Paloma and the Horse Traders

by Carla Kelly

  “So you were going to follow the juez to Valle del Sol with that dog?” he asked, after she told him that portion of her story. “Paloma, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

  He looked as though he wanted to cry, maybe thinking of all the years she spent defenseless and on her own, making what sense she could of the bleak hand dealt her.

  She thought she saw his sorrow. “Never mind, my dear brother,” she said. “You would have protected me, if you could.”

  With the strangest amalgam of bitter and sweet, Paloma felt the years drop away until they were Little Sister and Big Brother again, sharing a mundane moment, as they had done so often on the Vega ranch. Rafael had been dear to her heart, too, but somehow Claudio had always considered her his special responsibility.

  She set aside the sandals and held out the heavy brand, balancing it between them. Claudio traced the intricate lines of the star and V, his eyes filled with tears. “How in the world ….”

  She told him of their journey into the heart of Comanchería to inoculate The People against the ravages of smallpox, all in exchange for a devil’s bargain from a mysterious doctor. “Marco found this in a cave where some Comanche raiding party had left it, probably planning to return later.” She touched the shaft of the brand. “It’s all that remains of our land and cattle. I think our uncle disposed of our land, but I have no way to prove anything. There is nothing left of that life, dearest.”

  “I suppose not,” he agreed, but he didn’t sound any more convinced than she felt. When had the great deception stopped bothering her? Sitting there in the semi-darkness with a man she had thought never to see again, she only knew that the cruelty of Indians and her uncle alike did not touch her heart anymore.

  Claudio started in surprise and struggled to sit up, which made him groan. He stared at the open door as she gently pushed him back against the softness of mohair. Paloma turned around to see Toshua.

  “Little sister, are you well?” Toshua asked.

  “I am,” she said. “Thank you for watching us. Have you and the guards seen any sign of Great Owl?”

  “He is gone on his way to trouble others. I would speak with Marco when he is awake.”

  “I will tell him.”

  Toshua stood in silence another moment, then left as quietly as he had come.

  “He calls you ‘little sister,’ too,” Claudio said, and he did not sound happy about it. “After what happened to our parents, our brother, what have you turned into? Do I know you?”

  His words might have stung, if spoken years ago, but not now. Her time of struggle, of learning to cope with The People so visible in her life now, had vanished like smoke. What had ruined her childhood had no hold on her womanhood now. What would Claudio understand?

  “In your travels, have you seen a flower growing through a crack in a rock?” she said. “There’s no reason why it should, but it does.”

  “I don’t understand. Each year, the struggle grows harder.” He took a deep breath. “I looked for you in every Indian village from here to Luisiana and then I gave up, because it hurt too much to keep trying. I don’t know how I feel about anything now.”

  “You will come to understand. I’ve turned into a wife and mother and friend,” she told him. She couldn’t help the catch in her throat. “And now a sister again! What was hard is now soft. We have both walked down dark halls, but different ones.” She put her hand on him, then leaned forward and rested her head on his chest. His good arm went around her, after a hesitation that brought tears to her eyes. He didn’t trust her yet; she wondered if he ever would.

  “I fear your story has not reached a happy moment yet, my dear brother,” she whispered. “Stay with us and I know it will.”

  “Easy to say, Palomita,” he said and she heard the strain in his voice. “We have both been used hard and lost so much.”

  “I know. I know. Can we leave it in God’s hands for a while?”

  “That One who didn’t care what happened to us?”

  Poor man. Paloma sat up. “Yes, that One,” she told him. “You can probably say what you want about Him, and He’ll understand. Try it for a while.” She kissed his bearded, dirty cheek. “I’ll sit here while you sleep, Claudio. Claudio?”

  She set the heavy brand on the floor, ready to watch all night, protecting her brother from demons she could not see.

  * * *

  Claudio woke in the morning to the sight of Marco Mondragón slumbering where Paloma had sat last night, his head forward on his chest. He lounged there at ease in a nightshirt that had seen better days, his legs hairy and bare. He needed a shave, but he was a handsome man with a capable look, even in slumber.

  He must have known Claudio was staring at him, because Marco opened his eyes. He didn’t say anything, but sat there with an air of morning stupefaction, combined with a curious confidence that made Claudio smile a little. Marco looked like the kind of man who might be getting a little soft around the edges because he had a wife who took care of him—a man who didn’t mind that a bit.

  “Where did you put my sister?” Claudio asked. He didn’t mean to sound so sharp. What was going on in his mind?

  “She’s back in my bed,” Marco replied. “She needs her rest. Are you comfortable enough?”

  He was, actually. The lingering odors of piñon had been replaced by kitchen smells far superior to anything concocted out of doors in the harsh life he was used to, traveling from settlement to settlement, or tribe to tribe. It struck Claudio that he hadn’t been inside a house of any substance since the Vega estancia near El Paso, his own home.

  His shoulder throbbed, but the edge of pain was gone. He wanted eggs and chorizo and then a long, long soak in a hot tub: two luxuries that until yesterday seemed so remote as to belong on Mars. Both were nearly in reach right now, and it warmed his heart, even as it confused him.

  Claudio lay there, arms crossed on his chest, as a curly-headed boy wearing a much smaller nightshirt peeked into the sala, his eyes wide.

  Marco held out his hand. “Claudito, we may have to call you something else, because this man you see is also Claudio.”

  “My name?” The little one settled himself into his father’s lap.

  “Your name. This man is Mama’s brother.”

  The boy turned his face into Marco’s chest, suddenly shy.

  “Hungry?” Marco asked Claudio. “I am. Let me help you into the kitchen.” He stood up, his son in his arms. He gave the child a gentle swat on his hinder parts, set him down and sent him on sturdy legs down the hall. “Go get in bed with Mama, but don’t wake her.”

  Marco watched him go, and Claudio saw all the fondness on his brother-in-law’s face. “Used to be Paloma and I could stay in bed until the sun was up. That was before children.”

  Marco looked down at his own bare legs. “I’ll help you into the kitchen after I get on some clothes. Sancha has standards.”

  To Claudio’s amusement, the juez de campo, a man of power and influence, scratched himself in a place that might make Paloma roll her eyes. He slapped the top of the door frame and ambled down the hall, returning soon enough in leathers, a cotton shirt, and moccasins. A robe was draped over his arm.

  “Stand up. I’ll help you into one sleeve and pull the other over your shoulder.”

  “Will I meet standards?” Claudio teased. This crazy place where Paloma lived was working some magic on him.

  “I think so. Sancha has a soft heart for a hungry man.”

  “I still stink,” Claudio said, without any embarrassment this time.

  “Not for much longer.”

  “I’ll need some help with my bath. Do you have a servant who won’t mind?”

  “I’ll help,” Marco said. “I still owe some penance for being an ass.”

  “Oh, no, I—”

  “Now you’re being an ass! Be careful, or Paloma will wash her hands of both of us.”

  Marco said it in such a straightforward way that Claudio knew he would be
foolish to take offence against his brother-in-law. He let the man help him into the robe, struck to his heart’s core that in less than twelve hours, he had acquired a sister, a brother-in-law, and a niece and nephew. He couldn’t help his sudden sob that seemed to come out of nowhere, leaving him ashamed of his weakness. Please, don’t think I am a weak man, Juez, he thought.

  Marco, all kindness, seemed to know what to do. “I don’t mean to hurt you,” he said, glossing over Claudio’s sudden emotion and blaming it on pain instead of anguish of a different sort. “I’m not much good with hair, either. Paloma usually cuts mine. Thank you, Sancha.” Marco reached for the cornmeal porridge with its green chilis that Sancha handed him, and picked up his spoon. “Just set that in front of Claudio. He can manage. Claudio, this is Sancha Villareal, my housekeeper. Sancha, Our Father has blessed Paloma with a brother again. Thanks be to God.”

  That was it: no fanfare, no emotion, just a simple, calm acceptance of his presence that allowed Claudio no chance to feel strange or set apart like some nine-day wonder. He could feel the Double Cross opening its generous arms to enfold him.

  Claudio ate slowly, savoring the corn pudding and chilis, seasoned with a sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar, just the way Mama used to make it. Without even trying, he could see Paloma’s fine hand in the kitchen of Marco Mondragón. He looked around at order and neatness, then back at the man who ate beside him.

  “I’m tired,” Claudio said simply, but it was exhaustion of an inward sort, the kind that ground a man down until he didn’t care anymore.

  “I know,” Marco said just as quietly. “I’ve had that feeling.”

  Claudio finished breakfast in silence, unwilling to let down his guard, not after years of fear and overwork, but unable to resist the great kindness of the man beside him. He made no objection when Marco put his arm carefully around his waist, pulled him to his feet, and walked him through the kitchen garden and into a shed where a trough of water waited for him. O Dios, there was even hot water.

  Marco pulled off the nightshirt and helped Claudio into the water. “Too hot?” he asked.

  Dazed now, unused to help, overwhelmed, Claudio shook his head. He sank down slowly, careful to keep his wounded shoulder out of the water. To his embarrassment, he just sat there and stared like an idiot.

  “I can take care of myself,” he managed to say.

  “I doubt it,” Marco replied.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Marco remove his own shirt and leathers. He rolled up his underdrawers and soaped a washcloth.

  “If I get my clothes wet, Paloma will scold me,” he explained, as he began to wash Claudio’s chest. “I like to keep her happy.”

  Claudio sat there like a wooden figure while his sister’s husband told his own story, how his first wife and twin sons had died in a cholera epidemic while he was away on a brand inspection trip.

  “I’ll admit now that I was on my way to ruin. After eight dreadful years, each one worse than the one before, I met your sister. She had been used pretty hard by your uncle. Not the way Graciela was used, but cheated from your land and cattle and made to work too hard by people who should have loved her.” He shook his head. “She’s so short.”

  “I noticed. My … our parents were both tall.”

  “I think the Morenos deprived her of food right when she most needed it to grow,” Marco said, and Claudio heard the anger in his voice. He even scoured Claudio’s skin with more fervor, until he noticed he was hurting him. “Sorry!”

  “I’m surprised such treatment didn’t stunt more than her growth,” Claudio said.

  “Something burns inside Paloma,” Marco told him, after long thought. “I take no credit for it. There is some passion, some purpose that kept her whole and kind, so kind, even to her cousin—your cousin—Maria Teresa Castellano, the real mother of our Soledad. Teresa was so cruel to Paloma.”

  Claudio saw his brother-in-law’s embarrassment, and knew he was not a man to speak frankly of such personal things. You must know I need to hear this, Claudio thought, and it humbled him.

  “Paloma told me last night that Soledad is actually our cousin.”

  “Soli is, but you will never know that, if you choose to compare how Paloma treats her little cousin and our own child,” Marco said. Claudio heard all the fervor and love in his brother-in-law’s voice. “To us, Soledad is our daughter, as surely as if we made her ourselves. That will never change.”

  “Have you any idea how lucky you are, Señor—”

  “Marco, only Marco. I know full well how lucky I am.”

  For one irrational moment, Claudio hated the man who was helping him. Why should Marco Mondragón’s life have been so easy? He repented immediately, thinking of Marco’s losses. He sat there, dazed by his own unkindness, in water getting dirtier by the minute as years of grime came away. He could blame the rough men who saved his life and then exacted their own tolls, or he could look to his own sins.

  “Paloma turned me into a good man again, before I was ruined forever,” Marco said, his eyes on the washcloth. “My God, but I love her.” Apparently it was Marco’s turn for a self-conscious laugh. “Hold up your arm.”

  Marco told Claudio next about his neighbors and the stupid soldiers in the garrison at Santa Maria. Keeping up a steady conversation, he continued to scrub away years of grease and grime, while Claudio just sat there. As he slowly regained control of himself, Claudio wondered if his brother-in-law had the slightest idea what else was washing away, too. Of course he knew, Claudio decided. The juez was nobody’s fool. Before Marco finished a third washing of his hair and beard, Claudio was smiling.

  “Let me help you up,” Marco said. “One more good soaping and then I’ll pour clean water over you, because the stuff you’re sitting in would make Paloma gag.”

  Claudio nodded. “She was always particular about herself and her clothes. You would think that with two brothers she might have tried to be a boy and compete with us, but not Paloma.”

  “No. She’s very much a woman,” Marco said. “You should have heard her when she found a mouse in the kitchen last winter! I swear she climbed right up my back.”

  They laughed together. Marco poured cold water over Claudio, which left him gasping, then opened the spigot in the bottom of the tub. “See here?” He pointed to a smaller trough to take away the used water. “It drains into the kitchen garden. Paloma’s idea.”

  Marco dried himself and dressed, then tossed a dry towel to Claudio. “Put it around your waist. I’ll get some clothes for you, and then I’ll turn the women loose on your hair.”

  After Marco left, Claudio sat down on the stool. He held out one leg and then the other, pleased to see them clean. His beard still itched, but he knew that any lice still alive after Marco’s ruthless application of tarry soap would soon meet their fate. He imagined that his little sister had a fine tooth comb she knew how to use.

  Claudio stared at the wall, wondering if a man, perhaps him, with no hope and no prospect of anything except overwork and ill-use, could change into something else overnight. He had no intention of giving God any of the credit, so he was left to wonder at the possibility.

  Marco returned with wool pants and a cotton shirt. He winced when Claudio winced, as the rough cloth touched his stitched wound.

  “Come now, Brother, it is your turn with the ladies. I hope you are not too attached to your beard and hair almost down to your waist.”

  “Ruthless, are they?” Claudio closed his eyes, nearly overcome with even the hint of a joke. He took Marco by the arm. “I am not used to anyone doing anything for me. Here I sit like a bump in the road. You must think me a weak man.”

  “You’re a tired man,” Marco said as he opened the door. “I know what it is like to not care, and maybe even to wish that you could just lie down and die.” He crossed himself. “Every step you take requires effort and you see only bleakness ahead.” He put his arm around Claudio, still careful with his shoulder. “Am I close?”
<
br />   Claudio nodded, unable to speak.

  “With the horse traders, you could brawl and wench and cheat people and drift around. No one cared what happened to you. After a while, you thought you didn’t care, either.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You’re certain of that?” Marco asked.

  “I should know myself.” Claudio felt a sudden burst of anger. “What makes you so smart?”

  “I have known desperation.” Marco took him by both shoulders this time, but gently. “Brother, your fortunes have changed. I know it. Paloma knows it. You need to believe it.” He startled Claudio by kissing his forehead. “That is the hardest leap of faith there is.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  In which Soledad is puzzled by grownups

  Her brother was sitting on a straight-backed chair in the kitchen garden, his eyes closed, his face turned up to the sun. Paloma watched him through the kitchen window, suddenly shy. She leaned back against her husband, whose arms automatically circled her. “Do I even know him?” she whispered.

  “He’s had a hard life, riding with rough men,” Marco said. “Even then, Claudio Vega was kind to me, trusting me with horses and paying my bill at the inn.”

  “That is what our father would have done,” she said, and knew the answer to her question. “I know him.” Paloma looked at the fine-toothed comb in her hand.

  “It looks sort of puny for the task ahead. Sancha, what do you think?”

  Early in her marriage, on Marco’s advice, she had started asking Sancha her opinion. The housekeeper had come with Felicia when she married Marco. At first Paloma had asked her advice, just to assuage any pain at seeing another take her beloved Felicia’s place. Now it was a matter of habit, nurtured by the reality that Sancha did know best.

  Sancha joined them at the window. “He looks better. I know he must smell better. Still, that is a lot of hair.”

  Sancha stood another moment, then snapped her fingers. She went into the storeroom and returned with shears—serious shears, the kind to tackle thick layers of fabric.