Louisiana History Collection - Part 2

by Jennifer Blake

  Isabel choked on her soup. Baltasar thumped her on the back, but she thrust her bowl into his rough hands and jumped to her feet. Her eyes filled with hurt tears, she whirled from them all to plunge behind the curtain of one of the alcoves.

  The men looked at one another, then away again. Refugio, for all the attention he paid, might not have noticed. He ladled soup into a bowl for himself with apparent unconcern. Still, as a stifled sob was heard, he checked. The knuckles of his hand tightened to whiteness, then relaxed once more. Face impassive, he finished filling his bowl and sat down to eat.

  Pilars' appetite had fled. She swallowed a few mouthfuls of the savory concoction in her bowl, but used the piece of earthenware mainly to warm her hands. She was still shaken now and then by a shiver of combined chill and tension, but suppressed each one with valiant effort. Rainwater oozed slowly from the hem of her skirt, soaking into the earthen floor around her feet.

  She felt Refugio's gaze on her from time to time but refused to look at him, staring instead either into her soup or else at the pulsing red heart of the fire. Her nerves leaped when he got suddenly to his feet, but he only swung away and disappeared into the alcove on the opposite side of the fireplace from the one where Isabel had disappeared. He returned a moment later, however, and in his hand was a man's dressing gown of quilted velvet.

  “Here,” he said abruptly, holding it out to her. “Take off your wet things and put this on.”

  She looked at the dressing gown in his hand, then slowly lifted her gaze to his face.

  His expression did not alter, and yet soft weariness crept into his voice. “Not publicly, unless that's your whim.”

  “No,” she said, her voice husky. “I . . . thank you.”

  “We'll leave you while you change.” He sent a look toward his men that brought them hastily to their feet.

  “There's no need; I can go in there.” She gestured toward the alcove he had just left.

  “You'll find it warmer before the fire. But I make you free of the bed you'll find behind the curtain. I'll have no need of it, since it will be late when we return.”

  Pilar stared at him, heeding the unspoken reassurance he was extending even as he gave her other news. Finally, she said, “I thought you were going to rest.”

  “I have rested. We have rested.”

  “But surely—”

  “Don Esteban's recovery interests me greatly. Don't fret. I'll leave Baltasar to watch over you. And if you are disturbed by my return, I will forfeit the silver.”

  Did he mean that he intended to disturb her so little he had no fear of having to give up his hard-won payment? Or was it that, if he decided to join her in his bed later, he would renounce his claim to the contents of the chest in return for her favors? By the time she had, with great irritability for the effort, concluded he meant the first, he was gone.

  Baltasar left the hut with the others, muttering something about checking outside. Pilar waited until the sound of hoofbeats had died away, then got stiffly to her feet. The cold, combined with her tense, overstrained muscles, made movement an effort as she struggled out of her damp clothes. She hung her things on the drying pegs then picked up the dressing gown. The velvet was of fine quality in a rich maroon worked around the lapels with gold thread. It was hardly worn at all, as if it had been kept as a memento of another, better time, perhaps when Refugio's father had been alive. It smelled faintly of the tobacco leaves used to preserve it from moths, with also a whiff of chocolate, as if it had once been favored breakfast attire.

  It was soft and warm against her skin. The sleeves were far too long, and the hem dragged the floor; still, its enveloping folds carried an odd sense of security. It was only as she wrapped the velvet around her, hugging it close, that she realized how cold she was, both on the surface and deep inside.

  There was a movement of the curtain across the other alcove. Isabel pushed it aside and stepped into the room. She hesitated as her gaze fell on Pilar in her enveloping dressing gown, and a spasm of grieved recognition crossed her features. A moment later she dropped the alcove curtain behind her and came forward.

  “Have they all gone?”

  “All except Baltasar,” Pilar answered the other girl, though she was certain Isabel could not have helped hearing every word that had been spoken in the room.

  “I wish they had stayed. I don't like it.”

  “El Leon must know what he is doing.”

  She gave a slow nod. “He's always on his guard, which is why he is still alive. But I've never seen him quite so — so distant and hard.” The other girl gave a shiver. Her face was puffy and her eyes red from weeping. There was something forlorn about her, like a child scolded unfairly.

  “He is rather formidable.”

  Isabel's lips tightened. “Not always, not with me. He's a man of deep feelings, deeper than most. He receives the pain of others and makes it his. It isn't good for him to do this, but he knows no other way. Sometimes to protect himself he pretends to be unaffected, but it isn't so. It's never so.”

  “It seems you know him well.” It was a leading statement, Pilar knew, but it stemmed from self-protection rather than curiosity. The more she knew of the man who held her, the better.

  “I know him,” the other girl said with a touch of pride. “He is the son of a hidalgo, a man who owned the most famous finca in Andalusia, one dedicated to raising the brave bulls of the arena. Refugio used to play at being a matador, a game for which his father punished him, since it was not only dangerous, it taught the bulls more than they should know about the bull ring. Refugio came to watch me once, when I danced the flamenco with the Gypsies of Seville. He sang a serenade for me and gave me a rose with a pearl inside. Later, years later, he killed a man for me, a man who beat me and sold my body on street corners. For a short time I was El Leon's woman and slept in his bed, though now, I belong to Baltasar.”

  The simplicity of the confession robbed it of offense and even of most of its horror. Before she could stop herself, Pilar said, “You love El Leon.”

  “How could I not?” the other girl said, her smile soft. “But I wish I had not told him. He put me from him then, said he had made a mistake. Refugio doesn't want women to love him. He avoids it when possible, for he cannot, in honor, offer love in return.”

  “Because he has nothing to give them except — this?” Pilar gestured at the rough room around her.

  “So he says. But I think he has such love hidden deep inside him that the woman who can release it will hold his soul in her hands. He fears this as a weakness, and so allows only women whom he cannot possibly love near him, those who will not be hurt by the lack.”

  “Except for you,” Pilar said.

  The other girl lowered her lashes, looking at the floor. “It's what he meant by a mistake. I needed someone so badly, and he could not refuse me without causing more pain than he thought I could bear. I knew that, so the fault was also mine.”

  Guilt for drawing the other girl out when she had been so upset crowded in upon Pilar. She said, “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry.”

  “Don't be sorry. I miss having another woman here in the hills. Baltasar is kind beyond words, and he listens when I talk, but he doesn't know how to ask the little questions that go to the heart of things the way women do. As for the others . . .” Isabel shrugged.

  “Have you all been together long?”

  “All? There are many more beside Baltasar and Enrique and Charro who ride with Refugio in his band. These three are only the ones he trusts most, his compadres who sometimes pass his orders to the others. But yes, it's been more than two years that we've all been together.”

  Isabel moved to swing the still simmering soup caldron from over the fire, then added a chunk of wood. As the flames leaped up again, Pilar settled herself onto the chair Refugio had deserted. It seemed unkind to get up and leave the girl after what she had just; said. In any case, Pilar was not sleepy.

  “These others you spoke of, they
don't stay here?”

  Isabel smiled. “No, no, there would be no room. There are other places for them, some in the mountains, some in the towns.”

  “I hadn't realized there were so many.”

  “But haven't you heard the songs, the legends?” Isabel asked it with a puzzled frown between her brows.

  “I thought — I suppose I thought they were just tales somebody made up.”

  Even in the convent Pilar had heard the songs that were sung about the way EL Leon had united the hill bandits, the petty thieves and crooks and those who had run afoul of the law through no fault of their own, how he had forged them into a force that could strike fear into the hearts of the venal and corrupt. It was said he barred those who had committed murders or rapes, or who had harmed children or used violence to take what was not theirs. But for those caught between starving and stealing, those accused unjustly or punished without cause, he had provided refuge and leadership and, sometimes, retribution.

  “Enrique wrote some of the songs, yes, but they would not be sung in the taverns and whispered in the churches if they weren't true.”

  “The smaller man?”

  “The one with the narrow mustache. How proud he is of it, that mustache, and how vain of its effect on women! But he is so droll that he makes me laugh. He's Refugio's friend because he makes him laugh also, and because they both have a passion for words, one to write, the other to say.”

  “It's hard to think that Enrique's a criminal.”

  “But he isn't!” Isabel said indignantly.

  “But — why else is he here?”

  “Enrique was with a traveling fair. He was part of a team of tumblers and also sometimes pretended to be a Gypsy in order to tell fortunes. It was a way, you understand, to hold the hands of the ladies. But he told the wrong fortune to the wrong lady. He said she would be robbed and her husband killed. The lady told everyone what the Gypsy had said. Then, when that very thing came to pass, she wept and lamented until everyone thought the Gypsy had foretold only what he meant to do. Enrique had to flee for his life. What Enrique didn't know was that the lady had a lover and wanted to be a widow.”

  “And Baltasar, is he also innocent?”

  Isabel pursed her lips. “Not exactly. He was once a sailor on a treasure ship running between Cartagena and Spain. The ship's captain was a man who enjoyed watching other men flogged. Baltasar caused a mutiny, which was bad enough, but he also took a large portion of the king's gold with him when he left the ship. He lost it in a pirate's den in the Caribbean and found his way back to Spain, but the price on his head is high.”

  “I would imagine it might be.”

  “You want to know about Charro, too? His name is really Miguel, Miguel Huerta y Cisneros, but he talks so much about the charros, the riders who herd the cattle on his father's estancia in the Tejas country of New Spain, that everyone calls him by that name. He was sent here to Old Spain by his father for education and Polish, and to end an unsuitable attachment to an Indian girl. He only found trouble.”

  “Naturally,” Pilar said.

  Isabel smiled her agreement. “Poor Charro had the misfortune to attract the attention of a countess who liked unusual young men. Her husband found out and challenged Charro to a duel. Charro should have allowed himself to be sliced here and there to satisfy the man's honor, but was too new to the game to follow the code. He killed the husband. The countess, not to mention the count's relatives, was not pleased; someone sent an assassin. Charro was nearly killed, and would have been if Refugio had not been there to prevent it. By the time Charro's wounds healed, he decided he could learn more with Refugio than at the university, and be safer than in Seville's society.”

  “Did Charro perhaps know Vicente at the university?”

  “I don't think so, though Refugio had been to see “Vicente the night he fought off Charro's attacker. He keeps close watch over his brother. Vicente is studying for the priesthood. I think Refugio feels it may be an atonement.”

  “Vicente regrets his brother's way of life so much?”

  Isabel shook her head, her green gaze troubled. “It's more that he worries about him, and would join him if Refugio would permit it. Since he won't, it's as if Vicente would strike a bargain with God, would offer his life to the church in return for his brother's safety.”

  “Some would find that admirable,” Pilar suggested.

  “It troubles Refugio that Vicente might be sacrificing himself for his, Refugio's, sins. Refugio prefers to make his own atonements.”

  “By sacrificing himself, you mean?”

  “Not at all! He is not so — so—”

  “So mystic?” Pilar supplied the word with certainty though she made it sound like a question.

  Isabel nodded. “As you say. Refugio atones every day by the good deeds he does for others — the poor, the sick and hungry, and those who have no one else, no other way, to right the wrongs done to them.”

  “He is, in fact, a paragon.” The other girl was obviously besotted with the brigand leader still, even if he had cast her off.

  “Yes,” Isabel said simply.

  There seemed nothing to say to that. Outside, the wind moaned around the eaves of the cabin and rain spattered against the door. Pilar thought of Refugio and the others riding through the wet darkness once more after their long hours in the saddle during the day, and knew an unwilling sympathy. The life of a brigand, it seemed, was not an easy one. Baltasar was also out there somewhere, making sure they were all safe. He should be coming back inside soon. She would rather not have to sit and make awkward conversation with him also. Anyway, she was finally beginning to feel warm again, and with that returning warmth she could feel the slow creep of exhaustion.

  She feigned a yawn that turned, suddenly, into the real thing. Smothering it with her fingers, she said, “I think maybe I should find that bed someone mentioned.”

  Isabel gave a slow assent. “You don't have to worry. Even if Refugio returns, he will take a blanket by the fire with the others.”

  “So he gave me to understand.” Pilar's words were dry.

  “Oh, Refugio says a great many things, mainly to see how people will take them, to see what they are made of; he doesn't mean half of it.”

  “It's the half he does mean that worries me,” Pilar said.

  “What?”

  Pilar only smiled with a shake of her head, as if she had been making a poor joke. Struggling to her feet, stretching cramped, sore muscles, she said good night.

  The bed inside the alcove was neat and clean and monk-like in its simplicity. It was also unexpectedly comfortable, with its horse-hair mattress covered by linen sheets which were worn to silken softness and a coverlet of sheepskins sewn together with leather thongs. Pilar lay for long moments listening to the rain pattering on the low roof and watching the flickering of the firelight coming through the thin curtain as it played on the ceiling.

  She thought of her mother lying alone night after night, accepting the life of an imprisoned invalid, slowly dying. She wondered what Don Esteban had told his wife about her daughter's absence, what excuse he had given. Pilar doubted it was the truth. That her mother might have felt herself neglected, deserted in her last days, filled Pilar with such helpless frustration, such renewed pain and grief, that she could not contain the slow seep of tears from the corners of her eyes.

  All her mother's dreams of court life had come to nothing. What a shock it must have been when she realized her husband meant to deprive her of that boon he sought so eagerly for himself with her money. How horrified she must have been when she recognized the nature of the man she had married. Had she guessed she was being poisoned? Had she tried at all to escape? Had she clung desperately to the hope that her husband was not evil, or had she lain hour after hour, lost in the apathy of despair, wondering how soon death would come?

  Don Esteban had ordered Pilar's death. He had screamed out for his men to kill her. If ever she had entertained the least doubt of
his guilt in the death of her mother, she had none now. But she had not been killed. It was a fact Don Esteban would learn to regret. She, Pilar Sandoval y Serna, would see to that personally.

  She wiped at the tear tracks on her cheeks, scrubbing their wetness into her hair, swallowing their saltiness as she fought with heaving chest for the control on which she so prided herself. She owed her life to Refugio de Carranza. He was an infuriating man, high-handed and devious and confusing in his sudden shifts between hostility and concern, threats and magnanimity; still, she must not forget that debt. She had not thanked him properly, an error that should be remedied.

  She thought of El Leon lying where she lay now, his long form filling the narrow bed. There was an uncomfortable intimacy in the idea, one she felt in her pores. She tried to decide what she would do if he should return and sweep the curtain aside to reclaim his sleeping place. She would protect herself, of course, but how? Before she could settle the question, her eyes began to burn. She closed them for an instant, just to soothe them.

  It was sometime later that a soft, rustling sound penetrated the haze of sleep. She shifted in the bed, aware of the disturbance, yet too deep in layered darkness to respond further. Warm comfort surrounded her. She was safe. She sighed and slept on.

  4

  SHE CAME AWAKE with every sense tingling in alertness. Her eyelids sprang open. The light in the room was gray and dim. In it she saw the matching gray gleam of Refugio's eyes as he lay propped on one elbow, staring down at her. There was appreciation in his gaze and a faint, bemused smile on his firm lips.

  “Good morning,” he said, the words quiet, yet insouciant. “I took a rain bath to remove the sheep taint. You can now have no reason for complaint.”