The Star in the Meadow (The Spanish Brand Book 4)

by Carla Kelly

  “Don’t stop now, Sancha,” he said. “You and I have been through much.”

  “I’ve known it to never leave, this odd sadness,” she said.

  “What should I do?” he asked.

  “Let her rest somewhere peaceful,” Sancha told him. “Somewhere quiet.”

  You have to trust Toshua’s wisdom, and now Sancha’s, he told himself, then wondered if he could give Paloma more quiet time by sending her on a visit to his sister. That might be just the remedy she needed.

  Restless, he went to the door of his office and looked out at the courtyard, where the business of spring was in full swing. Emilio had located all the cloth bags Marco would fill with wheat tomorrow when he led the planting. Two days would see the job done, with beans to follow. At least the corn was in little hillocks of soil.

  He remembered dangerous days in his childhood, when laborers went to the field with guards and big dogs, ancestors of the dogs Claudito enjoyed riding now. He remembered sudden alarms that woke him at night, sending him rushing down the hall to crawl into bed with his mother. His father would be on the roof watching, always watching. Sometimes trouble came, and sometimes trouble visited his neighbors, but they all suffered in turn until the Comanche Moon set.

  Marco thought of his brother-in-law, Ramon Gutierrez, who had died too young at the hands of Comanches, leaving his sister a widow with one small son and another on the way. Maria Luisa Gutierrez had seen both sons married now, with small children of their own, but she had been alone for many years, her man quiet in another cemetery.

  Maria Luisa. Marco sat down at his desk again and took out a sheet of paper. He thought a long time—one mustn’t waste paper—then began to write. He told his sister of Juan Luis’s birth, and Paloma’s strange sadness, and asked if he could send his darling wife and new son to stay with her for a few weeks. If she remains here, Paloma will work too hard, no matter how I urge her to stop, and never get the rest she needs, he wrote, even as he dreaded the very idea of sending his wife several hours away. If she visits you, I know she will relax and put her feet up, which she must do. Her lassitude is starting to worry me.

  He concluded with all the usual comments about home and crops and life in his part of the valley. He promised to come for his wife in a few weeks, bringing his other little ones, and stay for a short visit himself. He knew the planting would be done by then, the calves and lambs frisking about and summer on its way.

  He sealed the note with hot wax and his Double Cross stamp and went into the courtyard again, looking for a messenger.

  He noticed the poorly dressed man leaning against the outside wall of the horse stable and wondered who he was, as he had wondered yesterday but hadn’t taken the time to inquire. Marco watched the man now as the gates opened and the auditor’s carriage came into view. He saw how alert he became, and remembered a similar sight yesterday at the same time.

  Still watching the stranger, Marco beckoned to Emilio. Marco handed the letter to his mayor domo, requesting that he send a rider to the Gutierrez estancia and wait for a reply.

  Emilio nodded and took the letter. Marco put out his hand. “Before you go, who is that man over there? The one so stoop shouldered, even though he looks young? I don’t know him.”

  Emilio looked where Marco gestured with his lips, Comanche style, and shrugged. “He is a poor specimen, but a cousin of Perla la cocinera. I believe he came to visit.”

  “Does he work for someone?”

  Emilio made a face. “Those wretched twins, Roque and Miguel Durán.”

  “My father never could get them to account for all their cattle properly.” He made his own face, wondering how some useless men seemed to hang on, even in a dangerous place such as Valle del Sol. “He told me it was best to ignore them, and I have.”

  “Perhaps this one should go on his way,” Emilio said. “I will remind him that he does not work here.”

  Marco nodded and returned to his office. Staring at the paperwork before him, he wished for Toshua to appear.

  Second best was Joaquim Gasca, who came into the office with Señor Ygnacio.

  “Look who I found on the trail from Santa Maria?” Joaquim said. “I told him I would be happy to sit with him this afternoon.”

  I think you would be even happier to sit with Catalina Ygnacio, Marco told himself, as he motioned the two inside.

  True to his observant nature, Marco watched the two men, one old and stooped, and the other confident and capable, after his own years of purgatory. He marveled at the change that had come over his friend since they’d returned from the killing grounds last fall after the death of Great Owl.

  Last night Marco had remarked to Paloma on more recent changes, which included heretofore unseen tenderness in that friend’s eyes when he looked at Catalina Ygnacio. It pleased him to see Joaquim’s attention funneled toward an intelligent but prickly woman long past the blush of youth and well into her twenties.

  He had been watching Catalina, too, happy to see a deep dimple in her cheek, she who by her own disclaimer to Paloma had never smiled much or found reason to. Marco also noted that when she laughed or merely smiled, her eyes seemed to grow larger instead of smaller, as was more commonly the case. And what eyes they were, much darker brown than his, and so handsome.

  There was no denying Catalina Ygnacio had a sharp tongue and appeared not to suffer fools gladly. Marco couldn’t imagine such a shrew in his own household, but he also wondered how much of her quick anger was a defensive move to strike out first before someone had a chance to hit her with sneering words or some other unkindness.

  He could almost see why Joaquim might be drawn to such a woman as Catalina Ygnacio. In earlier years he had watched the smooth Joaquim work his magic on other females in Santa Maria. Catalina appeared to have no such interest in coming into the teniente’s orbit. She was a challenge to him, or so Marco reckoned.

  No wonder Joaquim found himself drawn to her. True, she was tall and thin, but Joaquim had made a remark last week about how nice it was to look in her eyes without having to bend down. He had followed that bit of news with a joke, but Marco wasn’t fooled.

  “You just wait, dear heart,” Paloma had whispered to him last night as she handed their well-fed and slumbering child to him to place in his cradle. “Joaquim will realize what Lina is.” Then he had snuggled down with Paloma, aware of her sigh as her back came into contact with her mattress, after fifteen hours away from it.

  “And what is she?” he teased. “I’m not so certain Joaquim Gasca is a man who will like being ordered about by a thin woman almost as tall as he is, no matter what he says.”

  Even in the dark, he could almost hear Paloma gathering her innate dignity about her. “There are times, husband, when I look at El Teniente Gasca and see a little boy who wants someone to care enough to order him about.”

  “How do you know these things?” Marco asked, delighted with her insights, which had proved accurate on many occasions. Even more, she sounded more like the Paloma he knew, and not the woman so quiet of late.

  “I just do,” she said. He pulled her closer and felt her stiffen. He kissed her cheek, well aware of her next effort to relax, as though life was normal. He saw all the exhaustion in her eyes, even sorrow, as she whispered, “Do you want me?”

  “You know I do,” he told her, but put his hand over hers as she started on her buttons. “I also know how tired you are.”

  “That must be it. Give me a little time.”

  He lay awake until she thought he slept, then listened as she let herself out of the house again, to sit by herself.

  Now what, Toshua? he thought, miserable.

  “You’re not paying much attention, friend,” Joaquim said.

  Marco recalled his thoughts to the moment, there in his office, with the capitán of the presidio looking at him and the little auditor already rolling up his sleeves to begin tallying figures again. He made himself smile to hear Señor Ygnacio chuckling for no other reason
than that he had numbers, lots of them, to add and subtract and check. Marco couldn’t imagine such tedium.

  “You caught me, Joaquim,” Marco replied. “Let us walk outside for a moment and leave this good man to his labor.”

  It touched Marco’s heart to see Señor Ygnacio nod in pleasure at something so simple as being called “a good man.” Maybe before he and his daughter left Valle del Sol—deo volente all was safe and they were well—Marco could write a letter to Governor Anza and request that the auditor be transferred somewhere, anywhere, away from Felix Moreno. It could happen; the governor had listened to him before.

  The two men walked toward the acequia, which, next to the kitchen, seemed to be where serious conversations took place. They sat on the low bench where Claudio and Soledad usually played, and he poured his heart out to the teniente.

  “I have written to my sister, the widow Gutierrez, asking if she will let Paloma and Juanito be her guests for a few weeks,” he concluded. “She’s not prospering, and I fear for her.”

  “She doesn’t seem quite her charming self,” Joaquim said finally. “I think this is a wise plan. Does Paloma?”

  “I haven’t asked her,” Marco confessed. “I know she will argue with me.” He thought about last night’s conversation with her and wondered if that were really so. “Or she might see the necessity herself.”

  “Convince her,” Joaquim said. He slapped his knees and stood up. “Listen to me giving you advice! I who am less qualified than anyone on your estancia.”

  “You care greatly about her,” Marco said simply. “I know you want the best for her.” There was no challenge in his voice, but he wanted Joaquim to know that he, Marco Mondragón, was a husband who had eyes in his head.

  Marco regarded Joaquim thoughtfully, noting the change that a winter of self-examination and discipline had imposed on a former lecher, drunkard, and all-purpose selfish man.

  “I will always care for Paloma,” Joaquim said at last. “Marco, you won’t mind if I admire her from a distance?”

  “Until you find a woman of your own,” Marco told him. “Which reminds me: you are busy; I am busy. What do you say we put Catalina Ygnacio in charge of getting Paloma and Juanito to my sister’s estancia?”

  “I have noticed Señorita Ygnacio enjoys being in charge,” Joaquim said with a bit of lurking humor in his eyes. “Paloma will be in good hands. Papa Ygnacio will probably not mind if they take the government vehicle a little farther than a drive around your holdings here. Should I ask her?”

  “I wish you would, but let me speak to Paloma first,” Marco said. “I will do it tonight.”

  He nodded to Joaquim at the office door, and remembered Perla’s cousin, who had been three days at the Double Cross. He looked around, hoping the man was gone, even as his probably too-soft heart wanted to give him a meal or at least some bread and cheese before he went on his way. Working for the Durán twins had to be close kin to starvation and near slavery.

  Thoughtful, Marco walked to the horse barn and saw Emilio. “That man …” he began.

  “Gaspar? He’s gone,” Emilio said. He stood up to show his respect for his master, even though both of them had long settled into casual friendship. “He asked questions about poor Señor Ygnacio’s carriage. Not sure why. His questions never seemed to go anywhere.” He shrugged again. “Why would anyone work for the Duráns, who was not already a half-wit?”

  Gone. Just as well, Marco knew, his mind already on Paloma and then tomorrow’s planting. There was much to do on the Double Cross, without worrying about people who didn’t belong here.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In which a storyteller weaves magic and fear

  The Ygnacios had settled into a pleasant ritual each evening. Dinner was its usual pleasant gathering in the kitchen, with the children eating and talking. Marco and Paloma had decided early on that children would always be seen and heard on the Double Cross.

  After dinner, Señor Ygnacio would chat in the sala for a few minutes, then give a sigh and a yawn and excuse himself.

  Catalina usually followed him to his room, where she sat on his bed and visited with him a few minutes. The children waited with barely concealed excitement for the auditor’s daughter to return.

  Marco admitted to Paloma that he nearly felt the same anticipation, which made his wife smile and touch his face. “Everyone likes a story, dear heart,” she told him, and she was right.

  Even now, after several weeks of evening stories, Marco wondered how a thin woman with a sharp nature could so completely transform herself into a mesmerizing storyteller. And wonder of wonders, she hadn’t repeated the same story twice. Every little dicho seemed designed just for his children, which made him wonder if Catalina Ygnacio tailored each little morality play or humorous dialog to his little ones.

  He had posed the question to Paloma in a spare moment when she wasn’t hurrying from one task to another, even as he wished she would rest.

  “Does Catalina tell certain stories for the edification of our own little ones? Some of them seem designed just for Soledad,” he had asked. “I love that child, but her own tall tales make me wonder.”

  “Lina and I had a discussion about Soledad’s exaggerations. I told Lina we’re trying to teach our little ones that the truth is better, but stories can be fun, too.”

  Tonight was no different. With no coaxing, Catalina seated herself in one of the two high-backed chairs in the room. He sat in the other, as was his right as master of the estancia. Maybe it was a conspiracy with the rest of them, but Paloma made herself comfortable on one of the adobe benches built into the wall. Everyone seemed to pick a seat with the idea that Paloma would have no choice but to occupy the space closest to the corner fireplace, well-padded with Indian blankets and a pillow. Juanito’s cradle just seemed to appear there, too.

  Sometimes Paloma stayed awake to hear all of Catalina’s little stories. Sometimes she nursed Juanito, put him in his cradle and slept, her face so relaxed, while Claudito stayed wide awake and cuddled against her.

  Independent Soledad always stationed herself directly in front of the storyteller, sitting with her legs crossed, her anticipation high. Sometimes, before the stories were over, little Soli sat on Catalina’s lap.

  How was it this woman of no account in Santa Fe could transform herself into a weaver of magic? Her eyes widened, her gaze intensified, and her voice changed, depending on the requirements of the dicho. She almost became beautiful.

  Even when the little dichos seemed aimed at the children’s sometimes ornery behavior, Soledad soaked it in. Catalina was telling such a story now, probably because she had watched Soli racing down the hall earlier, unmindful of the servants who had to dodge her as they carried towels and water for Paloma’s bath.

  “This is the tale of Señorita Rabbit, who never looked where she was going,” Catalina began, after a sidelong look at Paloma. “She ran willy-nilly through the countryside, knocking over old Señor Burro, who moved so slowly.” Catalina lifted her hands slowly, moved her head from side to side, and brayed an “ee-aa” that made Joaquim Gasca give a snort and turn away.

  “She just didn’t care,” Soledad said.

  Catalina added a sorrowful look to Señor Burro’s painful gait. Marco listened with appreciation as the story wound on through the countryside, with the thoughtless rabbit finally coming afoul of an eagle that lifted her high into the air—amazing how Catalina could almost take flight as she spoke—and shook the terrified animal a few times until Señorita Rabbit’s eyes began to jiggle.

  “ ‘Let me go, Señor Águila!’ Señorita Conejo begged, as her teeth began to rattle,” Catalina said. She swooped down and plucked up Soledad, who shrieked in terror, trapped now on their guest’s lap. “What should the naughty rabbit do?”

  Soledad thought a moment, as Marco looked at Paloma, her hand to her mouth, eyes wide and so lovely that his heart yearned for her. Who knew that such simple stories could delight them all?

 
; The girl was no one’s fool. Leaning comfortably against Catalina, who had wrapped her arms around the child, Soledad was silent a long moment. “She should be more careful,” she said at last, her voice low because Marco sensed some repentance going on.

  “If she is not?” came the storyteller’s question.

  “I think the eagle should eat her,” Soledad said. She sighed. “I should walk more slowly in the hall.”

  “That would be lovely,” Catalina said. She kissed the top of the child’s head. “But you would never be a thoughtless rabbit.”

  Soledad shook her head quickly. She sat down on the floor again, her hands carefully folded in front of her. Her innate honesty made her look up with a frown. “I could be, but Mama would not be happy.”

  “Can you change?” Paloma asked.

  Soledad nodded and gave another gusty sigh. “Until I forget. It is hard to be a girl who likes to run.”

  Marco couldn’t help his chuckle. “You could come with me to the field tomorrow while we plant more corn and run all you like, you and Claudito.”

  Soledad clapped her hands and looked at Paloma. “Could I?”

  “You may, if you try harder not to run in the house, especially now that you have a littler brother who needs peaceful sleep,” Paloma told Soledad, her eyes kind.

  So it went for another story and another, these about little boys and girls who helped their parents and protected small birds and defenseless creatures.

  Marco glanced at the doorway to see his house servants clustered there, captivated by the magic of these stories: simple tales of not enough rain, and the promises the foolish landowner makes to a witch for more rain; the story of a dandy who takes advice from a Hopi medicine man who turns him into a ragged coyote for his vanity; the poor girl who finds a gold nugget in an arroyo and gives it to a shabby paisana who turns into the Virgin of Guadalupe—tales of love and hope and rain that sometimes seemed so far away in poor, dangerous New Mexico.

  We need this, Marco thought, as he looked around at all the people under his protection. Suddenly the burden of his responsibilities, sometimes so crushing, grew lighter. He smiled at Paloma, who gazed back at him with so much tenderness that his heart overflowed. I will do anything to see you happier, he thought, knowing he could never manage a moment without her, simply because the will to try would be gone forever.