You do not know me, she thought, keeping her eyes down and her hands folded in front of her, as her mother, that lady of Spain, had always taught her. And if Maria Teresa has been spreading lies, I will have to prove myself. It seemed a daunting task.
But here they were, shoulders touching, kneeling together in church. She did not have to face this alone, as she had faced so much alone since her mother had shoved her under the bed and the Comanches came. She took heart and prayed for simple things—that Marco’s farrier would recover from a crippling bout of rheumatism, that Perla la cocinera would have relief from her aching back, that Marco would suffer less remorse over the dead Comanche child.
She seldom asked the Lord for much, but this time she had a special wish. It had been several years since her last monthly flow, quenched—Father Eusebio had blushed to give his opinion—by too little food and too much work. She didn’t entirely understand the association of monthlies with babies, but she wanted, of all things, to give Marco Mondragón more children. If restoring her flow would help, she knew she could overlook the inconvenience of it. Such a simple wish. In this time after the harvest and before the celebration of the birth of Our Lord, if the Virgin was not too preoccupied with more important matters, perhaps she would incline her ear toward a nobody with a simple request, teetering on the edge of the Spanish empire.
Halfway through the Mass, Paloma overcame enough shyness to look around. Closer to the front in all her finery was her cousin, restlessly shifting from knee to knee, and not so close to her husband. She made a great show of rattling her rosary, while Paloma used her fingers to count imaginary beads. Maybe she should ask Marco for a rosary. She had brought a lovely one with her from her ruined home, but it had disappeared, along with her star and vega necklace, almost as soon as she arrived in Santa Fe. Poor Alonso, to be saddled with such a wife. Paloma could have told him that nothing he did would ever be enough.
She glanced at Pepita Camargo, sitting close to the front as well, which seemed to be the choice spot to see and be seen, and possibly worship. She wondered only briefly why her own juez de campo had stayed well back. One look at the man so close beside her—his eyes closed, his lips moving—gave her the answer her dusty heart craved. He was here to worship, perhaps also to make some small amends for the death of that child. She knew that he felt the whole weight of the valley on his shoulders. It was a good thing those shoulders were strong and used to burdens, and not slim and sloping like Alonso’s. She closed her eyes then and concentrated on what she owed the Lord for her amazing change of fortune.
When the Mass ended, Marco helped her to her feet. Paloma couldn’t help but notice Alonso Castellano had left Maria Teresa to struggle upright on her own.
Marco whispered in her ear. “Father Francisco has been giving me the high sign. I never ignore him.”
Dutifully, she followed him down the narrow hall to the area not even dignified enough to call an office. She curtsied and knelt when Marco introduced her, content to feel the small sign of the cross on her forehead, Father Francisco’s own welcome to Valle del Sol. There were only two chairs in the room; Father Francisco sat in one and her husband in the other. With a smile, Marco gestured to her and she sat on his lap, which made Paloma blush and the priest tug at his chin, his eyes merry.
Father Francisco wasted no time with preliminaries. He leaned forward. “My son, you should know that the Castellanos are spreading all kinds of rumors about this sudden wife here on your lap.”
“I assumed as much,” Marco said. “Let me guess. She stole money from Señora Castellano’s father. Paloma, tell him what really happened.”
She did, telling her story quickly, because she knew he was a busy man. She took it as far as her marriage, and Marco finished.
The priest nodded. “I thought as much. Some people believe her, and others …” He shrugged. “They know the juez and have faith in him, as I do. We will wait it out, like good Spaniards, eh?”
“You will also hear tales from Pepita Camargo, who is certain I am withholding a Comanche slave from her father and have established my own people at Hacienda Muñoz. She will likely tell you I am determined to cut her out of her inheritance, once I have murdered her dear father.”
Father Francisco didn’t even blink. “Ah, yes, that bit of nastiness has reared its ugly head, too. Do you know she is circulating a petition to have you recalled as juez de campo for the Comanchería District?”
She felt Marco’s flinch and heard his sigh. “Who would want such a thankless job?” he murmured. He told Father Francisco everything that had happened at Hacienda Muñoz. “Sancha, other servants and some of my own guards are there now, trying to help the old man. I fully intend to take him with me to Santa Fe in the spring, to answer for his deeds. It will probably come to nothing, but that is my duty to all of the crown’s people, including its Indians.”
“Bravo, Señor Mondragón,” Father Marco said. “I will remember you in my prayers. Come to Santa Maria for Mass as often as you can this winter.” He looked at Paloma. “Señora Mondragón, what would you wish from me?”
Bless me to be fertile, she thought, too shy to speak what was in her heart. Oh, please. “I can wish for nothing more than I already have, Father,” she whispered. “I think I am the most fortunate woman in the valley, and that is enough.”
The priest nodded. As they watched, he rummaged in the drawer on his desk. “I have only one drawer. Why is everything so jumbled?” he muttered. “Ah, here we are. For you, Paloma Mondragón. I noticed you were using your fingers during Mass.”
He handed her a rosary, worn from much use. “It belonged to an old, old woman. Señora Elisabeta Roybal, Marco. You remember her.”
“I do. She was your most faithful parishioner.” Marco rested his hand on Paloma’s shoulder. “If I misbehaved during Mass, she always thumped me.” He gave her shoulder a little shake. “Now if I fall asleep and start to snore, you can thump me. Felicia used to.”
“Señora Roybal, God rest her soul, died while you were gone,” Father Francisco said, and crossed himself. “On her deathbed, she told me to give her rosary to a young person, because it had fifty years of prayers and petitions rubbed into the wood. For you, my daughter. Go with God.”
“Father, one moment. Bless me, please, if you will,” Marco said. “I sometimes find it onerous to be juez de campo.” He glanced at Paloma. “Lately, I’d rather just be a rancher and a husband.”
“Kneel, my son, and let us get to it,” the priest said.
Paloma knelt beside her husband, taking his hand, as Father Francisco wished him all success in a long, long list of duties. Perhaps she had not been aware before how much the district depended on her husband. Just listening to his obligations due to the distant crown made her resolve to work harder to provide the comforts that would make his life easier.
When the priest finished, he put his hands on Paloma’s head, something she had not expected, and murmured, “And may the Lord bless you with those silent wishes of your heart, dear child.”
How does he know? she thought, grateful.
Chapter Twenty-eight
In Which Toshua Listens Too Well
Marco took Paloma’s hand as they left the church. “Now who do you think will be waiting to shake a fist at us outside?” he asked. “I put my wager on Pepita Camargo.”
“No, no. It will be my cousin,” Paloma said. “I think Pepita is not someone to stay away from her Sunday dinner a second longer than necessary.”
“If I win, you will scrub my back tonight,” Marco told her. “And if you win, I will scrub yours.”
Men, Paloma thought, amused. “You think you are so shrewd. Whichever of us wins, the end result will be the same.”
He laughed, kissed her hand, and opened the door. He shook his head. “You win, Paloma.”
Suddenly it was too much. Tears welled in her eyes. “All I want is to be left alone,” she whispered.
“I’ll take care of this,” he told
her, squeezing her hand then releasing it. “Don Alonso, what is it you demand of me?” He bowed, a gesture bordering on insolent. “As your juez, you need only ask.”
“You are a useless juez de campo,” Maria Teresa said, moving in for her attack even as Alonso stood there, silent. “Why have you not returned my brand to my husband, with the mark of registration on it? You have had it for weeks and weeks now.”
“Two weeks, Señora,” he said. “That is all. I will ride your way some day this week with your documents.”
“You will bring it tomorrow!” she insisted, as Alonso paled.
“I will bring it when I am ready,” Marco replied, not raising his voice. He gave Alonso a look of such pity that the other man winced. “I have wondered about its legality. Do you have cattle right now bearing this brand?”
Maris Teresa’s nose went up. “Of course we do! How dare you question anything? My father has a ranch near El Paso!”
Paloma could not help her sudden intake of breath. Maria Teresa threw a triumphant look her way.
“Papa tells me it is a very fine ranch,” she said.
“Yes, it was,” Paloma said, the words wrung out of her, angry at herself for showing her wretched cousin for even one moment that it mattered to her. “A beautiful ranch, indeed.”
Maria Teresa stared at her. “Cousin, how is it that you have seen this ranch?”
Because it is my ranch, Paloma wanted to say. Your father has stolen it and I have no proof. I have been double-crossed by my own relatives. “I used to live in that district,” she replied softly, wanting nothing more now than to get away from her cousin and nurse that wound in private.
“Papa tells me it will be mine someday,” Maria Teresa said. “We expect you tomorrow with our brand, juez.”
Maria Teresa looped her arm through her husband’s arm and towed him away. Alonso looked back once, his expression one of acutest misery. Marco stood there, his head down, sunk in his own misery. Paloma took his arm, but she did not tow him anywhere.
“We have no proof.”
Paloma sighed to hear those words wrung out of him. She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Mama said it was branded on me. She was right, because I still remember how lovely the ranch looked in spring, when the orchard was in bloom. I have my memories. It is only land and cattle, husband.”
“My specialty, courtesy of the crown,” he told her, not disguising his bitterness. “How is it that I can protect and defend other people’s brands, but I am powerless to help my own wife?”
“It doesn’t matter.” In all the years she worked for the Morenos and dreamed of her old home, she never thought she would say such a thing. Maybe some things were better gone forever. She wanted to tell him that, but she didn’t think he would hear her. “Let’s go home.”
He stood another moment, then looked at her. “We have one other person to visit. It’s only a short distance. Remember?”
They walked the two blocks in silence. When the wind picked up and blew cold, she shivered. There would be more snow soon.
“Here we are,” Marco said, as they came to a small house set back slightly from the road. “I saw Carmen Saltero during Mass,” he told her as he knocked.
The woman who opened the door holding a chicken leg was barely four feet high. Paloma glanced at her husband, curious.
“Carmen, here is my new wife, Paloma Vega. She has need of your particular talents.”
“Ay de mi, you forget it is the Sabbath.”
“Not I, but here we are, unlikely to return to Santa Maria until Christmas. Such a dilemma.”
“Come in,” the little woman said, gesturing as grandly as a person could, with a chicken leg.
Paloma followed her down a narrow hall and into a larger room, where she stopped in surprise, staring at an unexpected assembly of women. Her first thought was to turn around and apologize to Carmen Saltero for interrupting such a large gathering. She looked again. “Dios mio. I thought …”
Carmen laughed. “Everyone does, the first time. Did my ladies startle you?”
“A little.”
Paloma let go of Marco’s hand and walked from mannequin to mannequin. They were of different shapes and heights, made of cloth stiffened inside some way, some wearing nothing more than a shift. One was dressed in blue wool, with handsome bone buttons. Paloma looked down. The skirt with its knee-deep flounce had not been hemmed yet. Another dressmaker’s dummy wore a bodice and part of one sleeve, somehow managing to look demure in her shift. Attached to the back of each mannequin was a name. There were two Bacas—first names different—a Borrego, several Roybals (Anna Maria, Cristina Maria, Diana Maria, Paca), a Lucero, an Archuleta, a Garduño, a Marquez.
There were other figures against the walls, dressed in simple black cotton, their heads shrouded. These must be the ones who no longer need your services, Paloma thought in amazement. She walked by them more carefully, as though in a graveyard. More Roybals. A Sandoval. An Alaniz.
She stopped before a short mannequin with a figure much fuller than her own. As Paloma fingered the black cotton, her eyes filled with tears. A Mondragón. “Felicia,” she whispered. “I am taking good care of him.”
She glanced back at her husband, who was talking to the little dressmaker with such morbid taste in dinner guests. Maybe Carmen Saltero had never married. Maybe these ladies were her family. Whatever the reason she had made a mannequin for each customer, her talents with a needle were abundantly evident.
Paloma almost did not want to turn her back on the ladies who clustered around, because it seemed impolite. Maybe it was more than that. As she returned to her husband’s side, she felt a little ripple of fear, as though if she turned around, the dressmaker’s dummies would have all advanced a step or two in her direction. This was not a house where she would ever leave her bedroom after dark.
Marco smiled at her. Surely he knew she had just visited Felicia. “Alas, my love, Carmen reminds me that it is Sunday and she does not do business on the Sabbath. Not even measurements. I have pointed out to her that you are a small woman, but measurements are measurements, even those for small women who wouldn’t take much time.”
“We can return later,” Paloma said. She looked at the dressmaker. “You do such lovely work. Maybe someday, when it is not the Sabbath—”
“How is this?” the older woman asked, staring at the table and her half-eaten dinner. “It must be a miracle, but here is twine.”
She set down her chicken bone and picked up a ball of twine on the dining table. Such a strange place. Paloma had never put twine on a dining table.
“Since it is here, the Lord intends me to add to my guests,” Carmen said, unrolling the twine quickly. “I will work so fast that the devil will never know. You say the Ave, Señor Mondragón, to distract El Diablo.” She picked up a piece of charcoal. “And look here! Charcoal!”
With barely a quiver in his voice—Paloma knew better than to look at him—Marco did as she asked, saying “Ave Maria, gratia plena …” in a loud voice. Expertly, the seamstress looped twine around Paloma’s waist, then made a charcoal mark. Another mark on the twine from her waist to the floor. Another from neck to wrist. Paloma barely felt the twine around her breasts and hips, but she heard Carmen’s low, “Tsk. He does not feed you enough,” which made her smile. The neck to waist measurement ended Carmen’s rapid tour of Paloma’s slender frame. The woman crossed herself when Marco finished the last Ave, then laughed. “You have fooled the devil, Señor.”
“Good! May I suggest that you add an inch to Paloma’s waist, breasts and hips? I am doing my best to see that she has more to eat.”
“I will, Señor, but I will also make two dresses in the size she is right now. No woman wants to be untidy, eh?” Carmen touched Paloma’s cheek. “Simple garments, so you can make other alterations yourself, child, as you put on weight.” She laid the marked twine on the table and wound the ball again. “I will snip tomorrow, if the marks are still there,” she assured Pal
oma in a low voice. “I think they will be, because your husband has a loud voice and the devil is not so smart.”
Marco nodded. “She’ll need a warmer cloak, too. What do you think, Paloma? Five or six dresses for everyday and two nicer ones for Sundays?”
Paloma nodded, dazed with so much generosity. Better not to prick the devil’s ears with too many details, since it was Sunday. She dared a glance back at the ladies behind her, relieved to see them just standing there. As she looked, she noticed they were grouped in small cliques, perhaps as they would stand in real life, with their friends. She would have to ask Marco later.
Carmen gestured for Marco to bend down, and she whispered in his ear. He nodded, then kissed her cheek.
“Paloma, we had better ride.”
Paloma curtsied to the dressmaker and her silent company. As she followed her husband back down the hall, she heard a clink of coins as he dropped the leather pouch she had noticed around his waist. She couldn’t help her low laugh. Carmen would find the coins in the morning when the Sabbath was over, the devil none the wiser.
Arms linked, they strolled back to their horses so patiently waiting. He helped her into the saddle, mounted his own horse and they left Santa Maria behind.
She did not have to wait long for him to explain the strange scene in Carmen Saltero’s house.
“She went mad twenty years ago when the Comanche last raided through Santa Maria and killed her husband and five children. My father was juez at the time, and my mother a wise woman,” he said. “Mama told me later that up until then, Carmen Saltero had only one dressmaker’s dummy, the kind with the expandable waist and hips. Perhaps your mother had one of those.”
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