Dust Devil (5 page)

She
watched as Stephen patted the tousled dark curls of the servant girl, Isabel, when she returned the filled coffee cup to him and felt a moment’s pride that he was so good with the children employed at the Castle. He would make a good father, she reflected, and wondered if she was yet with child.

Stephen tossed down the coffee and rose. "By the way, Shackelford—the banker you met at our wedding
— he’ll be coming for a few days’ stay. You might be wanting to give him a room on the lower floor. He has lumbago, I understand.”

She
opened her mouth, and Stephen laid his blunt finger across her lips. "Before you be asking me why again,” he said, "I’ll tell you this time — only because you look so fetching this morning with your hair down.”

She
smiled, glad now that she had stopped wearing her nightcap, for it was simply too hot some nights.

"Shackelford wants to discuss filling the vacancy created when Jesus Moreno died
— he was the county’s last probate judge.”

Her
fingers flew to her lips. "Wasn’t the poor man at our dinner table several weeks ago?”

"The same. Unfortunately, it seems he took eight or nine dollars from a cowpuncher in a game of monte, and the cow puncher dinna like it.”

"Nine dollars hardly seems justification for murdering a man, Stephen!”

"Exactly, as I’ve been trying to tell you, me dear
— you don’t understand the West. I much prefer to see you in our bedroom instead of me office.”

Though Stephen might complain of her interest in Cambria’s business affairs,
she was determined he would find no reason for complaint in her bed.

On the nights that
he did not host a card game she would spend longer than necessary at her bath. Then she would slip into the four-poster with its velvet hangings and await his arrival. Some nights, especially Saturdays, she could hear from the village below the gay fiddle music of the
bailes
— the dances held in the store’s large room. And, being sixteen, she could only wish she were at the
baile
, any place but there waiting for Stephen.

She
truly liked and admired her husband and chastised herself time after time for such disloyal thoughts. So when he came to her, clad in a robe that did not conceal that he was in the prime of life, she was most compliant as he instructed her, "Lift your legs, like so,” or "Slower now.”

Later, after he had left, she would wonder why she should be so dissatisfied, so tense during his visits. He treated her with great courtesy and even affection. He was a husband to be proud of. He had given her a home worthy of a princess.

It was merely the normal letdown after months of anticipation. Bridal blues the matrons called it.

Of all people,
she told herself, she should be the last to succumb to romantic illusions. Still . . . .

CHAPTER 7

T
hough Rosemary’s fluency in Spanish increased so that she did not miss conversing in her native tongue as much, she nevertheless yearned for female companionship. In the Castle there was only old Consuela and the staff of boys and girls, of which there seemed to be a constant turnover. And in the village the people held her in such a deep respect that it was impossible to converse with them as an equal. At her approach the men removed their hats and the women humbly dropped their gazes.

So the arrival of Dona Margarita Sanchez y Chavez marked a vast improvement in Rosemary’s life. Rita, as Rosemary came to call the woman three years older than she, was the wife of the much older Jiraldo Sanchez y Chavez, a slab
-like Spanish hidalgo whose grandfather had been awarded a community land grant by Spain’s king. Not quite a hundred and thirty miles to the northeast, the Sanchez land grant was much smaller than Cambria.

As patron, Don Jiraldo could control by influence and manipulation the vote of his people, and lately both he and Stephen had developed an intense interest in the Territory’s
growing political awareness and especially in the power wielded by the Republican Party. Therefore, once or twice a month, Don Jiraldo and Rita made the journey to Cambria, staying over several nights at the Castle.

And while Don Jiraldo and Stephen retired to Stephen’s offices to gamble and discuss the problems of nesters and the evils of cattle, Rita entertained Rosemary with gossip of the Territory. New Mexico’s population was so small that any happening of importance was flashed from mouth to mouth as quickly as any message over telegraph wires.

"Ahh, Rosita,” Rita said one evening when they were alone in the sitting room that Rosemary had converted to her office. "Always about others I have talked. This time it is about myself I wish to share.”

The petite woman ceased rocking and leaned forward, her small hands clasped before her lips. "Tonight at
cena
I wish you to rejoice with us. For five years now I have been childless. Finally I am to bear Jiraldo a child, gracias a Dios!”

Rosemary stifled her envy and hugged her friend with felicitation. In the four months of marriage Stephen had without fail questioned
her about her menses.

"Have you had your flux?” he would ask her as he cleansed himself of his lovemaking before taking his leave.

And as shocking and painful as Stephen’s bluntness was, she found it even more painful to admit she was not with child. A child was what Stephen wanted most, the only thing he lacked. The only thing she could give him.

The Christmas
had season arrived, bringing with it the cold winds whistling down out of the blue mountains to the northwest. It also brought roomfuls of guests, most of them from Santa Fe to stay through the
Novena
, the series of nine daily masses lasting from the sixteenth of December through Christmas. Stephen was preoccupied with the male guests, discussing politics, ranching, and the increasing Indian forays;  Rosemary, with Rita’s aid, coped with the last-minute dinner preparations.

Although mutton and an occasional beef were the main staple in New Mexican households, Stephen suggested
she serve roasted venison Christmas Eve. "Father Felipe shall be here from Las Vegas to say the
Novena
,” he told her, "and he has a liking for the venison’s wild taste. Talk to Lario about supplying us with two or three deer.”

She
was tempted to send one of the little boys to deliver Stephen’s request. But annoyed by her irrational fear of Indians, and especially of Lario it seemed, she instead sent the Indian
caporal
a message that she wished to see him in her office. As she waited for him, she wished that Rita were with her rather than taking a
siesta
. Perhaps, Rosemary hoped, Lario would be away at one of the three ranches.

It was Lario who actually took care of the day-to-day details of running Cambria
. . . from seeing that corral fences were mended to handling the curly-haired gunslingers, instructing them which ranges they would ride in protection . . . from the rough job of breaking in newly captured mustangs to the delicate, painstaking work of silver-smithing.

He was something of an enigma to
her — a fairly well-educated man by frontier standards yet still superstitious enough, she learned, to wear as an amulet the sacred turquoise stone which was set in his silver bracelet. He was soft-spoken with measured movements that equaled the grace of a woman. Yet she had once watched from her office window as he mastered a particularly vicious mustang in one of the corrals encircled by his wranglers.

There came the jingle of spur’s rowels on the stairs, and
she felt the too-familiar tightening in her stomach. She dipped her pen in the secretary’s inkwell and calmly forced her mind to the ledger’s list of names —t heir purchases and what they had traded in return. One plow, her mind read . . . for a pack of beaver pelts. Pair of boots . . . three Apache scalps.

"
Senora
?”

She
jumped in spite of herself. The pen dropped from her fingers and rolled off onto the floor. "Aye, Lario,” she replied sharply, angry at her clumsiness. "I need—would it be . . .” Her voice was muffled as she leaned to pick up the pen.

His dark hand met her pale one.
She froze. Her gaze lifted to meet the deep-set eagle eyes. For the first time she noticed how deeply black they were, without any other color to tint them—blacker even than Stephen’s which had the slight shade of coal-dust gray to lend them color. One could drown in their inky depths, she thought.

He was very still, scarcely moving, watching her with the intensity of a predator. 
Suddenly her office seemed terribly small. It was agonizing to draw a breath, and she felt lightheaded.

At that moment
he handed her the pen and rose. Not a trace of emotion showed in the eyes that were crinkled with weather lines — the only lines in the otherwise smoothly planed brown face. "You needed something,
Senora
?”

Anxious to be free of his overpowering presence,
she tumbled out her request.  “There will be many guests for Christmas dinner, Lario. Would it be possible for you to slay two deer — for Consuela to roast?”

"I will have
venado
for you by morning,
Senora
.” He turned to go but at the door stepped aside for Rita, murmuring in a voice that was faintly provocative, "
Buenos dias
.”

She flashed coquettish eyes up at him, and when he had left, she rolled
them and shook out her hand, as if her fingertips burned.  "This Lario, he is a very handsome man — even I take notice and compare him with my husband who has the body of a wet noodle!”

Rosemary laughed at the woman’s refreshing candor, and the tension eased from her.

Rita, who was now large with advancing pregnancy, threw up her hands, saying, "I give up — I cannot rest with that Gila monster down the hall screeching for something every other minute!”

She
knew the "monster” Rita referred to was Hilda Goldman. As the wife of Stephen’s partner, she had expected the best guest rooms in the Castle, but Rosemary had given them to Governor Caden and Clara and Libby. As it was, the Goldmans occupied rooms several doors down from Don Jiraldo — and this, Rosemary discovered, was a social error; for the German woman, who was in her late forties and childless, was fiercely jealous of Rita’s vivacious personality and let Rosemary know she would not associate with the Sanchez y Chavez couple, even if they were of aristocratic Spanish blood.

As the others waited for the couple to appear downstairs for the
Novena,
Hilda declared to Libby, who sat languidly fanning herself, "The Mexicans are only a little better than the Indians!”

Father Felipe’s tonsured head broke out in perspiration, and Governor Caden tugged at his white goatee to cover his embarrassment. Hilda’s husband, a pink little man, grew beet red and slammed his brandy glass down, sloshing the liquor. "
Dumkopt
! It’s depending on Sanchez we are to pull the votes from his — ” He broke off, seeing Stephen’s frown.

"Pardon us, Father,” Stephen said. "Politics should never be mixed with religion.”

The fact that Stephen even bothered to observe religious traditions amazed Rosemary, for he had written her, "Heaven and hell dinna exist for me. Whether I fail or succeed, me dear, will not depend on relics or rosaries!”

Yet he had agreed to a Catholic wedding, and Rosemary could only feel a deep sense of gratitude toward him. He had been good to her in all ways, and it was with much pleasure that she looked forward to the end of the Christmas Eve dinner. Then all the occupants of the Castle, the guests as well as the servants and their families, would assemble at the adobe chapel for the traditional distribution of gifts to
the large number of Indian and Mexican families who worked for Stephen Rhodes,
el patron
.

Afterward she and Stephen would be alone, and she could give him her gift.

When the dark onion soup, fruit compote, and baked squash had been consumed along with the roast venison and stewed mutton, the guests braved the cold weather to descend to the village. Soft snowflakes drifted down on them to enhance the magic of Christmas Eve.

Farolitos
, small bonfires of dry, pitchy wood, outlined the drive, which was swept smooth daily, and lit the way to the chapel. There was laughter and singing, for Stephen’s excellent cherry brandy had done more than warm the blood and ease the digestion.

Behind Father Felipe, Rosemary, and Stephen, Rita could be heard singing a merry carol with Governor Caden and several other guests. Libby, with no available men to court her, walked with her mother and Hilda. All three looked as grim as funeral attendants. Louis and Jiraldo, who was hobbling along with the aid of his cane, brought up the
procession’s rear.

The people who could not crowd inside the packed chapel stood deferentially aside for Stephen and Rosemary to pass by. In the chapel’s small room everyone stood shoulder to shoulder,
waiting in gay anticipation for the arrival of the good
padre
and
El Patron
and
su esposa.