Treasure of the Sun (3 page)

"You're in mourning," Vietta interrupted, with abrupt disrespect for her manners and the senora.

This was not what Katherine had come to expect from the Californios, with their never-ending courtesies and their kindness, but she answered mildly, "Yes, I'm a widow."

"Recent?"

"Vietta!" Dona Xaviera admonished.

''It's all right," Katherine soothed, and then replied to Vietta, "Less than a year."

"Why are you here?"

Ah, Katherine reasoned. That explains it. She's jealous, unsure of Damian, and Katherine thought to reassure her. "I'm Don Damian's housekeeper. I make sure the house is run efficiently during the time he's away, so when he comes back, he'll be comfortable."

"He's here almost all the time."

"I assure you, he isn't."

"This is his favorite hacienda."

Katherine smiled, but with restraint. "I've seen no evidence of that."

Vietta tapped her nervous fingers on her waist. "He's always here."

Katherine couldn't help the stab of hurt that came with Vietta's insistence. She'd devoted herself to making this house welcoming, prepared at all times for Damian's infrequent visits. Holding in the embarrassment, she replied, "After he settled me here, he left for his rancho in the
Central Valley
. He visited infrequently, and I saw him for the evening meals. During the days, he rode with his vaqueros or ordered the stocking of the barns."

"That's all?"

"He hardly wiped his boots on the veranda."

"Then why did he hire you?" Vietta said. "You're an outsider, an
Americana
, and we all know what Damian thinks of Americanos.”

"Ah, child." Dona Xaviera groaned, but Don Lucian set Vietta in her place.

"He hired her for her charm." He smiled and bowed, took Katherine's hand and led her away.

"Poor girl," Katherine murmured as they walked. "How was she crippled?"

"They say she took a fall … let's see, last August, while resting in the mountains. In my opinion, she needs to rest her tongue."

Surprised at the anger in his voice, Katherine stopped him with her hand on his arm. "Why do you say? . . . Oh, her rudeness. Don Lucian, she spoke Spanish so rapidly, I had trouble following all she said. As to why she said it, you must pay no attention. She's young, and afraid she can't hold her man."

"Young?" He snorted. "She's older than you."

"Surely not," she said mildly. "I'm twenty-four. Quite the old woman."

"Vietta's much older than you. And she hasn't got a man, no man will have her. She's too ... too ..."

"Intelligent?"

"I would have said cranky, but yes, she's intelligent, too. Far too intelligent for her own good."

"That's what men always say about women who are less decorative than clever."

He raised her hand in his and pressed his lips to the back.

"Lucky for you, you are both."

Amused, she smiled at him. "Gracias. You are ever the gentleman."

"And you are ever the sleeping beauty."

* * *

Katherine lay on the feather bed and stared at the ceiling.

The night air cooled rapidly, bringing a chill temperature to the third-story attic bedroom. The wind blew the curtains, and she knew she should rise and shut the window, but she was tired with the kind of bone weariness that hard work brings.

Unfortunately, that weariness couldn't shut down her mind.

The apprehensions she'd kept at bay during the day leaped about her head now, and she seemed to have no control.

Visions of Damian: vaulting the bull, raising his hands in revel. Visions of Damian: looking like a god, staring into her eyes.

He was handsome.

It had taken her this long to notice. She'd been in a state of shock for too long, and she blamed that for her lack of attention. That, and the fact that she wasn't used to seeking beauty in the swarthy complexions and dark eyes of the Spaniards. Today she'd noticed Damian, and it had been an upheaval that jarred her to her roots.

She'd regained control of herself immediately, of course. A lady of Boston never betrayed her emotions by word or deed. When she glimpsed Damian later, moving among his guests, speaking to Vietta, she'd been able to admire him as one would a statue, or any work of art.

But now, tonight, it wasn't so easy.

He'd laughed at her. Why had he laughed at her?

Two weeks ago, he'd returned to prepare for his birthday fiesta. He'd stayed at the house and she'd seen how intimately he'd been involved with his servants, his family. She admired a man who knew what he wanted and how to get it. He handled people with a finely honed instinct she valued, soothing tempers, easing mistakes, making every person an important cog in the planning and execution.

Sometimes she wondered why he never extended his charm and his skill to her, but she was an honest woman.

She was an outsider. Damian had done what was honorable to care for her, and no more. The smile he gave to his aging, toothless nanny, he would never waste on Katherine Chamberlain Maxwell. The hugs he handed out to the Indian children he would never extend to Katherine Anne. He treated her differently because she was different, and she'd do well to keep it in mind.

A gust of wind blew out her candle, and she jumped at the sudden darkness. A black night, the clouds raced past on the breeze and a tiny moon peeked in and out timidly. Restless, she turned on her side and tucked her hand under her cheek. With a little willpower, she could block these thoughts of Damian and his enigmatic actions and go to sleep. She'd never had trouble sleeping before last year; she was too sensible for such nonsense.

So sleep, she commanded herself, and dream of anything but Damian.

She dropped into sleep like a rock into a well, a long, dark descent.

Rain wet her face. Fog obstructed her vision. She knelt in the dirt of the street.

She could hear the roar of the ocean muted by distance. She could hear people, murmuring around her, and a woman, screaming. She could really hear it. She was there.

She could smell the horse feces under her knee but it couldn't mask that other smell. The smell of blood.

She could see him. Face up, he lay in the mud, his mouth open, his jaw cocked askew. She couldn't see his features well. They were obscured by fog and a great rhythmic spurting of blood. A woman's hands pushed against his throat, trying to hold the blood inside. The hands jerked with each stream that gushed out.

The sound of the waves seemed to be the sound of that blood, but the blood stopped, and the waves did not.

Those hands lifted away, and they were her hands. She turned them over and over, and she could feel it. All that blood, so slippery. All that blood, so sticky. She didn't want to wash it away, because it was his.

And then she couldn't wash it away. It wouldn't come off. Blood seeped in so deep she could taste it.

21 May, in the year of our Lord, 1777

The Indians who roam the mountains of the interior and live in the great central valley are wild and savage. Our mission was established to convert them to the true Christ and bring salvation to their souls. I led the mission, for God had planted the idea in my mind. I am a strong man, healthy, determined, and well trained in the arts of medicine. Among the Franciscan brothers in California, I am considered to be the ablest curandero. The grace of God sends healing through my fingers, and only the poorest wretches are beyond my help. Fray Amadis speaks the Indian's heathen language. Like our Lord Jesus, Fray Patricio is a carpenter. Luis Miguel Joaquin de Cordoba, Lorenzo Infante: the, all performed their special purpose. Frail as he is, Fray Lucio begged to come, also, and Pedro de Jesus convinced me to bring him.

Now only, four of us remain: Amadis, Patricio, Lucio and I.

-from the diary of Fray Juan Estevan de Bautista

Chapter 2

Katherine groped down the stairs through the dark with her wool cape clutched tight around her. Feeling her way along he hall to the door, she knew when she'd found Damian's study; she smelled the smoky cigar scent that permeated the m. Slipping through the open door, she breathed that warm, sweet odor, and she began to relax.

She didn't like cigars; she thought they were extravagant and messy, but the smell of these particular cigars symbolized safety her. Reaching into the darkness, she stretched until her fingertips grazed the desk. With one finger on the whorled edge, e inched along until she could see the French doors, their windows lighter than the rest of the wall. She knew that outside hung the second-story balcony. That was where she wanted to be.

In two big, careful steps she was against the doors. Her hand scrabbled for the knob; she turned it and pushed. As she expected, the wind rushed into the gap, trying to tear the door from her grasp. She eased it open and stepped out. In the moonlight, California spread out before her. Clouds scuttled across the sky, passing dark bands over the narrow, flat valley of he Salinas River.

She shut her nightmares in the house behind her and leaned her elbows on the rail. She inhaled a deep, shuddery breath. That terror, that remembrance hadn't come to her in a long time. She had hoped it would never come back again. What had happened a year ago had changed her life, destroyed her aspirations. Aunt Narcisa's prediction of disaster had been correct how that woman would have enjoyed knowing.

From behind her she heard the click of the latch, and s whirled around. Damian shut the door behind him and came t rest his arms beside hers on the rail, a smoky scent about him. He, too, stared out at Rancho Donoso, at the Salinas River, mere trickle of silver, and at the plain hemmed in by mountains on either side. "Can't sleep, Katherine?"

He spoke English, as he always did on those rare occasion they were alone. His voice tolled deep and kind, exactly like t controlled Damian she'd always known. No trace of the magnificent warrior of the afternoon lingered.

"How did you know?"

"I confess to sitting in my study and watching you go past. "In the dark?" That made her uncomfortable. "What we you doing?"

"Thinking."

That made her even more uncomfortable.

"I'm grateful there've been no fights between the Valverdes and the del Reals boys. Usually I'm breaking up one fight after another the whole fiesta."

She relaxed. "Why aren't they fighting this time?"

A wry amusement colored his tone. "I'm keeping everyone thoroughly entertained. What keeps you from sleeping?" He w nothing but a voice beside her, and he sounded odd, strain "Tell me," he coaxed.

"I dreamed about Tobias."

"Well." He coughed a little. "That puts me in my place." He sounded so diverted, she didn't wonder what he meant. She just knew she could talk to him; he was the only other person she remembered being there in the street with her. I dreamed about the blood."

He sobered. "Ah, my dear." His hand covered hers, and s found she had clasped both her hands together in one tight fist.

I keep thinking if I'd been nearer to him, it wouldn't have happened."

"If you'd been nearer to him, you'd probably be dead, too."

"At least I could have seen who did it."

He stood silent. Then he asked, as someone who'd asked many times before, "You didn't see anyone?"

"It was dark and raining."

"It was night," he corrected, "but it wasn't raining. There was a moon, and enough illumination from the lights of the houses to see."

"It was raining! There was water all over."

''Tears and blood."

"I could hardly see him."

"You were hysterical. You were screaming. My God, you were screaming. I came back because of your screaming." For a moment, his calm logic gave way to horror, and he squeezed her hands tight. Mastering himself, as he always did, he continued, found you kneeling in the mud, trying to staunch the blood m his throat. A great crowd of people had gathered, and you them. You cursed the smell, you cursed the noise, you cursed the ocean. You said it was making the blood spurt faster.”

“Then the blood stopped spurting."

“How can you remember all that and not remember who did it?”