The Star in the Meadow (The Spanish Brand Book 4)

by Carla Kelly

  “Basically, yes,” Señor Mondragón said. “Tell us more.”

  She already knew enough about this man with the light-brown eyes to get a glimpse of his kindness, but he had a way of demanding results in a polite fashion. She also sensed that what she said had better be the truth.

  “I must begin this story in Mexico City fifteen years ago,” Catalina said, thinking of the times she had tried to tell her father’s story to uninterested audiences, or people who had reached their own conclusions before she even began. “Please hear me out before you judge us.”

  The juez frowned. “That has been your experience?”

  “It has,” Catalina told him. “Please surprise me.”

  She saw nothing but sympathy in the official’s eyes, which gave her courage. “In Mexico City, Papa held a position similar to that of Señor Felix Moreno. He was in charge of the district’s financials. I was ten years old at the time, and knew nothing of the particulars, except that he was found guilty of embezzling a huge sum of money slated for a series of bridges around the city.”

  “Do you think he was guilty?” Señor Mondragón asked.

  “Marco, she was only ten. How would she know?” Paloma said.

  Catalina flashed her a grateful glance. “To my knowledge, Papa and Mama never seemed to have any more money than usual. He told me he was innocent and I believed him.” Take that, she thought, her chin up.

  Catalina listened hard for condemnation when the lieutenant spoke, but heard none. “Fifteen years ago, you say? I was in Mexico City. As I recall, the new viceroy had leveled all kinds of accusations at the former viceroy.”

  “Do you remember more?” Señor Mondragón asked.

  “That was back when I was drunk more often than sober,” Joaquim Gasca said with a shrug. He sighed. “And there was usually a woman or two ….” His face turned red.

  They all looked at her again, so Catalina continued, startled by the man’s honesty. “I … I don’t know if there was a trial, but Papa went to prison for five years.” She took a deep breath, uneasy after all this time, unwilling even now to remember. “Mama died of shame, I think, and I was sent to an orphanage.”

  She spoke softly enough, still wanting to skirt around that terrible time, but she saw tears in Paloma’s eyes. I will not cry, Catalina thought. I am past that.

  “When Papa was released from prison, he pried me away from the nuns and promised we would get back to Spain somehow,” she continued. “We had no money, and the viceroy had other ideas. He sentenced Papa to exile in Santa Fe.”

  “Prison wasn’t enough?” Señor Mondragón asked, with something close to amazement. “Exiled to New Mexico!”

  Lieutenant Gasca recoiled in mock horror and Catalina wanted to smack him. He must have noticed the fire in her eyes, because he held up a placating hand. “Don’t let it bother you, señorita! I was exiled here, too, for numerous well-earned felonies and misdemeanors, in my case.”

  “Which we will not discuss now,” Paloma interjected, and shook her finger at the lieutenant. “Catalina, he has been a rascal, but I believe he has reformed.”

  Everyone was all smiles again. Catalina could only glance from one to the other in amazement. What kind of lunatic asylum was the Double Cross?

  “Papa is sent on audits, as the other contadores in the department here are, but everyone in the colony knows he was in prison for stealing money,” Catalina said. “He was ruined, and even now has no confidence in adding and subtracting numbers. Gossips say he is a hopeless drunkard, but he never drinks. It’s one of many rumors that follow us.”

  “Why must he continue to be punished?” Paloma asked.

  This was the hard question, even though Catalina did not think the juez de campo’s wife asked it from spite. She could only pick her way through it with what tattered grace remained to her, she who shared his exile and his punishment. “The world is full of bullies and victims,” Catalina told her. “You were a victim for a while, were you not?”

  Paloma nodded. Her heart wretched with the unfairness of life, Catalina watched Señor Mondragón gather his wife close to him. Why had Felix Moreno sent them to this kind place, where her own injustices felt magnified? She held her head up, determined to ignore their happiness, because to think of it only hurt.

  “Times are better here,” Paloma said.

  Hurrah for you, Catalina thought, and lowered her eyes so that the bitterness would not show, not when these people seemed inclined, for whatever reason, to treat her nicely.

  She must not have been fast enough. Paloma grasped her hand. “It’s time you had a change of fortune, too. Don’t discount us.”

  Señor Mondragón nodded, his eyes serious, but not unkind, Catalina decided, when she had the courage to look him in the face. “Tell us about your note.”

  She could have done as he demanded. She could have taken Señor Mondragón’s words at face value, but some imp in her, some imp that had been dredging about in discontent and anger, wouldn’t let her.

  “You tell me first: Teniente, do you believe a word of my note to you?”

  Silence. Fearless now, or more likely careless because she truly didn’t care, Catalina looked at the lieutenant and saw nothing but disbelief.

  Catalina started to rise, but Paloma grabbed her skirts and yanked her down. “Don’t you move, Catalina!” she admonished, her voice low but intense.

  It wasn’t so low that the Comanche woman didn’t look up and get to her feet in one fluid motion, her hand behind her back where Catalina knew a knife rested.

  “No, Eckapeta, this is between Señorita Ygnacio and me. We are in no danger,” Paloma said. She lay back again, her hand against her still-swollen belly, and she spoke to Señor Mondragón. “Marco, I know my uncle better than you, and I strongly suspect his hand in this story.” She turned a more kindly eye on Catalina now, almost as if asking forgiveness for her unexpected intensity. “Tell us what you are afraid of.”

  “Why, if no one believes me?” Catalina asked, appalled, even as the words spilled out, that she could not trust even someone as kind as Paloma.

  “I was ten years in the Moreno household,” Paloma said simply. “I believe you.”

  Chapter Eight

  In which Catalina explains herself

  No one spoke for a long moment. The silence ended with Juan Luis letting out a sigh that ended in a burp. Joaquim’s lips twitched.

  “Marco, your son has no appreciation for delicate, overwrought scenes.” Joaquim shifted to look more closely at Catalina seated next to him. “Don’t get your feathers up, señorita.” He made a broad gesture. “If Paloma trusts you, then I will too.”

  “I, too, and for the same reason,” Marcos said. “Joaquim, you showed me your note.”

  The lieutenant reached into his doublet for the folded up paper and handed it to Catalina. “You sent this note to me, fearing that your father would be killed, once the audit was done. Explain it now.”

  To Joaquim’s relief, she did not hesitate. She didn’t sound like someone making up a story to get attention, or whatever it was that a spinster, probably in her mid-twenties, wanted. He had no experience with women like this.

  “Papa came home one night as usual, and that very evening, quite late, we had a visit from the man who cleans the offices,” she said. She looked at Marco, knowing instinctively where the power lay in Valle del Sol. A lesser presidio captain than Joaquim would have been insulted, but Joaquim had always been happy to share his responsibilities.

  “A custodian is an unimpeachable source?” Marco asked, sounding as skeptical as Joaquim, had he spoken first.

  Señorita Ygnacio took it calmly. “People on the bottom rung have no reason to lie about anything. They have no resource beyond the truth. This I know from personal experience. Pablo empties wastebaskets and scrubs floors. Men like that don’t scheme.”

  Bravo, Joaquim thought, impressed with her plain speaking.

  “Very well,” Marco said. “What happened th
en?”

  “He had been searching for something one of the other officers dropped earlier in the day,” she said. “He was under a desk, and the door connecting that office to the contador principal’s private office was open. He heard Señor Moreno promise Miguel Valencia that my father,” her voice broke, “and I, I suppose, would not return from this assignment. When that happened, the job of auditor would be Miguel’s.”

  “Did Pablo see either man?” Marco asked. “Why could Miguel exact any favor from the fiscal? Who is he?”

  Señorita Ygnacio looked directly at Paloma. “He is Tomasa Moreno’s husband-to-be. I did not see him that night, but I have heard his name mentioned.”

  “My goodness. She was barely thirteen when I …” she stopped and cuddled close to her husband. “I am certain the story is all over Santa Fe that Paloma Vega stole her uncle’s money box.”

  “Paloma, you would never!” Joaquim said in mock horror.

  “Certainly I would never, but my uncle industriously spread that rumor about,” Paloma said.

  “I would happily gut him from throat to privates,” Eckapeta said from her corner of the room by the baby’s cradle, “if he has any.”

  “My dear, what would that solve?” Paloma asked.

  Eckapeta shrugged. “He would be dead and I would feel better.” She flashed what Joaquim suspected was a rare smile. “You would, too, little mother.”

  Joaquim smiled inside to see Señorita Ygnacio’s wide-eyed expression of horror and disbelief, reminding him that she wouldn’t last a week in Comanchería. Probably unaware, she scooted to the edge of her chair, farther from the Comanche and closer to the lieutenant—close enough that he could sniff the sage in her hair.

  “All right, you unrepentant souls,” Marco teased. He turned his attention to Señorita Ygnacio, more serious. “Do you …. Is there a soldier you suspect?”

  She shook her head and ran her hand over her face. In that small moment, Joaquim saw the utter weariness of a woman—a lady—taxed to her limit. He looked at Paloma and saw a similar expression, in her case the memory of a worse time herself, and at the hands of the same man. She turned her face into Marco’s chest, and his arm tightened around her.

  “Can you do anything to help? No one has ever helped us,” Señorita Ygnacio added quietly.

  “Someone will now,” Paloma said. She folded her hands in her lap and looked at her husband, then at Joaquim.

  Marco looked at him, too. “Could you send the escort back to Santa Fe? Have you that authority?”

  “I might,” Joaquim replied, then spoke to the lady sitting so close to him. “Señorita, what is the highest rank among your escort?”

  “There is a corporal,” she said. “The rest are privates, and the driver practically drools.”

  I am well-acquainted with privates, Joaquim thought. “I can order them to Santa Fe, and provide another escort for you when the audit is done.”

  He had never seen a look of relief cross anyone’s face faster than Catalina Ygnacio’s. When had he been the answer to anyone’s prayers? “I’ll do it,” he said. “We’ll keep the driver and send the rest back.”

  “That might cause more attention and suspicion directed at Señor Ygnacio,” Marco pointed out. “Can we send them with something valuable that must get to the governor in a timely fashion? There needs to be a reason.”

  “Too bad we never found even one of Coronado’s seven cities of gold,” Joaquim said, after a long silence.

  “In New Mexico?” Marco asked, his eyes lively. “The only crop we raise is children.”

  “What does the governor want more than anything?” Joaquim asked out loud.

  “Easy,” Marco said. “He wants a treaty with the Comanche. I might remind you we don’t have one yet, Lieutenant.”

  Joaquim shrugged. “Governor Anza doesn’t know that. Could we not suggest that he make himself ready for a trip to Comanchería this summer to implement one? You know, word it as a politician would, with just enough vagueness to cover our hairy behinds if it doesn’t happen.”

  “I suppose we could,” Marco said slowly. “What do you think, Eckapeta? What have you heard?”

  “Much suspicion.” Eckapeta sighed. “Everyone wants to talk, but no one seems to listen.”

  “Sounds like office seekers everywhere,” Joaquim teased. “I expected better things from the Kwahadi.”

  “We are human, too,” the Comanche woman replied, with some dignity. “I will go back in a few days to the sacred canyon.” She spoke directly to Joaquim. “Scratch your marks on paper to the governor and protect this woman, you two. She doesn’t look like a troublemaker.”

  Eckapeta gazed at the baby sleeping in his cradle. Joaquim looked closer himself, and saw a bit of smudge on his forehead, probably sage put there by the Kwahadi woman, who considered Juan Luis her grandchild.

  She stood up, went to the bed, rubbed her cheek against Marco and Paloma’s cheeks and left the room. Joaquim listened for footsteps, for an outside door opening and closing. Nothing. The woman had probably come into the house just as silently. Thank God she was a friend and ally.

  “Well then,” Paloma said. “Write that letter tomorrow, husband, and send those soldiers on their way. Joaquim, it is too late for you to return to the presidio tonight. Sancha will make you a pallet in the sala.” She lowered herself down farther in the bed and Marco pulled out two of the pillows behind her head. “I will see all of you in the morning.”

  “We’ve been dismissed,” Marco said as he stood up. Paloma mumbled something and he laughed. “I’ll return!”

  The three of them went into the hall. “Señorita, we can begin the audit tomorrow,” Marco said, all business again. “That long table I promised is in there.” He turned to Joaquim. “My friend, you must send us a soldier to sit in there, too: orders of the Crown.”

  “I’ll begin it,” Joaquim said, surprising himself.

  Señorita Ygnacio gave a slight bow and continued down the hall. Marco called quietly after her to leave her door ajar, since there was a charcoal brazier in there now. She stopped. Even in the dim light, Joaquim saw a host of expressions from incredulity to relief cross her face, which now that he looked at it, had some angular beauty to it, provided a man admired tall, skinny women.

  Marco watched her go. “I am continually amazed at how a man such as Señor Moreno ever gets a position of importance. How do bad men climb ladders to success?”

  “I think it involves considerable ass kissing,” Joaquim replied. “I was never good at that.” He chuckled. “At least with men.”

  Marco laughed quietly and slapped his shoulder. “Good night, my friend.”

  Joaquim stood another moment in the now empty hall, wondering again at his recent good fortune in friends. He walked into the sala just as Sancha and Lorenzo put the finishing touches on a pallet with a substantial wool mattress and plenty of blankets.

  “The Double Cross is a full house now,” he commented as they went to the door. “Noisy, too, I imagine, when the little ones are up.”

  “There was a time, and not so long ago, when it was empty as Christ’s tomb on resurrection Sunday,” Sancha said. “I hope never to see those days again.”

  She crossed herself. To Joaquim’s surprise, Lorenzo did, too, which made the lieutenant reflect on the value of a good wife, as he stripped to his small clothes and crawled between sweet-smelling sheets.

  He lay there in complete comfort, enjoying the ever-present odor of piñon pine that would always signal the colony of New Mexico to him, as long as he lived here. He smiled into the dark, wondering where all his ambition had gone. He remembered a bad time in his father’s sala in La Havana, when his father outlined what moves Joaquim needed to make in order to become chief engineer for the entire New World. “Twenty years will do it,” Papa had predicted, then shook a finger at him. “Don’t disappoint me, hijo.”

  Not for the first time, Joaquim wondered if his father was even alive. After the fourth or fi
fth of many disastrous alterations in rank and locale, his father had sent him a final scathing letter disavowing him as a son. Joaquim knew his mother had died ten years ago, because his parish priest in La Havana had written him. The letter had been passed around from presidio to presidio until it final reached shabby Santa Maria, only this winter. He had not replied. The priest was probably dead by now.

  “I am becoming a better man,” he said to the ceiling, yearning to tell someone, anyone.

  “I do not doubt that, señor,” he heard from the doorway, and sat up with a start, his heart pounding. He patted the floor for his knife and came up dry.

  Señorita Ygnacio stood in the open doorway. She wore a robe over her nightgown and had braided her long hair, which gave her a childlike appeal.

  “Señorita, I don’t think—”

  “For God’s sake, don’t worry about your virtue,” she said, sounding as old and wrinkled as a crone in a village. “I wanted to thank you for believing me, even though I think you would rather not bother with us.”

  He lay down again, the blanket carefully covering him. “You made some hard accusations, and we have nothing but your word.”

  “I don’t lie.”

  Maybe it was the single braid over her shoulder. Suddenly she looked so young and vulnerable. Joaquim wondered just how long a person with no power could shoulder another’s burdens before melting under the strain.

  “Have you no advocate at all?” he asked, when she just stood there. Maybe she was as tired of being alone as he was.

  “Not one.”

  He could think of nothing to say that wouldn’t sound condescending or accusatory, so he lay there in silence, half hoping she would go away. A year ago, he’d had not a single advocate, either, until the Mondragóns turned into the best friends a useless man could wish for. With an ache, he felt some pity for the woman standing in the doorway.

  He sat up, tugging the sheet around his nearly bare shoulders, and considered his next move. “Señorita Ygnacio, how old are you?” he asked.

  “Twenty-five,” she replied with no hesitation. If she’d ever had any pride, it was long gone.