by Carla Kelly
The governor motioned to the man standing just outside the door. He was dressed in black like all scribes, the white collar around his neck wilted and brown with sweat. The scribe sidled into the room, reminding Maria of the solicitors who had picked over and plundered her home in Mexico City. She thought also of the vultures at the caravan massacre.
The scribe picked up the chair Diego had tipped over and then seated himself on a stool by the governor’s desk, hitching himself and the stool closer to the window and farther away from Diego Masferrer. He readied pen and ink from the writing table he carried. The ink from the governor’s desk continued to drip to the floor, soaking into the dirt.
“Your Excellency,” Maria began, “your Excellency, it is not Diego’s fault.” Otermin’s smirk was eloquent. “You have no right to make accusations against the only friend I have in this whole, miserable Rio Arriba,” Maria continued. “After you and Diego left me with my sister, she told me that she could not support me, or take me into her household. She said she was too poor to afford another mouth or a sister without a dowry.”
“She is poor like Croesus,” commented the governor, half to himself. “No, no, Juan, do not take that down, you blockhead! Only Maria Espinosa’s words. But do go on, my dear.”
“That is really all there is,” said Maria, sitting farther forward on the edge of her chair, gripping the arms. “She left me there.”
“But where did you go?” asked the governor.
“I went back to the courtyard, but you were gone.” Maria’s voice fell to a whisper. “She said I would have to be made a ward of the town. I just could not stay. It would have been too humiliating.” She squared her shoulders and spoke louder. “I have honor.”
Diego smiled for the first time, and his fingers went to the scar by his ear.
“I remembered that Señor Masferrer said he lived north of Santa Fe near Tesuque. I started walking.”
“You walked to Tesuque?” asked the governor.
“Yes. How else was I to get there?”
“How, indeed,” replied Otermin. “Were you not afraid?”
Maria’s eyes softened at the silliness of his question. “Oh, yes. You cannot fully comprehend how frightened I was, Your Excellency. But I told myself that since I was still alive, after all that I had been through, that I would survive.”
“Did you not wonder about your reception at Las Invernadas?”
Maria thought a moment, not looking at Diego, who stirred beside her but made no comment. “Not really. I did not think he would turn me away. Do you know Diego Masferrer, Your Excellency? I know you are his governor, but do you know him?”
“Perhaps I do not,” admitted Otermin.
Maria smiled at Diego. As Diego bent to right the inkwell, the flush rose in his face.
“And so you have lived there ever since. In what capacity, may I ask?”
“As a servant. Señor Masferrer would not hear of it at first, but I told him that those were my conditions.”
“You told him?” said the governor, a new respect rising in his eyes.
“She has a mind of her own, Excellency,” Diego interjected.
Maria looked from one man to the other. “I told him that since I had no one and nothing, I would earn my own way.”
“And does she?” the governor asked Diego. There was no malice in his voice this time, no innuendo. The scribe’s scratching pen was loud in the quiet room.
“Yes, and then some,” Diego replied. “She tends to household chores, reads to my mother and helps with my little sisters. I might add that she has taken much of the burden from my sister Erlinda.”
Otermin folded his hands together on the large desk, looking at Diego. “And you, sir, have you felt no slight, tiny twinge that perhaps the Widow Guzman might be concerned about the welfare of her sister?”
“None, Governor Otermin. After Maria knelt at my feet and pleaded with me to give her shelter, I never gave La Señora Guzman another thought.”
“So it would seem,” murmured the governor. “But it appears now that La Señora Guzman has entertained second thoughts. It puzzles me, Masferrer, how a stiff-necked ranchero like you, and I might add, like all the stiff-necked rancheros in this Godforsaken land, would not have considered the question of honor.”
“La Viuda Guzman has no honor.”
“Indeed she has.” said the governor. “Do not we all? Sometimes I think it is our Spanish curse. Of course she has honor,” continued Otermin. “I strongly suspect she was just toying with Maria. It is a regrettable habit she has. She is a whimsical woman. She came to me in tears, real tears, mind you, after Maria was discovered gone, to plead with me to do something about the situation.”
“I do not believe the widow’s tears,” said Diego.
“You must be more charitable, Diego. She has come to me to right things. It would be best for Maria to leave your household.”
“No!” shouted Diego. The governor was silent. Diego could not look at Maria. “That is, not unless Señorita Espinosa wishes to go.”
“Of late, I have been considering it,” Maria told the governor quietly.
“It seems that your sister wants you now,” replied Otermin.
“Maria!” Diego said. “How can you?”
She raised her eyes to his. “It would end a situation at Las Invernadas that can only grow more dreadful, Señor.”
Otermin waved to the scribe to stop writing. “I must say, Maria, you are telling me what I want to hear, but why do I feel so uncomfortable all of a sudden? Nonetheless, because you have not the protection of a husband, I think that you have no choice.”
The room was silent again. The scribe looked up from the paper on his lap, his eyes eager for more. He dipped the quill in the ink, ready. Diego walked to the window and stood there, looking into the courtyard, his hands behind his back.
“What if I marry her?” he asked.
Maria gripped the arms of the chair, wondering if she had heard him correctly. The scribe bent over his record, his smile broad. He could scarcely wait to leave the room and tell someone, anyone. The idea of Diego Masferrer marrying a penniless nobody would flame the fires of gossip long past the first frost.
The governor leaned forward as if he had been struck from behind. “Well, Señor,’’ he said, when he found his voice again. “I suppose you could do that.”
“Then I shall,” said Diego, turning around.
“But, Diego,” continued the governor, “do not be hasty! Have you considered? She is a pretty little thing—provided one is partial to freckles, of course—but she has no dowry, no family connections here, no ...” he paused, at a loss. “The people of Santa Fe will think you have been wandering around in the sun without your hat.”
“Of what possible concern is that to me?” Diego asked.
“None, obviously,” snapped the governor, his patience receding. “But what would your father have said?”
“He probably would have said ‘Congratulations, long life, and many children,’ ” replied Diego, “because you see, Excellency, the possibility lingers in the back of my mind that I am not really good enough for Maria. Perhaps she will make me better than I am.”
“Oh, Diego,” murmured Maria. She could not raise her eyes to his face.
The governor stood and walked to the window to stand close to Diego. “Now I am not a romantic man, Masferrer, but you say nothing of love.”
“I am a realist, too, Excellency,” said Diego. “I do not have the time to sit down with my feelings, to think of love. I know there is no survival in this brutal place unless one marries well.” His eyes softened again as he looked at Maria.
“Then why are you saying this now?” asked the governor.
Diego looked out the window again. “I do not know. It was just an idea. And not a bad one, for all that you think me crazy.” He turned suddenly. “But in the meantime, no matter what we decide, I will not cooperate with your warrant, I will not give up Maria.” He went to Mari
a and pulled her to her feet. “And now, good day to you, Excellency.”
Outside in the plaza Maria looked at Diego, then lowered her eyes. “Señor, what you said to the governor, it isn’t necessary. I know that you do not love me.” There, she had said it.
He stood still before her. “And is that so important?”
“Señor, twice in the last year, three times, I have not died when I was supposed to. I think I see life, my life, differently now. What remains of it must surely be a gift to me. Perhaps you think me foolish, or greedy, to want another gift as well, but I do want it. I even dare to hope for it.” She hesitated, then plunged on boldly. “And as you do not love me, let us not waste each other’s time. We can give each other nothing of what we require to survive. You need land and I need love.”
“That is true. But still ....”
“Señor, you have amply spelled out your requirements—your cattle, nails and fence posts,” she continued in a rush, embarrassed beyond endurance and entirely out of patience with this man that she loved.
Diego burst out laughing. “Cedar fence posts, Maria chiquita! Only the best!”
“Oh, will you not be serious?” she raged, stamping her foot.
Diego took her arm again and headed down a quiet side street. “Maria, this is becoming so tangled. Let us speak no more about it. Now, I think we should pay a call of courtesy on your sister.”
Maria hung back. “Must we?” It was one thing to be humiliated by her sister with no one else present. It would be quite another thing with Diego there.
“It will not be a pleasant interview,” Diego agreed. “But she cannot say such things about a Masferrer.”
As they approached the Guzman house, the Widow Guzman stepped from her courtyard into the street. She came toward Diego and Maria rapidly, the cross she wore about her neck swinging vigorously from side to side. Diego tightened his grip on Maria’s arm, forcing her to stand where she was.
Margarita scarcely glanced at her young sister. She faced Diego, who was slightly shorter than she, and stared down at him. “Señor, you are a scoundrel!”
Diego bowed and smiled, the coldness in his eyes matching Margarita’s. “I would say the same to you, Señora, if you were a man.”
“I wonder that your mother and sister would allow you to treat my poor sister in such a manner,” she continued, darting a fierce glance at Maria.
“I advise you not to speak of my women,” Diego hissed.
“I suppose we cannot expect much from a blind woman who floats on dreams, but I did think Erlinda Castellano was not so lost to virtue that she would allow you to bed with my own sister at Las Invernadas.”
“You have gone too far now,” whispered Diego in his deadly quiet voice.
Maria’s hands were clammy and cold, and her throat threatened to close off completely, but she was filled with her own fire. “Margarita, when you left me, I went to the only person in all of New Mexico who I knew would not cast me off! Did you really expect me, your sister, to throw myself on the mercy of this town? Do I not have honor, too?”
Margarita rounded on her young sister, grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her until Maria’s hair came loose from its pins and fell about her shoulders. With an oath, Diego wrenched Maria away from Margarita, who turned and raked her long fingernails down his face, drawing blood.
“Hechizera!" he muttered, wiping the blood off his cheek, his eyes blinking.
A crowd of residents who had heard the commotion and left their dinner tables was beginning to form. Others ran for the governor.
Margarita looked around her but did not stop. “I hope it was a warm bed, Maria!” she screamed.
Diego slapped Margarita, his gloved hand making a cruel noise on her face. “You go too far, you witch!” he roared. “Maria has been working for us as a servant!”
Margarita gasped as though she had been struck again. Her mouth opened and closed several times. She looked from Maria to Diego, and then back to her sister. “A servant! You, the daughter of hidalgos and conquistadores, scrubbing floors, washing walls! Ay de mi, the humiliation!” She dropped to her knees in the street, wailing and rocking from side to side. Maria knelt by her sister and tried to put her arms around her, but the Widow pulled away.
“I thought for a while that I would help you after all,” she shrieked, “but if you are so dead to your own position ...” She left her sentence unfinished, moaning and holding her head in her hands.
Maria got to her feet, tears filling her eyes. “Margarita, I had to eat, I had to survive. No one would help me except Diego Masferrer. Not even you, my sister.”
Margarita shook her head. “Better you had died in that Apache raid than to be found serving in the kitchen of a stranger.”
The crowd had swelled, but no one stepped closer, either from fear of Diego, who stood with his hand on his sword, or from fear of the Widow, who moaned and pulled at her hair.
Diego looked at the woman on the ground and whispered to Maria, who drew closer to him. “We should not have spoken of your servant duties. I think she might have tolerated fornication, but washing walls is out of the question.”
“Diego, be still!” cried Maria. “How can you jest at a time like this?”
He passed a hand over his face, pausing at the scratches around his eyes. “A thousand pardons, chiquita, but I sometimes have cause to marvel about the human mind and what it values.” He looked over his shoulder. “It is over now. The governor comes.”
The widow began to cry louder when she saw the symbol of Spanish authority shouldering his way through the crowd. She redoubled her efforts, moaning and sobbing and clutching at her hair. “Ay de mi! Pobre Viuda! Que miserable! Ay de mi!”
The governor, breathless from running, leaned forward to help her to her feet, but Margarita would not stand. Instead, she raised her eyes to Diego, who watched her with mixed anger and amusement on his face. She slowly extended a shaking arm and pointed her finger at him.
“That man struck me!” she screamed. “I have many witnesses!”
“Is this so, Señor Masferrer?” asked the governor.
“I was provoked beyond endurance,” Diego said, looking Otermin in the eye.
“Put him in irons!” Margarita sobbed. “Arrest him! He is a vicious man!”
Otermin turned to Diego. “What would you have me do?”
“Let us leave in peace.” The Widow wailed louder than ever. Diego raised his voice. “I have been insulted, my family has been insulted, and Maria has been greatly misjudged. All because she had the effrontery, the gall, to survive an Indian raid!” He paused, and even the Widow ceased her wailing. “There can be no justice here today, Governor.”
“There is always justice here, Diego,” the governor replied. “Someone needs to teach you rancheros that you cannot assault people with impunity. You cannot play with the law. You do not own this river kingdom!”
“Excellency,” began Diego in a weary voice, “I am accustomed to assume control over my own affairs. If I did not, if we did not, we would have been run over years ago by the Indians, for all the protection we have ever had from the Crown.”
Margarita gasped. “And now he adds treason to his crimes,” she cried. “How can you just stand there, Governor Otermin?”
“And let me add,” continued Diego relentlessly, “that I will always defend those weaker than I, and also my own people who look to me for protection. I can do no less. And now you must excuse us.”
He started to leave the circle of townspeople, which by now included most of the residents of Santa Fe. The Castellanos and Erlinda stood silently in the circle, Erlinda twisting her hands together, her face white.
The governor put a hand on Maria’s arm. “What say you, Maria?” he asked.
She looked at her sister, who was slowly getting to her feet. “I cannot stay here, Excellency,” she whispered, and he leaned closer to hear her. “I fear a terrible wrong has been done to me and to Señor Masferrer. ”
He turned to Diego. “You may go, Señor, but you must pledge to me that you will not leave this kingdom. And I would request you not visit Santa Fe again for awhile, on pain of jail.”
“You have my word,” said Diego, his voice low and dangerous. He bowed. “Again we kiss your hands, Governor Otermin,” he said and pulled Maria after him. Erlinda and the Castellanos followed.
“Oh, Diego,” said Erlinda. “How could you strike that woman?”
“Sister,” he began, biting off each word, “I was goaded beyond endurance!”
“Diego, it is so unlike you,” said Don Reynaldo.
Diego let go of Maria but he did not stop walking. “No, it is not so unlike me, Señor. I struck someone much dearer to me than the Widow Guzman not long ago. Someone much closer to my heart. Do not ascribe to me virtues I do not have. The thing is done. ”
“And so it is,” agreed Don Reynaldo. “I will send the servants to prepare your wagon. You should be on your way.”
Diego nodded. “Accept my apologies, Señor, for any embarrassment I have caused you. We will meet again, under better circumstances I hope.”
Don Reynaldo hesitated, then spoke. “As to Maria, you may leave her here with us, if you wish. Perhaps it would be best.”
Diego smiled bleakly and shook his head. “No, no. I could not. What none of you seem to understand is that Maria is my responsibility. She put herself under the protection of the Masferrers and I will not betray her, no matter what other virtues I lack.”
They left the Castellanos within the hour. Luz and Catarina would have protested the early leave-taking, but one look at Diego’s stark face silenced any objections. They sat still in the wagon, their hands folded quietly in their laps. Luz edged closer to Maria, who sat staring straight ahead.
Diego lifted Erlinda in, then put his hand on Maria’s cheek for a moment. “We will talk later, Maria, about the other matter. I know it must be discussed.”
