are temporarily difficult.”
She stared, stonily, and Childress knew defeat. “Very well, I shall return. What is the price of all that?”
She sighed. “For you, I will add ten percent.”
“Add! You mean deduct.”
“Add.”
“Never mind. I shall find a seamstress with a kinder heart.”
She stared. “It is an ordinary spider monkey found in Central America.”
Childress retreated, and hunted down Shine, who was temporarily occupied somewhere. There was so little time.
“Shine, blast you,” he bellowed.
The little monkey appeared at once, lazily swinging from roof to roof, carrying the Panama delicately, and then he dropped down to the cart. Within the Panama were several coins, some glistening gold. Two were double eagles.
“Ah! I see you have been engaged in criminal activity! I shall have you arrested someday,” he said, scooping up the coins. A swift count revealed sixty-odd Yank dollars. He handed a silver real to the monkey. “Here, buy yourself some tamales.”
Shine chittered and chattered, and swung away.
Colonel Childress once again negotiated the formidable stairway, and burst in upon the frowning proprietress.
“A price! I shall pay you in advance, señora.”
“In what?”
“Gold and silver.”
“Ill-gotten, I imagine. I am only a poor widow, and here I am, accepting tainted money. How much have you?”
“Ah, I can’t quite calculate in pesos. It appears to be sixty-three American.”
“The two dresses are seventeen and eleven in Yankee dollars, and the hats three apiece, the slippers twelve, coming to forty-six in all, but I will accept sixty-three.” She held out her hand.
“Señora!”
“Or I can summon the prefect.”
“But, señora!”
The Deliverance Page 16
