Daughter of Fortune (19 page)

Diego was gone before sunrise. When Maria came into
the kitchen the next morning, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, all
she found was a half-filled cup of cold chocolate. Maria held the
cup in her hands a moment, then drank it, pausing to rest her cheek
against the rim.

Diego was back in four days, alone. He rode in
slowly after dinner, the barking of his dogs the only signal of his
return. Erlinda dropped the mending she was struggling with and ran
to meet him. He came into the kitchen with his arm around his
sister’s waist. She helped him out of his dusty cloak and shook it
off outside the door.

“Come, Maria, some food for Diego.”

He waved her away. “I am too tired. I just want to
sit here.” He rubbed the back of his neck, discouragement tracing
itself in every line of his body.

“Is all well?” Erlinda asked. “You came back so
soon.”

“Certainly all is well, Erlinda. What could be
wrong?” he answered quickly, too quickly. He reached into his
pocket and pulled out a small cloth sack. “Here, Erlinda, take this
to Luz and Catarina. Tia Robles sends her love and some
dulces.”

She smiled and took the bag. Maria returned to her
mending again. Diego spoke. “Maria, it is good to see you.
Cristóbal asked about you, and I told him you were well.”

She made no reply. Without thinking, she put down
her mending, and began to massage his shoulders. He stiffened in
surprise, then relaxed, sighing deeply.

“What is the matter, Señor? Please tell me.”

“Can I not fool you, Maria?” He was silent for a
moment, turning his head quickly as she struck a tender spot.
“Cristóbal is different somehow, Maria. But then, so is Taos. There
is a trouble that has no name in Taos.”

He shifted slightly and unbuttoned his shirt so she
could reach under it. His skin was warm to her fingers, the muscles
tense.

“I confess I always feel uneasy in Taos. I do not
speak their language. Taos has a brooding air about it. Always has,
for that matter, as though they wait for something. I will take you
there someday, and you will feel what I mean.” He tipped his head
back to smile at her. “Maria, for one so small, your fingers are
strong.”

“I have been kneading bread in the household of
Diego Masferrer for several months now,” she said with a smile of
her own.

“So you have. Well, as I was saying, Tio Robles
tells me of an Indian in Taos, large of body, black of face. Tio
does not know his name, but said he was stirring up trouble. The
usual things—blaming us for the drought, saying that we Spaniards
are the cause of the land’s unrest, things like that. We have heard
it all before, but now ...” He left the sentence unfinished,
closing his eyes as she rubbed his back.

“And Cristóbal?” Maria asked. Her shoulders ached,
but she needed to go on touching Diego Masferrer.

“He has none of his usual warmth. We visited for
several hours, but he kept looking at me as though I were the
enemy.” He bowed his head over the table and Maria took her hands
from his shoulders. “He is an Indian. I forget, but he is an
Indian.”

“He is your brother, Señor,” she said quietly,
sitting beside him.

“Not in Taos.” Diego ran his fingers over Maria’s
hands folded on the table in front of her. “Such strong hands.”

He got up from the table suddenly. “I had better
speak to Mama. She will want to hear the news of Taos I bring from
her sister.”

Two days later, as suddenly as he had left,
Cristóbal Masferrer returned. Maria was down at the
acequia
with the leather buckets, hauling water, when she looked up to see
him standing on the other side of the footbridge. He stood as he
always did, one leg bearing his weight, head angled to one
side.

Without a word, he crossed the bridge and took the
buckets from her, dipping them in the
acequia,
then carrying
them into the kitchen, ignoring the stares of the Mexican servant
girls. Maria stood and watched him. He made enough silent trips to
fill the water barrel.

“Thank you, Señor,” she said when he came back
outside.

“It is Cristóbal, Maria, only Cristóbal. Some of us
will never be ‘Señor’ around here.” She had heard him speak sharply
before, but this time the anger was barely concealed beneath his
words.

“I know what you mean. I used to be a
‘Señorita
muy elegante’.
”

He leaned against the beehive oven. “Does it not
bother you to come down so in the world?”

She considered his question. “No. I would wish I had
a dowry still, for I would like to marry someday ...” She
stopped in confusion, remembering his offer and his kiss.

He leaned his head against the oven. Maria noticed
for the first time that his hair was unbound, worn the Pueblo way.
“Ah, you have been talking to my big brother. Land and sheep and
cows marry land and sheep and cows. Indians are traded and sold,
bought and paid for. Those of us who do not have these things do
not fare so well.”

“Surely you are different from the other
Indians.”

He stalked toward the footbridge, and Maria
followed. “I did not mean ...”

He turned and put his hands on her shoulders. “You
do not hurt me, Maria. I do not think you ever could. But I learned
something in Taos. I am no better than my brothers in the fields.”
He gestured toward the cornfield and the Pueblos stooping over
their short-handled hoes. “All that I have is at the sufferance of
others.”

“It is the same with me,” Maria said softly.

“And does this not bother you?” he lashed out.

“No,” she replied. “I am glad enough to be
alive.”

He took his hands off her shoulders, looking at the
Indians in the waist-high corn again. “Poor Maria,” he said softly.
“What choices does a woman have? But a man is different. Sometimes
when my brother says ‘my Indians’ in that possessive way of his, I
want to tear his heart out. If he has one.”

He left her then, and she watched him walk back to
the stable where his horse was tied. “Oh, Cristóbal,” she
whispered. “What has happened?”

He was sitting in his usual place at the dinner
table that evening, speaking of inconsequentialities to Erlinda and
telling his little sisters of their Taos cousins. Diego relaxed
visibly as he listened to him. Cristóbal even joined them in the
chapel for evening prayers. Sitting beside Maria, his responses
were firm, though he refused to kneel and kiss Diego’s hand when he
left the chapel. If Diego was surprised, he did not show it.

Cristóbal stopped Maria in the hall. “Come with me
to Tesuque tomorrow. I saw Emiliano when I was there this
afternoon, and he says he has something for you. I think the man is
an old fool, but perhaps he means well. Will you come?”

“Yes,” she replied without hesitation.

Maria watched him walk the length of the hall to the
kitchen. When he did not come back with the candle for his bedroom,
she knew he had left the hacienda. She turned to go to her own
room, but Diego stood behind her.

“Dios,
you are silent!” she uttered.

“Am I? That may be a virtue I am learning from my
brother.” Diego took her by the arm and led her toward the
sala.
He had already gotten his candle from the kitchen. The
small flame flickered and almost went out as he opened the door and
pulled Maria inside, closing the door behind him.

“What is it, Señor?” She remembered their last
interview in the
sala
and felt a growing uneasiness.

He motioned her to a hard chair. The seat was so
high that her feet did not touch the floor.

Diego smiled. “Ridiculous furniture. Is it any
wonder that we never use this room—except for unpleasant
discussions?” He set the candle down and pulled a chair up until he
was sitting close to her.

“I need your help,” he said. “I have pondered this
since speaking with Cristóbal this afternoon, and my thoughts do me
little credit.” He shook his head. “Even now, I do not know quite
what to say.”

“My lord?” she asked.

“I wish you would not call me that,” he said
absently.

“I know you do,” she replied, “but when I kneel to
kiss your hand each night, it seems to follow.”

“The effort was too great for Cristóbal tonight,” he
said.

“I saw. You are right. He has changed. But what is
it you need of me?”

“Only a small thing, Maria
chiquita
,” he
said, the sun wrinkles deepening around his eyes as he smiled. He
ran his hand over his close-cut beard. “When you are in Tesuque
tomorrow, keep your eyes open.”

“What do you mean, Señor?” she asked, sitting up
straight.

“There is a cunning about Cristóbal now that worries
me. He looks at me as if he were measuring me for a coffin.”

“Surely you are imagining this,” she said, thinking
as she did so of Cristóbal’s words to her by the
acequia.

“You are probably right. But watch for me, please.
In Tesuque you must be my eyes.” He held out his hand.

She hesitated, then put her hand in his and shook
it. “I will.”

He walked her down the hall to the door of her room.
Catarina bounded out when she heard their footsteps.

“Catarina,” said Maria, “you are supposed to be
asleep.”

“I could not,” she insisted. Diego put his arm
around her shoulder, and she leaned against her brother. “Besides,
Maria, you promised us another story.” She looked up at Diego. “You
can come in, too. Maria takes off her dress and we all sit
cross-legged like Indians while she tells us stories.”

“Oh, I could not,” Diego said.

“You could. Maria would not mind,” Catarina
insisted.

“No,” said Diego, taking his hand off her shoulder
and giving her a small push. “Now go to bed. Maria will join you in
a moment.”

“Do as your brother says,” Maria admonished.
Catarina went into her room.

“I shall not keep you,” Diego said to Maria. “But
you will not forget our pact? And you will speak of it to no
one?”

Maria gave her word, then went into her room and
closed the door softly behind her. She took off her dress, shook it
out and hung it on her clothes peg, putting her petticoat next to
it. Quickly she took the pins out of her hair and brushed it with
one of Erlinda’s old brushes. When she got in bed, Luz cuddled next
to her. Maria put her arm around the child, delighting as always in
the small one’s warmth.

“What would you like to hear tonight?” she murmured,
marveling at how much Luz looked like Diego.

“The story about El Cid,” declared Catarina. “The
part where the men strap his corpse to his horse and he rides out
of Valencia.”

“Santos
, Catarina! You like all the gory
parts!” said Maria, propping her pillow against the wall and
snuggling down with both sisters. “Besides, I told you that one
last night.”

“But I like it,” said Catarina.

Maria looked down at Luz. “And what about you, my
darling? What would you have?”

“If you please,” said the smaller one, her voice
already full of sleep, “I like the story about the poor girl who
marries the rich prince. Tell us that one, but put in some good
parts for Catarina.”

“Very well,” said Maria, and wove a story, complete
with Apaches and a daring rescue, that the girls had heard many
times. They huddled close to her as she told of the Indians and
sighed with pleasure when the prince declared the lack of dowry was
no obstacle to his love and, on bended knee, swore his undying
devotion.

When she was finished, the candle was guttering low
in its socket. Catarina looked up and dragged herself into a
sitting position. “Tell us the part about the Indian raid
again.”

“Oh, Catarina,” said Maria, “you are so
bloodthirsty. Perhaps you should have been a man.”

Both girls giggled. Luz looked at Maria. “But is it
true, Maria?” she asked, her eyes on the storyteller. “Do things
like that happen? Do princes marry poor girls?”

Maria pinched the candle’s light out with her
fingers. “No Luz, they do not. Not ever. At least, that I know
of.”

Maria did not see Cristóbal at breakfast. After
finishing her chores, she took off her apron and stepped outside
the kitchen door. The sun was warm on her face after the coolness
of the hacienda. She slipped off her shoes and walked down the row
of beets to begin her weeding. The children of Diego’s Mexican
servants who usually tended the kitchen garden were busy in the
fields this morning, weeding the growing corn. She saw them on the
far side of the
acequia,
working alongside Diego’s Indians
from Tesuque.

She knelt between the rows and pulled weeds, humming
to herself, filled with a contentment she could not have explained
to anyone who had known her in Mexico City. Here was Maria Luisa
Espinosa de la Garza, gently reared descendant of
conquistadores,
grubbing about on her knees in someone
else’s garden patch. She who used to dress in velvet and satin now
knelt barefoot in her homespun
jerga.
Her hair that used to
be so carefully arranged hung long and braided, caught at the ends
with rawhide strips. Her face was tanned and freckling, her hands
rough with work.

Maria patted the soil around the beets, enjoying the
feel of warm earth between her fingers.

Cristóbal stood at the end of the row, a dark shadow
against the clear sky. Maria smiled and thought that it would be
nice to paint him. She stood and wiped her hands on her dress. “Let
me get my shoes and tell Erlinda where I am going.”

Cristóbal snorted. “Do not tell her! She will find
another fifty things for you to do to keep you from me!”

His words startled her with their vehemence. “Do not
be absurd.”

She went inside to put on her shoes. Erlinda was
there, instructing the servant women how to clean the glass in the
windows, something they did several times a week, but never to
Erlinda’s complete satisfaction.