“You look like a warrior,” she whispered.
“I am a warrior,” he answered. “Didn’t I fight the soldiers?”
“We cannot give them reason to be afraid of us,” she warned. “You must act more like a mouse and not a mountain lion.”
“The mountain lion can only hide for so long before he attacks,” he told her.
They passed a large building that Charles told them was the mess hall, where the soldiers without families ate. It was hard for Casita to imagine all these men without families. Among the Ndé, you always had family.
A dozen soldiers sat on the steps waiting to eat, including Caleb and Jeremiah. Jeremiah saw them first and elbowed Caleb’s side. Caleb leapt to his feet and blocked Mollie’s way.
“Mrs. Smith,” he cried. “Why is she out of the hospital? And the boy? He’s a prisoner.”
“These children are coming to live in our home and be part of our family.” Mollie spoke loudly so everyone could hear.
Casita saw Charles’s reaction to Mollie’s bold words. “As servants,” he was quick to add.
There was an uneasy murmur among the soldiers, but only Caleb was furious enough to say what they were thinking.
“They’re Apache!” he bellowed. “They’ll murder you like they did my family. And then they’ll let their tribe into the fort to kill the rest of us!”
“Caleb, they’re children and will do no such thing,” Mollie protested.
Next to her, Jack tensed.
“Brother, no!” Casita whispered fiercely.
Jeremiah tugged on Caleb’s arm, but Caleb pushed him away. “I didn’t go on that god-forsaken raid,” he growled, “just so you could treat our prisoners like family.” He moved closer, lowering his voice. “We risk our lives every day to protect you against the likes of them, and then you just take them in? It’s wrong.”
“We’ve taken their lands and killed their mother,” Mollie answered defiantly. “So yes, I’m giving them a home.” She looked at her husband and pleaded, “Charles. Do something.”
Casita thought Charles agreed more with Caleb than with Mollie, but he was loyal to his wife. “Son, you are out of line,” Charles said. To Jeremiah he said, “Get him out of here until he calms down. That’s an order unless you’d both like to pull sink duty.”
Apparently the threat of sink duty was a real one because Jeremiah hauled Caleb inside the mess hall.
Hurriedly, Charles took Mollie’s arm. “That’s just a taste of what we’ll face,” he warned.
Mollie patted his arm. “We’ll meet it together.”
“Who was that?” Jack asked Casita.
“No one important,” Casita lied.
“He was on the raid, wasn’t he?”
“Forget him. We can’t have any fights. Charles is already worried about you. We have to act like the children they want us to be.”
“We’re Ndé,” he answered, as though that settled the question.
Ahead of them, Charles was arguing with Mollie. And Casita was arguing with Jack. How could this plan possibly work?
Charles brought them to a row of identical stone houses facing the parade grounds. He called it “Officer’s Row.” Each house had a small wooden porch. In front there was a tiny area of scuffed dirt surrounded by a low fence. He kept going until they reached the last one.
“Your new home,” Mollie said.
An Indaa house. With a stone foundation and doors and windows. If they lived there, they would never wander again. Casita would have given anything to have her wickiup back. Or to build a new one. Anything rather than trap herself inside a building that didn’t move.
Mollie expected her to say something. Anything. Casita touched the fence, which didn’t reach past her knee. “The animals you keep here must be very small.”
“Animals?” Mollie said.
Casita tapped the fence.
Charles laughed. “That’s not for animals. The fence is a marker to show where our yard begins and ends.”
Jack and Casita exchanged knowing glances. What Mother had told them was true: even amongst themselves the Indaa were greedy and jealous of each other’s property.
“Don’t your people have fences?” Charles asked.
“Only to keep the horses in,” Casita said. “But we live on the land, taking only what we need. We would never try to say, ‘This piece is mine.’ The land belongs to everyone.”
“Well, this house is mine,” Charles said, exasperated. “Mollie, why don’t you show them around?” He pushed past Mollie and went inside.
“Charles!” But he didn’t look back. “I know it must seem strange to you.” Mollie smiled nervously. “It was strange to me when I first came. You will get used to it.” She opened the door and gestured for them to come in.
Casita and Jack did not move at first. They had never entered a white man’s house.
Mollie waited patiently. “Take your time,” she said.
Jack eyed the doorway as though it was a trap. “I’ll stay outside,” he told Casita.
“We have to go in,” Casita whispered. “We live here now.”
“We could never live here.”
On the parade ground behind them, a company of men on horseback trotted down to the end of the field in pairs. A bugle sounded, and the first ten pairs galloped forward. Then the pairs split down the middle, one column wheeling right, the other left. Then the next ten came. Casita could tell that they had practiced this often. She had seen this maneuver before. It was exactly the way the soldiers had attacked El Remolino. She looked away, back at Mollie’s house. It was their only refuge now.
“I’m going in,” she said. With a deep breath, she crossed the threshold. There. It was done. She looked at Jack. “I dare you to come in.”
Jack strode forward, pushing past her into the room.
Both of them stopped, eyes wide. They stood in a long room with windows on the porch side and a fireplace at the other end. Casita took in every detail. From inside it seemed even bigger than it had from the outside. And so much larger than their wickiup. The walls were made of a hard white plaster. The floor was not dirt, but wood. No wonder the Indaa cared so much about owning land. They built homes that were permanent. By building such a house, the white man was saying, This is where I stay.
Charles had disappeared. He must have left by the far door. Casita didn’t blame him. Beginnings were never easy.
“This is the parlor,” Mollie said. “This is where I sit and sew or read.” She pointed to a sofa with soft-looking pillows. It looked functional enough, but why would anyone sit inside this airless room when they could be outside?
Casita moved about the room, looking for anything to reassure herself. Anything familiar. A table covered with a white cloth was in the center of the room. How did Mollie keep it so clean? There were pictures on the wall. Casita liked that. She would love to have a place to show her drawings instead of painting on baking stones or on the walls of cliffs. There was one picture of a house that interested her. It was made with thread. She reached out to touch it.
“Go ahead, Casita,” Mollie encouraged. “It’s needlepoint. The words say ‘Home Sweet Home.’”
“But it isn’t this house, is it?” Casita asked.
A shadow crossed Mollie’s face. “No. It’s the house where I grew up. This house is too new. It’s not a home yet, but it will be.”
Home for Casita was a round tent made of branches and skins. She glanced at Jack, who stood in the center of the room. In his dirty leather breeches and with Charles’s coat hanging around him, Casita thought he looked like a wild animal trapped in a strange cage. He would never fit in. Neither of them would.
“Let me show you the kitchen,” Mollie said, moving to the far door.
They followed, but Jack’s attention was caught by a framed picture on the mantle. “Sister, look.”
Casita picked it up. It was a likeness of Mollie and Charles. Mollie wore a light dress and Charles wore his military unif
orm. But the picture had no colors, only greys and browns. Mollie’s bright blue eyes looked black.
“It’s a photograph from our wedding,” Mollie said, coming up behind them.
Casita had heard of photographs, but she hadn’t seen one before. She could never capture a likeness like this. She turned it over, almost expecting to see their backs—the image looked so real.
“Are their souls trapped inside?” Jack asked. Casita translated for Mollie’s sake.
Mollie burst out laughing. “It’s just a picture. It doesn’t take anything from us. In fact, we treasure it because it reminds us of a special day.”
“Don’t let anyone take it away,” Casita said to Mollie. “Just in case your souls are there.”
“I promise, we’ll be very careful with it.” Mollie gently placed the framed picture back on the fireplace. “But now, the kitchen.”
Before they followed, Jack turned the photograph facedown on the mantle. “We don’t want the gods to be offended,” he said.
Casita set the photograph back to its proper position. “We have to live like them.”
“They’re asking for trouble,” Jack warned.
As Casita led the way into the next room, she murmured to herself, “We’re in trouble in more ways than one.”
Mollie waited in a dingy room with a tiny window and a small iron stove. Casita understood this was, unlike the parlor, a room that was for preparing food. But the room stank of smoke and lye. A pot on the stove reeked of sour meat. Neither Jack nor Casita could keep their noses from twitching.
“You cook inside the house?” Casita asked.
Mollie laughed. “Of course. Where else would we cook?”
“Outside.”
“What about in the winter?” Mollie asked.
“Always outside.” To Casita’s mind the reasons were obvious: less chance of fire and the smoke had somewhere to go.
“Father won’t have time to find us,” Jack muttered. “We will have died by fire.”
For an instant, Casita’s mind replaced the iron stove with their wickiup, aflame. Mother hadn’t died by fire, but her body had been destroyed by one.
Mollie seemed disappointed in their reaction. But she was determined to be cheerful. She showed them sacks of rice and corn in a larder, but Casita worried that Mollie didn’t seem to notice the traces of mice. And Casita didn’t understand how food got into the cans that lined the shelf. The Ndé grew, gathered, or hunted everything they ate.
Returning to the kitchen, Mollie pointed to a narrow stairway in the corner. “Our room is upstairs.” Jack held back; he didn’t like heights. Casita agreed. The stairs looked rickety and she worried they wouldn’t hold their weight.
“Do we have to go up?” Casita asked.
“Not if you don’t want to,” Mollie answered, puzzled.
Finally Mollie showed them a small room off the kitchen. Inside were two pallets of straw with blankets heaped on top and two wooden crates.
“This is your room,” Mollie said. “It’s not much, but it is the best we can do for now.”
“It’s very nice,” Casita said. She was glad that she and Jack would be together. Until this week, she could not remember a time she had not slept in the same space with him. His snores were soothing, and she had missed them in the hospital.
Jack scanned the room, measuring the narrow window, as if to make sure he could escape. How was she going to keep him from running?
Charles appeared in the doorway. “I’ve filled some buckets with water from the tank so Jack can get cleaned up.” He held up a scrub brush and a tin of soap.
Jack shook his head and backed away.
“Nothing to scare a little boy like a bath!” Charles said with a grin. “Does Jack speak English?” he asked Casita.
“He doesn’t speak much, but he understands more.”
“I’m a good teacher,” Mollie reassured them. “We’ll do lessons until you both can read and write.”
Casita translated. In English, Jack said slowly, “No school. I go outside.”
Charles burst out laughing. “A young man after my own heart. I didn’t like school either.”
“Jack will do whatever you want him to,” Casita said. “And so will I.”
CHAPTER TEN
MOLLIE AND CASITA SAT IN THE KITCHEN LISTENING TO JACK’S howls as Charles dumped bucket after bucket of water on him. They couldn’t help but giggle.
“Poor Charles,” Mollie said.
“Poor Jack,” Casita replied.
“I suppose Jack has never had a bath before.”
“We bathed every day in the river,” Casita said. “Being clean is very important to us.”
“To me, too,” Mollie agreed. “I wish the soldiers around here agreed with us.” She pinched her nostrils with her fingers.
For the first time since they had come into the house, they shared a smile. Mollie seemed to relax. Now Casita could see that she was as nervous as they were. But they both had reasons to make this arrangement work. Casita needed to survive and Mollie wanted to prove her point about Indians.
Once Jack was clean, Mollie presented him with new clothes. Jack was not pleased. He complained that the pants were uncomfortable until Charles informed him that he was wearing them backwards.
Charles tried to help him with the buttons on his new shirt. Jack shook his head, only allowing Casita to teach him. “How do you know how to do this?” he asked. “Mother never let us have clothes like these.”
“Mollie taught me.” In a low voice, she added, “Stop fighting with Charles or he’ll send us away.”
“I wish they would,” he muttered.
Before Casita could argue with him, Mollie called them to dinner. They sat at the table in the parlor, afraid to touch the white tablecloth. Mollie explained all the utensils: a plate, a fork, and a knife.
“I know knives,” Jack said.
Mollie served them the meat from the pot that they had seen in the kitchen. It was salty and Casita found it worrying that she could not identify the animal. There were beans, but they had been cooked so long they were mushy. Casita quickly mastered the fork, but Jack preferred to spear his food with the tip of his knife. He ate exactly like their father, quick with small bites.
“We’ll starve,” Jack whispered.
“Eat,” she ordered. But she could not help but think of roasted agave hearts. Or corn cooked up with wild onions. Her mouth watered, remembering her mother’s baked mescal cakes.
Mollie watched anxiously. “I’m afraid I’m not a very good cook.”
“Of course you are,” Charles said loyally.
Their stomachs weren’t happy, but Jack and Casita cleaned their plates. “You like it,” Mollie said, surprised and pleased.
“No,” Jack said.
“It is new to us,” Casita said. “We will learn to like it.”
After dinner, Charles suggested they go outside and watch the evening Retreat Parade. Jack was eager to leave the stuffy house, and was first at the door. Charles followed close behind.
“He is afraid Jack will run away,” Mollie confided.
Casita was, too, but she needed to comfort Mollie. “We have no place to run to.”
Charles explained that the Retreat Parade happened every evening. Mollie laughed and said that all the days were alike at Fort Clark except Sunday.
They sat on a bench on the porch. The sun was just setting, bathing the full complement of soldiers in a reddish light. It was eerily silent. The soldiers stood at attention while the officers inspected the ranks. A band started playing a loud, brassy song as they marched down the field. When they passed the house, Casita saw that they had drums and flutes and some instruments she didn’t recognize. When they had finished playing, the flag was lowered.
Casita thought the ceremony was over then, but the band started playing again. This time the soldiers marched in time and in perfect step all the way around the square.
Their discipline was frightening.
No wonder the Army was so successful; the real question was how did the Ndé win any battles at all? They could step on us like blades of grass under their boots, Casita thought. Jack didn’t say anything, but he edged closer to Casita on the bench. Finally the ceremony ended, and the soldiers were dismissed with a final bugle call.
“We live by the bugle,” Mollie said. “Tomorrow morning you’ll hear ‘Reveille’ when the sun rises and the men are supposed to wake up. Then ‘Assembly,’ when all the men will gather for roll call. ‘Fatigue Call’ is when work is assigned. ‘Mess Call’ when it is time to eat . . . ‘Drills,’ ‘Stable Call’ . . . all day long until it’s dark. Then they play ‘Taps’ so we know it’s time for bed.”
Jack understood the gist of what she was saying and thought it was funny. Casita shook her head in warning.
Charles spoke sharply. “What’s so funny?”
“That you don’t know when to go to bed unless you hear a song,” Casita said.
Mollie laughed and Charles looked annoyed. “There are hundreds of people in this fort, brought here for a common goal,” he said. “The bugling keeps us on the same time. Discipline is the secret of the Army’s success. You will soon get used to it.”
A common goal? Casita knew the real reason Fort Clark was there—to fight the Indians. If the bugling was part of that, she decided she did not like it.
Charles asked Jack if he wanted to see more of the base. They set off together. They made a strange pair: the tall cavalry soldier in his uniform and the fierce Lipan Apache boy whose ponytail swung so defiantly. How could these two ever come together?
“Let’s go inside,” Mollie said. They sat on the sofa in the parlor. “Now we can talk.”
“Won’t there be a fire?”
“A fire?” Mollie repeated.
“At home everyone gathers after dinner around the fire. We tell stories into the night.”
The Lost Ones Page 6
