A Lady Bought with Rifles (33 page)

Trace remembered how Cruz had saved Sewa from gangrene by taking off her foot, but even if there had been someone to do the operation, this man seemed too far gone.

Two more slaves died that week and were buried hastily in the graveyard edging the uncleared tropical growth outside the huts of the married people. The
campo santo
by the chapel was reserved for
administradores, mayordomos
, and
capataces
. A priest made a circuit of the plantations in the area; but except for mass solemnization of existing or planned marriages among the workers and baptism of any handy infants, he wasted no time in exhorting the plantation force to meekness. The soaked rope whip preached its message.

“You'd think that just to protect his investment, the owner would feed us better and drive us less,” said Trace one evening when the fish seemed even ranker than usual.

Rosalio shrugged. He had grown even more thin and wizened so that he resembled an elongated hairless monkey. “Yaquis only cost sixty-five dollars when the Secretary of War sells us to his good friends, and there are thousands left.”

“But not many are fighting.”

“No, they're working at mines or ranches or railroads, or trying to hold on to their lands in the Eight Sacred Pueblos,” spat Lío. “And so they will be marched away by the soldiers till not a Yaqui is left in all the rich river country that was marked out for us ages ago in the singing of the saints.”

“If our women and children escaped to the mountains, perhaps they can hide till times change,” said Tomás dreamily.

“From Torres to Yzábal to Corral and all over again?” scoffed Lío. “That gang have run Sonora all my life, taking turns as governor. With Corral as Díaz's vice-president, the federal buzzards simply devour what the Sonora wolves leave. Only a revolution will help the Yaquis.”

“You think a different government would protect Yaqui lands?” Trace asked incredulously.

Lío's strong teeth flashed. “No. It would be my hope that the revolutionists and
federales
would keep each other so occupied that they'd have no time to civilize us or lust after our delta soil. That's why we've held our Eight Sacred Pueblos so long,
norteño
. First there was war against Spain and then against France and general brawling for power. It is only when the central government grows strong that there is time and energy to bother us.”

“But I thought Yaquis fought in the other wars.”

“To be sure,” said Rosalio. “Very often we fought on both sides, too, depending on who made us the best promises. It's nothing to us who governs from Mexico City as long as they leave us in peace. We have our own laws, our own warrior societies, our own ways. We shall keep them as long as we live.”

“Not when we are slaves,” said Tomás bitterly. “How would we give the Easter celebration here? Or hold a novena or even make a decent funeral? And though there are many Yaquis here, you will notice that the families have all been broken up and Yaquis cannot marry each other. The women, even those with living husbands, are forced to marry Chinese, and if any of us were allowed a wife, she would be Maya. The government wants to destroy us as a nation.”

“They will not do it,” vowed Lío. “Our pueblos are holy, each located according to a vision. Prophets sang the boundaries of our land. It is not the government's right to change them.”

Trace didn't say anything. That was how Indians in the United States had felt, but all of them, even the ones left in their homelands like the Navaho and Papago and Hopi, had been forced to terms with a completely alien government.

The Yaquis talked on about their home pueblos, about their great military leaders. And you? Trace asked himself. Where's your homeland, your sacred boundary, your holy city?

Texas? He belonged to his birthplace as he did to his family, but he doubted he'd ever go back. Las Coronas? Jonathan Greenleaf and Doña Luisa were dead. If he were ever to go back, he'd have to start all over to make it seem home. Yet there was a center to him and he suddenly knew what it was.

Miranda. She was his homeland, rest, the heart of his life. The song and boundary, his blessed place. Was she alive? Surely he could feel it if she weren't. Court Sanders would look out for her.

Too well?

Trace clenched his jaw. Couldn't think about such things. No. Just of Miranda, the fierce beautiful way she'd given herself to him, the sweetness of her. Dream about that and stay alive. Alive to go back.

Both he and Lío had been lucky. The rope wounds healed clean. And at the next whipping, of a Maya for missing roll call, Trace stayed at the back of the crowd and managed not to look, though there was no way he could shut out the sound of wet rope on flesh, the screams that began with the third lash and dwindled to gasping whines. Each blow reverberated through Trace's body. His guts twisted and sweat broke out as he fought the need to retch.

How long could this go on? Trace had thought measuring of the time between strokes by a watch was hideous, but this enjoyment of a cigar while a man was beaten.…

God damn the little bastard
administrador
—

With a flip of his wrist, the manager tossed away the cigar. The lashing stopped. A sigh floated up from the hypnotized throng. The
administrador
's gaze hooked abruptly into Trace's. Above the heads of scores of workers, beginning to shuffle toward the fields, Trace felt those dark eyes pushing, appraising.

Turning swiftly, Trace started off with his fellow slaves, but before he could sever the first leaf, his
capataz
approached with an envying sneer.

“Don Enrique commands that you report to his house.”

“Don Enrique?”

“The
administrador
, dolt.”

Trace went cold. Had that runty little dandy decided to punish a gringo for looking disgusted at his entertainment? “Get moving!” Snapped the
capataz
.

Questions would bring the long slender cane. Anyway, whatever the bad news was, Trace knew he'd get it soon enough. “The largest house,” instructed the
capataz
. “Opposite the chapel.”

A private whipping? Some more elaborate torture? Trace had heard there was a small dungeon at Mariposa, a cave where rebellious slaves were thrown to repent or die. They usually died after being hung up by their thumbs for a day or two.

The capataz took his machete. “You won't need this.” He chuckled, running his tongue over his lips, again darting that curious half-jealous glance at Trace. “Get along now. Don Enrique's not a patient man.”

Ordinarily an order repeated twice was accompanied by a few slashes of the cane. Trace moved off, puzzled by the foreman's manner but too apprehensive to think much about it. He passed the corrals and the factory, where an elevator sent henequen leaves down a long chute to the stripping machine that tore them apart, yielding strands of green fiber that would turn golden in the drying yard before it was baled and sent to the port where United States interests would buy most of it.

Trace grimaced to think of all the rope he'd used, never dreaming of where it came from, of the misery of those who harvested the raw material. He was sure that very few southern slaves had led such cruel lives. Slaves had been costly in the United States; there hadn't been an unending supply of cheap new ones provided by the government. Sharecroppers, white or black, often barely scratched out a living, but they couldn't be flogged to death. No, the henequen plantations were like vast prison-punishment farms; he didn't think they had improved a bit since the sixteenth century. Yet foreigners thought Díaz had brought such prosperity and advancement to this country.

Díaz's age was golden for the rich and powerful; for all but that handful, it was perpetual hardship, and for many it meant slavery for debt, serfdom as savage as that of the Middle Ages.

Trace saw the sick laborers working in the drying yard along with small boys. He knew this was Mariposa's hospital; those with fever or other ailments could work here at half-pay. Not that pay mattered since it was absorbed by food and lodging. No one had ever paid off his “debt” and regained his freedom.

The
administrador
's stone house was the most imposing building on the plantation. The owner didn't live here, of course, but had a mansion in Mérida and seldom visited the several green hells from which his luxuries came. A young barefoot girl dressed in a flowing white dress, embroidered in blue about the hem, stepped out on the long veranda and said softly, “Come.”

Small and graceful, she had olive skin and the Mayan features that Trace thought were like a mingling of Egyptian, Indian, and Chinese. She was no taller than Sewa, but firm little breasts suggested that she was biologically a woman. She led Trace through a broad hall and into a bedroom where a copper tub of water set on a rug near pails of water and a bench where towels were folded next to soap and a brush.

“Bathe yourself,” said the girl, eyes downcast, keeping her distance as if afraid of him. “Then put on these.” She touched soft dove-gray trousers and a linen shirt draped over a chair. Trace stared from the tub to the gentleman's garments. “What is this, little one?” he asked, keeping his tone gentle so as not to frighten her..

“Hurry,” she begged. “Or he will think it's my fault, he'll whip me.”

Whip this fragile little butterfly? She backed out of the room and her alarmed face lingered in Trace's mind as he peeled off his filthy shirt and trousers and stepped into the tub. Whatever happened, it was wonderful to get clean again! He dried on the thick soft towels and pulled on the clothes. Almost a perfect fit. Now how did that happen? Though the clothes were in excellent condition, they weren't new. Which made Trace even more uneasy. Even the woven sandals fit fairly well.

Glancing around the room, he tried to find some clue to its occupant, but there were no personal belongings visible. The bed and dresser were of mahogany and the coverlet and curtains were white.

An anonymous room. Why had he been brought here?

Thirstily he drank from one of the pails, sure that it was cleaner than the water put in cans for the slaves, and certainly much cooler. A tap came at the door. Answering, he saw the girl, who blinked at the change in his appearance.

“Better?” He grinned.

She tittered behind one slim hand and motioned him to follow. In a large pleasant room facing a patio where a fountain played among lush trees and flaming hibiscus and bougainvillea, Don Enrique sat in an easy chair, shapely feet extended on a large footstool. On a table next to him was a basket of fruit; a bottle of wine stood by two goblets. But what really caught Trace's eyes and set up a clamoring in his belly was a small tray of sliced chicken and fresh-baked rolls.

“Be seated,” said the manager with a wave of that hand that could signal beatings. “I am sure you would relish some refreshment Will you have wine?”

“Thank you, no.” Trace sat down in the empty chair on the other side of the table.

What was the manager's game? Trace would think he was being set up as a spy, only that didn't make sense. Scores of them could have been bought by adding a little better food, a shorter stint in the field. Maybe Don Enrique thought the U.S. government or Trace's family might pay a nice ransom.

“Your Spanish is good,” he said as Trace polished off the last of the chicken. “But you are not Mexican, nor, I think, a ruffian who deserves this fate. I would like to help you.”

The opening to say his great-aunt Minerva would pay thousands to free him? Trace shrugged; at least he'd had a good meal and bath.

“I appreciate your concern, señor,” he said dryly. “I regret I have no way to repay it.”

Don Enrique smiled. “But you do! You have the look of an educated man. Can you keep accounts?”

“I suppose so, but—”

“Then you will be my secretary. You will live here and in addition to food and clothing, you will receive a salary. In a matter of years, you might save enough to purchase your freedom.” Don Enrique beamed, awaiting jubilant acceptance, but Trace hesitated.

He wanted to escape. If he became of extra value, more effort would be made to track him down. Anyway, though the manager was presently so affable, Trace remembered him that morning, enjoying his cigar while a man was beaten. Trace didn't care to owe such a man favors or be around him more than was necessary.

“You will be my companion,” Don Enrique went on expansively, “Life is dull here for a person of cultivated tastes. I perish of boredom. And do you know why I am here instead of Mérida or Mexico City like my father's other sons?”

“Señor—” began Trace, afraid he was going to hear things he'd later be hated for knowing.

“It is because I am illegitimate!” growled Don Enrique, nervously smoothing his moustache. “So I must work like an exile in this remote hole while the others idle about—an employee while they are owners.” Pouring out a glass of wine, he tossed it down, breathing heavily, assumed a smile that looked eerily like an ill-fitting mask. “But that's the world, no? And my misfortune is your luck since my need for your skills can give you really quite a comfortable life.”

He smiled and leaned forward. “So long as you please me,” he added softly. His hand fell on Trace's shoulder, moved slowly down, caressing the muscular curve.

Trace stared at him in fascinated revulsion, understood at last. He got to his feet. Don Enrique sprang up, too, barring his way. “You—don't have to do anything,” he gabbled wildly. “You will like it. The most
macho
do.”

At Trace's look he gave a despairing cry of humiliation and thwarted lust, snatched a braided leather riding whip from the wall as he struck a brass gong that echoed through the house. Trace tore the whip from the manager's uplifted hand, twisted it around his throat like a garrote, but before he could snap Don Enrique's neck, two huge men loomed in the door and sprang at Trace.