The Valiant Women

by Jeanne Williams

  Talitha tried to picture a place called Berlin, a king saluting corpses and marching in red, gold and black, and some kind of big meeting with Marc Revier there. It was difficult. She’d never even been to Tubac and her memories of Santa Fe were of mud buildings straggling around a plaza.

  Only Nauvoo, to her, had any echo of the far place he spoke of. She pictured him with his assembly in the shining white temple and suddenly his words took on reality.

  “What did the—the whatever-it-was assembly do, Mr. Revier?”

  “Oh, all summer, while the Danes and Prussians battled over who was to have the provinces of Schleswig and Holstein, the assembly debated points of a new constitution.” He grimaced. “For our ‘radical’ acts such as striking ‘by the grace of God’ from the king’s title, the assembly was exiled to Brandenburg in November and dissolved in early December.”

  Caterina had fallen asleep. Carefully, he placed her in the basket. “It’s not as forlorn as I make it sound, Miss Talitha. Much of the assembly’s work served as a basis for the constitution and though the king’s ultimate authority was maintained, the lower house of the parliament is elected by universal suffrage.”

  “What’s that?” asked Talitha with a furrowed brow.

  “A vote by all men. The catch is that voting’s based on taxpaying ability so that the wealthier seventeen percent of the voters control two-thirds of the seats.” A fatalistic lift of the shoulder. “Perhaps a realistic improvement but scarcely what most of us in the assembly had hoped for. With my leanings known, it was impossible to find work. So that’s why, Miss Talitha, I left the old world for the new.”

  “Shea left because of the famine.”

  “Did he?” Revier glanced at the men by the fire. “Of course, when you think upon it, the family of everyone who’s not Indian did come from somewhere else.”

  Judah Frost was watching. It made Talitha uneasy though she’d have liked to talk with Marc Revier a long, long time. He gave her glimpses of a world beyond and though she didn’t understand parliaments and constitutions, she’d like to have heard more about kings and barricades, that city called Berlin, his schooling in England. But they couldn’t keep standing here, not with Frost’s pale eyes on them.

  “I’d better get the twins to bed,” she said reluctantly. They were perched on either side of Frost.

  Revier said, “Miss Talitha, that message to your father—would you like some help with it?”

  “I can’t write at all,” she admitted.

  Somehow, she didn’t mind his knowing, though he must be the best educated person she’d ever met. Shea could sign his name but apart from that, he and everyone at the ranch was unable to read or write.

  “Would you like to learn?”

  There had been books at Nauvoo. Talitha remembered looking at the pages and wondering how her mother could read such wonderful stories from the little black marks. Mother had promised to teach her to read when they got to California.

  Careless of whether Judah Frost noticed, Talitha threw back her head and smiled at Marc Revier. “I’d love to! But how can you teach me when you live so far away?”

  “We’ve got a reliable superintendent now. I can get away every week for a day or so and leave you lessons to do in between. Shall we try it?”

  “Oh, yes! The twins can learn, too!”

  “Fine. If Mr. O’Shea agrees, I’ll come next Saturday, so have your thinking cap on, young lady!”

  Full of happy anticipation, Talitha nodded and advanced on the twins, shooing them off with the promise of a story. She was going to learn to read! She’d know how to write letters and keep accounts for Shea. But best of all, every week she was going to see Marc Revier! She’d still miss Santiago, but not anything like the way she would have without that deep gentle voice that seemed to caress away her fears and loneliness.

  XXIII

  After Marc’s first “teaching” visit, the twins incessantly pestered Talitha as to which day was Saturday. Late in the morning they’d go to meet him, riding if Belen or Chuey could accompany them, otherwise going on foot. When this happened, he’d ride in on his durable buckskin with the boys up behind him, hanging tight so as not to jounce off. Arriving in time for the noon meal, he’d talk with Shea and the men till Talitha could leave Anita in charge and join him and the twins at the table.

  Though Chuey and Belen both understood considerable English, they had no desire to read or write it so they went out to do some of the winter work, fixing corrals and building new ones, improving water tanks, mending saddles and bridles, all the things that couldn’t be done from spring to fall when the cattle demanded their time.

  Shea usually stayed. He swore at the pencil, grumbled that it was harder to control than a locoed horse, but he painfully copied the letters Marc wrote on a piece of the paper he’d brought from California.

  Paper was expensive and they didn’t waste it, but wrote on their pages over and over, crisscrossing till the letters were solid.

  Because of his profession, Marc had a good supply of pencils and he left four at the ranch, along with a ledger, for his pupils to practice with. He also left books, and for these the twins endured the tedious alphabet.

  “I thought the miners would have children,” Marc explained, smiling as Patrick and Miguel gazed wide-eyed at the elephants and tigers in one brightly colored book. “I hoped to have a small school for them. But our miners have no families and if they did, English wouldn’t be that useful for them.”

  He had a geography, with maps. This fascinated Shea. He could never get over how small England was in comparison to the countries she governed. “Look at Canada! And Australia down there, and India! God’s whiskers! No wonder she’s been able to run it all over poor Ireland!” Absently, his fingers went to the old brand on his cheek. “One good thing I’ll say for the Americans, they got properly shed of England!”

  Talitha loved the engravings in the history book. Pyramids, sphinxes, temples nothing like the one at Nauvoo, Roman soldiers, Attila and Vikings—what a treasure of stories Marc seemed to know. She longed to read for herself and would sit up by the fire at night, spelling and sounding out words. It was slow, tantalizingly difficult, but by the end of January she could read most of a book of fables to the twins.

  “I wonder if you hadn’t already begun to recognize words when your mother read to you,” Marc speculated. “However it comes, you’re a joy to teach. You’ll soon be ready for the books I brought for myself.”

  Shea was quick with ciphers. Buying and selling had given him a practical command of arithmetic, but to be able to make calculations in advance, subtract, multiply and divide—well, that intrigued Shea.

  Marc’s company was good for him, too. After an initial stiffening when he learned of Marc’s English mother and education, he shrugged and said, “We’re all here now, whyever, and the Americans soon will be!”

  “I hope so,” said Marc amiably. “With enough troops to keep off Apaches and bandits. We have a man on watch from dawn to dark, and at night, too, if we’ve seen anything suspicious during the day.”

  In December of 1853, Gadsden and Santa Anna finally struck their bargain. Negotiations had been temporarily sabotaged by William Walker’s November try to take over Baja California. Though the filibusterer was swiftly defeated and chased into California, Santa Anna and most Mexicans believed the United States government was behind the attempt and considered it the first step in annexing all Mexico.

  However, when Santa Anna’s efforts to make alliances with European powers convinced him that France, Britain or Spain wouldn’t aid him in case of war, he returned to bargaining with the exhausted Gadsden who certainly must have wanted his railroad to put up with all the disappointments and delays.

  The treaty would allow the United States to purchase the land it needed for its nation-spanning route, a stretch between El Paso and Yuma, for $15,000,000. In return for assuming claims of Americans against Mexico, the United States would not be responsible
for raids of Indians into Mexico as provided for in Article XI of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

  The never-strong grip of Mexico on its northern frontier almost completely crumbled. Captain Zenteno at Tubac had a hard time keeping the people of his garrisons fed. In January, responding to pleas from starving Santa Cruz, he’d borrowed mules from Tumacácori and pack sacks from Calabazas, got together supplies, and started the slow trek south.

  Apaches rode into them in sudden attack, killing two soldiers, driving off all the mules including the ones the men had been riding. Zenteno implored his government to provide some oxen and wagons for hauling supplies, but the harassed officials, with troubles closer at hand, left him to cope as best he could with the defense and provisioning of his sector.

  That winter and spring of 1854 were filled with a sense of waiting, of inevitable change, while the United States Congress wrangled over land that the famous mountain man, Kit Carson, called “so desolate, desert and God-forsaken that a wolf could not make a living on it.”

  There was waiting in human terms as well, hoping that James would return, at least for a visit, and waiting for Santiago. He had said he’d be back in time for the spring cattle work. Surely he must come soon—if he were alive.

  Marc hadn’t heard from his partner, either, but he refused to worry and wouldn’t permit Talitha to fret when he was around. “Judah’s not about to get killed when there’s a smart profit to be made,” he said with breezy confidence. “Depend on it, they’ll be back soon with the port located and a promise from the authorities to set up a customs office and develop the harbor.”

  It was impossible to be despondent when Marc was there. He fitted in as if they’d known him always and yet he was like nobody else they had ever met. He’d walk a cranky, toothing Caterina while discussing politics with Shea or telling the twins about Robin Hood, Dr. Faustus, King Arthur, El Cid, Rustum, Ogier the Dane and, to Shea’s pride, of Cuchulain and Brian Boru.

  He could sing, too, everything from German drinking songs to Gold Rush tunes, but best of all Talitha loved the old songs he’d learned from his mother, “Green-sleeves” and “Western Wind,” “The Gypsy Laddie” and many others, especially one he said had been made up by the poet Thomas Wyatt for Anne Boleyn, the woman he loved before and after she was Henry VIII’s doomed queen.

  “Forget not yet the tried intent

  Of such a love as I have meant,

  My great travail so gladly spent,

  Forget not, oh forget not yet.”

  Hearing the male voice deepen richly, thrillingly as he sang, Talitha ached with the beauty and sadness of the song. Would she ever have a love like that? She didn’t think she wanted to, watching Shea trying to live without Socorro.

  He came in one evening while Anita was feeding the two baby girls and Talitha was trying to get supper while arbitrating a quarrel between the twins who were irascible from having bad colds and being kept inside out of the chill rainy spell that had settled in to drive Talitha completely to her wit’s end.

  After one quick glance, Shea commanded the boys to pick up the things they’d scattered all over the house, get themselves washed and set the table. He then took over the tortilla-making so Talitha could concentrate on the stew.

  “I ought to be kicked!” he said angrily. “No wonder you look peaked! Anita’s got her hands full with Paulita and Caterina, the twins are into everything, and you’ve got to cook and wash for all of us! Why haven’t you said something?”

  Astonished, Talitha said quickly, “It’s all right, Shea! The twins wouldn’t be like this if they didn’t have those wretched colds and—”

  “And nothing!” he cut in. “When we get started on the calves, I won’t even be able to fetch the water and wood the way I can now. Tomorrow I’m going to get you some help!”

  Foreboding shot through Talitha. “Where?” she demanded. “Who?”

  “Maybe Juanita and Cheno can move up here.”

  “Juanita’s going to have a baby,” Talitha countered. “She’ll want to be with her mother and even if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be any help while the baby’s little.”

  Shea scowled, puckering the double brand. On an impulse, Talitha did what she’d always longed to, put up her hand and caressed the mark he’d taken for her brother’s sake.

  She felt him tense, wondered at the strange pinpoints of light in his eyes. Abruptly, he swung away, jarring her hand from him. “Then I’ll get Tjúni.”

  “Tjúni?” There’d been no love between Talitha and the Papago woman but that didn’t explain the denial, the heavy sense of warning that sprang from Talitha’s depths. “She won’t come. She’s got her own people at San Manuel.”

  “She was here to begin with.” Shea was remembering back, to a time before Talitha had known him. She hated and feared that; it took him far away. “I never understood why she went off that way, but I think she’ll come back when she knows we need her.”

  “We don’t! Oh, Shea, please—I can do anything she can!”

  He had moved a distance off. “No,” he said. “You can’t.”

  Talitha’s body, which had been waiting, too, that winter, waiting to be charged with a woman’s feelings, understood before her mind did.

  Even then she fought against recognizing what Shea needed from Tjúni that he couldn’t have from her, tried to calm herself by arguing that the Papago woman had been part of his life with Socorro, a partner in the founding of the ranch. It was natural for him to think of her. From his manner, Talitha knew it was useless to protest. But she had to turn her head to keep tears from falling into the stew and she wouldn’t look directly at Shea for the rest of that evening. It hurt too much.

  Tjúni came. Her body was fuller now, more richly curved, but her face had its old haughty cat-like beauty. Belen moved in with Chuey and Anita while a house was built for her and Talitha was glad to be spared sleeping in the same room with her till she woke one night and saw Shea moving quietly through the house.

  A fiery blade seemed to turn in Talitha. When Shea didn’t return in a moment, she got up and peered out the window, detected his shadowy form against the paler darkness. As Talitha watched, fingernails driving into her palms, she hoped desperately he was going to do what she’d so often prayed he wouldn’t, go up the hill and mourn by Socorro’s grave.

  This night he went straight to the vaqueros’ quarters. As he vanished inside, Tjúni’s exultant laughter echoed and reechoed in Talitha’s head. Huddling down in her blankets, she pulled a startled Chusma close and sobbed against the warm soft body of the cat.

  She was to do so often, though without Chusma, for the cat disapproved of such demonstrations and freed herself quickly or eluded capture. After Caterina started sleeping through the night, Anita had moved back with Chuey, so there wasn’t even the soothing gentle rumble of her snoring.

  Not that Shea went to Tjúni every night. Often five or six would pass before he moved quietly past Talitha. He never stayed long, either. Once he came back while Talitha was crying, unaware of his presence till he dropped to one knee.

  “Why, Tally! What’s the matter, child?”

  “I—I’m not a child!”

  From his voice, she knew he suppressed a grin and in the misery of that moment, she hated him for it. “Very well, Señorita Scott. What ails you?”

  “Nothing!”

  He was very close in the darkness. “Tally, you don’t cry for nothing. Now tell me what it is. Maybe I can fix it.”

  Her breath felt shallow and tight as if invisible weights crushed on her. “Will—will you send Tjúni away?”

  He was still for a heartbeat. “Why?”

  In the main Tjúni ignored them regally. She had taken over the cooking and general management of the household, leaving Talitha to see to the twins and Caterina. “I—I just liked it better before she came.”

  Shea laughed, sounding relieved. “Nose a little out of joint, Tally? Young as you are, I guess you really were running the house.
But you’re able to get outside now, ride Ladorada and help with the outdoor work. I thought you liked that.”

  “I do, but not … Oh, Shea, tell her to leave and I promise I’ll do everything she has!” The words wrenched from her violently with no conscious decision on her part.

  Silence deepened between them. Shea’s voice was strained and husky. “Everything, Tally?”

  Unable to speak, she moved toward him in the blackness, awkwardly tried to find his mouth with her own. Roughly, he caught her wrist, forcing her away.

  “No, Tally! My God, you’re the same as my daughter!”

  “But I’m not your daughter, Shea! I—I love you. I always have, I always will!”

  As if her cry had steadied him, given him a foundation from which he wouldn’t move, he took her in his arms then, tenderly as a father would, and stroked her hair. “I’m glad you love me, darlin’. God forbid you should ever be sorry and strike me dead if you are. I love you, too. But you have your loves mixed up, little Tally. Because I am about the most father you’ve known, I won’t take what should go to a very lucky man someday, the man you’ll love for your mate.”

  She shook her head. “I love you.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  Flaring at the weary patience in his tone, she demanded bitterly, “Do you love Tjúni?”

  “No. And she knows that. But we were companions in the desert. She’s wanted this a long time.” He sighed. “Tally, we shouldn’t be talking like this but since we are, try to understand. I don’t know what you know about men, but I’m only thirty-five though that must seem a vast age to you. I need a woman sometimes. I’ve no wish to visit the overworked whores of Tubac, nor will I tamper with the wives of my vaqueros. Tjúni eases me and I pleasure her. We’re hurting no one.”

  You hurt me.

  Humiliated and desolate, Talitha tried to free herself, but Shea, kissing her cheek and rising, seemed not to notice.

  Often that spring Marc carried the baby in the cradleboard that had been James’s and went with Talitha to gather cattail roots, cholla buds and the stems of yucca palmillo. He helped shake the cholla buds in a basket of gravel till the spines rubbed off, and helped plant the first corn crop.