Paloma and the Horse Traders

by Carla Kelly

“Use these. Put a sheet around his neck and just … just whack off his hair until it is shoulder length, like the hair of this man behind you. Then use that little comb. Do the same with his beard.”

  “ ‘This man behind you?’ ” Marco asked with a laugh. “Sancha, am I in your libro negro? What did I do?”

  Sancha gave him a terrible stare. She jabbed a finger toward his chest. “Paloma threw up this morning. It is your fault.”

  Paloma leaned against the bad man, hoping that in some comfortable ring in paradise, Felicia could look down and nod with approval how thoroughly her own Sancha had become the champion of her husband’s second wife.

  “We won’t blame him entirely, Sancha,” Paloma said as she took the shears. “I had something to do with this turn of events, too. Could I ask you to get me an old sheet?”

  Sancha left the room grumbling, and Paloma turned her face into her husband’s chest and laughed quietly. “All your fault that my skirts won’t button in a few months, and I’ll be forced to set over the buttons on my bodices,” she whispered. “I’ll show you! I’ll make you buckle my shoes for me when I don’t bend so well.”

  They laughed together. Marco kissed the top of her head, gave her a pat on her rump and went into the garden, where Toshua stood now, eyeing her brother Claudio, who was returning stare for stare.

  “Oh, dear. Claudio, you will have to learn as I learned,” she said, looking through the wavy glass at the three most important men in her life. “Don’t bear him a grudge, Toshua.” There was no way the Comanche could have heard her, but he looked squarely in her direction. “Yes, you, Toshua.”

  Feeling the need for an ally and a better barber, Paloma went down the hall to her children’s room, where Graciela had just finished braiding Soledad’s brown hair into an intricate design.

  “My dearest, you are lovely!” Paloma said, clapping her hands.

  Soli twirled around, trying to look at the braids, until she fell into a giggling heap next to Claudio.

  “Graciela, wonderful,” Paloma said. “Is this a design from your cloudland home?”

  The young woman nodded, her eyes lively with the praise.

  “Could you fix mine that way sometime? I have no skills along these lines.”

  “I can, dama,” Graciela said.

  “Do this for me now,” Paloma said. “Let us go to the kitchen garden where you will help me shear my brother’s hair and beard. He is a wild man and I do not even know where to start.”

  “Shall we take these wild ones with us?” Graciela asked, and she held out her hand for Soledad.

  “Most certainly! Come, Claudito. I have a digging spoon and you can build a ditch next to where the peas used to be.”

  He took her hand, skipping ahead, tugging her after him, until Soli stopped him. “Ladies walk slowly,” she told her little cousin/brother. “Like this.”

  Paloma felt her heart grow a size or two to watch Soledad clasp her little hands together at her waist, just as she did. She thought of her cousin, Maria Teresa Castellano, and all her spite and meanness. Soledad was none of that, because she never saw it in her own young life. I could not give you a kinder present, cousin, Paloma thought, as tears tickled her eyes. She is my treasure, as she might have been yours.

  Hands on his hips, her small son watched them both, walking slowly side by side. “That is not fun,” he declared, and skipped ahead of Graciela, into the kitchen and out the door, banging it behind him.

  Soli tugged at Paloma’s skirt. “Mama, I would rather run, too.”

  “Then run, my love. You have years and years to become a lady,” Paloma assured her.

  “You see how I need your help, Graciela,” Paloma told the slave as they walked into the kitchen. “They will only get livelier, while I get more awkward.” She looked out the window to see little Claudio just staring at his namesake, whose face was still turned to the healing sun.

  “Look at him. I wonder how long it has been since my brother just sat in the sunlight.”

  He opened his eyes when they came into the garden. His face was rough and weathered, and old eyes looked back at her. Somewhere under all the layers was her brother. Paloma said a prayer, the same one never far from her mind and heart since he walked into the children’s room last night, singing Mama’s Canary Island lullaby: Oh, how I thank thee, Lord.

  Graciela took charge of the sheet, wrapping it around Claudio’s neck and knotting it firmly. There would be no room for the most elusive louse to make a getaway. He made little strangling noises, which small Claudio imitated, staggering into the onion row and collapsing on the dried-up pea vines. In another moment he was digging around the yellowed vines. Seeing two other spoons in the row, Paloma knew it was time for a reckoning before Sancha started to wonder out loud what was happening to the family silver, and whether or not that trickster Señor Coyote was whisking them away.

  “He looks just like his father.”

  Paloma smiled at her brother. “Then he will be a lucky man someday. Graciela, is it tight enough? I won’t have my brother escaping, not after all these years.”

  She meant it as a joke, but her tears came anyway. Seeing them, Claudio reached for her hand and she clutched it.

  “Where else would I possibly want to go?” he asked quietly. He turned her hand over and kissed it.

  Soledad watched, her eyes narrowing. Paloma looked at her, wondering about her daughter’s bright mind and what went through it. “What, little one?”

  “Does Papa know about this man?”

  “He does,” she said seriously, as her brother laughed, “and he will not mind. Soli, Claudio is my brother, like little Claudio is your brother.” She pointed to her son, busy creating a network of acequias in the bean row now. “Someday maybe Claudito will kiss your hand.”

  Soli made a face. “I will have to wash it.”

  “You might change your mind,” Claudio said. He looked back at Graciela. “Graciela, whack this bramble bush.”

  Paloma took a seat on a stool that her thoughtful husband must have placed there. She watched as Graciela’s capable hands gathered her brother’s hair, clean but tangled, into her hand, and with a sure stroke, began to cut through the mass. It fell away in bunches.

  Soledad laughed when the wind took Claudio’s hair and blew it around the garden. “Mama! In the spring, the birds will make nests!” she exclaimed.

  And life goes on, she thought, watching the hair fly, seeing it through her daughter’s eyes. In the spring there will be another baby as Marco and I continue to build our own nest in this hard valley. God’s goodness to her filled her heart. Thank heavens Claudito demanded her attention just then, with the need for water to pour into his network of acequias.

  When she came back to the garden from the kitchen with a pitcher of water, Graciela had evened off Claudio’s hair, brown, now that all the grease and dirt were gone. Paloma added water to her son’s little canals, then stood beside Graciela. She ran that fine-toothed comb through her brother’s hair, catching what lice remained.

  “Once a week, a bath,” she told Claudio.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Never more so, Brother,” Paloma assured him. “Now hold still for your beard.”

  Claudio put his hand up. “I sort of like my beard,” he began, his voice tentative.

  “You can ‘sort of like’ a lot less of it,” Paloma said firmly. “Graciela, trim it close. If we like it, we might let it stay.”

  He frowned at Paloma. “There was a time when you did what I wanted,” he said.

  “I am not eleven,” she replied and glared back.

  They stared at each other. His lips started to twitch first, at least what she could see of his lips under his sprout of beard. She started to laugh.

  Graciela gaped at them both as they laughed. Little Claudio left his miniature irrigation ditches among the bean vines. Wide-eyed, Soledad looked from one adult to the other. “I’m going to find Papa,” she said in her most Paloma-like voice,
which made Paloma double over helplessly in mirth.

  “Are we in trouble now?” Claudio managed to gasp out, as Soledad started for the horse barn, every inch of her charged with purpose, from the set of her shoulders to the resolute swaying of her little dress.

  “We are and it’s your fault,” Paloma said. “Hmm, perhaps I have been threatening her with Papa a little too much. She sounded so much like me!”

  “Aha! Definitely your fault,” Claudio said promptly, nothing but merriment in his eyes now. The tired look, the haunted gaze was gone, at least for a moment, as they laughed in the kitchen garden and Graciela just shook her head.

  “Let’s wait a minute, and see if ‘Papa’ comes,” Paloma said, when Graciela raised her arms to begin the next phase of Claudio’s rehabilitation.

  He came, taking his time, and already with a grin on his face. He carried Soledad, who appeared to be telling Papa what she thought. Toshua followed behind. Amused, Paloma thought it quite remarkable just how many servants suddenly seemed to have business near the garden.

  His grin a wide smile by now, Marco carried Soli into the kitchen garden and spoke to her. “My dearest, you say they were scolding each other and laughing?”

  Soledad nodded her head emphatically.

  “Being really silly?” he asked.

  Soli took her father’s face in her hands. “Papa, Mama never acts like that.”

  “Good thing Soli is asleep late at night and doesn’t hear,” he whispered in Paloma’s ear.

  “Hush!” she whispered back, her face hot, but not before Claudio’s shoulders started to shake.

  “I told you it was your fault,” her brother said, which made Marco laugh out loud.

  Soledad sighed and looked from one to the other. “You are not helping, Papa,” she said, with all the solemnity of dos años y medio.

  “No, I am not,” Marco said. He kissed her cheek and set her down. “Mama and her brother like to tease each other. Don’t you tease little Claudio now and then?”

  “Yes, but that is different,” Soli insisted.

  “How?”

  Paloma could see that the complexities of the argument were nearly beyond her daughter—nearly, but not quite.

  Soledad drew herself up, folded her hands carefully in front of her waist and declared with great dignity, “We are little. They are not.”

  “You have me there, Soli,” Claudio said, as Paloma turned her head into Marco’s shoulder and laughed. “Let’s make your mother go inside and behave herself.”

  Soledad nodded. “Who will cut your beard? It has to go.” She lowered her voice. “Mama is right about that.”

  Even Toshua smiled. “I could take my knife to him,” he told Soledad.

  “You might frighten him. It must be Graciela,” the child said.

  Paloma looked at Graciela, who had been watching the whole exchange with wide-eyed wonder. It touched her heart to see the slave grow suddenly serious. A wistful look came into her eyes. Paloma touched her arm.

  “Graciela? It appears I have been banished to the house. I am relying on you.”

  The slave nodded. Tears pooled in her eyes and Paloma understood what she could not say.

  “Take us as we are,” Marco said simply. He clapped his hands together. “Soli, you had better help Claudito with that … that muddy road?”

  “Acequia, Papa,” Claudio said patiently. “We need more water.”

  “And that is the truth of life here, son,” Marco said. “Sancha has water for you in the kitchen. Come, Paloma. You need to remember your manners. This might mean a visit to the sala.”

  Soledad’s eyes widened again. “The sala? Papa! She’ll be good.”

  “She always is. Almost always.” Marco turned to Claudio. “Off goes the beard.”

  “Sí, Señor Mondragón. I would wish to avoid the dread sala.”

  After the noonday heat of the kitchen garden, the sala was cool and inviting. Paloma had no objection when Marco steered her toward the bench where Claudio had spent most of the night. He sat her down, sat down beside her and swung her feet up into his lap.

  Toshua had followed them into the sala. He squatted on his haunches by the bench. Paloma looked from one to the other.

  “What are you two planning?” she asked.

  “She knows us, too,” Toshua said.

  “I only marry smart women, same as you,” Marco said promptly. He took off her shoes and rubbed her feet. “Toshua and I are going to ride into Santa Maria tomorrow. I want to see what happened there, if anything.” He stopped.

  “When are you going to get around to telling me that you and Toshua are going to track Great Owl and see where he goes?” she asked, feeling a hollow spot in her middle.

  “I told you she was smart, Toshua,” Marco said. He ran his hands over her instep. “I haven’t decided. Paloma, I don’t know what Great Owl is up to. Was he just after horses when he came here before Taos? Why did he shoot at Claudio? And why did he stop?”

  “You fear he might endanger what little peace we have earned from Kwihnai?” she asked.

  “I fear it greatly.” He rubbed her ankles now. “We’ve worked hard to maintain peace here in Valle del Sol.”

  “Whatever you do, I must come, too. After all, he shot at me.”

  Paloma looked at the doorway and let out her breath slowly, her eyes wide, her heart remembering.

  Claudio must have convinced Graciela to leave him a close beard. Paloma sat up, her eyes on her brother, but seeing their father. Papa always told Mama he liked a close beard because he had tender Spanish skin, which always made her laugh; she was more Spanish than he was.

  And there he stood, close beard, his eyes so blue, as blue as hers, his head tipped slightly to one side, just like Papa. Paloma bowed her head and closed her eyes. Marco’s arm went around her waist and she leaned against him.

  Claudio came closer. He knelt in front of her. “Paloma, I never thought this moment would happen,” he said, choosing his words so carefully, as though he walked them through a briar patch. “I never thought we would be together again.” He swallowed and looked at Marco. “Please bless me. It’s been so long, and I don’t even know if I believe anymore, but please ….”

  Marco made the sign of the cross on Claudio’s forehead. “You, too, must take us as we are.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  In which Marco explains brothers and husbands

  The men did not go to Santa Maria the next day, and not even the one after that, not with so much field work to be done as August drew to a close.

  The only thing that happened was Eckapeta’s disappearance. One day she was there, playing with her grandchildren—for such they were—and the next she was gone. Paloma asked Toshua.

  “She will find Kwihnai and they will talk,” Toshua said. “If he has something to tell us about Great Owl, she will bear the news back here.”

  “You don’t worry when she rides alone?” Paloma asked.

  They were sitting on the low wall by the acequia. He put his arm around her, something he had never done before, something that made Claudio, sitting on her other side, give a start and look away. She turned her head toward Toshua.

  “To what purpose?” the Comanche questioned in turn. “Worry is a great failing among you Spanish. Go rub your beads. Better yet, go find your man and rub him.”

  She had laughed softly, well beyond letting her good friend embarrass her, especially when he was right. She could tell that Claudio didn’t quite understand yet, but time would change him, as it had changed her.

  To Paloma’s relief, Marco said nothing more about tracking Great Owl. She knew her man well, though, and was certain the idea had not left his mind. In the years since the death of her parents and brother, she should have known better than to borrow trouble from a different day. The brown robes had taught her that sufficient was the day unto the evil thereof. If the Franciscans hadn’t taught her, she should have known it anyway. Still, she worried, and she knew it was b
ecause of her children, helpless little ones. Every breath she took, she breathed for them.

  That’s what it is to be a citizen of this poor colony, she thought a few mornings later, as she lay in bed and listened to her husband’s light snore. She turned on her side to watch his slow breathing and the way his fine-veined hands rested on the coverlet, wide open. She thought of her brother across the hall, and his nightmares. She remembered her own, and the relief she felt that Marco was there to cover her closed eyes, moving so rapidly, until she was at peace again.

  There had been no one to give Claudio peace. Too often his hands balled into fists as he slept. She knew because she was already conditioned to hear her children in the night. Somehow, her brother became part of her nighttime stewardship. He had only been with them five days, but she went to him when he cried out and sat with him, holding his hand until he relaxed in sleep again.

  Whether Claudio knew she was there or not, she could not say, except that her heart sank the night he called out, “Mama!” Tears on her face, she held both his hands that night.

  When she came back to bed, she woke up Marco, the words spilling out of her about the sorrow that had driven the sleeping Claudio Vega back so many years into another world, one before her birth, when he was a young boy.

  Tucked close to her husband, Paloma felt her own heart finally stop its racing. She knew who she was and where she was, and she thanked God and all the saints for her good man.

  She knew her words had disturbed Marco, because he did not return to sleep immediately. “Paloma, what did you do when you had nightmares in the house of your uncle in Santa Fe?” he asked.

  “Do? Do?” she had asked in turn, uncertain what he meant.

  “You know, when you had nightmares.”

  “No one ever came into my room. It was just me and the Comanches.” She shuddered. “Some nights it seemed as though they rode around and around my bed.”

  She felt his huge sigh and happily let him pull her closer. She debated whether to tell him any more, but he was her husband. “For the first year, when I had those nightmares, I crawled under the bed and into the farthest corner, as I had crawled that day when everyone died.”