by Carla Kelly
All morning the Indians rode by. Maria started counting the riders, but gave up after the total passed one hundred. The men and boys were dressed in loincloths, but most of them carried Spanish shields and arquebuses. They rode silently, purposefully, heading south.
Diego watched the riders for several hours, then put his head down. Maria thought he had fainted. She put her lips to his ear and whispered, “Diego? Are you all right?”
He nodded, but would not raise his head until the last group of horsemen was a cloud of dust in the distance. When he looked at her, his face was streaked with tears.
When he could finally speak, he looked years older, and somehow different to her. “Maria,” he faltered, and could not continue.
She leaned closer, her cheek against his wet face. “Diego?”
“My Taos friends, my relatives,” he managed, then shook his head. “The rancheros up the valley. I recognized their horses, their saddles, their bridles. Maria, are these people all dead?”
“Pobrecito,” was all she could say. She patted his back, then leaned her head on him. As she had listened to the horses and riders passing she had known that she was hearing the death of an entire colony. Ultimately, the colonists had belonged no more than she had.
Diego took hold of her hand, and they sat close together as the sun rose higher. No words passed between them, for neither knew what to say. They were alone in the depth of terrible trouble, of times neither of them could have predicted yesterday, could still not comprehend today.
The land around was silent again. With a gasp of pain, Diego pulled his dagger from his belt and looked at it. “Maria,” he said slowly, “it would be easier if I killed you and then killed myself. I think we can expect no other future.”
Without thinking, Maria wrenched the knife from his hand and held it behind her back. “Listen to me!” she said harshly, hating herself for speaking with such hardness to Diego, feverish, bleeding and dazed by the events that had altered his entire world. “If you think for one moment that I am going to give up, then you do not know me!” She grabbed his good arm and shook him.
Diego drew back slightly and turned away. He was silent for long minutes. “La Afortunada,” he finally said, still not turning around to face her. “The Lucky One,” he repeated, wiping his eyes with the end of his bloody shirt and facing her again. “I called you that. Do you not remember?”
“I remember,” she whispered. “Maybe that is why I cannot quit. I will not. It isn’t in me.” She touched his arm. “Not now. Especially not now.”
He met her gaze again. “If we live through this, I will always wonder why I waited so long to love you. Cristóbal was right, of course. It is possible to be too busy to notice the things that matter. I wish I could tell him that.”
“Don’t, Diego,” she said. “You did what you had to do.”
“Perhaps, but I never stopped to think.”
“No. But could you have stopped being what you are?”
He smiled and held his hand out for his knife. She handed it to him without hesitation, and he put it back in his belt. “Perhaps not.” His eyes clouded over with pain.
“Where does it hurt now?” she asked, her hand on his forehead.
He pointed to his heart as his eyes filled with tears. “In my soul, querida. Only there.”
Maria kissed him and held him. When he was calm again, he looked down the road, then across it to his cornfield. “Let us find my sisters.”
Maria rose and pulled Diego up. He wrapped his arm around her waist and they walked across the road and into the rows of corn. They reached the shelter of the corn as other riders from the north appeared on the road. Maria pulled Diego down and he landed heavily on her, gasping when his arm hit the ground. The cornfield showed evidence of trampling by many horses. Maria whirled around to face the riders on the road, knowing that if they decided to cross the field as others had done, she and Diego would be trapped like rabbits.
But the horsemen passed. Diego sat up, looking toward the hacienda of Las Invernadas. “I thought you said it was on fire yesterday,” he said, squinting toward the buildings.
“It was, at least the chapel end of it. Does it still stand?”
“What I can see of it. Can we not get closer?”
She pulled him to his feet again, and they crossed the rows of corn, both of them glancing back to watch for more horsemen on the Taos road.
The roof of the hacienda was still intact, but little else remained. “Look over there, and there,” gestured Diego with his head. “My livestock, my sheep, all dead.”
All the animals at Las Invernadas had been slaughtered, even the chickens and ducks butchered and left to rot. The beehives had been slashed open, the bees left to circle and circle in the ruin of hive and honey.
“Did they hate us so much, querida?” Diego asked in dismay. More horsemen galloped down the Taos road. Diego watched them. “And still they come,” he murmured as Maria pulled him down.
The Indians continued to straggle down the Taos road. To Maria’s terror, several groups skirted the cornfield and prowled through the half-burned hacienda. But no one stopped, or even glanced at the cornfield. She was grateful it was only early August, and not September, when the corn would be ripe and tempting. Maria listened for sounds from the tunnel by the acequia, but all she could hear were bees humming about the shattered hives at the end of the garden, and the drone of many flies rising from the slaughtered farm animals.
The sky darkened and it began to rain, small pelting drops that laid the dust of long drought, then fell heavier and heavier on the thirsty land, running in muddy rivulets toward the acequia.
Diego looked up at the leaden sky as rain pelted his face. “Cristóbal’s rain. From his gods, I suppose.”
Maria felt his forehead. He still burned with fever. He put his hand to hers and brought it down to his mouth, kissing her fingers. She smiled down at him, trying to shield his gypsum bandage with her body and shivering as the rain fell on her back. It was the cold rain of August and she was soon soaked through.
“Let me sit up, Maria,” Diego said finally.
She put her arm under his neck and pulled him into a sitting position. He patted his arm. The gypsum came away on his wet hand.
“I must cover your arm,” Maria said. “Turn your head. I am going to take off my petticoat.”
He smiled. “No.”
She didn’t argue, but reached under her dress and undid the string of her petticoat, wriggling out of it as he watched. “And I thought you were a caballero muy elegante,” she murmured, her face red.
“I never said I was,” he pointed out as she draped the petticoat around his arm and tugged her soaking skirt as far down as it would go.
The rain continued to pour down. They sat close together, their arms around each other, shivering in the cornfield, watching the Taos road. When no Indians had passed for some time, Diego turned to Maria. “Let us take our chances now, querida. We need to find my sisters before it grows dark.”
Maria helped Diego to his feet. She felt under the petticoat on Diego’s arm. It was dry. She tugged the material higher up on his shoulder. “Do not lose that,” she ordered. “I want to put it on again when the rain stops.”
They left the shelter of the cornfield and sloshed through the muddy field toward the footbridge. “Diego, suppose they are dead?’’ she asked, not looking at the irrigation ditch.
“Then there is no remedy, Maria querida,” he replied.
Diego could not go into the water. Maria dropped down into the acequia. It was even colder than the rain. She waded down the muddy ditch, calling softly, “Luz? Catarina? Cómo están?”
For a long moment she heard nothing. She could feel the lump growing in her throat. She looked back at Diego, and he slid into the ditch, too, coming toward her, his bandaged arm held high.
Then she heard the girls. They were both crying, thin wailing sobs torn from throats so hoarse with crying that she could barel
y hear them above the rain on the water. She waded quickly toward the hiding place, calling their names.
The children had tunneled back farther into the side of the acequia, and some of the dirt in the front had fallen across the entrance, shielding them. Maria pawed in the mud and reached inside. She felt Catarina’s arms around her neck, tightening to a stranglehold. Maria pulled her out of the cave, muddy and shaking in her nightgown. Diego reached inside for Luz. For one small heartbeat the child held herself away from him, looking at him closely, running her fingers over his face, feeling the contours so familiar to her. With a tiny sigh that made Diego Masferrer sob out loud, she enveloped her brother in an embrace surprising in its strength.
Maria smoothed back the muddy hair from Catarina’s eyes. “My darling, how brave you were! You did just as I said.”
Catarina nodded through her tears. “I wanted to leave, especially when we heard all the screaming, and then saw the house on fire. But Luz told me you would return. And you did.”
Tucking Luz on his hip, Diego carried his sister to the footbridge and sat her on it. He heaved himself up onto the bridge and held out his arms for Catarina. Maria pulled herself up to join the Masferrers.
Catarina looked at the hacienda first. “Oh, mira, Luz, look! It is still standing! Can we not go inside?”
She started to get up, but Maria restrained her. “No!” she burst out, louder than she intended.
“I will go inside,” said Diego, getting to his feet slowly. “Perhaps I can find something to eat.”
Maria was on her feet in front of him, blocking his way down the garden path. “Diego Masferrer, the only one going inside that hacienda is I!” she shouted, trying to push him back to the footbridge.
He stood where he was and pushed back, jabbing her in the shoulder with his fingers. “You cannot keep me out of my own house!”
“Yes I can, Diego!”
They were both shouting at each other. “It will not do you any good to go in there!” cried Maria, pleading now. “If you think I dragged you all the way from Tesuque to go inside and see what you will see, then again I say you do not know me very well!”
They stood glaring at each other, looking into the fire in each other’s eyes. “I mean it, Diego,” said Maria more calmly. She was short of breath and weary of the sound of her own shouting.
Diego looked away first, turning back to his sisters on the footbridge. “Very well,” he shot back. “Although I do not like it.”
Maria walked toward the darkening hacienda with a cold feeling in her stomach that grew chillier with each footstep. She began to shudder, but forced herself to keep walking. If Diego went inside, it would be worse, much worse, and someone had to look for food.
She was shaking so badly that it took both hands to raise the latch on the kitchen door. She went inside, leaving the door open. She paused on the threshold, sniffing the air. It was heavy with smoke and the smell of charred flesh she remembered from the mission supply caravan. She gagged and raised her dress to her mouth.
The room was in deep shadow, but as she stood there, her eyes became accustomed to the gloom. She knew before she looked that all the silver would be gone, and it was. The beautiful wooden cabinet that Erlinda had so prized was smashed in two, as if by an ax. The long kitchen table they had sat around only days before had been rammed into the fireplace and burned along half its length. The floor was gritty with spilled corn meal. Maria peeked into the storeroom. The shelves were bare, but she scarcely noticed them. Her eyes were riveted on the meat hooks where hung the charred bodies of Diego’s servants, killed in the chapel. She stepped back in horror and slammed the storeroom door shut.
She sat down weakly on the ruined cabinet, her eyes on the storeroom door. It swung slowly open on its own weight and she leaped up and ran into the hall. She stood there until her eyes were adjusted to the deeper gloom, then edged her way along the wall. The only other food in the hacienda was on the patio, where she had set out several pans of apricots to dry in the sun. She inched down the corridor, stopping every few feet to listen.
It was the silence of a tomb, a charnel, a repository for all the tragedies, real or imagined, of mankind. She could make out bodies lying in the hall, some the small bodies of children who must have dragged themselves still living from the burning chapel. Other bodies were sprawled in heaps on the hard-packed earthen floor. Her feet, still wet from the acequia, were sticky with the blood of Diego’s servants.
She stopped at La Señora’s room. The door was open, sagging inward on torn leather hinges. The wood in the paneling had been smashed to kindling, as if the woman had barricaded it in a futile attempt to slow down the butchers in those early morning hours.
Maria paused on the threshold and covered her mouth and nose with her dress. The roof was partly burned and she could see in the room clearly. Blood was spattered everywhere, the floor drenched with it. La Señora was sitting in an iron-red nightgown, her head sagging to one side. Maria stepped back and put her fingers to her mouth. Cristóbal had been true to his word. La Señora’s eyes had been pried out. As Maria looked away, her horrified glance fell on the familiar wooden statue of Our Lady of Sorrows. The bulto’s deeply indented eyes bulged with La Señora’s own. The dead eyes stared back at Maria, unblinking, all-seeing.
Maria stepped backward into the hall, screaming. She turned to run, and saw Erlinda sprawled on the chest on the other side of the hall, her arms ripped from their sockets, her blond hair hanging in bloody handfuls from her ruined scalp.
Maria screamed again and again, unable to help herself, too terrified to run. Everywhere she looked were bodies, even when she closed her eyes. Above her screaming she heard Diego in the kitchen, shouting her name. She stumbled toward him, holding out her arms.
He met her at the door to his mother’s room, took one quick glance inside, then picked her up, tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of meal and whirled toward the kitchen. He stopped short at the sight of Erlinda, then with a groan, ran through the kitchen and out into the clean air of the garden, where he dropped Maria and fell to his knees, retching.
Maria leaped to her feet and ran to the footbridge. She grabbed Luz and Catarina and ran with them back to the cornfield. She wanted to keep running, but she could not carry both girls any farther. She sat in the corn row, her head down between her knees. Luz and Catarina huddled on either side of her, seeking warmth.
Maria raised her head in a few moments and gathered the girls closer to her. Her mind overflowed with images of La Señora, Erlinda, the small burned children, the dangling bodies in the storeroom, and she was speechless with horror. The rain stopped and she watched the hacienda until Diego Masferrer crossed the footbridge and trudged toward the cornfield like an old man, calling her name.
“We are here, Diego,” she said, her voice hardly above a whisper. He found them huddled together, sank down next to Maria and put his arms around the three of them. His lips were close to Maria’s ear, his voice thin with pain. “I carried Erlinda into Mama’s room and then set fire to it. The interior was dry, and I think it will burn now.”
She looked toward the hacienda and saw the points of light rising from the roof. The flames stabbed the sky.
Diego got to his feet and reached for Catarina. “We must leave quickly. The blaze is sure to attract attention. Maria, you take Luz. Let us go.”
Catarina looked at her brother. “But Diego, we have only our nightgowns. What would Erlinda say?”
A great wave of pain crossed Diego’s white face. He looked at Maria for help. She knelt by Catarina. “Catarina, she would call it a great adventure. Come now, and let us do as Diego says.”
The four of them started through the cornfield, heading south, away from the burning hacienda.
Chapter 14
Journey
They walked in silence for over an hour, moving slowly across the fields. Catarina wanted to know at first why they did not take the road. When neither Diego nor Maria answere
d her, she was quiet, holding Diego’s hand. Luz walked beside Maria, taking little skipping steps to keep up. She began to lag back, and Maria stopped and put the child on her back. Her arms were tight around Maria’s neck, but finally her head flopped forward and she slept.
They walked in a southwesterly direction, away from Santa Fe. Maria looked at Diego. He caught her glance. “You wonder where we are heading? Not far from here is a cave,” he explained. “Cristóbal ...” he began, then stopped, the weariness of too many troubles in his voice. They walked farther, and he continued, “Cristóbal and I used to play there when we were younger. If he were still alive, I would never hide there, but I think it will be safe enough now.”
Maria nodded and shifted Luz higher on her back. She couldn’t remember a time when she had been so tired, or so hungry. Diego staggered as he walked beside her. Maria felt a rush of anxiety for him, but he held tight to Catarina’s hand and did not stop.
They reached the cave when the moon was high overhead. There was a small opening hidden among the juniper trees, well back from any trails. Diego boosted Catarina up to the rocks and she clambered inside. He lifted Luz off Maria’s back and put the child over his shoulder. When he was in the cave, he held out his hand to Maria, who followed him in. Then he went back outside, sweeping away their tracks beyond the rocky approach with a tree limb.
Maria helped him back inside the cave. Luz and Catarina had already arranged themselves close to each other for sleep. The cave was cool and dark, and the girls huddled together for warmth.
Diego sat by the entrance, too tired to move. “Come here, Maria,” he said, motioning to her with his good arm. She sat next to him, and he put his arm around her. “We can watch the valley pretty well from here,” he said. “Cristóbal and I used to come here to play ‘Pueblo.’ ”
“Don’t.”
He was silent then and they sat together, watching the valley. They could not see the flames of Las Invernadas, and the night sky was peaceful, the stars glittering, the fireflies winking among the trees by the cave’s entrance. Maria closed her eyes.