Fighting tears that came anyway, she hurried to find a piece of cloth that could be used to get a little water down the child and pacify its instinctive’ need to suck.
It wasn’t only Shea’s miracle that was gone, but a grace and kindness that had blessed them all. How would they manage now? What would they do?
In an hour they were on their way. Shea carried Socorro in front of him, held by a sort of sling rigged to shift much of her weight to the cantle. He had swallowed the pinole Talitha urged on him but he seemed a long way off.
Talitha and the vaqueros took turns carrying the baby and dipping the twisted rag into the gourd of water Talitha had boiled. She had thought about mixing in a little brown sugar, but decided it might bring on a colic. Better wait for Anita’s milk.
Wrapped in its mother’s shawl, the baby sucked eagerly on the cloth and slept most of the time, which was fortunate. Talitha felt sorry for it, thrust out of its warm, safe home, having to become accustomed to air and light. Instead of having a warm nourishing breast to soothe the abrupt change, small Caterina had only a watered bit of cotton torn from one of Socorro’s blouses.
As the day wore on, Belen assumed the practical judgments such as when to stop and where to ford the river. Santiago seemed almost as dazed and remote as Shea. Talitha had made several diapers from what softer clothing remained after the attempt to staunch Socorro’s blood, and when it was necessary, she stopped and changed the baby, rinsing the soiled cloth in water from the river and fastening it behind the cantle to dry.
By sundown they reached El Charco. The Sanchezes’ amazed delight at seeing Shea alive was quickly smothered when they saw Socorro, but Carmencita got control of herself, hurried to feed them though tears ran down her plump face and she lamented continuously.
“Ay, Dios! Pobrecita! So lovely, so young! Poor Don Patricio! The small Miguel and Patrick! This tiny niña!”
Poor all of us, thought Talitha, exhausted. And poor, poor James! He’ll blame himself even if Shea doesn’t. But it was temporary surcease to rest under the ramada and eat the mashed beans, steaming tamales and fresh tortillas that Carmencita brought out to them.
It was also Carmencita who enfolded Socorro, lying near Shea on some blankets, in a thin woven coverlet, also Carmencita who took the baby and added a little goat milk to the water she sucked with increasing frustration from the rag.
“My Anita will take care of you,” she promised the tiny creature. “I could send for her, Don Patricio, if you wish to stay here tonight.”
Shea roused from some bleak ranging of the spirit. “Thanks, Carmencita, but we’ll ride on. Tally, you can stay over if you want. You must be worn out.”
She shook her head though she felt so weary that she didn’t think she could get into the saddle. As she almost hung by Ladorada, gripping the horn and willing her body to respond, Belen gave her a swift hand up.
“Courage, doncellita!”
He gave her hand a rough pressure, stepped aside as Carmencita handed up the baby. Santiago helped Shea lift Socorro in front of him, and they rode off in the twilight.
No light showed from the ranch but as they approached the corrals, their horses began to snort and sidle. A voice called softly, “Hair of Flame?”
“Mangus!”
The giant shadow rose before them. “You are healed,” said the Apache. “It is good.”
“It is not good, great chief. My wife is dead.”
Mangus was still for a long moment. “She had a flower face, but she was very brave. My heart is on the ground.” His tone sharpened. “Did she die by the hand of men?”
“No. In birthing.”
A deep sigh came from the Apache. “The child lives?”
“Yes. A girl.” Shea’s tone was bitter and Talitha held the baby closer. Poor little thing indeed if everyone was going to blame her for Socorro’s death!
“Perhaps she will be like her mother and brighten your days as she grows,” said Mangus. He added slowly, to Talitha, “I came to tell you that the one who was your brother’s father is dead, killed in a fight with Mexican soldiers. He will not be claiming his son. But the boy says he would like to go back with me.”
Talitha gasped. “James said that?”
“Yes.”
“It—it’s because he feels to blame for Shea!” she cried. “And I was mean to him, I was so scared and angry! Don’t take him! Please don’t!”
“We’ll talk of it later,” the Indian said. “It’s late. You must all be tired.”
He waited, not offering to help, for the horses were nervous of his scent as it was. A horse got used to a certain kind of human odor, and a radically different smell upset it. But the ranch had come awake at the voices. A candle glowed from inside and Chuey and Cheno came out, tagged by a small boy who no longer swaggered, who no longer was shadowed by a large black cat.
“James!” Talitha called softly.
She wanted him close to her when he heard what had happened and she ached as she saw, even in the near-dark, that he approached her cautiously. Belen had helped her down and led away her horse.
Kneeling by James, she put her free arm around him and guided his hand to the baby’s head. “This is Caterina, James. The new baby.”
“Shea—he’s alive! I heard him!”
“Yes.” The lump in her throat swelled. She couldn’t go on. But at that moment Chuey’s shocked voice exclaimed, “Dead, Don Patrico? Doña Socorro?”
James twisted in Talitha’s arm, but she held him. “Is she?” he choked. “Is she dead?”
Talitha could only nod as her tears fell hot and fast. Swallowing, with tremendous effort she managed to speak. “Remember what she told you, James. She didn’t blame you. She—she bled so much! I couldn’t stop it. She might have died anyway, right in her own bed.”
“No, she wouldn’t!” James wrested loose. She couldn’t prevent him because she was holding Caterina. “I heard Juana and Anita! They said it was crazy for her to ride, that the baby would come dead or hurt some way!”
“Well, it didn’t. The baby looks fine.”
And everyone will wish she had died if it would have saved her mother. Though she’d had that feeling at first and traces remained, Talitha protectively gathered the little thing closer. All she could do for Socorro now was try to look after her family, especially this most helpless, friendless one.
“It’s my fault,” James said miserably.
“It’s over. You didn’t mean harm to anyone.”
They were walking toward the house. As the women came out, Talitha gratefully handed over the fretting infant to Anita, briefly explained and asked her to feed and tend it. Then she looked around for James, found him by the corral with Mangus.
“Come in and sleep,” she coaxed her brother.
“No. I don’t belong there anymore.”
“Of course you do! Now don’t be silly, James! Come along—”
She tried to hold him but his body was rigid and tight. He pushed away. “Mangus says I can go with him.”
“What?” Talitha’s whisper echoed in her ears like a scream.
“I’m going with Mangus.”
“You can’t! Juh’s dead!”
“He will be my son,” said Mangus. “I will teach him our ways.”
Maddened past restraint, Talitha blazed, “Yes, you’ll show him how to kidnap women and burn men over slow fires! He can’t go! He’s my brother!”
“Half your brother,” Mangus corrected, but he didn’t sound angry. “You know well that Din-eh are not the only ones to steal women and torture men. Your brother will learn to stalk and hunt, find his way through every mountain range in this part of the country, whether claimed by Americans or Mexicans.”
“Shea won’t let you have him.”
Mangus said patiently, “Hair of Flame has said the boy will always have a home at the ranch, but that if he wishes to go with me, he will not prevent him.”
Feeling betrayed, Talitha stood helplessly in the
darkness, glancing from the towering shadow to the small one. “James!” she cried. “Oh, James!” And he was not the boy precociously expert with reata and horses who squirmed from her embraces and followed the men, but the child she’d carried in a cradleboard almost as long as she was, that she’d fed with crushed piñons and water and kept alive in spite of Juh’s women.
Mangus’s hand on her was so kind that, to her own surprise, she didn’t shrink from it. “Your brother can visit you. And if the white part of him is strongest, if he does not live well among the Din-eh, he can come back as he wills.”
She grasped at that. A small hope, at least. Hadn’t James been reared as white ever since he could remember? One part of her mind was even forced to admit that it might be best for James to leave for a while, get away from the people and place that would confront him daily with guilt. And Shea … He was too generous and fair to be unkind or vengeful, but who could blame him if he felt differently toward the boy he’d ransomed with his own pain?
Into the silence, Talitha said, “James? You won’t forget us? You will come back?”
“I won’t forget you!” he cried with an indrawn breath, and then, with a gasping sob, he ran away.
“I will watch him,” Mangus said. “Go and sleep. I will watch Hair of Flame, also.”
“How can you? Isn’t he inside?”
“No. He has carried his wife to the bottom of the hill. He said he would sleep with her this last night before she goes into the earth.” Mangus’s tone held an edge of awe. “He does not fear her spirit!”
“No, how should he?” Talitha said.
Stupid with weariness and grief, feeling as if her bones were dissolving, she gazed toward the slope. So Shea, for one more night, would hold his love beneath the stars.
But the day would come, and the burial, trying to explain to Miguel and Patrick. James would go with Mangus and … I can’t bear it! Talitha wept inwardly, stumbling as she walked to the house. I can’t bear any of it at all! But she would have to.
XXII
Socorro was buried on the hill where the cross above her would be touched by the earliest sun and the latest. The vaqueros made a coffin of oak that had been curing for use in furniture and the women had dressed her in her best clothes and arranged the mantilla over her face. Shea added the jewels he had bought her, fetched up from Chihuahua by the conducta, an emerald ring and necklace, a rosary of gold and precious stones, a medal of Guadalupana.
On the hill, Shea tried to speak and could not. Nor could Santiago who stood with his face averted. At last Mangus loomed forward. “She who has gone away was beautiful in her face and in her ways. Her deeds were kind and she was valiant. Since it is not your way to kill a mount for one gone away, I will do that when I return to my own place.”
“That would pain her,” Shea roused enough to say. “Do not, great chief.”
Mangus didn’t answer, but turned and strode away. James went with him. They mounted their horses at the bottom of the hill and by the time Socorro was lowered into the earth, her grave heaped with stones and the cross raised, the travelers were out of sight.
In the days that Mangus had waited for the return of Shea’s party, he had talked a little with Chuey and Cheno and made no pretense of liking them. He was troubled about the Americans pushing through his country, especially when they spoke of boundaries, though John Bartlett, the first Boundary Commissioner, had given him an officer’s tunics, some blue pants with red stripes, epaulets, shoes and even a cravat. Unfortunately, these had been lost in gambling.
Even more unfortunately, Mangus had hoped to get some encroaching American miners to move their operations to Mexico and had gone alone into their camp, offering to take them to a valuable site. Not believing him or understanding who this huge man was, they wrestled him down and lashed him with a bull whip. That was two years ago. Mangus now believed the Americans to be as much his enemies as the Mexicans.
Startled out of his apathy, Shea said, “He didn’t tell me about this!”
“Probably, Don Patrico, he felt it was not the time,” said Chuey, pockmarked face very serious. “He said that as much as he could, he would protect this rancho, but if the whites crowd in and constantly enflame the Apache, he’s not sure how long his friendship will keep the other groups away.”
“We’ll just have to take our chances,” growled Shea.
“Which may rapidly improve,” put in Santiago. “If the United States is buying this region for its railroad, it’ll have to send soldiers.”
Shea grimaced. Santiago gave him a slight smile. “I don’t love the Americans, either. But at least they should be more numerous and better-armed than the presidio garrisons!”
“Captain Zenteno’s doing his best,” defended Shea, for on their fall drive to market in Tubac, they’d learned that Zenteno had been named commander of the whole sector from Santa Cruz to Tucson.
“The other garrison commanders will have to do what he says,” agreed Santiago. “But look at what he’s supposed to do! Keep in touch with the Gila Pimas and San Javier Papagos and convince them to muster in case of trouble; send six men to Calabazas to help guard the stock; stay constantly alert, defend the whole stretch of territory and still keep enough men at Tubac to repel attacks! Poor Zenteno! I bet he hopes the United States will take the whole mess off his hands!”
Shea didn’t answer. He’d lapsed into the brooding silence that still claimed him much of the time though he had at least gone on living. And from that, Talitha argued to herself as weeks passed and he barely ate, was bound to gradually come a renewed zest, a return of energy. At first he wouldn’t pick up Caterina, even look at her if it could be avoided, but lately he’d started watching her as she kicked on a blanket or slept in the big willow basket Belen had made for her.
That eased a pressing weight on Talitha’s heart. She’d been afraid he might abhor the baby, or have nothing to do with it, which didn’t matter so much now while there was Anita’s warm breast, the fascinated twins to rock and cluck and coo, the vaqueros’ rough adoration, and Talitha’s own great love.
No, for a long while Caterina wouldn’t miss one more worshiper. But as she got old enough to wonder, especially when she understood it was her father who ignored her … Well, Talitha had been terrified of that! Not now, though, for once Shea began to see his daughter, how could he not be utterly conquered?
The fair baby hair had been replaced with fine black curls that clustered softly around the tiny triangular face. Darkly imperious eyebrows slanted above eyes that were a deep blue-gray fringed with long black lashes.
“She’ll break many hearts,” laughed Santiago as she closed her perfect little fingers around one of his big brown ones. “And what a grip she has! The man she wants will never get away!”
“Don’t start in on that already!” said Talitha rather crossly.
The baby had had colic in the night and she and Anita had taken turns walking her about. Now, while they yawned and struggled to get through the day, Caterina, the small devil, slept blissfully between gurgling happy bouts of squirming and reaching for the trinkets Talitha had tied to her basket.
“Why, Talitha!” grinned Santiago. “Do you fear you’ll grow into this one’s skinny old dueña? Caray! In a few years more you’ll be famed from Hermosillo to Tucson! The visiting caballeros’ horses will eat so much grass that we’ll have to marry you off before we lose all the pasture!”
“Cojones!” She threw the corral expression “What balls!” at him, took wicked pleasure in the shock that widened his golden eyes, then made them narrow.
“Talitha! Only bad women, very bad women, talk like that!”
“You do. And Belen and Chuey and—all of you!”
He flushed. “Not in front of women,” he said sternly. At the protest in her face, he added sheepishly, “If you’re always around the branding and rough work, of course you’ll hear things! Which reminds me that I must tell Don Patrick you’re too old to go on as you have been.�
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“Too old?” She glared in outrage. “Why, I’m just getting strong enough to be really any help! You know that, Santiago! Don’t be a burro!”
Something changed in his eyes, in his face. Suddenly he wasn’t the big-brotherly person she’d taken for granted, but a man, one with a strangeness on him that somehow reminded her of Judah Frost, made her retreat though Santiago didn’t move.
“How old are you?” he asked abruptly.
She blinked. “Fourteen next April.”
His breath escaped in a sigh. He turned away. “Well, you’re too old to talk like a vaquero or hang out with us, and so I shall tell Don Patrick this very day.”
Talitha felt blind with fury. She could do housework, and did, without complaint, but she only felt alive when she was outside, and the baby’s care took so much of her own and Anita’s time that she rarely had a chance, now, to ride Ladorada, even seize a few hours to gather nuts or wild foods. And Santiago, for the sake of ideas thought up a long way off and a long time ago, wanted to condemn her to a life of cooking and household chores?
“Sangrón!” she shouted at him. “Bembo! Zonzo!” Having called him hateful one, simpleton and stupid, she didn’t dare, even in her outrage, to spit out the really bad names, so she ended rather weakly, “Shea won’t listen to you! And—if he does, I’ll hate him, too!”
At the hurled names, he had checked as if astounded, turned swiftly toward her, but the anger that flared in his eyes softened, as he watched her, into amusement. “Ay, Talitha, you are growing up! The kitten’s getting claws. But it’s not, you know, altogether unpleasant to be a woman.”
The memory of Socorro bleeding flashed through her mind. It did through his, too, or he read her thoughts, for his face twisted as he whirled and went out, his limp heavier.
Ashamed, for she loved Santiago next to Shea, James, the twins and Caterina and knew that however obtuse he was, he truly wanted what was best for her, Talitha started to go after him and say she was sorry. Then she heard him laughing with the twins who had apparently ambushed him outside the door and decided that after all, he’d smiled, he’d known she hadn’t meant it.
The Valiant Women Page 31
