Dust Devil

by Bonds, Parris Afton

  "The Naat’aani promise us blankets and clothing and better food, but we never get them. All the mesquite and cottonwood have been chopped down so that only roots are left for firewood. And there is nothing to protect us from the rain and sun, and we have to dig holes in the ground and cover ourselves with grass mats. We live like prairie dogs in burrows! We are crowded together like penned sheep! There are many others like ourselves risking their lives to get away.”

  When Lario questioned Barboncito about Guayo, the sub-chief knew nothing, for there were seven thousand Indians closely watched and it was impossible to move out of an allotted area.

  In preparation to leave, Rosemary packed the few belongings they had on the travois secured to the back of a calico pony. She was not sorry to be leaving the camp, but she wished she and Stephanie and Lario were leaving the Apaches — where the three of them could go, she did not know.

  Lario came up and held the pony’s bridle, steadying the horse. "The wires talk of Grant Raffin,” he said, and she knew he was watching her. She turned and faced him, waiting. "He has been made Colonel of the Fourth Cavalry,” Lario continued, his eyes never releasing her. "He claims he will not rest until the last Navajo, the last Apache, is wiped from the Territory.”

  At last Lario looked away, saying, "When we reach the Rio Grande, I am sending you home. A war camp is no place for a woman — ” And then he smiled at her, a sad but relentless smile. "Not even a squaw.”

  She turned her back on him and began strapping the remainder of the articles on the travois. "I will not go back.”

  He jerked her about, and for the first time ever she saw emotion blazing in his face. His grip hurt her arms, but she did not cry out. "I don’t want you here. You are in my way. You are going home!”

  Her words were almost lost in the wind’s howling. "You are my home, Lario.”

  He swung away, and she wanted to cry out to him, but she knew that this time she could not yield.

  She found Stephanie playing with the horsehide cards with another child, a game her daughter was almost as good at as a Mississippi riverboat gambler. She bundled Stephanie in the thick blanket, which, though smoky and smelly, had no holes and put her on the back of the pony. With Rosemary leading the pony, they fell in line with the rest of the women, and the band began to move out.

  Somewhere ahead of them Lario and the other braves re-connoitered the terrain while the older children and the men too old to fight brought up the rear, driving the remaining sheep and cattle.

  For two days the band fought the bitter cold that slammed against their faces like doors of ice as they picked their way down along the treacherous trails out of the Mongollons. Several times a sheep or cow, precious sustenance to the camp, strayed off.

  At night she and Lario slept together but not touching despite the cold. Both remained adamant in their decisions. Come morning she would see his stony countenance and sorrow would knife through her. Soon they would reach the basin, and it appeared that there could only be a bleak resolution to their personal battle, regardless of who was the victor.

  However, the forces of nature were the main foe to be dealt with immediately. The previous summers had been dry ones, and the last two winters had not brought enough snow in the mountains to water the dry arroyos of the semi-arid plateaus. Now when the caravan of Indians reached the basin, they found only dry waterholes, saw only flats of alkali.

  She watched the single-file string of gaunt steers approach an arid wallow or a Navajo mother suckle a lamb at her breast and knew what it was to cry in one’s heart. And when Stephanie’s lips cracked with the bite of the dry cold, she was tempted to approach one of the adobe houses she saw in the distance, looking dingy and dilapidated without whitewash. But the fear of civilization held her back.

  There was no mush to be had from the mescal plant nor bear or fish meat, for the latter two were taboo to the Indian, and so the band continued its nomadic life, migrating steadily eastward toward the Rio Grande out of necessity.

  One afternoon, as she watched the awkward speed of a fleeing roadrunner, she saw the dust churning against the northern horizon. An hour later a scout lathered his pony toward the band of women and children. "Many soldiers! Many petiltows—rifles! Flee!”

  Like a well-organized army the band of women and children swerved back and began their retreat toward the foothills of the San Mateo Range. All but her. She stood next to the calico pony as the horde streamed past her in flight. Then she began walking toward the dust cloud that billowed on the horizon. Without the others to break the sweep of frigid wind she found each step forward more difficult.

  "Mama,” Stephanie wailed from beneath the protective layer of the blanket, "I’m cold!”

  She looked back at her daughter who rode the pony bareback as well as any Apache child. "We shall be warm soon,” she shouted.

  Muffled by the blanket she leaned into the wind, ducking her head. Each step took her closer now to the Fourth Cavalry, to civilization. And to Lario. Her heart beat faster with the fear that even now he might be dead. But some instinct told her he was not. Not yet. She would know, she would feel it deep within her heart. If he managed to escape the soldiers, he would return for Stephanie and her. And if he was taken captive . . . then she would find him.

  * * * * *

  The sergeant saluted the officer behind the pine-paneled desk. "Colonel Raffin, sir. There’s a squaw outside who demands to speak with you. Says she’s a citizen of the United mates.” He paused, then added, "She does speak English.”

  It was late in the evening, well after eight, and Grant was tired. Libby would be peeved that he was late again. What he needed was a stout whiskey. What he really needed was a less frigid woman that Libby to warm his bed. He’d have to forego the whiskey if he wanted to maintain his trim physique. He didn’t need to forego a warm and willing woman. Not with Dona Luna or, better, one of her girls so available for him in Santa Fe.

  He sighed and set aside the report the lieutenant had brought him on the last detail. The engagement with the Apache would result in the complete subjugation of the warring tribes. Only Victorio had eluded him, but it would not be long now before the wily chief, without the aid of his warriors, submitted.

  Grant’s troops had known neither summer rest nor winter quarters but had pursued the Indian foe relentlessly month after month, night and day, over mesas and deserts and rivers, under boiling suns and rough winter snows, killing and capturing them in their most chosen retreats.

  Now, with all but Victorio and a few renegades incarcerated, the Apaches’ and Navajos’ spirit would be broken. Grant glanced again at the figures—over seven thousand Navajo and four hundred Apache living on the Bosque Redondo Reservation, a tract of land forty miles square with six thousand acres of arable land. It had been a successful campaign, resulting in, he hoped, his appointment to succeed General Carleton as Commander of the Department of New Mexico.

  "Ahhm.”

  Grant looked up at the sergeant. He had completely forgotten the soldier’s presence. His fingers massaged his forehead. Too many days and night spent at the damned fort. He needed to get into Santa Fe. "Send the squaw in, Barstow,” he said tiredly.

  When next Grant glanced up, a rail-thin woman stood before him. She had the high cheekbones found in the Athabascan tribes, but her straggly, lank hair, a dirty shade of brown, was not dark enough for a Navajo or Apache. Perhaps a stray Pueblo caught in the roundup, he thought, looking at the haggard woman. Well, he’d get this over with and get to bed. "Yes?” he snapped.

  "Grant.”

  It was such a hoarse whisper that he did not think he heard correctly. His eyes narrowed. "What was it you said?”

  The woman put a hand on the desk to steady herself. With distaste he eyed the ragged and dirty fingernails and wrinkled his nose as the odor of her unwashed body hit him. Bloody tracks made a path on the puncheon floor from the door.

  “I’ve walked three hundred miles,” she said raggedly but wit
h what might have been a smile of pride at her accomplishment.

  The sight of her macabre grin and the ghostly grimace of a skull startled Grant. His fastidiousness caused him to shrink inwardly from the woman across from him. He had a horror of the diseases the squalid Indians carried. "What is it you want?” he asked impatiently. What was it the sergeant said, something about her claiming to be a United States citizen? Impossible!

  "I want your help, Grant,” she managed to get out. "I want to find Lario Santiago.”

  His blue eyes widened then narrowed disbelievingly. "Rosemary?”

  She looked down at herself with a smile of self-derision. "Aye,” she replied, looking back to him. "’Tis the same.”

  "Good God, Rosemary!” He hurried from around the desk and pulled out a chair for her. "We believed you dead these last three years.”

  "Sergeant!” he bellowed. The young man stepped inside, and Grant said, "Rouse the cook. I want a hot meal within the hour.”

  When the sergeant left, he quickly went to his desk and pulled out the bottle of whiskey and poured a glassful, handing it to her. Even now he could not bring himself to touch her as she accepted the glass. "Now’s not the time for questions, though I have many. I’ll have Libby find clothing for you. A bath and you’ll be your old self.”

  He rattled on, disconcerted by her own composure in the face of what she must have gone through, and he realized she would never be her old self. Finally, as he told her that Stephen, still grieving over her supposed death, had not remarried, she broke in, saying, "Jamie — how is he? What does he look like now?”

  "He’s doing fine, Rosemary. We — Libby and I and our son Wayne, he was born not long after your disappearance — were at Cambria last month with Rita and Jiraldo to celebrate Jamie’s fifth birthday. He’s a tall lad — I guess he got that from you.”

  For the first time she took a sip of the whiskey. She scowled. “It burns all the way down, but it warms me when I thought I would never be warm again.” She took a deep swallow this time, as if to steady her next words. “I was kept separate from the warriors taken in the cavalry’s surprise attack and was been put with prisoners taken in previous roundups and marched to Fort Sumner. I’ve asked . . . but no one knew anything, much less cared . . . Grant, what do you know of Lario Santiago?”

  He poured himself a glass and matched her own deep swallow. So that was how it was. Incredible! She was in love with the Navajo. An Indian! He looked into the large eyes, always before so expressive. Now it was like looking at a wall. Had she lost her reasoning? Gone loco living among the savages? He considered lying to her, telling her the buck was dead, but decided against it.

  "I’ll check the roster of prisoners as soon as the captain completes it, Rosemary. But you must understand if Lario survived the attack, he will be executed along with the other Indian males within the week.”

  "You can’t! He’s done nothing that you haven’t done, Grant. He’s fighting for his survival! Is that so wrong?” The whiskey sloshed from her glass, and she set it on the desk with a trembling hand.

  "That’s Carleton’s policy — either they yield to removal to the reservation or be exterminated. Too many peace treaties have been broken because they declare it’s bad Indians doing the killing and stealing. They’ve got to know we mean business this time.”

  She sagged in the chair. He put his own glass down in alarm. "I’ll take you home. You can eat there. The quarters aren’t much, but they’re the best the fort has to offer.”

  * * * * *

  It was only a large, round wooden bucket, and Rosemary had to stand while she washed, but to feel the lye soap and heated water, the first in three years, cleanse away the accumulated dirt — it was an almost unbearable pleasure.

  Libby poked her head inside the bedroom door, and Rosemary did not miss the gloating look that settled on the woman’s now-plump face as she took in Rosemary’s emaciated body. "I got you a dress. But it’s certain sure going to hang on you.”

  Rosemary refused to cover herself. "Thank you, Libby. Do you have anything that Stephanie could wear?” So many words at once. She had forgotten how talkative the Anglo race was.

  In the corner of the room stood a Wabash bedstead. On it lay Stephanie in exhausted sleep. Libby glanced at the child, whose long gangling legs stuck out from beneath the blanket. “It’s our Christian duty to help. She sighed, as if it were her cross in life to endure the heathen visitors for her husband’s sake. “I don't think my Wayne’s knee pants would fit your daughter.” Her mouth pulled tightly, as though she were afraid Stephanie would contaminate the boy’s clothing. "The commissary clerk’s wife — her girl died of the croup last year. She might still have clothing that’d fit the child.”

  After Stephanie had awakened and Rosemary washed and dressed her, they joined Grant and Libby and Wayne at the long puncheon table for dinner. Rosemary felt awkward handling the utensils and had no desire for food, not until she learned of Lario’s fate. But Stephanie dug into the roasted venison, ripping the meat with her teeth and hands. Rosemary saw Libby eye Grant in horror at the child’s table manners.

  I won’t apologize! If their son had lived as we had, he would know no better either!

  Grant touched his napkin to his lips. "Rosemary . . .” He hesitated and looked around the table. "The — ah, friend you asked about is here.”

  She nodded, but he saw the blue-green eyes cloud over like the murky waters of a lagoon. "He has two weeks,” he said.

  Rosemary drew a shaky breath. "And there is nothing I can do to change the orders?”

  "What are you two talking about?” Libby asked, and Rosemary knew Libby suspected the intimacy that had existed between the her husband and Rosemary, that seemed to still exist in spite of Rosemary’s haggard appearance.

  "An old friend,” Grant said, and for the first time Rosemary actually liked Grant. Perhaps there existed a spark of compassion in Stephen’s protégé after all. It gave her hope.

  Now that Stephanie’s stomach was full, she began to look around at the strange surroundings, her eyes wide with interest but wary at the same time. And her eyes crossed the inquisitive gaze of Wayne, only to come back. The boy, four months younger than she, was the most beautiful creature she had ever beheld. Below golden curls that seemed to her as bright as the sun were vivid blue eyes in the pale face that made her want to reach and touch them to see if such a color was real.

  When he continued to eye her steadily, she became uneasy, wondering if there were something wrong with her. Had she sprouted antlers as old War Blanket had promised she would if she spoke with untruths? Stephanie stuck out her tongue at the boy and grinned at the frown that suddenly crinkled his face.

  Losing interest in him, she finished inventorying the room with its hard, colorless walls, then turned to her mother, asking in a very grown-up tone, "Where is my father?”

  "Your father’s in Santa Fe,” Grant said.

  With a start Rosemary realized Stephanie meant Lario. She forestalled her daughter from any further questions, saying, "Stephanie, ’tis bedtime.”

  "But, mama, I just woke up.” However, her lids were having a difficult time staying open. She yawned, stretched, and wandered off into the other room without any further protest.

  "Stephen won’t return to Cambria for two more weeks, I understand,” Grant said. "Why don’t you stay with us? I’ll send a courier to Cambria to leave word for Stephen to come for you.”

  Rosemary saw Libby grimace at Grant’s invitation to stay with them. But that did not make any difference to her.

  She had two weeks to make Grant change the orders regarding his captive.

  CHAPTER 23

  "It must have been awful for you, dear,” the quartermaster’s wife ventured. Her protruding eyes darted a furtive glance at Rosemary and quickly returned to fix their attention on the blanket she quilted.

  "It was difficult at times, Mrs. Pettigrew,” she said in a noncommittal tone. She jerked on the thread of the g
own’s hem she was letting out. The dress, Libby’s, would still be too short, but it would serve its purpose for the rest of the week.

  One week left. Dear God, what was she going to do?

  Molly Mallory, the fort’s washerwoman, put down her patchwork. Her small mouth pursed in indecision, then opened to blurt out, "Were you — that is, did they . . .” She broke off and looked about the sewing circle for assistance.

  "No, I was not raped.” Rosemary replied, each word falling like a drumbeat in the silence of the avid listeners.

  "You hear about them doing such horrible things to women,” Libby said, unwilling to let the subject drop.

  "I suppose so,” Rosemary said. Her stony gaze went from one lady to the next in the circle. "But then I personally saw atrocities committed against the Indians by our glorious soldiers. Things like . ..” And she halted, seeing the skepticism that claimed the women before she had even begun. She realized they did not want to know. Surely they had seen for themselves the suffering the Indians were enduring right there on the Bosque Redondo Reservation.

  The memory was clear enough in her mind from when Grant had driven her out to the reservation earlier that week. The insects that swarmed in spite of the cold, almost devouring the babies. There was no game, no food except the unfit maggoty beef issued them by the Indian Agent — and Rosemary gritted her teeth at that thought, for it was Stephen who supplied the beef to the Indian Agent.

  The Navajo and Apache tried to be farmers, like the Pueblo, but they were pastoral — sheepherders and cattlemen — and the worms ate their corn. Grant mentioned that the trading post Stephen had established on the reservation was selling liquor; and if that was not bad enough, smallpox had broken out, so that Grant refused to let her go among the Indians in search of Guayo and Lario in spite of her protest that she had already had the dreaded disease.