Paloma and the Horse Traders (38 page)

They all sat in silence, everyone considering
the plan, a plan of ifs. Marco looked from face to face, weighing
what he saw. Governor de Anza’s words echoed in his mind and heart:
“We have to work together to live in this land.”

“
The traders will make the deal and
leave the guns that will do them no good. Rain Cloud, I will depend
on you to allow at least one person on horseback to escape,” Marco
told them. “This person will surely race to alert Great Owl that
his women and children are in peril.”

“
It will be his turn to suffer!” one
of the warriors shouted. The others shouted, too, and David
Benedict whimpered.

“
When the message has been
delivered, Great Owl and his warriors will ride toward their camp,
which you and your braves will already control. We will fire on
Great Owl from the cliffs’ heights, because we will have kept some
of the good guns for ourselves. We will kill as many as we can, but
you must be ready to fight the ones who slip through.”

To Marco’s chagrin, Rain Cloud stood and
gestured to his warriors. They followed him from the circle without
a word. Joaquim made a sound of disgust. Marco shook a finger at
him, demanding silence.

“
They are thinking about
it.”

“
You know these people, don’t you?”
Joaquim asked.

“
I do.” He leaned toward the royal
engineer. “If you expect to remain alive in this colony, you had
better come to know them, too.” He looked at the Utes, standing
close together, talking and gesturing. “And do you know something
else? I like the Kapota Utes.”

But had he convinced these beaten people that
they could yet avenge a terrible wrong? Marco closed his eyes,
tired down to his toes, wanting nothing more than to crawl into his
own bed and hold Paloma close.
I have become so simple
, he
thought.

He opened his eyes as Rain Cloud and his
warriors returned to the circle. “We will do this thing,” the chief
said. He sighed and looked to the western mountains. “When we are
done, we will move to the more distant cloud mountains where the
sun sets.” He shook his head. “I fear our friend the bear has
already begun that journey.”

“
Not yet,” Marco said. “He’s licking
his wounds. He will roar again. He will roar tomorrow.”

In
which the bear roars

“
W
e have no
time to spare,” Marco said. Soon even the few surviving women and
children were helping lift the heavy boxes from the wagon to the
ground. Joaquim pried off the lids and stood a moment, staring down
at the beautiful muskets; then he barked out orders, very much the
royal engineer again.

He sent Claudio for small twigs. “Straight and
narrow,” Joaquim ordered.

Claudio looked for Graciela to help him. He
swallowed a lump in his throat to watch the slave dip a partially
burned cloth into a buffalo bladder filled with warm water. She
pulled away the burned part, wrung it out, and knelt by David
Benedict, who still lay on the ground, trying to make himself
smaller.

Benedict closed his eyes in evident relief as
she wiped his grimy face, her touch so gentle. Gradually Benedict
straightened out and allowed her to clean his chest and his private
parts. He started to weep again, this time in humiliation, while
she cleaned his filth as kindly as if he were a small child
Claudito’s age.

Claudio came closer in time to hear her say,
“Just do as you are told and you will live. I am a slave, and that
is what I do.”

“
I don’t speak his language,”
Graciela said to Claudio, embarrassed. “He knows a little Spanish,
but very little, I think.”

“
He feels your kindness,” Claudio
assured her. “You’re the one nice thing that has happened to him in
an awful day.”

“
Sometimes how we speak is more
important than what we say,” she replied. She folded her hands in
her lap, and didn’t even look at him. “What I do is this, Claudio:
what I wish someone had done to me.” She looked up, and he saw her
kindness directed at him, as if everyone else in the battered
clearing had suddenly disappeared. “If you do that, too, you’ll be
happier.”

He tried to think of some scathing rejoinder,
some careless answer, but none came to mind. Graciela Tafoya spoke
the truth.

He saw the moment as a choice. He could ignore
her or he could respond. Something told him—maybe there was a
God—that his response would rule his life from this moment on, no
matter how long or short it was. No one living on the edge of
Comanchería had any guarantee.

Not caring who was watching, he knelt beside
Graciela Tafoya. As David Benedict watched from worried eyes,
Claudio leaned forward and touched his forehead to Graci’s. That
was all he had the courage to do. He sat back on his haunches and
watched her face as she pinked up, then gave him a smile so
blinding that the sun should have just given up and gone away, a
poor loser.

“
Be careful in the work of this day
and tomorrow,” she said, and he heard herald angels clearing their
throats and giving each other a note before breaking out in
hallelujahs.

Together they led David Benedict to a grassy
spot. Graciela put his ruined trousers beside him. She pointed to
the stream and made rubbing motions. Benedict just stared at her
stupidly.

“
I fear he will not last long in New
Mexico,” she said, with a shake of her head. “I do not trust him,
but someone in St. Louis might miss him.”

“
It’s that easy?” he asked. “I just
do good things?”

He had no business wrapping his mind around
such a subject, not with Joaquim on his knees by the muskets, and
Marco and one of the Utes coming back to the clearing with clothes
that the Frenchmen had worn, and Rain Cloud and his men whistling
for what horses remained. He stared in further amazement as Lorenzo
and Rogelio cut out five of their stolen horses and led them toward
the Indians—Lorenzo, who never gave anything to anyone without
exacting some sort of payment. He took her by the hand.

“
You do good things,” she repeated.
She nudged his shoulder and held out a handful of twigs. She
covered his hand with hers, twigs and all. “Claudio, every morning,
even when things were so awful, I hoped that maybe this day, it
would be different. And now it is.”

She startled him further by kissing his cheek.
“Don’t think so hard. Take these to Joaquim.”

By early afternoon, Joaquim had driven slender
twigs into the touch holes of four crates of muskets, keeping back
two each for the men who would be watching above the rendezvous
site. Graciela had carefully daubed a bit of soot in each hole to
hide any hint of bare wood. Joaquim had pawed through the crates,
snatching up all the vent picks so no one could remove the twig, if
they happened to notice.

Marco did everything the engineer demanded,
marveling to himself how someone previously dedicated to wine and
women could take command when the situation warranted. If they
survived this admittedly foolhardy attempt, maybe he would see if
he really had enough influence with Governor de Anza to request
that Private Joaquim Gasca be returned to his rightful rank.
Crazier things had happened.

A superstitious man, Lorenzo Diaz had been
reluctant to don the clothes worn by one of the dead Frenchmen. He
changed his mind after Toshua grabbed him by his chin and stared
long and hard into his eyes. “I took his clothes off him before I
killed him,” Toshua snapped. “Don’t be a baby.”

In a short time, Lorenzo was peacocking about,
reminding Marco of Paloma in a new dress, one with shape and style
and no drawstrings to allow for a growing belly. He still owed her
a pair of red dancing shoes. If he survived tomorrow, he would get
her those shoes.
Funny what a man thinks about, when death is a
distinct possibility
.

Marco watched in pleasant surprise as Joaquim
continued his relentless efforts to prepare them all. Lorenzo was
less than pleased to find Joaquim digging through the little cart
that Rogelio drove, which carried their few possessions. He turned
nearly apoplectic when Joaquim pounced on three bottles of rum in
deep green glass. As Marco held Lorenzo back, Joaquim popped the
corks, took a sip and then poured out the rest.

“
Why?” he demanded.
“Why?”

“
Because I can make excellent
bombas
out of these with the loose powder.” Joaquim dug
deeper as Marco started to laugh. He yanked out a shirt and made
the mistake of sniffing it. “Or we could just throw this at Great
Owl.”

On Joaquim’s directions, Marco wrapped the
three bottles in the reeking shirt and stuffed them into his
saddlebags. The altered muskets went back in their crates, with
eight working firearms set aside. For lack of any other container,
Marco emptied out his extra clothes from his parfleche and
carefully poured most of the black power into the leather case.
Graciela stuffed several large rocks into the powder keg, smoothing
over the black powder until the level rose closer to the top
again.

Soon there was nothing left to do except go.
Stuffed full of good advice, Lorenzo and Rogelio left first,
accompanied by a Ute warrior to guide them. “Yes, yes,” the horse
trader assured Marco. “We will hug Montaña Blanca like a
one-centavo whore and this Kapota will lead us through that saddle
in the mountains, so we can come at the Two Brothers from the
north.”

“
Don’t take any chances,” Marco
said.

“
Everything we are doing is a
chance, señor,” Lorenzo reminded him. “If I don’t return, tell
Sancha … tell Sancha ….”

“
What?” Marco asked.

“
That I went to my death thinking of
her and smelling sweet.”

“
I will do that,” Marco said, as he
admired his own control.
You smelled sweet two weeks ago, you
old rascal
, he thought.
One bath needs to be followed by
another
. “I will,” he repeated, grateful for the courage of the
men he rode with, even if they did smell ripe.

Afternoon shadows settled in the San Luis
Valley as the wagon and riders disappeared into the distance. Soon
sheltering night would come. Rain Cloud and his warriors left next,
accompanied by Claudio and Graciela. Marco feared for her, but
there wasn’t a safe place with any of the parties. Rain Cloud and
his warriors would ride through the night through mountain passes
Marco didn’t even want to think about, because heights were not his
best friend. Revenge and sorrow fueled them and he did not doubt
they would succeed.

“
She has her reasons for riding with
Rain Cloud,” Claudio told him, and they sat close together on their
horses. “Did you know … she had a baby with the Comanches, a
girl about one year old now.”

“
She wants her child,” Marco said.
Only a few years ago, he would have heard that news with real
distaste. Now he just hoped she found the little one. He put his
hand over Claudio’s hand on his pommel. “Help her all you
can.”

That wasn’t enough. Marco rode to Graciela.
“Know this: Lorenzo is going to deal in muskets with Great Owl, a
truly evil man. If he succeeds, he will get my money back that I
paid for you. When he does, you will not be my slave anymore. You
may do as you please. Granted, Paloma will still need your help,
but I can find someone else to take your place, if you have other
plans.”

“
I have never made a plan in my
life, señor,” she told him.

“
Then it is high time you
started.”

It warmed his heart that she turned to look at
Claudio, who was talking to Toshua, unaware of her glance. “Go with
God,” he told her.

“
Wait!”

Marco turned around to see David Benedict on
his feet, holding both his hands high.

Joaquim guided his horse closer to the man, who
still trembled and gave Toshua a wide berth. They spoke, and
Joaquim turned to Marco. “He doesn’t want to be left
behind.”

“
I had forgotten him,” Marco
admitted. “What should we do?”

“
You’re the leader,” Joaquim said,
with faint surprise.

“
I think you have become our
leader,” Marco said, inwardly pleased with how Joaquim’s face
lighted up, even as he shook his head in denial. “Well, then, we
are co-leaders,” he said. Leaning closer, he added, “But I believe
Toshua rules us all.”

They laughed together. “I say we take him,”
Joaquim said. “We have another horse. Perhaps he will be
useful.”

“
If he doesn’t betray us.” Marco
contemplated the frightened man. “Let him know that if he does
anything to put us in harm’s way, I will turn him over to
Toshua.”

“
That should do the trick,” Joaquim
said. “My own bowels get loose just thinking about it.”

David Benedict had joined his hands together in
bare pleading. “Very well,” Marco said. “Let him know that if
something happens, he will be two or three days dying.”

Joaquim translated. Benedict nodded. Marco had
never seen eyes so desperate. “We all want to live,” Marco said.
“Tell him that, please.”