by Celia Hayes
Lottie answered slowly, “When she first told me, I did not think she had, Mama. She told me that she and Willi were asleep, at first. They woke up when the Indians began chasing the trap, and Onkel Robert shouted in English. They did not understand. And then either the trap was wrecked, or Onkel Robert shouted for them all to get out and run, run as fast as they could. She said that a great many Indians on horses came after them. She and Willi were holding hands and running . . .and one of them just grabbed her by the back of her dress, and another caught Willi. She heard Auntie Rosalie screaming and screaming again, but the Indians put a blanket over her face then. She always claimed that she didn’t see or know anything more after that, but upon her return, she knew without asking of me that Auntie Rosalie and Onkel Robert were dead. I came to believe she had seen what had happened to them both.”
“She did not wish to remember,” Magda said softly. “For the woman she lived with afterwards had nothing to do with any of that, and she was kind to our little Grete.”
“Such tales she wove for me!” Lottie sighed, reminiscently. “I think now, it was a way to reassure herself that it had all really happened and to her.”
“Yes,” Magda nodded, “Hansi and Liesel—they thought it best to expunge that memory. People would point and whisper and tell tales, and also they feared she would be bothered by newspaper reporters seeking sensational stories. So they tried to live for a time as they had before, but it didn’t work. Hansi already had bought property in San Antonio, thinking it would be advantageous doing business there. He also thought it better for Liesel to be closer to such doctors as specialized in troubles such as hers. Poor Doctor Keidel was so harried; he had no time or patience for her maladies. So Hansi moved his family to San Antonio, thinking it might also be better for Grete to go to the German School with the children of his friend Mr. Guenther. I let Hannah go with them, for Grete seemed to trust her, and the poor child so needed a companion and champion!”
“She was teased at school,” Lottie nodded, “for all the care taken. I do not know if she merely appeared to be odd, upon her return, or if she withdrew into herself for fear of being treated badly. She would never hear any ill spoken of the Indians, though. They were just fighting for their people, their lands and their way of life, she always would say.”
“But not to your Cousin Anna,” Magda snorted, “except that once. Do you recollect that occasion, Lottchen? You were then about twelve or so.”
“Oh, my!” Lottie laughed and half-groaned. “I never really thought of Cousin Anna having a temper, merely a sharp tongue. She picked up the cream-jug and threw it at her, in the middle of family tea. ‘Fighting for their people!’ she shouted, ‘Those brave warriors, fighting for their lands! Do you have any idea of the vile things they did to a defenseless woman, a woman with child! Or for what reason?’ Then she told Grete—told us all, as a matter of fact, at the top of her lungs—and what it was like to watch someone die of a septic wound. Cousin Anna began to cry, she was so angry with Grete. Then her husband picked her up in his arms and carried her out of the parlor, and that was that.”
“It was very educational,” Magda agreed, austerely. “You had some very improper questions to ask of me, afterwards. I could hardly forget that. Your aunt and Marie and Grete all crying! I could hardly blame your Uncle Hansi for withdrawing to his study. Hannah was the only one to remain calm.”
“Nannie,” Lottie rested her hand with the needle in it, against the side of her embroidery frame. “She always seemed a little apart, a little pool of calm and serenity. I’d always wondered what it was like to have a saint in the family. Not as uncomfortable as it might seem, as it turned out. She was always so very protective of Grete. Was that why Onkel Hansi thought to send her to the Ursuline school, too?”
“It was very well thought of,” Magda answered. “And Porfirio recommended it to me, as the best and most proper school for young ladies, in the care taken of the students. Hannah was happy there, so it seemed that Grete’s difficulties might be best cared for there—among the Sisters and students who knew nothing of what had been her unhappy captivity from the age of four to six years.”
“She was not unhappy, Mama.” Lottie took up the slim steel needle with a tail of bright worsted hanging from it. “She was quite happy, in fact. She told me once of her most pleasurable memory.”
“And what memory might that have been, dear child?” Magda tenderly asked. Although Lottie now was herself a grandmother and Magda the great-grandmother of many other children, Lottie still remained the most precious to her; the child to whom she remained the closest.
“When she had been with the Indians for many months,” Lottie answered, “her foster mother gave her a headdress made of many trailing ribbons with silver adornments on the ends. And she could ride any of the horses that she liked, and so she would ride as fast as the wind across the prairie, she said. Above all, she loved to watch her hair, mixed with those ornamented ribbons, stream back with the speed of the horse running. Such a memory!” Lottie sighed. “I do wonder, how many times Grete has thought of that. Onkel Hansi saw that she went to school and Auntie Liesel that she had proper clothes and the manners of a lady and that everyone except for the sensational papers forgot about how she was a captive of the Comanche for the space of two years! Such a tiny space of time, considering that we are the same age and married with considerable success and happiness. But still, Mama . . .I am sure she does still think on that memory.”
“It is a fine one to have,” Magda answered, “and one that not many others can share. After all, this is now the twentieth century.”
Chapter Fifteen: Kissing Kin
Fredi waded through a jostling crowd in the street in front of Vati’s house, carrying Grete in his arms and demanding room and for quiet. Some of the faces Magda saw beyond the door were neighbors, many of them friends, but just as many were strangers. She thought their curiosity was ghoulish, frightening. How could they think this homecoming any of their business!
“She’s frightened as hell, hasn’t seen her family in two years,” Fredi demanded as he shouldered a particularly insistent man out of his path. “Let her have a little time—let us have a little time, for the love of God. What is this, some kind of circus?” Grete buried her face in his shoulder, clinging to her doll with a death-grip as Fredi sprang up the steps and into the hall with her.
“You heard him,” Charley Nimitz snapped as he briskly followed him from the cart with their small luggage. “No melodrama today— well, not in the street anyway.”
“Mama!” Anna called from the stair landing. “Mama, they’re here! Will you come down now?!” Liesel appeared at the top of the stairs as Anna and Magda exchanged a significant look.
Liesel had been on the highest tower since receiving the message from Johann, a letter which had preceded her daughter’s return by just a bare three or four days. She had unpacked all the garments she had sewn for her lost children, laid them all out on her bed, then would rush into Magda’s room or into the shop with armfuls of them, breathlessly asking for her sister’s opinions on one or the other. She fretted endlessly over the size, holding up the various dresses against the puzzled but patient Lottie; a series of lovingly-sewn calico garments, creased from being folded into a trunk and fragrant with the scent of orris-root and lavender. It did no good for Magda to point out that Lottie most resembled her father, and that he had been a tall man. When Grete had been taken by the Indians, Lottie had been then almost half a head taller.
“She would have grown, Lise, but not taller than Lottie,” Magda said, at last.
Lise was already ripping out a hem and replied with difficulty through a mouthful of pins, “But still, she will have grown, dear little Grete!”
“Lise, Hannah is as tall as Marie, even though she is four years younger,” Magda said with a sigh of exasperation. Nothing damped Liesel’s hectic spirits, knowing that her smallest daughter was free, after two years of uncertainty and despair. Hansi
and the boys were on their way home, little knowing yet of Grete’s release, although both Fredi and Johann had sent messages to the various rooming houses and to friends that Hansi might be seeing whilst considering fine pedigreed stock. Dolph and Peter, with Daddy Hurst and the cook-wagon, were probably still somewhere along the Shawnee Trail, north of the Red River. No one dared speak of Willi to his mother, lest her joy be dimmed.
That afternoon Fredi shouldered through the door, beaming with delight and his arms full of an exhausted child. Liesel almost flew down the stairs, torn between happy tears and incoherent and joyful exclamations.
“Oh, Grete . . .little Grete, my darling . . . look at you! Oh, my dear darling, how you have grown!”
Fredi set Grete on her feet and Liesel swept her into an embrace, kneeling in a pool of skirts so that she could kiss the child’s solemn face.
“Mama?” she ventured tentatively. Liesel began to cry and laugh at the same time. Hovering with Anna and Lottie, Magda met her brother’s eyes, tired but triumphant. Charley’s merry grin seemed to light the house; no matter that Hansi and the boys were not home, possibly didn’t even yet know of this joyous return. Hannah, Anna and Marie gathered closer around Liesel and her youngest while Sam and Elias hovered, fascinated and full of questions—some for Grete, who appeared quite overwhelmed, but many directed at Fredi.
The latter finally said, “Ah, Lise, take the poor babe into the kitchen and feed her oatmeal porridge. Our last few meals were truly awful and we are both starving. Not your place, Charley,” he added as Charley made a mocking protest, “for I wished to get the girl back where she belongs!”
“Does she understand a word we are saying?” Charley asked softly, for it appeared as if she did not comprehend more than a few words. She stared at her mother, her cousins and sisters with eyes that were as round and as apprehensive as a baby owl’s.
“Some,” Fredi answered in the same tone, and unsuccessfully tried to stifle a jaw-crackingly wide yawn. “Your pardon! We came very far today and hardly slept at all last night for the noise in the stage hotel. I have been reciting every baby rhyme and children’s song I can think of for the last five days. I think she does understand, for sometimes she sings along with me. She will remember, as we talk to her.”
Lottie took her cousin’s hand, after a wary look at Liesel and another in her mother’s direction, as if to reassure herself that Magda was still there and she had nothing to fear from Liesel. “Do you want some gingerbread?” she asked in the most sweetly earnest tones. “Auntie Schmidt made some for us. You remember, you used to like gingerbread. Is that your dolly? May I see her?” Magda held her breath, for Grete still clutched her doll very firmly. “Do you have a name for your dolly, Grete?”
“Go on, get something to eat for the child, before she falls asleep in it,” Fredi commanded heartily. Liesel kissed her daughter again and rose from the floor, shooing the children before her like chickens in the farmyard.
“She does seem to understand at least a little.” Charley sounded much cheered.
Fredi yawned again. “She’s a good girl. I have so much to tell you all. All the way to Kansas and back—by the gods, it all went well! Nearly lost a man in a stampede, but it turned out well! We wrote you about the sales of the cattle and horses! And your son has found himself another dog.”
“How many pets does that make for him now, Madam Magda?” Charley laughed with very real affection. “Four or five by my count!”
“What of Willi?” Magda asked in a low tone as Liesel and the children vanished into the kitchen. “Was there any news of him? When Liesel regains her composure after this joy, she will think to ask about her son. What should we tell her?”
With a wary glance towards the kitchen Fredi answered, “Colonel Wynkoop and the other folk at the Fort Larned Agency had received no intelligence regarding him at all. Grete last saw him as the tribe they were with prepared to move to a new camp in the spring of the year after they were taken. He had been hurt, riding one of their wild horses. Wynkoop and his translator—sensible chap, knew a lot regarding their ways—he thinks it was likely he was left behind, being injured too badly to move.” Fredi added, grave of face, “I think that he is most likely dead, poor little chap. But I would rather not be the one to tell Lise.” He looked from Charley to Magda, both of them nodding sad agreement, and added, “I’ll tell Hansi of this when he returns, but if she asks . . . .”
“Leave it to Hansi,” Magda said. “Willi was his child also and Liesel is his wife.”
Hansi arrived two weeks later, exuberant as a schoolboy and driving a fine new trap drawn by a lively but disciplined team of horses. He had brought presents from the east for everyone, but left the horses in the corral and the trap sitting in the barn while he rushed into the house empty-handed; first through the storeroom and into the workshop, where he swung Anna up into the air as if she were still Grete’s age.
“How’s my little secretary and commander?” He kissed her cheek with affection.
Anna pleaded, “Put me down, Papa! Please! Dignity—there are customers in the shop!” She eyed her parent with affection and no little wariness, as he set her feet on the ground again. “You’re inordinately pleased with yourself, Papa. What have you done?”
“Put our feet on a road paved with silver and gold, my dear little nun. How is your mother? Where is she? Where is your aunt?”
“Mama is upstairs.” Anna straightened her skirts and smoothed stray tendrils of her hair back into its usual sleek knot. “She is in a good mood, Papa; almost as merry as she used to be. And Auntie is in the shop. Papa, did you get our letters? Fredi’s and mine? About the children?”
“Yes, I did, little nun, and I talked to Fredi, too.” Hansi’s face was briefly shadowed. “I know what they told him at Fort Larned about Willi. Leave it to me to handle your Mama, if she asks. Out of the cellar and onto the topmost tower with having her little chick returned to her, I presume?”
“Yes, Papa, very much so,” Anna returned sedately. “She has been over the moon with happiness ever since. She has not yet come to allow Grete out of her sight—to attend school, for instance! But she will let her go play in the garden with Lottie. They are out there now. Did you not see them when you came from the stables? Mama watches from the window above.”
“I was in a hurry,” Hansi answered, “but I will take your word for it!” The bell over the shop door chimed and Anna tilted her head, listening intently, “I must go, Papa, there are more than Auntie can manage. But you can see Grete and Lottie from this window. I … I watch them also. I think she is happy to be home now. She talks now. A very little and to Lottie mostly, but more than before.”
“All to the best, my little nun.” Hansi sighed and kissed her cheek once more. “All to the best. You said that your mama is upstairs? Good, for I have something splendid to tell her!”
“What are you planning, Papa?” Anna asked suspiciously.
Hansi smiled broadly. “Never you mind, but it will put the roses in her cheeks for sure to know that I have contracted to build her a fine new house of our very own—in San Antonio!”
“Oh, Papa!” Involuntarily, Anna clapped her hands. “Truly? How wonderful! Do you think Mama will consent?” The joy in her face faded a trifle, but Hansi nodded.
“She will, I think. If I persuade her, and you and your aunt back me up and hold her hands all the way. I think it might be accomplished with some little trouble. Annchen, I went all the way to Kansas with a herd of cattle and horses, I think I can easily get your Mama’s consent to ride in a closed coach to San Antonio. She will not fall to her fears as long as we are all with her.”
“True, Papa.” Anna agreed. She smoothed her hair again. As she went towards the front of the shop she asked a carefully casual question. “Of my cousin and Mr. Vining, how did they fare in Kansas? Are they returning soon?’
“Yes, Annchen,” Hansi replied with a broad grin. “They should return very soon. I think they fared very
well in Kansas; neither of them had much of a taste for such delights as were on offer—which you should not know about anyway! Anyway, neither of them was charged with offending against the civil authorities. Always good, hey? They should return very shortly, since I need to consult with them about the care required for the stock animals I purchased! Young Vining has a good head on his shoulders! Will you be as pleased to see him as your mama is to see me?”
“Really, Papa!” Anna exclaimed, with a blush pinking the cream of her cheeks. Hansi laughed, and ran up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs was the room that Liesel and Magda had shared during the war, and that he and Liesel had shared after it. The door stood half-open, and he crashed through it with an exuberant thud. Liesel, looking out the window at the little girls playing in the garden below, spun around. She cried out, half joyous and half startled, her hand at her throat.
“I’m home, sweeting!” Hansi said only, and swept her into his arms.
Some considerable time later, she murmured from the shelter of his side, “In the afternoon, Hansi. . .whatever will people think?”
“Whatever they like,” he answered nonchalantly. Liesel sighed. It had been so long, waiting for things to be as they had used to be. Hansi, her husband, so solid and comfortable, pulling the pins out of her hair and scattering their clothing over the floor, undressing them both with such eager haste! She had ached for this, alone in this bed for so many months, and now she felt exultant. She stretched out her arm, embracing the solidity of his chest, feeling the steady thud of his heart against her face. Her hair was spread across them both; she could feel him toying with a strand of it, knowing that he wound one of her curls around his fingers. “Lise,” he ventured and she almost purred with contentment. “Lise, I had a notion. Would you like having a house of your own again? I had a thought that if I had a house in San Antonio to run the business from . . . then we could spend more afternoons like this.”
