Daughter of Fortune (39 page)

“Diego!” Maria implored, “he is dead! Stop, I beg you!” She
grabbed the uninjured arm and tugged on it. He looked at her with
glazed eyes and dropped the scarf. Cristóbal fell forward into the
white paint that covered the floor.

Diego drew a ragged breath and slumped down next to his
dead brother. His hand went to his bleeding arm, and he looked up
at Maria.

Without a word, she lifted her skirt and ripped off a large
swatch of petticoat. Working quickly, she bound the bloody strip
around his arm, holding the flap of lacerated skin tight against
the wound. “What do we do now?” she asked, wiping Diego’s face with
her dress and smoothing back his dark curls.

He looked at her again. “Since I never considered
the possibility that I would live through this, I have no
idea.”

“I recommend that we dispose of Cristóbal.” She
stood up and brushed her dress off, the same automatic gesture that
made Diego stare at her. “If you can take hold of his feet, Diego,
I propose that we pull him underneath the buffalo robes. Then I
recommend that we join him there, at least until nightfall.”
Suddenly she burst into tears, great wracking sobs that shook her
entire body. Diego wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her
until she was silent. He wiped her nose on his one remaining sleeve
and stood up, swaying a little. “Come, Maria, take his arms.”

Breathing deeply, she grabbed the dead man under his arms.
Diego picked up the legs and they carried the body to the corner of
the workshop where the buffalo skins were stacked. Maria pulled
aside the hides and Diego pushed the body into the corner and
dropped the skins over the corpse. By the time he finished, his
face was white, and he had to sit down with his head between his
legs.

“Diego, you have lost so much blood,” she said.

“There is no remedy now,” he answered, his voice
muffled.

She
looked around the room. There was blood everywhere—on the wall
where Diego had been pinned, on the buffalo-hide
santos
,
and
smeared with the paint on the floor, where it had turned the color
of a pink sunrise. Her little San Francisco was smashed on the
floor, both arms broken off. She thought of Erlinda and closed her
eyes.

Diego raised his head slowly, cautiously. “Let us join
Cristóbal,” he said. “Help me to my feet,
querida
.”

She
pulled him to his feet and led him to the corner where his brother
lay, buried under the mound of buffalo skins. Maria pulled back the
hides, turning her face away from Cristóbal. Diego found his dagger
and lay down next to the corpse. Maria took a small deer hide and
smeared it over the bloody floor to erase their footprints. She
arranged the skins around Diego, then lay down, pulling the hides
on top of her.

The
weight of the skins was suffocating, claustrophobic. She fought a
strong urge to throw back the hides and run screaming into the
plaza below. And why not? Their chances of survival were almost
nonexistent.

She
thought of the children in their cave by the
acequia.
“Diego, what will
become of Luz and Catarina?”

He was silent a moment, arranging his wounded arm
carefully around her. “
Querida
, they may be safe there. I am
thinking that the Indians have burned all the haciendas between
here and Santa Fe, and probably north to Taos, too, and are going
to march on the capital. If this is so, they are probably safe
where they are—or safer than anywhere else.” She felt, rather than
heard his small laugh. “Safer than we are, anyway.” He kissed the
side of her head. Soon his breathing was regular and deep. Maria
rested next to him, her head on his arm. The weight of Diego’s arm
around her was comforting, even though his hand still held the
dagger and it was only inches from her. She tried to ease the knife
out of his grasp, but his fingers were as tight as death around the
handle.

She
slept then, lulled by the close air under the hides, the warmth of
Diego, and the fact that she had not slept for two nights. Reason
told her to be watchful, but she could not stay awake.

She
woke hours later to the sound of footsteps. Diego was awake. His
hand was covering her mouth, so fearful was he that she would
awaken with a scream or sudden movement. She kissed his fingers to
let him know she was awake, and he moved his hand only far enough
to grasp his dagger again.

She
lay absolutely still, listening to the footsteps prowling about and
the boom of her heart. It was as loud in her ears as thunder. The
beating of her heart joined with the pounding of drums in the plaza
as the Indians danced out their victory over murdered women and
children.

The
voices of men were loud in the next room, and for one wild,
irrational moment, Maria thought they were rescuers. But they spoke
Tewa, and she knew there was no help. They were two isolated people
in an ocean of blood. Maria reached for Diego.

The
footsteps entered the
santero
workshop, pausing for a long time in the
doorway, the unseen prowler taking in the pillage and blood. The
Indian moved around the room, kicking rubbish here and there. Then
he walked toward the buffalo skins.

Maria closed her eyes. The blood in her veins ceased
to run when the Indian began removing skins from the pile, one,
then two, another skin, and another. Then the drumming in the
pueblo stopped, and the unknown figure stayed his hand. Maria could
almost hear his breathing now, and she held her own breath. She was
drenched with her sweat and Diego’s.

One
of the buffalo skins flopped back, and they heard the sound of
someone dragging the other skins from the room. Diego was silent
for a long moment, not relaxing his grip on the dagger. After a
time, he let go. “Let us pray he does not come back to steal
again.”

Maria cried then, her tears turning to mud under her
cheek. She felt Diego’s tears on her neck. His body was hot, and
she knew he had a fever.

They
stayed under the buffalo skins through the long day. The drums
pounded again, the same monotonous, hypnotic rhythm she had heard
before in the
kiva
and in Father Pio’s desecrated church. She could
feel the vibrations of many feet stomping out a pattern of
celebration. The trillings and songs were muted, but
unrelenting.

Maria dozed off and on through the hot day. She could hear
Cristóbal’s body making wheezing, gaseous noises. Diego moved
closer to her and whispered in her ear, “Before God and all the
saints, Maria, he is cold. Such a coldness I have never felt.” He
shuddered now and then, whether from fever, or from some primitive
reflex of fright, she did not know. The drums in the plaza were
soothing her back to sleep.

When
she awoke, the plaza was silent. The quiet was so enormous that it
hummed in her ears. By some sense, she knew that darkness had
finally come. “Diego,” she whispered, “are you awake?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

“The Indians?”

“I think they have gone. We will wait a little
longer.”

Diego was so warm. She felt his face. He was burning with
fever, his skin hot and dry. And yet he shivered off and on, his
body exhausted by shock and loss of blood.

After another endless hour, Diego shifted and
groaned softly. “
Chiquita
, my arm is asleep. Can you pull
back the hides?”

Slowly she wriggled out from under the weight of the
hides, her body nearly as stiff as Cristóbal’s. The room was dark,
but the moon shone through the small door and window, casting its
bright reflection on the gypsum paint smeared everywhere. The
particles of gypsum sparkled on the floor. She began pulling the
hides off Diego. When she reached him, he turned over on his back
slowly and held up his good arm. She tugged him to his feet only to
have him collapse on the
santero’s
workbench.

“You look terrible,” she said.

His
eyes flickered over her. “You don’t look so good yourself,” he
replied. Both of them were stiff, sweaty, and covered with white
paint and blood. “We look like
kachina
clowns,” Diego said, patting
his wounded arm with his fingers. “
Ay de mi,”
he
muttered.

She
touched his arm. It was swollen and hot. “I can loosen the
bandage,” she offered, her fingers already on the knot.

“Not now, Maria. Let us leave this place first.
Cover up Cristóbal.”

She
stared down at the body. Diego got up from the workbench and knelt
by his brother. Tentatively he reached his hand out and touched
Cristóbal. Maria’s heart turned over as he began to cry.

She
laid her hand gently on the back of his neck as he sobbed, his
tears wrenching her very soul as she remembered Erlinda’s similar
outpouring in the chapel after the Apache raid.

She
wiped his eyes with her hand. He sighed and was silent, kneeling by
his dead brother. She covered up Cristóbal and made the sign of the
cross over him.

Diego watched her. “Did you love him?” he asked
softly.

“In some ways I did. Just as you did.”

Diego got up and went to the doorway. She followed him,
looking over his shoulder. The plaza was littered with the remains
from the church, which still smoldered. Smoke was heavy in the air,
mingled with the odor of cooked flesh.

The ladders were already pulled up, but the pueblo
appeared to be deserted, or caught in the grip of exhausted,
satiated slumber. Maria looked at Diego, a question in her eyes,
and he shrugged. Motioning to her to remain where she was, he
tiptoed to the edge of the terrace and looked down. He waved for
her to join him, picking up one side of the ladder and indicating
that she take the other.

She shook her head. “Wait, Diego. Take off your
boots.”

“You are right. If anyone should see Spanish boot
prints, they will track us.”

Her
eyes went to Emiliano, his corpse lying where she had first seen it
early that morning. She knelt by his body and removed his
moccasins. “Here. They are probably too small, but it would be
safer.”

Diego sat down and tried to remove his boots. He looked at
her and shook his head, and she tugged them off, carrying them back
into the
santero
workshop and stashing them under the buffalo
hides.

“They almost fit,” he whispered when she came out.
“Now, let us be away from here.”

They
picked up the ladder and inched it over the edge of the terrace.
When it was in place, Diego handed her his dagger and climbed down
the ladder as quickly as he could. She followed him, grabbing up
her skirt, stiff with blood and gypsum. When she was down, Diego
took her arm and hurried across the plaza. He paused in the shadows
to look around.

“There aren’t even any dogs here,” he said.

“It
is as if everyone has packed up and gone to ...
”
she
stopped.

“To Santa Fe,” he finished.

They reached the shelter of the cottonwood trees
lining the river, Maria helping Diego, who staggered as he walked.
She put her arm
around him and curled her fingers under his sword belt,
supporting him.

They
took the old Taos road out of Tesuque, walking in the tall brush at
the edge of the stream and avoiding the road itself, which looked
as deserted as the pueblo. When they had gone some distance, Diego
stopped.

“I have to sit down,
chiquita
,” he said. He
sounded drugged.

She pulled him down to the water’s edge and he
collapsed on the ground. “No, no,” he said, “don’t touch me. Just
let me lie here.”

She went to the small stream and ripped off another
hunk of her petticoat, dipping it in the water until the gypsum was
rinsed out. She laid the cloth on a rock and leaned over the
stream, lapping the water like an animal. She drank until her
stomach felt tight, then wet the cloth again and went to Diego. She
pulled his head into her lap and dribbled water into his mouth.
When the cloth was only damp, she wiped his face with it, then
kissed his forehead, pulling him to her breast. He closed his eyes
and slept.

She
leaned against a rock and shut her eyes. After the heat of the
buffalo skins, the cool air felt like lotion on her skin. She
breathed deeply of the familiar smell of juniper. Listening to the
water murmur over the stones, she bowed her head over Diego and
slept.

When
she woke, the sky was beginning to lighten around the horizon. The
familiar bulk of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains shielded the valley
from daylight, but it was coming.

Diego still slept, so she gentled his head on the
grass and inched away. She stood up and stretched, her eyes on the
stream. The area was familiar to her. She had gathered gypsum not
far from where Diego lay. After another look at him to make sure he
was sleeping, she walked north toward the gypsum wall. With her
fingernail, she peeled off flakes of gypsum. Perhaps it would be
possible to make a poultice for his arm. She knew it would harden
quickly when mixed with water. Her skirt was still stiff with the
gypsum and blood from the
santero’s
workshop.

She
held her skirt out in front of her, and with one hand peeled off
handfuls of gypsum from the cliff wall. When she had enough, she
walked carefully back to Diego.

She
had nothing to put the gypsum in, so she piled it by the stream and
scooped out a shallow depression in the mud by the bank. When it
was deep enough, she put water into the hole with her hands and
waited for the mud to settle. While it was clearing, she took
Diego’s knife and ripped through her dress, taking the material off
at her knees.