Daughter of Fortune (41 page)

For a long moment she heard nothing. She could feel
the lump growing in her throat. She looked back at Diego, and he
slid into the ditch, too, coming toward her, his bandaged arm held
high.

Then
she heard the girls. They were both crying, thin wailing
sobs
torn from throats so hoarse with crying that she could
barely hear them above the rain on the water. She waded quickly
toward the hiding place, calling their names.

The children had tunneled back farther into the side
of the
acequia,
and some of the dirt in the front had fallen
across the entrance, shielding them. Maria pawed in the mud and
reached inside. She felt Catarina’s arms around her neck,
tightening to a stranglehold. Maria pulled her out of the cave,
muddy and shaking in her nightgown. Diego reached inside for Luz.
For one small heartbeat the child held herself away from him,
looking at him closely, running her fingers over his face, feeling
the contours so familiar to her. With a tiny sigh that made Diego
Masferrer sob out loud, she enveloped her brother in an embrace
surprising in its strength.

Maria smoothed back the muddy hair from Catarina’s
eyes. “My darling, how brave you were! You did just as I said.”

Catarina nodded through her tears. “I wanted to
leave, especially when we heard all the screaming, and then saw the
house on fire. But Luz told me you would return. And you did.”

Tucking Luz on his hip, Diego carried his sister to the
footbridge and sat her on it. He heaved himself up onto the bridge
and held out his arms for Catarina. Maria pulled herself up to join
the Masferrers.

Catarina looked at the hacienda first. “Oh,
mira,
Luz,
look! It is still standing! Can we not go inside?”

She started to get up, but Maria restrained her.
“No!” she burst out, louder than she intended.

“I
will go inside,” said Diego, getting to his feet slowly. “Perhaps I
can find something to eat.”

Maria was on her feet in front of him, blocking his way
down the garden path. “Diego Masferrer, the only one going inside
that hacienda is I!” she shouted, trying to push him back to the
footbridge.

He stood where he was and pushed back, jabbing her
in the shoulder with his fingers. “You cannot keep me out of my own
house!”

“Yes I can, Diego!”

They
were both shouting at each other. “It will not do you any good to
go in there!” cried Maria, pleading now. “If you think I dragged
you all the way from Tesuque to go inside and see what you will
see, then again I say you do not know me very well!”

They
stood glaring at each other, looking into the fire in each other’s
eyes. “I mean it, Diego,” said Maria more calmly. She was short of
breath and weary of the sound of her own shouting.

Diego looked away first, turning back to his sisters on the
footbridge. “Very well,” he shot back. “Although I do not like
it.”

Maria walked toward the darkening hacienda with a cold
feeling in
her stomach that grew chillier with each
footstep. She began to shudder, but forced herself to keep walking.
If Diego went inside, it would be worse, much worse, and someone
had to look for food.

She was shaking so badly that it took both hands to
raise the latch on the kitchen door. She went inside, leaving the
door open. She paused on the threshold, sniffing the air. It was
heavy with smoke and the smell of charred flesh she remembered from
the mission supply caravan. She gagged and raised her dress to her
mouth.

The room was in deep shadow, but as she stood there,
her eyes became accustomed to the gloom. She knew before she looked
that all the silver would be gone, and it was. The beautiful wooden
cabinet that Erlinda had so prized was smashed in two, as if by an
ax. The long kitchen table they had sat around only days before had
been rammed into the fireplace and burned along half its length.
The floor was gritty with spilled corn meal. Maria peeked into the
storeroom. The shelves were bare, but she scarcely noticed them.
Her eyes were riveted on the meat hooks where hung the charred
bodies of Diego’s servants, killed in the chapel. She stepped back
in horror and slammed the storeroom door shut.

She sat down weakly on the ruined cabinet, her eyes
on the storeroom door. It swung slowly open on its own weight and
she leaped up and ran into the hall. She stood there until her eyes
were adjusted to the deeper gloom, then edged her way along the
wall. The only other food in the hacienda was on the patio, where
she had set out several pans of apricots to dry in the sun. She
inched down the corridor, stopping every few feet to listen.

It was the silence of a tomb, a charnel, a
repository for all the tragedies, real or imagined, of mankind. She
could make out bodies lying in the hall, some the small bodies of
children who must have dragged themselves still living from the
burning chapel. Other bodies were sprawled in heaps on the
hard-packed earthen floor. Her feet, still wet from the
acequia,
were sticky with the blood of Diego’s servants.

She
stopped at La Señora’s room. The door was open, sagging inward on
torn leather hinges. The wood in the paneling had been smashed to
kindling, as if the woman had barricaded it in a futile attempt to
slow down the butchers in those early morning hours.

Maria paused on the threshold and covered her mouth
and nose with her dress. The roof was partly burned and she could
see in the room clearly. Blood was spattered everywhere, the floor
drenched with it. La Señora was sitting in an iron-red nightgown,
her head sagging to one side. Maria stepped back and put her
fingers to her mouth. Cristóbal had been true to his word. La
Señora’s eyes had been pried out. As Maria looked away, her
horrified glance fell on the familiar wooden statue of Our Lady of
Sorrows. The
bulto’s
deeply indented eyes bulged with La
Señora’s own. The dead eyes stared back at Maria, unblinking,
all-seeing.

Maria stepped backward into the hall, screaming. She turned
to run, and saw Erlinda sprawled on the chest on the other side of
the hall, her arms ripped from their sockets, her blond hair
hanging in bloody handfuls from her ruined scalp.

Maria screamed again and again, unable to help herself, too
terrified to run. Everywhere she looked were bodies, even when she
closed her eyes. Above her screaming she heard Diego in the
kitchen, shouting her name. She stumbled toward him, holding out
her arms.

He met her at the door to his mother’s room, took
one quick glance inside, then picked her up, tossed her over his
shoulder like a sack of meal and whirled toward the kitchen. He
stopped short at the sight of Erlinda, then with a groan, ran
through the kitchen and out into the clean air of the garden, where
he dropped Maria and fell to his knees, retching.

Maria leaped to her feet and ran to the footbridge. She
grabbed Luz and Catarina and ran with them back to the cornfield.
She wanted to keep running, but she could not carry both girls any
farther. She sat in the corn row, her head down between her knees.
Luz and Catarina huddled on either side of her, seeking
warmth.

Maria raised her head in a few moments and gathered the
girls closer to her. Her mind overflowed with images of La Señora,
Erlinda, the small burned children, the dangling bodies in the
storeroom, and she was speechless with horror. The rain stopped and
she watched the hacienda until Diego Masferrer crossed the
footbridge and trudged toward the cornfield like an old man,
calling her name.

“We
are here, Diego,” she said, her voice hardly above a whisper. He
found them huddled together, sank down next to Maria and put his
arms around the three of them. His lips were close to Maria’s ear,
his voice thin with pain. “I carried Erlinda into Mama’s room
and
then set fire to it. The interior was dry, and I think
it will burn now.”

She looked toward the hacienda and saw the points of
light rising from the roof. The flames stabbed the sky.

Diego got to his feet and reached for Catarina. “We must
leave quickly. The blaze is sure to attract attention. Maria, you
take Luz. Let us go.”

Catarina looked at her brother. “But Diego, we have
only our nightgowns. What would Erlinda say?”

A
great wave of pain crossed Diego’s white face. He looked at Maria
for help. She knelt by Catarina. “Catarina, she would call it a
great adventure. Come now, and let us do as Diego says.”

The four of them started through the cornfield,
heading south, away from the burning hacienda.

They walked in silence for over an hour, moving
slowly across the fields. Catarina wanted to know at first why they
did not take the road. When neither Diego nor Maria answered her,
she was quiet, holding Diego’s hand. Luz walked beside Maria,
taking little skipping steps to keep up. She began to lag back, and
Maria stopped and put the child on her back. Her arms were tight
around Maria’s neck, but finally her head flopped forward and she
slept.

They walked in a southwesterly direction, away from
Santa Fe. Maria looked at Diego. He caught her glance. “You wonder
where we are heading? Not far from here is a cave,” he explained.
“Cristóbal ...” he began, then stopped, the weariness of too many
troubles in his voice. They walked farther, and he continued,
“Cristóbal and I used to play there when we were younger. If he
were still alive, I would never hide there, but I think it will be
safe enough now.”

Maria nodded and shifted Luz higher on her back. She
couldn’t remember a time when she had been so tired, or so hungry.
Diego staggered as he walked beside her. Maria felt a rush of
anxiety for him, but he held tight to Catarina’s hand and did not
stop.

They reached the cave when the moon was high
overhead. There was a small opening hidden among the juniper trees,
well back from any trails. Diego boosted Catarina up to the rocks
and she clambered inside. He lifted Luz off Maria’s back and put
the child over his shoulder. When he was in the cave, he held out
his hand to Maria, who followed him in. Then he went back outside,
sweeping away their tracks beyond the rocky approach with a tree
limb.

Maria helped him back inside the cave. Luz and
Catarina had already arranged themselves close to each other for
sleep. The cave was cool and dark, and the girls huddled together
for warmth.

Diego sat by the entrance, too tired to move. “Come here,
Maria,” he said, motioning to her with his good arm. She sat next
to him, and he put his arm around her. “We can watch the valley
pretty well from here,” he said. “Cristóbal and I used to come here
to play ‘Pueblo.’ ”

“Don’t.”

He
was silent then and they sat together, watching the valley. They
could not see the flames of Las Invernadas, and the night sky was
peaceful, the stars glittering, the fireflies winking among the
trees by the cave’s entrance. Maria closed her eyes.

But
Diego was awake. “I was thinking, Maria,” he said, then looked at
her. “Maria? Wake up.”

She opened her eyes.

“That
is better. Now, just for a moment. I was thinking I could walk
ahead to Santa Fe tonight. You and the girls are safe here, and
perhaps I could bring back help, or at least horses.”

Maria shook her head. “No. We must stay together.
Suppose you were killed? Suppose you could not go any farther? How
would we know what had happened?”

He
sighed. “I suppose you are right. It was just an idea. I am not so
sure I could leave you, anyway. I have had enough of
leave-taking.”

“I,
too. Let us stay here tomorrow and start walking again after dark.
Besides, you saw all those Indians on the Taos road.”

“So I
did. Do you imagine ...
”

“...
there is anyone left in Santa Fe?” she finished.

“Querida
,
we could be the only Spaniards left in the entire
province.”

“I
have thought of that, too,” she replied, snuggling back down in the
hollow of his shoulder.

“Well, what happens to us?” he asked, leaning against the
rock wall and resting his head on Maria’s.

“I do not know, Diego
mio
,” she replied, her
eyes closed. “Let us think about it tomorrow.” They slept then,
while the moon crossed the sky and gave way to a new day on the
river kingdom.

Maria woke first. She opened her eyes, wondering why
she wasn’t in her own bed, smelling hot chocolate brewing in the
kitchen, listening for the rattle of pans. Her head was in Diego’s
lap and his arm was heavy across her body. Then it all came back to
her. She sat up carefully, trying not to disturb Diego, who still
slept. He did not wake when she pulled herself out from under his
arm. She felt his forehead. He was hot with fever.

“Is
he dead, Maria?” whispered Catarina from across the
cave.

“No,
no, child,” Maria replied quietly, stifling her own fears in front
of the children. “Just ill. Let us come away and not waken him.”
She went to the sisters and sat with her arms around
them.

“Maria, I am hungry,” said Luz. Her eyes were big in
the gloom of the cave.

Maria pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “You
know what your brother says. This is one of those times we have to
cut our cloak to fit the cloth.”

Luz was silent a moment. “But I’m still hungry,
Maria.”

Maria smiled. “I know. Words are cheap, especially when
your stomach speaks a different language. We will find something to
eat tonight.”