Chapter 1: 1885: Taos, U.S. Territory of New Mexico

An infant’s plaintive cries pried me from my sleep. Soon enough, that jarring note was replaced by the quiet yet eager suckling noises of my four-month old daughter. I rolled over onto my left side to watch baby Roberta -- named for my mother -- nursing at Feliza’s swollen breast.

My wife, sitting up against the headboard using her pillow as a cushion, smiled at me and she said in her soft voice, “Buenos dias, corazon.” (Good morning, sweet-heart.)

I returned a serious look and breathed a barely audible, “Mis preciosos tesoros,” (My precious treasures) as I reached my hand across Feliza’s waist to embrace her and draw myself close enough to kiss Roberta’s head. Feliza’s tan skin took on a rosy hue while Roberta simply ignored me.

“Te amo,” (I love you) she said, the depth of her feeling apparent in the way she looked at me.

I lifted myself on my elbow and kissed Feliza’s shoulder, then rolled back toward my side of the bed and sat up on the edge, sliding my feet into the low moccasins I used as carpet slippers. With the call of nature pressing at my groin, I stood and stretched, my naked skin registering the chill air of a May morning at the seven thousand foot elevation, where Taos was set on the lower slope of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. I walked around the bed to snag my robe from a hook on back of the bedroom door and slipped into its blanketing warmth. I then bent to the box of cordwood by the door and lifted two pieces of the split tamarack from it, carried them to the kiva style fireplace in the corner of the room, and settled the seasoned wood onto the embers. After that, I went to Feliza’s side of the bed to retrieve the covered chamber pot, which I intended to take with me to empty in the privy out back.

Feliza, switching to English, asked, “Are you coming back to bed?”

I smiled evilly at her and said, “You bet. I just want to get my skin all chilled so I can hug you to warm up again.”

“Animal,” she accused. “And I was going to make pancakes.”

“Will you still make them if I light the stove?”

“And collect the eggs? I’ll need them for the pancake batter.”

“How many will you need?” I asked, feigning innocence.

“All of them, you lazy rogue.”

“You are quite the taskmaster, but I’ll collect the eggs, too.” We kept a half dozen hens in a coop near the outhouse.

“Was that dos or también, rascal?” (two or too)

“It was todos, mi amor. ( ... all, my love)

“Sweet-talker,” she called as I exited the room, closing the door again to retain the warmth.

Outside, I stepped into the chill of our home’s central courtyard, then went to the next door on the courtyard’s veranda. I opened the door just enough to peek in on my sleeping five-year-old step-son, Ernesto, or Neto, as he was called, named for his late father. Seeing he was still asleep under the covers, I set the chamber pot on a bench outside his door and quietly entered the room to mend the fire in his fireplace. With that done, I exited and regained the orinal, and walked to the other side of the courtyard, and out through the rear gate, as I headed to the privy behind the house.

The family was to board the southbound Denver & Rio Grande train that afternoon. Neto was excited to take another train ride. Señora Estela Guerrero would join us and help mind the children. Señora Guerrero was Neto’s Abuela (grandmother), the mother of Feliza’s first husband. Abuela Estela lived with us and was an important part of the family, appreciated even more with an infant en la casa (in the house).

We were to embark on this trip because Feliza and I had been invited to the inauguration of Edmund Ross as the new Governor of the United States Territory of New Mexico. Appointed by President Grover Cleveland, Ross was to be sworn in two days hence, on Tuesday, May fifth, eighteen eighty-five.

The invitation had included a handwritten note from the Governor-designate to Feliza and I extending the invitation to include the subsequent inaugural fiesta at the Palace of the Governors, the two hundred seventy-five year old seat of government for Nuevo Mexico.