Comanche Woman

by Joan Johnston

  Although María wore the oldest of rags for clothes, Bay noticed they were immaculately clean. The old woman’s dark brown eyes were kind. The vigor with which she worked belied the age that showed in her wrinkled face and gnarled fingers. Bay saw that although Sloan was still afraid for Cisco, the old woman’s arrival had done much to ease her feelings of helplessness.

  However, the little boy’s room, crowded as it was with his toys, a chest, a massive Mediterranean-style bed, and a beautiful spool-legged table, was not meant to hold six anxious adults.

  “You will all have to leave,” María said. “All except those closest to the child.”

  Lucia Doña turned to those assembled in the room and said, “I will stay with Cruz. Juan will see to your needs in the sala.”

  “I’m not leaving,” Sloan said.

  “You gave up this child,” Doña Lucia countered.

  “He’s my son!”

  “I am the child’s grandmother. It is I to whom your son has turned in the dark night. It is I who have wiped the tears from his eyes when he cried with a skinned knee. By what right do you claim a place at his side? By what right do you claim a place in the Guerrero home?”

  “I . . . I . . .” Sloan faltered, and fell silent.

  “Her right is equal to mine,” Cruz said. All eyes riveted on the imposing Spaniard.

  Sloan waited with her heart in her throat to see if Cruz would reveal the secret he’d kept all these years. She couldn’t breathe. Surely he would not disclose the terms of their agreement. She pleaded with her eyes, Don’t tell them. Don’t tell them the truth.

  Cruz looked quickly at Sloan before he turned to his mother and said, “She must stay. She is . . .” He ignored Sloan’s terrified gasp and finished simply, “. . . the boy’s mother.”

  Sloan closed her eyes with relief, struggling to hold back the sob that threatened to reveal too much to those who watched her.

  Not by the flicker of an eyelash did Cruz’s mother disclose how she viewed her son’s command. She simply turned on her heel and left the room. Bay felt Long Quiet’s arm around her waist and then she was being escorted from the room as well. The last thing she saw as she left was Sloan’s huge, liquid brown eyes riveted on Cruz’s face.

  Sloan swallowed over the lump that kept her from speaking in more than a whisper. “Thank you.”

  “I could not see you sent from your son’s bedside by another woman. Even my own mother.”

  María interrupted to say, “I will need someone to help while I stitch this wound closed.” She looked at Sloan, who nodded her acquiescence.

  There was nothing said in the room while the curandera practiced her folk medicine on Sloan’s son. When she’d finished she gave Sloan some salve to put on the wound and admonished her to change the bandages regularly. “I’ll give you something to put in his drinks to keep him from being in pain,” she said. “He is a strong boy. It is likely he will recover. Keep him still and let nature do its healing work.” Then the wizened old woman left them alone.

  Sloan slumped into the straight-backed chair beside the bed and stared at her child. She felt the pain in waves. She had begun to care too much. If Cisco had died she would have died along with him. It hurt too much to care. She’d learned that with Antonio. And again with Cisco. She refused to examine her feelings for Cruz. She simply would not—could not—put herself through agony such as this again.

  She would remain at Dolorosa to nurse Cisco until she was sure he was out of danger. Then she would stay as far away from her son as she could get.

  Cruz knelt at Sloan’s feet and took her hands in his. “I hope you will stay until Cisco is well. I am sure my mamá will understand your need.”

  Sloan pulled her hands from his grasp. “You don’t have to worry about your mother being distressed by my presence. I’ll be gone from here as soon as I’m sure Cisco is out of danger.”

  “I do not want you gone.”

  Sloan met Cruz’s intent blue eyes and found a wealth of wanting there. “I don’t know what you expect from me. I’ve kept to the terms of our agreement, while you’ve crossed its boundaries more than once. I have plans for my life now that don’t include you . . . or Cisco. I want you to stay away from me, and keep Cisco away, too.”

  “These past months you’ve been a wonderful mother.”

  Sloan sat up straighter in the chair. “These past few months I’ve been foolish. Don’t you understand? I won’t care for Cisco. And I don’t care for you!”

  “Saying you won’t care—that you don’t care—doesn’t change the truth. And it won’t make the pain any less if one of us gets hurt. I want—”

  “No!” Sloan’s brown eyes flashed with anger as she rose and brushed past him. She whirled back to rasp, “We have an agreement, Cruz. I intend to abide by it, and I’ll expect you to abide by it as well—unless you’d like to release me altogether?”

  A muscle worked in Cruz’s jaw. He turned his face away so she couldn’t see his reaction to her challenge, and then reached out and caressed Cisco’s pale cheek. “As you say, we have an agreement. But no matter how far you go, no matter how long you stay away, Cisco will still be your son. And we will both love you.”

  Chapter 25

  BAY DIDN’T SEE SLOAN AGAIN UNTIL THE DAY BEFORE Christmas.

  “Hello the house!”

  “Sloan? Is that you?” Bay came racing out of the adobe house and hugged Sloan as she stepped down from her horse. “What are you doing here? Is Cisco all right?”

  “I’m on my way back to Three Oaks. Cisco’s doing fine. He’s going to be bed-bound for at least another week, but he’s getting better every day. When he grows up, he’ll have a fantastic scar to show his friends,” Sloan said in a too-hearty voice.

  “And you? How are you?” Bay questioned. “Goodness, come inside. I don’t know where I left my manners.”

  “No thanks, Bay. I need to get home.” Sloan walked with her horse to the well and drew a bucket of water, holding it so the animal could drink. “I came by to tell you . . . I’m not going to be seeing Cisco anymore.”

  “But Cisco loves you. How can you stop seeing him?”

  “I don’t want to argue about this, Bay. I only stopped by so you won’t expect me next Sunday. I’m not going to see Cisco anymore, and that’s final.”

  “But why not, Sloan?”

  Sloan dropped the bucket on the ground beside the well and mounted her horse. “Will you and Walker be coming to Three Oaks for Christmas dinner?”

  “No. We’re going to celebrate here. But, Sloan, why—”

  “Merry Christmas, Bay. I’ll save your Christmas present till I see you in the New Year.” Sloan put her heels to her mount and left Bay standing alone.

  Bay was stunned by Sloan’s decision, and confused because she couldn’t see a good reason for it. She pulled her shawl closer around her against the chilly air and returned to the adobe house.

  She shared Sloan’s edict with Long Quiet when he came home that evening from working with his vaqueros.

  “What I don’t understand is why she won’t see Cisco again,” Bay said as she cleared the supper plates from the table.

  Long Quiet leaned back in his chair until it was balanced on two legs. “Maybe she’s afraid.”

  “Sloan’s not afraid of anything.”

  “Maybe she’s afraid the situation is getting out of hand.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sloan’s used to managing her own life and doing pretty much what she wants. She has no way of knowing whether something else will happen that might take Cisco away from her just when she’s let herself start caring for him. Stepping back from Cisco is one of the few things she can control.”

  Bay forced Long Quiet’s chair forward until all four legs were on the dirt floor. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and laid her cheek against his. “Have you always been so wise?”

  “I knew enough to marry you.”

  The slight tension in his bo
dy led Bay to say, “You do believe now that I married you because I love you and for no other reason, don’t you?”

  He didn’t answer right away, but took Bay’s hand from his shoulder and used it to draw her around to face him. “It’s Christmas Eve, and I have a present for my wife. Shall I give it to her now?”

  So his present was the answer to her question, Bay thought. “Yes, she wants it now.”

  Long Quiet left her to go outside to the shed and returned a few moments later with a large slatted packing crate.

  “What is it?” Bay asked, as excited as a child.

  “Open it and see.”

  The crate had already been opened once, so all Bay needed to do was lift the lid again. She shoved aside the straw that had been used for packing and pulled out a delicate china plate with a silver rim.

  “Why, it’s—”

  “A set of china dishes. Now you won’t have to be embarrassed when we have company,” Long Quiet said with a grin. “And there’s silverware to go with it, but it hasn’t arrived yet. I ordered it too late to get it here for Christmas. Do you like it?”

  “This is . . . I don’t know what to say.”

  “I promised you’d have beautiful things to surround you,” he said, his face becoming serious. “I hope these are all right.”

  “They’re . . . they’re beautiful,” Bay said with a brilliant smile. She loved him too much to tell him the gift was all wrong, that it proved he still thought she needed things in order to be happy living with him.

  And then he gave her another gift.

  “I know that having these things isn’t important to you,” he said. “I’m not sure when I figured that out, maybe as long ago as the first time Cruz came to dinner. But it’s important to me to give them to you. It was narrowhearted to think that because Comanches don’t own things, owning things isn’t a good idea. A Comanche moves his home, along with all his possessions, too often to be able to collect treasures of beauty. So he finds beauty in the land, in the changes of the seasons and the sky.

  “But we’re going to be staying here a long time, Bay—long enough to have children and for our children to have children. Giving you china and silver is my way of saying there’s no reason why we can’t surround ourselves with beautiful treasures, no reason why we can’t enjoy what’s best about the Comanche way of life and life here in Texas, too.”

  Bay threw her arms around Long Quiet and kissed him hard. She pulled herself from his grasp to say, “I have a gift for you, too.” She went to the trunk in the bedroom and took out a package wrapped in brown paper. “This is for you.”

  Long Quiet took his time opening the present, because it was one of the few wrapped gifts he’d ever received in his life. When he had the package open, his eyes lit with the beauty of Bay’s handiwork.

  “It’s a buckskin shirt and a pair of buckskin trousers,” she said. “Sloan provided the deerskin and I tanned it myself, pulling the skin through wooden rings to soften it, the way I learned from Cries at Night.”

  “They’re magnificent.” Long Quiet’s fingers grazed the fringed trousers; he was awed at the effort it had taken to make the deerskin as soft and supple as it was. He unbuttoned his cotton shirt and ripped it off, replacing it with the buckskin. He crossed his arms to feel how the fringe along the sleeve flowed, then reached up to his breast to fondle the intricate pattern of beads.

  “Cries at Night taught me how to do the beadwork. She said it would bring strong medicine to the warrior who wore it.”

  Long Quiet grinned with pleasure. Because so many Texans also wore buckskins, he could easily wear the shirt and trousers while working on the ranch without anyone ever knowing they were intended for a Comanche brave.

  Long Quiet pulled Bay into his arms and held her close for a moment, feeling their unborn babe nestled between them. He breathed the scent of Bay, felt the warmth of her. “I love you, Bay.”

  “I love you, too, Long Quiet.”

  He picked her up and carried her back to the huge bed. He laid her down and then joined her. The buckskin fringe of the shirt caressed Bay’s face as Long Quiet brushed her hair back from her forehead. And then his lips found hers with a gentle brush, a searching taste, and hungry possession. “I think I’ll need strong medicine to make it through the night,” he said, smiling.

  Then there were no more words, only pleasure. Bay’s last thought before she couldn’t think at all was that she loved Long Quiet with all her heart and soul, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer. . . .

  Bay felt a shiver of foreboding when she saw Sloan riding toward the adobe house. It had only been two days since she’d last seen her sister and the New Year hadn’t yet arrived. One look at Sloan’s face, and Bay knew her sister hadn’t come to chat.

  “Rip had a stroke last night, Bay.”

  “How is he? Is he going to be all right?”

  “He’s resting. The doctor doesn’t know how serious it is. He’s lost the use of his right arm and leg, and he can barely talk.”

  “I want to see him. I want to be with him.”

  “He doesn’t want to see you, Bay. He didn’t even want me to tell you what happened. But I thought you should know.”

  “I’m coming to see him anyway,” Bay said, “whether he wants me there or not.”

  Bay left a note for Long Quiet and rode back to Three Oaks with Sloan. Even though Sloan had warned her, she wasn’t prepared for Rip’s appearance. One side of his face sagged, and his eyes were dull and lifeless. His skin was pasty white, and perspiration dotted his forehead despite the coolness of the air.

  Bay sat in the ladder-back chair beside Rip’s bed and took her father’s right hand in hers. The once-powerful fist felt like a heavy lump of clay. “I’m here,” she whispered.

  Suddenly, the fears she’d carried with her on the trip to Three Oaks came spilling out. “This is my fault, isn’t it? Because you don’t have the money to cover the loan to Jonas. That’s why this happened, isn’t it?”

  Rip struggled to speak and after much effort managed a garbled, “Want Cricket.”

  “Sloan sent a message to her. I’m sure she’ll be here as soon as she can.”

  “Want Sloan,” he mumbled.

  “She had some business to attend to, but she should be back soon. Rest now.”

  “Go away.”

  Bay had expected his request for Cricket. After all, she was his favorite daughter. And of course he would want to talk with Sloan, because she could tell him what was happening around Three Oaks now that he was confined to his bed. But she couldn’t pretend his order for her to go away was anything less than what it was. Especially when he turned his head away from her and closed his eyes to shut her out.

  She sat with him through the rest of the afternoon. Perhaps if she hadn’t feared Rip’s death, she would never have spoken. But there was the look of death upon him, and so when he woke again, the bitter feelings she’d carried inside for so many years came pouring out.

  “Why don’t you ever ask for me? It’s always Sloan and Cricket, never Bay. You don’t want anything to do with me. You never have.” She held on to Rip’s hand despite the irritated look on his face. “Why can’t you love me, too?”

  Confusion registered in his eyes. “Love you?”

  “Yes, love me. I know I disappointed you, but I tried to be what you wanted me to be. Truly I did. Couldn’t you at least have tried to love me in return? Would that have been asking so much?”

  His mouth worked, but no sound came out. The tears forming in Rip’s eyes frightened Bay because they were another sign of his weakened condition. As far as she knew, Rip Stewart had never cried in his life.

  “Shhh. Don’t try to talk. It’s all right. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  The more she tried to soothe him, the more upset he got.

  “Please, stay quiet. You’ll only hurt yourself more,” Bay pleaded.

  When Rip raised his left hand, Bay gra
bbed it with hers. “Be still. I won’t say anything more.”

  At that moment Sloan joined them, bringing Long Quiet with her. Sloan saw immediately that something was wrong. “Did he have another attack? What happened?”

  “It’s my fault,” Bay said quickly. “I said some things I shouldn’t have.”

  “No!” Rip’s outburst silenced both women. They waited because it was plain he was trying to speak. It took a few moments for him to be able to say, “Not your fault.”

  “What does he mean?” Sloan demanded. “What’s not your fault?”

  “The stroke. But he’s only saying that to ease my conscience. It is my fault.”

  Long Quiet came up behind Bay and put his hand on her shoulder. “This wasn’t your fault, Bay.”

  “You don’t know all the facts. If you did, you’d understand that I caused this tragedy.”

  “All what facts?” Long Quiet questioned.

  “When Three Oaks burned down, my father borrowed the money he needed to rebuild and refurbish the house. He mortgaged Three Oaks to do it. The past two years the cotton crop has failed, and last year the gin had to be replaced as well. Now Rip doesn’t have the money to repay the loan, and Jonas has threatened to foreclose.”

  Long Quiet stopped her with the pressure of his hand on her shoulder. “How come Jonas Harper holds the note on Three Oaks?”

  “He bought it from the banker in Houston who made the loan to Rip,” Sloan explained.

  Bay continued, “When you returned from Comanchería and wanted me to be your wife, I tried to get out of my engagement to Jonas. But he said he wouldn’t—couldn’t extend the note unless I married him.”

  “So you agreed to marry Jonas to keep him from foreclosing on Three Oaks?”

  Bay met Long Quiet’s gaze and said, “I wouldn’t have married him for any other reason. If I hadn’t gotten involved with Jonas, he might have extended the note for Rip. But once I was . . . I would have gone through with the marriage, but Jonas wanted me to give up my baby—our baby—and I couldn’t do it.”