Safe Passage

by Carla Kelly

  “I did, and ripped your lace curtains too. It had to look ruined, Addie, or I wouldn’t have done it.”

  She nodded, her expression thoughtful. “Where is Blanco?”

  “I left him in the kitchen with a lot of water and grain.”

  He still had hold of her hand, so he gave it a gentle tug. She followed him around the house to the kitchen, where there was no Blanco.

  Ammon took a deep breath and another. He looked around, calling his horse’s name. Nothing.

  He wanted to cry, but not with Addie on the tender side of tears herself. She had not released his hand; in fact, she was rubbing his chest in that way she used to when she knew he was upset about something.

  “Addie, I—”

  “Señor, un momentito.”

  ELEVEN

  AMMON YANKED ADDIE behind him. He looked around and saw nothing, then wondered why he was such a fool to leave both rifles in the front yard. He couldn’t even keep himself safe, let alone a wife. Too bad Addie married an idiot.

  “Over here, señor. Fear not.”

  He forced himself to calm down. Addie spotted the man before he did. He heard her sharp intake of breath as she pointed to the pepper tree beside his smokehouse. An Indian stood there, Mauser in hand, probably the gun he had turned over to the Tarahumara Indians who had so politely stolen his cattle. And he knew the Indian.

  “Joselito?” At least his voice didn’t squeak like a teenager’s.

  Addie whimpered, and Ammon patted behind him to reassure her. She pressed so close to him that he almost expected to see her pop out of his chest.

  “You are careless. Maybe you need my help.”

  “Perhaps I do, my friend. Addie, I know him.”

  Joselito came no closer, squatting beside the smokehouse. The way he took a sudden interest in his rifle, looking down, made Ammon suspect the Indian had his own experience with frightened wives. It was a nicety he hadn’t expected.

  Addie was breathing so fast he feared she might faint. Ammon turned around and held her so close he could feel her heart beat. He gestured for Joselito to come closer.

  “I lost my horse,” he said, speaking over Addie’s head.

  “No,” the Indian said. He came closer, but not too close, obviously aware of Addie’s terror. “The guerillas came near this house, so I moved him.”

  Preoccupied with Addie, it took Ammon a moment for Joselito’s words to register in his brain. “Hush, Addie,” he said finally, tired of worrying about her reaction. He pried her from his body and put his arm around her, walking close to Joselito, dragging her with him.

  “You’ve been trailing me? Why?”

  “You helped me. My people have food now.” He looked at Addie, whose face was still turned in Ammon’s chest, as though she didn’t want to see an Indian on top of everything else that had happened. “Señor, there was a guerilla watching your woman when she crossed the street and pried up the boards.”

  “Joselito …”

  The Indian put out his hand in a placating gesture. “He watches no more.”

  “Thank you,” Ammon said simply. “I did not expect this of you.”

  Joselito gave Ammon the kind of look a person would give a not-so-bright child. “What else could I do? When you rode beside us that day, I know you could have galloped, and we could not have kept up with you because we were so hungry.”

  May you never suspect that the thought crossed my mind, Ammon told himself.

  “My women and children are alive because you were kind.” A ghost of a smile crossed his face. “Señor, I did not expect that kindness from a white man, but I had to try.”

  Ammon swallowed and looked away. He felt Addie’s hand on his chest, ever the nurturer, even in such a tight spot.

  Joselito watched them both, his smile lingering. “Ah, well. You would not have come through all this danger to find a woman you didn’t like much.”

  Ammon chuckled, looking at Addie for her response, then remembered they were speaking Spanish. “I suppose I would not.” He knew he could afford to be generous since the matter of the Hancock’s cattle was entirely out of his hands. “You may take all my cattle you need.”

  It was Joselito’s turn to laugh. “We will, with or without your permission, señor.”

  They regarded each other in perfect charity. By now Addie was calmly watching them both. Ammon kissed her temple. “We’re all right,” he told her, then said it again in English, because he kept forgetting.

  Joselito gestured and they followed him, after Ammon snatched up their weapons from the front yard. Walking before them, and so quiet, Joselito led them north into the woods close to the river, where Blanco calmly cropped grass.

  Ammon undid the reins from the lower branch of the tree. “Thank you again, my friend,” he said.

  “Now you will ride swiftly back to the land of the black soldiers,” Joselito said.

  Ammon shook his head. “I cannot. My woman must repay a debt in San Pedro. Then we will ride north.”

  The Indian frowned. “You can’t expect me to protect you, if you will ride into danger.”

  “No, I cannot,” Ammon said. “You have done enough. In fact, how can I repay you?”

  Joselito was silent a long moment, reminding Ammon suddenly of Old Ammon the Nephite’s encounter with King Lamoni in the Book of Alma, and Lamoni’s long pause. He wants something I have, he thought. He looked at Addie. No, not Addie. She would drive him crazy within a week or two. The thought made him smile and think, She would probably shoot him, but she’d miss.

  “What’s so funny?” Addie whispered.

  You are, he thought and had the good sense not to tell her. “Tell you later.” Maybe much later, if he ever worked up the nerve.

  The silence continued. Ammon looked at Blanco, so calmly filling up, as if he were abducted by a Tarahumara Indian every day of the week and had no complaints. Come to think of it, this had to be better than being cooped up in a kitchen. No, not Blanco.

  Ammon followed Joselito’s gaze. He looked down at the fox furs around his neck, and knew. He thought a moment, knowing he needed to charge the occasion with considerable ceremony. “No laughing, Addie,” he whispered to his wife and started to sing the grandest church hymn he could think of, which happened to be “The Morning Breaks, the Shadows Flee.” He sang it loud and slow as he carefully took Grandma Sada’s fox stole with the beady glass eyes off his neck. He watched Joselito’s face and knew he was right.

  When he finished the first verse, Ammon lowered the stole around Joselito’s shoulders. “For you, my friend. This is powerful medicine.”

  His eyes lively with the thrill of it, Joselito touched the fur piece delicately. “What animal is this that has all-seeing eyes on both ends and joins as one in the middle?”

  “The rarest I know,” Ammon said. “I will give you its mate, too.”

  He started to lift the remaining stole off his neck, but Joselito stopped him. “No, my friend. If you are going south like a fool instead of north like a smart man, you need that one for your own protection.”

  “Very well, if you insist,” Ammon said, after a show of reluctance. “Thank you for saving my horse.”

  Joselito nodded. He smoothed down the fox fur, crooning his own little song to it. He took another long look at Ammon. “How did you hurt yourself?” he asked, indicating the bandage.

  “My woman shot me.”

  Joselito barely blinked. “She’s not a very good shot, is she? Keep that totem around your neck or be nicer to her.”

  He waved his hand and blended into the woods once more. Addie stared at Ammon. “That’s going to bring him good luck?” she asked, amazed.

  “Maybe anything’ll bring you good luck, if you think it will.”

  “Why did he … why did he save Blanco?”

  He tugged on Blanco’s reins and started back to García. Taking a chance—after all, he did have a powerful totem—he held out his good arm to Addie and she let him drape it over her s
houlders, almost like she used to, except she didn’t put her arm around his waist. Better than nothing.

  As they ambled along, he told her about the Indians sort of capturing him on the river bank and making him give up some of his cattle. “They were in bad shape and I probably could have outrun them on Blanco, but I gave my word.” He nudged her. “Kind of like you gave your word to that doctor.”

  “I had to give my word to him.”

  “I know you did.” He took another chance and hugged her shoulders. “I’m glad you did.” He stopped. “We’ll just stay here today, a little deeper in the woods. Joselito would be glad to know I’m getting smarter.”

  “We’ll travel at night? Do you know the way in the dark?” she asked, anxious.

  “Addie, I’ve been freighting these roads for a long time. I know my way.” He turned toward the river, looking around until he found the trail, little-used since he had left García for Pearson. After Addie threw his ring at him and while his leg healed, he had come here often to fish and think. His thoughts generally led him nowhere, but Ma had appreciated the trout.

  “I spent some time here while my leg healed,” he told her. “No one can see us from the road.” He gestured toward the path that led to the river. “Ma used to wonder where I was.”

  She blushed and turned away. He watched as she squared her shoulders, let out a shuddering breath, and turned around. “I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I want you to know I’m sorry for what I said. And if I’m being too much trouble by making you go south, I can try it alone.” It came out in a rush all at once, as though she had been working up the nerve to say that much for a long time.

  “You wouldn’t get very far by yourself,” he said, touched. What he wanted to do was grab her and hold her, and he wasn’t sure what stopped him. Maybe it was the shame on her face, the look of someone without any hope. Would you even believe me if I told you I still love you? he asked himself. If you don’t believe me, it doesn’t matter how I feel.

  She let him take her hand, even though she wouldn’t look at him. He walked her to the river and sat her on the fallen log where he used to sit. He sat down beside her. “Addie, I’m here to get you out of Mexico,” he began. He stopped and couldn’t help his smile. “So far I haven’t done a bang-up job.”

  “It would help if I didn’t shoot you.” She said it gruffly, tentatively, and he knew that tone in her voice. It was one of his favorites, because he knew how playful she could be.

  He laughed, just a low laugh, the kind between two people with a few things in common. “Yeah, that would help. You’ve taken pretty good care of me since then.”

  “Have I?” she said it eagerly, sounding so hungry for his approval that his mood took another shift as she nearly broke his heart.

  “You have. You are, Addie,” he told her gently. “If we’re going to ride tonight, we need to go to sleep now. Wish I’d been smart enough to bring along a blanket. Ground’s a bit hard.”

  He reached for his rifle, tucking it beside him as he lay down by the log. He hoped Addie might lie down on his other side, but all she did was slide from the log and prop herself against it.

  B

  When he woke, Addie was gone. He sat up, startled and groggy to find himself covered with her shawl. Blanco still cropped grass close to the river. Birds chirped, and he heard a fish splash. It could have been any peaceful afternoon in early fall before the revolution.

  “I’m going to tan your hide if you started walking south,” he said out loud, looking around. He sighed with relief to see the odorous money bag lying beside her shotgun. He knew she wouldn’t have left without the money for the doctor’s wife. He doubted Addie even knew where San Pedro was. If there was a more ill-equipped adventurer than Addie, he didn’t know who it could be, unless it was him.

  He walked up the path to the road, looking both ways. Nothing. He told himself not to panic; she was a grown woman and not a stupid one. As he stood there wondering what to do, he saw her coming toward him, blankets around her shoulders in the heat and dragging something behind her.

  Relieved beyond measure, he walked toward her slowly. As he came closer, he saw how dirty she was, this fastidious wife of his who bathed every night and who used to make him shine her shoes every Saturday night. Her hair must have bothered her because the pompadour was gone, replaced by pigtails which made her look so young.

  “I missed you,” was all he said. He could have scolded her for giving him such a fright when he woke up alone, but he was beginning to suspect that she had been berating herself for two years and didn’t need any help from him.

  She gave him a grateful look, reminding him again how eager she seemed to get things right.

  “I found these two blankets in the attic. You know how cold it gets at night, and fall’s coming.” With a little effort, she tugged the burlap bag that she had been dragging toward him. “I dug potatoes.”

  He looked in her eyes and saw something deep and sweet. A few years ago, she might have just said, “I love you.” She was a woman of no confidence now and not brave enough to take a chance and say that, but she had dug potatoes, something he knew she had never done before. Thomas Finch’s daughters never went into the field; it was almost a colony joke.

  “Addie, you’re a wonder,” was all he said.

  She gave him a shy grin. “At first I thought maybe I could just pull them up by tugging the leaves, but my goodness, they’re really in the ground and all wound up in each other.”

  “That’s the way potatoes grow,” he said, amused. “Did you go back to the Thayns for the shovel?”

  She nodded and started tugging the burlap bag toward the river. He took it from her and she gave him a grateful look. “I knew they were potatoes. I got the shovel and dug around.”

  She looked tired but he had no intention of scolding her. What she had done was so kind. He walked her back to the fallen log, then handed her his canteen. She took a long pull on the canteen then gave a contented sigh, followed by a frown. “They were Brother Odegaard’s potatoes. I wanted to leave him a note to apologize, but I didn’t have a paper or a pencil.”

  “He won’t mind. You know you’re a favorite of his,” he reminded her. “I wish I had a nickel for every time he asked me why such a pretty girl married me.”

  Her smile was genuine, which eased his heart. He took her dirty hand and turned it over, tracing the blisters in her palm. She looked away, as if struggling with herself.

  “You need more to eat than blackberries,” she said in a small voice. “I can wash these potatoes in the river and you can make a little fire …”

  Her voice trailed off when he kissed her cheek. She inclined her head toward his. “And the fun part? I guess I didn’t know this about potatoes: You never know how many you’re going to get with each shovelful. It was almost a treasure hunt.”

  “That’s a pretty small pleasure, Addie,” he observed.

  “I know. Evangeline used to tell me I didn’t think large enough. She probably wouldn’t have had much fun digging potatoes.”

  “That is the fun thing about potatoes,” he agreed, happy even though his shoulder ached and his stomach was about to gnaw through his belt buckle.

  While she washed the potatoes, Ammon built a little fire, one of those smokeless kinds he had become adept at creating while freighting through lonely spots after the revolution started. She brought him a handful of potatoes and he gave her his knife to pierce the skins. She sat quietly, watching the fire burn down and turn into ashes.

  “I’ll stick them in the ashes and we’ll just be patient,” he told her. “I have some salt too.”

  They sat together in silence on the log, but it wasn’t the uncomfortable silence he had almost dreaded. It was just Addie-silence, because she was a quiet woman. I have missed this, he thought.

  While the potatoes baked in the ashes, Ammon cut more prickly pear and showed Addie how to trim them. “Are these for Blanco?” she asked.

  “T
hey’re for us. They taste better than you think.”

  She objected to staying alone while he rode bareback to their burned shell of a house to retrieve his saddlebags. After he mounted, he held out his hand for her and she scrambled up in front of him, unaccustomed to horses and draped across his lap like a sack of meal. She righted herself and chuckled. He remembered how graceful Serena had been and wisely kept his mouth shut.

  He kept well back in the trees, circling behind the smokehouse.

  “The guerillas are gone,” she said. “Why … ?”

  “The villagers aren’t. We can’t really trust anyone, and the sooner we’re gone, the better.”

  She shivered despite the heat of late afternoon. “I should have been more cautious, shouldn’t I?” she asked as they neared the house.

  “Maybe, but if we see any villagers and they know you’re with me, we’ll be all right. Dad always made a point of getting to know his neighbors, including the Mexicans.”

  “My father never did,” she told him. “I can’t even speak Spanish.”

  “Maybe you’ll learn some.”

  She nodded and was silent the rest of the way to García. She stood quietly by while he saddled Blanco, then she walked into their shell of a house, picking her way carefully because Blanco had been stabled there for two days. He saw her going from the parlor to their bedroom and into the spare room, where she stood a long moment. He watched her, his heart tender, because he knew she was thinking it would have been a good nursery. He watched her shoulders raise and lower, her head bow, and then she gave that little shake to her shoulders that heartened him. He knew she was a hard woman to discourage and wondered again at her frightening tirade when she flayed him alive in Grandma Sada’s dining room.

  As he watched her regain her composure, it struck him with considerable force just how much she had wanted their baby. The whole terrible experience must have unsettled her mind. He knew now, as sure as he knew Heavenly Father was real and Joseph Smith was a prophet, that the emergency had rendered her helpless. He wondered if she had the courage to try again, then asked himself if he had the courage.

  Dusk came as they returned to the riverbank. He had showed her how to put her foot in his stirrup and mount more gracefully so she had nothing to be shy about.