by Carla Kelly
“Mama is so worried, Diego mio,” Erlinda said.
“I will be in. Tell her all is well.”
Erlinda went back inside, and Maria followed. She was conscious again of her smoke-blackened face. She had lost a shoe in the acequia and her dress was in ruins, scorched, wet and muddy. She looked back at Luz and Catarina, who crowded close to Diego.
“We were so afraid, Diego,” said Catarina, plucking at his sleeve. “But Erlinda told us that all would be well. And it is, is it not?”
“Yes, of course, sister,” Diego replied, his eyes on Maria as she walked alone toward the kitchen.
Chapter 11
The Saint in the Wood
Maria woke in the morning to the smell of smoke hanging heavy in the room. Out of habit, she felt with her toe to see if the sword was there. It was not, and she sighed. Pues, bueno, she thought, curling her legs close to her body again and snuggling against Luz. She closed her eyes again, then opened them, determined this time not to oversleep. As the room lightened, she could see the smoke in the room. The air was stifling. She cleared her throat. It was sore from smoke.
She got out of bed and dressed quickly, pulling on her remaining dress that had not been ruined by the fire, wincing when the coarse material brushed against the burns on her arms. She ached from the labor of the night before, from the constant motion of bending and passing the buckets. Her hands were blistered and painful to touch.
The room had no mirror. None of them did. Erlinda said once that her father had not approved of mirror-gazing by his daughters, and La Señora had no need of them. Maria ran her hands over her face, feeling the small burned spots where cinders had nicked her last night. In sudden panic she felt her hair, but she could find no burned spots.
She brushed her hair, letting it fall around her shoulders, turning her head this way and that to watch the effect of her chestnut curls arranging themselves on her breast. She would love to wear her hair down again, pulled back slightly to show her ears, but Mama had never allowed her to show more than the tips of her ears after she became a young lady, and besides, she had no earrings to slip into her earlobes anymore. The solicitors had taken them all, even the small gold hoops she wore as they had spoken to her of chattels and goods and indebtedness and compensation.
But how pretty her hair would look pulled back with the pin that Papa had claimed was made from pearls found by Balboa himself. The pin was gone, too, lost in the Indian attack on the supply caravan.
Maria sighed. There was a soft knock at her door and, after making sure that all her buttons were done up the front, she opened it.
Diego stood there. “Buenos dias, chiquita,” he whispered.
Her hands went to her hair again. “But, Señor, I am not ....”
He took her hand and pulled her into the hall. His eyes were deep brown in the early morning dimness of the corridor.
“A woman’s crowning glory,” he murmured, his eyes on her hair. “At least, in your case.”
The burn on his face was darker still against his swarthiness. It looked hot to the touch. When he remained silent, looking at her, she spoke. “Yes? Is there something you need, Señor?”
He paused, as if to consider the question at length, looking away when an unruly blush rose to her face.
“Not really. But I do have a proposal to make.” He let go of her hand, and she looked at him. “It is a small thing, really, but something I have been meaning to do. Indeed, I promised Emiliano.”
She let out her breath. “And?” she prompted.
“I promised him I would take you to Tesuque. Would not today be a fine day?”
“But you have so much to do. Surely I could go alone.” She spoke quietly, her voice low, so as not to awaken the sleeping sisters.
“Maria, I will always have too much to do.” He took a deep breath and coughed. “But this place wearies me, and I would go with you.”
The place wearied him? His livestock, his buildings, his land wearied him? She did not believe him for a minute, but suspected he wanted to find out what was going on at Tesuque.
When she was silent, he continued. “Two of the horses have returned. I have set all my Indians to work on new wagons. Dios mio, how can we harvest without wagons! But never mind. I want to leave this place today, so I will take you to Emiliano.”
“I will go with you,” she said, “but first I have kitchen duties.”
“I have discovered something about duties,” he commented, running his hand over the back of his head. “They are always there when you return to them. No one runs off with them while you are gone.”
“Very well, Señor,” she said, and he laughed.
“Come, let us go, Maria chiquita. Everything will keep.”
She returned to her room and wound her hair in a hurried knot on the top of her head, sticking the chestnut mass here and there randomly with hairpins. She turned to slide her feet in her slippers, then remembered that one of them was still probably stuck to the mud in the bottom of the acequia. She sighed and left the room on silent bare feet.
Diego met her in the still-dark kitchen. He held something soft out to her. “Here,” he said, “try these on.” It was a pair of Indian moccasins, velvet to the touch. “They are Apache. We used to have an old Apache slave who made them for me when I was younger. I think they will fit you.’’
Maria sat on the bench and pulled on one of the moccasins. They were higher than Pueblo moccasins, reaching to her knees. Diego knelt in front of’ her.
“See? You lace them up like so. Very good for walking through brush. I will have our cobbler make you more shoes, but I have put every man on the wagons right now and cannot spare him.”
She pulled on the other moccasin and sat still as Diego laced it up, his fingers working quickly in the dim room. “It is hard to see in the darkness,” he said as he crossed the rawhide laces back and forth. “Someday I would like to sleep till after sunup.”
It was the closest thing to a complaint Maria had ever heard from him. “Diego, you are tired,” she murmured.
He looked up at her, smiling at her use of his name. “Not really. I will feel better after today.” He finished lacing and rocked back on his heels, squatting Indian-style in front of her. “I used to do things like this with Cristóbal. We would take a couple of tortillas and spend the day fishing at the river. Or making rabbit snares.”
Maria stood up, enjoying the feel of the soft leather on her legs. “Where is Cristóbal?” she asked quietly. “Was it he who brought the horses back?”
Diego shook his head. “I do not know where he is.” He turned to the storeroom off the kitchen. “But tell me now, where do my servants keep the cheese?”
He did not want to speak of his half-brother, so Maria did not press him. She went to the pantry and found a slab of cheese. Diego cut off two hunks with his dagger and wrapped them in coarse cloth. He took a handful of tortillas and stuck them in his shirt front.
Maria watched him. “I think you should leave a note, Señor. Erlinda will wonder where I am,” she said as she watched Diego wind his silk scarf around his hair and put on his flat Andalusian hat, drawing the cords up under his chin.
“Very well, chiquita. We cannot have her thinking that you became discouraged with the Masferrers and ran off to your sister’s mercy.” He went across the hall to the sala and returned with paper, pen and ink. He wrote quickly, propped the note against the large silver salt cellar that stood in the middle of the table, and returned the writing materials to the sala. When he came back, he looked closely at Maria. “Do you have a hat?”
She shook her head. “It cannot matter, really. I have so many freckles by now that I have given up worrying about my skin.”
He peered at her face in the rising light. “You have never been tempted to count them all? It would be nice sport some winter evening.”
“Señor,” she murmured, shy again. He laughed and took her arm, pulling her after him into the kitchen garden.
&nbs
p; He stopped suddenly, and she bumped into him. He pointed toward the mountains. “Look how beautiful the sun is, Maria. I never tire of my view.”
They crossed the footbridge. Diego walked over to the burned rubble of the wagon shed and stood looking down at the still-warm embers. He remained there a long time. Maria walked to him and touched his arm lightly. He looked at her, remembering where he was. They went to the stables. There were only two horses in the corral.
“Praise God that Tirant came back,” said Diego, leaning on the fence and watching his horse. “I will probably have to go to Santa Fe and barter for more horses.”
“But did not the governor tell you to stay away from Santa Fe?” Maria asked.
“Damn!” he exploded, striking the fence and causing Tirant to shy away. “I forgot.” He climbed the fence and sat on the top rail, looking at the empty stable. “Perhaps one of the other rancheros around Tesuque will do a little horse-trading. We should thank Our Father that the oxen were not lost, too.”
He sat in silence on the fence until his horse came back to him, nuzzling his shirt front. Diego took out the roll of tortillas, peeling one off and holding it out to Tirant. “That is one of yours, chiquita,” he teased Maria, putting the others back.
Maria smiled, leaning her arms on the railing. How cheerful he is, she thought, and he has nothing to be cheerful about.
“What are you so pleased about?” Diego asked, watching the smile playing about her lips.
“I was thinking. Remember the proverb—Fortune is like bread, sometimes the whole loaf, sometimes none?”
He mounted Tirant. “And looking around you, what would you say we have now?”
She thought a moment. “The whole loaf, Señor, the whole loaf.”
He reached out and touched her cheek. Then he rode Tirant into the stable, where he saddled the stallion and returned to the fence. “Here,” he commanded, holding out his gloved hand. “Climb to the top railing.”
She did as he ordered, careful to keep her dress tucked around her legs. He took her around the waist, pulling her into the saddle in front of him. They left the corral, Diego leaning over to open and close the gate. They started at a slow walk toward Tesuque. She could feel his warm breath on her ear. Suddenly, he blew on her neck.
“Maria, your hair tickles my nose.”
“You could have saddled the other horse,” she said sensibly.
“I did not say I was complaining,” he added, and blew on the fine tendrils that curled around her neck.
She laughed.
“You don’t do that very often,” Diego said.
“Little is funny, Señor, these days.”
“But today we have the whole loaf, eh?”
As they watched, the sun rose over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Maria shielded her eyes with her hand, and Diego tipped his hat forward. “We will be there soon.”
They rode into the quiet morning. The air was clean and the birds sang into the peaceful stillness. Diego hummed one of the Indian songs that he sang to his sisters. Maria leaned against him and settled her head in the hollow of his shoulder, feeling his song more than hearing it, for his voice was low. She remembered when they had ridden together away from the Apache massacre. How long ago that seemed, yet it was no more than six months. Now it was August. Time flowed through the days and nights like the river beside which they rode. She closed her eyes. “Where did you learn your songs?” she asked.
He shifted in the saddle. “From Cristóbal ’s mother. She used to sing to him all the time when he was small. And when she died, we learned from others.”
“Even Erlinda?”
“Certainly Erlinda. Although she would never admit it, I suppose. But I think that if she had babies of her own, she would sing the Pueblo songs, too. What will you sing to your small ones?”
She shrugged. “I learned the lullabies that everyone learns, but mostly no one sang in our house.”
“Ay, pobrecita,” he said, his lips close to her ear. “You may be the only person who ever came to our river kingdom for an education!”
“What have I learned?” she teased in turn. She knew she should sit straight, but Diego made a sturdy support.
He guided Tirant down into the river, reining in, and allowed the horse to drink. “You tell me what you have learned,” he said finally.
After they rode out of the water, Diego turned in the saddle and looked behind him. “How low the water is! Why does Our Father not hear our appeals for rain?”
“I have given up trying to fathom the ways of Our Lord,” Maria said quietly.
Tesuque lay red and solid in the sunlight. The sky was a breathtaking blue, and Maria delighted in the contrast of colors, even as she tried to overlook the brown grass and wilting cottonwoods. She smelled bread baking in the great ovens near the pueblo, and listened to the clack of looms as the men wove their beautiful blankets.
“Do you think they will ever change?” she asked.
“Never. Now and then they grow restless, but at heart they are good Indians who have always lived this way. I do not suppose a more peaceful tribe ever existed. Not like the Apaches.”
“And still ...” she began, thinking of Popeh, and the Indians dancing in the plaza.
“And still,” he echoed, and she knew she was right about the real reason for their visit. “Perhaps Erlinda is right when she says we Masferrers borrow tomorrow’s worries for today.”
Diego handed Maria down, then dismounted, tying his horse to a cottonwood tree. "And now let us find Emiliano.”
It was a simple matter to climb the ladder to the terrace above. As they stood in the doorway of the santero workshop, Emiliano turned to greet them. He was sitting cross-legged at the low table by the window where the light was best, putting the final touches on a small bulto of San José. He held it up to Diego.
“Your neighbor, the ranchero Alvaro Gutierrez, would have me create something to encourage the crops and the weather. Good day and God’s blessings on you, Señor, and on you, Maria. Have you come to be a saintmaker?”
She took the small statue that he still held in his outstretched hand. “I think so, Emiliano,” she said, turning the bulto over in her hands, admiring the staff of yucca blossoms that the saintmaker had carved with intricate detail. The arms of San José stood out stiffly from his wooden body. They were hinged at the shoulders by small wooden pegs. Maria moved the arms up and down. “As though he were blessing the fields,” she said, handing the bulto back to its creator.
“Señor Gutierrez was adamant in his specifications.” Emiliano set the figure down on his workbench. “This day, Maria, shall we see if you have the eye of an artist? And you stay, too, Señor. Perhaps we can talk. ”
“I will. Did you see our fire last night?”
“We all did. I must tell you, Señor, there were those who cheered, and then danced. Danced all night, in fact, so we have a sleeping pueblo this morning.”
Diego squatted on the hard-packed earth in front of the saintmaker. “What do you make of it, Emiliano, old friend of my father?”
“I cannot say, except that you are not as beloved as you think you are.”
“Go on, Emiliano,” said Diego quietly when the santero hesitated. “You know that I am fair with my Indians.”
“So there it is, Señor,” said the old man. “You have said it. You are fair, probably fairer than any other ranchero in this valley. You do not take the women, you do not abuse the men, the children do not work long hours for you in the hot sun. Your exchange of goods for services is fair. But you have said it yourself—my Indians. You say it all the time. So do the others. But we are not your Indians.”
Maria had never heard an Indian speak this way to Diego Masferrer.
He glanced at her, then directed his attention to Emiliano again. “What are you saying, Old One? If you are not mine, whose Indians are you? Tell me that? I have a paper from King Felipe himself to my grandfather, saying that whatever he found here would be his. For
seventy years it has been so. For seventy years we have owned and protected you. ”
“It was never so!” said Emiliano forcefully. “We were not your king’s to give away. Can you own another, Señor?”
“We have these rights. From the king of Spain himself.”
“Tell that to Cristóbal.”
Diego took Emiliano by the arm. “Have you seen him?”
“I saw him. He left late last night for Taos. I know nothing more.”
“Or you will not tell me more, Emiliano? But remember, the king of Spain has given us rights over you in this land.”
The old man looked around him pointedly. “Show me where this king of Spain is. I cannot see him.”
Diego was silent. He let go of the saintmaker. Emiliano straightened his cotton tunic. “I can truly say no more, except this one thing, Diego Masferrer. Did not one of you ever consider that what is so right for you might not be the wishes of others?”
He turned back to his San José to apply careful brushstrokes to the face. He held the saint up to Maria, who smiled and nodded, captured by the painted gleam of kindness in the saint’s eyes. Emiliano put down the saint and stood up.
“Come, my children. I grow older instead of younger, despite my wishes to the contrary. With this in mind—because unlike you rancheros, we Indians do not live forever—perhaps we should educate this small saintmaker, if that is what she is.”
He took hold of Maria’s hands, turning them over until they were palm up within his own. He traced the blisters with his finger and looked at her, a question in his eyes.
“From the fire, Old One,” she explained.
“Do you fight Diego Masferrer’s battles with him?” he murmured.
“She does not listen to me,” said Diego.
“Independence of mind, Maria, is a valuable gift in a saintmaker. But can you pick the saint out of the tree stump? That is what we shall see. Come.”
Emiliano rummaged in the dark corner next to the workbench where he kept his pile of hides. He tossed out two shoulder bags and picked up a handful of smaller sacks. Diego and Maria each took a bag and followed the santero down into the plaza, now sun-drenched and warming.
