by Carla Kelly
“Thy will be done, Father,” he prayed.
Chapter Thirty-Four
In which there is singing
Feeling like a man standing outside his own body, Marco watched the long line of Comanches cross the plain toward the wagon and the horse traders. He saw Lorenzo tip the beret of the dead Frenchman at a rakish angle. Marco wished Sancha could see what a brave man looked like.
Great Owl and his men made a slow progress from the pass to the rendezvous. Marco said one final prayer, thanking God for his life, and asking for a miracle similar to loaves and fishes, where the few multiplied into many. He made himself small in the grove and rested his first musket against his raised knees.
He watched the trade, the little figure of Lorenzo opening one of the musket cases and taking out one firearm after the other. Great Owl made a gesture, and Lorenzo prepared the musket to fire. The bang echoed between the Two Brothers.
Marco sucked in his breath when Great Owl made the gesture again. Please, please, no more demonstrations, he prayed, knowing the only useable flintlock left was Lorenzo’s own personal weapon that he kept behind the wagon seat. He closed his eyes when Great Owl made the gesture a third time.
A third time, the sound reverberated across the plain, but Lorenzo must have aimed in a different direction. Marco opened his eyes and sucked in his breath. Lorenzo had to have fired his own personal weapon, and was now defenseless. He had also aimed right at the field David had sowed with black powder. Flames roared into the air between the Comanches and the route to the pass.
Holding his breath now, Marco watched as Great Owl flung something at Lorenzo. He sighed with relief when Lorenzo caught Marco’s own money pouch, tossed more than a month ago across the plaza in Taos to save Graciela’s life. He leaned forward to see Great Owl gesture again, this time to his warriors, who swarmed the wagon, grabbing weapons from the open box and pulling out the other crates, as the grass fire spread closer. “Get your guns and move away,” Marco whispered.
The grass of late summer was paper-dry, but there was not much of it. The flames that had sprung up in a terrifying whoosh burned out quickly. It seemed like ages, but surely not more than a matter of minutes before the crates were empty, and the deceptively full powder keg and metal box filled with lead bars to melt into bullets were also in Great Owl’s possession.
Everything fell apart.
As Marco watched in horror, one of the milling warriors yanked poor Rogelio off the wagon seat and skewered him with a lance. Lorenzo dived under the wagon seat as the horses reared and bolted, running in a tight circle until the wagon tipped over.
Two warriors fell from their saddles as Toshua and the Utes began their silent work with bow and arrow. Whatever surprise gained ended quickly as other braves started up the slope toward the sumac bushes.
Just as quickly, David stood up and threw his bomba, which exploded right over the largest group of Great Owl’s warriors. Marco couldn’t help his smile at the screams of terror from Comanches, those fearsome Indians who usually made others scream. He struck flint to steel and lit his own bomba, felt a flash as his eyebrows singed off, and lobbed the missile directly at Great Owl.
Wincing from the pain, he watched as the rum bottle turned end over end, then exploded high in the air. More braves screamed as the glass shards cut deep into their flesh. Crazed, three horses ran back toward the pass, stopping to buck and whirl until not even their profoundly skilled riders remained on their backs.
Calm now, Marco steadied his rifle and willed the black smoke to blow away from the scorched land. He took careful aim and fired. He was no musketeer, but he watched in grim satisfaction to see a man suddenly grab the space where his arm used to be.
There were still too many warriors and now they turned their attention on their clump of trees, throwing themselves from their horses and crawling up the slope. Marco fired his last musket just as Joaquim lit the final bomba.
Instead of throwing it, Joaquim rolled la bomba down the hill, where it exploded with a roar just in front of the Comanches on the slope. Marco pulled all his arrows from their quiver and set them in front of him. He let loose one after another, silently thanking his long-dead father, who had insisted Marco practice and practice until he was in tears and his arms ached.
Still they came. He shot his final arrow and took out his knife. “Paloma, I have loved you,” he whispered, ready for the final stroke before everything ended. He prayed only that he would not mind the pain when whatever warrior grabbed him, circled his scalp with a knife, and yanked off his hair before he died.
He crouched behind the tree and waited for death. The shouts and yips of the Comanches filled his brain and he waited in the black smoke.
And waited. Even though his ears rang, he knew his overheated imagination told him the sound was retreating. He shook his head to clear it, and listened.
He heard other shouts and yips, but from a direction that puzzled him. He stood up and swatted at the smoke like an idiot, desperate for a clear view of the plain.
God granted his wish. God blew and the smoke whooshed past him. He took a deep breath and coughed until one more cough would have expelled his lungs. He dropped to his knees at the sight before him.
More Comanches filled the plain, but they were riding in hard from the east, riding into Great Owl’s warriors and striking them with an audible smack. He looked to his left to see both David and Joaquim on their feet, staring, too. Farther down the slope, Toshua rose. He looked up at Marco and made a wide and elaborate sign for horses, his hand vertical followed by his other hand forking the vertical hand.
“Claro, claro,” Marco shouted in understanding, and gestured to Joaquim and David to follow him up the hill. They pounded up the slope to the larger tree line, where they had tethered their mounts. He swung onto Buciro and gathered as many reins as he could handle, leaving the rest to Joaquim and David. Starting down the slope, he leaned far back to stay in his saddle and realized that old Kwihnai and his Kwahadi warriors had ridden to their rescue.
Marco watched in silence as the Kwahadi Comanche methodically decimated Great Owl’s renegade Comanches. He felt strangely at war within his heart to see the Comanches fight each other. Part of him rejoiced, the part that had seen the suffering of settlers, including Paloma and Claudio. Another part, hopefully the part he listened to the most, made him yearn for peace to come from this battle. True, the Spanish were interlopers upon the land that The People had ruled for years, but even the Comanches had come from far to the north and driven out other tribes living on these plains. What belonged to whom?
Surely there comes a time when peace begins to make more sense than continual warfare. Is this the time? he asked himself. Let it be the time, dear God in heaven.
Tall Grass lay dead behind a tiny sumac bush that wouldn’t have hidden a chicken, stretched out and staring at the sky with eyes that saw nothing. Marco noted with fierce satisfaction that he still wore his hair. Deer Bones was even now reaching for his own horse, as were his remaining companions.
Holding his breath, Marco stared hard for Toshua to materialize, to rise up and raise one eyebrow and then the other in a way that Paloma called creepy. He would have given the earth to see his friend. He looked around, determined that no enemy would take Toshua’s scalp.
He turned fast, knife in hand, when someone tugged his sleeve. Deer Bones put up his hand.
“You know better than to think Toshua is among the dead,” the Ute chided him. “I’m surprised at you. Look.”
Marco looked where Deer Bones gestured. Relief covered him like warm rain to see Toshua striding toward the overturned wagon, carrying his lance. Marco kneed Buciro into motion again, Toshua’s horse following behind.
There was no help for Rogelio, whose scalp was gone, and both ears. Marco winked back tears as he dismounted and helped Toshua and two of Kwihnai’s men right the wagon.
There lay Lorenzo, curled up into a tiny ball, no mean feat for a man as tall as he was
, and a hero besides.
“You better touch him,” Toshua said. “I am a Comanche. I know you think we all look alike.”
“I don’t now,” Marco said. “Good God, who convinced Kwihnai to help us?”
Toshua shrugged.
“Lorenzo? Lorenzo?” Marco said. He gave the horse trader a little shake. “It’s Marco.”
“Not opening my eyes,” Lorenzo said. “You could be a Comanche trying to fool me.”
“I suppose I could be,” Marco said with a laugh, he who had never planned to survive this day, let alone laugh again. “Do you want me to tell Sancha that you weren’t so brave?”
That was all Lorenzo needed. With a groan, he straightened, then sat up when Marco held out his hand. In a gesture he didn’t expect, Lorenzo put Marco’s hand to his cheek, then kissed it. “I couldn’t save Rogelio. Everything went so fast. Did … did you see what happened?”
“I saw him die with a lance through his chest, but I was some distance away,” Marco said. He patted Lorenzo’s cheek and Lorenzo released his hand.
“He threw himself across me. That lance was for me,” Lorenzo said simply. “He is your hero.” He looked up at Marco. “Would to God I had treated him better throughout his life.”
“I doubt he would have wanted you to change anything,” Marco told him. “He had a home, and food, and work to do. Remember that instead.”
Lorenzo nodded, then bowed his head against his upraised knees. Marco turned away to allow him to grieve, then turned back again and took Lorenzo’s arm. “I have to know something. Forgive me, but tell me, how did you know to fire the grass with your last shot?”
Lorenzo looked from Marco to Toshua, puzzled. “Toshua told me.”
“How in God’s name?” Marco asked. “He was hiding in the sumac bushes.”
Lorenzo patted Marco’s head as if the juez were a little boy. “Surely you saw him crawl from the sumac bush, tell me, then crawl back.”
“No, I didn’t see a thing,” Marco said. “Not a thing.”
Toshua patted his head next. “You’re not a very observant man. I just counted coup on you.”
He walked with Toshua to Kwihnai, who sat on his horse with its beaded leather mask, looking more sinister than all the hounds of hell. Marco fell to his knees, bowed his head to the earth, and stretched out his arms in complete submission. “I will never forget this day.”
“Good,” Kwihnai said, practical as always. “Up you go now. We have a job to finish, you and I.”
Marco stood up and walked beside Kwihnai’s horse to a clump of Kwahadi warriors. He smiled to see the husband of Paloma’s good friend Kahúu, whose sister’s baby Paloma had carried on her back through the sacred canyon, and returned with tearful reluctance to the warrior who smiled at him now. He held up his hand.
“How is your small daughter?” Marco asked. “Paloma will want to know.”
“She is healthy and makes us laugh,” the warrior said. Marco realized then that he did not even know his name.
The circle of Kwihnai’s warriors opened, and there lay Great Owl, naked and stretched out on the ground, pinned there by arrows through his palms and feet. Swallowing his revulsion, Marco stared hard at the renegade who stared hard back at him, his lips curled in defiance.
Kwihnai leaned down and handed Marco his lance. “He is yours to kill. We do not need his kind of trouble, if we plan to make peace some day.”
Marco took the lance. God forgive me, he thought, as he plunged it deep into Great Owl’s heart.
The air itself seemed to explode with the high-pitched wails of victory from Kwihnai’s men. He listened to the throaty warble, a sound he never thought to hear so close and remain alive. He wanted to warble, too, but he didn’t know how. Maybe Toshua could teach him.
He listened to the high sound, then looked up in surprise, certain he heard a woman’s voice, pitched even higher.
There she was on horseback—Eckapeta. Toshua stood beside her, his hand on her leg. Marco stepped over Great Owl and stroked the nose of her horse.
“You did this.”
“Paloma told me to ride like the eagle flies to Kwihnai, and convince him to help you. I argued back that I would not leave her and the babies, but she won.” Eckapeta shook her head. “I must be losing my powers.”
Marco pressed his face against her horse. “I lose a lot of arguments to her, my dear friend, and thank God for that.”
They all looked around at another shout, this one of warning, and then purpose, as two of Kwihnai’s warriors wheeled their horses and started at a dead run toward the south end of the Two Brothers.
A single figure on horseback had left the cleft in the mountains and rode toward them. Marco shaded his eyes with his hand, watching as the lone figure seemed to hesitate, then turn back to the cleft too late. With a shout, both warriors shot their arrows. Neither missed.
“That is the cleft you must follow,” Toshua said.
Marco mounted his horse and looked for the remainder of his little army—Joaquim, David Benedict, Deer Bones, and the two surviving Utes. And there was Lorenzo, mounting the pony that must have belonged to Tall Grass.
Marco turned to Toshua. “Not you, my friend?”
“No. This is the time for the Utes. We will leave them alone, too. Eckapeta?”
With a wave of his hand, Toshua started toward Kwihnai. Eckapeta appeared to be arguing with Toshua, to Marco’s amusement. He had an idea what the heated discussion was about, so he waited.
Eckapeta turned her horse. “You will see us in the spring, when Paloma gives birth, if not sooner!” she told Marco, after a hard glare at her husband. “I will bring a new cradleboard.”
“Then go with God, my dears,” Marco said, and made the sign of the cross over Toshua and Eckapeta, and every warrior who had saved his life.
Kwihnai kneed his horse forward. With strength Marco would not have credited to a man past his prime, the Comanche pulled the lance from Great Owl’s body and handed the bloody thing to Marco. “Take this and do more good. Give it to that bearded man in your big city who fights so well. Tell him we will think about peace. We will come to Taos next year to trade and discuss the matter.”
“I will tell Governor de Anza,” Marco said. “Kwihnai, thank you for my life.”
“Don’t waste it.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
In which Claudio makes his own peace
A hard life in the mountains and on the plains of New Mexico had not prepared Claudio for the sight of Ute warriors, weary beyond belief but with vengeance burning inside, as they fell upon a sleeping village of Comanche women and children.
He hung back in shock as the men tore into each lodge and dragged out struggling women and silent little ones, trained from birth to make no noise under any circumstances. He held his breath for the slaughter to begin, but nothing happened. Confused, he looked for Graciela, who rode beside Rain Cloud now.
The two of them sat side by side as the Utes rousted out every occupant of brush shelter and tipi, from infant to elderly. His heart lightened as Ute warriors took their own wives and big-eyed children away from their captors. Some of the warriors were not so fortunate. They stood with heads bowed beside their horses.
Claudio understood then why there had been no sudden death. He watched as Graciela dismounted and stood in front of the Comanche women and children. He knew what would follow, after she found her half-Comanche daughter.
They had arrived at the camp just as the sun was rising, when many faces were still in shadow. Graciela scanned the gathering, hands pressed to her mouth. She walked with sure-footed grace to a woman in the back row, who had thrust a child behind her.
“Cecilia,” Graciela said softly. “Come, my dear.” She knelt and held out her arms as a naked child rubbed her eyes and yawned. “Cecilia, or Rabbit, whichever you will.”
The captive woman made a half-hearted grab at the little one as she toddled forward, then threw herself into Graciela’s arms. Fearful,
the woman dropped her arms to her sides and bowed her head, but not before a Ute warrior with no family knocked her over with his horse. The other Comanches stirred restlessly, mothers holding their own children tight to their bodies.
Rain Cloud nodded his approval. “Claudio, take the Ute women and children down by the river. Sit there with them until all is quiet here.”
“I am not a coward,” Claudio said quietly.
“I know that,” Rain Cloud replied. “You are a Spaniard and you will not want to witness what will happen here. Go now.”
For one strange moment, he did not want the Utes to kill the Comanches, people he had hated too long. These were mostly women and children, and his heart rebelled, even as his head reminded him that he was one Christian among many Utes set upon revenge who wouldn’t mind slaying him, too, if he interfered. When did I change? he wondered to himself, even as he moved to do as Rain Cloud demanded.
Claudio dismounted and gathered Graciela close. “Cecilia, is it?” he whispered.
“I only called her that at night, when the Comanches could not hear me,” she whispered back. “I spoke to her in Spanish, but I doubt she remembers it. I have been several months gone, after all.”
The Comanche women began their death song. Her child tight against her body, Graciela ran toward the river with the rest of the Ute women and children. They huddled there together, Claudio standing with them, alert and watching for trouble, as the work of death began. He noticed an old Comanche on horseback, riding to alert Great Owl and his warriors, just as Marco and Toshua had hoped would happen. Flinching at the sound of death, Claudio wondered at Great Owl’s arrogance, so confident of his success with the weapons dealers that he left his camp unguarded.
Claudio sat with his back to the women at the river, unable to bear their hollow eyes. Probably no more than a week had passed since Great Owl’s thugs had captured them and the few children allowed to live, but they had suffered greatly. As the Ute warriors worked their destruction, Claudio hoped everyone’s wounds could heal, those both seen and unseen like his own.