Adobe Palace

by Joyce Brandon

  “Does pain impress you? If so, I could show you a few of my scars.”

  “His wife didn’t come back,” Samantha said.

  “I have one scar that might even be worth something,” Steve said, stepping so close she could feel the heat of his body. He glanced over his shoulder at Ramon, who, in spite of all the attention he was getting, sagged in the saddle.

  “Are you really…in pain?” Samantha asked weakly.

  “Terrible pain,” Steve said, his voice husky.

  “Maybe you should stay and rest awhile—”

  “Wrong kind of pain,” he said, quirking his unruly eyebrow at her.

  “Señor,” Ramon whined.

  “Just a second, boy,” Steve said, glancing over his shoulder at the youngster. “I’ve got to go,” he said to Samantha. “Maybe you’d better come up and be sure I’m doing it right. Never know when I might take a wrong turn in construction…”

  “We wouldn’t want that to happen,” she whispered.

  Steve inhaled a regretful breath, stepped back, and then plunged down the steps.

  Steve’s invitation haunted her. But her near promise to Lance kept her from riding up the hill to seek the solace she needed. In spite of her ambivalence, the days passed quickly for her, and even quicker for Nicholas, who seemed to be thriving in his new friendship.

  He was learning a great deal from Young Hawk. Now he could kill a rabbit with a rock, find water in cactus, and make a blanket from rabbit hides. Samantha had drawn the line at letting him grow his hair long enough to braid.

  Samantha was getting used to her son’s going out in the morning and not coming home until Juana rang the dinner bell. They hadn’t even needed the bell before.

  That evening Nicholas ran to meet her, his suntanned face flushed with healthy color. “We caught huge crawdads.”

  “Well, where are they?”

  “Young Hawk took them for his family. Ugh, huh?”

  At the Kincaid ranch in Texas, crawdads would have been fed to the chickens. Here they would be the Indian family’s main course. She was beginning to understand what Steve had meant about Indians having a hard life.

  The next day, Nicholas came in before she called him.

  “My goodness. To what do I owe the honor of your presence? And without even calling you.”

  Nicholas flung his slim body into one of the chairs and slumped down. “Young Hawk can’t play.”

  “I should have known it wouldn’t be because the two of you couldn’t think of anything to do.”

  “I don’t know why he had to get sick,” he grumbled.

  “I’m sure he didn’t intend to.”

  “We were going to do something fun today.”

  “Well, maybe tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.” Nicholas brightened.

  Young Hawk couldn’t come out to play the next day, either, or the next. Samantha ordered Nicholas to stay away in case it was something contagious.

  She took this opportunity to catch Nicholas up with his lessons. Since Young Hawk was being kept inside, Nicholas wanted more attention from her.

  They ate lunch together, then Samantha put Nicholas down for a nap. She read to him for an hour, until his eyelids drooped and his breathing deepened. Then closing the book, she kissed her sleeping son and tiptoed out of the room.

  In the parlor, she settled down to work on payroll. Juana waddled into the room.

  “I think maybe you better come, señora.”

  “What is it?”

  “My boy, Eliptio, went down by the Indian camp. He says them all seeck.”

  “Who?”

  “Them Indios.”

  “All of them?”

  “All that’s there.”

  Samantha grabbed her medicine box and hurried out the door and down the hill.

  Chapter Fifteen

  At the Indian camp, she heard the coughing first, then the wail of a sick child. The tepee smelled like red ants. A chill started at her neck and raced the length of her spine. Measles!

  Young Hawk was the sickest. His head was so hot it almost burned Samantha’s hand. His sister and the infant had fevers, too. Little Dove and Red Star were sick but staggering around trying to nurse the children. Red Star’s forehead was hot. Her hands shook.

  Samantha sent a rider on a fast horse for the army doctor at San Carlos and a rider for Steve. Seth Boswell was good at cuts and bullets, but she doubted he knew anything about epidemics. She went back to the house, packed remedies she’d used on her son when he’d had the measles, and ordered Juana to keep Nicholas in the house.

  Steve arrived first.

  “Measles,” he said, confirming her diagnosis.

  “Thank God it isn’t consumption.”

  “Don’t thank him too soon.”

  Dr. Frank Easterby arrived late that evening, checked the sick Indians, and walked outside the tepee, waving the stench of their unwashed, feverish bodies out of his nostrils.

  Steve stood off to one side, leaning against one of the old oak trees that lined the creek.

  “Yup, measles,” Easterby said. “Doesn’t look good, either.”

  “I tried to keep Nicholas away from them—”

  “They could have gotten it anywhere.”

  “Nicholas played with Young Hawk—”

  “Dwelling on what might have started this is a waste of time. You didn’t arrange it so they don’t seem to have any immunity to our diseases.”

  “Nicholas will find out he gave it to them and he’ll die. I know he will.” She started to walk away, but the strength went out of her legs. Steve pulled her into his arms and led her to a rock to sit down.

  “Nicholas will be fine,” he said, his hand on her arm biting into her flesh as if he were trying to inject his belief into her. “Nicholas is a fine boy. He’ll do what he has to do.”

  Samantha started to cry. She knew her son. He wasn’t like other children, even other adults. Life wasn’t that important to him. But his life was that important to her. If he died, her life would end.

  “He mustn’t find out,” she whispered, her eyes pleading.

  Easterby looked askance at Steve. “He’s only six years old,” Easterby said, protesting. He couldn’t see why she was making such a fuss over a six-year-old boy giving measles to a bunch of filthy Indians. If she’d smelled them…

  “He mustn’t find out,” Samantha said through clenched teeth, rage bringing strength into her legs. She pushed Steve’s hand away.

  “Promise me you won’t tell anyone.”

  Easterby spread his hands. “Who’d care?”

  Steve posted an around-the-clock guard to keep people from accidentally stumbling into a highly contagious situation. He didn’t expect Silver Fish until Friday night, but he ordered Ed Stokes to keep everyone away, even Silver Fish and his brothers, until the crisis passed. He didn’t want to risk giving this to anyone else.

  “What’s wrong with them?” Ed asked, his face pinched with worry about himself catching whatever it was.

  “Measles.”

  “Oh, I had the measles.”

  “Good. Keep everyone away. No one comes near here.”

  Steve sent word to Juana that she, Nicholas, and the others were to move up to the new house site and that she wasn’t to tell Nicholas any more than she had to.

  After he saw them leave the house and head up the mountain, Steve went to the house for more supplies. He brought back washcloths, towels, and more supplies for poultices.

  Samantha nursed them as diligently as she had nursed Nicholas, but the disease took a nasty turn. The skin eruptions came only in patches and then receded, which Easterby had warned her was a dangerous sign. She noticed it first on the little girl, whose upper arms broke out with black points that quickly receded. Then her neck and thighs, but not her trunk or lower legs. The points were purple and black instead of florid red.

  All her patients had dry hacking coughs and breathed laboriously. She changed poultices hourly.


  The second day, a dark brown fur formed inside the oldest girl’s mouth and on her lips. Samantha applied garlic-and-mustard poultices more frequently and spooned herbal tea into the girl’s mouth, but near dawn she lapsed into a coma and died.

  Crying so hard she could hardly walk, Samantha tottered outside to tell Steve. As she cleared the flap of the tepee, the top of the sun rose over the eastern mountains.

  Steve held Samantha until the worst of her crying had passed. Then he sat her down on a boulder beside the almost dry creek, walked into the tepee, and took the girl. Little Dove was asleep. Red Star was delirious and didn’t notice, either.

  Steve buried the girl. That night Young Hawk’s fever rose to a hundred and six. Samantha immersed him in warm water and slowly cooled it by additions of cooler water until his fever went down. She had hoped the warmth would bring the disease out instead of driving it in, but his symptoms went the way of his sister’s. He died two days later.

  They buried Young Hawk, and Samantha prayed the dying was over. She turned her attention to saving the last three. Red Star seemed to be recovering. Her symptoms had not turned nasty the way the others had.

  “You get some sleep,” Steve said, leading her to a pallet he’d laid beside the creek. “I’ll take over now.”

  Samantha dropped into sleep effortlessly and woke suddenly, filled with alarm.

  “Are they all right?” she asked, stumbling into the tepee.

  “Seem to be.”

  Near exhaustion, Samantha made another pot of beef tea, gave some to Steve, and drank a little herself. Slightly refreshed, but still feeling half dead herself, she carried a bowl of it to Red Star.

  “Can you sit up a little? Here, let me help you,” she said, putting the bowl down. Red Star didn’t move. Samantha couldn’t rouse her.

  “Steve.” He must have been right outside the door. He stepped inside, checked Red Star, and shook his head.

  “She’s dead.”

  Samantha hadn’t thought she had another tear left in her, but she stumbled outside, crying.

  Steve followed her. He held her until her sobs quieted. “I’m sending you up to the house,” he said firmly.

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “I won’t go. I shouldn’t have gone to sleep.”

  They argued, but she was adamant. Steve waited until Little Dove was asleep to carry Red Star outside for burial. Samantha felt it her duty to watch, but she couldn’t. She’d seen too many people buried already.

  Little Dove saved her from wallowing in guilt though. She woke up struggling for air. Samantha prepared a fresh poultice, which eased her breathing slightly.

  That night Little Dove’s baby went into convulsions. Samantha stripped the baby and bathed her with alcohol, stroked her hot skin with an alcohol-soaked rag, and sat on the dirt floor, eyes closed, rocking the baby.

  Steve stepped inside the hot tepee. “How is she?”

  “She’s better now,” Samantha whispered, touching the baby’s face. It felt odd, as if the elasticity had gone out of it. Alarm quickened in Samantha. Steve picked up the lantern and held it near the baby’s face. The infant’s pupils were fully dilated. The baby felt heavy and still.

  “Oh, no,” Samantha moaned. Stricken, Samantha looked up at him, her eyes unguarded. For the first time since he’d known her, all her barriers were down. He could see her heart seared and perishing within her, as if struck by lightning. Part of him wanted to turn away from the sight, but he couldn’t. She just sat there, looking up at him, tears streaming down her cheeks. Steve felt his own heart sear and shrivel within him.

  Finally he walked over to her, lifted the baby out of her arms, and carried it to Little Dove, who took it and wouldn’t let go of it. She just lay there, wheezing for air, stroking her baby, and crying weakly. Steve thought about taking it from her, but he couldn’t.

  Toward dawn, Little Dove died with the baby in her arms. Steve walked out to where Ed Stokes was standing guard. He stopped twenty feet away from the young rider. “Go up to the house and find a change of clothes for Mrs. Forrester and one for me. Bring washrags, towels, shoes, and a couple of strong bars of Juana’s lye soap.”

  “You don’t want me to stand guard anymore?”

  “No. They’re all dead now.”

  Steve dug another grave. When it was ready, he carried Little Dove and her baby outside and lowered them down with ropes. Steve knew this burial would not be seen as ceremonial enough to satisfy Silver Fish, if he were there, but it would have to do. Looking sick enough to die herself, Samantha walked to the grave, knelt down, and said a short shaky prayer asking God to look after these brave people.

  Steve picked up the shovel. Samantha continued to kneel there and cry. When Steve pitched the last shovelful of dirt on the grave, he tossed aside the shovel and walked over to her. He believed a little crying was good for the soul, especially when it was so well justified, but too much might make her sick.

  He lifted her up and into his arms. “Oh, Steve…”

  “I know. I know. It hurts like hell.”

  Sobbing louder now, she clung to him. She smelled like the smoky fire he’d been tending to keep water hot, coffee made. He stroked her hair and her slim shoulders. Tenderness was so strong in him it felt like lust, centered in his heart instead of in his loins. He held her until he saw Ed Stokes ride up and stop a distance away. Steve steadied her.

  “I’ve got to see Ed.” Steve walked out, took a bundle from Ed Stokes, and walked back to Samantha.

  “What’s that?” she asked, her voice thin and shaky from so much crying.

  “A change of clothes for both of us. I want you to take off your clothes. I’m going to burn them along with everything else you see here.”

  Samantha went into the bushes to undress. Steve walked back to the tepee, gathered cooking utensils, water jugs, soft rabbit skins, heavy buffalo hides, grinding stones, a tapestry of spun yucca fibers one of the women had been working on, a hoe made of bone, a string of chilis hanging from a nearby tree, everything in the camp, including Samantha’s household items brought down for nursing, and tossed all of it into the opening of the tepee. When everything was inside, Steve unbuttoned his shirt and stripped it off.

  To Samantha, shivering beside the tree, Steve was a blur. She saw a flash of a broad chest and his hands unbuttoning his trousers. She looked away.

  “Take a bar of lye soap and scrub yourself until your skin feels raw,” he directed.

  Steve stepped out of his pants, gathered up their clothes, tossed them into the tepee, and threw matches on them until the flames caught. Naked, he walked to the creek. Samantha glanced up once, then quickly down.

  His back to her, Steve picked up a bar of soap and began to scrub himself. Samantha felt no sexual stirrings, but it was nice to watch his strong back, his long, straight legs while she mindlessly scrubbed her own limbs.

  Steve finished as she did. He dried himself with one towel while she used the other. They dressed in silence.

  “Decent?” he asked as he buttoned clean trousers.

  Samantha pulled her gown down over her breasts. “You’ll have to button me.”

  Steve turned. Samantha’s eyes looked big and serious in her pale face. She reminded him of Nicholas.

  He buttoned her gown. “I’ll take you to the new house now. You get into bed and don’t get out until you feel too good to stay there any longer.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever feel good again.”

  “Now you know why I don’t believe in hell.” His khaki eyes looked sadder than any eyes she had ever looked into. “After life, hell would be redundant.”

  Lance walked home from work to further tire himself out. At the front porch of the house he had built for and shared with Angie, he stopped and frowned, irritated that her sign still hung over the front door: ANGELA LOGAN, PHOTOGRAPHER.

  He felt like ripping it down and breaking it into splinters. He settled for stalking past it and slamming the fr
ont door behind him.

  He knew he was supposed to do something about the stalemate with Angie, but he had no energy for anything except going to work, coming home, and collapsing. The occasional rushes of energy he felt, the first of which had sent him to Samantha, had been labeled “unacceptable” behavior by his brother Chane.

  He knew it was, but the energy was still there, waiting for an outlet. He channeled it into work as much as he could, but if Jennie’s letters to him could be believed, that, too, was just another way of avoiding dealing with his problem. Jennie wanted him to go to San Francisco and talk to Angie. Jennie believed that Angie was pining away for him, that all she needed was the sight of him to bring her to her senses.

  “That you, Mista Kincaid?” Yoshio called out from the kitchen.

  “Yeah.” Lance picked up the mail on the hall table and carried it into his office. He shuffled through the envelopes and stopped at one with a San Francisco postmark.

  He tossed the others aside and reached for his letter opener, his heart suddenly pounding. His hand fumbled and missed it, so he ripped the end off the envelope instead and slipped the thick packet out. He flipped through the pages until he saw Angie’s name signed neatly at the bottom of the page. He sagged into a nearby chair and read from the top.

  Dear Lance,

  I’m sorry that the first and only letter you get from me is all business, but I guess that’s what our relationship has degenerated into.

  I waited all this time to give you an opportunity to provide me with grounds for divorce. I don’t mean to insult you, or the healthy male appetites I remember you having, by implying that it would take you this long, but I also didn’t want to be disrespectful, either. It’s a shaky business, trying to guess exactly how long it takes a man to go from feeling married to acting on impulse. I hope I have done you justice in every respect. Please know that no disrespect was intended…

  The letter continued in that self-conscious vein, but Lance only scanned the rest, too furious suddenly to read any further. The papers accompanying her letter were from an attorney firm, Stern and Pentecost, naming him an adulterer and a wife-deserter.