by Anya Seton
‘Well!’ ejaculated Terry, and he gave a startled laugh. Women before this had thrown themselves at him, and his vanity filed her neatly into a familiar category. And yet she did not quite fit. She had been almost beautiful when she blazed like that. Something else, too—disquieting. This subtle, unfamiliar element he did not like.
So he said coldly: ‘That all boils down to one thing. You want money. And so, my pet, do I. That’s why I’m heading East. San Francisco’s not the boom town it was, and mining’s not my line. I think New York’s the place for my talents.’ He was not very sure what these were, except that they did not include a taste for hard physical labor.
‘New York,’ repeated Fey, shining. Again she was a child, her hands clasped on her lap, leaning forward, listening to him avidly.
Terry opened his mouth and shut it, annoyed by a feeling of embarrassment. It was ludicrously easy. The girl was a ripe plum yearning to be plucked, and what was she, after all, but a foundling? He was going to be a big help to her, help give her the things she wanted. No reason for scruples.
He turned his back on her, drew the tattered cards from the bag, and began to shuffle them absently. His sleight-of-hand needed constant practice. He scowled at the eight of spades which persistently eluded his efforts to palm it and said, in an abrupt, offhand voice, ‘I’m pulling out of here in the morning.’ He heard Fey catch her breath, and went on faster. ‘ I’m heading East up the Trail, expect to give shows after I hit civilization again, play through Kansas until I get to the railroad, maybe further. I aim to keep going until I make enough to reach New York. Want to come along? ’
The silence after this speech lasted so long that he turned around. The girl was staring at him with a strange expression. There were both joy and fear in the luminous gray eyes, and stronger than either was a question.
‘Business arrangement only, of course,’ said Terry, who had meant no such thing, but felt acutely uncomfortable under that steady gaze. ‘ I need a smart partner. We can work up quite an act. I’ve got costumes for you. We’ll rake in a lot of cash with that mind-reading stunt of yours.’
Fey stiffened and her lids drooped. ‘I couldn’t do that for money.’
Terry brushed that aside; he had half-expected it, and he had no doubts of being able to handle her later, in that matter and others too. ‘Oh, well, there’s lots of things you can do. Can you dance Spanish? ’
She nodded.
‘Capital!’ cried Terry. ‘Want to come?’ And he smiled at her. Terry’s grin was heart-warming and very young. It redeemed a face which for all its attraction could be sullen, and both men and women usually responded to it.
‘Yes. I’ll come,’ said Fey quietly.
Terry stretched out his arms to pull her to him. The occasion naturally called for a kiss. He felt Fey tremble and saw her mouth quiver. She melted toward him for so brief an instant that he wasn’t sure, then she gave a soft little laugh and slid out from his arms. Terry knew all about this sort of game and jumped up to catch her.
To his surprise his arms dropped. Fey had drawn herself together with an incisive dignity. She was barely as high as his shoulder and yet she contrived to look regal, to look, thought Terry, amused and impressed, rather like his mother in her favorite role of Lady Macbeth.
‘What time do you go in the morning?’ said Fey steadily.
‘Ten o’clock,’ answered Terry, equally matter-of-fact. ‘After I buy supplies.’
‘I’ll be here.’ Fey wrapped the rebozo about her head and vanished through the canvas curtains.
Terry sat down on the cot again. Now, what have I let myself in for? he thought gloomily. That’s a very odd girl. Impulsive actions and misgivings later were both familiar to Terry. Still, she would undoubtedly be a great help to the act. She had personality and that extraordinary mind-reading stunt. And I can get rid of her all right after we reach the railroad in Kansas, he thought, give her some money and shoo her off. She’s plenty old enough to know what she’s getting into, and she was wild to come. It’s not as though she was anybody special. Just one of these little greaser half-breeds. His face darkened at an unpleasant memory. A year ago he had been mixed up with a girl in San Francisco who was somebody special. There had been an exceedingly disagreeable episode with her family. That was one of the reasons for leaving San Francisco.
He thought about Fey for another minute or two, then he got up and dressed himself in his best buckskin pants, fresh white silk shirt, and gray sombrero. He did not, however, go to the house of the famous beauty in Burro Alley. He found that he was not in that mood. He went to the bar at La Fonda, where he unfortunately encountered a jealous Mexican who decided that the big red-haired gringo was making eyes at his young wife. Terry, for once, was guiltless, the flirtation had been entirely on the lady’s side, but the ensuing fight dissipated all the pleasant effects of La Fonda’s drinks. Terry went back to the wagon and went to bed.
Terry might have misgivings about his impulsive invitation to join the medicine show, but Fey had none about her acceptance. She had always known that some day the way would open, and that some day she would find love. And now here they were, these two things most gloriously combined.
True, there were certain aspects which did not entirely please her, but she put them resolutely from her consciousness, and she ran back to the Barrio Analco with light, dancing steps. She went first, not to the Torres—she knew that there would be only conventional sorrow at her departure there—but to see her only friend, La Gertrudis.
Gertrudis had changed in the last three years; after the birth of the baby, her Manuel had married her, and Gertrudis had become gentle and very devout. She no longer flaunted a pink hollyhock blossom over her ear, but dressed in black and a black rebozo as a respectable matron should. This evening, when Fey stuck her head in at the open door, Gertrudis sat on the colchón holding her little Toñico in her lap, and crooning a song to him.
‘Bien venida, Feyita!’ she called softly over the child’s round head. ‘Aren’t you home late from work?—Jesús María!’ she added in astonishment as Fey stepped into the firelight, ‘what’s happened? You look as bright as if you’d swallowed a candle.’
Fey gave a low, excited laugh. She knelt on the floor beside her friend, turning dazzled eyes up to her. ‘ I’ve found my man, Gertrudis, at last! He is big and handsome as the statue of San Antonio in the Parroquia and his hair flames like the sun on the Sangre de Cristos.’
‘Dios! ’ cried Gertrudis, in troubled disbelief. ‘ A gringo, then! ’
Fey nodded. ‘ It wouldn’t matter what he was. I’m going with him in the morning, going to the States.’ .
Gertrudis gazed down at the girl’s transfigured face, and her brows drew together. She put the drowsy child on the colchón in back of her and reached out her hands to touch Fey’s shoulders. The girl had been dear to her ever since that day when she had foretold the coming of the baby.
‘Feyita,’ said Gertrudis earnestly, ‘will he marry you?’
Fey’s clear gaze wavered, she was silent, and Gertrudis went on passionately. ‘You’re different from me, different from the rest of us in the Barrio Analco. We are clay pots, we women here, useful, even sometimes pretty—but you are like that shining crystal vase in the window of Esteban’s shop. Rough handling will shatter you. You must not run off with the first gringo who wants to sleep with you. When did you meet this man? ’
‘A few hours ago,’ said Fey.
‘You see!’ cried Gertrudis. ‘Oh, believe me, child, this is nothing that you feel but the surgings of hot blood, the desire for mating. Do you think I do not know? You must wait—Feyita. Have still a little more patience. I feel that you are meant for a great destiny. I have always thought so. You must not fill your crystal vase with muddy water.’
Fey gave her friend a smile in which affection and impatience mingled. She stood up, smoothing her short skirt, tilting her head back. ‘ I don’t hold myself cheaply,’ she said, and Gertrudis was si
lenced.
‘I love him,’ said Fey. ‘I must go with him, and I think, though it has not yet occurred to him, that we will be married.’
Gertrudis smiled wryly. Ah, there, little one, she thought, you are not the first woman to delude herself with that hope, and you won’t be the last. Her heart was heavy. She saw that the girl was blinded by passion and her desire for change. There had always been a headstrong, impulsive streak in Feyita. One had always felt a powerful will beneath the delicacy, the fastidiousness, the gentleness.
‘It is a mistake, Feyita, this thing you want to do,’ said Gertrudis sadly. ‘I feel it, and for each of our mistakes we must pay bitterly—cruelly. I know——’ she added, sighing.
‘Then,’ said Fey, ‘I will pay.’
‘At least,’ cried the other, seizing the girl’s arm, ‘ask Our Lady about it. Please, I implore you. Ask her now——’ And she pointed to her own statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe which stood by the fireplace.
Fey hesitated. She did not want guidance, she felt no need for prayer. Her will and her desires were centered to a burning point on the man she had left in the wagon. The thought of journeying with him outward, eastward, brought an almost unbearable excitement. She wanted nothing to disturb it. But Gertrudis’s distress touched her.
She fell slowly to her knees before the Virgin and her lips moved hurriedly in the Ave María. She did not raise her eyes above the crescent moon at the Lady’s feet. As she finished the prayer, she closed her heart to a faint impulse, a tremor of doubt and apprehension. For one second it seemed to her that the crudely painted crescent wavered and glowed and that a tiny voice in her mind echoed the word Gertrudis had uttered—‘Wait.’ Then the echo was gone, and she heard instead Terry’s wooing voice.
Fey got up, and smiled again at Gertrudis’s anxious face. ‘I shall go in the morning, amiga,’ she said. ‘I’ll miss you and little Toñico, but I must go. Adios, Gertrudis.’ And she threw her arms around the woman’s neck.
That was Fey’s true farewell to the life of her girlhood. Except for Ramona, the Torres were scarcely interested. Surely it was high time the muchacha got herself off with a man, and of course all gringos were rich. Ramona shed a few tears over her nursling, but they dried at Fey’s promise to send back a real pair of button shoes like the ricas wore. That would be something to show the Analco indeed!
The next morning, the tenth of August, 1867, Fey wrapped her other chemise, a comb, and some yucca root for soap in a large cotton handkerchief; these, with her skirt, rebozo, and the turquoise pendant, were her only possessions. She left her Guadalupe and the Bible with the Torres, since they greatly desired them. At ten o’clock she entered the plaza, and saw at once that the wagon had moved and now stood outside of Jones’s General Store, where Terry had bought supplies for the trip. The wagon was easily identified, since the canvas top on both sides had ‘Doctor Xavier T. Dillon’ painted on it in splashing orange letters.
Fey found Terry sitting on the driver’s seat and flicking flies off his two mules.
‘Oh, so you really are coming,’ he said ungraciously, barely looking at her. This morning he had a headache, and was even less certain that he wanted to take the girl with him. Had she been a second late, he would have started without her.
‘Yes, I’m here,’ said Fey. Her heart beat thickly in her chest as she obeyed Terry’s brusque gesture to climb up. There was a large bruise on his cheek, result of last night’s fight, and she saw at once that he had been drinking. She sat primly on the seat beside him. He flicked his whip and the mules started. The wagon rattled along the dusty road past La Fonda, and the Convent of Loretto across the tiny river, past the Chapel of San Miguel, and branched east on the beginning of the Santa Fe Trail.
On the evening of the eleventh of August, young Ewen MacDonald from Inveraray arrived at Santa Fe with an incoming wagon train. He put up at La Fonda and decided that, as it was so late, he would postpone until next day inquiries which he knew would be involved and difficult. He had left Scotland four months ago, and had enjoyed every moment of his travels through the strange new country. Particularly did he appreciate the West, for he was both adventurous and sensitive to beauty. Ewen was a dark Highlander, of medium height, lean and vigorous. And the latter quality also applied to his mind. At twenty-five he was already a successful young barrister, whose opinions were respected, all the more because he tempered them by an unusual amount of tolerance. He was kin to the Camerons and popular even with Old Sir James, who liked few people. It was Sir James who had begged the young man to set out on the long quest.
In nineteen years the picture had changed at Cameron Hall. Ten years back, the Glasgow stepmother had hidden herself behind a haycock with a stable boy once too often, and this time it had been her husband himself who had discovered her. He had half-strangled her with his powerful hands, and then he had divorced her. Even this justification for Andrew’s conduct so long ago had not softened the old man toward his youngest son. ‘Once a Cameron mak’s up his mind,’ said the Inveraray folk, ‘ the de’il himsel’ canna change it.’ But the old laird had found Andrew’s never answered letter and re-read it thoughtfully. Still he had done nothing. Then this past year complete tragedy struck the Camerons. The oldest son, his lady, and their child were wiped out by fire in one terrible night, and Sir James had had to remember Andrew, who was now the heir. He had written a letter to Santa Fe, which was returned marked ‘Unknown.’ It was then that he summoned Ewen MacDonald and sent him forth on the long journey. ‘Find Andy and his little lass,’ commanded Sir James, ‘and bring them back to me. Tell him I need him, and I reegret the past. Tell him I’ll dearly love to hae the lassie here, for I never had one of my ane. And if by bad mischance Andy is nae mair, for ’tis a wild and thawking country I hear, bring me the lass at least, and I’ll do my best by her.’
Sir James was seventy-nine now and he had mellowed. He prepared a suite of rooms for his granddaughter, invited a widowed cousin, the Lady Ann Hamilton, to the Hall for Fey’s guidance and companionship, and settled to impatient waiting. Oblivious as always to possibilities which did not please him, he refused to admit that the lass might not be found. Instead, he concentrated all his desires and hopes on Fey, the last of this branch of the Camerons. Her Spanish side did not displease him. There had been Spanish blood before this in the best Scottish families. Ewen himself had a Spanish ancestor. In fact, thought the old man, nothing would please him better than a match between these two, Ewen and the little lass, after she’d been home a bit and the rough edges rubbed off. ‘ I dinna doot they might fit each other verra weel,’ he told the Lady Ann Hamilton, who listened patiently and privately, thought the old laird was maundering a bit. But in this instance he was right.
Fey and Ewen MacDonald would have suited each other very well; each would have found in the other understanding and spiritual strength and love.
So Sir James yearned for his granddaughter and waited, while Ewen made inquiries in Santa Fe. These led him to the governor and eventually to Mrs. Wilson, who was overcome by the young lawyer’s revelations.
‘I knew it! The minute I saw the girl I knew she had blue blood,’ she cried, somewhat inaccurately. ‘To think that her grandfather’s a Scotch lord and she sat right on my floor shucking com!’
Ewen waited impatiently until the lady’s excitement abated enough for her to guide him to the Torres. And here the trail ended in a high, impervious wall. The Torres family, certain that an eager-eyed Anglo and a flustered Americana could only mean trouble, received all questions in sullen silence. No, they did not know where the girl had gone. She had simply gone two, three, maybe four days ago.
‘We brought the poor orphan up as our own. We were good to her,’ reiterated Pedro angrily, and MacDonald’s assurances that that was not the point in question produced no effect. Even the presentation of gold pieces produced no effect, though they were accepted. All the more reason to protect Feyita if knowledge of her whereabouts was so valuable. N
o doubt, the foolish girl had got herself into trouble, had run off perhaps with an outlaw. Well, that was no longer any concern of the Torres. She had found a man she wanted and gone with him, as all women did sooner or later. This fact was all they knew, but even that little they did not tell the insistent and annoying gringos.
MacDonald had at last to retire defeated; he lingered another week in Santa Fe, but he found out nothing more. Mrs. Wilson was provided with an anecdote to garnish her table chat for years, during which Fey gradually became the daughter of a royal duke and a Spanish princess endowed with supernatural beauty and virtue.
And Fey herself, through the days in which Ewen MacDonald was in Santa Fe making futile efforts to find the girl and restore her to her heritage, was jogging along in the gaudily painted spring wagon beside Terry.
Chapter Five
TERRY AND FEY covered the first miles along the Trail from Santa Fe in complete silence. As they topped the rise near Sun Mountain, Fey turned and, craning around the side of the canvas top, looked back. Already the cluster of adobe houses had merged into the sandy valley, and only the twin towers of the Parroquia stood out distinctly. To the east Atalaya, the watch-peak, seemed to have turned its back on her as it brooded over the little town below. Pain shot through Fey, pain quickly denied. That was never really my home, she thought; I never belonged to it. And still she looked back and still it seemed that Atalaya and Santa Fe had drawn into themselves, quiet and secure, into an understanding from which she was excluded; that all these years they had held for her a message which she had never tried hard enough to receive. She lengthened her gaze to the horizon, the calm, magnificent range of the ’Sangre de Cristo Mountains—their snowy tops hazy against the summer sky.
The wagon bumped into a deep rut. Terry swore and cracked his whip. Fey turned her head and looked up at him. At once she forgot the town she was leaving and the mountains.