Treasure of the Sun (36 page)

Damian frowned. "Why didn't she tell me you wanted me?" "It was on my request. My sickness passed, leaving me only a little weaker. Yet when Tobias came to me, he seemed to be a messenger from God." Fray Pedro puckered his already wrinkled mouth. "We must perform our sacraments soon, before Dona Katherina faints of hunger."

Turning the map over, Damian released it from the frame and folded it along ancient creases. "Where shall I put it?"

"Use Fray Pedro's idea," Katherine advised. "Put it in your pocket."

He smiled at her, a quick flash of approval. With dismayed delight, she realized she'd missed his smiles and his pleasure in her.

"Good." Fray Pedro led them to the large, empty church. Feeling like an interloper, Katherine stopped in the doorway.

The pews along the wall gleamed with a beeswax shine. The primitive frescoes, the statue of the Virgin Mary, the flickering candles on the altar, all combined to emphasize how foreign she was. Uneasy, afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing, she stared at Damian in confusion when he lifted a mantilla from the variety of head coverings on a table and draped it over her head.

He knelt and crossed himself. She imitated him, then he urged her down the aisle. The hardwood floor amplified their footsteps, and she caught herself tiptoing to minimize the noise.

At the altar, Fray Pedro kissed each item as he dressed himself in the vestments of a priest. Turning to them, he looked different. Taller, perhaps, or happier. Infusing his every word with significance, he said, "Now it's time to concentrate on more important issues."

From the back of the chapel came a shuffle of boots, a clink of spurs. Slowly, Katherine and Damian turned. One of the vaqueros stood, his feet just outside the door, his head in the chapel. He stared and gestured; Damian looked and glared. Joaquin gestured so vigorously Fray Pedro instructed, "Find out what he wants, while I attend to our Dona Katherina's confession and her first communion." He beckoned Katherine through the arches into the confessional.

She came with dragging feet, wondering what to tell him. The candor he requested was beyond her. How could she tell another person how she feared these emotions that twisted in her? How could she confess her reluctance to release the restraints that defined her? She couldn't. She wouldn't. Despite Fray Pedro’s urgings, she kept her feelings to herself and told him of the actions he considered sins.

He knew, of course. He ordered her back to the altar, never saying a word. Only his eyes were so kind and understanding that she felt like a miscreant. He performed her first communion as calmly as if they couldn't hear the neigh of horses and the rattle of tack.

The vaqueros were saddling up, preparing to ride.

She wanted to leap up, to tell the friar he must wait while she found out what was happening. Instead, she focused on the sacraments, hoping her concentration would hurry the ceremony.

As they finished and he traced a cross on her forehead, he said, "This at least will bring grace to your soul as you go on your great adventure."

Feeling like a traitor, she whispered, "Padre, I have something I must say."

Taking her hand, he helped her to her feet. "Tell me." "You said Don Damian had matured, that you weren't afraid to send him after the gold. But when we first found the gold veined rock, he frightened me."

He wrapped his arm around her waist and took her to a pew.

"Why?"

"He looked so ... exultant, as if he'd discovered a panacea for war or a cure for old age."

Sitting, he laced his hands in his lap. "Or discovered the lost land of El Dorado?"

Confused, she asked, "What's that?"

''It's a legend, I suppose. El Dorado is the land of the Golden Man, a place of gold and plenty. El Dorado is what all the conquistadors sought."

Struck by his description, she agreed, "That's what he looked like. A conqueror."

"My daughter, if I thought Damian would do the wrong thing, I would never have given him the map. Never. It's you who have made the difference to him. You've given a good man his final tempering, and he'll not bend to temptation. He'll never gamble with your life or your soul."

"He looked so greedy," she said urgently.

He patted her hand. "You must remember, he is a Spaniard." Damian's boots sounded loud in the church. "Are you done, Padre?"

"With the communion." Fray Pedro adjusted his glasses.

"However, I can't perform the wedding ceremony without a groom."

"It will have to wait. I must go." Damian turned to Katherine.

"The vaqueros spotted a redheaded Americano watching the mission, and when they gave chase, they found a camp."

"It couldn't be Lawrence," she protested. "He's too much of a dandy to live outdoors simply for the pleasure of spying on us.”

"No?" He held up what looked like a scalp.

She recognized Lawrence's hairpiece, red and plastered with glue, looking much the worst for wear.

"He can't get far. Not as poorly as he rides." Damian's sneer proclaimed his opinion of her cousin."The vaqueros and I will find him. When we've finished with him, he'll never dare to follow us again."

She didn't know this Damian. Ruthless, scornful, wicked in his anger. Again, the wave of unreality swept over her. Faintly, then with more strength, she said, "I will go with you."

Damian looked down his noble nose at her. "No, you won't."

"I will."

He sighed with sharp impatience. "You'll hold us up. I'll return this evening, or tomorrow morning at the latest."

A wave of claustrophobia crashed over her as she looked around. She wouldn't spend another night here. She had to get out. "I'm going."

Fray Pedro argued, "Dona Katherina, you can't go with this man. You aren't married to him. It's a sin. You can't go do a man's job. It's a sin. There are too many sins in the making."

She turned on him, furious with his interference, with everyone’s interference in her affairs. "That's my cousin they're chasing. If anyone's going to catch the little skunk, I am." The elderly man looked so shocked and hurt, she offered conciliation. "We'll be back as soon as I can arrange it to be married. You not only have Don Damian's word, but my own."

Lips puckered, the Franciscan peered at her, weighing her sincerity, while Damian complained, "No. You don't understand the weight of such sin."

Perhaps it was her panic, perhaps it was her determination, but something about her convinced the friar, for he interrupted to say, "Very well, Katherine. You shall go."

Damian stood, turned to stone by surprise. "What?"

"Let her go."

Looking wounded by the betrayal, Damian turned on Fray Pedro. "She's a woman. Her place isn't in the hunt. She could hurt herself or be shot."

"She's an American," Fray Pedro retorted. "Her ways aren't our ways, and you'd be wise to remember that."

He smiled at Katherine with compassion.

"I thought you wouldn't allow her to go with me until we were wed," Damian said in triumph.

"You'll come back as soon as you can. Tonight, if possible."

Fray Pedro grasped Damian's arm with earnest concern. ''It's better if you and Dona Katherina stay close."

Damian paced away, paced back. "I can't promise we won't break the Seventh Commandment if we're left alone."

"She wishes to go, she shall go."

Flushed with an outrage he couldn't express, Damian stared at the Franciscan brother. "Is that the Word of God?"

"No, only the word of Fray Pedro." He folded his hands inside his sleeves, waiting for Damian's decision.

With one final glare of outrage, Damian snapped, "Come on, Katherine. Make sure you don't fall behind. We won't wait for you."

"My cousin is incredibly lucky." Katherine tightened the bandages holding the splint on Joaquin’s leg.

Damian's eyes met hers as the vaqueros lifted Joaquin onto the hastily made litter. "Incredibly lucky," he echoed.

"I'm sorry, patron," Joaquin whispered. "I've ruined your chance to catch the red-haired man."

Damian patted the man's shoulder. "Nonsense, Joaquin. We were riding too quickly for such terrain. I should have known better, riding through the chaparral so close to the mountains. Your horse stumbled and you fell. It's just bad luck."

"Just the curse of the treasure," someone muttered.

Damian swung on the group behind him. "What did you say?"

Silence answered him.

"How did you know what we seek?"

Sullen gazes slipped away from his, and Joaquin spoke up.

"We all knew what Don Tobias pursued, for he asked us to tell him the tale. We knew it would kill him, but in obedience with his wishes, we directed him to the mission. Now you go there, too." A wistfulness touched his voice. "With a mark of the knife on Dona Katherina's throat, you have no choice."

Soberly, Damian looked at Katherine, standing beneath the bright green of a valley oak. The grass rippled around her knees, the land sloped away behind her. Her hair had been torn from its braid by branches and it hung wild about her shoulders and down her back. Shining through the leaves, the sun caught the gold in bits and pieces, exposing her as the siren she really was.

The mark of the knife was covered by a scarf, but it seemed that every one of the vaqueros knew it was there.

She'd ridden so hard that at first he'd thought his threat to leave her had taken effect. As the hours had worn on, though, it had occurred to him she fled something instead, something that frightened her. Something that even now shadowed her face. He could see the anxiety in her, although no other could recognize it, and he wondered what she'd seen at the mission, what she'd heard at the mission. He wondered, too, why he feared to ask her.

Was his bright and shining bride slipping away before he'd had a chance to prove his love to her?

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

He realized he'd been staring. Shaking his head, he asked Joaquin, "Do you believe we're going to our deaths?"

"Not you, patron." The vaquero spoke with assurance. "Not you, nor Dona Katherina. Your love is strong. As long as you're together, you'll protect each other." He glanced around at the other vaqueros and received some signal, for he admitted, "But we dare go no farther."

Damian stroked his mustache. "You, Joaquin, have no choice.

You'll go to the de Casillas rancho and stay. The rancho is close, and Dona Maria Ygnacia will welcome us." He instructed the other vaqueros, "Put him on a litter and carry him. This fracture will heal only with the greatest care."

As they mounted, Damian told Katherine, "We'll know when we reach de Casillas land by the roses. Nacia loves roses."

As he promised, the scent of roses introduced the hacienda to Katherine. Roses climbed on a trellis, rose bushes bloomed along the drive. Roses climbed to the porch roof and blossomed in clusters of yellow, red and pink in the yard.

"How pretty," Katherine exclaimed.

"The roses remind me of Nacia," Damian said. "Sweet and pretty."

Katherine frowned as he rode ahead. She remembered meeting Senora de Casillas at the fiesta. The woman had been eager to speak, looking her over with inquisitive friendliness. Now Katherine wondered if there had been a reason for it.

Her gaze burned a hole in Damian's back. This man who called himself her husband had distanced himself from her, reproached her, confused her with his anger. Yet this Nacia elicited affection from him. Who was this paragon? Why did he compare her to a rose? Was there something Katherine should know? The intimacy implied by the tender nickname brought her hackles up. "Nacia," she muttered. "It sounds like a puppy."

Swinging out of the saddle, Damian climbed the porch steps.

"Is anybody home?"

An Indian servant stuck her head out, observed him without a word, then disappeared back into the house. Silence reigned over the area, and for the first time Katherine wondered where the stableboys were, what had happened to the vaqueros and the gardeners who should be stirring in the yard. Damian frowned at her as if their unenthusiastic welcome were her fault.

She wanted to scold him. In their wild ride today, the tension of their quarrel had eased; now it tightened a clamp around her heart once more.