Paloma and the Horse Traders (11 page)

Diego stared at him, then started to laugh. “I
deserved that,” he said, finally. He pulled out another odiferous
blanket from his bedroll, wrapped it around himself, and lay down
to sleep. Marco just shook his head.

“
I’ll watch first,” Toshua said. “I
also believe we should rise well before dawn and take up our
journey. Great Owl and his men are in front of us, and I would
rather put them behind us.”

“
So would I,” Marco said.

Toshua shook him awake hours later, sitting
back on his haunches. He looked at Marco as a cat might, patient
and intent.

“
Is it my shift?” Marco
whispered.

“
I let you sleep. It is time to ride
now,” Toshua said.

“
That’s not how we were supposed to
do this. You would take a shift and I would take a
shift.”

“
You said what you thought, and I
did what I wanted.”

Marco laughed softly. “Toshua, do you ever obey
an order?”

“
Not too often.” It was Toshua’s
turn to laugh. “Maybe not at all. Let us ride.”

They rode until daylight, taking a different
trail home, this one skirting the more frequently traveled route
and heading through a high pass Marco did not know. They traveled
higher and higher, crested the top and started down, all before the
sun was up. No one spoke.

Graciela sucked in her breath a few times when
she sensed the narrowness of the trail, with its steep drop to a
river far below, but she did not call out. Marco didn’t know
whether to credit her forbearance to the harsh school of life among
The People, or to her own upbringing among the Spanish and then the
Cloud People. He knew Paloma would tease out whatever information
they needed about the young woman.

“
You impress me,” was all he said,
when they finally dismounted for a rest and the remainder of
Diego’s tortillas.

She gave him a pleased smile, and then turned
her head away, embarrassed. “I was afraid.”

“
So was I. I am not a friend of
heights.”

She pointed to Toshua. “I will wager he wasn’t
afraid.”

“
I will never ask,” Marco
joked.

It must have been just the right touch, because
the high lift to Graciela’s shoulders relaxed. She hopped down from
the beautiful bay and led him toward the stream close
by.

She came back quickly, minus the horse, her
face flaming red.

“
Is something wrong?” Marco
asked.

She put her hand to her mouth. “I think Señor
Diaz took to heart your comment last night. He’s ….” She
pointed, her eyes lively, which turned her almost pretty, despite
her ragged deerskin dress and thin body.

Curious now, Marco led his horse toward the
water and watched, startled and then amused, as Diego, naked and
shivering in the early-morning cold, rubbed his dirty arms with
sand.

The trader’s back was to Marco, and he saw the
long scars, the kind that come from lashes with a whip, and an old,
puckered scar on his side that looked like a wound from a
lance—Comanche or Spanish, perhaps. Traders performed a balancing
act between savagery and civilization, and hadn’t Diego himself
pointed out that he tried to avoid
jueces de campo
such as
Marco?

“
Do you think he will tell us his
stories?” Toshua asked.

The Comanche had come to the stream to wash his
hands, bloody from preparing the rabbit he had snared last night.
Clad only in his loincloth again, he squatted by the stream and
washed.

I doubt we will ever know much
, Marco
thought, even as he wondered where the blue-eyed trader had come
from. Marco had no cause to ask. He would give the man his money,
feed him a meal or two, then wave goodbye to him at the gate of the
Double Cross, as a good host should. Diego Diaz would melt back
into the countryside, probably to join up with his equally
disreputable
compadres
. End of story, business
done.

“
Are you through with your shirt,
Toshua?” Marco asked.

Toshua dried his hands on his loincloth. “Until
the next time you make me wear it.”

“
Give me your shirt and I’ll give it
to Diego. He’s a little taller than you are, but it has long tails.
More to the point, it’s relatively clean.”

Toshua nodded and walked back up the bank with
Marco. Graciela was on her haunches by the little fire that burned
with no smoke. She had pushed several strips of rabbit onto a green
stick and was expertly turning it over the flames, close enough to
cook, but not too close to burn.

“
She knows what she is doing,”
Toshua said. “I hadn’t even built the fire yet.”

He removed his cotton shirt from the
parfleche
and handed it to Marco. Tucking it under one arm,
Marco walked to the fire, welcoming what small warmth it gave off,
because the morning chill had not yet burned away. He thought of
Diego washing himself, grateful that when he got home Paloma would
have a hot bath and clean clothes ready. If he was lucky—and he
thought he would be since this was Paloma—she would probably even
pat him dry. And since it was still Paloma, he knew he could
anticipate a pleasant time in their bed, doing what made babies.
Not for him, the life of a trader.

“
Here, lad, it’s cleaner,” he said
after he returned to the bank, where Diego was just standing there
wet, because he had no towel. Like a dog, he shook his wet hair,
and the drops flew.

After pulling on his smelly leathers, Diego
fingered the good cloth of the shirt. “If I had some yucca plant, I
could have washed my hair, too,” he said apologetically, his head
down. “It has been a while. Sometime last spring, I
think.”

“
There’s a tub where we’re heading,
with towels and real soap, and a bed to sleep in.”

“
I can’t even remember when I last
slept in a bed,” Diego said, his voice muffled as he pulled on the
shirt. “If we’re lucky, we sleep in people’s barns.”

“
Not on my hacienda. You are doing
me a favor by letting me take the horses.” Marco laughed. “I can
even find you a straight razor to shave that bramble bush on your
face.”

Diego nodded and turned away. Marco knew too
late how badly he had embarrassed the man. “Or you can do what you
wish and not listen to me! I suppose I get this way because I have
a wife who likes a bit of order around her. An obliging husband is
generally a happy man.”

Diego smiled, making no attempt to disguise the
wistfulness in his eyes. “I’d like to save money for some land, but
money is hard to come by. Maybe someday. As for a woman,” he
shrugged, “who wants this life of mine?”

Diego sat apart from the others while they ate,
perhaps aware that although he had dunked himself in the stream, he
still reeked of leathers worn too long, and that his hair was full
of grease, dirt, and maybe even bugs.

I made him feel small
, Marco thought.
Paloma would have handled this better
.

In
which Marco hopes he has a long lifetime to improve his
character

T
he trader sat apart from
them, even after the long day of riding—not surly, not sour, but
quietly sad, in a way that pained Marco and gave him more shame.
Diego handed around what remained of his dried cactus and accepted
his small portion of rabbit, but he was careful to stay downwind of
everyone. Marco chafed inside at his own rudeness in calling
attention to the young man’s appearance, odor, and clothing.

I’ll pay him even more than the horses are
worth, plus what I owe him for the inn
, Marco thought, then
writhed inside at such callousness, thinking he could throw money
at a problem and make it better. What was he
thinking
? Diego
had cheerfully paid Marco’s debt to the innkeeper and shared his
food.
And I repay him with unkindness. Paloma will make me sleep
in the
sala
for this
.

Graciela was far more kind. She accepted
Diego’s offer of a blanket on that second night and said nothing
about the stench. Marco knew he should apologize to Diego Diaz, but
that would only serve to remind the trader of his deficiencies, if
such they were. Better to say nothing and make it up with money at
the end of the journey. Even that felt hollow to Marco as he turned
several times on the hard soil, trying to find a comfortable
spot.

“
You are becoming the kind of soft
man that The People would happily prey upon,” Toshua commented.
“Someone could slice your other cheek and balance your face. Do you
have a problem, beyond the fact that we really don’t want to run
into Great Owl?”

“
Mostly I’m ashamed of myself,”
Marco whispered to Toshua, even though Diego Diaz could not
possibly hear, having deliberately chosen to sleep far away from
them. “I should not have called attention to his
uncleanliness.”

Toshua rose up on one elbow. “You treated me
kindly after you found me starving in that damned henhouse of Felix
Muñoz.”

“
That’s different! You were nearly
dead. Our friend Diego is just careless.”

Toshua lay down. “Or perhaps he just doesn’t
care.”

“
That’s what I said.”

“
No. There is a
difference.”

They repeated the same punishing day over
again, rising before daylight and trusting to Toshua to guide them
over unknown trails. Marco knew as well as the next man that August
was still summer, but the heights they traveled more than hinted
that autumn was on the way. The sky flaunted that vivid blue found
at high altitude, and the sun shone, but without the heat of the
lower valley. The grass had dried to the tawny shade that meant
late summer and rustled as they passed.

“
I believe we are ahead of Great Owl
and his warriors by now,” Toshua said.

Marco listened for underlying conviction but
heard none, which added to his uneasiness. Nearly four years in the
company of the Comanche, the man who called him little brother, had
convinced Marco that his great friend knew everything. Perhaps in
Toshua’s world there were People who knew more than he did. It was
a disquieting thought that made Marco long to see his own land and
his wife and children again. Marriage and babies had turned him
into a poor traveler, indeed.

As the sun began its plunge behind the Cristos,
they traveled the last pass and crossed into Valle del Sol, the
land of Marco’s birth and the home of all that was dear to him.
Marco let out a deep breath that he felt he had been holding since
he left Taos. Maybe he
was
just a rough countryman, a
paisano
, the sort of fellow that townspeople chuckled about
over their dinners on linen tablecloths, with fine china and
silver. He knew he would never call anywhere but this harsh and
unpredictable land his home.

He rose slightly in his stirrups, always eager
for that first glimpse of the Double Cross, with its walls that
matched the color of the surrounding cliffs. It had been built as a
fortress and camouflaged by the gray stone. No
hacendado
in
the district had built such a rancho, and no one was safer than the
people who lived behind its protecting walls.
Still ….

Marco was turning his head to make some comment
to Toshua when he heard a quick whine and then a smack, followed by
a groan. He turned in the saddle, his hand on his knife, to see
Diego slumped over his horse’s head, an arrow poking from his
back.

“
I was right. They’re behind us,”
Toshua said dryly, even as he took a firmer grasp on his
lance.

To Marco’s relief, Graciela grabbed the trader
and held Diego upright until he could manage for himself. With her
help, he put both arms around his horse’s neck and hung on, while
Graciela grabbed the reins.

One arrow. That was all, or at least that was
all anyone felt like waiting around for. “Hang on!” he yelled to
Diego, and slapped the wounded trader’s horse. Graciela kneed her
mount and thundered after him.

Toshua had already dropped back. He motioned
Marco forward.

“
I can hold them off, too,” Marco
said.

Toshua gave him a sour look. “My little sister
doesn’t want a carcass in her bed!” He slapped Buciro with the end
of his lance and Marco had no choice but to follow the slave and
the trader.

As they thundered along, the sun dropped like a
stone, leaving them in that weird twilight of late summer. “Hang
on, hang on,” he murmured to the trader up ahead, who was starting
to list in his saddle.

Marco had to admire Graciela’s skill on the
bare back of a horse trained as part of a team. She rode like a
warrior, leaning far out to grab Diego’s shirt and attempt to keep
him upright. The riderless bay pounded along on her other side,
keeping pace with his sister.

And then even Graciela’s skills couldn’t keep
Diego in the saddle. He lurched to one side, scrabbling for the
horse’s mane. Puzzled, shaking his massive head, the horse
stopped.

Marco reined in immediately, rearing Buciro
back in a punishing motion that hurt Marco all the more because he
knew the worth of his old mount. “Don’t fail me, Buciro,” he said
as he dismounted, grabbed Diego, and with strength borne of
desperation, hauled the wounded man across his own
saddle.