Paloma and the Horse Traders (31 page)

“
Yes, we four.”

“
Where are …” Claudio began,
and Paloma clamped her hand on his leg.
Don’t you know,
Brother?
she wanted to ask, but she didn’t need to; he
understood and patted her hand.

Paloma slowly put her arm around Graciela’s
shoulders, hoping not to frighten her, but to understand the terror
of what must surely have come next. Graciela tensed, then
relaxed.

“
Who is your chief?” Claudio asked,
to Paloma’s relief. He seemed to finally understand the roundabout
course she was taking.

“
He is called Rain Cloud. He took us
in, because he and Mama are related somehow in that Indian way that
no one but Indians understands, I think.” Graciela smiled. “My
little brothers and I really didn’t fit in at first. I think we
have always been more Spanish than Ute.” She touched her neck. “I
once had a necklace with a cross,” she said, her voice wistful. “I
don’t remember which Nurmurnah man snatched it from my
neck.”

She pressed her lips tight to keep from crying,
and squinted her eyes into tiny slits.
I used to do that
,
Paloma thought.
Anything to keep Tia Moreno from hitting me,
if I dared to cry for my family
.

“
So there you were,” Paloma said,
tightening her arm around the slave, who was starting to shiver
uncontrollably. “Another log on the fire, please,
Claudio.”

Graciela smiled her thanks at Claudio, who
blushed, to Paloma’s amusement. “Do either of you remember when
that new governor chased and killed Cuerno Verde many leagues north
of here?” she asked him.

“
I do.” Claudio made a face.
“Lorenzo and Paco even considered joining with the soldiers and
settlers—and Indian allies—but they didn’t. That would have been
too much patriotism to suit them.” He looked at Paloma. “You must
think me a disgrace to the Vegas.”

“
You survived and so did I,” she
said simply. “And so did Graciela. I consider
that
the
remarkable achievement.”

Graciela turned her face into Paloma’s
shoulder. “Go ahead and cry,” Paloma said. “You think we have not
cried?”

She did, and when she was finished, she wiped
her face on Paloma’s apron, when Paloma held it up to her. She
seemed to understand what she needed to say then, and the story
came out.

“
As you probably know, the Utes
allied with Governor … Governor …. He was there in the
plaza briefly before your husband bought me.”

“
Governor de Anza,” Claudio
supplied. “Graci, we know that the Utes were brave and true, during
that hunt for Cuerno Verde and his Comanche raiders.”

Graciela held herself a little taller. “They
were, but oh, the retribution came later, after the soldiers were
gone. Great Owl—he is Kwahadi Comanche—swooped down on us, and my
life changed yet again.” She took a deep breath. “Mama and my
brothers. Gone. I was four years with The People.” Another breath.
“I cannot tell you what they did to Mama and my
brothers.”

“
It has been done to us,” Paloma
said quietly.

“
Then how can you ….” Graciela
stifled her outburst, her eyes fearful again.

“
Both of you listen,” Paloma
replied, her voice firm. “I have come to know The People. Do I
understand all the Comanches? No, but the ones I know, I
love.”

“
I doubt I will ever get to that
place,” Claudio said.

“
Time and patience. Tell us more,
Graciela. Marco and I have both been wondering why Great Owl
insisted on money for you, and not barter. Marco suspects the
French are involved.”

“
Money for guns,” Graciela said.
“Señor Mondragón is right.” Her voice hardened. “Those … those
three Frenchman came to smoke pipes and plan for a shipment of
muskets.”

“
From where?” Claudio asked. “All of
Texas and Luisiana belongs to Spain now.”

“
I don’t know. I do know that the
Frenchmen wanted money,” Graciela told them. She took a deep
breath. “I heard Great Owl say that the little boy he tried to sell
first in Taos was just to test the crowd.”

“
O Dios
,” Paloma whispered,
thinking of her own little ones.

“
I heard him say that no matter what
anyone offered, the result would be the same. Great Owl suspected
that if he killed that child and then offered me, someone would pay
a large sum.” Graciela looked down at her hands. “He calls that the
weakness of the whites. They don’t like to deal in
death.”

Silence ruled in the kitchen as Paloma absorbed
that much cruelty. She glanced at Claudio, his lips tight and eyes
small, too.
You are not as hardened as you would like us to
believe
, she thought.

“
But why would he track you and try
to kill you?” Paloma asked. “I don’t understand.”

“
I do,” Claudio said, after a long
moment. He spoke slowly, as if piecing his idea together word by
word. “Graci, do you think he assumed that Marco was a Taoseño, and
would not know him as a Comanche troublemaker over here so close to
Comanchería?”

“
I think it very likely,” the slave
replied. “Until this last time, during my years with The People,
Great Owl has never been here.”

Paloma did her own piecing together of the
story that now involved her husband. “No man from Taos who bought
you would think of tracking Great Owl.” She took a deep breath.
“Because you know where Great Owl is likely to be, don’t
you?”

Graciela nodded.

“
He and his warriors must have
watched us leave and head east through the mountains,” Claudio
said, speaking softly as though all the Comanche warriors were
gathered outside, pressing their ears to the walls. “That had to
upset his plans. Marco was no Taoseño. He had to assume that Marco
knew what was happening on the frontier. Great Owl couldn’t risk
you telling him anything.”

Graciela nodded again, still unable to speak.
The terror was back in her eyes, her shivering greater. Paloma felt
the slave try to burrow close, so she put both arms around
Graciela.

“
All he had to do was shoot you if
he could, so you would never give away his hiding place,” Paloma
said, “or his plans with the French.”

“
And even if he missed you, he knew
you would be too frightened to say anything,” Claudio
continued.

Graciela covered her face with her hands, her
breath coming in little gasps.

Paloma kissed her cheek, remembering again with
frightening clarity that awful day when the eleven-year-old Paloma
Vega huddled under the bed in the burning building, nearly
frightened into insanity by the Comanches.

“
They don’t even have to be here to
terrify us,” Paloma said finally. “Even now, I still dream ….”
She looked at her brother. “I know you do, Claudio. What
else?”

“
Need you ask? I reach for a big
bottle of
aguardiente
. What do you do, Paloma, when it
happens now?”

“
I am lucky,” she said simply.
“Marco holds me close and covers my eyes with his hand.”

A pine knot spat in the fireplace, and they all
jumped. Claudio was the first to speak again. “They rule through
fear and we are still afraid.” He reached across Paloma to touch
Graciela. “Will such fear ever go away?”

No one had an answer. They clung to each other.
Paloma made herself think through the whole matter. “Great Owl has
the money now, and he must have arranged a rendezvous with the
French for guns. He will cause all the trouble he can. He will ruin
any chance of peace that Kwihnai wants and Marco has been working
for.”

“
Not if we find Marco and the others
and stop the French,” Claudio said.

“
Or find Great Owl’s summer camp
first,” Paloma said. Then she put words to her fear because these
two people knew exactly what was at stake. “Governor de Anza had an
army when he defeated Cuerno Verde.”

“
Some eight hundred men, counting
Ute allies,” Claudio said. “We will have … let’s see …
seven brave souls.”

“
Seven?” Paloma asked.

“
I am counting Graci, too,” he told
her. “We need her.”

He reached across Paloma again and took
Graciela’s hands in his own. She did not pull back. “We must do
this. You need to stare down your fear and come with
me.”

“
How can I?” she asked, drawing back
into Paloma’s embrace.

“
By the doing of it,” Claudio told
her. “We’ll travel by night, we’ll hug the foothills, we’ll trap
rabbits and eat raw meat if we have to. I am not the tracker that
Toshua is, but we will find Marco.”

“
I will be forever grateful, if you
do,” Paloma told him. “Should Eckapeta go along with you?”
Please tell me no
, she thought.
Please
.

Perhaps he read the reluctance in her eyes. Or
he might be a true son of Pedro Vega, brave man who died too soon.
Even more likely, he was the brother she knew would always protect
her, even if he was not there, by leaving a Comanche warrior as
formidable as her husband, Toshua.

“
Eckapeta stays here, Paloma,” he
said with no hesitation. “I rather doubt she would leave you alone
with the babies, no matter how many guards and archers surround the
Double Cross.”

Paloma didn’t hide her sigh of relief. “You
will always protect me, won’t you?”

His face clouded over. “I could not protect you
earlier, but I have another chance now. Graci, I will guard you,
too, and I need you.”

Graciela bowed her head and her voice became
soft. “Pray God you will not do me damage.”

“
Never,” he replied, his voice as
soft as hers.

What he did next did not even startle Paloma.
As she watched, her heart full, Claudio knelt on the kitchen floor
and bowed his head. “Gracious God, defend us,” he said, his arms
stretched out to encompass the Double Cross and everyone within its
sheltering walls and those beyond. “Protect us from all danger. May
the saints watch over us and all we hold dear: our families, Holy
Church, King Carlos, peace to our lands and chattel.”

She had heard this ages-old declaration once
before, when they were small children. Papa had come to El Paso to
serve as commanding officer of the frontier outpost’s garrison. He
had married their mother, widowed young and childless, possessor of
a land grant. Years later, on orders from the Viceroy in Mexico
City, he had been chosen the district’s
capitán-general
. In
the Ysleta Mission Church, Papa had knelt before the archbishop and
repeated that very oath, his sword lying in front of
him.

Claudio had remembered it all. As Paloma held
her breath with the enormity of what dear, battered Claudio was
doing, he took out the dagger at his waist and laid it at Paloma’s
feet.

“
Bless me, Sister,” he whispered.
“There is no archbishop and your husband who should do this is far
away now. I crave your blessing.”

Paloma rose to her feet and put her hands on
Claudio’s head, wishing she could remember the archbishop’s words.
It was too many years ago, and she had been so young. She knew what
to do, because her love for her brother filled her
heart.

“
May God and all the Saints protect
you and Graciela Tafoya, soldiers defending my home and protecting
my husband,” she whispered. “Do all you can to defend the fragile
peace we are forging here on the frontier. And do no harm to the
innocent.” She leaned forward and kissed his head, then made the
sign of the cross with her thumb on his forehead, his cheeks, and
his mouth.

He rose to his feet and held her close. Paloma
whispered into his chest. “Come home safe to me, Claudio, you who
were lost and now are found. And bring my dear ones home,
too.”

“
I vow to you that we
will.”

“
When do we leave, Señor
Vega?”

“
I am Claudio to you, for we are
soldados
, Graci,” he said. “We leave now.”

In
which another small army sets out to do impossible
things

T
hey stayed only long enough
for Sancha and Paloma, her face so serious, to sling
carne
seca
, hunks of sweet cactus, yesterday’s tortillas, and a
wineskin into a cloth bag. Eckapeta contributed one of her deerskin
dresses with thigh-high slits for easy riding and dared Graciela to
turn it down.

A few words from Paloma with Emilio at the
horse barn produced a mare for Graciela, a gift that made the slave
smile. “I will be your friend,” she said to the horse, who tossed
her head and whickered back, evidently understanding.

Claudio saddled his own horse Bueno, grateful
Marco didn’t know that the black had been acquired from an
obnoxious
ranchero
near San Mateo two years ago who had
cheated Lorenzo just one time too many. At least, that was what
Lorenzo had claimed, and Claudio had overlooked it, as he had
overlooked too much. Claudio had learned through hard experience
never to look too closely at any horse dealings of the Diaz
brothers. That they hadn’t gone anywhere near San Mateo in the
intervening years reinforced Claudio’s own suspicions about the
transaction for Bueno.