Daughter of Fortune Read Free Page A

the Dead Man’s March, there
was scarcely water to drink, let alone bathe in. And even if she
could have found water, there were the men, always the men.
    The dirt would wash off but her skin was so brown.
Maria patted her face. It used to feel soft, but now the skin was
stretched tight over high cheekbones. Her deep blue eyes held a
hungry look. There was nothing even remotely appealing about
her.
    “Why, I look eighteen or nineteen,” she said out
loud, then burst into tears. In helpless misery, she threw the
mirror outside the grove, rested her head on her arms and cried
until she fell asleep.
    Later, she could not have said what woke her, what
nerve was touched to compel her into instant wakefulness. Evening
had come and brought with it something strange and terrible. Then
she saw the flickering lights against the blackness. Every wagon
was blazing with fire. Maria dropped down behind the tree she had
slept against and peered out through the underbrush. A scream
started deep in her throat but never reached her lips.
    Some of the freighters were already dead, the bodies
piled here and there, appearing, then vanishing in the flickering
light of the bulging wagons. Indians swarmed around the remaining
men of the wagon train, herding them close to the water’s edge.
Their weapons had been left at the wagons. They were helpless as
the Indians hacked and tore at them. They were silent, except for
Father Efrain who prayed, his voice as calm and matter-of-fact as
if he were offering morning prayers. Maria listened to him as his
voice droned on and on, only changing pitch as he was pushed from
Indian to Indian. He stopped suddenly before the end of his
supplication and Maria pushed her fist into her mouth to keep from
crying out.
    When Father Efrain was silenced, Carmen de Sosa
began to scream, a thin, whining cry that made Maria hunker down
lower in the bushes, take her hand out of her mouth and cover her
ears. But still she could hear Señora de Sosa. Maria’s heart beat
like a drum. Carmen was calling for her. “Maria! Maria!” she
screamed over and over, seeking after six months of silence for a
deadly friendship.
    Maria sucked in her breath. “Father in heaven,” she
whispered, “please do not let the Indians understand what she is
saying.” If the Indians had any idea that there was another woman
on that supply caravan, they would search for her until they found
her.
    Maria gasped aloud at the sound of tearing cloth,
then was silent as Carmen’s screams filled the enormous night.
Finally, they fell away to a moaning sob that Maria could barely
hear above the laughter of the Indians. The end was near, but the
end was more terrible than what had gone before. Maria watched an
Indian peel Carmen de Sosa’s scalp away from her skull, taking the
ears, too, then holding it up to catch the firelight glinting on
the dripping earrings.
    To keep from crying out, Maria stuffed the hem of
her dress in her mouth and burrowed into the ground. Wildly her
mind raced through an entire catalog of saints to pray to, but
another part of her brain told her that prayer was useless. As the
Indians hacked and scalped their way through the growing pile of
bodies, Maria knew that the heavens were closed, that God slept on
this February night.
    She must have fainted then, because when she opened
her eyes, it was morning. She was lying on her back looking up at
the sky. The air was cool and clouds like lamb’s wool scudded
overhead. A bird sang in the tree nearby. She almost closed her
eyes again, then, in a flood of terror that left her weak, as she
remembered. She rose cautiously to her knees, then sat back
quickly. The Indians were still there.
    Dressed in the clothes of the dead, they squatted
close together against the chill of the early dawn. One of the
savages wore Father Efrain’s robe, stiff with the blood of the
padre. Another Indian had draped Carmen de Sosa’s skirts around his
shoulders. As Maria watched, he clapped