“She did.”
“When Carmen finally gathered herself together and began to sew again, she started making those individual figures. The good people of Santa Maria tried to have her burned at the stake for a witch, but the juez said no. He sent Mama to her for measurements. I suppose the others reasoned that if my father and mother had confidence in the mad dressmaker of Santa Maria, there was nothing to fear. She made beautiful dresses for my mother, God rest her soul.”
Paloma nodded, then shivered in spite of herself. “I don’t mind admitting that the ladies gave me a start.”
“I thought they might. And there was Felicia, in the company of angels.”
Paloma nodded. Maybe land and cattle really were nothing. “I get the feeling, husband, that registering brands is just a small part of your duties as juez de campo.”
“You’ve found me out! I watched my own juez, my father, consider even the smallest matters seriously. He told me, ‘If they are bringing a problem to you, my son, then it matters a great deal to them. Never laugh.’ ”
Marco was happy enough that Paloma chose to keep her own counsel on the ride home. He couldn’t help smarting over Maria Teresa’s rudeness to him, and how she was changing a lifelong friend—granted, a tedious one at times—into a spineless stranger.
He finally spoke as they passed Hacienda Muñoz, looking back to notice Toshua behind them now at a distance. “Paloma, do you sometimes feel that we Spaniards are too touchy about honor? Your cousin wounded mine, and I’ve been feeling sorry for myself. Are we too proud?”
She didn’t say anything for a long time, glancing back as he had glanced back to see Toshua trailing them. He could tell she was uneasy about the Comanche, and he wondered if he should be more uneasy, too. Maybe he shouldn’t trust the Indian. Funny how that unsettling visit to Santa Maria had upset him, he who had starved before, and fought Comanches, and survived wounds. The Castellanos had only words as weapons, but they hurt.
“When I came to the Morenos from El Paso, I left my pride behind,” his wife said finally. “I knew that for certain the evening I scrabbled around among the plates returned to the kitchen after dinner, trying to find something more to eat among the bones and seeds.”
He looked away, wondering at his own shallowness, in the face of his wife’s articulate honesty.
“Are you too proud? That is something you have to decide for yourself, husband,” she said, then withdrew into her own thoughts again.
Unwilling to think of his many shortcomings just then, Marco gestured Toshua forward until the Indian was riding beside him. Maybe if I remain silent long enough, he will speak to me first, he thought.
When Toshua spoke, it was for Marco’s ears only. “Why does your woman cry?”
Startled, Marco glanced at Paloma. Silent tears turned her loveliness into such vulnerability that it shook him. He reached over and touched her hand. She managed a smile, then looked away.
“I think she is ashamed of her horrible cousin,” he whispered to the Comanche. “I’ll tell you later.”
He did, after they arrived at the Double Cross. While Toshua led the three mounts to the horse barn, Marco put his hand on his wife’s shoulder and walked her through the garden, to the warmth of the kitchen. “Such a long day, Paloma,” he said to her. “If you just sit here at the table, Perla will serve you. You’re the mistress here, and you’ve ridden a long way today.”
She nodded, head down, a servant again. He silently cursed Maria Teresa Moreno de Castellano for her rudeness.
“Do you think I will always be at the mercy of my relatives?” she asked.
The words were wrung out of her. Por dios, say the right thing, he told himself. “At their mercy? Unlikely, my love. Only this morning, you told me that Maria Teresa always muddies her nest. Remember that dicho—‘Patience, and shuffle the cards.’ ”
He went to the horse barn, shaking his head at his puny effort to comfort one so dear. Toshua had curried and grained his mount, and started on Paloma’s tidy little mare. As he curried his own horse, Marco told the Comanche what had happened in Santa Maria, releasing his own anger by discussing it. Toward the end of his narrative, he stopped, acutely aware that he should have said nothing to the man who burned down Joaquin Muñoz’s vacant outbuildings.
“It’s a Spanish matter,” he said hastily, trying to gather up hot words already spoken. “You are to do no harm to the Castellanos. I spoke out of turn.”
“No, you spoke out of your heart,” the Comanche corrected him. “Show me this brand.”
They finished in silence. Marco stooped to pet Trece, who had flounced up in all his furry majesty to rub against his legs. He laughed as Trece darted back to Andrés, sitting on an overturned bucket and smoking.
“We eat dogs that size,” was the Comanche’s only comment as they left the horse barn.
Marco lit the candle on his desk and looked through his dwindling stack of correspondence for the brand registration. Toshua stood as still as a post while Marco looked at it for a long time, then handed it over. “It is a star and a V for vega, a meadow. Paloma said she came to Santa Fe after the Comanche raid, wearing a necklace of the brand.”
“Where is it now?” Toshua asked, handing back the document.
Marco shrugged. “It disappeared in Santa Fe. I suspect her uncle stole it, and I think he appropriated the land and cattle rightfully Paloma’s.”
“Kill them,” Toshua said simply.
If life were only that simple, Marco thought, with his own measure of rue. “I have no proof to support my suspicions. Paloma was a child at the time, and she has no documents. The Comanches set fire to her hacienda, but she stayed under the bed, as her mother had commanded her. She said the flames came close, but she did not run.”
“Your woman is a brave one,” Toshua said. “The People were probably waiting and watching for them to run.”
“She said that she heard several servants who did just that, dying at the hands of the Comanches.”
Toshua outlined the brand with his finger. “She has stared death in the face and not flinched. She is a better woman than my three wives. See that you treat her well.”
Marco nodded, wondering if he had just been threatened. He remembered Felicia’s father saying much the same thing to him on the morning of his wedding. He shook his head. It was a crazy thought, a wild Comanche sounding so much like his father-in-law. Maybe he was tired, too.
He closed his brand book. “Do nothing to harm the Castellanos. I spoke out of turn and—”
“You spoke from your heart,” the Comanche insisted again.
“No harm to the Castellanos,” Marco repeated. “Sleep here tonight, if you wish. It’s warm. Are you hungry?”
Toshua shook his head, smiling. “I can fool your guards, but not Sancha. She came out to the road, saw me, waved me in, and invited me to dinner.”
Marco laughed. “It appears that you and I have underestimated women in our lifetimes.”
Toshua nodded, serious again. “Let us not underestimate Señora Castellano.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
In Which the Brand Inspector Investigates and Disappoints Himself
Marco spent a restless night, fearful he had said too much to Toshua. Careful not to waken Paloma, who liked to curl up so close to him, he got up twice, both times to throw the bolt on the kitchen door, open it slightly, and just stand there until his eyes adjusted to the gloom and he could see his office next to the horse barn. He prayed Toshua had not left the Double Cross, and wondered if there was a saint somewhere in the vast pantheon of heaven who protected blabbermouths.
There must be. After a night of half-dozing, half-sleeping, all-worrying, Marco woke up to a day cold and bright with sunlight, and Toshua heading toward the kitchen with gathered eggs. Marco let out the breath he must have been holding all night, admiring a man who could carry a bucket of eggs and still look formidable.
After another sleepless night spent worrying, and another,
Marco decided Toshua had no plans to ruin the Castellanos, even though they richly deserved it. He slept well finally, then went about the business of winter in Valle del Sol, which this year, after so many fallow seasons, included his new wife.
His greatest pleasure was watching Paloma adjust with real grace to her new role as mistress of the Double Cross. She wore the keys of her domestic office around her slim waist, supervising the work of the servants Sancha had trained so well, rather than just pitching in and doing the work herself. He began to notice subtle changes in the kitchen, as Paloma made it even more efficient. She had a knack for organization, which made him suggest to her one night in bed that she take a look at his untidy office and work her magic there, too. His answer was a blinding smile and a kiss.
She went with him willingly every other day to Hacienda Muñoz, where Sancha had worked her own magic. The house was clean and tidy, and so was Joaquin Muñoz.
“He does not object so much to my presence now,” Sancha told them over hot chocolate in the kitchen, while Joaquin dozed in his sala, cleansed now of years of clutter, dust and mouse turds. “I sometimes think he gets lost in his own house,” she said.
“I noticed the same thing about him,” Paloma assured her. She told the housekeeper about the old priest at San Miguel who used to forget where the refectory was. “Maybe this is something that happens to older people; not all, but some.”
“How many older people do we see, to know for certain?” Marco asked. “There are so few in New Mexico.”
The three of them contemplated the matter in silence until the hot chocolate was cool enough to drink.
Pepita Camargo dropped by once while they visited her father, tight-lipped disapproval stamped all over her face. “Don’t think for a moment that I am not aware of your attempt to steal this rancho and my inheritance,” she declared.
Marco could only repeat again and again that he had no such designs. He pointed out to Joaquin’s irate daughter that one badly run rancho in Valle only invited Indians to prey upon all. “Pepita, you have my blessing to run this place yourself, with your own servants,” he had told her. Each time, she shook her head, content to rail and complain and let others do her duty.
November literally slid into December this year, as more and more snow fell, melted, froze and iced them into their winter confinement in the valley. Carmen the dressmaker managed to send a pasteboard box of Paloma’s new wardrobe with the royal courier, who arrived at the Double Cross with the last of the season’s mail from Santa Fe for the juez.
The courier thawed out in the kitchen, smiling gratefully at Paloma’s hospitality and offer of a bed for the night. Food and drink warmed him enough to allow him to point to his dispatch bag, make a sour face, and admit that it contained Pepita Camargo’s threatened petition.
“There are a few signatures, but I would not worry, Señor Mondragón,” he said, as he mounted the next morning and prepared to ride toward Taos, provided he could find a pass still open. “All dither and bluster.” He winked and gathered the reins. “We know Governor de Anza is too wise to take it seriously.” He laughed then. “Besides that, we know it must wind its way to Mexico City and probably Spain.” Again a pause, as if he gauged Marco’s sense of humor. “And even beyond that, who would ever want to be brand inspector on the border of Comanchería?”
I would, Marco thought, even though he knew the courier wanted him to laugh at the absurdity of it all. So he laughed, but was happy enough to send the man on his way—rested, warmed and fed and full of enough local gossip now to entertain the next destination on his lonely round.
When the man was gone and the house their own again, Paloma tried on her new dresses. As Carmen promised, two of them fit. The others were still a trifle large. She made her own face, not as sour as the courier’s, but enough to register chagrin. “Marco, I know you mean well, but I really don’t like to drink so much cream,” she told him, as he unbuttoned her dress and eased his hands around her bare waist.
He put his hands on her breasts, hefting them, until she laughed, and said maybe half cream and half milk would satisfy him. “Maybe I am just naturally slim,” she said later in his ear as they lay close together.
“There are very few fat people in Valle del Sol,” he agreed, comfortable and inclined to sleep, even though it was barely mid-morning. “I cannot see your ribs anymore, but I can still feel them.”
Paloma nodded, drowsy herself. “Cream, then,” she agreed. She sat up on one elbow to look at him, then looked away, shy. He waited. He could tell she had something to tell him, and he thought he knew what it was.
“If I weighed more, then perhaps …” She paused and rested her head on his chest, so she did not have to look at him.
His hand went automatically to her hair; he could help her through a private subject. “Paloma, when did you last have a monthly?”
Her voice was small, sad. “Several years ago. For all that I worked in the kitchen, there was never much to eat, not with Tia Moreno watching every move we made. I … I mentioned the matter to Father Eusebio once in the confessional. I think it made him angry, so I must have embarrassed him.”
He kissed her head. “He wasn’t angry at you, love, but at the people who should have taken better care of you. Patience, Paloma.”
“Is that your remedy for everything in Valle del Sol?” she asked, sounding piqued enough to make him smile.
“Pretty much. Time moves slowly here.”
She sighed and nestled closer. “Above all things, I want to give you a child. I don’t know much, but I do believe the matter of monthlies has some bearing on the matter.”
“It does. Again, patience.”
She nodded this time. He felt her eyes close, and then there was a damp spot on his chest. “There are too many empty bedchambers at the Double Cross.”
He couldn’t have agreed more.
By the end of the next week, Marco knew it was past time to ignore returning the brand document and the district transfer to the Castellanos. Since their return from Santa Maria, Paloma had ridden without complaint with him to the various ranchos in the valley, where he had government business. He didn’t have the heart to compel her to ride with him to Hacienda Castellano; neither did he wish to leave his wife behind. He assuaged his own worries by sending a messenger ahead, stating his business. There would be no wasted time away from the Double Cross.
That morning over eggs and chorizo, when he mentioned his destination, she agreed reluctantly to ride with him, even as her face went pale. Don’t be irrational, Marco, he scolded himself. She will be here when you return.
“You needn’t ride with me this time,” he told her, even as he wished with all his heart she would disagree and insist upon accompanying him.
To his dismay, she did not. In fact, her sigh of relief told him worlds about her feelings toward her horrid cousin. “Thank you,” she said, and kissed him. “I will have a very good dinner for you when you return this evening.”
“Toshua will be watching here, as always,” he reminded her.
“I suppose,” she said, her voice taking on that neutral tone that he hoped she would never use on him.
“We must trust him, Paloma.”
“Why?”
Toshua was in his office when he went there to gather up the documents. After Marco had suggested it, he had taken up his residence in the office, which meant little more than a blanket on the floor by the fireplace. He rolled it and tucked it away behind the map chest, leaving no other indication of his presence, because he had no possessions.
At least Toshua was dressed warmly now, in the style of Marco’s servants: homespun shirt, wool pants, moccasins, with a poncho wrapped around his shoulders. His hair was finally starting to grow again. He looked up from his contemplation of the cold hearth when Marco entered.
“Do you need me to accompany you?”
“No. Stay behind. I am leaving Paloma here this time.”
“I could keep you company.
”
Marco regarded the Indian, seeing something close to sympathy in his usually stoic expression. He knew he had never told anyone why he feared to leave his wife behind. How did everyone seem to know?
“I am going to the Castellano hacienda, to return the brand document and provide a transfer seal.” He couldn’t help his sour face. “Yes, I have put it off! Did you never put off some unpleasant duty?”
“We all do,” Toshua replied, amused. “We are not so different, you and I.”
Marco nodded, struck by the honesty of the Comanche’s words. He was still thinking about them when he rode out of the Double Cross with his usual four guards.
It was his first visit to his old friend’s hacienda since they had all returned to Valle del Sol, and there were changes. The servant who opened the door on his knock, an older woman he had known for years, had a preoccupied, unhappy expression on her face, a far remove from her usual good cheer. It was almost the expression he remembered on Paloma’s face, the first time he saw her in Santa Fe.
Instead of leading him to the kitchen—where all business among friends was conducted in the colony—she directed him to the sala, which, despite new rugs and wall hangings, looked even colder than usual. He took off his gloves and pushed his hand into the small of his back, massaging it, knowing there wouldn’t be any hot chocolate for him during this visit. There wasn’t even a log burning in the fireplace.
“Well?”
He turned around, startled, still not accustomed to the rudeness which now seemed to be part of Alonso Castellano, because he had married it. “Señora Castellano,” he said, and nodded to Alonso. “And you, my friend.”
“Hand it over.” Maria Teresa held out her hand.
Alonso glanced at Marco, shame on his face. “Marco, I—” he began, but his wife cut him off.
“I trust you have found no illegality in this brand,” she said. “What could be wrong with it?”
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