Daughter of Fortune (16 page)

Maria did not take it. “Where?” she asked.

“There are people who wish to meet you. At Tesuque.
Let me take you there.” When she still hesitated, he took her hand.
“I spoke with Diego.”

She let him hold her hand. “What did you say to
him?” she asked quietly.

“I did not apologize, if that’s what you mean. And
he did not expect me to. We both know we are right.” He looked at
her. “Maria, I hate to quarrel with Diego. It’s almost as though
I’m arguing with myself. Or at least part of myself.”

He let go of her hand and looked out the window.
“Erlinda triumphant!” he declared, motioning to Maria. She came to
the window and he put his hand on her shoulder. “The chickens
didn’t have a chance. I hope Diego returns in time for dinner. He
likes chicken.”

“Where did he go?”

“He finished with the beans and said he was going to
the north pasture where the sheep are. I asked if he needed help,
but he said my hands are too big for lambing.” He smiled. “It is an
old joke between us. I am glad he can laugh.”

Maria moved away from the window and Cristóbal
followed her. “Come with me. We will walk to Tesuque. My horse
threw a shoe yesterday when we were chasing Apaches.”

“Is it safe now?”

Cristóbal shrugged. “One can never tell here. Diego
has told me on more than one occasion that he is glad he does not
have to worry about the Pueblo Indians.” His face twisted into a
peculiar smile. “We are such
good
Indians.”

“Let me put away these shirts and return the
needle.” She folded Diego’s shirts and took them to his room, where
she put them in the wooden chest by his bed. She ran her hand over
the altar and knelt for a brief moment on the worn stool in front
of it. Then she hurried to put the needle away carefully in the
silver cabinet, setting the thimble next to it.

Erlinda was in the yard, plucking chickens. “We are
walking to Tesuque,” Cristóbal said. “I have a matter of business
there that concerns Maria.”

“Very well,” she said, her eyes on the chicken in
her lap again. “Do try to return in time for dinner. ”

“We will, my sister,” he said, watching as she
flinched.

They passed the first mile in strained silence,
Maria’s eyes on the ground, her whole being intensely aware of
Cristóbal’s presence.

He cleared his throat. “I think that if you did not
stare at the road, you would still know where to put your
feet.”

She looked up and laughed.

“That is better. ”

“I took the children home yesterday evening,”
Cristóbal said, as if reading her thoughts. “Thank you for what you
did, Maria. You could not leave the baby to die. Even if others
could.”

“Be fair,” she said. “I know that for me, it was
right to save the baby. But it was also right for Diego to be
angry. I disobeyed him.”

“Can we both be right, Maria?” he asked. “How is
this possible?” He slowed down so she could keep up with him
better.

“I don’t know. The whole thing is confusing to me,”
she answered. “In your own ways, both of you are right.”

He was silent as they walked together, a profound,
watchful Indian silence.
I do not dare pretend with this
man
, she thought, hurrying to keep up as he unconsciously
lengthened his stride again.

When they came to the river, Cristóbal scooped her
up and carried her across. She knew it was useless to protest, so
she tightened her arms around his neck and said nothing. He set her
down on the opposite bank, pausing while she straightened her
skirts around her again.

“You hardly weigh anything, Maria,” he said, then
was silent as they continued the walk to Tesuque.

The red brick adobe rose before them, handsome
against the spring sky. The Tesuque pueblo was unlike anything
Maria had seen. She put her hand to her heart and wished with all
her mind that she could paint it. She had last seen Tesuque at
night, dark and brooding. It teemed with life now on all the
levels, as the homely tasks of weaving, pottery and cooking spread
out before her.

“How beautiful it is,” she said, stopping him with a
hand on his arm.

“Yes, it is,” he agreed, “just the way we see it
now. Even if there are those who seek to change it.” He tilted his
head and surveyed her, his voice earnest. “I realize you are
Spanish, but does it not strike you as strange? Although nothing
about us has changed in a thousand years, and no one ever
complained before, now we must pray to a white man’s God, one who
has not wit to decide if he is Father, Son or Holy Spirit. ”

“Cristóbal!” Maria exclaimed, shocked enough to call
him by name.

He looked as though he wanted to argue with her, but
he closed his lips firmly and led her toward the nearest ladder.
“Follow me,” he said.

She gathered her skirts in one hand and awkwardly
mounted the ladder. Cristóbal pulled her up when she neared the
top. “And now, you must meet a mother who has much to say to
you.”

He led her to the end of the terrace, past men at
their looms who turned to watch as she walked by and past children
who were suddenly silent at their play.

“Look out for your head,” he said as he ducked
inside one of the rooms.

She ducked her head, too, and opened her eyes wider
to accustom herself to the sudden gloom. The room was small and
neat, the cooking pots stacked in one corner and bedding in the
other. An Indian mother sat cross-legged, nursing a baby. It was
the baby she had pulled from the cornfield yesterday. She smiled at
the mother, and her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

Gently the mother disengaged the baby from her
breast and handed the child to the young girl sitting nearby. The
woman arranged her cotton dress about her, then knelt at Maria’s
feet. Maria burst into tears, crying louder as Cristóbal’s arm went
around her in a tight grip.

She turned her face into his shoulder. “Oh, tell her
not to do that!” she said.

He rested his hand on her cheek for a moment, then
spoke to the woman, who rose and gathered Maria into her arms. The
women clung to each other, their tears mingling. The baby began to
whimper and the mother released Maria, picking up the child and
crooning to it. Maria wiped her eyes on the hem of her dress,
smiling through her tears at Cristóbal. The woman spoke to him, and
he turned to Maria.

“She says to tell you of her gratitude.” He wiped
her face with his sleeve. “She says all she has is yours.”

Maria shook her head. “I want nothing. I am only
glad I was able to undo something that I caused in the first place.
Tell her that. ”

He did. The woman motioned for them to sit. They
did, and Cristóbal leaned toward Maria. “She will offer you food.
Please do not accept. They have so little, and they will give it
all to you.”

“Oh, I could not take their food!” Maria
exclaimed.

“Others do,” said Cristóbal. “My brother among
them.”

The woman was speaking again. Cristóbal said, “She
wants to feed you. Tell her no.”

Maria shook her head, stroking the baby’s head and
smiling.

“She says, ‘Very well,’ but she has something more
for you,” Cristóbal translated.

The woman handed the baby to the girl, rose from the
floor and went to the corner by the bedding. She returned with a
blanket, which she handed to Maria, bowing and then taking the baby
again. Maria fingered the blanket, noting the elaborate design, the
colors muted and restful in the gloom of the pueblo.

“Her husband made it. She wants you to have it as a
token of her gratitude.”

Maria held the blanket to her. “Tell her thank you
for me.”

“Tell her yourself,” he replied, and had her repeat
the phrase several times until she could approximate the
sounds.

Maria thanked the mother who held the baby close to
her. Cristóbal got to his feet and helped Maria up. They stood
close together in the small room as the mother began to nurse the
baby again. The small sucking noises filled Maria with a
contentment she had not felt since before the death of her parents.
The flow of life was all around her and she marveled at the peace
it brought to her soul.

“Come, Maria, let us be off,” said Cristóbal.

After patting the baby again, Maria ducked out of
the small opening and into the sunlight. She held the blanket in
front of her, smoothing it as she admired the design and
texture.

“How curious,” she said.

“What?”

“I came here with no possessions except my dress,
and Diego burned that. And now I have something of my own, and it
is Indian.”

“I would call that a good sign.”

They walked the length of the terrace, Cristóbal
stopping to speak to the Pueblos at work, touching a child,
remarking on the design of a blanket on a loom, accepting a handful
of pine nuts. The air was crisp and smelled of cooking and
piñon
wood. Maria wanted to hold out her-arms and gather it
all to her. Instead, she fingered the blanket folded over her arm
and watched Cristóbal with his people.

While Cristóbal squatted by an old man making
arrows, Maria remembered Emiliano
el santero
and continued
toward the end of the pueblo, peering in open doorways, seeking the
dancing saints on their deerskin hides.

And there they were. A saint carved of cottonwood
beckoned to her from the window ledge. It could only be San Pedro,
holding his keys of gold and iron, one to open the gates of heaven,
the other to open the gates of hell. Maria looked inside the
door.

Emiliano glanced up from his place on the floor as
she peered inside. “Come in, come in,” he said. “I am carving San
Pedro’s other arm, so do not fear that he has met with an untimely
accident.”

She touched the statue. “What do you call this?” she
asked, walking around to view the saint from behind.

“It is a
bulto.
I have carved San Pedro for
my own pleasure, but he will probably end up at Las Invernadas.
Diego Masferrer is always fondest of those clear-cut saints whose
purpose is straightforward. And what is your pleasure, Maria?” he
asked. “San Miguel with his sword? Rafaelo and his fish?” Emiliano
looked outside at the tall man kneeling by the arrowmaker. “Or
perhaps San Cristóbal, he who carried the Christ Child?”

She blushed. “I do not know, Emiliano.” She looked
at the painting of Christ on the deerhide opposite her. The mouth
was open in agony, the eyes anguished at the pain of crucifixion.
These people know something of suffering
, she thought.
Their
Cristo
did not hang bloodless on a cross. He
suffered and struggled, even as they did
. She turned away.

“Before you go, Señorita,” said Emiliano. “you want
to paint?”

“Not today, Emiliano.”

“Come to me when your mind is more settled, Maria,
and we shall see if you can look inside a human heart and paint
what is there.”

As she left, her eyes flickered to the agony on the
cross, then back to Emiliano, who was whittling again. She went
into the sunlight, turning back for a last glimpse of San
Pedro.

Cristóbal waited for her. “1 thought I had lost
you,” he remarked, following her gaze to San Pedro. “All those
keys. Such a busy man is San Pedro. Almost like Diego.”

“We should be on our way,” Maria began, then stopped
at the sound of shouting. She hurried to the edge of the terrace
and looked toward the road they had traveled. A line of Indians
walked slowly toward the pueblo, followed by a ranchero on
horseback, cursing at them to hurry.

“Are those Indians returning from Las
Invernadas?”

“No,” he said briefly. “From the land of Lorenzo
Nuñez. We passed his place just before the river. Do you not
remember?”

She nodded.

“The Pueblos from Las Invernadas will be along soon,
then the Indians from the Gutierrez estancia, farther to the south
and west. The men will eat, if there is anything left here to eat,
then they will hurry into their own fields, to race against the sun
while they and their women plant and hoe their own crops. And when
the harvest comes, Señor Masferrer, Señor Nuñez and Señor Gutierrez
will take a share of their crop.”

“But why?” Maria asked.

Cristóbal shrugged. “It is the
encomienda
system. The conquered must give to the conquerors. The children are
hungry and they follow you with their eyes, but still the Señores
come and exact their tribute.”

Maria followed Cristóbal down the ladder. “But I do
not understand. The
encomienda
was abolished long ago in
Mexico.”

“But not here. We are too far away from Mexico City.
The only ones who complain are the Pueblos, and they cannot write
the viceroy.”

They approached the Indians returning from the
fields. “And there is Señor Nuñez himself. I wonder what he wants.
He likes young girls. And young boys, some say. When they return
from his hacienda, they do not smile anymore.”

“Oh, Cristóbal!” Maria said, again horrified into
calling him by name.

“I do not lie to you, Maria. Señor Gutierrez is a
better man, but I have seen the backs of the children who do not
polish Señora Gutierrez’s silver to her satisfaction.”

Cristóbal stared at Lorenzo Nuñez. “Watch him now.
He will march into Father Pio’s church, toss some coins in the poor
box, fling himself to his knees and pray, assured that he is a
benevolent man, a kind master.” He turned to Maria in sudden anger.
“Is your God blind, as well as witless, that he can ignore the
blows on the backs of children? And are we to pray to this
two-faced being? I marvel, Maria, what you Spaniards expect of
us.”

Maria turned pale in stunned surprise. “And what of
...” Maria could not go on.

“Diego? I have prayed with him long enough to know
that he is an honest man. But you will agree that we eat much
better at Las Invernadas than the children do here. I have seen the
young ones prowling around our dump out behind the wall.”