by Carla Kelly
“Can’t you guess?” he burst out. He shook his head, angry at himself, when she gasped in fright. “Sorry.” He sat down again. “The British were furious, certain I had caused the one death because I was sympathetic to the rebel cause. The Americans got wind of what had happened, and rumor spread that I caused that death on purpose because I was on their side. I was on no one’s side. I was a doctor, for God’s sake!”
“All you were doing was your job,” Paloma said. She rubbed her arms. Maybe the room was cold. “Did the British hear that rumor?”
“They did. Since they controlled Savannah, I was at their mercy.”
He lowered his voice, as if the bedroom of Marco Mondragón was filled with British sympathizers. “My housekeeper heard they were coming, so she warned me. I snatched up my medical satchel and whatever money I could find, and fled. Just ran out the back door and down the street, when soldiers were banging on the front door. It was that close.”
“That’s a relief,” Paloma said, her eyes on her hands, because looking at the little man’s bleak face was beginning to sadden her.
He let out a harsh sound then—somewhere between a laugh and a growl—which made her flinch. “No relief for my housekeeper. The British,” he spit out the word, “tortured her and hanged her naked from the lamppost in front of my house, because she would tell them nothing. She didn’t know anything!”
He put his head between his hands and sobbed, a fearful sound. Paloma felt the tears start in her eyes. She leaned close to him and touched his head. “Pobrecito,” she whispered.
He left the room then. Paloma pulled the blankets higher on her shoulder, because she shivered. “Where is Marco?” she asked Toshua.
“He knew you were better, so he went to visit your foul cousin and her weakling husband.”
“Why?”
Toshua sat up. “He has been traveling through the district, offering the medico’s services.” He made a face. “He wants everyone to be sick and uncomfortable and mess their beds for a week, and then feel better. I do not understand your medicine. The Dark Wind blew over us, but we were still sick.”
“I know. It’s hard to understand.” She sighed. “I wish Marco were here.”
“I can find him.”
“No, you can stay in bed and behave yourself!”
He smiled at that. He put his hand to his forehead and knuckled his fingers, like a servant obeying her.
“You’re trying my patience,” she said, reminded of her older brother, dead these twelve years at the hands of men just like the Comanche on the pallet by the fire. Life was strange.
“Did you notice?” he asked, when she thought he was asleep.
“Notice what?”
“When the little man cried, there were no tears.”
Paloma felt that same chill at his words, but exhaustion ruled her again. She closed her eyes and went to sleep immediately, worn out with such a sad story. When she woke, shadows lengthened across the bed and Antonio was seated by her again. Wordless, he put his hand to her forehead and nodded.
“Cool.” Next, his fingers went to the pulse in her neck. “Regular.” He must have traveled through the kitchen, because he handed her a chicken leg. “Eat.”
She did, famished, even though she had polished off the rest of the biscoches. She glanced at Toshua, who had chicken, too.
“I made my way south to what you call La Flórida,” he began, picking up his narrative. “It wasn’t safe, either, because the British controlled a big fort there in Saint Augustine. Fort Saint Mark, they called it.”
“Castillo de San Marcos,” Paloma said. “I have heard of it.”
“I worked my way west, offering my services at little towns and plantations. The British controlled West Florida by then, so I moved on. Everyone always needs a physician. You know, like everyone always needs a blacksmith. I ended up in Natchitoches, Louisiana, French territory, but I was safe enough.”
His shoulders relaxed then, and the harsh lines of his face seemed to soften. Perhaps Louisiana had better memories.
“Is that where you met your wife?” Paloma asked finally.
He nodded. He didn’t speak for a long time, but Paloma was patient.
“Catalina Maria Rosas, the daughter of a merchant in Natchitoches. He was Spanish, yes, but that far on the frontier, no one seemed so concerned about governments. I cured her father’s piles and he invited me to dinner, in his gratitude. She was a pretty lady.” He looked at the wall, seeing through it. “I had a miniature painted of her, but I lost it, just like I have lost everything.”
He made to rise, but Paloma put up her hand to stop him. “Tell me, please.”
“You want the rest of my story?” he asked, as if impatient with her. “You want to hear how we married, had a daughter, named her Pia Maria, and how I got greedy and tried to buy land, and ended up cheated and on the run again, because I can do nothing right?”
He was on his feet now and backing out the door. “That story?” he shouted at her as he left the room, slamming the door behind him.
Paloma stared at the closed door, stunned at Antonio Gil’s ferocity, sorrowful that it was all directed at himself. She looked at Toshua, who shook his head.
“Yes, that story,” she said.
Chapter Thirteen
In which Marco is reminded how hard it is to do good deeds
No one would ever hear it from him, but Marco couldn’t help his own sigh of relief to be in the saddle again and away from death, contagion, and even recuperation. Good thing he was not ordained to be a physician. He pointed Buciro east and south toward the Castellano holdings, thinking that even some doctors—Antonio Gil came to mind—didn’t appear overly joyful about their profession.
He looked back at the Double Cross, feeling crass and suddenly wishing he could save everyone. Paloma would have to find out sooner or later, but her little yellow dog—the one her foolish husband had paid a fortune for in Santa Fe—was masterless. Perhaps Andrés was too old to survive the rigors of inoculation. Poor Trece whined and sniffed at Andrés, Marco’s mayordomo, as he lay so still in the chapel. How could anyone explain to a dog that the old, dear man who spoiled him was mere clay now and destined for the cemetery? It was hard enough for humans to understand that not everyone survived inoculation. Maybe Paloma would have a solution.
Paloma. He closed his eyes and crossed himself, relieved that she had survived. He wished she rode with him right now, even though he knew how much she dreaded visiting her reprehensible cousin Maria Teresa. Even now, he still felt the occasional worry that Paloma would somehow be gone or dead when he returned. He had left her in good health but grumpy this time, because she was tired of staying in bed. Grumpy, he could handle.
It especially chapped her thighs that Toshua was up and about again. Marco chuckled to himself. Try to stop a Comanche from doing whatever he wanted? Impossible. The greater surprise was that Sancha even asked Toshua to help her with some mundane kitchen duties, because Perla was still on her pallet in the chapel, and so was the little boy who helped with the cutting and dicing. Marco couldn’t help but wince inwardly to see how good Toshua was at slicing things into small strips. He had never asked the man just what tortures he had administered to the unwary who had traveled through Kwahadi territory, and he knew he never would.
And how will I fare on the Llano? he could not help asking himself. There was no way Paloma was going to accompany him and Antonio Gil, no matter what she thought. If it meant deception up to and including locking her in their bedroom until he was a day away, he would do it. He had made the stupid bargain with the Englishman or American or whatever he was, not Paloma. True, he had done it for her, but that was hardly the issue. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for the treasure of his heart.
As he rode along, he did something he didn’t usually do: he compared Felicia with Paloma. Marco could scarcely imagine two more different women in looks, temperament, body, and even mind. Felicia was the loveliest olive co
lor, with snapping brown eyes and high cheekbones, betraying her Tewa side. Even before the twins came, she was abundantly shaped and enough to make a man sigh out loud, just to look at her fully clothed. And when she was bare? O Dios. She was kind, she was generous, and she could get angry enough at him to stand on his feet and poke him in the chest. Felicia never was interested in learning to read or write, but just recalling her lovely voice when she sang to the twins still brought tears to his eyes.
And here was Paloma, still too thin for his total personal taste, but so lovely to look at. She may have lacked Felicia’s curves, but there was just enough of breast and hip to excite him in a deep sort of way that Felicia had never touched, if he was honest with himself. Light brown hair, blue eyes and freckles, especially on her shoulders, made her a rarity in his part of Nuevo Mexico. And ay caramba! how she had suffered last summer when they had gone riding, stripped, swam in the Santa Maria, made love and baked in the sun too long. Never again. She could read better than he could, and more and more, it was her lovely penmanship that entered brands and records into his ledgers for the governor.
That Paloma was brave, he had no doubt, even though she shrieked when she found mice in the grain stored in the horse barn and crossed herself every time she saw a bat. She had already endured the worst that life could throw at her, without becoming bitter. There was no one like her.
Could she sing those achingly beautiful lullabies to their children? He might never know, and that was a sorrow, no matter how he tried to put a cheerful face on it every twenty-eight days, when he found her in tears. Maybe when he and the physician were riding on the Llano Estacado, he could ask the man about such a dilemma. It wasn’t a subject to broach when anyone else was around.
Did he love one wife more than the other? Was it something a man widowed and married again could ever understand? No philosopher or saint could have explained to him how it was possible to love so much twice. Possibly this was God’s most tender mercy, but he was no theologian.
Such idle musings served to get him to the Castellano hacienda without dwelling on the frosty welcome, if one could even call it a welcome, from his former friend Alonso and Maria Teresa. January was the month when he delivered the 1782 forms to fill out, enumerating all the calves, lambs, kids, piglets, and foals as they came. The crown wasn’t much interested in chickens. He knew everyone lied because no one wanted to pay that much tax, but these were the forms he took to Santa Fe every autumn. He was pretty certain that the governor’s fiscales added a certain percentage to each calf, lamb and foal list, considering human nature.
He had taken Paloma with him in December to visit Pedro Cárdenas, who wanted to register a new brand. She was better at drawing than he was, but even more to the point, the Cárdenas family never heated their bedchambers; he was tired of being cold when he went alone, and Paloma had kept him warm.
Thinking of her particular warmth reminded him of the little yellow dog again, so sorrowful because the man who spoiled him was dead. Marco thought of birds he found dead on cold winter mornings, and calves born too soon, and loved ones cold in clay. No wonder we New Mexicans carve such bloody crucifixes of the Christ, he thought. We are wedded to death.
Last Sunday, when he finally did not fear for Paloma’s life, he had taken Antonio to Mass with him in Santa Maria. With Father Francisco’s approval, he had stood up, drawing Antonio up with him, to tell the other parishioners about the danger coming their way. His friends and neighbors had chuckled behind their hands as Antonio’s accent grated on their ears; no one was laughing when he finished.
Marco could only leave it up them to decide whether or not to risk inoculation, but when the Mass ended, more than half of the congregation put their names or X’s on the paper he carried. The Castellanos were not among them. Alonso had started forward, but Maria Teresa had yanked him back. They had left in a hurry, before Marco could discuss the matter with them. Perhaps he would have a chance to try again, he reasoned, as he swung himself from the saddle. He nodded to his outriders to take their horses to the barn, where Alonso’s mayordomo might grudgingly provide skimpy amounts of grain.
He knew better than to expect any kind of welcome from Alonso and Maria Teresa. At his own hacienda, and others that he visited, the door would already be open, with the master of the house waiting with open arms to give him a friendly abrazo and a kiss on each cheek, if the man happened to be a relative. Since their wives were cousins, Marco could have expected such kisses, but he knew better than to look for affection. He sighed and knocked on the door, already dreading what was to come.
He had waited a long, long time in the cold before the door finally swung open. He smiled at the little maid, who just looked worried.
“Señor Castellano?” he asked.
She pointed to the sala and darted away before he could hand her his cloak and hat. Dropping them in a pile by the front door, he took a deep breath and entered the sala. Both of the Castellanos stood before him in front of the fireplace, effectively blocking any stray warmth that might have taken off the January chill. Marco wished he had kept his cloak on.
No smile. No mulled wine or hot chocolate. No biscoches. No idle chatter. Just the two of them frowning at him, almost threatening him to utter anything resembling a pleasantry. He tried anyway.
“Lovely to see you both in good health,” he began, with a little bow.
They stared. Marco gave an inward sigh and drew himself up to his official height. He took out the form with its royal stamp and handed it to Alonso.
“Just the usual, my friend,” he said, and then more formally, because he was the juez de campo, after all, “To be filled out as appropriate throughout this year of Our Lord 1782 and returned to me by next September.”
There was nothing more to say, but he knew he had to try once more. He chose a kinder tone. “My dears, I wish you would reconsider the opportunity to be inoculated.”
He addressed Alonso, noting the wistful look the rancher gave him. He also knew Alonso was a weak man who would dance to Maria Teresa’s tune. “With your wife’s consent, perhaps you could be inoculated. Alonso, you could stay with us during the procedure, and Maria Teresa and your child-to-be would never be endangered.”
“Out of the question,” Maria Teresa snapped. “He would never leave me for such a thing.”
“Before God and all the saints, he should. Even one of you inoculated would be better than no one,” Marco argued. “And if some of your servants would follow suit, you would all be much safer.”
Alonso opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.
“Please, Alonso. Any one of us could stay here with your wife, so she is not alone, while you are inoculated and quarantined from her in a safe place.”
“I cannot,” Alonso replied, his voice dull.
Might as well try, Marco thought, stiffening his own spine, in the face of Señora Castellano’s bitter-eyed intractability. Amazing how a woman like that could dismay even a juez. He tried to choose his words carefully, knowing even before he started, that what he said would be touchy, at the very least.
“You could be inoculated, too, Maria.” He held up his hand when she started to speak, and miracles of miracles, she remained silent. “I know, I know! This could very well endanger the child you carry. Or it might not. El médico told me that he does not know, either.”
“Not another word, juez,” she said, daring him.
“I will speak,” he said, each word distinct. “It is a terrible risk. The alternative is worse. Yes, you could lose this child if you are inoculated. Antonio Gil just doesn’t know.” He held up his hand, knowing in his heart that he would never again be invited onto Alonso’s land. “You also know that you are capable of bearing another child. Please, Maria Teresa, at least consider it.”
Her voice was high and tight when she spoke. “Did your wife send you to give me this message?”
Marco stared back, startled. “She … she doesn’t even know I am here.”
&
nbsp; “Liar.”
He turned away, stunned at the anger than welled inside him. He forced down his angry words, wishing with all his heart that he could just scoop up Alonso and drag him away from this viper. He breathed in and out, but he could not bring himself to turn around.
“Señora, I know that what I have suggested goes against everything that we believe in our Holy Church. You can complain to Father Francisco about me all you want. But let me tell you: I am a realist and this is a hard land. Good day to you both and God protect you, because I cannot.”
Marco stalked to the door and flung it open, and then he could not help himself. He turned around and glared at the two of them, fixing his gaze finally on Maria Teresa. It gave him a sick sort of pleasure—he knew he would regret it almost immediately—to see her actually quail before his glance.
“And you! You and your family have robbed my wife of her land, her cattle, and her dear mother’s brand. Mistreated Paloma and robbed her, and I cannot do a thing about it.”
He slammed the door after him, tears in his eyes, then bowed his head in shame as he heard Alonso’s wife laugh and laugh.
Chapter Fourteen
In which the Mondragóns listen with love
Furious at himself for letting that wretch of a woman play him like a guitar, Marco shouted for his guards. In minutes they were mounted and ready to ride, even though the wind had picked up and snow filled the afternoon sky. Ducking through the open door of the horse barn, he watched Alonso hurry toward him. Marco waited, unwilling to stay one more minute on this land, so great was his shame at allowing himself to be goaded by that hechizera. He was supposed to be a juez de campo, a wise man.
He stared ahead, not even willing to look at the man on foot.
“Don’t come back here ever again,” Alonso mumbled.
“I won’t,” Marco snapped, his eyes on the gate. “I will send someone else in the fall to retrieve that document I gave you. I will send others to handle any business of the crown I might have with you.”
