Carla Kelly - [Spanish Brand 01] Read online

  She nodded. He ran his hand along her hip next. “There are also Navajo. Some say they are Apache, too, and their language has its similarities. I am wary around them, but I have known some fine ones. My orchard man is part Navajo, and we argue about peaches.” He chuckled and kissed her hair. “He brings me good ones. And there are Ute Indians to the north. I know their language, and I think I know them, for the most part. We exist together.”

  “That’s a lot of Indians,” Paloma the dove said. “More?”

  “Of course. All of my servants except my sheepherder are some part Tewa or other Pueblo.” His voice took on a softer tone. “Felicia was part Tewa, which is why I speak that language well enough to joke and argue in it. I trust them with everything I have.”

  Including your heart, she thought. It must be a generous heart, because I think—I know—there is room for me, too.

  “It’s like this, Paloma: let me tell you a little dicho. There was once a man who built a rope bridge across a high gorge. His neighbors thought he was crazy. It was a small gorge, as gorges go, but he took several years, twining the best rope made from the strongest hemp. He took the time to make friends with a Ute ropemaker, and learned everything he could. One of his soldiers had worked for the royal engineers of Spain, and he was put in charge of the bridge. When it was done, the man tested it for a month and longer, gradually adding weight.” He chuckled. “He still uses that bridge today. Some say it is dangerous, and I say yes, it is. But there is this: everyone who uses that route—I, among them—is very, very careful.”

  “I do understand.”

  “I rather thought you would.”

  “Sometimes a healthy fear makes a dangerous road safe.”

  “It does. And so I maintain a healthy fear around Indians. And so should you.”

  “Will I know who to trust?” she asked, her eyes closed now.

  “You already do. You have a discerning heart.”

  On another night, when the wind howled and the snow blew sideways, Paloma shivered in the wagon until her husband arrived, snow-covered and cold, himself.

  “We’ve pulled the wagons close together and put the animals inside,” he told her. “We may be here a few days, so the men have built more substantial shelters of branches and brush.” He peered close at her in the failing light. “You are not to worry! There is food enough and we will be warm.”

  “Trece?” she asked, her teeth chattering.

  He laughed and touched the frown between her eyes. “He’s already at the bottom of Andrés’s blanket roll.” He pulled out an earthenware bowl wrapped in a scrap of blanket. “And here are beans, tortillas and the rest of the venison. We’ll be careful of our food to make it last.”

  Paloma ate quickly, wishing it were more. He must have seen the longing for more food in her eyes, because there was a sudden shadow on his own face. “It will be better soon, chiquita,” he said. “One more mountain pass will see us to the valley and my sister’s hacienda.”

  “I don’t mean to complain—” she began.

  “And you haven’t,” he finished. He put his cloak around her as she shook. “We may have lost four days in San Pedro, but you and I needed those days, and we can’t overlook my sinful teamsters.” He kissed her ear. “Besides, I can guarantee that those two busybodies in San Pedro are praying for our safe journey.”

  Paloma smiled because she knew he wanted her to, and it was easier, as his warmth became her warmth. Her eyes closed and she yawned. “I learned a long time ago that if I go to sleep, then I’m not hungry.”

  It was a casual reality to her, so she was sorry to see such dismay in his eyes. “Oh, please! I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said in real distress.

  He set his lips in a firm line and hugged her closer. After a few silent minutes, she felt his chuckle. “Poor Paloma. You sit in a cold mountain pass because you listened to a smooth-talking man in a monastery kitchen—”

  “Father Damiano or Father Bartolomeo?” she asked, because his chuckle was contagious.

  He shouted with laughter then, which brought a chorus of groans from his teamsters in their crude shelters and only made him laugh harder. “They envy me,” he whispered to her.

  “No. They think your wits have gone wandering,” she said. “I am sorry to have to break the bad news to you.”

  They were two days in the last pass to Valle del Sol, waiting out another storm. Paloma gathered sticks whenever the wind uncovered them. She kept her eyes on the high mountains around them in the narrow pass, impressed with their cold beauty. Inside her Tewa moccasins, she wore two pairs of Marco’s stockings. Even then, the cold seeped through and she spent most of her time in the wagon, happy enough to listen to stories about Luisa Maria Mondragón Gutierrez, her sister-in-law, and about Marco’s childhood on the hacienda in a beautiful valley three-sided by mountains, with a long view of the rising sun to the eastern plains.

  Clasped in her husband’s arms, she closed her eyes as he described his hacienda, his servants, his animals, and his duties as juez de campo. She dozed more than she listened, because the cold was working on her thin body in ways that pained her husband almost more than it pained her—she was used to privation. She couldn’t get warm and she found herself unable to stay awake.

  Embarrassed, she protested when he called Andrés into the wagon one particularly cold night to sleep with them, sandwiching her between both men. Trece came, too, whimpering and licking her cold face. As much as she cried with shame, Paloma gradually warmed until her continuous shivers stopped. She slept more peacefully then, no longer plagued by the cold.

  When she woke the third morning, the snow had stopped, along with the wind that had laid much of the pass bare.

  “Early snows are like that,” Marco said, as he rubbed her legs with warm hands and handed her a cup of soup. The meat was unfamiliar. “One of my men trapped a rabbit, so here you are.”

  “I doubt you pay him enough,” she murmured, pleased to see the way her harmless banter made his light brown eyes brighten because she felt restored enough to tease.

  “I doubt it, too. Listen to the melting today, chiquita. Tomorrow the wind will blow warm again from the south and we will be on our way. That is how it is, on the eastern slope of the Sangre de Cristos. Real winter hasn’t even arrived yet.”

  He watched her drink the soup and handed her a knife to spear the meat. “And when winter does arrive, you will be warm and well-fed in my hacienda. As simple as that.”

  In the morning, the snow had melted enough to allow a narrow passage one horse wide. Marco helped her put on both of her dresses and the brown wool skirt, and wrapped her in her cloak. He mounted his horse and Andrés handed her up to him.

  “We’ll ride ahead with four riflemen,” he told her.

  “The wagons? The others?” she asked, looking around, worried.

  “Two more days will see the pass open wide, and they will follow,” he told her as he spoke to his horse and they started up the trail. “I want you at my sister’s hacienda tonight.”

  “I’m trouble for you,” she exclaimed, dismayed.

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  By riding steadily, they arrived at Hacienda Gutierrez in late afternoon. The higher they climbed, the colder the weather, even though the sun was out now and the sky the blue of the Virgin’s cloak. She bore what she could, then tried to sleep away the afternoon. To her irritation—she told him what she thought—her husband made every effort to keep her awake and talking. As it was, she was half dozing when Marco spoke to his horse and they stopped as gates opened and then closed behind them.

  In a few minutes, and after whispered words that she couldn’t quite make out, she found herself in a warm room. She sniffed and sighed with satisfaction—a piñon fire. Maybe they had returned to San Pedro, but that couldn’t be.

  There were more whispered words, first from her husband, his voice so familiar now, followed by a gasp, more words and then the low, companionable laughter of two who kn
ew each other well. She struggled to open her eyes, then gave up.

  Chapter Sixteen

  In Which Paloma Meets Kinder Relatives

  When Paloma opened her eyes again it was early evening. She looked first at Marco, sitting on her bed, then his sister in the chair beside him. She looked back and forth again and smiled, which relieved Marco’s mind. “You both have light brown eyes.”

  “We do, indeed,” his sister said. “My dear, are you warm enough?”

  “Not quite,” Paloma said, her eyes on Marco again. “I will be, when your brother comes to bed.”

  It was simply said, and it warmed his heart. He ran his hand down her arm, enjoying the feel of her almost as much as if he had never done that to another woman. “Paloma, this is my sister, Luisa Maria, the widow Gutierrez.”

  Paloma reached out to the woman seated so close to the bed, no words spoken. Luisa leaned closer and took the proffered hand.

  Funny that he should want his sister’s approval of his rash act. She was three years older than he, and her opinion still mattered to him, even after all these years. It touched his heart when Paloma raised herself up on one elbow, leaned closer, and kissed Luisa’s hand in the manner of a dutiful child.

  The gesture was as perfect as Paloma’s beautiful curtsy to him in the kitchen at San Pedro. His heart softened even more as Paloma rested her cheek against Luisa’s hand and closed her eyes. The exhaustion on her face told him volumes about the limit to her strength, she who had been starved in Santa Fe for years, then dragged through cold mountain passes. His heart beat a little faster to think what would have happened to her, if she had truly tried to walk from Santa Fe to Valle del Sol. And he knew she would have tried. Until his vision cleared, he had to focus on the wooden figure of San Isidro, patron saint of farmers, watching these proceedings from his corner niche.

  “Are you hungry?” Luisa asked, her voice softer and more tender than Marco had heard in years, considering that she and her sons ran a rancho almost the size of his own and had no more time for frills than he did. That she was still a woman, he had no doubt. Too bad that Ramon Gutierrez had blundered just once with Comanches. All it took was once.

  “I am hungry,” Paloma replied. She closed her eyes again.

  Luisa smoothed the blanket on Paloma’s shoulder. “I will remedy that.” His sister looked at him. “Don’t be a blockhead, Marco. Get in bed with her. She’s cold.”

  He chuckled as she left the room. “I never get any respect from my sister,” he told his wife, as he took off his boots. His doublet and trousers came next. Paloma held up the covers and he slid in beside her, happy to hold her in his arms and know that she did not have to spend another night outdoors, shivering.

  She came into his arms so naturally, pillowing her head on his arm, that he felt she had been there beside him forever. Testing his luck, he sang a Tewa lullaby to her that he remembered from Felicia. It made her smile and nestle closer. Funny how a song he had not even dared to think of in years could finally close a yawning chasm in his heart.

  He was nearly asleep, too, when Luisa returned with lamb stew and bread so fresh that he salivated. The kitchen odors must have roused Paloma, because she stirred in his arms.

  “Eat, you two,” Luisa said, setting the tray by the bed. “Make yourself useful, brother. Paloma, when you’re done, would you like a bath?”

  “Oh, I would,” his wife said, as she sat up beside him. “Just show me where the buckets are and I’ll haul the water.”

  “Not in my house,” Luisa said with some of that starchy firmness more familiar to Marco than her softer side. “You are a guest here and the wife of my favorite brother.”

  “Her only brother,” he pointed out, just before the door closed, so he heard Luisa’s laugh. After a blessing on the food—the perfunctory kind because he trusted the Almighty understood that his wife was hungry—he handed Paloma a bowl and a spoon.

  She ate with her already familiar economy, not wasting a drop. “Oh, dios,” was all she said, leaning against his arm while she ate in bed. He divided his hunk of bread and she took it without a word.

  As they were finishing, he heard a knock.

  “Come,” he said.

  The door opened on two servants with a tin tub, which they set in front of the fireplace without a word. Back and forth they went, and others, too, until the tub was full. Luisa followed with towels and soap, which she placed beside the tub.

  “I will leave you to it,” she said. She laid a nightgown across the foot of the bed, put her fingers to her lips, kissed them and blew the kiss to Paloma, which made her sigh.

  He took off his wife’s clothes and helped her into the tub. The water was just right and she sat down with another sigh. He washed her hair, then her body, until she took the cloth from him for her intimate parts.

  As much as the exercise aroused him, it also saddened him to feel and see her ribs. There were even scars on her back he had not noticed in the half-light of the wagon. Some looked recent. His heart hardened against the Morenos.

  “How did you get these, my heart?” he asked.

  “Tia Moreno doesn’t—didn’t—have a lot of patience when I brushed her hair,” she said simply. “And you remember how my cousin was so unsatisfied with all of us, right before the wedding.”

  She gave him such a look then—pride and humor, mingled with love. “Thank God you cannot tack these scars next to my sandals in your—”

  “Our—”

  “Sala.”

  He helped her dry off. Felicia had never let him help her that way, even though he had wanted to, but Paloma didn’t seem to mind. After she pulled on the nightgown Luisa had left—too large and leaving one bare shoulder exposed—she sat on the end of the bed and handed him the comb.

  Felicia had always taken care of her own hair. He was new at this, and it humbled him how generously Paloma turned herself over to him. Her surrender did not make her weak in his eyes, because he already knew her mettle. He began tentatively to comb out her tangles, then, after a few minutes of silence, found himself humming. By the time her brown hair was straight and tangle-free, he was as mellow as a man could be. How did Paloma know such a simple thing would relax him, too?

  As if reading his mind once again, she said, “I remember my father doing this for my mother and for me.” Her voice was dreamy, content.

  “My heart, I wonder if he enjoyed it as much as I do,” he told his wife, his lips close to her ear.

  She laughed, a soft sound meant to go no farther than the two of them, just as his words were intended only for her ears. How was it that a young woman cut loose as a child from her own parents and turned over to wolves could be so wise?

  “How do you know to do these wifely things?” he asked. “You certainly did not learn them from the Morenos.”

  Her intimate laugh was becoming almost as potent as the sight of her body. “My mama used to call me her most observant child. ‘You watch me all the time,’ she used to say. She was right; I did. I watched both of them.” She sighed. “They were so happy. I want to be as happy as they were.”

  “I believe you will be,” he murmured back. “Her most observant child? There were others, then.”

  She nodded. “I had two older brothers, Claudio and Rafael. They rode with my father that … that day. And Mama … she was expecting another. O dios, what the Comanches did to her …”

  He just held her then, his arms light around her. In a few minutes her head sagged against him and she slept. He lowered her gently to the bed, arranging a towel under her head because her hair was still damp. He left her to take his own bath.

  He was seated in her bathwater, cooler now. He didn’t fit as well, but the water was a comfort. He closed his eyes in exhaustion and opened them a few minutes later to find Paloma beside the tub, washing him this time, her nightgown off.

  “I don’t want to get it wet,” she told him, practical, as she lathered soap in his hair, her fingers strong in his scalp and s
o soothing.

  “You’re supposed to sleep,” he protested, but not very much, and certainly not with the intention of being obeyed.

  “You washed me,” she observed. She went closer to the fireplace where the servants had set two more brass cans of water, warm now, and just right to pour over him. When she scrubbed his back, he could have whimpered like a puppy with the pleasure of it all. Dios mio, eight years without this, and now someone to wash his back again. Why on earth had he ever thought that a yellow dog would be enough?

  “To think all I wanted was a yellow dog,” he whispered to her, and she just smiled at him. Here she had been a wife for not much beyond three weeks, and she knew him that well. Amazing. “I’m astounded you married someone as stupid as I am.”

  “Marco, you are by no means stupid,” she scolded gently. Her scrubbing had turned into a caress. He closed his eyes when he felt her lips on his back. “As for Trece, well, you know a good dog when you see one. I just came along.”

  He kissed her, and then they didn’t bother with whether he was dry or not; the bed was close, the sheets absorbent. When she slept again, he tucked the blankets tight around her, dressed and went in search of his sister.

  He found her in the kitchen, talking quietly to her cook. Luisa turned around to observe him, a half smile on her face. What was it about sisters? He knew that expression and it made him blush—him, Marco the landowner and brand inspector and officer of the crown.

  With no comment beyond a widening of her smile, she handed him an earthenware cup of hot chocolate. He warmed his hands on it until she sat down with her own cup and a plate of biscoches.

  “Smartest thing I have done in years,” he said finally, not meeting her eyes at first. Ah, you know me too well, he thought, and looked at her.

  She nodded, serious now. “I thought you might do something of that nature in Santa Fe.”