Tame the Wildest Heart

by Parris Afton Bonds

  She dropped to the pine-needled floor Indian fashion. Gordon did the same. O’Neil let the animal skin close and squatted opposite her and Gordon. Every muscle in her body constricted. O’Neil was pack-mule wise; his presence did not bode well.

  In the wickiup’s dim interior, a faint movement behind O’Neil caught her attention. It was Diana’s shadowy figure. Nantez beckoned for her to come forward. With the cautious step of a cornered cat, she edged around the wickiup’s perimeter, keeping her distance from Nantez.

  Mattie understood why. The woman’s lovely face was swollen and bruised. But it was her vacant expression that was so awful to behold.

  Rage exploded from Gordon. With a blue oath, he shot to his feet and started toward her. “What has he done to you, Diana?”

  She shrank from him and averted her face. She raised her hands, either in supplication or defense, Mattie couldn’t tell which. “No!”

  Mattie knew that now was not the time to lose control. “Gordon, sit down.”

  He visibly battled with the urge to shield his wife from further violence. Self-restraint won. With a vein pulsing at his temple, he retraced his steps and seated himself once more.

  “The man said he wished to see his sister,” Nantez said in a taunting voice. “Now he has seen her.”

  She knew then. “Nantez does not plan to keep his word,” she told Gordon. “He is playing with us, like a hawk does a snake.”

  Only audacity, only fearlessness, stood a chance against such malevolence. “There is a great sickness in your belly, Nantez,” Mattie said.

  “I have no pain,” he replied.

  “You will. Within two suns from now, you will die from the ghost sickness.”

  His eyes flared. He told O’Neil to summon Ramos. “Even the shaman cannot help you,” she told him.

  At her side, Gordon said, “What’s going on?” “Playing on Nantez’s fear of the supernatural. I told him he has a disease. The ghost sickness. That he will have pain in his stomach.”

  “You think you can make him believe it?”

  “I can when his stomach starts hurting. I’ve just got to find a way to make it start.”

  “Grand. Just grand.”

  By this time, Ramos had joined them. Nantez told the shaman what she had said.

  Ramos shifted his gaze from the subchief to her. The fact that he had often spoken to her of the Healing Way and even let her once watch a healing ceremony told her that he held her in a measure of respect, female though she was. “You have spoken about the ghost sickness to Nantez?”

  She knew the Apaches believed in some supernatural force, a source of all power, that influenced the affairs of men. Whether for good or evil, they recognized its sway over them. “I have been given dreams. That Nantez would have the ghost sickness in his stomach. Now. At this time of the moon.”

  “You can stop this ghost illness yourself?” Ramos asked.

  “I can. I have studied with the white men’s doctors since I left the Netdahe.”

  Ramos made an expression of disgust. “They do not know about the body.”

  “They know about the mind. Nantez’s mind will make his belly hurt. He has done a bad thing by taking this man’s sister. He has done many bad things.” Ramos could not deny this.

  Nantez did not try. He snorted. “I give you two suns. If I do not have this pain in my belly, then the man and you die.”

  “But if you do?”

  He grinned. “If I have it and you cannot cure it, then the man and you die.”

  She tried making a flippant shrug. Behind him, Diana appeared not to realize the seriousness of the situation. She reminded Mattie of the half-wit boy who hawked newspapers at the corner of Calle Real and Pennington in Tucson. The Apaches would say that Diana had spider webs in her brain.

  * * *

  Mattie felt like she had spider webs in her own brain that night. She had talked heap big. Now she had to produce a heap big result.

  Holding her close as they lay in the wickiup’s darkness, Gordon asked, “What can you do?”

  “I don’t know. The answer will come.” She was letting the question incubate while she slept. For her, there could be no question without an answer, no problem without a solution. The existence of one defined the existence of the other.

  She had to believe it was so, because the only alternative was unthinkable.

  When the answer came, just as she was stirring awake, still in that in-between world, it was so unbelievably simple that she was astounded she could have overlooked it. She had been fretting over her shortcoming in the face of Gordon’s fastidious morning habits.

  Habits!

  By habit, Nantez arose at dawn every morning and, alone, would go to relieve himself at an arroyo some hundred yards from camp.

  For her and Gordon to leave camp in hopes of taking Nantez hostage would be virtually impossible. But she could capitalize on his absence from camp to visit with Ponchie. The old woman would be suspicious, but mayhap her eyesight was still as poor as before . . . .

  No one challenged Mattie as she left the wickiup. The camp was not yet astir, if she discounted the mangy dog trotting past. She walked a little ways into the brush. Without looking behind her, she knew she was being watched. She strolled on a bit farther, then squatted.

  She picked her way back more slowly to the camp, then headed toward that of Nantez’s, identifiable by his buffalo shield propped outside the wickiup. The first orange-pink flush of sunlight was tinting the eastern sky; he should be gone by now.

  Ponchie sat by the fire, preparing the morning’s pozole. The old woman’s wrinkle-clustered eyes glowered. “Why have you come?”

  “I have come to break bread with you, Ponchie. I cannot harbor resentment and be happy, both.”

  Ponchie’s eyes narrowed. Her knotted hands continued to grind the pestle in the pozole mush.

  “I offer you my hand in friendship,” Mattie said and extended it across the mortar.

  Ponchie knocked her hand away. “The way of the whiteman! Begone!”

  She shrugged. “As you will.”

  She returned to the wickiup she shared with Gordon. Esqueda had returned and was preparing breakfast, the same breakfast over which Ponchie had labored. “Where did you go?”

  “To visit with Nantez’s first wife. The old woman who presided over the coming-of-age ceremony the night we arrived.”

  He rubbed his beard-stubbled jaw. His eyes narrowed. “You’re giving that secretive smile I’ve come to recognize as portending a problem for me.”

  At his mention of the word problem, her smile broadened. “Solution, Gordon. Not problem.”

  He flicked her an impatient frown. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “Aye. I added me own herbs to the breakfast she was preparing for that beastly husband of hers.”

  “Herbs? Where did you get them?”

  “I foraged for them when I went for my uhh . . . morning constitutional.”

  The bark of the cascara sagrada, the Strong Root— a mere dandelion; the sarsaparilla; the leaves of the pile wort, all were healthful individually. But concentrated and mixed, they produced nausea.

  “Tis like using the cause for the cure,” she explained to Gordon. “For instance, the Indians claim that nothing is better for worms in children than the worms themselves dried on a red-hot tile and reduced to powder.”

  Gordon shuddered, and she laughed. “By midday, Nantez should be feeling a wee bit queasy.”

  He cocked his head and stared at her as if he were trying to see within her. “Why didn’t you just poison him, Mattie?”

  “I’ve thought about it often enough, God knows. Deadly nightshade and certain toadstools would do it easily. But even if Nantez would have died, the squaws alone would have made life miserable for me and Albert. At least, Albert had the security of being his child. I don’t think the outcome would be any different now. Should I have poisoned him this time, we three would still be captives. Maybe
captives of Martine, should he succeed Nantez as chief. We both know how Martine must feel about you.”

  “Right now he feels a lot of pain.” He pinned her with a searching gaze. “I noticed Nantez isn’t missing any fingers.”

  “What? Oh!” She grinned. “So ye bought that story about the finger bone, did ye now? That bone is a wild turkey wing. I made up the story meself just after I arrived at Fort Lowell. Figured it’d keep me and Albert safe enough.”

  He chuckled. “Oh, Mattie, you’re a rare find!”

  She blushed, unsure whether that was a compliment or not. She meant to ask as much, but Ramos entered the wickiup at that point.

  “Nantez has summoned me to cure his belly sickness,” he said.

  She knew that all hinged on her question. “Will you? Will you cure him, Ramos?”

  His discerning eyes looked straight into hers. “I have told him that you have placed a curse on him; that you are the one who must lift it.”

  Relief seeped from her parted lips in a half-sigh, half-smile. “Thank you, Ramos.”

  “A return of the gift you once gave me. My debt is cleared.”

  In a low tone, she explained to Gordon what had transpired. “So, I need only to collect charcoal, a little wheat starch, and the bark of wormwood. In the meantime, go to the owner of that chicken we saw in camp and beg an egg. We will need its white.”

  “Beg? In English, I hope?”

  “Pantomime. The owner will understand. Then, after I dose Nantez, Diana and ye and I will be on our way back to Cusarare with any luck.”

  * * *

  Nantez was stretched out on a heavy, red woolen blanket. His heavy wheezing sounded like a train at a depot. At his far side sat old Ponchie. There was not a trace of meanness to be found in her concerned and protective gestures toward her husband. Back in a shadowy corner, a movement suggested that Diana was also present.

  “Do you wish to be healed of your ghost sickness?” Mattie demanded of Nantez in the Apache language.

  He gritted his teeth. Anger, and pain, burned in his eyes. He made an emphatic gesture. “Yes!”

  She opened the beaver skin she carried and spread it wide. “Then I can concoct a potion for you—with the agreement if your sickness is gone by the sunrise, we will go free. With Diana. Is that understood?”

  Again, the explosive, “Yes!”

  Using Ponchie’s mortar and pestle, she ground and blended the herbs she had collected, then stirred them with pozole in a wooden bowl.

  At the same time, her eyes searched the darkness and distinguished Diana huddled against a stack of skins and blankets. The woman’s slender, lovely hand picked absently at a lock of hair, which was clumped with grease and dirt.

  Mattie passed Ponchie the bowl. “Feed him all that I have prepared. By sunrise, his ghost sickness will be gone.”

  She turned to Gordon. “Ye go on ahead of me. Go to Esqueda’s wickiup. I will bring Diana with me.”

  He nodded, and she rose, crossing to Diana. The woman stared up at her absently. As she took Diana’s hand, the woman did not flinch as she had from Gordon’s touch. Mattie well understood how the woman must have been cowed by her experience.

  Leading Diana from the wickiup, she could feel O’Neil’s knife-sharp gaze on her. She suspected the mercenary did not plan to let them get far.

  She told Gordon as much when she entered their wickiup. “Furthermore, even if Nantez lets us leave camp, he didn’t promise he wouldn’t pursue us later. We’re leaving ahead of his schedule. Tonight, after the camp falls asleep.”

  He barely listened to her. Hands dangling at his sides, he stared at Diana with eyes reflecting a compassion Mattie had never seen before. It was something that exceeded intimacy. Mattie turned away from witnessing the touching scene. “I’ll find Esqueda and have her prepare us a wee bit of food.”

  “No!” Diana said. Her hand swept out to clutch Mattie’s arm. “Don’t leave me.”

  Mattie glanced from the claw-like grip on her sleeve up to Gordon’s face, which was full of pain. “Gordon won’t hurt ye, Diana.”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “She’ll need to time to get used to me. I’ll see if I can find Esqueda. It shouldn’t be too diffi—”

  Just then the hide covering the wickiup entrance was thrown back. Diana whirled and gave a cry that was like that of a frightened animal. The intruder was only Esqueda with their evening meal. She ladled it out into bowls and passed them around.

  Diana only looked at her bowl and turned her face away. No wonder the woman was languishing.

  Gordon took his bowl and stared at it in distaste. “Appalling. What is it?”

  Mattie stirred her finger in the mush. “Looks like ground intestines. Most likely from a ringtail. Horrible tasting but good for you.”

  She was too nervous to sit and ate standing up. She forced herself to swallow and flash Esqueda a smile to indicate that she relished the exotic dish.

  Gordon made a token effort at sampling the food without betraying his disgust. She could tell he was trying not to glance in his wife’s direction.

  Diana had slumped down onto her knees, the bowl of food forgotten at her side. She looked as if she had passed beyond mere weariness. Soul weariness. That was what the Apaches would have called her malaise.

  When Mattie finished eating, she rolled out two of the animal skins. Gordon gave her an inquiring look. “I know ’tis only midaftemoon,” she said, “but we shall need all our energy. We’ll be traveling all night and day from here on until we have safely crossed the border.”

  She motioned for Diana to come and lie down on one of the furred hides. The woman looked back at her blankly but rose after a moment. Circumventing her husband as if he were a leper, she picked up the skin, sought out a darkened corner, and curled her lithesome frame upon it.

  So this was the vibrant woman who charmed scores of men?

  Wiping her grimy fingers on her skirt, Mattie peered through the wickiup’s dimness at the huddled figure. She was pathetic, yet she still retained a semblance of elegance and refinement in her every move and gesture.

  Hands clasped across his drawn-up legs, Gordon watched his wife also. An indeterminate yearning transformed his face to a picture of hopelessness.

  Mattie turned on her side and closed her eyes. Was there no justice in the world? No hope of happiness? Always this struggle . . . to try to make things right for one’s self and loved ones.

  When she awoke, she could hear the burping of frogs, heralding nightfall. She looked over her shoulder. Old Esqueda was snoring lightly. Diana slept as though her body had ceased breathing and her soul already had winged its way to heaven. Gordon’s eyes sparkled in the dim light. Tears?

  “Ye can’t sleep?” she whispered.

  Silence, then he responded with a low, raw timber in his voice. “Why her?”

  Anger at him flashed through her. She rolled toward him, coming to crouch like a cat over him. “Why me?”

  His hand clasped her shoulder as if to shake it, but he didn’t. “No. I mean why doesn’t she have that . . . that survival instinct? That resiliency you have?”

  Her lips curled in a sneer. “Better me than she? Is that what you mean?” She wanted to claw out his heart. She wanted to cry. To wail like a banshee. “That she deserves to live more than I do? Now tell me, me good man, just how ye come by that? Does beauty qualify one? Manners? Wealth?”

  She struck at his cheek with her palm. He swiveled his head, and she could see that his cheek was mottled from the impact.

  At the same time, she was spitting like a cornered cat, “Tell me! Tell me! What qualifies one as deserving to live?”

  With the prizefighter quickness, he caught her wrist and yanked her down against him. “I don’t have the answer to that.”

  Esqueda, disturbed by the heated voices, shifted her dumpy body, then settled in sleep once again. Diana moaned lightly, but never stirred.

  Gordon leaned his face close to Mattie’s. “God kn
ows I should have been the boxer who died in the ring on the Rio Grande this year. The one who died . . . he had children. Two boys and a girl, I later learned. With the money, he was planning to bring his consumptive wife to the West in hopes of restoring her failing health.”

  “And ye didn’t have your own dream that was just as deserving?”

  “Sure I did. So why him and not me?”

  “Mayhap ’tis true,” she whispered. “That Divine Justice is at work and we cannot see its purpose.”

  He gathered her against him. She nestled her head against the curve between his neck and shoulder. His skin had the fresh scent of their earlier bath. “I don’t know whether to believe that. It’s not a good enough explanation. Only a cliché.”

  “But clichés mirror the truth.” Mattie paused. “Is she still beautiful to you? Diana?”

  Reflective silence emphasized the quiet, steady beat of the pulse in his neck. Then he answered. “She always will be beautiful. She is a work of art. A statue of beauty. A lifeless statue, albeit. All emotions turned inward. I never reached her. And now . . .”

  “And now, mayhap ’tis not too late. Mayhap this has jolted her such as nothing in her sheltered life ever did. With time and love, she may be all that ye ever wanted in her in the first place.”

  Those words were the hardest Mattie ever had to say. But she felt they were true and had to make him see this possibility.

  He made no reply, and silence enveloped them. His long hair, coarse as any Indian’s, tickled her nose. She rested her face against his chest, and even there found hair to tickle her. She may have dozed. She wasn’t sure, but when she next opened her eyes, moonlight slanted through the aperture between flap and doorway.

  She could have done no more than twitch a muscle or blink her lashes, but Gordon knew she was awake. “Time to be gone?” he asked.

  “Aye. Leave Diana to me.”

  “Most willingly.”

  She rose, went to the sleeping woman and nudged her shoulder. Diana’s eyes flew open. So did her mouth, but Mattie quickly covered it with her hand. “’Tis all right. We must leave now. We are going home.”