Paloma and the Horse Traders by Carla Kelly Read Free Book Online Page B

they
walked past another row of shiny things and housewares arranged on
blankets in the plaza of Taos.
    “ You have been saying that for three
days now,” Toshua commented. “I think you are the kind of fellow
who chokes a coin until it begs for mercy, because you do not spend
them freely.”
    “ Guilty as charged,” Marco said. He
sighed and looked around at the pots, pans, iron bars, spun wool,
endless chilis woven into ristras , silver apostle spoons,
carved wooden saints, and other bits of life in the colony that he
knew Paloma would enjoy looking at but would then shake her head
when he tried to buy something for her. Still, he wanted her here,
her touch light on his arm. He missed the smell of her—the lavender
odor of her clothing, the pleasant mingling when lavender met her
skin, which she scrupulously washed with olive oil soap. Lately it
had all blended with her milk, which had flowed so freely for
Claudio—the milk she had blushingly informed Marco needed to dry
up, since another Vega-Mondragón was on the way.
    He stared at Toledo brooches with Moorish
design, intricate and lovely, thinking how much he liked the way
Paloma leaned against him when she didn’t think anyone was
watching. What made such a moment so endearing was that he knew how
capable she was of standing on her own. He knew that if anything
ever happened to him, Paloma Vega would manage his land, goats,
sheep, and cattle with great skill. With such a wife he need never
fear for his children’s inheritance.
    “ I am a hopeless case, Toshua. I
miss my wife,” he told the Comanche beside him.
    Toshua nodded. “You are hopeless,” he
confirmed. “I watched you last night, when you thought I was
asleep. You pulled that pillow very close to your
chest.”
    Toshua laughed, a rare-enough event for Marco’s
ears, but evidently even more startling for two townsmen who stood
by and gasped in amazement that Indians had even a remote sense of
humor. Toshua gave them a sour look, which meant that almost
immediately the juez and the Comanche were the only two men
standing over the display of Toledo-made baubles. Just as well;
Marco was a countryman and he didn’t care for crowds.
    A countryman in the company of a Comanche,
probably two crimes against society in a place as dignified as
Taos. At least Marco had insisted that Toshua put on the wool
pants, cotton shirt, and serape of a servant, rather than
the scraps of loincloths that both he and Toshua had worn on their
way to Taos.
    Toshua had drawn the line at boots or sandals,
preferring his moccasins. To Marco’s eyes, his friend looked not
much different from other Indians around them in the plaza. He
tried to see Toshua through more gentrified city eyes, and he could
not deny that there was something palpably menacing about his
friend, even without his lance, bow and arrows, which Marco had
insisted remain behind in the public house. The knife was
non-negotiable.
    “ I am a hopelessly fond
husband,” Marco said. “You know me too well.” He became aware of a
slight commotion, his hand on his knife, because that was how men
stayed alive in Valle del Sol.
    Governor de Anza made his stately way through
the plaza. He caught Marco’s eye, and both men gave each other a
proper bow of respect. De Anza veered toward him, followed by a man
equally well-dressed who looked like someone not long in the
colony. How he knew that, Marco couldn’t have said, beyond the
obvious fact that the young man’s eyes had no hard stare to them,
no look of caution. Marco looked closer and saw disdain. I see
Taos as a big city , he thought, and you see it as a
dunghill, stranger .
    Marco knew the governor had spent the last day
in meetings, held in the refectory of the church, because he had
been there for some of them, giving a casual commentary on the
Indian situation in his district. The formal paperwork would follow
in October, when he made his annual trip to Santa Fe. The
governor’s secretary had also handed