Paradise Valley (40 page)

The weasel stood glaring at Caleb, rubbing his wrists.

“Thank you for returning the horse you borrowed,” Caleb said. He nodded toward the pinto, already saddled. “This one is yours. Take it, and leave us be.”

The weasel glanced at Domingo, who stood behind Caleb dripping with bandoliers, his hands resting on pistol butts.

“Can we have our weapons back?” the weasel asked. His eyes were angry, unfazed by defeat and unimpressed with Caleb’s generosity.

“Spoils of war,” Domingo answered coldly. “You are lucky to be alive,
ladrón
.” The look in his eye made it plain that he would still prefer to change this one detail.

The two bandits muttered a steady stream of oaths and curses as they mounted the pinto and trotted away toward the east. A hundred yards into Caleb’s wheat field one of the bandits twisted around and shook his fist.

“You have not seen the last of us, gringo! Now we know where you live!”

A gunshot shattered the air very close to Caleb. Women and children screamed, everyone ducked, and Caleb spun around to see where the shot had come from. Domingo still held a pistol aloft, smoke trailing from its barrel.

“Just a reminder,” Domingo said, sliding the pistol back into its holster. “Something for them to think about. Look – now he has put the
spurs
to that pinto.”

Chapter 44

A half hour later, after they had eaten supper, Domingo picked up his pile of weapons from the back porch and said to Caleb, “It is a long walk to my house, and these things are going to get heavy. May I borrow a horse for the night?”

Caleb pondered this for a minute, gazing toward the barn. A lantern cast a golden light on the interior of the barn, where Miriam was already brushing the burs and mats out of Star’s coat while the mare fed from a trough.

“Just take yours,” he said.

Domingo’s brow furrowed. “But I
have
no horse.”

Caleb nodded toward the barn, toward Star. “That one is yours. Take her, and be good to her. She is a fine animal.”

“But this is
your
horse. I cannot accept such a gift.”

Caleb’s eyes turned to Domingo. “It is not a gift, son, it is fair payment. I have enough horses, and I have my daughter yet. Because of you. In my mind . . . in my
heart
, I owe you much more than a horse. There are three saddles in the barn. Take your pick.”

Domingo pondered this for a minute, then nodded slowly and said, “Gracias, Señor Bender. I will take good care of her.” He hitched the bandoliers higher on his shoulders and turned toward the barn, but then he stopped and looked back at Caleb. “There is one more thing. I have made up my mind. I still think perhaps you are a little bit foolish, amigo, but you are
surely
the most honorable man I have ever met.” Then he lowered his head and went on up to the barn.

Domingo’s words stuck to Caleb’s mind like cockleburs, and in spite of bone-deep fatigue he knew he would need to comb them out before he went back inside. His house and yard were full of life and light and clamor, and he wanted to be alone just now. A full moon had risen enough to light his way, so he buttoned his coat, turned up his collar and wandered up toward the dark ridge, trailing a callused hand on the top rail of the fence as he passed the barn lot.

“Cualnezqui.”

Miriam jumped, startled. She didn’t know the soft-footed native was standing behind her until he spoke.

“Your father has given me this horse,” Domingo said.

She glanced toward the house and a little smile turned up the corners of her lips.

“Sí,” she said. “That’s my father.”

Domingo picked out the oldest and plainest of the saddles. Miriam helped him cinch it in place, and then walked with him across the backyard, out to the edge of the wheat field.

“Domingo,” she said, and he turned to face her in the moonlight.

“Sí ?”

“I don’t know how to say it. There are no words for what I feel after what happened today. Nothing in my life has prepared me for such a thing. It’s just – ”

“Gracias will do,” he said. “I did only what I have been taught. I will not let harm come to my friends.”

Friends. She wanted more, she knew that now. She wanted desperately to bridge the gulf between them, to declare herself, to let him know how she really felt, but it was a terrible risk – if he didn’t share her feelings, she would look like a foolish child and the gulf between them would grow impossibly wide. She studied his face in the moonlight. His eyes betrayed nothing, but there might never be another moment like this, another chance. On an impulse she closed the distance between them, put a hand on his neck and reached up to kiss his cheek.

“Gracias,” she said softly, and waited for his reaction.

But there was none. He was holding the reins in front of him, and his hands did not move to embrace her. His expression did not change, except for a slight blink that might have been only surprise. If anything, he backed away from her an inch or two.

He nodded stiffly. “You are welcome, cualnezqui. You and your family have become very dear to me. I swear to you, as long as I am able I will protect you with my life.”

And then, with great tenderness and something very close to love, he looked up at the horse and stroked its face.

“It is late. I must go now,” he said. With a heartbreakingly casual grace he swung up into the saddle, and then, looking down on her, said, “I forgot to thank your father for the saddle. Please let him know I am very grateful.”

Then he spurred his new horse and trotted off across the field without once looking back.

Standing in the yard watching him ride away, Miriam’s heart shattered like glass. He had been very gracious, and yet his words didn’t satisfy her. Domingo knew nothing of this cauldron of feelings that roiled and steamed inside her, and he certainly did not share it. To him, she was only a good friend who taught him to read and granted him respect. In the end she was as devoid of hope as ever, only now she was hopeless
and
suffering – the penalty for her desire. She wanted to scream and cry, and at the same time she wanted to turn about and forget, to erase her feelings the way she erased a blackboard. Perhaps it was for the best. Perhaps in time, with Gott’s help, the ache would lose its grip. Perhaps the longing would fade into nothingness one day and she would be content to be his friend, as comfortable and familiar as a worn-out shoe. Conflicting thoughts pelted and plagued her as she stood in the edge of the light from her father’s house, fighting back tears.

“Miriam? Are you all right?”

Rachel’s voice. Miriam was careful to put on a thin, noncommittal smile before she turned around.

“I’m fine,” she lied. “Just enjoying the evening air. The moon is lovely tonight.” A full moon hung low in the east, big as a washtub and bright as a beacon. It mocked her. In its light she could still make out a tiny spot of white bobbing in the distance – Domingo, a half mile away and getting smaller.

Rachel came and stood beside her, hooking an arm in Miriam’s. “Jah, it’s very nice.”

They stood that way for a long time, two sisters side by side contemplating the night sky, and then Rachel said very quietly, “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

Miriam weighed the question inside her for a moment. She did not wish to lie, to her sister or to herself.

“It takes two,” she said. “I would rather have no hope at all than pine for a man who cannot see me. To him I am just a friend. His ugly little cualnezqui.”

Rachel laughed. She actually covered her mouth with her hand and giggled. Miriam pulled away and turned to face her.

“This is
funny
to you? I have trusted you with the thoughts of my heart, Rachel.”

Rachel laughed harder, shaking her head and holding a calming hand out to Miriam because at the moment she couldn’t speak. Finally she managed to say, “No, wait. You don’t understand.”

“
I
don’t understand? I understand my own sister is laughing at me when I have bared my soul to her.”

“No,” Rachel said, at last bringing her laughter almost under control, “it’s not like that at all. Listen – let me tell you. Kyra came yesterday to bring Emma some native herbal remedy that’s supposed to make her well. Kyra is our friend, so when she went to leave I said to her, ‘
Vaya con Dios
, cualnezqui,’ and she turned around and gave me the strangest look. Her mouth opened a little, like she was shocked, and there were tears in her eyes. She asked me if I knew what I had said.

“I told her everybody knows ‘Vaya con Dios’ means ‘Go with Gott.’ But she said no, the Nahuatl word –
cualnezqui
. So I told her yes, I know what it means, because Domingo calls Miriam that sometimes; it means ‘friend’ or ‘neighbor.’ Kyra shook her head and laughed a little then, but she was crying at the same time.”

Miriam’s eyes narrowed. “You’re saying cualnezqui doesn’t mean
friend
?”

“No! She told me the Nahuatl word for friend, but I can’t say it, it’s too hard. It’s not even close to the same.”

Miriam harbored a profound suspicion that she was being ridiculed, but Rachel’s laughter was nothing compared to the humiliation she would feel if she learned that Domingo had been making fun of her all this time. She crossed her arms on her chest.

“So what does it
really
mean?”

Rachel’s grin faded, and in the pale blue moonlight Miriam could see her eyes. There was a deep caring in those eyes, and a trace of fear.

“It’s what Kyra’s late husband always called her when he thought no one was listening,” Rachel said softly. “Beautiful one. Miriam, cualnezqui means
beautiful one
.”

Caleb went only a little ways up the ridge, stopping at the first scattering of trees when he came to a waist-high outcropping of rock. A perfect spot. He sat himself down on the cold stone, took his hat off and laid it beside him.

Rubbing his bald head, he turned his face up to the stars and muttered, “Have I been
foolish
? Was it only blind stubbornness that brought my family, and now our friends, to a place half a world away where bandits roam the roads, my sons plow among snakes, our babies crawl among scorpions, and no one speaks our language or shares our beliefs?
What have I done?
”

A deep sigh welled up from the cold edge of doubt, and Caleb lowered his gaze. As was his way in quiet moments, he waited for Gott to answer – for that gift of clarity to descend like a dove and bring him peace.

But nothing came.

After a while a little rusty squeak distracted him, the vanes of his windmill nudged by a light breeze. His thoughts turned to irrigation, and his eyes roamed over endless rows of corn shocks and twice-plowed fields ready for planting. Fat cows and sleek horses grazed in a newly fenced pasture. A swell of laughter drew his eye first to the campfire in his yard, then to the yellow light spilling from his home and the lamplit windows of his daughters’ houses, one to the east and another to the west, where three new lives had begun in the last year.

He heard the faint pounding of hoofbeats – his friend and protector Domingo riding home at the end of a long and eventful day, skirting a field thick with winter wheat. A prayer kapp glowed pale blue in the moonlight, a girl standing on the edge of the yard. He knew the shape and stance of his daughter Miriam, even at night and from a distance. A moment later the back door opened – Rachel, venturing out to join her sister. He could see them quite clearly, his fine strong daughters arm in arm under the stars, and he sat contentedly for a long time, admiring them.