Marco and the Devil's Bargain (41 page)

Saying the word aloud, maybe for the first time, made her gasp and lean her head forward until she touched her toes. “A newborn,” she repeated, her voice muffled. She laughed again. “Soon I will not bend this well.”

“
Is Soledad too much?” he had to ask, even though he was nearly desperate for his turn to hold the little one.

“
She is already ours,” Paloma said, her voice firm. “We will give her a good life, the best.” He saw sudden fear on her face. “My aunt and uncle. Oh, no, please no!”

Marco reached for her. After assessing what he thought his wife could bear, he amended the account of the dreadful business at Hacienda Castellano. “Alonso had no living relatives. Your aunt and uncle will get my official report of the death of their daughter and son-in-law, and our condolences. It is over. Lieutenant Roybal will have no report but mine, so he will know nothing of a child.”

“
People here will know.”

It warmed Marco's heart to know that a mother's heart for Soledad already beat in her breast, so determined was she to consider every angle to protect the sleeping baby.

He leaned over enough to touch the frown between her eyes. “Certainly our friends will know, and they will rejoice with us. The people of Valle del Sol are like that. Soon no one will remember anything different about the children of Marco Mondragón and Paloma Vega. Santa Fe is far away.”

“
Are you bending the law again?”

“
It is my choice, as
juez
,” he said simply.

She tossed him a towel when he stood up. “I'm going to miss that breechcloth,” he joked, looking down.

“
That reminds me, husband. I remember how you groused to me one night that
I
had a name from The People and you did not.”

“
Well, it would have been nice.”

She yanked the towel away and pointed south of his stomach. “I can't say it in Comanche, but the women named you Big Man Down There. Now don't let it go to your head!” she said when he started to laugh.

“
At least it's more flattering than Buffalo Rut,” he joked, pleased.

He crawled into bed and lay there in complete comfort as his wife pulled the sheets and blankets over him. “I have missed this, Paloma.”

“
I, too.” Her voice turned wistful. “Call me Tatzinupi now and then.”

Tatzinupi. Marco sat up. “You're closest. Hand me my doublet.”

She did as he asked, a question in her eyes. Watching her expressive face, he reached in the pocket and pulled out her little necklace, handing it to her.

“
You went to that death house for this,” she murmured, when she could talk.

“
That and the land grant papers. I will keep the star and meadow brand record here. I will send the land grant papers to Governor de Anza. He will abrogate the grant and throw the land open for other settlers. Eventually—you know how slowly things move in our colony—Tatzinupi and Big Man Down There will have new neighbors.”

She gave him such a look, sitting there so lovely in the moonlight—this mother of their new daughter Soledad and their baby growing inside her.
Ay caray
, they would be busy! She sat in profile to him, so he traced the outline of her face. When his finger reached her lips, she kissed it.

“
Te deum laudamus
,” she sang so softly. “O God, we praise thee.”

Marco thought he would go to sleep at once, but he lay awake for an hour or more, listening to his wife's peaceful deep breathing. It touched his heart to see how her hand already curved protectively around her belly. Tomorrow there would be Soledad to hold and admire.
Has ever a man been as blessed as I am?
he asked himself.

He lay there, calm, thinking of all there was to do tomorrow. Suddenly, he knew why he could not sleep. Paloma was so deep in slumber that she made no sound when he slowly moved his arm from under her shoulders.

In case some of the servants were still up, Marco knotted the bath towel around his middle and padded down the corridor. The kitchen was dark and silent, so he crossed to the door and opened it onto the garden.

Te deum laudamus
, he thought in utter gratitude. Two horses were cropping grass by the
acequia
and he could just see a flicker of light from the fireplace in his office by the horse barn. He leaned against the doorframe, content, relieved and grateful all at once. Since Paloma was going to need his help more and more, maybe he could move his office into one of the empty rooms in the hacienda itself. He didn't think for a moment that Toshua and Eckapeta would stay with them permanently, but they might like a place of their own when they visited their children.

In the morning first thing, he would ask Paloma what she thought, even though he was already pretty sure of her answer. No. He was certain.

* * *

F
rom the time of the Spanish Conquest, smallpox or
la viruela
was always present in the Americas, cycling in severity, but never entirely absent. Notable epidemics in 1780, 1820, and 1836 stand out as particularly terrible smallpox seasons, affecting white and native alike. In the East, the 1780 epidemic added to the complications of the American Revolution.

Until Edward Jenner's world-changing introduction of vaccination in the late 18
^th
century, that same world had relied on inoculation, which involved inserting live smallpox into a healthy body. The result, fatal in a small percentage of cases, usually produced much milder smallpox, which left much less scarring and the sought-after blessing of future immunity. Because it could be so risky and fickle, inoculation was a last resort for many.

Inoculation had been practiced in Africa and Asia for hundreds of years, with the method arriving on Europe's shores in the early 1700s. The method was refined in England and rendered slightly less risky, but it still involved the use of live matter taken from smallpox victims.

Records of the 1780 epidemic in New Mexico indicate a great worsening in 1781 and later, among settlers and indigenous people alike. Death tolls among the Comanche and Kiowa are understandably harder to quantify. Some say the Comanche suffered as greatly as any tribe, while other accounts suggest that the more remote Kwahadi (Antelope Eaters) of the high west Texas Plains escaped. If this is true—and the records are inconclusive—was it because of their isolation, or were other factors at work? For the sake of this story of Marco Mondragón and his wife Paloma Vega, I have offered just such a factor. Frontiers were fluid places and it is not unthinkable that help could come from an unexpected person, no matter how dubious and unwilling such a person might be.

A
well-known veteran of the romance writing field,
Carla Kelly
is the author of twenty-six novels and three non-fiction works, as well as numerous short stories and articles for various publications. She is the recipient of two RITA Awards from Romance Writers of America for Best Regency of the Year; two Spur Awards from Western Writers of America; a Whitney Award for Best Romance Fiction, 2011; and a Lifetime Achievement Award from
Romantic Times
.

Carla's interest in historical fiction is a byproduct of her lifelong interest in history. She has a BA in Latin American History from Brigham Young University and an MA in Indian Wars History from University of Louisiana-Monroe. She's held a variety of jobs, including public relations work for major hospitals and hospices, feature writer and columnist for a North Dakota daily newspaper, and ranger in the National Park Service (her favorite job) at Fort Laramie National Historic Site and Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site. She has worked for the North Dakota Historical Society as a contract researcher. Interest in the Napoleonic Wars at sea led to a recent series of novels about the British Channel Fleet during that conflict.

Of late, Carla has written two novels set in southeast Wyoming in 1910 that focus on her Mormon background and her interest in ranching.

You can find Carla on the Web at: www.CarlaKellyAuthor.com.