by Carla Kelly
La Señora stood. “Close the book, Maria. We will read in it again later. After you have returned it, come back and help me to the patio. I set Luz and Catarina to working their samplers.” She laughed, and her sudden laughter reminded Maria of Diego. “They are vexed that I can feel their work and pronounce it a disaster!”
Maria returned the book to Diego’s room. She set it on the table, then opened it to one of the last entries. Diego’s handwriting was sprawling and large compared to his father’s meticulous script. She ran her finger down the page. There it was. “Maria arrived at Las Invernadas. I wonder what will come of this.”
That was all. She closed the book.
Chapter 5
Cristóbal
The night had been a restless one. Maria woke with the sheets twisted around her and the pillow on the floor. Her head throbbed, and there were tears dried on her face. Diego was not in the room, sitting on the floor by her bed or resting in the window alcove, so she must not have cried out. She sat up slowly, pained by the beating against her temples but grateful that she had not roused Diego Masferrer from sleep this time.
The smell of smoke was in the room. She sniffed the air like an animal, fighting down the urge to scream, to leap up and run.
The window alcove opened onto the hall. Carefully she got out of bed and peered through the opening. The patio was cool and still in the early light. Reflecting against its walls was fire, distant, faded fire. Maria hurried into the hall. She heard a sound behind her and whirled, gasping in fright as a white-robed figure glided toward her. “Carmen?” her voice quavered.
But this figure was tall and fair. Maria reached out for her. “Erlinda?” she pleaded.
Erlinda let go of Maria only long enough to brush her hand across the girl’s face. “Oh, Maria, why are there tears?”
“I smelled smoke ...”
“And you were afraid?” finished Erlinda, leading Maria toward the kitchen.
“Before God, I was. I am,” Maria replied, her voice low. “You cannot know.”
There was a catch in Erlinda’s voice when she spoke. “But I can, Maria. I know what it is to fear.” She hesitated, then went on. “1, too, know what it is to lose everything.”
She led Maria to the back doorway of the kitchen. The bolts were already thrown open and the door stood ajar, letting in the cold of early spring. Erlinda released Maria and closed the door, murmuring, “Men are so thoughtless sometimes,” under her breath. She opened the shutters and they looked out.
The ditches were alive with fire. Lines of fire marched around the fields and orchard. Maria drew back in surprise, and Erlinda’s arm went around her again.
“Do not fear,” said Erlinda, her own voice calm and steady again. “It is the day of San Isidro, the patron of our farms. Have you lost track of time? Here in the river colony we burn weeds out of the irrigation ditches before sunrise on this day. It is a homely task, no more. When the men are through, they will turn the water into the acequrias again. ’’
Maria sat on the bench by the table, her eyes still drawn to the flames outside. “Will there ever come a time when something like this will not remind me of the caravan massacre?” she asked softly.
She had never spoken of the massacre to any of them, and she said nothing more, but Erlinda sat quickly beside her on the bench, her eyes wide with understanding.
“You will never forget it,” she said, and even though her words were hard, there was something in the saying of them that calmed Maria’s fears. “It will be there all your life. Some things are never to be forgotten.” Her voice was distant, her mind on other things. “And perhaps they should not be. ”
Maria watched as the flickering lights played across Erlinda’s face, touching it here and there, exposing pain greater than her own. Erlinda smiled faintly, but the bleakness in her eyes wrenched Maria’s heart.
“I shall never forget Marco’s death. It will always be with me, even as your caravan will always march across your mind. But it is what we make of our experiences that matters.” She sighed. “Or so Diego tells me.”
They sat together in silence as the ditches burned and the sun rose to compete with the fires on the land. When the fames died down and the ditches became nothing more than black ribbons circling the fields, Cristóbal and Diego came in, dirty and smelling of burned grass.
Erlinda and Maria sat close together. Diego looked at them as Cristóbal crossed to the water barrel to dip a cup of water. “Is all well here?” he asked quietly, his words not so much disturbing the peace as adding to it.
“Oh, yes, Diego mio, we are well,” said Erlinda, her arm around Maria in a protective gesture.
Diego went to the barrel, leaning against it next to Cristóbal. “It is finished for another year, Erlinda,” he said. “One less thing to do. ”
“Does the water flow in the acequia again, my brother?” Erlinda asked.
“It does. But there is not so much of it as last year, or the year before,” he replied, accepting the cup of water from Cristóbal. He held up the cup, the hard lines around his mouth etching deeper. “We must be sparing of it. The rains do not come. ”
“Then you have only to pray harder, Diego,” said Cristóbal.
Diego looked at him but said nothing. Maria glanced at Cristóbal, who was smiling at some special amusement of his own.
“We have had so little rain in the last four years, Maria,” Diego explained, “but we will endure.”
“Indeed,” remarked Cristóbal. “Nothing kills Spaniards.” He laughed. “Perhaps, I, too, will live forever. Or at least half of me will—the Spanish half.”
Diego left the kitchen without saying anything. Cristóbal watched him go, his smile gone as quickly as it had come, then followed his brother outside.
“Why does he do that?” Maria asked Erlinda. She blushed. “I know all this is none of my business, but why does Cristóbal bait Diego like that?”
“I wish I knew,” said Erlinda. “Cristóbal has changed lately. He spends much of his time in Tesuque. When he returns, he is moody and restless. He takes particular delight in goading Diego.” Erlinda rose. “I do not pretend to understand it. But there is much to do. Let us rouse my sleeping sisters and get on with this day of San Isidro.”
After breakfast and prayers, Diego told Maria to follow him to the cornfield, where the Indians, his Indians, worked. “Ordinarily, you would not be needed here, Maria, but today I must use the older sons and fathers to help me plant the beans. I want you to supervise the little ones as they weed the small corn.”
The children were already in the field. They stood silent between the rows, small brown statues watching Diego Masferrer approach. The only movement was the wind ruffling their long black hair. Maria smiled at them, but their eyes were on Diego.
“This is Maria,” he said, speaking slowly to them in Spanish, taking her by the arm. “She will see that you weed the rows. Let there be no laggards, and I will give you bread to take to your mothers in Tesuque.” He repeated himself in Tewa, and the children bent quickly to their work.
“It is well,” he said to Maria. “Just watch them and make sure they do not skip a row by mistake. I will be in the field beyond.”
He left her then, walking north to the distant field where the Indians waited to plant beans. Maria turned back to the children, who weeded diligently, their fingers moving quickly through small shoots of corn. They observed her with darting glances, but did not stop.
One of the young girls carried a baby on her back, probably a younger sister or brother. She was agile and worked steadily, but began to lag behind the others. Maria went to her.
“Here, let me take the baby. If we put it down here at the end of the row, you can keep up with the others. I promise to watch.”
She repeated herself, wishing she could speak Tewa like Diego. After a moment’s hesitation, the girl straightened and unwound the bands that strapped the child to her back. Maria took the sleeping baby and carried her to
the end of the row. There she removed her own shawl and wrapped the child in it. She smoothed the black straight hair, so soft to the fingers, and wound the shawl more securely to protect the baby from the breeze. Pleased that the child slept safely on the soft earth, Maria returned to watch the Indian children as they traveled down the rows. She followed them, listening to their low voiced singing, admiring the shine of the sun on their hair so dark that it looked like the blue of midnight.
The freshly turned earth was warm on her bare feet. She laughed to herself as she remembered the scolding from Mama, when as a child she strayed far enough from watchful eyes to remove her shoes and prance around the family patio. Times change, Mama.
The insistent ringing of a bell disturbed her. The children stopped their work suddenly and stood straight, their faces watchful. She heard the bell again. It was the church bell from Tesuque, ringing with an unaccustomed clamor.
One of the guards fired his gun from the roof of the hacienda. Maria ran to the children, who were clustered together, their eyes big with fear.
“What is it?” she asked, alarmed by the firing of the weapon.
A second report was heard from the roof. She turned toward the bean field. Diego and his Indians were running toward them at a crouch, carrying their hoes. One of the children tugged at her dress. “It is Apaches,” he said in Spanish.
Maria clutched him by the shoulders, then turned him loose, pointing him toward the hacienda. “Then run, all of you!” she cried, shepherding them ahead of her out of the cornfield.
As the men ran from the bean field, some of them picked up the smaller children, throwing them over their shoulders like sacks of grain. Diego took her hand and pulled her along with him. Cristóbal came toward them on horseback. Diego picked up Maria and tossed her to Cristóbal, who grabbed her around the waist without a word and raced toward the hacienda. He dumped her unceremoniously on the ground by the back gates and stood sentry as the children and men streamed in.
Maria ran into the haven of the enclosure, looking around to make sure the Indian children were inside. They stood with their older brothers and sisters, silent and watchful. Maria looked back across the fields. She could see distant figures by this time. Someone had set fire to a small shed just beyond the bean field, and smoke was beginning to curl over the roof.
The gates were closing when one of the young girls shrieked and ran toward them. With a sickening weight in. her stomach, Maria remembered the baby she had put to rest at the end of the corn row. Without thinking, she wrenched a hoe from one of the men and ran out the gate.
The bells of Tesuque were silent now. Diego ran out of the gate after her, grabbing the back of her dress and ripping off the apron she wore as she tugged against his hands.
“The baby!” she gasped. “I left an Indian baby in the cornfield!”
“You must come back inside, Maria!” Diego shouted, trying to grab her again as she darted out of his reach. “Leave the child!”
He lunged at her and she turned and struck him with the hoe. The wood cracked against his temple, and she sobbed out loud, but she grabbed up her skirts and ran into the field, the hoe tight in her hand. Some of the Apaches were already in the bean field, running toward the hacienda. She ran toward them, trying not to think how close they were as she looked around for the sleeping child. Panic washed over her as she heard the gates slam shut behind her, the heavy wooden beams dragged through the iron bars. She ran on, hunting for the brown baby lying on the brown earth.
There were more guards on the roof now, and they fired steadily just over her head. The Apaches crouched low in the bean field, held there by the firing. They yipped and howled like coyotes as Maria crouched on the edge of the cornfield, her knuckles white on the splintered hoe handle, searching for the baby.
Then she saw it, crawling along a corn row. The baby saw her and sat up, holding up its arms, wailing in fear. With a cry of her own, Maria ran across the rows and scooped up the baby, which clutched her neck in a stranglehold that left her breathless and dizzy.
An Apache ran toward her, his face split by a fierce grin, his hands describing obscene gestures in the smoke-filled air. Tearing the child from her neck and setting it back on the ground, Maria lunged forward with the hoe. The sharp blade bit deep into the Indian’s arm, slicing it to the bone. He fell to his knees and she picked the baby up, turned and fled.
The Indians followed her, their shrieks of rage competing with the cries of the baby in her arms. The hoe was cumbersome so she dropped it and ran faster. The guards on the roof continued their steady firing. The balls whistled close over her head as she clutched the baby to her and ran for their lives.
The gates were closed, but as she pounded toward them, her breath coming in painful gasps, she heard the rapid grind of wood on metal and saw them open. Cristóbal rode out, bent low over his horse, his hand tight around a long Spanish lance.
Maria ran toward him, but tripped on the hem of her long dress and sprawled in the dust. The child fell from her arms, but she scrambled toward it and fought to her feet, the child in her arms again. The baby clung to her as she staggered toward the man on horseback.
“Keep going, Maria!” hissed Cristóbal. “I will keep them here.”
The blood from her bruised knees ran down her legs, and the child clung to her. With safety in sight, she dared to glance back. Cristóbal stood between her and the Apaches, his face fierce in its composure, his lance ready. Enraged at being cheated of a woman and child, the Indians charged against the bullets that kicked up dust and tore at their flesh.
Maria ran through the gates, tripped over her dress again, and fell in the dirt. The baby’s sister ran forward and grabbed the child, crying and hugging the little one to her. Maria laid her head on the earth, her eyes closed, her sides heaving. She heard Cristóbal ride in and dismount, the gates being closed and barred again.
Diego jerked her to her feet. “How dare you do such a thing!” he shouted at her. The side of his face bled from the blow she had struck him with the hoe. He wiped the blood on his shoulder and shook her.
He was so angry that his skin turned sallow under his tan and his breath came in short gasps. Maria had never seen such anger before, but some curious emotion deep within her compelled her to reach out and touch his face where she had hit him.
He grabbed her hand in a painful grip and forced it against his head, then pulled it away, wet with his blood. Savagely he wiped her hand across the front of her dress.
“There! If you ever do such a thing again, the blood of Las Invernadas will be on you!”
Cristóbal thrust himself between them. “It was only an Indian child, is that it?” he screamed at Diego, their faces only inches apart.
“You know that is not so, Cristóbal,” said Diego, his anger cooling as his brother’s mounted higher. “The rule is the same for all of us. When the Indians attack, no one goes outside. Not for anything.”
In a sudden motion, Cristóbal snapped the bloody lance he had been carrying in half. “Could you have watched the Apaches tear apart that baby and done nothing?”
“Yes.”
Diego motioned to the guards on the roof. Several of them climbed down the ladder at the corner of the house, while the rest knelt to reload, remaining where they were. One of them called to Diego below. “Mira, my lord, they return to Tesuque. They run.”
Diego passed his hand in front of his eyes, looking older than the oldest man in the stronghold. He bowed his head and looked at his feet. “None of you, no, not even you Cristóbal, understand what it is to be responsible for Las Invernadas. The lives of all here and at Tesuque, too, are in my hands. Maria,” he said suddenly, looking directly at her. “The first rule of this place is that no one leaves the enclosure once they have been summoned in by the bells. You knew that, for I told you earlier. It is the first rule and the hardest sometimes. Especially today.” He looked around him. “If the Apaches had breached our walls, we would all be dead. I have seen it
before. Where is Erlinda? Que barbaridad! It is too much, too soon for her. Ay!”
Cristóbal dropped the broken lance at Diego’s feet, but the challenge was gone from his eyes, replaced by confusion. Diego smiled faintly, the smile barely touching his lips and eluding his eyes. “Perhaps Maria’s own particular saint was with her.” He turned on his heel and motioned his vaqueros toward the corral, where the horses milled restlessly, anxious with the smell of battle.
The baby had stopped crying. The Indian girl held the child tight to her, rocking back and forth as she knelt on the ground with the baby. Maria walked slowly toward the girl and child, rested the back of her hand on the baby’s cheek, patted the young girl, and started toward the house.
The kitchen was filled with chattering Mexican women who fell silent when she entered the room. Her eyes cast down, Maria passed them without a word and went into the hall. She took a deep breath of the piñon wood mingled with sage, closing her eyes in the comfort of familiar things. Her elbows and knees ached where she had scraped them. The skin was raw and wet through the fabric of her dress, but she had nothing to change into.
She saw the chapel doors open at the far end of the hall. Diego wore the key to the door on the sash around his waist, but another key hung high in one corner of the kitchen. Someone must have opened the doors. She peered into the cool darkness. As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, she saw Erlinda sitting on the bench, her head tilted slightly upward as she contemplated Christ in his agony on the cross above the altar.
Maria came silently down the aisle toward her. “Erlinda?” she asked. “Qué pasa?”
Erlinda stared steadily ahead, but she grasped Maria’s hand. “What you did, you must never do again. You must heed Diego.” She hung onto Maria’s hand as though it were a rope thrown to a drowning man.
“Erlinda, what is it?”