Marco and the Devil's Bargain

by Carla Kelly

  Ah, then this was Chaca. “Thank you, Chaca,” Paloma said and sat down, her heart full. She smiled her thanks at Dolores and continued where she left off.

  “Paloma, take it from me,” said an older woman, someone from an outlying hacienda she did not know. “A year and few months is no shame or crime. You will yet give the juez a child or two.”

  “Or three,” said Cecilia Chávez, from her seat closest to the fireplace, as suited the oldest among them. She looked around at her friends. “Some say the water from Rio Santa Maria explains why there are so many children here, but we do not think it is the water.” The other ladies chuckled, the crisis of Maria Teresa over. “As for your regrettable cousin, too little cannot be said about her.”

  Paloma winked back her tears in the face of such kindness. And the Comanche who thinks he must protect me? How do you feel about him? she wanted to ask, but hadn’t the courage. She turned her attention to the mohair stocking. If she couldn’t be wise, at least she could be diligent.

  She began to relax as her fellow knitters returned to idle conversation and laughter, and marveled how much more cheerful everyone seemed, now that Maria Teresa Castellano had left. She will probably whine and cry and nag Alonso until he pays a visit to my husband to complain about me or Toshua, or the cold weather, or the axis of the earth, or some other imaginary slight, Paloma told herself, as she dropped stitch after stitch. She put her hands in her lap, telling herself to stop her crazy-making thoughts.

  It seemed that the only thoughts she had were ones determined to send her walking up and down in the sala, if only she dared. She was not certain if she had angered Toshua or saddened him. “Just go back to your plains,” she whispered, barely moving her lips. “That’s all I want.”

  She stared at the stocking in her lap. She was making a muddle of it, and mohair was too dear to waste. When Luisa’s cocinera came into the sala with a pitcher of steaming hot chocolate, followed by a little child staggering under a mound of tasty pan dulces, Paloma used the distraction to excuse herself.

  Luisa must have known she would do precisely that. She stood in the hall as though waiting for Paloma, her face solemn.

  “Come with me, dearest,” she whispered. “I do not know what to make of this man.”

  Washed clean and full of posole and buttered bread so tender his eyes filled with tears, Anthony Gill felt his eyes begin to close. The bed was soft, the room was warm, and he had not been warm in weeks. There was no wind to blow snow and dirt into his eyes and chap his lips. He even wore a man’s nightshirt, something that had not dignified his body in more months than he could count. He sniffed at the collar, which smelled of camphor. Whoever wore this nightshirt had not worn it in years, if the camphor and permanent creases were any indication. It was much too large for him.

  The woman had introduced herself as Luisa Gutierrez. When he finished eating, she had gestured to the servant to remove the dishes he had practically licked clean. He almost stopped her from whisking away the one slice of bread he couldn’t finish, then reminded himself that if he ate so well now, there would probably be more food later. This was not a poor house.

  When the servants finished, she followed them, returning behind other servants, who carried a wooden tub and brass buckets of hot water. When the tub was full, she left a towel and cloth beside it, an Indian pot with soft soap, and the nightshirt. He stripped himself naked before the door had barely closed. The water was bliss, and the soap a scarcely remembered luxury. Even though the soap stung cuts and scrapes he hadn’t even been aware of, he gritted his teeth and scrubbed himself until he must have removed a layer or two of epidermis. He thought of earlier years and better times, and shook his head at his own foulness.

  Anthony knew he had lice and wasn’t sure what to do about it, until he noticed a pair of sheers and a fine toothed comb beside the nightshirt on the bed. He had quit blushing years ago, but the knowledge that this obviously gentle lady knew his predicament made his face hot. He dried off and wrapped his towel around his middle. Leaning over the well-used tub of water that had a shiny film on it now, he combed and cut. It was a poor job, to be sure, but the lady of the hacienda was too hospitable for him to leave a host of unwelcome guests for her, once he quit the place.

  She had thoughtfully left a small pot of white salve. He sniffed it, discerning more camphor and something tart and grassy. Maybe it was sage. Whatever it was bit into the nicks on his scalp, but he rubbed it in, relieved to be free of the little pests that had accompanied him all across Texas.

  He undid the towel and looked at his hairiness down there, wondering if his privates should receive the same treatment. He decided they should, and cut more carefully. He knew his balls were going to itch like billy-be-damned when the hair came in again, but maybe that was the price of being a guest in the Gutierrez hacienda.

  When he had done all he could without resorting to the finer tools in his leather medical satchel, Anthony shrugged into the nightshirt and crawled between sheets smelling of more sage and civilization, and the fine hand of masterful housewifery.

  “Oh, this is better,” he whispered and closed his eyes.

  He had almost composed himself for sleep when the door opened and Mistress Gutierrez came in again, followed by the younger woman who had stood so bravely in front of the Comanche’s horse, when things weren’t looking too sanguine for him or the Indian. From under his eyelids, he assessed the woman more closely, admiring her slim shape. His professional eye had already told him that the older woman had been made a mother several times over. This younger one, probably not.

  She had wonderful brown hair, maybe even with a touch of bronze in it. She kept her distance, but he could not mistake her vivid blue eyes. For so many months he had seen nothing but black hair and dark eyes. Not that he had minded dark hair and olive complexions—after all, Catalina and Pia Maria looked more like the Gutierrez woman. This one was different, and he appreciated the difference.

  Anthony watched them as they conferred at the doorway, their heads together. They didn’t appear to be related, but they obviously stood on good terms with each other. They both looked at him, and finally Luisa Gutierrez came closer.

  “The servants will remove all of this,” she said. “I intend to burn your clothes and I will have no argument.”

  Her Spanish was precise and easy to follow, and he did not doubt that she would do exactly as she said. He was clean and comfortable and did not want that set of circumstances to change, at least until he had a good night’s sleep. He had been thrown out of meaner establishments because of the sin of being English.

  He nearly smiled as Mistress Gutierrez picked up his foul garments with forefinger and thumb and held them away from her. The other woman came into the room far enough to take a well-darned sheet from the carved chest by the door. She spread it out, and the mistress of the household dropped his disgusting smallclothes in the center. His shirt and breeches landed next on the reeking pile.

  There was no disguising the distaste on her face when she picked up his coat, the leather one he had patched and re-patched and then patched the patches as he had made his slow way across Texas’s winter landscape with the traders. She hefted it, then gingerly reached into the pocket and pulled out his smaller surgical kit, the little leather pouch that contained his few knives, bistouries, a flensing box, and his sole remaining needle.

  She didn’t untie the leather thongs that secured the heavy cloth around his knives, but put it on the table next to his satchel. She reached in again and pulled out the little tin that contained pus and scabs from the last dead trader.

  “Stop, stop!” he said in English.

  Startled, she looked at him, probably not understanding his words, but aware of his obvious concern. She set the tin next to his knives.

  “Is there anything else of worth you wish to keep?” she asked in Spanish, her eyes wary now.

  Anthony shook his head, and she finished gathering his remnants. She held up his pat
hetic socks and waved them at the young woman who had retreated to the doorway again.

  “Do you want to give this raggedy estranjero one pair of socks you have knitted for your man?”

  Ah, she was married. Well, of course she was, he told himself, wondering how it was that he could be three-fourths dead and wasted and still think about lovely women.

  The little one nodded and left the room. When she returned, she held the socks out to him, then knotted them and lofted them toward the bed. He caught them one-handed, deciding to put them on after the ladies were gone. No one needed to see how skinny his hairy legs were.

  Maybe it was time to try that Spanish that the little one already knew was accented so poorly. “Why do you not come closer?” he asked, doing his best.

  “Señor, where are you from?” she asked.

  “I’ll tell you, if you come closer,” he coaxed.

  She shook her head. “Toshua told me not to.”

  “The Comanche?”

  “Yes. Nurmurnah, Comanche, The People, what you will.”

  She stood her ground. Maybe he could tease her a little. “You prefer a Comanche to a white man?”

  “That one.”

  So much for his charms. This one wasn’t impressed. He thought she would leave, but she stood in the doorway and looked him straight in the eyes. She seemed to be measuring him, studying him. To his disappointment, she shook her head. It was only the slightest shake; he doubted she was even aware he had noticed. On some scale he did not understand, he, Anthony Gill, had been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Well, join the line, he thought, suddenly weary. I haven’t impressed anyone lately.

  He smiled at her, hoping she would stay, because he liked her. He had noticed her wedding ring; maybe he just couldn’t help himself. “There is a husband to be reckoned with, eh?”

  “Oh, yes. He would kill you as easily as look at you, if you prove dangerous.”

  Why couldn’t he let this go? He shuddered elaborately. “I had better avoid him.”

  “I do not believe you can, señor. He is the juez de campo of this district. He will take an interest in you, because you are so obviously not from here.”

  That was plain enough. Anthony remembered the dying words of the pox-ridden trader. Was it time to inquire the whereabouts of one Marco Mondragón? Perhaps Señor Mondragón would keep him safe from nosy officials. He could ask a servant later, someone who might be more sympathetic than the pretty wife of the juez de campo, whatever that was. It appeared that his luck was as bad as ever. Or he could ask her. What harm would it do?

  “Señora, I have been told to find Marco Mondragón. Do you know …?”

  Her eyes widened, her amazement quickly replaced with wariness. “Marco is the juez and he is my husband.”

  Anthony sighed. His luck had not changed.

  Chapter Six

  In which a Comanche confesses and there is no absolution

  Caught in the act. Why couldn’t it have been one of his servants, instead of Toshua? And why, after more than a year of the silent man’s presence, was he still trying to impress a Comanche? It couldn’t be done.

  Blame the cat, who followed him about, now that Paloma was knitting socks and probably having a good time, and not even thinking about her husband pining for her. Only two days? He was lonely and put upon and now Toshua had caught him playing fetch with a cat.

  “Shew, señor?” was all Toshua said, after he let himself go quietly into his office by the horse barn. “Shew?” And de veras, he was almost smiling.

  It was too late to brazen it out, not with Chica carrying that little yarn ball in her mouth and dropping it at Marco’s feet for another throw. “It’s what Paloma says when she throws this little bit of yarn. Call me a fool and get it over with.”

  That was a definite smile, even if it was brief. Marco threw the yarn ball without benefit of Shew! and Chica ignored him. Marco shook his head and turned back to the latest brand report he was copying to take to Santa Fe in early autumn. He looked up after a moment. Toshua had not moved.

  “What is the matter?” He tried to speak casually, but there was something he did not like in the Comanche’s expression, some uneasiness around the eyes. “Paloma ….”

  If Marco expected reassurance from Toshua, he was doomed to disappointment. Calm, calm, he told himself. You are an officer of the crown. Easy to think, except that he was a husband first. He cleared the paper to one side and pointed to the chair Paloma usually occupied, when she knitted while he worked. “Sit.”

  Toshua sat in that funny, splayed-out way of someone still unaccustomed to chairs. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it and looked away. “I have done a bad thing,” he said finally.

  Marco grabbed the Comanche’s arm. The measure of the Indian’s distress showed, because he did not resist Marco. “First tell me. She lives?”

  “For now,” Toshua replied, his face impassive, but his eyes far from it.

  “Dios mio,” Marco whispered. “Dios mio.”

  He sat in stunned silence as Toshua, looking him in the eyes now, told of finding a man staggering around the arroyo seco near Hacienda Gutierrez, and taking him to Señora Gutierrez. Marco closed his eyes when Toshua told of Paloma standing in front of his horse to ward off the archers from the parapet.

  “I can never be out of her debt, señor, and what have I done?” Toshua did not even try to hide his own devastation. “Not until we were inside the walls, and Paloma and I had led the man inside the hacienda, our arms around him, did I remember what you told me about la viruela coming from the east.”

  “Did you tell Paloma about smallpox?”

  “No. I tried to get her to leave with me, but then Maria Teresa Castellano, her horrible cousin, started making a racket because I was there, blaming Paloma for everything.” His eyes narrowed. “I am missing more opportunities to kill that woman. This doesn’t make me much of a Comanche.”

  “Maria Teresa! I doubt that my sister invited her.” Marco walked to the fireplace. With some force, he tossed in another piñon knot. “Was this man … do you think he was diseased?”

  “How can I know?” Toshua shook his head. “He was hungry and smelled bad, but I do not know ….”

  Who can tell? Marco asked himself as he stood by the fire, suddenly cold. Ten days or two days, and then the stranger might come down with smallpox, with Paloma sure to follow. “He could already be infected, and we wouldn’t know, would we?” He spoke out loud, but the words were directed more to himself.

  Apparently the Comanche grasp of incubation was non-existent, if Toshua’s puzzled expression told Marco anything.

  He didn’t want to look at Toshua, or say another word. All he wanted to do was ride to Hacienda Gutierrez and confront this stranger. I will kill him myself, he thought, remembering Lieutenant Roybal’s warning about people from the east. At the very least, he will be jailed.

  But here was the Comanche, remorse scarring every inch of him, from the sorrow in his eyes to the way he slumped in the chair. “There is more?” Marco asked, not wanting to hear it, when all he wanted to do was ride to Paloma. “Come, Toshua. Tell me.”

  It took a long moment, reminding Marco all over again how different he was from the Indian. “I tried to get your woman to ride out with me, but she backed away. Said she did not trust me. Señor, I would never hurt her!”

  Certainly you would not, but you are Comanche, Marco thought, stirred by Toshua’s anguish. As he made an appropriately sympathetic face, Marco wondered if he would ever trust Toshua, either. And yet we must learn to get along.

  He stared at his desk, the piles of papers going nowhere during the winter, but which still had to be filled out and stashed until his next trip to Santa Fe, where they would be wrapped in red tape and stashed somewhere else. Shuffle here, shuffle there—it was a fool’s game in a land where Spain was losing control. Maybe control was gone already, and the news hadn’t worked its way to the edge of the empire yet.

 
Irritated with himself, he stood up and went to the window. It was late afternoon and time to shutter the window against the night’s cold. The sun was sinking low now but the moon would be full. They could see well enough to ride to his sister’s holdings. They could be there by midnight. As he watched the sky, mulling over everything he had to do before he left and discarding all of it, the gate opened and in rode Alonso Castellano.

  “Dios, I do not need that man in my face,” he muttered. Too late. The closer Alonso rode, the more obvious was his former friend’s indignation.

  Toshua came to the window to stand beside him. He grunted, “Just say the word, señor.”

  “You know I will never do that,” Marco assured the Indian, or maybe he was assuring himself. He waited, unwilling to open the door. Let Alonso bang on it. “I will give him five minutes, and then we will ride.”

  Bang, bang, then bang again, when Marco couldn’t steel himself to open the door. If she were there, Paloma would be laughing and calling him a big baby. Later on, though, she would soothe away her words as she best knew how. He closed his eyes, remembering his puny assurance that he could keep his dear one safe from everything except disease. Why had he tempted the devil?

  With Toshua right beside him—maybe he understood Marco’s reluctance—the juez opened the door. Marco stepped aside to let the man enter, then gestured to Toshua. “Saddle our horses. We’re riding,” he said quietly. Without another word, he pointed to the chair the Comanche had vacated.

  Sitting behind his desk, hoping to give himself some hint of power, he listened to Alonso Castellano rage and complain about the Comanche who terrified Teresa on purpose. Scarcely pausing for breath, he turned his attack on Paloma, who was unkind and jealous because his wife was with child and she was not. Marco did not believe a word of it, but he let the man spout forth until five minutes had passed. Then he stood up, interrupting Alonso mid-sentence.