Child of a Rainless Year

by Lindskold, Jane

  “Then in 1879 the railroad came, and this changed everything. For various reasons I cannot recall right now, the railroad chose to run its line a mile from what was then the heart of town. Almost immediately, a second town—a boomtown—grew up near the railroad. From the start, the old town and the new were rivals, each fiercely resenting the other.”

  “Money will do that,” I said.

  “New money meeting old,” Domingo agreed, “but there was more. The old money was mostly Spanish. The new money was Anglo—and New Mexico had not been a part of the United States for very long.”

  “Was it a state yet?”

  “Oh, no, not for a long time yet. That would come in 1912, but the United States took over governance of New Mexico from Mexico in 1846. Interestingly, Las Vegas was the first place in the territory where the announcement of United States’ rule was made. General Kearney, who did this, did his best to reassure the local population that they would be well-treated, but …”

  Domingo gave one of his eloquent shrugs.

  “I know enough American history to guess what happened,” I said. “As long as there was nothing of great value—other than trade that was already locked down—the locals were pretty much left to go on as they had, but when the railroad came, and there was new money to be had …”

  “Exactly,” Domingo said. “Now, you must understand, I am American, but even so, the first language I learned to speak was Spanish. Old memories run long here. When the train came to Las Vegas in 1879—on July 4th, incidentally—thirty years had passed since the Americans had taken over, but there were still many who thought of themselves as Spanish. Spain had ruled here, too, within many of their lifetimes. They were dons and doñas—lords and ladies—and they did not at all like the sudden influx of rough men who called them ‘Mexicans,’ ‘greasers,’ and other things less kind.”

  “So two towns grew up from this?”

  “That’s right. East and West Las Vegas, or sometimes called the Old Town and the New Town. Each was proud, each thinking itself right. Side by side, two towns, two governments, two school systems, angry twins glowering at each other over old grudges. When the local economy finished its long collapse in the early 1920s, the money was gone and the only currency left was resentment.”

  “You know a lot about this,” I said, mildly surprised to find my handyman such a historian.

  “All of us who love Las Vegas know these events and occasions,” Domingo said simply. “We are still trying to figure out why we cannot recover. Santa Fe is a mere sixty-five miles away and thriving. Being the seat of the state government helps, but that cannot be the only reason. Taos, in the mountains to the north is isolated, yet it continues to grow and thrive—even to take over some of the trendiness that Santa Fe has lost. Albuquerque is a great ugly city, but vital. Here in Las Vegas, we shrivel and fade, no matter how hard we try. It is an eternal puzzle.”

  I felt odd and shivery, almost as I had when we stood together outside the closed doors of Phineas House. Domingo had shown me something important here, but I lacked the key to understand it. Giving myself a quick shake, I turned to him.

  “So, can you tell me what I should look for in the Plaza? Or is there a tourist center where I can go and get maps and things?”

  “Both,” Domingo said, with a shy and yet courtly smile. “Or I can escort you. As you said, I know a lot about local history. I would very much enjoy sharing it with a native come home again.”

  My cheeks grew hot, and I felt a sudden prickling under my collar, but I ignored this.

  “If you can spare the time.”

  “Well, I already have the crew coming to paint today,” Domingo said, looking less pleased than he had a moment before. “However, we are coming up on Labor Day weekend. I am sure they would not mind an extra day off—and if there are those who need to work, I can find them some. Can you wait until Friday?”

  Today was Wednesday.

  “I can,” I agreed. “It will give me a chance to do some research. It seems there’s a lot more to Las Vegas than I realized.”

  Domingo smiled. “I will tell you some books to read. I can even loan you some.”

  I nodded, uncertain whether he was seeing this venture as a date, a duty, or an opportunity to lecture. Later, when I found the stack of books on my kitchen table, beside them was a very nice bouquet of roses, fancy ones, wrapped in florist paper, not cut from our mutual garden. They were mostly yellow, with one red glowing at the heart.

  Then I thought I knew.

  The water heater stopped heating Wednesday afternoon, and dealing with plumbers and the like made the days between my conversation with Domingo and our planned outing speed by.

  Betty Boswell had e-mailed to say that she had found a bunch of books she thought would interest me, and that she had mailed them that same afternoon. However, appalled by the cost of shipping, she’d sent them the cheapest—and slowest way.

  I resigned myself to waiting, though I could well have afforded the more expensive rate. I’d sold an old toaster online for an amazingly good price, especially since I was quite definitely afraid to use it. The chrome might have dazzled, but the wiring screamed “fire hazard.”

  Friday morning I took a hot shower with a new appreciation for the pleasure, then went downstairs to meet Domingo. He poked his head around a door frame and asked if I wanted to start our touring immediately after breakfast, and I agreed.

  Torn between feeling like I was going on a first date, and a purely practical awareness that we were probably going to spend much of the day walking, I had fussed over what to wear the night before. I settled on my lightweight hiking boots, a nice pair of jeans, and a short-sleeved, hand-painted silk blouse in swirling shades of dark amber and honey that reminded me somewhat of the images in one of Colette’s kaleidoscopes. I added amber earrings, and a matching bracelet I’d bought for a song on one of my European trips with Aunt May and Uncle Stan.

  When I hurried down the stairs to put on the coffee, I felt festive and happy. My own reflection in one of the mirrors rather surprised me. Yes, I was still a somewhat stocky, fifty-something woman, but there was a sparkle in my rainy-day eyes and a hint of rose in my pale cheeks. Even my hair seemed to have more shine.

  “New Mexico agrees with you, Mira,” I said, and avoided my own blush in the myriad mirrors in the kitchen as I made the coffee.

  Domingo and I had fallen in to an unspoken routine for our breakfast meetings, alternating who would bring the sweets. The leftovers (if any, we both had a sweet tooth) would usually be put out for the painting crew’s midmorning break. Sometimes Domingo would bring a pound of coffee beans from a specialty roaster he knew. It was very relaxed, very casual, and there was no reason for my heart to flutter so as I stepped through the screened door out into the yard.

  Domingo was already there, standing beside the wrought-iron table and chairs where we always met. The patio set was painted ivory white, but with his usual flare Domingo had picked out the flower shapes worked into the iron with pastel hints, each soft as the faint hint of color that heralds the sunrise. Domingo was tossing a stick for Blanco, and his back was tome.

  Selfishly, I took a moment to study him. He was not overly tall—perhaps five ten—but so lean and muscular that he seemed taller. His features were angular, his cheekbones high, but there was a contrasting broadness that hinted at some Indian blood in his family tree. This was not uncommon in the older Hispanic families in New Mexico. Neither the Spanish nor the French shared the English prejudice against mixing with the local inhabitants—and the first exploratory expeditions had been entirely male. Even the later ones, ostensibly meant for colonization, had been largely male.

  There probably are no old Spanish families without a trace of Indian blood, and there’s a reason why many of the resident Indians have Spanish surnames.

  But that was neither here nor there. I wasn’t examining an anthropological specimen. I was enjoying a good look at a man who seemed to be interest
ed in me as more than a friend with whom to share morning coffee—though the wealth of yellow roses surrounding the single red seemed to say Domingo didn’t want to relinquish our friendship.

  Or maybe I was simply reading too much into a polite gesture. I decided to take care that I didn’t assume too much—or say too little either. With this in mind, I began descending the stair, the tray with the coffee carafe and two mugs, one red, one shining green, balanced carefully in my hands.

  Domingo must have heard my feet on the stair, or maybe the increased intensity in Blanco’s bounding after the stick gave something away. In any case, Domingo turned and came to take the tray from me, the gesture neither servile nor indicating that he thought I’d slip and fall on my nose if he didn’t come to the rescue.

  Yellow roses, I thought. Why do I see roses?

  “Good morning,” I said. “You look ready for our expedition.”

  He did, too. The usual paint-stained coveralls he wore had been replaced by dark blue, crisply creased jeans and a tan western shirt with touches of embroidery on the yoke. Like me, he had chosen hiking boots, a promise of a long day ahead.

  “And you look very nice,” he said. “I like the blouse. Is it silk?”

  I nodded, busying myself with pouring the coffee to cover a sudden awareness that I was blushing again. It was Domingo’s turn to bring breakfast, and he now opened a bakery box to reveal a very solid-looking pecan ring. The buttery pastry broke apart easily, but didn’t crumble.

  “Wonderful,” I said after a bite, “but assured to put ten pounds on you just from looking at it.”

  Domingo smiled. “We will do a great deal of walking today, so eat without fear. I thought we would start down at the Plaza. The Labor Day festivities will not get too busy until the weekend proper. We can enjoy looking around.”

  “Sounds good,” I said, then continued with what I hoped was the right degree of casualness. “I wanted to thank you for the roses. They were beautiful.”

  Even as a I spoke the words, I felt a rush of apprehension. What if the roses were one of Phineas House’s odd manifestations, like the silent women? What would Domingo think? Had I just made a fool of myself?

  But Domingo’s smile only widened. “I am glad you liked them, Mira. I was walking past a store and saw them in the window, and thought of you.”

  Thinking of the symbolism of that red rose amid the yellow, I wanted to ask, “Did you see roses or that arrangement?” “What made you think of me?” I decided to keep my mouth shut, and reached for another piece of pecan ring to seal my resolve.

  Shortly after we left, taking Domingo’s truck and Blanco. The little white dog sat happily in the backseat, snuffling out the rear cab window that Domingo had left slightly ajar. The front cab had been meticulously cleaned out, a gesture to our outing. Domingo and I parked side by side in the carriage house garage. I knew full well he didn’t keep it this clean all the time.

  We drove down to the Plaza and parked in one of the spaces marked along the edge. The Plaza seemed a small place to have once been a city’s heart, just an irregularly shaped island of Siberian elms with an understory of various shrubs surrounded by paved roads. A gazebo painted white with brilliant blue trim dominated one end. At the other end, a tall pylon of petrified wood displayed a bronze plaque on which there was a reproduction of General Kearney’s speech when he formally assumed control of New Mexico for the United States. It seemed impossible that this quiet green could have been the site of such a historic occasion.

  Shop fronts ringed the Plaza, many of them empty, but a few caught my eye and invited later browsing. Perhaps the most famous building among those ringing the Plaza was the Plaza Hotel, but its flat, greyish brown brick facade appealed to me far less than did the beautifully restored cream and periwinkle blue facade of Plaza Antiques.

  We walked over so I could get a better look, and while I admired the wide store window and the balcony that stretched the full length of the building’s front, Domingo told me that this building had been in place since the days of the Santa Fe Trail.

  “It is called the Wesche-Dodd Building,” he said, “built, I think, in 1870. In some ways, it says everything about Las Vegas.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It is built on the original site of the first Our Lady of Sorrows Church,” he explained. “When the church was moved, a mercantile establishment was built on the site. The city of our Lady of Sorrows of the Meadows chose to be a city of business, instead of one dedicated to spiritual values.”

  “I guess they had to do something with the space,” I said.

  Domingo shrugged. “They did, but Albuquerque has kept her church on the Plaza in Old Town. Santa Fe has the great cathedral very close to the Plaza, so that the bell tower is easily seen. It seems to me that Las Vegas changed its focus when the church was moved, but maybe that is just my fancy.”

  The Art Stones gallery across the Plaza from the hotel was less spectacularly painted than Plaza Antiques, but it made up for this with the colorful array of items displayed in its windows, among them—no exaggeration—a full-sized horse painted in every color of the rainbow. Unlike the antique store, the emphasis here was on new art, the array of painting, jewelry, and handmade clothing enlivened with a wide assortment of gems and minerals.

  Domingo was a good guide, spicing details that I could have learned from any tourist guidebook with anecdotes about things that had happened to his family and friends. In turn, I found myself talking about things I had done with Aunt May and Uncle Stan, about childhood triumphs and failures. Oddly, this awakened no sense of either sorrow or homesickness, just the nicest tang of bittersweet nostalgia.

  It was good for you to get away, Mira, I thought, but my thought was spoken in Aunt May’s voice.

  We had finished our touring of the Plaza and associated areas and were heading back toward Domingo’s truck when I noticed the woman. Despite her long, dark red hair, she was clearly Hispanic. She was sitting on the edge of a platform I didn’t remember having seen during our first pass through the area, gently swinging her long, lithe legs, and smoking a cigarette. She was very beautiful in a wild, almost unkempt fashion, her beribboned blouse unlaced to show off the rounded tops of her full breasts, her multitiered skirts riding up to her knees with each swing of her legs.

  She must be dressed for some part of the Labor Day weekend festivities, I thought. That looks like one of the traditional Spanish outfits they still wear for the dances. She’d better take care, or she’s going to catch a bit of ribbon or lace on that platform.

  The red-haired woman waved casually—though I thought more likely to Domingo than to me.

  “A friend of yours is waving,” I said to him, feeling an odd prick of jealousy. Domingo might never have been married, but I didn’t believe he’d never had lovers.

  “Where?” he asked, turning slightly to look back across the Plaza.

  “There,” I said, indicating the platform with an inclination of my head, “on the …”

  I stopped in midsentence. The platform and the red-haired woman were both gone, vanished as if they had never been there.

  “Never mind,” I said. “I must not have eaten enough at breakfast—or had too much coffee. I’m hallucinating.”

  Domingo didn’t question my sanity, but instead asked almost shyly, “Well, then, may I take you to lunch, Mira? The restaurant in the Plaza Hotel is famous locally, and you would probably enjoy the dining room. It has been completely restored to something of its former grandeur.”

  “I think I’d like that,” I said, sneaking a glance where I had seen the red-haired woman. “I read about the Plaza Hotel in some of the books you loaned me. Weren’t the tin-work ceilings covered for a long time, and only recently restored?”

  “Not so recently as when those books were written,” Domingo agreed, “but even so.”

  We made our way to the hotel, and had a fine lunch in the lovely dining room, but even as I admired the detail and listened
to Domingo’s enthusiastic descriptions, I couldn’t stop thinking about the red-haired woman.

  Had it been one of the silent women on holiday? I knew they could leave Phineas House, so that seemed possible, but somehow I couldn’t imagine that wild and sensuous creature running the vacuum or washing my dishes. Did the city have its own silent women or was I seeing ghosts? Did that mean the silent women were ghosts? If so, why did they haunt my House?

  Only after I realized that I was becoming so absorbed in my thoughts that I was being rude to Domingo did I make myself stop thinking about what I’d seen. I resolved that once the holiday weekend was over and I could come down here alone again, I would come back, and see if the red-haired woman also came back.

  “I thought we had walked enough this morning,” Domingo said, “and that perhaps a bit of driving would be a rest. Would you like to see the Glorieta battlefields?”