Beverly Byrne (18 page)

14

LOPEZ
HAD TOLD THEM DIEGO WAS AN INDIAN FROM Pueblo Cochiti. He came to the hotel
while they were having breakfast. "I'm ready when you are." His
speech was marked only by the slow southwestern drawl Amy heard everywhere.

They
followed him outside. Their trunks were piled high on a rickety buckboard.
Tommy inspected the vehicle. "Is this what we travel in?"

"It
belongs to Santo Domingo," Diego said.

"Are
the horses ours too?" Amy studied the two animals. They were big and
looked strong, and their coats were shiny.

"Yup."

She
smiled with satisfaction. She started to climb aboard, but Tommy told her to
wait. He looked up and down the street, then spotted what he wanted. "Stay
here a minute. That's Lopez's office, according to the sign. I want to see
him."

He
hurried across the road and Amy waited, studying the beauty of the mountains
all around them. "This is the Sangre de Cristo range, isn't it?" she
asked.

Diego
nodded.

A
procession of half a dozen burros led by a small man in a serape and sombrero
came into view. The animals were laden with wood. "Pinon logs from the
mountains," Diego said. "For firewood."

Before
Amy could answer, Tommy and Lopez emerged from the office. They stood in the
road beside Lopez's black Model-T Ford. Amy went to join them.

"Good
morning, Mrs. Westerman," Lopez said with a broad smile. "I trust
you're rested from your travels. Mr. Westerman here is trying to buy my motor
car. I keep telling him there aren't many roads out to your place. And none of
'em is paved."

Tommy
signaled to the Indian. "Diego, come here a minute." He joined them.
"You know anything about the Model-T?" Tommy asked.

"A
little."

"Go
anywhere, right? You can drive it over anything?"

"That's
what they say."

"What
do you think? Will it make it to Santo Domingo?"

The
Indian sucked in his cheeks, and Amy saw his eyes dart to Tommy's buil-tup
shoe, then back to the car. "Yeah, I think it might."

"Good.
I think so too. How about it, Mr. Lopez?" Tommy took out his wallet and
withdrew two hundred-dollar bills. They crackled with newness. "Almost as
much as you paid for her."

"This
flivver is practically new. I just went down and got her from Albuquerque four
months ago."

"And
she cost you ... what? Three-fifty?" Lopez nodded. Tommy took out another
hundred. Amy swallowed hard. Their working capital had just shrunk by three
hundred dollars.

Lopez
stared at the car and the money. "Okay, you're a nice young fella, and
you're just starting out. I'll take it."

There
were handshakes all around. On their way out of town they stopped at the
telegraph office and sent a wire to Lil and Warren. "Arrived safely.
Everything beautiful," it said. Then they set out on the last leg of their
journey.

Amy
rode in the buckboard with Diego while Tommy followed behind in the Model-T.
They came down through the foothills into the desert, and she didn't try to
absorb it all because she knew she couldn't. For now, it was enough to sense
the vast bronzed land through which she traveled. Later she would become as intimate
with it as once she'd been with the African bush.

Soon
Santa Fe became a smudge to the north, and the sun grew hotter. Amy removed her
jacket and opened the neck of her silk blouse. Diego reached behind and gave
her a tattered parasol. "Used to be a canopy on this thing," he said.
"It got torn."

"Well,
we'll have to replace it right away," Amy said. Then she wondered if Diego
was in her employ. "Do you work for us?"

"When
DeAngeles was the owner I was foreman."

"And
now?"

He
shrugged. "Up to you."

They
rode on in silence across a flat mesa studded with cacti and low scrub, and
roofed by the blinding blue sky. In some places the vegetation was thicker than
in others. Once they saw a huddled mass on the horizon which Diego identified
as Pecos Pueblo.

She
wanted to ask him about the pueblos and if he lived in his or at the ranch.
Just when she had decided to broach the subject Diego signaled a halt. They
stopped and Tommy joined them by the buckboard. "She's doing fine. I knew
the flivver wouldn't let us down. How about you?" he asked Amy. "Sun
too much?"

"Not
for me. I'm used to it, remember?"

"You
been out here before?" Diego asked, handing them a drink of water from the
canteen he carried. "I thought you was eastern folks."

"I
was brought up in Africa," Amy explained. Diego look blank.

"It's
a lot like this," she added. "And it's just as hot. "

He
nodded. "I stopped here so's you could get your first look at the
place," he said.

"Our
place, you mean?" Tommy asked, surprised.

"Yup,
Your land begins at that line of cottonwood trees. "

"It's
not exactly a well-defined border," Amy said softly.

"Fences
are no part of the code of the Old West," Tommy said. "Isn't that so,
Diego?"

"Mr.
DeAngeles had a fence once. Least his pa did. It ain't been up for years."

They
took their places and began traveling again. The next time Amy checked her
watch it was after one. When she looked up there was a shadow in the distance
ahead of them. "That's it," Diego told her.

The
arch was of wrought iron, and it stood unmarked by time, a surreal incongruity
on the earth. Whatever fence it had once been part of was gone without a trace.
The words "Santo Domingo" were carved deep in a wooden sign swinging
from the apex of the arch.

They
passed beneath the useless thing, as if going around it would break some
ancient taboo, and pulled up by a clutter of deserted buildings. "That's
the main house," Diego said pointing. "Ain't been no one living in it
for years."

"I
thought Mr. DeAngeles left just a few weeks ago," Amy said.

"Yeah.
But far back as I can remember, Mr. DeAngeles lived in there." Diego
pointed to a small shed standing a few feet away.

Amy
ignored his pointing finger and took a step closer to the structure he'd
identified as the main house. It was made of adobe, like everything else, and
turned to the world only a long blank wall pocked with ruin. It had been washed
pink some time in the past. Now it was faded to a dark earthy terracotta.
"It's a beautiful color," she said to Tommy. "I'm going to have
a look." Her voice was slightly shrill.

"Wait
a minute," Tommy said. "Don't go alone."

She
paid no attention, but walked in her high-heeled patent leather city shoes
across the pebbled ground.

There
was a single opening in the wall and she pushed at a door of splintered,
sun-bleached wood. It fell backward off rotted hinges. Amy had to clamber over
it to make her way inside. Then she was in a small square room with doors in
all the walls. She hesitated, then turned right. Tommy's step sounded on the
newly formed wooden bridge. "In here," she called.

He
came up behind her, and they walked from room to room, neither touching nor
speaking. The house was built as a quadrangle. Each space led to another. One
corner room had a second story, but the staircase had long since rotted away
and only the opening in the ceiling remained.

"This
must be the kitchen," Tommy said when they arrived at a place with a big
chimney in one wall and a waist-high shelf running around the other three.
"Here's the famous 'Water laid on to the house.' " He touched a rusty
pump handle and it fell apart in his hand.

"There's
a patio," Amy said. "We haven't seen it yet." The center of the
quadrangle was occupied by an open area, still showing the chipped remains of a
tile floor. In the middle, dominating all else, was a massive gray-trunked tree
that spread its branches across the roof. Diego sat beneath the tree waiting
for them.

"This
here's special," he said patting the trunk. "Mr. DeAngles told me to
tell you about it, so's you'd understand. His grandpa went to Spain once and
brought the tree back with him. It was about two feet tall when they planted
it. Then they built the house."

"It's
a eucalyptus, I think," Tommy said, gazing up into the leafy branches.
"Can't say for sure which one. They're called gum trees."

"This
is the only one in New Mexico," Diego insisted. "It ain't got a
name."

"Of
course it has a name," Tommy said in disgust. "Everything does."

Amy
was surprised. She had not known that Tommy knew anything about trees.
"Does it flower?" she asked him.

"Can't
say without knowing the variety."

"It
has flowers in the spring," Diego said sullenly.

"What
color are they?" Amy asked. She was holding her breath.

"White.
Very small, but they smell sweet."

 She
tried not to show her disappointment. If he had said the flowers were red,
everything else might not have mattered so much. "We were told the house
was furnished," she said-as if that were the only deception she had noted
among so many.

"There's
some stuff in there." Diego jerked his head in the direction of one of the
rooms.

Amy
went to look. She discovered a few pieces of heavy carved oak. They were thick
with dust and  pushed far back into a dark corner. Much of the house was dark
and cool, for the windows were small and few.

"We
can't live here," Tommy said when she came back and reported on the
furniture.

"The
shed's got a bed and a few things," Diego supplied.

Tommy
looked at him with loathing, as if it were the Indian's fault that they had bought
a crumbling ruin. "Show me," he said briskly.

They
went outside and Amy waited while Tommy made an inspection of the shed.
"It could be worse," he told her when he came out, "but not
much."

"We'll
just have to wait until we can have a good look around," she said as
brightly as she could. "Then we'll figure out how to get all this in
shape." She turned to Diego. "Tell me, where are the cattle?"

He
looked at her in puzzlement.

"The
cattle," Amy repeated. "Where are they?" In Africa they had kept
their livestock in a large fenced stockade behind the house.

She
craned her neck to look for such a structure, but saw nothing.

"You
passed most of 'em," Diego said. "I don't understand." Her brown
eyes studied his brown face.

"The
open range," Tommy said through clenched teeth. "The cattle are
running free on the range. Isn't that it, Diego?"

"Yeah."
He didn't meet their eyes.

"Anybody
out riding herd on them?"

"Ain't
nobody working the place now. Not since Mr. DeAngeles left."

"And
for how long before that?" Tommy asked softly.

"A
year, maybe two," was the muttered reply.

"Oh,
sweet Jesus." Tommy took his silver hip flask from his pocket and uncorked
it. "Here memsahib, have a drink. We're going to need it."