Paloma and the Horse Traders Read Free Page A

Paloma sat down on
the carved chest just inside the house. “It’s not just for me,” she
said. “I know how uneasy my husband is when he and I are not in the
same place. He tries not to show it, but the fear remains. I doubt
it will ever leave him entirely.”
    Eckapeta sat beside her. “Then you will have to
stay very busy until he returns,” she said. She stood up, took
Paloma’s hand and pulled her up. She gave her a little push in the
direction of the kitchen. “Sancha will keep you busy, and I will watch my children.”
    Paloma felt tears well in her eyes again. “In
the Indian way, are they your children?” she asked, feeling shy in
the face of such love.
    Eckapeta only nodded, because her eyes were
filling, too, which touched Paloma right to the center of her body.
She swallowed, then threw all dignity to the wind as she wrapped
her arms around the Comanche, a gesture her own mother, dead at
Comanche hands, never would have understood.
    Eckapeta returned Paloma’s embrace. “Toshua and
I gave up our daughters to the Dark Wind, which scarred my face.
Our son was captured by Apaches on his first raid.” She buried her
face in Paloma’s hair and rationed out one sob. “They paid, because
Toshua’s vengeance was terrible, but I felt no relief.”
    She held herself off from Paloma, her face so
serious, her eyes searching for something deep inside Paloma. “Know
this: I will defend your children to the death because they are
mine, as you are mine.”
    They touched foreheads, then Eckapeta released
her. “Get busy now! And listen to Sancha when she orders you to
rest while our little ones are sleeping. Go on.” She gave Paloma a
gentle swat for good measure.
     
    One day. Two days. On the third day, Paloma
woke up and looked automatically for her husband lying beside her.
Instead, she saw a pretty little miss with eyes as blue as her own.
Paloma held out her arms and drew Soledad close.
    “ You miss him, too, mi hija ?”
she asked.
    Soli nodded, but she did not cry this time. She
was already learning the hard lessons of life on the edge of
Comanchería. Paloma cuddled her close and waited for the next
family member to pad down the hall. Soon Claudio rested against her
other side. Paloma sang them a lullaby that her mother had sung to
her, one barely remembered. Some of the words may have been wrong,
because it was in the idioma of the Canary Islands, where
Mama’s own mother had been born.
    The tune always soothed Paloma’s heart, and
today was no exception. Her breasts were full and she thought about
nursing Claudio, except that Eckapeta had told her it was time to
wean her son, now that another baby was on the way. Claudio had
been drinking from a cup for several months now, so cutting him off
completely was more of a trial for Paloma, who relished the comfort
of a baby at her breast. Some months from now, she would feel that
tug on her nipple again, the sudden rush of milk, and the
satisfaction of nursing another Mondragón.
    She looked at her son, admiring his sweeping
Marco eyelashes and light brown eyes. His nose probably wouldn’t be
as long as his father’s, but he had the same dimple in his right
cheek and the same long fingers. The only trait of her family she
saw in Claudio was his downturned lips, which reminded her of
another Claudio, the uncle her baby would never know, dead so long
ago near El Paso.
    Her eyes went to the odd-shaped hide on the
wall where she and Marco had pressed her family brand, the Star in
the Meadow, after he had found it in the cave in Palo Duro
Cañón—iron evidence of the Comanche raid that had ruined her
life.
    She kissed Claudio and then Soli. Ruined? No.
She understood now how something terrible was occasionally the
gateway to something better. I would never have met your father,
had I not suffered such loss , she thought, looking from her son
to her small cousin. Blessed be the holy name of Our
Lord .
    “ Where is Papa?” Soli
asked.
    Paloma smiled,