Paloma and the Horse Traders (16 page)

“
Hard to say,” Claudio said after
his own long silence. “You were a skinny little girl of
eleven.”

“
I knew you were dead,” she began,
desperate for his story but aware of his exhaustion. “I
knew
it! How did this happen? I mean, after … after it all ended—a
day after, because Mama pushed me under the bed and told me not to
move—I went to the edge of the field, and there you were. I
remember your cloak, red and black striped, that Mama
wove.”

He shook his head. “The man you saw was Jesús
Perez. Remember the morning? It was cool out. He was shivering, and
I threw my cloak over his shoulders.”

She did remember, remembered how she stuffed
her hand in her mouth and bit down so she would not cry out to see
her father sliced open with his insides outside. And there was
little Rafael lying next to him, eyes wide and staring, reaching
for Papa, his fingers making deep troughs in the soft ground, his
scalp gone.

“
I looked for you, saw the cloak,
and had my answer,” she whispered. “I was too afraid to stay
there.”

Marco was too far away. All it took was one
glance, and he climbed on the bed, too, holding her between his
upraised knees, his arms tight around her.

“
How did you alone survive?” she
asked her brother. “It was God’s mercy.”

He shook his head slowly. “God wasn’t anywhere
near us that morning.”

Paloma leaned toward Claudio, taking comfort
from Marco’s arms around her. “He was closer than we knew,” she
whispered. “We’re still alive.”

He gave her a skeptical look, then sighed and
leaned back carefully, turning slightly to protect his wounded
shoulder. “It was an ordinary, everyday morning,” he began. “And
then—how do Comanches do that?—they came from nowhere and we were
surrounded. No sound. One moment they weren’t there, and the next
moment they were riding alongside us, not even in a hurry, just
biding their time, because they knew they had us.”

Paloma shivered. “It was that way at the house.
I was in Mama’s room, and the next thing I knew, she was pushing me
under her bed, as quiet and calm as you please. They came into the
house on horseback.”

He reached for her hand, suddenly much younger,
as though telling this terrible story had thrust him back through
years of blood, sorrow, and opportunities unfulfilled. “Our parents
did the best they could, Paloma,” he said. “When the attack
started, Papa pushed me off my horse, which took fright, reared,
and fell down.”

Claudio passed a shaking hand in front of his
face, and he had started to sweat. Marco got up, dipped a cloth in
water, and handed it to Paloma, who gently wiped the greasy sheen
from his forehead and upper lip.

“
The last thing Papa did was whisper
to me, ‘Crawl under. Hold still.’ He had used his own lance to stab
my horse dead, and it poured blood over me.” Claudio shook his
head, disbelief in his eyes. “Now he had no weapon for himself, but
he saved my life. I did as he said and lay still.”

“
Papa would do that,” Paloma said
through her tears.

“
I heard everything going on around
me, horses and people screaming, the Comanches singing. Did …
did you see Papa?”

Paloma nodded, unable to speak.

“
I’m sorry. Rafael, too?”

“
I didn’t go into the field. I was
too afraid,” she said.

“
I’m glad you didn’t, little
sister,” Claudio said. “Whe … when it was quiet, I heard the
raiders ripping off sca ….”

“
No, Claudio,” Marco said firmly.
“We know.”

Claudio looked at Paloma. “I couldn’t do
anything, Sister, you can see that, can’t you?”

“
More clearly than you can imagine,”
she said. “If you had done anything, that would have been one more
death that Papa didn’t want. Did they leave then?”

“
I’m not certain. I could feel the
hoof beats of many horses around me, and then there were fewer.
They were probably heading toward the hacienda.”

Paloma nodded.

“
The rest remained in the field,
going from horse to horse, taking off saddles and bridles.”
Claudio’s eyes were twin pools of terror now, as he remembered. “I
had managed to dig myself a little breathing hole under my horse.
“I held my breath and went completely limp.”

He stopped, closed his eyes, and let the tears
fall. Paloma wiped his face again, crooning to him as she would to
comfort her brother’s little namesake. Marco got off the bed again
to find and pour a small glass of the
aguardiente
they saved
for special occasions and toothache. To Paloma’s surprise—Marco
never drank—he knocked back a glass first, shook his head in
surprise at its strength, then poured another one for
Claudio.

Claudio swallowed and sighed with relief.
Paloma wondered how many nights he needed just such a restorative.
“A raider yanked off my horse’s saddle, and then I could just feel
him standing there, staring down at my legs and torso.” He reached
for her hand this time. “Paloma, I wanted to scream and scream and
never stop, but I just held my breath.”

She let her breath out slowly, realizing she
had been holding it, too.

“
O Dios
, he stuck his lance
in my side! Pinned me right to the ground, then put his foot on my
back to pull it out.”

Paloma burst into tears. Marco put his hand on
her neck and pulled her even closer. Perhaps driven by instinct, he
put his hand on her belly to protect their unborn child from the
ferocity of this story. He held her close and then reached out and
held Claudio to them both.

“
I know I jerked as he pulled it
out. I couldn’t help myself!” Claudio said when he could speak.
“All I can imagine is that the Indian thought he was causing the
movement with his lance.” He let out his breath in a whoosh. “Then
I was alone in the field. They left as suddenly as they
came.”

“
That’s the way of The People,”
Marco said. “I am amazed that any of us are alive in Comanchería.
You just stayed there, didn’t you? But you were
bleeding.”

“
I packed my side with dirt. Didn’t
know what else to do. It caused a terrible infection later. Not
sure how I survived that, either.” Claudio separated himself from
their embrace. He touched Paloma’s cheek, flicking at the tears on
her face. “I could see the hacienda in the distance, on fire. I saw
servants running from the burning building.” He closed his eyes
tight. “Oh, what they did to the servants!”

“
I saw them later,” Paloma said. She
glanced at Marco. “You can ask my husband. Sometimes, even
now … nightmares.” She gave her husband a long look, almost as
if seeing him for the first time. “He lets me know I am not
alone.”

“
You just stayed under the bed,
Little Sister? Even when they fired the house?”

Paloma nodded. “I obeyed Mama.”

“
It burned down! I watched
it!”

Paloma turned her face into Marco’s shirt, her
anguish so real, thinking now that Claudio might have been
watching.
This is one of those things that does not bear
thinking about
, she told herself.
He was so close, but I did
not know it
. She pressed her face into Marco’s shirt, breathing
deep of his particular fragrance. If anything had happened
differently, she would not have met this dear man who was the whole
world to her now. She also knew she could never admit as much to
Claudio.

“
It didn’t burn down completely. The
vigas
fell just so onto the bed when the ceiling collapsed,
and then it began to rain, if you remember. Those beams kept the
ceiling from caving in on the bed.”

He nodded. “So you stayed there another
day?”

“
I did. I crawled out ….” She
took a deep breath, and another, as Marco’s hand tightened on her
belly. “I saw Mama. Oh, Claudio!”

“
Don’t think of it,” Marco whispered
to her. “Your mother was not suffering then. It was all over by the
time you saw her mortal clay.”

“
I know, my love,” Paloma said. She
put her hand over his. “Claudio, I couldn’t find a shovel to bury
her and her little one.” Hot tears fell on her hand again. “I found
a spoon and I dug and dug until I could at least cover them with a
layer of dirt.”

She felt Marco shake. “You never told me that,”
he whispered.

“
It’s too hard to even think about,”
she said quietly.

“
I never saw the dirt, or I swear
before all the saints I would have searched for you,” Claudio
said.

“
How could you have known?” she said
sensibly. “You probably thought the raiders had carried me
off.”

“
I did. You were only eleven, a
useful age for a slave like … like ….” Claudio looked at
the door, where Graciela crouched, listening. “Like
her.”

“
Where did you go?” Paloma asked,
wanting other images to chase away the one of her mother, violated
and disfigured, and still clutching the unborn baby ripped from her
body.

Claudio did not hesitate to continue his
narrative. He must not have wanted that image in his mind, either.
“When I could stand upright, I started walking to the Borregos’
estancia
. I thought west was safer than east. What a fool I
was!” he said bitterly. “It was burned, too, and full of death. I
ended up crawling then. I fell into an empty
acequia.
That
is where the horse traders found me a day later.”

He lay back, exhausted. “The rest of my story
will keep for another day. What about you, Sister?”

“
I started walking south toward El
Paso, but there were soldiers coming by then, and I didn’t have to
walk far,” she said. “They took me to the Franciscans, and a few
months later I was in Santa Fe with our uncle, Felix
Moreno.”

“
That’s a relief,” he
said.

No, it wasn’t
, she thought,
but you
don’t have to know any more now
. “My story will keep, too,”
Paloma told him. “You need to sleep.”

“
After this?” he asked, “How can I?”
Even as he spoke, his eyes closed.

She touched his cheek, eager to see him with
the beard gone and hair trimmed. She wondered if she would find the
brother she remembered under all the layers of dirt and time and
sad experience.

“
He was teaching me to dance,” she
told Marco, as they stood close to the bed, looking down at her
sleeping brother. “He was sixteen, and Papa and Señor Borrego were
already talking about a wedding to unite the two
estancias
.”
She crossed herself. “Rosamaria Borrego was never seen again.” She
grabbed Marco’s shirt, pulling him closer. “Husband, why do we live
in this place that the King of Spain doesn’t even care
about?”

He wrapped her in a fierce embrace. “I am here
because this land is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, as much
as you are! If I could not watch the sun rise each morning to the
east,” he shook his head, “I don’t know what I would do. You still
love me, don’t you?”

Silly man.

After checking on their sleeping children,
Paloma sent Graciela to bed on her pallet in the alcove of the
children’s room, a neat area curtained off and private, a small
place of her own. When she returned to her bedchamber, Marco was
kneeling on the
reclinatorio
, his eyes closed in prayer. She
came up behind him, leaned against him, and put her hands on his
bowed head, giving him her own loving benediction. He relaxed, and
she felt the tension leave his body.

In bed, they burrowed close together, Paloma
grateful for his arms around her.

“
I’ll never sleep tonight,” she
declared.

He laughed softly. “Yes, you will.”

“
How do we bear this?” she asked,
desperate to know.

“
The same way I bore the death of
Felicia and the twins, and the way you bore your own torment in the
household of your uncle in Santa Fe.” He’d replied promptly, which
told her that Marco Mondragón—widowed and sad, then happy again—had
given the matter considerable thought throughout the years. “We
finally have no choice but to leave it in the hands of God. If we
keep struggling, we become bitter. If we resign ourselves to His
gracious will, life goes on.”

“
Which way has Claudio
chosen?”

“
Time will tell.”

In
which soap and water begin the cure

P
aloma woke up hours later,
not certain what had roused her. She listened for the children, but
heard nothing. She moved slowly out of Marco’s slack embrace and
sat on the edge of their bed.

Before she stood up, her husband tugged at her
nightgown. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“
I just want to see him,” she
whispered.

He rested his hand on her back, then gave her a
little push. “Go, then.” He gave a low laugh. “I’m surprised you
waited this long.”

Paloma blew him a kiss and tiptoed into the
hall. She peeked into Claudio’s room, blinking in the low light.
The bed was empty. She stood briefly in shocked surprise, wondering
if she had imagined the whole experience.