Paloma and the Horse Traders

by Carla Kelly

  My darling leaves his guards for us, she thought. She gave Marco the medium-sized curtsey that custom dictated, the best she could do with their son in her arms. In turn, Marco made the sign of the cross over her and their children and blew her a kiss. The kiss was not part of the ritual, because most Spaniards were circumspect people. Paloma smiled and waved, thinking how they had changed after their months in the Comanche winter camp in the sacred cañón. Marco kissed her in front of the servants now, which would have astounded his parents. These are modern times, Paloma thought, pleased with her man.

  When Marco and Toshua rode through the gates, which shut behind them, Soledad started to cry. Startled, Claudio turned around in her arms to stare at his sister. His lips began to tremble.

  “No, son,” Paloma said and gently turned his face into her breasts. She watched as Eckapeta put her hand over Soli’s nose and mouth and gave her head a little shake. After a gasp to breathe and a shuddering sigh, the child went silent. Eckapeta set her down, knelt beside her, then gathered her close, so there would be no hard feelings.

  In another moment, Soli wriggled out of Eckapeta’s loose grasp and walked purposefully toward Paloma. She clung to her mother’s skirts, then tugged on them until Paloma set Claudio down beside her. In another moment they were cross-legged and playing with blocks on the veranda, the crisis over.

  After making certain that Perla’s little grandson would sit with her children, Paloma walked with her dear friend into the house. “I wish you could cheer me up as fast,” she said.

  “Just think! You have your whole bed to yourself for a while,” Eckapeta said. “No one to steal your blankets or put cold feet on your legs.”

  “But it’s August and hot!” Paloma couldn’t help her tears, which more than her late monthly told her she was with child again. “I miss him already!” she wailed.

  With an amused expression on her pockmarked face, Eckapeta gave her the same treatment she had administered to Soledad. She pinched Paloma’s nose shut and put her hand over her mouth. The little shake of her head was accompanied by a kiss on the cheek. Paloma brushed aside Eckapeta’s hand and laughed, her own crisis over.

  There was no point in trying to restore her matronly dignity; Eckapeta knew her too well. Paloma sat down on the carved chest just inside the house. “It’s not just for me,” she said. “I know how uneasy my husband is when he and I are not in the same place. He tries not to show it, but the fear remains. I doubt it will ever leave him entirely.”

  Eckapeta sat beside her. “Then you will have to stay very busy until he returns,” she said. She stood up, took Paloma’s hand and pulled her up. She gave her a little push in the direction of the kitchen. “Sancha will keep you busy, and I will watch my children.”

  Paloma felt tears well in her eyes again. “In the Indian way, are they your children?” she asked, feeling shy in the face of such love.

  Eckapeta only nodded, because her eyes were filling, too, which touched Paloma right to the center of her body. She swallowed, then threw all dignity to the wind as she wrapped her arms around the Comanche, a gesture her own mother, dead at Comanche hands, never would have understood.

  Eckapeta returned Paloma’s embrace. “Toshua and I gave up our daughters to the Dark Wind, which scarred my face. Our son was captured by Apaches on his first raid.” She buried her face in Paloma’s hair and rationed out one sob. “They paid, because Toshua’s vengeance was terrible, but I felt no relief.”

  She held herself off from Paloma, her face so serious, her eyes searching for something deep inside Paloma. “Know this: I will defend your children to the death because they are mine, as you are mine.”

  They touched foreheads, then Eckapeta released her. “Get busy now! And listen to Sancha when she orders you to rest while our little ones are sleeping. Go on.” She gave Paloma a gentle swat for good measure.

  One day. Two days. On the third day, Paloma woke up and looked automatically for her husband lying beside her. Instead, she saw a pretty little miss with eyes as blue as her own. Paloma held out her arms and drew Soledad close.

  “You miss him, too, mi hija?” she asked.

  Soli nodded, but she did not cry this time. She was already learning the hard lessons of life on the edge of Comanchería. Paloma cuddled her close and waited for the next family member to pad down the hall. Soon Claudio rested against her other side. Paloma sang them a lullaby that her mother had sung to her, one barely remembered. Some of the words may have been wrong, because it was in the idioma of the Canary Islands, where Mama’s own mother had been born.

  The tune always soothed Paloma’s heart, and today was no exception. Her breasts were full and she thought about nursing Claudio, except that Eckapeta had told her it was time to wean her son, now that another baby was on the way. Claudio had been drinking from a cup for several months now, so cutting him off completely was more of a trial for Paloma, who relished the comfort of a baby at her breast. Some months from now, she would feel that tug on her nipple again, the sudden rush of milk, and the satisfaction of nursing another Mondragón.

  She looked at her son, admiring his sweeping Marco eyelashes and light brown eyes. His nose probably wouldn’t be as long as his father’s, but he had the same dimple in his right cheek and the same long fingers. The only trait of her family she saw in Claudio was his downturned lips, which reminded her of another Claudio, the uncle her baby would never know, dead so long ago near El Paso.

  Her eyes went to the odd-shaped hide on the wall where she and Marco had pressed her family brand, the Star in the Meadow, after he had found it in the cave in Palo Duro Cañón—iron evidence of the Comanche raid that had ruined her life.

  She kissed Claudio and then Soli. Ruined? No. She understood now how something terrible was occasionally the gateway to something better. I would never have met your father, had I not suffered such loss, she thought, looking from her son to her small cousin. Blessed be the holy name of Our Lord.

  “Where is Papa?” Soli asked.

  Paloma smiled, pleased as each day seemed to bring more language to her cousin’s child.

  “Papa is probably nearly to Taos. He is going to buy a team of horses to pull a carriage.”

  “Why?”

  The eternal why of children. Paloma considered a satisfactory answer. “He wants us to be comfortable if we visit your Aunt Luisa, or go to Santa Maria.”

  Amazing that less than three years ago, the idea of her going anywhere without many guards was unheard of. As it was, Paloma couldn’t remember when last they had taken a full complement of armed riders to Santa Maria. Maybe peace really had come to Valle del Sol.

  Her answer must have satisfied the two-year-old mind. Soli nodded and snuggled closer to Paloma. Her eyes closed, and soon she felt warm and heavy.

  “Papa,” Claudio said with a sigh.

  My sentiments exactly, Paloma thought. When both children slept again, Paloma eased herself out of bed and dressed. She walked to the chapel, relishing the quiet time to pray for Marco and Toshua’s safety as well as their own protection in this district so far away from Spanish power, or what remained of it. She rested her hands on her belly and prayed for the new child.

  She spent a longer time in the storeroom off the kitchen, pleased to see the fruit of summer’s labors in bins and barrels, and the ristras of chili peppers hanging in ropes from the rafters. She sniffed the boxed rows of gleaming candles, then backed away, queasy from the odor of tallow. The beeswax candles smelled more fragrant, but even those upset her stomach.

  She must have looked a little fine-drawn when she came into the kitchen and nodded to Sancha. The housekeeper appraised her, then reached for the cracker box. Silent, her eyes lively, Sancha handed her several biscoches, then followed them with water still cool from the olla on the shady back porch.

  “Four months of this before I feel better,” Paloma said with a sigh.

  “Such is the lot of women,” the housekeeper reminded her. “What will we do tod
ay?”

  The crackers worked their magic and her stomach settled. Paloma looked around the well-ordered kitchen, where all business was conducted in the family. She breathed the fragrance of apples and quince. Nothing pressed on her mind today, so she took another sip of water, content, except that Marco was not there.

  “I believe Eckapeta and I will take the young ones to the river. Could you prepare us a little almuerzo?”

  * * *

  Marco and Toshua arrived in Taos after a long three days of traveling, made more comfortable for Marco by discarding leather breeches and linen shirt for his doeskin loincloth. Toshua trapped three rabbits, fat from feasting on the bounty nature offered as autumn approached. Even Paloma’s posole wasn’t as good as rabbit bits toasted on a stick over a piñon campfire.

  Or so he told himself. Marco would have given it all up for restful sleep in his own bed with Paloma beside him. Only three days and he missed the wife of his heart. No doubt he was softening into middle age.

  Even Toshua remarked on his companion’s long silences. The Kwahadi removed his own rabbit tidbits from the stick, set them on his tin plate, and sprinkled salt on the meat, just a little pink the way he liked it. “Friend, a man cannot spend all his time in the company of women,” he commented, sitting back on his haunches.

  “I believe this man could,” Marco said. “I sleep better in Paloma’s arms.”

  “Then there is no hope for you,” Toshua replied, with just the hint of a smile. “Even now, when she is soon to be puking in the morning, and not exactly eager for your embraces?”

  You won’t hear it from me that she remains eager, Marco thought. “Even now,” he said, salting his own rabbit. He wondered how much to say, how to explain an uneasiness he didn’t understand. It was a feeling above and beyond his usual fears, born years ago when he had come home to find Felicia and their twins dead of cholera. This was different.

  How, he could not have said, beyond a pricking of the caution he had learned through a lifetime of living on the edge of danger. Some sense above the other senses warned him of danger, and he had ignored it, in his eagerness to find a team of horses and maybe get away for a few days from the grind of work.

  And so he worried. What was supposed to be a carefree journey to Taos in the casual company of a friend had turned into wormwood and ash. All he wanted to do was go home.

  Now they were in Taos, with the great annual fair spread out before them. Marco had donned his clothes again before they arrived, and he had made his visit to Governor de Anza, a particular friend. They had chatted for a few minutes about change and turmoil and Indian dangers before the governor had been called away to open the trade fair.

  Marco had watched, uneasy, as de Anza spoke the usual words, both conciliatory and adamant, to the various Indian nations assembled. Wearing his most elaborate uniform and preceded by an official bearing the royal mace, de Anza offered ten days of unlimited commerce, after reminding the Indians of the Truce of God, which must not be disturbed, on pain of disbarment from future trading opportunities.

  “You must honor the Truce of God and trade in peace with your enemies,” the governor had intoned. “If you do not, Taos will be forever closed to you and you will not trade your hides, pelts, and horses for metal, knives, and blankets to keep you warm. You men, raise your arms and swear it!”

  White and Indian swore their allegiance to the truce which would last from that day for ten days. They swore also to leave peaceably and not lie in wait to ambush. “Go then, and enjoy this time,” Governor de Anza shouted. “God bless us all.”

  A priest—obviously new to the colony because he looked so frightened—blessed the assembly, swung a little incense around and shook some holy water, then retreated to the thick-walled church. A great shout rose up as the fair opened.

  With some pride—Paloma would scold him if she knew—Marco couldn’t overlook the deference given to him and Toshua, whose exploits on the frontier were well-known. He and his strange friend walked past displays of silver and turquoise jewelry spread on blankets, knives of fine workmanship, and metal pots that Eckapeta would love to take to her friends camping on the Llano Estacado.

  Though miserable, he put on a proud face for friends and acquaintances. He wanted to see the stone walls of the Double Cross. He wanted to see Paloma standing in the doorway with their children beside her, maybe even both in her arms, because she was a fond mother. He didn’t belong here, and he felt Taos closing in on him.

  He stopped in front of a pottery display. Toshua stopped, too.

  “Friend, let us go home at first light,” Marco said quietly. “We can get horses later.”

  Toshua gave him such a look—not one of disgust or irritation, but understanding. He knows I am troubled, Marco thought with relief. He isn’t going to question me.

  “Toshua, something isn’t right. Do you feel it?”

  “I do.”

  Chapter Three

  In which a carefree afternoon is less so

  Paloma knew where she wanted to take their outdoor lunch. Months earlier, she had suggested to Marco that it was time for their little ones to play by Rio Santa Maria, where shallow waters created the ford. Trouble was, with summer and sheep, cattle and crops, there had been no time.

  Eckapeta knew the spot and nodded her approval, as Perla packed bread and cheese in a cloth sack. She added dried plums and bits of peeled cactus to the basket. With a smile, Sancha gave Paloma a small crock filled with goat’s milk and a smaller sack of cheese. “Marco tells me you are eating for two again,” she whispered, as she made a little sign of the cross on Paloma’s forehead.

  Just the thought of an excursion, no matter how modest, vanquished Paloma’s queasy stomach and lightened her mind, taken up with worry for her husband. “Remember how we promised ourselves in May that we would do this very thing?” she asked Eckapeta, as they walked to the horse barn, swinging Soledad between them. “Mira, here is August.” She laughed. “Pray I do not imagine one hundred tasks I should be doing today, as soon as we are out of sight of the rancho.”

  “Would you wish yourself single, starving, and under the thumb of your uncle in Santa Fe?”

  “You know I would not!”

  Paloma stood still while Eckapeta lifted her small son into the cradleboard already on her back, the one that Eckapeta had brought back from Palo Duro last winter.

  As the Indian woman steadied her, Paloma put foot to stirrup and swung herself and her son onto the back of her quiet mare. The saddle was Comanche, too, and comfortable. She had thought about dressing in her Comanche deerskin, with its convenient, thigh-high slits for riding, but reasoned that there were no men along, so no one would stare if she raised her skirt high.

  No man around except Emilio, who merely rolled his eyes, then handed up Soledad to sit snugly in front of Eckapeta. Telling them to keep an eye on the sun’s passage, he walked back through the open gates, the little yellow dog in his arms. After Andrés’ sad death caused by smallpox inoculation two years ago, the dog had turned his loyalty to the new mayor domo.

  Paloma looked back at the Double Cross. It had taken several years for her to grasp that what was Marco’s was hers, too. She waved to the guard, who patrolled the ledge along the high wall, then turned her attention to the fields, where late corn still grew. The barley had been cut, along with what little wheat Marco had planted—just enough for their own use.

  The sheep and their growing lambs grazed under the watchful care of two shepherds and their black and white dogs. The mature sheep had been shorn in May, their wool clips packed into bales and stored, ready for the Santa Fe market in the fall. Another season was turning, leading to winter, when bitter cold, wind, and snow would scour the harsh landscape.

  No fears, though, because Paloma knew she would be warm and safe inside the walls of the Double Cross, kept there in comfort by the dearest man in her entire universe. She would knit and sew, and tend their children, and rest, so another baby could grow. In
love already with this child she could not see, she patted her belly.

  Eckapeta’s chuckle told Paloma that her dear friend had seen the gesture. “Am I silly?” Paloma asked, suddenly shy.

  “No. You will pat and caress and talk to the one inside, and he or she will come out already well loved, as Claudio did.”

  As the women exchanged a glance, Paloma felt an unexpected wrench, wishing her mother and father and her brothers, long dead now, could know of her great fortune, or at the very least, know that she was alive and well. Does this longing ever go away? she asked herself as they headed toward the fork in the road.

  The perfect spot was as perfect as ever, and only half a league from the hacienda, a gentle slope to the river but little used because it was all Marco’s land. After a few minutes, the horses were grazing nearby, and Soledad was heading to the river, towing along Eckapeta.

  Claudio clapped his hands when Paloma took him from the cradleboard. Sitting on her lap, he nuzzled her breast, letting her know he wanted to nurse. With a small sigh, she handed him an earthenware cup and poured in a few finger’s worth of goat’s milk.

  He gave her a look that combined equal measures of dismay and then acceptance, because he was thirsty, and in truth, he already knew that drinking from a cup was easier. He took the cup and drank deeply, all the while assuaging her heart as he leaned against her, secure in his world, even if Mama had decided, for some reason, that his nursing days were over.

  When he finished, she took his hand and led him to the river, where he played in the wet sand beside his only slightly older cousin, the one he called sister.

  “We’ll teach them to swim, when they are older,” Paloma told Eckapeta.

  “Teach me, too,” her friend said.

  “I thought you knew everything,” Paloma teased.

  Eckapeta shuddered. “Not this! Don’t you fear what might swim below the surface?”

  Paloma shook her head, secretly pleased that there was one skill—probably only one—that she could offer Eckapeta. “You might brush against a sleepy turtle or have your toes nibbled by minnows. There aren’t any bad spirits.”