Daughter of Fortune (50 page)

“You are equal to it, Maria
La Formidable
.
Maria
La Afortunada
. Maria, Daughter of Fortune.”

She kissed him. “And when we get to the crossing,
what then?”

“We will start over again there. Perhaps when we are
strong enough we will return to take this place back. If we want
it.”

“Do we?”

He smiled. “That may depend on what we have
learned.”

She looked toward the north where the Indian
campfires still burned as brightly as ever. “Will they let us
go?”

“Yes. After today, yes.”

He closed his eyes and Maria leaned against the
wall, cradling his head in her arms. “Maria, one thing more,” he
said, long after she thought he was asleep.

“Qu
é
es esto
, my heart?” she
asked.

He opened his eyes and looked at her shrewdly, a
calculating expression on his face. “What if I had not come
back?”

She considered his question and what the answer
meant to him, to her. “I would have managed here, even without
you,” she said simply, pausing to let that sink in. “I probably
would have remarried and raised your sisters.”

“But you would have stayed with the colony,” he
persisted.

“Oh, yes. I belong here. It has nothing to do with
you.”

Her words sounded hard, but he knew her as well as
she knew herself now, and she was not surprised at his smile. It
had nothing to do with him, although he was the dearest part of her
life. It had to do with her only, and she could tell that he was
glad.

He stirred and sat up, resting on his elbow. He
kissed her, then rested his head in her lap again, content.

She was silent then, too, looking up at the Indian
campfires. The smell of smoke and death would be in her nostrils
for days, weeks to come. She knew she would wake up many nights,
shivering with nightmares, but she knew that Diego would be lying
beside her.

She looked down at him. His eyes closed even as she
watched, and his neck and shoulders relaxed against her thighs. He
sighed and slept.

Maria touched her finger to her lips and then to his
cheek. He stirred but did not waken. She settled back against the
wall, prepared to spend the night holding him in her arms.

It didn’t matter to her that the cloth had been of
Diego’s making. She had cut the cloak, and it fit.

They left four days later, Diego and Maria
Masferrer, Luz and Catarina, walking south to El Paso with the
other defeated survivors of the vanquished colony of New Mexico.
There were many deaths on the long, hot, and hungry journey to the
crossing of the river more than two hundred miles away. They
arrived at the northern crossing of the Rio Bravo and established
the village of San Lorenzo, called in painful Spanish remembrance
after the martyred saint on whose nameday the uprising had
begun.

Not until thirteen years later, in 1693, were the
colonists able to regain their lands in New Mexico. A man of
thirty-two, Diego Masferrer and his oldest son Emiliano returned
with the army of the conquering governor, Don Diego de Vargas.

Six months later, Maria followed with a month-old
boy and four other sons and daughters. She left behind Luz and
Catarina, Luz in a convent in Sonora and Catarina busy with husband
and children of her own. Maria took with her the remembered skills
of Emiliano the saintmaker.

She also took her San Francisco—a saint still
armless and covered with fading gypsum, a reminder of other, darker
days.

Maria Masferrer found many more saints in the woods
by Tesuque, much subdued now, and Las Invernadas, rebuilt to be
even more strong. The holy ones had waited patiently in the wood
for thirteen years. The saintmaker knew them when she saw them, and
they, her.

A well-known veteran of the romance writing field,
Carla Kelly
is the author of twenty-six novels and three
non-fiction works, as well as numerous short stories and articles
for various publications. She is the recipient of two RITA Awards
from Romance Writers of America for Best Regency of the Year; two
Spur Awards from Western Writers of America; a Whitney Award for
Best Romance Fiction, 2011; and a Lifetime Achievement Award from
Romantic Times.

Carla’s interest in historical fiction is a
byproduct of her lifelong interest in history. She has a BA in
Latin American History from Brigham Young University and an MA in
Indian Wars History from University of Louisiana-Monroe. She’s held
a variety of jobs, including public relations work for major
hospitals and hospices, feature writer and columnist for a North
Dakota daily newspaper, and ranger in the National Park Service
(her favorite job) at Fort Laramie National Historic Site and Fort
Union Trading Post National Historic Site. She has worked for the
North Dakota Historical Society as a contract researcher. Interest
in the Napoleonic Wars at sea led to a recent series of novels
about the British Channel Fleet during that conflict.

Of late, Carla has written two novels set in
southeast Wyoming in 1910 that focus on her Mormon background and
her interest in ranching.