“She is Sancha, my housekeeper, who came with Felicia all those years ago,” he whispered back.
“I hope I can measure up.”
“I have no doubt that you will.”
Paloma could not help noticing the slight hesitancy of the woman as they approached the doorway where she stood. She stood, blocking the way one second too long, before stepping back and holding out her hand to usher them inside. Paloma glanced at her husband, who looked so suddenly serious. He must have noticed, too.
“Sancha, may I introduce my wife, Paloma Vega?” he said. “She will be your mistress now.”
Beyond a frown so fleeting that Paloma could have imagined it, the servant’s face betrayed no emotion as she began to unfasten the cord that held her household keys in place. Paloma put out her hand to stop her, and Sancha looked up, surprised.
“Not yet, please,” Paloma said, her voice quiet. “You know far more than I do, and I will learn from you. When you think I am ready, then I would like the household keys. I am pleased to meet you, Sancha.”
Sancha’s deep curtsy was all that courtesy required. Paloma glanced again at Marco, noting the slight smile she interpreted as approval. She knew her horrible aunt would never have behaved in such a passive way to a servant, but Paloma had learned in Santa Fe to use Tia Moreno as a bad example.
“I would very much like to see the kitchen first, husband,” Paloma said to Marco. “Say what you will, it is the most important room in the house.”
“I defer to you,” Marco said. “Lead on, Sancha.”
As she stood in the kitchen doorway, Paloma made no effort to hide her sigh of admiration. Working all those years in her aunt’s dingy kitchen, she had imagined a place like this. Her daydreams had never gone beyond working in a room that was light, airy, clean and purposeful. Her hands to her mouth, Paloma looked around in delight at the whitewashed walls, the heavy red tile underfoot, and handsome oak table and benches and the blue and white Dutch tiles lining the outside of the fireplace, serving no purpose beyond pleasing the eyes of those who worked there. In a corner by the fireplace, a small Indian boy sat on a stool, turning a spit where a turkey roasted, its juices hissing on the coals below and releasing a most fragrant aroma.
The other servants stood at a higher work table, cutting and chopping vegetables and eyeing her shyly. Paloma smiled at them, then turned to Sancha.
“What can I say? Your mistress knew what to do with a kitchen. I will enjoy working here.”
“You don’t have to work in here,” the housekeeper protested, but Paloma heard the pride.
“Of course I do,” Paloma replied simply. “I welcome the opportunity.” She pointed to the closed door. “The pantry?”
“Yes, mistress,” Sancha said, opening the door, her gesturing hand spontaneous now, with no hesitation.
Paloma looked inside, feeling her own heart expand as she admired how beautifully its contents were ordered, so soothing to her after so much disorder. She saw kegs, barrels, vegetables drying overhead, bins full of what she knew would be flour, cornmeal and beans. She breathed deep of the spices hanging there, recognizing the fragrance of basil, rosemary, thyme, and lemon grass.
“You can eat your way through it,” Marco teased, standing next to her now, his hand on her shoulder.
She jostled him in the ribs, which made him laugh. “I intend to,” she told him, which made him move his hand to her neck in a caress.
The other door opened onto what she knew was the kitchen garden. She opened that door and stood a long moment, taking in neat rows fallow now, but ready for distant spring. She heard the gurgle of the acequia and imagined herself on her hands and knees, weeding the rows and coaxing the tender plants next spring. She wanted to hug herself, wondering how it was that God’s grace finally extended to her, too. As Father Eusebio would have said, “It ith one of lifeth mythterieth.”
Sancha remained in the kitchen as Marco led her past the dining room—“I can’t even remember when we last used it,” he told her—and into the sala. Emilio met him with a hammer and nail, and Marco’s saddle bag. He lingered for a moment, obviously interested, then left.
Without a word, Marco took her sandals with the blood dried on them from his saddlebag. He tapped in a nail by the corner fireplace, a little lower than the crucifix, as he had said he would, then hung her sandals from the nail.
“Now the room is complete,” he told her, and she heard the struggle in his voice. “Before, it was just a sala. Come here, Paloma.”
She came into his arms and they embraced wordlessly, his lips pressed to her hair, her cheek against his chest, as she relished the beating of his generous heart.
“What do you think of our sala?” he asked finally.
Through blurred vision, she admired the benches bright with Indian blankets, the buffalo robe on the floor, the table with an ornate candelabra that must have come from Spain, and the two high-backed chairs by the fireplace. The walls were plastered a rich blue, which contrasted with the red tiles on the floor and the little border of more blue and white Dutch tiles midway up from the floor.
“Even in my father’s day, we never used this room for more than formal interviews and chastisement,” he said. “Let’s find a better use for it, eh?”
She nodded. “I still wish I could have given you land and cattle.”
“Do I need land and cattle?” he asked, both arms around her now. “But I think it matters to you.”
She nodded again, and he walked her from the sala. The hall was cool and dark. He opened the doors to show empty bedchambers, then paused before a closed door. He put his hand on the latch, but he did not raise it. When he shut his eyes and rested his forehead against the door, she suddenly knew whose room it was. Paloma doubted he had opened that door in all the years since his twins had died. She put her hand over his.
“I don’t need to see it now, my love,” she whispered. It was her turn to take his hand and lead him to the last room, which was larger than the others. “Ah,” she said, hoping to make him smile. “And this is where you plan to keep me warm and covered every night, if you can.”
He laughed at that, a relieved, full-throated sound. “That is my intention. Some afternoons, too. This one comes to mind.”
“Well then, close the door,” she told her husband, her hands already on her buttons, willing to make his pain go away in the best way she knew, now that she had been his wife for three weeks.
He shook his head. “Not yet. I’ve been listening to your stomach growl since the kitchen.” He looked around. “I like what Felicia did in my house, but this room was too dark after she died. I had our—my—bedchamber whitewashed, but you can do what you want.”
Paloma shook her head. “I like bright rooms. The better to see you with, maybe.”
He gave her such a look that she thought he had changed his mind about the kitchen, except that her stomach began to growl. He smiled and took her hand, leading her toward the kitchen again.
When they passed the family chapel, he hesitated. “We pray in here each night.” He went to the altar, genuflected and reached for a candle snuffer hanging from the knotted rope around Saint Francisco’s habit. As Paloma watched, curious, Marco pulled back the woven rug in front of the closest bench, exposing the wood floor underneath. He pressed the snuffer into a corner of one plank, and raised it enough to reveal an iron ring. With a quick tug, he raised the four attached planks and motioned her closer.
“There’s a ladder. The room is small. A path from it leads to the grove of trees closest to the cliff face. If there is ever trouble, this is where you go, and you don’t ask questions.” He lowered the planks, replaced the rug and gave the snuffer back to Saint Francis.
“Have you ever—”
“When I was a child. There was a summer when the Comanche Moon seemed never to set. We slept down there nearly every night.”
In silence, they walked back to the kitchen, where Sancha had set two bowls and a platter containi
ng slices of turkey covered with beans and chilies on the table. Paloma’s mouth watered as the housekeeper put a basket of hot bread by the turkey then stepped back, her eyes proud.
Aware of being observed, Paloma ate only a little, even though she wanted more. Marco understood. A few words, and the kitchen emptied of servants. He sliced off more turkey for her and increased the depth of her bowl of beans and chilies.
“More bread?”
“Maybe later,” she said. “We have some business elsewhere.”
He gave a low laugh, then turned his attention to Emilio, who had come into the kitchen with business. As the men talked, she wandered into the empty hall. Since no one was about, she opened the door her husband could not open and stood a moment, gazing at two cribs, hand-carved toys, and two adult chairs close together. Quietly she closed the door on all that grief. “I pledge to you that we will use this room again, husband,” she whispered.
When Marco came to their room, she was already in bed, even though the sun was scarcely past its meridian. He locked the door behind him.
“Emilio has work to occupy him for several hours,” he told her as he unbuttoned his shirt. “That’s the side of the bed you want? How is it women know these things?”
They made quiet love in the bright room, quiet because she was used to that, after three weeks in a wagon, with teamsters sleeping close by. Marco was less quiet. It pleased her that as skinny as she was, she could satisfy such a man and make him groan.
“The walls are thick,” he assured her, well-aware that she was still not completely satisfied. He obliged her, slower now as she came again with a sigh. She shifted his weight, but stopped him when he tried to move away.
“More?” he asked, his lips close to her damp hair.
“Not now. I just want you,” she told him. “Am I some freak of nature?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been told I have considerable prowess by one, and only one, very honest source,” he teased, which made her chuckle.
After he was lying beside her, Paloma pulled back the sheet and admired him, seeing his body in brightness for the first time. She touched a scar on his thigh that looked newer than the one on his chest. She brushed her hand against his lower hair, then ran her hand down his legs. She kissed the scar on his thigh, which made him utter something close to words but not quite and fondle her hip.
“A Comanche lance?” she asked, when she was at his side again, his arm around her. She pillowed her head on his chest. His heartbeat was only beginning to slow down.
“Yes. Last fall, some five hundred of us ranchers and soldiers and three hundred Indian allies, mostly Utes, rode north with Governor de Anza after Cuerno Verde, a Kwahadi Comanche. We put his village to the torch, killing people and horses—they hate that—and taking prisoners.”
“I remember when the governor returned to Santa Fe,” Paloma said. “There was a great Te Deum in San Francisco and all the Morenos went. We celebrated more modestly in San Miguel.” She moved closer. “I remember ears tacked to the walls of the governor’s palace, and other things I should not mention.”
“Did it bother you?” he asked, his hand on her leg.
“Maybe not as much as it should have,” she said, after long thought. “I remember what other Comanches did to my mother.”
His arm tightened around her. “We found Cuerno Verde and his men returning from an attack on Taos and fought a three-day running battle.” He touched his thigh. “I got this on the second day, which meant I missed out on the final kill.”
“How far from here?”
“About fifty leagues, near the Rio San Carlos. The Kwahadi have not troubled us since, but I will never trust them.”
“Were you happy?” she asked, hoping her question did not startle him.
He didn’t rush his answer, which made her think no one had asked such a question. “It’s hard to say. I was glad Cuerno Verde was dead, but I did not enjoy wading through bodies and cutting and slashing. Too bad there is not a better way. After all, it is a big country.”
Paloma closed her eyes.
How did I feel? Marco asked himself as Paloma slept beside him. Funny how this woman he now called his own had asked a question no one ever dared to ask. In truth he had felt hollow. He was no soldier. All he wanted was to raise his cattle and sheep in peace. Still, de Anza had commended his efforts, and Marco knew he could fight.
He could have slept, too, and then wakened his wife after he was able again, but he got up instead. He washed himself with warm water that practical Paloma must have brought from the kitchen, probably under the scrutiny of Sancha. He wasn’t sure he would have been so daring, considering that no one usually needed warm water in the middle of the afternoon, except a man and woman newly married. You’re braver than I am, he thought, thankful that he was master of his house and his servants would not dare give him knowing glances.
He dressed quietly and unlocked the door, then tiptoed down the hall to the outside door, thankfully seeing no one. He stood on the porch as he always did, looking at the order around him, then went to his office by the horse barn. In a few minutes he was deep in the latest documents he had brought from Santa Fe, chafing at new regulations he would probably have to ignore, because the government of Spain hadn’t a clue what he needed on the frontier.
Shadows were lengthening across his desk and he was thinking about lighting a lamp when the door opened and Paloma came in. Her hair was neatly twisted into a bun low on her head, a far cry from the tangle on his pillow only a few hours earlier. She wasn’t a tall woman, but he knew how long her legs were and how good they felt around his body.
She looked at him, her expression quizzical. “What are you thinking?” she asked.
“I am thinking I should have remarried years ago, then I am grateful I didn’t, because where would you and I be then?”
Paloma crossed herself, and he knew she felt the same way. He smiled and returned his attention to the last of the recent cédulas, laws three years old at least, while she looked around his office. She pulled out a brand book, one of three volumes in the bookcase close by. She looked around, then naturally sat in the chair beside his desk where Felicia used to sit.
“If I am not interrupting you …”
He folded the useless law and gave her his attention.
“What is your jurisdiction?”
“North and south of us, then west nearly to Taos. No one is farther east than we are.”
“Are you often gone?”
“Not in winter. You’ll have to put up with me, Paloma. That’s all there is to say.”
She eyed him so long that he wondered if he could move everything off his desk and accommodate such a glance. She looked at the book again, and closed it.
“I have only a fleeting memory of my father’s brand,” she said, folding her hands on his brand book.
“Could you draw it?”
“If I thought about it long enough, perhaps. It’s been many years.”
She turned away, her face troubled, and reshelved the book. She looked down and must have noticed Felicias’s knitting. He had never had the heart to remove it from its place beside the chair she sat in when he worked late and she kept him company. He could tell from Paloma’s expression that she understood.
As he watched, practically holding his breath at the sweetness of what he saw, she took out Felicia’s last project, a pair of slippers for him, half finished. He swallowed as his new wife tenderly ran her hand over Felicia’s work. She took a deep breath and pulled the knitting needles from the ball of yarn that was probably dusty now. In a moment, she was knitting where Felicia had left off. He closed his eyes at the sound of clicking needles and knew how good God was to him.
Chapter Nineteen
In Which Old Joaquin Muñoz Cries Foul
Hungry, but unwilling to interrupt the sweetness of his wife knitting, Marco continued farther into the mound of paperwork on his desk. No one else on the Double Cross except Paloma could rea
d and write, but he had always encouraged his neighbors to send him notes or drop by, if they needed his services. Many of them could not read, so he was familiar with the handwriting of Father Francisco, who had become Santa Maria’s scribe.
Because he had been gone from early September and it was almost November, there were many little scraps of paper, most from Father Francisco, with messages short and nearly cryptic; paper was scarce. It was the usual list: missing cattle, found cattle, neighbors angry about whose hay was whose, irrigation cheats, silver table knives that walked away. He knew that most of the problems had probably been solved weeks ago during his absence, much in the manner of obedezco per no cumplo—“I obey but I do not comply.” Still, he was their brand inspector, and petty complaints warranted a visit to each plaintiff. It would be a good opportunity for Paloma to meet her neighbors.
Chin in hand, he watched as she continued knitting the slippers Felicia had begun so many years ago. He smiled when she started to hum, and reminded himself to visit with Sancha and Perlita la cocinera this evening, to see what they could do to increase Paloma’s intake of food in order to round her shape. Flan tomorrow, he thought. That’s a good start, and I like it, too. Why should flan be just for special occasions?
He dragged his attention back to the task in front of him and arranged the pile of complaints into those distant and those nearer. He almost overlooked the scrap on the bottom of the pile, the first note. He reached for it and the scrap fluttered into Paloma’s lap. She handed it to him, after a glance at it that made her frown. “I thought I could read,” she murmured. “What horrible handwriting.”
He didn’t bother to suppress his groan. “I get the strangest complaints from this man.” He turned the scrap this way and that, and then read aloud, “ ‘My boots are gone, stolen by Indians. Joaquin.’ ”
“O dios,” he griped. “Have you ever had someone who follows you around, plaguing your life, even though you confess often—generally telling the truth—go to Mass and live a clean life, as much as a sinner can?”
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