Carla Kelly - [Spanish Brand 01]

by The Double Cross

Toshua shook his head. “There is nothing for me in the Staked Plain. I have no hair so I am no man. My women have thrown me out and I am not even a warrior in my band’s eyes.”

  Marco agreed silently, grateful for only one wife at a time. “When he occasionally thinks clearly, el viejo demands that I return you. I have told him you are my witness and will remain with me until spring, when I will take the old man to justice in Santa Fe.”

  “There is no justice for Indians,” Toshua said gently, as if reminding him.

  “I know. Paloma is going to convince my housekeeper Sancha that she should come here and straighten out this wretched man’s affairs. Does that surprise you?”

  Marco could see the Comanche’s answer in his smile. “Not at all, Señor. Señora Mondragón is a kind woman and probably better than you are.”

  “I think so, too.” Marco patted his stolen horse. “You picked my second-best horse and no one saw you?”

  “No one.”

  “Very well. He is yours, then. I won’t ask you to swear me an oath because you will not. I would ask you to help me keep my housekeeper and my woman safe, if they are here helping this foul, demented fellow.”

  Toshua regarded him in silence for a long moment. Marco returned him stare for stare. Toshua was thin and he shivered in the cold wind. The Comanche was right: he did look like half a man, with his hair shorn. There was nothing in his eyes of particular friendship or kindness. He was a Comanche, quite capable of wheeling on his fine horse and doing exactly what Paloma hoped he would do. And just maybe, he was also an honorable man.

  “I will do this thing,” Toshua said. “Where Paloma is, there I will be, whether she knows it or not.”

  Marco nodded and turned his back on a man fully capable of killing him in seconds. Spain is fading, he told himself as he walked back to the hacienda. If I am to stay here on my land, things must change. When he reached the open gate and looked back, Toshua was gone, or at least out of sight.

  Inside, he watched as his wife took a warm cloth and wiped Joaquin Muñoz’s face, all the while scolding him for letting his hacienda turn into a pigsty. Probably at her order, the three servants were sweeping and washing plates caked with old food. The odors in the kitchen made him blink and wish himself elsewhere, but there was Paloma, probably doing what she had seen Father Eusebio do, tending to someone worse off than she. This was the woman he wanted to introduce to the people of Santa Maria. No telling what lies Maria Teresa Castellano had already circulated.

  He stood there awkwardly until she patted the bench beside her. He didn’t want to sit next to someone as foul-smelling as Joaquin Muñoz, but there she was, doing her best to make the old rip comfortable.

  “How will you convince Sancha to move in here for a while, until we settle this matter?” he asked.

  “Sancha likes to be in charge. Let us see if she trusts me enough to manage the Double Cross. And you.”

  He wondered if Paloma had any idea how much she had already changed. Her cheeks were starting to fill out, but she was still thin, reminding him of Toshua. Maybe they had even more in common—the woman and the Indian had a certain resolute air. Someday she might see it, if Toshua remained at the Double Cross, and they all lived long enough.

  Amazing that the day had gone so fast. They left Hacienda Muñoz after Paloma had tucked the old man into his bed and ordered his servants to make sure he stayed there, on pain of some fearsome punishment she must have communicated in a telepathic way to his ancient, confused staff. Shadows stretched across the road home, speaking of ever-shortening days and longer nights. He knew how the cold would clamp down on the valley. Marco glanced at Paloma as they rode into the Double Cross. And now Andrés had the yellow dog to warm his feet. Marco had no need of such a pet now. He knew his feet would be warm tonight.

  But could Paloma convince Sancha to take on such an onerous project as Joaquin Muñoz? Sancha was a formidable woman. He admitted to himself he had been half-afraid of her for years.

  “You could enlist Sancha’s sympathy by telling her I ordered you to tell her to go to Hacienda Muñoz. Paint me as the villain. I don’t mind,” he said, proud of his generosity.

  Paloma just laughed. “Oh, you mean paint us both as victims, as you tried to do earlier?”

  This woman of mine, Marco thought, amused more than embarrassed. “Yes, that’s what I meant. Paloma, why did you marry a fool?”

  “Because I love him,” she said promptly. “I’m going to invite Sancha into the sala for a chat. I’ll put the matter to her honestly.”

  Fair enough, he thought, giving her a little bow after they dismounted. He took her horse’s reins and led the animals to the horse barn while she blew him a kiss and went into the hacienda. After he finished currying both horses and appointed five of his herders and guards to prepare for an extended stay at Hacienda Muñoz, Marco went to his office. Better to give Paloma free rein to approach the prickly Sancha. If she failed, Paloma could come to him for comfort in the office. If he were there, she would not have to face the scrutiny of critical servants in the house.

  He stared for a long time at the star and Vega brand that Alonso Castellano had left with him to register in the brand book. He should have done that and returned it a week ago, even if it had come to Alonso in an illegal manner. He could not prove any wrongdoing, so he had better register it, no matter how his heart rebelled against this affront to Paloma. He copied the brand in his official book, stamping his seal in warm wax, making it official for Alonso’s use, even if it really belonged to Paloma Vega.

  He must have dozed then. When he opened his eyes, there stood his wife, looking at him with some sympathy. She wore the housekeeper’s keys at her waist.

  “How did you do it, Paloma?” he asked. “What trick?”

  She sat beside him in Felicia’s old chair and picked up her knitting. “No trick,” she told him, casting on. “She already knew what had happened to Toshua. I told her about the little child, and that Señor Muñoz was not right in the head or the heart. That his hacienda was a mound of rotting garbage, the servants were cowed, half-mad creatures, and this assignment would take every ounce of her skill as a housekeeper. Oh, and that she would have to watch her back because Señor Muñoz was a sly fellow.”

  “You made the task remarkably appealing,” he teased. “How could she resist?”

  Paloma put down the knitting and fixed him with that clear-eyed gaze he was coming to relish. “She leaped at the chance. Marco, she told me how bored she has been, of late, with everything running so well on the Double Cross.”

  “I thought she liked all the calm and order,” Marco said, disappointed he had not recognized Sancha’s restlessness—he, who prided himself on his kindness as a master.

  “She needs a change. She gave me the household keys almost before I had finished making my appeal. Then she bullied me out of three of your best house servants. I agreed, of course.” She stood up and came around the desk to kiss his cheek. “How could I say no to that? I’m a little afraid of her, too.”

  “And you think I …” He stopped and pulled her onto his lap. “Why do I try to fool you?”

  “Because you are a man and in charge of a dangerous place,” she said, getting off his lap. “There is a turkey roasting, a small boy turning it, and I am hungry.”

  He put his hands on her waist, and noticed something even more important to him than the bunch of keys hanging on her apron.

  “Mira, Paloma. My hands do not come so close together around your waist!”

  She laughed as he touched the front of her dress, where the buttons were starting to strain a bit across what was still a slim bosom, but more rounded now. He put his finger through the gap and she giggled. When his touch turned to a caress, she sighed.

  “Is it the flan twice a week?”

  “Probably, and all that cream you think I need,” she said, undoing those straining buttons. “Is that better?”

  Of course it was. As much as he wanted to do more,
Paloma had said there was turkey and she was hungry. He patted her tender flesh, enjoying the greater heft, then buttoned her shirtwaist. “I recommend a visit to Carmen Saltero, the dressmaker,” he suggested, standing up and closing his brand book.

  “In Santa Maria?”

  Marco nodded, taking note of her sudden apprehension. “Don’t be afraid of what the Castellanos might be saying, Paloma.” He caressed her cheek. “Just words. Ultimately, it is deeds that count in Valle del Sol.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  In Which Good Christians Tell Tales

  Paloma was a wife after an official’s heart, Marco decided. She was ready before he was on Sunday, something Felicia had never been so good at. With Felicia, there was always one more scarf or necklace to try on or reject. Maybe when Paloma had as many dresses and scarves as Felicia, she would take more time, but he doubted it. He had never met a more practical woman.

  Although it was early, Marco knew there would be lanterns lit in the kitchen at Hacienda Muñoz, now that Sancha had been working there since Tuesday. He only had to indicate with a nod of his head that they should stop there on the way to church. Paloma nodded and followed him without hesitation, even though she had been to Señor Muñoz’s hacienda several times since Sancha was installed.

  He was the last person through the gate to the hacienda. He looked back to see Toshua in the distance, and gave a little wave. He knew the Comanche would remain there, watching over Sancha, since the Mondragóns were on the way to Santa Maria with sufficient guards. And when they returned, he would follow them back to the Double Cross, unseen and silent.

  In a moment of rare candor, Toshua had assured Marco that the extra guards who now took their turn watching Hacienda Muñoz were capable and didn’t need the Comanche’s invisible presence. “I would never have tried to steal your—my—horse, if those particular guards had been watching your stables,” Toshua had told him. That offhand remark made Marco spend the better part of a day reminding his men of their duties, something Toshua didn’t need to know.

  Sancha met them at the door, taking Paloma’s hand and pulling her inside, and giving Marco the half-curtsy, friendly nod that their master-servant relationship had settled into, after all these years. He looked around appreciatively, sniffing the pleasant odor of sage, with none of last week’s reeking garbage and old-man smells.

  “Joaquin?” he asked, knowing he should have been over sooner, but grateful to have left that to Paloma.

  “Señor Muñoz still sleeps,” Sancha told them as they walked toward the kitchen. “He has those moments where he is perfectly clear and others …” She shook her head.

  “Did … did he tell you about the little boy’s clothing I found in the chest?” Paloma asked.

  Sancha nodded, her eyes troubled. “Their first child. Carried off by Comanches when he was not more than three years old.”

  “He could be alive somewhere,” Sancha said. “Is it any wonder he has such hatred of the Comanche?”

  “You would never be so cruel as to tie up a little Comanche girl by the foot and let her starve,” Marco pointed out, unable to forget. “And there is Toshua.”

  “Don’t think me better than I am, husband,” she replied. “I spent a long moment in that henhouse, wondering what to do.” She looked at Sancha. “Does the old man feel any remorse over the boots stuffed under his bed?”

  “Now and then. He is starting to demand that Toshua be returned to him,” Sancha told Marco.

  “I explained to him why I am keeping the slave.”

  “You would have to explain it every day, because he does not remember.” Sancha gestured them into the kitchen, clean as never before. “I even mentioned Pepita Camargo yesterday, and he stared at me, as if wondering who I was talking about.” She held out both hands. “This is a peculiar madness.”

  “Do you feel in danger?” Marco asked. “We can end this arrangement today.”

  “No, no. He is a sad old man who knows he is losing his dignity.”

  She looked at Marco and he knew what she was thinking, as sure as if she said it out loud. As I might have become, without Paloma in my life, he thought. After too long, a man just doesn’t care.

  In the kitchen, Sancha supervised breakfast preparations. The three nervous servants had settled into the purpose and serenity that comes from careful management.

  “Sancha works magic,” Paloma whispered to him as she watched the servants move efficiently at their tasks.

  “No magic, Señora,” Sancha said, overhearing, but obviously pleased. “All servants need is someone to direct them in a kind manner.” She looked closer at Paloma, and Marco held his breath with the loveliness of her expression. “You probably wished for that, before you decided to return a yellow dog.”

  “I did,” Paloma said. She groped behind her for Marco’s hand, and he obliged her. She smiled, almost to herself. “Perhaps it is just as well that my particular keepers were not as kind as you, Sancha, else I might never have wanted to … return that expensive yellow dog to a man who paid too much.”

  “Perhaps Don Marco was a countryman—a paisano—so awed by Santa Fe that he did not understand how to bargain.”

  In all the years Marco had known her, it was the closest Sancha had ever come to a joke, and she said it with that lurking smile he had not seen since Felicia’s death. The kindliness of the whole exchange pleased him; they were two women chiding their master at his expense, and he loved it.

  “I am certain that was it, Sancha,” Paloma replied.

  “Or just maybe I saw something in you that I wanted,” she told Marco later, after they left the hacienda. “You would not think me forward if I admitted it now?” She blushed and looked away.

  Her obvious reticence, even though they knew each other quite well now, touched Marco’s heart. “May you always see something in me,” he told her, equally shy, which earned him another glance and a smile.

  It was her last smile of the morning. As they rode into Santa Maria, Marco watched his friends and neighbors appraise his new wife and turn away, not from shyness, but from suspicion—if their sour expressions and over-the-shoulder glances were any indication. Startled, he glanced at Paloma, hoping she had not noticed, but her usually expressive face grew more solemn. Soon she was looking down at her hands as they rode slowly through the single street toward the church. When her shoulders began to droop, he knew the Castellanos had been hard at work, spreading lies.

  “What has happened here?” he murmured, loud enough for her to hear, so she would not think for one second that she was alone in this new misery.

  “I warned you about my cousin,” Paloma whispered, after he helped her from the saddle on a side street by the church. “She has a sharp tongue. That is probably why my uncle had to cast a wide net to find her a husband.”

  He suddenly felt too angry and sick at heart to walk inside the church. He hung back in misery. “What story can she possibly spread?” he asked, ready to get back on his horse. In fact, he turned to unwrap the reins from the hitching post.

  “Most certainly the main story is that I am a thief,” Paloma told him, her hand on the reins to stop him. “Those few cuartillos have probably grown into his entire treasure chest and one-half his property by now.”

  Her matter-of-fact words stung his heart, but gave him the courage to leave his horse tied to the post and take her hand. “What else could she be spreading?”

  Paloma shrugged. “Whatever she can think of.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged again. “Some people are small of heart and soul.” She leaned closer to him and touched his arm to pull herself closer. He obliged by leaning down a little.

  “It is this, my love: I know she is disappointed that of the two men who arrived in Santa Fe, her future husband turned out to be Alonso. You are much more handsome and capable-looking. She is jealous and that makes her even more petty than usual.” She looked around quickly and kissed his cheek. “I am ever so much more fo
rtunate.”

  “But if she has told everyone you are a thief—”

  “Probably worse,” Paloma said. “She always has a lie.”

  An honorable man, he put his hand on his horse’s reins again. “We don’t have to stay here for such tales.”

  Again she touched his arm, giving him a little shake this time. “There is one thing else you need to know about Maria Teresa Moreno: she always muddies her nest. Give her time, and she will be her own worst enemy.”

  She looked around at the people giving them sidelong glances as they went into the church. “Good Christians love to tell tales. Do you think people confess even half of what they do and feel?”

  “I know I don’t,” Marco said. “Do you?”

  “Most generally,” she told him. “After all, I confessed to Father Eusebio that I had lustful thoughts about you, and that was after only two days.”

  He laughed out loud, which caused the good Christians to gape and then to whisper among themselves, darting more glances their way.

  She shushed him, blushing. “At least I do not have to confess anything about what we do now.”

  “Even in my office?” he teased in turn.

  “Especially in your office!”

  It was easy to tease, but harder to bear the glances and whispers as they went into the church after which the town was named. The church was almost as plain as her beloved San Miguel, which gave Paloma a pang, thinking of the dear fathers who had sustained her through trying years. Chin up, Paloma, she told herself. These people will think you do not want to be here. They would never understand that she did not wish to be anywhere except at the side of her husband.

  Still, she could not deny the hurt, no matter how brave a face she had put on the matter, for Marco’s sake. She knew he was not a man used to being the butt of rumor. He was the brand inspector, after all, and so much more. She tried to see herself as the townspeople saw her, a young woman in plain clothes, thin, unfamiliar. Without a doubt, everyone knew the juez had left the Double Cross two months ago for his visit to Santa Fe, to take his cattle, his wool clip, and that year’s documents detailing district brand inspections and cattle sales. He did it every year. They knew he was a man eight years without a woman. Maybe they thought he had acted hastily in finding a woman to replace someone Paloma already knew was well-liked in Santa Maria. Maybe they thought he had settled on the first female he saw. Or maybe they thought she had used witchcraft to trick him into marriage.