Daughter of Fortune (33 page)

“It is more than that, Diego
mio
, “isn’t
it?”

He smiled faintly at her use of his name. “I do not
know, Maria. But there is something here we know nothing of. I can
only hope the unrest will pass as it always has.”

She sat next to him for comfort, and he put his arm
around her. Their thoughts were on the drums, which had faded
further, then stopped with a suddenness more disconcerting than
their sound.

Emiliano returned with a handful of chicken feathers
and two eggs. He cracked the eggs and separated the yolks from the
whites, then looked at Maria. “I forgot something. Take the knife
and scrape off the bottom of that pot. Put the shavings here in
this dish.”

Maria knelt by the cooking pot and scraped the
blackened bottom until bits of carbon floated in the air.

“Mix a little egg with the blackening and make a
beard for our
San
Francisco de Asis.
Use our Diego
for your model. Of course, his vanity keeps his beard well-trimmed,
but he will do today, when we have no one better.”

“Thank you, Old One,” grinned Diego.

Maria stirred a small portion of yolk into the
blacking with a feather, soaking the feather with black paint. Her
hand was unsteady as she raised the feather brush to the gleaming
white statue. “It is like cutting out a piece of expensive brocade
for a dress,” she confessed. “I fear the first step.”

Emiliano snorted. “And why should this act of
beginning be any different than any other act of life? It is well
that you fear. If you did not, I would take the brush from
you.”

She glanced at Diego for reassurance. He winked.
With another dip of the feather in paint, and another glance at
Diego’s close-cut beard, she painted the beard on the empty white
face, her hand steady. She put the brush down. “What do I mix for
his robe?” she asked.

“A little more black, some of the red clay, blue
bean, perhaps a touch of yellow. As you wish.”

She mixed the colors, blue predominating, relishing
the small swirls of brightness that spun around and around and then
vanished in the emerging blue-gray, adding their bits of color and
contrast. When she had the proper hue for San Francisco’s robe, she
stroked the color on with another chicken feather, pleased with the
way the color soaked into the gypsum.

Maria set the figure down on the workbench,
carefully turning it around with the tips of her finger. The
bulto
had none of the grace she associated with San
Francisco. This figure was crude and primitive, carved quickly of
cottonwood and painted with chicken feathers. A year ago she would
have laughed and turned away from this small saint, but not now.
This gentle representative of the faith had come to her, not from
the belly of a great Spanish galleon, but from the earth itself.
She had freed the saint from the tree limb.

The men in the room were silent, Emiliano’s eyes on
the saint that blessed his workbench, Diego’s eyes on the woman who
painted it. Maria was silent, too, looking at her saint. She picked
up a clean feather and dabbed it in the blue bean paint. Her
strokes were surer now as she painted the eyes.

“Maria,” asked Emiliano, “why do you paint his eyes
that way? Should he not be looking straight ahead, contemplating
some eternity we know nothing of?”

“No,” she replied decisively, “he is looking down at
the bird in his outstretched hand. For this he must glance
sideways. No one looks at a bird straight on. They fly away.”

“But Maria
chiquita
,” said Diego, his eyes
still on her face, “there is no bird.”

“Diego, you will never be a saintmaker. As I found
the saint, so will I find the bird.”

She took up the blackened feather and brushed hair
on the gentle man of Assisi, careful to leave a bald area for his
tonsure. She made short brush strokes, glancing at Diego as she
did, trying to capture the curl of his hair on the head of the
saint.

“You flatter me,
querida
,” Diego said, the
endearment slipping out.

Maria heard him, but sighed. Somehow, it did not
look right. “Emiliano, I want curly hair, but I don’t know how to
do it. And I wanted to carve folds in his habit, but I do not know
how.”

“So you must practice. I am fifty. You are fifteen.
Do you think I learned everything in one day?”

“When you are old and toothless, Maria,” said
Diego.

Her eyes twinkled at him as she picked up another
feather, dipping it into the red clay-egg yolk mixture. She dabbed
on a small mouth, a serious mouth. She could never have imagined
San Francisco as a jolly sort of man. His beauty came from within.
But how to paint that glow? She put down the feather. How indeed?
The technique escaped her.

“He needs a knotted cord around his waist,” Emiliano
reminded her.

With the whitened yucca fiber brush, she painted the
cord around his waist, careful not to smear the blue-gray of his
habit. Mixing a little more white with a dab of brown, she painted
San Francisco’s hands the color of work and summer fields, the
color of Diego’s hands.

She set the
bulto
on the worktable and rubbed
her back. Her legs ached from sitting cross-legged so long, and she
noticed that the sky was darkening. But she had one more thing to
do.

‘‘
May I leave San Francisco here?’’
she asked.

“I was going to suggest it. I will carve a small
cross for his other hand, and hinge the arm to the shoulder for
you. Next time you come this way, he will be ready.” There was no
word of compliment or praise from Emiliano, but she did not expect
any. She could read his thoughts in the small glances he darted at
the little saint gracing his workbench.

“Are you ready?” Diego asked.

“Almost. I have one more stop to make, if you will,”
she said, getting slowly to her feet.

“Why not? We will miss dinner anyway.”

Maria stepped onto the terrace. The Indian women
were preparing their evening meals. Wonderful aromas rose from the
cooking pot, and she remembered that she had eaten nothing since
early that morning in the dark kitchen. She looked back at
Emiliano’s workroom and smiled. Her little San Francisco watched
her through the open window, his hand extended.

Diego followed Emiliano out onto the terrace. The
santero
nodded to Maria and turned to Diego. “Go with God,
Señor Masferrer.”

“And you, Old One.”

The saintmaker hesitated. "There is one other thing.
Of late, your enemy the Apache has been visiting our pueblo. In
friendship, they say. Now, is this not a strange thing?”

Diego watched him, looking for more information than
the old man’s words provided. “It is a strange thing, friend of my
father. And what do you make of such a curious circumstance?”

Emiliano shrugged. “I cannot say.” His tone was
guarded. “Perhaps they choose to make friends. Perhaps they want an
alliance. Who can say?”

Diego carefully matched his speech to the
saintmaker’s, the formality of his speech reflecting the importance
of the conversation. “Yes, who can say? But tell me, Emiliano
el
santero,
did these ‘friends’ of yours and mine come on
horseback?”

“They did—despite your king’s regulations to the
contrary.” Diego did not answer right away. He looked at Maria,
then down at his boots. “It is curious indeed,” he said in a flat
tone that gave away nothing.

Again the saintmaker chose his words with care. “I
do not know how to say this, or even if I should. There is great
conflict within me, as there is within Cristóbal. He is of mixed
blood, I of mixed spirit. But no, say nothing. Only be careful. Do
not leave Las Invernadas unguarded for any reason. Not if you value
what is within. Not if you value this small saintmaker,” he said,
touching Maria lightly on the shoulder. “I will say no more. Go
now.”

They climbed down the outside ladder, Maria waiting
at the foot while Diego untied his horse. He came back leading
Tirant, his eyes on the terraces above. He motioned to her slowly.
“Come this way, Maria,” he said in a low tone, “then turn and look
up to the third level. To the left there.”

She did as he said. While he leaned against his
horse to put on his spurs, she casually scanned the terrace.
“Diego, are they men?” she whispered.

“Look away now, Maria. Yes, they are men, such men
as we have never seen before.”

She took one last glance at the terrace. Four men
stood there, painted white and wearing long white loincloths that
reached to their painted knees. Their eyes stood out like black
coals on white paper.

“It would appear that we are not the only gatherers
of gypsum,” said Diego.

“But what does it mean? Who are they?” She hated the
way her voice rose in fear. Diego took her by the arm. When she
looked back at the terrace, the Indians had vanished. The pueblo
was silent, even the cooking noises hushed. As they stood there,
the same pueblo that had appeared so bright in the day’s sun began
to take on shadows that lengthened and stretched across the plaza
to Father Pio’s church.

“Let us leave, Maria,” said Diego, a note of urgency
in his voice. “Where was it that you wanted to go?”

“It can wait.” She felt a strong desire to be back
at Las Invernadas.

“No. I will not show fear in front of my Indians.
Where is it that you wanted to go?” he repeated.

“Back to the little
arroyo
where I found the
saint in the wood. It should take only a moment.”

“That will be about all the time we have before it
will be too dark to see.” He boosted her into the saddle, and she
held the reins while he mounted behind her. He gathered the reins
in his hands and sniffed her hair. “You still smell of ox
hoof.”

“There is always the
acequia
after dark,” she
replied, relieved at his light tone.

“I recommend it. Maybe this is too high a price to
pay to become a saintmaker. Mama has some lavender soap she has
been saving for a special occasion.”

Maria jabbed him with her elbow, and he laughed, the
sound ringing across the deserted plaza.

The sun was setting when they arrived at the
arroyo.
Maria swung her leg over the saddle and dropped to
the ground as Diego reined in his horse. “You needn’t come unless
you want to,” she called as she started down the rocky bank to the
dry riverbed.

She heard him dismount, and heard the ring of his
spurs on the rocks, but she did not look back. She walked carefully
among the dry woods, searching. There is was. She picked up a small
piece of cottonwood, turning it over and over in her hands.

“What have you there?” Diego called from the bank
above.

She held up the piece of wood. “San Francisco’s
bird!” she said. “I remembered seeing a piece with wings, and here
it is.”

He laughed again, holding up his hand as if to ward
off her enthusiasm. “It would be only a piece of wood to me,
chiquita
,” he said.

“Señor! And I thought you had poetry in your soul,”
she chided, picking her way up the rocky path.

“Not I. I am just a river kingdom
paisano,
an
itching, scratching ranchero from más allá
de la
frontera
—the kind of person your family probably joked about in
Mexico City,” he said, squatting on the riverbank. “But if you say
it is a bird, I would never doubt you,
querida mia
.”

She paused halfway up the bank, hanging onto a root
from the mesquite tree. She must speak to him of his words to the
governor. As she stood there looking up at him, she knew it would
break her heart if he called her his darling again. Never before in
her life had she felt such a longing for someone. She hung there,
clinging to the mesquite root, wanting Diego Masferrer as she had
never wanted anything before in her life, and knowing that she had
nothing to offer him except herself. And in this place, it would
not be enough. “Señor,” she began, “I am not your
querida
.”

He was not listening to her. He was standing up now,
leaning forward slightly, looking to the north and up the river
valley.

“Señor?” she said again.

“Hush,” he commanded. He leaned down swiftly, yanked
her up to level ground, and pushed her down in the concealment of a
bush beside him. He sat down slowly on the rock, his face draining
of color, his eyes still intent on the distant view.

She got to her feet and sat next to him on the rock,
her heart pounding loudly in her chest. She leaned against his
shoulder, and he shifted, encircling her with his arm. He put his
cheek close to her and pointed with his other arm, whispering,
“
Mira
. Look there. Do you see?”

Intensely aware of his nearness, she looked down the
length of his arm, squinting against the setting sun. At first she
could see nothing, but as she watched, breathing in rhythm with
Diego, she saw.

Six Indians ran along the Taos road. They came
slowly, leisurely, as if they had set a pace some distance away
that was, by now, second nature to them. They ran with a grace that
took her breath away, their long dark hair unbound and swinging
from side to side with the rhythmic movement of their legs. She
slid closer to Diego, and his arm around her tightened.

“Where are they from?” she whispered in his ear.

“From Taos, I would say,” he answered, never taking
his eyes off the magic runners. “That is an old Taos road. I did
not think anyone used it anymore.”

They watched the Indians come closer, the running
almost hypnotic in its effect. “They will pass behind us, where
Tirant is,” said Diego. He rose in a crouch and ran to his horse,
pulling the animal into a small, tree-covered gully beside the
arroyo.

Maria could not take her eyes off the Indians. As
they drew closer, she saw that they were white-painted like the
Indians in the pueblo. She sat still on the rock. It was full of
the day’s heat, but she felt none of its warmth.