The Woodcarver's Secret (Samantha Sweet Mysteries) (36 page)

Terrance started to speak but the
words stuck in his throat. His eyes were drawn to the box. It had turned black.

*
* *

“I couldn’t think what to do,” he
told Hollingway. “I simply snatched it away from him and ran down the hall. It
seems rather undignified now.”

“You say the box was pure black?”

“Like something in deepest outer
space. More than black, it was … I don’t know how to describe it.”

“And yet now it looks normal,
just the way it did yesterday. The same as it appeared this morning after I
took the scrapings and handed it over to Jason.”

“You said the boxes might have
different reactions to different people. This young man, Jason … what do you
know about him?”

“Well, he’s very new here. An
eager fellow who wanted the job intently, almost with a passion. Normally, the
newer employees do not have direct access to the artifacts until they’ve …”
Hollingway’s face went pale as he apparently thought of something. He picked up
the intercom and called security.

Chapter
12

Legacies
Are Passed

Stealthy, yet lightning fast.
That’s how the years seemed to get past her. Bertha Martinez stared out her
kitchen window at the million golden leaves on her old cottonwood trees. Only
days ago those branches had been filled with green. A few days from now the
leaves would be scattered to the ground. She hadn’t much time to find the right
person, the one who would assume responsibility for the item she had taken into
her care nearly a century before.

She let go her grip on the
linoleum countertop and reached for the back of a chair at the table; from
there she could touch the doorframe, after that, the wall in the hallway. A
doctor would probably insist that she use one of those aluminum ‘walker’
contraptions, or he would put her in a wheelchair in a strange institutional
place.

“
Pah
,”
she wheezed. “I didn’t live to my ninth decade by listening to that bunch.”

Slowly and carefully she made her
way toward her bedroom, passing through the living room where candles and herbs
from her last curing still lay on the coffee table; she must have forgotten to
pick them up and store them. At the back bedroom she paused. One of her
acolytes had taken it upon himself to paint the walls red and to add
ritualistic symbols in white. Bertha had dismissed the boy on the spot; she
seemed to be getting too many of those in recent years, the ones who thought
what she did was somehow connected to witchcraft or paganism. She should have
insisted that he at least repaint the room before he left.

In the old days she would have
had the energy to do it herself. Now, she could only think about having a nap.
But first, she stepped into the hideous red room and switched on the overhead
light. By its barely adequate glow she found what she wanted, the carved wooden
box that came into her possession when she was a girl. She used the hem of her
sweater to wipe off the dust, feeling a bit stronger as she held it and
absorbed its loving warmth.

Bertha walked more steadily now,
going to her own bedroom at the front of the house, tucking the box into a
drawer. Almost immediately, her energy faded and she crawled between the
sheets. As she curled into her most comfortable position for sleep she caught
sight of her hands, spotted now, with thick veins and knobby knuckles. Her
fingers had become so thin that her grandmother’s ring no longer stayed on. It
lay on the nightstand beside her bottles of herbs and oils. She studied the
shape of her hand, almost unrecognizable from the old days …

*
* *

Ruben Martinez shouted at the
donkey to move faster. The animal kicked, pelting Ruben with clods of soil,
dislodging the plow blade from the crooked furrow where the man struggled
against the dry earth, trying to eke out a crop of corn or beans or potatoes
each year. His cousin Rudolfo made a successful trip to Mexico each year,
trading his harvest for the manufactured goods in the south—saddles with trim
of Mexican silver, tools of iron, fine carved furniture—but the big hacienda
ten miles to the west produced far more than Ruben could ever seem to manage
from his small plot.

The land had been granted to the
family more than four hundred years ago, but over time Ruben’s grandfather, and
then his father, had sold off portions of theirs while Rudolfo’s grandfather
added to and created wealth from his holdings. Ruben sighed. Only on occasion
did he feel a stab of envy. Mostly, he could not absorb the idea of treating
the land as a business. The land came from God.

Well, God and the king of Spain.

Bertha laughed, from her spot in
the shade of the old cottonwood tree, when the donkey kicked dirt once again. Papá
would swat her bottom if he thought she was making fun of him. He would whip
the poor thing. Last summer Papá had been in a much better mood; there had been
rain. His moods seemed directly tied to the weather.
Abuela
told Mamá yesterday not to worry; the rain would start soon
and Ruben would laugh again.
Abuela
rubbed at her warped knuckles as she said it.

Thinking of this, Bertha looked
at her own hands—soft, brown and plump. What made her grandmother’s hands so
thin and ugly? She suppressed that thought.
Abuela
’s
hands were not attractive but they were filled with love. When Bertha climbed
onto the old woman’s lap she always got a hug, a kiss, a warming stroke on her
hair. She got songs, old Spanish ballads about love, and stories of the
conquistadors and the Martinez heritage from Spain.

A bell clanged and Bertha peered
around the trunk of the big tree. Mamá stood on the porch, swinging the short
rope against the brass bell that had been a gift at Christmas from Papá’s
brother. Ringing it was a far easier way to get Ruben’s attention from five
acres away than standing on the porch and shouting.

“
Cena
!
” Theresa called out. The scent of beans wafted from the open
doorway.

Bertha scrambled to her feet and
ran toward the house.

“
Niña,
estás
creciendo
otra
vez
.
”

Of course she was growing. She
would soon be a big girl and would be allowed to attend classes at the one-room
schoolhouse in Talpa. She had overheard the discussion between the adults, how
now that New Mexico was a state the children would be required to attend
school. The classes were conducted in English! The thought of learning the
odd-sounding language frightened Bertha a little. Would she know what to do
when she got to school?

Abuela
couldn’t seem to get over the idea that Nuevo Mexico was part
of the United States and was called New Mexico by everyone now. The idea of
statehood was slow to take hold out here in the territory. Why change the old
ways?

“Ah,
Bertita
, there you are,” said
Abuela
. “Wash your hands.” She put an
arm around Bertha’s shoulders and steered her toward the wash basin near the
back door. “Before your papá muddies the water.”

 
Bertha swished her hands in the basin of water
and started to pick up the scrap of rag her mother kept handy as a towel.

“Eh-eh ...
usa
el
jabon
.”

Bertha picked up the chunk of
homemade soap and, feeling her mother’s watchful eye, worked her fingers around
it until the bits of dirt and the green from the fistfuls of grass she had
pulled this morning were gone.

“
Mucho
mejor
.” Theresa gave her daughter a
pat on the head and pointed toward the table. “Don’t start until your father is
here.”

The freshly made tortillas
smelled so good that Bertha nearly forgot her mother’s instruction. Her hand
was halfway to the basket before she pulled it back. Her father’s footsteps
sounded on the wooden porch, and Bertha planted her hands in her lap as a way
of forcing herself to wait.

“I’m done in the field today,”
Ruben said as he washed his hands in the same water Bertha had used. “That
burro and I, we are having words!”

Theresa laughed and gave him a
kiss on the neck.

“This afternoon I shall go to
town for supplies.” He glanced at Bertha as he dried his hands. “Maybe you
would like to ride along?”

Bertha was half afraid of the
stubborn old burro, especially after her father’s ‘words’ with the animal, but
the trip to town was a diversion from playing outside and far more fun than
helping Mamá to sweep the floors or wash clothes. Her face lit up and Papá gave
her a wink.

Once he loaded his plate with
pinto beans and corn tortillas and topped them with
Abuela
’s famous chile salsa, Mamá spooned beans onto Bertha’s plate
and then the women served themselves. Although she’d felt ravenous earlier, in
the excitement of making the four-mile journey to town Bertha couldn’t concentrate
on food. She nibbled at a tortilla and finished her beans, not asking for more.

The moment Ruben stood, Bertha
was at his side.

“Don’t forget your bonnet,” Mamá
reminded.

Bertha submitted to having the
cloth strings of the homemade hat tied under her chin.

“Before you start school, you
must learn to do this yourself,” her mother said. Everything these days
revolved around the big event, and Bertha realized she would probably be the
first in her family to attend school. The idea gave her a small thrill.

Papá grabbed her under the arms
and hefted her up to the blanket on the back of the burro, then climbed up
behind her. The animal seemed much happier with this burden than it had earlier
with the harness and plow. They set off down the two-rut track that ran past
their house.

Talpa barely deserved the
designation as a town, although everyone called it that. It consisted of a dirt
road flanked by a general store, a repair shop owned by an old man who could
perform blacksmithing duties or rebuild a piece of furniture, the one-room
schoolhouse, and a half-dozen homes. Ruben brought the donkey to a stop outside
the repair shop and tied the reins to the hitching post outside. From a canvas
pouch he pulled out a broken piece of harness.

“Stay here,” he said to Bertha
after he lifted her down from the animal’s back. “I will be only a minute.”

He called out to the old man and
they started discussing what needed to be done to fix the harness, while Bertha
stared at the school building. It seemed so big, with a wide front door. You
had to climb three steps to get to it, and there was a little pointed tower on
top with a bell in it, a bell much bigger than the dinner bell Mamá used at
home. The adobe walls looked familiar though, thick and brown like theirs at home,
and the window frames and door were painted blue.
Abuela
said that was for luck. She had personally repainted the
ones at home when the old paint began to flake away. Bertha felt reassured that
the paint on the school door was not flaking.

“
Lista
,
niña
?
”

Her father’s hand touched her
shoulder and she brightened, already envisioning the wonders of shopping at the
place with the hand-painted sign saying The Store. She held her breath as they entered
through the door where you could see inside through squares of glass with wood
strips between them. If she was a very good girl and didn’t actually ask,
sometimes Papá would buy her a piece of candy. If she was allowed to choose her
own, she would pick the kind that were two for a penny. That way, she could eat
one on the way home and have another for later.

The store never failed to
fascinate her—surely you could buy anything in the world here! At the front
stood the candy counter, with bins of brightly colored jelly beans,
fruit-flavored hard candy, peanuts covered with a dark reddish candy shell,
dabs of chocolate shaped like stars ... so many that it was hard to choose only
one. Bertha knew the selections by heart.

Along an aisle to the right were
the next best thing to candy—toys. Wooden tinker toys, shiny marbles, a
fascinating wind-up carousel ... there was even a beautiful doll wearing a
glamorous long dress, the like of which she had never actually seen on a real
person. Bertha yearned for that doll but she knew they could never afford it.
She had once asked her father if he would get it for her; his answer contained
so much pain that she knew better than to ask again.

Farther down the aisle, the store
contained dishes and pans, lamps, bolts of cloth, oil lanterns, and hardware
items. Her father was looking at some hinges for their broken gate. Bertha
wandered to the store’s other side, where another aisle ran parallel, clear to
the back. Tins of vegetables and loaves of bread seemed like funny items to buy
at a store. Her mother put up the tomatoes, green beans, and fruit from their
garden in glass jars, and who would consider buying bread when anyone could
bake their own. She skimmed over the odd packages and looked ahead.

Across the back wall of the store
was a wooden counter with a window that had a metal grill across it. The post
office. Her mother bought stamps here and sometimes mailed a letter to her
brother, Uncle Patricio. They told Bertha she had met him, when he returned
from the war, but she had no recollection of it. They said she was only a few
months old then. Now he was married and lived in a big city called Chicago and
went by the crisp-sounding name of Patrick.

Heavy footsteps on the hardwood
floor told her that her father had finished in the hardware area, so Bertha
scampered to the front, ready at the candy counter where he would see her when
he pulled coins out to pay for the hinges. She crossed her fingers that there
would be a penny or two left over.

“Mr. Martinez, don’t forget your
mail!” called the proprietress, a thick-waisted blonde woman named Mrs.
Frohlsen.

She was moving around behind the
postal counter and came out with a box, wrapped in brown paper and tied with
string. Bertha’s eyes widened. A package! She remembered only one package ever
arriving in the mail; it came at Christmas. She stared down the aisle as the
woman came forward, sizeable hips nearly bumping a display of kitchen towels,
carrying the package. Her father’s eyes registered as much astonishment as her
own.

Mrs. Frohlsen handed the box to
Ruben and he turned to Bertha.

“Hold this, please,
chica
.” He
held it out and Bertha took it while he reached into his pocket to pay for the
hardware.

On the top of the package were
written some words in black ink. She felt amazement well up inside—if only she
had already gone to school, she would know what they said. She held the parcel
carefully balanced on her forearms. It was nearly as wide as her small
shoulders but it wasn’t too heavy for her. She stared at every detail of the
lettering, wanting to memorize it and remember this special moment.