When the Splendor Falls (91 page)

“You know nothing. Neil is mine. He has always belonged to me. To Diosa! We will be lovers again. It is our destiny to be together. I have loved him from the beginning of time. We will always be together. He cannot escape me. He will come to me again. He was meant to be mine. No one will take him from me.”

Courtney was driven beyond caution. Diosa was his. He’d never known a woman like her. Until Neil Braedon had returned, she had been his, and she was going to become his wife. Nothing could change that. Nothing. He wouldn’t lose her, he couldn’t, he thought in numbing disbelief. Then, suddenly, he saw everything clearly, and he smiled as he realized that he wouldn’t lose her—ever. How could he to a dead man?

“Neil Braedon is a man, Diosa, not a god, and he will die. And nothing you can do will stop that from happening.”

“What?” she said, suddenly sounding groggy. “What is this lie?” she asked, drawing the smoke from her
cigarrillo
deep into her lungs, then a moment later the bluish smoke was wreathed around their figures.

“The truth, Diosa. It is the truth. Neil Braedon is a marked man.”

“You lie!”

“Go ask your
Tío
Alfonso. It is his plan. And even you know he never fails in getting what he wants. Neil Braedon was a Yankee raider called Captain Dagger during the war.”

“Dagger?” she said, glancing back at her dresser, her hand fumbling to find the sacrificial dagger, her hand closing around the bird-figured hilt.

“Yes, and he robbed and massacred innocent people during the war. There is a man, a Michael Stanfield, who is looking for him because Neil killed his brother. He will kill Neil. And if he doesn’t, then Alfonso will. Because Alfonso has had it planned from the beginning. Neil Braedon is a dead man,” Courtney told her, relishing the look of horror that spread across her face.

“No,” she whispered. “He and I were meant to be together. He is
El Dorado
, the golden one. It is my destiny to be with him. I am Diosa Marina. I have been favored by the gods, as was the first Marina,
Malinal
, Cortés’s mistress. She was his lover, and she brought him an empire of gold. I am a goddess, it is what my name means. I was sent by the gods. It has been meant from the beginning of time. The golden one is of the legend. We have waited for so long for the fair-haired man to come from the East. And he has come, and he is bathed in golden light. And now, Esteban is here,” she said, her eyes wild. “The black-skinned Moor has come to lead us to
Cibola
, to the Seven Golden Cities. Esteban. I have seen him, spoken to him, and he has answered. He was sent to Royal Rivers, where he awaits my command. He will find the gold, and then he will die as a sacrifice to the gods. And I will become the woman of
El Dorado
.”

Courtney saw his chance, for she suddenly seemed so lost and hopeless standing there, her black eyes unfocused as she tried to hold on to her dream. “Gold?” he asked, taking her unresistingly into his arms. “I can give you gold. So much we can travel around the world and never know we’ve spent a cent of it. Gold, Diosa, gold! It’s hidden away—”

“Hidden?” Diosa asked curiously.

“Yes, Alfonso didn’t want it here at Silver Springs, too dangerous, so he hid it where no one would think of looking for it,” Courtney said, remembering his disbelief when Alfonso and he had taken the first load to be hidden away. “It’s hidden in the ruins of some ancient pueblo.”

Courtney saw again the ruins of the long-forgotten city, where the sandstone blocks fitting snugly together made the walls seem golden as they rose high above the desert, jagged where time had worn away the thickness and tumbled in a timbered roof, the doors and windows standing open to the wind and sky. He had seen the neatly laid out walls of
plazas
and the round chambers of the
kivas
with fire pits at the bottom, the ashes centuries cold, the circular benches emptied of worshippers. And in a ruin with a pine-beamed ceiling, they had hidden their stolen gold, piling the chests of gold bullion against the ancient walls where strange figures stared down at them, the Confederate seals unbroken and to remain so until they came back to claim their gold.

“There truly is a city of gold, Diosa, and
I
, not anyone else can show it to you,” he boasted. “I will make you a queen. I’ll drape you from head to foot in gold and jewels. Forget your legends, Diosa. With the gold I have, I can take you to Europe, where we’ll be welcomed in all the fancy courts of Europe, kings and queens bowing down to us. You, Diosa, will become the legend,” he promised, and he spoke sincerely, for he would make her his queen.

“Neil?” she whispered.

“Him?” Courtney spat. “What of him? Neil Braedon will be dead.”

“No!” she screamed, jerking out of his arms with surprising strength, the malevolence of her expression causing Courtney to take a startled step backward, suddenly reminded of one of those hideous golden masks she collected.

“No,” she said, the softness of her voice sending a warning shiver up his spine. “He will never die. No one can take him from me, or keep me from him. You can’t, Alfonso can’t, Serena couldn’t, nor could that old man, my beloved husband, whose touch left me feeling as if I were in the grave, and I will deal with this blue-eyed
inglesa
soon enough, the same way I did the others.”

“The others? You mean your husband and Serena?” Courtney asked, somehow managing to find his voice.

“Yes,” Diosa said, her answer sounding like the hissing of a snake, her black eyes watching Courtney with the same cold, reptilian intensity. “Serena thought she could take him from me. But she did not understand. Neil was mine. He loved me. But suddenly she decided she wanted him, and she told me he was never going to see me again. He was going to go back to her, to try and make their marriage work. I laughed in her face. Then he came to me, and he told me it was over. He said Serena wanted to live as man and wife, and he had agreed. They were married and they had lost too much time already. He wasn’t going to see me any longer. Leave me for her? Never! Luis had told me that her husband still lived somewhere in Spain. He had been sending the money to the man for years, because
Tío
Alfonso was gone so much he wanted to make certain the money always was sent so the man would not be tempted to write. But
Tío
Alfonso lied. He told Serena that her husband was dead. That was why she wanted Neil, but Neil was mine. I hated her. It was all her fault. I sent her a note telling her that her husband still lived and was waiting for her. I had her meet me in the canyon.
Cañon del Malhadado
. The gods were pleased that day, for I sacrificed her to them and left her there in the canyon. Poor Neil. His wife was now dead. And, later, my poor, sick husband died. A little
belladonna
in his
chocolate
,” she said, laughing softly, “and I was a widow.”

“You whore!” a voice roared from behind them.

Courtney spun around in shock to find himself staring at Alfonso, standing like a maddened bull in the opened doorway.

“It was you all along. You who ruined my plans. All this time I thought it was Neil Braedon who caused Serena’s death. If it hadn’t been for you, she and Neil would still be married today,” he said, moving steadily closer to where they stood before the dresser. “And I would have Royal Rivers within my grasp. My plan would have worked except for you and your meddling.”

Diosa eyed her uncle with dislike. “You old fool,” she said, throwing back her head as she glared at him with narrowed, calculating eyes. “It would never have worked. Neil was mine. And he was from the time he married Serena. We were lovers. Serena was nothing. Neil was always mine. He has come back to me. And
I
, Diosa, will have Royal Rivers, not you,” she challenged him, her voice low and strangely deep-toned as it vibrated with malice. “You and your stupid plans. You do not understand. The gods have controlled you from the beginning.”

Her taunts snapped what little self-control a wrathful Alfonso had left after hearing her confession and realizing she had duped him for years, and with a mad bellow he grabbed hold of Diosa, his big hands finding her throat and tightening murderously around the slender stem, which he easily could have snapped, and would have, if Courtney hadn’t attacked him from behind. His hard-hitting fists caused Alfonso to break off his attack and to release his strangling grip on Diosa’s neck, and convulsed with rage, he turned to face this new assault, looking forward to sending Courtney Boyce to his maker, if perhaps sooner than originally planned.

Courtney saw the grim smile of satisfaction on Alfonso’s face before he saw the flash of gunpowder or heard the accompanying explosion. He felt the fiery pain in his chest and glanced down; the last thing he saw before the black void of death enfolded him was the blood staining his shirtfront.

Alfonso stared down at the crumpled form, his back to Diosa for just a second, but it had been a fatal mistake, for he had underestimated his enemy this time. Diosa, struggling to draw breath into her burning lungs, her world shattering around her, raised her hand and drove the sharp blade of the sacrificial dagger deep into Alfonso’s broad back.

Alfonso slowly turned around, the expression on his face one of disbelief, not pain, as he died at Diosa’s feet, the madness in her black eyes the one thing he hadn’t planned on.

“
Madre de Dios
,” Luis Angel said from the doorway, feeling faint. He had heard the gunshot and come running from his room down the hall, and had stumbled upon this nightmarish scene. Forcing the stiffness back into his weak-kneed legs, he took a step away from the door and walked into the room, drawing on some inner courage he hadn’t realized he possessed.

Her black hair streaming over her shoulders like a shroud, Diosa was slumped down next to the dresser, her eyes glazed, a thin trail of blood-flecked saliva dribbling from the corner of her slack mouth. Her breath was coming in short gasps, and Luis’s eyes rested on her throat, the pale skin mottled with ugly dark purplish-red bruises.

Carefully, he stepped over the sprawled bodies of Courtney Boyce and Alfonso Jacobs, standing for a heartrending moment staring down at his sister, his eyes full of love as he saw the pitiful creature she had become. He glanced at the dressing table, shaking his head as he saw the finely tooled leather box and knew what it held. He had warned her, but she would never listen to him, kissing him on the cheek and telling him she was singing with the gods. Always, from the time she was a little girl, she had wanted to be a goddess. She always had been, he thought sadly, remembering the beautiful sister who had always cared for him, her little Luis.

“
Diosa
,” he murmured, lifting her limp body in his arms and carrying her to the bed, where he placed her gently against the softness of the feather comforter, her ravings from the madness that had ended in murder chilling his blood.

He suddenly stilled as he listened to her disjointed ramblings, her eyes rolling wildly with tortuous visions only she could see.
God help us
, he thought, shocked as he heard her admission of guilt, knowing that one day, to ease his own conscience, he would have to tell Neil Braedon the truth about Serena—and this—but for now, he had to get Diosa away. He would never allow anyone to take her away to some madhouse—or, perhaps even to hang as she gloated about the murders of her husband and Serena, and now
Tío
Alfonso.

Luis sat down on the edge of the bed and began to think, his mind working quickly as he saw what had to be done.

What would it matter? Luis decided. What harm could it cause if he cleaned up this mess, then moved the bodies to
Tío
Alfonso’s study, locking the door, then climbing out the window? Fortunately,
Tía
Mercedes was away visiting a sister in Albuquerque, and was not expected back for a couple of weeks. None of the servants would dare enter the room—even
Tía
Mercedes would not have had she been here. No one entered
Tío
Alfonso’s study uninvited, and even then one did not care to, for it was only when
Tío
Alfonso was angry that one was invited inside. And before he and Diosa left, as if returning to Santa Fe, and then back to Mexico on business, as was often their practice, he would leave instructions for the servants, from the
patrón
, as if he and Courtney had planned to leave on a business trip—which, unfortunately, had been interrupted by tragedy.

And when someone finally would open that door, they would believe what they saw; that Alfonso Jacobs and Courtney Boyce had become embroiled in a violent argument and had killed each other.

By that time, he would have Diosa safely in Mexico, where they had many cousins. No one would ever find them, and he would be able to watch over Diosa. Yes, Luis Angel thought, it was a very simple plan. And it would work, because he had planned it very carefully.
Tío
Alfonso had always taught him to plan very carefully.

Twenty-five

And on her lover’s arm she leant,

And round her waist she felt it fold,

And far across the hills they went

In that new world which is the old.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

It was the night of the
barbacoa
.

Pungent smoke, heavy with the aromas of cooking meats and spicy sauces of garlic and onion, floated through the air along with the melodic strains of fiddle, guitar, and mandola as gaily dressed musicians played a slow, lovely waltz or a fast-stepping
jarabe
.

Earlier in the day, a trench had been dug and filled with mesquite wood, which had burned down to the white-hot coals now lining the bottom and sides for the pit roasting and spit barbecuing of
cabrito
and
borrego
—suckling goat and lamb—along with venison, wild turkey, and whole sides of beef, which had been broiling slowly since late afternoon. Large frying pans of fresh mountain trout, stuffed with mint and wrapped in bacon, were sizzling over the coals as they cooked, while Lupe oversaw the basting of the meats with olive oil, garlic, and wild herbs, or tomato sauces fiery with hot peppers.