Beverly Byrne (24 page)

"Why?"
she whispered one May night when he returned after two weeks absence. "Why
are you doing this?" She had not dared the question before. The scene they
had just enacted forced the words out. He made her feel like an animal, and he
cursed her with every foul word he knew even as he gained freedom between her
legs.

He
laughed bitterly. "Don't play innocent with me sweetheart. You know
why."

"No,"
she said. "I don't. I keep trying to understand, but nothing makes any
sense."

He
was smoking, and he lazily stubbed out his cigarette and turned to her.  "The
lady wants to know why," he said softly. "Why it is she ain't no
lady. Now that's a good question." He pulled back the sheet she was
holding over her nakedness. Amy tried to push him away, but he grasped her
wrists. "I'll tell you why, sweetheart, since you asked. It's got
something to do with wanting things you can't have. Secretly wanting them, and
thinking you're fooling everybody, even your own husband. Nice girls don't do
that kind of thing."

She
tried to answer, but he bent her hands back so they pressed against her mouth.
Her eyes widened in fear.

"C'mon,
sweetheart, what are you scared of? I'm your husband, remember, the one you
promised to love and obey."

She
struggled to free herself, but he was too strong for her. For a moment she
thought he meant to possess her again, and she braced herself for the savage
onslaught. But either he couldn't or didn't want to. Instead he suddenly let
her go. "Forget it," he said. "I know you're a whore and so do
you." With that he quit her bed, leaving her to spend the night alone with
the echo of his bitter accusations.

19

SOMETIMES
WHEN HE WALKED THE STREETS OF THE city Rick Ibanez was conscious of an echo
that dogged his footsteps. Here in the barrio near the creek it was very loud.
He wondered if everyone heard it. Probably not, you had to have the old ones in
your blood as he did. He was spawn of the two cultures that originally clashed
in this place. Rapacious Spanish conquistadors and inbred, mystic Indians
warred for supremacy in his head. It was they who made the echo; it was both a
lament for times gone by and a hunger for all that was new and venturesome.

He
turned into an alley and heard the soft slurred  strumming of a guitar.
"Spanish is a loving tongue," a girl sang from inside one of the mean
and dark houses of the
barrio
. "Sweet as music, soft as rain
..." The girl sang in English, and her melody was neither old nor Mexican.
It was the lament of a Texas cowboy for the senorita he'd left "down
Sonora way." But in this place at this time the singer had made it her
own. Such was the genius of Santa Fe.

Ibanez
left the alley and the music faded. On the slightly wider street to which he'd
come the houses were interspersed with small
tiendas
. By day they sold
garbanzos and olive oil and rice, and strings of fiery red chilies festooned
their walls. Now the shops were shuttered tight. Only the faint odor of their
wares announced their existence in the moonlit street.

There
was, however, one commercial establishment dignified by a sign and a window
display
Beatriz Ortega-La Ropa Especial
-the lettering over the door
announced. Behind the glass was an artfully arranged exhibit of bright-colored
ruffled dresses, lace mantillas, fringed shawls, and exquisite fans. It was a
vivid visual reminder of old days and old ways.

Beatriz
opened the door as soon as he knocked. Soundlessly he followed her through the
darkened shop. They went past the bedroom of old Senora Ortega, his patient and
his excuse for being there, to that of Beatriz. She ushered him inside and lit
candles which were protected by tall glass chimneys, and the soft light
illumined dusty velvet hangings and ancient furniture. The candles were kind to
the shabby surroundings and to Beatriz.

"Good
evening, Don Rico."

She
was always ridiculously formal with him. It annoyed him, but he'd given up
expecting her to change. One battle, however, he still fought. "There's to
be a shop vacant soon on San Francisco Street," he said. "It's close
to the plaza and I know the owner. The rent need not be high."

Beatriz
smiled and her plain features were transformed. The smile betrayed a woman of
intelligence and charm behind the dull exterior; it was what had first
attracted him to her. "And if I move my establishment to the center of
town, I can sell dresses and mantillas to Anglo tourists. Souvenirs of old
Mexico, no ?  "

"Yes,
and you'd make twice as much money."

"But
that will do nothing for the barrio. Here I am a constant reminder to them. It
is what I want to be."

"Dreams
of ancient glory," Rick said with a sigh. "It won't work, Beatriz.
Those who survive and prosper will be the ones who get out of here and look to
the future, not the past."

"I
know that. Only I don't want them to forget the past. I want the young ones to
take it with them. What is wrong with that'?"

"Nothing.
But you have your mother to think of." He almost added, "And yourself,"
but he didn't say it. Beatriz needed no reminding that she was forty-six years
old, and that if she meant to salvage what remained of her life, she had to
quit the barrio. Neither did she need to be told that the relationship between
her and Ibanez was only friendship joined to physical necessity. It could never
be love, and marriage was no part of it.

"My
mother is doing very well," she told him, as if that was what he'd meant.
"The medicine you gave her last week helps a great deal."

"I'm
glad," Rick said with a small smile. In her quiet way Beatriz always won.
They did not speak anymore. Beatriz turned away from him and began unbuttoning
her dress. It was of plain gray cotton trimmed with black braid. It was
old-fashioned and dowdy; not old-fashioned and beautiful like the clothes she
made and sold. Beneath the gray dress she wore a white linen camisole and
petticoat. She removed those too. Her motions were calm and efficient and
without shame. Rick enjoyed watching her undress. She had done it just this
same way the first time, three months after Margarita's death.

Then
he had been a man in torment, living in a nightmare composed as much of guilt
as of grief. He was a trained man of healing, but he had not been present when
his young wife began a premature labor. Instead he'd been off in a distant
pueblo treating the Indians who made him feel like God if he so much as
stitched a knife wound. It took hours for the summons to reach him, and more
hours for him to get back to Santa Fe. By that time Margarita was dead. There
was a lot of bleeding, the old housekeeper told him, a river of blood that she
and the midwife couldn't staunch. Rick forced himself to examine his dead wife.
Not hemorrhage, his practiced eye said, heart failure. Digitalis might have
saved her, but he hadn't been there to administer it. So the pain of loss had
been overlaid with the ugly pattern of guilt. That duo of emotions had held him
in a vise, until Beatriz healed him.

One
day he went to see his patient Senora Ortega and the quiet, self-effacing
daughter led him to her bedroom. She had locked the door and undressed, just as
she was doing now. "You need a woman, Don Rico," she'd said in her
well-modulated voice. "And I need a man. I am a divorcee, not a virgin,
you understand that?"

He
had nodded. He knew that her legal name was Beatriz Johnson and that she'd been
married to an Anglo who took her east and eventually deserted her for a younger
woman of his own culture and back-ground. After that Beatriz had returned to
Santa Fe, resumed her father's name and opened her strange sad little shop. "I
know," he'd said, watching with fascination the dispassionate way she
removed her clothes and revealed a full, voluptuous figure. Her body did not
seem to belong to her sharp-featured, gaunt face. No doubt his astonishment had
showed.

"I
am much older than you," she had said, looking at him gravely. "I
have no wish to entrap you, Don Rico, nor could I. I'm barren. The doctors in
St. Louis proved that years ago. But my body does not displease you, I think.
And my need is as great as yours." Then she had smiled, and he had seen
that the full breasts and rounded hips were representative of the real Beatriz;
a woman warm, passionate, and intelligent. "Come, take me," she'd
said. "It will give pleasure to both of us."

She
had said the same thing every time since. She said it now. "Come, take
me."

While
she watched he took off his clothes. It had become a ritual, this manner of
undressing; one after the other, with each watching in turn. Ibanez saw the
pleasure in her eyes and was conscious of his tall muscular frame, slim-hipped
and broad-shouldered like an old time matador, and of the heavy, swollen
manhood pulsing erect between his legs. He moved toward her, and she stretched
out her hand and caressed his penis lovingly. Then she dropped to her knees and
enfolded it in her breasts before taking it in her mouth. Sometimes she
finished him like that, and afterward he would satisfy her in the same way.
This time she pulled her head away after a moment, and went and lay on the bed,
legs spread and arms outstretched. "Come, take me," she repeated.

Afterward
he felt a strange sadness that was not like all the other times. In the past he
had been grateful to her. He admired her wisdom and uncompromising integrity.
"I am not a whore, and you are neither a murderer nor a hero," she'd
said after the first time. "We are human beings, with needs and
weaknesses, and little bits of virtue that we exercise for mixed motives. We
must learn to be gentle and forgiving with ourselves."

He'd
never forgotten those words, or the way they had eased his pain. So tonight
Ibanez was a little ashamed. He wasn't living up to the truthfulness that had
marked their alliance thus far. This time he had lain over Beatriz with the
shadow of another woman between them, more real than the ghost of Margarita had
ever been.

As
if she read his thoughts Beatriz said, "I am told that the young wife of
the Anglo who has bought Santo Domingo is your patient. Is she a nice
person?"

He
reached over and found a cigarette on the table by the bed. Lighting it gave
him a moment to collect his thoughts. "Why do you ask?" he said
between puffs of smoke.

"My
cousin Manuel owns the ranch adjoining Santo Domingo. It was his father's and
his grandfather's before him."

"I
know that," Ibanez said. He was sorry about the impatience in his voice.
"What are you getting at, Beatriz?" he asked with more gentleness.

"Mr.
Westerman," she would not dignify an Anglo with the title of don or senor,
"is threatening to refuse Manuel the right to water his cattle."

"I
don't understand."

"The
waterhole on Santo Domingo is the only one for many miles. Always it has been
shared by my cousin and another ranch to the south."

"Then
it will probably go on like that. Don't worry, Westerman's a newcomer. He
doesn't yet know our ways. He'll learn."

"The
arrangement is by private treaty," she insisted. "It is not written
into the deeds. And my cousin Manuel says Mr. Westerman is a strange man. Very
hard. Perhaps he does not want to know our ways." Then, anticipating his
next question: "I thought you might speak to the wife and find out her
husband's intentions. I would not ask you, Don Rico, except that Manuel has seven
children and ranching is the only thing he knows. Besides, that land is part of
him. It would kill him to lose his ranch."

Ibanez
rose and pulled on his clothes. This was the first time Beatriz had ever asked
him for anything more than physical pleasure. And it was not for her-self but
for her cousin. Still it signaled a change. Coupled with his sad unfulfilled
feeling it convinced him that the relationship with Beatriz was nearing its
end. He would not come many more times to this warm dark room in the
barrio
.

"If
the opportunity arises, I will see what I can find out," he said.

"Good
night, Beatriz."

"Goodnight,
Don Rico. And thank you."

He
was too restless and disturbed to go home, so he wandered the streets instead.
The only sound came from Dona Zia's whorehouse near the creek. Ibanez stood
looking at it for a few minutes. The windows were not shuttered. Yellow light
spilled from them into the narrow dirt road. He could see the shadows of men
and women behind the lace curtains, and hear the sound of a tinny piano mingled
with slightly drunken laughter.

Dona
Zia's establishment was an accepted part of the town. It wasn't shrouded in
shame or secrecy. Her girls were clean-Rick was not their doctor, but he knew
that to be true-and her business was part of a long tradition that began with
the fabled gaming house of Dona Tules in the last century.

In
the days when Santa Fe was the center of the Spanish crown's Kingdom of New
Mexico, an area that included what was now Nevada and Arizona, Dona Tules provided
men with amusement and relief.  After General Kearney's Army of the West
arrived in 1846, and annexed the city and the surrounding territory to the
United States, there had been similar houses run by like-minded women. Dona Zia
was merely the latest link in a long chain. She was a much more conventional
woman than Beatriz Ortega.

Ibanez
sighed. If he ended his liaison with Beatriz, sooner or later he would make his
way there to that house. The demands of that appendage between his legs would
insure it, whatever he thought. It was unlikely that he would find again an
alliance like the one in the
barrio
. He was not a user of women. The
physical release he needed must be paid for somehow. Either with shared need,
as it had been with Beatriz, or with money. He had a certain distaste for the
latter, but that was foolish. Just as foolish as standing there in the dark
thinking about history. He started on the long walk home. He'd get little sleep
that night, and tomorrow there would be an office full of patients as usual.