Daughter of Fortune (4 page)

Jewels. In her fright, she had not thought once
about her little wooden cask hidden in the bottom of the oxcart
underneath her clothing.

Maria stood slowly and climbed the riverbank. Her
dress clung to her in wet, muddy folds and the glorious hair that
Mama had so prized was stringy on her back. She had left her shoes
behind in that tainted grove, but she was not going back for
them.

The buzzards still roosted in the floodplain,
huddled together like the Indians of yesterday, waiting for the sun
to warm them. The trees of the grove were so full of the scavengers
that the branches bent close to the ground.

She looked around her. The bodies, which might have
been recognizable yesterday, had been picked over by the buzzards.
They bore no resemblance to human beings anymore, but were only so
much rotting meat now, bloated and stinking. Maria retched,
spitting up water and bile. She wiped her mouth with the back of
her hand and then covered her nose and breathed through her mouth.
She approached the burned wagons slowly, watching where she
stepped, determined this time not to tread on anything that might
once have been human.

Most of the wagons had been destroyed by flames. She
approached the few that remained. There was the smallest chance
that the jewelry had gone undetected, she told herself,
scrupulously keeping her mind on the wagons and not on the death
around her.

She walked carefully among the wagons and came upon
her own. Young Miguel was slumped forward over the wagon box. An
arrow driven completely through his back had pinned him to the wood
beneath. He had been scalped and his head picked clean by the
buzzards.

As Maria stepped over the body to get into the
wagon, her foot accidentally struck the corpse. Evil-smelling gas
wheezed out of the arrow wound and a cloud of flies rose and then
settled again. Maria leaned over the edge of the cart and retched
until she felt that her stomach would turn inside out.

She trembled as she knelt in the wagon. The fire had
gone out before it consumed everything. She found her bundle of
clothing, ripped and shredded by knives. She burrowed deeper in the
pile. Nothing. The cask was gone.

Maria sagged against the wagon bed, blinking back
tears. She had been foolish beyond all reason to hope that the
Indian raiders would not find her prize. That pitiful handful of
baubles represented her only chance, her entire future. They were
gone now, and she was left with the muddy dress she sat in.

She remained in the wagon until the stench of death
forced her out, then she clambered over the side of the high cart
and shinnied down the partially burned wheel, unwilling to pass
Miguel again.

She was thirsty again, hungry and dirty—but not
alone. When the sun was higher in the sky, the buzzards drove her
out from among the wagons. They flew back to yesterday’s banquet
and continued feasting where they had left off, ripping and tearing
at the corpses. Maria ran back to the river. By now, the smell was
no better there, but at least she would not have to watch the
scavengers or hear the dreadful noises they made as they fought
over the scraps remaining.

Her stomach rumbled and ached. Earlier Maria had
told herself that she could never eat again, not after witnessing
the buzzards, but here she was now, holding her middle and rocking
back and forth. The jerked meat and hardtack that she had only
tolerated for six months would have tasted like the best food her
mother had ever prepared.

She unbuttoned her dress and took it off, shimmying
out of her petticoat and chemise. Perhaps she could wash her
clothing and rid it of the smell of death. It could dry on the
banks of the river. Then, in clean clothes, she could start walking
toward the Sangre de Cristos. She had no idea what waited for her
beyond the circle of death, but it could not be any worse.

Teeth chattering, her skin dimpled with cold, she
scrubbed with river sand until her fingers ached. Then she spread
the garments out on the bank and sat down to wait.

The cold defeated her. When she couldn’t stand
another minute of the breeze on her body, she pulled on her
chemise. Damp as it was, the skimpy covering reached to her knees
and afforded some protection. She waited another hour, then tied on
her petticoat. She was walking toward her dress when she heard the
horses.

At first she wasn’t sure. She stood still and
listened, her fists clutching her petticoat in tight bunches. She
still couldn’t be sure, so she crawled up the side of the bank and
looked. The buzzards were beginning to move around restlessly. Some
flew off, and those that could not fly flapped and waddled back and
forth, squawking.

Then she saw them, a small group of horses and
riders coming from the north and west where the Indians had
disappeared.

Maria whirled around, looking for shelter. She knew
she had to make a run for the grove again, but she hesitated at the
horror. By the time her instincts cancelled out her fear, the
horsemen were crossing the river. Without stopping to see if they
were Indians, she hiked up her petticoat, turned and ran east.

Her bare feet flew over the ground and for one crazy
moment she remembered Mama’s tales of the giants in seven-league
boots who could cover ground in enormous strides. She became that
giant, her legs moving in swift motion across the plain. But the
real giants were behind her and pounding closer. “Saint Francis,’’
she gasped, “Saint Francis!” Spittle dribbled down her chin as she
stumbled over rocks and thorns. She ran and ran, her breath coming
in noisy croaks.

She heard someone shouting to her but kept running,
not daring to look back. Perhaps death would not hurt as much if
she did not see it coming. She soon heard only one horse following
her. The others must have dropped back, content in their curious
Indian way to let one go alone. She thought of Carmen de Sosa and
the ripping cloth and whimpered in terror.

The horse pounded closer behind her. Again she heard
a man yelling at her, but what he said did not sound like the
language the Indians had spoken.

As the horse closed the gap between them, she
shrieked and changed courses, darting like a rabbit, now toward the
river, now toward the plain. Her feet were bloody from gashes, but
she refused to stop running. She could not. The rider would have to
kill her first.

The horse was almost breathing in her ear when a
hand reached down and grabbed the back of her chemise, jerking her
off the ground. She cried and struck out with her hands, struggling
to get away. Her eyes closed, she fought and scratched until the
man flopped her over his legs and clamped his hand on her windpipe.
She choked and gagged and finally acquiesced, draped over his lap
like a sack of meal.

“By all the saints,
chiquita
—young one—will
you be still?” The rider’s voice was soft and low, but she could
hear him clearly above the pounding of his horse, which was only
beginning to slow down after its race across the plain.

The man loosened his grip on her throat, and Maria
lay across his lap coughing, her eyes shut tight. She opened them
slowly. All she could see was his leg, booted and
leather-covered.

The man reined in his horse, his hand resting on her
back. “Here, let me help you,” he said, pulling Maria into a
sitting position in front of him. “Why did you not stop running
when I called to you?” he asked in the same quiet voice.

Maria could only shake her head, not trusting to
words. If he did not know already, she could not tell him. He
didn’t sound like a man who knew anything of fear.

When she said nothing, the rider gathered up the
reins around her. “
Pues, no le aflige
,” he said in her ear.
“Never mind.”

They rode slowly back to the other men who were
grouped together on horseback a distance away from the wreckage of
bodies and wagons. Exhausted from her race, Maria wanted to lean
back against the horseman but would not. She still had not seen his
face, but he did not sound like an old man. She could almost hear
her mother’s voice: “Daughter, there has been no introduction.”

They joined the little troop between the river and
the grove of trees. The men, some of them soldiers, dismounted and
came close. The rider tossed the reins over his horse’s head and
dismounted. He held up his arms for Maria and lifted her down.

He was a short man, not much taller than she. His
hair was curly and black and stuck out from under the red silk
scarf he wore stretched tight over his head and under his flat
black hat. His face was deeply tanned, his eyes like pools of
chocolate. His beard, cut close to his skin, could not hide the
tiny weather wrinkles around his eyes and lips. He was a young man,
perhaps twenty, but the country had already made him old.

She looked around her, relieved, yet disquieted to
see the living again. All the men had the same young-old look. She
shivered in spite of the afternoon’s heat. This was a hard country.
She could see it in the faces around her and confirm it in her
soul. The nightmare of the past day had made her old, too.

Once begun, she could not stop shivering. Her
rescuer took off his short cloak, leather—like everything else he
wore except his shirt—and swung it around her shoulders. She
continued to shiver, the cold coming from deep within her.

“I have ...” she began, then stopped in confusion.
She had not spoken in more than a day, and her voice was strange to
her ears. “I have a dress ... down by the river.”

The man tied the cords of his cloak around her neck
and gestured with his head toward the river. One of the soldiers
walked to the water, making a detour around the wagons.

“What is your name?”

“I am called ...” She hesitated again, and panic
pushed the cold deeper into her bones.
Dios, Dios
, who was
she? Was she a person anymore, or did she wander now in some
curious fashion between the quick and the dead, who lay in a
thousand pieces around them.

The man shook her by the shoulders. The movement
snapped her head up. She looked at him, staring into his eyes, and
he gazed back.

“I am Maria Luisa Espinosa de la Garza,” she said
clearly, wondering why she wasn't paralyzed with the embarrassment
of staring at a man, a stranger. “I have come north to live with my
sister, Margarita Espinosa de Guzman.”

The horseman dropped his gaze, and the other men
exchanged glances.

“Is that how it is? Well, I am Diego Masferrer, a
landowner from north of the
villa
of Santa Fe.”

The soldier returned from the river with her dress.
She took it from him, suddenly aware of the glances of the other
men as she stood there in her chemise and petticoat.

“Perhaps you would go over to that grove of trees to
put on your dress?” Diego took her by the elbow.

“No!” she shouted at him, shaking off his hand. He
stepped back in surprise. “No,” she said again, this time her voice
low and pleading. “Don’t make me go in there again.”

Maria clutched her dress to her and started to cry,
deep sobs that shook her whole body. Shaking her head, she picked
her way through the ruined bodies to the only other shelter on the
plain. Standing behind one of the charred wagons, she let the cloak
fall to the ground and pulled her dress over her head.

She tried to fasten the wooden buttons, but her
fingers shook. Her arms dropped to her sides and she stood there in
the shelter of the oxcart, her head bowed, tears falling.

“You will be well.”

It was Diego Masferrer. He had followed her to the
wagon. He stood in front of her and buttoned her dress. He smiled
at her.

“I have sisters,” he said, “plenty of them.”

When her dress was fastened, he took out his
handkerchief and made her blow her nose. “That’s better,” he said.
“Now come away from here. Anywhere you say.”

She walked to the river and sat down on the bank.
The rest of the riders joined them there and sat watching her.

“Can you tell us what happened?”

Could she tell them what happened? Maria was silent,
looking at Diego. He sat close to her and she wanted to reach out
and touch his face. After living with phantoms for two days, she
was deeply conscious of the life around her.

“First, do you have any food?”

Several of the men got up and went through their
saddles, bringing back hardtack and jerky—
biscoche
and
carne seca
. Maria smiled as she took the food from them. Was
there nothing in this difficult land but hardtack and jerked
meat?

Between bites, she told the little party of men what
had happened, as far as she knew. Once during the recounting she
started to breathe rapidly, her voice sounding high and tight to
her ears. Diego took her hands and held them in his own until her
breathing returned to normal. When she finished, several of the men
crossed themselves. They were silent then, all of them, turned
inward to their own thoughts.

“These things are always with us,” Diego said at
last, then shook his head. “I do not mean that to sound hard.
Still,” he paused, looking across the river to the west, “they have
never struck so hard before.”

“Who?”

“Apache,” he answered, spitting out the word like a
foul taste. “They are our scourge, our special plague. We have good
reason to fear them.”

The other men nodded, speaking among themselves in
low tones. Although she could not hear their words, she could tell
from the seriousness of their expressions that each man had
witnessed the handiwork of the Apache.

“You were the lucky one.
La Afortunada
,"
commented Diego Masferrer. “From now on, that’s what we shall call
you. Daughter of Fortune.”

She smiled faintly at him, then shivered
involuntarily. He got to his feet. “Stay where you are,
chiquita
,” he said. “We have work to do.”