by Carla Kelly
Maybe it was the haircut, or the barbering, or even the bath. All Lorenzo did was frown at him. Since it was Lorenzo, this was no ordinary frown, and probably would have totally cowed an entire generation of gently raised children from a big city like Taos. As it was, Claudio only felt relief.
At least until Lorenzo opened his mouth and did not even mention the team in tow. He went right to the matter of Paloma. “Claudio, you fool,” he said, his voice still conversational, which of itself made the hair on Claudio’s back stand on end. He would have preferred the shouting Lorenzo, the man he knew. “You have a wonderful sister, an honorable brother-in-law—even if he is a bit picky about the law—all the food you could want, and I saw how that slave Graciela looked at you.” Lorenzo gestured around the wider world of New Mexico. “Why on earth are you following us?”
Graciela looked at me? Claudio thought, startled. He halted the team of bays. Dios, but they were trained well. “I don’t know that I want to stay at the Double Cross. Besides, I feel the need to return this team to Hacienda Rumaldo.”
“Since you gave the money back to Señor Mondragón—”
“And you told him the team came from Pojoaque Valley,” Claudio challenged. No sense in holding back now, since Lorenzo hadn’t beaten him to a pulp yet. “Imagine Marco’s embarrassment, and probably his lifelong irritation, if he took these lovely beasts to Señor Vasquez and earned a blank stare in exchange, because they aren’t his? Or were you just planning not to return them?” Claudio looked down at his saddle horn. “Lorenzo, things get complicated when we do either right or wrong.”
Lorenzo stared at him for a long time. Claudio thought he might be choosing his words with extraordinary care. It wasn’t even noon yet, and Lorenzo continued to surprise him. Maybe that bath had washed the crusty stuff around the trader’s conscience. What about his own conscience?
“Claudio, you’re turning into an amazing amount of trouble,” Lorenzo said.
“Me? Paloma’s the problem,” Claudio said in his defense, though it sounded weak to his clean ears.
Lorenzo ignored his outburst. “We’ll return the team to old Señor Rumaldo’s pasture, although I don’t doubt for a minute that someone else with fewer scruples than we have will just steal them again.”
Claudio smiled at Lorenzo’s artless declaration. “We are horse traders and we do a little paso doble all around the law. One step here, one step there.” Might as well admit it. “I think I’m getting tired of the dance.” Claudio waited a moment. “Are you?”
“No!” Lorenzo declared, even though Claudio thought he heard the tiniest hesitation. “What I am doing is getting tired of you, Claudio. After we return the team and someone less principled steals them, Rogelio and I are going to escort you back to the Double Cross.”
“And if I don’t want to go?” Claudio challenged.
“Rogelio and I will either garrote you with a nice thin piece of wire and dump your stupid carcass here for the buzzards, or we will tie you up and drag you back to Paloma. Your choice.”
“That’s no choice!”
“I knew you would see it my way.”
* * *
As far as Paloma could tell, the only advantage in having Marco gone for any length of time was the opportunity to eat more cooked onions that usual. Even before they were married, he had warned her of what happened to his inner workings when he ate too many cooked onions. She liked them, so his absence meant more onions in the food.
That wasn’t enough reason to wish him away, however, so mostly she felt glum waking up in the morning with no man beside her. True, she could lie in bed with her hands behind her head and think about things, but she missed Marco.
True, there was more room in the bed for Soli and Claudito, if they woke up early enough to join her. She knew they missed their father, too, although she had to smile on the first morning when Soledad looked under the bed and peered inside the massive clothes press, then crawled into bed with all the resignation of a Christian martyr and none of the grace.
“You know Papa never hides in those places,” Paloma said to her daughter as she cuddled her close.
“I was hoping,” Soledad said with a small sigh that went right to Paloma’s heart.
Even Emilio’s offer to drop the gate in the acequia and leave a little water to splash in met with a sorrowful shake of Soledad’s head.
After one long day of unhappiness, a consultation with Perla followed by a visit with the beekeeper resolved at least some of Soledad’s misery.
“If this doesn’t cheer her up a little, then there is no remedy,” said the practical Perla to Paloma and Eckapeta as they watched Soli stare out the kitchen window. “Come, child,” the cook said. “You need to pay a visit to Cipriano.” They looked out the window together. “See? There he is, talking to Sancha. And see what is in his hand?”
“Honey?” Soledad asked, perking up.
“Yes! Bring it here and you and I will make something wonderful.”
Soledad darted out the door, forgetting that she was a lady and should walk everywhere. Perla looked at Paloma, and her glance bordered on conspiratorial.
“Would that we had a remedy for what ails Sancha,” she said in a low voice.
“What can you mean?” Paloma asked.
“Señora, Sancha has been moping ever since Lorenzo rode away.”
“Lorenzo?”
Perla came closer. “At this very window, Sancha took a good look at Lorenzo while he was bathing in the acequia.” Perla rolled her eyes, which made Eckapeta laugh.
“Bigger than Big Man Down There?” Eckapeta teased in turn. “Eh, Paloma?”
They were all laughing when Soledad walked back into the kitchen, her eyes on the full jar of honey in her hands. Solemnly, she held it up to Perla, who, still smiling, poured it into a well-seasoned pot and swung it back over the low coals. She handed Soledad another jar. “Take your Mama with you to the spring house and measure me just this much cream,” she said, putting her finger against the jar more than halfway up.
“Mama, what is she planning?” Soledad asked as she skipped alongside Paloma to the spring house.
The stone-lined room, set three feet below ground level, smelled sharply of curing cheese and curdled cream. Paloma measured out the cream and handed it to Soledad. “Perla will want you and Claudito to stretch out some honey sweets.”
Soledad gasped, her eyes wide. “Mama! All this because I am sad?”
“Yes, you scamp! I expect you to be much more cheerful when the honey is pulled and cut into little bites.” She kissed Soledad’s hair, breathing in the fragrance of summer sun and thinking how quickly August had faded away.
The mother in her had something else to say. “And don’t start to think that if you are sad we will make candy every time.”
“I will never do that, Mama,” Soli declared, eyes wide, voice solemn.
“Never?” Paloma asked, amused.
Soli gestured for Paloma to bend closer. “I might try it on Papa just once.”
“You are a scamp!” Paloma said, giving her a gentle swat on her skirt. “I will warn Papa.”
Soledad mustered all her dignity, which apparently was considerable for one so young. “A girl has to try, Mama.”
“I suppose she does, dearest,” Paloma said, remembering a few such moments with her own mother. Suddenly Paloma missed dreadfully the wisdom Mama could have shared with her own children. “I believe I did, once or twice.”
“Did your mama give you a swat?”
“Certainly! Now hurry on before I give you another.”
Her heart full, Paloma watched Soledad skip ahead, happy now, even though the cream jar was in some danger. Standing by the spring house, her hands pressed together, Paloma whispered, “Mama, if only you could see my dear ones.”
With all her heart, she wanted Marco beside her. Marco would listen, then gather her close, assuring her that somehow, at least in his personal theology, their departed ones knew and underst
ood. She thought of her brother, wherever he was, sad that he did not know how she felt. Please come back, Claudio, she thought. If you do not, go with God.
Standing on chairs, but only as close to the fireplace as Paloma would permit, both children watched as Perla slowly stirred the honey and cream. When the time was right, she added a pinch of ground chilis, which made Claudito take a swipe at his mouth.
“Just like his father,” Paloma whispered to Eckapeta. She took the Indian woman’s hand and tugged it to her cheek. “Why wouldn’t Claudio stay?” she whispered.
“He does not like or trust Toshua and me,” Eckapeta said, with no hesitation. “It is more, though. I think that deep down in a hidden place, he is sad he could not protect you from the raiders.”
“It was so long ago,” Paloma said, her eyes on Soli and Claudito, almost dancing in their eagerness to begin pulling the miel y leche. “So long.”
“Not to Claudio,” Eckapeta said.
“What a waste,” Paloma replied. She stood up and put her arms around her children, watching Perla work her magic. “Marco told me my brother would return now and then.” She rested her chin on Soli’s head. “I hope that is often enough for me.”
She glanced at Sancha, wondering when she had become so self-centered that she did not notice the housekeeper was pining, too. Lorenzo? And there was Graciela, standing like a shadow by the door, her eyes on the children, because they were her stewardship. The girl’s frown, however, told Paloma there was something more she’d been missing. She turned to Eckapeta.
“Why are you the only woman in this kitchen who is not mournful?” she asked her great good friend.
“I don’t live in yesterday or tomorrow,” Eckapeta told her. “None of The People do. We don’t even have words for it. I live right now.”
I may have just learned something, Paloma thought, as she spread a little olive oil on the wooden table so Perla could pour out the hot, thickened mass. Paloma enlisted Graciela to take the children outside and walk them around until the honey cooled.
“But why is Graciela moping?” Paloma asked.
Eckapeta shrugged. “Maybe you need to pay more attention to her and think less about your own problems, even if she is just a slave.”
“That is not something you should say to our dama,” Sancha scolded.
Eckapeta gave the housekeeper a sharp look. “I say what I want.”
“I should handle today’s problems only?” Paloma asked. She could placate Sancha later.
Eckapeta nodded. “I will walk the children around outside until the dulce cools. Ask Graciela to help you straighten up the children’s room.”
Paloma gestured to Graciela, who had only gotten as far as the kitchen garden with the children.
“I have neglected everything in the last few days,” Paloma said to Graciela as they made Soledad’s bed together, then tidied the room. After they finished, she sank down on Soledad’s bed and patted the spot next to her. “Sit down.”
Graciela sat, calmly enough but always with a level of tension that puzzled Paloma. We treat you well, she thought. What more is there?
She could only try. “Sancha tells me that no tortillas are missing now.”
“I have lost the need for extra ones,” Graciela told her simply.
Paloma decided to come right out and ask. The children would be back soon and clamoring for her attention in the kitchen. “Is something troubling you? I would like to know, because I have been where you are, and no one cared.”
Graciela shook her head decisively, but too soon. “Nothing, señora.” She managed a false laugh that fooled neither of them, from the way the blush rose higher on the slave’s face.
You are no good at lying, Paloma thought. She said nothing more. If Marco could listen to Lorenzo, know he was lying, but pay him anyway for stolen horses because he was a gentleman, she could leave Graciela alone.
“Well, then, we had better return to the kitchen,” Paloma said. “Soledad and Claudio will probably stage an overthrow of the hacienda if we are not prompt.”
Graciela nodded, but stayed where she was a moment more. Paloma regarded her from the doorway. I must try to learn more, she thought.
“If there is something I should know, please tell me,” Paloma said, trying once again. “I care not so much for myself, but if the matter involves a loved one, I need to know, don’t I?”
Graciela pressed her lips in a tight line and shook her head, even as her eyes seemed to send another message.
So the matter rested for another day. The honey candy helped relieve Soledad of any anxiety because of the absence of her father, and Claudito was happy to follow in his sister’s footsteps. Paloma conferred each morning with Emilio, concerning the day’s duties as everyone prepared for the coming winter, even as the sun shone hot and long on the dry land. The grass in the pastures had cured to tawny yellow, nutritious for cattle and sheep alike. The lambs born in the cold of February had arrived at the adolescent swagger of almost-sheep.
Daily she consulted Marco’s journal, where for many years in his meticulous print he had recorded each day’s duty. She smiled over his little doodles in the margins. Early ones had been of lambs and chickens. After they were married, the doodles changed to slim women and even one erect phallus, which told her all she needed to know about her rejuvenated husband. Her smiles deepened as she came across a man and woman tangled together, and then on pages closer to today, babies.
The doodles since their marriage were a relief, compared to the ones dating back to the time of his first wife’s death. On one page, after recording a concoction to treat scours, he had drawn three small crosses. Two pages later, he had drawn his own face, with cheekbones more prominent, eyes hollow, wide and staring. Then no doodles for several years.
“Now is better,” she said out loud, turning to today’s entry. She thought a moment, then drew a fair rendition of Soli and Claudio splashing in the irrigation ditch. After another moment’s thought she drew a profile of herself, one not so slim, and with the barest hint of another baby inside.
“Do men ever think of anything but women?” she asked Eckapeta that night, when the children were in bed and she was visiting her friend in Marco’s former office. She told Eckapeta about the little drawings and they had a quiet laugh together.
“That is your answer,” the Comanche woman said.
“I mean, I think about household duties and children and cooking,” Paloma said, perplexed. “I could go all day without thinking of Big Man Down There.” She laughed again. “But I don’t!”
“And there is your answer again.”
Someone knocked on the door just as Paloma rose to leave. Quicker than thought, Eckapeta slipped her knife from its scabbard and motioned Paloma behind her.
“What?” Eckapeta asked, and not in a kind voice.
“Is … is la señora there? Emilio here.”
Eckapeta stepped back and Paloma opened the door. “Yes, Emilio?”
Emilio gave her a mystified look. “Señora Mondragón, the horse traders are back, and you won’t believe who is with them.”
He gestured for her to follow him and she did, Eckapeta close behind, knife in hand, ready for anything.
Paloma walked with him to the gates that had closed again. Three of her servants were leading horses to the barn and there stood Lorenzo and Rogelio. Attached to Lorenzo by a rope, and with a noose around his neck, was her brother Claudio.
Chapter Twenty-Three
In which someone spills overdue beans
“Here! I don’t want him,” Lorenzo said, handing her the rope.
Claudio gazed mournfully back at her. Every angry word she had wanted to fling at him vanished. She took the rope, loosened the noose, and lifted it over her brother’s head. Without a word, she kissed his forehead and he dropped to his knees.
Paloma knelt down, her arms around him. Gradually, hesitantly, he put his arms around her. He mumbled, “Wrong of me,” and then something else too in
distinct for her ears.
“Doesn’t matter. You’re my brother.” Firmly, she raised his chin until they were eye to eye. “You can come and go as you please, but don’t you dare just leave again without telling me.”
“You sound like Mama,” he told her, his eyes no less bleak.
Her heart lurched. “I expect I do, Claudio.” She took his arm. “Come on. Let’s go into the kitchen.” She gave Lorenzo and Rogelio her narrow-eyed, dare-you-to-disagree look. “All of us.”
“It’s late. We can sleep in the barn,” Lorenzo said, but Paloma knew feeble resistance when she heard it.
“And where would my manners be?” she scolded, figuring Lorenzo, crusty man inside and out, was less vulnerable than Claudio right now. “You’ll sleep where you slept when you were here before. It may be late, but there is always something to eat in my kitchen.”
She sat her brother at the table, deeply aware how beaten down he looked. When everyone was seated, she opened the bread cabinet and took out two of Perla’s large round loaves baked only this morning. Deftly she sliced the bread while Sancha, in her robe with her hair in braids, rubbed her eyes in the doorway, then moved into action, reaching for a bowl of butter and honey. Soon the men were eating. By the time anyone looked up, there was hot chocolate whipped to a froth, with just a pinch of chili powder and precious vanilla.
“Tell me now, whoever wants to talk,” Paloma began. “What is going on?” She looked from Claudio to Lorenzo. “Either one of you, and soon.”
Rogelio spoke, to her surprise. “Claudio returned those bays to Señor Rumaldo. He made us do it.”
“But I thought … Marco told me that the bays belonged to a hacendado in Pojoaque Valley,” Paloma said. “I believe the Rumaldo hacienda is two days south of us, and not west through mountain passes.”
“We lied about Pojoaque,” Rogelio said. He looked at Lorenzo, who glared back. “Dama, we lie about a lot of things.” He hung his head then, a child in a man’s body.
“Thank you for the truth, Rogelio,” she said simply. “Have some more bread and honey.” She looked at Lorenzo then. “You still have the three horses that belong to someone in Isleta.”
