Daughter of Fortune Read Online Free PDF

her dress when she heard the
horses.
    At first she wasn’t sure. She stood still and
listened, her fists clutching her petticoat in tight bunches. She
still couldn’t be sure, so she crawled up the side of the bank and
looked. The buzzards were beginning to move around restlessly. Some
flew off, and those that could not fly flapped and waddled back and
forth, squawking.
    Then she saw them, a small group of horses and
riders coming from the north and west where the Indians had
disappeared.
    Maria whirled around, looking for shelter. She knew
she had to make a run for the grove again, but she hesitated at the
horror. By the time her instincts cancelled out her fear, the
horsemen were crossing the river. Without stopping to see if they
were Indians, she hiked up her petticoat, turned and ran east.
    Her bare feet flew over the ground and for one crazy
moment she remembered Mama’s tales of the giants in seven-league
boots who could cover ground in enormous strides. She became that
giant, her legs moving in swift motion across the plain. But the
real giants were behind her and pounding closer. “Saint Francis,’’
she gasped, “Saint Francis!” Spittle dribbled down her chin as she
stumbled over rocks and thorns. She ran and ran, her breath coming
in noisy croaks.
    She heard someone shouting to her but kept running,
not daring to look back. Perhaps death would not hurt as much if
she did not see it coming. She soon heard only one horse following
her. The others must have dropped back, content in their curious
Indian way to let one go alone. She thought of Carmen de Sosa and
the ripping cloth and whimpered in terror.
    The horse pounded closer behind her. Again she heard
a man yelling at her, but what he said did not sound like the
language the Indians had spoken.
    As the horse closed the gap between them, she
shrieked and changed courses, darting like a rabbit, now toward the
river, now toward the plain. Her feet were bloody from gashes, but
she refused to stop running. She could not. The rider would have to
kill her first.
    The horse was almost breathing in her ear when a
hand reached down and grabbed the back of her chemise, jerking her
off the ground. She cried and struck out with her hands, struggling
to get away. Her eyes closed, she fought and scratched until the
man flopped her over his legs and clamped his hand on her windpipe.
She choked and gagged and finally acquiesced, draped over his lap
like a sack of meal.
    “By all the saints, chiquita —young one—will
you be still?” The rider’s voice was soft and low, but she could
hear him clearly above the pounding of his horse, which was only
beginning to slow down after its race across the plain.
    The man loosened his grip on her throat, and Maria
lay across his lap coughing, her eyes shut tight. She opened them
slowly. All she could see was his leg, booted and
leather-covered.
    The man reined in his horse, his hand resting on her
back. “Here, let me help you,” he said, pulling Maria into a
sitting position in front of him. “Why did you not stop running
when I called to you?” he asked in the same quiet voice.
    Maria could only shake her head, not trusting to
words. If he did not know already, she could not tell him. He
didn’t sound like a man who knew anything of fear.
    When she said nothing, the rider gathered up the
reins around her. “ Pues, no le aflige ,” he said in her ear.
“Never mind.”
    They rode slowly back to the other men who were
grouped together on horseback a distance away from the wreckage of
bodies and wagons. Exhausted from her race, Maria wanted to lean
back against the horseman but would not. She still had not seen his
face, but he did not sound like an old man. She could almost hear
her mother’s voice: “Daughter, there has been no introduction.”
    They joined the little troop between the river and
the grove of trees. The men, some of them soldiers, dismounted and
came close. The rider tossed the reins over his horse’s