And Lario? Was he aware that another child had been born in the Castle? Probably not, she thought. And most certainly he did not know it was his child. For should he learn the truth she had no misgivings that, as fond of children as the Navajo were, Lario would never permit her to keep the child in Stephen’s household.
But on that point she need not worry, because he was still in the western part of the New Mexican Territory, which had been severely reduced in size now that a portion of it had been made into the Territory of Arizona. Whether he was succeeding at his peace mission was debatable. According to The Las Vegas Gazette, a Navajo chieftain, Barboncito, was credited with the robbery of several stages and the destruction at Raton of the "iron street”.
Stephen was furious; for her husband, always the entrepreneur, had invested heavily in the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad which, if completed, would create a new aristocracy from the wealth it would engender. He was in Santa Fe negotiating with representatives from Washington to buy portions of the checkerboard plots of land on either side of the railroad that were to be sold once the War Between the States ended, as everyone felt it would surely end soon.
When Stephanie was not quite three months old, Rita traveled to see the child, cheering Rosemary with the latest gossip. "I am sure Esteban will tell you when he returns from Santa Fe,” she said after Consuela left the room, "but it is said that Congress has again refused to grant our Territory stateship.”
She chuckled. "Statehood, you mean.”
"Si. Because we have slaves it is said.” Rita tapped her foot angrily. "The peons — how would they live, what would they eat, if we did not take care of them?”
The question of the debt peonage seemed a vicious cycle to Rosemary, who as a child had three servants at her disposal. It seemed to her the solution, the freeing of all indentured people, could take decades to bring about. "I thought you did not like to discuss politics, Rita,” she said in an effort to turn the subject in another direction.
"I was getting to that.” Rita put a fingertip to her pink lips as if trying to recall, but the ends of her mouth curved upward in spite of her mock seriousness. "Ahh, si! Now I recall. With a month still to go before the baby comes Libby Raffin has put on much weight. And Grant has sent her back to Santa Fe to have the care of a good doctor.”
Rosemary had heard nothing from Fort Sumner since her visit there in February, but she had supposed that Grant was occupied trying to keep the rebelling Navajo and Apache in check. She tickled Stephanie under the chin to wake her and get her to finish nursing. "Your eyes are too bright, Rita. That is not all, is it?”
Rita chuckled. "It is said that when Grant comes to visit her, he also visits his mistress — none other than Dona Lura Armadeo! Imagine, she must have at least forty-five or fifty years, Rosita!”
The notorious Lura! She was reputed to have been the mistress of the first Territorial governor. She was noted as a gambler and kept a large gaming house. Rosemary could only envy the woman who defied society’s opinion to live her life the way she wanted.
Jamie came toddling through the office doorway as fast as his little legs would carry him with Inez chasing behind. "Mama!” he cried. "Mama!” He came to a halt before her. His lips quivered when he saw she held the small thing again.
Rosemary looked down at the large eyes whose lashes were spiked with tears and understood at once. His spot was threatened. She loved her firstborn dearly and wondered if she would ever feel as close to her daughter as she did to him. She handed Stephanie over to Rita, who tried to quiet the baby’s enraged cries at being taken from its source of nourishment.
"Come here, pet,” Rosemary said and stretched out her arms to engulf the little boy who threw himself in her lap. "Shall we go for a picnic today?”
Jamie enjoyed this most of all, but the delightful trips into the foothills to search for pretty bright stones after lunch were no longer taken. Not only did Cambria’s inhabitants have Indian attacks to fear, but reports reached them that, increasingly, bandidos from south of the border and the lawless Comancheros were also taking advantage of the soldiers’ absence from the forts.
"We’ll picnic beneath the shady cottonwood, and you can throw rocks in the river and watch them splash,” Rosemary said.
Jamie’s hazel eyes, which had inherited her long thick lashes, lit up. "Si, si, mama!”
She smiled and hugged his little round body. "’Tis raising a bilingual child I am, Rita.”
"This I should hope, Senora Rhodes! Jamie shall have a very difficult time being governor, no, if he does not speak the Spanish?”
Rita was gently poking fun at Stephen’s plan that his son would go to law school in the East and return to govern the Territory, or state, as everyone hoped it would soon be. Yet Rosemary knew Rita was technically right, for the legislature in Santa Fe was carried on primarily in Spanish. Even official documents were still recorded in Spanish, although English records of transactions were now a requisite.
It was a perfect day for a picnic with a light breeze to rustle the pungent cottonwood leaves warmed by the July sun. Consuela’s lemonade and cornbread baked with squash seeds and topped with honey went untouched for almost an hour as the two women and children laughed and tumbled and talked. She could almost forget the tiny mound on the far side of the cottonwood. There was only a small stone slab to indicate that there had been a previous child.
Both Rita and she laughed at how Stephanie drew in her breath each time the unfamiliar sensation of the wind played across the baby’s skin. Jamie and Inez, whose serene beauty grew more evident each day though only a child of three, chased the butterfly that swooped down to rest on the field of wild hyacinth that painted the knoll. Palomas sang in the tree’s branches above them.
But the pleasure of the afternoon was soon spoiled for her at the sight of Stephen riding up the drive from the village. There was something even about the way he sat on his bay that suggested the man’s certainty of his power. With him rode Cody, who in Lario’s absence served as caporal, though he was rather young and inexperienced to handle the workings of such a tremendous enterprise as the Cambria Ranch.
Cody, she was glad to see, but not the Mexican who rode on Stephen’s right. Ignacio was a fat sluggard she absolutely loathed and was happy that Stephen kept the man with him in Santa Fe most of the time. At least Stephen left her alone, but she had the distinct feeling that Ignacio would not should the situation arise to his advantage.
With only the barest greeting to herself and a polite "Buenos dias” to Rita, Stephen dismounted and swept up Jamie who immediately stiffened in the gruff embrace. "Tickle. Tickle,” he complained of Stephen’s mustache and tried to squirm out of his father’s arms. But Stephen sat the boy astride his large bay stallion. "We’ll ride back to the house,” he told her.
She saw the fear leap in Jamie’s eyes. "Let him finish his lunch, Stephen.”
"Lunch with a passel of women!” her husband said and grinned proudly at his son. "Hell, no! Right, Jamie? We be having men’s things to do!”
He swung up behind his son. The bay began to dance, and at once Jamie’s little face screwed up, and he started to cry.
"Stephen, put him down! You know he doesn’t like horses.”
Stephen’s furious gaze hit her like a fist. "I’ll not have you raising a sissy. Don’t ever be telling me what to do with me son.” His glare took in the bits of grass in her messed hair and the twill skirt, which without the support of hoops, clung to her curves, and she caught the sudden wanting in his eyes. "I see I shall have to stay home more.”
He brought his quirt down across the bay’s rump, and the horse shot forward. Rosemary could hear the cries of her son even though the churned-up dust now obscured the riders. It was the first time Stephen had ever shown disrespect in public, and Cody directed a curious look at her before reluctantly following Stephen and Ignacio.
"I’m sorry,” she told Rita, who tried to cover her embarrassment by lowering her face
to smell the clump of tall grass Inez held out to her like a bouquet of flowers.
"Ni modo, mi amiga. It’s all right.”
But it was not all right. Neither for Jamie nor Rosemary. Stephen was home again to make their lives miserable. Stephanie he flatly ignored, though there would be a time when the little minx would not allow it.
However, Stephanie did serve Stephen’s purpose only a few days later when Yellow Dog and some of his men returned for their visit. Cody rode in on a lathered horse with the news just ahead of Yellow Dog. Unfortunately Rosemary happened to be in the yard with Stephanie, letting the baby take the sun.
"Get Stephen,” she told Cody and scrambled to her knees, snatching up both the pallet and a protesting Stephanie. But too soon she spotted Yellow Dog and his warriors and knew he had seen her also. She noticed that Yellow Dog’s son now rode a pony of his own, though the boy could not be more than four or five.
She could not run now and let Yellow Dog see her cowardice. She held her ground as the braves approached. Where was Stephen?
Then Stephen was there, brushing past her as he called in a loud, hearty voice, "Yellow Dog! It is the time for a smoke and big talk, is it not?”
"Sheegee,” Yellow Dog said, addressing Stephen in the salute to a close friend. "Noshti—the big smoke. We are ready.”
And for all the gifts you can carry off, she thought. Stephen turned to her. "Bring the whiskey, several bottles.” He could just as easily have ordered Cody or called one of the house servants to go for the liquor, but she had been around Indians long enough now to know that Stephen would have lost face if his wife did not wait on him.
She set Stephanie down on the pallet again, well away from the stomping, snorting ponies, and went inside. When she returned, with one of the house servants helping her carry the bottles, she saw Yellow Dog’s son sitting with Stephanie on the blanket. The boy reached out and touched the baby’s head, which resembled an orange ball of fluffy cotton. Rosemary’s breath sucked in, but the boy smiled—a smile that did not reach his eyes.
She hurried to Stephanie, who stretched out an inquisitive hand toward the bright red bandana about the Indian boy’s head. Setting down the bottles, she swooped up her daughter. She did not care how inhospitable or rude Yellow Dog thought her.
Only later that night, when Yellow Dog’s band rode away, thoroughly drunk and half-hanging onto their ponies, did she realize the impact of her actions. Stephen pushed open her bedroom door without knocking. "What the bloody hell did you think you were doing out there? Your rudeness angered Yellow Dog!”
She paused in brushing the rats from her hair. "I don’t care, Stephen. You can barter all you want with those savages, but I’ll not risk one of them taking a fancy to Stephanie’s hair and making a souvenir of her scalp!”
Stephen laughed shortly, his florid face a deeper pink, and she realized he was as drunk as the Indians. "That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about.”
His eyes told her he had unpleasant news, news that he enjoyed delivering. "I’ve promised Stephanie to Yellow Dog’s son in sixteen summers in return for continued peace here at Cambria.”
"Noooo!” She screamed. She flew at Stephen and beat at him, one hand still clutching her brush. Stephen’s fist came crashing against her temple, stunning her.
But the fight with her had sexually stimulated him as nothing before had in a long time. And he pushed her face down on the bed.
CHAPTER 16
"For a woman of twenty, you are very dry, me dear,” he said when his efforts to enter her had been frustrated. "’Tis a brittle, old woman you shall be before your time.”
"I hope so!” she snapped back. "Maybe then you’ll be leaving me alone!”
Stephen turned from where he preened himself before the long French Pier mirror, admiring his still trim stomach. "Ahh, but you’ve grown so beautiful in your child-bearing years, I cannot be helping meself.” He shifted his gaze to her. “Aye, with that regally contoured face of yours and your taut stomach and long legs, you a fallow field waiting to be plowed.”
He crossed to the bed and leaned over her resting his hands lightly on either side of her head. His fingers toyed with one of the silken curls, and she knew he pretended not to see the revulsion in her eyes. "Jiraldo and Rita shall be here for Stephanie’s birthday next week, won’t they? Why don’t you and Rita take the children into Santa Fe for a shopping trip? It’ll be doing you good to get away.”
Her blue-green eyes searched her husband’s face. "All right,” she said at last. There was a purpose to everything Stephen did, and she knew sooner or later she would discover the reason behind it.
For right now it was enough to be out of his gimlet gaze for even a day, but for five days of shopping, it was wonderful. Since he had raped her, and that was the only thing Rosemary could call it, he had taken perverse delight in resuming his sexual rights, in seeing the fear and hatred that burned in her eyes.
"Rosemary and Rita can meet the coach out of Fort Union at Las Vegas,” he told Jiraldo at dinner the next week.
"It would be completely safe,” Rita added, hoping to persuade her taciturn husband. "After all, there has been no trouble with these Confederates in over a year. And this Kit Carson, he has halted the horrible Indian attacks, no?”
Rosemary smiled. "I think Grant would claim he was responsible for the cessation of the Indian attacks.” And she thought of Lario for the first time in months, feeling only a hollow emptiness within her.
"They can stay at the Governor’s Palace when they reach Santa Fe,” Stephen said.
Jiraldo quietly chewed the baked squash, but his hooded eyes watched his wife. And she knew what he was thing, that Rita was young and vivacious. Too vivacious for a man of sixty.
"Jiraldo,” Stephen said, "I want them to listen—to find out what that Territorial Auditor be doing going through the Treasury Books.”
"Esteban, I would advise you to go yourself,” he said. "Cortar en flor – nip this in the bud, as you have often enough advised others.”
"You should know yourself, Jiraldo, it never does to alert the enemy. With all the legislature gone home for the term, that auditor should not be there.”
The old man thoughtfully swirled the red wine in his glass. "Esta bien,” he said at last with a shrug of his bony shoulders By sunrise of the following day the two women and three children were aboard the wagon. It would have been a pleasant one-day journey to Las Vegas but for the presence of Ignacio, who drove the buckboard. His body reeked of months without washing. Rosemary would have preferred Cody, but he was at the Wild Cat Camp.
Ignacio kept a percussion cap rifle in the crook of one arm and a dangerous-looking Green River knife at his belt. Stephen was taking no chances. "Don’t leave Jamie alone for a minute,” were his last words as he grabbed up his son and tossed him in the air. The boy caught his breath but did not cry. At three Jamie was learning what his father expected of him.
Inez and Jamie sat in the wagon bed, alternately playing and dozing under the warm spring sunshine. She and Rita took turns holding Stephanie on the front seat, with one or the other holding a yellow frilly parasol against the sun’s bright glare. The April sun was unusually warm and Rosemary discarded her gray traveling jacket and fancy straw bonnet with its yellow muslin roses.
She had outmaneuvered her friend so that Rita was forced to sit in the middle next to Ignacio. Each time a breeze rose, Rita would wrinkle her nose at the odor and roll her eyes at Rosemary, and both women would try desperately not to burst out in laughter.
Late afternoon brought the first in a series of events that would alter her life drastically. The wagon passed through a cluster of ramshackle cabins and adobes with peeling gypsum whitewash. These were the outskirts of Las Vegas, the last stop on the old Santa Fe Trail. It was in that bustling city of twenty-three saloons that General Kearny declared the Territory of New Mexico a possession of the United States.
Excitement filled the two older children when
Rita told them there was only a half-hour or so left before they reached Las Vegas and boarded their first stagecoach. But their shouts and laughter were suddenly cut off as the wagon topped a rocky rise to encounter a staggering line of Indians, mostly women and children.
The women looked old beyond their years, the children emaciated, and the few men — the mighty warriors that Rosemary had often heard spoken about—wore the vacuous look of beasts of burden. Their buckskin britches and calico shirts and blouses were worn through in spots, and their faces, dull and apathetic, were coated with dust. Rosemary glanced quickly along the line to see if any of the Indians could be Lario, because for some reason his presence seemed stronger than ever. But she did not find his face among the vacant ones trodding before her.
Five mounted soldiers in blue flanked the group of twenty- five or thirty Indians and prodded them as they would cattle with their rifle stocks, urging them forward with demeaning shouts. But the people were only able to shuffle along at a weary gait.
As the wagon drew near, a young soldier who seemed to be in command ordered the Indians off to the side of the road to allow the wagon to pass. She commanded Ignacio to halt. Before the vaquero or Rita could prevent her, she sprang from the seat with Stephanie balanced precariously at her hip. "These Indians, Sergeant, where did they come from?”
The sergeant seemed as surprised as she herself was at her outburst. He tilted the brim of his cavalry hat back, saying, "Fort Defiance, ma’am — in the Arizona Territory. We’re taking them to the Bosque Redondo Reservation at Fort Sumner.”
"Mother of God, they’ve walked the whole way?” She was shocked, and her gaze switched back to the people who stood waiting dully for the sergeant’s command to move on. One thin mother slumped down where she stood to suckle her baby at a shriveled breast.
"Ma’am,” he said, trying to explain, "these people are nomads. They’re used to walking. Why, the bucks can outdistance a horse.”
"I don’t notice you walking. Are you admitting to inferiority?”
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