Carlota Read Free

grandmother. "Begin to think about it now, at this moment."
    She gave Rosario a prod with her foot.
    "Go fetch my son," she said. "Whatever he is doing, fetch him."
    Rosario scuttled off and my grandmother and I looked at each other warily and said nothing until my father came.
    Don Saturnino was not tall, not so tall as I am, but he was stout-chested. He had small narrow feet and he was very proud of them. In a big chest he had sixteen pairs of boots, all beautifully stitched, of the best leather, and, to suit the way he felt, of many colors.
    He bowed to his mother, taking off his sombrero and clicking his heels.
    "It rains," he said.
    "To good purpose," Grandmother said.
    "What is the purpose? We do not require floods and torrents."
    "The marriage," Doña Dolores answered. "It gives time to make changes. Roberto can marry Carlota instead of Yris."
    "Don César and I have thought of the marriage. We have talked about it for five years."
    "It is not proper that the younger daughter marry first."
    "Don César and I have given thought to everything. This as well. It is not what is proper, but what is best for Yris and Carlota."
    My grandmother puffed away calmly. She shifted her feet, looking for Rosario's back, but Rosario had not returned. He was outside, under the
pórtale,
feeding the big eagle that belonged to my father.
    "Carlota and Don Roberto," Father said scornfully, pulling at his pointed beard. "Have you asked their permission?"
    "Permission," Doña Dolores replied, "as you well know, is not required."
    "It would be prudent, nonetheless," Don Saturnino said, keeping his temper. "Carlota is not Yris. She is a true de Zubarán."
    "The difference is great," my grandmother said. "This I admit. You have seen to that. You have raised Carlota as a vaquero. She thinks of nothing but horses. Gray horses. Bay horses. White horses. Spotted horses. Palominos. Horses! She will not walk fifty steps. Instead, she will get on a horse and ride the distance."
    What she said was true. I
had
been raised as a vaquero. I had been taught to do everything a horseman could do. My father had even named me after his son, Carlos, who had ben killed by the Piutes.
    "Yris is a girl of the
sala,
good at needlework and the viola," Doña Dolores said. "She is not suited to Don Roberto."
    "Neither is Carlota," my father said. "Nobody is suited to Don Roberto. That he is Don César's only son is a misfortune."
    "The hairy worm," my grandmother said. "It is your fault. You might have found one of the Bandinis for her. Or even a Yorba. All else failing, one of the numerous Palomareses."
    Doña Dolores bounced up from the chair and hobbled to the window and gazed out at the rain falling. I saw her cross herself and I knew that she was praying for the rain to last forever. I walked to the door, leaving them to continue their talk, which would grow very fierce before it ended.
    It did not trouble me. I had no intention of marrying Don Roberto, with his fat cheeks and fat little hands. And whatever Dona Dolores threatened—she sometimes said during these fights that she, and she alone, was the owner of the forty-seven-thousand-acre Rancho de los Dos Hermanos—but whatever she threatened, my father would never consent to such a marriage.
    Furthermore, he would try to keep me at his side, as long as ever he could. And I did not mind the thought. I liked to ride with the vaqueros. I liked to go with my father and do the things he did. The truth was, as my grandmother often said, I thought little of anything except horses, all kinds and colors of horses. Nothing pleased me more than to be in my cordovan saddle with the big silver spurs on my heels.

3
    After five days the rain ceased. The sun came up in a bright cloudless sky as I began my weekly inspection of our buildings. I did not care very much for this task, but it had to be done and my father wanted me to do it. I had been doing it now for more than a year.
    The ranch house was