Part 8 (1/2)

She nodded. ”My own lawyers explained that to me. You were right about my being probated as the rightful heir to this land. But now they have raised the issue of, well, my being born a Zuni. I was raised a Christian by converted parents, but alas, I am afraid I have pure Indian blood!”

Longarm shrugged. ”That has to have impure blood of any sort beat. I got to ask you a mighty personal question if I'm to go on, ma'am. I ain't asking for exact figures, but is it safe to say you were born the other side of 1848?”

She dimpled and said, ”Of course I was, you flatterer. But what difference might my age make? An Indian is an Indian, no?”

He said, ”No. Under Mexican laws, left over from the Spanish, a Spanish-speaking Christian who wore shoes and got a haircut now and again was a full citizen with all the rights of any other Spanish subject or law-abiding Mexican under the republic. You do pay taxes on this rancho, don't you?”

She nodded, but said, ”Those Anglo lawyers say that only proves how primitive I am, because Indians are not required to pay taxes on their lands under your laws. But my lawyers tell me they think I should go on paying my land taxes anyway.

Longarm nodded. ”You've got the right lawyers, Miss Consuela. You and your folks living Christian, apart from other Zuni, if I know my Pueblo medicine men, means you were never listed as any sort of Indians by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, right?”

She nodded. ”My parents were working for the parents of my poor Carlos when Mexico lost that war with your people. n.o.body ever asked us what we were until most recently. But they say I am still an Indian and that the U.S. Const.i.tution gives no rights to Indians. They showed me the paragraph, in black and white. I cried. It seemed so cruel and unjust!”

He said, ”It would be if that was the way it read. But you missed the details, Miss Consuela. What may appear to exclude Indians from the Bill of Rights reads, 'Indians not taxed.' It don't recognize Indians in general as a race. Shucks, colored folks and even Swedes are fully protected by the Bill of Rights since the war, at least as far as federal law extends, and New Mexico is a federal territory.”

She said she didn't understand. A lot of well-meaning folks didn't.

He explained. ”When the Founding Fathers drew up the Const.i.tution, they naturally had to deal with the simple fact that heaps of Quill Indians were still lurking in the woods all the way back East. So they divided Indians up into folks like the Christian Stockbridges, a mess of Mohegans who'd fought on our side at Bunker Hill, and the wilder sorts, such as Mohawk and Shawnee, who'd traded Yankee scalps for firewater from Hair-Buying Hamilton, the royal governor up to Detroit.”

She sniffed. ”In other words, they divided Indians into those they thought tame and those they thought wild?”

He said, ”Sure. It would have been dumb to divide them any other way.

The real point is that even then there were Indians acting like everyone else and, well, folks who had to be dealt with differently. So what that clause about untaxed Indians really means is that n.o.body can expect to have the full rights of an adult citizen as long as they're off the tax rolls, as public charges or wards of the state.”

He tried another tapa, decided he'd best quit while he was ahead, and added, ”Wouldn't make much sense to let men vote whilst they were at war with the government, either. So whilst Victorio or even one of those reservation Jicarilla would have a tough time voting in the next election, that clause about Indians can't apply to you. Anyone who pays taxes on property lawfully come by is by definition a taxpaying property-holder, be she white, red, or a becoming shade of lavender. I have this argument all the time with boys who've been led to believe only their kind have any rights. Not all such pains in the neck are white, by the way.”

She laughed and said she'd heard Victorio could be awfully bossy. Then she asked him if he was ready for bed. He'd been ready for bed since first he'd noticed how she filled out that white blouse and cordovan riding skirt. But when he said that sounded like a mighty fine notion, she tinkled a small bra.s.s bell and that same serving gal came in to show their honored guest to his room for the night.

She led the way out back and along a long archway, holding up a candle they really didn't need until they got there. The cell-like room, furnished with a four-poster bed and an oaken wardrobe, was a bit severe but smelled of rosewater. He saw, when the chica put the candlestick on a small bedtable, that the 'dobe walls had been recently replastered.

Then he saw the pretty little Mex gal was crying, too, although she was trying not to show it as she shut the door, shot the bolt, and moved over by the bed to start shucking her duds.

It didn't take a gal starting out with just a blouse and skirt too long to undress. He had to admire what she had to show a man as she stood there resigned, crying fit to bust.

Longarm spotted his borrowed saddle and possibles, including his Winchester, in the corner on the far side of the four-poster. He took off no more than his own hat as he quietly asked her in Spanish what her patrona had told her about him.

The chica licked her lips and replied in a trembling voice that all she knew was that it would be a great honor to spend the night with such a distinguished guest.

Longarm stayed on his side of the room as he quietly questioned her to find out if she usually obeyed her boss lady of her own free will, or whether a federal law covering peonage as well as chattel slavery might be getting all bent out of shape.

He worded his questions carefully. The mean thing about peonage was that, unlike outright slavery, it was tougher for even its own victims to define. There was a mighty fine line between slavery and peonage, or what they called ”the patron system.” Many an Anglo boss asked his workers to do things they didn't want to. Such power went with being the boss. But peonage went over the line by allowing the services, if not the flesh and blood, of a servant bound by debt to be bought and sold.

But as he questioned the naked and increasingly less frightened young gal, it developed that Miss Consuela had sent word back to her kitchen that whichever serving gal might volunteer to take care of El Brazo Largo would have the next two days off with pay.

Longarm chuckled as he imagined the scene in the kitchen, and asked why she'd volunteered if she was so scared.

She said she wasn't scared of him. She was afraid her querido, a handsome young vaquero, would be jealous. She said it had seemed like a swell way to buy the extra time alone with her Pablo, before she had taken time to consider how Pablo might feel about it.

Longarm was thinking about jealous young vaqueros himself as he gently suggested, ”I've had a very tiring day. Maybe it would be better if you just got dressed and we forgot all about this, eh?”