Free Marco and the Devil's Bargain by Carla Kelly

gone.”
    He exchanged a look with Toshua, who squatted on his haunches by the door, far from Luisa. Alert, Paloma looked at them both. “I can tell there is more and it is worse,” Paloma said. “Toshua insisted that I leave with him. Why was that?” She put her hand inside his chaqueta, against his shirt. “It has something to do with the stranger, does it not?”
    â€œ When I went to Santa Maria to confer with the lieutenant from Santa Fe, he warned us of smallpox heading our way from the east.”
    Paloma shivered and tightened her grip on him. “He was foully dirty and hungry, but that is all ….” Her voice trailed away as the implication struck her. “He could be infected? O Dios .” She looked across the room to the Comanche. “Did Toshua know this?”
    â€œ I told him after we left Santa Maria. He was not privy to the lieutenant’s information.”
    â€œ Why didn’t you warn me?” she asked Toshua. “You just told me to stay away from him, but it was already too late, wasn’t it?”
    His eyes as troubled as hers, the Comanche nodded slowly. In one graceful motion, he rose from the floor and left the room. In a few moments they heard the outside door close.
    â€œ I do not know how much he understood, Paloma,” Marco said, even as he wondered why he defended Toshua. “I suspect that The People have no idea of incubation periods.” He gathered her closer. “I am afraid now.”
    She nodded then inched herself even closer to him like a small, burrowing animal. She sat up with a start, her eyes wide, her expression anxious. “But Luisa! She has been tending him. After Toshua told me not to go closer, I never went into his room at all. Luisa!”
    Silently, Luisa left her chair and knelt on the floor by Paloma. She pushed up the long sleeve of her nightgown to expose her forearm and show what seemed to be a small incision. Turning her head slightly, she lifted the hair from her neck to expose pock marks left behind by la viruela .
    â€œ This incision?” she said, pointing to her arm. “I have been inoculated, which sometimes leave pock marks, too. Not always.” She put her hand on Marco’s knee. “Have you not noticed similar scars on Marco’s arm and hip?”
    Paloma pressed her face to his chest now, her voice muffled. “He has all kinds of nicks and scars, Luisa.” She couldn’t help her sob. “What was one more to me?”
    He kissed her hair, rocking with her, but he had to ask. “My love, what about you? I have never noticed such a scar on you. Have you been …?” He couldn’t even finish the question.
    She shook her head and he had her terrible answer.

Chapter Seven
In which Marco learns, if he had any doubts, how kind a woman can be, how cruel a man
    P aloma touched his heart in a way that, if he lived to be an old man of sixty, he knew made him more fortunate than most men. She gave a great sigh that he felt all the way to his backbone as her tight grip on him turned into a caress. “Well, then, the Saints be praised that you are safe,” she said. “I could not bear it if something happened to you.”
    He couldn’t help himself then, as he bowed over her head and cried, the deep, wracking sobs he had not cried since returning nine years ago to his hacienda and finding Felicia and the twins dead of el cólera . Her arms tightened again, as she comforted him , soothed him , with little obvious thought to herself.
    Through his misery, he heard Luisa leave the room and shut the door. His wife held him in her arms as he wept, then wiped his face with her nightgown.
    â€œ That’s enough now, my love,” she said. She gave his shoulders a little shake. “It won’t matter now if I am in that stranger’s room or not, will it? I want to talk to him. And it won’t matter if you and I just curl up in bed and