Beverly Byrne

by Come Sunrise

  "Tommy," she called softly. "The things you said the night before you left, the names you called me ... why?"

  He paused with his back to her, then continued walking; pretending he hadn't heard and limping heavily.

  The next morning the gum tree bloomed.

  For once Amy woke first. She slipped from the narrow bed and looked at Tommy in the gray light of early dawn. He slept on, his breath deep and even. She crept quietly to the dead embers of the cook fire. Not even Maria was up yet. Amy found a little luke-warm coffee still in the pot.

  She carried the mug toward the house. It looked fine in the half-light that hid its wounds. Tommy seemed to think it could look really fine again.

  The sun rose at her back. The mellow terracotta walls of the house shimmered to life. She smelled a sweet vanilla scent drifting across the morning. Amy followed the perfume to the patio, and gazed up at the mass of branches twined overhead. The leaves were a soft gray green. They hung absolutely still, as if to protect the tiny cruciform blossoms that studded length and breadth. They were white, as Diego has promised. Then, while she watched, a shaft of new sun caught them. The flowers turned to flame.

  18

  SIXMONTHS LATER, ON THE TWELFTH OF NOVEMBER, 1917, Amy's child was born.

  Her labor began in an afternoon almost as dark as night, the first sunless day she had known in New Mexico, "Will it rain?" she asked Maria. They were desperate for rain.

  "Not yet. Duster first. Then rain maybe."

  Amy gasped with another pain and Maria led her inside the shed. Amy had fantasized giving birth under the sun. On the patio perhaps, under the gum tree. There could be no chance of that today,

  Luckily Tommy was home. He'd returned the previous day after a week out on the range. He'd left Diego to continue supervising the erection of the fence. Now he looked at his wife and required no instructions.

  "I'll take the car and go into town. Be back with Ibanez in a few hours."

  Maria made Amy lie down, then sat beside her. "When pains come you breathe hard. No push yet. I tell you when."

  After an hour Amy heard the wind. Maria was standing by the door, looking out. "What is it?" Amy demanded. "What's happening?"

  "Duster."

  Amy craned her neck. She could see nothing but dark. The room was filled with eddying currents. She felt the onslaught of another contraction and tried to breathe, but inhaled choking sand instead of air.

  Maria heard her coughing. She soaked a cloth in water, then tied it over Amy's nose and mouth. She made the same arrangement for herself. The two women looked at each other above surreal masks that swiftly turned red brown and had to be rinsed and renewed every ten minutes.

  "No more water," Maria said after a while. "I get some. Come back quick." She took a bucket and stepped outside, hunched against the dry, debilitating storm.

  Amy felt a contraction that seemed to start at the back of her neck and move down her spine in a paralyzing grip of increasing intensity. She screamed, but the sound was lost in the screeching wind. The pain went on and on until she had no more breath to scream and could only moan.

  Maria returned, took one look at her, and came quickly to the bedside. "Sit up," she commanded. "Open legs."

  Amy struggled to do as she was told. Maria put her strong arms around the girl's shoulders and dragged her upright. "Push, senora. Push down. You squeeze out baby."

  Amy pushed. She felt warmth and wetness, but more than anything else, pain. It was gut-wrenching, tearing pain, without surcease. She clung to Maria. Her mask slipped. She screamed in an unfiltered mouthful of the sand that blew all around them. It was as if the rotten walls of the shed didn't exist and they were outside in the raging elements.

  Then it was over. Amy sagged against the older woman, but Maria moved away and Amy was left with only the wall for support.

  Maria reached for the child and laid it on Amy's belly. Then she severed the cord with a knife. Quickly she soaked a towel in a bucket of water and flung it over the baby. Maria's hands reached beneath the protective cover.

  "What is it?" Amy murmured. "Is it all right?"

  "Girl," Maria muttered under her breath. She continued her efforts. A few seconds passed; then the baby cried. At the same instant the wind stopped. Maria smiled broadly. "Girl, ok," she said. "Boy next time. Even better."

  Amy fainted.

  When she came to, Rick was there, bending over her and smiling his familiar warm smile. "You were impatient, Amy," he said. "You started without me."

  "Sorry." She smiled back. They had become friends in the months of her pregnancy. "The baby ..."

  "She's fine. A beautiful girl. You're both fine. Maria knows as much about all this as I do. She says you had an easy time of it. Quicker than expected."

  Amy's eyes flew open. "Easy?"

  He grinned. "Anyway, Maria's proud of you. She says you did as well as an Indian woman. From her that's high praise."

  Amy looked away and didn't answer.

  "Here." Rick reached into the basket beside them and lifted the infant. She was wrapped in blankets and only her tiny face showed. It was red and wrinkled and the eyes were screwed shut. He lay the bundle in Amy's arms.

  She looked at the child and knew neither what she should feel nor what she felt. She was too tired, still disoriented. "She's lighter than I expected," Amy whispered. "And I can't see her eyes. Have you seen them? What color are they?"

  "Blue. All babies are born with blue eyes. And she weighs six pounds. That's not too small. She's a healthy, normal baby, Amy. Don't worry."

  "If you say so." She stroked the tiny cheek with one finger. Something burst inside her. Love, hope, joy-call it anything. It made her feel happy and sad at the same time, and she knew she was crying, but not why.

  Rick swallowed hard and reached out his hand. but drew it back without touching either of them. "Tommy's waiting outside. I'll get him."

  Tommy came in and stood by the bed, staring at his wife and child. Finally Amy stopped crying and looked up. "Here, you can hold her." She started to lift the baby toward him.

  He shook his head. "No, I don't dare." He dropped to his knees and studied the little face peeking out from the blankets. At that moment the tiny mouth opened and the baby made a sound. "Jesus," Tommy whispered. "Oh, Jesus ..." It was as if, until that moment he hadn't believed the child was alive.

  The next day he went again to Santa Fe. There was no dust storm this time, and he made it there and back in six hours. He came into the shed with a big unwieldy parcel, unwrapped it, and stood back for Amy to admire the bassinet. "I don't want her sleeping in a basket like some damned papoose," he said.

  The bassinet was painted white and had a tulle skirt and lots of pink satin ribbons. It stood on wheels, and he pushed it close beside the bed and waited until Amy lay the baby inside.

  "I've been thinking about her name," she said.

  "Mmm, so have I. But the only thing I come up with is Cecily or Jessie, maybe both. But they don't sound good together."

  "No!" She shook her head violently. "I don't want to name her for anyone. I want her just to be herself."

  Tommy was slightly awed by her and by what she had accomplished, as it seemed, all by herself. "Ok. What do you want then?"

  "Kate. That's all."

  "It will have to be Kathleen or Catherine," he said. "Kate's just a nickname."

  "No, only Kate."

  "She can't be baptized with a nickname. They won't allow it."

  Amy's brown eyes darted to his face. As far as she knew, he had not been near a church in almost a year. "You want her baptized? In a Catholic church?"

  "Yes. You promised, Amy. Don't fight me about it now. "

  "I won't, I just thought you had forgotten about all that."

  He laughed softly. "No, not quite." He looked at the baby and then at her. "Tell you what, pick a middle name, something ordinary. Then the Kate part will be all right. They let you do that."

  Amy thought for a mo
ment. "Mary, I suppose. That ought to fulfill the requirements." But she'll always be just Kate to me, she thought.

  "Mary Kate. Sounds better than the other way around," he said. Amy shrugged her acquiesence. "Mary Kate Westerman it is, then," Tommy said.

  He stood up and looked around the room, and at the incongruous glamor of the bassinet. "The fence is almost finished. Another month, maybe six weeks. Soon as it's done I've arranged for the crew to start on the house. With luck we'll be able to move in early next year."

  "Don't feel you have to," Amy said. "Not for me or for her. If you want to wait until there's more money, it's all right."

  "I had a letter from Uncle Donald," he said. "The Eighty-third Street house is sold. My share's a bit over thirty thousand. We can afford to live like human beings. "

  Amy thought of the New York house as she had last seen it; covered in dust sheets, with all Cecily Westerman's beautiful things packed away. "Did they sell it furnished?" she asked. She wanted to ask what Luke would do with his portion of the money. What did a Dominican do with thirty thousand dollars? She knew better than to voice the question.

  "Almost completely furnished," Tommy said. "I sent Donald a list of a few things I wanted. He's shipping them. "

  "What things?"

  "Nothing much, most of it would look out of place here. Just Dad's desk and Mother's statue. The antique from France."

  "The madonna and child," she said.

  "Yes, that's right."

  In March of 1918 they moved into the main house. That same day Tommy had the old shed dismantled and the rubble carted away.

  "Kate was born there," Amy said. "Maybe we should leave it for her to see."

  "Not a chance! I don't want her thinking about things like that. I want her to know only this."

  He had grown less timid of his daughter. Now he carried her as they walked through the restored rooms of the old hacienda. The walls were repaired and whitewashed, and the ancient wood was sanded and polished. The floors were tiled in dull red and covered with bright Mexican carpets. It wasn't entirely furnished, but the rooms that were had the heavy carved pieces that had been left behind by DeAngeles. as well as some new things in the same style. Tommy had found them in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. He had, in fact, chosen all the decoration.

  Amy walked beside him and studied the ambience he'd created. "While the work was going on I couldn't really tell about it," she said. "Now, seeing it all together and with the workmen gone, it's beautiful."

  "Yes," he said. "Here, hold Kate a minute. There's one more thing I want to do."

  He left, then returned with his mother's statue and set it on a shelf in the entrance foyer. It looked perfect. Amy had to admit that. The wormeaten wood with its centuries old patina glowed against the white wall. When the door was open, sunlight bathed the figure and revealed shafts of gold hitherto secreted in the grain.

  There had been more rain than usual over the winter. Now the desert bloomed in a riotous, fecund spring. Exotic, unknown perfumes filled the air, and Amy waited impatiently for the gum tree to have its turn. Anxiously she watched the birds that settled in its branches, afraid lest they peck the life from the closed buds. Her only other worry was that her milk suddenly dried up and she had to put Kate on a bottle.

  The baby didn't seem to mind. She cooed and gurgled and grew strong and healthy in the cool, spacious house. Kate was somehow a meeting place for her mother and father. She was someone they both loved so much that she created an oasis of peace in the aridity of their tense and unhappy marriage.

  Tommy no longer drank, but he grew colder and harder and more distant. He spent more and more time away from the house. For weeks at a stretch he was out riding the range, overseeing the delivery of new stock, and shaping the Indian crew to his method. Amy was grateful for the time alone. When Tommy was home they were civil to each other only in the baby's presence.

  He had installed a huge bed in their room, sending east for the mattress and having the base specially built on site. It was six feet square and sat on a massive wooden frame with tall carved posts at each corner. Tommy vented his bitter anger in that bed. He did not strike or physically abuse Amy. She had no cause to repeat the threat uttered a year earlier. But he seemed to take more satisfaction from humiliating her than from possessing her.

  "Why?" she whispered one May night when he returned after two weeks absence. "Why are you doing this?" She had not dared the question before. The scene they had just enacted forced the words out. He made her feel like an animal, and he cursed her with every foul word he knew even as he gained freedom between her legs.

  He laughed bitterly. "Don't play innocent with me sweetheart. You know why."

  "No," she said. "I don't. I keep trying to understand, but nothing makes any sense."

  He was smoking, and he lazily stubbed out his cigarette and turned to her. "The lady wants to know why," he said softly. "Why it is she ain't no lady. Now that's a good question." He pulled back the sheet she was holding over her nakedness. Amy tried to push him away, but he grasped her wrists. "I'll tell you why, sweetheart, since you asked. It's got something to do with wanting things you can't have. Secretly wanting them, and thinking you're fooling everybody, even your own husband. Nice girls don't do that kind of thing."

  She tried to answer, but he bent her hands back so they pressed against her mouth. Her eyes widened in fear.

  "C'mon, sweetheart, what are you scared of? I'm your husband, remember, the one you promised to love and obey."

  She struggled to free herself, but he was too strong for her. For a moment she thought he meant to possess her again, and she braced herself for the savage onslaught. But either he couldn't or didn't want to. Instead he suddenly let her go. "Forget it," he said. "I know you're a whore and so do you." With that he quit her bed, leaving her to spend the night alone with the echo of his bitter accusations.

  19

  SOMETIMES WHEN HE WALKED THE STREETS OF THE city Rick Ibanez was conscious of an echo that dogged his footsteps. Here in the barrio near the creek it was very loud. He wondered if everyone heard it. Probably not, you had to have the old ones in your blood as he did. He was spawn of the two cultures that originally clashed in this place. Rapacious Spanish conquistadors and inbred, mystic Indians warred for supremacy in his head. It was they who made the echo; it was both a lament for times gone by and a hunger for all that was new and venturesome.

  He turned into an alley and heard the soft slurred strumming of a guitar. "Spanish is a loving tongue," a girl sang from inside one of the mean and dark houses of the barrio. "Sweet as music, soft as rain ..." The girl sang in English, and her melody was neither old nor Mexican. It was the lament of a Texas cowboy for the senorita he'd left "down Sonora way." But in this place at this time the singer had made it her own. Such was the genius of Santa Fe.

  Ibanez left the alley and the music faded. On the slightly wider street to which he'd come the houses were interspersed with small tiendas. By day they sold garbanzos and olive oil and rice, and strings of fiery red chilies festooned their walls. Now the shops were shuttered tight. Only the faint odor of their wares announced their existence in the moonlit street.

  There was, however, one commercial establishment dignified by a sign and a window display Beatriz Ortega-La Ropa Especial-the lettering over the door announced. Behind the glass was an artfully arranged exhibit of bright-colored ruffled dresses, lace mantillas, fringed shawls, and exquisite fans. It was a vivid visual reminder of old days and old ways.

  Beatriz opened the door as soon as he knocked. Soundlessly he followed her through the darkened shop. They went past the bedroom of old Senora Ortega, his patient and his excuse for being there, to that of Beatriz. She ushered him inside and lit candles which were protected by tall glass chimneys, and the soft light illumined dusty velvet hangings and ancient furniture. The candles were kind to the shabby surroundings and to Beatriz.

  "Good evening, Don Rico."

  She was always ri
diculously formal with him. It annoyed him, but he'd given up expecting her to change. One battle, however, he still fought. "There's to be a shop vacant soon on San Francisco Street," he said. "It's close to the plaza and I know the owner. The rent need not be high."

  Beatriz smiled and her plain features were transformed. The smile betrayed a woman of intelligence and charm behind the dull exterior; it was what had first attracted him to her. "And if I move my establishment to the center of town, I can sell dresses and mantillas to Anglo tourists. Souvenirs of old Mexico, no ? "

  "Yes, and you'd make twice as much money."

  "But that will do nothing for the barrio. Here I am a constant reminder to them. It is what I want to be."