Daughter of Fortune (24 page)

Maria picked up two leather buckets and started for
the
acequia.
She looked back at Erlinda, who followed,
buckets in hand. “Mexico City is a grand place, and I miss some of
the excitement, but the air smells cleaner here, and I like to
listen for the frogs at night.”

Erlinda made a face. “You sound like Diego. You will
not believe this, but I have seen him sit outside, just listening
to the crickets. And he has the most pleasant expression on his
face.” She laughed. “Although lately he just falls asleep after
dinner. How like an old ranchero he grows!”

Maria dipped a bucket in the
acequia,
watched
it fill and felt it grow heavy in her hand. “Erlinda, he is so
overworked.”

They spent the morning over the washtub, scrubbing
the soiled clothing with yucca root and stirring the shirts,
dresses and stockings in the boiling water before dipping them in
the cool water in the
bateas
to soak. The work was hot and
hard, but Maria did not tire. She was growing accustomed to the
drudgery of the river kingdom. As she squeezed the water out of
Diego’s clean shirt, she thought of her mother, who never in her
life did anything more strenuous than embroider altar cloths.

You would never know me, Mama, Maria thought as she
piled the clothes into a Pueblo basket. She felt no bitterness
against her parents, only resignation. She had thought for a time
that there might be a place for her in the upper colony of the Rio
del Norte, but her sister’s rejection and Diego’s words about land
and nails and fence posts sealed her fate. As much as she abhorred
the calculation of his words, she could not fault his honesty. She
possessed nothing of worth to tempt him, and he had never given her
any reason to hope.

Erlinda leaned over the
batea.
“Maria, your
face is so solemn. Of what are you thinking?”

Maria rested her hands in the cool water. “Of nails
and fence posts,” she replied quietly, her eyes on Diego’s shirts
floating in the rinse water.

Erlinda’s eyes went to the water, too, and she made
no reply.

They left for Santa Fe before the sun was up the
next morning. The full moon was still big in the sky, so it was an
easy matter for the Indian servants to hitch the oxen to the
four-wheel cart. Diego lifted his sisters and Maria into the wagon
and mounted his own horse. They moved slowly down the road from the
hacienda, the wagon creaking and rumbling, guided by the Indian
servant who walked alongside with a long whip.

The little girls hovered on the edge of sleep. Luz
leaned against Maria with her eyes closed as Erlinda finished
braiding her hair. As soon as her hair was done, Luz plopped her
head down in Maria’s lap and Erlinda swung the child’s legs up onto
the hard seat.

Maria leaned against the side of the wagon, her head
resting on her arm. Erlinda finished Catarina’s hair, tying the
ends deftly with a small piece of lace. “Ah, Maria,” she said, “you
look so low.”

Maria glanced up. “You cannot imagine how tedious
that
entrada
was from Mexico City to Santa Fe. I suppose I
suffer from remembrance.”

“We will be in Santa Fe by noon,” replied Erlinda,
plaiting her own hair. She wound her hair on her head, securing it
with pins. “Perhaps you wonder why we use such a cart?”

“I do,” answered Maria. “I have seen no proper
coaches since I left Mexico.”

“It is impossible to bring such a thing so far,”
Erlinda explained, raising her voice to be heard above the
squeaking wheels. “And no one has the skills here—or the time—to
make one.” Erlinda reached across and covered Luz with the end of
Maria’s light cloak. “Papa did try to bring one here. He wanted
Mama to have a fine coach.” She giggled like a young girl at the
memory. “He managed to get as far as Chihuahua before the whole
thing fell apart.”

Maria laughed and Erlinda continued. “Papa was like
that. He would try things no one else would. I suppose it has given
us a local reputation for eccentricity, but we do not care.”

“What was he like?”

“Papa? Oh, like me, like Diego. You would have
enjoyed him, Maria. He has been gone from us more than five years
now, but I still miss him with intensity.” She looked at Diego,
riding to the front of the wagon. “Life would have been different
for Diego, had Papa lived. ”

“How do you mean?” asked Maria, gentle in her
intrusion. Erlinda did not often speak of the past.

“Diego always wanted to go to the university in
Mexico City. The plans were made, that summer of his fourteenth
year. Then Papa became ill, so ill. When it looked as if he would
not get well, Diego sent our little brother Francisco in his
place.” Her eyes clouded at the memory. “Dear Francisco. He was
only thirteen. He cried all the way to Santa Fe, begging Diego to
go in his place. But Diego could not, even though he wanted
to.”

“And what did your father look like?” Maria
asked.

“Much like Francisco and me,” she replied. “Tall and
blond, with big feet,” she laughed. “As Diego will remind me
forever!” She leaned forward in confidence. “Did you know that
Diego still keeps Papa’s boots in one corner of his room?”

“I have noticed the boots there when I get the
journal for your mother,” Maria replied. “I thought they were
Diego’s.”

“Oh, no. Diego has never spoken of them, but they
are his reminder.”

“That he must fill them?” said Maria.

Erlinda nodded solemnly and looked at her brother.
He had spurred on ahead to greet an early riser from the Gutierrez
hacienda just beyond Tesuque. “There is no finer man in all the Rio
Arriba than my brother,” Erlinda said, her eyes on Maria again.
“The day Papa died, Diego became a man. I do not think he has ever
resented his duties, no matter how hard they are. I do not suppose
he even regrets Mexico City anymore.” Erlinda reached over and
touched Maria lightly on the knee. “Besides, the crickets probably
do not sing New Mexican songs there, and who can ever vouch for
frogs?”

Maria joined in Erlinda’s gentle laughter, then
turned serious. “Were it not for him, I would not be here.” She did
not tell Erlinda the rest. How morning after morning, even in Luz
and Catarina’s room, she would wake to find Diego’s sword across
the foot of her bed, a cold reminder of restless sleep, restless
ghosts and warm protection.

The dreams came to her now dimly in a troubled
night, but she must still cry out in her sleep, because Diego would
be there, sitting on the floor by her bed until she passed into
deeper sleep. His sword in the morning was the only reminder. And
after she left her room for her early morning duties in the
kitchen, he would reclaim his sword before Luz or Catarina woke.
She knew because once she had seen him, but she did not understand
the meaning of his actions.

Erlinda closed her eyes and leaned back, then sat up
suddenly. Maria could scarcely hear her voice above the noise of
the wagon’s wheels. “Maria, take good care of them,” she said.

Maria leaned forward, too. “What do you mean,
Erlinda?” she asked.

“I do not know,” said Erlinda, embarrassment in her
voice. “It is a feeling I have, nothing more. And look now, I have
startled you. Forgive me.”

She was silent then, and soon her eyes closed in
sleep. Maria pulled Luz closer to her, wondering at the impulsive
words. The morning air took on a chill that she felt all the way to
her shoes. She thought then of the third person in her dreams, a
person dimly glimpsed, as through a haze of smoke. A person tall
and black with yellow eyes.

Unlike Father Efrain and Carmen de Sosa, the demon
of Popeh pursued her in daylight as well as sleep. He was a sudden
sound causing her to whirl about, her heart hammering against her
rib cage. He was never there, of course, but he lived in her mind.
Having seen Popeh once, she dared not dismiss him. She looked at
the sleeping Erlinda. “I will take care of them, all of them,” she
whispered, then crossed herself. She looked toward the Sangre de
Cristo Mountains, a gloomy heap to the east that darkened further
as the sun rose slowly behind them in glorious contrast.

The journey to Santa Fe took six hours. Diego
relieved the tedium of travel for his little sisters by taking
turns holding them before him in the saddle, laughing and singing
old songs, some of which were familiar to Maria from her own
childhood, others of which were Tewa Indian songs, learned long ago
from his Indian servants.

Diego could make even the solemn Luz chuckle, her
hands before her mouth like a proper Spanish lady. Luz sang almost
as loudly as her brother, sitting close to him, holding the reins
in her hands. Tirant ignored her tugging and sawing on the reins,
responding instead to the pressure of Diego’s legs and spurs. Maria
laughed to watch Luz, who thought she controlled the black horse of
Spain.

“How much alike they are,” said Maria to
Erlinda.

“Yes. Luz looks like Diego and Mama,” said Erlinda.
“I wish we had more time for this. Luz and Catarina see him so
seldom.”

Soon there was Santa Fe to watch for. Even Luz
abandoned her efforts with Tirant to look for the red-brown villa
that seemed to appear out of nowhere, the color of the adobe
blending so well with the earth that they were almost upon the town
before anyone realized it. Smoke curled from the chimneys into the
startling blue and white of the noonday sky.

Maria watched the smoke rising. “What will you do
here?” she asked.

“Ordinarily, we would go to the shops,” answered
Erlinda. “It takes several months for the goods from caravans to
reach the shelves. They must be unpacked, counted and taxed.” She
chuckled. “And then taxed again, I vow! Of course, there was no
caravan this year, so there is nothing on the shelves we have not
already seen. But we go. It is a good time to visit.”

“Where do you stay?”

“At the-home of my parents-in-law, Marco’s family.
We have always stayed with the Castellanos. Even before my
marriage. Things are different now since ... Well, they are
different now, but still we visit. ”

The oxcart followed Diego into a quiet side street
and stopped before a low adobe building. It was built like all the
other houses in town, great or small, with a windowless wall on the
street’s edge, broken only by a stout door. The door was open, and
Maria saw a welcome glimpse of courtyard and flowering plants, then
people coming out with smiles and exclamations of greeting.

The Castellanos met them on the street, greeting
Erlinda with cries of delight. They embraced her, Luz, and Catarina
in welcome. Maria remained by the wagon, aching with a loneliness
she had not experienced since the death of her own parents. She
watched the Castellanos and the Masferrers and was filled with a
yearning to belong to someone of her own again. She felt a great
lump rising in her throat and she would have turned away, but Diego
was prodding her forward.

“And this is Maria Espinosa de la Garza,” he
introduced her to the Castellanos. “She has been honoring Las
Invernadas with a visit these past months.”

Don Reynaldo Castellano extended his hand and drew
her toward him. “Then our home is yours.” He touched his chest with
his other hand.

Only Diego’s hand resting lightly on Maria’s
shoulder kept her tears from falling. “Thank you,” she managed,
“thank you.”

“You must excuse Señorita Espinosa and me,” Diego
said to Don Reynaldo. “We have a matter of business to attend to.
Do not wait dinner for us.” Don Reynaldo and his wife protested,
but bowed to them as they left the courtyard, La Señora Castellano
promising to keep something hot for them to eat later.

“I am sorry,” Diego said as they crossed the street.
“We did not mean to make you sad.”

She shook her head. “It is nothing. I was homesick
for a moment, sad about not belonging.”

“I think of you as such a part of my own household
that I do not call it to mind anymore.”

It was a gracious thing to say. Cristóbal would have
called his words another example of Diego’s acquisitiveness, but
Maria could not agree. She glanced at Diego shyly. “Thank you,
Señor.”

“Watch where you are going,” Diego warned as he
steered her around a pig rooting in the street. “This is not a
large city, but it is the only one I know, and I have learned to
look out for pigs.”

They crossed the street. Another block, walked in
silence, took them to the plaza fronting the palace of the
governors. Maria stopped, in spite of herself. She remembered La
Doña Margarita and her reception and could not bring herself to go
any closer.

“Come, Maria,” said Diego. “I will not leave you
alone this time. We must speak to the governor about Popeh.”

The plaza’s midsummer color was fading already into
the brown of drought, but the fountain bubbled with water from the
acequia
close by. Women stood around the water with their
large jars, gossiping with each other and watching the passersby.
Several of the older women greeted Diego, stopping him to ask about
his mother. He paused to exchange a few words with them. The young
women eyed him with slow, sidelong glances.

Maria looked toward the governor’s palace. Indians
were selling food and notions on the wide portal that shaded the
walkway around the building. They squatted, their goods displayed
on blankets in front of them. Though they looked asleep, they came
to life with surprising swiftness when a browser knelt to examine
their wares.

After bowing to the ladies, Diego took Maria’s arm
and they walked toward the wide, open
zaguan
of the palace
that led to the large interior courtyard. The entrance was guarded
by two brass cannons, both of which showed visible signs of
neglect.

“I think these weapons have not been fired since
Noah’s flood,” Diego said.