by Carla Kelly
“Cristóbal is part Tewa, Maria,” said Diego, watching her reaction. “We had the same father.” He paused and glanced at his sister, who was looking at the three of them. “This is his house and his land, too.” When he said this, Erlinda turned away.
Maria looked from one brother to the other. Cristóbal smiled at her again, his curious, fleeting smile. He appeared oblivious to the angry glances exchanged by his brother and sister. When he finished the bread, he wiped his hands on his breeches and stood. “And now I must work,” he said. His voice was deep, and his accent gave the words a pleasant musical lilt. He turned to Maria. “You are welcome in our house,” he said. He spoke to her but his eyes were on Erlinda, who stiffened as he spoke. “Some would say I have no right to speak thus,” he continued, his voice low.
With a slight wave in Diego’s direction, he was gone. Erlinda turned to Diego, her eyes stormy. “You should not encourage him!”
“I should throw him out like every other half-breed of every other ranchero in these parts? You would ask me to treat a son of my father that way, Erlinda? Would you?” he flashed back, the veins in his neck standing out.
Erlinda looked down at her hands. “I do not know. Papa insisted on raising him with the rest of us, and I suppose it was the Christian thing to do,” she said. Her voice fell to a whisper that made Maria shiver, despite the warming sun on her back. “But Diego, I fear for you! For all of us! Someday ...” She stopped, looking at Maria in distress.
Diego turned away with a short laugh that had no humor in it. “Maria chiquita, you will think that we are at each other like this all the time. Indeed, we are not.” He started toward the acequia and the women followed. He did not look back at his sister, but his words were for her. “I like to listen to my sister, but on this I must be firm, Erlinda.” He stopped, his back still to Erlinda. “He will be treated as my brother, if not yours.”
“Very well, Diego, as you will,” said Erlinda. “I will be in the kitchen, Maria.”
Maria and Diego continued on to the acequia. A sloping path led to the water’s edge. Diego stopped at the top of the low bank. “Do not be afraid of Cristóbal, Maria,” he said. “Though Erlinda’s biggest objection to him is not that he is the bastard son, but that he is Indian.” He spread his hands expressively. “As for me, I like Cristóbal. I hope you will, too.”
Maria stood looking at the water. She noticed a flash of petticoat against the bank further downstream. “Mira. Look there,” she said pointing.
Diego looked where she pointed. “My sisters,” he said. “They have dug a small tunnel in the side of the bank. The water is so low this year. I suppose their tunnel will drop dirt on them someday, but until it does, they play dolls in there.” He waved at his sisters and blew them a kiss.
“Do you ride, Maria?” Diego asked. “Well, certainly you do. Did we not already share a horse?”
“I do ride,” she answered, “but not well.”
“Someday I will take you with me around my land.” He pointed to the tilled and newly planted fields beyond the acequia and the wall. “That is Masferrer land. And that. And that. Look in all directions. We have taken a substantial entitlement of Indians to work the place, but there is never enough water. That is why much of my land is for grazing.”
He stood by her, looking out over his land and his Indians working in the fields. A gentle smile played around his lips and the sun wrinkles around his eyes were deep with squinting into the sky. Maria touched his arm and he looked at her. “Yes, Maria?”
“My lord,” she began, and stopped when he waved her to silence.
“There will be none of that, Maria,” he said quietly.
“But it must be,” she interrupted. “I did not walk all the way from Santa Fe to become a parasite in your household. I expect to work here, and I want to know what is expected of me. I need to know.”
He held his hands out to her, palms up. “I cannot put you to work like one of my Indios, Maria. You are of gentle birth, carefully raised.”
“And now, I stand here before you, my feet bare, clothed by the goodness of others. I will not be a hanger-on here, and if that is what you would make me, then I will walk back to Santa Fe and become a ward of the town after all.”
He was silent, looking at her.
“I have no dowry. No one will marry me. My own sister has cast me off. I possess nothing. But I will work. I can learn.”
“I do not like it,” he said finally.
“I do not ask you to like it,” she replied quickly. “But it must be this way.”
“Why do I have the feeling that in spite of what I say, you will follow your own mind?” he murmured, half to himself.
“Because I must,” she declared, feeling an unexpected stubbornness rising in her.
He stared down at the waters of the acequia, unmindful of his little sisters calling him downstream. Then he sighed and threw up his hands. “What choice do you give me, Maria chiquita? We will put you to work, but I do insist that you live in the family quarters. This must be.”
“Very well.” She put out her hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Diego shook it.
“I have never shaken on a bargain with a woman,” he said.
“It will do you good, Señor,” she replied.
“I doubt it,” he said, smiling a little. He turned his head toward her in sudden seriousness. “There is something you can do for me, if you will.”
“Anything,” she replied.
He chuckled. “Come now, Maria, we do not know each other well, but I know you have too much of a mind of your own to make such a rash statement.”
“Anything within reason,” she amended.
“That is better. It is a simple thing. Be a friend to my sister Erlinda.” He stuck his hands in his pockets. “She came back to us four months ago, a widow. She has never spoken about the events of Marco’s death.” He paused and brushed a hand across his eyes. “Dear Marco. How I loved him.” With a visible effort, Diego continued. “I confess to you that I know little of the human heart, but I do know one thing—pain goes away faster when it is spoken of, when tears are shed. Help her, if you can.”
He held out his hand to her this time and she shook it. “This could become a habit.” He gestured toward the house. “Come then, Maria. If you will become a citizen of the river kingdom, then I suppose you must work like the rest of us.”
Diego was as good as his word. He put Maria to work in his household, instructing Erlinda, who argued with him in her gentle fashion, to teach her the daily tasks of the hacienda, the labor of his Mexican servants.
“These Indians are descendants of the Christian Mexicanos my grandfather brought with him when he made the entrada with Oñate in 1598,” Diego explained. “Their work is the labor of the house, and tasks requiring some skills.”
“What of the Indians in the field?” she asked.
“They are my Indians from Tesuque.”
“Your Indians?”
“Yes, my Indians,” he replied firmly. “They were given by encomienda to my father’s father, and now their work is mine.”
She should have been warned by the deepening lines around his mouth and eyes that this was a touchy subject, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Can you own them now? I thought that was forbidden by the Council of the Indies.”
“They gave me their work.” His answer was short, the lines more pronounced.
“But the Viceroy says you cannot do that anymore, that the days of Indian allotment are long over.” Some demon was driving her on. A year ago she would not have cared about anyone’s Indians, but now, with her own status so radically altered, she had new vision. “My own father got in tro—”
“Maria!” Diego was past the point of tolerance. “I had no idea women were so interested in such matters. Here we own Indians. Don’t think there hasn’t been trouble from the Church and the governor.”
“I would think so,” she murmured.
He banged his hand on the
table. “That is the way it is here. You tell me how else to get Indians to work except to force them, Maria Formidable, and I will try it!”
She dropped the subject, and Diego made an obvious effort to control his temper. He folded his hands in front of him and sat silent for a moment.
“You will find it different here, Maria, of this I have no doubt. Do not judge us until you know us.” He grinned then, his anger gone as quickly as it had come. “And still you must not judge us! Is it not against the teaching of the Gospels?”
“So it is, Señor,” she replied quietly.
He rose. “And now, if I do not mistake, we will find Erlinda in the shed by the smokehouse, wringing her hands. Today she will give you the baptism by fire that Our Lord spoke of.”
Mystified, she followed him outdoors, hurrying to keep up. Diego laughed as he came to the shed, where Erlinda was standing just as he had said.
“I cannot bear it, Diego mio,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
He put a hand on her shoulder. “How grateful I am to be a man! But plunge ahead, mi capitana, for I have brought reinforcements.”
Erlinda glanced back at Maria. “I almost hate to do this to you, so newly arrived in our kingdom, but candles must be made.”
“Then you must show me, Erlinda,” Maria replied.
“It is a simple task, merely smelly. You would be amazed how many tasks my servants can find to do when I need them here!”
“Then you two will manage?” Diego asked.
“Of course,” said Erlinda, “and I am sure that you also have urgent business that will take you far from this smell.”
Diego put his arm around his sister and kissed her. “How did you guess?” he asked, backing away quickly before she could grab him.
Cristóbal passed through the yard on his way to the fields to join his brother. “Dios bendiga a ustedes,” he called to Erlinda and Maria.
“Y a Veustra Merced,” Maria replied.
He came closer. “Oh, no, you must reserve that title for the lord of the hacienda,” he said. “I see that Vuestra Merced has put you to work.”
Something in his tone made Maria look at him. “It was my idea, Cristóbal,” she said. “I must learn to work.”
He laughed. “Then you have come to the right place, for you will work here. Diego has a genius for attracting free labor.”
“Cristóbal!” Erlinda said, “Haven’t you duties of your own?” He bowed to her, a sweeping bow that made Erlinda redden and turn away. “It is enough, Cristóbal,” she said quietly.
He left without another word. Erlinda turned to watch him go. “Something is wrong there, Maria,” she said, “and I do not know what it is.” She turned back to the vats of tallow and wooden frames of candle wicks. “But let us work.”
They made candles all day. Even though Maria wrapped her long hair in one of Diego’s old scarves and rolled up her sleeves to the shoulder, she knew the smell would linger for days.
When they had made the common household candles until they did not think they could bear to dip another one, Old Martin lugged in his beeswax and the process began all over again, but with a difference. These candles were destined for the family chapel and sala. Erlinda and Maria made the sign of the cross over each candle and recited Psalms from memory as they dipped, then cooled, the cylinders of beeswax.
“I wish that the Bishop of Mexico could bless these for the chapel,” said Erlinda, twisting one wick to make it stand straighter. She looked at Maria. “Have you ever seen His Excellency?”
Maria tucked her hair tighter under Diego’s scarf. “I have. Indeed, on my last birthday, my fifteenth, he gave me a special blessing.”
“Imagine!” said Erlinda, her eyes wide with surprise.
“Yes, it was quite a birthday,” Maria said. She could not hide the bitterness in her voice. “Indian runners brought snow down from the mountains for ices, Papa arranged a fireworks display and all my friends came.”
“I cannot imagine, Maria,” said the young widow, carrying a frame of candles to the drying rack. “But was this so bad?”
Maria wiped the sweat from her eyes and added wood to the slow burning fire. “When Papa’s fortune vanished, my friends came no more and the bishop no longer recognized us. Things can change so quickly, Erlinda.”
Erlinda grasped Maria suddenly by the shoulders and pulled her close, whispering, “How well I know. How well I know!”
“Erlinda, I did not mean to cause you pain,” Maria said.
Erlinda shook her head, silent until her voice was under control again. “It is nothing, Maria.” She smiled, the tears shining in her eyes but not falling. “Probably no people in this whole New World know better than we how swiftly life can change. Let us talk of other things.”
They worked on through the day, Erlinda talking of mundane matters, her voice light, her eyes filled with private pain.
Shadows were long across the yard before they finished the last candle. Erlinda extinguished the fire under the tallow vat and surveyed the day’s work. “As much as I dread candlemaking, Maria, it was not so bad this time. Only think how well we will work together next year. ”
The candles, white and gleaming, hung from the drying racks. Maria ran a finger gently over the nearest one. “Do you know, Erlinda,” she said suddenly, “I enjoyed it.”
Erlinda stared. “We spend an entire day bent over a tallow vat, we smell like farm animals, our clothes are soaked with sweat, and you tell me that you enjoyed it? Maria, the heat from the tallow has deranged you!”
“No, no, you do not understand,” protested Maria, laughing. “This is the first time in my life that I have engaged in a useful task. You could not count the varas of lace I have made and the altar cloths I have embroidered. They were lovely but not essential.”
Erlinda shook her head in amazement. “Truly, Maria, you have come to us from a different world.”
“I have,” Maria agreed.
As the sun sank in the west and the bell of Tesuque rang, Maria looked at Erlinda. “It is the signal to end labor in the fields. The Indians of Tesuque will return to the pueblo, and soon Diego’s Indians who live here will go to their huts. We had better look to dinner.” They were joined in the kitchen by Luz and Catarina. “And what have you done this day, my sisters?” Erlinda asked.
Catarina rolled her eyes. “Oh, Erlinda, Mama made us recite catechism all day!”
“Oh, no, Catarina,” contradicted Luz. “Not all day. Only until Diego rescued us.”
Maria knelt by the young child. “You have a caballero muy elegante on your side? And what did he do?”
“He took us to the fields,” said Luz. “We got to play by the river. It has been so long since we did that.”
Erlinda noted the puzzlement on Maria’s face. “They cannot leave the hacienda and grounds without guards to accompany. We must always be ready for Apaches.” Erlinda turned to her little sister. “And where is Diego now?”
“Talking with Mama,” replied the child as she set the table for dinner. “He and Cristóbal quarreled awfully. Oh, Erlinda, they were shouting.”
Erlinda looked at Maria, her lips set in a tight line. “Do you know what it was about?”
Catarina sat down on the end of the bench and stuffed napkins in the rings. “Diego struck one of the Indians who would not work.”
Erlinda sat next to her sister, her hands tightly folded in her lap. “A year ago that would not have bothered Cristóbal, but now he is changing. He was always a man divided ... now he is torn.”
She said no more. Diego came into the kitchen with his mother leaning on his arm.
“Mother will eat with us, my sisters,” Diego said. “Let us begin soon.”
“Do we not wait for Cristóbal?” Erlinda rose and led her mother to the head of the table.
“No,” said Diego and nothing more.
Dinner was eaten in silence. Cristóbal came into the kitchen halfway through the meal, and Erlinda prepared him a bowl of meat
and chilis, which he ate, sitting next to Diego. When the brothers’ shoulders touched, they moved away from each other, the space between them pronounced, uncomfortable.
Diego rose first. “I will write in my journal, then we will have prayers,” he said, his voice full of weariness.
Maria felt the same weariness in her bones. Her shoulders ached from bending over the tallow vats, and the little burns on her forearms from splattering wax throbbed. She wanted to sweep aside the dishes, put her head on the table, and sleep long and deeply.
Cristóbal looked at her. “You are tired, Maria,” he said.
She nodded.
“Do you have any other tasks this night?” The kindness in his voice took some of the ache from Maria’s back.
“I think not,” she replied, “but I did promise to take the kitchen scraps to the pigs.”
“Come, then. I will go with you.”
He carried the small bucket of scraps to the pigs. Maria walked along beside him, enjoying the fragrance of the newly turned earth in the fields beyond the acequia.
“Ready for the planting,” Cristóbal said, reading her thoughts. “Another year has turned.” He poured the scraps in the trough and leaned on the fence, watching the pigs fight for them. “What do you think of Las Invernadas after a day’s work here?”
“It will do, Cristóbal,” she said, resting her arms on the fence. “It will do very well. There is something about this place and these people. ”
He grunted. “How well put,” he said dryly. “You say nothing and yet much. I think that in better times you never would have come within a league of a pig sty.” He sighed, turning around and leaning against the fence. “Perhaps neither of us belongs here,” he said, more to himself then to Maria.