by Carla Kelly
Diego bent over the body, toeing it with his moccasin. He put his foot on the Indian’s chest and tugged at the knife, working it this way and that to pull it out. Then he sat back on his heels and looked at the Indian. Slowly he twined his fingers in the Indian’s loose-flowing hair and raised the head, bringing his knife close to the scalp.
Maria grasped Diego’s shoulder, her fingers digging into his flesh. “Don’t do it.”
“Tell me why not,” he said, his voice flat, devoid of feeling.
“For me. And for your eternal soul.”
He sat there, squatting on his haunches, for a full minute before he let the Indian go. The head lolled to one side and the blood spattered on the rocks at their feet.
Diego wiped his hands on his doublet, climbed the bank and picked up the bow. Looking back at Maria he said, “Get his arrows.”
Without a word, she turned the Indian on his side and pulled off the quiver. Dangling from his loincloth was a string of scalps—white hair, blond hair, gray hair, black hair curly and damp like Diego’s, chestnut hair like her own. “Mother of God,” she whispered, unable to tear her eyes from the bloody offerings that hung limp from the dead man’s waist. She touched one of the scalps, running her finger down the length of a blond tress so like Erlinda’s, then got to her feet, swaying a little as her head cleared. She wiped her hands on her soaking dress and beckoned to the girls. They ran to her and the three of them joined Diego.
She held out the quiver of arrows to him, but he shook his head. “You put it on and stay close to me. If I have that on my back, I can’t reach my arm around to get an arrow. ”
Her eyes went to his wounded arm. It was bleeding again, the blood and gypsum flowing steadily down the tattered remnants of his shirt.
“I must have opened it when I threw the knife,” he said. “You keep the arrows, querida.” He sat down with them, his face white. “We dare not stay here. Someone is sure to find that Indian. And we dare not go much farther. Surely he was not alone.” He was talking to himself.
“We go on,” Maria said. “Perhaps we can hide in the Gutierrez hacienda.”
He was silent a moment, leaning his head against the tree and gazing up at the stars that still glimmered in the lightening sky. “Of course you are right,” he murmured, covering her hand with his own. “But where do we get the strength?”
“From each other,” she replied, her eyes on his face. “Diego, I love you.”
“You already told me.” He kissed her fingers, closing his eyes as she caressed his cheek.
“And so I tell you again,” she said. She felt the tears on his cheek and leaned closer to him, kissing his face. “Come, mi corazon,” she said, “let us be off before the sun rises.”
The four of them stood up, Maria straightening her dress and smoothing it down with that decisive, womanly gesture that never failed to move Diego.
They walked through the narrow stand of trees, skirting the open fields that surrounded the Gutierrez hacienda. Maria could see the house now. It appeared, like Las Invernadas, to have been partially burned. They followed the general course of the river through the trees until they came to an irrigation ditch. Diego lifted Luz and Catarina into the dry acequia and Maria followed.
“Now, let us crawl along the ditch to the cornfield,” Diego said. “Maria, you go first. I will be last.”
Slowly they covered the distance from the river to the cornfield, working their way carefully along the ditch. Their damp clothing was soon covered with dust. Luz sneezed several times and Maria’s heart pounded every time the sound exploded in the air. But all else was silence around them. Even the birds and crickets were still, so quiet was the dawn.
They crawled into the cornfield, keeping low until they were surrounded by the waving cornstalks that caught the gentle breeze of the coming morning. Maria sat on the ground, rubbing her stiff knees. Diego sat next to her, his face strained and white. The blood from his wound had melted the gypsum cast and the white and red streaks ran off his fingertips. “I am leaving a trail a blind man could follow,” he muttered.
“Well, you lost my petticoat, and I have sacrificed most of my dress,” said Maria, beginning to undo the buttons, “so you might as well take the rest. Wasn’t I wearing my chemise when we first met?” she said, pulling the dress off over her head. She wound the material around his arm as tight as she dared, tying the whole thing in place with the sleeves. The morning breeze was cold on her bare arms and she shivered as she worked.
Diego watched her, a smile playing around his white lips. “You fill that out better than you did the first time,” he said.
“It must be all the good food I have enjoyed lately,” she retorted. “Keep your hands to yourself! What must your sisters think?”
“They’re both asleep.”
“No excuse. There now.”
He touched his arm lightly. “That should at least get us to the hacienda. Wake up, my sisters—despiertan, mis bienes, despiertan.”
She smiled. “You are so poetic.”
“But of course. Someday I will lie with my head in your lap and quote poetry by the bucketful, hour after hour.”
She sighed, and he was silent. The girls were awake now. Luz stared at Maria. “Maria, you are practically naked! Whatever would Erlinda say?”
“She would be pleased that I am so resourceful, child. Now hush. We have to leave.”
They crossed the cornfield, going silently down the rows, careful not to disturb the waving corn. Diego paused once and stripped down an unripened ear, holding it out to Maria.
“Look at that, will you? He could have bigger corn if he would weed out more of the suckers.”
Maria put her arm around him. “Diego, don’t be a farmer now.”
When they reached the last row before the hacienda, Diego paused. “Let us wait here until we are sure that no one is about.” They sat down and the girls promptly fell asleep again, leaning against each other. “Put your head in my lap and sleep, Maria,” said Diego, tugging her down. “I will watch.” He put his hand on her bare arm and rubbed it. “You’re so cold, Maria. Perhaps there is some clothing in the hacienda.”
Diego’s hand was warm on her shoulder. “Dare we to move now?” she whispered sometime later.
“I think we had better. I have seen no movement anywhere.”
Luz and Catarina came awake as soon as she touched them, their eyes wide, questioning. Maria put a finger to her lips.
Diego rose. “From here on there is no cover. We must walk forward like Masferrers. Come.”
Single-file, they followed Diego from the cornfield, looking straight ahead at the Gutierrez hacienda. Maria prodded the girls in front of her to keep up with Diego, who was taking swift strides. Every moment she expected an arrow between her shoulder blades. The estancia was wrapped in silence.
They reached the kitchen gardens of the hacienda, so like the gardens at Las Invernadas. Diego sat his sisters down next to the beehive ovens, out of sight of anyone crossing the fields, admonishing them to stay. He held out his hand to Maria and she took it, clutching it so tightly that he looked back at her in surprise. “Just stay close,” was all he said.
The kitchen door sagged inward on broken hinges. The kitchen was dark and silent and smelled of day-old death. Maria shuddered and closed her eyes, allowing Diego to tug her along. But then she opened her eyes, more fearful of stumbling over a corpse.
The bodies were sprawled across the long kitchen table. Diego looked hard at the corpses of his neighbors, bloated and fly-covered. “They were caught at breakfast, Maria. Madre de Dios.”
A woman’s body stretched across the doorway into the main hall. Diego knelt and pulled the woman’s dress gently around her ankles again. “Angelica, prim and proper,” he whispered, passing his hand in front of his face. Maria turned away. “Such animals, Maria,” he murmured, and took her hand again.
They entered the hall, soaked with blood and overpowering with the odor of decay. Dieg
o gagged and retched, and Maria put her hand to her face. It was no use. Even her fingers stank of death. The rest of the large Gutierrez family was lying in the hall, caught in various poses of death. All the women had been raped and scalped, all the men mutilated.
Diego stopped by one body, running his hand over the man’s swelling chest. “Luisito, Luisito,” he whispered, and looked at Maria. “Do you remember him, querida mia? He fetched your shoes from the grove when you wouldn’t go back there.”
She pulled Diego to his feet. “Don’t do this to yourself,” she said, her voice a low murmur, scarcely heard over the flies. Diego resumed his journey of remembrance down the hall, pausing only to cover the bodies of the women. He led her to the chapel.
As at Las Invernadas, the room had been desecrated, the chalice overflowing with urine, the walls smeared with body wastes. All of the plaster Spanish saints had been hacked to pieces like the people lying dead in the hall. Diego looked around him. “The hatred, Maria. The hatred.”
She put her arm around him, and they stood together in the middle of the ruin. In her mind she could see Cristóbal walking away from her, through the cottonwoods, when she had asked him why he could not believe as she did. We never knew them, she thought.
“This will have to do,” Diego finally said. “I do not think the Indians will come back to the Gutierrez hacienda.” He went to the altar and emptied the chalice behind it. “If we stack the benches against the door, the only entrance is that small window that opens onto the patio.”
They pushed the benches against the door and let themselves out the window into the patio, crossing back to the hallway of death. Diego hurried along the blighted passageway, Maria following. She kept her eyes straight ahead, looking at the curls in Diego’s black hair, telling herself over and over how much she loved him, trying to keep her mind off the death all around her.
They both took a deep breath in the garden. Luz and Catarina were still hunkered down behind the ovens. Diego knelt by them. “We are going into the Gutierrez hacienda,” he said, his hand on Catarina’s hair.
“But won’t Señor Gutierrez mind?” she asked. “And did you tell him about the honeycomb?”
“No, no. He won’t mind. He would be glad we have chosen his place, I think. But listen to me, sisters. I want you to close your eyes before we leave the garden and not open them until I tell you. Will you do as I say? Will you?” He was shaking Luz. She nodded, her eyes filled with an exhausted fright that went to Maria’s heart.
Maria put her hands on Diego’s head as he knelt by the ovens and pulled him back against her. He released Luz, passing a hand in front of his eyes. “I am sorry,” he said with great weariness. “These are hard times.”
The girls got to their feet. “Wait, Diego,” Maria said, looking at the ovens. “If the Gutierrez family was at table, there may have been bread baking in the ovens. We always had our bread baking before breakfast.”
Diego opened the oven nearest him, stuck his hand in and pulled out two loaves of bread. The crusts were hard and black, but it was bread. Maria opened the other oven door. The bread inside was also burned black, but her mouth watered as she pulled out the charred loaves.
“Maria, you amaze me,” Diego said. “I never would have thought of it.”
“Of course not. You are a man,” she replied. “Here now, stuff this down the front of your shirt,” she said, handing him the loaves. “If I put them down my chemise, they will fall through.”
He smiled and winked at her and she blushed. He took the bread, put it carefully in his shirt, and handed the other loaves to his sisters. “You carry these. Now remember what I said about keeping your eyes closed, my sisters. I have never been more serious.”
Maria picked up Luz. “Now turn your face into my neck,” she ordered, “and close your eyes.”
“Is this a game?” Luz asked.
“Yes, querida, a game. Now you must follow the rules. Like you did at the acequia when you were so brave.”
With Diego in the lead, they entered the kitchen again. Maria clutched Luz tight against her, pushing her face farther into her hair. Diego walked swiftly down the hall, stumbling once over a body and nearly dropping Catarina. When she raised her head, he pushed her back against his shoulder.
Maria dogged his footsteps, covering Luz’s eyes and nose with her free hand. Luz was crying soundlessly, her tears soaking into Maria’s chemise, her shoulders shaking. Maria clung to her and stared straight ahead at Diego’s back, noting how his blood had soaked through everything he wore until he was rust-colored.
Then they were in the Gutierrez chapel, staring at the destruction around them. “Did our chapel look like this, Diego?” Catarina asked in disbelief.
“Yes, it did, my sister.” He sat down heavily next to Maria, weariness written on his features. Maria reached out to him, and he took her hand. “Take the bread out of my shirt. Feed the girls.” He let go of her hand and slid to the floor. With a few swipes he brushed aside the plaster shards from a ruined saint and laid his head down on the earthen floor. He was asleep before Maria had time to help him.
She knelt by Diego and pulled the bread from his shirt, pausing to put her hand on his heart. The rhythm was slow and regular, and she closed her eyes in relief. He seemed cooler, too, as if the fever was passing.
She stood up, brushing off her dress. “Come, girls, let us eat.” Maria held out the blackened bread. “Bless us, Lord, and these Thy gifts,” Maria murmured, making the sign of the cross over the black loaves. She tried to tear the bread into sections, but the crust was so tough and charred that it would not break. She looked at Diego, but he was lying on his knife, and she did not want to disturb him. Instead, she took the bread to the ruined altar and struck the loaf against the sharp corner.
The bread opened to reveal still-doughy centers. With no one alive to tend the ovens, the hot fires had gone out before the centers were cooked.
They ate silently, scooping out the uncooked dough, saving the hard shell for the last. Maria didn’t think the girls would eat the crust, but they broke it into smaller pieces and sucked on them until they were soft enough to swallow.
When they finished, Catarina eyed the remaining loaves. Maria shook her head. “Let us save those for Diego.”
Catarina nodded, even as her eyes lingered on the bread and she wiped her mouth with her nightgown sleeve. Maria put the remaining bread on the ground next to Diego, and with her hands swept a wide area by him clear of debris.
“Lie down now, my sisters,” she said. “It will be a shorter day if you sleep.”
Luz and Catarina curled up close to Diego. Luz pillowed her head on her arm, then looked at Maria sitting by them on the bench. “Do you have a story?” she asked.
“But please, not about El Cid,” begged Catarina.
“What? Have you had enough adventure?” Maria asked, sitting on the floor by Diego’s head. “Ay, well, let us think.” Leaning back against the bench, she closed her eyes and put her hand lightly on Diego’s hair. He stirred but did not waken. “What about the little picaro and the blind man?” she asked, then said, “No, no,” hastily as she saw again the blind eyes of La Señora. When there was no comment from the sisters, she opened her eyes. Luz and Catarina were already asleep.
Maria sat on the floor of the Gutierrez chapel and looked around her. Daylight was creeping into the room. Everywhere she looked was ruin, unsoftened now by the gloom of early dawn. She thought of the Masferrer chapel and remembered the evening prayers, Diego leading them. How proud we all were, she thought, and see where it has led us.
Her fingers were still in Diego’s hair. Absently she wound his black curls around her fingers. His hair was so black that it was almost blue in the morning light that filtered in through the small window. He stirred in his sleep and frowned. Maria saw his eyes moving behind his closed lids. And now he dreams, she thought, running her hand lightly over his eyes, covering them. When he was still again, she got up quietly and climb
ed out the patio window.
She stood on the patio for many minutes, trying to summon the courage to enter the hall of death again. The patio’s small tiled fountain no longer ran, but a pool of water had collected in the blue basin. She washed her hands and face and drank deeply. After she smoothed down her chemise she walked into the hallway.
Flies buzzed and hummed around the festering bodies. The smell was so overwhelming that she turned back to the patio until her stomach was calm. Then she entered the hall again, crossing it quickly into one of the rooms where the door had been battered and smashed inward.
It was a family bedroom, stark in its simplicity like the rooms at Las Invernadas. The bedding was covered with blood and ripped to shreds, the altar splintered to kindling. It was the same in the next room she entered, and the next. The devastation was total. The Indians had left nothing in any of the rooms that could ever be used again by another, carting off whatever they coveted, destroying the rest.
The fury of madmen was everywhere as she wandered from room to room. The horrors of the past week had reached such a proportion that they were almost meaningless to her. Her fellow Spaniards lying like ruined dolls were not people anymore, but objects, not unlike the saints pulverized to dust in the chapel. It was all the same. Maria shuddered at her own callousness, and at the same time was grateful for it.
She finally came to a small bedroom at the back of the hacienda. It contained no dead body, but had been stripped and desecrated like the other rooms. With one difference. The bedding had been ripped, but not carried away or otherwise destroyed. They must have begun to tire, she thought to herself, or perhaps they were bored.
She pulled the torn sheet off the bed, folding it neatly into a small square. The disarray around her compelled her to fold the cloth carefully, precisely. The feather pillow was still intact, so she picked it up, putting her face to it for a moment.
Something about the room told her that it was a woman’s place. She knelt by the bed and felt under it, smiling as her hand came in contact with a small basket. She pulled it out and looked inside, gasping with pleasure. It was a sewing basket, with needle, thread, and thimble. Erlinda always kept such a basket near her for late night mending.
