Daughter of Fortune (43 page)

“Help me.”

She followed him to where the water was waist deep
and held his bandaged arm while he put his face in the water and
worked the wetness through his curly black hair. They walked slowly
upstream together, dripping wet, their arms around each other.
“That is better,” said Diego. “I think I would rather be wet than
sticky. Now, if we can only find some ....”

The word died in his throat. He was looking at the
bank behind his sisters and pushed Maria down in the water.

An Indian stood watching them from the riverbank. He
stood behind the children, who huddled together by the water’s
edge, staring up at him. Diego lumbered upstream in the water,
calling to his sisters, his voice agonized. He took out his knife
as he struggled through the water. Maria stood and followed him,
pausing only long enough to pick up a rock from the streambed.

As she watched in helpless fear, the Indian slowly
pulled an arrow from the quiver on his back, placed it against the
bow he raised, and aimed at the girls.

Luz rose suddenly and pushed Catarina in the water,
where she floundered and drifted slightly downstream toward Diego.
As the Indian watched, Luz started up the bank toward him, her
teeth bared, her expression terrible. She paused to pick up a stick
and her face went pale with anger as she struggled up the
riverbank, and the Indian began to laugh at her.

Diego was still struggling against the swift
current, his arm raised with the knife in it. Maria snapped her arm
back and threw the rock, sobbing in fury because she was sure she
would miss him.

The rock hit the Indian in the stomach. At that
moment Diego threw.

All of them watched the knife spinning end over end
through the air. It struck the Indian between the eyes. He dropped
to his knees. Luz gasped and put her hands to her mouth as she
scrambled out of the way. With his fingers still clawing at the
handle that protruded from his forehead, the Indian tumbled down
the bank, a dead man.

Luz stumbled back to the river’s edge, reaching for
Catarina. The two girls stood in the water as Maria waded toward
them. “He was going to kill you, Catarina,” Luz said simply.

“But what of you, Luz?” Catarina finally managed to
say when she found her voice again.

“But you don’t understand,” Luz insisted, the same
doggedness in her eyes as when she climbed the bank with her puny
stick. “I love you!”

Diego bent over the body, toeing it with his
moccasin. He put his foot on the Indian’s chest and tugged at the
knife, working it this way and that to pull it out. Then he sat
back on his heels and looked at the Indian. Slowly he twined his
fingers in the Indian’s loose-flowing hair and raised the head,
bringing his knife close to the scalp.

Maria grasped Diego’s shoulder, her fingers digging
into his flesh. “Don’t do it.”

“Tell me why not,” he said, his voice flat, devoid
of feeling.

“For me. And for your eternal soul.”

He sat there, squatting on his haunches, for a full
minute before he let the Indian go. The head lolled to one side and
the blood spattered on the rocks at their feet.

Diego wiped his hands on his doublet, climbed the
bank and picked up the bow. Looking back at Maria he said, “Get his
arrows.”

Without a word, she turned the Indian on his side
and pulled off the quiver. Dangling from his loincloth was a string
of scalps—white hair, blond hair, gray hair, black hair curly and
damp like Diego’s, chestnut hair like her own. “Mother of God,” she
whispered, unable to tear her eyes from the bloody offerings that
hung limp from the dead man’s waist. She touched one of the scalps,
running her finger down the length of a blond tress so like
Erlinda’s, then got to her feet, swaying a little as her head
cleared. She wiped her hands on her soaking dress and beckoned to
the girls. They ran to her and the three of them joined Diego.

She held out the quiver of arrows to him, but he
shook his head. “You put it on and stay close to me. If I have that
on my back, I can’t reach my arm around to get an arrow. ”

Her eyes went to his wounded arm. It was bleeding
again, the blood and gypsum flowing steadily down the tattered
remnants of his shirt.

“I must have opened it when I threw the knife,” he
said. “You keep the arrows,
querida.”
He sat down with them,
his face white. “We dare not stay here. Someone is sure to find
that Indian. And we dare not go much farther. Surely he was not
alone.” He was talking to himself.

“We go on,” Maria said. “Perhaps we can hide in the
Gutierrez hacienda.”

He was silent a moment, leaning his head against the
tree and gazing up at the stars that still glimmered in the
lightening sky. “Of course you are right,” he murmured, covering
her hand with his own. “But where do we get the strength?”

“From each other,” she replied, her eyes on his
face. “Diego, I love you.”

“You already told me.” He kissed her fingers,
closing his eyes as she caressed his cheek.

“And so I tell you again,” she said. She felt the
tears on his cheek and leaned closer to him, kissing his face.
“Come,
mi corazon,”
she said, “let us be off before the sun
rises.”

The four of them stood up, Maria straightening her
dress and smoothing it down with that decisive, womanly gesture
that never failed to move Diego.

They walked through the narrow stand of trees,
skirting the open fields that surrounded the Gutierrez hacienda.
Maria could see the house now. It appeared, like Las Invernadas, to
have been partially burned. They followed the general course of the
river through the trees until they came to an irrigation ditch.
Diego lifted Luz and Catarina into the dry
acequia
and Maria
followed.

“Now, let us crawl along the ditch to the
cornfield,” Diego said. “Maria, you go first. I will be last.”

Slowly they covered the distance from the river to
the cornfield, working their way carefully along the ditch. Their
damp clothing was soon covered with dust. Luz sneezed several times
and Maria’s heart pounded every time the sound exploded in the air.
But all else was silence around them. Even the birds and crickets
were still, so quiet was the dawn.

They crawled into the cornfield, keeping low until
they were surrounded by the waving cornstalks that caught the
gentle breeze of the coming morning. Maria sat on the ground,
rubbing her stiff knees. Diego sat next to her, his face strained
and white. The blood from his wound had melted the gypsum cast and
the white and red streaks ran off his fingertips. “I am leaving a
trail a blind man could follow,” he muttered.

“Well, you lost my petticoat, and I have sacrificed
most of my dress,” said Maria, beginning to undo the buttons, “so
you might as well take the rest. Wasn’t I wearing my chemise when
we first met?” she said, pulling the dress off over her head. She
wound the material around his arm as tight as she dared, tying the
whole thing in place with the sleeves. The morning breeze was cold
on her bare arms and she shivered as she worked.

Diego watched her, a smile playing around his white
lips. “You fill that out better than you did the first time,” he
said.

“It must be all the good food I have enjoyed
lately,” she retorted. “Keep your hands to yourself! What must your
sisters think?”

“They’re both asleep.”

“No excuse. There now.”

He touched his arm lightly. “That should at least
get us to the hacienda. Wake up, my
sisters—
d
espiertan
,
mis bienes,
despiertan
.”

She smiled. “You are so poetic.”

“But of course. Someday I will lie with my head in
your lap and quote poetry by the bucketful, hour after hour.”

She sighed, and he was silent. The girls were awake
now. Luz stared at Maria. “Maria, you are practically naked!
Whatever would Erlinda say?”

“She would be pleased that I am so resourceful,
child. Now hush. We have to leave.”

They crossed the cornfield, going silently down the
rows, careful not to disturb the waving corn. Diego paused once and
stripped down an unripened ear, holding it out to Maria.

“Look at that, will you? He could have bigger corn
if he would weed out more of the suckers.”

Maria put her arm around him. “Diego, don’t be a
farmer now.”

When they reached the last row before the hacienda,
Diego paused. “Let us wait here until we are sure that no one is
about.” They sat down and the girls promptly fell asleep again,
leaning against each other. “Put your head in my lap and sleep,
Maria,” said Diego, tugging her down. “I will watch.” He put his
hand on her bare arm and rubbed it. “You’re so cold, Maria. Perhaps
there is some clothing in the hacienda.”

Diego’s hand was warm on her shoulder. “Dare we to
move now?” she whispered sometime later.

“I think we had better. I have seen no movement
anywhere.”

Luz and Catarina came awake as soon as she touched
them, their eyes wide, questioning. Maria put a finger to her
lips.

Diego rose. “From here on there is no cover. We must
walk forward like Masferrers. Come.”

Single-file, they followed Diego from the cornfield,
looking straight ahead at the Gutierrez hacienda. Maria prodded the
girls in front of her to keep up with Diego, who was taking swift
strides. Every moment she expected an arrow between her shoulder
blades. The estancia was wrapped in silence.

They reached the kitchen gardens of the hacienda, so
like the gardens at Las Invernadas. Diego sat his sisters down next
to the beehive ovens, out of sight of anyone crossing the fields,
admonishing them to stay. He held out his hand to Maria and she
took it, clutching it so tightly that he looked back at her in
surprise. “Just stay close,” was all he said.

The kitchen door sagged inward on broken hinges. The
kitchen was dark and silent and smelled of day-old death. Maria
shuddered and closed her eyes, allowing Diego to tug her along. But
then she opened her eyes, more fearful of stumbling over a
corpse.

The bodies were sprawled across the long kitchen
table. Diego looked hard at the corpses of his neighbors, bloated
and fly-covered. “They were caught at breakfast, Maria.
Madre de
Dios.”

A woman’s body stretched across the doorway into the
main hall. Diego knelt and pulled the woman’s dress gently around
her ankles again. “Angelica, prim and proper,” he whispered,
passing his hand in front of his face. Maria turned away. “Such
animals, Maria,” he murmured, and took her hand again.

They entered the hall, soaked with blood and
overpowering with the odor of decay. Diego gagged and retched, and
Maria put her hand to her face. It was no use. Even her fingers
stank of death. The rest of the large Gutierrez family was lying in
the hall, caught in various poses of death. All the women had been
raped and scalped, all the men mutilated.

Diego stopped by one body, running his hand over the
man’s swelling chest. “Luisito, Luisito,” he whispered, and looked
at Maria. “Do you remember him,
querida mia?
He fetched your
shoes from the grove when you wouldn’t go back there.”

She pulled Diego to his feet. “Don’t do this to
yourself,” she said, her voice a low murmur, scarcely heard over
the flies. Diego resumed his journey of remembrance down the hall,
pausing only to cover the bodies of the women. He led her to the
chapel.

As at Las Invernadas, the room had been desecrated,
the chalice overflowing with urine, the walls smeared with body
wastes. All of the plaster Spanish saints had been hacked to pieces
like the people lying dead in the hall. Diego looked around him.
“The hatred, Maria. The hatred.”

She put her arm around him, and they stood together
in the middle of the ruin. In her mind she could see Cristóbal
walking away from her, through the cottonwoods, when she had asked
him why he could not believe as she did.
We never knew them
,
she thought.

“This will have to do,” Diego finally said. “I do
not think the Indians will come back to the Gutierrez hacienda.” He
went to the altar and emptied the chalice behind it. “If we stack
the benches against the door, the only entrance is that small
window that opens onto the patio.”

They pushed the benches against the door and let
themselves out the window into the patio, crossing back to the
hallway of death. Diego hurried along the blighted passageway,
Maria following. She kept her eyes straight ahead, looking at the
curls in Diego’s black hair, telling herself over and over how much
she loved him, trying to keep her mind off the death all around
her.

They both took a deep breath in the garden. Luz and
Catarina were still hunkered down behind the ovens. Diego knelt by
them. “We are going into the Gutierrez hacienda,” he said, his hand
on Catarina’s hair.

“But won’t Señor Gutierrez mind?” she asked. “And
did you tell him about the honeycomb?”

“No, no. He won’t mind. He would be glad we have
chosen his place, I think. But listen to me, sisters. I want you to
close your eyes before we leave the garden and not open them until
I tell you. Will you do as I say? Will you?” He was shaking Luz.
She nodded, her eyes filled with an exhausted fright that went to
Maria’s heart.

Maria put her hands on Diego’s head as he knelt by
the ovens and pulled him back against her. He released Luz, passing
a hand in front of his eyes. “I am sorry,” he said with great
weariness. “These are hard times.”

The girls got to their feet. “Wait, Diego,” Maria
said, looking at the ovens. “If the Gutierrez family was at table,
there may have been bread baking in the ovens. We always had our
bread baking before breakfast.”

Diego opened the oven nearest him, stuck his hand in
and pulled out two loaves of bread. The crusts were hard and black,
but it was bread. Maria opened the other oven door. The bread
inside was also burned black, but her mouth watered as she pulled
out the charred loaves.