Marco and the Devil's Bargain (40 page)

“
What is this?”

Paloma stood in the doorway, her arms tight around her child. Marco moved over and she joined them.

“
Señor Maestas sent a rider ahead and Emiliano met them on horseback,” Sancha continued.

“
Good God,” Marco said. “No one has been back to the hacienda?”

She shook her head. “It is a death house. You cannot get a Tewa or Navajo near the place. Something must be done.” She looked at him with expectation.

“
I will do it.” He remembered Lieutenant Roybal's promise to visit the Castellano hacienda tomorrow, and knew he could not wait a day. “Send a servant to saddle Buciro.”

Paloma put a hand on his arm, but she spoke to Sancha. “Why here? Of all people and places my cousin hated ….” The baby stirred, and Paloma put her daughter to her shoulder in that tender spot.

“
I do not understand it, Señora Mondragón, except that the woman said Señora Castellano called for you as she was dying. Over and over, they said.”

Paloma bowed her head and Marco pulled her close. “If only she had wanted me in life,” she said simply. She sat in silence, then remembered him with a kiss to his cheek, even though Sancha sat there. The Kwahadi had changed them forever.

“
Go, Marco. Your family will be here when you return. Just remember that.”

M
arco had no plans to share this terrible ride with anyone on the Double Cross. The sky was still light and he feared no Indians in Valle now. He rode on faithful Buciro, enjoying the familiar feel of his patient friend. The gate closed behind him. When he was out of sight of the Double Cross, he reined in and waited.

“
You knew I followed.”

“
Toshua, I have been learning from masters for more than two moons. I will speak as we ride.”

He knew how the Kwahadi felt about restless spirits. They were riding at a near gallop now to a place filled with haunts. “If you don't wish to come,
pabi
….” He didn't finish.

“
What kind of a big brother would that make me?” If scorn were a living thing, Marco knew just then he would have seen Toshua flog it in front of him.

The gates hung wide and creaking. Marco crossed himself as they passed through them, feeling his insides churn. So much for his brave words. Only Toshua's presence kept him from abandoning the whole desperate business, even if to hesitate one day meant that Lieutenant Roybal would arrive to do his duty. He dared not wait.

There was not an animal on the place, not a dog, cow, or chicken. Marco made himself think like a
juez de campo
, instead of a frightened man. In a few days he would send his men to round up what livestock might be nearby. Surely every animal had not vanished. There were reports to write, and changes to make, if need be, to protect the baby that he knew Paloma would never relinquish to her Santa Fe relatives.
And that is how business is done here
, he thought grimly.
We are on the frontier
in many ways and we must bend our rules
.

At least the door to the main house was closed. He knew the stench would be overwhelming, but at least they would not find the work of wolves or coyotes inside. He tied his handkerchief over his mouth and nose, and held out the extra one he had brought along, certain Toshua would join him. Eying the handkerchief for a disdainful moment, the Kwahadi followed Marco's lead.

“
We will work fast. I have to get court and land documents from Alonso's ranch office, and there is something else,” he said in a whisper, as though he feared the spirits crowded close to eavesdrop and spoil his plans. “Behind my saddle I tied two torches. Bring them, please. I will go to their bedchamber first.”

Marco took a final breath of good air and opened the door. The smell of death struck like a fist, thrusting him back outside, where he raised his handkerchief and vomited. He jumped when Toshua clapped his hand on his shoulder, steadying him.

When Marco's hands quit shaking, he used his flint and steel to light the torches. Holding them high, they went inside. The breeze from the open door and the flickering lights threw shadows against the walls and made the saints painted on leather dance. Toshua gasped. Marco hurried to Alonso's chamber.

His friend lay there, already melting into his coverlet, his features unrecognizable from pox and mortification. Marco pointed to the curtains with a hand that shook. “Fire it,” he said.

While Toshua torched the curtain and then the bed, Marco threw open the carved chest, tossing clothing right and left. Nothing. The fire spread quicker than Marco had imagined it would. Toshua held out his hand from the doorway and pulled him through.

“
Where is the wife? She did not lie with her husband?” Toshua asked.

“
This was not a happy family,” Marco said. He thought of the Castellanos' baby in Paloma's arms now, a child that would know nothing but joy.

He opened the next door on a sight he knew would give him the shivers and heaves for a long time. Maria Teresa Moreno de Castellano lay there, legs spread, a woman who had given birth with her last breath. Maybe Paloma's cousin truly had been braver than he knew. If only she had been kind.

In a voice he barely recognized as his own, Marco ordered Toshua to stay where he was. The Kwahadi ignored him, of course. Toshua yanked the rug from the floor and threw it over the ruined woman. Silent, except for hard breathing that betrayed his own terror, Toshua torched the bedding. He held out his hand for Marco, beckoning with impatient fingers. “Spirits are walking here,” he warned.

“
Let them walk.” Marco went to Maria Teresa's carved chest and threw it open. As the smoke thickened, he found a small cask, the kind to hold a lady's jewels. The lid was open; someone had already rifled through it. Marco cursed the dreadful servants of these dreadful people and looked closer.

There it was, something no thief wanted. As the room seemed to swell with fire, he snatched up the necklace with a star and a V, a child's necklace. He stuffed it into his doublet pocket and ran for the door.

“
You worry me,” was all Toshua said.

Marco knew where Alonso's office was located. He thought of better times when he had sat there with his weak friend from childhood, drinking and laughing. The hacienda was filling with the stench of burning bodies as he grabbed the land grant parchments and brand records, thrusting some to Toshua and carrying the rest close to his chest. He threw his torch into the room and they staggered from the building. Coughing and gagging, they collapsed in the dust of the courtyard and lay there until they could breathe again.

“
You know, you could have picked up that cask of jewels and carried it from the room,” Toshua said. “You came away with nothing.”

“
Oh, no, my friend.” He fumbled in his doublet and pulled out Paloma's necklace, handing it to Toshua.

“
Ah. Tatzinupi, our star.” Toshua handed it back. “Let's ride.”

“
We watch first.”

“
The spirits, little brother,” Toshua warned.

“
No spirits here,
pabi
,” Marco said. At the top of his lungs, drowning out the roar of the flames, he sang “
Te Deum Laudamus
,” the chant of a war chief this time.

Feeling older than the oldest man in Santa Maria, Marco sat on Buciro by the Castellano gates, until the hacienda burned to the ground. They rode home slowly.

He wanted Toshua to ride in with him. Marco told him about his new daughter, which made Toshua laugh. “After what Eckapeta told me, this too? You will be busy,” he said.

They looked at each other in complete understanding.

“
Don't leave us,” Marco said at the place where the road continued straight to the Double Cross, and branched east to Santa Maria and the plains of Texas.

“
I will think about this,” was all Toshua would say.

Toshua turned his horse toward the Santa Maria road, and Marco swallowed his disappointment. He knew Toshua would ride all night and rejoin the other warriors and his wife. Maybe he would come back some day, or maybe this was their last meeting. Silent, they touched fingers and then palms. Marco let Buciro pick up the pace and get him home, because he hadn't the heart to pay attention. He stopped once or twice, certain he could hear another horse. Nothing.

Sancha must have told Emiliano what he had done. When Marco was safely through his gates, the old retainer led Buciro into the horse barn. Marco washed his hands and face in the
acequia
and went into his kitchen.

It was too much to hope that Paloma would be up still and waiting for him, but she was. She put her finger to her lips and pointed to the cradle by the banked fire. She wore a clean dress and she smelled heavenly of roses and talcum powder.

“
There is a bath for you in our room and,” she chuckled, “I know better than to bother with a nightshirt for you. Are you hungry?”

He shook his head, certain he would never eat again. He put the official documents on the table. “We burned it to the ground, just like the Kwahadi and their tipis of dead.”

“ ‘
We'? I rather thought Toshua would help you. You couldn't get him to stay?”

“
I tried. We will see them both again.” He looked at her. “How did you know?”

“
You're not the only smart one.”

He knew how vile he smelled, but he also knew Paloma would take his hand anyway. He stopped at the doorway. “The baby?”

“
The wet nurse is in the next room. She will take the cradle when we leave the kitchen.”

They moved as one down the corridor. He stopped outside the door he had not opened in years. He opened it now.

“
Why … why did you not put our little one in here?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.

“
I wanted you to open the door,” she said simply.

They walked inside. He went to the window, removed the bar and opened the shutters, letting in the moonlight. He breathed in the fragrance of newly turned earth. He would be busy in the fields tomorrow, catching up.

“
I'll wash the bedding tomorrow and we'll move her in.” She took his hand. “May I call her Soledad Estrella, after our mothers?”

“
You know you may,” he told her, touched. “I can put the second crib in the lumber room tomorrow.”

“
I think not.”

He smiled. She knew. Why not? It was her body, after all. “All right, Paloma, what are you telling me?” He could feign surprise, but for how long, he wasn't sure.

He didn't think she would be shy, not after a year and a half of yearning, but she was. “At first I was not so certain. You know I missed so many monthlies when I went all those years without much food in my uncle's house, and here we were, starving again. Goodness knows, we did not eat well in the canyon until the bears in the cave.”

“
True. Those deer Toshua and I shot were puny to feed thirty people, and I knew you were giving your portions to Kahúu for the babies.”

She didn't deny it. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, giving him that down-the-nose look. “
Why
are you not surprised?”

“
It was the cedar smoke and Eckapeta.”

The look became more pronounced. “This
milagro
of ours happened weeks before the smoke. I think it was the night I worked up my courage to ask Toshua and Eckapeta for some tipi time without an audience.”

He grinned as she took his hand and hauled him next door into their room, where the light was better. “Get in the tub and I will scrub your back.”

Marco stripped and sank into the tub with a sigh that went on and on. Paloma sat on the floor beside him, her arms resting on the wooden rim. “Eckapeta? The smoke?”

He lathered up his own cloth and wiped death, grime, and five hundred years from his tired face. “She told me on the Llano, when you were starting to droop and flag.” He washed some more, until she grabbed the cloth.

“
Told you
what
?”

“
She noticed as you sat there naked in the smoke, that the area around your nipples had turned brown. I hadn't noticed because tipis are so dark, or I might have said something. I do remember that from Felicia. Eckapeta also said the veins in your breasts were so large.” He touched her cheek. “When did
you
decide that maybe our luck had changed?”

“
Probably on the Llano. All I wanted to do was sleep and throw up. I still do. And
ay!
Those breasts you like so well are sore to touch.” She leaned her forehead against the tub. “Thank you both for slowing the pace. I know the warriors were upset and Toshua, too.”

“
Not after she told them why.”

Paloma laughed. “We all could have said something! My goodness.”

He finished washing, as she changed into her nightgown and sat cross-legged on the end of their bed. “You realize, Marco, that we are going to be busy here in eight months or so, when Soledad is nine months old and we have a newborn.”