Bride of Thunder (10 page)

Zane and the priest had evidently been discussing Mérida's celebration over the lifting of the siege of Tihosuco. “The government doesn't celebrate victories anymore, just a simple holding-off of the Cruzob.” Padre Martín's shrug was philosophic. “For a while it seemed the emperor would send enough troops to subdue them, but from the news that reaches me, he's slipping rapidly from his throne and has no money or men for Yucatán.”

“He can't last long now that Napoleon the Third has abandoned him,” Zane agreed. “I hope he does abdicate and join his wife in Europe while he still can.”

“And you? With Tihosuco given up as too hard to defend, will you stay on at La Quinta?”

Zane frowned. “Of course.”

“Why so stubborn? You're the only plantation owner I've known who's lived on his lands.”

“If more had, and had taken an interest in their workers, the rebellion might not have come,” Zane said sternly.

“That's as useful now as saying that if some clergymen hadn't taken over communal lands, forced the Indians into the Church, and scandalized them with carnally licentious living, there would have been no trouble.”

The two men stared across the table and smiled at each other with rueful admiration. Padre Martín sighed. “I suppose we do what we must as individuals, whatever the sins of our groups.”

“I'm not foolhardy,” Zane said. “Crescencio Poot, old blood-drinker that he is, seems to remember my father saved him when he found him wounded and unconscious in the brush. He renders some protection to La Quinta Dirección. But you, Padre, are the one who should take care. You should let your distant parishioners come to you rather than going so far into the wilds.”

“The dying cannot travel. How can I expect the Indians to have faith if I have none?”

“The rebels killed some priests even before they had their
tatich
and their Talking Cross. They even macheted a paralyzed curate in Valladolid.”

“And one priest had a harem of Indian women, and another strapped on spurs and mounted an Indian.” Padre Martín turned grim. “What is the good of matching outrage with outrage? I endure now and pray for better times for all, including those poor Indians who created their own religion when ours failed them.”

Zane gave a harsh laugh. “Those at Chan Santa Cruz, confident of their cross's protection and waited on by
ladino
slaves, wouldn't call themselves poor. This is the first time since the conquest that a Maya could really hold his head high.”

The priest sighed. “There you're right, my son. But pride, anyway, is a snare.”

“If you had no pride, you'd forget your Indians in the brush.”

Padre Martín looked shocked. After a moment's evident soul-searching, he said, “I go to them through the love of our Lord.”

“Call it what you will.” Zane shrugged, draining his goblet of honey mead before he got to his feet. “I'll tell you this, Padre—I'm glad the Cruzob have their city and their pride, even if it makes my sleep a little lighter.”

“In time, some boundaries are sure to be agreed on, and peace will come from the Cruzob and
ladinos
,” said the priest.

“Only because each side will despair of wiping out the other.”

Padre Martín shook his head at this, though he couldn't repress a slight grin. He walked with them around to the front of the church. The boys and Vicente brought over the animals.

“It's always a joy for me to perform weddings,” said the priest, glancing at Mercy with a twinkle.

Zane didn't smile. “Why, then, I wish you a score this week,” he said, almost tossing Mercy into the saddle. Mounted himself now, he sounded a bit sheepish. “Thanks for your hospitality, Padre.”

“Always it's my pleasure. Greet your small daughter for me.” As they started up the long, straight street, he called after them. “Go with God!”

They waved back. There was hostility in the set of Zane's shoulders as they rode on, so Mercy refrained from asking him more about the priest and the war, though she'd have been glad of conversation to distract her from aching, long-unused muscles. At least she wasn't hungry or thirsty now and she felt clean. Drawing all the comfort she could from this, she tried to think of games and lessons for Jolie and put out of her consciousness the broodingly handsome man beside her.

It was dusk when they rode through the gates of a hacienda and were greeted by the mayordomo, Don Raimundo, a light-skinned mestizo who managed the vast sugar cane plantation while the owner, a friend of Zane's, lived in Mérida. Great trees shaded the main house, a two-storied white stucco building with graceful Moorish arches and a crenellated top.

Indians came to lead away the horses and mules and deposit packs on the veranda that stretched the length of the house. This porch was empty except for a few benches, several high-backed, exceedingly uncomfortable-looking chairs, and potted plants. In spite of its grand exterior, the inside of the house was similarly bare. A few chairs, chests, and tables scattered forlornly through the dozen large rooms only emphasized an aura of desertion.

Don Raimundo spoke apologetically to Mercy. “He says the master brings all his requirements when he visits, but since this is never more than a few days out of a year, there's no need for much furniture,” Zane explained.

“Tell him I understand,” said Mercy, but she didn't.

It seemed to her that if someone didn't care more than that about such a potentially beautiful place, more about the people whose work supported him, he had no right to ownership. Her father had always taught her that owning meant caring for, that the responsibility was at least as important as the benefit.

Within minutes, hammocks had been slung for them in rooms opening onto a rear courtyard. A white-clad young woman with soft, dark eyes brought Mercy a basin and pitcher of water. Mercy washed, took down her hair, brushed it out, and pinned it in a loose knot.

“Dinner is ready,” Zane called at her door. There had been constraint in his manner ever since the priest's joking words about marriage, and Mercy was irritated enough to exude a polite chill of her own.

The table was spread on the veranda, which had been hastily tidied up and mopped, for the tiles still glistened in the lantern glow. Don Raimundo was sharing his own meal with them, so Zane had invited him to join them. Or was it to avoid dining alone with Mercy? The mayordomo seemed embarrassed at this democracy, but as two women brought sweet potatoes, chicken in a thick, spicy sauce, a very good corn gruel, and tortillas, he found refuge in food, and Mercy and Zane were hungry enough to match his enthusiasm.

Afterward, there was hot chocolate and a creamy caramel pudding called flan. Mercy still ached from the long day's ride, but it was pleasant to gaze out toward the trees dominating the approach to the house and the white bulk of a church at the far end of the clearing. And from the well, protected by trees, came the soft voices of women fetching water for their huts, which were situated behind the church.

Zane had translated some of Don Raimundo's sparing remarks, but when Zane asked permission to smoke, Mercy decided to seek her haṁmock. Conversations that had to be interpreted for two people were awkward. Zane was being so formally correct that she longed to kick him, and she was tired. She voiced her thanks and good nights. As she sank into the hammock, nothing ever felt as good.

Mercy was so stiff the next morning that she felt bruised, but the soreness eased as she dressed, though she wondered if the muscles of her back and thighs would ever be the same as before the journey began. After a hearty breakfast of eggs, refried beans, and tortillas, she waited for the rest of their small caravan, standing by an arch of the veranda and watching women visit the well for water and neighborly conversation.

Listening to their laughter and jokes, she felt the lonely isolation of being an outsider, wondered if she would ever belong anywhere, as they did here, and thought she probably wouldn't, unless somehow she got back home to Texas.

There'd be Jolie, of course. Surely, if Mercy was patient, they'd grow close. In time it should be possible to make friends among some of the hacienda women. It wouldn't do to count on Zane, though. Padre Martín's little joke had spooked him like spurs clapped to an untamed colt.

The morning breeze was cool enough to banish her last bit of sleepiness, and, abruptly, it carried a sound different and higher than the soft domestic merriment of the women.

It came again—a cry of distress. The women at the well either didn't hear or didn't respond. Mercy hesitated. The faint scream reached her again, seeming to come from the long stone row that housed the commissary, storerooms, and infirmary. Picking up her skirt, Mercy ran toward it and now she heard a sibilance and a fleshy sound before each cry.

Through the open door of what seemed to be an office, she saw a girl, old enough to have small breasts showing under her white shift, with her thin brown wrists gripped by a stocky, powerful man Mercy thought to be mestizo from the lightness of his skin. A skinny, sallow white man was raising a braided rope. Mercy sprang forward, deflecting the blow.

“Stop it!” she cried. “How dare you beat a girl!”

The man stared at her in shock, shrugged, answered in Spanish, then turned to resume his business. Mercy got in front of him. She didn't know what the thin child had done, but she didn't look more than fourteen, and, apart from the brutality, it was wretched to see the gratification in the men's faces as they manhandled her.

“Didn't they whip slaves in Texas?” drawled a cool voice from the door.

“My father wouldn't own slaves, and I never saw a whipping!” Mercy blazed, swinging toward Zane. “Am I supposed to let this happen because I'm from the South?”

“Wherever you're from, one would expect you to stay out of what doesn't concern you.”

Dismayed, realizing the vulnerability of her position, Mercy glanced at the girl, who was trying to stand erect even though blood trickled from her bitten lip and her dark eyes were dilated with shock and pain. Mercy moved close to her, and the mestizo who had served as a human whipping post released wrists so fragile and slim that it seemed a miracle he hadn't snapped them.

“She can't have done anything to deserve this!”

“She may be a thief, a troublemaker, or lazy.”

“She's not much older than your own daughter! How would you like her to be treated like this?”

Zane looked from Mercy to the girl. Plainly irritated, he asked the white man a question, then received a flood of indignant self-justification.

“She refuses to marry any of the men suggested for her,” Zane explained. “She says she's a descendant of Jacinto Canek, a chief who led an uprising in 1761, and she will never marry a tame Indian and produce more. Such talk and behavior are threats to the tranquility.”

“The apathy, you mean,” retorted Mercy. “It's interesting that men everywhere have the same answer for spirit or pride in a woman: put a man's weight and hand on top of her, and fill her with babies so that in caring for them she'll forget what was real for her as a person!”

“Unfortunately, that doesn't always work,” said Zane with an icy smile that infuriated Mercy till she remembered what his wife had done. “And though you were married, it hasn't gentled your tongue. You might remember, madam, that though I have no wish constantly remind you of it, I've the same rights over you as the manager has over this girl. You both are in debt-bondage.”

Mercy laughed in his face, too outraged to care what he did. “Maybe you'd like to borrow the whip and teach me my place?”

Something leaped between them, a vibrating, magnetic energy that pierced Mercy, making her knees weak. Did Zane feel it, or did anger cause that smoldering deep in those impenetrable eyes that were now the color of the black waters of lakes?

“The girl must obey. Don Raimundo is strict, but not cruel. Once she accepts a normal life, she'll be content.”

And her soul would die, the spirit that defied all the power of the hacienda—men who could beat her to death or maim her till it would be a punishment for a man to take her.

“Can you buy her?” Mercy asked.

Reluctantly, Zane said, “I could purchase her debt, which comes from her father, who came into servitude during a great famine. Many people sold their labor for life in those times just for enough to eat. And, since a debt, above what an owner charges for food, clothing, and shelter, can almost never be paid back, it descends to the children.”

“Please pay what she owes,” Mercy begged. “It can't be the price of even one of those pairs of shoes you bought me! I'll pay you back someday, somehow.”

“How, indeed?” he countered. “You labor is mine. Perhaps you have tucked away some family jewel you managed to hide from your slip-fingered husband?”

“My father's medical books.”

“You must prize them to have brought them all this way, but I doubt that musty medical treatises would be of value to me.” His eyes touched her throat and she flushed as the telltale pulse leaped and throbbed. “There's one thing I could take, but I prefer to have it given, so I won't ask for that.” Moments seemed to pass as he glanced lazily from the men to the girl and back to Mercy. “You've demanded that I buy her. You want to save her pride. What about your own? Will you kneel for her? Will you beg?”

Mercy threw back her head. She stared into the mocking, hard-angled face, started to say
I'd sooner die!,
but caught herself.

What did it matter if he got perverse satisfaction from humbling her? To save the girl was the important thing. But, oh, it hurt, oh, it was difficult to sink to her knees.

“Buy her,” she said. “Please buy her.”

Zane watched Mercy strangely.

“Get up,” he said. “I will speak to Don Raimundo.”