by Carla Kelly
Sangre de Cristos. The name frightened her. “Why are they called after the blood of Our Lord?”
“The afternoon sun will turn them red. Watch for it.”
She nodded, suddenly shy again, remaining silent as the wagons circled near the riverbank. She jumped down, not waiting for the freighter to give her a hand, touched her pocket and felt the smooth edge of the mirror.
Maria looked around, then turned away quickly. The men had gathered in a small circle by the river to relieve themselves. Carmen de Sosa sat with her back to the men. She glanced at Maria, then flicked her eyes away.
A distance away from the river there was a circle of bushes and a small stand of cottonwoods, testimony to an earlier path of the river. Maria walked toward it, rubbing the small of her back. She could relieve herself in the bushes, then rest in the shade of the trees. Maybe if she gathered the courage, she would look in the glass and determine if she still bore any resemblance to the young lady who had begun a journey on the King’s Highway six months before.
The leader of the caravan had admonished her never to stray from it, but she was heartily weary of all of them—the unwashed freighters, the uncomplaining missionaries, the uncommunicative Carmen de Sosa—tired of their food, their coarse conversation, the endless journey, but most of all tired to her very soul of her worry over what awaited her in Santa Fe.
The small grove was shady and cool, a change from the gathering warmth of the late winter sun. After taking care of private matters, Maria sat down under one of the cottonwoods and leaned against the trunk, lifting her heavy woolen skirt, removing her shoes, and stretching her legs out in front of her. She took the mirror out of her pocket and gazed into it.
A stranger looked back. Maria blinked. Gone was the smooth, light pink complexion she had nurtured with buttermilk and flour paste in Mexico City. She was as brown as an Indian. And dirty. So dirty. She rubbed her face, appalled at the layers of dirt. She had tried to wash regularly, but the journey of the last few weeks through the Jornada del Muerto had given her no opportunity to bathe. On the route of the Dead Man’s March, there was scarcely water to drink, let alone bathe in. And even if she could have found water, there were the men, always the men.
The dirt would wash off but her skin was so brown. Maria patted her face. It used to feel soft, but now the skin was stretched tight over high cheekbones. Her deep blue eyes held a hungry look. There was nothing even remotely appealing about her.
“Why, I look eighteen or nineteen,” she said out loud, then burst into tears. In helpless misery, she threw the mirror outside the grove, rested her head on her arms and cried until she fell asleep.
Later, she could not have said what woke her, what nerve was touched to compel her into instant wakefulness. Evening had come and brought with it something strange and terrible. Then she saw the flickering lights against the blackness. Every wagon was blazing with fire. Maria dropped down behind the tree she had slept against and peered out through the underbrush. A scream started deep in her throat but never reached her lips.
Some of the freighters were already dead, the bodies piled here and there, appearing, then vanishing in the flickering light of the bulging wagons. Indians swarmed around the remaining men of the wagon train, herding them close to the water’s edge. Their weapons had been left at the wagons. They were helpless as the Indians hacked and tore at them. They were silent, except for Father Efrain who prayed, his voice as calm and matter-of-fact as if he were offering morning prayers. Maria listened to him as his voice droned on and on, only changing pitch as he was pushed from Indian to Indian. He stopped suddenly before the end of his supplication and Maria pushed her fist into her mouth to keep from crying out.
When Father Efrain was silenced, Carmen de Sosa began to scream, a thin, whining cry that made Maria hunker down lower in the bushes, take her hand out of her mouth and cover her ears. But still she could hear Señora de Sosa. Maria’s heart beat like a drum. Carmen was calling for her. “Maria! Maria!” she screamed over and over, seeking after six months of silence for a deadly friendship.
Maria sucked in her breath. “Father in heaven,” she whispered, “please do not let the Indians understand what she is saying.” If the Indians had any idea that there was another woman on that supply caravan, they would search for her until they found her.
Maria gasped aloud at the sound of tearing cloth, then was silent as Carmen’s screams filled the enormous night. Finally, they fell away to a moaning sob that Maria could barely hear above the laughter of the Indians. The end was near, but the end was more terrible than what had gone before. Maria watched an Indian peel Carmen de Sosa’s scalp away from her skull, taking the ears, too, then holding it up to catch the firelight glinting on the dripping earrings.
To keep from crying out, Maria stuffed the hem of her dress in her mouth and burrowed into the ground. Wildly her mind raced through an entire catalog of saints to pray to, but another part of her brain told her that prayer was useless. As the Indians hacked and scalped their way through the growing pile of bodies, Maria knew that the heavens were closed, that God slept on this February night.
She must have fainted then, because when she opened her eyes, it was morning. She was lying on her back looking up at the sky. The air was cool and clouds like lamb’s wool scudded overhead. A bird sang in the tree nearby. She almost closed her eyes again, then, in a flood of terror that left her weak, as she remembered. She rose cautiously to her knees, then sat back quickly. The Indians were still there.
Dressed in the clothes of the dead, they squatted close together against the chill of the early dawn. One of the savages wore Father Efrain’s robe, stiff with the blood of the padre. Another Indian had draped Carmen de Sosa’s skirts around his shoulders. As Maria watched, he clapped Carmen’s bloody blond scalp on his head and pranced around while the other men laughed.
Dead men lay everywhere, some of them hacked to pieces, their body parts flung along the riverbank. The heads stared with sightless eyes and open mouths at the same blue sky Maria had awakened to. Other freighters had been scalped but left in one piece, their bodies scattered at random. They lay in grotesque poses like overgrown dolls, tossed by a child in a rage.
Maria tried to look away from the fly-covered, bloated corpses, but she could not. With dreadful obsession, she stared at the hunks of skin and bones that only hours before had been fathers, husbands and brothers, looking forward to the completion of a tedious journey.
When she finally forced herself to avert her gaze, she looked around to get her bearings. She was lying under the trees in a small gully, the merest incline. By sitting up slightly, she could see the Indians through a skimpy cover of bush and tall grass. Anyone approaching the grove from behind would spot her immediately. She must move farther into the bushes.
Maria slowly pulled her legs up under her dress, grateful for once that her poverty had allowed only dull brown wool, instead of the brightness of Carmen de Sosa’s sea-green silks that were now warming the Indian by the fire. The color of the wool blended with the dry winter grass around her. She pulled herself into a compact ball and started inching toward the bushes.
A flash of light caught her eye as she began to move. It was the mirror. With a sudden stab at her insides, she remembered how she had tossed the mirror outside the circle of trees. As it glittered at her in the morning light, she knew that sooner or later one of the Indians would notice the gleam and come closer to investigate. She would be discovered.
She had to get the mirror. Slowly she turned and crawled to the edge of the bushes. The Indians were not looking in her direction, but if she leaned out far enough to snatch the mirror, they would notice.
For the first time, she cried, her face in the dirt until the soil under her cheek turned to mud. She dug her fingers into the ground, running the loose dirt through her fingers. Then it came to her. By tossing the dirt beyond the bushes, a pinch at a time, she could cover the mirror until its betraying reflection was buried.<
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The first handful only camouflaged the tiniest corner of the mirror. Cursing her vanity of yesterday, Maria grabbed another fistful of dirt. She scraped the dirt off the surface of the ground, fearing that the darker earth underneath would attract attention. When she had a dry handful, she tossed it gently toward the mirror.
For an hour Maria threw dirt on the small mirror. Whenever one of the Indians glanced her way, she froze, her face in the earth, her arm outstretched and still. As she lay there she imagined footsteps behind her and waited silently, almost gratefully, for the arrow biting deep into her back, the hands on her waist, the knife on her hair.
By the time the sun was high over the rim of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the mirror’s sparkling eye was covered. Maria’s arm ached from the slow and steady motion of hundreds of tiny particles of dirt thrown. Her muscles throbbed with a life of their own as she lay in the shade of the bushes and rubbed her arm, watching the Indians.
They showed no disposition to leave their kingdom of burned wagons, dead animals and men. They crouched by their fire silent and watchful.
Her eyes never leaving them, Maria slowly pulled her legs up under her dress and inched toward the tall underbrush. She eased her way among the sheltering foliage and curled up in a tight ball. The chill of the late February morning penetrated her body and she shook until she feared her teeth would rattle and reveal her hiding place. Or was it simply the chill of fear? Yesterday on the wagon she had not been cold.
Her mind was curiously devoid of thought. For the first time in her life, there was nothing. All she could do was huddle in the grass, her teeth chattering, and watch the Indians less than 100 yards away. Her mind took in every detail of their dress and attitude, but it did nothing with the information. So intent was she on survival that every breath she drew, every blink of her eyes, was concentrated on the effort of getting through the day. For the moment she had no energy to waste on memory or speculation, pain or sorrow. For Maria Espinosa de la Garza, lying by the clump of trees, there was nothing but those Indians. She would have thought of other things if she could have—her parents, the silver necklace her father had given her on her fourteenth birthday, the Rosary, the Stations of the Cross—but she could not think beyond the enormity of the Indians before her. Her mind refused to go forward or backward. She sat there watching them until her eyes closed and her head fell forward on her chest.
She was yanked out of sleep by the sound of a horse grazing. It was the horse of one of the caravan guards, cropping grass only inches from her legs. The animal showed no alarm at her presence. She had petted, fed and cried against him at odd moments on the six-month journey. Often she had given him small scraps of food when she couldn’t stomach the taste of one more lump of hardtack. And here he was now, nuzzling her leg as she tried to draw deeper into her miserable refuge. The animal snorted when she moved, so she stayed where she was, more alert than she had ever been in her life.
If only he would move off. She forced herself to lie where she was, sweating despite the chill that still lingered in the air. Perspiration rolled down her face and made her nose itch, but she did not dare raise a hand to scratch.
What she feared most happened. One of the Indians by the dying fire looked up and called to the horse, which continued to graze, practically nibbling her leg. When the animal did not move, the Indian rose and started toward the grove.
Maria stared at him in terrified fascination. His hair was long and black, his legs bowed, his eyes half-closed in the perpetual squint of one who has spent a lifetime resisting the sun’s glare on the desert he roamed. His high moccasins came up to his long loincloth, which hung to his knees and was dark brown with the blood of his slaughter. He did not look like the Pueblo Indians whose adobe villages the supply caravan had passed through in recent weeks.
Still he came closer. Maria could only stare at him, mouthing the words, “Saint Francis, Saint Francis,” over and over. Her lifetime of familiarity with the saints had evaporated and she could remember only the name of the saint of Santa Fe. She had no way of knowing if he enjoyed any power over Indians, but she said his name and made it her prayer.
She wanted to run, but she knew that her only hope, growing slimmer with each footstep, was to lie still. She tasted blood on her mouth, saw it drip onto the front of her dress, and realized that she was gnawing on her lip. Her hands were cold and wet, her feet numb. She no longer had the power to move.
When he was less than ten yards from the grove, the Indian squatted suddenly and scooped up a handful of small rocks. He stood and lazily pitched stones at the animal. The horse shied, but would not stop eating. The Indian said something to himself and walked closer. He threw another rock that hit Maria squarely in the middle of her forehead. She let out a gasp. The animal’s ears pricked up, but then his head dropped again to the tall grass he was cropping. The Indian gave no sign of hearing.
The blood trickled down Maria’s forehead. She watched it drop onto her dress. She had to do something to stop the Indian from coming closer. When she saw the man draw his arm back to throw another stone, she kicked the horse in the nose.
The animal’s head jerked up and he snorted and backed away, shaking his mane. The Indian, apparently satisfied that his stone had done its work, stood there until the horse ambled back to the other horses grazing by the river. Then he turned back to his fellows. They were rising and stretching. While one of them kicked the embers apart and brushed dirt over the coals, the rest walked toward the caravan horses.
As Maria watched, she realized there were no native ponies. The Indians must have made a surprise attack on foot. They possessed no horses of their own—until now.
With the greatest leisure and two fights among themselves, the Indians loaded the horses with their booty. The Indian wearing Father Efrain’s habit passed a cord between his legs and tied up the long fabric so he could mount. When the last of the horses was bridled, the Indians mounted and rode off slowly, laden with spoils, leaving behind destruction. The ground, littered with great mounds of rotting human and animal flesh, was white with flour from ripped bags. Above the smell of smoke and death, Maria sniffed the sharp fragrance of cinnamon and. cloves. The Indians vanished as suddenly as they had come, into the vastness of the empty land to the west of the river.
Maria raised her hand and felt her forehead. The cut from the rock was not deep. She packed a pinch of dirt in the wound and the bleeding stopped.
She did not leave the shelter of the tall grass and trees, though she saw no sign of the Indians. What if one of them rode back for another look? What if all of them rode back? She would wait where she was.
The sky filled with the flap and squawk of countless buzzards. The black birds circled and swooped, coasting along on the wind currents above the desert floor, then dropping like stones onto the carcasses cooking in the midday sun. Awkward on land, they waddled among the bodies of oxen and men, fighting with each other over the most tempting morsels, reminding Maria of old women in Mexico City’s great bazaars, squabbling over ribbons and lace. Here it was not ribbons but intestines, deep purple now and puffy with death, and not lace but lung tissue, filigreed and black from exposure.
All day the buzzards flocked to the massacre until the whole ground around the burned wagons was a moving mass of black feathers. The earlier arrivals attempted to fly off but they were so gorged with the flesh of dead men that they could not rise in the air. They lurched along the ground, croaking and flapping their useless wings.
As the hours dragged by in her sheltering grove, Maria’s thirst grew. The last moisture that had passed her lips was the wine in the goatskin bag that Miguel the freighter had offered her yesterday afternoon. She wanted to run down to the river, fling herself into the water, and drink the Rio del Norte dry, but still she feared to move. She spent the long, dreadful afternoon leaning against a tree watching the buzzards, her mind neither moving forward nor back. She had nowhere to go and her thoughts took no flight.
/> Finally, after the sun reflected its blood red rays on the flanks of the distant Sangre de Cristos and sank below the western horizon, she slept. The air was colder than the night before. Her teeth chattered and she hugged her knees to herself, burrowing farther down in the slight sheltering ridge of the bank of dirt. The earth was still warm from the afternoon sun and she pressed her cheek against it and closed her eyes.
She dreamed then, restless dreams filled with groans and shrieks and deadly silences. Carmen de Sosa crawled on her hands and knees among the weeds and grass, calling “Maria! Maria!” over and over in a thin, whining whisper and patting the ground before her, searching for her scalp. And there was Father Efrain, smiling at her, then taking off his head and tossing it in her lap.
Maria sat up and screamed. The buzzards roosting in trees and on the flat ground rose in a turgid cloud, then slowly settled back, quarreling among themselves.
Maria sobbed. She forced herself to look down in her lap, but there was no grinning head. She drew her legs up tight against her body and leaned against the ridge, pressing herself close to the earth, which by now was cold.
She slept again for several hours, and Carmen de Sosa reappeared, patting the ground with bloody fingers and whispering Maria’s name. She came closer and closer, searching for her hair. She patted Maria’s leg.
Maria leaped up, screaming. She stepped backward and fell over the ridge of earth. All around her were buzzards. The ones that could not fly had crept into her grove, seeking warmth from the night’s chill. They had been crowding close to her as she slept, their feathers tickling her legs.
The smell of them made Maria gag. They stank of death and putrefaction, nameless diseases and all the horrors of the centuries. They were legion and she could not escape them.
Maria stood on the flood plain by the Rio del Norte, unutterably alone and surrounded by death in unimaginable forms. She stood there clenching her fists against her breasts, crying. She took a few steps toward the river and the buzzards waddled out of her way, muttering as they scuttled off, still too gorged to fly.
