Daughter of Fortune (46 page)

Madre de Dios
, help us!” Maria screamed as
they pounded the length of the walkway. Catarina and Luz cried,
thin, piping wails of terror that Maria knew she would hear for the
rest of her days. “Holy Mother, San Francisco, save us!” she
shrieked.

As they ran faster, shouting and screaming, the
gates slowly opened.

Without another word, Maria shoved Catarina and Luz
toward the outstretched arms and stopped. She whirled around to
face the plaza. She could still see Diego, shooting with dreadful
deliberation at the approaching Indians. His aim was excellent, and
they moved slowly, cautiously toward him.

Maria started toward him, but someone seized the
back of her chemise and yanked her toward the fortress gates again.
She struggled to free herself, but other hands pulled her in and
then pushed her to one side as the defenders of Santa Fe barged out
through the gates with their own cry, “Santiago!”

When the smoke-blackened man let go of her, she
leaped to her feet again and ran out the open gate, following the
soldiers, compelled back into the plaza she had been so desperate
to leave only minutes before.

The fighting swirled around her as she ran toward
the last place she had seen Diego. The stench sickened her, the
flash and roar of the arquebuses at close range deafened her, but
she kept running, searching, her heart pounding, her mouth open as
she gasped for breath.

And then it was over. Someone struck her from
behind, and she dropped like a stone in the plaza.

She heard voices, Spanish voices, before she opened
her eyes. Her exhausted mind turned the sounds over and over, but
she was still afraid to open her eyes. Someone was stroking her
cheek, running fingertips down her face. Only one person she knew
had ever done that, and he was dead. She sobbed his name and the
fingers stopped.

“Maria. ”

That was all. Her name. She opened her eyes and
looked up into Diego Masferrer’s dear face.

She closed her eyes quickly, then opened them again.
He was still looking down at her, a slight smile on his face. Blood
dribbled down the corner of his mouth, and she raised her hand to
his lips. He ran his tongue over his teeth and winced.

“Diego.” She patted his face, glorying in the
familiarity of it.

“We were both too tough to kill, Maria
querida
.”

She reached up and put her arms around his neck. He
winced again, and then gathered her close. “Maria, will you never
listen to me?” he said into her shoulder.

She laughed and ran her hands over his broad back.
“So we are not dead?”

She felt his laughter as she held him. “If' you were
dead, Maria, you would probably look better.”

Maria let go of Diego and sat up, touching her face.
Her left eye was swelling and her face felt strangely puffy.

“Between the two of us,
querida,
” said Diego,
squatting back on his haunches, “I believe we have one good pair of
eyes.”

“For that, Señorita,” began a familiar voice, “I
must apologize.”

Maria squinted into the sun. “Señor Castellano!” she
exclaimed. “How good it is to see you!”

He knelt by her as she sat on the ground near the
palace entrance. His face was black with smoke from the fire, and
she almost didn’t recognize him.

“Maria, you did not say how pleased you were to see
me when I tried to stop you from going after Diego!”

“A thousand pardons,” she said, putting her hand to
her swollen face.

“I am afraid I had to strike you to stop you. It was
not a thing I am proud of, Señorita, but you would not listen.
”

“Yes,” murmured Diego, “that is something about
her.”

“Santos
!” Castellano exclaimed, “you fought
me like a tiger! But never mind. You two are alive.” He struggled
to control his emotions. “I never ... we never ... thought to see
any of you ever again.” Señor Castellano paused, looking over his
shoulder. “But here are two young ones I cannot hold back.”

Luz and Catarina threw themselves at Maria and
Diego. Maria clasped Luz in her arms, holding the child close.

“Maria,” Luz whispered, “when you ran back out the
gates, I tried to follow you, but they wouldn’t let me.”

“Oh, Luz,” Maria whispered back, “we will not be
parted again. Not for anything.”

Diego leaned over and kissed Luz. “Will you forgive
me for striking you, Luz?”

Silently she threw her arms around her brother.

Governor Otermin shouldered his way through the
people that crowded around the fortress entrance. Like Señor
Castellano, he was smoke-blackened. Gone were his fancy clothes,
his elegant gold-handled cane. His shirt and breeches were in
tatters, and he wore the look of one awake too long. He bowed
slightly, a striking figure of authority even in his rags. “Accept
my apologies and sympathy, Masferrer. ”

Diego held out his hand, and the governor grasped it
in a firm grip. Then Otermin stepped back, looking at Maria and
Diego’s sisters. “At least you do not come to us empty-handed,
Diego.”

“I have nothing, sir,” Diego replied. “Absolutely
nothing.”

“Ah. Here I see your sisters, and Maria Espinosa,
the redoubtable Maria. Diego, she is formidable.”

“They are not my possessions,” snapped Diego. Maria
put a hand on his arm but he ignored her. “I will never again have
the ... the audacity to think I can own anyone. We are together
because we belong together,
por Dios
,” he paused. “Sir.”

Maria smiled at Diego and put her arm around his
waist. The haunted look left his eyes. “You’re a forward woman,” he
said to cover his embarrassment.

“And you, Masferrer,” began the governor. “I am
pleased to note that this whole nightmare has not completely
knocked out all your eccentricities. Such a dull colony this would
be.”

Maria looked around at the colony the governor spoke
of. The plaza was crowded with people, refugees like themselves,
women and children, dirty, hungry, and inexpressibly weary, their
eyes vacant with exhaustion, or full of the terrors of the week
they had survived. She pulled Luz and Catarina to her, thinking to
shield them from the hopelessness around them, then loosened her
grip on the girls as she realized that they were no better off.

Any area not occupied by the refugees was taken up
with animals, whatever horses, sheep, goats, and cows the rancheros
had managed to save.

“Like Noah’s Ark, Maria,” observed Luz.

“What? Oh, indeed. I think you must be right.
Ay
de mi
! Could Noah have heard himself in such a racket!”

Luz tugged at Maria. “I am thirsty.”

The governor turned from his own contemplation of
the disorder around him, a look of perpetual wonder on his dirty
face at such a bedraggled mob defacing his well-ordered patio. “Ah,
water. The Indians have cut the
acequia
that flows into the
plaza. We have no water. He looked at Diego. “To say that things
are somewhat desperate is typical of the understatement of which
only government officials are capable.”

Diego laughed, and Otermin raised his eyebrows.
“Masferrer, what makes you so cheerful?”

“Señor Excellency,” he replied, “I am just pleased
to be alive. Is there a priest around?”

“I would imagine. They have a resiliency that rivals
your own. Try the chapel. I believe it is crammed with burning
candles.”

“Excellency, is there any clothing around for Maria
and my sisters?”

“Yes, an admirable point. Señor Castellano can
direct you to the storehouse. Although if we leave Maria in her
shift, she might be distracting enough to take the men’s minds off
water.”

Diego did not laugh, even when Maria blushed and
pulled his sisters in front of her. The governor looked from Maria
to him. “I mean no offense, Masferrer, none at all. I was appealing
to your evident humor, but I see that you do not laugh about
Maria.”

Diego bowed. “Oh, I do, Your Excellency, but
you
don’t.” Otermin bowed in turn, and the two men went off
to their separate tasks.

Maria looked around her again. The gates had been
slammed shut again and bolted with a heavy cedar crosspiece.
Black-faced boys and men watched at the rifle ports, silent, alert.
The governor walked among them, speaking to one, patting
another.

Maria could hear nothing from the plaza. “Have the
Indians left, Señor Castellano?” she asked.

“For now, perhaps, at least some of them. They carry
away their wounded and dead, then return in a few hours, stronger
than before. This has been their pattern for two or three days,
maybe more. I cannot recall.”

“We saw their campfires on the hills north.”

“Yes. They have been there several days. It all
begins to run together.” Señor Castellano held his arm out for
Maria. “Come with me now. I have someone who can help you and the
girls.”

Señora Castellano was sitting in a scrap of shade, a
parasol at her feet, in an attitude of genteel repose, untouched by
the activity around her. She rose when she saw Maria and held out
her hand as if she were in her own
sala.
She clutched Maria
in a strong embrace. “Maria,” she said. “Words cannot express my
feelings. Come, sit.”

Maria sat next to La Señora Castellano. She smiled
to see the Castellano sons and daughters around their mother. “How
lucky you are, Señora,” she said. “You have everyone here.”

Señora Castellano regarded her children, then turned
to Maria. “Yes, although I find myself counting them several times
a day, as I did when they were younger. Maria, the tales we have
heard! I cannot believe them. ”

“Believe them, Señora,” said Maria wearily, “for
they are true. We have seen things that will be with us
forever.”

“What of Señora Masferrer? Erlinda? and
Cristóbal?”

Maria shook her head and closed her eyes. Luz and
Catarina leaned against her.

Señora Castellano reached out and put her hands on
the children. “It would seem that you have acquired sisters,
Maria,” she said, motioning for her daughter to come forward with
food.

“I have. Twice they have been given into my keeping,
so I have sisters.” Maria opened her eyes and said suddenly, “But
what of
my
sister?”

Señora Castellano looked away. “La Viuda? A sad
story, my dear. And have you not had enough of sad stories, Maria?
La Viuda Guzman fled with the rest of us, she and her daughters,
all of us just ahead of the Indians. Why did none of us think this
would ever happen?” She stirred restlessly. “Well, when the Widow
Guzman came through the gates, she remembered that she had left
behind her strongbox, the one with the records of deeds and
mortgages and loans. What can I say? She harangued the men to help
her fetch it, and when no one would, she and her daughters returned
for it. That was two days ago. We have not seen them since.”

Maria bowed her head and sat in silence while La
Señora handed her and the girls a trencher of dried meat and
hardtack. She watched Luz and Catarina eat quickly, rapidly, then
picked up a handful of meat. She ate.

“We are rationed heavily,” said Señora Castellano.
“All of this is from the government storehouses. Here is a sip of
wine. Only a sip, mind you. We have nothing more.”

The wine was cheap and bitter, such as would be
allotted to soldiers, but at least it was wet. Watching carefully,
La Señora took the bottle back after it had gone around once. “Save
the rest for Diego,” she said.

Maria was silent, looking across the courtyard. The
sun was hot and pitiless overhead, and she was grateful for the
small shade. The townspeople had gotten the shady spots first,
while the refugees who had managed to flee their haciendas with
their lives alone sat and baked in the sun, staring with dull eyes
at nothing. She got to her feet. “I must find Diego!” she told the
Castellanos.

“Oh, sit, sit, child. He said he was only going to
look for a priest.”

But Maria would not sit. She backed away from Señora
Castellano’s restraining hand. “I must find him,” she insisted.
“Stay here, Luz and Catarina. I will be back. He is gone too
long.”

“Maria, it has been only a few minutes! Sit here and
wait.”

“You don’t understand, Señora. I have to find
him.”

Her body ached and her eye was on fire, but she ran
toward the chapel at the east end of the patio. Everywhere there
were crying children and sun-burned women, just sitting in rags and
tatters, staring.

The chapel was cool but crowded with refugees, women
praying out loud, raising their hands to heaven, lamenting what had
been lost, wailing for the dead, swaying back and forth, pulling at
their hair. With a cry of relief, Maria saw Diego sitting on a
bench toward the front of the church, talking to a Franciscan. She
ran forward and put her hands on Diego’s shoulders. He jumped and
grabbed her fingers, loosening his hold only when he looked over
his shoulder and saw who it was.

“Ah, don’t sneak up on me like that again,” he said
with a shaky laugh. “Sit down,
mi corazon.
This is Father
Farfán. Father, Maria Espinosa de la Garza. ”

She came around the bench and sat beside Diego. He
put her hand on his thigh in a gesture that made her think that he
was not through with possessions just yet.

“I was hoping you would come,” he said. “It is a
curious thing. I feel so uneasy without you close by.”

Maria nodded. “I was feeling the same thing.”

Father Farfán leaned forward, looking at both of
them. “We have seen that for the past week, especially with those
who have come here from outlying areas, as you have. Whole families
move about in groups. No one wants to be out of anyone’s sight.” He
sighed and looked down at his hands. “They tell us, as you have
told me, of the things they have witnessed, and I do not wonder at
their reluctance to be separated.” He looked at Maria. “Diego tells
me you saw Father Pio.”