Paloma and the Horse Traders

by Carla Kelly

  The sun was past its zenith when silence finally ruled the Comanche camp. He waited for the crackle of fire and the odor of burning bodies to signal the end of the carnage. A few more minutes, and the Utes made their way to the river, first to wash the blood from their hands and bodies, then for the lucky few to reclaim their loved ones.

  Feeling like an old man, Claudio slowly walked back to the camp and its great bonfire of shelters and bodies. He sucked in his breath and put his hand over Cecilia’s eyes as the overpowering heat and flames worked their will among the dead.

  It wasn’t enough. He picked up the little one and turned her face into his shoulder. Graci walked beside him, her face averted, too.

  He wanted nothing more than to leap on his horse, take Graci with him and ride fast away from all death and vengeance, and blasted hopes. On horseback last night when Graciela led the way, he had ridden for a time beside Rain Cloud. The sun had not quite left the sky, so Rain Cloud stopped every so often to look around, as if imprinting the cloud-high mountains on his mind.

  “You’re really going to leave these cloud mountains?” Claudio asked. “Even if we defeat Great Owl?”

  “Even then,” Rain Cloud said. “There comes a time when a man is too old for this much sadness.” He said nothing more.

  Maybe even a young man can reach that time, Claudio thought now, as he stared at the ruin around him.

  Graciela was made of sterner stuff, apparently. Still clutching her child, she spoke to Rain Cloud. He nodded and patted her shoulder. A few words to one of his warriors, and Claudio held out his arms for a woven bag filled with dried meat and chokecherries, small and deep purple, that the Ute women had probably been gathering when the Comanches struck. A bag of dried bugs and roots completed Rain Cloud’s parting gift.

  “Do this for us,” Rain Cloud ordered. “If you see only Comanches, ride fast and warn us so we can flee. If you see victory, stay with your own people. Graciela, too.”

  “Shouldn’t Graci decide whether to stay with you?” Claudio asked, looking at the woman and her child sitting alone.

  “With a Comanche child, she has no place among this people. Go now.” Rain Cloud gave him a little push, not a cruel attempt to drive him off, but a firm reminder to hurry along.

  They backtracked through the pass, Graciela holding her daughter on her lap, bound together with a wide strap. He rode beside them, glancing at the little girl, who finally began to smile at him, then giggle and turn away.

  The trail was easier to follow in the daylight. He led the way, motioning Graciela to fall back as their hidden trail over the mountain joined the larger trail to the plains, the one Great Owl’s warriors had taken. I cannot just wait at the mouth of the pass, he told himself. My brother-in-law is down there. Paloma would never forgive me if I did nothing.

  “Stay here. I am going down.”

  “But Rain Cloud said ….”

  He ignored her, his mind clear of everything except his love for Marco Mondragón and Paloma Vega—the one still new to him, the other loved and lost, and found again. If Marco lay dead on the field, Claudio would fight his way back to the Double Cross and help his sister carry on. He had thought only a few days ago that family ties were a nuisance bent on suffocating a man. What a fool he had been.

  His thinking had changed because he loved Graciela Tafoya. She was as bruised and battered by life as he was. She might not even want him in her bed for a while. He smiled to think of his mother’s favorite dicho: “Patience, and shuffle the cards.” Mama had said that often enough when he was young, impatient, and quarrelsome, picking fights with Rafael and Paloma until they ran off in tears. He hadn’t understood that irksome dicho then, but he understood it now. Time was all he had, besides love. If love couldn’t walk hand in hand with patience, what was it worth?

  He looked back at Graciela standing there with her arms folded and anger in her eyes at being left behind. He blew her a kiss, something Paloma did each night before she closed the door of her children’s room. He looked closer. The angry look was gone, but her arms were still folded. Patience, Graci, he thought.

  He rode out of the pass and into sunlight already beginning to soften as afternoon shadows lengthened. Hardly breathing, Claudio stared at a mound of bodies on fire. The surrounding field was burned black. He rode through weeds stinking of smoke, counting the living.

  That new patient heart began to beat again when he saw Marco, and then Joaquim, and even David Benedict, a man Claudio thought would never survive such a day. There was Lorenzo, leaning on a shovel. Claudio looked for Rogelio, his tired mind finally comprehending that Lorenzo and the shovel told their own tale.

  He stopped his horse as two Comanches rode toward him, lances ready. He held up his hands. “Marco Mondragón,” he shouted. “Help me here.”

  Deer Bones was closer. He signed to the Comanches. They lowered their lances and turned away, loping back to the main body. The Ute gestured for him to come closer.

  “You’ve won a great battle,” Claudio said, looking around. He watched some of the Comanches ride east, their lances dripping with bloody scalps. Looking closer, he thought he saw Toshua, and was that Eckapeta?

  “My father? Does he live?” Deer Bones asked.

  “Rain Cloud is well and so are the others. Some found their wives and children,” Claudio told him. “Do you—”

  Deer Bones shook his head. “All dead. My father will lead us west now, and we will begin again.” He looked over his shoulder. “Tall Grass has gone singing bravely to his ancestors, but two of my friends and brothers remain. We will ride to Rain Cloud.”

  He leaned closer and touched Claudio’s arm. “This was a good work. Your brother is a brave man.”

  “He is, Deer Bones. When you reach the mouth of the pass, you will see Graciela Tafoya. Tell her to ride down here.” He chuckled. “She wasn’t happy when I left her there, but I think she will come.”

  Deer Bones raised his hand in farewell. Claudio watched the three Utes until they were out of sight. Still he waited, hoping to see Graci. No Graci.

  He came close to the battered wagon with empty crates still scattered around it. Joaquim and David tossed sabotaged muskets on the fire, which caught and crackled and soon became unrecognizeable.

  Hands on his hips, Marco smiled at him. His face was blackened with gun smoke, which made his teeth a brilliant white. Claudio looked closer. His brother-in-law was missing a tooth, but that wasn’t all; his eyebrows were gone, probably singed off in what must have been a desperate struggle to stay alive.

  “All is well with Rain Cloud?” Marco asked, after Claudio dismounted and grabbed him in a fierce embrace.

  “As well as any man can be, who has lost so much,” Claudio said.

  Marco clapped his hand on Claudio’s shoulder. “Come home with me?” he asked.

  “If you want me to,” Claudio said. “I trust you will not put a noose around my neck.”

  “No noose. In fact, let me make a proposition.” He looked beyond Claudio. “You found your little one, Graciela? Give thanks to God.”

  Claudio turned around to see Graciela riding toward them. God is good, he thought. Perhaps he should also apologize to God for thinking Him callous and uninterested in the ways of man. Paloma could advise him about such matters.

  Graciela nodded, eyeing Marco with wariness. Claudio walked to her side and held out his arms for Cecilia, who surprised him by holding out her own arms. He held the child, wondering what Marco would say, but not wondering too hard. He was beginning to understand the juez de campo.

  “She has beautiful eyes, Graciela,” Marco said. “Please tell me that Soli and Claudito will have a little friend. Think of the fun!”

  Graciela let out a sigh that went on and on. She dismounted with Marco’s help, and threw herself into Claudio’s arms. To his surprise, and then complete gratification, Claudio Vega discovered that he could hold a child and a woman at the same time.

  They spent the night camped a
s far to the south of the Two Brothers as they could travel before complete exhaustion ruled. Marco insisted that Graciela and her daughter sleep in the wagon, and Claudio told his brother-in-law that would do for him, too.

  “So that’s how it is?” he asked Claudio when the two of them moved away from the fire for final relief.

  “I believe it is,” Claudio told him. He finished his business and buttoned his trousers. “Marco, I’m not so certain what to do now.”

  “Get in the wagon with them, as you so boldly said.”

  “She is still irritated with me for leaving her alone in the pass.”

  Marco buttoned his trousers, laughing softly. “It’s a cold night and she only has one blanket. Get in the wagon.”

  “I finally know good advice when I hear it,” Claudio said to Marco, who slapped his back. “You should congratulate me.”

  He crawled in the wagon. Marco was right; the night was cooler. Probably in the morning there would be a film of ice on the water bucket. He yawned.

  “I only have the one blanket,” he heard from Graciela. He tried to gauge the frostiness level in her voice. He knew he was still a babe in the woods where women were concerned—the kind of women that a man didn’t pay for, leave before daybreak, and worry about catching diseases from.

  “Would you share your blanket?” he asked.

  “Yes, if I can put Cecilia between us,” Graciela said. “It’s a cold night for September.”

  “Yes, last year it was warmer at this time. Maybe there will be an early winter.” He lay down, disgusted with himself because he was talking about the weather. Ay caray!

  Graciela spread her blanket over the three of them. Cecilia was already asleep, folded up like a little flower. She might be Soledad’s age, or a little younger. There would be dresses for her at the Double Cross, and maybe secrets to share in the years to come. They would gang up on poor Claudito, so Claudio hoped Paloma’s next baby was a boy. He smiled into the dark. I am making plans, he thought.

  Graci had made no comment, but at least she was facing him. He hoped she would speak, but the silence lengthened until he heard her even breathing. Maybe tomorrow night. He closed his eyes.

  “Graci, I have absolutely nothing but my horse and the clothes on my back. I left my blanket with one of the Ute women,” he told her sleeping form. “I have bad dreams, and even Lorenzo says I do not talk enough. There are days when all I have is a beating heart.”

  “That is all you need, really,” she told him.

  Claudio sat up in surprise, then lay down quickly, because he was letting in the cold air on Cecilia. Had he really said that? Surely he had simply thought it. He nerved himself to look at Graci. Her eyes were open and he saw no fear there. He wasn’t certain what else he saw, except that he had seen that same look in Paloma’s eyes, when she sat with Marco. Maybe it was love, and maybe he was tired and wandering in his head.

  “We … we’ll need to think about it,” he stammered.

  “If you still need to think about it then do so,” she replied, generous and patient at the same time.

  Cecilia lay between them, but Claudio stretched his arm across the child just to touch Graci. She must have had the same idea, because their hands met in the middle. They twined their fingers and rested them on the sleeping child.

  Claudio knew he would never go to sleep now. He closed his eyes and slept.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  In which matters are settled to nearly everyone’s satisfaction; no, everyone’s

  When had the ground become so hard? Marco asked himself as he stretched and groaned, the morning sun in his eyes. Two more nights with his bones on the cold ground, and then there would be Paloma. He had lost his sense of adventure. All he wanted was his wife and children and a good pot of posole.

  His memory also wasn’t what it used to be. “I must be getting old,” he told Claudio, as they squatted together around a pathetic fire that Joaquim had started. “Last night I started to tell you about a proposition. Remember?”

  “Barely,” his brother-in-law said.

  “It’s a simple proposition. Governor de Anza has been too busy to assign anyone to the land grant that used to belong to Alfonso Castellano. It is more than that: no one has been brave enough to willingly settle in Valle del Sol. Don’t know what they’re afraid of.”

  He heard Claudio’s laugh, touched in his soul because Paloma and Claudio were so much alike, left too young to struggle on their own through desperate circumstances. They had few wants and made no demands, because harsh life had instructed them not to expect anything. He reminded himself again to get red shoes for Paloma.

  “I have to go to Santa Fe in a month, as part of my duties as an officer of the crown. I want you to come with me and claim that land grant for your own.”

  Claudio stared at him, his mouth open. “You’re serious?”

  “I never joke about land and cattle. Yes or no?”

  “Yes, but—”

  So like Paloma, Marco thought. “I know, I know: you have no cattle, no sheep, no horses, no house, no servants.”

  “That about covers it. At the moment I don’t even have a blanket.”

  They had reached the wagon. Marco leaned against it, tired even though the sun was barely up. “I have all those things in abundance and I will share.”

  Marco would have given the earth right then for Paloma to see her brother’s face. A host of emotions crossed it. Marco said nothing, only watched and held out his arms, his heart full. Claudio grabbed him in a fierce embrace. “Marco, your sister told me not so long ago that I overthink matters. Maybe it is a man’s bad habit, because you do, too.”

  Claudio nodded. Before Marco could stop him, he knelt and kissed Marco’s hand. Marco raised him to his feet and took him by the shoulders. “No more horse trading, no more thieving. Marry that woman in the wagon and allow Paloma and me to help you.”

  “I had better,” Claudio said simply. “Graci has the blanket.”

  Having come from the north, Marco Mondragón’s ragged little army passed through Santa Maria first and not the Double Cross, and learned of Sergeant Lopez’s death. Wielding powers he suspected he did not possess—but which he also knew the governor would not dispute—Marco informed the leaderless soldados that El Teniente Joaquim Gasca was their new commander.

  “You will obey him in all matters upon pain of my serious displeasure,” Marco told the assembled soldiers. He had no idea how much serious displeasure he was capable of, when all he wanted to do was go home, bathe, and throw himself face down on his bed.

  He left David Benedict with Joaquim. “I wouldn’t trust him for a minute,” Marco whispered. “Tell him this fable that Toshua checks the jail periodically. That should remind him not to run away, although where he would go, I could not tell you.”

  Joaquim translated and David shuddered. He spoke, and Marco could tell it sounded like a question. “He wants to know if you are taking him to Santa Fe to face the governor and prison,” Joaquim said.

  “Tell him prison can wait,” Marco said, knowing that even an enemy agent, English or American, could change, especially now that he understood what New Mexicans were capable of. A man with David Benedict’s talents didn’t need to languish in prison. Marco had no doubt that the English in Canada or the Americans in St. Louis would try again to create mischief. They could just try it somewhere else.

  “Tell David I want him on the Double Cross later this winter. Paloma and I need to learn English.”

  Joaquim translated and David nodded. “Muy bueno,” David said.

  “Bien,” Marco corrected. They would all be busy this winter, apparently.

  On Marco’s request, Joaquim’s first order was to send a soldado on a fast horse to the Double Cross to let his dear ones know that all was well and he was on his way. Lorenzo had insisted on keeping the wagon that now represented the last remnant of the ragged southern end of an enterprise to stir up trouble among the Indians. It was slow and cre
aky and about to disintegrate, but Lorenzo was a hero, after all.

  So it was that Marco and Lorenzo and Claudio and his newly acquired family traveled together the last miles home. Feeling uncomfortably like a father counseling his son, Marco rode in the wagon with Lorenzo for a few miles, interrogating the older man about his intentions for Sancha Villareal.

  “I … I thought maybe I’d see if she might go walking with me by the acequia,” Lorenzo stammered, his face flaming red.

  “At that rate, you’ll be too old to impress her on your wedding night,” Marco snapped, exasperated. “Marry her soon, but only if you promise me and Paloma that you will become a respectable husband, bathe once a week, and treat her well. No more wenching and horse stealing.”

  Lorenzo opened and closed his mouth and said nothing. Marco took that as an excellent sign. “I have need of a herdsman, Lorenzo,” he continued. Life among two-year-olds had taught him to temper demands with sweets. “I pay well. I know you are good with livestock, but they better damn well be my horses and cattle, and no one else’s! Yes or no?”

  “Sheep, too?” Lorenzo asked.

  Marco slapped the side of the horse trader’s head and started to laugh. “Sheep, too, you … you pendejo! And chickens, ducks, and turkeys. Goats. Are we perfectly clear?”

  “We are, señor.”

  “Good!”

  He stepped from the wagon seat onto Buciro, who had been matching his stride to the wagon team’s. Marco watched the team, thinking of the miles the horses had churned up during their long journey on the edge of the frontier. “Lorenzo, I believe this team that has come all the way from the Missouri River is as smooth-walking as the stolen horses you foisted on me.”

  Lorenzo looked them over with the eye of a professional. “They’re not as handsome, so no one will probably steal them from you.”

  “You should know, since you’re the best horse thief around. Remember that Sancha won’t love you if you misbehave. I will claim them as contraband of war.”