Page 86 of The Hacienda
“You should leave,” Paloma murmured behind me. I glanced at her. She held a hand to her face, a weary resignation heavy in her posture. “Go.”
But I couldn’t leave her in the hands of a woman like this. There were tlachiqueros who whipped their donkeys with more shame than Doña Catalina possessed. Paloma was in danger in this house.
“I’m taking you to your mother,” I told her. “Come with me.”
“Stay,” Doña Catalina commanded.
I moved toward the door, but Paloma did not follow.
She hung her head, her hands loose at her sides as Doña Catalina took her by the shoulder and yanked her away from me. Paloma did not protest, though her plaits swung from the force of the movement.
My anger died in an instant, as if drenched by a bucket of cold water.
I gave in to my temper and my hatred of Doña Catalina. But it was Paloma who would now suffer because of it.
“Get out of my house,” Doña Catalina said. “And pray that I don’t tell Padre Vicente of your visit.” At the look on my face, she added: “My word against yours, Padre—to whom do you think he will listen?”
There is no draft more bitter than that of helplessness. It bruised my throat as I looked at my cousin held fast, her proud head hung.
Doña Catalina marked my pause. She smelled my fear, my hesitation, my grief at knowing Paloma’s pain was my fault. She found the most tender part of my body and struck her final blow:
“I banish you from San Isidro,” she said coldly. “If I ever find you have been here against my wishes or hear that you have sent messages or otherwise brought Indian superstition to this place, I will give Paloma to the Inquisition.”
The smugness in her voice struck me like a physical blow.
“Go, Andrés,” Paloma begged. “Just go.”
I retreated into the dark of the kitchen garden, stunned, then turned on my heel and strode away. I had caused Paloma pain, and now there wasno way for me to protect her. No way for me to fix the damage I had wrought.
I had tried to do precisely what Titi would, but I failed. I had put Paloma in harm’s way. I had not helped Mariana. I had failed them all.
A light rain began to fall. It struck my burning cheeks like ice, mixing with the tears of rage it found there. A hooded figure passed into the kitchen courtyard just as I left it; Doña Juana, the daughter of old Solórzano, pulled back her cloak’s hood to frown at me through the rain.
“Villalobos?” she said, genuine surprise coloring her voice. My surname smarted; it was what old Solórzano had called my father, when he was San Isidro’s foreman. What old Solórzano called me or any of my brothers.The Villalobos boy. As if we had no other identity but the legacy of the Spanish foreman forcing himself on an hacienda maid and being ordered to marry her. That name was a living, breathing scar of the criollo stranglehold on this land. At times like these, I wanted to strip it from my body like so much flesh and burn it. “What are you doing here at this hour?”
I could feel more than see how Juana’s look swept me appraisingly, from the thunderclouds on my brow to my balled fists.
My family had lived on this land longer than the Solórzanos had evenbeenin Nueva España. To be banished from my home, forbidden from contacting my family...
I shouldered past Juana, leaving her unanswered in my wake. I had no patience for any Solórzano. Not tonight, not when loathing raked the inside of my ribs as I strode through the night. Loathing of the Solórzanos, of Doña Catalina. Of myself, for putting Paloma in danger.
Paloma was not safe here. Not with these monsters.
I would find my way back to her, to this place, if it was the last thing I did. No Solórzano could keep me from my home. My grief crystallized the thought into a white-hot prayer, branding it on my bones like a promise.
God help me, I will beback.
26
BEATRIZ
Present day
I WAITED WITH PALOMAin the study outside my bedchamber. The latter was filled with more people than I thought it had ever seen: Padre Andrés, José Mendoza, and the caudillo Victoriano Román, who was the local military officer charged with maintaining order in the district of Tulancingo. He and his men had arrived with surprising alacrity, given the hour at which we sent for them. Román’s men now walked the property, looking for evidence of bandits.
We had asked for the doctor as well, but he was not in town. His wife told our messenger that he was nearly a day’s ride away at Hacienda Alcantarilla, tending to the feverish pregnant daughter of the hacendado. He would come to us as soon as he could.
Paloma stood at the doorway. At her insistence, I had changed into actual clothing, but I had not touched my hair, nor put on stockings or shoes: my feet pacing the rug were still dirtied with cracked mud from the courtyard.
