Daughter of Fortune (5 page)

Silently the men followed Diego toward the wagons.
He stopped suddenly and turned to Maria again, his hands on his
hips.

“Tell me. Were the Indians on horseback?”

She considered. “Not at first. When they left, they
were riding the caravan’s horses and mules.”

The men exchanged glances. “Now it has come to
that,” one of the soldiers said, clapping his hands together in a
frustrated gesture that made Maria jump. “They will never attack on
foot again.”

The men went to the wagons. Maria sat with her back
to them so she could not see. But she heard them dragging what
remained of the bodies together into a heap. The stench was
dreadful, and she closed her eyes and covered her ears as the men
gagged and retched. As afternoon yielded to early evening, she grew
chilled sitting by the water, but she refused to move until the
work behind her was done. She could not bear to gaze on all that
death again.

She listened as the men ripped the boards off the
unburned wagons and soon she heard the crackle of fire. The sound
startled her and she leaped up. For one terrible moment she was
back in the grove, hearing the caravan fire for the first time,
waking to a nightmare of torture and death. Then she remembered
where she was and stood in silence, her head bowed. She could think
of no words or prayers to offer for the wretched ones. Their
troubles were over. Hers had only begun.

“It is done now.”

Diego was speaking to her. She turned to him, then
glanced quickly away. His face was lined and drawn, even as she
knew hers was. He walked past her to the river where he squatted to
wash his hands and face. He was joined by the other men who also
sought to remove from hands and clothing stains that could only
dissolve slowly, if at all, through the years.

I can tell you it will not wash off, thought
Maria.

She was seized then by a fierce desire to be away
from that place of carnage and death. She could not sleep there
again and risk a visit from Father Efrain or Carmen de Sosa,
crawling around in search of her scalp.

Already the sky was dark. She looked toward the
grove for a glimpse of those two specters peering at her through
the tall grass, waiting for her to sleep so they could claim her
again. She sobbed, covering her face with her hands in
mortification. Her fingers were ice cold, as though death were
already on them. “If you please, Señor; can we not leave this
place? Now?”

Diego spoke to her out of the shadows. “We are
going. After lighting such a fire, we dare not stay. Come.”

They walked to the horses, Maria hurrying ahead in
her anxiety to be away from the bloody ground and the nightmares
biding their time in the grove. The horses were restless, milling
around with nervous whinnies, tossing their manes, stepping here
and there in impatience.

Maria saw the looks the men exchanged. Several of
them checked their heavy firing pieces before swinging into the
saddle. Diego loosened the strap holding his sword.

“We may have work this night,” he murmured to no one
in particular. He looked at her frightened face. “And yet, they
might not attack. But they are here.”

She nodded. She too could sense the presence of the
Indians. The Apaches were never far away. She watched Diego as he
mounted his horse. He had called her
La Afortunada
, the
Lucky One. How strange.

The others mounted. Diego held out his arms, and
Maria put her foot in his stirrup. He pulled her up into the saddle
with him. “Hang on,” he directed. She grasped the high saddle
horn.

They left the blazing funeral pyre at a gallop,
traveling two abreast and moving fast over the darkened land. The
moon was only a slice in the sky, and Maria could not see the path
they followed, but she did not question the abilities of the men
she rode with. They knew where they were headed. They knew this
road as they knew their own wives and children.

After nearly a league of rapid, silent travel, the
pace slowed to a walk. Maria dozed in the saddle, trying not to
lean back. She struggled to stay awake. She had never been this
close to a man before, not even her father. When she felt herself
falling against him, she pulled herself awake. Once, when she
relaxed against Diego Masferrer, she yanked her head up, cracking
him under the chin. Without a word, he transferred the reins to his
left hand and with the other, firmly pushed her against his chest.
Her eyes closed and she slept.

In her dream, Carmen de Sosa ran alongside Diego’s
horse, tugging at Maria’s dress with her bloody hands. Maria
whimpered. “
Por Dios
, they follow me,” she whispered,
pulling her legs up out of Carmen’s dripping grasp. She cried out
and tried to scramble from the saddle, but Diego held her down, his
arms clamped firmly around her body.

Diego was silent, as if trying to understand what
she feared. “Maria,” he said finally, “go back to sleep. I shall
keep them away.” She shut her eyes. “Sleep, sleep,” he said over
and over, until sleep overtook her and closed out the soothing
sound of his voice.

They halted for the night several hours later in the
shelter of an abandoned building. The adobe had crumbled away from
the tops of the walls, and the roof was missing, but it was shelter
of sorts, protection.

The men quartered their horses inside the small
enclosure, leaving the saddles on and lying down beside their
animals, the reins wrapped around one wrist. Diego helped Maria
into the most protected corner of the ruin and lay down without a
word. He was asleep at once. After looking around at the other men,
Maria sank to the ground and closed her eyes, knowing that she
could never sleep in such circumstances.

She woke with the sunrise, and discovered to her
acute embarrassment that at some point during the night she had
curled up against Diego Masferrer. He had covered them both with
his cloak and his arm was thrown over her waist, drawing her up
tight against his body. She feared to move and wake him so she lay
still, looking at his hand close to her face. His fingers were
slender but strong-looking, and he wore a heavy gold ring on his
index finger. The reins of his horse were still wrapped around his
wrist. Maria closed her eyes again and sighed.

The movement of her ribcage woke her protector. He
untangled the rein and sat up, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Válgame
, it is late,” he said under his
breath. “We are old women.”

Maria sat up. All the men were asleep except the
guard, who was seated in the empty window, looking out at the
morning. Diego waved to him and then went from man to man, shaking
them awake. Maria got to her knees. Her whole body ached from
sleeping on the gravel and bits of adobe littering the ground, but
she was warm. The attitude of the guard at the window told her they
had nothing to fear at the moment. She sat back cross-legged on the
ground and leaned against the wall, feeling a contentment wholly
out of proportion to her circumstances, feeling safety in the
presence of these hard men from Santa Fe.

But I will have to say goodbye to him—to them—in
Santa Fe, she reminded herself silently. I owe them so much.

Maria performed her ablutions in a puddle of
standing water behind the adobe building, wondering as she splashed
muddy water on her face if she would ever be really clean again.
She thought of the tin hip bath that used to hang in her dressing
room in Mexico City. Surely her sister Doña Margarita had a
bathtub, perhaps even some clothing besides the everlasting brown
serge—
jerga
—she had been wearing for six months.

She dried her face on the hem of her dress and
joined the men for more hardtack and jerky. One of the soldiers
gave her a handful of dried apple. The linty bits of fruit tasted
better than anything she had eaten in months. She smiled at the
soldier, who blushed and turned away, a grin on his face.

Diego lifted Maria onto his horse and then mounted
behind her again. It was still a tight fit, but after sleeping next
to him in the adobe shelter, Maria did not feel the constraints of
yesterday. What was it her mother used to say? “Necessity is the
soup that helps the food down,” she said out loud, as if reciting
from a primer.

“Qué es, chiquita
?” Diego asked.

She repeated the proverb and Diego laughed. “Yes,
Maria
chiquita
, and let me tell you another
dicho
—‘One must cut the cloak to fit the cloth.’ This is our
motto, as you will discover.” He must have felt rather than heard
her sigh. “As perhaps you have already discovered.”

She said nothing more, closing her eyes against the
brightness of the morning sun. She did not even have cloth to cut,
only the dress she sat in and the shoes one of the men had
retrieved from the grove of trees. Her only hope was that at the
end of this dreadful journey her sister was waiting. Her sister and
her sister’s husband who would become her protector.

She sat up straighter, narrowly missing Diego’s chin
again. “What do you know of Doña Margarita Espinosa de Guzman?” she
asked.

He was silent for a moment, and when he finally
spoke it seemed to Maria that he chose his words with particular
care. “You do not remember her?”

“Not well. I was so young when she married and moved
here.” She laughed softly to herself, and Diego leaned toward her,
his hat brushing her hair.

“Qué es, chiquita?” he asked.

“During Margarita’s wedding I threw up all over the
chapel, and she boxed my ears after the ceremony.”

He laughed. “You cannot be her favorite sister!”

"
Al contrario, Señor
,” she said, “I am her
only sister, she my only living relative. Why else would I have
come to this sinkhole?” She paused, embarrassed. “Señor, I did not
mean to insult your colony.”

Diego nudged her with his shoulder. “A sinkhole it
may be to you, Maria, but some of us like it. Tell me of your
sister.”

“You probably know her better than I do. She was
almost nineteen when she married Felix de Guzman, and glad enough
to find a man, I think.”

She felt him chuckle, his good humor restored.
“
Chiquita
, there are those who would say that Felix de
Guzman was a poor substitute for a man.”

Again doubts assailed her. “And pray, Señor, what do
you know of him?”

“He was a
cabrón
,” he said quickly.

Maria gasped.

“Forgive me, Maria. That was a dreadful thing to
say.” He thought for a moment. “But I do not know how I can improve
on it.”

Her doubts growing, Maria pushed the insult aside.
“You say ‘was,’ Señor.”

“Your sister is fortunately a widow, praise be to
God,” he said, no apology in his voice.

“What are you saying?”

“Did you not know? Ah, of course you did not know.
Don Felix was killed three months ago.”

The familiar chill settled in her bones again. Even
Diego’s warmth could not take it away. “How did it happen?”

“His own Indians slit his throat from ear to ear.
The general feeling in Santa Fe is that he richly deserved to
suffer more than he did.”

“How can you say that, Señor?” she burst out.

“Don Felix was a wretched man who beat his wife and
daughters and abused his Indians. He was also the town moneylender.
I think all of us owed him money.” He sighed. “Still owe it. The
wonder of it is that he did not die sooner, but indeed, the Lord’s
ways are mysterious. ”

“Why were you all in such debt to him?”

“Times have been rough here,
chiquita
. The
drought has burdened us for four years.” His tone hardened. “And do
not imagine that de Guzman’s death cancelled our debts.
La
Viuda
Guzman, your sister, sees to it that we are reminded
quarterly.”

Maria could not think of anything to say, but
Diego’s good humor took over. “Never fear, Maria. Two years ago,
even before Felix went to his reward, Margarita told me how I could
wipe out my debt.”

The lightness of his tone should have warned her.
“And how was that, Señor?” she asked.

“I had only to wed and bed her eldest daughter, your
cousin Isabella.” He laughed out loud and spurred his horse
forward. “I chose not to take her advice.”

She could not help but laugh. “This would be so
dreadful?”

He leaned forward, his brown eyes twinkling into her
blue ones. “La Doña Isabella de Guzman has buck teeth and one eye
that wanders. I cannot believe you are related to her.”

She was acutely aware of her dishevelment and
Diego’s nearness. She brushed at the dried mud on her arm and tried
to straighten her skirts. Diego’s arms tightened around her as he
slowed his horse to a walk again.

“I truly did not mean to embarrass you, Maria,” he
said, “and do not fret over your appearance. My Erlinda would say
that miracles are performed in bathtubs!”

She laughed because she knew he was trying to cheer
her, but then she was silent. Margarita was a widow. For the next
few miles she mulled over this new misfortune and concluded finally
that her sister would be more delighted than ever to see her. She
would turn to a relative for consolation. Surely it could be no
other way.

The horsemen rode steadily toward the Sangre de
Cristo Mountains. As they passed a hacienda, two of the riders
waved to Diego and turned off. Maria watched them until they
disappeared within the brown adobe walls of the estancia.

“What do they grow here?” she asked, looking at the
barren landscape.

“Cattle. Sheep. Children. We are not precisely
covered with the wealth of the conquistadors here,
chiquita
.
”

They did not pause for the nooning, but ate their
hardtack and jerky in the saddle, riding on into the afternoon.
Maria would have welcomed the opportunity to climb down from
Diego’s saddle and walk around, but the men were intent on reaching
Santa Fe with word of the Apache massacre.