Paloma and the Horse Traders (30 page)

Soledad nodded. “I will be kind to your
brother.”

Paloma enveloped the child in a gentle embrace,
and kissed her. “Will you help my brother find
Graciela?”

“
Yes, Mama.”

“
Go look for her then,” Paloma said.
“My brother will come in a minute.”

They both watched Soledad dart from the
kitchen, followed closely by her little brother. Claudio took
Paloma’s hand and kissed it. “Soli told me you said every girl
needs to know a good curtsy to impress men. You sound a bit
calculating, dear Sister.”

She only laughed and gave him a little push.
“We women have so few weapons in our arsenal. We control no
property. We have no say in government.” She gave her belly a pat.
“Our bodies don’t always belong just to us. A little charm goes a
long way, in getting what we want.”

“
Is Marco on to your scheme?” He
teased.

“
Claro que sí
! I decided
years ago that if I were so fortunate to marry—the matter was in
some doubt—it would only be to a smart man.” She touched his cheek.
“Go find Graciela, you smart man.”

He knew a compliment when he heard one, even
though he had heard none in years. “As smart as Marco
Mondragón?”

“
Time will tell.”

Soledad and Claudito amounted to no help at
all. They had started looking in the kitchen garden, but had been
waylaid by what must have been yesterday’s play, a series of roads
around mounded piles of dirt with dead pea vines stuck here and
there to resemble trees and a mountain pass. Soledad looked
up.

“
Mama said Papa and Toshua are going
through mountain passes. We are going around the mountain to
surprise the Utes,” Soli explained. “We are bringing more food and
horses to Papa.”

He watched them a moment, saddened that their
play was so serious. Children on the frontier obviously didn’t know
the pleasures of a solitary ride through the hills, or even the
delight of visiting neighbors from
rancho
to
rancho
without taking along an armed guard.

“
Soledad, do you have a tea set for
your dolls?” he asked.

“
My dolls would like that,” she told
him, “if we were not so busy helping Papa.”

Someday
, he thought,
someday
.

He passed through the garden, wondering where
he
would go, if he were Graciela and wanted to avoid
unpleasantness. He looked in the smoke house and then the henhouse.
No Graciela. He decided against the horse barn, since servants and
guards were always coming and going.

He tried Paloma’s bathhouse next, and there she
was, huddled inside herself, worry written on every line of her
face, her body poised for flight, even though there was nowhere to
run. “Graciela,” was all he said.

She leaped up, but he stood in front of the
door. Her eyes were wide with terror, telling him much about her
treatment among the Comanches. Staring at the terrified slave,
Claudio knew why his sister seemed to possess a double measure of
serenity and kindness. Somehow Paloma had overcome the greatest
fear on the frontier: that Comanches had the power to ruin lives
and destroy otherwise rational minds, even when they were not
around.

He realized with amazing clarity that he was
still trapped in that fear, and so was Graciela. He saw it plainly
for the first time since the raid that destroyed his life, but
hadn’t destroyed Paloma’s.

He could ask Paloma how she had managed this
nearly impossible feat, but he already knew her answer, as
unpalatable as it seemed to him. He could almost hear her telling
him,
Claudio, dear brother, I came to know The People. That is
what we must do in New Mexico
,
if we are to survive as a
colony
.

“
I will never hurt you, Graciela,”
he told her. He took a bucket, upended it, and sat down in front of
the door. “But I am not leaving until you satisfy my curiosity
about Great Owl.”

“
I have nothing to tell you,” she
said, her voice flat.

“
I have all day to wait,” he
replied. “While you’re mulling over whether to trust me, or whether
you are afraid of Great Owl while living in the safest hacienda on
the frontier, let me give you this to think about: I distinctly
heard you say, after I was shot, ‘Meant for me.’ I wasn’t the
target. You were.”

She shuddered and shook her head. “You couldn’t
have heard me. You were in shock and pain.”

“
I
did
hear you. Tell me why
Great Owl wanted to kill you? He had just sold you for a lot of
money. I hate Comanches, but they know good business. He had what
he wanted.”

She shook her head again, reminding him of
Soledad—stubborn, willful Soledad.

“
Do you even understand why Señor
Mondragón and the others have gone after him?”

Another shake, but less vehement. At least she
was listening.

“
Great Owl is a renegade. He is out
to destroy the tentative peace feelers that Kwihnai, a powerful
chief among the Kwahadi, is sending out through Señor Mondragón. My
brother-in-law thinks that French traders might be involved, but I
do not know.”

He watched her face as he spoke, and saw a
flicker of something. “How are the French involved, Graciela?” he
asked.

She said nothing, even though she started to
shake. The French were involved.

He gave his imagination free rein, because he
was desperate to know what was going on. His own hard life had made
him cynical. He thought he didn’t care for anyone, but he knew how
wrong that was. He cared deeply what might happen to the good
people of the Double Cross.

“
When the French came to Great Owl’s
village, if they did, did Great Owl give you to them to share,
while they were in camp?”

Graciela began to weep, and he had his terrible
answer. Remembering the times he, Lorenzo, poor dead Paco, and
Rogelio had shared a terrified woman between them, he felt shame so
great that he turned away.

When he could bring himself to look at her
again, her face was chalk white. “You needn’t turn away in your
disgust,” she told him, her voice barely loud enough to hear.
“Don’t you think I feel enough shame for both of us?”

“
Oh, no, wait,” he burst out. “That
is not why I turned away! Graciela, I have been as bad as the
Frenchmen, to my eternal shame. It’s not you.”

“
There were three men, there to
forge a deal for weapons,” she said in her small voice, her eyes on
the dirt floor. “Until then, I thought I was past caring ….”
She let her voice trail away. She turned around and faced the back
wall. “Three. All night.” Her voice sank lower. “When one finished,
another began.”

What could he say to that? He heard her
weeping, even though she tried to muffle her tears. Other men
probably slapped her when she cried as they violated her, until all
she could do was try not to cry, which would make them angrier.
God forgive me
, he thought.
I was no better than
they
.

He thought a long moment. He knew better than
to call on God or any saints for help, because he wasn’t certain
there was anyone above him in a distant place called heaven. What
to tell this beaten-down woman, hardly more than a child herself?
He could only speak from a confused heart, one bruised more than
his shin where Soledad had kicked him this morning.

“
It’s like this, Graciela,” he
began, slowly sorting though a mound of words to find the right
ones. “It sounds crazy, but something happens to people when they
spend time at the Double Cross. They get better.”

His words sounded stupid to his ears, but
Graciela stopped weeping. He waited while she blew her nose, and
then squared her shoulders, a gesture so courageous that his heart
felt funny.

“
I can’t explain it. Lorenzo could
have killed me when I took that stolen team back to the rightful
owner, or he might have beaten me senseless. What did he do? He
brought me back here. This place is a magnet.”

“
But you left. You did, and la
señora cried and cried,” Graciela said. She turned halfway, until
Claudio saw her profile.

“
I never said I wasn’t stupid,” he
admitted, pleased to see a tiny half smile on her face.

He thought a little longer, and felt another
rush of understanding. “Maybe this is it: Paloma and Marco treat us
as though we are already the wonderful people they want us to
become.”

She turned to face him. “How do they know what
we can become?”

He shrugged. “It’s a mystery to me.”

“
What should I do?” she asked after
a long silence. “You
are
right. I see Comanches
everywhere.”

She shook at the thought and he reached out to
touch her arm. She pulled back, and he withdrew his
hand.

“
Tell us what you know—me and Paloma
and Eckapeta.”

She shook her head. “Not Eckapeta.”

“
Very well. Tell me and
Paloma.”

Graciela rose slowly to her feet. He watched
her smooth motion, entranced by the idea that such a graceful woman
was well-named. He had been in enough Indian camps to see female
slaves, none of them like Graciela.

He left the bathhouse, calling over his
shoulder, “Come with me.” He hoped she’d decide to follow, or at
least not bolt for the open gate. And where would she go? Like most
women, she had little choice in life’s fortunes. He didn’t look
over his shoulder, not wanting her to think he was a weak man.
Graciela already knew he was a fool. There was no need to impress
her, since she had seen him with a noose around his
neck.

Paloma stood in the kitchen all alone. “The
little ones are with Eckapeta in Marco’s old office,” Paloma said,
indicating that they should sit around the table. “We won’t be
disturbed.”

Without asking, she put a plate of
biscoches
on the table and poured wine.

She sat and folded her hands in front of her on
the table, turning her attention to Graciela.

“
My husband told me that he, Toshua,
and Joaquim Gasca were going to cross the Cristos and move along
the foothills into the high land of the Ute Kapotas. They want to
find out what Great Owl is up to. What can you tell us,
Graciela?”

Claudio glanced at Graciela as Paloma spoke,
noting how she flinched and looked around at the name of Great
Owl.

Paloma must have noticed, too. She leaned
forward, her eyes deep pools of kindness. “Great Owl is not here,
Graciela. He has no power to hurt you in my home. If my husband has
enough information, he can stop Great Owl before all chance of
peace is gone and the frontier explodes again. I need to know what
you know, and I need to know it now.”

In
which Graciela looks deep inside, too

C
laudio must have sensed
Paloma’s agitation. He moved closer to her on the bench. “Sister,
when the Comanches shot me, I distinctly heard Graciela say, ‘Meant
for me.’ Help us, Graci.”

It was just the smallest nickname, but Graciela
looked up at him, her eyes less frightened.

“
My father used to call me that,”
she said.

Paloma had lived long enough on the frontier to
know what was expected of her. She reminded herself that Graciela
was half Ute, and Indian conversation had certain rules.

“
Tell me about your father,
Graciela,” Paloma said. “You said he was a soldier.”

The slave nodded. “Mama is, was, Kapota Ute
from near the White Mountain. Do you know it?”

Paloma shook her head, but Claudio spoke. “Oh,
yes, I have been to White Mountain to trade horses. In the San Luis
Valley.”

Just a wisp of a smile came and went from
Graciela’s face. “Trade or steal?”

Claudio gave just the same smile. “Depending.
And so did the Kapota people.”

“
Papa met Mama in the presidio of
San Felipe, near Ojo Caliente, or what used to be Ojo,” Graciela
told them. “She was kitchen help in the
capitán’s
house and
Papa was a corporal. I was the oldest of three.” She stopped and
looked down at her hands.

“
Are you a cook, too?” Paloma asked,
when all she really wanted to do was demand to be told what the
slave knew about Great Owl. “Perhaps when my little ones are older,
you might help Perla, who already complains of creaky
bones.”

“
I would like that,” Graciela
said.

“
Did the garrison pull out?” Claudio
asked.

Her face clouded as she nodded. “Governor
Mendinueta said none of the country wives and children could go to
Santa Fe.”

“
He could have been kinder,” Paloma
murmured.

Graciela shivered and looked away. “Where was
kindness in any of this, señora?” She sighed and rubbed her
shoulders, even though the room was warm.

Paloma made just the smallest gesture, but it
was enough. Graciela got up quickly and sat beside her with no
hesitation. “We are three survivors,” Paloma said, looking from
Claudio to her. “You went back to the White Mountain?”