by Celia Hayes
“I wrote two months ago, but you had already departed with the cattle.” Johann’s eyes sparkled with good humor and affection. “I thought to leave word in Abilene for you and Hansi and Dolph, but my letters must have gone astray. Oh, ‘tis good to see you again.” He seemed deeply affected by emotion.
Fredi felt much the same. So much had happened since that evening when they had last been together at Vati’s house, on that spring evening the year that the war finally broke out. Johann was but newly returned from Germany, and Fredi had come up from Carl Becker’s farm to drive Carl and Magda and the children home. They had gone to Austin for the wedding of Margaret’s oldest son, and returned to find Vati’s house in an uproar. Vati had just forbidden Rosalie to marry Robert Hunter. Fredi’s throat tightened, thinking of that evening in Vati’s parlor. Vati was dead these two years gone, and so too Rosalie the beautiful and beloved little sister, buried under a single stone with Robert who adored her. Buried also was Magda’s husband, Carl Becker. As boys Fredi and Johann had practically worshipped him. It seemed hardly believable, that of those who had sat in Vati’s parlor on that summer evening, only three remained to remember.
“’Tis good to see you also, brother,” Johann said huskily; so he had the same memory in his mind. They always had always been able to sense each others thoughts. Doing so again was as heady as a deep draft of good wine. “I sent my message to Hansi. I thought he would come for his daughter if he had to walk all the way.”
“Hansi is gone to the east, to search for better breeding stock,” Fredi explained. “So I thought I should come. I would have anyway.” Halfway between a laugh and a sob, he added, “So, you look well— for a blue-belly officer. I vow you must have been better fit than I by the end of it all!”
“So we did,” Johann answered, with a merry look in his eye. “For we won. You should have come to Mexico with me, Fredi!”
Fredi laughed. Johann had never been one to stand up to teasing when he was a lad—too shy and tender-hearted. He stood back a little and looked critically at his brother. This was good. He was brisk and assured as he had never been when they were boys; a trim and confident young officer.
“By God, you do look well, Johann. You should come to Abilene and walk down the street with me. You’d never see the ground, for all the prairie nymphs throwing themselves at your feet!”
“True. But isn’t there something to be said for quality over quantity?” Johann replied.
They laughed and embraced again, as Fredi recalled what he had come to Fort Larned for. “Little Grete—is she well? Who contrived to free her and how did they manage it?” he asked.
Johann led him to the front door of the house. He let himself in without any ceremony, by which Fredi assumed that he was a familiar and expected guest. “This last year has been a harsh trial for the tribes,” Johann explained. “The hunting has been bad; most have no choice but to come and agree to accept a government subsidy. But the Army has made it a condition that white captives must be yielded up. Colonel Wynkoop saw her in a camp nearby about two weeks ago. He told them they must bring her to the fort before he authorized any supplies for them. Four days ago, they did.”
The house was rough-plastered on the inside, not quite thick enough to hide the gaps between the stones from which it had been built. A few pieces of ornate furniture sat in the hall, as if refugees from a finer, daintier dwelling. Johann opened an interior door and said to someone within, “Madam Wynkoop, this is my brother Friedrich. He has just now arrived, to bring the little one home. Grete, little one, do you remember your uncle Fredi?”
A very pretty woman looked up and set aside an ivory comb, for she had been combing and arranging the hair of a little girl who sat on a parlor chair before her. Again, the furnishings had the look of something fine and fashionable, brought into this roughly-finished place. The woman was saying something about how many times she had washed the child’s hair but Fredi had no thought for anyone else in the room but his niece. He greeted Madame Wynkoop absently, all of his attention on the child.
He had feared for one wild moment that it was not Grete, but another child. After all, she had been only four years of age upon capture and now she had been with the Indians for half again that time. She was sitting rigidly motionless on a tall chair, clutching a large china-headed doll in her arms. Her feet, in new high-buttoned shoes, hung with her toes just barely touching the floor. She wore a dress slightly too big for her and bunched around her waist with a wide sash of hare-bell blue ribbon. Madame Wynkoop had tied a ribbon of the same color around her freshly-washed hair, which floated around her face like dandelion silk. It was Grete—no mistake about that—the same grey-blue eyes, faint pock-mark in the center of her forehead, and solemn round face framed in the same light brown hair as her mother and sister Marie.
“Grete.” Fredi knelt on one knee before her so that his head was at the same level as hers and made his voice as soft as he could. He spoke in German, “Grete, I’ve come to take you home. Don’t you remember me? Onkel Fredi?” She stared at him, her soft little face perfectly blank of expression, but he thought that her eyes rounded momentarily. From outside, the Indian woman wailed on a higher note, and the child’s gaze flicked briefly in that direction. Fredi tried again, “Grete, sweetness, I’ve come to take you home to your mama. You remember your mama?”
Her lips moved very slightly, as if she were saying a word to herself. Her eyes filled briefly with tears, but within a moment it seemed as if she had willed them with un-childlike firmness not to fall at all.
At his side, Johann said softly, “She does not seem to understand anything but the language of the tribe she was with. When she was taken, she was old enough to speak well, wasn’t she?”
“Four years old,” Fredi answered heavily. “Chattered like a little magpie, she and Lottie both. Grete, do you remember Lottie? Your cousin Lottie, just your age? She has missed you these last two years, but your Mama and Papa, they have missed you terribly. Don’t you want to come home?” Fredi wondered if perhaps she did understand, at least a little. She looked almost bewildered for a second; then a very tiny movement of her head, a defiant “no.” She clutched her doll ever more tightly against her body. The parlor door behind them opened and shut, admitting another person and, briefly, the lamentations of the Indian woman outside.
“There you are, Curtis,” Johann said in English, with some relief. “This is my brother, come to take her home, but she does not understand a word we say in German, either. Mr. Curtis is the interpreter for Colonel Wynkoop, Fredi.”
Mr. Curtis was a slight and weather-browned man, with a beard that hid most of his face. He took a place kneeling next to Fredi, who had a sudden vision of how it must look, all these tall adults, looming over the silent child. To her it must feel as if she were some tiny defenseless animal, cornered by a pack of hunting dogs. Of course, no one wished to harm poor little Grete, but she must be absolutely terrified nonetheless.
“Cannot someone get that woman to leave?” Fredi asked, thinking that might be one thing giving the child a fright. “Who is she and why is she carrying on like that?”
“She is the one who cared for the child,” Mr. Curtis answered, softly and with a sideways look at Fredi. “She was most reluctant to yield her up and protested the decision of her brother and the warriors.”
“Good God!” Fredi exclaimed. “As if my niece belonged to her! Did she not think of my sister’s grief when Grete and her brother were taken? She was deranged with sorrow! Her husband and the rest of the family nearly despaired, fearing that the balance of her mind was unhinged! My brother-in-law, my nephew, and I—we tracked the war party for days, hoping to free her and her brother! For two years, we have sent searchers into the Territories and never stopped praying for her safe return!”
Grete flinched back in the chair, as if she were frightened by his sudden and vehement tones. Mr. Curtis murmured soothing words to her, in the Indian tongue, and at last she spoke, seemin
g in the same language.
“What did she say?” Johann demanded.
“Her Indian mother told her that her mother and father were killed and that no one among the whites wanted an orphan. She promised that if no one came here to claim her, then she would take her back home to their lodge.”
Mrs. Wynkoop made a wordless exclamation of pity and distress, and Fredi answered, “Ridiculous! Not a word of it true! My sister and brother are alive and very well, too! Tell her that, tell her I have come to take her home to her mother, her sisters and her cousins! We have been looking for her all this time and that her mother—my sister—loves her very dearly! Her fondest wish is for her to be at home where she belongs. Tell her that, Mr. Curtis, make her understand that!”
Mr. Curtis nodded, speaking again and at considerable length in that incomprehensible Indian tongue. Fredi and Johann watched her face intently and Mrs. Wynkoop whispered, “So it has happened often before. The small children are sometimes treated kindly once among the tribes, you see. They come to love those who care for them very deeply indeed. And speaking to no one of their kind for months or years, it is no wonder that they lose the power of their native speech almost at once.”
“Will she remember?” Fredi asked, much distressed. He feared that Liesel would not cope well, knowing that the little daughter whose return meant all the world to her had placed another first in her affections. “Remember her own language, her parents?”
“In time,” Mrs. Wynkoop sighed. “And with kind treatment, I am sure she will recall her own associations and family, and take up our ways once more. It is well that she is still so young.”
Mr. Curtis finished speaking. A last soft-voiced question, and Grete bobbed her head in assent, precisely once. Her countenance was fixed in an expression of stern resignation. She hugged the doll even more tightly to her, as if it were a lifeline, and spoke a few brief words in such a dull and hopeless tone that Fredi’s heart was wrung for her obvious sorrow.
“What did she say, then?” Johann whispered.
Mr. Curtis replied, “That being a good child, she has always obeyed.”
“And she has been a good child.” Mrs. Wynkoop patted Grete’s cheek, with fond affection. “She has been a dear, good little girl—no wonder that woman cared for her! You should have seen how she was dressed, when Edward, my husband, brought her to me! She wore three brass bracelets and a deerskin dress sewn with shells and silver drops—but, oh, her hair was in a frightful state! It had been rubbed thoroughly with tallow and soot, to make it dark, you see. I must have washed it three or four times before every speck was out.”
“Did you ask about her brother?” Fredi interrupted. “Her older brother was taken at the same time. His name was Wilhelm, everyone called him Willi? Was he living in the same camp, with the same tribe?”
Mr. Curtis spoke again, Grete listening with grave attention while the others almost held their breaths, which continued throughout her soft reply.
“She says they were together at first. Although they were made to ride with different warriors, they were permitted to speak to each other. She says when they first came to the village, everyone was amused by their talk. She was given by the chief to his sister and taken to her lodge. Her brother was given to another family; she did not see him so much. He was with the boys and men, she was with her Indian mother. She says the last time she saw him he had hurt his leg, being thrown from the back of a wild horse. He could not go with the tribe when they moved to a new camp. That was the last time. She has never seen him again.”
“When was that?” Fredi hardly dared breathe, waiting for Mr. Curtis’ translated reply. “How long ago?”
“In the first winter, before the grass began to grow.”
About a year and a half ago. Fredi let out a deep sigh, thinking on how he should tell this to Liesel. No, best tell Hansi first. Surely he would be home from his cattle-buying trip to the East. He did not wish to be the one in the room, telling Liesel that her youngest son was almost probably dead and had been for that long. Not after what Anna and Magda had said of her reaction when the children were first taken. Fredi, being a happily uncomplicated man, had very little experience with female megrims and even less of a desire to acquire any more. No, that was more Johann’s line of work, being a doctor-surgeon and all.
He did not feel quite so helpless in the face of little girl terrors. She was a dear little thing, as much of a twin to Lottie as he was to Johann. And besides, he had known her all of her life, up until her capture. Surely that counted for something, Fredi thought, and his spirits rose. Children were no more complicated than any small and relatively helpless little animal. Feed them when hungry, see them bedded down for the night in a safe place, sing to them when they were lonely, reassure them when frightened. He had gotten eight hundred and fifty-odd cattle and eighty horses safely to Kansas from Texas, doing pretty much that. How hard could it be, taking one small girl-child in the other direction, aside from the additional requirement to keep her in clean and dry clothes?
“I’d like to take her home, as soon as transportation can be arranged,” he said at last. “Assuming she is fit enough to travel?” He looked questioningly at his brother, who nodded. “Although, I should like to have passed more time with you,” he added to Johann with very real regret.
“Understood, brother,” Johann responded. “Our sister must have her child returned without delay. The mail stage would be fastest, if that is acceptable. And shall I send word that you are returning, although you might very well arrive in Friedrichsburg before it does?”
“We did very well with the cattle, this year,” Fredi answered. “I think I may spree a little bit. Send a telegram.”
The next morning, when he took his niece by the hand and departed from Colonel Wynkoop’s house, the Indian woman was still there. She began to howl again with grief and despair, as soon as she saw them emerge from the house. He and Johann walked on either side of their niece and Johann carried a small bag of clothes and necessaries which Mrs. Wynkoop had generously given to them for the journey. Grete hung back a little, tugging against his hand as they went past her, clutching her doll with the other hand. She turned her head a little, but her expression was the same un-childlike stoic mask.
“Perhaps now she will go back to her lodge,” Johann said, “knowing that Grete’s family did come to claim her.”
“I hope so,” Fredi said. “I’d sure as hell hate to be in the Wynkoop’s parlor and have to listen to that for much longer.”
By the time they had walked around the edge of the parade ground, her cries could be but faintly heard. By the time they reached Boyd’s ranch and the stage station, they could not be heard at all.
“Safe journey, brother,” Johann said. Standing by the stage steps, they embraced one more time. Fredi climbed into the coach and Johann handed Grete up to him. “You also, little one. Give my love to Magda and Hansi and all.”
“Always.” The coach was crowded on this day. Fredi took the child onto his lap, an awkward burden because she sat so stiffly and never relinquished her grip on the china doll. She looked out the window with the same stoical detachment with which she regarded everything else for many hours.
The coach swayed like a boat on the open sea, and presently Fredi began to sing, very softly, “Sleep baby sleep, your mama is watching the sheep. . . ”
Later he would insist that he sang baby rhymes to his niece most of the way back to Texas, as the coach rumbled down the wagon road to Red River Station, to Austin and Neu Braunfels, and finally through the gravelly ford of Baron’s Creek. Grete had begun to relax against his shoulder by then, and now and again to experiment with saying a word or two in German. She clutched the china doll that the Wynkoops had given to her, all the long dusty days of that journey, and clung to it for many months thereafter, even after she began to speak German again.
* * *
“Poor Grete,” Magda sighed to Lottie, as cold rain splattered against the gla
ss windows of Lottie’s front parlor. It was after midnight, but neither of them was sleepy. Heavy velveteen curtains were close-drawn against the winter chill that breathed from the glass. “She was terrified. There was such a crowd, such a commotion at the store, when Captain Nimitz drove her and Fredi home from the hotel. People recognized her in the street. It had already been printed in the newspapers—the German papers and the American alike—that she was freed from captivity and returning home. There were so many people who wanted to speak to her, so many people who thought she might know of other captives still in Indian hands.”
“Auntie Liesel could hardly bear to let her out of her sight,” Lottie added. She had finished her supper. Now she took up her needlepoint, deftly drawing lengths of worsted through the holes in the mesh fabric stretched in her embroidery frame, as she talked to her mother. “I wondered sometimes if Grete had felt more free among the Indians, and a captive when she was returned.”
“Did she speak of such to you, Lottchen?” Magda asked. “It seemed at first that she was as silent as a ghost. Fredi told us it was not uncommon for such children to forget their native language, and have some small trouble in learning it again. Did she recall her old fondness for you, as she remembered her own language?”
“Oh, she recollected me at once, and Auntie Liesel and Onkel Hansi,” Lottie answered. “But there was much I think she did not wish to remember.”
“About Rosalie and Robert.” Magda’s eyes shone with the tears that a half-century of passing time could not banish. “We did not press her to tell us what happened that morning. There was no need and she was only a child. Did she ever confide in you?”
“Oh yes, Mama,” Lottie answered, “We whispered at night under the covers of the trundle-bed.”
“What did she tell you, then?” Magda asked, curiously. “We were always afraid she must have seen or heard such dreadful things!”
