“Can you fetch my brother? I need to speak to him.”
Valentín frowned, his bright smile fading. “Tadeo hasn’t been by this morning.”
Alba clutched the reins tightly and stared at Valentín in surprise. “His horse isn’t in the stable. He should be here.”
“He must have changed his plans and gone somewhere else,” Arturo said, then gave Valentín an apologetic look. “She’s needlessly worried.”
“He’d send word that he wasn’t coming,” Alba persisted. “He wasn’t in his room this morning and there was blood.”
“Blood?” Valentín echoed.
“He broke a pitcher, or perhaps he cut himself shaving,” Arturo said.
She shook her head. “It was too much blood for that.”
“Alba—”
“Something terrible has happened. I know it,” Alba said, her voice strained. An awful fear was spreading down her spine, a fear she couldn’t explain, yet it chilled her body, threatening to make her teeth chatter.
Valentín had seemed hesitant a moment earlier, but something in her face or her voice changed his mind. “I’ll gather a few men and have them look around the area, see if we can find him. You get Belisario and Jacobo and see if they can locate his horse’s tracks and follow his trail. I’ll stop at your house later and let you know what we discover.”
When they returned, Alba asked Belisario and Jacobo to look for her brother. This irritated Arturo, who kept insisting it was silly to raise such a fuss. Alba’s mother also shook her head,especially when Alba proved no help in the kitchen. She kept dropping wooden spoons or bumping into things; she was too distracted to do anything but sit at the table while Fernanda threw her worried glances.
When she heard the clopping of horses, Alba immediately rushed out to the front of the house. She watched Valentín riding his own mount and pulling Tadeo’s horse behind him. She’d intended to greet him but instead froze by the door, the cold dread that had spilled down her spine now knotting in her stomach, becoming a lump of ice that weighed her down. She thought she might faint.
Valentín gave her a worried look. Alba’s mother and Arturo had stepped out too and they greeted the visitor.
“We found Tadeo’s horse by the river, but he wasn’t with it,” Valentín said.
She clutched her hands together and listened as Valentín spoke to her mother and Arturo. He explained that he’d been heading back to the Molinas’ farm and fetching more men to help him search for Tadeo. Belisario and Jacobo had not returned, and her uncle theorized that Tadeo might have met the men and already be on his way back home, but Alba squeezed her eyes shut, bile coating her tongue.
Belisario and Jacobo returned later and there was still no sign of Tadeo. Valentín stopped by the house near nightfall. He had no news to share but promised they’d resume the search in the morning. By now everyone in the house had been overcome by nerves and they sat as quiet and still as stones during dinner.
—
A week passed. Mr.Molina had sent more men to help in the search, and neighbors from other farms were also on the lookout for the young man. No trace of him had been found, nothing but his horse.
Alba stood at the doorway of Tadeo’s room each morning. She’d cleaned the room and made the bed so that everything looked as it normally did. Yet everything was amiss.
They went to town, finally, she and her mother and Arturo andBelisario. They went for supplies, but also because Luisa wanted to advertise a reward for any information about her son’s whereabouts. Arturo thought it would attract riffraff looking for easy money, but Luisa would not be dissuaded.
It was strange walking through the town square. Many people stared at them; a few whispered. News of their misfortune had spread like wildfire. Arturo and her mother headed to the mayor’s house, hoping he might help them advertise the reward and assist them in their search for the missing young man.
Alba made an excuse about needing something from the pharmacist and hid under the arches of the town square, unable to imagine sitting in the mayor’s stuffy house, having to hear him say how sorry he felt for them. Everyone was sorry and no one could do anything for the Quirogas. She stood there with her head lowered until she heard a familiar voice.
“Good afternoon, Alba,” Valentín said as he approached her and took off his hat.
“Good afternoon, Valentín.”
“I hear your mother and your uncle are over at the mayor’s house.”
“How fast gossip travels in this place,” she said, adjusting the shawl around her shoulders with a brusque motion of her hands.
She glanced toward the vendors and the shoppers in the town square. A young girl pointed at Alba and she turned around, resting her back against a column.
“They’re all talking about us.”
“It’s big news what’s happened, yes,” Valentín said, scratching his head.
