So it was that I came into city streets with a mingling of homecoming, anticipation—and a curious apprehension. I supposed I could thank Sylvia Stewart for the latter, and I must get over it as quickly as I could.
We left the wide road as the streets narrowed and twisted. The buildings were the color of adobe, whether real or simulated, so there was again that glow of dull earth color drowsing in the sun. In the plaza that was the heart of the town the green of trees relieved the eye, and as we circled the central square, Sylvia pointed out the side street down which CORDOVA was located. Then she drove out of the plaza and past the Cathedral of St. Francis—that sandstone building with the twin towers that has the look of France about it. I knew of Archbishop Lamy who had erected it, and about whom Willa Cather had written in Death Comes for the Archbishop.
“My bookshop is down that way.” Sylvia pointed. “My assistant is taking over today. You must drop in and see me soon. Now I’ll take you home.”
Home! Suddenly the word carried a ring of new meaning, in spite of my trepidation. For me it meant the end of a quest. I too was a Cordova, and no matter what Sylvia had said about them, I was eager to know my family.
We turned up the Alameda near where the Santa Fe Trail had once ended and followed a strip of green park above the dry bed of the Santa Fe River. We drove up the narrow spine of the hill that was Canyon Road, past studios and art galleries. Here the old adobe houses that had once been Spanish residences crowded close together, separated only by rounded adobe walls that enclosed houses and hidden patios. On Camino del Monte Sol we turned off and then took another turn down a narrow lane of old houses.
“There ahead—the one with the turquoise window trim and gate,” Sylvia said. “That’s your grandfather’s house. Ours is beyond, where the next wall starts. Juan’s is older than Paul’s and mine—more than a hundred years.”
I wanted to stop and search for recognition, but we were past. Sylvia’s next words brought disappointment.
“I won’t take you there first. You’ll come to our place and meet my husband. Then I’ll phone Clarita and see if she’s ready for you. Everything was in an upheaval when I left because of Eleanor.”
Just past the Cordova house a garage faced on the narrow road, and Sylvia drove into it. From the back a door opened upon a bricked patio and we walked through. Adobe walls, shoulder high, shut out the street, and Sylvia led me across the patio and through a heavy wooden door into a long, comfortable living room with Indian rugs scattered over the floor, and a collection of Kachina dolls on two rows of shelves.
“You’ll probably find Paul out in the portal.” Sylvia gestured. “Do go out and introduce yourself. I’ll be along in a moment. Tell Paul I’m calling Clarita to let her know you’re here and find out if Gavin has finally done away with Eleanor, as she deserves.”
I went through the door she indicated and out upon a long, porchlike open space that was level with the patio it edged. In a rattan chair at the far end sat a man who was probably in his late thirties—certainly younger than Sylvia. His thick hair, sun-bleached, rose in a crest from his forehead and grew long at the back of his neck. He wore a beige sweater against the cool May afternoon and his legs were encased in brown slacks. He heard me and turned, rising from his chair.
He was tall and lean, with a thin, rather bony face, intent gray eyes, a long chin, and a straight mouth that moved into a slight smile at the sight of me. It was a face of considerable character and I liked what I saw. But there was more than that. Something unforeseen happened in that arrested moment of time. It was as if we looked at each other with a heightened awareness. An awareness that came from nowhere and was electric in its recognition. It was as if he had said, I am aware of you and I’m going to know you better.
I remembered that he was Sylvia’s husband, and I had to break that arrested moment with its unexpected undertones of attraction. It made me self-conscious and suddenly wary. I tried to erase it by being flippant.
“Hello,” I said lightly. “I’m Amanda Austin, Juan Cordova’s long-lost granddaughter. Sylvia told me to come out here and wait until she’s phoned to find out whether Gavin Brand has finally done away with his wife.”
I expected him to laugh over the foolish words, but instead the faint smile vanished and he bowed his head gravely.
“How do you do, Miss Austin. I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake. I’m not Paul Stewart. I’m Gavin Brand.”
I could feel the awful sensation of bright, burning blood rushing into my cheeks. My tongue felt numb and my body stiffened. There was nothing I could say, no amends I could make.
After a moment of hideous embarrassment for me, he went on coolly. “As it happens, I’m rather concerned about Eleanor. I came over here to talk to Sylvia and Paul, to see if she might have dropped any sort of clue that would lead us to her.”
I could only stammer a hapless apology. “I—I’m sorry.”
His nod was as grave as before and he seemed to remove himself to some remote plane that I could not reach. I would have no welcome to the Cordova house from Gavin Brand and it was my own fault.
The appearance of Sylvia and the man who must certainly be her husband, Paul, rescued me from trying to say anything more. Sylvia seemed surprised to find Gavin here, and I caught the uncertain look she gave Paul.
“Hello, Gavin,” she said. “I didn’t know you were out here. I see you and Amanda have already met. Amanda, this is Paul.”
Her husband came toward me, his hand outstretched. Though he moved as lightly as a cat, he was a big man. His hair, a sandy gray, was thinning at the temples, and his eyes were a color I couldn’t define. There was something oddly like a challenge in the look he gave me, and I sensed an inner tension in him so that he made me as immediately uneasy as Sylvia had done.
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” he said, and there seemed some special intent in his words. His look questioned me as it searched my face, and I felt at a loss to meet it. He went on at once, fortunately expecting no response. “You’ll be welcome at the Cordovas’. Old Juan’s been looking forward to your coming. Indeed, we all have. May I say you look very much like your mother. I remember her quite well.”
Sylvia broke in hastily, as though she did not want him to talk about my mother. “Gavin, I’ve just spoken to Clarita. Word came in after you left the house. Eleanor’s car has been found at White Rock on the road to Los Alamos.”
“White Rock?” Gavin seemed baffled. “Why would she leave it there? Do either of you have any idea?”
Sylvia shrugged. “As well there as anywhere else when Eleanor takes a notion into her head.”
Paul seemed to be thinking, but before he had anything to say, I caught the look he exchanged with Gavin Brand, and I could almost hear the antagonism that crackled between the two men. It was clear that they did not like each other.
When Paul Stewart spoke, it was almost grudgingly. “That White Rock branch of the road is also the way to Bandelier. I’ve heard her talk about the caves there with enthusiasm—as a hideaway. Once she suggested I use them for background in one of my books, and she’s talked about what fun it might be to spend a night in one of those caves. It’s possible she may have gone there.”
“It’s wild enough for Eleanor,” Sylvia said, “and she’s always gone for the outdoor life. Sleeping bags and all that.”
“As a matter of fact, her sleeping bag is gone.” Gavin seemed to be thinking. “At least it’s a lead. I’d better get out to Bandelier and have a look.”
“Then may I go now to see my grandfather?” I asked Sylvia.
She shook her head. “Not right away. Though Paul will take your luggage over soon. There’s more to come. Gavin, you know that small pre-Columbian stone head that Juan had in his private collection? I understand it’s been missing for a week. Now it’s turned up—on a bureau in your room.”
Gavin stared at her and I saw how chill his gray eyes could become. “It wasn’t there a little while ag
o.”
“Clarita found it,” Sylvia said, sounding waspish, as though she might be enjoying this. “She went straight to Juan to tell him, and the old man is furious. Now there’s a new uproar going on. I think you’d better wait awhile before going to the house, Amanda.”
Paul said smoothly, “They’ll find out how it came there, of course.”
“It can wait.” Gavin did not look at him. “I want to find Eleanor before I deal with anything else. I’m going to drive out to Bandelier at once. It’s a long shot, perhaps, but it’s the only one I have at the moment. Sylvia, if there’s any further word, will you phone the park rangers out there and have them give me a message?”
She nodded a bit grimly, and I stood helplessly by while Gavin strode across the portal. As he passed me, he paused and turned around with a speculative look.
“You can come with me,” he said with calm assurance. “You shouldn’t see Juan now. Eleanor’s your cousin and I may need a woman along when we find her.”
I didn’t believe his reasons. He wanted to get me away from Sylvia and Paul. What he’d given me was more command than request, and clearly he expected no refusal. This was the last thing I wanted to do. I had no wish to be in the company of this cool, remote man to whom I’d been so instantly attracted, and whom I’d insulted so cruelly. It seemed, however, that I had no choice. He expected me to come and his will dominated my own, whether I liked it or not. At least going with him would be better than an idle marking of time.
“I’ll come,” I said, as though he had been waiting for my assent.
We went out of the Stewarts’ house together and he seemed very tall at my side. The crest of his sun-bleached hair shone in the clear light as we crossed the patio, and I thrust away the memory of that first attraction. He couldn’t have been more distant if he’d existed on another planet.
III
Gavin took the road to Taos north out of Santa Fe. He drove at the maximum speed with an assurance that commanded the car as he had commanded me. I reminded myself that this was exactly the sort of man I did not like.
I had not expected to be traveling again so soon, and I regretted the further postponement of my meeting with the Cordovas. But thanks to my foolish words to Gavin, which had put me at a disadvantage, and his own rather highhanded commandeering of my company, here I was on the way to a national monument called Bandelier, of which I’d never heard before.
Most of the time we were silent, and once or twice I stole a sidelong look at my imperturbable companion. It gave me pleasure to dislike him, but at the same time the shape of his head, the planes of his face intrigued me as a painter. My fingers itched for a pencil so that I could catch an impression of that forceful head on paper. I wondered if I could paint him. I wasn’t at my best in portraiture, but an interesting face always challenged me.
His voice broke into my thoughts. “I suppose you wonder why I took you away from the Stewarts so abruptly?”
“I did wonder—yes.”
“I didn’t want to leave you there for Paul to prey on.”
“Prey on? What do you mean?”
“You might as well know—he’s writing a book, and he wants to pick your memory, if he can.”
“Sylvia said something of the same thing. But how can anyone pick a five-year-old child’s memory? What sort of book is it?”
He stared grimly at the road ahead. “A chapter will deal with the Cordovas—specifically with your mother’s death. How much do you know about that?”
I could feel myself tense. “I don’t know anything, really. You see, my father would never talk about her or tell me what happened to her. All I know is that she died in a fall. That’s one reason I’ve come here. Somehow, it’s terribly important for me to—well, to know all about her. All about the Cordova side of my family.”
He glanced at me and I met his look, to find unexpected sympathy there, though he went on without commenting on my words.
“Your grandfather is very much against Paul’s writing about the Cordovas. And I agree with him. It will do no one any good to dig up an old scandal at this late date. You least of all.”
I didn’t like the sound of this. “Sylvia talked about a scandal too. But what scandal? If there is anything to do with my mother—scandal or not—I want to know it. Why shouldn’t I?”
“Better let it rest,” he said. “You’ll only bruise yourself.”
“I don’t care about that—I want to know! This is maddening!”
He threw me a quick look in which there was a certain grim amusement. “The Cordova stubbornness! It sticks out all over you.”
“Perhaps it’s only my New England side,” I told him.
Neither of us spoke for a while. When we turned off the Taos road toward the Jemez Mountains which rose beyond Los Alamos, we had the snow-crested Sangre de Cristos at our back, and I studied the landscape with the same interest I’d felt on the trip from Albuquerque. This was a different world from the one I was used to.
I was glad I had done some map studying before I’d left New York and knew something about the locality. Well over on our right appeared a massive, curiously black mountain, standing alone, with its sides rising straight up to the flat mesa of its top. I watched it intently as we drove parallel with it. Memory seemed to stir and a name came to me from nowhere.
“Black Mesa,” I said, surprising myself. The name was not one I had noted on a map.
“So there are things you remember?” Gavin said.
“I keep having flashes of familiarity, so that I feel I’ve seen this country before. As of course I have. I must have made this trip with my parents when I was small.”
We were driving through mesa country and the hills ahead were like sandy ships riding a juniper-green sea. Sometimes their tops were crowned by spiked pinnacles of rock and there were often caves in the sandstone. Perhaps all of this was known to me, though I had no further flash of recognition as I’d had with Black Mesa. But I could not relax and give myself to an enjoyment of the scene. Always there were questions to be asked.
“Did you know my mother?” I spoke the words into the silence that was broken only by the rush of the car.
“Yes, I knew her,” he said, but offered nothing more, frustrating me further.
“My father would never talk about her,” I repeated doggedly. “It’s strange to have grown up without any memories or knowledge of Doroteo Cordova Austin.”
“At fifteen, I found it hard to understand what Doro saw in your father,” Gavin said. “He was her opposite in every way.”
I wondered if he were prodding me to indignation, but he seemed too uninvolved for that, too indifferent.
“Can you remember me?” I asked.
“Very well.” His straight mouth softened briefly. “You were an engaging little girl and very like your mother.”
For just an instant I relaxed toward him. No matter what denials I’d made to myself, something in me wanted to like this man. His next words dampened my own softening, and I knew he would not for long make concessions to the past.
“It’s too bad engaging little girls have to grow up,” he said.
The words seemed simply an opinion calmly expressed. He was not taunting me, but he cared nothing about how I might feel. The earlier flash of sympathy I’d seen was gone, and I moved away from him in the seat, disliking the twinge of hurt I felt, and wanting to show my resistance to anything he might say. He didn’t seem to notice, and we said nothing more until we reached White Rock.
“This is where Eleanor left her car,” he told me. “I won’t stop now to check with the police. If she went to Bandelier, it’s possible she thumbed a ride from here.”
It was a sand-colored New Mexico town, quickly lost in the landscape, and we were away on the winding road to the park.
“Do you know why she’s gone off?” I asked, still prickling from his remark about growing up.
“She’ll probably have a good many reasons,” he said. “What the real o
ne is I’d better not try to guess.”
“Sylvia spoke about a wild Cordova streak in Eleanor that my mother had too. That sounds like nonsense to me—a wildness in the blood and all that.”
“Juan will tell you it’s anything but nonsense. But can’t you speak for yourself? You’re a Cordova.”
“I like to think that I’m fairly well balanced,” I told him.
“My congratulations.” His tone was dry, and I was silent after that, my anger beginning to boil. I could not like Gavin Brand, and my sympathy for my cousin was increasing. I wouldn’t even accept Sylvia’s estimation of her until I had a chance to judge for myself.
After several miles, during which I simmered down a little, we reached the admission booth to the park, where Gavin stopped to pay an entry fee. He asked the man in the booth if he had noticed a tall woman with long fair hair who might have checked through with someone else yesterday.
The attendant shook his head. “Too many people come through for me to remember. There’s probably been a lot of girls with long blond hair. I don’t keep track.”
“Doesn’t the park have a closing time?” I asked as we drove through the entrance. “Don’t people have to get out then?”
“The place is enormous, with miles of trails,” Gavin said. “And there are always campers staying overnight. I don’t think they make a head count when day visitors leave.”
The road wound downward toward the bottom of the canyon and high cliffs rose on either hand, tree-covered on one side, steep volcanic ash on the other.
“Why is it a national monument?” I asked.
“The Indians were here until around 1500. You’ll see the ruins of their dwellings and kivas. It’s all being carefully preserved.”
And he was being carefully polite—the courteous guide.
“But if there are miles of trails, how will you find her?”
The Turquoise Mask Page 3
