Paloma and the Horse Traders (39 page)

They galloped into the dusk, Toshua in the
lead, ranging ahead. Marco and Joaquim rode side by side, with
David Benedict next and the Ute warriors bringing up the
rear.

“
This could be a disaster of
monumental proportions,” Marco commented to Joaquim.

The royal engineer shrugged. “I hope not. I’d
like to build those bastions for you at the Double Cross, and—you
won’t believe this—I’ve even been thinking of ways to make the
Santa Maria garrison a spit and polish outfit.”

Marco threw back his head and laughed, loud
enough for Toshua to turn around and make an obscene gesture. “I’d
better be quiet,” Marco said, dabbing at his eyes.

“
It can be done,” Joaquim said,
sounding more than a little defensive. Marco had to bite the inside
of his mouth to resist commenting on his partner’s transformation
from regimental disgrace to San Miguel the Archangel himself,
complete with sword and halo.

“
Marco, what do you want to live to
do?”

“
Sit beside Paloma when she gives
birth to the next Mondragón,” he said, with no hesitation. “And see
our three children grow old.”

“
Then let’s get to it,” Joaquim
said. “We have a colony to protect.”

In
which plans must change

T
hank God for the Ute
warriors.
When Marco shook his head at the narrow path so high
above the Rio Conejos, the one called Deer Bones dismounted, took
hold of Buciro’s bridle, and led the way. He kindly told Marco to
close his eyes. “There is no shame in this fear,” Deer Bones told
him. “You are not a Cloud Ute.”

“
I am a terrified
ranchero
from Valle del Sol far away and below,” Marco told him with a shaky
laugh. Deer Bones just patted his leg.

Marco closed his eyes as directed and found
himself leaning toward the rock wall. Embarrassed, he managed
another laugh as Buciro plodded steadily on, led by the Ute on
foot. “Go ahead, call me a coward! I am earning it.”

“
I would never call you a coward,
not the man who shrouded my mother for burial when my father Rain
Cloud could not bring himself to do it,” came the quiet reply. “We
will always be in your debt.”

“
She was good to me at a hard time
in my life,” Marco replied. “I did not know she was your
mother.”

“
Then do not call yourself names
that are not true. We’re nearly through the worst part.”

In Marco’s opinion, they were through only the
first of many worst parts, as the little army threaded its way into
the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. He had spent his lifetime nearly in
the shadow of their comforting bulk, and he traveled the well-known
passes as a matter of course. This was different; these were trails
only Indians or desperate men would use.

Think of something pleasant
, Marco told
himself, and he did, remembering the birth of their first child,
his and Paloma’s. In the hardest moments, Paloma had fixed her blue
eyes on his light brown ones, bearing down in agonizing silence
until he told her, for the Lord’s sake, to cry out if it might
help.

“
Only if Soledad is far from the
house,” she had gasped, a mother already to another woman’s child,
and tenacious in her love for her small cousin.

When Buciro stumbled and then righted himself,
Marco closed his eyes even tighter, thinking only of Paloma. How
she cuddled close to him on cold winter mornings, flung her arms
wide in the summer, usually taking more than her share of their
bed. Paloma nursing Claudio, and leaning back in relief when her
milk drew down. Paloma teaching Soledad how to walk like a lady.
Paloma with her hair spread on their pillow, her head thrown back
in ecstasy. Always Paloma. If he had to die on this mountain pass,
or fighting a renegade intent upon scuttling Kwihnai’s tentative
peace overtures, Marco wanted Paloma’s name on his lips. Others
could petition saints or El Padre Himself; Paloma was his life and
light.

“
Open your eyes, señor. We are
through the pass.”

Marco opened his eyes to see the kind smile of
Deer Bones, shy almost, much like his father, who was even now
making his own precarious way toward Great Owl’s village. Or
perhaps Rain Cloud had been surprised and
his
little army
lay dead. If only there were some way to know these
things.

Marco looked around, grateful to be alive. He
lifted his eyes toward the plains, where the sun was rising. To
some, it was only Thursday, with nothing out of the ordinary in
store. Here, in this isolated colony, it was a day when a victory
might make his homeland a safer place. He chose not to consider
defeat.

He doubted King Carlos would ever hear of the
day’s events. He would never know about a
juez de campo
charged with making peace in a dangerous place. Suddenly, as though
a cosmic fist had slapped his head, Marco understood clearly that
his allegiance was not really to some distant king. It was to his
colony alone. He was a New Mexican, not a Spaniard. He felt a swell
of pride, followed by humble gratitude. What had just happened? He
watched the sun rise over his country, his home, his mountains and
streams, his loved ones, New Mexicans all.

“
Señor, if I must say, you look like
a man suffering from either advanced epiphany or unspeakable
indigestion,” Joaquim joked, guiding his horse alongside Marco’s,
as Deer Bones raised his hand in greeting and edged
away.

“
Nothing so profound as
indigestion,” Marco teased back, too abashed to tell anyone except
Paloma about his advanced epiphany. He gestured to Deer Bones.
“This excellent man got me through the mountains. I was as poor a
leader as you can imagine. I’m surprised I did not foul myself.
Now, Joaquim, it is your turn to lead us. Tell us where to place
ourselves, and what to do.”

Joaquim nodded and sat a little taller, even
though Marco knew he had to be as tired as all the rest. The royal
engineer gestured the others into a tight circle, where they
dismounted, stretched, turned around to relieve themselves, then
looked at him, ready for orders.

He spoke to a small man, unusually short for a
Ute. “Tall Grass, here we are between the Two Brothers, the
rendezvous. We have trees to shelter us, but we are still so high.
What should we do?”

Marco smiled to himself. Whether he knew it or
not, Joaquim was conducting a council of his officers, asking
advice and actually listening. He had the makings of a fine leader,
provided he could keep his breeches up.

“
Tether our horses here among the
trees, and move down the mountain,” Tall Grass said. The Ute
pointed to clumps of faraway sumac bushes. “We can hunker down
behind those and wait.”

Joaquim looked at Marco and raised his eyebrows
in a question.

Those bushes might shelter someone the size
of Soledad
, Marco thought, appalled. “It’s not enough
shelter.”

“
It is for me and the Utes,” Toshua
said. “Marco, you eat too much.”

“
Guilty as charged,” Marco said.
“I’m also taller than any of you, except David Benedict.” He looked
at Joaquim, a question in his eyes.

A little smile played around Joaquim’s lips and
his eyes were bright, almost as if he were enjoying their
predicament. Marco couldn’t help but think that such an expression
was a natural fit for a man who raised hell in Cuba and Mexico City
before being broken down from
teniente
to
soldado
,
the lowest of the low. Damn the man; he was probably enjoying
this.

“
We’ll manage,” Joaquim said,
licking his lips in anticipation, if the gleam in his eyes meant
anything. “Toshua, you and the Utes will get as close as you can to
the valley floor behind those sumac bushes. Marco, you and I and
David Benedict will prepare another little surprise. Marco, get out
those bottles. I pray God that parfleche of black powder didn’t
bounce off your horse.”

As Joaquim’s plan began to unfold, Marco had no
doubt that El Teniente Gasca could manage the presidio at Santa
Maria, given the opportunity. Luckily, Lorenzo’s rum bottles had
survived their jostle in his saddlebags, probably because he had
wrapped them tightly in the horse trader’s foul shirt. Some of the
black powder had spilled out, but Joaquim just shrugged.

The scheme faltered immediately. Joaquim swore
in disgust. “I need a funnel,” he said. “In God’s name, just a
funnel!”

Marco felt in the inside pocket of his doublet.
He fished out the letter Paloma had written to him and given to
Lorenzo. He twisted it into a funnel and Joaquim slapped his
forehead.

“
A scoop, a scoop,” he said next.
“Make that appear now, will you?”

Marco chuckled and reached into the same
pocket, this time pulling out the little note Paloma had tucked
among his clean socks. He handed it to Joaquim, who read it and
rolled his eyes. Marco felt his face grow hot.

“
I had a wife once, Marco, if you
can believe that,” Joaquim said. “After a year or two, she never
wrote
me
any love notes. What power do
you
have?”

“
This is not the time,” Marco
mumbled, still the reticent
Hispano
.

Joaquim directed Marco to put the paper funnel
in the bottle opening. He creased the other paper and carefully
scooped black powder into the funnel.

“
How much powder?” Marco
asked.

“
Enough to make a very loud bang.
One more scoop. That is good. Fill the other two bottles. Set them
upright. We need wicks now.”

“
Part of Lorenzo’s shirt?” Marco
asked.

“
Takes too long to burn.”

As Joaquim stared at the rum bottles, his chin
in his hands, David Benedict picked up the paper funnel. He tore it
in half, rolled it lengthwise, and stuck it in the first bottle.
With a grunt of interest, Toshua unwrapped a length of sinew from
his lance. He handed it to Benedict, who backed away from him in
terror at first, then took it, careful not to touch Toshua’s hand.
He fastened the paper wick inside the mouth of the bottle. He
repeated the operation, using Paloma’s smaller note on the last
bottle, then sat back and folded his arms, satisfied.

“
Muy bien
, David,” Marco
said.

Pleased, Benedict spoke to Joaquim. “ ‘I
can throw a long distance,’ he says,” Joaquim repeated.

“
We need fire. Here is my flint and
steel,” Marco said, pulling out a small pouch.

Joaquim took out his own, and David Benedict
shrugged. He jumped and cried out when Toshua tapped his arm and
handed him a flint and steel.

“
I think he will never like The
People very much,” Toshua remarked.

“
Toshua, no man likes to have his
privates toyed with,” Marco said.

Toshua astounded him by bursting into laughter.
“Tell that to Paloma!”

If his face was red before, it was on fire now.
David spoke to Joaquim, probably demanding to know what was so
funny. He laughed, too. The Utes spoke Spanish, and they gave up
any pretense of solemnity. Deer Bones even flopped back on the
grass, wheezing as he laughed. Joaquim had a snort-laugh that sent
them all into more helpless paroxysms of mirth.

“
Maybe we needed that,” Marco said,
when the laughter died down to a weak chuckle, and finally just a
snort here and there.

Then it was all business. They shared their
carne seca
and bits of cactus. Marco gave the rest of his
dried meat to Deer Bones, pleading a full stomach, and the Ute did
not argue. Out of the corner of his eye—no sense in humiliating the
man—Marco watched him share with the other warriors and wolf down
the rest of the meat.
It’s going to be a hard winter, my
friends
, Marco thought, remembering the ruin of the Ute
village, and their winter preparations destroyed or stolen.
Better you do go west with Bear
.

The sun was nowhere near high overhead, but
they all knew better than to wait around. Joaquim gathered them
again. “Go with Toshua to the sumac bushes,” he directed the Utes.
“Just wait. Lorenzo will come and make the deal for firearms. If
they demand a demonstration, he has two good muskets.”

Two working muskets
, Marco thought,
aghast at their flimsy plan.
It seems we had one good brain
among the eight of us, to think up that scheme
.

But the time to second guess had come and gone.
He listened with the others.

“
I told Lorenzo to stay where he is
when the deal is over,” Joaquim continued. “Above all, not to move
forward. At any time, if—pray God
if
—Rain Cloud has attacked
their secret stronghold, we should see someone riding toward Great
Owl for help. That’s when we attack them.”

“
Suppose that villain Great Owl
decides to kill our horse traders?” Toshua asked. “I could not
watch that without attacking Great Owl right away rather than
later.”

The Utes nodded. Everyone looked at
Joaquin.

“
Then we will throw our
bombas
and fight.” He turned to Marco. “Use your flint and
steel to light your
bomba
at the last moment. Throw it
immediately, or you will become a distant memory to Paloma. If
there is time and we are still alive, fire your muskets. Ah, good,
Marco, you have your bow and arrow, too.”