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

by Carla Kelly

  I do know, Catalina thought, as the bleakness of their situation filtered into her whole body like water seeping into limestone. Sancha told me one night.

  “I know this road is well traveled,” Paloma whispered. “I know this road is well traveled. I know …” she stopped and bowed her head.

  “Paloma, someone will find Juanito,” Catalina said as she felt her own heart break.

  “I hope you are right,” Paloma said, and then she spoke no more as the men mounted their horses, Pedro pulling the mule behind him. They rode toward the shelter of trees, leaving behind a carriage worse for wear, a sleeping baby, and a dead man.

  What Catalina nearly dreaded the most happened next. The two kidnappers drew aside and conferred in low tones, with little glances in their direction.

  Pedro drew his knife and sprinted back to the carriage. Paloma raised her head and wailed until Catalina felt every hair on her neck stand at attention. She thought of La Llorona, and knew in her heart that if she ever lived to tell the story again, she would not need to invent a voice for the Weeping Woman, but merely recall Paloma. Catalina tightened her grip on the desperate woman seated in front of her.

  To Catalina’s relief, he used the knife to rip two dark strips of fabric from the serape the dead man wore. He hurried back and held them out to the women, coming close but not too close, as though he feared Paloma would scream again. “We can do this one of two ways. If you choose to scream and carry on, señora, I will stuff this into your mouth and gag you. I will also ride back and kill your baby.”

  Paloma held completely still, silent now.

  “Or I can merely wrap this cloth around your mouths to remind you not to scream, no matter what happens.” He looked at Paloma warily. “Which would you prefer, Señora Mondragón?”

  “I will be silent,” she whispered.

  Pedro sighed with such relief that Catalina would have laughed, had their situation not been so precarious. He gestured for each woman in turn to lower her head, and bound the cloth.

  “Excellent!” he said. “I must put a sack over your head. No need for you to know where you are going, is there?”

  “But …” Catalina began, her voice muffled. She stopped talking, aware that these fools knew nothing about how to tighten a gag; this one was already loose.

  He held out the dark bag Thin Man tossed to him. “I only have one of these, because we thought to bag us an auditor. You, skinny lady, bend down.”

  My name is Catalina, she thought as she bent down. The sack went over her head and her world went dark and smelled of mice.

  “We only have the one bag. Señora Mondragón, you will have the grain bag. Here we go. Oh dear.”

  To Catalina’s dismay, Paloma started to cough and then wheeze as she breathed in the chaff left in the bag. Still gagging, she struggled to breathe.

  “Men—señores—please,” Catalina said, taking her chances neither idiot would notice how easy it was to talk around the gag, which even now had slipped to her neck. “Take off the bag, shake it, and turn it inside out! Must I tell you how to abduct people?”

  “No, señorita,” Pedro said, his voice full of apology.

  Paloma tossed her head from side to side, desperate for air. Catalina heard the whoosh of cloth as the bag came off. Paloma drew a deep breath that ended in one cough, and another and another, until her whole body shook.

  Catalina heard the men shake the bag and hoped they were clever enough to turn it inside out before they put it over Paloma’s head again. Success. Paloma stopped her struggles and took one deep breath after another. With a sigh, she leaned back against Catalina.

  “How is this going to end?” she whispered to Catalina.

  “Maybe with us telling two fools how to abduct us,” Catalina replied, and was rewarded with a little laugh. Just a little one, but enough to assure her that Paloma still had a beating heart.

  The heavens opened like a sluice gate before they had traveled far, with their strange complement of two amateurs at abduction leading a mule bearing women who were now cold and soaking wet and beginning to plot revenge, at least in Catalina’s case. She doubted Paloma had another thought in her brain except her son left in an abandoned carriage.

  Damn! Catalina thought, Damn and damn again! The rain poured down, washing away any tracks the three animals would have left behind on a typical New Mexican day. It was a hard rain, the kind that could last all day and into the night. Every mouse track in the entire colony of New Mexico would be washed away.

  “Do you have any idea where we could possibly be?” Catalina asked Paloma, who had turned her head toward Catalina’s breast, seeking comfort as a small child would, or a wounded animal.

  “God help us, but we were only an hour from my sister-in-law’s estancia,” Paloma whispered back. “I have seen the slower man somewhere before. Where?”

  She held Paloma as close as she could, her bound arms looped over the woman. Both of them shivered.

  After what seemed like an hour of travel, in what direction Catalina had no idea, Paloma leaned closer.

  “Catalina, I simply have to pass water. I am so sorry.”

  Catalina heard the deep humiliation in Paloma’s voice. “No fear there, my friend. I have to do the same thing.” She kept her tone as light as she could. “Just think! We’ll be warm for a few minutes.”

  “Hadn’t thought of that.”

  They were warm for a few minutes, even as Paloma’s shoulders shook, either with silent tears of shame or from the rain and cold.

  Relieved now and grateful, no matter how humiliating the incident, Catalina tried to listen above the rain for something, anything, that might suggest their location. After another hour, she noticed something she almost didn’t believe. Her logical mind, that mathematical mind that El Teniente Gasca had teased her about—Oh, don’t think of him, she scolded herself—told her they were traveling in circles.

  She whispered as much to Paloma, who nodded, and turned her head closer to Catalina’s ear. “I wondered that, too.”

  “Why?”

  “It means we are not going far, even though they want us to believe we are,” Paloma said, after a long pause.

  The strange journey continued, and then Catalina felt they were going deeper into a bosque, probably one of the many clumps of trees that lined Río Santa Maria. She smelled damp leaves and more darkness, if that were possible. Could a person feel darkness? She did. Maybe someday I will look back on this and wonder at how much I learned, Catalina thought.

  The two fools stopped, so their patient mule stopped, too. Catalina sucked in her breath when Pedro’s voice seemed to come out of the ground right next to her. Feeling a cold hand on her leg, she shuddered to think what would come next.

  “You behave yourself at once,” Paloma said, in that voice Catalina had heard addressed to Soledad or Claudito. “What would your mother say?”

  Pedro’s hand instantly left her leg. In another moment she heard the creak of saddle leather as the chastened man returned to his horse.

  “Paloma, you’re amazing,” Catalina said, her relief almost a palpable thing.

  “I wish Soledad obeyed me that quickly,” Paloma said, with some vestige of her former good humor.

  Catalina felt the darkness deepen around them when the journey continued. We must be crossing an open plain now, she thought. The smell of leaves was gone and a slight wind came up, wind they would not have felt in the confines of a bosque.

  The disorienting, unpleasant, horrible journey ended abruptly. Catalina heard both men creak out of their saddles. She braced herself for what terror was to come and gasped when Pedro yanked up her arms and pulled Paloma away from the mule they shared.

  “Oh please,” Paloma whispered, “don’t hurt us.”

  “Oh, no!” he declared. “You said I would disappoint my mama.”

  Lesson learned, she thought grimly and waited for her turn.

  She strained to hear any sound that would afford even the most mi
nuscule hint of their location. Beyond the crunch of gravel, nothing. The rain poured down.

  A big door creaked open then shut behind them, and then another door, a larger one. Catalina listened for the sound of a wooden floor, but no, they walked on earth now. Forcing herself to concentrate, she heard drunken singing in the distance, followed by silence. Then she smelled the fragrance of a garden.

  Another door creaked open. Her captor ducked down and then threw her from his shoulders onto the ground. She heard Paloma hit the ground, too, and reached for her. She closed her eyes when she heard Pedro draw his knife, then sighed as he sawed through the cords that bound her wrists. The same sound, and then she knew Paloma was free, too.

  Free to do what? Catalina steeled herself for the inevitable, then let out her breath slowly as the men moved away. She heard a muttered oath, and then a slap, and then Pedro laughing softly. “Duck your head, you idiot,” he said.

  Both women remained silent. Catalina could not even hear Paloma breathing.

  “You can’t escape, so don’t try,” Pedro said. “We’ll tell our masters what fish we have caught. May take us a day, maybe more.”

  “Please bring us something to eat.”

  Paloma spoke so quietly and reasonably that Catalina wondered how she managed to sound almost serene, as if this was a visit to a friend.

  “We barely have enough to eat here,” said Thin Man. Catalina knew she was not imagining the embarrassment in the idiot’s voice, as if he really didn’t want them to suffer.

  One of the men was walking around, as though looking for something. She smelled Pedro’s familiar stink as he passed by. He set something beside her.

  “Here’s a pot to pee in,” he said, and laughed at his blinding wit.

  He still seemed to be rummaging around. In a moment she felt something in her hand, perhaps a china cup.

  “Scoop yourselves some dirt,” he said. “We’ve eaten dirt before and you can, too, if you’re not grand ladies.”

  He laughed then, and that was the last sound from their tormenters as the door closed. She heard a key turn in a lock, and they were finally alone.

  Resisting the urge to throw the cup in her frustration, Catalina ran her finger around the rim, finding odd comfort in something as ordinary as a china cup, the sort of thing found in Paloma’s kitchen cupboard, or even her own.

  She set it down carefully and pulled the bag from her head and the cloth gag from where it had drifted down to her neck. “That feels better,” she declared, then burst into tears.

  They cried together in each other’s arms, until they reached the end of tears. Paloma was no more than a faint outline in the dark room, or shed, or wherever those terrible men had stashed them. She listened as Paloma blew her nose on her dress, then did the same herself, discarding all the lessons on manners taught by the nuns in Mexico City.

  “Hand me the cup,” Paloma said.

  Paloma took the cup. Catalina tried to stand up and discovered how low the ceiling was. She crouched, felt for the adobe wall, and sat down against it, leaning back, wondering what would happen to them now. She closed her eyes, suddenly exhausted. Minutes passed.

  “Here. Drink this.”

  Mystified, Catalina moved toward the sound of Paloma’s voice. She felt her friend’s extended arm, and then the cup.

  “Careful. Drink it all and when you’re done, hand it back to me.”

  The cup was warm to the touch. Slowly, cautiously, Catalina brought it to her lips and drank.

  She had never tasted such sweet milk. With deep humility, she understood what Paloma had done. “Oh, my dear friend,” she whispered, then drained the cup and handed it back.

  Silence for a while, and then she heard Paloma drink. “Not bad,” she said. “I let Marco drink once, and he said he liked it.”

  They giggled together. Catalina felt her face burn with the intimacy of what Paloma had revealed about her husband. She knew she would never ask if he had used a cup.

  “I don’t intend to die here,” Paloma said finally, her voice calm. Catalina shivered at the undertone of fierce resolve she heard. “As God is my witness, I have a vast grievance against these fools.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  In which terror flaps home to roost

  “Papa? Papa? See what is in our stable. Is it a miracle?”

  The little boy turned to his father, who hurried into the barn out of the pouring rain.

  “Ha! A mule.” The father came closer, patting the black beast. “Not my idea of a miracle. Odd. Someone has cut his traces. I wonder. Bring the lamp closer, son.”

  The boy did as he was bid.

  “Shine it by his left shoulder. That’s right. Dios mio, this is the Double Cross brand.” The farmer patted the mule. “Paco, we will have to tease our juez de campo when we return this handsome fellow to him! He is always chiding us over loose livestock.”

  “He won’t mind being teased?” the child asked.

  “Not our juez. He’ll thank us and invite us into his home for wine and sweet bread.” He rubbed his hands together, already anticipating the pleasure. “I haven’t been to the Double Cross in years, but there is always a welcome.”

  The farmer went to the grain bin and scooped out corn for the manger. “Eat your fill, my good fellow. What were you doing wandering about in the dark and the rain?”

  “He can’t answer, Papa,” the boy said.

  “I know. We’ll take him to the Double Cross tomorrow or the day after, when the storm ends.”

  His hand on the boy’s shoulder, they walked from the barn. “It’s a raw night. I wouldn’t care to be out in it. I suppose our friend the mule didn’t want to be out in it, either. Tomorrow will do, unless the rain stops so we can finish planting. If not tomorrow, then the day after. What does our juez need of another mule right away?”

  * * *

  Two days away from Paloma was two days too many, Marco decided. Nobody could pull a longer face than Claudito, when it came to missing his mother. Almost as long as mine, Marco thought, as he endured another meal with Soledad looking daggers at him for allowing Mama and Catalina to just ride away, headed toward a good time with La Viuda Gutierrez.

  Even Señor Ygnacio had something to say, he who usually sat silent through every meal, content to listen to the conversation swirl around him. “I’m at the point now in this audit where I would like to have my daughter check my figures,” he said, as Marco walked him to the office next to the horse barn.

  He stopped, and Marco enjoyed the sudden surprise on his face. “Señor Mondragón, I do believe I have been doing this audit by myself!”

  “I wondered when you would notice,” Marco replied with a smile of his own. “I’ll wager when you recheck your own figures, they will come out right.”

  Señor Ygnacio chuckled. “Still, I would like to see my testy daughter’s face.”

  And I would like to see Paloma’s sweet one, Marco thought. “I believe the plan was for Catalina to return by noon today,” Marco said, silently wishing that Paloma and Juanito would come back, too. Why had he suggested she needed quiet time to herself, even if it was true?

  Marco brightened when one of Joaquim’s two corporals rode through the open gate, ready to sit in the office, because that was what the Council of the Indies demanded. A good meal and light duty probably made the man the envy of his fellow soldiers, although El Teniente Gasca was scrupulous about allowing everyone to have a turn dozing and eating biscoches while sort of watching the auditor.

  By mid-afternoon, Marco felt doubt fly into the courtyard like a buzzard and flap onto his shoulder, digging in his talons. He and his trabajadores had just finished seeding the north field with wheat. Marco found himself looking when anyone came down the road, his head popping up like a prairie dog’s. Embarrassed, he vowed not to watch the road like an overeager child.

  But there was Señor Ygnacio standing in the doorway now, hands on hips, looking through the open gates, wondering where his daughter wa
s. Marco shivered, as though a fantasma had drifted between him and the welcome sun that shone so nicely after nearly two days of rain. Maybe he would ride out in an hour or so, Claudito sitting before him, and they would meet Catalina Ygnacio’s carriage.

  Or I could declare an emergency and send Joaquim Gasca to look, he thought with a smile. Paloma had made some remark after she was cuddled in his arms and ready for sleep, two nights ago. “I think neither of them needs to search any farther,” she had told Marco just before her eyes closed. “What do you think?” Then she’d closed her eyes and fallen asleep immediately, never giving him the chance to say that he agreed, but did they know it yet?

  “All right, Catalina, where are you?” Marco asked out loud, but softly, because the auditor in the doorway was beginning to droop about the shoulders.

  He ambled toward the gate, waving to his guard, who started to wave back then stopped as he leaned out over the parapet and stared. Marco watched as the guard motioned to another guard, who also turned and stared. Alert, Marco hurried up the steps to the terreplein and looked where one of his guards pointed.

  “Indios, señor, two of them,” the guard said. “They’re coming fast, but I don’t know why. No one chases them.”

  Marco stared, too, wondering what had happened to his young eyes. He squinted, then started down the stairs. “It’s Toshua and Eckapeta,” he called over his shoulder, “I think.”

  His own lance leaned against the inside wall by the gate so he grabbed it and walked out beyond the gate, puzzled but ready.

  He yawned, wondering why Claudito had to crawl in bed in the wee hours then push against his back with his feet. He took another look at Eckapeta, then dropped the lance as his heart tried to crawl out of his throat. He recognized the blanket that the Comanche woman appeared to have strapped to her chest. Paloma had wrapped it around Juan Luis two mornings ago because the air had a chill to it.

  “Dios mio,” he said softly, before Eckapeta nearly slid to a stop in front of him and leaped off her horse, unstrapping the blanket as she moved.

  Wordless, her eyes burning into his, she held out his son to him.