by Ward, Marsha
He could see Tom had married a girl from a decent home, because the finish on that table he sat up to was slick enough to mirror every whisker on a body’s face. Right then, he looked more scruffy than polished, and shame licked at his gizzard like a flame searching for fuel.
“We’ve plenty of food.” Tom swiveled in his chair and shouted toward the fireplace. “¡Comida, mujer! Step lively.”
James fished in his pocket to feel the letter as the woman dropped a plate in front of him. Hush my mouth, she’s angry, he thought, jerking up his chin. As his eyes met hers, he knew he had offended Rosalinda
Of medium height, with eyes black and furious, tucking her white blouse hastily into the waistband of her skirt, Rosalinda backed off and shook untamed hair behind her shoulders. “I no am happy,” she declared.
He shook his own head to break contact with those hot eyes. Rosalinda O’Connor was a beauty, and seemed to give off crackles of lightning that sapped his strength. She was like no one he had ever met before.
One deep breath revived him. “Your wife is Spanish?”
“Mexican. Her family owns most of the land between here and the Apishapa River. Ain’t she purty?”
“You got to get you a stronger word, Tom O’Connor. I never laid eyes on anybody akin to her before.” James’s voice sank to a whisper. “Does she get riled like that regular?”
The blacksmith threw his muscled torso backward against his chair, barking out his laugh. “Ain’t you a caution. Eat up, James, boy. Your grub’s getting cold.”
Thinking it polite to eat, James listened with half an ear to Tom’s comments about the condition of horse’s hooves on the surrounding farms as he tucked into the food. From time to time he glanced up, keeping track of Rosalinda’s movements at the fireplace.
He had always thought of his own black hair as ordinary: crisp and curly, yes, but common enough. Rosalinda’s hair was straight, black as fireplace soot, and hung to her elbows.
Then a wonderment came upon him, a yearning to know how that hair would feel strung between his fingers like the mane of an unsaddled horse. Hair to be touched, he thought, then jerked himself upright in his seat. Hair to be left alone. She’s a woman wed. Like Ellen. Pain swept from his ears to his toes at the thought, and he felt his face creasing in a grimace.
Rosalinda startled James with laughter. “You no am happy, too.” She pulled down the corners of her mouth with her fingers, imitating what she saw on his face. Turning her back to dish up food for her husband, she laughed again.
“Tarnation! Is she pokin’ fun at me?” His hands balled into fists, and he breathed deep for a moment. “First she’s riled, then she makes a face and laughs.”
Tom chuckled. “You ain’t likely to meet up with another woman like mine. She’s got some moods, and they change three to the minute, but she can cook mighty fair, and she sure chased off the lonesome.” He looked up from his food and pursed his lips. “I reckon I’m a man needs to be married, and I’m right lucky to find her.”
James didn’t want to believe himself so mean spirited that he would begrudge Tom a bit of happiness after he’d been a widower for a couple of years, but his words touched fire down James’s spine. Something Tom had said burned hot into his soul, but the blacksmith went on speaking, and James couldn’t sort out his first words and pay mind to the rest at the same time. He decided to listen now and ponder later.
“She’s a good ma to the young’uns, too. Look you here.” He held out a lock of hair from his temple. “I started going gray trying to handle them two alone. Don’t know how I lasted two years without a woman to manage them.”
“I reckon you heard Carl got hitched, too?” A searing pain came, and James wondered why he’d brought it on himself by speaking of it.
“Now that surprised me. Ellen’s pa Chester Bates stopped by on his way home and gave me the news. I thought you and she—”
“I reckon—I reckon she wanted Carl instead of me.”
James sat up straight, his belly tensed, waiting for the shock of hearing those words to batter him like the concussion of an artillery shell blowing up five yards away. It hurt him to say these words, to admit a thing Pa had insisted was so. He stayed still for a long time, running his tongue over his teeth as he mentally tested for damage
There weren’t any open wounds. His gut was intact, filled with banked coals. It gave him a turn that the pain hurt less than he expected it to do. After weeks of living with hell’s fire in his belly, he was shocked that it had so suddenly died away to mere embers.
“There’s no accounting for a woman’s taste,” Tom said, looking at James. “Eat up now, James, boy. Your grub’s going a wasting.” He scratched his ear, then dug into a second portion of beans and flat corn patties his wife put before him.
James inhaled the spicy odor of the beans, put aside his thoughts, and finished his meal. Then he brought out the letter.
“What’s that you have there, James, boy?”
James recounted his adventure up the country and explained what he intended to do. “This letter was in the man’s jacket, and it’s writ in a clear hand, but it’s writ in Spanish. I can’t make it out,” he finished.
Tom put out his paw for the paper. “I read a little of the lingo, and if I can’t make it out, Rosalinda can. Or, we can take it to her pa.”
“I’m obliged,” James said, handing over the letter. “The fellow was decked out in his best clothes. Carried these, too.” He took out the leather sack and emptied the jewelry onto the table. The gold ring spun around on the polished tabletop with a whirring noise, then came to rest, and the ear bobs glittered in a heap nearby.
Rosalinda swooped down on the ring and held it to the light. “Es un anillo nupcial,” she said.
“It’s a wedding ring,” Tom explained. “Likely the man was on his way to get married. These here,” he lifted the ear bobs, “these here pretties look like the presents men folk around here give their brides.” He turned his attention to the letter.
Up to this moment the situation had seemed sad enough, but hadn’t overly disturbed James. Of a sudden a great wash of melancholy come upon him. That poor fellow he’d planted was stuck up there in the ground without tasting the happiness he’d planned for, and some little girl was waiting for him, all a flutter, like as not, never even knowing she should be mourning him and their lost life together. Pain came back, a mournful feeling down in James’s belly, compassion for two strangers.
Tom looked up from studying the letter. “Listen here. I can make out some of this note. ‘I have made arrangements to send Amparo Garcés y Martínez, the daughter of Catarina viuda de Garcés of Santa Fe, to be your bride.’ There’s something about meeting on the twenty sixth. That’s near a week past. It’s written to Julio Rodríguez y Guzmán—that ain’t anyone from town—and it’s signed by a lawyer.” He tapped a word on the paper. “‘Viuda’ means the mother’s a widow woman.”
James rubbed his forefinger back and forth over the smoothness of the tabletop next to his plate. “It sounds like the girl doesn’t know the fellow. How’d you say her name again?”
“‘Ahm-par-o’,” said the blacksmith slowly. “I’d say Rodríguez sent for a bride. Packing a daughter off like that is a common enough way out of money problems for a widow. One less mouth to feed, and a marriage payment, besides.”
James rubbed so hard at the tabletop that he about wore the polish off that patch of table. “You called him ‘Rodríguez.’ Ain’t he ‘Guzmán’?”
“They got a strange way of naming here, carrying both papa and mama’s last names. Mexicans set a lot of store by family. Their customs are a mite tangled, but you get used to them.”
Miss Amparo Garcés was coming to meet a stranger, and him dead. James’s finger moved faster as he wondered what would happen to the girl now. He laid his hand flat down on the table to save the finish, looked at his squared off fingernails, and asked Tom.
The blacksmith shrugged his large shoulders an
d answered, “The ink is smudged where the note tells their meeting place. Wherever she lands, I reckon the folk’ll have to ship her back to Santa Fe to Mama.”
James’s gut went dead cold as he felt the hair rise behind his neck. “The priest,” he whispered. “Your girl Rida said it’s his job to marry folks. Miss Amparo’s coming here.”
Tom sniffed. “I don’t recall hearing anything about a new girl hereabouts.” He paused and studied the paper, tracing the signature with his finger. “But then, I been away for a spell.”
James sat still, recalling the feeling of the bullet Danny O’Brien had shot into his side in Pueblo City. If it had lodged in his belly, he thought it would have felt the same as the cold, cumbersome lump now sitting in his innards. What if the young lady was here in town, waiting and wondering what kind of life she would have with Julio Rodríguez? He had taken upon himself a duty to close down that man’s life, a duty to tie up the loose ends left hanging when his horse pitched him into that rocky outcrop of sandstone. That duty, the way James saw it, now included talking to his intended bride, telling her the bad news.
Tom sat silent, working through the letter again. His wife placed the wedding ring beside the ear bobs on the table. Her skirt rustled as she returned to the fireplace and clanked pots together.
James shoved his plate to one side, put his two fists side by side and looked at them. There was dirt under his thumbnails, blisters where Rand’s mule team lines had worn against his bare fingers. Something bitter came up his throat, and he swallowed it down.
How can I tell Miss Amparo that no kind of married life awaits her in this town, that she’ll have to go back home, likely to poverty, and maybe even starvation?
“Ask your wife if the young lady’s here,” he said, slow and quiet.
Tom asked, and Rosalinda came back from the fire and answered in staccato fashion. She went on for a long time, sneering a time or two, and James marveled at Tom’s knack for sorting the sounds into words. Tom’s got the gift of tongues, I reckon, James thought. I’ve got to learn Spanish, too, if I’m going to live in this country.
When he turned back to James, Tom had a puzzled look on his face. “I’ll be whipped,” he snorted. “She’s here, all right. Been setting in the church for five days, never saying boo. Some fellow coming through on the way to visit his ailing father in law brought her on horseback, but he left soon as he gave her over to the priest.” Tom grinned. “She must be an eyeful, ‘cause Rosalinda badmouthed her something awful. My mujer can’t stand not being the prettiest woman around.”
James shook to his toes, and looked around the room, for what, he didn’t know. Maybe he was searching out the mournful shadow that pressed upon his soul.
“What am I going to tell her, Tom? How can I march up to a stranger and say ‘Go home. There isn’t a place for you here’?”
“Best leap right in and get it done,” he said.
“You don’t reckon she’ll cry, do you?”
“Let me get my shirt on, and I’ll take you over to the church and you can see for yourself, James, boy.”
James let loose a sigh. “I got a bad feeling, Tom. I wish I’d never found that Rodríguez fellow.”
Chapter 10
Six little beans! James said to himself when he saw the girl. She IS prettier than Tom’s wife.
Tom engaged the priest in conversation at the front of the mission chapel while James lingered in the side aisle, arms folded, glancing over his shoulder at the girl in a pew toward the middle of the chapel.
His belly felt heavier than ever as he looked at her, sitting so shy and quiet in the corner of a pew, dressed in a simple white blouse and brown skirt, her shoulders covered by a black shawl. She was slight of build compared to Rosalinda, but well proportioned. Because she was sitting, James couldn’t easily guess her height. He waited, scuffing his boot toe against a rough hewn bench leg while Tom explained to the priest why James wanted to bother the señorita. Once he understood the problem, Padre Gallegos clucked “pobrecita” to himself and led Tom over to meet her. Tom made a “come along” gesture with his hand, and James slowly joined them to stand in the main aisle beside the pew where she sat.
While the girl talked to Tom and the priest, James examined her face. Her skin was smooth, nearly as brown as that of a bay horse, and her hair, black as a bay’s mane is black, was slicked back into a heavy coil at the nape of her neck. Her eyes were the outstanding feature, darkest brown, almost black, with long straight lashes, and they sat in the proper place alongside her straight little nose. She had a woman’s mouth. The sight of it—so full, and waiting for a husband’s kiss that would never come—made him swallow several times.
Between the three of them, they made Miss Amparo Garcés y Martínez understand why Julio Rodríguez y Guzmán was not coming for his bride.
“¿Muerto? ¿Él está muerto?”
Her whisper came from deep in her throat. The horror in her pale face made a chill finger run up James’s back, and he reached down to pat her hand. It was cold, and he wondered how he could warm it and take that awful look out of her eyes.
“I’m sorry he died,” James said, and she looked long at him with those black, deep eyes.
“¿Y qué de mí?” She didn’t turn away or blink, but asked James straight out, like he was the one with the answer to her question. He wished he knew what she had asked, but doubted that he knew the answer.
Tom came to his rescue. “She wants to know what she’s to do.”
“What do I say?” James wondered if his wild feeling of helplessness was coming through his eyes.
“Why don’t you give her the ear bobs while you think about it?” Tom gestured with his head toward the girl.
James fumbled in his pocket for the jewelry and held all of it out to the girl. She shrank back, shaking her head. “This was meant for you,” he said. “Take it.” She didn’t. James looked at Tom.
“What did I do wrong? Can you find out? Wait. Tell her I’ll take her back to her mama in Santa Fe. That’s the least thing I can do.”
Before Tom said a word, the girl whispered something in Spanish. Tom didn’t catch it, but the priest did, and told Tom what she’d said. He turned to James.
“She says it’s bad luck for her to have the ring without a husband.”
“That’s all right. I’ll hold onto it until I get her home.”
Tom told her she was going home. James watched the look on her face, her little brown face, change from fear to stubbornness. Her hands went white from holding them so tight together, and she said something right out loud. Tom looked shocked as he turned to James.
“She says she came to be a bride, and she ain’t leaving without a bridegroom. She won’t go a step until she’s married.”
“Maybe she thinks I’m taking her to my home. Make her clear on that.”
Tom and the priest talked to her again, and there were some words repeated over and over.
“She knows you mean Santa Fe, but she ain’t budging. She says she has to take a husband.” Tom took a piece of linen from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his face.
The girl whispered, “Hize un convenio sagrado.”
Tom looked pained, his eyebrows drawn together in a black line. “She says she made a holy vow. That’s trouble aplenty, James, boy. These young gals take their religion to heart. She’ll never budge now.”
James stood next to the pew, looking from time to time at the girl. He rubbed his ear and stroked his chin, feeling how soft his beard was getting with some length to it. He looked at her hands, still white from squeezing them together. Strong little hands. Chapping a mite from the cold. Is she used to hard work, or was her life in Santa Fe an easy one?
Tom broke into the quiet. “No two ways about it. She’s got to go back where she come from. I got a wife, and the padre ain’t looking for one.” He stared up at the ceiling.
James looked down at the ring and ear bobs in his hand. He thought back to his recent experien
ce with a wedding: the whole Owen family standing in the meadow before the priest, and James cursing to himself and wishing he was in Carl’s place. He thought of Tom, and what he’d said about Rosalinda chasing away the lonesome. I am lonesome....
No, he told himself, I’m more than lonesome. I’m hurting like all the cattle in Texas ran me down and stomped me into the dust, then dragged me through a ten mile patch of prickly pear.
James’s rate of breathing increased to match his agitation, and, uncomfortable, he looked at the girl to distract himself. She held her chin high, looking toward the front of the church. Somehow, the sight of her calmed him, and his breathing slowly returned to normal.
She’s just a bit of a thing, he thought. She’s all alone here.
The girl turned her head, raising it at the same time, and her eyes made contact with his. For a moment he was motionless, staring into the dark brown depths, sensing extreme anguish. After a time, the girl looked away, biting her lip.
Hush my mouth, she’s got a load of pain, James thought. It ain’t likely she’s mourning that Rodríguez fellow. She never even met him. There’s some other grief weighin’ down her soul.
James looked at his hands, surprised to see that they were boxed into fists, one tightly curled over the metal ornaments. Her burden must be mighty heavy, he thought, to make her give her word to marry Rodríguez. He looked at the girl again, and thought, A little girl pretty as she is should of had six or seven young swains lined up outside her door at home.
He took a deep breath, suddenly angry. She should of picked one of them, instead of traveling all the way up here to wed a stranger. Hush, I should of married Ellen Bates before we left Virginia. By now I’d of had my own hearth and home, and maybe some young’uns like Tom’s, instead of running around the countryside getting shot to pieces and burying strangers in a creek bed.