The Cry of the Wind

by Kurt R A Giambastiani

  Speaks While Leaving and Mouse Road rode in an open carriage with a nursemaid who held Blue Shell Woman. A second carriage rattled on behind them, bringing Alejandro and One Who Flies. Speaks While Leaving waved to the well-wishers who called to her and blessed her and made their signs of the cross as she passed. Mouse Road waved, too, though without enthusiasm, and Blue Shell Woman, propped up and made to wave by the nursemaid, cried in small, percussive coughs of unhappiness.

  “Pobrecita. Ella gruñón,” the nursemaid said in a sympathetic tone.

  Speaks While Leaving understood the intention if not the words, and hoped that they would arrive soon, ending the jarring, noisy trip that had taken them from the manor where they had spent the night, high up in the hills over the shining town, down to the sea where their ship awaited.

  Their ship. The phrase filled her with hope and excitement, for “their ship” would take her back to her homeland where, bright with good news, she could begin the difficult work of convincing men to follow a woman’s advice. The weariness of the weeks they had spent in this land hung upon her like a weight. The long arguments with One Who Flies, the long meetings with the queen’s ministers, the long days riding in hot carriages and railcars, and the long, drawn-out ritual of dining with every magistrate in every town through which they passed; it had all sapped at her strength, draining her lower and lower each day until, now, she felt barely able to keep awake. Their ship—and the two-week ocean voyage—promised a spate of time wherein she might recuperate. She looked forward to the lazy, shipboard days ahead; days filled with rest, siestas, easy food, warm sunshine, and the ever-nearing shores of home. She intended to indulge in the luxury of their journey and in the time it would provide her with Blue Shell Woman for she knew that, reaching home, all such leisure would end. There was no time for afternoon naps in life among the People, no time for quiet strolls with her daughter. The shores of home meant a return to family, friends, and loved ones, but it also meant a return to the work of living, and the work of surviving, both as a person, and as a People. There would be no rest, once she rode back into Alliance territory.

  But that work was still half a moon away, and the pleasure of the sea voyage lay ahead. The two carriages swung around the final curve, passing houses that had been whitewashed for so many years that the repeated coats of lime had rounded every corner and edge. They passed through the final gap in the close-set streets and emerged into the dazzling light of the sun-sparkled quay. The carriages circled around, and the crowds pressed in as they drew to a halt. The driver helped his passengers descend, and Speaks While Leaving stepped down into a throng of men and women, their skin tanned by sun and toil, their features rough, but their eyes wide, their faces smiling. They reached out toward her, and as she touched each hand, it recoiled, retreating to its owner like the hand of a hungry man given food. Her skin was dark, like theirs, and her braided hair was dark, like theirs, and her eyes were dark, like theirs, but these were a different people. As she thanked them and made her way to the pier, she saw in their dark eyes the image that they superimposed upon her. Her touch gave them joy for no other reason than it gave them hope and belief, contact with the spiritual, and their misplaced faith saddened her.

  “Madonna,” one old man said as he held his hat over his heart, gazing at her with eyes brimming with emotion.

  She wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that it was all a mistake, but instead she merely touched his hand and smiled as his tears spilled.

  Alejandro and One Who Flies came up from their carriage and escorted them through the crowd. They made their way to the dock and across the gangway to the ship. The passengers who had preceded them aboard stared at the spectacle. The women whispered to one another from behind parasols and gloved hands, but the men, Speaks While Leaving noticed, regarded them with a kindly eye. News of their mission and their success had traveled along with the legend of the “Madonna of the Swallows.” They stood apart from the new arrivals, as if there was a barrier between them. Then, one gentleman stepped forward, tipped his hat to Alejandro, and introduced himself. The rest surged in after him, as though a dam had been breached, swamping them with eager interest.

  Speaks While Leaving took her wailing daughter from the nursemaid and let her return to the dock. Then she turned to One Who Flies and Alejandro.

  “I will take her to our quarters,” she said. “She is probably just tired. She did not sleep well last night.”

  The ship’s horn blasted a huge note above their heads, making everyone jump and sending Blue Shell Woman into renewed displeasure.

  “She has been unhappy today, hasn’t she?” Alejandro noted. “She’s usually such a cheerful traveler, but today I could hear her cries all the way down from the mayor’s villa.” He motioned to one of the ship’s wait-staff and spoke to him in Spanish. The steward bowed to Speaks While Leaving.

  “He will escort you to your stateroom,” Alejandro told her.

  “Many thanks,” she said with a small nod.

  Alejandro tipped his hat as she left. One Who Flies bowed, but said nothing. He had said little since El Escorial. Toward her, he had been civil but unfriendly, but toward Mouse Road, he had seemed mostly just embarrassed.

  She turned to Mouse Road. “I am going below. You can stay here if you wish.”

  “No,” the young woman said. “I will go with you.”

  The steward led them away. The ship—the Santa Luisa—was a steamer with one smokestack amidships and two masts for sails, one fore and one aft. While her hull was painted black above the waterline, her wooden decks gleamed with care and polish, her brasswork shone, and the white paint of the structures above deck was brilliant in the summer sun. Speaks While Leaving squinted against the glare as the steward led them forward.

  The brightness from abovedeck made the shadowed interior all the darker. Stepping carefully down the steep stairs, they came to a narrow companionway that twisted around pipes and squeezed through bulkheads. Blue Shell Woman’s cries were magnified by the small space, focused by the close, hard walls. As they passed open doors, Speaks While Leaving saw some of the other rooms: small, efficient spaces where some of the passengers were already settling in. They looked up as her baby’s wails approached, and she saw their eyes widen as they passed, surprised to see not the pale servant or lady of means with a pampered infant, but a dusky-skinned woman in an elk-hide dress with her feather-haired daughter.

  Their way took three turns in quick succession, passing several other rooms—some open, some closed, all seemingly identical. Speaks While Leaving hoped she would be able to remember which one was theirs. Each room had a label on its door, and when the steward opened one such door for them, she made note of the curved squiggles that distinguished theirs from the others.

  Inside, it was gloomy, though partly because her eyes still had not relaxed after the day’s brightness. She saw that their traveling cases—a gift from the queen—had already been brought inside. The queen’s gift had been impossible to refuse, even though everything Speaks While Leaving and Mouse Road carried could fit inside just one of the brass- and leather-bound cases. Nor had she seen any use for them when she returned to the People. Heavy, ungainly, and over-large, they would be useless on whistler-back, and would outweigh any amount of goods she could possibly fit inside them. And yet, they were here, neatly stacked and strapped into the corner.

  There were also two narrow beds, one of which was folded up against the wall, as well as a dry sink with pitcher and basin, and, in the corner opposite their luggage, a small table before an elbow-shaped bench. Between the furnishings there was barely enough room to pace out six steps, and would be even less when the second bed was unfolded.

  Speaks While Leaving sat on the bed and laid her daughter down upon the rough blanket. Mouse Road sat on the bench at the table and rested her forehead on her pillowed arms.

  “What is it?” Speaks While Leaving asked as she went over to their luggage. “Are you still upset about On
e Who Flies?”

  “No,” Mouse Road said. “I am tired.”

  Speaks While Leaving pulled out the case that held their meager belongings and opened it. She took out the rolled pelt of elkhide and untied it. Soft as a breath, the fur was both warm and cool to the touch. She laid it out on the bed and set Blue Shell Woman upon it. The familiar touch quieted the baby’s squalling and she rolled over and clutched a handful of fur in her chubby fingers. Speaks While Leaving stroked her daughter’s back, quieting her further.

  “Everyone seems tired today,” she said, wondering if Mouse Road was hiding something from her. “Even One Who Flies. He has been sullen since we left El Escorial.” She glanced over, but Mouse Road did not raise her head.

  “He feels useless,” Mouse Road said.

  “Useless?” she said dismissively. “After all his help working out the details of the alliance?”

  “Details you told him.” She lifted her head and peered over her folded arms. “Details that the Council will be surprised they have approved, I might add. But maybe ‘useless’ is the wrong word.” Her head sunk back onto her arms. “‘Unnecessary’ is better. We’ve both been unnecessary. Only I don’t mind. He does.”

  Speaks While Leaving unlatched the other bed and set it onto its drop-down legs. She smoothed out the blankets. “Here,” she said. “Lie down. Rest. Blue Shell Woman is sleeping. You sleep, too.”

  Reluctantly, as if even moving to a more comfortable place was too much effort, Mouse Road allowed herself to be put to bed. Though a bit stuffy, the room was pleasant and cozy. Speaks While Leaving left the two of them there to sleep and went up on deck, taking care to retrace the path the steward had shown them.

  Most of the passengers were also abovedecks, milling near the portside rail as the crew prepared to cast off. There were only thirty passengers on this voyage, the bulk of the ship’s space and interest having been given over to the more lucrative use of hauling cargo bound for Cuba and New Spain. What space that the Santa Luisa had saved for passengers was sold at a premium; this was no voyage crammed with steerage-class immigrants. The people Speaks While Leaving saw on deck were the well-to-do of Spain’s better classes. Businessmen, financiers, professionals, perhaps even an aristocrat or two made up the passenger list. As she walked, blinking in the lively light that bounced from fixture, deck, and shiny wavelet, she passed round women in pale traveling dresses standing at the rail, waving to the friends they were leaving behind. The women wore hats with broad, curving brims and thin veils decorated with sparkling crystals, and the lacework frills on their parasols fluttered in the westerly breeze. The men stood stoically beside their mates or chatted in dark-suited knots, Spain already forgotten, business the subject ahead.

  She saw Alejandro in the center of one such cluster, standing tall and proud, surrounded by men who leaned forward to glean all they could from his words. He saw her and raised a hand in greeting, but did not stop the thread of his discourse. She looked further, but did not see One Who Flies, and so she went to the rail alone and watched as the crew cast off.

  The sun was happy in a deep blue sky studded with thistledown clouds. The breeze was clean and salty. The crew, in their blue shirts and blue-and-white striped pants, coiled ropes and lowered the gangway. Smoke boiled up out of the tall stack amidships. She jumped as the steam whistle howled, sounding three deep notes that echoed around the cove. The rail trembled beneath her grip, the women waved handkerchiefs with renewed energy, and the Santa Luisa edged away from the dock. Many of the people on the dock and upper pier seemed to be waving in her direction. She raised her hand in farewell and a shout rose from the crowd.

  Two more shots from the whistle, and Speaks While Leaving felt the surge of power as the ship pushed forward, turning her bow to the west and the open sea. The breeze strengthened as they moved against it, and seagulls hung on curved wings, slipping back and forth across their path as effortlessly as children playing on an ice-bound pond.

  She was heading home.

  Mouse Road and Blue Shell Woman slept through all of the first day and most of the second; unusual behavior for both of them. The second night, Blue Shell Woman was fretful, but Speaks While Leaving put it down to her having slept through the daylight hours. The next morning, the baby awoke in tears and Speaks While Leaving took her out of the room so as not to disturb Mouse Road. Up on deck, she carried her daughter on her hip, cooing to her as they made their circuit alongside the rails.

  The sea was calm, and the ship plowed through the gentle swells with a languorous pitch and roll that reminded Speaks While Leaving of coursing over the prairie on whistlerback.

  “The prairie is like an ocean, too,” she told her daughter. “An ocean that the People have sailed for generations. The People left the Sweet Waters of the north and walked out onto the plains to follow Buffalo, to whom our destiny is tied. There we met all sorts of new friends, like Whistler who in turn tied his destiny to ours. And we met Drummer Grouse who brings in the spring with his dances, and Red-Topknot Crane who tells us when winter is coming.” She told her story in a calm, soothing voice, but Blue Shell Woman would not be appeased. She wavered between whimper and wail, breaking her mother’s heart.

  Speaks While Leaving kissed her daughter’s forehead and recoiled at its heat. She put her hand on the baby’s cheek, then on the nape of her neck. She put her palm on the skin of her own cheek and felt its relative coolness.

  “Poor thing,” she said with more calm than she felt. “No wonder you are so unhappy.”

  She went forward to the lounge and found a steward who understood her French and brought her a cup of water. Blue Shell Woman fussed at it, but eventually agreed to drink.

  The threat of fever hung over every mother’s child and Speaks While Leaving felt fear begin to gnaw at her. She stayed for a while in the empty lounge, keeping her daughter out of the ocean breeze, and praying for her symptoms to ease. When other passengers began to rouse and drift into the common areas, though, Blue Shell Woman was still crying, and Speaks While Leaving rose and returned to their quarters.

  Mouse Road lay on her bed and moaned as Speaks While Leaving brought the fussing baby into the small room.

  “It’s time you got up, anyway,” Speaks While Leaving told her.

  “I don’t feel well,” the young woman said.

  Speaks While Leaving sat down on the edge of the bed. She put her hand on Mouse Road’s forehead.

  “My throat is sore.”

  “You have a fever as well. So does Blue Shell Woman. I should have thought of that.”

  “Thought of what?” Mouse Road asked, opening her eyes.

  Speaks While Leaving frowned and went to the other bed. She put Blue Shell Woman down and got some of the cloth the vé’ho’e nursemaid had given her to use as diapers.

  “You have not spent much time around the vé’hó’e,” she said as she changed her daughter’s swaddlings. “I have. I have already had most of their diseases. You have not.” She swallowed against a throat gone stiff and thick. “Neither has Blue Shell Woman. I should have thought of that before I agreed to let you come.”

  Mouse Road laughed weakly. “You agreed to let me come? Wasn’t it the other way around?” She sat up, moaned, and reclined again. “You had no choice.”

  Speaks While Leaving took a cloth to the dry sink and wetted it in the basin. She brought it back and began to swab at her daughter’s skin. “Perhaps,” she said. “Still, I might have insisted, and as for this one—” She stopped, staring at the red splotches on her daughter’s legs and groin.

  “What is it?” Mouse Road asked, rising up on one elbow.

  She continued cleaning Blue Shell Woman. “Nothing. A rash. She has a rash. Probably from the soiled cloth against her skin.” She finished cleaning the baby and wrapped her in a clean cloth.

  The changing soothed Blue Shell Woman and she lay quietly on the bed, looking up at her mother with large, dark, tired eyes. Speaks While Leaving felt her forehead aga
in. Still hot.

  “She will be quiet for a while, now. Let me go and get some food and drink for you both.”

  She bundled up the soiled cloth and left. A steward was in the hall and she gave him the bundle.

  “¿Lavar, por favor? ¿Para niña?” It was almost all the Spanish she knew, but words she had found frequent use for during her time among the Iron Shirts.

  Then she went up on deck.

  She didn’t know where One Who Flies had been settled, but she knew where she would find Alejandro. He would be ill through most of the trip, sickened by the ship’s constant motion. The leeward rail was his place of refuge during the days aboard ship, if the weather allowed it, and today the weather was fine, with a sharp blue sky, streamer clouds high above, and a brisk salt breeze coming in off the port bow. She walked around to starboard where the ship’s structure broke the wind’s strength and the air fluttered in gentle, incoherent puffs.

  Alejandro lay on one of the long chairs set away from the rail. He stood as she approached, slowly, but with dignity. She noticed a spot on his lapel.

  “Good morning, Señora,” he said with a bow. “Or should I say, ‘Madonna’?”

  “You know better than that,” she said. She took the handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the spot of vomit from his lapel, then folded the cloth and returned it to him. “Having trouble already?”

  He smiled weakly. “I fear so. It seems the better I live prior to a journey, the worse I fare en route.” He gestured to the chairs. “If you don’t mind?”

  “Of course.” She sat, and Alejandro reclined gratefully in his chair. “Perhaps we should shorten our journey.”

  Alejandro laughed, then coughed, covering his mouth with the handkerchief. “Shorten it? If only we could.”

  “I want to turn around and go back to Spain.”

  He stared at her, then caught his rudeness and looked out to sea. “We cannot simply ‘turn around,’” he said. “And besides, why would you want to do such a thing?”