Paloma and the Horse Traders (6 page)

E
ckapeta didn’t need to voice
any misgivings about the encounter with the horse traders; Paloma
had enough of her own. All she wanted to do was wheel her horse
about, race back to the Double Cross and her babies, and fort up.
She knew her husband well enough to be certain that would not
displease him. She also knew the
juez de campo
in him, and
continued to the garrison, riding quickly, ready to waste not one
minute more than necessary in Santa Maria.

The corporal and private had arrived at the
garrison first. From the terrified look on the sergeant’s florid
face—rumor had it he did nothing but drink—he already knew that
Marco Mondragón had left the district.

He came to meet them at the gate of the
garrison, shifting frightened eyes from side to side.
And this
is what the viceroy in Mexico City thinks will protect us?
Paloma asked herself in disgust.
I would sooner trust my
housekeeper
.

She dismounted and motioned for Eckapeta to do
the same. The sergeant leaped back when the Comanche woman passed
in front of him, and Paloma heard smothered laughter from two
soldiers lounging at the gate. Was the state of affairs here so
wretched that the sergeant’s own men thought him a fool?

“
As you can see, my husband is not
here. He has gone to Taos for the trade fair,” Paloma
said.

Still the sergeant’s eyes darted behind her, to
the right and left, as though still searching for the man of
courage she was married to. Paloma looked at him with pity, because
he was well beyond his capabilities, assigned to a place that
demanded bravery and quickness of mind.

“
Sergeant, you remind me of days
when I would come into a kitchen full of dishes to be washed,
thinking that if I stared at them long enough, they would all
disappear. The
juez
is gone to Taos and nothing will change
that.”

She said it softly, not wishing to shame him
further in front of the men he was supposed to lead. Not for
nothing had her mother taught her the best manners.

Her words, even quietly spoken, seemed to
recall him to his duty, however much he wanted to avoid
it.

“
I need his advice,” the sergeant
said. It almost sounded like a pout, as though it was her fault
Marco was not in Santa Maria to take charge.

“
We will do what we can for you,”
Paloma said. “Your corporal said you needed an
interpreter.”

“
Oh, oh, yes, that was it. This
woman here?” he asked, lowering his voice so Eckapeta would not
hear him, in case he was wrong and she turned on him.

Eckapeta’s lips twitched, but she said
nothing.

“
Yes, Eckapeta. Take us to your
prisoner.”

It was the last thing Paloma wanted to say. Of
all the people in the garrison, she had a vast knowledge of the
evil that the Comanche could do. At the same time, she knew their
kindness and devotion to family. “Take us there,” she
repeated.

The sergeant led them onto the porch that
drooped from disrepair on four sides of the garrison’s interior.
They followed him to the blacksmith’s shop, where in a far corner,
two men were manacled to the wall. One was a Comanche, and the
other was dead.

Stunned, Paloma covered her nose with her hand
and pressed up against Eckapeta, who put her arm around
her.

The terrified sergeant didn’t even enter the
room, but stood in the doorway, gagging from the stench of bowels
that had moved, probably while the dead man was in the throes of
his own agony.

As her eyes adjusted to the dark, Paloma looked
closer. The Comanche who glared back at her had blood on his face.
She forced herself to look at the corpse who dangled from his
manacled hand. His throat was bloody and she knew what the Indian
had done.

“
Dios mio
,” she whispered,
and then felt her anger build at this needless loss of life, even
if the dead man had been jailed, too. No one deserved such a death.
“You should never have put this Kwahadi close to this other poor
soul, Sergeant,” she said.

“
Wha-wha-what was I to do?” he said,
his voice high and his words tumbling out.

“
In mercy, free the other prisoner,”
Paloma snapped. She glared at the sergeant, who seemed to grow
smaller with every glance in his direction. “What is it you want
Eckapeta to ask him?”

“
J-j-just the usual,” the sergeant
stammered. “Where is he from, what were their intentions, where
were they going?”

Eckapeta gave Paloma a look full of disdain for
the sergeant, as if wondering how such a man could be sent to a
place like Santa Maria. She moved closer to the chained Kwahadi but
stayed out of his reach, which had proved so deadly for the other
prisoner. She spoke. No answer. She spoke again. No reply. She
might as well not even have been there.

Eckapeta stepped back and looked at the
sergeant, who had moved only a few centimeters closer in the small
room with the big odor. “He will say nothing. I could ask all day,
and he would say nothing.”

“
We could … could torture him,”
the sergeant ventured.

“
He would still say nothing. He is
Kwahadi,” she said. “I suggest that you kill him right
now.”

The sergeant gasped in horror. “Think of the
wrath that his fellow warriors would visit upon this
valley!”

Eckapeta shrugged. “Then you never should have
allowed him to be taken alive. If you kill him, his brother
warriors will harm this valley. If you merely keep him in chains,
they will harm this valley. If you let him go, they will still harm
this valley.”

“
Even if we let him go?” the
sergeant said, his eyes like saucers.

Paloma turned away, embarrassed to see such
fear.

“
If you let him go, he will know you
are a weak man, and he and his warriors will harm this valley. You
cannot change what will happen now,” Eckapeta said.

Eckapeta watched the sergeant, perhaps looking
for some clue of his intent. When she saw nothing, she sighed and
threw up her hands. She spoke a few words to the Comanche, who
began to sing in a high voice.

Paloma turned away. She knew what was coming.
She had heard a death song before, the high-pitched wail that made
the hair rise on her back and arms and turned her knees to
jelly.

In one quick movement, Eckapeta grabbed a
Spanish lance in the corner of the blacksmith’s shop and launched
it into the chest of the Comanche, ending his death song. She fixed
a ferocious look on the sergeant, who quailed before her on his
knees.

“
You! Send an order to everyone in
this little village to gather inside the garrison for
protection.”

The soldier said nothing. Eckapeta looked at
the corporal and private who had come to find them. “Who can be in
charge, if not this man?” she demanded.

“
I will,” said the corporal. He
turned away to shout some orders. With relief, Paloma watched other
soldiers obey him.

“
We have to leave now,” Paloma
said.

“
We’ll have no guards with us,”
Eckapeta said.

Paloma took a deep breath. “Then it’s a good
thing that Emilio replaced our tired mounts with these horses.
Marco would be angry if he knew I was riding this
stallion.”

A smile crossed Eckapeta’s pockmarked face. “We
will never tell him.”

The sun hadn’t entirely left the sky. Paloma
knew this ride well—the one from Santa Maria, and church, and her
friends to the Double Cross. Ordinarily she and Marco took the
distance at a sedate pace, mostly because they liked free moments
without little ones around to chat and tease each other.

With a bound that jarred her teeth, they tore
through Rio Santa Maria and raced on the dirt road toward home and
everything dear to Paloma, except her husband, who was probably
enjoying himself in Taos. Never mind. He would be here as soon as
he knew. She glanced at Eckapeta, and knew she was in as good
hands. It was as if her own parents and brothers, her husband, and
Toshua rode beside them. She hoped the baby inside her was too
small to feel any effects from the harsh ride, but this was not the
time to worry about such matters.

She knew better than to look to either side,
leaving that to Eckapeta, who had come away from the garrison with
another Spanish lance, this one wrested from the hands of a guard
at the gate. “Just keep my babies safe,” she whispered to the wind
that snatched her words away.
I will think about what we will do
once we are through the gates
, she told herself.
Eckapeta
will get me there
.

She braved a glance around and saw nothing out
of the ordinary. Her horse pounded along, lathered now and
breathing audibly. She patted the animal, wishing she could let him
know somehow that she would never punish him this way, if her need
hadn’t been so great.

“
There they are!” Eckapeta shouted,
pointing with the lance to a thicket well back from the road. “Use
your quirt, Paloma!”

She did as the woman said, forcing more effort
from her horse. Her heart seemed to beat in rhythm with her horse’s
stride, as she dug in her heels and wished suddenly for spurs on
her riding boots.

Still there was silence. She dared a glance
toward the thicket and saw the warriors, chief among them a man
with a horned owl headdress, the same mask repeated on his horse.
She shuddered and looked away.

And there was the Double Cross, her dear home,
with its sturdy gray stone walls and gate closed, even though their
neighbors teased them that all was well now in Valle del Sol, since
Kwihnai had promised never to attack again.

“
Don’t you trust anyone?” she
remembered Pepe Calderón, their nearest neighbor, teasing Marco
only last week.

“
Not when my wife and children are
within my walls and no one has transported us to Santa Fe, where
fat people live,” Marco had replied. She closed her eyes and prayed
that the Calderóns had forted up.

“
I’m dropping back,” Eckapeta
shouted at her. “Don’t look behind and don’t stop. Crouch over your
horse.”

Has it come to this?
Paloma thought. She
swallowed tears and did as Eckapeta demanded, bending low, trying
to turn herself into a horse, as the Comanches did. She clung to
her horse, giving him his head because she trusted any animal that
Marco had trained.

She heard the Comanches then, and the wailing
sound of war put wings to her exhausted mount. As they raced toward
the Double Cross, she saw the gates open and mounted guards ride
out with their own lances and bows and arrows.

“
Pease don’t hit Eckapeta by
mistake,” she shouted.

She flew toward the guards, then past them into
the Double Cross. Yanking on the reins, she leaped off before her
horse came to a stop. She ran back to the gate and watched as
Eckapeta stopped, threw her lance, and found a target. Her knife
followed, claiming another victim. Then she rode for all she was
worth.

The gates were barely open now, but Paloma knew
what her guards were doing. As soon as Eckapeta was through, the
Double Cross riders followed her. The gate slammed shut and the
stout crosspiece banged down, cradled firmly in iron
holders.

Eckapeta dismounted and Paloma grabbed her,
holding tight. They clung to each other, then Eckapeta held her
off, assessing her with calm eyes. She touched Paloma’s
belly.

“
Is all well in there?”

Paloma nodded. “I think so. I doubt any child
of Señor Mondragón is easily dislodged by a little
ramble.”

Forehead to forehead, they laughed, then
Eckapeta gave her a little push. “Get your babies under the floor
in the chapel, and your house servants. You, too.”

“
Oh, but ….”

Eckapeta gave her a fierce look. “Little
Sister, don’t argue.”

Chastened, Paloma put her hands together and
bowed her head. “Yes,
nami
,” she whispered, even as her
tears came.

Eckapeta’s voice was gentle then, the same
voice she used when she held Claudio or Soledad. “What would Marco
say if I did any less? Go, my sweet Star in the Meadow. I love you
as my own.”

In
which the Truce of God suffers

“
I
should
get some pretty bauble for Paloma,” Marco told Toshua, as they
walked past another row of shiny things and housewares arranged on
blankets in the plaza of Taos.

“
You have been saying that for three
days now,” Toshua commented. “I think you are the kind of fellow
who chokes a coin until it begs for mercy, because you do not spend
them freely.”

“
Guilty as charged,” Marco said. He
sighed and looked around at the pots, pans, iron bars, spun wool,
endless chilis woven into
ristras
, silver apostle spoons,
carved wooden saints, and other bits of life in the colony that he
knew Paloma would enjoy looking at but would then shake her head
when he tried to buy something for her. Still, he wanted her here,
her touch light on his arm. He missed the smell of her—the lavender
odor of her clothing, the pleasant mingling when lavender met her
skin, which she scrupulously washed with olive oil soap. Lately it
had all blended with her milk, which had flowed so freely for
Claudio—the milk she had blushingly informed Marco needed to dry
up, since another Vega-Mondragón was on the way.