Marco and the Devil's Bargain

by Carla Kelly

  This is a man of no sympathy, Marco thought. He should learn some, but must we be his teachers?

  Toshua cleared his throat, as if preparing to speak. The sound roused Paloma, and she nodded her encouragement to the Comanche. He looked at the physician.

  “Did you see any Kwahadi?”

  “I saw Comanches. You all look alike to me,” Antonio said with a shake of his head. “You have your secret places in the Staked Plains.”

  “We do. For all you know, the smallpox has not reached those of my tribe.”

  “Who can say?” Antonio asked with a shrug. “Do you know of some who have survived la viruela and are immune now?”

  “A few. One of my wives, some old men who lived through an earlier Dark Wind. There are some in every band, as there are here.”

  They sat in silence. Paloma was the first to leave, getting up without a word, not looking at Marco. She threw a shawl around her shoulders and walked into the kitchen garden. In a few minutes, Toshua followed her. Marco started to rise, but Antonio put a hand on his arm.

  “Let them alone, señor. I see this in people who have been inoculated and who are waiting, just waiting. They share a certain … knowledge.”

  Marco went to the window and gazed at his wife and the Comanche standing together, not touching but staring in the same direction, as wind tossed the snow around. They didn’t appear to be speaking, but after a long while, Toshua left the garden for Marco’s office and Paloma turned toward the kitchen, her face troubled. She came inside and just stood there, watching him, until her expression changed to something wry.

  “It’s hard not to borrow trouble,” she said simply, before she left the room. He knew she went to the chapel, probably just to stand there and stare at the pallets, ready for whatever was to come.

  Marco watched her the next day, and the next, not fooled for a moment by her studied serenity. She went about her usual tasks all day, collecting eggs for Sancha, working steadily, but with a certain detached air.

  On the fifth day, she rose as usual to dress and gather eggs. He lay in bed and watched her, unwilling to get up, because she had left such a pleasant warm spot. When he didn’t move, she said, “Lazy man,” with a laugh, pressing both hands to her lower back.

  He went back to sleep and came into the kitchen later—after Sancha, rubbing her eyes, had opened the food safe and Perla was laying the fire. He looked around.

  “Paloma?”

  “I thought perhaps she decided to sleep late,” Sancha told him.

  He ran out the door, calling her name, not bothering with his cloak. The sun was only beginning its ascent, but he could see the door to the henhouse swinging open. Ducking inside, he found Paloma in tears, a basket of broken eggs messing her apron. She was trying to scoop the slimy whites and yolks into the basket. She looked up, fear in her eyes, suddenly the old Paloma in the kitchen of her relatives.

  “I didn’t mean to drop them! They were so heavy all of a sudden. Please don’t be angry.”

  He looked at her, thinking what Antonio Gil had told him about exhaustion and anxiety and other symptoms. Did she not remember that this henhouse belonged to the kindest man in all of Nuevo México? Was some part of her mind back in Santa Fe? “Paloma, don’t worry about the eggs. Give me your hand. Let’s go inside.”

  Obediently she held out her hand and he pulled her easily to her feet, only to have her fall to her knees as though they were made of jelly. Her eyes were wide with terror. “La viruela?” she whispered as he swung her into his arms and carried her from the henhouse.

  “It’s beginning, my love,” he told her as he picked his way carefully through the snow.

  With a sigh, she rested her head against his chest. “I’m sorry about the eggs, but I ache everywhere.”

  Antonio sat at the kitchen table when Marco shouldered the door open, carrying his wife. He got to his feet, a ragged thin man in borrowed clothes, but suddenly possessed of something that had been lacking. For the first time, Marco saw real purpose in his expression.

  “Get her to bed,” Antonio ordered. “Sancha, find a warming pan. She will shiver and then she will burn.”

  The médico did something then that warmed Marco’s heart. He leaned forward and kissed Paloma on the forehead. She closed her eyes with something near to relief—if Marco was any interpreter of his wife’s moods, and he thought he was.

  Marco tried to carry her through the door into the main hallway, but she grabbed the sill, stopping him.

  “Toshua. Someone look after Toshua. Oh, please.”

  Chapter Twelve

  In which Antonio walks through his own valley of shadows

  Paloma thought she knew how gentle her husband was, but why had he placed her, naked, on a bed of spikes? Thank God he had not been distressed by the broken eggs. How could she shiver one moment and cry out from heat the next? Who was this smelly, sweaty person?

  It was a puzzle, because the next moment she was perfectly reasonable, dressed in her best nightgown, fragrant with lavender, her hair nicely brushed and spread across her pillow. If only her back didn’t feel like someone had taken an axe to it.

  She was dimly aware—one day later, two days?—when Antonio removed the bandage from her arm and stood there looking down at her for a long moment. As she held her breath, he finally nodded, as though pleased with what he saw. She looked, too, and saw red grains of rice just under the surface of her skin. Her neck itched. When she raised her hand to scratch, Marco pulled it down, then dabbed on a salve that cooled the fire there, but only just; she still wanted to scratch.

  She glared at both men, obviously in cahoots to make her uncomfortable.

  “You have a line of pox,” her traitor husband said.

  “Right on schedule,” her equally unpleasant physician added.

  She wanted to argue, but the words wouldn’t come. She sighed and slept, instead.

  She woke to a raging thirst, wanting water more than anything. She could have cried when Marco brought her a cup with blessed ice in it. “Icicles everywhere outside,” he told her, raising her up for a long drink.

  “I’m sorry I said such horrible things to you,” she mumbled.

  “Which time?”

  And then he would kiss her forehead, even though she knew she smelled bad. What was a woman to do with a husband like that?

  Paloma had no sense of time, knowing it was night only when her husband came to bed. During the day she had vague recollections of him in her line of sight, back and forth. He fed her mush and applesauce. She cried with shame when he cleaned her after her bowels moved, but he only told her not to be such a goose.

  One morning she woke to the knowledge that someone else besides Marco was in the room. Painfully, she raised up on one elbow and looked around. To her relief, it was Toshua. He lay on a pallet in front of the fire, so for one odd moment she wondered if Marco had moved her into the office because she was too much trouble in their bedroom.

  When her mind cleared, she knew he had brought Toshua into their own room, the better to watch over him, too. Paloma lay back down, strangely satisfied.

  Finally there came the day when she opened her eyes, certain it was morning, and felt hungry. She turned her head, waiting for the pain to come. Nothing. Cautious, she touched her neck, feeling scabs. She counted them. One, two, three. Only three. Thanks be to God.

  Careful of herself, she turned on her side. Her husband lay beside her. She studied his face, noting that the hollows were deeper under his cheeks. You have had a hard time of this, my lord, she thought. As he lay on his back, his deep-set eyes closed, his eyelashes impossibly long, she admired his elegant profile. She studied him, because there had been more than one moment in the past few days when she feared she would never see him again. With a gentle finger, she traced the outline of his forehead, nose, and lips. He opened his eyes and shifted to face her.

  “Paloma?” he asked, hesitant, as though he didn’t know what she would say, or if she would even be r
ational.

  “Who else would be in your bed, señor?” she teased, which brought tears to his eyes.

  “Gracias a Dios,” he whispered.

  With his help, she struggled into a sitting position and looked toward the fireplace. Toshua lay there, breathing deeply and evenly.

  “He came to himself last night around midnight.” Marco smiled at her. “He did what you are doing now, wanting to know if you lived.”

  She lay back down, exhausted by such a simple effort. “How long have I been like this?”

  “About seven days,” he said, drawing her closer.

  She wanted to resist his embrace, because someone smelled foul, and she didn’t think it was Marco. “You’re still being a goose,” was all he told her, so she let herself be cuddled.

  She insisted on sitting up for breakfast in bed—chilis in mush and hot chocolate sweetened with honey and cinnamon. The first few spoonfuls went down easy enough; then she hadn’t the strength to finish. She set down the spoon, perplexed at her own weakness. Marco picked it up and fed her, keeping his voice low so Toshua would not wake. When she finished the entire bowl, he pulled back the covers and picked her up.

  “H’mm. Lighter,” he whispered, hefting her easily. “Now, dearest, you are going to the laundry room for a bath. While you are soaking, the servants will change our sheets and you will then go back to sleep.”

  She offered no objections; just eating had exhausted her.

  His sleeves rolled up, Marco washed her from hair to heels, treating her like fine china.

  “A girl could like this,” she teased, when he dried her. She leaned against him as he knelt to dry her legs. “And you’ll bring me hummingbirds’ tongues and mulled wine? Perhaps Valencia oranges.”

  “Silly wife,” he teased back, taking a little longer drying between her legs than she thought necessary. The sensation soothed her, reminding her that she was still alive. “Marco,” she murmured. “Marco, I didn’t die.”

  * * *

  Anthony sat back, his tired brain still analytical and wondering why it was that nowhere in Spanish America was there a comfortable chair; not here, not in east Texas, and not in Florida. He had found himself envying Marco Mondragón’s impossibly fine posture, and could only credit chairs like this and many hours in the saddle. He thought of a pleasantly rump-sprung armchair in the study in Savannah, wondering what had happened to his possessions when he bolted and ran for his life.

  He also envied Marco his wife, sleeping now as he watched. Lucky woman, she had survived with only a few pockmarks on the side of her face and her neck, plus that mark on her forearm. She breathed evenly and peacefully now, as her body marshaled its forces and returned her to health. By the end of the week, she would be up and about, no worse for the experience except for those few reminders.

  He glanced back at Toshua, who watched him. Devil take the Comanche! No matter how soundly Toshua slept, if anyone came into the room besides Marco, he woke, maintaining his vigilance until the interloper left. His doctor’s mind was certain the Indian was weak as a kitten; his self-serving side—the greater side, Anthony admitted—wasn’t so certain. Anthony wondered if Paloma had any idea what a protector Toshua was; probably not. She wasn’t a woman overly concerned with herself.

  There were probably other patients he could be checking, but he hadn’t the energy to move. Blast and damn them, it was as though an army of patients demanded his attention day and night. Hippocrates and his stupid oath. When was a physician to sleep? He closed his eyes.

  He woke when he heard rustling from the bed and remembered what Marco had told him before he left that morning to visit his neighbors. “She’ll try to get up when she feels better. I trust you will see that doesn’t happen.” It was no suggestion. Besides, Anthony didn’t want her moving, either. He had seen too many relapses that led to death, when patients called themselves healed before the disease finally let go.

  He opened his eyes, admiring Paloma’s trim legs before she tugged down her nightgown.

  “And where do you think you’re going?” he asked, trying to sound frosty.

  Ah ha, caught in the act. He tried not to smile at the guilty look on her face, and failed. “Paloma, you’ve been warned,” he reminded her. She opened her mouth to protest, but he swung her legs back in bed, covered her with the blankets again, and tucked them firmly under the mattress, as though to trap her there. “You’re not going anywhere until two or three more days have passed.”

  The mutinous look did not disappear. “You let Toshua go back to the office,” she accused. “He has been up and about.”

  He glanced at Toshua, who was listening. “My dear little patient, I never argue with Comanches.” He could try a little cajolery. “Besides, I promised your husband you’d stay right here, and so you shall. You don’t want to disappoint such a nice man, now, do you?”

  Resignation replaced mutiny. Paloma lay back and yawned. “Well, maybe just this once.” She raised up on one elbow. “You’ll need to entertain me, then.”

  He had all sorts of ideas, all of which would have resulted in at least two men slitting his only throat. “What do you have in mind?”

  She sat up and pulled Marco’s pillow behind her own, then settled back, her hands folded on the coverlet over her belly. “Tell me how on earth you ended up here. Where are you really from, Señor Gil?”

  Anthony regarded her a long time, but her glance did not waver from his. For a brief moment, he wondered if the colony of New Mexico was far enough from Georgia, and if he would ever feel safe.

  “Tell me,” Paloma coaxed. “You are far from trouble and in a safe place.” She smiled to herself. “That’s what I discovered when Marco brought me here.”

  He could have reminded her that Marco couldn’t keep her safe from smallpox, but that would have been petty of him. Why not tell her what she asked? At the very least, she would discover what a fool he was.

  “You have to stay awake.”

  “I will,” she promised. “You are the first American I have ever met.”

  “I won’t be the last.”

  “How is that?”

  He tried out the word. “Americans. Americans are ambitious and land-greedy. You will see them here, eventually.”

  “Marco’s land grant is safe.”

  He heard the pride in her voice. I hope to heaven it is, he thought. He merely nodded and squirmed himself into as comfortable a position as he could find in the unyielding chair. “I’m no revolutionary. All I ever wanted to do was heal people, and maybe make some money.” He shrugged. “It seems I could do neither.”

  * * *

  He spoke for an hour, discounting the time she slept, even though Paloma had said she would not. Maybe it was a good thing he had caught her trying to get up, because she was tired. Paloma listened to his tale of an up and coming physician, back from acquiring a medical degree in a colony named Pennsylvania, setting up his practice in Savannah, a little town he thought she would like. “The ocean is beautiful there. Have you ever walked barefoot on sand and felt the waves lap at your feet?”

  “No. There isn’t much water around here, if you haven’t noticed.”

  He leaned forward to ruffle her hair. He stopped, his hand almost on her head, when Toshua sat up.

  He described how war came first to the northern colonies and then gradually seeped south like an ever-widening wound, setting families at odds with each other. “I thought I could keep out of the whole mess,” he told her. “Physicians can be neutral, I thought. I can tend to both sides, the British and the Americans, can’t I?”

  Poor, skinny little man, Paloma thought. She stopped his narrative—she could see it was painful for him—and asked him to bring her something to eat. “I really want biscoches and maybe some wine. Tell her we need two glasses. Toshua?”

  The Indian shook his head.

  Antonio seemed grateful for the interruption and left the room quickly. Paloma sat up and looked at Toshua, who lay by the fire
, his hands behind his head and a thoughtful look on his face.

  “What do you think?” she asked him.

  He grunted. “I think it is impossible to be a person in the middle.”

  Paloma nodded. She looked at the doorway and crawled to the end of her bed. “Have you ever seen Americans?” she asked him, keeping her voice low.

  “I have.”

  “Wh—what did you do to them?”

  He didn’t answer, which was all the answer she expected.

  “I remember this: There are many of them. Perhaps the little doctor is right,” he said finally.

  “I wonder.” She couldn’t help herself then. She leaned closer. “Toshua, do you believe he is telling the truth?”

  A slow shake of his head answered her question.

  She heard footsteps in the hall and hurried under the covers again, just in time to see Antonio with a tray. He set it on the table and handed her the plate. She took two biscoches and told him to take some, himself. He did not argue.

  “Where was I?” he asked, even though Paloma was certain he remembered.

  “You were trying to stay out of trouble, which I don’t think you managed to do.”

  He shook his head and ate both biscoches, washing them down with the diluted wine. Paloma watched him, determined to tell Sancha to see that he had all he wanted to eat.

  “What happened?” Her prompt was as gentle as she could make it, even as she wondered at Toshua’s slow shake of his head.

  He took a deep breath. “Two British officers came to me, wanting inoculation.” He made a wry face. “Two big, healthy men. They were eating better than the rebels, I gather. I inoculated them both.” Another deep breath. “One lived and one died.”

  “My goodness. But you told them it was dangerous, didn’t you?” Paloma asked.

  “Certainly.” He stood up and went to the fireplace, stepping around Toshua. He added several sticks of wood. “It’s cold in here.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Paloma said. “What happened then?”