Saffire

by Sigmund Brouwer

  “I appreciate your concern over my well-being, Muskie, but that won’t be necessary. I have plans of my own.”

  “It has nothing to do with you. I’m just trying to protect Colonel Goethals from any and all of your irresponsibilities.”

  “Tell you what, Muskie, I promise to be good.”

  I tipped my hat and walked out of the lobby.

  Odelia found me easily enough at the time written on the note I had found in my cowboy boot in the morning. I had positioned myself to the side of the bottleneck of spectators at a gate, on the northeast side of the arena. Her note had stated to meet her across from a Chinese restaurant, which was accurate. But it also showed a difference in perspectives. She marked her geography by buildings; I marked mine by the compass.

  She stepped toward me and touched my arm with her left hand. She wore a dress similar in style to the one she had worn the previous evening—but far less formal—with brightly colored flowers on a light blue pastel background. It contrasted well with her jet black hair and equally dark eyes. She was—as Miskimon had pointed out—very alluring.

  “James Holt.” She gave me her impetuous smile. “I’m delighted you decided to meet me here. After last night, I feared you might not trust any Panamanians.”

  That was an accurate assumption. I was here out of curiosity, not because I trusted her. “It seemed like a fine afternoon. I was delighted for the invitation.”

  “Then let’s find our places, shall we?” She lightly held my elbow and guided me away from the stream of spectators into the shade of the outer arena. The arena was about three stories high—a large circle, much like a coliseum. Given the purpose of the arena, it was fitting that the name came from the Latin word for sand, which the ancient Romans used to soak up the rivers of blood generated by their infamous spectator sports.

  Odelia spoke quietly as we walked away from the line of those at the gate. “As you know, Raquel Sandoval is a dear, dear friend. We’ve been like sisters since childhood.”

  “You also have her political support. Always wise to stay close to a benefactor.”

  She laughed. “I suspect my run for mayor will be over before the election. Already rumors fly. It is too difficult to keep the secret, and I have been careful to ensure that most believe it was my idea, not hers. But I think she knew I would be unmasked, so to speak, and simply wanted to make a point. I have nothing to lose, you see, which is why I was happy to help her make that point. She, on the other hand…”

  “Yes?”

  “Has always believed that marrying Raoul Amador would make for an alliance to put her in a position where she can help the poor much better than if she were known as a woman who tried to ridicule the political system.”

  “Yes. Raoul Amador. A wonderful specimen of a human being.”

  She caught the tone in my voice and giggled. “He was spitting angry with humiliation last night. What did you do to him before dragging him through horse manure?”

  “Made it clear I wasn’t interested in a discussion with him.”

  “There was more to it than that.”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “I’d rather not discuss it.”

  “You’re no fun.”

  I grinned.

  “He was in a foul mood all night,” she said. “Part of it, I believe, is because you were not wearing the suit he had chosen for you. He is a petty man, and I dislike him greatly, which is why I insisted that you had proper attire. He and Raquel had harsh, harsh words last evening as the party ended.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. What matters is that Raquel is happy.”

  “Happiness?” She snorted. “Who marries for happiness?”

  I smiled sadly, thinking of the woman I had loved and now mourned. Or maybe the sadness came because for the first time since her death, there was a woman that I wanted to love. I could not escape a sense that love for someone else might lead to the death of my memory of the woman I mourned.

  “You, Señor Vaquero Americano,” Odelia said, “have given my friend Raquel a reason to be unhappy. She is drawn to you but is bound to Panama by a sense of duty and practicality.”

  “I’m not sure why you would tell me that. Last night, it was distinctly chilly when she glanced my way. Which was only once. And that was before Cromwell added to my unpopularity by asking me to open the package. Are you able to tell me why it seemed to cast such a pall over the crowd?”

  Odelia didn’t answer my question directly. “Don’t you understand? Raquel feels she made a fool of herself during her walk with you along the beach. That night, she confided to you her interest in you only because she believed she would never see you again. Had you left as we expected, Raquel could have kept that memory and clung to a romantic illusion for the rest of her life. So to see you again, knowing that she had shown weakness and vulnerability? Well, I understand her aloofness. It did not help that Amador was watching her at the party. He would be an idiot not to sense she is intrigued by the cowboy with the broken nose, and while Amador is many things that I do not like, he is most definitely not an idiot.”

  “I leave tomorrow. He has nothing to fear.”

  “I suppose, yet there remains much to be discussed before this afternoon is over.”

  That was certain. I was aware of the envelope of photos still inside my shirt. Odelia’s name and signature had been among those that I excised from the document.

  We had reached the north end of the arena, and she pointed to a small door and led me to it. “Special privileges.”

  I understood this from my own days of performing for the Wild West show. In each city, the rich found ways to separate themselves from the unwashed—in seating and in mingling with performers behind the stages.

  She knocked, and a finely dressed man opened the door. Seeing her, he smiled and made an elaborate sweeping gesture with his arm to allow us inside.

  The tunnel was dark and filled with the smell of livestock. I could not ignore the homesickness that had lurked beneath the surface of my senses since arriving in Panama.

  Each side of the tunnel held separate rooms, which I guessed had been set aside for the matadors. At the end of the tunnel, a door was propped open to the arena, letting in sunlight that helped our navigation. When ready, the matador, I assumed, would step out of this door to greet the crowd, and the door would be shut firmly behind him, with a crossbar in place on this side to prevent a rambunctious bull from knocking it down.

  At that door, we turned to our left, away from the trampled sand, to a set of stairs that brought us up to the base of bleachers, already nearly full of spectators.

  This did not seem like an area set aside for the affluent. It was crowded and smelled of wood wet with spilled beer—a scent that competed with the smoke of roasting meat and baked flat breads sold by aproned men screaming for attention.

  “You will be discreet, Mr. Holt?” Here, she had to raise her voice to be heard.

  I was thinking of the constitution with signatures. “I am nothing but.”

  “Excellent. As you probably know, the best place to hide is in a crowd.”

  She took me to the highest set of bleachers, what I presumed were the cheapest seats. Two steps away, I saw Miskimon, already seated. Then a woman beside him, dressed in the rough clothing of a peasant, an inexpensive bonnet giving shade from the sun and almost concealing her face.

  But I knew who it was.

  Raquel.

  The circle of sand was empty, but the stands were crowded, and the excitement of collective anticipation combined with an equally collective festivity surrounded us.

  The seating arrangements were not subtle. Odelia sat on Miskimon’s left. I sat on Miskimon’s right. And to my right was Raquel. Because of how she was dressed and because of the bonnet, unless someone was standing within one or two rows, a casual observation would show Odelia and Miskimon and me, and Raquel would be invisible among the other spectators.

  While I was highly consc
ious of Raquel’s proximity to me, she and I only said polite hellos as the extent of our conversation for the first few minutes after I took a spot on the unpainted bleachers.

  “Mr. Holt,” Miskimon said in greeting as I settled and tried to get comfortable. I was happy to have my cowboy hat to give me shade.

  “Muskie. Full day for you. I suppose you knew I’d be joining you here when you suggested I spend the afternoon with you?”

  “Shocking that some things escape my encyclopedic knowledge, but I had no idea. I now see that this was a well-planned and well-executed maneuver by two women. In private conversation, Odelia has speculated to me on your interest in Raquel, but I assure you, I give it little attention.”

  “Hmmph.” I tried to imitate his manner in saying it.

  On the other side of him, I saw Odelia pat his knee. He didn’t recoil, as he did when I had done the same to his shoulder. He was in an official position to help her if she needed it, and because of the photographs, I knew she might desperately need it soon. I hoped, for him, that her motives were a genuine affection for the man.

  As for Raquel, a discreet meeting in a rowdy public place was exactly the best way for the two of us to have a conversation, and I ached with the desire to believe her true intention was motivated by interest in me, not by interest in finding a way to protect herself from a man she feared knew of her signature on a treasonous document. For even if neither woman knew that I possessed the incriminating photographs, both had watched me unfurl the flag the evening before. Both no doubt knew the significance of that flag. Both women—obviously intelligent—would assume, then, that I had investigated more of the nascent rebellion and would wonder how much more I knew.

  It was going to be difficult to keep my suspicions from tainting this time with Raquel. I decided, however, to ignore my suspicions and proceed as if I could trust the inclinations of my heart.

  I looked out at the arena. “I know little about bullfights.”

  She took her eyes off the sand inside the empty circular walls below. The smile she bestowed upon me felt sincere—

  Stop it, I told myself. Stop evaluating her intent and simply enjoy the smile.

  “I’m astounded at that,” she said. “You are a cowboy.”

  “One who makes a living by trying to keep his cattle alive in the badlands. The more cattle I put on train cars at the end of the season, the more successful I am.”

  “I cannot help but wonder what it looks like where you live in the Dakotas. I imagine towns with wide dirt streets and men in masks riding horses up to a bank and robbing it at gunpoint.”

  “It’s not the way that moving pictures portray it.”

  “I wish to know more about where you live. Paint a picture for me, please, Mr. James Holt.”

  Her voice caressed. Her accent gave a lyrical sound to my first and last name, imbuing it with intimacy that accelerated the beat of my heart. The chance to describe my home made me feel like I had been asked to slay a dragon.

  I told her about the blizzards and the temperatures so cold that a man’s spit would turn to ice before hitting the snow. I told her about the gray-water floods that tore at the hills of the Badlands in spring, bowing the resilient bankside willows almost horizontal, and how when the waters subsided, dead grass would tuft the tips of the willows and remain a crown all through the summer. I told her about arid winds and the tinkling of a meadowlark’s call and the melody of coyotes that seemed so in harmony with huge silver moonrises over the ancient hilltops—hilltops worn to strata that sometimes exposed the fossilized bones of creatures that could only live in the illustrations of the fantastic. And all the while, I watched her face and soaked in a sensation that I had never expected would course through my heart again.

  She sighed. “It sounds like a place of poetry. Sometimes this heat and humidity and mountains are cloying, suffocating.”

  “I marvel at Panama. Life springs everywhere, hungry for every inch. Every creature possible finds a way to swim, crawl, fly. It is astounding.”

  Yet I could not live here, not without far horizon and limitless sky and freedom that some mistook for desolation. I did not voice this.

  “You haven’t spoken of your daughter,” Raquel said.

  “Winona. You only asked about the land.”

  “So now I am asking about her. Are you not afraid for her life while you are here and unable to protect her?”

  “Afraid?”

  “Savages. Raiding your homestead.”

  She seemed serious. Of course. She saw the Wild West show in London. Buffalo Bill had sold the image she expressed to the entire world.

  “There was a time,” I said, “when the Sioux rightfully defended their land.” I chuckled. “In fact, the United States lost a war to a great Sioux warrior named Red Cloud. But the treaties have since been signed, and it’s been decades since anything like that happened.”

  “So your daughter is not in danger from savages?”

  “Winona is with one right now.”

  Those beautiful eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Cetanwakuwa.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He’s Sioux. Roughly translated into our language, his name is Attacking Falcon. I call him Hawk. Winona calls him Unk Hunk. Started when she was too little to say Uncle Hawk properly.”

  Unk Hunk had been in the Wild West Show with his sister. He was the Sioux warrior responsible for the long scar on my ribs. An accident when a stray buffalo had knocked him off his horse, and he’d flailed for balance with his feather-notched spear extended.

  “A savage?” Raquel said.

  “A Sioux.”

  “And you trust her with him?”

  “Of course I do,” I said. “As I mentioned, he is Winona’s uncle.”

  It took her a few moments. “She is…your wife was…your brother-in-law is…”

  “Cetanwakuwa is full-blooded Sioux. I married his sister, Ojinjintka, who was also full-blooded Sioux. They were both part of Buffalo Bill’s show for years. As for Winona, she carries the blood of two peoples. Those who are cruel call my daughter a half-breed.”

  Not for the first time it occurred to me that Roosevelt would have passed this knowledge along to Goethals and that the colonel guessed that seating me beside a girl like my own daughter would have predisposed me to sympathy for the girl.

  “Those here who are cruel use the term mulatto,” Raquel said. “Saffire…”

  Raquel seemed to be letting me fill her silences, but it didn’t matter. My regret was that, regardless of whether she enjoyed my company as much as I enjoyed hers, this afternoon would end. She would return to her life and I to mine. She to the fecund green vibrancy and color of Panama, a place swelling with the noise of insects and birds and machinery and people. Me to the whites and browns of a Dakota landscape, remarkable at hiding the life it supported.

  “Saffire,” I said. “She is an amazing girl.”

  “I love her like a sister,” Raquel said. “But I wish she wouldn’t come and go with such impunity. I haven’t seen her since yesterday afternoon. Have you seen her today?”

  “No. Not since Monday afternoon.”

  The girl had lived up to her promise to put me out of her life, and I was surprised at how sad it made me, given the short time I had spent with her.

  “I won’t worry. She always reappears. And such a fierce and smart girl. If women could vote and run for office, she would become president of the republic someday.”

  “Her mother,” I said. “Do you believe she ran away? Do you believe the letter she gave to your father was the truth?”

  Raquel looked away for a long pause, and then back at me. “I came here to sit with a cowboy who intrigues me and makes me smile. Not for an interrogation by an investigator. Please, let us enjoy this time together. Will that be acceptable to you, Mr. James Holt?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  She touched the back of my hand with the tip of a finger. “And
Mr. Holt?”

  “Yes?”

  “Perhaps we could correspond by letters after you depart Panama?”

  Before I could answer, the moment was burst by a roar of the crowd. The matador had just entered the ring, resplendent in his clothing, bowing to the spectators. And on the other side, from a cattle chute, a massive black bull had stepped onto the sand, bellowing its blind rage at the sticks with nails used to prod it forward to its eventual death.

  “We have arrived at the tercio de muerte.” Raquel leaned toward me. “This is the final third, the third of death. I am glad we approach the end and I will no longer have to endure the spectacle. If we could have met anywhere else but here, I would have chosen to do so.”

  She pointed at the matador, who carried a small cape of red. “There is the reason that I do not like to ever wear a dress of red. People say the color of the cape is to enrage the bull, but that is not so. The animals are color blind. Instead, it is meant to hide the stains of the bull’s blood.”

  In the first third of the bullfight—the tercio de varas—the matador, distinguished by a suit of gold, had orchestrated his three silver-suited banderilleros in a series of passes with the bull to test the animal’s skills and quirks. At the end of that stage, a picador, a man on horseback armed with a lance—vara—had stabbed the mound of muscle on the bull’s neck, drawing the first blood to weaken it. More important, this injury forced the beast to lower its head during subsequent charges.

  All this, Raquel had explained with scorn as it unfolded.

  Then had come the tercio de banderillas, the middle of the bullfight, where the banderilleros tired the bull further, and with formalized moves, each of the three banderilleros planted two sharp barbed sticks—banderillas—into the bull’s shoulders. All this was done to prepare for the final third, when the matador, armed with cape and sword, would engage the bleeding animal in a series of passes designed to weaken the animal more and more.

  This, too, Raquel had explained, pointing out with derision that for most of the passes in the tercio de muerte, the matador used a fake sword made of wood, much lighter than steel. Thus, the matador could save energy in the heat of the ring, while the bull continued to exhaust itself.