Carlota Read Free Page B

and braided and bound in a flashy red handkerchief with yellow tassels hanging down his back, my father strode into the kitchen, where he ate his first meal of the day. I followed him and, as was proper, waited until he asked me to sit down.
    The food came on in a flood. Pinto beans cooked with
chile verde
and slivers of fresh beef, sprinkled with strong goat cheese. Tortillas as thin as the knife blade in my father's garter. Thick chocolate, beaten to a bubbly froth, a haunch of venison.
Tripes de leche
from a yearling cow. A pot of quail. Did the King of Spain eat better, I wondered.
    My father said nothing to me until he had finished his breakfast and gone out into the courtyard for a glance at the weather.
    Off to the west there was a small cloud. The wind blew gently from the south.
    "Tomorrow," he said, "will also be fair."
    "You're always right about the weather," I said.
    "Wrong about much but not of the weather?"
    "I did not say that."
    "You did not so much as think it?"
    "No, Father. Not a thought."
    "What thoughts do you have about the wedding?" he said. "With fair weather coming, what day would you choose if it were your wedding?"
    My father often asked my advice about things, then did what he wished.
    "In two weeks is the day of Saint James. How does that suit?"
    "As well as any day," said Don Saturnino. "Do we have sufficient paper for the invitations?"
    "A sackful."
    "Where?"
    "It is in Doña Dolores's keeping."
    "Go then and tell her to begin. Take five candles of deer tallow and a handful of goose quills and a jug of ink."
    "Yes, señor."
    "Who comes to the wedding?"
    "A hundred, I fear. Maybe two hundred. Perhaps twice that many."
    "Ayee!" my father cried. "We will have to go to the well."
    The well my father spoke of was not a well at all, as I will explain. The past year had been a year of good grass but poor prices. The best of hides brought only twenty centavos. Except for the well, the ranch would have suffered.
    "We will go and dip out a bucket of water," said my father. "We will go soon. We will go tomorrow."
    "
Vámanos
," I said. "Let us go."

4
    My father wore the heaviest of his leather breeches, his thickest jacket, and a pair of high horsehide boots. It was gear for the wild country that lay between the Ranch of the Two Brothers and Blue Beach. He carried his best musket, his tinderbox, and his powder horn. I dressed accordingly, but carried no weapon except a knife.
    There were four horses saddled and waiting for us. I rode my stallion, Tiburón, and I rode astride.
    The river would still be running a torrent. It was much easier to cross close to the ranch and go down the south bank, but we had no desire to get soaked so early on the journey.
    Accordingly, we chose the north bank and followed it through heavy chaparral and patches of cactus until we had ridden for two hours.
    Where the river widened and ran knee-deep, we crossed to the south bank. It was still a good hour's ride from the Blue Beach. But it was here that we took the first precaution.
    My father and I had been coming to Blue Beach for two years. On the three journeys we had made, we had always been followed. Sometimes by one or two Indians, sometimes by more. But to this day, no one had followed us farther than this west crossing. Here we had managed to elude them.
    One thing that helped was that we never told anyone our secret—the story of the Blue Beach.
    We told none of the vaqueros or the
mayordomo.
Nor Rosario, though Rosario could be trusted. Nor my sister, who could not be. Nor even Doña Dolores, whom we could trust most of all. Dolores you could hang by her thumbs and still not hear one word that she did not wish to speak.
    There was no way to find the Blue Beach except by following the river, either down from the mountains or up from the sea. From the sea no one would ever find it because of a series of lagoons. From the direction of the mountains you would need to be very lucky, as lucky as we had been in