by Anya Seton
‘Can’t you say something? ’ snapped Terry, as the mules pulled the wagon out of the rut and trotted forward again. ‘ Never knew a woman keep so quiet in my life.’
‘I was waiting for you to speak,’ answered Fey demurely. She had a low, clear voice, and the Scottish lilt, emphasized by a trace of Spanish accent, gave a startling quality to everything she said. Particularly, as she still spoke English slowly and used the mature vocabulary she had learned from her father.
Terry rested the reins on his knees and examined his companion. Her small bare feet scarcely reached to the planks, the braids of black hair thick as her own wrists hung down each shoulder, rising and falling over the swell of her surprisingly well-developed breasts outlined under the thin white chemise. Excitement had brought a faint pink to the smooth cream skin that reminded Terry of a yucca petal. She certainly was not pretty, he thought; nose too short, mouth too big, chin too pointed, and the angles of the jaw too pronounced. Then suddenly she lifted her lashes and gave him a shy, caressing smile.
Instantly Terry’s bad temper evaporated. She wasn’t exactly pretty, but when she smiled like that, she made you want to touch her, explore the texture of that thick petal skin, taste the warmth of that flexible mouth.
He shifted the reins to one hand and putting the other arm around her waist pulled her toward him along the bench.
Fey gently disengaged herself. ‘I think I’ll go in back and fix up the wagon,’ she said. In one quick motion she whirled on the seat and slipped through the curtains behind.
Terry shrugged, and went on driving. On the whole, he was amused. There was plenty of time, weeks and weeks of this, before they reached civilization. He pulled a map out of his pocket and studied it. Tonight they’d likely camp in Apache Canon. He thought of the night with pleasure and anticipation.
He was to be disillusioned. They entered the dark highwalled canon at five. It had been the haunt of Apaches and a dangerous place in the early days, though it had seen no bloodshed since the brief battle between Union and Confederate forces in 1862. Tonight it was peaceful, and after Terry had made a campfire, positively cheerful. The encircling walls of piñon-tufted rock gave the two at the bottom beside the wagon a feeling of isolation and security.
Fey boiled coffee and fried bacon and eggs in half the time it had always taken Terry, and he was pleased. He laughed at her dismay upon finding that there was no chile. ‘You’ve got to eat American now, my pet,’ he said, stretching himself beside the fire and deftly rolling a long black cigarette.
Fey nodded. ‘ I know, but there’s no taste to it. Like eating water.’ She whisked around washing the frying pan and coffeepot in the stream. Terry watched her, and his amiability increased. ‘Now, come over here to me,’ he said lazily, as she walked back to the campfire. Fey did not obey; instead, she stopped by the two mules, who had returned from a foraging expedition and were now standing side by side staring at the fire and wearing twin expressions of mournful patience. ‘They look sad,’ said Fey, stroking the mouse-gray noses. ‘Maybe they’re cold.’
‘Calvin and Harriet are never sad or cold,’ said Terry, willing to spar a bit longer if she wished. ‘They’re healthy, good-tempered brutes.’
‘Calvin and Harriet? ’ repeated Fey, smoothing the long ears.
‘Named, of course,’ said Terry, ‘for the remarkable author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin —and her husband.’
Fey had never heard of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but she pondered the explanation a moment, then she moved two steps nearer to Terry, who looked up at her invitingly. His red hair gleamed in the firelight, and his long muscular body rested on the ground with easy grace. He reached his hand out to Fey, who did not respond.
‘Mules,’ she said, giving faint emphasis to the word, ‘don’t have husbands.’
Terry sat up. He stared at the small, composed figure which stood just out of reach. Good God, he thought, what does she mean by that? Surely this little Mex girl can’t be getting fancy ideas.
‘I’m a bit tired,’ said Fey. ‘There’s a buffalo-hide in the wagon. I’ll take that, if you don’t mind, and sleep over there.’ She indicated a natural hollow beneath two arching rocks and a juniper bush.
Terry swallowed. ‘You can’t sleep outside; it’s ridiculous.’
‘I have done it often in the summer, when we would go to gather chamiza or yucca, and you are used to sleeping in the wagon; you will be more comfortable.’
Terry, still uncertain, stood up, towering over her, scowling. He put his hand on her thinly covered shoulder, and he felt her quick response, the flesh seemed to quiver and yield itself to his fingers. And yet she retreated from him. She looked at him steadily, her eyes pleading, frightened but determined. ‘No,’ she whispered.
Terry’s hand dropped. He put it in his pocket. His lips thinned. ‘ Enter the pure village maiden. Act One. Scene two.’ His voice rose to a vicious falsetto. ‘ Oh, sir, I am poor, but I am so very virtuous. No lily so unstained as I!’
He climbed into the wagon and flung the buffalo-hide down on the ground beside her. ‘ Here, go and crawl into your hole, then.’
Fey’s breath caught in her throat. Heat stung her eyes. She took a step toward the wagon, but Terry had disappeared between the flaps. She heard the clink of the whiskey bottle. She picked up the buffalo-hide and dragged it over to the rocks.
The next morning Terry was slightly ashamed. When he came out of the wagon, Fey had already made a fire and started the coffee. She threw him a quick look of welcome and pleading. Terry grinned at her, sluiced his head and shoulders in the stream, then went in search of the hobbled mules. Calvin and Harriet had not strayed far this morning and in all ways the day began auspiciously. Soon after they had started and were entering Glorieta Pass, a wild turkey settled on a cliff beside the trail and obligingly furnished an easy shot for Terry’s rifle. Fresh meat for several days, and the side of bacon might be kept for emergency. Youth, sunlight, mountain air, and the eternal pleasure of being on the march outdoors affected both of them, and Terry reacted in spite of resentment to Fey’s eager interest in everything he said. She was charmingly responsive, her eyes caressed him, and her mouth seemed continually to invite him. Yet she would not let him touch her. They camped outside of the ruins of Pecos pueblo and they camped near Las Vegas, and still each night Fey took the buffalo-hide and slept by herself outside the wagon. Terry allowed the situation to remain as it was for the present. It was new to his experience and he found that it intrigued him. He might have taken her by force, of course, and indeed the impulse had occurred to him very powerfully in the evening at Las Vegas when he had caught her bathing in the Gallinas River. The long unbound curly hair hid most of her body, but what he had seen shone pearl white and smooth as velvet against the background of willows on the river’s edge.
Fey had looked up and seen him watching. Instead of giggling or screaming, as most girls would have, she had lifted her chin, and smiling faintly had looked at him with that little air of dignified poise which always baffled him. She gazed at him quietly until, against all desire and reason, he made her a mock-heroic bow and walked away.
Neither of them referred to this episode, but Terry discovered that he was giving a disproportionate amount of his nights on the cot to thinking about her.
On the fourth afternoon out, they reached Fort Union. This important post stood in the foothills of the Turkey Mountains, southwest of the strangely shaped landmark called Wagon Mound. Here the desert and plains began, and near here the Santa Fe Trail forked. One branch went straight east and eventually crossed the terrifying Jornada, a fifty-mile pull without tree, hill, or water. The other way went north through Raton Pass and Colorado, a longer but of recent years safer and far more popular route. Terry had already made up his mind to go through Raton and Trinidad; he was in no particular hurry, and unless they could attach themselves to an outgoing wagon train, the braving of the Jornada would be folly.
Fort Union at this time had the appear
ance—as nearly as the army wives could make it—of a prim Yankee village. The cottages were of white painted boards and clapboards, encircled by the cherished picket fences; the windows were neatly curtained; the parade ground in the center was kept tidily swept between arrivals of the wagon trains or the Barlow-Sanderson stages, and in its center the bandstand had been tastefully surrounded by white stones and a few spindly geraniums. Between the Fort and the Arsenal, half a mile to the north, there were a great many shops, a church, school, and even Masonic buildings. Besides the personnel of the Ninth Military Department and the purveyors of supplies, over a thousand carpenters, smiths, harness-makers, and wheelwrights worked at the post.
For both Terry and Fey it was the first sight of a typically American town; Terry scarcely remembered his early travels in the East, and neither San Francisco nor Santa Fe gave any such impression of glistening order and New England purity.
‘Regular little city,’ remarked Terry, astonished, driving toward the parade ground. ‘I think it’d pay us to hold a show.’
As they passed one of the picket fences, a woman, who had been watering a two-foot square of brownish grass, straightened, staring at Doctor Xavier T. Dillon’s wagon and its occupants. She was tall and spare in a striped cotton dress and her knob of gray hair was so neat that it looked sculptured. Her eyes hardened into disapproval. Red-headed gambler type, if she ever saw one, too handsome for his own good, and a barefoot Mexican girl. Worthless trash always turning up at the post-She turned her back and went on watering the strip of unresponsive grass.
Terry and Fey both correctly interpreted the woman’s action. Fey drew her feet under her and sat very still struggling against a puzzled dismay.
‘Guess, when we hold the show, we better say you’re my sister,’ remarked Terry, pulling up before the headquarters store.
‘Sister!’ repeated Fey, in a faint voice.
Terry threw her a quick look. ‘Come on, Fey,’ he said. ‘Likely this’ll be a fine place for a show. I’m sure that sour old hag has female troubles. I bet I can sell her a couple of bottles. You promised to help, you know.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Well——’ Terry wound the reins around the whip-handle and used a tone of airy nonchalance. He was no longer so sure of being able to manage her as he had been in Santa Fe. 'We’ll work up that mind-reading thing of yours as a climax; that’ll bring ’em.’ He felt her recoil, and went on quickly, ‘ If we make enough, I’ll buy you some clothes over there at the store. Shoes and stockings, too; you’d like that, wouldn’t you? ’
Fey looked down at her chemise and skirt. She had washed them in the Gallinas River, but they were both wrinkled and darned. She thrust out her feet; they were dusty, and across the high right instep ran a deep scratch from a cactus.
‘Yes—but I couldn’t——’
‘Listen, Fey.’ He swung her around by the shoulders, oblivious to the gratified hoots from two passing soldiers who had stopped to read the wagon sign. ‘I’ve put up with a lot,’ said Terry vehemently. ‘You know what I mean. But I won’t put up with this, too. You came along as a partner.’ His hands tightened on her shoulders, his voice dropped to its wooing note. ‘You like me, don’t you, darling?’ he added softly.
Her expression was answer enough, and he bent his head and kissed her—for the first time. The soldiers, who had been watching the wagon seat, burst into a delighted cheer.
A violent red flamed up in Fey’s face, but Terry laughed and released her. ‘We'll put on a much better show than that for you,’ he said amiably to the soldiers. ‘ ’Bout seven o’clock, here in the plaza. A little music—this young lady will dance, real genuine Spanish dances like they do ’em in Chihuahua, and then we’ll show you some magic that’ll take your breath away. The young lady has gypsy blood, she’s the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter—you know what that means. She can tell the past or the future, she can tell if your sweetheart loves you, or if your old granny’s going to die and leave you a million. Don’t miss it, boys!’
‘We sure won’t, mister,’ answered the tallest soldier. ‘ Things’ve been mighty dull around here lately; no wagons in for three days, and not even a stinking Ute around to take a shot at.’
The soldiers drifted off and spread the news through the barracks. Terry was exultant; he knew the show would be a success, and Fey’s kiss had been even more agreeable than he had expected. He had had a moment of real emotion while her lips parted under his. She was a good kid, after all. And from now on it would be easy.
‘Come on, honey,’ he cried, jumping off the wagon. ‘ We’ll buy a few things in the store, then I guess we better pull out of town a ways and rehearse.’
‘Terry,’ said Fey, looking down at him as he stood beside the wagon. She was still limp, and her heart beat in painful thuds. ‘Terry.— I can’t really do all those things you said—tell the past and the future——’
‘Of course not. That’s just patter. But if you can work that trick you do do, it’ll be plenty good enough.’ He reached up and scooped her off the seat. Involuntarily she held her breath, but the instant her feet touched the ground, she ran ahead of him into the store. Terry was content to wait. Business came first.
And so it was that, out of desire for Terry, Fey conquered her reluctance and forced from herself a demonstration of the in-seeing gift that evening on the parade ground.
The demonstration was imperfect; nervousness at first prevented any response at all. It took her several minutes to realize that the only sure method was for Terry to send her from his own mind the knowledge she must discover. She got it easily from him, but except in one instance the impression received from strangers was vague and uncertain.
They had drawn a satisfactory crowd: soldiers, workmen, and most of the housewives, all eager for diversion. When the wagon pulled up beside the empty bandstand and Terry, now disguised in the black beard, stovepipe hat, and long red coat, struck up a song on the banjo, people came running from all quarters of the post. The wagon and the entertainers were sufficiently exotic to provoke excited interest. Calvin and Harriet, troupers at heart, were decorated with bells and pink cockades, and they stood like lambs, long furry ears tilted forward, apparently enjoying Terry’s interpretation of the ‘Camptown Races.’ He got most of the crowd to singing with ‘Oh, Susannah’—prime favorite on the plains; then he set the gentler sex to sniffling with ‘Ben Bolt’ and ‘Nellie Was a Lady.’
He had a pleasing baritone, which, even though slightly muffled by the beard, carried to and affected the farthest bystander. When he judged them to be sufficiently mellowed, he put down his banjo and went into the first or ground-laying spiel about the Extra Special Elixir. Before they tired of this, it had always been his habit to give them the card tricks. Tonight, instead, he produced Fey.
‘My sister, Carmencita Dillon,’ shouted Terry, waving his arm, ‘will now dance for you a vo-lup-tuous, a highly sensational Spanish dance, the very identical dance which she performed before the Emperor and Empress of Mexico! ’
Here there were some murmurs of awe, and when Fey appeared, her knees shaking as hard as the tambourine she held in her cold hand, there was a round of applause. Terry hastily handed her down to the ground and seized his banjo. He played scraps of the only Spanish music he knew, heavily accented, and Fey, after a paralyzed moment, caught the rhythm on her tambourine and danced. She had never seen a tambourine before, it had come from the costume trunk, as had the red cotton rose in her flowing hair and the tarnished gilt sash around her waist, nor had she ever danced solo.
But she was a born dancer, and all the fandangos back home had taught her. She improvised a mixture of bolero and cura, and the crowd, pressing closer, paid her the compliment of quiet. When she finished with a whirl, arms gracefully arched above her head and the tambourine quivering, there was hearty handclap-ping and whistles from the soldiers. .
This was all very well, and Terry was delighted, but it didn’t necessarily sell Elixi
r. He had rapidly rearranged his usual patter to strike the right note and include Fey’s mind-reading. This patter he had worked out a couple of hours ago while he filled dozens of the Elixir bottles from the Coyote River behind the fort.
‘Now, folks,’ called Terry, holding up his hands for quiet, ‘I’m a doctor, as you all know. I can diagnose any ailment; besides that, I have studied extensively and I am thoroughly conversant with magnetism, mesmerism, hypnotism. That, friends, is how I was able to discover this marvelous remedy, my Extra Special Elixir, positively guaranteed to cure bodily disfunction—any cough or backache, kidney trouble, night sweats, female complaint, or loss of manhood. Because I know,’ said Terry in a tremendous voice, ‘just what ailments that the Elixir can cure are hidden inside.your bodies, just as my sister’—here he pushed Fey forward—‘ can tell the hidden secrets of your minds!’
Now there were more murmurs. A masculine voice shouted, ‘She better not read my mind; it might make her blush!’
‘Ah, you don’t believe it!’ cried Terry, quickly quelling the laughter. ‘Just wait!’ The light was dimming, about right for atmosphere. He put his arm around Fey and gave her a quick squeeze. ‘Come on,’ he whispered, ‘you can do it!’
She remained alone on the back of the wagon, and Terry strode into the crowd. Fortunately for his first victim, he picked a frightened little drummer boy, who, at Terry’s question about the contents of the lad’s pockets, answered wildly, ‘That’s right,’ when Fey murmured uncertainly that she thought it was a handkerchief and some money. But the next was a woman, wife of one of the carpenters, and she stood in shadow at the very back of the crowd. Terry examined the woman’s hand and called over the other heads to the wagon, ‘What kind of a ring is this lady wearing?’
And Fey called back, promptly and clearly, ‘A silver ring on her little finger, made like a heart, and she has a broad gold wedding ring as well.’