Marco and the Devil's Bargain

by Carla Kelly

  The guard pointed over the parapet and Luisa nodded, her eyes serious. She gestured to Paloma, who saw her fears and knew she was thinking of other desperate days.

  “Mira! Is it your Comanche? Tell me quickly or my guard will shoot him.”

  Paloma squinted into the distance. “Don’t shoot,” she said. “I cannot tell yet, but it might be. Please don’t shoot.”

  “He’s too close. I’m shooting him,” the guard said and raised his musket.

  Paloma shoved him and the gun discharged in the air over her shoulder. Paloma reeled from the concussion and lost her balance when the guard jerked her around, his eyes wide with fright and something more. They steadied themselves, staring at each other.

  “The juez was a fool to marry you!” the guard shouted in her face.

  From beyond the gate, she heard a man’s voice call out, “Paloma, help me!”

  “It’s Toshua,” Paloma said. The look she gave the guard must have been fierce because he backed away. “Open the gate.”

  She hurried down the ladder, not caring if every guard in the courtyard saw her bare legs and beyond. When the guard wouldn’t lift the heavy bar, she yanked the smaller bar off the smaller man gate and stooped through the narrow opening. To her terror, it slammed shut behind her.

  “Paloma, stop! It could be a trap.” Luisa pleaded with her from the parapet.

  She knew Luisa was right; she still couldn’t see clearly. The Indian had called her name, but she was known in the valley now. She peered closer as she walked toward the man carrying a lance and stopped, thinking of her mother and remembering how Mama had squared her shoulders and walked toward an entire horde of Comanches. Mama, you were braver than I, she thought, her mouth suddenly dry. Staying where she was, she moved from one bare foot to the other, because the winter grass stubble hurt.

  The Indian had a man slung over his lap, head down, hands trailing. The darkness began to lift, and she let out the breath she must have been holding since she opened the man gate, grateful to God. It was Toshua.

  “Paloma, does this make four times you have saved my life?”

  She ran closer now, unafraid, even though the danger wasn’t over. “Make it five, Toshua,” she said as she stopped directly in front of the horse and rider, her hands out in what she hoped was a commanding gesture to stop the guards who had not lowered their weapons.

  Paloma looked over her shoulder at Toshua and the burden he bore. She sniffed. The man had either been dead for days or smelled worse than a herd of javelinas. Gingerly, she patted the foul lump of rags.

  “I’m alive,” the man said in Spanish so poorly accented she wondered where he had come from. Did they speak Spanish on Mars?

  She was on sure ground now. “You are headed for a bath, señor,” she told him, then smiled at Toshua. “You remember your own bath, I trust?”

  “I remember,” her Comanche said. “You need not remind me. You cut my hair, too.”

  “Open the gates,” she called up to the guards, still poised to shoot. Even though she was barefoot and trembling, and her nighttime hair wild around her face—Marco would have laughed—Paloma willed herself tall and brave.

  Her heart went out to Luisa Gutierrez, too soon a widow because of a morning much like this one. Her sister-in-law stared at her from the parapet, then put her hands over her face. I am sorry, my dear, Paloma thought.

  “If the juez de campo were here, he would tell you to open the gates in the name of the crown,” she said, speaking most distinctly. “This is my Indian and there is a wounded man. Do as I say.”

  Chapter Four

  In which a stranger is too close for Toshua’s comfort

  When the gates opened, Toshua handed her the reins and she led him and his stinking burden through the gates. As frightened women and servants began to fill the courtyard, he bent down and spoke to her alone. “You are the juez now? Your man will know about this before another day passes. I know you Spanish. Word travels faster than smoke.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she whispered back, not surprised that everyone in the courtyard kept their distance, including the guards. Paloma looked at the man in Toshua’s lap. “Who is he? Where did he come from?”

  The Comanche dismounted. “He was staggering around in the arroyo seco beyond the hay stacks.” He ignored the crowd that had gathered as he took Paloma by the arm and kept her moving toward the stables. “To show you the measure of his desperation, he did not back away from me.”

  Luisa’s guards stood their ground by the stable door until Paloma fixed them with a stare that she borrowed from her absent husband, the stare that made people do what he ordered. Please let it work, she prayed silently. My arsenal of stern looks is limited.

  Maybe it had worked. One guard turned away, his shoulders high with disapproval. The other gestured them inside the stables, his hand on his sheathed dagger.

  The stranger was a small man. Toshua took him by the back of his filthy coat and slid him off the horse, while Paloma steadied him, turning her head away because he reeked.

  The stranger shook his shoulders, which Paloma took as a sign to let go. Happy to oblige him, she backed away, but not too far, because he swayed, then held out his hand to her. She took a shallow breath, then put her arm around his waist and led him to a grain bin, where he perched, looking around and blinking his eyes.

  “I have not been inside a building in six months,” he told her. At least she thought that was what he said.

  “What is your name?” she asked.

  “Antonio Gil,” he replied.

  “Antonio? I doubt that,” she said. “I really do. Your Spanish is awful.”

  In spite of his obvious exhaustion—she saw no fear—the stranger managed a smile. “Should I say Anthony Gill instead? I am from Georgia.”

  “Gill. Gill. Guh?” She couldn’t even pronounce it.

  As it turned out, Anthony Gill couldn’t manage ten steps on his own. With Toshua on one side and Paloma on the other, he made slow progress toward the hacienda, where Luisa stood, eyes wary, her mouth pressed in a firm line that reminded Paloma of Marco.

  “Please, dearest, he needs food and a bath,” Paloma said to Luisa, then stepped back in surprise as her cousin Maria Teresa ran from the hacienda, screaming, pushing the other women aside in her panic.

  “Where did everyone go? What is wrong?” Teresa shouted. “Why is everyone ….” She gasped, her hand to her mouth, and stared at Toshua.

  Paloma gaped at her cousin as she flattened herself against the wall of the hacienda, her eyes huge, her thin face draining of color.

  “Teresa, there is nothing to fear,” she said, wondering at so much terror for no reason. Her cousin had missed the whole crisis, and look at her. What harm could one dirty man and an Indian cause, in a hacienda full of Luisa’s guards and all the guards who had come with the other women?

  Before Paloma could defend herself, Teresa darted forward and grabbed her hair, loose around her shoulders. She yanked on it, jerking Paloma away from the stranger and the Comanche. Paloma’s eyes filled with sudden tears from the pain. She tried to grab Teresa’s hand as her cousin’s fingernails dug into her scalp. Why was she doing this?

  “Teresa, he is harmless! So is Toshua. Please let go,” she pleaded. “You’re hurting me.”

  Her cousin gave her hair another yank, which sent Paloma to her knees, her hands clutching Teresa’s fingers, trying to lessen the pain. Toshua dropped the stranger in the dust and unsheathed his knife in one smooth movement, his eyes intent upon the hysterical woman. Paloma felt strands of hair pull loose from her scalp as she reached for Toshua—now to stop him. “No, Toshua, no!”

  Teresa screamed again, looking around wildly as her audience gaped at her. “You see? You see? Paloma’s Comanche wants to kill me! I have witnesses!”

  “He wants you to let go of Paloma’s hair,” Luisa said as she finally grabbed the distraught woman. “What is the matter with you, Señora Castellano?”

  T
o Paloma’s relief, Teresa let go of her hair. She sank back, patting her head where it hurt the worst. “There is nothing to fear,” Paloma said, wondering how to reason with this cousin whose torments she had endured for years, this cousin she thought she knew—unkind and vengeful but essentially harmless.

  “My dear, you should lie down,” she said, wishing she did not sound so timid. This was not the voice of a juez de campo’s wife. Maybe she was foolish to think she could borrow some of her husband’s power.

  “You would say that!” Teresa shot back. “I let down my guard and this Comanche devil murders us all! You would like me to lose this baby, would you not? This is your fault. You are barren and you are jealous of me.” Her cousin looked around again, as if to seek approval from people already turning away in disgust. Two of the braver women—older women who had lived their entire lives on the edge of danger in Comanchería—had helped Anthony Gill to his feet and were leading him inside.

  Paloma saw the sympathy in their eyes, but all she felt was shame that Maria Teresa was a relative, and horror that her cousin thought her capable of such meanness. “You know I would never even consider such a thing,” she said, keeping her voice soft as she sought to reason away her cousin’s lunacy.

  “You planned this whole thing!” Teresa clutched her belly and backed away from Paloma. “Rodrigo! Saddle my horse!” she shouted to her only guard, who stood there as stunned as everyone else. “I will tell Antonio how dangerous you are and he will pay a visit to your husband!”

  “That is enough,” Luisa said. She tightened her grip on Maria Teresa. “Let us gather your possessions. You should leave.”

  “You cannot reason with a crazy woman,” Toshua told Paloma, helping her to her feet. For good measure, he turned to stare at Teresa as her hostess dragged her inside. Whimpering under his glare, Teresa hurried ahead of Luisa. “I could ride ahead and kill them both before they were a league away. Just say the word.” His face hardened. “I doubt even her husband would mourn her.”

  “No, Toshua. That will not solve any of my problems,” Paloma said firmly.

  The Comanche shrugged. “It would solve the main one.” He looked around. “We are all tired of Señora Castellano.”

  “Just let her go and do no harm,” Paloma said. Her head ached, but it was nothing compared to the ache in her heart. Tell the world that I am barren? she asked herself, wretched. The world already knows.

  They stood together in the courtyard, nearly shoulder to shoulder, waiting while Rodrigo, looking like the most put-upon of men, saddled his mount and Maria Teresa Castellano’s horse. He kept his head down as the other guards teased him, making whooping noises that turned Toshua’s expression sour.

  “My People do not sound like that,” he muttered to Paloma.

  No, you don’t, she thought, remembering the day the Comanches rode through the open gates of her father’s hacienda near El Paso, silent, painted men sitting so carelessly on painted and masked horses, careless because the men in the field—her father and brothers among them—were already lanced and scalped. She glanced at Toshua and looked away, uneasy even after more than a year of his presence on the Double Cross.

  When she didn’t say anything, he turned away. She looked toward the open gate, yearning for her husband with a fierceness that surprised her, even though only a day had passed since they kissed goodbye in Santa Maria. She knew he would sit her on his lap until she was calm. It was what he already did every four weeks when she went to the storeroom and returned with her monthly supplies and tears on her cheeks. “Patience, chiquita, patience,” he used to tell her. Now he just held her in his arms. She wanted him right now.

  Maybe Toshua understood. “She said some unkind things to you, Paloma,” he said, his voice softer now. His eyes never left Maria Teresa’s outrider as he led the two horses into the courtyard. “Hard words.”

  “Just words.”

  “Will she cause you trouble?”

  “If she can.” Involuntarily, she stepped even closer to Toshua as Maria Teresa hurried from the hacienda, her satchel in her hand and yarn trailing behind her. It would have been a funny sight, except that Paloma saw real terror on her cousin’s face. I doubt she has a single easy day in Valle del Sol, Paloma thought, wondering at her own pity for her cousin.

  Maybe her cousin misinterpreted her expression. Maria Teresa glared in her direction and Paloma steeled herself. All her cousin did was shake her finger. Maybe Toshua standing so close had something to do with that.

  Maria Teresa threw her satchel at the guard, who made a face as he turned away to tie the bundle behind his saddle and stuff the yarn in here and there while the other men laughed. When none of the idlers in the courtyard offered to help her mount, she shrieked at her guard for being dead to duty.

  “How terrible a thing to work at the Castellano ranch,” Toshua said. “I hear that Señor Castellano cannot keep men on his property.” He gathered the reins and stood there, indecision on his usually impassive face.

  “Perhaps you should return to the Double Cross,” Paloma suggested, feeling uneasy, because Toshua never appeared indecisive. He had the look of a man who had just realized something unpleasant. What, she did not know.

  “I have four guards,” Paloma reminded him gently.

  “I wish you had not touched the stranger from the east.”

  “You needed my help,” she said, puzzled now.

  “All the same ….” He turned away with his horse toward the horse barn, where the other guards moved far away from him. When he was close to the barn, he turned around again and mounted, riding his horse to Paloma, no indecision on his face now.

  She stood her ground as he halted the big bay directly in front of her and held out his hand. “Come with me to the Double Cross. I fear I have done a bad thing in taking this stranger within Señora Gutierrez’s walls.” He gestured with his fingers, edging closer, coaxing her. “Do you trust me?”

  It was the question Paloma had asked herself for months now. Her mouth felt strangely dry. She looked into his eyes, still seeing the honest man through all the layers of her own fear.

  “Please, Paloma. Just drop everything here.”

  “The yarn. My stockings. Luisa.”

  He shook his head and leaned closer, his arm extended, ready to gather her onto his horse.

  She stepped back. “I do not trust you, Toshua. God help me, but I do not.”

  There was no disguising the hurt in his eyes, which brought tears to her own, as she tumbled into the dust whatever trust they had so tentatively forged. He leaned down, and she backed farther away until she was under the shelter of the portal and practically in the doorway. “I do not,” she whispered. “God forgive me if I am wrong.”

  The guards of the hacienda were edging closer, themselves, sensing a threat to Paloma that she knew was not there. This is a matter between me and Toshua, she wanted to tell them, but she knew they would not understand. Someone made a move toward the open gate. “Please leave, Toshua, before you cannot,” she begged him.

  He edged closer. “Do this and do not doubt me. Stay far away from this man I have brought here and probably should have killed.”

  Paloma nodded, not able to look at him, because she was already feeling remorse so deep that there probably wasn’t a word for it. “Ride, Toshua.”

  Chapter Five

  In which a stranger ponders his situation and Paloma regrets hers

  Her hands to her mouth, Paloma watched Toshua wheel his horse and dig his heels into the animal’s flanks. The guards had gathered closer, some of them as indecisive as she was, and others with their swords already drawn. Another began to run toward the open gate, where a small boy stood, pushing against one of the massive doors, which slowly began to shut.

  Dios, what have I done? Paloma asked herself as her heart thundered in her breast. In a few seconds Toshua would be trapped and surrounded. She knew he would fight, but there were too many.

  She watched in horror an
d then amazement as Toshua, guiding his horse with his legs, reached for an arrow behind him, fitted it to his bow in one motion and shot at the boy.

  The child wore a loose-fitting poncho. The arrow slammed into the fabric and nailed him to the gate so he could not push. His mouth opened and closed in terror as he tugged on the poncho, the gate forgotten.

  As soon as he had loosed the arrow, Toshua dropped to the far side of his horse, away from the hacienda’s guards, until only his heels could be seen. They had no target, and the boy at the gate was powerless to trap him. One second, two seconds, and the nearly invisible Comanche raced through the gate and vanished. Even his horse’s hooves seemed to be silent.

  Paloma sagged against the doorframe. She put her head down in shame, knowing that she would see the hurt and disappointment in Toshua’s eyes in her dreams. What have I done? she asked herself again.

  She dragged herself inside the hacienda, her misgivings multiplying with every step she took. Don’t show it, she ordered herself, as she looked in the sala where the women had tidied themselves after a hasty awakening and were beginning to knit again. It would have been easy to skulk down the hall and hide herself in Luisa’s room, but she could never do that to Marco Mondragón, the husband she adored.

  She stood in the doorway, her hands clasped in front of her, as her mama had taught her. “I deeply apologize for any disturbance that my cousin may have caused,” she said, holding her head high, looking around the room at the ladies who had suddenly given her all their attention. She looked for meanness and found none.

  One of the Borrego twins—she must learn to tell them apart—put down her knitting and patted the empty space beside her. “You have been too busy to knit socks for the juez,” she said. “Sit here and knit, or he will have bare heels this summer. Is that your yarn over there? Fetch it, Dolores,” she asked her twin.