Return to Paradise (Torres Family Saga) (40 page)

      
“Rigo wed me out of a sense of duty. He always believed his father had deserted him—part of him still clings to that mistaken notion. He would never have repeated that breach of honor.”

      
“So, you do not believe he returns your love.”

      
“I never said I loved him,” Miriam answered too quickly.

      
Magdalena smiled. “You do not need to say it. Your actions speak for themselves.”

      
Miriam's shoulders drooped as she gave up the pretense. “Everything I do infuriates him. Who I am infuriates him. Each time I go with you to treat sick people on the
hato
he is angry. He wants an ornament for a wife, not a physician.”

      
“Perhaps Rigo, like his sire long ago, is not yet certain exactly what he wants,” Magdalena said obliquely.

      
“Perhaps he is, and duty holds him prisoner here.” Miriam's voice was tight, her hands clenched in fists.

      
“Whither would he go? Surely not back to Italy?”

      
“To Mexico,” Miriam replied in a choked whisper. “I heard him ask the boatswain about winning gold with his sword. If he were not burdened with me and the babe he would leave at once. I fear when the child is born...”

      
“After a man holds his own flesh and blood in his arms, he finds it difficult to walk away,” Magdalena said gravely. “Twas so with his father. Aaron loved him so dearly it fair broke his heart when his Navaro vanished.”

      
“I would not hold Rigo using an innocent babe as pawn.”

      
“You are not Aliyah. So much the better,” Magdalena replied dryly. Her eyes narrowed as she considered the swarthy man playing with her children. “Only wait, Miriam. And whatever you do, do not try to become someone you are not. He was drawn to you for who you are. You will not please him by becoming a milksop miss who falls beneath his arrogant Spanish pride.”

      
“I have always possessed a strong sense of who I am and where I belonged. Twas part of the reason Benjamin and I quarreled so often, for I was determined we should not live here.”

      
“And now you love Española...as well as Rigo.”

      
Miriam's eyes filled with tears and she reached out for Magdalena's hand, clasping it tightly. “I am so glad we have had this talk.”

      
Magdalena gave her hand a squeeze of reassurance.
Perhaps I should give that young fool the diaries...

* * * *

      
The Tainos on the Torres
hato
lived at the south end of the fields, close beside one of the numerous springs that burbled up across the fertile valley floor. Skillful tillers of the soil, Guacanagari's people were in charge of the food crops grown on the plantation—manioc, beans, sweet potatoes, peanuts and maize.

      
Aaron and his old friend sat beneath the shade of a tall silk cotton tree by the water's edge, watching as young men and women hoed between the neat rows of plants. “This has been a good growing season,” the Taino said in his musical language. He was still slim and straight, almost as tall as his Spanish companion. The brown skin of his face was virtually untouched by wrinkles and his night dark hair had but a sprinkling of gray in it.

      
Aaron looked into Guacanagari's liquid black eyes. “You have not summoned me here to discuss the harvest.”

      
A smile curved Guacanagari's elegantly sculpted lips. “You were always a clever fellow.” His expression turned grave as he continued, “I would speak my heart about Navaro.”

      
Aaron waited. Ever since Rigo had first met his uncle and Taino cousins his distance from these open, emotional people had been painfully evident.

      
“He prefers the name your people gave him. Perhaps I do as well, for the first Navaro was a famous war chief and I would not see Rigo die as he did.”

      
“Like me, Rigo was a warrior in his life across the waters. Here he is making a good stockman.”

      
“He has much skill with the great beasts you ride. I have watched him catch the wild cows with ropes. He possesses great courage, but he does not believe his mother's people do.”

      
“My son is mistaken,” Aaron said flatly, “about many things.”

      
“That is true, but my heart is troubled that he is ashamed of us. Soon there will be no Taino people. Only those who have mixed their blood with your people will continue our heritage. Rigo is one such. He does not die of the white man's diseases for he is half white. He and those like him are our hope for the future. I would have him feel pride in the blood he passes on to his children.”

      
Aaron could feel his friend's pain and knew the sad words he spoke were all too true. “If only I knew of a way to convince him of that,” he said pensively.

      
“I have been thinking on just such a thing.” At Aaron's look of interest, Guacanagari continued. “You remember the great battle when my warriors and the Admiral's warriors joined together to defeat Caonabo. Now we have a new enemy. One who menaces our crops and animals, even our very lives.”

      
“The raiders,” Aaron said grimly.

      
“Yes. Only last month they stole many of your fine horses and you and your son gave chase.”

      
“We recovered most of the horses, but they escaped by sea.” Aaron's eyes narrowed as he asked, “Have your men found out from where these raiders come?”

      
“No, but our long vigil has given us another reward. We have learned where they take their plunder. To a big
canoa
in the hidden cove off the coast, near our old village. A runner has brought me word that another such has just arrived, awaiting someone.”

      
“At last! We will catch the raiders when they meet the ship!”

      
“Yes, you will, and I and my warriors will fight beside you, just as we did long ago.”

      
Aaron remembered all too vividly the carnage at that battle, thirty years ago, when Guacanagari's warriors fought hand to hand with Caonabo's fierce tribesmen. “Rigo will see how a Taino warrior acquits himself.”

      
“It will be so.” Guacanagari's expression was alight with satisfaction. “I know it in here.” He tapped his chest with his palm.

      
“Then let those raiders come and do their worst. Good will come of their harassment yet!”

* * * *

      
Rigo watched Miriam as she knelt by the pallet of an injured Taino boy and checked the bandage on his leg. She was amazingly graceful even in the advanced stages of pregnancy. He waited until she had completed her task, for he did not like speaking with the Indians any more than was forced upon him.

      
Feeling his cold blue eyes on her, Miriam looked up, then patted the boy and murmured a few words of broken Taino and rose to face her scowling husband.

      
He strode toward her and took her arm. “This is Magdalena's chore, not yours. I told you not to walk alone to these Indian quarters.” His grip was possessive as he steered her from the large
bohio
out into the bright afternoon sunlight.

      
“I am a physician. There are people here who are too ill or badly injured for Magdalena to treat.”

      
“The Indians have every accursed plague known to man. You are a physician second, my wife first. I do not want you here.”

      
She studied his harsh, set features. “You do not want your wife contaminated by their customs, their language—tis not their sicknesses, tis them. You despise them. Why? You have seen the way they have adapted. Aaron's people and Guacanagari's people live and build in peace. How can that fail to impress you?”

      
His face was expressionless. “Tis a pity you did not give in to my brother's importuning and move here with him. You love this place and its savages so well.”

      
She fought the urge to slap him, balling her hands into fists, clutching her medical satchel in a death grip. “I have grown to love this place and the Tainos, but even more I have grown to love your family. Why can you not do the same? Are you so completely filled with bitterness and hate that you can see nothing?” She turned from him, yanking her arm free from his grasp.

      
Rigo stared bleakly at her as she walked away. Confusion and anger welled up inside him. He loved his family too—at least he loved his brothers and sisters—but life had taught him to be wary. He still did not trust his stepmother's recent overtures of friendliness. Her cool reserve when first they met suited him better. As to his father... They worked well together. Yet both Aaron and Magdalena had fallen under Miriam's spell. They were delighted with her and her medical skills, skills he felt were wholly inappropriate for a woman, especially his pregnant wife.

      
“Small wonder they and the Tainos love her. How could they not?” he muttered to himself. Just then his chaotic thoughts were interrupted by a most unwelcome intruder. His uncle, Guacanagari, strode across the wide plaza, heading his way. He once again studied the tall, imposing figure of his mother's brother. The man spoke excellent Castilian and possessed a quiet dignity that was undeniable. There was none of the superstitious subservience in him that Rigo had seen in others of his race. Still, he was Aliyah's brother, Aliyah, the mother who had given her son away in a fit of jealous spite. No matter who told the truth about his disappearance as a child, he felt bitterness. Either his father or his mother had deserted him. Perhaps neither parent had wanted him.

      
Guacanagari watched the way Navaro stood, waiting for him to speak yet offering no welcome. He must find a way to reach out to his nephew. Perhaps the
zemis
had at last provided them with an answer.

      
“You wear your weapons. That is good, for we have a long journey to make to the great salty waters.”

      
“We?” Rigo looked at the spear and knife Guacanagari wore. Surely the old man was not going to war against some tribal enemies.

      
“Your father and our warriors are ready. Come,” was all Guacanagari would reply.

* * * *

      
Rigo and Aaron rode with nearly twenty armed men, carefully wending their way across the steep, treacherous mountains. The high ridges were almost devoid of trees and the air was surprisingly cool and brisk. Rigo thought of the Tainos far below in the dark heart of the jungle, running afoot on trails so overgrown that the mounted men could not traverse them.

      
“How fast must they travel to rendezvous with us at the coast?” he asked his father.

      
Aaron slowed his big chestnut and scanned the sea of dense green filling the long, narrow valleys between the mountains. “They will arrive before us, running at a slow trot on the valley floor. Tis a much more direct route than mounted men can travel.” He saw grudging respect in Rigo's expression as they rode on.

      
“Even the old chief can run that far?”

      
Aaron noticed how Rigo kept from calling Guacanagari uncle, but laughed and replied, “Tread carefully. Your uncle is a year younger than I. Before our diseases wasted them, the Tainos were incredible runners and fighters.”

      
“Soon I will judge that for myself—if their spies have accurate information.”

      
“Aye, they do, I am sure, and I cannot wait to learn who is behind these depredations.”

      
As the column of men picked their way carefully along the trail to the sea, Esteban Elzoro stood hidden behind a copse of low, shaggy pines on a ridge across the valley, observing the riders silhouetted against the sky. “Twenty of them that I can see, all armed to the teeth. You will run to Captain Brienne with this message.” He handed a sealed paper to one of his black slaves and watched as the tall, strong youth bowed and took off at a swift pace. A slow smile of satisfaction spread across his face. “So, Torres, at last you fall into my hands. Twas good fortune that my overseer chanced upon your armed party riding out. Brienne and I will beat your accursed luck once and for all.”

      
Rigo had survived the assassin's attack aboard ship and his own dog had failed to dispatch the Spaniard outside Santo Domingo. This time Etienne Reynard, posing as the Spanish planter Esteban Elzoro, would kill Torres. His associate in Marseilles would be pleased, most pleased indeed.

      
And without all these defenders, the Torres
hato
would be ripe for further plucking. He walked back to where his men waited and began to issue orders. They and Brienne's corsairs would have quite a surprise waiting for the planters when they reached the cove.

      
As the Frenchman rode toward Navidad Bay, he wondered how Torres learned about Brienne's hiding place. “Probably one of his stupid savages spied Luc's ship,” he muttered, dismissing the worry as groundless.

* * * *

      
“I like it not. French corsairs sitting on a Spanish beach as if they owned it. Surely they should have posted guards,” Aaron said as he watched the crew of the pirate ship passing around a wineskin and laughing drunkenly. He counted fifteen men sprawled about the campfire.

      
“They do seem a bit careless, even in this remote cove,” Rigo agreed. “Have you any signal from the Tainos?”