Paloma and the Horse Traders (7 page)

He stared at Toledo brooches with Moorish
design, intricate and lovely, thinking how much he liked the way
Paloma leaned against him when she didn’t think anyone was
watching. What made such a moment so endearing was that he knew how
capable she was of standing on her own. He knew that if anything
ever happened to him, Paloma Vega would manage his land, goats,
sheep, and cattle with great skill. With such a wife he need never
fear for his children’s inheritance.

“
I am a hopeless case, Toshua. I
miss my wife,” he told the Comanche beside him.

Toshua nodded. “You
are
hopeless,” he
confirmed. “I watched you last night, when you thought I was
asleep. You pulled that pillow very close to your
chest.”

Toshua laughed, a rare-enough event for Marco’s
ears, but evidently even more startling for two townsmen who stood
by and gasped in amazement that Indians had even a remote sense of
humor. Toshua gave them a sour look, which meant that almost
immediately the
juez
and the Comanche were the only two men
standing over the display of Toledo-made baubles. Just as well;
Marco was a countryman and he didn’t care for crowds.

A countryman in the company of a Comanche,
probably two crimes against society in a place as dignified as
Taos. At least Marco had insisted that Toshua put on the wool
pants, cotton shirt, and
serape
of a servant, rather than
the scraps of loincloths that both he and Toshua had worn on their
way to Taos.

Toshua had drawn the line at boots or sandals,
preferring his moccasins. To Marco’s eyes, his friend looked not
much different from other Indians around them in the plaza. He
tried to see Toshua through more gentrified city eyes, and he could
not deny that there was something palpably menacing about his
friend, even without his lance, bow and arrows, which Marco had
insisted remain behind in the public house. The knife was
non-negotiable.

“
I
am
a hopelessly fond
husband,” Marco said. “You know me too well.” He became aware of a
slight commotion, his hand on his knife, because that was how men
stayed alive in Valle del Sol.

Governor de Anza made his stately way through
the plaza. He caught Marco’s eye, and both men gave each other a
proper bow of respect. De Anza veered toward him, followed by a man
equally well-dressed who looked like someone not long in the
colony. How he knew that, Marco couldn’t have said, beyond the
obvious fact that the young man’s eyes had no hard stare to them,
no look of caution. Marco looked closer and saw disdain.
I see
Taos as a big city
, he thought,
and you see it as a
dunghill, stranger
.

Marco knew the governor had spent the last day
in meetings, held in the refectory of the church, because he had
been there for some of them, giving a casual commentary on the
Indian situation in his district. The formal paperwork would follow
in October, when he made his annual trip to Santa Fe. The
governor’s secretary had also handed him a new list of brands of
missing cattle and horses.

Marco found these informal Taos gatherings
vastly more useful than the formality of Santa Fe. No scribes hung
around to record anything, so everyone felt free to speak his mind
on any topic. The governor had listened and offered suggestions of
real merit, because the man knew how to fight Comanches, unlike
other governors who had come, flinched, and left New Mexico as soon
as they legally could.

De Anza was a short man, but his stately
bearing added five or six inches to his frame, somehow. He looked
up at Marco and indicated Toshua. “This is the friend of whom you
spoke, Señor Mondragón?”

“
He is my more-than-friend,” Marco
replied. “He calls me his brother.”

The governor looked from one to the other,
nodding his approval. “And Valle del Sol continues to remain
peaceful, because of Kwihnai’s pledge to you?” He gently touched
the scar on Marco’s face, which the Comanche war leader had given
him as a reminder of that pledge. Marco had said nothing about the
scar, but news traveled fast, even in isolated New Mexico.
According to Paloma, even settlers in distant places had heard how
Marco and his wife and a mysterious doctor—long vanished—had saved
their fiercest enemy from smallpox.

“
Your Excellency, we do what we can
to strengthen our ties with the Kwahadi, as you requested. We must,
living where we do,” Marco said, embarrassed at the attention. The
younger man relaxed his air of superiority to stare at the lengthy
scar on Marco’s cheek where Kwihnai had peeled back the skin as a
potent reminder of his own boundaries.

The governor gestured to the tribes and
settlers around him. “Again we have Comanches in Taos for the fair,
the first time since our victory over Cuerno Verde. At the risk of
further embarrassing you, I wager we owe much of this success to
you and your friend here. Keep on, señores, keep on.”

“
No hint of treaties yet?” Marco
would have asked that question yesterday in the meeting, but there
were too many others preening and clamoring for de Anza’s
attention.

“
No hint, but I am a patient man,”
de Anza said. He gazed across the plaza with an expression of
satisfaction. “All honor to you, Señor Mondragón! Some Comanches
have returned and the Truce of God holds.”

“
God willing,” Marco said under his
breath. He came from a long line of realists, so this great trade
fair in Taos still had the power to amaze him. It reminded him of
the vigor of commerce, when sworn enemies would agree to do each
other no harm for a ten-day period, in exchange for the opportunity
to trade. For two years now, the fair had hosted Apaches, Navajo,
and Utes, but no Comanches, who still smarted from their defeat in
the land of the Utes by this very governor. Marco smiled to see The
People now, trading with their enemies.

“
Marco,” de Anza began, becoming
more familiar, “this is Señor Enrique Rojas, an
abogado
and
hidalgo
newly sent from the viceroy.” He smiled. “If the
time does come for a treaty, Señor Rojas will be the man to draw it
up.”

Marco bowed to the lawyer, who returned a
shallower bow, telling Marco all he needed to know about the young
man before him. His eyes, blue as Paloma’s, and his light hair
spoke of his Spanish origins as plainly as if he had strung a
placard around his neck. Marco knew what
he
looked like to
this man—tall, but high-cheekboned and not so fair of skin, because
there had been lonely Mondragóns from the last century in New
Mexico who looked on Pueblo women and found them pleasing. In the
eyes of this Rojas, he would always be inferior. Marco regretted
his deeper bow, then regretted his own pettiness.

“
Marco, I must return to Santa Fe
because business summons me,” the governor said. “There is word of
some unrest, from which direction I do not know. You know how
garbled a report can get.” Marco could tell from the amused look on
de Anza’s face that he had noticed Rojas’ arrogance. “I leave Señor
Rojas here in my stead. Let us see what he will learn today,
eh?”

“
I’m not a schoolboy, Your
Excellency,” Rojas said, perhaps speaking a little sharper than he
should have, because de Anza skewered him with a long
stare.

“
I would never suggest that,” de
Anza said. He turned his attention to Marco. “I hear there are
traders bringing fine horses from the cloud land of the Utes. How
they get around! I have given Señor Rojas sufficient state funds to
purchase some horses for my personal guard. Help him if he needs
it, eh, Marco?”

Marco bowed, confident that the lawyer would
allow no such thing. A glance at Rojas confirmed his
suspicion.

De Anza pulled Marco closer, his arm around his
shoulder in a gesture so familiar that several onlookers whispered
to each other. The governor tugged Marco away for a private moment.
“He’s a pup and a fool, but I have to work with what Mexico City
sends me. Keep him from killing anyone today, will you?”

“
I can only try, Excellency,” Marco
said, his pride soothed by an expert politician, but also a man of
no little military ability.

“
I ask no more,” the governor said.
With a wave of his hand, Governor de Anza made his way back through
the plaza, as the crowds parted like the Red Sea.

“
Señor Mondragón, don’t let me
interfere with your valuable time,” Rojas said, making an even
slighter bow, now that the governor’s back was turned. “You and
your … well, this Indian.”

“
His name is Toshua,” Marco said,
but he spoke to the back of the lawyer, who made his own escape
from less exalted company. Hands on his hips, Toshua watched him
go.

“
I do not think this one will live
long in New Mexico,” Toshua said. “In fact, if you like, I can gut
him tonight in his own bed and no one will know who did
it.”

“
Don’t tempt me,” Marco said, then
regretted his words. “No! You know I do not approve, and neither
would Paloma.” There. Best to play the Paloma card.

“
You ruin all my fun, Marco, you
know that, don’t you?” Toshua asked. His expression unreadable, he
looked around at the wares of several nations. He pointed with his
lips toward a pile of fabric. “Look now. I am doing what you call
changing the subject.”

Marco laughed. “And doing it rather well! What
do you … oh,
Dios
, this is it.”

Together they walked to the corner of the plaza
where a crowd gathered around a weaver. As soon as the settlers saw
Toshua, they backed away, leaving a path—not one to rival the
governor’s, but satisfying, especially after the rudeness of Señor
Rojas.
Lord, smite me for pride
, Marco thought.

There it was, the perfect present for his dear
wife. Marco knew his own hands were rough and he hesitated to touch
the pretty shawl that appeared to be woven from cobwebs. He pointed
to it. “This one, Rosario,” he said to the weaver—a Tewa woman
related to his first wife, the lovely Felicia.

Picking it up, Rosario carefully arranged the
folds and held the shawl close to him for his inspection. “Marco,
you look well these days,” she said. “I hear that you have two
children now,
bam
! one after the other.” She leaned closer,
speaking into his ear alone. “My cousin Felicia is probably smiling
on you all from heaven.”

“
I believe she is,” Marco replied,
touched, because he hoped it was true.

“
And that is how the world works,”
she told him, and rubbed the fabric against his cheek, because she
knew his kind heart.

He closed his eyes in pleasure, because the
merino wool, probably blended with mohair, felt as soft as Paloma’s
inner thighs. This winter past he had watched her nighttime nursing
of Claudio in their bed, how she shivered sometimes when she pulled
down her nightgown. When the new baby came, he would drape this
around her shoulders for those late-night feedings. A husband had
to do something, after all. A lesser man would roll over and return
to sleep, but Marco, twice a husband, knew better.

He nodded to the weaver and asked the price.
Rosario told him, and he pulled the coins from his pouch without
any hesitation.

“
See here, lover of my cousin, you
know better than that!” she teased him. “Half my fun is arguing the
price.”

“
Mine, too,” he agreed, but his
interest had just been captured by more commotion on a side street:
the sound of many hooves. Those traders from the cloud lands to the
north had arrived. They weren’t a rumor, after all.

Rosario quickly wrapped the precious shawl in
sturdy cotton, tied it with string and handed it to him. He kissed
her cheek, which made her blush, then hurried with Toshua and
others who had been waiting for the horse traders. He noticed the
Mexico City lawyer in the crush, and remembered that the governor
wanted horses, too. He smiled to see Enrique Rojas gather his cloak
tightly around him so as not to brush against his inferiors. Toshua
was probably right; this man almost certainly had a shorter future
in New Mexico than anyone else in the crowd, unless something
changed him drastically.

They stood under the awning of a butcher shop,
watching the spirited animals. Marco’s attention was quickly caught
by two bays, moving in tandem. They already looked like a team, and
he walked closer, wanting to catch the eye of whoever controlled
this herd.

He saw two men, one older than the other—rough
sorts, with untended beards and from the filth on their faces and
hands, obviously not much interest in hygiene. Amused, Marco
wondered what the Mexico City lawyer would make of these traders
who spent more time with Indians than settlers and yet somehow
managed to hang onto their hair and pertinent body parts that a man
might miss.

A younger man rode closer to the portal, dirty
like the others and equally bearded. Marco held up his hand. “Ho,
there,” he called, “is this a matched team?”

The man nodded. “Worth every
real
that
old Lorenzo there is going to ask.” He brushed his long hair back
with filthy fingers, hair with an unexpected red shine to it, but
that might have been because of all the grease. “Follow me to the
grove over there and we will talk.”