by Win Blevins
She went into the house and brought back a book of Spanish proverbs. “I will read to you of love,” she said, “and we will make beauty into beast by translating it into English.”
She read, “‘El hombre es fuego, la mujer estopa; llega el diablo y sopla.’”
They wrangled out the English together: “Man is fire, woman dry grass. The devil dances by and blows.”
“Do you hear?” said Paloma. “The Spanish is liquid—‘diablo y sopla.’ The English, it is bumpy.”
“It has a nice punch, though.” Sam couldn’t help wanting to defend his native tongue.
“Another,” she said. “‘Juramentos de amor y humo de chimenea, el viento se los lleva.’ Listen to that, how beautiful it is—‘el viento se los lleva.’”
Again they wrestled it into English. “Promises of love, smoke from a chimney—the wind whisks both away.”
“You are right a little bit,” she said, “the English has nice muscles.”
Sam kissed her lingeringly.
“Now I tell you one of my favorites,” she said. “The way the sounds roll, it is beyond compare. ‘Amor es en fuego escondido, una agradable llaga, un sabroso veneno, una dulce amargura, una delectable dolencia, un alegre tormento, una dulce y fiera herida, una blanda muerte.’”
Sam replied by kissing her again, sensuously, and fondling her breasts. Her chest heaved deep and strong, and then suddenly the breaths came short and fast. She took Sam’s hand, and led him fast into the casa, into the bedroom, and into love.
Afterward, they sorted out an English version of her proverb. “Love is a concealed fire,” she said, her eyes aflame.
He bent and licked her nipple, murmuring, “And a lovely sore.”
“A tasty poison,” she whispered. She raised his lips to hers and teased his tongue with hers. “A sweet rue.”
Sam put her hand where he wanted it. She smiled wickedly and squeezed. “A delectable suffering,” she said. She squeezed harder and harder. “A happy torment, a delicious wound.”
Sam rolled on top of her again. “And a soft death.”
Much, much later she said, “English lacks music, but our bodies sing together beautifully.”
They napped.
When they woke blearily, Sam gave her sweet kisses.
“Let me tell you one more proverb,” she said.
“What?”
“‘Más fuerte era Sansón y le venció el amor.’”
“Which means?”
She enunciated clearly in English, “Samson had even more muscles than you, and love whipped his ass.”
Thirteen
DURING HOLY WEEK, which was in the second half of April, Sam didn’t see Paloma for four days. They rode up the river road to town on Wednesday instead of Saturday. “Holy Thursday,” she said. “We have the Eucharist in honor of the day Christ held the first one. Then Holy Friday, mass on the day he gave his life for all us mortal sinners. On Saturday the vigil, at dawn on Sunday the Resurrection and the mass to celebrate this great event.”
“Vigil?”
Paloma laughed. “You are such a barbarian. The vigil is the blessing of the new fire, the lighting of the paschal candle, a service of lessons that we call the prophecies, the blessing of the font, and then the long sitting in the church, each person holding a candle, waiting for the great moment of the Resurrection. There, you see? I always go.”
Not only went, it turned out, but spent the entire time with her sister and her family, and didn’t see Sam at all.
The result for Sam was a lot of reading with Hannibal and Grumble, some wandering around Santa Fe with all his friends, and five nights of playing brag. The whole trip felt like a thorn whose tip had broken off in his hind end. The one good part was that he ended up with a lot more gold coins in his hunting pouch.
On Monday morning, as Sam and Paloma rode back down the river road together in the fine spring weather, he felt extra aware of the way she sat in her saddle, the way she turned to watch the river roaring downhill, leaping over rocks and making suck holes on the back side. She stopped and led her mare to the river. While both horses drank, Paloma watched the current surge. “I am enthralled by its power.” Riding on, from time to time she pointed out the wildflowers in bloom on the side of the road, the orange cups of globe mallow, purple rags of locoweed, and the red bristles of Indian paint-brush. “They are getting ready to open, see?”
Coy pranced about wildly, as though the greening grass, the leafing trees had brought up the sap in him, and he couldn’t just walk.
Farther along a sound came to Sam’s ears that he could hardly believe. “Oh, Sam, this is…I can’t describe it. Let’s ride and find a good place to watch.” She whipped her horse up onto a knoll, and he was right behind her. In a few minutes the caravan came. The racket was an assault. “That noise is the big wheels turning against the axles,” said Paloma, almost shouting. “As you can tell, it is heard even a mile away. If they greased the axles, it would be diminished. But the muleteers say the sound is like music to them. They call them the singing carts.”
In the forefront came horses and mules, hundreds of them. Behind this livestock trudged human beings, Indians, Mexicans, or mestizos, Sam couldn’t tell which. Their hands and feet were shackled. “Slaves,” said Paloma.
Paladin pulled on the reins, impatient. But Sam couldn’t take his eyes off these people. There were three women, one perhaps in her thirties, one in her twenties, one a teenager but physically mature, and seven children who were probably between the ages of eight and twelve. All the women and children walked with the look of those who have been not only defeated and humiliated but beaten beyond despair into utter hopelessness, a state where life offers nothing but dreariness, darkness, and pain.
Sam felt a sharp burning in his heart.
The slaves trudged on and on. Nothing would ever change, and they knew it. They probably resented the bodies that enabled them to walk to their own debasement.
“It is hard to bear,” said Paloma.
“Who will buy them?”
“Landowners like me. The only wealth in this province is land, which comes in grants from the government. Slaves work the land, or clean the houses, or do the labor of making crops ready for the table. Slaves do everything, if you are willing to have them, which I am not. From the look of these, most of them will also bear children who will also become slaves.”
“Why don’t they run screaming at their captors?” said Sam. “Why don’t they break away? If you die, so what?”
“I asked Rosalita that. She said it is not possible at the time, not quite possible, to believe that death is better than where you are. But death would be better—that’s what she said.”
Now the slaves were out of sight, blocked by the carts and the mules and oxen that pulled them—hundreds of carts, it seemed to Sam. The screech was now almost unbearable. The wheels were huge rounds of cottonwood in one big piece.
“What do they have to trade?”
“Whatever we cannot produce, household utensils, candles, tallow, nice textiles, coffee, sugar, liquor—oh, it’s such pleasure to see all the fine things and buy them.”
They watched the carts wobble and creak on their way, and the dirty, dusty drovers pushing them along.
“How long have they been on the road?”
“It’s about six weeks from Chihuahua. These traders are daring—they must have started as soon as the weather warmed up a little. This is the first caravan of the year.”
She looked at him with girlish glee in her eyes. “Sam, let’s ride back to town tonight. First the afternoon in bed and then back to town. It will be so much fun, you cannot imagine. The whole town will come to the baile.”
“Sure.” He was thinking that the bed sounded better than the baile, but…
“We will even stay in town. We will be wicked and take a room for the night. We’ll have such fun.”
Sam looked far up along the train of carts, but he couldn’t see the slaves.
>
“Tomorrow we will go to one of the great ranchos and see something you’ll never forget. You’ll hate it, but you’ll never forget it.”
LOLLING TOO LONG in bed, they got to town long after the grand entry. “It is a wonderful sight,” Paloma said. “The caravan men drive the carts along the river straight to the plaza. When they get there, they circle the plaza as fast as they can go, cracking their whips. From the uproar you would think it is a war. The children get very excited.
“As the caravan hurtles through the streets, the people hear the carts squealing and pour out. They run after the caravan on the way to the plaza, singing and shouting. From all directions everyone rushes to the plaza. We are all excited to see the fine things, to be able to trade for a pot of copper for the kitchen, to get new shoes for the family, to get a beautiful piece of silk that will make a skirt that may catch the eye of a certain man…And the merchants, after the first burst of trading, they stock their stores with the rest.”
Now the baile was in full swing. The high-born, the merchants and tradesmen, the peasants—everyone thronged all over the plaza. Cantinas poured El Paso brandy and Taos whiskey liberally. Two groups of musicians competed to see who could play the loudest, with the most style, and attract the most listeners. Actually, the most dancers.
Hannibal waved at Sam and Paloma, and they crowded into the table with him, Grumble, and Sumner. Grumble ordered more brandy, and they all drank fast. Sam was feeling wild.
“Get ready,” said Hannibal. “Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit.”
“What does that mean?”
“Only crazy people dance sober.”
“Have you had enough to drink? Do you know the fandango?” said Paloma, a dark, sexy look in her eyes.
“I’m woozy,” Sam said, “but for you I’ll pretend.”
“You will do much better than that. You will dance.” She took one of his hands and led him out among the couples in the plaza. “These are fandanguillos, more festive versions of the fandango. They are dances of…courtship would be the polite word. You direct Americans would say seduction. They are exuberant, unrefined, born of the desire of all creatures for fertility. It is not for talking but for doing.”
Without warning she began and Sam followed, feeling like he was in a whirlwind. She tapped out a rhythm with her feet and snapped her fingers. He couldn’t copy her steps, but he matched her attitude. She rose and, stepping high, they pranced past each other, shoulders almost touching, and faced each other once more. She teased and challenged. He pursued, she slipped away. He held her eyes piercingly. With her hands, shoulders thrown back, she shook her skirt in a taunt.
The music accelerated, its rhythm accented by castanets. Paloma clapped her hands and stomped her feet. Sam followed as though in a trance. The music itself seemed to tell him what to do. Now the music swirled faster and faster, like a waltz in three beats, but free of all drawing rooms, free of civility, as primal as a roll of thunder.
Stop. A total halt to the music. Paloma and Sam and all the other dancers froze. Tension throbbed.
Music again! Animated by the notes, the dancers grew wild. Passion surged through their poses. Arms and faces teased. Eyes, torsos, and hips challenged. Back and forth they soared, faster and faster, ever more passionate, ever more daring, and yet again faster.
When the orchestra stopped, silence clapped the ears. The dancers froze—sexual electricity charged the air.
Again the music charged forward, and Sam charged with it. He whirled, he grabbed Paloma, he slung her to the length of both their arms, he brought her back, she clung to him. Gently, gradually, she arched backward in his arms. The music came to a climax and was over.
Sam was dazzled with what he had done, and limp.
Paloma embraced him and whispered, “I want you to be like that inside me tonight.”
His groin throbbed.
They went back to the table, drank more brandy, ate tortillas with pork and green chile sauce, and drank more brandy. Grumble paid for everything, and everyone had a great celebration.
Sam noticed that, as at the Los Angeles pueblo, dancers often went slinking down side streets, wrapped in a single serape. Paloma whispered in his ear, “How many children do you think will be conceived tonight?”
A gentleman in the garb of the Mexican elite, and with the arrogance, came toward them.
“Buenas noches, señora.”
“Buenas noches, Gobernador. Won’t you join us?” Paloma made the introductions. “Gobernador Armijo is our former governor.”
“Oh, señora,” said Armijo, “must you call me a ruler in front of these democratic Americans?”
“My American friends are traders,” said Paloma. “They have brought a herd of horses from California. Governor or not,” Paloma told her friends, “Don Miguel is a great man in Nuevo Mexico. We have five preeminent families, and he is the head of one of them.”
“The head of a donkey still brays like a jackass,” said Armijo. Everyone laughed at this self-mockery, Armijo the loudest. He had two more bottles of brandy brought to the table, and proposed several rousing toasts. He sported a conspiratorial smile hinting that they were all devils together.
He made the company laugh several times more before saying, “Señora, shall we dance?”
Paloma gave Sam a smile, slightly nervous, he thought, and walked into the plaza on Armijo’s arm.
Sam watched Armijo do the fandango with fascination.
“He barely moves,” said Hannibal, “but his whole body bristles lust.”
Sam watched his thick, high-arched eyebrows and drooping eyelids. He and Paloma, facing each other, moved sensuously, suggestively. Sam felt a stab of jealousy.
“That’s a man who would come to power by any means necessary,” said Sumner.
“And assume that anyone else would do the same, if they have ambition and daring,” added Hannibal.
“He’s like a child, swept up in his own desires.” said Grumble.
The fandango ended, and Armijo led Paloma back to the table. “I must be off,” he said to the group.
“I wish you well in your conquests,” said Paloma, with a smile, “of every kind.”
The ex-governor beamed and strode away, leering.
“It is Armijo’s rancho we will go to tomorrow,” said Paloma. “You are all invited.”
“To what, señora, “asked Grumble.
“A slave auction,” said Paloma.
Sumner’s eyes flashed, and his nostrils flared.
“Do you care to come?” she asked in a light tone.
Hannibal and Grumble hesitated and murmured, “Yes.”
Sumner said, “Damn right.”
Fourteen
SAM AND PALOMA dismounted in front of Armijo’s casa. “Last year, when he was governor,” she said, “Armijo would not have dared to host an auction on his own property. The government supports slavery, very much so, but the policy is not discussed.” Sam tied Paladin and Paloma’s sorrel to the hitch rail.
Now Grumble, Hannibal, and Sumner got down from their carriage. The cherub and the black man had ridden inside in style while Hannibal drove—that tickled them. Grumble liked to travel in the style of a gentleman. Actually, he enjoyed mocking and employing pretensions of gentility at the same time.
Paloma led them through a gate into a large courtyard. It was not a place of utility, like Paloma’s, but a scene of beauty, with a central fountain and beds of wildflowers. About a dozen men were gathered there. One or two gave Paloma odd looks. They walked over and greeted Don Carlos and Don Gilberto, the American trader and the pumpkin-shaped Mexican, their gambling friends. A couple of the other Mexican men stared at Sumner. He affected not to notice.
Coy wanted to sniff out the people he didn’t know, but Sam told him to sit.
Don Carlos introduced his American friends to the other dons. Most of them seemed indifferent to making new acquaintances. One gave Sam a truly sour look and whispered something to h
is companion about “cabello blanco,” white hair.
“Yes, Don Emilio,” said Paloma, “isn’t it beautiful?” She touched Sam’s hair and flashed Emilio a smile that left no doubt that she was in possession of this splendid young man.
Don Emilio, a cadaverous-looking man with a sallow complexion, scowled at her.
Paloma and the Americans took themselves a few steps off.
“Like my outfit?” asked Sumner.
He was dressed the fanciest Sam had ever seen him, in a fine coat of dove-gray broadcloth and a cravat of gold silk with an edge of lace.
“Why, suh,” Sam faked a genteel Louisiana accent, “you must be…Perhaps you are a planter from Santo Domingo.”
They laughed together. In Santo Domingo Sumner had been a slave, not the planter.
“You and Grumble have been rummaging in Grumble’s trunk of costumes, I can tell.”
“I am a self-made man,” said Sumner. “Whatever I want to be.”
Sam thought, I envy him just for saying that.
They stood around and drank Armijo’s brandy and chatted for a few minutes. Nothing seemed to be happening. Sam was so nervous his breathing was shallow. Then a man he recognized as a lead rider in the caravan came in through the back gate. A Spaniard, not an Indio, the way the Mexicans figured things. He was light-skinned, and his jaw outlined by a red-brown beard.
“Evil men should not be handsome,” said Paloma.
Sam didn’t think the fellow was a bit handsome, not with that harsh flash in his eyes.
An assistant oiled his way through the gate. By one hand he led a teenage girl by a chain between the shackles on her wrists. In the other he carried a whip. He looked at the girl and ran his tongue across his lower lip.
Something in Sam’s stomach lurched upward.
Armijo walked to the center of the courtyard and addressed everyone. “Gentlemen and Señora Luna, this is the trader José Cerritos, of Chihuahua.”
Coy growled
“Buenas dias,” said the red-bearded man. “We have business to conduct.” His words were lightly ironic, and his manner said, We are men together. Let us revel in the pleasures of men.
