The Valiant Women

by Jeanne Williams

  “Would you know them again?”

  The yellow eyes gleamed.

  “I got glimpses of the ones who came back for the scalping. The tallest was clean-shaven. Elegant he was for a butcher’s work. The other two were bearded, blond, filthy. One wore eyeglasses and was called Doc.”

  “That should help.” The sun was setting. Almost immediate chill sharpened the air. “Let’s get into the house.”

  Shea started to scoop up Santiago who warded him off. “I—I can walk, señor, with help.”

  “And start yourself bleeding? To hell with that!”

  But the youngster would have resisted had Socorro not said with gentle firmness, “Let him do it, Santiago. Sometime he’ll need you.”

  A prophecy? Shea’s scalp prickled. What did fate have in store for the three of them met on the edge of the world at the rim of death? And what did they do once Santiago was strong enough to go with them or strike off on his own?

  It was like carrying a steel-muscled but badly wounded young lion. Socorro, with their supplies and the bucket of well water, hurried on. By the time Shea reached the house, she’d piled up several of the woven straw mats in the central room and spread them with a serape.

  Thank goodness, the pungency of mesquite smoke had driven off most of that other smell, and the fire in the hearth flickered welcomingly in the gloom. Strange to get such a sense of shelter, almost of homecoming, from a place so recently a charnel house. But after weeks in the desert, it was walls and roof, a fireplace, made and used by people.

  It must seem far otherwise to Santiago. His jaws were ridged taut and tears squeezed from his eyes as Shea lowered him to the pallet. Pretending not to notice, Shea said, “Let’s have a look at that hip.”

  He took off the pulped, peeled agave and frowned in concentration. Socorro had got rid of the maggots. Though there were pus-swelled crustings here and there, it looked like an amazingly clean wound. Perhaps they could concoct some sort of salve for the discomfort and itching that would come as the ragged hole started to close.

  Straightening, Shea said, “I’ll get you a new bandage, youngling.” Collecting the knife from near Socorro who was, with considerable trouble, shaping tortillas from meal cakes extended with more water, Shea went out, spied the outline of an agave in the twilight, and took off a leaf. Throwing away the narrow pointed end, he peeled and pounded the rest of it.

  Santiago appeared to have drowsed off in exhaustion. Carefully as he could, Shea pressed down the agave. Socorro had already trimmed away the pants leg. Later, when he woke again, they’d get off his boots.

  Rising, Shea studied the proud fierce features. Out of an Apache, was he? A young eagle, whatever! Don Antonio Cantú might have had more legitimate sons, but he couldn’t have got one of whom to feel more proud. And however that was, unless someone living had claim to the ranch, it just had to be Santiago’s.

  A tantalizing smell began to tease Shea’s nostrils. Sniffing, he went over and hunkered down by Socorro. “Sure smells good!”

  “It’s only some of our jerky and meal with the chilis and garlic you brought.” Socorro sniffed, too. “But spices do make a difference! And a pot to boil things in! Tomorrow we can have beans and corn.” She glanced toward Santiago. “Some hot gruel and broth will be good for him, too. Is he asleep?”

  “Seems so.”

  “Shall we take our meal, then, and feed him when he wakes?”

  Shea nodded fervently. “I’m starved!”

  He started to dip a tortilla into the kettle. She raised a delicately arched eyebrow and filled a gourd for him. Somewhat abashed, he sat down in reach of the tortillas which were stacked in a basket and covered with another.

  Damned if the minute she got a chance, she didn’t start making simple things complicated! But he had to admit that complicating unsalted jerky and meal cakes into a tasty stew was a talent he appreciated.

  “Never ate anything so good in my whole life,” he said after a few very busy and absorbed moments.

  Socorro glowed. Her manners were daintier than his but she did away with two bowls before Santiago began to stir. She thinned down some stew and went over to feed him while Shea polished off a fourth helping and eight of the somewhat lumpy tortillas.

  Sluggishly replete, worn out by the day, he was close to dozing while he sat there. With great effort he hauled himself to his knees, washed out the kettle and turned it upside down on the griddle to dry. Fetching wood for morning from the pile at the door, he put in a large chunk to hold the coals, fixed the rawhide bed for Socorro and made his pallet just outside her door.

  After helping Santiago outside for the necessities of nature, Shea barred both doors, thinking that if the rancho’s defenders had had time to fort up and had decent weapons, they should have been able to stand off a small army.

  “We had an old flintlock,” Santiago said, as if reading Shea’s mind. “But I don’t think Don Antonio had even time to load it.”

  Shea wished mightily for one of the percussion rifles, or failing that dream, any kind of firearm. All they had was a knife and the buck’s horn. Some kind of distance weapon … He turned abruptly.

  “Santiago! Can you make a bow and arrows?”

  The vaquero’s mouth twisted in a faint, mocking grin. “You believe I inherit such knowledge through my Apache blood?”

  “I wish to hell you had!”

  The young man gave the slightest hitch of one shoulder. “I’ve never held a bow, much less made one. But I think I can.”

  “Good!”

  Socorro put a gourd of water near Santiago and told him to call her if he needed her during the night. Shea waited till she had prayed by the shrine and gone into the bedroom. Then he spoke under his breath.

  “You need anyone, my lad, you just call me!”

  The whelp damn near chuckled, cocking an amused eyebrow. “Your hands are not so gentle as the lady’s. Nevertheless, I won’t disturb her sleep. Nor yours either, I hope. Good night, señor.”

  But for all the boy’s brave front, Shea’s sleep was disturbed. He woke slowly to an unfamiliar sound, stiffened in the darkness, missing the stars, wondering for a few seconds where he was. The sound that must have waked him came again, a muffled, breath-held kind of noise.

  Santiago was weeping.

  He had the right.

  Compassion flooded Shea. Should he say something, try to comfort the boy? No. That wild young pride would resent it. Better let him have the relief and think no one had heard.

  After a time the stifled sobbing ended but it took Shea a long while to get back to sleep. He thought of Socorro in the next room, seeming so far away after the way they’d slept almost touching these past weeks. Grown right into him, she had, like part of his body, part of his soul.

  She hadn’t carried on today, or shirked what had to be done. But had it revived the terrors of her own disaster? How long would he have to wait before he could even kiss her, hold her in his arms?

  Aching, Shea stared at the dim light of the windows. An even more unwelcome fear intruded.

  Santiago was a kid, but hell, he was really no younger than Socorro and he was devilish handsome. She was sorry for him, too. What if—

  Oh, go to sleep, you damned fool! Shea told himself. But it was what seemed hours before he did.

  V

  Next day Shea heaped more rocks on the mass grave and set up a cross. He added a small one. For that baby. And he prayed again for his brother Michael, Socorro’s father, and all those who lay in lonely graves, though he reckoned when you got right down to it, any grave was lonely.

  He found a razor and a bit of real soap in the bedroom window, borrowed Socorro’s scissors to get off the worst of the beard and, with great relief, shaved.

  Even though it was hard work to haul and carry the big leather bucket, Shea enjoyed watering the cattle, seeing them crowd up to drink, their dun, roan and black bodies scuffling for room.

  He moved much more freely now that he had trouse
rs, a pair he’d found in one of the chests. Too short and a bit loose on hips and waist, but still a proper garment. He’d also found a rough white cotton shirt and there’d been things Socorro could wear.

  Santiago had said the cows could go three days without water. Only a small portion of the Cantú herds came up on any single day. There were tinajas in the hills and some cattle never came to the troughs at all.

  “How many cows does the ranch have?” Shea asked at the evening meal. Santiago was awake, so the tortillas, the kettle of beans and a pot of corn soup had been moved over by him.

  “This fall we branded about fifteen hundred calves which means the range carries between seven and eight thousand head.”

  When Shea frowned his puzzlement, Santiago explained. “Don Antonio keeps his steers till they’re three years old. Then there are heifers, bulls and cows. For each calf, there are about five other animals.”

  Shea’s head reeled at such figures. “But what do they eat? They’d walk themselves poor hunting grass!”

  “They like grass when they can find it.” Santiago shrugged. “But they browse just about everything but creosote. They love mesquite beans and acacia and paloverde pods. And they eat quantities of cholla and prickly pear.”

  “Cholla!” Shea winced at the thought of the many-jointed, thousand-thorned pads. They made prickly pear look gentle. “How can they? Looks like their tongues would swell up and they’d die.”

  “That does happen sometimes,” the vaquero acknowledged. “The lady says you come from a land that has no cactus, the thorns are mostly on roses and berries, and there is much green grass and giant trees.” It was his turn to stare in disbelief.

  “That’s so.”

  “I,” said Santiago flatly, “cannot imagine a place without cactus!”

  “And I couldn’t imagine a place with it till I got here,” Shea said ruefully. “These are mighty good beans, Socorro. And that corn soup is great!”

  Socorro smiled, also ruefully. “You don’t speak of the tortillas.”

  Shea blushed. He knew how long she’d worked to grind the corn into meal, tedious hard labor she wasn’t used to. And slapping tortillas into shape must be a lot harder than it looked when you watched someone who’d done it all her life.

  “They’re very good,” he lied. “It’s just that they’re sort of taken for granted and—”

  “Mine are lumpy,” enumerated Socorro. “They have holes and heavy thick places and are raggedy. They are raw where they aren’t burned!” Picking one up, she gazed at it in disgust. “I don’t think I’ll ever learn!”

  “Many dull women can pat tortillas,” Santiago said. “You have healing in your touch.”

  “The agave is curing your wound and water eased the fever,” demurred Socorro.

  Santiago shook his head. “No, lady. If you had not cared for me yesterday, I believe I would have died in spite of all the water and agave in Sonora!”

  She looked incredulous but Shea nodded. “I had died when you found me.”

  Confused and somewhat dismayed at such testimonials, she ducked her head, took another tortilla which tore as she loaded it with beans and said dolefully, “I still wish I could make these!”

  “No doubt the rose complains that it doesn’t bear corn,” remarked Santiago gallantly.

  God’s whiskers! If he framed his tongue to beguilements like that now, what would he say when he was back on his feet? Casting the brash youngster a stern look, Shea said consolingly to Socorro, “You’ll learn,” and changed the subject back to ranching, fascinated with the size of the herds, the size of the ranches, the vastness of everything.

  Santiago told him that in the last century, Don Antonio’s grandfather had been granted, for services to the crown of Spain, one sitio de ganado mayor, place for large animals, of about 4,330 acres. He had later acquired other sitios, including several to the north which had been abandoned when Mexico, after 1821 independent of Spain, hadn’t been able to protect the frontiers. Don Antonio’s elder brother, Narciso, had inherited the main ranch with a fine house and furnishings and now he would take over his dead brother’s holdings.

  “How far away is your uncle?” Shea asked.

  “Don Narciso? He wouldn’t like me to call him Tio! Oh, a day’s riding would take one to his portal. Not that I intend to go!”

  “But he has to be told about Don Antonio!”

  “He’ll learn in time. His grief will be soothed by controlling more land and cattle.”

  “Surely he’ll give you part of what was your father’s!”

  “To ‘the Apache heathen’ as he calls me?” Santiago mocked. “My father always intended to give me a start when I married, but I was in no hurry for that.” He brooded a moment, then laughed. “I can’t do anything about the land, but I can run off some cattle, seguramente! What do you say, Don Patricio?” This was the style of address he had adopted for Shea. “Would you like to help me rustle cattle?”

  “Where would you put them?”

  “We could sell them to the presidios at Tubac or Tucson, but I think—” Santiago’s glance rested a brief caressing moment on Socorro. “I think we all need a home. Why don’t we take over one of the abandoned sitios my father owned? I have been to the one southeast of Tubac along Sonoita Creek. Good water, trees and grass. It was once a visita, or outpost mission, but was auctioned when the government sold off church lands.”

  “If your Uncle Narciso is so stingy, what’ll he say about that?”

  Santiago smiled lazily. “The place has been abandoned for over twenty years. I can’t think that Don Narciso, who spends most of his time in Hermosillo, both from fear of Apaches and love of society, will even remember those sitios as long as there are Apaches.”

  “So how do you imagine we’d survive?”

  “Face it, Don Patricio! No part of northern Sonora or New Mexico or Chihuahua is safe. Look at what happened here. I would prefer to die in greener country with more water!”

  “What do you think?” Shea asked Socorro. “Are you sure you don’t want to return to Alamos?”

  “Very sure. After the Areneños, I can’t worry much about Apaches.”

  “They’re said to take women for slaves.”

  She smiled, steel beneath it. “I wouldn’t be one long. This rancho, Santiago, how is it called?”

  “Agua Linda. Pretty Water. But we’ll give it a new name. Socorro.”

  She flushed. “Oh, no! Agua Linda is a nice name!”

  “But ‘Socorro’ has greater meaning. Don’t we hope the place will succor us, as you saved Don Patricio and me? Why not give it a name that will mean ‘refuge’?”

  “I like it,” Shea said.

  What he didn’t like so much was that Santiago had suggested it. But after all, except for legalities, the sitio belonged to him.

  Socorro’s nursing, the agave poultices and a tough young body soon put Santiago on the mend though it looked like some clawed beast had torn out a piece of his thigh.

  “If you wear your trousers tight, you’ll have to use a pad,” Shea joked. Socorro was outside so Santiago gave him a cocky grin.

  “Just as long as I don’t need a pad where it matters, Don Patricio.”

  “You don’t have to call me Don.” The boy’s extreme courtesy to him was getting on Shea’s nerves. “I’m not that much older than you!”

  The golden eyes widened, then narrowed in a measuring way. “Pues, our lady respects you. I must respect her respect.”

  “Our lady?” Shea scowled.

  The elegant raised eyebrow. “How not?”

  “How?”

  “Has she not saved us both?”

  Not much to argue there. Shea felt confused and irritated, like a large clumsy animal maneuvered by a swift tricky one. “You ready to try making a bow?” he growled.

  “Any time you bring the wood. Try to get something with a little spring, please, Don Patricio.”

  A mocking hesitance before the title? Shea muffled an exas
perated obscenity and went out, taking the ax.

  Our lady! Sounded like blaspheming.

  Besides, Shea didn’t like the coziness of that “our” as if he were claiming equal standing in her favor. Shea had known her first, hadn’t he? Slept by her close all those nights, made her boots and bandaged her blisters and walked her out of that wasteland?

  No comparison of his experience with Socorro and that of this disconcerting youngster’s! Better to loftily ignore his ever-so-courtly arrogance.

  Resolving to do that, Shea headed for the arroyo where the burial was and where larger trees sucked water from below as well as benefiting from the seasonal rains channeled down the gulch.

  Socorro knelt by the mass grave. This must be where she came during those daily absences that seemed longer than responses to natural needs.

  Our lady was praying to Our Lady. Head bowed by the crosses, she seemed the embodiment of all women who grieved, yet still hoped and did all they could for the living.

  Ashamed because he burned to have her as a woman, Shea turned quickly down the bank before she could see him, swore only mildly at the acacia that caught his ankles, and forced himself to concentrate on finding wood that might make serviceable bows.

  Acacia was too crooked, small and brittle, you’d do well to make darts from it. Dubiously eyeing paloverde, ironwood and mesquite, Shea thought he might have to settle for branches from the first, but none of the three inspired confidence. The limbs were either small, or gnarled and knotted from their struggles with wind and drought.

  Then, as he trudged down the arroyo, he saw another kind of tree, several of them, white-trunked and tall, with leaves that were shiny green on top and silvery gray beneath.

  This was more like it! And the first tree he’d seen since leaving Caborca that stood more than twelve feet high. Most weren’t as tall as he was.

  Seizing a down-bent branch, he tested a suitably long limb. It had some resilience but didn’t threaten to snap. A moment before he’d have taken it gladly. Now, with several trees to select from, he prowled about, testing his visual judgment by bending and feeling.