Beverly Byrne

by Come Sunrise

  "That is for Rosa to decide," the old man said. "Her mother was of this pueblo. She was a right to be here if she wishes."

  Tommy broke the eye contact and took a step nearer Rosa. "That's not how I see it. And I don't intend to stand here talking about it." He grabbed Rosa's arm and yanked her forward. "Get moving."

  "No!" she hissed. "Here I am somebody. I never go back with you."

  Just then the Indian whom Tommy had knocked out groaned; softly at first, then louder. He staggered to his feet, but collapsed again instantly. Rosa gasped and tried to go to him. Tommy yanked her back. She struggled to free herself, but it was no use. Each movement was a silent pantomime in the hushed street. None of the onlookers moved or spoke.

  Finally the cacique thrust his body between Tommy and the woman. Tommy could smell the old man's sweat and sense his surprising strength. He did not want to hit a man over sixty. He turned and shoved him instead. Then, without warning and in the split second before Pedro responded to the force of the push, Tommy felt a hot stab of pain in his back below his shoulder blades.

  The knife Rosa plunged into him remained buried to its hilt. For a few seconds Tommy's gray eyes opened wide in surprise. Then they closed, and he staggered a moment before he fell.

  The road leading to San Felipe was a rough dirt track that cut a jagged path to the Rio Grande and the pueblo. That's why Tommy had come on horseback. Now the Indians hauled him away on a cart pulled by two burros. Pedro and two other men, both elders of the village ,accompanied his prostrate form.The women had staunched the flow of blood and administered herbal medicine, but they did not go on the journey to Santo Domingo.

  The trip did not begin until the cacique and his council met and discussed the best way to deal with this emergency. Someone suggested keeping the gringo in the pueblo until he either died or recovered. In the latter case he would be grateful to them for saving his life; if he died, they could bury him and hope he'd never be found. Wiser heads prevailed. The gringo was a prominent man, and his alliance with Rosa was well known. If he disappeared, the authorities were bound to search for him in San Felipe. No, they must take him home, where his own kind could try and save his life. Then they must simply wait and see what consequences followed this evil day.

  The cart reached the ranch in late morning of the day that Amy intended to leave her husband and join the man she loved. Her suitcase and the children's were packed and discreetly hidden in her bedroom. She waited only for Rick's arrival. Her heart was singing, and she felt neither guilt nor shame. She had paid whatever debt she owed Tommy a long time ago. And she had done all she could to make the marriage a success. It was his choice, not hers, that forced this end to the drama begun six years earlier in Cross River.

  "Dona Amy! Dona Amy!" Maria's wails filled the cool serenity of the beautiful hacienda. "Come quick! Don Tommy, I think he is dead! They have killed him ..."

  Amy's sandaled feet slapped on the tiled floor. She ran out into the courtyard and ignored Tom Junior's howls of fright. The baby could not understand what was said, but he recognized the anguish in Maria's voice and was terrified.

  "What is it?" What are you talking about?" Amy thrust her head into the wagon and saw Tommy's inert form. He was lying on his stomach and a blanket covered him from the neck down. She did not think he was breathing. "Oh, my God! What happened?"

  "He is still alive," Pedro said. Then he quickly told her the facts. Amy did not require long explanations. She instructed them to carry Tommy to his bedroom, and then looked at her watch. It was pointless to send for help. Rick was on his way there right now. Nothing would make him come any faster than the motive he already had.

  "Get hot water and more blankets," she told Maria. "Bring them to Don Tommy's room. Then see that these men have a drink and something to eat before they leave."

  Amy started to follow the half-dead form of her husband. Then she noticed Kate. The little girl stood by the entrance of the patio. She was absolutely rigid, and her eyes were wide with terror.

  Amy dashed to her and swept the child into her arms. The small form was hard and unyielding. "It's all right, darling," Amy crooned, stroking Kate's hair and pressing her close. "Daddy's going to be all right. Uncle Rick will be here any minute to make him better. "

  Suddenly Kate began pummeling her mother with tiny clenched fists. She threw back her head and screamed and screamed, and her agony was fearful to behold.

  26

  WILLHE LIVE?" AMY ASKED AFTER RICK HAD BEEN with him for almost an hour.

  "I don't know." He wiped his hands on a towel and accepted the drink she had poured for him. The kitchen was cool and dim, despite the midday heat. Rick extended his foot and hooked a chair closer, then straddled it. He leaned on the back with his elbows and studied her over the rim of his frosted glass.

  "The knife punctured a lung. I've stitched it as best I can, but there'll probably be infection. Besides, he's lost a lot of blood. How's Kate?"

  "Sleeping. Whatever you gave her worked fast."

  Amy lit a cigarette with trembling fingers. "I didn't want it to end like this," she whispered. "I wanted to leave him, but not like this."

  "I could say a lot of things about useless guilt for something you didn't do," Rick said. "I don't think there's much point. You know it all anyway. Here." He reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a folded letter. "You'd better read this."

  Amy took it and saw the heading of the Dominican Priory in Dover. The handwriting was familiar. It was from Luke. "Where did you get this?"

  "It was in Tommy's desk. He was conscious for a few minutes. I asked him if he wanted a priest. I thought his answer was pretty strange. He said, 'Only if it's the right one.' Then he told me to get the letter. He lost consciousness after that, so I read it. There didn't seem anything else to do."

  Amy looked at Rick for a long moment, then bent her head to read Luke's letter. It was postmarked a month earlier and the first paragraph was just ordinary chatter about how he was and what he was doing. Then he'd written, "I am sorry to hear things between you and Amy are past help. If you have 'bitched it up beyond repair,' as you say, that's a damn shame. Don't forget you're married in the eyes of God. He'll help you if you ask Him."

  Amy suppressed a wave of distaste for this easy religiosity. She continued reading.

  "As for Uncle Donald, we can leave the judgment to the Lord. Apparently he backed himself into a corner and didn't know how else to get out. May he rest in peace. When I get there we can talk more about all this. I don't mind saying I'm nervous about traveling with the extraordinary luggage you've arranged. Brother James will be coming with me and we should arrive on the third or the fourth of June ...." There was more, but it was unimportant.

  "Does any of that make sense to you?" Rick asked.

  "Some of it does. Uncle Donald is Donald Varley. He was my guardian and executor of Tommy's and Luke's parents' estate. I guess he must have died. Tommy never told me."

  "What about the 'luggage' he refers to. Do you know what it is?"

  "No. Tommy never said a word ..." She broke off and looked at the calendar on the wall. "What day is it?" she asked Rick.

  "Wednesday, June seventh," he said. "Your brother-in-law is at least three days overdue."

  Suddenly it dawned on Amy that Luke was coming there, to the ranch. That part of his letter was absolutely clear. "How will he get here?" she asked.

  "Hire a taxi at Lamy I expect." Rick stood up. He started to cross to her, but something in her face stopped him. He had finally won her away from Tommy, whom she had never loved. Was he to lose her now to a ghost from the past? A celibate ghost at that. "I have to get back to my patient," he said. His voice was grim, but Amy neither looked up nor met his eyes.

  The Dominicans arrived late that same afternoon. They came in a taxi from Lamy, as Rick had pre-dieted. Both Luke and his companion looked tired when they climbed out of the car and stood in the courtyard facing the house. They didn't wear their white habits a
s Amy had expected. They were in black suits with small white collars at their necks, and they were gray with the dust of the dry roads.

  "Hello, Luke," she said, extending her hand. "I'm sorry there was no one at the station to meet you. I didn't know until a few hours ago that you were coming."

  He held her hand a moment longer than formality dictated, then introduced his companion. Brother James was a man a little older than Luke. He had a broad smile and a decidedly Irish cast of features. Amy waited until the driver had unloaded their luggage and received payment for the trip. Only when the taxi drove out the gate did she say, "I'm sorry to greet you with bad news, but there's been an accident. Tommy is very ill, he may be dying. I'm sorry," she repeated. "There's no easy way to tell you such a thing."

  Luke ignored her apologies and asked only one question. "Has he had a priest?"

  "He told the doctor he only wanted 'the right one.' I think he meant you."

  Luke unstrapped his single suitcase. It was old and battered, though once it had been of fine quality. His possessions were all neatly folded, and he found what he wanted right away. Then, holding a satin stole that was purple on one side and white on the other, he followed her into the house.

  ***

  "In nomine patris et fili et spiritu sancti." Luke traced the sign of the cross on Tommy's forehead. His thumb was moist with holy oil, and he bore down as if he wanted to impress the symbol on his brother's mind and soul. Tommy didn't respond. Three days he'd been like that. Seventy-two hours of heat and suppressed emotion and mystery had passed since Luke came to Santo Domingo.

  He sighed and stood up. His knees were sore and his white habit was faintly soiled where it had pressed against the tiled floor. Luke had spent most of the last three days praying beside his brother's bed. He was waiting for a sign, for some symbol of remorse or awareness. Luke wanted that desperately. He wanted to give Tommy real absolution, not the conditional sort the Church permitted in these circumstances. It was only for that grace he stormed heaven. Luke did not presume to pray for his brother's recovery. Now he was too weary to pray for anything.

  When he bent his head to remove the purple stole he saw the child. Tommy's daughter was standing in the doorway. Luke couldn't know how long she'd been there watching. Carefully he folded the stole and placed it and the vial of holy oil in the drawer of the bedside table; then he walked toward her. "Hello, Kate, do you want to see Daddy? He's still sleeping."

  Kate didn't answer; she merely studied him with her silvery eyes. Luke took her hand and led her to the still figure of her father. "You can give him a kiss if you want, then we'd better go away and let him rest." She pressed her small rosebud mouth to Tommy's ashen cheek. After that she allowed Luke to lead her from the room.

  The household had evolved a schedule for watching by Tommy's bed. When Luke and his niece left the sickroom Brother James was waiting in the hall. He nodded to them and went in to continue the vigil.

  There was another vigil being kept simultaneously. Luke glanced out the window and saw the pair of Indians still poised motionless on the horizon. They had been there since Tommy was brought home. They were from Pueblo San Felipe, and they were waiting to see if the man Rosa stabbed would die.

  "The people of the pueblos are very closely knit," Rick had explained. "If Rosa is indicted for murder, they will see it as a trial of the entire village. It will be too. The publicity will be awful." He'd gone on to speak of the life of the pueblos, their struggle to survive and preserve their culture, their poverty.

  Luke liked Rick. He recognized in the doctor a blend of toughness and gentleness. "He knows who and what he is," he'd told Brother James. "Ibanez doesn't need to put on an act for himself or anyone else. That's rare." Luke stuck by that evaluation, but he also knew that some kind of charade was being enacted in his brother's home. Ostensibly the doctor was present because a desperately ill man required his skills. And Amy was quiet and withdrawn because her husband was teetering on the edge of death, as a result of wounds inflicted by his mistress. Perhaps it was understandable, this sense of hidden truths seething below the surface, but Luke didn't believe he wholly understood it.

  A maid appeared and took Kate from his custody. Luke wandered into the living room. Amy was sitting alone and staring into space. Luke went to her and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Let me get you something," he said. "A cold drink or perhaps some tea."

  "I don't want anything, thanks." She put her hand over his, almost without thinking of the gesture. "I'm glad you're here. I never would have expected it, not in a million years, but it's a blessing."

  "For me too." He paused, then went on, "Amy, dear, we've got to talk. Maybe this isn't the right time ..."

  Rick came into the room, and Luke stopped speaking. Ibanez looked at the pair of them. Amy's hand still layover Luke's, his was still on her shoulder. "Sorry," Rick said. "I didn't mean to intrude."

  Amy stood up. She looked oddly guilty. "You're not intruding. We were just ..."

  She had no opportunity to complete the sentence. Brother James appeared in the doorway. " 'Tis over," he said in his soft brogue. "He's gone to God."

  Rick was the first to move. He said nothing, merely hurried from the room to ascertain the accuracy of the pronouncement. Amy looked after him, as if debating whether she should follow. She couldn't bring herself to do it, and she sank back to her seat instead.

  "Did he recover consciousness?" Luke asked. "Did he say anything?" His eyes pleaded for the right answer.

  Brother James shook his head. "He moaned once, that's all. Then he stopped breathing. I made an Act of Contrition for him. Sure the Lord takes a soul when and how 'tis best. You'll not be doubting His mercy or His wisdom."

  In minutes the fact of Tommy's death somehow made itself known throughout the house. Maria went out to the courtyard and rubbed her face with dirt and began a keening chant of formalized grief. It was unrelated to her feelings for Don Tommy; it was merely a rite she owed her employer.

  Amy heard the eerie wail and ran to where Maria sat cross-legged on the ground. "Stop it! The children will hear and be terrified. Kate's already beside herself."

  Maria paused and looked at her mistress. "They must know about dying," she said. "It is not a secret." Then she resumed her loud mourning. Exasperated, Amy started back to the house. She must find Kate and Tommy Junior and tell them herself. Before she went inside she looked up. The men of Pueblo San Felipe were gone.

  In the hiatus between death and burial they went through Tommy's papers. A locked drawer in the desk in his bedroom contained all his vital documents, carefully filed. There were the deeds to the ranch, the original one and those representing Tommy's later acquisitions, and there was a will.

  How like him, Amy thought. He was young and healthy and very much alive, but he made a will. Clever Tommy left nothing to chance, until he turned his back on Rosa.

  The will was a carefully thought out disposition of Tommy's assets. The terms were clear and simple.

  Santo Domingo and everything belonging to it went to his children. It was to be run as a trust until Tom Junior was twenty-one. The First National Bank of Santa Fe was the trustee. "My wife, Amy Norman Westerman," the will continued, "has the right to live at Santo Domingo as long as she wishes. Further, I instruct my trustee to pay her support and maintenance as long as she lives."

  That was all, no riders, no codicils or exceptions. The ranch was Amy's home and its earnings her upkeep as long as she lived, not just until she remarried or broke some other condition of Tommy's making.

  "He wanted to be fair," Rick said. Amy nodded.

  There was one other thing in the locked drawer. It was a folded brown paper containing a dozen small brown seeds. Outside it was marked, "flame tree."

  "Where did he get these?" Luke asked.

  "From my father's lawyer in Dar es Salaam," Amy said. It was the only possibility. "I wrote to him after the war and asked for the seeds. Tommy must have intercepted his reply."


  There was not yet time to ponder why he had done it, or why he afterward preserved the little package.

  Two days later they buried Tommy in the old grave-yard beside the mission church of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Luke made the arrangements and calmed the ecclesiastical waters. Thomas Westerman had been baptized a Catholic and died after receiving the last rites of his religion. He was entitled to a funeral mass, and interment in consecrated ground. The manner in which he had conducted the years between birth and death was something he must settle before another tribunal.

  Ultimately, Luke explained, the Church does not pronounce anyone damned or saved. "She never has and never will. Not even the pope can presume to know the final dispensation of God's mercy, or His justice."