Paradise Valley by Robyn Carr

Author:Robyn Carr [Carr, Robyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: MIRA
Published: 2009-10-09T22:00:00+00:00

Harvey’s lower leg was swollen to twice its normal size that evening, and he was in considerable pain, but by morning the fever abated and he wasn’t sick anymore. By the next night the swelling had begun to subside. After two days, just as Domingo had said, he was able to walk on it. After breakfast on the third morning, Harvey put on his hat and coat and limped out to the wagon, ready to go back to work.

Rachel and Miriam were fast becoming experts on the making of adobe. With their crew of Ada and the two little sons of Mary and Ezra, they were turning out bricks at a prodigious rate. Even Hope got into the act, though she mostly provided a riotous diversion. Twice she fell into the cistern, and the newer bricks all had paw prints in them until Miriam finally tied the dog in the shade of the wagon with a bowl of water.

During lunch Domingo wandered over to their adobe brickworks just uphill from the well. He had taken off his hat and shirt to work in the well. His upper body was lean and muscular, his shoulders broad and his waist narrow, though at the moment he looked like a savage – covered in mud from head to toe, his long hair matted and his pants plastered to his legs. The only clean spot on him was his right hand, which he had wiped off to eat. He took a bite from a big hunk of bread as he inspected the brickworks.

Rachel and Miriam, having finished their lunch, came over and stood on either side of him, proudly surveying their handiwork.

“Bueno, no?” Rachel said.

Domingo jammed the hunk of bread in his mouth and held it in his teeth while he reached down and hefted one of the driest bricks from its plank. He held the forty-pound brick in front of him at eye level for a second, and then let go.

The brick crashed down on the plank, landing on a corner and shattering into a half dozen big chunks.

Both the girls gasped, their mouths flying open in outrage.

“Es tú loco?” Rachel said, figuring it was probably not the right words, but he’d get the idea from the tone of her voice.

Domingo pulled the bread from his mouth, chewing while he toed the remains of the destroyed brick.

“Demasiada paja,” he said.

Miriam and Rachel stared at each other, their faces twisted in confusion. Miriam’s Spanish was better than Rachel’s, but even she didn’t understand what he’d said. They turned their palms up, the universal sign for Huh?

“Demasiada paja,” he repeated, nuzzling the rubble with a bare muddy toe, pointing at it with his bread.

“No entiendo esa palabra,” Miriam said. I don’t understand that word.

Domingo rolled his eyes. “Zu viel stroh!” he said, raising his voice. Too much straw. In High German.

They were stunned. It took a moment, but Rachel recovered first.

“You speak German?”

A casual nod. “Jah. I worked for Herr Schulman three years. I may not read or write, but I can hear and I pick up language quick.

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