by Carla Kelly
The Indians stood as if made of stone, hands to their weapons, eyes on the burning palace. The smell of death rose from their bodies, each man wearing the scalp of his former master. Maria swallowed and hurried through the diminishing shadows with the children. She couldn’t trust herself to look back for Diego, but she held Luz and Catarina in a death grip. The girls raced along beside her. Catarina’s eyes were wide with terror, but Luz’s face was vacant of all expression, as if she were somewhere else.
They were almost to the far side of the plaza when Maria was jerked around by a hand gripping her arm. Without a word, she let go of the girls and yanked the knife out of her waistband, cutting deep into the arm that held her. When the Indian let go in surprise, she plunged the knife into his heart, gagging at the putrefaction that rose from his scalp-decked body. The Indian grabbed her in death’s reflex and pulled her to the ground on top of him. She jerked out the knife and plunged it in again and again, sobbing deep in her throat. The Indian went limp suddenly and bloody froth poured from his mouth.
Maria leaped to her feet, dropping the knife, and clutched Catarina’s hand, her grip slippery. Luz had collapsed in a heap. Maria yanked her upright.
Then she heard Diego. With the ferocious cry of the conquistadores, he screamed “Santiago!” at the top of his lungs from the far side of the plaza.
The three of them pounded toward the burning governor’s palace. The Indians had turned their attention to Diego. She saw him out of the corner of her eye, his back to a wall, shooting arrow after arrow.
They ran until they reached the smoldering portal. The wooden flooring was slippery with blood and burned in places. They fell once in a tangled heap, but they scrambled up and kept running toward the barred entrance gates.
Madre de Dios, help us!” Maria screamed as they pounded the length of the walkway. Catarina and Luz cried, thin, piping wails of terror that Maria knew she would hear for the rest of her days. “Holy Mother, San Francisco, save us!” she shrieked.
As they ran faster, shouting and screaming, the gates slowly opened.
Without another word, Maria shoved Catarina and Luz toward the outstretched arms and stopped. She whirled around to face the plaza. She could still see Diego, shooting with dreadful deliberation at the approaching Indians. His aim was excellent, and they moved slowly, cautiously toward him.
Maria started toward him, but someone seized the back of her chemise and yanked her toward the fortress gates again. She struggled to free herself, but other hands pulled her in and then pushed her to one side as the defenders of Santa Fe barged out through the gates with their own cry, “Santiago!”
When the smoke-blackened man let go of her, she leaped to her feet again and ran out the open gate, following the soldiers, compelled back into the plaza she had been so desperate to leave only minutes before.
The fighting swirled around her as she ran toward the last place she had seen Diego. The stench sickened her, the flash and roar of the arquebuses at close range deafened her, but she kept running, searching, her heart pounding, her mouth open as she gasped for breath.
And then it was over. Someone struck her from behind, and she dropped like a stone in the plaza.
She heard voices, Spanish voices, before she opened her eyes. Her exhausted mind turned the sounds over and over, but she was still afraid to open her eyes. Someone was stroking her cheek, running fingertips down her face. Only one person she knew had ever done that, and he was dead. She sobbed his name and the fingers stopped.
“Maria. ”
That was all. Her name. She opened her eyes and looked up into Diego Masferrer’s dear face.
She closed her eyes quickly, then opened them again. He was still looking down at her, a slight smile on his face. Blood dribbled down the corner of his mouth, and she raised her hand to his lips. He ran his tongue over his teeth and winced.
“Diego.” She patted his face, glorying in the familiarity of it.
“We were both too tough to kill, Maria querida.”
She reached up and put her arms around his neck. He winced again, and then gathered her close. “Maria, will you never listen to me?” he said into her shoulder.
She laughed and ran her hands over his broad back. “So we are not dead?”
She felt his laughter as she held him. “If' you were dead, Maria, you would probably look better.”
Maria let go of Diego and sat up, touching her face. Her left eye was swelling and her face felt strangely puffy.
“Between the two of us, querida,” said Diego, squatting back on his haunches, “I believe we have one good pair of eyes.”
“For that, Señorita,” began a familiar voice, “I must apologize.”
Maria squinted into the sun. “Señor Castellano!” she exclaimed. “How good it is to see you!”
He knelt by her as she sat on the ground near the palace entrance. His face was black with smoke from the fire, and she almost didn’t recognize him.
“Maria, you did not say how pleased you were to see me when I tried to stop you from going after Diego!”
“A thousand pardons,” she said, putting her hand to her swollen face.
“I am afraid I had to strike you to stop you. It was not a thing I am proud of, Señorita, but you would not listen. ”
“Yes,” murmured Diego, “that is something about her.”
“Santos!” Castellano exclaimed, “you fought me like a tiger! But never mind. You two are alive.” He struggled to control his emotions. “I never ... we never ... thought to see any of you ever again.” Señor Castellano paused, looking over his shoulder. “But here are two young ones I cannot hold back.”
Luz and Catarina threw themselves at Maria and Diego. Maria clasped Luz in her arms, holding the child close.
“Maria,” Luz whispered, “when you ran back out the gates, I tried to follow you, but they wouldn’t let me.”
“Oh, Luz,” Maria whispered back, “we will not be parted again. Not for anything.”
Diego leaned over and kissed Luz. “Will you forgive me for striking you, Luz?”
Silently she threw her arms around her brother.
Governor Otermin shouldered his way through the people that crowded around the fortress entrance. Like Señor Castellano, he was smoke-blackened. Gone were his fancy clothes, his elegant gold-handled cane. His shirt and breeches were in tatters, and he wore the look of one awake too long. He bowed slightly, a striking figure of authority even in his rags. “Accept my apologies and sympathy, Masferrer. ”
Diego held out his hand, and the governor grasped it in a firm grip. Then Otermin stepped back, looking at Maria and Diego’s sisters. “At least you do not come to us empty-handed, Diego.”
“I have nothing, sir,” Diego replied. “Absolutely nothing.”
“Ah. Here I see your sisters, and Maria Espinosa, the redoubtable Maria. Diego, she is formidable.”
“They are not my possessions,” snapped Diego. Maria put a hand on his arm but he ignored her. “I will never again have the ... the audacity to think I can own anyone. We are together because we belong together, por Dios,” he paused. “Sir.”
Maria smiled at Diego and put her arm around his waist. The haunted look left his eyes. “You’re a forward woman,” he said to cover his embarrassment.
“And you, Masferrer,” began the governor. “I am pleased to note that this whole nightmare has not completely knocked out all your eccentricities. Such a dull colony this would be.”
Maria looked around at the colony the governor spoke of. The plaza was crowded with people, refugees like themselves, women and children, dirty, hungry, and inexpressibly weary, their eyes vacant with exhaustion, or full of the terrors of the week they had survived. She pulled Luz and Catarina to her, thinking to shield them from the hopelessness around them, then loosened her grip on the girls as she realized that they were no better off.
Any area not occupied by the refugees was taken up with animals, whatever horses, sheep, goats, and c
ows the rancheros had managed to save.
“Like Noah’s Ark, Maria,” observed Luz.
“What? Oh, indeed. I think you must be right. Ay de mi! Could Noah have heard himself in such a racket!”
Luz tugged at Maria. “I am thirsty.”
The governor turned from his own contemplation of the disorder around him, a look of perpetual wonder on his dirty face at such a bedraggled mob defacing his well-ordered patio. “Ah, water. The Indians have cut the acequia that flows into the plaza. We have no water. He looked at Diego. “To say that things are somewhat desperate is typical of the understatement of which only government officials are capable.”
Diego laughed, and Otermin raised his eyebrows. “Masferrer, what makes you so cheerful?”
“Señor Excellency,” he replied, “I am just pleased to be alive. Is there a priest around?”
“I would imagine. They have a resiliency that rivals your own. Try the chapel. I believe it is crammed with burning candles.”
“Excellency, is there any clothing around for Maria and my sisters?”
“Yes, an admirable point. Señor Castellano can direct you to the storehouse. Although if we leave Maria in her shift, she might be distracting enough to take the men’s minds off water.”
Diego did not laugh, even when Maria blushed and pulled his sisters in front of her. The governor looked from Maria to him. “I mean no offense, Masferrer, none at all. I was appealing to your evident humor, but I see that you do not laugh about Maria.”
Diego bowed. “Oh, I do, Your Excellency, but you don’t.” Otermin bowed in turn, and the two men went off to their separate tasks.
Maria looked around her again. The gates had been slammed shut again and bolted with a heavy cedar crosspiece. Black-faced boys and men watched at the rifle ports, silent, alert. The governor walked among them, speaking to one, patting another.
Maria could hear nothing from the plaza. “Have the Indians left, Señor Castellano?” she asked.
“For now, perhaps, at least some of them. They carry away their wounded and dead, then return in a few hours, stronger than before. This has been their pattern for two or three days, maybe more. I cannot recall.”
“We saw their campfires on the hills north.”
“Yes. They have been there several days. It all begins to run together.” Señor Castellano held his arm out for Maria. “Come with me now. I have someone who can help you and the girls.”
Señora Castellano was sitting in a scrap of shade, a parasol at her feet, in an attitude of genteel repose, untouched by the activity around her. She rose when she saw Maria and held out her hand as if she were in her own sala. She clutched Maria in a strong embrace. “Maria,” she said. “Words cannot express my feelings. Come, sit.”
Maria sat next to La Señora Castellano. She smiled to see the Castellano sons and daughters around their mother. “How lucky you are, Señora,” she said. “You have everyone here.”
Señora Castellano regarded her children, then turned to Maria. “Yes, although I find myself counting them several times a day, as I did when they were younger. Maria, the tales we have heard! I cannot believe them. ”
“Believe them, Señora,” said Maria wearily, “for they are true. We have seen things that will be with us forever.”
“What of Señora Masferrer? Erlinda? and Cristóbal?”
Maria shook her head and closed her eyes. Luz and Catarina leaned against her.
Señora Castellano reached out and put her hands on the children. “It would seem that you have acquired sisters, Maria,” she said, motioning for her daughter to come forward with food.
“I have. Twice they have been given into my keeping, so I have sisters.” Maria opened her eyes and said suddenly, “But what of my sister?”
Señora Castellano looked away. “La Viuda? A sad story, my dear. And have you not had enough of sad stories, Maria? La Viuda Guzman fled with the rest of us, she and her daughters, all of us just ahead of the Indians. Why did none of us think this would ever happen?” She stirred restlessly. “Well, when the Widow Guzman came through the gates, she remembered that she had left behind her strongbox, the one with the records of deeds and mortgages and loans. What can I say? She harangued the men to help her fetch it, and when no one would, she and her daughters returned for it. That was two days ago. We have not seen them since.”
Maria bowed her head and sat in silence while La Señora handed her and the girls a trencher of dried meat and hardtack. She watched Luz and Catarina eat quickly, rapidly, then picked up a handful of meat. She ate.
“We are rationed heavily,” said Señora Castellano. “All of this is from the government storehouses. Here is a sip of wine. Only a sip, mind you. We have nothing more.”
The wine was cheap and bitter, such as would be allotted to soldiers, but at least it was wet. Watching carefully, La Señora took the bottle back after it had gone around once. “Save the rest for Diego,” she said.
Maria was silent, looking across the courtyard. The sun was hot and pitiless overhead, and she was grateful for the small shade. The townspeople had gotten the shady spots first, while the refugees who had managed to flee their haciendas with their lives alone sat and baked in the sun, staring with dull eyes at nothing. She got to her feet. “I must find Diego!” she told the Castellanos.
“Oh, sit, sit, child. He said he was only going to look for a priest.”
But Maria would not sit. She backed away from Señora Castellano’s restraining hand. “I must find him,” she insisted. “Stay here, Luz and Catarina. I will be back. He is gone too long.”
“Maria, it has been only a few minutes! Sit here and wait.”
“You don’t understand, Señora. I have to find him.”
Her body ached and her eye was on fire, but she ran toward the chapel at the east end of the patio. Everywhere there were crying children and sun-burned women, just sitting in rags and tatters, staring.
The chapel was cool but crowded with refugees, women praying out loud, raising their hands to heaven, lamenting what had been lost, wailing for the dead, swaying back and forth, pulling at their hair. With a cry of relief, Maria saw Diego sitting on a bench toward the front of the church, talking to a Franciscan. She ran forward and put her hands on Diego’s shoulders. He jumped and grabbed her fingers, loosening his hold only when he looked over his shoulder and saw who it was.
“Ah, don’t sneak up on me like that again,” he said with a shaky laugh. “Sit down, mi corazon. This is Father Farfán. Father, Maria Espinosa de la Garza. ”
She came around the bench and sat beside Diego. He put her hand on his thigh in a gesture that made her think that he was not through with possessions just yet.
“I was hoping you would come,” he said. “It is a curious thing. I feel so uneasy without you close by.”
Maria nodded. “I was feeling the same thing.”
Father Farfán leaned forward, looking at both of them. “We have seen that for the past week, especially with those who have come here from outlying areas, as you have. Whole families move about in groups. No one wants to be out of anyone’s sight.” He sighed and looked down at his hands. “They tell us, as you have told me, of the things they have witnessed, and I do not wonder at their reluctance to be separated.” He looked at Maria. “Diego tells me you saw Father Pio.”
“I did. Only do not ask me.”
“I will not. There are worse fates than a martyr’s cross. It would appear that some of us have been condemned to live and remember.” He fingered the knotted cords at his waist. “But enough of that. It will be with us forever. Diego tells me that he wants to marry you. Now. ”
“I tried to talk him out of it last week.”
“Did you?” said Father Farfán with a smile. “You are a strange woman, indeed.”
Diego spoke up. “She could not see how Diego Masferrer, hacienda owner and master of Indians, could ever survive the ignominy of marrying a pobrecita.” He put his arm around Maria. “But
a poor man is a different story, eh, Maria chiquita?”
She considered him seriously. “No, it isn’t, Diego. I still should not. Someday you will have all this back again. Don’t you think you might feel some regret that you did not marry into land and wealth?”
Diego considered the question, running his hand down Maria’s bare shoulder. “No.”
Maria sighed. “Well, perhaps we had better consider it then. ”
“I will give you no cause for regret, querida mia.” Diego smiled and squeezed her arm. “All that I have is yours. It may not look like much at the moment, but it is more than I could have given when I had everything, when I was master of the earth. You have my heart, my life, my body—for whatever it is worth these days.”
“It is the same with me, Diego,” Maria whispered. “All that I have.”
Diego looked at the priest. “Do you see, Father? She agrees. Now, when can you marry us?”
“You know this is irregular. There should be banns for a month ....”
Diego interrupted. “We may not have even a day together, Father, and you talk of a month.”
“I know, my son. Perhaps this once. This may be the last cheerful thing that ever happens in Santa Fe. This evening?”
“We will be here.” Diego stood and pulled Maria to her feet. They leaned against each other, tired beyond words. “Querida, we are so decrepit!” he exclaimed, supporting her around the waist with his good arm. “At dusk?” he said to the priest.
“Yes. Go with God, my children.”
They helped each other back across the courtyard. “Look at it this way, Maria,” said Diego, talking loud to be heard above the cries of children and bawling of thirsty animals, “if the worst is behind us, we are more fortunate than most.”
“You called me La Afortunada, did you not?”
“Indeed I did.”
They rejoined the Castellanos in the shade. Diego shook his head when they offered him biscuits and jerky, but he took a sip of wine, recorking the bottle carefully.
Pulling Maria down beside him, they curled up together in the protection of each other’s arms and slept, oblivious to the hard ground, the noise, the heat.