Paloma and the Horse Traders (41 page)

He turned fast, knife in hand, when someone
tugged his sleeve. Deer Bones put up his hand.

“
You know better than to think
Toshua is among the dead,” the Ute chided him. “I’m surprised at
you. Look.”

Marco looked where Deer Bones gestured. Relief
covered him like warm rain to see Toshua striding toward the
overturned wagon, carrying his lance. Marco kneed Buciro into
motion again, Toshua’s horse following behind.

There was no help for Rogelio, whose scalp was
gone, and both ears. Marco winked back tears as he dismounted and
helped Toshua and two of Kwihnai’s men right the wagon.

There lay Lorenzo, curled up into a tiny ball,
no mean feat for a man as tall as he was, and a hero
besides.

“
You better touch him,” Toshua said.
“I am a Comanche. I know you think we all look alike.”

“
I don’t now,” Marco said. “Good
God, who convinced Kwihnai to help us?”

Toshua shrugged.

“
Lorenzo? Lorenzo?” Marco said. He
gave the horse trader a little shake. “It’s Marco.”

“
Not opening my eyes,” Lorenzo said.
“You could be a Comanche trying to fool me.”

“
I suppose I could be,” Marco said
with a laugh, he who had never planned to survive this day, let
alone laugh again. “Do you want me to tell Sancha that you weren’t
so brave?”

That was all Lorenzo needed. With a groan, he
straightened, then sat up when Marco held out his hand. In a
gesture he didn’t expect, Lorenzo put Marco’s hand to his cheek,
then kissed it. “I couldn’t save Rogelio. Everything went so fast.
Did … did you see what happened?”

“
I saw him die with a lance through
his chest, but I was some distance away,” Marco said. He patted
Lorenzo’s cheek and Lorenzo released his hand.

“
He threw himself across me. That
lance was for me,” Lorenzo said simply. “He is your hero.” He
looked up at Marco. “Would to God I had treated him better
throughout his life.”

“
I doubt he would have wanted you to
change anything,” Marco told him. “He had a home, and food, and
work to do. Remember that instead.”

Lorenzo nodded, then bowed his head against his
upraised knees. Marco turned away to allow him to grieve, then
turned back again and took Lorenzo’s arm. “I have to know
something. Forgive me, but tell me, how did you know to fire the
grass with your last shot?”

Lorenzo looked from Marco to Toshua, puzzled.
“Toshua told me.”

“
How in God’s name?” Marco asked.
“He was hiding in the sumac bushes.”

Lorenzo patted Marco’s head as if the
juez
were a little boy. “Surely you saw him crawl from the
sumac bush, tell me, then crawl back.”

“
No, I didn’t see a thing,” Marco
said. “Not a thing.”

Toshua patted his head next. “You’re not a very
observant man. I just counted coup on you.”

He walked with Toshua to Kwihnai, who sat on
his horse with its beaded leather mask, looking more sinister than
all the hounds of hell. Marco fell to his knees, bowed his head to
the earth, and stretched out his arms in complete submission. “I
will never forget this day.”

“
Good,” Kwihnai said, practical as
always. “Up you go now. We have a job to finish, you and
I.”

Marco stood up and walked beside Kwihnai’s
horse to a clump of Kwahadi warriors. He smiled to see the husband
of Paloma’s good friend Kahúu, whose sister’s baby Paloma had
carried on her back through the sacred canyon, and returned with
tearful reluctance to the warrior who smiled at him now. He held up
his hand.

“
How is your small daughter?” Marco
asked. “Paloma will want to know.”

“
She is healthy and makes us laugh,”
the warrior said. Marco realized then that he did not even know his
name.

The circle of Kwihnai’s warriors opened, and
there lay Great Owl, naked and stretched out on the ground, pinned
there by arrows through his palms and feet. Swallowing his
revulsion, Marco stared hard at the renegade who stared hard back
at him, his lips curled in defiance.

Kwihnai leaned down and handed Marco his lance.
“He is yours to kill. We do not need his kind of trouble, if we
plan to make peace some day.”

Marco took the lance.
God forgive me
, he
thought, as he plunged it deep into Great Owl’s heart.

The air itself seemed to explode with the
high-pitched wails of victory from Kwihnai’s men. He listened to
the throaty warble, a sound he never thought to hear so close and
remain alive. He wanted to warble, too, but he didn’t know how.
Maybe Toshua could teach him.

He listened to the high sound, then looked up
in surprise, certain he heard a woman’s voice, pitched even
higher.

There she was on horseback—Eckapeta. Toshua
stood beside her, his hand on her leg. Marco stepped over Great Owl
and stroked the nose of her horse.

“
You did this.”

“
Paloma told me to ride like the
eagle flies to Kwihnai, and convince him to help you. I argued back
that I would not leave her and the babies, but she won.” Eckapeta
shook her head. “I must be losing my powers.”

Marco pressed his face against her horse. “I
lose a lot of arguments to her, my dear friend, and thank God for
that.”

They all looked around at another shout, this
one of warning, and then purpose, as two of Kwihnai’s warriors
wheeled their horses and started at a dead run toward the south end
of the Two Brothers.

A single figure on horseback had left the cleft
in the mountains and rode toward them. Marco shaded his eyes with
his hand, watching as the lone figure seemed to hesitate, then turn
back to the cleft too late. With a shout, both warriors shot their
arrows. Neither missed.

“
That is the cleft you must follow,”
Toshua said.

Marco mounted his horse and looked for the
remainder of his little army—Joaquim, David Benedict, Deer Bones,
and the two surviving Utes. And there was Lorenzo, mounting the
pony that must have belonged to Tall Grass.

Marco turned to Toshua. “Not you, my
friend?”

“
No. This is the time for the Utes.
We will leave them alone, too. Eckapeta?”

With a wave of his hand, Toshua started toward
Kwihnai. Eckapeta appeared to be arguing with Toshua, to Marco’s
amusement. He had an idea what the heated discussion was about, so
he waited.

Eckapeta turned her horse. “You will see us in
the spring, when Paloma gives birth, if not sooner!” she told
Marco, after a hard glare at her husband. “I will bring a new
cradleboard.”

“
Then go with God, my dears,” Marco
said, and made the sign of the cross over Toshua and Eckapeta, and
every warrior who had saved his life.

Kwihnai kneed his horse forward. With strength
Marco would not have credited to a man past his prime, the Comanche
pulled the lance from Great Owl’s body and handed the bloody thing
to Marco. “Take this and do more good. Give it to that bearded man
in your big city who fights so well. Tell him we will think about
peace. We will come to Taos next year to trade and discuss the
matter.”

“
I will tell Governor de Anza,”
Marco said. “Kwihnai, thank you for my life.”

“
Don’t waste it.”

In
which Claudio makes his own peace

A
hard life in the mountains
and on the plains of New Mexico had not prepared Claudio for the
sight of Ute warriors, weary beyond belief but with vengeance
burning inside, as they fell upon a sleeping village of Comanche
women and children.

He hung back in shock as the men tore into each
lodge and dragged out struggling women and silent little ones,
trained from birth to make no noise under any circumstances. He
held his breath for the slaughter to begin, but nothing happened.
Confused, he looked for Graciela, who rode beside Rain Cloud
now.

The two of them sat side by side as the Utes
rousted out every occupant of brush shelter and tipi, from infant
to elderly. His heart lightened as Ute warriors took their own
wives and big-eyed children away from their captors. Some of the
warriors were not so fortunate. They stood with heads bowed beside
their horses.

Claudio understood then why there had been no
sudden death. He watched as Graciela dismounted and stood in front
of the Comanche women and children. He knew what would follow,
after she found her half-Comanche daughter.

They had arrived at the camp just as the sun
was rising, when many faces were still in shadow. Graciela scanned
the gathering, hands pressed to her mouth. She walked with
sure-footed grace to a woman in the back row, who had thrust a
child behind her.

“
Cecilia,” Graciela said softly.
“Come, my dear.” She knelt and held out her arms as a naked child
rubbed her eyes and yawned. “Cecilia, or Rabbit, whichever you
will.”

The captive woman made a half-hearted grab at
the little one as she toddled forward, then threw herself into
Graciela’s arms. Fearful, the woman dropped her arms to her sides
and bowed her head, but not before a Ute warrior with no family
knocked her over with his horse. The other Comanches stirred
restlessly, mothers holding their own children tight to their
bodies.

Rain Cloud nodded his approval. “Claudio, take
the Ute women and children down by the river. Sit there with them
until all is quiet here.”

“
I am not a coward,” Claudio said
quietly.

“
I know that,” Rain Cloud replied.
“You are a Spaniard and you will not want to witness what will
happen here. Go now.”

For one strange moment, he did not want the
Utes to kill the Comanches, people he had hated too long. These
were mostly women and children, and his heart rebelled, even as his
head reminded him that he was one Christian among many Utes set
upon revenge who wouldn’t mind slaying him, too, if he interfered.
When did I change?
he wondered to himself, even as he moved
to do as Rain Cloud demanded.

Claudio dismounted and gathered Graciela close.
“Cecilia, is it?” he whispered.

“
I only called her that at night,
when the Comanches could not hear me,” she whispered back. “I spoke
to her in Spanish, but I doubt she remembers it. I have been
several months gone, after all.”

The Comanche women began their death song. Her
child tight against her body, Graciela ran toward the river with
the rest of the Ute women and children. They huddled there
together, Claudio standing with them, alert and watching for
trouble, as the work of death began. He noticed an old Comanche on
horseback, riding to alert Great Owl and his warriors, just as
Marco and Toshua had hoped would happen. Flinching at the sound of
death, Claudio wondered at Great Owl’s arrogance, so confident of
his success with the weapons dealers that he left his camp
unguarded.

Claudio sat with his back to the women at the
river, unable to bear their hollow eyes. Probably no more than a
week had passed since Great Owl’s thugs had captured them and the
few children allowed to live, but they had suffered greatly. As the
Ute warriors worked their destruction, Claudio hoped everyone’s
wounds could heal, those both seen and unseen like his
own.

The sun was past its zenith when silence
finally ruled the Comanche camp. He waited for the crackle of fire
and the odor of burning bodies to signal the end of the carnage. A
few more minutes, and the Utes made their way to the river, first
to wash the blood from their hands and bodies, then for the lucky
few to reclaim their loved ones.

Feeling like an old man, Claudio slowly walked
back to the camp and its great bonfire of shelters and bodies. He
sucked in his breath and put his hand over Cecilia’s eyes as the
overpowering heat and flames worked their will among the
dead.

It wasn’t enough. He picked up the little one
and turned her face into his shoulder. Graci walked beside him, her
face averted, too.

He wanted nothing more than to leap on his
horse, take Graci with him and ride fast away from all death and
vengeance, and blasted hopes. On horseback last night when Graciela
led the way, he had ridden for a time beside Rain Cloud. The sun
had not quite left the sky, so Rain Cloud stopped every so often to
look around, as if imprinting the cloud-high mountains on his
mind.

“
You’re really going to leave these
cloud mountains?” Claudio asked. “Even if we defeat Great
Owl?”

“
Even then,” Rain Cloud said. “There
comes a time when a man is too old for this much sadness.” He said
nothing more.

Maybe even a young man can reach that
time
, Claudio thought now, as he stared at the ruin around
him.

Graciela was made of sterner stuff, apparently.
Still clutching her child, she spoke to Rain Cloud. He nodded and
patted her shoulder. A few words to one of his warriors, and
Claudio held out his arms for a woven bag filled with dried meat
and chokecherries, small and deep purple, that the Ute women had
probably been gathering when the Comanches struck. A bag of dried
bugs and roots completed Rain Cloud’s parting gift.