Marco and the Devil's Bargain (37 page)

The chief rose and spoke to other men, who went among the tipis. Paloma cried out to hear women shrieking and moaning and knew that someone's heart was breaking. True, the child had been stolen from the doctor and his wife, but during the intervening years, Pia Maria had become part of someone else's family.

“
I know Antonio wants his daughter, but that means another woman must suffer,” she said, turning her head into Eckapeta's sympathetic shoulder. “I cannot bear this much sorrow!”

She closed her eyes, opening them when she heard Marco gasp, “
Dios mio! ¿Qué es esto?
”

Paloma stared as she felt the blood drain from her face. “
Two
? Good God, there are two!”

She hurried closer, but no quicker than Antonio and Marco, as the war chief dragged two crying girls forward, both obviously blond, even through the grime she associated with the Kwahadi, and both of similar age. She glanced at Antonio, watching in horror as his mouth dropped open. He simply stood there, looking from one weeping child to the other. The mourning of their Indian mothers made Paloma want to cover her ears.

She clutched Marco's arm. Still Antonio did nothing. Surely he knew his daughter. As she looked from the doctor to the girls, both crying and struggling now, Paloma suddenly understood a greater evil. “Marco, he ….”

Her husband had reached the same terrible conclusion. “He doesn't recognize either child,” he said, his voice strangled, as though the words were so wrong they couldn't be uttered. “Good God, Paloma.” Marco clutched her shoulder now, his grip nearly painful, as realization struck him as it had her. “That beaded medical bag. Didn't you say—”

“
It was for someone taller.” Paloma could barely say it.

She could not stop the bitterness welling inside her, as two women in the encampment and their relatives raised a huge lamentation for their adopted daughters, standing there in tears, clutching each other. She relived their own terrible journey, and all for what? Before Marco could stop her, she darted forward and slapped the back of the doctor's head, counting coup.

When she struck him, he assumed that subservient crouch she had not seen in weeks. She gasped to see it, and pulled her hand back, fearing contagion of another kind. At least he turned around to look at her, his eyes bewildered.

“
Well? Well?” Kwihnai demanded, struggling to contain the little ones who wanted their Indian mothers.

“
I do not recognize either of these children,” Antonio said. “My daughter is not here.”

He turned away, his face calm now.

Paloma raised her hand to strike him again, but Marco grabbed her. “Who
are
you?” she asked, leaning forward. “In God's name, who
are
you?”

The answer would have to wait. Shocked, Toshua grabbed the crying girls under each arm and returned them to their Indian mothers, who snatched them and ran. He exchanged a long look with Marco, a warning that the
juez
was quick to heed. Paloma may have been paler than a ghost herself, but they had to act. “Get your medical bag and begin. Quickly. Eckapetha ….”

Her face calm, a woman well-acquainted with disaster, Toshua's wife was already lining up children and mothers who needed inoculation. A glance from Paloma to Kahúu sent the Kwahadi mother flying to her tipi for the medical bag she had taken for safekeeping yesterday, when the adventure in the encampment began.

Marco watched his wife will herself calm in that masterful way he could only envy. She found a place to sit and someone brought up a small table that must have come from some ranchero's house. Ayasha ran up with a cloth, probably from another unfortunate hacienda, and the inoculations began. All was silent. Ashen, shaking, Antonio tried to join her, but she shook her head.

“
Wait until you are calmer, you dreadful man,” she said quite distinctly. He turned away.

His heart in his mouth, Marco sat cross-legged with the war chief, Toshua next to him, their shoulders touching. He could not have said which of them needed more reassurance.

“
Just tell him that the doctor's child is not here. That is all we know, and it is no reflection on the Kwahadi,” Marco said, when he had gathered his composure around him like tattered clothing.

The war chief nodded philosophically and offered them strips of beef—stolen from someone's cattle herd and dried against the long winter. In turmoil, Marco forced the food to stay down. Kwihnai finally took his turn in the line. By now, Antonio had begun to work beside Paloma, but not too close.

They finished within the hour. The chief requested another rendition from Paloma and Toshua of what would happen next. They provided it, to the general amusement of the camp, even though Marco could see that his wife had unraveled the final thread of her equanimity. She went through the playacting, then sat down, stunned. He put his arm around her and she turned her face into his shoulder.

“
Five suns,” the war chief said, his good humor evident. “You may leave now with the little man who shakes and crouches like a slave. Toshua and Eckapeta will know what to do when the Dark Wind needs to escape.”

Marco nodded. “We will do as you say, Kwihnai, but may we ask for an escort across the Llano Estacado? It remains a mystery to me.”

Kwihnai nodded, a generous man, now that he knew his people were safe. “I will provide one, and you will promise me never to return.” His eyes were kind as he looked at Paloma. “Your woman is tired and your eyes are heavy, too. Sleep first.”

Marco looked at Antonio, who could not meet his gaze for long. “The little man who shakes will share a tipi with us.”

“
I—”

“
Now, Antonio. Now.”

I
n the privacy of a tipi, Paloma lay with her head in Marco's lap, too weary to keep her eyes open, her nerves so tightly wound she knew she would never sleep again, not ever. She could not bring herself to look at Antonio Gil. Toshua and Eckapeta joined them, Ayasha close behind.

“
Who
are
you?” Marco demanded of the man who stood before him. Out of the chief's commanding presence, Antonio had regained his eerie calm. “Tell us!”

She had never heard his official voice so stern. Heaven help the man who lied to this husband of hers.

“
Leo Flynn. Señor, I—”

“
I will ask and you will answer. What have you done with the doctor?”

Paloma opened her eyes when Antonio—Leo now?—shrieked. Quicker than a finger snap, Toshua had sliced a strip of flesh from the doctor's cheek, only a small strip, but peeled with such precision that Paloma vowed never to ask him another question about his life before she met him.

“
That should be enough,
pabi
,” Marco said, striving to keep his voice conversational, even though Paloma knew Toshua had startled him. “Anto … Leo …
Where
is the doctor?”

“
Dead somewhere in Texas.” Leo Flynn started to cry. “I'm going to bleed to death!”

“
Not before you tell us the truth.”

Her eyes troubled, Ayasha handed him one of the cloth scraps left over from the inoculations.

“
Begin and do not stop until I tell you to,” Marco commanded.

Leo Flynn's story came out in fits and starts, how he had come from London to Georgia, a colony for debtors, under an indenture. “I was to work for Dr. Gill seven years; then I would be free,” he explained.

“
How odd,” Marco said. “Keep going.”

The story he told was much as he had related earlier, how Dr. Gill ran afoul of the British and was forced to flee to Natchitoches eventually, on the Texas frontier with his wife Catalina.

“
And you followed him?”

“
Had I a choice?” Leo replied, with a flash of irritation that made Toshua pull out his knife again. Leo gulped. “We ended up in Los Adaes, a Spanish possession, as I am certain you know. Pia Maria had been born in Natchitoches.”

Paloma thought Marco could have been kinder when the poor man asked for a drink of water and the
juez
ignored him. Looking injured, Leo continued with a tale of increasing drunkenness and desperation as Dr. Gill, damn his hide, gathered enough money to hand over to land speculators without a single credential to recommend them.

“
Dr. Gill was always going to make his fortune farther west,” Leo said, making no effort to disguise his bitterness. “What could we do but follow? His wife by vows, and me by a damned document.”

He stopped, his head down, and Marco thrust a gourd of water in front of him. He drained it eagerly.

“
All along, you had been learning a real physician's skills?” Paloma asked.

“
It wasn't hard. Set a bone, purge and bleed someone. I didn't like it—too much stink and pus—but when did he ask me?”

“
Pobrecito
,” Marco said sarcastically, “my heart bleeds for you.”

Paloma gave her husband a little shake. When Marco spoke again, he at least sounded more civil. “And?”

“
We lived near Los Adaes then, in a one-room
jacal
with sand fleas and cockroaches. Mrs. Gill had decided to leave him, take Pia, and return to her father. The day she was going to sneak away, the Comanches struck. The doctor and I were treating diarrhea in the garrison at Los Adaes.” He paused, his eyes weary as he passed his hand in front of his face. Paloma knew that gesture, because she had done it many times herself, trying to wipe out a view that would not leave the brain.

“
We came back to horror.” Leo glanced from Toshua to Eckapeta, their expressions unreadable. “I have already told that story.”

“
Keep going.”

“
Surely we could leave now, but no! Dr. Gill returned to Natchitoches and told his father-in-law what had happened. Señor Rosas was understandably beside himself. He offered the doctor a huge amount of gold to find Pia and bring her back to him.
He
would keep his granddaughter, and the doctor would go back to Georgia. That was why we went onto the plains.”

“
For money,” Marco said, his voice troubled now, the anger gone. “Not for love of his daughter?”

“
For money,” Leo repeated, his voice more firm. “That was Anthony Gill.”

He was silent. Marco sat back, as if exhausted by so much greed and deception. Eckapeta passed around a wooden bowl of dried meat and they ate. When they finished, Leo continued.

“
That vile man had the worst luck. We joined ourselves to as foul a group of traders as you will ever see. The doctor promised them part of the gold he was going to collect, so they suffered us.” Leo turned his face away then, his sorrow palpable. “When they could not find women, he let them use me. God damn him to eternal flames forever.”

Leo said it in a low voice. Ayasha was in tears now. Toshua and Eckapeta looked at each other, shocked.

“
Did
you
kill him?” Marco asked, his voice kinder, speaking into the great silence.

“
I wanted to! Before God and all the saints, I wanted to! I am a coward; you know that.” He managed a dry chuckle, but his eye consigned the real Dr. Gill to unimaginable torture. “The doctor and the head trader got in a brawl over the turn of a card, and Anthony Gill, that bearer of bad luck, received a knife through his bowels for his pains.” Leo rubbed his hands together. “I am happy to report that he lingered in agony for some days.”

Chilled to the bone, Paloma moved closer to Marco. With a shudder he did not try to control, her husband passed around a bottle of good brandy that Kwihnai must have liberated from another rancher no luckier than the doctor.

Leo took a long swig and sighed. “I was all for turning back. We had almost run out of trade goods and winter was coming. But no, the traders decided
I
should become Antonio Gil. We would recover his daughter and still get the money.” He shrugged. “Maybe it wasn't a bad plan.” He gave Paloma his attention. “You were the only one who noticed that the medical bag obviously wasn't made for a man of my height. Dr. Gill was a head taller.”

“
Much good that did,” Paloma said dryly. “I didn't put anything together, did I?”

“
We continued, and then
la viruela
struck. I watched the traders die and felt only delight, even though I was alone.” He folded his arms. “You know the rest. In my mind, I knew I had to become Dr. Gill and continue the charade.”

“
There is more,” Marco said, after a long, uncomfortable silence. “I am a
juez de campo
and I am trained to watch people, to study them, if you will. You're lying right now, and you were lying in the gathering with the two girls. I know it.”

Leo threw up his hands. “You are so determined to have the whole story?”

“
I insist.”

Leo looked at Paloma, and she saw the sympathy in his eyes. “Blame Paloma for my sudden reformation.”

“
What are you talking about?” Marco demanded, sounding like a man whose last fragment of patience had just blown away.