Authors: Renee Simons
His hand caressing her cheek and his lips whispering against the side of her neck provided irresistible distractions. She pressed a soft kiss against the backs of his fingers as a picture flashed quickly through her mind. She remembered seeing one of those cliff houses, a complex of crumbling stone structures overlooking a deeply blue lake.
"Uh uh,
querida
.
Pay attention to the action."
She sighed. "That's what I'm doing."
He chuckled and she felt his laugh vibrate against her neck.
"In the courtyard."
Luc's melodious tones hummed through her blood as she watched the play. An actor in native dress cowered at the foot of a nobleman who raised an arm as if to strike him.
"The
hacendados
exploited the Indians cruelly," he said, "and the friars offered little protection."
Two actors rolled a mockup of a church facade to center stage.
"They were so eager to convert the
natives,
they forced them to build churches and to forsake their own religions."
She turned to look at him. He lifted his chin, redirecting her attention. In view of a "friar," an Indian prayed before the church. When the priest disappeared behind the door, the native picked up a rattle and addressed the four directions with a quiet chant.
"There you see an Indian who worships in the church on Sunday, yet follows his own religion when the friar turns his back to take inventory of corn and blankets.
"The Pueblo tribes suffered under a system of virtual slavery, paying tribute in crops and labor, tilling the colonists’ fields and tending their cattle."
With his head bowed, Francisco paced the stage, stroking his goatee, pausing to look off into the distance before resuming his walk.
With a great flourish, the actor portraying Francisco handed over a parchment to three Indians, who expressed gratitude by offering a boldly patterned blanket cradling a harvest of corn, melons and scarlet and yellow cactus flowers.
"Because he'd seen to their education, Francisco knew the Indians would fare better if free to pursue their own lives, under his protection from both the Church and the other colonists.
"This festival marks the day in 1630 when the tribes regained their lands and freedom. In August, we will celebrate the Pueblo Revolt of 1680."
"Why celebrate if the Indians turned against your ancestors?"
"Francisco and his family were spared because of his honorable treatment of the native peoples. They banded together to fight off marauding tribes from the north, an alliance that has never been broken. So you see
,
most of the land on that map you saw in my office reverted to the people who had first settled it, leaving only the smallest portion for the Moreno generations to inherit."
"What happened to him?"
"In his old age, he went off somewhere to die. No one knows where."
"Francisco" stepped into the light. The momentary glitter of his armor sparked an image of a similar figure lying as if in state.
Down there
.
She pushed the memory to the back of her mind where she hoped it would stay until she could give it her full attention.
As the mariachis' horns played a measured melody, a procession wound through the patio, passing in and out of the darkness into areas lit by the candles and strings of lights. Colonists and Indians, side by side, carried baskets filled with blossoms and fruit. Youngsters in costume led calves and lambs. Bringing up the rear, the friars in their hooded robes carried crosses and icons from their churches in honor of the occasion.
Another memory flashed before her, of golden urns and bejeweled flowers. The tableaux had awakened images from her misadventure underground and what had been unexplainable there finally made sense.
"It's a wonderful history," Callie whispered. "You have a lot to be proud of."
"We can't afford pride. After three hundred years of being divided among Francisco's descendants, there's little left to provide a living for the family. We've been struggling for years to hold on to what remains."
"You can cherish his decision to do the honorable thing."
"I'll try to keep it in mind when my father grows too old to support
himself
and my mother.
Or when we lose more of our legacy because of unpaid taxes."
"Is that why the mine is so important to you?"
"In part."
He passed a gentle hand down her cheek, enticing her to look at him. She could barely make out his features, so deep was the shadow sheltering them, but she felt an urgency of purpose emanating from him.
"How much have you figured out?” he asked.
She laid a hand on his forearm. The sinewy power beneath her palm traveled like a current of electricity through her finger tips, simmering her blood and jamming her breath beneath her ribs. She forced out her words.
“Someone is preparing to reactivate the Golden Eye.”
“Short and to the point.”
He gave her a wry smile. “And correct.”
“Why bother with a played-out mine?
After all this time?”
“The current price of gold could make exploration worthwhile. A mining engineer came down to do a feasibility study. We’re waiting for the report. If he thinks there’s gold worth going after, the valley will become a giant strip mine.
So she finally had confirmation of Elvira’s disclosure. “And you’re in favor?”
“I don’t have a choice. Mercedes’ grandfather owned the mine. Now she does.”
“What’s in it for you?”
“Mineral rights.”
Callie nodded. “She owns the mine, but your family owns the valley.”
“Some would call us ‘land poor’.”
“Do you know what that means?”
“‘The only treasure is our land.’ My grandmother taught me that many years ago — the sum total of my Spanish language skills.”
He chuckled. “That’s one of my father’s favorite phrases. Wonder who taught it to whom.”
“You know they were … friends?”
“More than that.”
“Yes,” Callie whispered.
“Much more.”
Luc took her good hand and helped her to her feet. “Feel up to a change of scenery?”
“A quiet place, please?”
That place turned out to be a patio at the back of the house. Luc carried a candle-lit
lumineria
and set it on a low adobe wall, where its glow warmed the vest-pocket seating area and illuminated a set of floor-to-ceiling glass doors. He settled himself against the base of the wall while Callie nestled in a corner of the ledge, whose gentle curves supported her back.
“What exactly did my father and Lucinda mean to each other?” he asked.
“They were sweethearts.”
“
Los novios.”
“Doesn’t that mean ‘bride and groom’?” Callie asked.
“That also.
So you know a little more of my language.”
Callie smiled. “Not enough to brag about.”
“Do you know what broke them apart?”
“Another woman.
And a child.”
“How do you know that?”
“I think,”
she
emphasized, “that the entries in Gram’s diary point to your father and a relative of hers — a cousin, maybe. But I’ve read only one volume, so maybe the others contain more clues.”
“If you've only read one, why do you think she was writing about my father?”
Callie had the feeling Luc was digging in ground he'd already explored, but she answered. “In her diary Gram calls the man ‘Mi Amore’, which may or may not mean anything, but if it refers to your father and she felt betrayed by him, that would explain her lifelong anger toward him."
"Maybe I should bring you the rest of those books."
"I'll certainly have plenty of time to read during the next few days."
Luc rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced.
"If it isn't too much trouble."
"None at all.
I'll stop by the house tomorrow and get them."
"You're not pleased," she whispered.
He wasn't ready to tell her what he knew. Better she comes to the truth on her own, he thought.
Easier to swallow than hearing it from me.
"I'm finding it hard to picture my father loving anyone but my mother."
"Funny, I never thought of you as being naive."
He grinned. "Dumb. I know. Even the old man implied there was something … special between them."
"Did he say what broke them apart?"
"Irreconcilable differences."
"Like us?" she whispered.
He reached up and stroked her ankle with the tip of one finger. "Not like us."
"No?"
"We don't have to let our differences get in the way."
"Seems to me I've heard that somewhere. What's going on, Luc?"
Straddling the wall, he faced her and wrapped his arms around the knees she'd drawn to her chest to make room for him.
"
Me has robado el corazon
," he said.
"You have stolen my heart," he translated. "I didn't want to fall in love with you but I have. So now we must find a way around our differences. How did you put it once, 'agree to disagree'?" He kissed her knee. "If you can forgive the things I said about not getting involved. And the things I did to keep us apart."
"What changed your mind?"
Tell her now, his inner voice prodded, before anything gets in the way of this feeling between you. "Three days of not knowing what happened to you. Of worrying if you were all right. Of feeling like I'd failed to protect you from that piece of filth who's been dogging you." He drew her closer. "Three days of trying to fill the hole left in my gut while you were gone."
"You missed me," Callie whispered.
The wonder in her voice started
a warmth
flooding through him. Surprised by his reaction to such a small thing, he chuckled.
"I missed you." Callie gave him a gentle smile and touched his cheek. "That's nice."
"That's all?"
"Nice is a good first step. We'll see what happens later."
They were now so
close,
he pressed his forehead against hers. "Then I guess later's nice, too."
Luc left Callie in the tender care of his mother and went to see Eddie to sort out his own problem.
"How long has your vision been giving you trouble?" his friend asked.
"About two months."
"On the phone you said you're seeing distortions in your images."
"Straight lines look wavy, curved lines look worse and there's this small gray area in the center of my field of vision."
"Any headaches?"
"Yeah, but I think they're from straining to focus."
"Does sunlight make things worse?"
"Any kind of bright light."
Eddie leaned back in his chair. "This isn't my area of expertise, but I'll take a case history and check you over. We'll do some tests to make sure there's nothing else going on. Then we'll find you a specialist."
Luc nodded. He knew Eddie's capabilities. If there was an answer, he would find it. Or send him to someone who could.
Two hours later, Eddie had analyzed whatever test results he could read immediately. "I'm going to give you a referral to a guy over at University Hospital. He's head of Ophthalmology there.
A good man."
Eddie checked his watch and picked up the phone. "He might not have left for the day," he said, hitting the speaker button.
Dr. Gerrold answered on the first ring and agreed to see Luc in the morning.
"I can put you up for the night if you want," Eddie said.
"Thanks, but I'd better drive down to Albuquerque today. Sleep there and head over to the hospital first thing in the morning."
After leaving Eddie's office, Luc made a detour and brought Callie her grandmother's diaries. "These will give you something to do while I'm gone."
"Why are you going away?"