Beverly Byrne (27 page)

"I'm
always here," Rick said. "Always. Do you understand me,
querida
?"

She
did and the knowing burst inside her with a kind of joy that swiftly turned to
fear. Amy let go of his hands and stood up. "I have to go. Tommy is away,
but Maria will be worried about me."

"I'm
driving you home," Rick said. He ignored her protests.

Usually
Beatriz prayed in the centuries old church of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Agua Fria
Street. She did this often because, despite the many taboos that she was
willing to ignore, Beatriz was a religious woman. It was natural that she
should take to God her problems of the moment. But troubles such as these
demanded extraordinary fervor. So on that same October day when Amy saw Rosa
Mandago in the plaza, Beatriz was in the nearby cathedral. She had come to ask
the guidance of Santa Fe's first lady,
La
Conquistadora
.

Carved
in Spain sometime in the fifteenth century, the small statue of Our Lady of
Victory came with the conquistadors to the new world. In 1692she was brought to
Santa Fe by Don Diego de Vargas, when he led the reconquest after an Indian
revolt. Since then it was the spirit of
La
Conquistadora
that
animated the city, and her intercession that sustained it. Each year, on the
two Sundays following the feast of Corpus Christi, she was carried through the
streets in solemn and glorious procession. Thousands-people of every color-took
part. In between those times she could be found to the left of the high altar
in the cathedral.

Today
Beatriz knelt at the lady's feet and begged for wisdom. She was utterly
confident that her prayers would receive an answer. For one thing, the promise
of the gospels was quite clear in this regard; for another,
La
Conquistadora
must feel tender toward the man who had brought her to this place where she was
so beloved, and de Vargas was an ancestor of Don Rico. The logic of it all
pleased Beatriz; thinking of it almost eased her pain.

You
understand, she told the beautiful lady who was arrayed in jewel-encrusted lace
and a green satin cape, I have never fooled myself that I could keep him. It is
not to get him back that I come to you. But I cannot bear that he leaves me for
one of them. It is neither right nor fair that the Anglos take what is not
theirs. First that man Westerman steals from Manuel, and now the woman steals
from me. . . .

It
was simple justice that Beatriz craved. The sins of Tommy Westerman cried to
heaven for vengeance. He and his wife had come to this place where neither
belonged, and they thought they could buy the birth-right of those who did.
Westerman had paid Manuel money for his ranch. It was not the amount that the
ranch was worth while the treaty was in force, but it was more money than
Manuel had ever before seen. Her cousin had come to Beatriz with the check,
pushing it into her hands with tears rolling down his cheeks, like a child
confessing a terrible guilt. "What am I to do with this?" he'd asked.
"What good is it to me if I do not have my land?"

Beatriz
had ignored the second question and answered the first by immediately putting
on her hat and going outside to where Manuel's wife Purisima waited with her
seven children. One was still suckling. Purisima held the infant to her breast
and sat silent in the buckboard. "We must go to the bank," Beatriz
said, climbing aboard. Manuel drove them to the plaza.

In
the bank Beatriz took charge of everything. Neither Manuel nor Purisima were
idiots; they had after all managed a large ranch. But they were in a state of
shock, and they were grateful if someone told them what to do. So Beatriz set
aside a small amount of the money for their daily expenses. The balance she put
in a savings account. At the last moment she insisted that it be so ordered
that the signatures of both Manuel and Purisima were necessary for withdrawals.
This precaution was prompted by the look in Manuel's eyes. A man who believes
himself cut off from life is not frugal, even if he is a husband and a father.

Her
premonition had been accurate. The sale of the ranch had been completed two
months ago. Since then, Manuel moved like a zombie. He lived with his family in
a house in the barrio, and supposedly he was looking for another ranch to buy.
In truth he did nothing but sit day and night staring at the walls.

Purisima
did her best, but it was hard keeping seven children happy and healthy in the
city, after the freedom of ranch life. Purisima was thin and drawn and
miserable. When she looked at her cousin's wife Beatriz felt anger burn like
acid in her stomach.

She
was not so much a fool as to think everything the fault of the Anglos. She knew
instead that it was the particular badness of some Anglos which, brought into
confrontation with the particular weakness of some of her own kind, created
evil and devastation. Anglos were greedy and their natural instinct was to
possess and acquire. Neither did they value sincerity of the heart the way her
people did.

Faced
with these things the Manuels and Purisimas of the world retreated to their
stoic fatalism, and their belief that somehow manana would be different. It
never was, because they did nothing to make it so. Beatriz understood all this
because she had learned first-hand about lies and desertion. Indeed, that lesson
was the root of her fury-and the reason it had finally affected her reason.

All
this anguish she laid at the feet of
La Conquistadora
. She did not
actually formulate her plan in the lady's presence. When she was in the
cathedral Beatriz was still trying to resist the lure of the solution that had
occurred to her. But neither did she resolve against it. It stayed like a
venemous snake in the back of her mind, coiled and ready to strike.

She
left the church and wandered aimlessly toward the plaza, gravitating there
through the ancient habit that informed her blood. Then she saw Amy Westerman
walking toward her, heavily pregnant and looking preoccupied with cares. For a
moment Beatriz considered speaking to the girl. She would tell her all the evil
things her husband did and warn her to leave New Mexico.

Beatriz
felt the words rising in her throat. She craved the release they would bring
her.

She'd
almost made up her mind to act when the voice of the
mestiza
whore, Rosa
Mandago, cut across the plaza. Beatriz watched the whole scene. She saw Amy's
shock and pain, and when the girl half crawled to her automobile Beatriz
followed. She saw Amy set out in the direction of the alameda and knew that she
was going to Don Rico. Anger made Beatriz tremble. The Westerman woman had
everything; a home, a husband, a child and another coming-yet she was prepared
to steal the only thing Beatriz had.

Still
quivering with rage Beatriz went into a cafe and ordered coffee. She sat
sipping it, willing herself to be calm, and thinking about the juxtaposition of
events. She'd gone to
La Conquistadora
seeking enlightenment.
Immediately after she left the church she'd been confronted with yet more
evidence of the wickedness of both Westermans. What did it mean? One answer only
presented itself. The snake inside coiled tighter.

In
a few minutes she glanced at her watch. It was past four. She must return home
because the neighbor staying with her mother could not remain later than
four-thirty. She left five cents on the counter to pay for her coffee and
stepped outside. Dusk was roIling down the mountains toward Santa Fe. A sliver
of moon shared the sky with the setting sun. "
Hola, dona Beatriz
,"
a man said.

It
was Eustaquio, an Indian from Pueblo Cochiti who supplied her with the
turquoise and silver buckles she sold in her shop. Instantly Beatriz understood
everything. Scraps of knowledge that she did not realize she possessed fell
into place in her head.
La Conquistadora
had given her answer. "I cannot
stay now because my mother is waiting," she said with breathless urgency.
"But you are the very man I want to see. Can you come to my shop tonight
after dark?"

The
Indian shrugged. "If you wish it," he said.

"I
do. Very much." The death rattle sounded and the snake struck.

"You
know the boy Diego who works at
el rancho
Santo Domingo, no?"
Beatriz asked.

"He
is of my pueblo, I know him," Eustaquio said.

"Do
you count him as a friend?" Her words were tentative, probing.

The
Indian understood what information she sought, but he said only, "I know
him."

Something
in his eyes gave her hope. Beatriz unlocked the drawer in which she kept her
money. She withdrew a small number of bills and laid them on the table. Later,
when more money was needed, she would get it from the savings account of Manuel
and Purisima. "I have a friend who feels deeply the needs of the pueblos.
My friend is also a believer in justice and is unhappy about much that the
Anglos do against the interests of my people and yours, who were here before
them."

"Your
friend is wise," Eustaquio said. His brown hand lay on the table next to
the money, but he didn't touch it.

"And
rich. Money is available to ease the poverty of Pueblo Cochiti. Do you not
think it is only fair that certain actions my friend wants performed be done in
return for this money?"

"If
they are possible, yes."

"Oh,
they are possible," Beatriz said. "It needs only courage and
determination."

"Tell
me more. I'm listening."

Beatriz
had chosen more wisely than she knew. Aware that religious societies and their
rivalries were the true pulse beat of the lives of the Indians, she had hoped
that perhaps the old man and Diego belonged to the same one. They did, but the
symbiosis was greater than only that. Eustaquio was Diego's 'spiritual father.'
Theirs was a sacred relationship, far stronger than ties of blood.

When
the descendents of the Basketmakers left their exquisite aeries to huddle by
the Rio Grande they did not recreate the extraordinary homes they'd left
behind. The small clustered dwellings the Spaniards encountered when they
marched north were mostly single-story adobe huts in which an entire family
occupied one room. Coronado and the men of his ilk were unimpressed. These
people reminded them of the poorest
campesinos
of their homeland. The
Spaniards called the newfound settlements, villages-in Spanish,
pueblos
-and
their inhabitants, Pueblo Indians. The conquistadors were ignorant of the
mighty power which pulsed beneath the surface of the huddled shacks. They
didn't know that from the subterranean pits called
kivas
there came a
strength of union which would endure.

In
the wake of the conquerors came the padres. Like their countrymen, the
Franciscans and Jesuits and Dominicans were also seeking gold, but of a
different sort. The priests wanted souls for Christ. For two bloodstained
centuries they preached the gospel with words and swords. Eventually every
pueblo had a church and a crucifix and a madonna and a patron saint. Probably
none of the Spaniards, cleric or lay-man, wholly understood that the Indians
had evolved a synthesis between the old truth and the new. The Most Holy
Trinity ruled all, the Indians had learned. Surely that included the gods of
the
kiva
? Nonetheless with the passage of time there occurred a slow but
steady exodus from the pueblos. Many of the young adopted not only the white
man's God, but his ways and vices.

Diego,
for one, did not go often to the pueblo where he was born. Eustaquio knew this,
so he sent a message to Santo Domingo. Four days later he looked up from the
piece of silver he was hammering and saw his "son" standing in the
doorway. He grunted with satisfaction. Diego had come quickly, so he was not
entirely removed from the ancient discipline.

"You
want to see me?"

"Yes,
come in."

Diego
was taller than most of his brethren. He had to duck his head to pass through
the door. He waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness, then went
and sat on the dirt floor with his back against the rough adobe wall. Eustaquio
continued hammering. "You should have better light to work by," Diego
said. "Next time I come I'll bring a lantern from the ranch."

"I
need nothing from that place. I have everything I need here."