Wanda thought that if she could go to the white man’s town and dress in the way of the white girls and learn to speak their language, then she would be able to go and talk to the person in charge of the white people, their chief. She would tell him that her people were good people and that there should be peace between them. She would say that her people only wanted to have a little bit of the land and to have a simple life. This is what Wanda thought she would say to the chief. She thought he would listen to her because she had the same coloured skin as him. She thought she could change the course of history.
When she arrived in the town, Wanda realised there was a flaw in her plan. She had no money to buy the clothes. Her only option would be to steal some clothes from the local general store. She crept into the store without anyone seeing and then made her way to the back of the store, hiding behind boxes and racks. She found a frilly, lacy, blue dress that had been left hanging in a change room and slipped it on. She stayed out of sight and listened very carefully to all of the conversations of the customers and the shopkeeper, hoping to learn some of the language.
“Good day, Mrs McClarrin,”
“Good day, Mrs Parkins,”
“Fine weather, we’re having today.”
“Yes, indeed. A drop of rain wouldn’t hurt though.”
“I agree, it shouldn’t be long now. How are you today?”
“Well, I shouldn’t complain because there are a lot of people worse off than me, but the bunions on my feet are playing up something dreadful lately. And I said to my Alfie last night, I said, he’s not goin’ and spending all his wages this week at the pub because I need some new shoes …”
“Sorry Mrs McClarrin, excuse me, but I’ll have to attend to another customer and then I’ll be right back.”
“Oh, all right then,” but then under her breath, to herself, she said, “I’ve never known anyone to be so rude.” And with a click of her tongue she turned away.
“What can I do for you today, Mrs Morley?”
“I’ll have two loaves of bread, a packet of sugar, a bag of the tea leaves and three yards of that Chantilly lace and I’ll pay for it all with cash,” said Mrs Morley with her nose up in the air and putting extra emphasis on the word “cash.” Wanda wondered what it meant when, as she peaked out from her hiding place, she saw Mrs Morley looking sideways at Mrs McClarrin as if she was somehow a better person than her. Mrs McClarrin leaned all of her weight (of which there was quite a bit) on one foot and then the other and every now and then would wince with pain.
“Now Mrs McClarrin, what can I do for you?” said Mrs Parkins after some time.
“Well, I was hopin’ to get some bread and tea leaves too but you know,” and she leaned in close, across the counter, and whispered to the shop-keeper, “I can’t be payin’ you ‘til the weekend when Alfie gets paid, so can I put it on the account?”
“That will be fine, Mrs McClarrin, that will be just fine.” But Wanda noticed at that moment, a flash of a look pass between Mrs Parkins and Mrs Morley that seemed to say, “I told you so!”
Wanda also noticed the way the women were dressed and how their hair was done. She looked behind herself in a mirror for the first time in her life and was shocked. Her blonde hair was tangled and matted and her skin was smudged with dirt all over. Her nails were chewed and dirty and she was very skinny compared to the women in the shop. Next to the women she looked like a savage child.
Wanda didn’t notice that there was a pile of boxes that were balanced precariously one on top of the other right behind her and as she turned back around after gazing at herself in the mirror, she accidently bumped them and they toppled onto the floor with a loud, resounding, banging sound.
“What on earth …” muttered Mrs Parkins and before Wanda knew it all of the women were standing right in front of her and staring at her with utter shock and amazement on their faces.
“Well, I never,” Mrs McClarrin was the first to break the silence.
“Excuse me, but you seem to be wearing one of my dresses and if I remember correctly, it hasn’t been paid for,” said Mrs Parkins in a shrill voice, coming to her senses at last.
“Indeed,” said Mrs Morley, still with her nose in the air. “There’s only one thing that can be done in these instances, Mrs Parkins,” she said with an air of authority. “This feral little girl has to be taken to the police station. They’ll know how to deal with her.”
“Well, yes, I suppose you’re right, Mrs Morley. So come along, dear, you’ll have to come with me,” but then to the women she whispered, “I have to admit though, I’m curious as to who she is and where she came from.” Wanda didn’t like how they talked about her as if she wasn’t even there. All she knew was that they were coming toward her as if to take her somewhere and she didn’t like the feel of that at all. Of course she couldn’t really understand exactly what they were saying but she knew that it couldn’t be good. She knew she was about to get into a lot of trouble and her instinct told her to run. She stood up and lifted her long dress to her knees and ran right between the women in a flash and on out the door before they even had time to realise what was going on. Living where she had all her life had made her very agile and a fast runner.
“But who are you, child?” called out Mrs McClarrin. “Let us help you.”
“Get back here with that dress, young lady! How dare you …” yelled Mrs Parkins and Mrs Morley chimed in with her bit too: “Don’t think you’ll get away with this, you rogue child, whoever you are! Oh my goodness me, I think I’m going to faint …”
Wanda heard everything the women said. She didn’t understand anything but she realised that they must be angry about her stealing the dress. Their voices only made her run faster. She didn’t look back as she ran straight out of town and toward the gorge. She ran and ran until she got to an old falling-down hut and then stopped for a few seconds to catch her breath. If she kept going this way she would be back at the gorge in five or six hours. She had started to regret her decision to leave her people at the gorge. She wanted to be home desperately
She didn’t notice until she was right upon them that she had run into the middle of a large group of travellers. She hesitated for a second, realising that the men were all scattered in every direction, but she kept to her course and prepared to jump right over the campfire that was in her path. But on the other side of the fireplace was a dirty old toothless man, who had quick reflexes. He jumped up into the air to meet her just as she was landing and grabbed her, pulling her to the ground with him, with his full weight on top of her.
“Well, lookee here; what we got ‘ere then?” he said, rolling her over and staring down at her. All of the men that had been scattered around the camp dropped what they were doing and came running to where she lay on the ground, pinned underneath the man.
“Well, well, well,” said another sinister-looking man. “Look what we have here. We have a regular little beauty queen who has just run into our midst. The Lord God is smiling down at us today, my gentlemen friends.” Wanda didn’t like the look of the men and the sound of what they were saying. She made a move to get up but another two of the men came to help the original man hold her down. They each pinned her to the ground so that she couldn’t move at all.
“Oh, my darlin’,” said the leader of the men. “Going so soon and when you’ve only just arrived.” He knelt down beside her and grabbed a handful of her matted hair and pulled on it so that she winced.
“I think I might have something else in mind for you.” All of the men started to jeer wildly and jump around as if they were very excited. Wanda suddenly felt a terror such as she had never felt in her life before. She didn’t know what the men intended to do but she knew that her life depended on her getting away from them right now. Still, while they were holding her like this she had no chance of doing anything so she would just have to stay still and make a carefully thought-out plan.
“Nobody touches her,” said the leader. “Anyone who touche
s her answers to me,” and Wanda noticed that all of the men took a step backwards and looked down at the ground as if they were frightened of that man. But the men who were holding her had different ideas.
“But boss, she looks so good,” he said and with that he leaned down and smiled mischievously at her. The men laughed wildly like a pack of wild animals. Wanda writhed underneath them, broke free and hit out at them with her little fists. But this only made them laugh. The leader of the men reached them with two giant steps. He reached down, grabbed the man who had caught her first – and was the most offensive – by his collar, hit him over the back of his head with the butt of his gun and threw him onto the ground, where he lay motionless.
“Anyone else care to comment?” he said addressing the rest of the men. “We take her to the south where I know someone who will pay a lot of money for a girl like this. Underneath all that feralness is a rare beauty queen. We split the money between us. You’ll all have enough money to buy all the beer and tobacco you need for at least a year. Use your heads! This is our golden opportunity; she just ran right into our camp, as if destiny herself had sent her to us, for us to do whatever we like with her, don’t you see?” All of the men looked from one to the other and shrugged their shoulders as if they weren’t convinced. They looked at Wanda and then back to each other with twinkling eyes as if they were secretly hatching another plan of their own that didn’t need words.
“And don’t any of you crafty gentlemen get any foolish ideas that you can pull the wool over my eyes, either. I’ll be keeping a sharp watch on her and anyone who goes against me will end up worse than him,” he spat out, pointing to the man lying on the ground.
“Stand her up,” he ordered the men. This was it, thought Wanda. This was her chance. They had loosened their grip and she knew it was time to run. She knew that if she didn’t, she would be taken somewhere where her life would be a misery and she would never see her people again. As they stood up she kneed the two men who were holding her in between the legs. The others were so stunned that it took them a second to work out what was going on and that was when she managed to get some distance between herself and the men. It wasn’t hard for her to outrun the men as she was lean and young and desperate to be free. But the chief gave chase on horseback and she had to increase her speed to top. She could hear the horse being whipped and kicked behind her to get it to run faster. It did for quite some way and at one point she thought it would certainly catch up to her but just as it was about to reach her it dropped down onto the ground, throwing the rider into the air.
“Come back here,” the boss man yelled from where he lay on the ground, probably with a broken bone of some sort, thought Wanda to herself. “Get her,” he yelled at his men, who were running past him. “Don’t let her get away.” A few of the men stopped to catch their breath, bending over with their hands pressed onto their knees as if that would somehow get some more oxygen into their diseased lungs. Others of the men dropped onto their knees or fell down onto their faces panting and coughing, unable to rise up again. But Wanda noticed that there were still three or four men chasing her and she was starting to feel tired and out of breath herself. She realised the awful truth that she was about to be caught. It was then that she noticed a shack off in the distance that she hadn’t noticed before, perched in the desert all by itself. She would have to take her chances and hope that whoever lived there would be able to help her somehow. She changed course and headed toward the shack.
She noticed a tall man standing next to the shack. He was standing quite still, shading his eyes and staring in her direction. He stood that way for quite some time and then, suddenly ran to his horse and, after flinging himself onto it, galloped towards her. The horse was large and very healthy and well looked after, thought Wanda, compared to the one that had been chasing her. In what seemed to be only a minute or so, the horse had reached her. Without stopping, the rider leaned forward and grabbed her arm and swung her up onto the horse behind him. Wanda felt safe now and even though she didn’t know this man, who had saved her, she knew she had nothing to fear. She hadn’t quite seen his face yet as he wore a broad-rimmed leather hat but he was somehow very familiar to her. She glanced back over her shoulder as they galloped off and saw that all of the men were now kneeling on the ground, looking at her as though they had given up the chase.
Chapter 10
Rescued
When they arrived at the shack the man told Wanda to go inside. She saw him lead his horse to water and food and take his rifle out of a pouch underneath the saddle bag. He looked inside the rifle and then reached into the saddle bag for bullets to load his gun. Wanda looked around the one-room shack. The smell of the stew baking on the fire made her mouth water and she desperately wanted a drink of water but she thought it inappropriate to help herself. Besides, she didn’t know where it was kept. On the mantle over the fire were small photos of a woman and a blonde-haired little girl. They were very beautiful. The beauty of the woman almost took Wanda’s breath away. She didn’t look like any of the women Wanda was used to seeing in her own tribe. This woman had silky blonde hair that was styled up on top of her head. She had a tiny, thin nose and deep-set blue eyes. Her skin was white as milk and her cheekbones stood out quite a bit. The man entered the shack. He bolted the door and then peered out of the window over the wash basin in the direction of the men.
“They’ll be here, lassie, it’s just a matter of time; don’t worry about that,” he said, without turning to look at her. He turned a handle and water flowed from a large drum – this fascinated Wanda. He filled a glass and gave it to her. “You must have worked up a thirst with all that running, lass. Why are those blokes after you, do you mind me asking?”
Wanda looked at him from behind. He was very tall and had broad shoulders and even though he certainly wasn’t young, he didn’t have the slouch of an old man either, she thought to herself.
“Thank you,” she said, in her own language, not stopping to think that hers was a different language.
“What!” He suddenly turned to her, asking, “What did you say?”
She shook her shoulders. Maybe he wouldn’t want to help her if he knew that she was a native of the land. She had white skin and wore a pretty dress and that was what made her look as if she was one of his people.
“No, that’s fine lass,” he said, apologetically and in a softer tone of voice. “You must be exhausted. Now you go and lie down there, lass,” he said pointing to the bed. “And don’t bother none about trying to tell me everything until you’ve had a bit of a sleep. There’s a good girl. And don’t worry about those men, either. They’ll not get into here and get you, I can guarantee it. I have my trusty rifle here and out back I got …” Right at that moment Wanda heard a commotion of barking start up.
“Ah, the dogs have caught sight of ’em, I bet that’s it.” He went to the door and called, “Come on boys, come to Pa now.” The old wooden door was pushed right open by the dogs as they bounded into the room and the man was almost knocked over. There were five dogs that were so huge and so ferocious-looking that Wanda was glad she was not going to be opposing them. But then they licked her and the man, with their tails wagging, and she thought that maybe she shouldn’t be afraid of them after all. There was a distant noise from outside and they all pricked up their pointy ears and stood stock-still. All at once they made for the door, pushing each other out of the way to fit through the narrow exit. One of them, the smallest, winced in pain as he was pushed aside. But finally they were all out of the door and standing beside one another on the porch and looking in the direction that the noise had come from. They stood very still, with their necks craned and the biggest of them started to growl ever so slightly under his breath. The others looked at him, trotted about on the spot and then started to pace up and down on the porch, looking in the direction that he was.
“You give her back,” was what was being shouted. “She don’t belong to you anyways; we found her first.�
� Now the biggest dog growled out loud and the other dogs looked at him and started their own version of a growl, all equally as frightening as the other, Wanda thought. They bared their teeth and snorted and the hair on their backs stood up in the air. The man stood behind them and had his rifle pointing in the direction of the approaching men. The first of the men arrived, gasping for breath and next, all of the others in the same fashion. It didn’t take long before they had caught their breath and looked up at the porch and realised what they were up against.
“Looks like we’ve got ourselves a problem, then, doesn’t it?” the man on the porch was the first to break the silence.
“Look, Mister,” said one of the other men, “we don’t want no trouble; it’s just that our boss sent us to get this ’ere girl cause she’s on her way to somewhere with him, somewhere real important, like.”
“Well, certainly doesn’t look like that to me,” he answered, frowning and completely motionless but still with the rifle pointed right at them. “What it looks like to me is that you are all chasing an innocent girl who is scared out of her wits …”
“Well, that’s where you’re wrong, Mister. You don’t know what you’re dealing with here. She’s a law-breaker, you see,” the man on the ground said. “You’re gonna get into a whole lot of trouble once the law sees you stopped us from taking her back, like.”
“So now you’re telling me you work for the law. You sure don’t look like law-abiding citizens to me.”
“We might not, but our boss works for the law and he’s gonna be here any minute and he’s got the law on ’is side so you better watch out,” said the man threateningly, but then he jumped back a little when the leader of the dogs started toward him down the steps.
“The way I see it, we’ve got a bit of a problem then,” he said looking through the barrel at them again. “The way I see it is you’re all on my land and my dogs don’t like that and unless I see some kind of paperwork that says this girl’s a criminal, I’m not giving her to you. So be off with you then.”
The Blue Seal of Trinity Cove Page 6
