Paloma and the Horse Traders

by Carla Kelly

  In Santa Maria, they passed the church, located at the head of the plaza. Paloma saw four men in the cemetery, two with shovels. She veered her horse toward the burying ground, wondering if these were the horse traders. She looked beyond them to a milling horse herd, and knew she was right.

  The corporal protested when she dismounted, but Paloma ignored him. He remained on the road, but the private followed her and Eckapeta. The traders were stinking, bearded, and greasy to a man. She chose one younger man only because he had blue eyes like her own.

  “Señor, a word please,” she said. “Are you bound for Taos and the trade fair?”

  “We are,” he said, taking off his flat sombrero, one like Marco wore. “And you are—”

  “Señora Mondragón, wife of this district’s juez de campo, who is now in Taos for the fair,” she replied, acknowledging his bow with a slight nod of her head. “This man you have buried—”

  “My father, Paco,” he said, “or rather, the man who called me his son. I am Diego Diaz, and we are horse traders, come most recently from the land of the Utes.”

  “I am sorry for your loss,” she said.

  He had a pleasant voice and good diction, something that contrasted with his rugged appearance and his stench. She could barely see his face through a beard that probably hadn’t been trimmed since Noah set sail.

  He stepped closer, which made Paloma think he did not want to be overheard by his comrades. “No particular loss, señora. We palavered with these Comanches several leagues from here. They wanted four horses as some sort of tax to pass through their land, and Paco Diaz, my sort-of father, would not surrender them. Now he is dead,” he finished simply. “Here endeth the lesson.”

  “You are so casual,” she couldn’t help saying.

  “Paco found me years ago, and that is all,” Diego said with a shrug. “We bought these horses at great cost, with the design of selling them in Taos. Our plan has not changed.”

  “You are a plain-speaking man,” Paloma said, wondering how she could admire such a heartless fellow. She folded her gloved hands on the saddle’s pommel and considered him. He lives in a harsh land, too, Paloma, she reminded herself.

  “You are riding to Taos now?” Better just to change the subject.

  “As soon as the dirt is tamped down on this grave,” he assured her. “It is still light and we can get some distance. How far? Three days? Four?”

  “Three, if you move along,” she said.

  “Well, then,” he said, as if to dismiss her.

  The grave was packed down. She had no reason to keep the man, because she did understand business. She backed up her horse, then stopped.

  “Señor Diaz, a favor, please, since you are going to Taos.”

  He put his hat on, mounted, and came close to her horse. His eyes might be blue as her own, but the face was a hard one, with thin lips in a thin line. He was as dark as Eckapeta, whether from nature or from lack of bathing, she couldn’t tell. Still, he might do a small thing for her.

  “It is this: when you reach Taos, please locate my husband, Marco Mondragón, juez de campo of Valle del Sol. Tell him there are strange Comanches in his valley. Tell him to come home immediately.”

  He grinned at that, which threw a few years off shoulders that had probably born too many burdens. “Señora, let a man enjoy Taos!”

  “I can tell you are no husband!” She skewered him with a look. “I greatly fear it when Comanche my friend Eckapeta does not trust are loose in Valle del Sol. Tell him that, too. Please.”

  Maybe he heard the pleading in her voice, this hard man, and was moved a little. Paloma knew she could probably hope for no more from men who traded regularly with Indians and lived on the fringes of society themselves. His face grew suddenly grave, as he inclined his head. “Señora, I understand what Comanches can do. Believe me. I will find your man and send him home.”

  Paloma saw his sorrow, and it touched her heart. Rough he might be, and smelly, but he must have had his own experience with Comanches, one beyond the hasty burial of this man he didn’t entirely claim. Paloma touched her heart and extended her hand toward him.

  “I know you will. Go with God, Señor Diaz.”

  He reined in his horse to look at her. “Señora, I do not remember the last time anyone told me that.”

  “Then you need to keep company with better people,” she said quietly and made a small sign of the cross. “Hurry, now. Please hurry.”

  Chapter Five

  In which Paloma discovers how fast a horse can move

  Eckapeta didn’t need to voice any misgivings about the encounter with the horse traders; Paloma had enough of her own. All she wanted to do was wheel her horse about, race back to the Double Cross and her babies, and fort up. She knew her husband well enough to be certain that would not displease him. She also knew the juez de campo in him, and continued to the garrison, riding quickly, ready to waste not one minute more than necessary in Santa Maria.

  The corporal and private had arrived at the garrison first. From the terrified look on the sergeant’s florid face—rumor had it he did nothing but drink—he already knew that Marco Mondragón had left the district.

  He came to meet them at the gate of the garrison, shifting frightened eyes from side to side. And this is what the viceroy in Mexico City thinks will protect us? Paloma asked herself in disgust. I would sooner trust my housekeeper.

  She dismounted and motioned for Eckapeta to do the same. The sergeant leaped back when the Comanche woman passed in front of him, and Paloma heard smothered laughter from two soldiers lounging at the gate. Was the state of affairs here so wretched that the sergeant’s own men thought him a fool?

  “As you can see, my husband is not here. He has gone to Taos for the trade fair,” Paloma said.

  Still the sergeant’s eyes darted behind her, to the right and left, as though still searching for the man of courage she was married to. Paloma looked at him with pity, because he was well beyond his capabilities, assigned to a place that demanded bravery and quickness of mind.

  “Sergeant, you remind me of days when I would come into a kitchen full of dishes to be washed, thinking that if I stared at them long enough, they would all disappear. The juez is gone to Taos and nothing will change that.”

  She said it softly, not wishing to shame him further in front of the men he was supposed to lead. Not for nothing had her mother taught her the best manners.

  Her words, even quietly spoken, seemed to recall him to his duty, however much he wanted to avoid it.

  “I need his advice,” the sergeant said. It almost sounded like a pout, as though it was her fault Marco was not in Santa Maria to take charge.

  “We will do what we can for you,” Paloma said. “Your corporal said you needed an interpreter.”

  “Oh, oh, yes, that was it. This woman here?” he asked, lowering his voice so Eckapeta would not hear him, in case he was wrong and she turned on him.

  Eckapeta’s lips twitched, but she said nothing.

  “Yes, Eckapeta. Take us to your prisoner.”

  It was the last thing Paloma wanted to say. Of all the people in the garrison, she had a vast knowledge of the evil that the Comanche could do. At the same time, she knew their kindness and devotion to family. “Take us there,” she repeated.

  The sergeant led them onto the porch that drooped from disrepair on four sides of the garrison’s interior. They followed him to the blacksmith’s shop, where in a far corner, two men were manacled to the wall. One was a Comanche, and the other was dead.

  Stunned, Paloma covered her nose with her hand and pressed up against Eckapeta, who put her arm around her.

  The terrified sergeant didn’t even enter the room, but stood in the doorway, gagging from the stench of bowels that had moved, probably while the dead man was in the throes of his own agony.

  As her eyes adjusted to the dark, Paloma looked closer. The Comanche who glared back at her had blood on his face. She forced herself to look a
t the corpse who dangled from his manacled hand. His throat was bloody and she knew what the Indian had done.

  “Dios mio,” she whispered, and then felt her anger build at this needless loss of life, even if the dead man had been jailed, too. No one deserved such a death. “You should never have put this Kwahadi close to this other poor soul, Sergeant,” she said.

  “Wha-wha-what was I to do?” he said, his voice high and his words tumbling out.

  “In mercy, free the other prisoner,” Paloma snapped. She glared at the sergeant, who seemed to grow smaller with every glance in his direction. “What is it you want Eckapeta to ask him?”

  “J-j-just the usual,” the sergeant stammered. “Where is he from, what were their intentions, where were they going?”

  Eckapeta gave Paloma a look full of disdain for the sergeant, as if wondering how such a man could be sent to a place like Santa Maria. She moved closer to the chained Kwahadi but stayed out of his reach, which had proved so deadly for the other prisoner. She spoke. No answer. She spoke again. No reply. She might as well not even have been there.

  Eckapeta stepped back and looked at the sergeant, who had moved only a few centimeters closer in the small room with the big odor. “He will say nothing. I could ask all day, and he would say nothing.”

  “We could … could torture him,” the sergeant ventured.

  “He would still say nothing. He is Kwahadi,” she said. “I suggest that you kill him right now.”

  The sergeant gasped in horror. “Think of the wrath that his fellow warriors would visit upon this valley!”

  Eckapeta shrugged. “Then you never should have allowed him to be taken alive. If you kill him, his brother warriors will harm this valley. If you merely keep him in chains, they will harm this valley. If you let him go, they will still harm this valley.”

  “Even if we let him go?” the sergeant said, his eyes like saucers.

  Paloma turned away, embarrassed to see such fear.

  “If you let him go, he will know you are a weak man, and he and his warriors will harm this valley. You cannot change what will happen now,” Eckapeta said.

  Eckapeta watched the sergeant, perhaps looking for some clue of his intent. When she saw nothing, she sighed and threw up her hands. She spoke a few words to the Comanche, who began to sing in a high voice.

  Paloma turned away. She knew what was coming. She had heard a death song before, the high-pitched wail that made the hair rise on her back and arms and turned her knees to jelly.

  In one quick movement, Eckapeta grabbed a Spanish lance in the corner of the blacksmith’s shop and launched it into the chest of the Comanche, ending his death song. She fixed a ferocious look on the sergeant, who quailed before her on his knees.

  “You! Send an order to everyone in this little village to gather inside the garrison for protection.”

  The soldier said nothing. Eckapeta looked at the corporal and private who had come to find them. “Who can be in charge, if not this man?” she demanded.

  “I will,” said the corporal. He turned away to shout some orders. With relief, Paloma watched other soldiers obey him.

  “We have to leave now,” Paloma said.

  “We’ll have no guards with us,” Eckapeta said.

  Paloma took a deep breath. “Then it’s a good thing that Emilio replaced our tired mounts with these horses. Marco would be angry if he knew I was riding this stallion.”

  A smile crossed Eckapeta’s pockmarked face. “We will never tell him.”

  The sun hadn’t entirely left the sky. Paloma knew this ride well—the one from Santa Maria, and church, and her friends to the Double Cross. Ordinarily she and Marco took the distance at a sedate pace, mostly because they liked free moments without little ones around to chat and tease each other.

  With a bound that jarred her teeth, they tore through Rio Santa Maria and raced on the dirt road toward home and everything dear to Paloma, except her husband, who was probably enjoying himself in Taos. Never mind. He would be here as soon as he knew. She glanced at Eckapeta, and knew she was in as good hands. It was as if her own parents and brothers, her husband, and Toshua rode beside them. She hoped the baby inside her was too small to feel any effects from the harsh ride, but this was not the time to worry about such matters.

  She knew better than to look to either side, leaving that to Eckapeta, who had come away from the garrison with another Spanish lance, this one wrested from the hands of a guard at the gate. “Just keep my babies safe,” she whispered to the wind that snatched her words away. I will think about what we will do once we are through the gates, she told herself. Eckapeta will get me there.

  She braved a glance around and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Her horse pounded along, lathered now and breathing audibly. She patted the animal, wishing she could let him know somehow that she would never punish him this way, if her need hadn’t been so great.

  “There they are!” Eckapeta shouted, pointing with the lance to a thicket well back from the road. “Use your quirt, Paloma!”

  She did as the woman said, forcing more effort from her horse. Her heart seemed to beat in rhythm with her horse’s stride, as she dug in her heels and wished suddenly for spurs on her riding boots.

  Still there was silence. She dared a glance toward the thicket and saw the warriors, chief among them a man with a horned owl headdress, the same mask repeated on his horse. She shuddered and looked away.

  And there was the Double Cross, her dear home, with its sturdy gray stone walls and gate closed, even though their neighbors teased them that all was well now in Valle del Sol, since Kwihnai had promised never to attack again.

  “Don’t you trust anyone?” she remembered Pepe Calderón, their nearest neighbor, teasing Marco only last week.

  “Not when my wife and children are within my walls and no one has transported us to Santa Fe, where fat people live,” Marco had replied. She closed her eyes and prayed that the Calderóns had forted up.

  “I’m dropping back,” Eckapeta shouted at her. “Don’t look behind and don’t stop. Crouch over your horse.”

  Has it come to this? Paloma thought. She swallowed tears and did as Eckapeta demanded, bending low, trying to turn herself into a horse, as the Comanches did. She clung to her horse, giving him his head because she trusted any animal that Marco had trained.

  She heard the Comanches then, and the wailing sound of war put wings to her exhausted mount. As they raced toward the Double Cross, she saw the gates open and mounted guards ride out with their own lances and bows and arrows.

  “Pease don’t hit Eckapeta by mistake,” she shouted.

  She flew toward the guards, then past them into the Double Cross. Yanking on the reins, she leaped off before her horse came to a stop. She ran back to the gate and watched as Eckapeta stopped, threw her lance, and found a target. Her knife followed, claiming another victim. Then she rode for all she was worth.

  The gates were barely open now, but Paloma knew what her guards were doing. As soon as Eckapeta was through, the Double Cross riders followed her. The gate slammed shut and the stout crosspiece banged down, cradled firmly in iron holders.

  Eckapeta dismounted and Paloma grabbed her, holding tight. They clung to each other, then Eckapeta held her off, assessing her with calm eyes. She touched Paloma’s belly.

  “Is all well in there?”

  Paloma nodded. “I think so. I doubt any child of Señor Mondragón is easily dislodged by a little ramble.”

  Forehead to forehead, they laughed, then Eckapeta gave her a little push. “Get your babies under the floor in the chapel, and your house servants. You, too.”

  “Oh, but ….”

  Eckapeta gave her a fierce look. “Little Sister, don’t argue.”

  Chastened, Paloma put her hands together and bowed her head. “Yes, nami,” she whispered, even as her tears came.

  Eckapeta’s voice was gentle then, the same voice she used when she held Claudio or Soledad. “What would Marco say if
I did any less? Go, my sweet Star in the Meadow. I love you as my own.”

  Chapter Six

  In which the Truce of God suffers

  “I should get some pretty bauble for Paloma,” Marco told Toshua, as they walked past another row of shiny things and housewares arranged on blankets in the plaza of Taos.

  “You have been saying that for three days now,” Toshua commented. “I think you are the kind of fellow who chokes a coin until it begs for mercy, because you do not spend them freely.”

  “Guilty as charged,” Marco said. He sighed and looked around at the pots, pans, iron bars, spun wool, endless chilis woven into ristras, silver apostle spoons, carved wooden saints, and other bits of life in the colony that he knew Paloma would enjoy looking at but would then shake her head when he tried to buy something for her. Still, he wanted her here, her touch light on his arm. He missed the smell of her—the lavender odor of her clothing, the pleasant mingling when lavender met her skin, which she scrupulously washed with olive oil soap. Lately it had all blended with her milk, which had flowed so freely for Claudio—the milk she had blushingly informed Marco needed to dry up, since another Vega-Mondragón was on the way.

  He stared at Toledo brooches with Moorish design, intricate and lovely, thinking how much he liked the way Paloma leaned against him when she didn’t think anyone was watching. What made such a moment so endearing was that he knew how capable she was of standing on her own. He knew that if anything ever happened to him, Paloma Vega would manage his land, goats, sheep, and cattle with great skill. With such a wife he need never fear for his children’s inheritance.

  “I am a hopeless case, Toshua. I miss my wife,” he told the Comanche beside him.

  Toshua nodded. “You are hopeless,” he confirmed. “I watched you last night, when you thought I was asleep. You pulled that pillow very close to your chest.”