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

by Carla Kelly

  She returned gaze for gaze, then nodded and rested her head on his chest with a sigh. “I hate this but I don’t know what to do,” she said finally.

  “I feel the same way, mija,” he replied, and never meant anything more.

  An hour later, Marco left them sleeping in his bed. He closed the door quietly behind him and just leaned against it, worn down with trying to explain something to children that he didn’t even understand himself.

  Lingering in the darkening corridor, he noticed Toshua and Eckapeta standing there watching him. He tried to smile and failed.

  “I wish I could die,” he whispered.

  Toshua was on him in a flash. His hands gripped Marco’s shoulder as though he wanted to push him through the door. Marco’s eyes widened in surprise. His hand automatically went to his waist, but he had taken his knife off before he crawled into bed with his children.

  “Don’t say that again,” the Comanche told him. “My wife and your lieutenant will find the women and bring them back. Don’t you dare give up! I won’t allow it.”

  Toshua’s words were fierce and to the point. Marco nodded because he didn’t know what else to do.

  Then it was Eckapeta’s turn. Her eyes were deep pools of compassion and something more. She seemed to burn with purpose and resolution that made Marco’s current best efforts look puny.

  She grabbed his hand and dragged him down the hall to the sala. She pushed him inside and made him stand in front of Paloma’s bloody sandals.

  “Paloma is not a woman who gives up,” she hissed. “Don’t you dare give up, or I will not know you ever again!”

  “Wife, calm down.”

  Marco couldn’t help it. He smiled to hear Toshua’s admonition, a sudden voice of reason in a crazy day. He turned around and looked from one to the other. “Very well,” he said. “I will not give up.” He shook his finger at them both and took heart. “Eckapeta, when you find my wife, when, don’t you dare tell her what a baby I am!”

  Eckapeta’s lips twitched. “She is a wife. She already knows.”

  They left the sala and walked to the kitchen, where Joaquim sat. Perla must have given him dinner, but he only picked at it and leaped up when he saw them.

  Without a wasted word, Marco told the lieutenant exactly what had happened. Maybe he truly had cried every tear there was, because he had no trouble spelling out the whole horrible day as they knew it. “You and Eckapeta must look for them because I must go with Toshua. Will you?”

  “You know I will. Who wouldn’t?” Joaquim said simply. He looked at the Comanche woman. “When do we start?”

  “At the sun’s rising, when these two leave,” she said. She put her hand on Marco’s shoulder. “Now I will carry your sleeping children into their room, and I will stay there with them.”

  Marco opened his mouth to protest and she flicked his cheek hard with her thumb and forefinger. “When will men learn to be silent?” she asked no one in particular. “Make your plans, for I’ve already made mine.” She gave Joaquim a look no less menacing than the one she had bestowed on Marco. “You will follow my lead tomorrow, Teniente.”

  Joaquim saluted, and she flicked his cheek, too, but more playfully, and left the room.

  “I suppose we have been told,” Marco said. “Toshua, did you know Eckapeta was this managing and dictatorial when you paid some man a bunch of horses for her?”

  “Certainly not. I would still have those horses.”

  They sat down with Joaquim, who picked up his spoon again and tried to eat. He threw it down. “Marco, I’m a fool!”

  “You’re in good company,” Marco said. “Why are you a fool this time?”

  Joaquim opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, then said, “No, I really am.”

  People and their problems, Marco thought, so weary now that his eyes ached. Was this awful day never going to end? Were all his days going to be like this? He looked at the lieutenant, a man who had been through much, as had each of them sitting at that table. He shoved aside his own miseries, woes, and doubts and just looked into Joaquim Gasca’s eyes.

  “Dios mio, you fell in love, didn’t you? I mean you really fell in love. You haven’t courted her or bedded her, or even said all that much, but you have fallen in love finally.”

  “It’s a record for me,” Joaquim said modestly. “If I tried to bed her, Catalina Ygnacio would slap me silly.”

  “Probably, and you’d deserve it,” Marco replied. “Pa … Paloma and I have been wondering when you might figure out why you have developed a fondness for numbers.”

  “I did kiss her before she left,” Joaquim admitted. “More than once, I think.”

  “I do not understand how white men have been able to take over a good portion of this land that extends so far in every direction,” Toshua said. He rose with his usual economy of motion. “I am going to lie down far away from idiots.”

  Marco stared at the table, so Joaquim wouldn’t see his smile. Joaquim poked his shoulder. They laughed and it suddenly felt good.

  “I mean, really, Marco. Catalina Ygnacio is almost as tall as I am, skinny, and maybe even more managing than Eckapeta. Why her? Oh, I like her stories. And have you noticed how her face just glows when she laughs?”

  “I have never understood how such things happen,” Marco replied, not wanting to be reminded of his own courtships with the two women who grabbed his heart and snatched it away with no effort at all, as far as he could tell. “You’re in love, probably for the first time in your long, amorous career. Just leave it at that.”

  Marco heard a sound at the door to the kitchen garden and looked over to see Sancha standing there, reluctant to intrude, but from the look on her face, wanting to speak to him. He jumped to his feet and she hurried forward.

  “No, no, señor, Juanito is well,” Sancha said, pressing on his shoulders much as Toshua had done earlier, but certainly more gently. “You need to know what we are doing.”

  “I do, indeed,” he said, so relieved that sweat broke out on his forehead. He glanced at Joaquim, who was on his feet, too. “If we have time—”

  “We’ll talk some more,” Joaquim finished. “My sergeant is in charge at the presidio until further notice, and I am at Eckapeta’s disposal. “The sala for me?”

  “No. Take Catalina’s little room at the end of the hall.”

  “I can’t,” Joaquim replied. “How could I sleep?”

  With her hands still on his shoulders, Sancha pressed Marco back onto the bench and sat down next to him. She watched Joaquim go. “Did that one finally realize he is in love?”

  “We’re all a lot slower than the women on the Double Cross,” Marco told her. “What news?”

  “Juanito is nursing well and his color is much better,” Sancha said, holding his hands now. “There are three women on the Double Cross who will take turns nursing your son. That way, he will not go hungry, and neither will their babies.”

  “God bless them all,” Marco said.

  “Right now he is with Luz Montoya in her house. She said she will keep him by her tonight,” Sancha said, holding up one finger and then two. “In the morning, he will breakfast at the house of Maria Villarreal, the wife of your chief carpenter.”

  “Who has a new daughter, if I recall,” Marco said.

  “Bravo!” His housekeeper held up her third finger. “After a noon meal, he will be back to Pia Ladero. She says she has plenty of milk, so she will keep him the longest.” Sancha crossed herself. “We will continue our circuit until … until Paloma is back. I will be with Juanito every step of the way. Perla said she will take over some of my household duties, along with her own.”

  Marco kissed Sancha’s cheek. “Don’t tell Lorenzo I kissed you.”

  “I wouldn’t dare,” she joked.

  “How will I ever even begin to pay back such kindness?” he asked.

  “By continuing to be the best master anyone ever had. Go with God, señor,” she said, and kissed his hand.

&nbs
p; She left, probably to continue her own vigil over his son. Marco stretched and walked outside, too, the house suddenly too small. He looked toward the acequia, where he heard the water gurgling, as it had flowed and splashed there for years. Only with the greatest effort could he force himself not to think of the many times he had walked there with Paloma, sat on a bench and kissed a little, late at night, if not too many people were about.

  He stared at nothing for a long time, then realized that the lantern still burned in his office. Dios mio, I have said so little to Señor Ygnacio, he thought with dismay. He has lost a daughter, and I have ignored his needs.

  He hurried to his office. The door was open, because the day had turned so warm. He looked inside to see the auditor sitting at his desk, hands clasped in front of him, staring straight ahead. Marco knocked on the doorframe to make himself known, even as he dreaded to speak to one more person about anything.

  “Señor?” the man said as he entered.

  Marco came closer, wondering what he could say to make anything better. He was out of ideas and words. His well was dry.

  The only chair close to his desk was the one where Paloma sat and knitted when he worked late. He couldn’t sit there. He stood where he was. “Señor, I have no words left,” he said finally. “Forgive me, but I am empty.”

  “I am, too, señor,” the auditor said. “Am I destined to be fortune’s fool?”

  It was a good question, considering the fellow’s difficult life, but Marco could do nothing but shake his head. He was drained of all energy.

  “I thought not,” the older man said in a voice so calm. “Thank you.”

  For what? Marco wanted to scream, but he remained silent.

  “I believe I will not be fortune’s fool any longer. Tell me what I can do to help you.”

  “Oh, but—”

  Marco started when the man slammed his hand down on the desk. “I mean it! I have slumbered too long.”

  Chapter Twenty

  In which the matter of honor adds its burden

  Had he heard the man right? Marco stared at the auditor. “We couldn’t ask anything of you. Certainly not.”

  “Why not?” the auditor asked in a voice nearly serene, as though his outburst had never happened. To Marco’s tired ears, he sounded like a fountain of reason in a day gone mad. “Since I heard the news this afternoon, I have been sitting here wondering if I have been asleep for ten years.”

  “Your life has been difficult,” Marco said, not certain how to approach a man suddenly penitent.

  “So has yours, señor,” the auditor said quietly. “You soldier on.” He clicked his tongue, as though scolding himself. “What did I do but lean on a young girl I have helped turn into a sharp-tongued woman? I should have been smoothing her path, not tangling it.”

  Marco was too tired to offer a single platitude, especially when Señor Ygnacio was right. He observed the former convict seated at his desk. Old before his time, he’d been hounded from Mexico City to exile in Santa Fe. Marco saw a man struggling to make some sense out of his life and he took heart.

  “You could do me a vast service, Señor Ygnacio.”

  “Only name it.”

  “I’ve sent a rider to my brother-in-law’s estancia, and I know Claudio Vega will arrive soon. I was going to ask him to keep an eye on things here, but I cannot ask too much. He has his own place to run, there is spring planting, and his wife is about to be brought to bed with their child.”

  “You would like me to be in charge of your children here?” Señor Ygnacio asked.

  Marco strained his ears to hear any pulling back, any retreat into the helpless fellow who had arrived with his forceful daughter weeks ago. He heard only a matter-of-fact question.

  “I would, señor. My mayor domo knows how to run this place as well as I, maybe better. Sancha must devote herself to my new son. I plan to compose a letter this evening, listing some tasks that should be done in the next few weeks, to complete the audit and help around my estancia.” Marco paused. “Could you help me with those matters?”

  “Sí, por supuesto,” Señor Ygnacio said promptly. He looked around the room, and Marco saw satisfaction on the auditor’s face. “I think I’ve surprised myself.” His expression changed, clouding over again. “Pray God that the lieutenant and the Comanche woman can find our loved ones. I have so much to make up for with Catalina.”

  Marco looked away, needing a chance to collect himself, and knowing the auditor needed a moment, too. He heard Señor Ygnacio blow his nose and waited a bit longer before looking back.

  “Señor, my desk please,” Marco said. The auditor got up quickly, but he did not leave the office. Marco sat in his usual place and found a sheet of paper with writing on one side. He crossed through it, turned it over, and made a list to give to Joaquim Gasca. “I’ll leave this here,” he said. “Tell El Teniente Gasca to look at it when he returns from his search.” He scanned his list, a short one, which advised Joaquim to listen patiently to a widow who liked to complain the crown sucked her blood at regular moments with its demands, and to check on two foolish brothers who never paid enough tax. Save them for last, he scrawled, and added, See that Señor Ygnacio is escorted safely back to Santa Fe before snow falls.

  His shoulders slumped as he stared at the long table with all the documents sorted by year in seven neat stacks. So much has happened in seven years, but not one particle of it was as important as the task awaiting him now.

  He took another sheet of paper from his top drawer, a clean sheet, and wrote Testimonio across the top. He stared at it a long time, then wrote a formal letter to Claudio Vega, telling him that in the event of his death at the hand of the Comanches on the Río Napestle, and if his sister Paloma did not return, he was to safeguard little Claudio Mondragón’s future property by working the Mondragón land along with his own, until his son came of age to run it himself. He added a generous sum to be spent for Soledad’s eventual dowry, and gave some thought as to how best to allow Juanito his own inheritance, either in land or money to study for the priesthood in Father Damiano’s abbey where the Chama meets the Río Bravo. And where I married your lovely sister, Paloma, he thought, as his eyes filled with tears.

  Marco leaned back in his chair, recalling all the memories of this room: Felicia sitting in the little chair by his desk, knitting, the solitary years when no one sat there, the happy times when Paloma did as Felicia had done, the room turned over to Toshua and Eckapeta when they came to visit, and now this audit and his will and testimony, should he die soon.

  “Señor, your greatest service to me will be to watch over my children, until such time as you must leave for Santa Fe,” he said aloud. “I need you.”

  “I’ll tell them stories,” Señor Ygnacio said. “I’ll watch them.”

  “I thought Catalina learned those from her mother,” Marco said, surprised.

  “Ah, no, from me, back when I was a man and not a convict and then a shadow,” the auditor said.

  What could he say to that? Marco knew how tired they both were, but he suspected Señor Ygnacio had no more energy to get up and head for the house than he did. He opened his deep desk drawer and took out two glasses and a bottle of wine.

  “Tell me why you ended up in a Mexico City prison,” he said, as he handed over a full glass. “I have seen you at work, so conscientious, and I do not believe you were a common thief.”

  Señor Ygnacio took a sip of the wine, nodded his approval, and took another sip. “It was much as Catalina told you: The Council of the Indies had sent Don Carlos Francisco de Croix Laredo, viceroy of New Spain, significant funds to replace some of the bridges leading from the center of Mexico City to the mainland. You know it was an island.”

  “Of course.”

  “When the new viceroy, Don Antonio de Bucareli, was installed, with Croix still in the vicinity, someone altered my records and that money disappeared.” Señor Ygnacio sighed and took a deeper sip. “Bucareli accused Croix, who blamed me.
I learned later from someone in prison—also jailed by Croix for some offense—that there was bad blood between the two families, going back so far that no one knew why anymore.”

  “How could the charge stick?” Marco asked, interested now. “Surely others knew of their family feud.”

  Señor Ygnacio shrugged and took another sip. “Someone planted a whacking sum of money in my house, so why search deeper? I am certain it was Croix, but how could I prove it? I got the blame. I went to prison.” He shuddered and bowed his head. “Prison is not a good place for a little man.”

  Marco remembered tales his father had told of shameful misery that came to wicked men who lied and cheated and went to prison, deserving it or not. For your own good, Son, stay out of such horrors, his father had admonished, the lesson done. Marco poured them more wine.

  Both men were silent a long time, gazing into opposite corners of the room, anywhere but at each other.

  “I came out beaten and defeated,” the auditor said at last. “I was no man, and even a worse father. Catalina has always been a strong person, rather like your Soledad.”

  Marco rationed out a smile at that. He knew Soli well.

  “At the age of fourteen, she took a long look at me and decided to shoulder all my burdens. I let her.” He held up his hand, his voice stronger now. “Don’t give me the look that suggests you are going to make excuses for me! I let her, when I should have nurtured her, directed her, and blessed her life.”

  “I nearly gave up, too,” Marco said finally.

  “Aren’t you listening?” the auditor said, his voice rising. “I gave up!”

  “No, you didn’t,” Marco said, setting down his empty glass. “We would not be having this conversation if you had given up.”