skills, but
she could learn household tasks.
If I cannot gratify my relatives and die, then I
must live. There is revenge of sorts in that, she told herself as
she started north on the road out of Santa Fe.
Chapter 3
Emiliano el Santero
The streets of Santa Fe were deserted. The calm
stillness of the late afternoon rested on the town, the same
stillness to be found in any township or city in any part of the
Spanish New World. Maria was long familiar with it and the very
silence around her offered comfort in its familiarity. The citizens
were eating dinner behind the strong, cool adobe walls of their
homes.
Her stomach rumbled. She had eaten nothing since the
hasty meal of hardtack and jerky, taken in the saddle. She found a
rain barrel leaning against someone’s wall, wiped away the green
film, and scooped up a drink.
The road north was the same rough oxcart path she
had followed with increasing weariness for the last six months. She
stood in the middle of it, looking north. Camino Real ,
indeed. This King’s Highway held no promise, but she could almost
hear Diego’s words in her ear, reminding her to cut the cloak to
fit the cloth. She started walking north.
The road continued the steady climb from lower plain
to mountain plateau, winding now around conical hills and green
juniper, fragrant with early spring.
She had gone less than a league when the strap on
her shoe broke. She took it off and kept walking, her damaged shoe
in one hand, her eyes looking north. The sun was low in the west,
and she looked east toward the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. When the
sun left them they would be dark and mysterious again. And with
night would come the dreams. Maria shuddered and hugged herself.
She knew she had not left Father Efrain and Carmen de Sosa behind,
and now there was no Diego with his sword to send them loping into
the bushes. She would not sleep. She would walk until she
dropped.
She knew she ought to be rehearsing in her mind what
to say to Diego Masferrer when she found him. He would be
surprised, of course, and shocked, perhaps even angry. No, she
decided, he would not be angry. Then she shook her head. How could
she know? Only an hour or two ago she would never have guessed that
her own sister would spurn her; how could she say that she knew
anyone’s heart anymore? But she would throw herself on his mercy.
She could do nothing else. She would offer to wait on his wife and
children, serve as their maid. He had mentioned someone called
Erlinda. Maria could offer to dress his wife’s hair. She had some
talent in those directions. Mama had always liked her to arrange
her hair on special occasions, even though Mama had had a servant
girl whose sole duty it was to wash and display her mistress’s
hair.
Maria fingered her own tangled hair. Diego would
never believe her. The only other possible talent she possessed was
a certain cleverness with paint and likenesses. She smiled to
herself, remembering the small portrait she had done for her
mother, presenting it with a mixture of shyness and pride on Mama’s
last birthday. Her smile faded and she stumbled on the road. Two
weeks after her birthday, Mama was in the arms of death. Where was
the miniature now? Probably sneered at by the fiscales, tossed out by the solicitors and long since burned. Her talent for
painting would do her no good, not in this hard place.
The sun hung for a long, tantalizing moment on the
rim of the western edge of the world, then sank suddenly out of
sight. Maria stopped in the middle of the trail, whimpered, then
looked around to make sure that no one had heard such weakness from
an Espinosa, a descendant of conquistadores. She began to
walk faster. She must come to this Tesuque before all light left
the western sky.
When she thought she heard someone following her,
she started to run, but surely it was only the sound of her own
feet. Maria looked over her shoulder and gasped. There was an
Indian behind her. She caught her foot in
she could learn household tasks.
If I cannot gratify my relatives and die, then I
must live. There is revenge of sorts in that, she told herself as
she started north on the road out of Santa Fe.
Chapter 3
Emiliano el Santero
The streets of Santa Fe were deserted. The calm
stillness of the late afternoon rested on the town, the same
stillness to be found in any township or city in any part of the
Spanish New World. Maria was long familiar with it and the very
silence around her offered comfort in its familiarity. The citizens
were eating dinner behind the strong, cool adobe walls of their
homes.
Her stomach rumbled. She had eaten nothing since the
hasty meal of hardtack and jerky, taken in the saddle. She found a
rain barrel leaning against someone’s wall, wiped away the green
film, and scooped up a drink.
The road north was the same rough oxcart path she
had followed with increasing weariness for the last six months. She
stood in the middle of it, looking north. Camino Real ,
indeed. This King’s Highway held no promise, but she could almost
hear Diego’s words in her ear, reminding her to cut the cloak to
fit the cloth. She started walking north.
The road continued the steady climb from lower plain
to mountain plateau, winding now around conical hills and green
juniper, fragrant with early spring.
She had gone less than a league when the strap on
her shoe broke. She took it off and kept walking, her damaged shoe
in one hand, her eyes looking north. The sun was low in the west,
and she looked east toward the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. When the
sun left them they would be dark and mysterious again. And with
night would come the dreams. Maria shuddered and hugged herself.
She knew she had not left Father Efrain and Carmen de Sosa behind,
and now there was no Diego with his sword to send them loping into
the bushes. She would not sleep. She would walk until she
dropped.
She knew she ought to be rehearsing in her mind what
to say to Diego Masferrer when she found him. He would be
surprised, of course, and shocked, perhaps even angry. No, she
decided, he would not be angry. Then she shook her head. How could
she know? Only an hour or two ago she would never have guessed that
her own sister would spurn her; how could she say that she knew
anyone’s heart anymore? But she would throw herself on his mercy.
She could do nothing else. She would offer to wait on his wife and
children, serve as their maid. He had mentioned someone called
Erlinda. Maria could offer to dress his wife’s hair. She had some
talent in those directions. Mama had always liked her to arrange
her hair on special occasions, even though Mama had had a servant
girl whose sole duty it was to wash and display her mistress’s
hair.
Maria fingered her own tangled hair. Diego would
never believe her. The only other possible talent she possessed was
a certain cleverness with paint and likenesses. She smiled to
herself, remembering the small portrait she had done for her
mother, presenting it with a mixture of shyness and pride on Mama’s
last birthday. Her smile faded and she stumbled on the road. Two
weeks after her birthday, Mama was in the arms of death. Where was
the miniature now? Probably sneered at by the fiscales, tossed out by the solicitors and long since burned. Her talent for
painting would do her no good, not in this hard place.
The sun hung for a long, tantalizing moment on the
rim of the western edge of the world, then sank suddenly out of
sight. Maria stopped in the middle of the trail, whimpered, then
looked around to make sure that no one had heard such weakness from
an Espinosa, a descendant of conquistadores. She began to
walk faster. She must come to this Tesuque before all light left
the western sky.
When she thought she heard someone following her,
she started to run, but surely it was only the sound of her own
feet. Maria looked over her shoulder and gasped. There was an
Indian behind her. She caught her foot in
Similar Books
