Daughter of Fortune (14 page)

Maria clutched him by the shoulders, then turned him
loose, pointing him toward the hacienda. “Then run, all of you!”
she cried, shepherding them ahead of her out of the cornfield.

As the men ran from the bean field, some of them
picked up the smaller children, throwing them over their shoulders
like sacks of grain. Diego took her hand and pulled her along with
him. Cristóbal came toward them on horseback. Diego picked up Maria
and tossed her to Cristóbal, who grabbed her around the waist
without a word and raced toward the hacienda. He dumped her
unceremoniously on the ground by the back gates and stood sentry as
the children and men streamed in.

Maria ran into the haven of the enclosure, looking
around to make sure the Indian children were inside. They stood
with their older brothers and sisters, silent and watchful. Maria
looked back across the fields. She could see distant figures by
this time. Someone had set fire to a small shed just beyond the
bean field, and smoke was beginning to curl over the roof.

The gates were closing when one of the young girls
shrieked and ran toward them. With a sickening weight in. her
stomach, Maria remembered the baby she had put to rest at the end
of the corn row. Without thinking, she wrenched a hoe from one of
the men and ran out the gate.

The bells of Tesuque were silent now. Diego ran out
of the gate after her, grabbing the back of her dress and ripping
off the apron she wore as she tugged against his hands.

“The baby!” she gasped. “I left an Indian baby in
the cornfield!”

“You must come back inside, Maria!” Diego shouted,
trying to grab her again as she darted out of his reach. “Leave the
child!”

He lunged at her and she turned and struck him with
the hoe. The wood cracked against his temple, and she sobbed out
loud, but she grabbed up her skirts and ran into the field, the hoe
tight in her hand. Some of the Apaches were already in the bean
field, running toward the hacienda. She ran toward them, trying not
to think how close they were as she looked around for the sleeping
child. Panic washed over her as she heard the gates slam shut
behind her, the heavy wooden beams dragged through the iron bars.
She ran on, hunting for the brown baby lying on the brown
earth.

There were more guards on the roof now, and they
fired steadily just over her head. The Apaches crouched low in the
bean field, held there by the firing. They yipped and howled like
coyotes as Maria crouched on the edge of the cornfield, her
knuckles white on the splintered hoe handle, searching for the
baby.

Then she saw it, crawling along a corn row. The baby
saw her and sat up, holding up its arms, wailing in fear. With a
cry of her own, Maria ran across the rows and scooped up the baby,
which clutched her neck in a stranglehold that left her breathless
and dizzy.

An Apache ran toward her, his face split by a fierce
grin, his hands describing obscene gestures in the smoke-filled
air. Tearing the child from her neck and setting it back on the
ground, Maria lunged forward with the hoe. The sharp blade bit deep
into the Indian’s arm, slicing it to the bone. He fell to his knees
and she picked the baby up, turned and fled.

The Indians followed her, their shrieks of rage
competing with the cries of the baby in her arms. The hoe was
cumbersome so she dropped it and ran faster. The guards on the roof
continued their steady firing. The balls whistled close over her
head as she clutched the baby to her and ran for their lives.

The gates were closed, but as she pounded toward
them, her breath coming in painful gasps, she heard the rapid grind
of wood on metal and saw them open. Cristóbal rode out, bent low
over his horse, his hand tight around a long Spanish lance.

Maria ran toward him, but tripped on the hem of her
long dress and sprawled in the dust. The child fell from her arms,
but she scrambled toward it and fought to her feet, the child in
her arms again. The baby clung to her as she staggered toward the
man on horseback.

“Keep going, Maria!” hissed Cristóbal. “I will keep
them here.”

The blood from her bruised knees ran down her legs,
and the child clung to her. With safety in sight, she dared to
glance back. Cristóbal stood between her and the Apaches, his face
fierce in its composure, his lance ready. Enraged at being cheated
of a woman and child, the Indians charged against the bullets that
kicked up dust and tore at their flesh.

Maria ran through the gates, tripped over her dress
again, and fell in the dirt. The baby’s sister ran forward and
grabbed the child, crying and hugging the little one to her. Maria
laid her head on the earth, her eyes closed, her sides heaving. She
heard Cristóbal ride in and dismount, the gates being closed and
barred again.

Diego jerked her to her feet. “How dare you do such
a thing!” he shouted at her. The side of his face bled from the
blow she had struck him with the hoe. He wiped the blood on his
shoulder and shook her.

He was so angry that his skin turned sallow under
his tan and his breath came in short gasps. Maria had never seen
such anger before, but some curious emotion deep within her
compelled her to reach out and touch his face where she had hit
him.

He grabbed her hand in a painful grip and forced it
against his head, then pulled it away, wet with his blood. Savagely
he wiped her hand across the front of her dress.

“There! If you ever do such a thing again, the blood
of Las Invernadas will be on you!”

Cristóbal thrust himself between them. “It was only
an Indian child, is that it?” he screamed at Diego, their faces
only inches apart.

“You know that is not so, Cristóbal,” said Diego,
his anger cooling as his brother’s mounted higher. “The rule is the
same for all of us. When the Indians attack, no one goes outside.
Not for anything.”

In a sudden motion, Cristóbal snapped the bloody
lance he had been carrying in half. “Could you have watched the
Apaches tear apart that baby and done nothing?”

“Yes.”

Diego motioned to the guards on the roof. Several of
them climbed down the ladder at the corner of the house, while the
rest knelt to reload, remaining where they were. One of them called
to Diego below. “
Mira
, my lord, they return to Tesuque. They
run.”

Diego passed his hand in front of his eyes, looking
older than the oldest man in the stronghold. He bowed his head and
looked at his feet. “None of you, no, not even you Cristóbal,
understand what it is to be responsible for Las Invernadas. The
lives of all here and at Tesuque, too, are in my hands. Maria,” he
said suddenly, looking directly at her. “The first rule of this
place is that no one leaves the enclosure once they have been
summoned in by the bells. You knew that, for I told you earlier. It
is the first rule and the hardest sometimes. Especially today.” He
looked around him. “If the Apaches had breached our walls, we would
all be dead. I have seen it before. Where is Erlinda?
Que
barbaridad!
It is too much, too soon for her. Ay!”

Cristóbal dropped the broken lance at Diego’s feet,
but the challenge was gone from his eyes, replaced by confusion.
Diego smiled faintly, the smile barely touching his lips and
eluding his eyes. “Perhaps Maria’s own particular saint was with
her.” He turned on his heel and motioned his
vaqueros
toward
the corral, where the horses milled restlessly, anxious with the
smell of battle.

The baby had stopped crying. The Indian girl held
the child tight to her, rocking back and forth as she knelt on the
ground with the baby. Maria walked slowly toward the girl and
child, rested the back of her hand on the baby’s cheek, patted the
young girl, and started toward the house.

The kitchen was filled with chattering Mexican women
who fell silent when she entered the room. Her eyes cast down,
Maria passed them without a word and went into the hall. She took a
deep breath of the
piñon
wood mingled with sage, closing her
eyes in the comfort of familiar things. Her elbows and knees ached
where she had scraped them. The skin was raw and wet through the
fabric of her dress, but she had nothing to change into.

She saw the chapel doors open at the far end of the
hall. Diego wore the key to the door on the sash around his waist,
but another key hung high in one corner of the kitchen. Someone
must have opened the doors. She peered into the cool darkness. As
her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, she saw Erlinda sitting on
the bench, her head tilted slightly upward as she contemplated
Christ in his agony on the cross above the altar.

Maria came silently down the aisle toward her.
“Erlinda?” she asked. “
Qué pasa
?”

Erlinda stared steadily ahead, but she grasped
Maria’s hand. “What you did, you must never do again. You must heed
Diego.” She hung onto Maria’s hand as though it were a rope thrown
to a drowning man.

“Erlinda, what is it?”

Erlinda transferred her gaze from the cross to a
space past Maria’s head. “I have never spoken of this. All know
except you, so there was never any need. But ... but ....” Her lips
trembled. “I am compelled to speak of it finally. I must! You must
understand!” She gasped and bent double, as if in physical
pain.

Maria put her arm around Erlinda. “My dear, my
dear,” she whispered, “What is it?”

“That was how Marco died,” she whispered. “Caught in
the fields. He went back to pick up something I had dropped. I
cannot now even recall what it was. I ran, because ever since we
were small children here, Papa taught us thus. But Marco, growing
up in Santa Fe, had not been trained so.”

Her voice rose and fell as if the pain of
remembering ebbed and flowed like waves on a shore. “
Dios
,
Maria, the Apaches took him. There was nothing he—or we—could do.
They stripped him and roasted him over a small fire while we
watched from the walls.”

“Dios mio
, Erlinda,” said Maria, her own face
white.

“When I saw you run out of the gate ....” Erlinda’s
voice faltered, and she clung to Maria’s hand. “I could think only
of Marco. I am glad you were able to save the baby, but swear to me
by the saints, Maria, that you will not disobey Diego again! Swear
it!”

Her voice rose, then she collapsed against Maria,
the sobs wrenched from her very heart, choked and terrible.

Maria’s instincts told her to cradle Erlinda in her
arms and let her cry. She crooned to the young widow and rocked
with her, as the Indian girl had caressed her baby in the kitchen
gardens. She could think of nothing to say, and so was silent.

Erlinda cried until the front of Maria’s dress was
soaked through, the tears mingling with Diego’s blood and turning
the rough fabric a tragic pink that soaked through to her skin,
then deeper into her body.
Dios,
she thought, her arms weary
with the burden of Erlinda.
Is it possible to cry so many
tears?

She heard footsteps behind her and turned to see
Diego in the chapel doorway. He wore an old-fashioned armor
breastplate of the last century that was Moorish in design. He
walked down the aisle and knelt by her side.

Diego crossed himself, bowed his head in prayer,
crossed himself again, then rose and rested his gloved hand on
Maria’s shoulder. “We go to Tesuque to see what we can do for the
Pueblos. There are guards sufficient here.” He leaned over and
spoke in her ear, his beard touching the side of her face. “She has
never cried about Marco. It will be better now.” He sighed and
patted her shoulder. “When I return, Maria, we will talk.”

She looked at him then, noticing with shame that his
eye was blackening from the blow she had struck his head. “Oh,
Señor, forgive me!” she whispered.

“Later, Maria
chiquita
. I must go now.”

“Then go with God,” she said softly, and kissed his
hand formally as it lay on her shoulder.

“And thou, likewise,” he said. He reached over and
touched Erlinda’s head, giving her a silent benediction, then
hurried from the chapel, his spurs scraping on the hard-packed
earth.

Soon, through the thickness of the walls and
Erlinda’s sobs, Maria heard mounted horsemen leaving Las
Invernadas, riding east toward the Pueblo village.

Erlinda cried until there were no tears left.
Exhausted, she rested her head on Maria’s lap, her eyes closed. The
morning was gone and the afternoon deep when she stirred again.

Erlinda sat up. Her eyes were red but her voice
peaceful. “And so I have kept you prisoner all day, Maria,” she
said in apology, a rosy blush rising to stain her dead-white
cheeks.

“It is nothing, Erlinda,” Maria said.

“How kind you are,” the widow replied, rising only
to kneel at the altar, then rise again. “There is much to do, but I
have not the energy for anything. Can you see to my duties this
evening, Maria?”

“I will, with pleasure. ”

“Then take my arm, and let us leave here.”

The two young women joined arms and left the room,
Maria pausing to turn the key still in the lock. The gates were
barred, the outside windows of the hacienda shuttered. Catarina and
Luz sat silent on the patio with La Señora, sewing their samplers.
Luz dropped her embroidery and ran to Erlinda, who hugged her, then
sat next to her mother. La Señora felt her daughter’s face,
touching the eyelids puffy from tears. “It is the will of God,
Erlinda.”

“I know that now, Mama,” the widow said. She folded
her hands in her lap and raised her eyes to Maria’s. There was
peace in Erlinda’s eyes now, where before there had only been pain.
Maria thought of her parents, dead of cholera, of the mission
supply caravan, of her sister’s rejection, of the Masferrer
brothers and their short, sharp confrontation. The will of God. How
did anybody know what that was anymore?