16

Teresa drank and tended to Pomo, fixing a bed for him by the spring with a hackberry tree for shade. She brought him water in her cupped hands and bathed his body, using the cotton shirt as a cloth. His skin was blotched with heat and abrasions from riding the horse, and his arms and legs were thin and frail. Now he looked like any starving Indian slave. But the fever, Teresa thought, was not worse. The boy even opened his eyes and recognized her.

“Eat,” she said, offering him the remaining jojoba nuts.

Pomo turned his face away.

“I can’t believe this,” Teresa tried to joke. “You’re not hungry?”

Fortunately, they had hours before sunset, and she determined she would catch some meat—a rabbit or lizard—and cook a broth the boy could swallow. She looked over at Plague, who held the rope looped around Horse’s neck as the animal grazed. Her father smiled back at her. “Drink and we will walk on!” he said jauntily.

“No,” Teresa protested, “we have to rest for the night.” Of course, she thought, he was in a hurry to reach the next village. He only had a few days while Pomo still had the rash, still carried the sarampión. “The boy has to rest,” she said, “or he will die. You don’t want that.”

Her father frowned and seemed inclined to argue. Teresa tried to speak to Horse. But the animal still seemed dazed. She reached into the horse’s mind, felt the dark smoke, and quickly withdrew.

“What is my father doing in Spain?” she asked to distract Plague, going closer to the spring and squatting there. Now Plague told her about her father’s wife, how kind she was and beautiful and loving. This wife’s wealth had allowed Cabeza de Vaca to go to the New World as treasurer of the Pánfilo de Narváez expedition, and while he was gone those eight long years, this loving wife had remained steadfast, raising their two sons with the expectation that their father would return to them. When he did return, he was the best of husbands, writing his report to the King of Spain, until the day he announced that he wanted to sail again across the ocean as Governor of the Río de la Plata, all the way to the Straits of Magellan. With the patience of a saint, this glorious wife used her influence on the King and waved fondly as her husband left again. With the patience of the Redeemer Himself, she welcomed him back after his second disastrous trip, when he was now a criminal accused of treason.

Plague gestured as if with indignation. The enemies of Cabeza de Vaca claimed that he had denied the colonists their lawful rights, stolen money, angered the Indians, and defied the King. None of it was true! The accusations came from greedy men who only wanted to exploit the Indians and keep all the rewards of the New World for themselves. At this very moment, the aging conquistador was under house arrest in his home, busy proving himself innocent. He signed documents and wrote letters all morning, during which time he also discussed his affairs with his two grown sons, prepared his lawyers, and sent them to court with sonorous words ringing in their ears. In the afternoon, he found time to play with his charming grandchildren. In the evening, there were guests, dinner parties, and amusing events.

Teresa listened and tried to imagine her father’s new life. She saw the red bougainvillea in the tiled courtyard, the beautiful Spanish wife sitting beside her husband, the bustle of servants in the background. Her father’s two daughters-in-law wore magnificent dresses over crinkled underskirts. Their dark hair glittered with jeweled pins. Her father complimented a particular necklace. They praised his recent discussion of reform in the West Indies. Oh yes, her father assured them, he believed in Spain’s divine mission and right to ownership of these lands and to all the people in them. But he also believed that the natives of the New World had souls and that these souls could be brought to Christendom with gentleness and kindness. He referred his daughters-in-law to the teachings of the Greeks. He quoted a rhyme in Latin, and they murmured appreciatively.

Teresa studied the women sitting around the table. She looked everywhere, but she could not see herself in this courtyard. She did not sit by the saint-like wife or one of the beautiful daughters-in-law. She was not listening and smiling, dressed in a magnificent skirt with her hair lifted to cover the flattened back of her head. She did not gossip with her sisters, discussing their children and the upcoming fiesta, occasionally touching the four blue tattoos on each cheek. She was not in the background, either, as a servant. Her father did not catch her eye as she gave him his sweetened drink or hurried by with a broom or feather duster. She was simply not there. She had no place.

She didn’t really care. What Teresa wanted now was to stone a rabbit. She wanted Plague to stop talking so she could hunt for Pomo’s supper, and for her own, before it was dark. She wanted to poke around the nearby bushes, look for a packrat’s nest or the roots of nut-grass or some other edible plant. How fortunate that I still have the tinderbox, Teresa thought for the hundredth time. It would be so nice to build a fire and cook some meat, to smell it roasting, to make a nourishing meal for Pomo.

“Your father is certain he will win his case,” Plague rambled on. “He is certain he will be granted his old titles of land in Spain and even reimbursed for his lost estates near the Río de la Plata. He is seeking compensation for his services to various municipal courts and once these ridiculous charges are dismissed . . .”

“You say he is old now?” Teresa interrupted.

“He walks with a cane. He has the voice of an old man.”

She rose, brushing the dirt from her leather skirt. “What about Pomo?” she tried to surprise Plague. “Will he survive the sarampión?”

Her father’s eyes twinkled, and he wagged his finger. “Ah, ah, ah! I can’t say for sure.” And before he could drone on again, about his estates and the King, Teresa announced that she had to find food, if only a few nuts or pieces of root, a grasshopper or worm. She left Plague still talking to himself.

Soon after, a hare came to drink from the spring, and she killed it quickly, hacked it apart with a sharp rock, built a fire, skewered and roasted the carcass, and mixed its juices with water in the indentation of a large flat boulder on which, she thought, she could also sit and perhaps later grind seeds or nuts. She drizzled this soup into Pomo’s mouth, although he twisted and tried to turn away. Then with her own stomach full, in the growing darkness, she thought about what she should do next. She wished she could ask Horse’s advice.

Close by, her father watched, still holding on to the rope. “Shall I tell you about my estates in . . .”

“No,” Teresa said, “I have to sleep.”

For breakfast the next morning, she drank water and gnawed the bones clean, giving Pomo the rest of the soup. Sitting beside the boy, she chipped at the edges of her sharp rock, making a new cutting tool to replace the one she had left behind. In the distance, she could see agave stalks, the single spire rising up like a yucca with a similar base of thick pointed leaves. She knew it was possible to bake and eat agave root, although it would be hard work digging up the sturdy plant. She wondered if there was enough grass here for Horse. She hoped so.

“Come on,” her father clapped his hands. “You have had your rest, and it is time to go. Put the boy on the horse.”

Teresa sat where she was, still flinting and hoping she could actually make this tool into a real knife. “No,” she said. “We are staying here.”

Oh, her father shouted and protested, stomped and stormed, but it was as she had thought. Plague couldn’t do much on his own. He could assume a shape that looked solid. He could cloud the mind of a horse and guide its movements. He could talk for hours. He could wheedle and coax and threaten. But she hadn’t seen him yet make a physical action—kick a rock or eat a prickly pear or pick up a boy. He could not lift Pomo onto the horse’s back. He could not take Pomo away from her.

“We will take our chances in the desert,” she informed her father. “We have water now. I can find food. Pomo will recover, and then we will go on.”

“Nonsense,” Plague huffed. She felt a cloud enter her mind. Dark smoke. Fear.

She brushed it away.