Bride of Thunder (36 page)

“I've seen buckskins,” she said, “but never one this color.”

“She's a palomino,” Eric explained. “A color, not a separate breed, though there's lots of Arab in the ancestry. It means ‘like a dove.' I broke this one in myself, though I had her ridden by a lightweight. Her name is Lucera.”

The saddle was a mellow rust color stitched with gold. Eric helped Mercy into it before he mounted his big bay stallion.

“My land stretches from the river to highlands, from about sea level to over two thousand feet, so it has great variety,” he said proudly. “I have cattle in the regions unsuitable for cultivation, and I have experimented with coffee and tobacco, but sugar is my main crop, apart from mahogany and dyewood.”

“Are your workers slaves?”

Eric shot her an amused glance. “They aren't likely to leave. They're all in debt to me. But slavery was abolished in all English dominions in 1840, and the owners in Belize freed their people a year before that. I wonder if you're aware, delectably self-righteous one, that one of the reasons you Texans wanted independence from Mexico was that their constitution had forbidden slavery.”

“Then why do they still have it?”

“Debt-slavery is at least legally different, though the results are the same. And slavery in Mexico and the West Indies has always been bizarre in that blacks were imported to preserve the Indians, who never stood up well to grueling, heavy labor. My cane fields are worked mostly by refugee Mayas, but I use blacks as much as possible for the mill and refinery.”

They passed gardens and orchards, corrals and sheds, pastures for horses and dairy cattle, and at a distance from the road, in a swampy place, scores of immense black pigs rooted and wallowed. The way twined through stands of trees, new growth, Eric explained, since the original mahogany and dyewood had been felled, used now to fire the boilers, which demanded tremendous amounts of wood in addition to the fibrous refuse of the cane.

“Besides needing lots of workers to plant, cultivate and harvest the cane, it takes more to cut wood and run the mill and refinery. All these people have to be fed, so the community busied with sugar is a small village with a management separate from the rest of the estate. The mayordomo, chief overseer, and refinery master are all
ladinos
who fled the War of the Castes and know how to get the Mayas to work.”

Remembering the hacienda from which she'd rescued Mayel, Mercy didn't like the sound of that, and she liked less the sight of the whipping post situated near the store in the clearing around which the workers' huts and small private plots were scattered.

“I hope that isn't used,” she said to Eric.

He looked at the post, a lopped-off tree the height of a man, and shrugged. “Surely you've heard the adage that the Indian hears through his back. I don't interfere with Don Gerardo as long as he keeps production up.”

“Why, that's worse than maltreating people yourself! It lets you profit by such tactics without having to accept direct guilt!”

“I could stand the guilt.” He smiled coldly. “I lack the time. My workers are unusually well fed with plenty of meat, cheese, and eggs. They have Sundays off and the wages are better than average.”

“So, perhaps, are the prices at your store!”

He shook his golden lion's head. “Mercy, Mercy! I'm a businessman, a proprietor, certainly not a saint, but not the villain you'd like to think me, either. I run a plantation, not Utopia. Indians have never gotten more for their labor than a living. They get a comparatively good one from me. It's not my fault that they spend more than they earn.”

Thinking of his cook and fantastically equipped kitchen, the daily delivery of seafood, the servants whose purpose it was to keep his house as he wanted it, the quetzals caged so far from their cloud forests, Mercy choked with indignation.

“How can you say that? How can you seem to think so many people exist just to make you rich?”

“I think it because it's so,” he said without anger. “Do compose yourself, my dear. Here comes Don Gerardo.”

The mayordomo, a handsome middle-aged man with a narrow moustache, greeted them profusely, expressed his delight in meeting Doña Mercy, and his thankfulness that Señor Kensington had returned safely from his journey through the Cruzob-ridden jungles.

“I had prayed the emperor would send armies from Mexico to crush that vermin, but it seems the French troops have all sailed and the emperor cannot even defend himself,” lamented the mayordomo. “Now, with Marcos Canul raiding even British territory, what safety is there? Nineteen years ago I fled Tekax, and now I begin to think I can never go home! Not,” he added hastily, “that I wish to leave El Señor's profitable employ.”

“If you should, I can replace you,” said Eric equably: “We'll just have a look at the mill and refinery before riding past the nearest fields, where you will be so good as to accompany us in case there are questions.”

Don Gerardo bowed and declared his pleasure at then further company. Leaving him to have his horse brought around, they proceeded toward the refining center adjacent to the mill, where mules powered hardwood rollers that crushed the cane, sending the juice into troughs that ran to the boilers, kept bubbling by Negroes who kept the fires stoked with wood replenished by loads brought up by glum-looking burros.

The refinery director, Don Manuel, portly and sweating, explained to Mercy, at Eric's request, how after enough boiling of the syrup, sugar crystals began to form. These were separated from the remaining liquid, which was molasses, and refined into white sugar.

As they rode past the refining kettles and platforms, a smithy, and woodworking shop, Don Gerardo rode up on a handsome sorrel and they approached the fields, which stretched away to the jungle.

The greenish stalks flaunted tassels that grew twice as high as the heads of the men cutting them off at the ground and tossing them into mule-driven carts to be cut into manageable hunks by other men with sharp knives. When one of these carts was full, it creaked back to the mill.

“Cortez probably planted the first sugarcane in this hemisphere,” said Eric. “New plants will come up from the stubble of the cut ones, so I get two or three harvests before replanting.” At a word from him, Don Gerardo called the nearest man, who brought a cutting of several joints. Holding it for Mercy's inspection, Eric showed her where the dormant eyes, or buds, were. “The eyes are placed downward as the cutting's planted lengthwise and covered lightly. The eyes root and start new plants in just a few days, but we won't replant till the rains start in late May.”

Eric started to toss the cutting back to the waiting Indian, paused, and frowned. The young man was dressed in rolled-up white trousers like the other hands, but there was something different about the way he stood and held his head. A gold earring glinted in his left ear. He had a hawk face, sloping forehead, slightly hooked nose, and broad, high cheekbones.

“Who is this one?” asked Eric.

“
Señor,
he's
batab
of one of the small Mayan subgroups, neither Icaiche nor Cruzob.” Don Gerardo tugged nervously at his moustache, then added with venom, “It's my belief he's allied with the Cruzob. However that is, perhaps you'll remember that he and some of his men came to buy guns a few months ago.”

Eric nodded. “It's coming back. They didn't have enough money, but this man was afraid that Icaiches would overrun his village unless it had guns.”

“So he asked to stay as hostage for payment.”

“And I said I didn't need hostages but could use another field hand,” finished Eric, gazing at the tall man, who looked straight back. “I see his people haven't redeemed him. He was a fool to count on their love.”

“They will come,” said the
batab
in Spanish. “They are not
dzul,
whites, to sell anything for money.”

“Dog!” snarled Don Gerardo. “Kiss El Señor's hand at once and beg his pardon, or you may need to buy a new skin!”

“He owns my labor, not my worship,” said the young
batab
.

Gerardo raised his metal-tipped braided quirt but Eric stopped him with a shake of his head. “Why begin something that couldn't end till he'd be too ruined to work for a couple of days? A
batab
opposed to the Icaiches might be valuable. I'll think about it.” He studied the Indian in gauging fashion. “What is your name?”

“
Señor,
I am Dionisio Caamal.”

“We'll talk again, Dionisio.”

With the slightest inclination of his head, the Indian turned back to his furrow, slicing the two-inch-thick stalk with a seemingly effortless sweep of his arm.

“
Señor,
with all due respect, insolence cannot go unpunished!” burst out Don Gerardo. “Let me order a whipping for that one, or the workers will all be infected!”

“He may be worth more to me with his pride,” said Eric. “I think, had you used your quirt, he would have cut your throat in the next instant, and, though he would, of course, have died immediately, that couldn't help you.”

“I have overseen such dogs all my life,
señor
. He needs to be beaten till he crawls to kiss the lash.”

Eric stared at Gerardo till he glanced down and licked his lips. “Such wisdom and management techniques helped bring on the war that sent you scuttling across the Hondo,” Eric said in a stinging tone. “You will excuse us now. And perhaps you should keep a record of whippings and the offenses. I've told you that judicious punishment may be necessary, but I won't tolerate indiscriminate abuse.” His frosty eyes glared at the mayordomo. “You understand?”

A flush darkened Don Gerardo's sallow face. “Yes,
señor
.”

“Good. I'll expect a report monthly; and if there's nothing to report, I'll congratulate you.”

“So long as El Señor doesn't blame me if production falls off and there are incidents …”

“Ah, but I shall,” said Eric sweetly. “You have authority to punish when necessary. My mayordomo must have judgment; it is what sets him above fieldhands and overseers.”

Don Gerardo bowed with a choking sound as they rode on.

“Will his reports be honest?” Mercy asked.

“I think so. But to be sure, I'll also ask for such an accounting from the overseer, who'd be very happy to succeed to Don Gerardo's job.”

“Do you really have a plan for that young
batab?
”

“It's possible. I'll confess the Icaiche raids are too close for comfort, and I hear the militia will be disbanded in a matter of weeks. When that happens, Marcos Canul is sure to come south of the Hondo again. If Dionisio would undertake to kill him, it'd be worth a goodly number of rifles.”

Mercy remembered the proud stance of the
batab,
the fearless way he had confronted his master and mayordomo. “I don't think he'll kill another Maya for you,” she said, “even if they are enemies.”

“You're a romantic, love. For rifles in this country, men do many things.” As if startled by a sudden unwelcome thought that persisted after an incredulous attempt at dismissal, Eric turned in his saddle to scan her narrowly. “Are you making a hero of him? Listen, my sweet! Mayas rape white women more out of hatred than lust, and, don't forget, that's how our handsome young chief would serve you if he got the chance!”

Angered past caution, Mercy laughed in his face. “How do you rape me? With hate? Lust? I tell you, Eric Kensington, that I don't see any difference!”

“Let me refresh your memory.” Seizing the reins of her horse, he dismounted and tied the horses outside a storage shed they were passing. He brought her out of the saddle, dragged off the divided skirt and her drawers as he carried her inside, spilled her down on a heap of old sacking, and spread her legs apart.

He was so swollen that she felt she would break apart as he entered her and then rocked back and forth with savage, jolting thrusts. “I hoped your first lessons taught you what rape was!” He panted, gripping her wrists. “But since your memory's bad, doesn't this seem different from the way I took you this morning and last night?”

“It's all rape!” she shouted at him, strangling on rage and pain. “It's all rape because I hate you, hate you …”

A blow from the side of his hand dazed her. “Say you love me!” he gasped, shaking her. “Say you love me!”

Her head lolled. She felt as if her neck were broken, as if it were somebody else to whom this was happening, but from within herself, though her body cringed, she found the strength to cry against the closed, blind look in his eyes. “I hate you! I always will! It's Zane I love!”

He circled her throat with one hand, and his fingers tightened till the world went black.

16

Several times she was conscious of being carried, handled, of voices she knew she could recognize if she tried. It was too much effort. She didn't want to know them, or where she was, or even who. Her throat ached. Her head hurt. Best to drink whatever they gave her and sink back to soft darkness.

“
Madame,
” insisted a gentle voice. “Pierre begs that you have some of the creamed crab he's made especially for you, and a bit of lovely jelly—in three colors it is! Please,
madame! Monsieur
has gone riding and Pierre is in utter distraction with no one to taste his food!”

Mercy opened her eyes and smiled shakily at Celeste. “Is it dinner time?”

“Indeed,
madame,
and past!”

It was deep sapphire twilight through the windows, and the glow of the bedside lamp was muted by its azure glass shade. Mercy tried to sit up. Immediately her head seemed occupied by a pounding drum.

It was so easy to lie back and sleep. At that moment it even seemed desirable to shutter the windows during the day and live in that great bed, pretend to be sick when Eric came, and drift in and out of dreams. She still had in her mouth the taste of brandy someone had forced down her. Between brandy and sleep, she might escape Eric by lying in this chamber.