Marco and the Devil's Bargain (9 page)

Weary in his body, heart, and mind, Marco shucked off his clothes and crawled into bed beside his wife. With hands quite practiced now, she massaged him until he forgot how cold and discouraged he was. They made slow and thoroughly pleasant love. The part of his brain that jumped up and down, tugged at him, and called him a churl for using her dear body to relieve his own pain was effectively quashed by the part that shrugged and fell wholeheartedly into Paloma's willing plan for his total comfort.

“
There now. I dare you to stay awake,” Paloma said, as practical as ever. Cold as it was, she didn't appear interested in hunting for her nightgown, which suited him. She wore too many clothes.

He couldn't help laughing at her. She shrieked when he grabbed her and blew a rude noise on her stomach. “Suppose someone hears us?”

“
Who cares?” He pulled her close, gave her a more genteel kiss, then fell asleep holding her.

He woke up an hour later to the sound of weeping. She had turned away and muffled the sound with the blanket, but he heard her and it broke his heart.

“
Cálmate
. We'll think of something.”

“
What?”

“
Something.”

The novelty of a bed with sheets and blankets meant that Anthony Gill slept later than usual. The blankets smelled of sage instead of manure, and no one kicked him awake. He was hungry, to be sure, but he knew there was food somewhere.

He sensed a man's presence in his room, so he kept his eyes closed. Only a few months with the traders from East Texas had taught him wariness. Suspicion had been his fickle companion for several years and he knew better than to tempt the fates that had already turned their backs on him.

He wondered about the man. At some point last night he had been roused from slumber by a woman's shriek. It brought him immediately upright in bed, every nerve on edge, until the laughter that followed made it obvious two lovers were hard at play. The lonely part of him wanted to listen, but he was too discouraged. Was this the lover?

Anthony lay there silently, then opened his eyes just enough to see. A man sat beside his bed, staring at the wall. From the frown on his face, he was looking inward rather than at anything. He had an elegant profile, with a handsome Spanish nose, straight and long, and deep set eyes. His high cheekbones hinted at a bit of
indio
in his background, but he was dressed as a Spanish rancher would dress, in leather breeches with a wool shirt.

As the room lightened, the man sighed and shifted his weight in the chair. He glanced toward the bed, and Anthony noticed eyes of an unusual light brown.
He knows I'm awake
, Anthony thought.
Could this be Marco Mondragón? He must have been the man sporting in the next bedchamber late last night. Lucky man to have such a pretty wife
. Anthony Gill's wife had been pretty, too, before the Comanches came. What they had left behind had made him recoil and run into another room, anything to avoid looking at so much brutality visited on one so fragile.

“
Señor?”

Anthony happily left the past for the present. “I am Anthony Gill,” he said. “Is there some water?”

Anthony watched the man's face and saw his slight smile at what he knew was his terrible accent. The Spaniard said nothing, but poured him a drink of water and handed it to him. Anthony tried to sit up, expecting no help, but found his heart touched when the man put his hand behind his back and raised him into a sitting position. He piled up two pillows, then sat back in his chair, watching Anthony with those unnerving light eyes.

Anthony drained the cup and handed it back.

“
Más
?”

Anthony shook his head.

“
Then tell me about yourself, and it had better be the truth.”

How will you know if it is not?
Anthony asked himself. The man had a way of looking at him, measuring him. Best to tell the truth, or as much of it as seemed plausible. He knew he was a good liar.

Anthony opened his mouth then closed it as the older woman came into the room with a tray, followed by the one he knew was Paloma, the wife of this Spaniard. She sat down beside her husband, her hand naturally seeking his. She was calm and lovely, but her eyes looked troubled. There it was—she gave him a shy glance, then looked at him full on. She had done the same thing last night. He found himself appraising her as a physician would. That initial tentative glance told him she had not always been treated kindly. Her fortunes had evidently changed, if she was the woman who shrieked last night and then laughed. He thought she was.

“
Eat slowly,” the older woman said. Señora … Señora Gutierrez, he remembered from last night. She touched the younger woman's shoulder. “Dearest, should you be here?”

“
It doesn't matter.”

She spoke so quietly, then turned her face into her husband's sleeve. After a moment calming herself, she stood and followed Señora Gutierrez from the room. Anthony looked at the man, who seemed to be caught up in the same emotion as his wife, and suddenly he understood.

“
I am Anthony Gill, late a resident of Louisiana,” he began. Georgia could wait, until he knew how the wind blew. “Who are you?”

“
The man you think I am. Apparently you have been looking for me. I am Marco Mondragón, this district's
juez de campo
. You're not telling the whole truth.”

Damn, but he was good
. Anthony knew he was only alive this far because he could lie. The
juez
seemed to have more skills than other of his countrymen. “I am from the colony of Georgia, on the coast of the Atlantic.”

“
That's better, but tell me now: exactly what did you see as you crossed Texas?”

“
Bodies in heaps, dead of smallpox.” Anthony had lied so long that he couldn't resist exaggerating.

The
juez
didn't even blink, but his naturally downturned mouth seemed to droop farther. When Mondragón leaned back in his chair as though all the bones in his back were gone, Anthony knew he would win this one, his first victory in years. He never thought he would be grateful for that last trader who died full of smallpox inside and out, but the dying man had sent him to the right person.
Maybe I should have at least spread a little dirt over that miserable piece of human wreckage
, Anthony thought. He waited for the question he knew was coming, because this was an intelligent officer of the crown.

“
Are you inoculated?”

Ah, yes. “I am, señor. That is why I am not dead.”

Was that a look of disappointment? Was it the look of a husband who wonders why a smelly trader should be so blessed, while the dearest treasure of his heart was not? More than likely.

The
juez
took his time. “We have been warned of
la viruela
approaching from the east, and here you are,” he said finally. “The officer from Santa Fe on his annual
progreso
gave me full powers to prevent any Indians from coming into Santa Maria, and to kill them at my discretion. You, too, Señor Gil. Tell me why I should not do precisely that.”

Here it was; better pause and take his time. “Señor Mondragón, I have been searching for my young daughter, Pia Maria. She will be four years old now. A year ago, my wife was raped and tortured by Penateka Comanches, who stole Pia Maria.”

Anthony stopped, easily reading an expression that wasn't so inscrutable now. The Spaniard sighed. “We have all suffered. And did they trade her to other People farther west?”

“
Aye, sir,” he began, lapsing into English, which earned him a puzzled look. “
Sí
, they did. I allied myself with traders and went in search of her.”

“
Really?” Mondragón asked, his skepticism evident. “All hard living aside, I have never seen an ally of Spanish traders in such sorry shape as you.”

“
I was not precisely an ally of the traders,” Anthony admitted. “I did their menial work. They kicked me and beat me whenever they felt like it.”

Anthony said it matter-of-factly. There was no point in whining about his mistreatment by men who traded, gambled, and whored in the same room with him, filthy and foul.

Señor Mondragón had obviously heard tales similar to his, because his expression did not change. “And have you located your daughter?”

“
Quite possibly. The traders knew of a deep and long canyon controlled by Kwahadi.” He laid out his whole hand. “Señor, I have been searching for you because I have been told you are the man who can get me there.”

Mondragón shook his head, much as Anthony thought he would. The man was no fool.

“
I know of no white man who has ever been there. Granted, we are improving relations with the Kwahadi since the death of Cuerno Verde, but our good intentions are still as shaky as a baby trying to stand. Maybe in a year or two I can help you. I'm sorry, but that's where the matter must rest, especially while
la viruela
stalks the plains.”

Draw it out and make him suffer, Anthony thought. You know you don't like him any more than the others. “La viruela is going to kill your wife.”

Anthony may have overplayed his hand. He hadn't thought the
juez
would move so fast, and with his knife drawn. Anthony hadn't even heard it leave its sheath, but there it was, the point against his throat. He held his breath.

“
Damn you, Señor Gil,” Mondragón said, his voice practically quivering in his anxiety. His hand, however, was rock steady. “Tell me why I should not push in this blade and silence you?”

“
Because I am a physician,
un médico
.”

The knife clattered to the floor, and the
juez
sank back into his chair with a noticeable
whoof
of the leather cushion. He passed a shaking hand in front of his eyes. Anthony rubbed the spot where the blade had left a nick.

He watched Mondragón, interested to know this man, and how he could play him. He knew the
juez
was not stupid. There it was—the relief gone, the bleakness back.

“
What good can you possibly do my darling? Can you cure
la viruela
when it strikes? I doubt it supremely. No one can.”

“
I cannot,” Anthony agreed. This had to be good, and he took his time. “What I
can
do is prevent it. I scraped some scabs from that trader. Over there in that tin box. I can inoculate your wife.”

The air went out of Marco Mondragón in a
whoof
, as it had gone out of the chair. “Thanks be to God,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “How soon?”

Anthony slapped down his last card, the winning card. “As soon as you promise me you will take me to that canyon so I can find my daughter.”

Silence. Anthony knew he was being weighed and found seriously wanting. The shame of it might have bothered him two years ago, but nothing bothered him after seeing Catalina Gill crammed onto a Comanche lance, probably while she was still alive, the iron tip coming out of her skull. He matched him stare for stare.

“
There is no honor in you, is there?” Mondragón said finally.

“
None whatsoever.”

“
If I do not agree, you will withhold treatment.”

“
Most certainly.”

“
Damn you.”

“
I assure you that has already been taken care of. Take it or leave it. If you think to try the inoculation yourself, you will kill her.”

The
juez
flinched. He picked up his knife, fingered the blade and sheathed it. “I have no choice.”

“
I see none. I want Pia Maria. I will do anything to find her.”

Anthony saw the defeat in Mondragón's eyes, also contempt that made his blood run in chunks. Obviously the Spanish had made contempt a fine art, more than the British who had driven him from Georgia. Maybe it was the light brown eyes that made the
juez
look so sinister. Anthony doubted Paloma ever saw that expression.

“
Suppose you inoculate my wife for certain, and Toshua most probably, and my servants, and I change my mind after they are protected?”

Anthony had to give the
juez
credit. The man knew he had lost at the same time he had won his wife's life, but he wasn't going down without a struggle. Better now to flatter him a bit, if flattery it was. Probably it was just the truth, something Anthony had not considered for a long time. He had kicked truth aside on the Texas plains.

“
Change your mind?” Anthony asked. “How can you? You are an honest man who would never go back on his word.”

Another sigh, followed by a wry sort of smile or grimace. “You've trapped me.”

“
I was hoping to.”

The
juez
stood up. He sheathed his knife and turned toward the door. His hand on the latch, he looked back. “Let me understand you better, since we are to be partners in a game so dangerous my courage almost fails me. You could have inoculated those traders, couldn't you?”

“
Yes, once I had some live pox. By the time we reached the Clear Fork of the Brazos, I could have harvested scabs aplenty from dead Comanches.” He shuddered. “They lined the banks, half in and half out of the water they thought would give them relief.”