Carla Kelly - [Spanish Brand 01]

by The Double Cross

  Back on the Double Cross, he insisted on burying her himself, in the family graveyard. She saw the penitential gesture for what it was, and shook her head when the guards asked her if they could help. At his side, she walked with her husband to the family plot, carrying the shovel while he cradled the child so tenderly in his arms. Her own heart broke, knowing how devastating it must be for him to walk to that cemetery and see his whole family laid out in a neat row. Please, Father Eternal and all the saints, let me give him a child someday, she prayed silently, as he dug the grave in the snowstorm.

  The grave was far deeper than it needed to be, which brought home forcefully the enormity of the double guilt he felt, the impotence of a juez de campo and the grief of a bereft father.

  When the grave was finished to Marco’s satisfaction, he put the child in it, his cloak still wrapped around the broken body. Paloma shivered as he filled in the hole, then knelt beside him and recited the Rosary many times until he finally rocked back on his heels and stood up. He gave her a hand up, and they walked slowly back to the hacienda, with its welcome lights and fragrant plume of piñon smoke rising. His hand was heavy on her shoulder as she grasped him around the waist.

  “We cannot keep this from Toshua,” she said, after Marco seated himself at the kitchen table and took a cup of hot chocolate from Perla.

  “I’m afraid to tell him.” Marco sipped the hot brew, then just sat there with his hands around the earthenware cup, warming his fingers. “We’ve started to give him free rein around the hacienda. It would be easy for him to give us the slip and kill that wretched man.” He shook his head. “But it would be worse to keep him locked up in the storeroom. Let’s let him out.” He gave her a crooked smile. “Maybe I almost wish he would slit Joaquin’s throat.”

  He walked with her to the storeroom and waited while she unlocked the door.

  “Toshua?” she asked, speaking into the dark room. “Please come out now. And … and do forgive me.”

  Again, the Comanche was standing beside the door. He took her hand, but it was a gentle gesture. She tugged on his fingers and he followed her into the kitchen.

  Toshua looked from her to Marco. “Who was it this time?”

  “A little girl. We do not know her name.”

  Toshua’s head went back in surprise. He clasped his hands in front of him, holding them so tight together that they turned white. “I know her name but I cannot speak it, now that she wanders with restless spirits.” He looked at Paloma. “You would probably translate it as linda, or pretty.” He sighed. “There are no other young Indian children at the hacienda of that evil man. Not now, anyway. All gone.”

  Paloma nodded, her eyes on Toshua’s face. Marco shifted slightly, as though even the mention of the child brought him great discomfort.

  “Señor Muñoz said she brought him shaving water,” he said.

  “And he accused her, too?”

  Marco nodded. “He must have. I should have kept looking, after you were found. I should have searched and—”

  “Don’t, Marco,” Paloma pleaded. “How could you know?”

  He said nothing, keeping his lips tightly shut. She kissed his cheek, which brought a slight smile to his face, if not his eyes. He shook his head when la cocinera tried to put posole in front of him. Perla set another bowl in front of Toshua. Paloma took Marco’s bowl from Perla and set it in front of her husband. She put a spoon in it, and he was wise enough to eat. Toshua had no trouble eating his bowl clean, even lifting it to get the last drop.

  When the Comanche finished, he pushed the bowl away and planted his elbows on the table. “I could kill him for you,” he told Marco.

  “You could. I have considered that,” Marco replied, sounding not even slightly surprised at the Indian’s generous offer. “If we did that, we would not be following the process of the law.”

  “That is so important out here, nearly in what you call Comanchería, when there is no governor to stick his long nose in your business?” Toshua asked, obviously puzzled.

  “It is to me.”

  “I do not understand you.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

  “Did you … did you know this little one?” Paloma asked. She nodded to the cook when Perla set posole in front of her.

  “The old man paid only one medio for her at the Taos slave auction,” Toshua said, not disguising his bitterness. “I know that because he boasted about the bargain. She was afraid, so we spent time together, just sitting mostly, sometimes talking Nurmurnah, even though the old man flogged us both when we did that.”

  It was the most Toshua had said at one time. Paloma put down her spoon. “How is it that your Spanish is so good?” she asked him.

  He gave Marco a wry look, as if wondering what a juez would think. “One of my three wives was a ranchero’s wife I captured in a raid on La Isleta.”

  Surprised, Paloma glanced at Marco, too. He only sighed and looked at them both. “We punish and you punish, do we not? How is it that you are a slave, Toshua? Did men like me swoop down on your settlement and somehow carry you away?”

  The Comanche smiled at Marco’s skepticism. “Nothing that worthy of a warrior happened to me.” He turned a little to face Marco, as if trying to exclude Paloma from the conversation. “You Spanish have only one wife at a time.”

  “That’s enough,” Marco told him. He put his hand on Paloma’s leg.

  “Not for the Nurmurnah. We have hides to scrape and tan and we need more women.” He scratched his head. “I suppose you hear stories about my people respecting the … uh … older among them.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Don’t believe them. Maybe that is true of Utes, or even the Shoshone, our ancestor-race.” He paused, and Paloma saw the shame on his face. She forgot herself for a moment and touched Toshua’s arm.

  “My wives found a younger man and threw me out,” he said at last, the words dragged from his throat. “They told lies about how I treated them, and the tribe cut me loose to wander.” He glanced at Marco. “I thought my position was so secure in my tribe, but I was wrong. And that is why you should not trust the Castellanos, Señor.”

  “You couldn’t have heard those conversations,” Marco said.

  “I sit here in your kitchen and people talk,” Toshua said, with a shrug. “I cannot turn off that place where I think.”

  Marco took Paloma’s hand. “The Castellanos must be spreading lies about the few cuartillos of the egg money Joaquin Moreno gave you.”

  “I doubt it is cuartillos,” she said, squeezing his hand. “By now, I have probably walked away with all the money lying around loose in my uncle’s house, and broken into the governor’s strongbox, too.” She regarded both men, one so dear to her, and the other whom she did not trust. “We have a more important matter, and that is what to do about Joaquin Muñoz. What is the matter with him?”

  They sat in silence for a lengthy time. Marco spoke first, hesitant. “When I went there today, I found him in the kitchen. This will sound stupid. He was holding a spoonful of food to his mouth, as if wondering what to do with it.” He looked around. “You’re not laughing.”

  “No. I am thinking of the look on his face when I saw him standing in his hall, as if wondering where he was,” Paloma said. “Toshua, has he killed other slaves?”

  The Comanche looked at the two of them and propped his elbows on the table, imitating them. “I do not know. Once I saw him stare at his daughter when she came for a visit in that silly carriage. It was as though he did not recognize her.”

  “Then it is entirely possible that he really forgot where he put you and that poor child,” Marco said. “When I pounded on the table, demanding his attention, Joaquin seemed to recall himself.” He looked around the table. “Who knows how long he had been staring at that mouthful of food?”

  “What should we do, my husband?” Paloma asked at last, when the silence stretched on.

  “We find the boots,” he told her, decisive now,
which relieved Paloma’s heart.

  He said something next that did not relieve her heart. “Toshua, I will not lock you up tonight. I want you to make a pallet and sleep near my bedroom door. If you are to be the protector of that which I hold most dear, how can you do your duty behind a locked door?”

  Paloma cried out. Marco took her hand. “Where do you sleep in my bed?” he asked gently. “Where?”

  “Next to the wall,” she said, tears in her eyes. “How can you do this to me?”

  “He will have to go through me first to get to you, and he cannot,” Marco replied.

  “I know that,” Toshua said and turned his attention to the posole. Paloma got up and left the kitchen, standing silent in the hall a moment before walking to the chapel, where she knelt on the floor until her knees ached, saying no prayer. After an hour Marco joined her, separate at first, then holding her tight in his arms.

  The grip turned into a caress, unmindful of the Indian-carved saints around them and the benign look of the Virgin Herself. “Paloma, I have been thinking about this place and Spain so far away. I am convinced that we must learn from the Indians around us.”

  “Do you trust Toshua?”

  “I must … we must … learn to trust him. You saved his life twice—he told me how you stepped in front of him when my guard was ready to throw his knife. I doubt he can harm you now. To live here in the coming years, we must forge new ties. Spain is slowly withdrawing, and I will not leave my home and the graves of my loved ones, and retreat to Santa Fe,” he told her.

  “Maybe I should not have worked so hard to get a yellow dog to you,” she countered, even as she held out her hand for him to help her up. “It appears I have gone from the cooking pot into the fire.”

  “You have, Paloma,” he said in all seriousness. “Soon we Spaniards will be left alone here in Valle del Sol.” He held her off from him for a moment, his eyes troubled.

  After watching his expression change from hard to tender, she put her hands on his face.

  He kissed her hands, then pulled her close, speaking into her hair. “I was going to be noble and offer to let you return to Santa Fe where life is safer. I would buy a house for you, and visit you there once or twice a year,” he murmured.

  “Save your breath. I would never leave you,” she told him, raising up to kiss him.

  Easy to say, until a few hours later when family prayers were over and Toshua made ready to bed down on his newly arranged pallet close to the door of their room.

  “I won’t give you a weapon,” Marco said.

  “No need. I already have a knife from the kitchen,” Toshua said. He pulled out Perla’s favorite butcher knife from under his pallet.

  Paloma’s eyes widened, and the air seemed suddenly colder in the hall. “She keeps those locked up.”

  Toshua shrugged. “Maybe not well enough. I can pick your puny locks, landowner, and lift your latches. Want me to show you how?”

  Marco shook his head. He squatted by the pallet, where Toshua had laid down, his eyes heavy with exhaustion. In spite of her misgivings, Paloma could not help her sudden swell of pity for a man still recovering from two months of incarceration and starvation. She went into the dark kitchen, where only hot coals still glowed, and took half a dozen tortillas from the food safe. She put them on the floor by Toshua’s pallet.

  “There were times in Santa Fe when I wanted a little cache of food. This is yours,” she said. She laughed softly. “Of course, you have probably already figured out how to get into the food safe.”

  In answer, Toshua pulled back the pallet even farther and showed her more tortillas.

  “You’re a quick study,” Marco said, more to himself than the Comanche. Paloma heard the respect in his voice. “Consider this: tomorrow my woman and I are going back to Hacienda Muñoz to search for those damned boots. It could be that I want you to create a diversion outside while we search inside.”

  “I could divert all of us and kill the old fool,” Toshua said.

  “I have told you why that will not do,” Marco reminded the Indian patiently. “Just be ready to ride with us in the morning, after it is light.”

  The Comanche did not agree or disagree. He yawned and closed his eyes. Marco stood up and took Paloma’s hand, tugging her after him into their bedroom.

  He stood beside the closed door, his hand on the latch, indecisive, then put his hand down, leaving the string out. “I do not want him to think we do not trust him,” he whispered to Paloma.

  I don’t trust him, she thought.

  Marco was turning toward the wash stand, his hands on his doublet, when Toshua knocked on the door and spoke. “Señor, do not try to impress me with your faith in this Comanche by leaving the latch out.”

  Paloma put her hand to her mouth, so Marco would not hear her laugh.

  Marco went back to the door. “You are certain?”

  “Of course. If intruders get past me, I do not want them to have an open invitation into your bedroom, where your greatest treasure sleeps. Don’t make my task so hard.”

  Marco laughed and pulled in the latchstring. Shaking his head, he stripped, washed and got into bed. Paloma took her time, wondering about men. She left on her shift and tried to crawl over her husband to that safe side of the bed. He grabbed her around the waist when she straddled him and tickled her. Paloma shrieked, then covered her mouth with her hand, as she tickled Marco back with the other.

  “I am not so certain I like someone lying just outside our door,” she said much later, when she patted around the bed, trying to find her disappearing shift.

  “He’s not there,” Marco said drowsily. “I doubt he has been there since he told me to pull in the string.”

  She stopped. “What are you saying?”

  “I am saying he is gone.”

  Paloma pulled on her shift and padded to the door, listening for a moment. She opened the door.

  Marco was right.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  In Which Paloma Makes a Discovery

  Since Paloma solaced him twice during the night, Marco had no qualms about letting her sleep late. He stood for a long and pleasant moment just looking down at her as she slept. When he got up, she had moved into his warm spot, stretched like a puppy and muttered something incoherent before returning to sleep.

  He reminded himself how strange were the workings of fate, considering that he had set out for Santa Fe with nothing more on his mind than finding a small dog and selling his wool clip to the Jews. Toshua was right; Paloma was his greatest treasure.

  He dressed quietly and opened the door to see Toshua lying there asleep, or at least pretending to sleep. The Indian opened his eyes.

  “Are you surprised to see me?”

  No, he was not surprised. “I thought you would be here. Now tell me what you have done to Joaquin Muñoz.”

  Toshua rose in that singularly graceful way of Indians and rolled up the pallet. “I did nothing to him. I stole a horse from the Double Cross and spent the evening watching my master.” The word master came out like bitter fruit.

  “How could you steal one of my horses? I have excellent guards.” Better to know this now, Marco thought, with some chagrin.

  “They are excellent guards. The best in Valle. I am better,” Toshua said with a shrug, as if inviting Marco to accept the plain fact.

  Marco decided he would. “Continue.”

  “I spent part of the night in Señor Muñoz’s kitchen, just standing still in one dark corner and watching him.”

  “You have a nerve,” Marco said, not even trying to disguise his admiration.

  Toshua shrugged again, but there was a half-smile on his face. “I could have killed him. He spent a good part of the night just staring at his hands, as if he wondered who they belonged to. What is the matter with him, Señor?”

  “I wish I knew.” Marco appraised the Comanche for a long moment, even though he knew such scrutiny was considered bad manners by Spaniard and Indio alike. “
He did not see you at all?”

  “No. Would it surprise you to know that when I snatched my Spanish wife—number three, and only the gods knew what I was thinking—her ranchero husband did not even know I had taken her from his own bed without a peep?”

  “Nothing would surprise me,” Marco said frankly. He thought of his own woman sleeping so peacefully on the other side of the stout door and wondered if he should just kill Toshua right now and get it over with. Trouble was, he didn’t know if Toshua would kill him first.

  It was as if the Comanche read his mind. “I will never bother your wife,” he said, lowering his voice as if Paloma stood with her ear pressed against the door. “She saved my life two times.” He gave a short laugh utterly devoid of humor. “If Pepita Camargo had come into the chicken house, I think she would have left me there. Not your woman, even though she fears me.”

  Marco nodded. He gestured toward the kitchen and Toshua followed. Or he started to follow him as a slave would, except that after a few steps, they walked side by side. Only Emilio, his steward, did that. Marco thought he might dislike it, but he didn’t.

  Perla was already stirring the pot of mush over the recently roused cooking fire. Marco noticed that she regarded Toshua calmly, with none of the fear of recent days. What magic has this slave worked on all of us? he asked himself as he sat down and gestured for Toshua to do likewise.

  “What else did you do at Hacienda Muñoz?” Marco asked after Perla brought them each a bowl of mush and chilies and he made the sign of the cross over it.

  “I set all his outbuildings on fire,” Toshua said calmly, after his first bite.

  “You did what?” Marco exclaimed.

  Toshua merely shrugged again. “You wanted a diversion, Señor. It’s going to burn for quite a while.”

  Marco had no trouble waking Paloma. She came awake as she always did, like a flower unfolding. She smiled at him, put her hands behind her head, and moved over, in case he felt like returning to her side. When he explained what had happened, she was suddenly all business, searching for her shift, lost during last night’s dealings, then dressing quickly.