Santa Fe Woman

by Gilbert, Morris

  Jori could not help but smile. “That’s not very fair to the woman. No woman could have all of that.”

  “Maybe not, but when a man finds a woman he wants to live with the rest of his life, he sees the thing in her that he wants to see.” Chad saw that the guard was up in her eyes and murmured, “Tough on me, but you’ve got the kind of beauty I see nowhere else.”

  “Why, we’re nothing alike!”

  “I’m not looking for somebody like me. That would be boring, wouldn’t it?” Suddenly he reached over and took her hand. He held it for a long time, and she allowed it. His touch seemed to reach farther than her hand in a way that she could not understand.

  “I don’t know what you mean by all this, Chad.”

  For one instant Rocklin’s urges made a turbulent eddy around them both. She understood it as well as he. She knew that they could never go back to what they were before. Something had changed, and she knew that he recognized it as well as she.

  “Funny thing about a man and a woman,” Rocklin said. “If I had never met you, I would never have felt like this.”

  “You would have found another woman.”

  “I’m trying to tell you it doesn’t work like that,” Rocklin said.

  “Are you telling me, Chad, that you think God makes one man for one woman?”

  “I don’t know much about things like that, but I know I can’t go back to what I was before I met you.” He released her hand and said, “You probably think I’m loco.” When she didn’t answer, he shook his head. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you all this. I’ve got to go out and check the scout. Stay close to the wagons and keep an eye on Carleen.” Without another word he wheeled his horse around and rode away at a fast gallop. She stood there watching him, not knowing what to think about the strange things that he had said. No man had ever talked to her like this before, and she knew she would not be able to forget it.

  * * *

  ALL MORNING JORI TRIED to put the scene out of her mind, but it kept filtering back. She could remember the exact words that he had said. He puzzled her. She had not liked him in the least when she had first met him, but now she realized that the time together on this trip had done something to her. She had changed, and she did not know exactly why.

  During the midday break she was quiet, and finally, when it was time for the train to start up, she heard Kate speak to her. “Have you seen Carleen, Jori?”

  “Why, no. She was here to eat, wasn’t she?”

  “She eats with the mule skinners sometimes.” Kate’s eyes brightened. “She can get along with anybody.”

  “Well, she’s probably with them. I’ll go see.”

  Jori left and went down the line of wagons looking for Carleen. Finally she got to the last one and saw Grat Herendeen standing beside the mules. His face was still somewhat battered from the beating that he had taken from Rocklin, and he said nothing as she approached. “Have you seen Carleen, Grat?”

  “She was here just before we ate. Said she was going over there to that grove of trees.” He pointed to a line of cottonwood that traced the bank of the small creek where they had stopped.

  “She shouldn’t have wandered away,” Herendeen said. “I told her not to, but she’s a stubborn kid.”

  “Yes, she is.”

  Jori had a trace of fear. She walked back, mounted her horse, but she said nothing to Kate or her father. She rode over toward the trees, which seemed to get thicker. They were on the far side of a small canyon, and she had to hang on while her horse went down the steep incline then scrambled up the other side. The creek made a serpentine curve and she called out, “Carleen!” and waited but heard no answer. She rode forward into the grove and called again, and then suddenly a faint sound came to her. She turned and saw an Indian moving toward her at an incredibly fast rate. She kicked the horse, but two more Indians had appeared in front of her. They grabbed the bridle, and the one who had come from behind had pulled her off her horse. She started to scream, but his hand clamped down over her mouth. He smelled rank, and his face was painted in a strange pattern.

  Several more Indians came out then, and one of them was pushing Carleen ahead of him. Carleen’s hands were tied behind her back, and she was gagged. Her eyes were wide, and she struggled to come forward, but the smallest Indian held her back.

  One of the smaller Indians appeared to be the leader. He came over toward her, and all the fears that Jori had nurtured about the savage treatment that Indians dealt out to their prisoners became a stark reality.

  The Indian stopped right in front of her. His eyes were so black they seemed to have no pupil. He did not move for a moment, and then he uttered a guttural command. At once two of the Indians forced Jori back into the saddle. One of them tied her feet tightly to the horse’s belly with strips of rawhide. Once she started to speak, but the leader shook his head and said something she didn’t understand. He took out a knife and held it toward Carleen’s throat, and Jori cried out, “Don’t hurt her!”

  “Be still,” the leader said. “I am Santana.” She could not help but react and knew that he saw her fear. He uttered a few short words of command, and one of the Indians pulled her horse forward. They moved to where the horses of the war party were held by other braves. There were only nine of them in all. Santana nodded toward one of the larger Indians and gave a command. The larger Indian picked up Carleen, threw her on a horse, and leaped on behind her. All the Indians mounted then, and with one single word Santana sent them out. They headed directly away from the train.

  Jori Hayden knew then that she and Carleen were lost. The very worst nightmare had come to pass, and she twisted to look back toward the train, but she could not see it for the line of trees. The Indian riding beside her reached out and struck her a blow. She bowed her head and tried to pray.

  PART FOUR

  Journey’s End

  Chapter Nineteen

  LETTING RED PICK HIS own way, Rocklin sat easily in the saddle. He was relaxed except for his eyes that continually moved over the landscape. The trail was monotonous to be sure, broken only by ranges of hills or low divides, and distances were deceiving. The novice on the trail could fix his eye on an object and after hours of plodding straight toward it, find himself to be no nearer his goal.

  Rocklin straightened up and arched his back. He liked the air of the desert. It seemed that every vapor was eliminated from it so that the atmosphere was clearer. He turned toward his right and saw what appeared to be a lake shimmering. This, too, was an illusion. There were no lakes on the Cimarron Cutoff! One was fortunate to find water in the mudholes or at times seeping out in tiny dribbles from the rocks. But the mirages fascinated him. He had seen them make fantastic shapes. A memory came to him from the past, touched his mind and made him smile. He had once seen a herd of buffalo that appeared to be high in the air, not with their feet on the ground. The thought of how shocked he had been to see buffalo a hundred feet in the air amused him.

  Pulling his mind back to the present, he began to calculate the myriad of details that were his to look over. He ran over the food supplies that had to do them until they reached Santa Fe. One by one he went over the wagons in his mind, thinking of the spare parts available and hoping he wouldn’t have to jettison any of them. Such a thing was not unusual, for he had been on trains where wagons had given out completely. The loads had been redistributed, but that could not happen with this train because the wagons all were loaded with all they could take. He looked back over his shoulder with a sense of satisfaction. He had found water only ten miles ahead, a great deal of it for this part of the world. He gauged the time, and knowing that they could reach there before nightfall brought a sense of satisfaction to him. He was a man who liked to accomplish things, and the challenge of getting the wagons through had consumed him over the past weeks.

  Now with two-thirds of the journey behind him, he felt confident, but he had been in the West too long to grow careless. There was always a chance of a storm that
could wreck the wagons and even a greater chance of an Indian attack. He had learned to confine his fears into a small part of his mind where he could handle them. It was the only way that a man could exist in a land where danger was as much a part of the landscape as sky or trees or land.

  The loneliness of the land found the counterpart in Rocklin as he urged his horse to a faster pace. He had been alone most of his life, and the sense of isolation had become a part of him. Now, however, there was a restlessness that had come to him so gradually he had not recognized it. Now he understood that something had changed in his life. A sudden memory came to him. An ex-school teacher who had given up the classroom to become a mountain man had said something once that had stuck in Rocklin’s memory. His name had been Jurgens, and he had been a strange fellow to Rocklin. Jurgens had said, “We’re made of memories. They say ninety-five percent of us is water, but they’re wrong. Most of us are made up of memories.”

  As the words came to Rocklin out of the past, he shook his head and a wry smile touched his broad lips. I guess my memories are all snarled and tangled like a line on a reel that’s got to be cut away. I don’t reckon anybody could straighten them out.

  Even as this thought came to him, another memory came of a woman’s voice. He had been walking down the streets of a small Kansas town and had passed a house. The darkness had swallowed the earth, but that one house was marked by the yellow lamplight that flooded out from inside and threw its beam on the street outside. The woman had been singing a song that Rocklin had never heard. Her voice had been smooth and sweet, and something about it had pulled him to a stop. He remembered standing there outside, looking at the house and wondering who the woman was. Even now he wondered about her. Was she married? Did she have a lover? Was she happy? Did she have children? The memory was as clear to him as the wagons he approached, and he shook his head, then brought Red up to a gallop. There was nothing to be done for a man’s loneliness except a woman, and no woman had ever offered herself to fill this vacancy that he now felt.

  As he approached the camp, he knew something was wrong even before he reached the lead wagon. Leland and Kate had seen his approach and were standing there, and something in their attitude, the way they stood, gave Rocklin a warning as clearly as a shout. He came off his horse in one smooth motion and asked, “What’s the matter?”

  Leland Hayden swallowed hard. His face was pale, and then the words came tumbling out. “It’s Jori and Carleen. They’re gone. We don’t know where they are.”

  The alarm increased in Rocklin, and his jaw grew tense. “When did you see them last?”

  “Sometime around noon,” Leland said. “We’ve got to go back and look for them.”

  Kate was watching Rocklin’s face as if there were an answer to be found there. “I’m afraid for them, Chad,” she whispered. “Where could they be?”

  “Probably just wandered away and got lost. I’ll find them,” he said.

  Swinging back into the saddle, he rode at once back to where Pedro and Callie were herding the mules. “When was the last time you saw Carleen or Jori?” he asked.

  Pedro was startled. “We have not seen them all day, not since this morning.”

  “What about you, Callie?”

  “No, I haven’t seen them either,” Callie said. Her eyes were wide, and her expression revealed that she knew something was wrong. “How could they get lost out here?”

  “Don’t know,” Rocklin said. He wheeled his horse and rode back toward the train. He stopped at each wagon asking in a hard, spare tone for any information, but not until he reached Herendeen did he find out anything. Herendeen was standing beside the wagon, his eyes fixed on Rocklin.

  “Have you seen Miss Jori or Carleen, Grat?”

  “Not since noon. I heard they had gotten lost.”

  “Where’d you see ’em at noon?”

  “You remember that old riverbed with the cottonwoods beside it? I think it was all dry. I saw Carleen headed over that way. You know how she is.” He shrugged his beefy shoulders. “Always wantin’ to see stuff.” His brow furrowed, and he said, “You say Miss Jori’s gone, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me get on my horse. I’ll help you look for ’em.”

  “You stay here, Grat. Let me do a little looking, then we’ll see.”

  Rocklin wheeled around and galloped back toward where the family was waiting. Mark had joined them, and his face was pale. “We’ve already asked everybody,” he said before Rocklin could speak. “We’ve got to find them!”

  “Herendeen saw them,” Rocklin replied, “way back by the spot where we nooned. I’ll ride back and pick up their tracks.”

  “I’m going with you,” Mark said.

  “Be better if you stay here.”

  “No, I’m going.”

  “All right. Catch up a horse then.”

  Mark ran to saddle a horse, and Rocklin dismounted and stood, trying to think of some way to put this matter in the best light. He knew the fears that now racked the Hayden family, and he said, “Probably they just wandered off. That happens sometimes.”

  “I warned Carleen so many times,” Leland whispered, and he shook his head. “I can’t believe she’d go so far.”

  “It’d be hard to get lost in this country. It’s so level and bare.”

  “I got lost once in a desert,” Rocklin said quickly. “You get turned around and head in the wrong direction, and before long you don’t know which way is up. In the country with mountains you can always fix on a peak. I never got lost in the Yellowstone country, but the prairie is different.”

  Mark was back now, and Rocklin swung into the saddle. “I’ll come back as soon as I find out something.”

  Rocklin kicked the stallion into a dead run and did not even look back. He kept up a torrid pace until they reached the point where the riverbed and the cottonwoods were visible. He kept watch until he found signs of several fires that they had made. “This is where we nooned,” Mark said. He looked around and said, “How do you know where to start looking?”

  “Herendeen said he saw Carleen headed for those trees over there. You stay behind me. I don’t want you to mess up any tracks.”

  Mark pulled his horse up and watched as Rocklin leaned over. He found, apparently, what he was looking for, but he didn’t speak until they were halfway to the old river bed. “I see Carleen’s tracks here and Jori’s pony both going in, none coming out.”

  When they reached the riverbed, Rocklin dismounted and gave the reins to Mark. “Hold my horse,” he said. Without another word he moved forward toward the line of trees bent over. He was like a hound, Mark thought, sniffing on a trail. He knew he would be utterly helpless and useless in such a situation, and as he sat there, the fear that had been birthed in him grew until it made his hands tremble.

  Moments went by that seemed longer than they were, and finally Mark saw Rocklin emerging from the trees. He was running, and when he got there his lips were drawn into a tight line. Something in his eyes frightened Mark. “What is it, Chad?”

  “Indian war party took ’em.”

  Mark shot a frightened glance at Rocklin, and quicker breath stirred in him. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Kiowa, I think.” Rocklin’s face had a drawn expression. Mark had seen it before. It always came when the big man was facing a disagreeable thing. “What’ll we do?”

  “Go back to camp.”

  “But we’ve got to go after them, Chad.”

  “We’ll have to tell your folks what happened.”

  There was a dismal ring in Rocklin’s voice that tolled like a funeral bell to Mark. He felt a deep emptiness inside, and the world around him seemed to have closed like a curtain of darkness.

  * * *

  “I’M GOING WITH YOU, Chad.” Leland Hayden’s face was stiff as parchment. He had taken the news that Rocklin and Mark had brought back badly, and his hands were unsteady.

  “That won’t do, Leland. You stay here and take care of thi
ngs. I can do this better by myself.”

  “Is there any hope, Chad?”

  Rocklin shifted his gaze to Kate. He saw the fugitive shadows chase themselves in and around the corners of her mouth as she tried to hide the fear. “Always a chance. It was a small party.” He didn’t mention the fact that a small party could be just as devastating in their cruelty as a large one. There was no way to comfort this family, so he moved quickly, filling his canteen with water and giving instructions. He saw Mark filling his own canteen and shook his head. “You can’t go, Mark.”

  “I’m going.” Mark’s voice was flat and level, and there was a stubbornness in him that Rocklin had not seen before.

  “You wouldn’t be any good to me. You can’t read a sign. You don’t know Indians.”

  “I’m going after my sisters, Rocklin,” Mark said. “If you leave me, I’ll follow as best I can, but I’m going.”

  “I reckon I think better of you for it. All right, Kate, fix us something to eat, some dried meat maybe, and we’ll take some extra guns.”

  The two were quickly prepared for their mission, and as they were getting ready to ride out, Herendeen and Wiley Pratt came to stand before them. “I’m goin’ with you,” Pratt said. “I’ll help you kill them devils.”

  “No, you stay here, Wiley.”

  “I want to go,” Herendeen said. His eyes were smoldering. “I’d like to help get those two back.”

  “Grat, you’re in charge of the train while I’m gone. I’m depending on you to keep things going.” He saw refusal beginning to form in Herendeen’s eyes, and he said, “This is what you do best, Grat. Now, there’s water ahead ten miles. I’ll draw you a map. Take the train on in there as quick as you can and draw up in a defensive position. Those Indians know how many we are. They may come back.”