Enchanted Heart

by Brianna Lee McKenzie

  “We have Daniel and the rifles,” she argued as if her words would change his mind about their welfare.

  “One man and two rifles will not defend you against renegade Comanche braves or their friends the Comancheros,” Caid said with disgust. “They would just as soon gut you and leave you to the buzzards as to take you hostage. Those are the ones who you don’t want to cross paths with.”

  “I thought there was a treaty between the Comanche and the Germans,” Marty asked with a questioning stare.

  “There is,” he said. “There was. But some of those in the new generation don’t believe that their forefathers made the right decision and they are bound and determined to take their lands back.”

  He refrained from mentioning the various varieties of Apache Indians that inhabited that part of Texas. Warning her about them would not keep them from coming and it would not make her leave her sister and go with him to safety. All he could do was hope that young Daniel was man enough to protect Marty and Greta if the need arose. But the pup whose mother seemed to want to suckle him until her dying day was the only unmarried man with them so Daniel was their only option.

  “We haven’t seen any renegades so far,” she argued with a shrug.

  “And you never will, until it’s too late. Until you are skinned and scalped,” he said angrily.

  “What choice do we have?” she asked while she turned to look inside the cave at her sister’s still form.

  “None, I guess,” he conceded with a sigh. He took her shoulders into his hands and kissed her soundly on the lips and said, “It’s getting late. I should get the wagons moving.”

  For a long, heartbreaking moment, he stared into her eyes, trying desperately to convey his worry for her safety without frightening her. Then, he reiterated the words that he had told her while he was still on top of the world and before their world came crashing down on them, “I love you, Marty.”

  And, taking a deep, soul-searching breath, he paused before repeating the words that he had pledged to her that night when he had rescued her from the river, he promised, “I’ll come back for you.”

  “I know you will,” she said with a warm smile. “And I love you, too.”

  He pulled her into his body and kissed her as if this was their last moment together. Then he stared into her face, memorizing every nuance of it, hoping that the memory of her features would sustain his aching heart. He cupped her cheek in his large hand while he bent to kiss her once again. Then he pulled the ribbon from her hair and tucked it into his shirt pocket for safe-keeping and to remember her by while he was away. His smile silently reminded her that he would come back for her even if it killed him. Then his face turned serious enough to make her understand how dangerous it was for two women and one young man, still wet behind the ears, to stay there in the mountains.

  “Keep the rifles close,” he said firmly. Then he said, “And no fires. You don’t want to alert them and tell them your whereabouts.”

  Marty nodded and Caid repeated these words to Daniel, who nodded and seemed to raise his body to his full height in an effort to convince this man that he would defend these women with his own life if the need arose.

  Then, Caid reached for Seraphina’s tiny hand, saying, “Let’s go, Sera Dear!”

  When she took it, he lifted her upon his shoulders and winked at Marty before he turned to leave the cave. Keeping his eyes on the treacherous path that they had taken in order to climb to the cave so as not to fall and hurt the child, he finally looked up at Marty when he paused on a flat slab of granite. He waved to her and his actions were mimicked by Sera Dear, who smiled and then held tightly to his head when he turned to continue downward.

  Marty watched them retreat to the bottom of the mountain and then she turned to tend to Greta again. With no light, she could barely see the wounds that she knew needed re-bandaging, but she set about doing it just the same.

  Daniel stood above her and she could hear him sobbing behind her. Suddenly angry at him for pretending to be brave and the moment he is left to the task of protecting them, he broke down. She froze in her actions, trying to contain her ire at him. But when she turned to see him fully enveloped in a fit of sorrow and not fear, she could not keep herself from hugging the young man who stood two feet above her head.

  She wiped her hands on her skirt and watched the boy who was barely seventeen as he shifted his feet in the dirt and stared at his boots. His sandy brown hair was wet with sweat from the march up the mountain and his cheeks were marked with trails of tears through the dirt that had collected there. His broad, manly shoulders were slumped and sullen as he thrust his hands into his pants’ pockets and pulled in a great sigh of sadness.

  Daniel’s voice cracked when he let his breath out and stammered, “I’m sorry. It was my fault. I thought I heard her say ‘I love you’. I turned to see if she had said it and I didn’t see the boulder until the wagon wheel was almost on top of it. I’m sorry.”

  Remembering that she had stood on the dome of the Enchanted Rock and had shouted those very words and that it might have been her voice that Daniel had heard, Marty touched his arm and assured him, “It was not your fault.”

  He pulled away from her, putting his back to her, remorse clearly overtaking him as he kicked the dirt and said, “I should have been paying attention.”

  “Daniel,” she said sternly as she walked up behind him and placed a hand on his arm. “We are all in the hands of God. If something bad happens, we have no control over it. Even if you had been watching at that moment, there would have been another time for her to be hurt. And it is God’s decision as to whether she lives through this or not. Nothing you or I could do for her will change that.”

  He nodded, remembering that same sentiment coming from Greta’s lips, but he could not find the words to reply. Instead, he walked to Greta’s side and fell onto his knees next to her. He took her hand into his and held it as if that simple gesture would heal the woman that he so deeply loved, but whom he knew did not feel the same way about him. This time, he did pray. He promised God, or whoever would listen to his breaking heart, that he would give his own life if Greta’s could be spared.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Marty left them to walk outside for some fresh air. There, she watched the wagon train round a bend and disappear from her view. In her heart, she knew that Caid loved her just as much, if not more than Daniel loved her sister. It would be the love for Caid that would carry her through while she took care of Greta and waited for him to come back to her, to marry her and to grow old with her, as he had promised on the Enchanted Rock. Then, full of the faith that he would return, she turned to go back inside and finish redressing her sister’s wounds.

  The night was long and sleepless for both Marty and Daniel, who fretted every time Greta cried out in her painful fits. And morning did not bring any respite for the two who took turns sitting with her and holding her hand. But, as the day droned onward, they feared that she was not going to live through the night.

  Her body writhed in a growing fever and her leg continued to bleed, despite their efforts to stop the continual seepage. They tried binding it tighter and tighter until her toes turned purple. They sprinkled the wound with Caid’s white powder. But none of this lessened the pain or stopped the bleeding. Greta tossed and screamed in agony, begging them to let her die, just let her die!

  Marty cried desperately as she wet a cloth from the canteen and put it to Greta’s scorched skin on her forehead. She was afraid that her sister was dying and she couldn’t do anything to stop it. Fleeting pictures of Papa’s feverish face flew into Marty’s mind and she closed her eyes against them as if that would make them, along with her dread, disappear. Fear, grief and finally anger filled her breaking heart while she watched Greta slowly lose consciousness again.

  She glanced at Daniel, who stared helplessly at his booted feet, his hands thrust deep into his pants’ pockets. Then, as she turned her head back to her sister, she thought
she saw a shadow of a man in the cave entrance.

  Elated that it could be Caid, she whirled around, but Daniel had already jumped to attention, for he had seen that the man standing in the entrance was not Caid, instead it was a Comanche warrior.

  Paralyzing fear gripped Marty, freezing her like a statue hovering over her sister’s body. Thoughts of renegade Comanche Indians and their counterparts, the Comancheros whom Caid had described as treacherous, assaulted her with the all-encompassing panic that kept her feet planted in the dirt while Daniel clumsily came to her rescue.

  Young Daniel fumbled for the rifle and tripped over his own boots, but managed to catch the gun before it hit the ground. He quickly cocked it and raised it to his shoulder to fire a bullet into the invading Indian, his voice deep with emotion as he growled in anger at the intruder. But in his haste, Daniel stumbled once again, losing his grip on the rifle as it fell to the ground and exploded. The bullet sailed passed the Indian and ricocheted off the limestone walls, barely missing Greta when it finally stopped in the thick mound of dirt at Marty’s feet. A surprised, almost incredulous look crossed Daniel’s face before he regained control of the gun and cocked it once more, aiming with grave intent to kill.

  But, he had not been quick enough. From outside the cave, an arrow flew toward him, finding its target in the boy’s heart. Daniel clutched the arrow that protruded from his chest before he slipped to the ground, his face a mask of horror and shock. When Marty ran to his side, all he could manage to say before he slipped into everlasting sleep was, “I’m…sorry.”

  Moments passed while Marty leaned over his body and while she summoned the anger to reach for that rifle and let the bullets fly. No matter that she had no clue as to how to shoot a gun, no matter that she was frightened out of her wits and would probably be killed in the process. She was angry! She was fist-clenching angry at these two savages for killing an innocent boy and she was going to make them pay!

  Reverting to her native language, she railed on them with the rifle in her hands ready to fire, “You dirty, stinking savages!”

  Neither of the Indians moved, but seemed to be mesmerized by her words. Then, the first one that had entered the cave stepped toward her and said in her own language, “You are German.”

  Taken aback by the Indian and the fact that he spoke German to her, she stammered, “Y—Yes.”

  The Comanche brave stuck his hand into the air, his palm facing her, his fingers pointing toward the ceiling of the cave and he said, “We come in peace.”

  “You come in peace?” she retorted angrily as she lowered the rifle just a bit so that her body could reflect her anger. “Why did you kill that innocent boy then?”

  The Indian that had shot Daniel and then had come inside behind the first one merely shrugged and said, “I defended my brother.”

  “Well, he wasn’t going to kill you,” she said, not really believing it, but said it nonetheless. “He was defending me.”

  Before they could decide who had been at fault, a booming voice echoed throughout the cave as another man came inside, his hulking frame blocking out the sun behind him as he growled, “What’s going on in here, Rising Sun?”

  The older Indian turned to face the large man and said in broken English, “I killed white boy. Boy shot first.”

  “Well now,” the hulk of a man said as he stepped toward Daniel’s body and examined him closely. “It appears that the boy is dead. You say he shot first?”

  “He only reached for his rifle,” Marty corrected, stepping closer so that the burly man could read her angered expression. “The gun went off by accident.”

  “Is that the way it happened?” the man asked, looking over her at the two Indians, who looked away in shame. “Well, don’t just stand there scratching your asses—pardon me, Ma’am—find a place to bury him. And cover it up with rocks so the predators don’t get a free meal out of him!”

  Marty cringed at the thought of poor Daniel being ripped apart by wolves or coyotes or any other wild creatures and she turned away, chewing on her balled fist.

  “Sorry about that, Ma’am,” the man said in earnest as he sidled up to stand next to her. “They’re quick to act and sometimes they act before they think but they’re good boys. I’m sure they didn’t mean any harm. Don’t worry none ‘bout your boy there. They’ll dig him a nice deep grave.”

  Marty sniffed haughtily before she took her anger out on the man who towered over like the rock that she had stood in front of just days ago and she growled, “Who do you think you are sending your dogs in to kill my friend?”

  “Hold on there, Miss,” the man said with his hands in the air. “I didn’t send them in here to kill nobody. We were just headed up here to camp for the night, like we always do when we’re away from home.”

  Marty took in a deep breath before she crossed her arms in front of her and said, “So this is your cave.”

  “I didn’t say that,” he said, shaking his head. “I just said that we stay here occasionally. We didn’t know there’d be a woman, a kid and—what do we have here?”

  When the large man stepped toward Greta, Marty threw herself in front of him, defending her sister with her own life, if need be. She growled at him, “Don’t you go any closer!”

  “I ain’t about to hurt her,” he said, peering over Marty’s head at the sickly woman on the pallet. “But it looks to me like she needs some doctoring.”

  “Of course she does,” Marty retorted, her anger rising again. “Help will be here soon.”

  “Well, if help is coming from Fredericksburg, there ain’t no way there’d be a doctor willing to traipse up here in the hills to save her,” he said, scratching his head through the furry cap. “Matter of fact, I don’t know of any doctor in Fredericksburg at this time. Now, if it’s coming from up north, why, it would take longer for help to get here than it appears that girl’s got to live.”

  “Well, it’s coming, you mark my words!” Marty found herself hotly arguing.

  “I don’t doubt what you say in the least, little lady,” he said, putting his hands on his hips. “What I do doubt is that this little lady will live long enough for help to get to her. Now, what she needs is a warm bed and some good old-fashioned mountain medicine. And pretty damn quick.”

  “How?” Marty asked, intrigued as if this man had the answer to healing her sister.

  “Let me take her back to my cabin and I’ll show you,” he said with a nod of his large head.

  “But, she can’t be moved,” Marty argued. Besides, she said inside her head, I don’t trust you.

  “We’ll be gentle with her,” he assured her. “That’s the least that we can do for you after what happened.”

  “Well, I suppose. If that is the only way,” Marty said at last, twisting her hands in her skirt while she contemplated whether or not to finally put her trust into this man.

  “When the boys come back, we’ll build a nice big fire and have some grub,” he said, rubbing his palms together. “And then in the morning, we’ll light out for my cabin.”

  Marty nodded, but then, suddenly realizing that Caid was coming back for them she said, “But, we can’t leave this cave! He’s coming back for us.”

  “Who?” The man asked as he towered over her.

  “Caid,” she said, and then realized that he did not know Caid. “My fiancé—um--our trail guide. He left yesterday to take the wagon train to Fort Concho and he’s coming back for us…with a doctor.”

  “It will be at least a week before he comes back and I don’t think we should leave her unattended for that long,” he said, looking toward Greta. “If gangrene starts in that leg and then spreads throughout her body, it could kill her.”

  “Well,” she said, chewing her lip as she thought for a moment. “I suppose I could leave him a note. Where is your cabin?”

  He pointed to the north and said, “About ten hours that way, if we hurry.”

  “Ten hours,” Marty mused as she remembered that Greta sho
uld not be jostled around for very long.

  “They will be easy with her, I promise,” the man said.

  “They?” Marty asked.

  “Hunts-with-a-knife,” Buck said while waving to one of the Indian boys, who grunted and clasped a fist over a large Bowie knife at this waist. “And Rising Sun. They can carry a bucket of water for twenty miles and not spill a drop,” the man assured her.

  “If you think that it will be all right, that she will be all right,” Marty said after some deliberation.

  “We’ll start in the morning,” the man said agreeably. “We’ll build a fire to keep you warm and to fix you some food. Then, before we leave, we’ll write your man a note on that wall over there with the coals.”

  Satisfied that he had worked out all of the details, Marty nodded and let him take over. He sent Hunts-with-a-knife and Rising Sun to find some wood for the fire and to hunt for some ‘grub’. Then, she sat with Greta, who had opened her eyes and asked who was talking and if Caid was back already.

  Marty explained to her that someone was here to help them but it was not Caid. She did not mention that Daniel was dead or that they would be moving her again in the morning.

  “Where’s my Seraphina?” Greta asked deliriously after soaking in the information that her sister had told her.

  “She’s not here, Greta,” Marty said to her sister. “She’s gone ahead with Caid and Elsa and the rest.

  “Oh,” Greta said dejectedly and closed her eyes.

  The large man unpacked some leather bags to prepare the food and then while they were eating their supper, he finally introduced himself.