The Deliverance

by Richard S. Wheeler

  “I’m an ordinary privateer, señor, at the service of whoever has the biggest purse. And when no one has a purse, I engage in my own violations of the laws of the sea.”

  Archuleta contemplated that. “Ah! I am glad to have your … confesión before witnesses, and that of your friend Skye,” he said. “That is all I need.”

  twenty-three

  Standing Alone found herself in a chill adobe room along with Victoria Skye. A guard with a lance and lust had taken them to this place east of the plaza.

  Through a small window she could see the dark mountains, the fierce blue of the sky, and the buildings of the village. Outside was freedom, a place to walk unimpeded across sunny fields. Never had she been without her freedom. This place called Mexico had a strange way of welcoming people, putting them in earthen boxes.

  She had come a great distance. She had long since ceased to grieve her boy and girl, who were like the dead now, phantoms, fading spirits in her mind. This quest had become something else, and she didn’t know exactly what. If her children still lived—and she sensed that one of them did—she would find them and give them as a gift to the People, who needed understanding of where their flesh and blood were taken, and how they were used, for the loss of a child was a loss to the whole People.

  This was new to the Cheyenne, this slavery, this using of children. Somehow she knew, and it was spirit-knowledge, that if she brought her children, or surviving child, back to the People, then the Cheyenne would triumph over the Ute thieves, and over these strange Mexicans who lived inside buildings of mud.

  She knew, too, that if she could find and free her son, Grasshopper, he would become a great leader of the Cheyenne, a tower of strength for his people. She burned to free him, not just for herself and her clan, but for the People themselves. He would take a new name and leave the boy’s name behind. Out of his captivity and suffering would come a man of such strength and spirit and holiness that his blessings would last for generations.

  All this she had been given in four visions and dreams; all this she kept to herself, locking it in her bosom until the time might come to reveal it. This was her secret as well as her passion, and she would willingly die to fulfill the things she had seen in her dreams.

  For years she had sat quietly at the gate of Bent’s Fort, listening to Americans and Mexicans. It was the Mexicans she studied the most because they might reveal the whereabouts of her children. Gradually, during those four years, she learned to fathom the words spoken by these people though she never uttered a single one. But there were many words still unknown to her. They had called her a concubina, which she had never heard, but she knew what a puta was, and because they said that of her she despised them right down to the marrow of her bones.

  At least she despised the men. The old woman who had succored them and given her the shift she now wore she did not despise. She knew how thin was the loose-woven cloth, how revealing it was in sunlight, the shadows of her body always visible, and she had not missed the stares that pierced right through that thin shroud to her bosom and belly.

  The Mexican women wore several layers and thus armored themselves from the stares of men. But she and Victoria had only the thinnest cover of this loose fabric they called linen. For this had the holy man, the Calf, stared at them both and the look in his eyes was unmistakable.

  They were prisoners for the moment, but she did not intend to remain one. Neither did Victoria. They were not sheep to be herded by shepherds. They were women of the People, not Mexican women, and women of the People knew the arts of war. Victoria Skye was merely an Absaroka dog, and without the powers any Cheyenne woman possessed, but it didn’t matter. They would help each other. She had not come this far, looking for her children, to surrender.

  She peered about her: this was a small storeroom. In the dim brown light she saw coarse sacks of beans, some dried red fruits strung on a cord and hanging. A closed door stained the color of the sky led to some other part of the building.

  Then that door opened, and a voluptuous full-breasted Mexican woman appeared, looked them over, smiled, and closed the door again. This woman looked to be not more than twenty winters.

  “We could go out that door,” Victoria said in the polyglot tongue they had evolved, half signs, half words.

  Standing Alone shook her head. She had learned patience. “Let’s eat,” Victoria said. There was food if only they could prepare it. “I will even eat what these people eat.”

  They converged on the sacks and earthen jugs looking for something to wolf down. But they found nothing like that. Grains in great crocks, oils in jars, beans in sacks. The thought of food made her salivate, and then ache for something, anything to assuage her hunger.

  But she was a woman of the People and sternly contained herself. Her captors would not know of her desperation. She drew herself proudly, and stood still, while Victoria hunted relentlessly for anything she could eat, poking a hard bean into her mouth and trying, without luck, to masticate it.

  “I will find a way to take some of this to Skye,” Victoria said, hunting for a cloth or a sack or a pouch she might conceal on her person. “I will help my man.”

  Standing Alone was not sure Victoria would ever see her man again. But they both hunted, and finally settled on tearing a piece of burlap out of a sack, using their teeth for the want of a knife. They realized that every scoop and ladle had been removed; there was no iron to turn into a weapon.

  That’s when the door of the storeroom swung open on its leather hinges, creaking noisily. The walleyed holy man, Father Martinez, peered into the gloom, and motioned them out into a kitchen room with a beehive fireplace, tables, and benches to sit upon. The pretty young woman hovered behind him. The scent of meat stewing in a pot hung over the fire dizzied Standing Alone.

  “Come, come,” he said in Spanish, motioning them out of the cramped dark storage room. “Do you understand my tongue?”

  Standing Alone did not acknowledge that she understood him perfectly well. He stared a moment, his gaze roving over her.

  “The sluts don’t understand,” he said to his young companion. “Very well, Juanita, I’ll show them things more ancient than words.”

  The young woman laughed, baring an even row of white teeth that contrasted to her lush brown lips. Standing Alone looked closely at this woman and thought she might be pregnant. Was this holy man the sire? She had heard that the priests of these people never embraced a woman, but here was this young one living so familiarly with him.

  “I will see what they understand,” he said, surveying them with some amusement.

  What a strange man he was, with his huge head shaped by its bones into the face of a calf, with malice in his eyes and a certain slyness visible because he did not guard his spirit.

  He turned to his captives.

  “Is it that you speak Spanish?” he asked.

  Standing Alone wondered whether to respond. Maybe it was best not to admit to it. But maybe it was better to find out what was in store. She nodded, slowly.

  “Ah! It is good, bien. You have been the sluts of these Texas spies I caught, and that is a grave offense, and worthy of death. But I will spare you. A good, obedient savage, willing to work and sew and cook, willing to hoe the fields, weed, harvest, do whatever is required, can redeem her life.”

  Standing Alone nodded. Soon she would translate for Victoria, but not yet.

  “Ah, I see you understand. Now, first, to prepare you for your new life, I will baptize you, for this is required of all who live in Mexico. This will seal you in your new faith, and you will become Christians and your souls will be saved.”

  Saved from what? She would find out. And she would find out what this baptism meant, too.

  She nodded, and searched her mind for the words she needed to ask a question. “What of the hombres?” she asked, not able to summon more words.

  The priest laughed. “The men? They will be taken to Santa Fe to plead before our governor. He will decide
whether to execute them or send them to the City of Mexico to be tried.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Don’t trouble your head about it. They are gone. You will never see them again.”

  He reached for a small bowl, which had the emblem of a cross upon it.

  “Ah, what is your name, woman?”

  “Call me what you will.”

  “And her name?”

  “That is for her to say.”

  “No, it is for me to say, for the name your people gave you is gone, and you will receive a new one from the church and the civilized world, so that you can partake of the gifts of God. You will be Maria, and she will be Juana. It is so, yes?”

  She fumbled for words. “So it is you name us.” Victoria asked what was being said. Swiftly, with the fingers and hands, and with their patois, she explained.

  “Sonofabitch,” Victoria said.

  Standing Alone wished she might know what that meant. The Crow woman said it all the time. It was some holy invocation of the speakers of English.

  The priest, meanwhile, lifted a lid from the vessel in his hands, and summoned them to him. He gestured that they should kneel before him. Standing Alone and Victoria both understood, and both refused.

  “You must bow before God,” said the Calf.

  Standing Alone stared.

  The priest pushed her downward, but she refused to kneel.

  “It will go hard for you, then, concubina,” he said, and she registered the word she did not understand.

  The priest’s woman watched, her gaze somber for a change.

  Then this padre, Martinez, she remembered, decided it didn’t matter: he dipped his fingers into that water and pressed his moist fingers upon her head, firmly, until she felt wetness. “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” he said in his tongue.

  He performed the same rite upon Victoria.

  “Now you will know what sin is,” he said.

  Standing Alone did not feel any different, but wondered whether she was cursed or blessed.

  twenty-four

  Skye’s fury exceeded even his hunger. He paced his adobe prison, brimming with bitterness. There were guards outside, each armed with a lance and two with swords. They would be taking him somewhere, probably Santa Fe, for some purpose. Maybe it wouldn’t end there: he had heard talk of being taken to the City of Mexico, there to rot in some dank prison.

  He glared at Childress, who sat quietly. Skye wished he had never met the man. He should have seen through the fat trader, if that is what he was, instead of making common cause with him. Childress had not hesitated to lie to the Mexicans and that got them into grave trouble.

  It would have been hard enough to win a sympathetic ear just telling the truth; but Childress had attempted to fob the pair of them off as monks, which had won him a horselaugh and a spell in prison, if not something much worse.

  Skye rued the day he had stumbled upon the man and his phony trading company and his bloodred cart and draft horse and monkey, all guaranteed to call attention to the man. And if that weren’t enough, Childress had painted piratical emblems on his cart and boasted of his years as a privateer. Any sensible man would have kept silent about his nefarious life.

  He slowed his pacing and paused before the Texan, who was still bulging out of his monk’s habit.

  “Get one thing straight, Childress. We’re through. If we get out of here, we’re going our separate ways. You understand?”

  “I do, but I don’t suppose Shine does.”

  “And that goes double for the monkey.”

  “Skye, we work well together.”

  “No man who lies to anyone works well with me.”

  “I salute a man of honor,” Childress said. “I myself impose no constraints on my conduct. I do what’s necessary.”

  “And get us into trouble,” Skye snapped.

  “Yes, a pity, isn’t it? Here you are, stuck with Jean Lafitte Childress, born without a scruple. I’ve sent innocents off a plank into the briny sea, robbed merchant ships, pillaged coastal towns, beheaded assorted women and children …”

  Skye didn’t know what to make of the imbecile. He only knew that if and when he got free, he would go in the opposite direction of wherever Childress and his damned monkey, if he still had his monkey, were heading.

  If he hadn’t hooked up with the flamboyant fool he and Standing Alone and Victoria would have arrived in Taos without disturbing anyone and would have been perfectly free to make inquiries about the children. They probably would have had their horses and packs, too. That cart had attracted the attention of the Jicarillas, and that was the beginning of their downfall.

  Skye paced, the only defense he had against the howling of his empty stomach. It had been the better part of two days since he had eaten. Childress didn’t seem to mind; he dined on his own fat. But Skye knew if he didn’t get fed soon, he would take on those guards if he had to and head for the plaza and the markets he saw there. He would eat.

  The door creaked open, and this time a sturdy raven-haired man with vast mustachios entered, flanked by guards. The man surveyed his prisoners, obviously enjoying himself.

  “Juan Andres Archuleta, prefect of the northern province,” he said.

  So he spoke a little English.

  “I’m hungry. Haven’t eaten.”

  Archuleta turned to Skye, studying him blandly, and then smiled. “Monks are succored on spiritual food,” he said. “You eat the Bread of Life.”

  Skye forced himself not to do what he was about to do, which was to land on the man and throttle him.

  “I am not a monk. And I haven’t eaten today and most of yesterday.”

  “A pity.” Archuleta looked the prisoners over, and yawned. “You will proceed at dawn toward Santa Fe. It is a matter for our gobernador, Armijo. Si, he will settle your fate. He enjoys such proceedings. He’s very fond of foreigners. If he finds you guilty, he will give you a quick and merciful death against the wall.”

  “What are we charged with?”

  Archuleta shrugged. “Just now, nothing, Brother Skye. There is nothing against you. But there is much testimony, which I have written down and will send along to Santa Fe.”

  “I am not a monk.”

  “So you keep saying. A pity, for if you were, I might set you free. Your boca grande puts you farther and farther into the trouble, no?”

  “I am here with my wife and our friend, a Cheyenne woman, to find her children.”

  Archuleta yawned. “Si, si, a pity, Reverend Brother Skye. How cold is the rule of justice, and how it crushes the unfortunate. But your sweet piety, it will you see you through, a martyr of the Holy Faith. Maybe they will canonize you someday, and make you a saint.”

  “Where is my wife?” he said.

  “Your wife? You are married, Brother?”

  “Where is she? And our friend?”

  “You’ll be pleased to know she is with our padre, Martinez, si?”

  “And what is she doing there?”

  Archuleta smiled softly. “Ah! I am told she has received the baptism. Soon she will be a daughter of the faith.”

  Baptism? Victoria? She who lived within the soul of her people?

  “You imprison not only bodies, but souls, señor,” he said. “You capture souls for Christ at the point of a lance. Do you think the Lord would approve?”

  Archuleta smiled, obviously amused at the thought. “We leave at dawn,” he said.

  With that, he withdrew. The door creaked shut. Skye heard the thud of a bar locking it. He knew he would spend the hungriest night of his life unless succor arrived. At least there was an olla of water available to the prisoners.

  He drank of the cup, bitterly.

  He did not sleep that night. There was no bed, but that was not what caught him in fits of wakefulness. Neither was it his hunger, which bit cruelly at him. It was an ancient anguish. Other mortals now controlled his destiny by force of arms; the food and water
and clothing he needed depended not on his efforts, but on their whim.

  He felt at one with all the world’s most helpless people, those whose fate, whose tomorrows were unknown to them. He felt at one with those Indian children, abducted years earlier, whose fate was not their own; deprived of hope, of caring, of love, of comfort, but simply bodies to be used by masters and then discarded.

  On the floor in the far corner, Childress lay curled up on his side, apparently asleep, and far less concerned by this twist of the noose of life than Skye was. Skye stared, knowing he had learned a lesson: never again would he willingly ally himself with anyone he didn’t trust.

  He would never trust anyone who deliberately called attention to himself with bizarre stories, or conduct. He would never trust anyone with a loose mouth and a lack of ordinary honesty. For the rest of his days, if he escaped this hell, he would let caution govern him.

  He didn’t know where the monkey was; it could easily leap to the high window and out. Skye amended his views: never trust a man with a monkey. He peered around in the gloom, trying to see the little simian by whatever light was given him by the stars, but he saw nothing. Maybe the guard had run his lance through the little monster, a prospect that did not displease Skye. A chill settled upon the already cold room, but Skye had little to cover himself, so he pressed his body into another corner and waited for dawn.

  The stars sailed through their orbits, and Skye sat rigidly, his heart with Victoria, his mind unsettled. And then he heard a scrambling up on the sill above, and felt the faint rush of movement. The monkey had returned to the master. It sprang over to Childress, who muttered something, and then back to Skye, and chittered softly. There in his hands was some object, but Skye could not make it out at first. Then his nostrils did, and he felt himself holding a chunk of bread. Half a loaf of bread.

  He felt its springy hardness in his hands, and smelled the yeasty aroma. He sighed, grateful for this mercy, but ashamed of his harsh thoughts. Only minutes earlier he was entertaining the hope that a lancer had run the monkey through. It was another lesson, he thought, bitterly.