by Carla Kelly
“That’s enough. You have dredged up everything you can possibly have to say against my wife and the Indian who protects her.” He didn’t raise his voice, or flail about with his hands, as Alonso was doing. An officer of the distant crown, all Marco hoped for was a tiny share of that majesty. It must have worked, because Alonso was suddenly silent.
“I will mention your concerns to Paloma,” he told Alonso. “As for Toshua, I do not govern him. I also doubt that he deliberately set out to frighten Maria Teresa.” He took a chance then, mainly because he was weary right down to his bone marrow of Alonso Castellano. “If your wife remains so terrified of Indians that she fouls herself, I would remind you: we live in a dangerous place and I cannot change that.”
The reminder of Maria Teresa’s reaction to Comanches last year brought Alonso up sharp. His indignation turned to embarrassment. After a few more muttered words, he turned on his heel and left. The dramatic effect was marred because the man fumbled with the door latch, unable to make the simple thing work. Marco crossed the room and flung open the door. “Go with God, señor,” he said. Go with God, indeed! The Castellanos probably complained to Him, too.
The rudeness of his own thoughts sent him to his knees immediately, asking the Lord’s pardon for such pettiness on his part. But he knew that wasn’t why he had fallen to his knees. He crossed himself and prayed silently for his wife, petitioning Padre Celestial to do whatever He could to keep her safe. He crossed himself again but remained where he was, leaning his forehead against his desk. “I ask too much,” he whispered, “but please, Father, someday a child.”
They arrived at Rancho Gutierrez at midnight—two cold, stiff, and silent men. Toshua had answered his questions about the stranger then added something of his own, before the cold made it hard to speak.
“Señor, he spoke Spanish, but not well. I have a better accent than he does.”
“What does he look like?”
“Under all the dirt, he might have lighter hair than I have ever seen. His eyes aren’t blue like hers, but they aren’t green, either.”
That was all either of them said before the cold drilled into Marco’s forehead and Toshua pulled his poncho over his face until only his eyes were visible. Marco forced himself to think about practical matters: the spring lambing, coming in another six weeks and followed by new calves; his promise to send for the cobbler to make Paloma a pair of red shoes with heels. He had promised her red shoes after a particularly rousing celebration of his affection for her. “You’ve never seen me dance, my love,” she had whispered into his chest. “Red shoes, and I will dance for you.”
He couldn’t help the groan that escaped him, then glanced at Toshua, embarrassed. He knew the Comanche had heard him, because he turned his head quickly before once again facing into the wind.
Snow was falling lightly when Marco forced his mouth to work and shout an announcement at the gates of his sister’s hacienda. They opened immediately, almost as if Luisa—or Paloma, for that matter—had told the guards they would be arriving. Hands less stiff than theirs relieved them of horse duty in the barn. His face serious, Luisa’s mayordomo ushered them both into the hacienda, not even blinking at the Comanche. That was a good thing, Marco decided. He doubted Toshua would have remained in the courtyard.
Luisa met him in the foyer, kissing his cheek. “You’re too cold, little brother,” she murmured, then stepped aside when Paloma, in her nightgown and her hair tangled, threw herself into his arms. He held her close, feeling her flesh and bones, assessing her as though she had been gone a month and not a mere two days. He could not help himself from thinking, Are you strong enough to withstand a killing pox?
Not even giving him time to shuck off his wool cloak and leather jacket, Paloma took Marco by the hand and towed him to Luisa’s sala. He looked around, curious. On other years when he had dropped in on Luisa during the marathon sock knitting, the sala had been littered with individual mounds of stockings done and unfinished, ready for the women to begin again in the morning.
“Where are your knitters?” he asked Luisa, who had followed them into the sala but was looking over her shoulder at Toshua behind her. “Don’t fear him, sister. Please. Not now.”
“I will always fear him,” she said, keeping her voice low. She looked around the sala, too. “After Teresa created such a scene this morning, no one felt like knitting.” She gestured toward the shuttered and barred window. “And then it began to look like snow, so we ended early.” She rested her hand on Paloma’s back in a protective gesture not lost on Marco. “That woman … that woman … took all the fun out of our gathering.”
“I assume then that you did not invite her.”
“I would never have invited her!” Luisa said. She lowered her voice. “But once here … oh, little brother, I do not have to explain the rules of courtesy to you.”
“No, you do not.”
Though tamped down to glowing coals, the fire still warmed the sala. Marco removed his cloak and Paloma took it from him, much as she would have done at home. He unlatched the silver toggles on his leather chaqueta, then gestured for her to sit on his lap. He knew it was a forward thing to do, something he would never have done even in his own sala, if there were visitors, but Luisa was his sister, and he did not think she would mind. It hardly mattered; Paloma in a chair even right next to his would have been too far away.
Luisa gave them both a half smile. “So you see, brother, perhaps you did not need to make your cold ride. Matters are well in hand now because the troublemaker is gone.”
He exchanged a look with Toshua, who squatted on his haunches by the door, far from Luisa. Alert, Paloma looked at them both. “I can tell there is more and it is worse,” Paloma said. “Toshua insisted that I leave with him. Why was that?” She put her hand inside his chaqueta, against his shirt. “It has something to do with the stranger, does it not?”
“When I went to Santa Maria to confer with the lieutenant from Santa Fe, he warned us of smallpox heading our way from the east.”
Paloma shivered and tightened her grip on him. “He was foully dirty and hungry, but that is all ….” Her voice trailed away as the implication struck her. “He could be infected? O Dios.” She looked across the room to the Comanche. “Did Toshua know this?”
“I told him after we left Santa Maria. He was not privy to the lieutenant’s information.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?” she asked Toshua. “You just told me to stay away from him, but it was already too late, wasn’t it?”
His eyes as troubled as hers, the Comanche nodded slowly. In one graceful motion, he rose from the floor and left the room. In a few moments they heard the outside door close.
“I do not know how much he understood, Paloma,” Marco said, even as he wondered why he defended Toshua. “I suspect that The People have no idea of incubation periods.” He gathered her closer. “I am afraid now.”
She nodded then inched herself even closer to him like a small, burrowing animal. She sat up with a start, her eyes wide, her expression anxious. “But Luisa! She has been tending him. After Toshua told me not to go closer, I never went into his room at all. Luisa!”
Silently, Luisa left her chair and knelt on the floor by Paloma. She pushed up the long sleeve of her nightgown to expose her forearm and show what seemed to be a small incision. Turning her head slightly, she lifted the hair from her neck to expose pock marks left behind by la viruela.
“This incision?” she said, pointing to her arm. “I have been inoculated, which sometimes leave pock marks, too. Not always.” She put her hand on Marco’s knee. “Have you not noticed similar scars on Marco’s arm and hip?”
Paloma pressed her face to his chest now, her voice muffled. “He has all kinds of nicks and scars, Luisa.” She couldn’t help her sob. “What was one more to me?”
He kissed her hair, rocking with her, but he had to ask. “My love, what about you? I have never noticed such a scar on you. Have you been …?” He coul
dn’t even finish the question.
She shook her head and he had her terrible answer.
Chapter Seven
In which Marco learns, if he had any doubts, how kind a woman can be, how cruel a man
Paloma touched his heart in a way that, if he lived to be an old man of sixty, he knew made him more fortunate than most men. She gave a great sigh that he felt all the way to his backbone as her tight grip on him turned into a caress. “Well, then, the Saints be praised that you are safe,” she said. “I could not bear it if something happened to you.”
He couldn’t help himself then, as he bowed over her head and cried, the deep, wracking sobs he had not cried since returning nine years ago to his hacienda and finding Felicia and the twins dead of el cólera. Her arms tightened again, as she comforted him, soothed him, with little obvious thought to herself.
Through his misery, he heard Luisa leave the room and shut the door. His wife held him in her arms as he wept, then wiped his face with her nightgown.
“That’s enough now, my love,” she said. She gave his shoulders a little shake. “It won’t matter now if I am in that stranger’s room or not, will it? I want to talk to him. And it won’t matter if you and I just curl up in bed and wait for dawn. No need to bother the stranger, is there?”
Whatever damage he has done to my love is already done, he thought in total misery. “We can let him sleep.”
Weary in his body, heart, and mind, Marco shucked off his clothes and crawled into bed beside his wife. With hands quite practiced now, she massaged him until he forgot how cold and discouraged he was. They made slow and thoroughly pleasant love. The part of his brain that jumped up and down, tugged at him, and called him a churl for using her dear body to relieve his own pain was effectively quashed by the part that shrugged and fell wholeheartedly into Paloma’s willing plan for his total comfort.
“There now. I dare you to stay awake,” Paloma said, as practical as ever. Cold as it was, she didn’t appear interested in hunting for her nightgown, which suited him. She wore too many clothes.
He couldn’t help laughing at her. She shrieked when he grabbed her and blew a rude noise on her stomach. “Suppose someone hears us?”
“Who cares?” He pulled her close, gave her a more genteel kiss, then fell asleep holding her.
He woke up an hour later to the sound of weeping. She had turned away and muffled the sound with the blanket, but he heard her and it broke his heart.
“Cálmate. We’ll think of something.”
“What?”
“Something.”
The novelty of a bed with sheets and blankets meant that Anthony Gill slept later than usual. The blankets smelled of sage instead of manure, and no one kicked him awake. He was hungry, to be sure, but he knew there was food somewhere.
He sensed a man’s presence in his room, so he kept his eyes closed. Only a few months with the traders from East Texas had taught him wariness. Suspicion had been his fickle companion for several years and he knew better than to tempt the fates that had already turned their backs on him.
He wondered about the man. At some point last night he had been roused from slumber by a woman’s shriek. It brought him immediately upright in bed, every nerve on edge, until the laughter that followed made it obvious two lovers were hard at play. The lonely part of him wanted to listen, but he was too discouraged. Was this the lover?
Anthony lay there silently, then opened his eyes just enough to see. A man sat beside his bed, staring at the wall. From the frown on his face, he was looking inward rather than at anything. He had an elegant profile, with a handsome Spanish nose, straight and long, and deep set eyes. His high cheekbones hinted at a bit of indio in his background, but he was dressed as a Spanish rancher would dress, in leather breeches with a wool shirt.
As the room lightened, the man sighed and shifted his weight in the chair. He glanced toward the bed, and Anthony noticed eyes of an unusual light brown. He knows I’m awake, Anthony thought. Could this be Marco Mondragón? He must have been the man sporting in the next bedchamber late last night. Lucky man to have such a pretty wife. Anthony Gill’s wife had been pretty, too, before the Comanches came. What they had left behind had made him recoil and run into another room, anything to avoid looking at so much brutality visited on one so fragile.
“Señor?”
Anthony happily left the past for the present. “I am Anthony Gill,” he said. “Is there some water?”
Anthony watched the man’s face and saw his slight smile at what he knew was his terrible accent. The Spaniard said nothing, but poured him a drink of water and handed it to him. Anthony tried to sit up, expecting no help, but found his heart touched when the man put his hand behind his back and raised him into a sitting position. He piled up two pillows, then sat back in his chair, watching Anthony with those unnerving light eyes.
Anthony drained the cup and handed it back.
“Más?”
Anthony shook his head.
“Then tell me about yourself, and it had better be the truth.”
How will you know if it is not? Anthony asked himself. The man had a way of looking at him, measuring him. Best to tell the truth, or as much of it as seemed plausible. He knew he was a good liar.
Anthony opened his mouth then closed it as the older woman came into the room with a tray, followed by the one he knew was Paloma, the wife of this Spaniard. She sat down beside her husband, her hand naturally seeking his. She was calm and lovely, but her eyes looked troubled. There it was—she gave him a shy glance, then looked at him full on. She had done the same thing last night. He found himself appraising her as a physician would. That initial tentative glance told him she had not always been treated kindly. Her fortunes had evidently changed, if she was the woman who shrieked last night and then laughed. He thought she was.
“Eat slowly,” the older woman said. Señora … Señora Gutierrez, he remembered from last night. She touched the younger woman’s shoulder. “Dearest, should you be here?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She spoke so quietly, then turned her face into her husband’s sleeve. After a moment calming herself, she stood and followed Señora Gutierrez from the room. Anthony looked at the man, who seemed to be caught up in the same emotion as his wife, and suddenly he understood.
“I am Anthony Gill, late a resident of Louisiana,” he began. Georgia could wait, until he knew how the wind blew. “Who are you?”
“The man you think I am. Apparently you have been looking for me. I am Marco Mondragón, this district’s juez de campo. You’re not telling the whole truth.”
Damn, but he was good. Anthony knew he was only alive this far because he could lie. The juez seemed to have more skills than other of his countrymen. “I am from the colony of Georgia, on the coast of the Atlantic.”
“That’s better, but tell me now: exactly what did you see as you crossed Texas?”
“Bodies in heaps, dead of smallpox.” Anthony had lied so long that he couldn’t resist exaggerating.
The juez didn’t even blink, but his naturally downturned mouth seemed to droop farther. When Mondragón leaned back in his chair as though all the bones in his back were gone, Anthony knew he would win this one, his first victory in years. He never thought he would be grateful for that last trader who died full of smallpox inside and out, but the dying man had sent him to the right person. Maybe I should have at least spread a little dirt over that miserable piece of human wreckage, Anthony thought. He waited for the question he knew was coming, because this was an intelligent officer of the crown.
“Are you inoculated?”
Ah, yes. “I am, señor. That is why I am not dead.”
Was that a look of disappointment? Was it the look of a husband who wonders why a smelly trader should be so blessed, while the dearest treasure of his heart was not? More than likely.
The juez took his time. “We have been warned of la viruela approaching from the east, and here you are,” he
said finally. “The officer from Santa Fe on his annual progreso gave me full powers to prevent any Indians from coming into Santa Maria, and to kill them at my discretion. You, too, Señor Gil. Tell me why I should not do precisely that.”
Here it was; better pause and take his time. “Señor Mondragón, I have been searching for my young daughter, Pia Maria. She will be four years old now. A year ago, my wife was raped and tortured by Penateka Comanches, who stole Pia Maria.”
Anthony stopped, easily reading an expression that wasn’t so inscrutable now. The Spaniard sighed. “We have all suffered. And did they trade her to other People farther west?”
“Aye, sir,” he began, lapsing into English, which earned him a puzzled look. “Sí, they did. I allied myself with traders and went in search of her.”
“Really?” Mondragón asked, his skepticism evident. “All hard living aside, I have never seen an ally of Spanish traders in such sorry shape as you.”
“I was not precisely an ally of the traders,” Anthony admitted. “I did their menial work. They kicked me and beat me whenever they felt like it.”
Anthony said it matter-of-factly. There was no point in whining about his mistreatment by men who traded, gambled, and whored in the same room with him, filthy and foul.
Señor Mondragón had obviously heard tales similar to his, because his expression did not change. “And have you located your daughter?”
“Quite possibly. The traders knew of a deep and long canyon controlled by Kwahadi.” He laid out his whole hand. “Señor, I have been searching for you because I have been told you are the man who can get me there.”
Mondragón shook his head, much as Anthony thought he would. The man was no fool.
“I know of no white man who has ever been there. Granted, we are improving relations with the Kwahadi since the death of Cuerno Verde, but our good intentions are still as shaky as a baby trying to stand. Maybe in a year or two I can help you. I’m sorry, but that’s where the matter must rest, especially while la viruela stalks the plains.”
