Finally he viewed the camp. A few brush wickiups, some covered with yellow canvas, the squaws busy grinding corn or packing in bundles of firewood sticks. The children were splashing in the river and shouting in shrill voices. Their naked copper bodies gleamed under the mid day sun. The pony herd grazed across the river beyond the kids.
Where was the white woman? he studied the camp for a sign of her. Did some rutting buck have her inside? He felt nauseated standing behind the branches, the Winchester ready and she was nowhere in view.
Any moment they would probably discover him. Where was she? Then he saw the top of her golden hair as she came up the bank from the river bearing two canvas pails of water. Her shoulders slumped; he could not see her downcast face.
There was not a sign of a single warrior. Perhaps they were all sleeping. He wanted an extra horse for her to ride. Carrying double, Buck would never outrun them for long and they surely would pursue him if Rip took her away. But the Apaches horses were too far away for him to steal. His head pounded at the temples; there was too much for one man to think about. He wanted her out of that camp and he wanted the two of them to be gone.
Brash and bold sometimes worked. If he could manage to get the girl’s attention before she ran off—he checked the rifle chamber. In the confusion, he needed to send the Apaches running in fear to the river and their horses. But Apaches weren’t like Comanches back in Texas. Horses weren’t their gods. Apaches ran on foot as fast as they did on horseback. But they had women and children here—even that was not a real concern like the plains tribes. He understood from newspaper reports that Apache women even smothered their newborns to save detection while retreating from the Army.
The white woman looked dejected with her head bowed standing among several squaws squatted and busy cooking. The time came for him to take action. He cocked the Winchester and took aim across the river at the pony herd. He wanted them to bolt at his shot and cause confusion with the Apaches for a moment on how many were attacking their camp.
The rifle’s sharp roar drew plenty of black eyes. The bullet plowed up dust, the ponies broke and ran despite several youthful herders with switches trying to hold them. Squaws snatched up their babies and without looking ran screaming for the river.
“Wait! Stay there!” Rip shouted as he ran to get her. The enemy seemed routed for the moment.
A warrior exploded from a wickiup loading his single shot rifle. Rip drew a bead and fired. The hard hit Indian fell on the lodge and slumped to the ground. The black smoke cleared as he reached out to capture the woman’s arm.
“Come with me,” he shouted at her. He fired more rounds at the heels of the retreating squaws.
The woman looked at him without expression. Her long slender face was sunburned raw and pealing. He felt a pang of concern and sadness for her condition. Up close the dress was not nearly as fresh as he had envisioned it. Dirty and torn, the material looked very thin, only her yellow hair appeared well groomed.
“Come on,” he repeated. “We haven’t got time for much talk. I’m Rip Fisher and we need to vamoose.”
“Vamoose?” she asked dully as if the word was foreign to her.
“Get out of here before they figure that I’m not the army.”
“Oh.”
Impatiently he pulled on her sleeve and watching their back trail, he lead her from the camp.
“We must tell Poco too” she muttered, stumbling as he tried to hurry her.
He wondered if there was another captive by that name she called out, but there was no time to check. They might not make another hundred yards before all hell broke loose.
“Lady, don’t worry,” he pleaded, anxious for her to keep up. “I am here to take you back home.”
She never answered him. Still no sign of any threat. Where were the warriors who brought her in? Only one Indian with a gun? Would the Apaches close off their route of escape? He wished she would simply hurry. The trials of her captivity must have stopped her thinking clearly.
“Mount up, I’ll ride behind you,” he ordered when they reached his horse. he was beside himself over her dullness and lack of concern. He looked all around expecting any moment the blood thirsty faces of a dozen armed renegades to appear on the rim above them.
He swung up behind her, reached around her for the reins and booted Buck out of the brush and on the trail. The powerful Texas horse cat-hopped up the steep path with Rip unable to look back toward the camp, but fully expecting to hear the war cries closing in.
Late afternoon and sundown closed the curtain on their day with no sign of pursuit. He finally reined Buck to a halt on top of the high range, where he could survey much of the country they’d crossed since their escape.
“I want to see if they’re after us,” he said. He dismounted and scanned the mountainside beneath them. Nothing, but that was no sign the Apaches weren’t on their back trail. She had never answered him.
He looked back at her. She sat woodenly on the horse. Her hands clutched the saddle horn. Her blue eyes just stared at some point in the darkening eastern sky.
“What’s your name?” he asked, helping her down.
She looked around as if she was more concerned with her body functions than answering him.
“I’ll turn my back,” he said and took Buck’s reins to lead him away a few yards.
“Don’t go,” she said.
Rip nodded he understood she did not want him to leave her. He halted with his back to her feeling like an intruder in her life as he waited.
“The Apaches won’t bother us before sunup,” he said to fill in the silence between them. “They’re superstitious about night. Something about being taken to Hell if they get killed in the darkness.”
No answer. He wondered if she was still back there. Had the Apaches destroyed her mind? He remembered a white girl of fourteen who the Army brought into Fort Concho. She had a doll she held like a baby and rocked it all the time. Never talked to anyone but the doll. Soldiers said her part Injun baby had died and the doll was its substitute. The Comanche captivity had vexed her mind.
“Are you hungry?” he asked and waited.
No answer.
Then he felt her slender fingers close on his arm and she stood beside him. He glanced at her for a second. She was trembling even the hand hold on his arm was shaky. Her eyes stared past him at the layers of mountain ranges.
“Clyde, we must go home,” she said and then drew her shoulders back in resolve.
“I’m not—” Then he cut off his denial to her. Clyde must have been her husband. “Do you know the way?” he asked hoping she could tell him something.”
“Bloody Basin, of course.”
“Sure,” Rip said and tried to hid his disappointment. She wasn’t in her right mind.
The sliver of a moon made enough light for them to travel by. Rip headed southwest toward the Bloody Basin country. Perhaps she would lead herself home. He hoped so.
Several times during the night he caught her by the waist when she dropped asleep and nearly pitched face first off the horse. Each time after he had set her up in the saddle, he felt a twinge of guilt being so familiar with a woman he did not even know by name. Each time she passed out, he offered to stop and let her rest, but she shook her head, no.
Dawn came with her pointing a limp arm in a vague direction; they followed a wagon track road most of the day. She seemed to be familiar with the country and he hoped they would soon find her people. Someone would be very glad to have their wife-mother what-ever back, he felt certain. As the day wore on, Buck began stumbling a lot and showing his tiredness.
“Home,” she said and pointed toward a grove of cottonwoods in the draw.
Rip drew a deep breath in relief. He slipped off Buck and took the reins to lead the horse the rest of the way. He didn’t want her people to think he’d taken any liberties with a woman in her mind set. It hurt him to even look at her. Would she ever be normal again? But her condition wasn’t his problem, h
e’d done enough shooting up that Apache camp and taking her away from them—he still felt good about her rescue.
The top knotted quail whistled their sharp notes around them and the wind fresh with the juniper-pinyon smell filled Rip’s nose. His boot heels teetered around in the loose rocks going downhill; he could see the corrals and some adobe buildings. Elated, he practically had her home, he wondered if she had any children.
Strange no dog barked, most folks kept several around their headquarters because they helped keep the Indians away. He rounded a large juniper and found the corral gates open and empty. Disappointed and struck with the truth, he observed the abandoned adobe house without a front door. Then he saw the three crosses on the mounds—graves. They weren’t fresh either maybe a month or so old. How long had the Apaches held her? God only knew.
“They’re dead aren’t they?” she asked.
He turned quickly at her even words. “Yes ma’am.” He studied her for a long time. What would she do next? When she started to dismount, he helped her down.
She wrung her hands so hard, he hurt for her. Unmoved she remained standing in place as if afraid to check on anything more.
“I had to tell myself all the time I was captive that they were alive,” she began, trying to hold in her sorrow. “You knew they killed my baby son Travis that first day they kidnapped me?” She held her hand up to stay him from helping her. “I’m fine, Mister Fisher. That is your name?”
“Yes.” Rip was taken back by her words. Had she known all along he wasn’t her man or had she just begun to realize their identities? Rip felt relieved she knew that much for the moment.
“Clyde my husband, my seven year old daughter Bonnie and a Mexican boy Poco who worked for my husband must be buried there.” She motioned to the graves. “Every day I kept telling myself that they were still alive. You know that was how I survived?”
“Yes ma’am.” He saw the tears well up in her eyes.
Uncomfortable and feeling inadequate, he glanced around. She had no one left. This ranch sure needed a lot of fixing. Clyde must have had some branded cattle on the range. She caught Rip by the sleeve and buried her face in his chest. The wetness quickly soaked through his vest and shirt. His arms gingerly comforted her. There would always be another job.
“You won’t just leave me will you?”
He finally grasped her by the shoulders and looked down into her tear swamped eyes. “No, I won’t leave you, but please tell me your name.”
“Dallas.” She blinked her thick wet lashes and for the first time he saw life in her blue eyes as she looked back at him. He gently folded her against his chest. Dallas wasn’t a far piece from Fort Worth. He’d finally found his own version of the woman with the hoop skirt.
Road to Baghdad
Salome studied the garish mural on the peddler’s van. The artist had depicted her in a belly dancing costume. The pillowing silk pants, the gauzy veils and her bare stomach that always drew stares. In the picture, her breasts were larger and her legs longer than in reality. Still the painting mirrored her bobbed black wig and heavily made up face.
Jo Jo’s scream brought her thoughts back to the present. She frowned at the excited monkey, then smiled in sympathy at him. The pitiful little beggar, who collected coins in a cup during her performances, was chained in the shade beneath the wagon.
Sidney Foster, her manager-promoter, had taken the busted wagon wheel to the next settlement to be repaired. He left her alone in the oven hot desert. Somewhere west lay civilization, in the form of the next stop, the mining camp of Baghdad. According to Sidney, Baghdad was flush with gold. Around her was only the monotonous sea of brownish gray brush, studded with hovering, armed cactus and distant islands of purple mountains. The one sign of humanity was the road made up of two dusty ruts that ran from whence they came to where they must go.
Salome did not miss Sidney’s company. She considered him obnoxious with his paunchy stomach and his bald dome which he kept hidden under a bowler hat.
Before Sidney left, he had spoken harshly to her. “Watch out for yourself. Mind me, girl!”
The arrogant barker protected her virtue like a jailer, but only out of fear that if she became large with child, his golden goose might waddle instead of swaying provocatively. Since joining him, she had danced atop bars in saloons, on stages with real painted scenery backdrops, even in wagon beds on the trail west from St Louis to this God forsaken waste land where they had broken down.
In the Arizona Territory with its endless desert, they traveled from gold camp to gold camp, but despite the large crowds she drew, she and Sidney were always broke. She knew the reason for their poverty. Sidney could not resist cards, whiskey or loose women. Reeking of cheap perfume and sour whiskey, late at night he would crawl back to sleep in his own bunk opposite hers. Salome feigned sleep on those nights, lest he lay a sweaty palm on her. The memory of his repulsive touch disgusted her; she shivered in the desert heat. Because of the soaring temperatures, all she wore was a thin shift. She sighed and looked toward the distant mountains. Nothing had changed; Sidney would blow whatever money he had in his pocket before he returned.
They had moved from one boomtown site to the next. She recalled his barking pitch, enticing men to see the dance of Eve.
“You can be Adam again with the first woman on earth,” Sidney would promise them. In her first act, she danced with a large serpent called Mohammed. The snake was depicted on the side of the wagon in proportions far beyond its actual size. After Eve’s snake dance, there would be an intermission while Sidney collected more money, because by then the men wanted to see even more of her. Her second dance was patterned after her namesake, Salome. It was the same dance that cost the saint, John the Baptist, his life.
Jo Jo would bounce around while she performed, his tin cup outstretched, clinking to the tune of double eagles and even gold nuggets. Generosity was a weakness with her audiences and Sidney capitalized on it. He was, after all, well versed at losing his own money. In Tombstone they had been so successful, Salome had been certain not even a wastrel like Sidney could spend so much wealth. However, the master squanderer had found faro and poker too great a temptation.
Whenever at last a new attraction came to town and enticed the drooling customers away, the two of them packed up for more fertile ground.
Salome, her innocent dreams of riches slowly dying, realized there would never be enough profit to divide. She schemed for a way to save a small portion for herself from each performance. However, Sidney kept the purse strings pulled tight; she only observed him counting the take. There had to be a way for her to get her fair share. Salome shook her head as she watched Jo Jo eating the crust of bread that she had given him.
“You poor monkey tethered on your chain, we’re alike,” she said softly. His restrains were like her own. She too was leashed to the van by invisible bonds.
Mohammed, the six-foot boa constrictor, was content in his wicker hamper. The desert’s searing heat suited him. Later she would offer him a drink. He usually slept undisturbed until it was time for him to perform. Then she would command him to do her bidding, just as she dance to the master puppeteer’s wishes.
Salome cocked her head and listened intently. Someone was singing out in the desert. The shift wrapped tightly around her, she wondered if she was hearing things. No, she decided, she was not imaging the sound. Someone was coming and it definitely was not the stagecoach, for the one going east was not due to pass until sundown.
A man’s voice carried across the greasewood. When he appeared, leading a sleepy eyed burro, Salome could see that beneath the man’s floppy hat, he was gray whiskered.
“Whoa!” The man came to an abrupt halt. He blinked his eyes and shook his head. “Girl, are you a mirage?”
Salome hid a smile. “No,” she said softly. This desert vagrant did not appear dangerous, but she backed toward the protection of the wagon, watching him doff his hat and stare wide-eyed at the mural.
“If that picture is truly you, then perhaps I’m in heaven?”
Amused at his bewilderment, she responded in jest. “It’s too hot for heaven.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, you’re right about that. Them preachers were wrong. Nobody would give up their sinning ways if they knowed this was hell and you’d be here.” His cackling laughter echoed in the desert.
“My name is Salome,” she introduced herself. “What’s yours?”
“Harold.” He paused and shook his head. “Girl, years ago I read all about you in the bible. You danced for Herod till he promised you John the Baptist’s head. I know about the serpent and Eve too. I know why you’re here and why I’m here too.”
Salome had no idea what the old man was rambling about, but she considered it safe to let him talk. She folded her arms in front of her and tried to look interested.
“Dad rat, it’s my luck again,” the man growled in disgust. “Me finding the mother lode and the devil’s come to get me. Pardon me, ma’am, but I never expected him to send his handmaiden.”
Salome blinked, started to open her mouth to set the man straight, but instead she shut it. A wave of pity for him washed over her. Let him think what he wanted of her. She watched as he turned and removed a canvas bag from his pack.
“Myra,” he spoke with his burro, “I’ve got us in a mess and I’m sorry about that, girl. But, there maybe a way for us to get out.” Salome could barely make out his next words. “...going to buy our way out of hell.”
What did he mean? Her pulse quickened, this desert drifter must be near mad from his solitary existence. Before she could conjure up the words to gently dissuade him, her glance became galvanized by the gold granules that he poured into his palm.
“Now see here what I’ve got, but then you already knowed I had it, didn’t you, Salome?”
Shaken by the vision of his riches, she stepped closer to examine the glittering dust in his hand.
Waltzing With Tumbleweeds Page 12
