“You mean, give more to you,” he snorted.
“You forget, Sandoval, that the businesses here in Madrid provide jobs.”
“At more low wages,” he scoffed.
“Without me, most of these people wouldn’t have a roof over their heads. I provide their homes.” Samuel put out his half-smoked cigar in the ash tray, grinding the tip into the glass.
“Many of those so-called homes you provide are in disrepair,” Pacheco said.
“The snow piles up in the corners because the houses were prefabricated and put together after they arrived decades ago,” Hughes added.
“You could throw a cat through the cracks in some of them,” Tom said, grinning.
Samuel did not find the joke funny. He glared at his foreman and manager.
“The houses are draughty and leaky,” Pacheco said, his voice grown louder, fueled by what he interpreted as Oscar’s and Tom’s support.
“If some of the homes need repairing, it’s because of the carelessness of the occupants. If they weren’t so lazy, they’d fix some of these repairs themselves. It’s always been my policy to provide the materials for repairs. Just last spring I had a roofing crew put new roofs on eight houses.”
Pacheco dipped his head. “That may be, but more must be done.”
“The problem with you people is that you’re never satisfied,” Samuel said, sighing with exasperation.
A knock came at the door.
“Enter,” Samuel barked.
Mr. Woodson poked his head in the door. “Your wife telephoned. Mrs. Stuwart is going into labor.”
The other men looked at each other uncomfortably.
“Thank you, Mr. Woodson, tell Salia I’ll be right home,” he said worriedly. He turned to Pacheco. “I would like to talk to my men in private before I go, Sandoval.”
Pacheco got up to leave.
“And, Sandoval?”
“Si, Patrón?”
“Don’t worry your little head any more about my company. I’ll come up with something to make my men happy, even though there’s a Depression, and I could replace each and every one of them quicker than they can organize and strike. I could take my train down to Albuquerque and come back with a full load of able bodied men, willing to work for next to nothing and thrilled to have any kind of roof over their heads, and scrip to purchase food with before they even lift a finger to work.”
Pacheco nodded his head and closed the door behind him.
Samuel exploded. “Just what the hell were you two doing, siding with that bastard?”
Oscar and Tom denied the accusation.
“I want the surplus of coal increased, do you understand me—starting immediately, in case the men organize with Pacheco and that troublemaker talks them into striking. The man’s a fool,” he snorted, “threatening to organize my miners and strike when there are 13 million men out of work in this country. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he said through gritted teeth, “I am about to become a father.”
He put on his coat with jerky movements, walked to the door then spun and faced Hughes. “You’re growing soft. I should replace you. As for you, Dyer, if I ever see your face during working hours outside in the open air, I’ll fire you. If I don’t see a significant increase in the surplus soon, I’ll fire the both of you,” he barked and spun on his heel, leaving behind two shaken men.
Samuel stormed out of the building. He did not notice Pacheco on the side wall, rubbing his back against the building, shedding his skin like a snake. He glittered at him through slits from his head that Samuel had called little. Pacheco was a small man and did have a tiny head, like a cobra.
Oscar and Tom left the offices, motioning with their hands to Pacheco. The three men went behind the building.
“If it was up to me, Pacheco,” Oscar said, hold out his empty hands. “I am helpless ever since Samuel moved to Madrid. I lost the freedom to manage the mine as I see fit.”
“I wish he’d go back to Albuquerque and leave the town to us, the people who belong here. He may own Madrid, but he has never fit in,” Tom said.
“Well, we all know who keeps him here,” Oscar said, rocking on his feet, and resting his hands on his big belly. “The whore’s not cosmopolitan enough for Albuquerque. Would you be seen with her in the city?”
Tom shook his head, no.
“He has to hide with the witch here, where she can’t shame him in front of his rich friends,” he snarled.
“The bruja is about to deliver an heir to the patrón,” Pacheco said, crossing himself.
“I can’t believe he married her,” Oscar said. “He preferred that…that… to a decent woman.” Oscar, of course, was thinking of his daughter, who a few years ago married the son of the owner of a dry goods store in Albuquerque, not exactly the rich man he had envisioned as a son-in-law.
“Why did he have to go and marry her for?” Tom said. “After all, she was already living with him without a ring on her finger.”
“She bewitched him, when he looked in her eyes at the trial. This is why I have felt sorry for the patrón, but my patience is wearing thin,” Pacheco said.
Oscar laughed. It was an ugly sound, nothing joyful about it. “That baby was conceived before he married her. Salia Esperanza trapped Samuel, using the oldest trick in the book. They’ve only been married five months.”
“She will be unfaithful to him,” Pacheco said in a shrill voice. The subject of adultery was a sore spot with him.
“Salia may be considered a great singer, admired by those other singers who come by train from all over the country for the privilege of acting with her, but to those of us who remember the snot nosed brat, trailing after her witch grandmother and mother, she’s no better than a prostitute,” Tom said.
“Maybe the child isn’t even his,” Oscar snorted.
“The boss has brought shame to our peaceful village by living with Salia out of wedlock. The fact she’s married to him now, don’t mean nothing. Mrs. Stuwart,” he scoffed. “Who would have thought?”
“I’m embarrassed to have my own daughter visit,” Oscar said, shaking his head.
“Maybe he’ll move back to Albuquerque for the sake of the child, and then your daughter can show her face in Madrid again,” Tom said.
Oscar opened his mouth, speechless.
Tom turned beet red. It was no secret Oscar’s daughter was spurned by Samuel in favor of Salia.
“As for the near-bastard child, the new heir of Madrid is an abomination,” Pacheco said.
And he took his fist and shoved it at the wall.
40
Samuel arrived home, accompanied by New Mexico’s best doctor who had been on standby, patiently holed up in the Gold Hills Hotel. However, both men were barred from the bedroom where the birth was already taking place. Spider-Woman was midwifing, along with her husband’s inferior second wife, Little-Dove, who was about 20 years younger than Spider-Woman. Little-Dove had lovely doe eyes. Unlike the fat Spider-Woman, Little-Dove was small and graceful.
Samuel was frantic with worry. He had no idea what was going on in the birthing room, nor could he comprehend how the women could have gotten to his house so quickly, not knowing that they were both witches of the Sisterhood of the Black Rose and could fly as fireballs.
“If my wife and child come to any harm,” he screamed at the locked door, “I’ll have you brought before the law on charges.”
Spider-Woman merely rolled her eyes at Little-Dove. Men. They were all the same. When it came to womanly things, they all knew nothing.
What concerned Samuel were not the screams coming from the closed room, but the silence.
Meanwhile, the doctor from Albuquerque made the most of this opportunity to sit in the library, where he found a bottle of whiskey in a desk drawer.
No matter how much the birth may have pained her, Salia never cried out. She merely bit down on a piece of bark Spider-Woman lodged between her teeth, and focused on the times Mother and Grandma tortured her to mak
e her strong.
Finally, the baby slipped out from her birth canal, and everything went black.
Let me sleep, Salia thought, brushing her hand against her throat. She giggled. She opened her eyes, laughing. Spider-Woman was tickling her throat with a feather.
The feather made her laugh so hard, she expelled all the afterbirth.
Little-Dove scraped up the afterbirth, storing it in a pouch.
Samuel frowned at Little-Dove, when she walked out of the room carrying a pouch. She quickly closed the door behind her, not allowing him even a glimpse of Salia, although he had heard her laugh.
He grabbed her by the arm and shook her. “My wife? Why is she hysterical? Has something happened to the baby?”
“Your wife is fine, and your son healthy.”
“Son?” he said in a dazed voice. “I heard no crying.”
“Your son is a warrior.”
He sighed with relief. “I have a son,” he said with wonder. “A Stuwart to carry on.” In a stupor, he watched from an upstairs window as Little-Dove took the pouch and hung it from a tree on the side of the house.
Little-Dove came back into the house and he grabbed her by the arm. “What was that…that thing you hung from the tree?” he asked with concern in his eyes. The mystery of the whole ordeal, the silence from the room, followed by laughter, the whole womanly thing, and him being excluded because he was male, wore his nerves down. His face was tight and drawn, his skin pale.
“In the pouch is the fluid that followed the birth of your son, that which he swam in while your wife carried him in her womb. To bury this fluid may cause the boy’s death. The pouch must hang from the tree until the sun dries it, and the fluid is taken up to the clouds with the spirits.” Little-Dove bowed her head and walked back into the bedroom.
Samuel tried to peek in, but she shut the door.
Spider-Woman was greasing the baby’s skin with pig grease.
Little-Dove took some dried cow manure, finely ground with decayed cottonwood pulp, and powdered the baby with it.
Spider-Woman placed a hand on Salia’s forehead. Her skin felt cool to the touch. She smoothed her damp hair back. “Did you make a bag for the umbilical cord, like I instructed?”
Salia weakly nodded her head, pointing to a dresser drawer.
Little-Dove held the bag and gave Spider-Woman a look.
The older woman pursed her lips at Salia, shaking the bag in her face.
“It’s not my fault. You told me to make a case in the shape of a turtle or a lizard, but something just drove me to make an eagle. So, it is written. So, it shall be,” she said in an exhausted voice.
The women examined the eagle-shaped case made of leather, turquoise beads, silver bells, and with emeralds for eyes. “It doesn’t matter. The boy is half-white.”
“He is a coyote, like me.”
“Ay. You do nice work,” Little-Dove said, stroking the beautifully made case. The needlework was perfection itself.
“I have never before been good at sewing or needle work, but for some reason my fingers flew, as if possessed.”
Little-Dove placed the bag back in the drawer.
“Watch closely for when the umbilical cord dries, and place the cord in the sack you have made with your own hands. I suppose you will have a nursemaid?” Spider-Woman said, looking around the rich house.
“Yes.”
“You alone must care for your son until the cord breaks off. If the cord is lost, then he may die young. You must sew the cord into the eagle bag which you have made. Place the bag around his neck, and the charm will ensure him a long life.”
“I shall do as you order.”
“Now, I shall call your husband in to see you.”
Samuel ran into the room. He wrapped his arms around her waist, burying his face in her flat stomach.
She ran her hands through his hair. “Sh. It’s alright. I’m fine. Come. See your son.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at a black haired, dark-skinned baby.
Bradley Esperanza Stuwart looked up at his father with a serious expression on his tiny face and wiggled like a worm in his mother’s arms.
“He stinks,” was all Samuel had to say. “What in tarnation did those women do to my little fella?”
Those women closed the door behind them and left the new family to themselves.
41
After six weeks the umbilical cord dried up and fell off. Salia sewed the cord into the eagle-shaped bag. She hung the bag from the baby’s neck. “The cord in this bag is the last tie between us. I have hired a wet nurse. No longer will I nourish you.”
The baby cried, wrinkling his face pathetically.
“Hush, my Darling, if you never say a word, Mama’s going to kill you a mocking bird. Hush, my Darling, if you never cry, I promise you, you will never die.” For some minutes, she stood by the cradle, humming the tune and swinging her hips. “You will have a great future, Bradley, and you have had a great past.”
The baby blinked his eyes at her.
“Don’t act as if you don’t know what I’m talking about. Your past was revealed to me in the Shroud of Veils.”
Bradley turned his head to her breast and made a smacking noise with his lips.
“I have taken a potion, and my breasts are dry,” she said, sighing down at her son.
The baby moved his arms, kicking his legs furiously. Since birth, his eye color had changed and was now blue-grey like her eyes. The shape of his eyes, however, did not look like either Samuel’s eyes, or her eyes. She and Samuel both had fair complexions but the boy was darker skinned. He stared back at her with accusation, making her feel guilty.
“Oh, come now. I’m sure the nurse will be adequate.”
“He might strangle with that thing around his neck,” Samuel said, picking up the baby.
She had not heard him come into the nursery. Since the birth, her body rhythms did not sing the same tune as before. The birth drained her powers. Each time the baby fed at her breast, she felt a surge pass from her body into his, and was weakened with each feeding, while her son grew stronger.
Samuel reached out a hand to remove the bag from around the baby’s neck.
“No,” she said, grabbing at his wrist. “Only he can make the eagle fly,” she said, pointing at Bradley.
He looked at her, perplexed, while the baby started to cry. “There. There now,” he said, patting his son on the back. He rocked his arms, singing softly.
Bradley quieted in his father’s arms, and Samuel buried his face in the baby’s neck, inhaling deeply.
She smiled softly. She didn’t remember her own father and did not realize a man could make such a fuss over a tiny baby. It certainly seemed out of character for Samuel, but the moment he laid eyes on his son, the infant wrapped him around his little finger.
“The bag will not harm him, but will give him a long life,” she assured Samuel.
“Couldn’t you pin it to his shirt or something? I guarantee this bag, hanging around his neck, will certainly shorten my life.”
“Very well,” she said, pinning the bag, while Samuel held him. Throughout the ordeal, Bradley cried.
“I think he’s hungry, Sugar.”
She turned from Samuel, who held his arms out, trying to hand her the baby. “I shall call for the nurse,” she said.
Samuel was about to protest, then she gave him a dazzling smile. His eyes lit up at her low-cut blouse, her unfettered breasts bouncing. “You promised to teach me how to drive,” she taunted, “After I recovered.”
“You’re fully recovered then?” His eyes sparked, like a match.
“Fully,” she said, her eyes answering his with a smoldering heat. “I am well now, and it is a lovely day.”
He passed the crying baby to the nurse, a young Indian girl of only fifteen, who had moved in with her infant daughter.
Salia spoke to her in her native tongue, and the girl picked up the crying Bradley and sat in the rocking chair.
She nuzzled the boy to her breast. The baby sucked greedily, punching her with his tiny fist.
“See,” Salia said, feeling relieved and a sense of freedom. “Bradley prefers her milk to mine.”
He wrapped his arms around her. “Don’t feel bad, Sweetheart.”
She smiled at the wet nurse. “Let’s go,” she happily told him.
He drove her to a secluded area. “Just so you don’t run down any unsuspecting pedestrians,” he told her.
She moved over behind the wheel and bounced on the seat. She laughed like an excited child, while he taught her how to drive. The window of the car was rolled down. The wind blew her hair about her face. She gave him a dazzling smile.
He looked as besotted as ever.
She drove around in circles and ended up where she had started from. “That was such fun. Driving is like flying. The independence one feels is marvelous.”
“And what do you know of flying?” he said.
She lowered her lashes and smiled knowingly at him. “You have made me fly many times, Patrón.”
He squeezed her thigh, inching her skirt above her knee.
She parted her lips, her face flushed. She leaned back against the seat, opening her legs slightly. “Here?”
“Now,” he croaked and yanked her skirt up. He lowered his lips to her thigh.
She moaned, lifting her hips.
“I would take you in the middle of Main Street in front of the whole damned town. It’s been too long, Salia.”
“Yes,” she said, opening her arms to him.
Afterwards, they lay in each other’s arms.
She caressed his cheek and cleared her throat. She felt jittery, as if pins and needles pierced her skin.
“Yes?” he said, frowning.
“I am going to perform in a new opera,” she announced in a firm voice.
He sat up, straightening his clothes. “So, this is why you insisted on a wet nurse. I thought motherhood would cure you of your appetite for stardom.”
“The French opera, Carmen,” she said with awe.
The Witch Narratives: Reincarnation Page 24