Carla Kelly - [Spanish Brand 01]

by The Double Cross

  Marco Mondragón, respected in his own valley, stood in the street until his breathing returned to normal. I have found cattle and the Christ Child missing from a crèche, and lost children and wandering chickens, he thought. Surely I can find a yellow dog and a girl with blue eyes who perhaps, just perhaps, is looking for me.

  As it turned out, Felix Moreno’s staff was far from loyal. Marco heard a “Psst!” from the corner of the house. Looking behind him to make sure Felix Moreno was not in sight, he strolled casually toward the sound.

  He was disappointed not to see Paloma, but there was an older woman with a long apron, the Moreno’s cook. Brazen, or maybe desperate not to be seen, she took his arm and yanked him around the corner, surprisingly strong for one so old.

  “Whatever he told you, don’t believe it,” the woman hissed.

  “I don’t.”

  She gave his arm another tug, which made him think she had sons his own age. She took a deep breath. “When your foolish dog returned he startled Paloma and she dropped a dozen eggs. The master saw this and started beating Trece.”

  “I thought as much.”

  “Don’t interrupt me.” She glared at him, obviously lumping all men in the same kettle. “Paloma tried to stop him and got the cane for her troubles.”

  His own niece, Marco thought, appalled.

  When he didn’t speak, the cook scowled at him again. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

  “Cook, whether I speak or don’t speak, you have me condemned,” he pointed out.

  She had the good grace to loosen her grip on his arm, which, truth to tell, was starting to ache.

  “I did what I could but it wasn’t enough. She told me she was going to San Miguel, where the priests have some skill at doctoring.” She shook her head. “Blood everywhere.”

  It was Marco’s turn to grasp her arm. “O dios, please tell me she—”

  The cook must have seen the sudden fright in his eyes because she patted his arm now. “She is wounded but well enough. She had such a fire in her eyes! The master will be lucky if she never returns to this miserable household.”

  “San Miguel?”

  “Go, and hurry.”

  He did hurry, arriving out of breath at the mission church, where he demanded to speak to the priest with a lisp. He could have beat his head against the door frame when the priest who came told him that Father Eusebio had left the mission, carrying the vessel for Extreme Unction.

  “Not for Paloma Vega?” he asked in sudden fear, thinking of his wife and children. It struck him forcefully that he was now adding the quiet Paloma Vega to that particular pantheon of loved ones. He thought that door had slammed shut years ago. Perhaps the Lord and His tender mercies were not through with him yet.

  “Not for Paloma. I was tending others, but I saw him stitch her pretty face and get her a pair of sandals from the poor box, as though she was going on a journey.”

  “Did … did she say where?” he stammered, thinking of Felicia’s boots and shoes and dresses he had packed in camphor and put away. She had loved beautiful clothes and he had indulged her without a qualm. By God, he would do it again, if he could.

  “If she did say, Father Eusebio did not tell me,” the priest replied with a shrug. His expression turned thoughtful. “He did mention one thing more—a beautiful tortoise shell comb, the kind ladies wear.”

  “She had such a possession?”

  “Apparently. She may have stolen it, but I doubt Paloma Vega would steal anything.” The priest smiled. “And that yellow runt was trailing at her heels. That much I did see.” The priest looked at him with kindly eyes. “I wish I could tell you more. Oh. Father Eusebio also gave her a child’s cloak. It was all we had in the poor box, what with winter coming.”

  Marco nodded, thanked the priest for his information and left San Miguel, but not before handing him two pesos for the poor box. He could have purchased the best milk cow in Valle del Sol with two pesos, but the poor needed it more.

  Outside the church, Marco looked to the right and the left, wondering what to do. He sat down on a bench in front of the church, slowing down his racing brain with the logic of a juez de campo, he who inspected brands and occasionally investigated petty crimes.

  So you are going on a journey, probably to return my dog—your dog—to me, he reasoned to himself. I know you have no money, other than a cuartillo or two. The comb belonged to your mother, dead these seven or eight years. You’re a practical woman, for only a practical woman could have survived all these years with such a bad man.

  He stood up slowly and walked to the stockyard, where he had dickered with the Jews over his wool clip and cattle. He found Señor Abrán Boulafia, who was patiently dickering with another ranchero over a small herd. Marco sat down to wait, but soon leaped to his feet to walk back and forth. Hurry, hurry, he wanted to shout, but negotiations took time.

  He could have kissed the Jew’s feet when Boulafia finally nodded at the cattleman and motioned for him to follow his equally bearded clerk to the office to draw up agreements.

  “Don Marco, you are wearing a path from one tree to another. What do you need?”

  “Señor Boulafia, where would a person go to sell a comb for a lady’s hair? I have never dealt with any Jew dealers in Santa Fe except you.”

  Señor Boulafia did not even blink at such a strange request. “Try the little alley behind Paseo de Peralta. You know, close to the old Pecos trail.” He seemed to feel familiar enough to tug on his beard and grin. “Are things at such a pass that you must pawn a comb? Don Marco, I know I paid you well for that wool clip.”

  Marco returned his smile. “You paid me well,” he said. “You have done so ever since I came here after my father’s death—twenty-one and frightened.”

  “It appears that the son has turned out as worthy as the father,” the Jew said.

  “Thank you, Señor Boulafia. I am looking for someone who might need to sell a lady’s comb.”

  “Then I pray to the God of Abrán, Isaac and Jacobo that you find her,” the old man told him, and it felt like a blessing as potent as the one Father Damiano had left on his forehead two days past.

  “See you in a year, Abrán,” he said, calling him by his first name, something he had never done before. Perhaps it was time.

  He did not know Santa Fe well, but he found the alley. To his dismay, there were a number of shops—narrow and dark because the sun did not shine in the alley—where such a transaction might have taken place. Some were open, some closed now for the noon meal. Four shops yielded nothing. The fifth shop was closed.

  The sixth gave him what he wanted.

  All Jews looked alike to him; he wondered if Señor Boulafia had a brother. “Did a young woman with bright blue eyes come in here recently to sell a tortoise shell comb?” Marco asked, with no preliminaries. He knew this was no way to do business or ask for information, but time was his enemy.

  Again, he could have fallen to the earth in gratitude when the man, his eyes wary, nodded slowly. “I bought such a comb from such a lady.” His eyes seemed to own the memory again. “She had a bandage next to her eye and a yellow dog at her heels.”

  “The very one,” Marco said quietly.

  “She didn’t dress like a lady, but she was a lady.” The older man’s eyes seemed to darken. “She was a lady fallen on hard times.” The eyes darkened further. “I hope you have come to relieve her burden and not add to it.”

  Marco looked at him, surprised at the Jew’s impertinence with a Christian. He thought of Paloma with sudden hope. She did have a way of bringing out a man’s protective instincts. He sighed. All men except her uncle. And here was this Jew, as observant as a brand inspector.

  “I hope to relieve her burden,” he said, his voice no louder than before. With the saying, he knew he had crossed into territory that made him vulnerable to women again, as he had not been vulnerable since Felicia’s death. “She is taking a perilous journey to return that dog to me. I doubt she k
nows how perilous.”

  His fears returned when the Jew shook his head. “I could only give her a handful of coins.” The man looked away. “It was so little, but it was business. If I overpaid everyone, how could I feed my own wife and hopeful children?”

  “I understand,” Marco replied. “I am a businessman, too.”

  The man seemed to choose his words with care. “She kissed the comb before she handed it to me. I think it meant a great deal to her.”

  “It did. I believe it was her only remaining possession from her mother.”

  The Jew smiled at him, and it was a man-to-man smile, not the smile of Jew always careful among Christians. “Then you must mean a great deal to her.”

  Do such things happen so fast? Marco asked himself in wonder. “I believe she is scrupulous about returning the dog,” he said, even as he felt his face flame. Dios, he had not blushed in years, not since he first saw Felicia after their wedding, standing before him in only her shift.

  The Jew shrugged. “As for how perilous the journey will be, she knows, Señor. She asked me, ‘Señor Jew, where is Valle del Sol?’ ” He shook his head, suddenly a father with daughters of his own. “I told her it was too dangerous, so close to Comanchería, which turned her pale. I also assured her it was too far for the handful of coins I had given her, but she smiled anyway and left my shop.”

  He reached under his counter then and pulled out the tortoise shell comb, “Please, Señor, give this back to her when you find her.”

  Marco pulled out his money bag. “How much do I owe you?”

  The Jew named an inconsequential sum that made Marco wince. That would get her no closer to del Sol than Española, if she was a lucky woman, and he thought she was not. He paid the sum and pocketed the comb.

  “Thank you for your information,” he said politely.

  He was in a hurry to retrace his steps toward San Pedro and his wicked teamsters, but he paused before the glass-topped case. He knew he would find what he wanted, but he wouldn’t know what he wanted until he saw it. Ah. He pointed.

  The Jew removed the ring from the case and laid it in the palm of his hand. A row of tiny, blue-enameled flowers were etched on the surface of the ring.

  “What flower is that?” Marco asked.

  The man chided him with a gentle smile. “Señor, you know that we Jews may not own land here. I have no ground to plant such a flower, or any flower, for that matter. I do believe, though, that you might call it a forget-me-not, No me olvides.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  They dickered a moment out of politeness, but Marco knew he would have settled for any sum the Jew asked, and he sensed the Jew knew it, too. He paid the sum named and waited while the Jew wrapped the ring in a small twist of paper.

  Outside the shop, he had a moment of indecision, which resolved itself quickly, because he knew he would not return to Santa Fe until spring, and Spanish wheels of government revolved slowly. He hurried to the governor’s palace, past the Indios sitting there with trade goods for barter, and up to the clerk at the high desk. A few words, and one of his favorite functionaries hurried toward him, which gratified Marco for no more reason than it was nice that the Mondragón name meant something in Santa Fe.

  Again, he had no time for preliminaries. “Señor Obregon, would you pass on a request to your district’s juez de campo?”

  “Anything within my power,” Señor Obregon said, his hand to his chest.

  “I have reason to think that Don Felix Moreno, fiscal, might have some questionable cattle.” Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t, Marco thought to himself. I would like someone to investigate him, harass him and cost him money. “I might be wrong. I also have a suspicion there might be cattle somewhere in the name of Paloma Vega, who used to live on a ranch near El Paso. Her family died in a Comanche raid seven or eight years ago”—he crossed himself—“and the cattle and land seem to have vanished. Poof!”

  Señor Obregon pulled a government face that meant he was thinking. “This Paloma—”

  “Vega. I do not know her other names.”

  “Vega was the survivor?”

  “Yes. She is the niece of Felix Moreno.”

  The two men looked at each other. Señor Obregon put away his government face for a small moment and produced his disgusted face. Only a small moment. In another second he was official again. Marco suspected that someone unaccustomed to business in Santa Fe never would have noticed a thing.

  “She alone survived.” And now I have to find her dog. Marco touched the little ring in his doublet. And see how far I get. He shrugged. “It might mean contacting the juez in the El Paso district. Maybe a winter project, if life is boring for your juez de campo.”

  “Perhaps.” The functionary bowed to indicate he was through. “God keep you safe from the Comanche. And may He go with you to Valle del Sol, Señor.”

  “And with you.”

  And with you, Paloma Vega, wherever you are, Marco thought.

  Chapter Ten

  In Which Paloma Vega Discovers Adventure

  Cabbage had never been her favorite vegetable, but Paloma Vega decided she liked it well enough, especially when the non-existent side of beef did nothing to keep hunger away. Peeled off, a leaf at a time, the cabbage filled her belly. She offered a leaf to Trece, but he just sniffed, whined, and curled up closer to her.

  “Adventurers can’t be choosers,” she reminded him, then fingered the coins in her apron pocket. “If el viejo stops anywhere for food, I’ll find something. If Valle del Sol is far away, you may have to learn to hunt.”

  If Valle del Sol is far away, I’ll find out how resourceful I am, and maybe how brave, she thought, as the wagon rumbled on. Since she was cold, and the cabbage wasn’t settling too well in her stomach, Paloma had the leisure to consider what she had done. For a few years, she had mourned the shocking loss of her parents. She had gradually folded their dear images away in her heart as she struggled to make sense of her life in Santa Fe. After a while, she had resigned herself to hard work with no thanks.

  She watched other children taken into the Moreno household as servants, seeing them go through the same pattern she went through, learning to serve with no thought of gratitude. The injustice of her treatment, when she should have been a cherished niece, became another thing to tuck away.

  She sighed. The biggest loss had been her mother’s tortoise shell comb; the biggest gain, the pair of sandals. And here was her beloved Trece, returned to her to give away again, once she found his new owner. She would be truly on her own then, but as the hours passed in the slowly moving cart, the reality seemed less terrifying. She could cook and clean, read and write. Surely someone needed her skills. Maybe there would be other tortoise shell combs some day, or maybe not. The memory of her mother would remain.

  The wagoner stopped briefly at some nameless pueblo, not bothering with an inn, which did not surprise her. Anyone with nothing more than a cart full of cabbage probably couldn’t command much beyond an inn yard, a little food for his donkeys, and a dry spot underneath the cart, once the donkeys were unhitched and tethered to graze nearby.

  To her amusement, he knocked on the side of the cart. “Hija, I have cold water to share, and what do you know, I have found a scrap of a blanket that I don’t need. Now that the rain has stopped, it really isn’t that cold.”

  Shivering, she pulled back the tarpaulin and saw his breath in the frosty air. “Oh, father, you need the scrap,” she chided gently. “I have a dog, remember?”

  “A small one, Señorita,” he argued back. He pounded his cloak, and she coughed from the cloud of dust. “See my warm cloak? Don’t argue with an old man.”

  She nodded and accepted the scrap of blanket, which was warm and soft and no scrap. In a few minutes she was asleep again, lulled by cabbage.

  She woke to the sound of the wagoner hitching his donkeys to the cart after the sun rose. Paloma peeled back the tarp, quickly noticing much more snow on the mountains, after a ni
ght of valley rain. It seemed to be inching closer, which made her shiver.

  She cajoled some meat scraps—more fat than meat—from the vendor at a food stand beside the road. The chocolate made her mouth water, but that was nothing new; in the Moreno household, chocolate was the sole prerogative of Tio Felix and Tia Luisa. She shook her head over a tortilla, thinking how long her cache of coins had to last.

  The vendor looked down his long nose at her and held out a tortilla that had been torn and scorched. “I could never sell this one, chiquita,” he told her.

  She took it, smiling her thanks and dropping him a small curtsy, reserved for those older than she was, that her mother had taught her. There hadn’t been much reason to use the truly elegant curtsy that she had learned, the one reserved for bishops, viceroys, capitán generales and perhaps a husband, upon first meeting. She remembered asking Mama if a husband required that all the time, and Mama just laughed. “Husbands are only allowed one, mija,” she had said.

  Even the small curtsy startled the vendor. “You’re no ordinary beggar,” he said, not unkind.

  “I am not a beggar at all,” she told him quietly, putting the tortilla back on the counter. Cabbage would do just as well, she decided, turning away. She kept the scraps for Trece.

  She rode beside the wagoner, Trece in her lap, on the slow journey to Española. They arrived in early afternoon, when the sun seemed to accelerate its descent, casting long shadows. The old man spoke to his donkeys, then turned to her.

  “This is my stop, Señorita,” he said, and Paloma heard the regret in his voice. “I would take you farther, but …” He shrugged his shoulders, saying no more.

  “Thank you, old man, for taking me this far,” Paloma told him. “Your cabbage was delicious, and look, the side of beef for the King of Spain is still untouched.”

  She climbed down and held out her arms for Trece. Then she retrieved her small bundle from the back of the cart and smoothed her dress.

  “See the walking stick back there,” the old man said. “Take it. Your dog hasn’t grown into his bark yet, and you might need it.”