Paloma and the Horse Traders (28 page)

With all her heart, she wanted Marco beside
her. Marco would listen, then gather her close, assuring her that
somehow, at least in his personal theology, their departed ones
knew and understood. She thought of her brother, wherever he was,
sad that he did not know how she felt.
Please come back,
Claudio
, she thought.
If you do not, go with
God
.

Standing on chairs, but only as close to the
fireplace as Paloma would permit, both children watched as Perla
slowly stirred the honey and cream. When the time was right, she
added a pinch of ground chilis, which made Claudito take a swipe at
his mouth.

“
Just like his father,” Paloma
whispered to Eckapeta. She took the Indian woman’s hand and tugged
it to her cheek. “Why wouldn’t Claudio stay?” she
whispered.

“
He does not like or trust Toshua
and me,” Eckapeta said, with no hesitation. “It is more, though. I
think that deep down in a hidden place, he is sad he could not
protect you from the raiders.”

“
It was so long ago,” Paloma said,
her eyes on Soli and Claudito, almost dancing in their eagerness to
begin pulling the
miel y
leche
. “So long.”

“
Not to Claudio,” Eckapeta
said.

“
What a waste,” Paloma replied. She
stood up and put her arms around her children, watching Perla work
her magic. “Marco told me my brother would return now and then.”
She rested her chin on Soli’s head. “I hope that is often enough
for me.”

She glanced at Sancha, wondering when she had
become so self-centered that she did not notice the housekeeper was
pining, too.
Lorenzo?
And there was Graciela, standing like
a shadow by the door, her eyes on the children, because they were
her stewardship. The girl’s frown, however, told Paloma there was
something more she’d been missing. She turned to
Eckapeta.

“
Why are you the only woman in this
kitchen who is not mournful?” she asked her great good
friend.

“
I don’t live in yesterday or
tomorrow,” Eckapeta told her. “None of The People do. We don’t even
have words for it. I live right now.”

I may have just learned something
,
Paloma thought, as she spread a little olive oil on the wooden
table so Perla could pour out the hot, thickened mass. Paloma
enlisted Graciela to take the children outside and walk them around
until the honey cooled.

“
But why is Graciela moping?” Paloma
asked.

Eckapeta shrugged. “Maybe you need to pay more
attention to her and think less about your own problems, even if
she is just a slave.”

“
That is not something you should
say to our
dama
,” Sancha scolded.

Eckapeta gave the housekeeper a sharp look. “I
say what I want.”

“
I should handle today’s problems
only?” Paloma asked. She could placate Sancha later.

Eckapeta nodded. “I will walk the children
around outside until the
dulce
cools. Ask Graciela to help
you straighten up the children’s room.”

Paloma gestured to Graciela, who had only
gotten as far as the kitchen garden with the children.

“
I have neglected everything in the
last few days,” Paloma said to Graciela as they made Soledad’s bed
together, then tidied the room. After they finished, she sank down
on Soledad’s bed and patted the spot next to her. “Sit
down.”

Graciela sat, calmly enough but always with a
level of tension that puzzled Paloma.
We treat you well
, she
thought.
What more is there?

She could only try. “Sancha tells me that no
tortillas are missing now.”

“
I have lost the need for extra
ones,” Graciela told her simply.

Paloma decided to come right out and ask. The
children would be back soon and clamoring for her attention in the
kitchen. “Is something troubling you? I would like to know, because
I have been where you are, and no one cared.”

Graciela shook her head decisively, but too
soon. “Nothing, señora.” She managed a false laugh that fooled
neither of them, from the way the blush rose higher on the slave’s
face.

You are no good at lying
, Paloma
thought. She said nothing more. If Marco could listen to Lorenzo,
know he was lying, but pay him anyway for stolen horses because he
was a gentleman, she could leave Graciela alone.

“
Well, then, we had better return to
the kitchen,” Paloma said. “Soledad and Claudio will probably stage
an overthrow of the hacienda if we are not prompt.”

Graciela nodded, but stayed where she was a
moment more. Paloma regarded her from the doorway.
I must try to
learn more
, she thought.

“
If there is something I should
know, please tell me,” Paloma said, trying once again. “I care not
so much for myself, but if the matter involves a loved one, I need
to know, don’t I?”

Graciela pressed her lips in a tight line and
shook her head, even as her eyes seemed to send another
message.

So the matter rested for another day. The honey
candy helped relieve Soledad of any anxiety because of the absence
of her father, and Claudito was happy to follow in his sister’s
footsteps. Paloma conferred each morning with Emilio, concerning
the day’s duties as everyone prepared for the coming winter, even
as the sun shone hot and long on the dry land. The grass in the
pastures had cured to tawny yellow, nutritious for cattle and sheep
alike. The lambs born in the cold of February had arrived at the
adolescent swagger of almost-sheep.

Daily she consulted Marco’s journal, where for
many years in his meticulous print he had recorded each day’s duty.
She smiled over his little doodles in the margins. Early ones had
been of lambs and chickens. After they were married, the doodles
changed to slim women and even one erect phallus, which told her
all she needed to know about her rejuvenated husband. Her smiles
deepened as she came across a man and woman tangled together, and
then on pages closer to today, babies.

The doodles since their marriage were a relief,
compared to the ones dating back to the time of his first wife’s
death. On one page, after recording a concoction to treat scours,
he had drawn three small crosses. Two pages later, he had drawn his
own face, with cheekbones more prominent, eyes hollow, wide and
staring. Then no doodles for several years.

“
Now is better,” she said out loud,
turning to today’s entry. She thought a moment, then drew a fair
rendition of Soli and Claudio splashing in the irrigation ditch.
After another moment’s thought she drew a profile of herself, one
not so slim, and with the barest hint of another baby
inside.

“
Do men ever think of anything but
women?” she asked Eckapeta that night, when the children were in
bed and she was visiting her friend in Marco’s former office. She
told Eckapeta about the little drawings and they had a quiet laugh
together.

“
That is your answer,” the Comanche
woman said.

“
I mean, I think about household
duties and children and cooking,” Paloma said, perplexed. “I could
go all day without thinking of Big Man Down There.” She laughed
again. “But I don’t!”

“
And there is your answer
again.”

Someone knocked on the door just as Paloma rose
to leave. Quicker than thought, Eckapeta slipped her knife from its
scabbard and motioned Paloma behind her.

“
What?” Eckapeta asked, and not in a
kind voice.

“
Is … is la señora there?
Emilio here.”

Eckapeta stepped back and Paloma opened the
door. “Yes, Emilio?”

Emilio gave her a mystified look. “Señora
Mondragón, the horse traders are back, and you won’t believe who is
with them.”

He gestured for her to follow him and she did,
Eckapeta close behind, knife in hand, ready for
anything.

Paloma walked with him to the gates that had
closed again. Three of her servants were leading horses to the barn
and there stood Lorenzo and Rogelio. Attached to Lorenzo by a rope,
and with a noose around his neck, was her brother
Claudio.

In
which someone spills overdue beans

“
H
ere! I
don’t want him,” Lorenzo said, handing her the rope.

Claudio gazed mournfully back at her. Every
angry word she had wanted to fling at him vanished. She took the
rope, loosened the noose, and lifted it over her brother’s head.
Without a word, she kissed his forehead and he dropped to his
knees.

Paloma knelt down, her arms around him.
Gradually, hesitantly, he put his arms around her. He mumbled,
“Wrong of me,” and then something else too indistinct for her
ears.

“
Doesn’t matter. You’re my brother.”
Firmly, she raised his chin until they were eye to eye. “You can
come and go as you please, but don’t you dare just leave again
without telling me.”

“
You sound like Mama,” he told her,
his eyes no less bleak.

Her heart lurched. “I expect I do, Claudio.”
She took his arm. “Come on. Let’s go into the kitchen.” She gave
Lorenzo and Rogelio her narrow-eyed, dare-you-to-disagree look.
“All of us.”

“
It’s late. We can sleep in the
barn,” Lorenzo said, but Paloma knew feeble resistance when she
heard it.

“
And where would my manners be?” she
scolded, figuring Lorenzo, crusty man inside and out, was less
vulnerable than Claudio right now. “You’ll sleep where you slept
when you were here before. It may be late, but there is always
something to eat in my kitchen.”

She sat her brother at the table, deeply aware
how beaten down he looked. When everyone was seated, she opened the
bread cabinet and took out two of Perla’s large round loaves baked
only this morning. Deftly she sliced the bread while Sancha, in her
robe with her hair in braids, rubbed her eyes in the doorway, then
moved into action, reaching for a bowl of butter and honey. Soon
the men were eating. By the time anyone looked up, there was hot
chocolate whipped to a froth, with just a pinch of chili powder and
precious vanilla.

“
Tell me now, whoever wants to
talk,” Paloma began. “What is going on?” She looked from Claudio to
Lorenzo. “Either one of you, and soon.”

Rogelio spoke, to her surprise. “Claudio
returned those bays to Señor Rumaldo. He made us do it.”

“
But I thought … Marco told me
that the bays belonged to a
hacendado
in Pojoaque Valley,”
Paloma said. “I believe the Rumaldo hacienda is two days south of
us, and not west through mountain passes.”

“
We lied about Pojoaque,” Rogelio
said. He looked at Lorenzo, who glared back. “
Dama,
we lie
about a lot of things.” He hung his head then, a child in a man’s
body.

“
Thank you for the truth, Rogelio,”
she said simply. “Have some more bread and honey.” She looked at
Lorenzo then. “You still have the three horses that belong to
someone in Isleta.”

Lorenzo threw up his hands in self-defense.
“Señora, are we giants with seven-league boots? I thought it best
to return Claudio.”

“
But you
will
return the
horses?” she asked, knowing she was starting to sound as relentless
as Marco, the
juez de campo
.

“
Yes!” he said.

“
Yes, what?” Sancha
demanded.

“
Yes, Señora Mondragón,” Lorenzo
mumbled.

He raised his eyes to Paloma’s, and she saw the
worry there, which made her heart beat faster. “Señora, I cannot
help but think that your husband and his little army might need a
few more recruits.” He glanced at Claudio. “Let him tell you more.”
He jabbed his chest and pointed to Rogelio. “As for us, we will go
north tomorrow and find Señor Mondragón.”

“
With stolen horses?” Paloma asked,
exasperated.

“
We prefer to think that they have
entrusted themselves to men—us—who will treat them with the
consideration due to fine horseflesh,” Lorenzo said with some
dignity.

Paloma couldn’t help her unladylike snort.
Lorenzo took her smooth hand in his rough one, leaning closer.
“There is more afoot here than we know. Can you tell us his
route?”

Paloma squeezed his hand, suddenly not
concerned about the impropriety. “You worry me.”

“
You should be worried,” Lorenzo
replied and Rogelio nodded.

“
They … they were going to
skirt the foothills of the Sangre de Cristos, and take the little
pass into Valle San Luis. Do you know it?”

“
Ute country, Kapota Ute. We know
it.”

“
Are you on any kind of good terms
with the Utes?” Paloma asked.

“
Hmm. If their memories are short,”
Lorenzo replied. “We, uh, try not to trade with the Kapota
Utes.”

“
I wouldn’t doubt it,” Paloma said
with some asperity. “From what Marco tells me, the Kapota Utes are
as adept at horse stealing as you are.”

Lorenzo winced, as though Paloma’s clipped
words were splinters of glass thrown at him. “Let us say we are
almost even, in that regard.”