by Carla Kelly
Marco couldn’t help himself as he added his own meanness to Antonio’s induction into life in Comanchería. “This is what you asked for, when you made your bargain with me,” he snapped. “Would to God it was your scalp and we could go home.” He winced as Toshua’s woman—who was she?—took another scalp. “But I don’t like it either,” he muttered under his breath to the man still leaning from his horse, retching up his toenails now.
When the other Comanches finished their business of death meted out most painfully, two of them retrieved Marco’s pack horses. The woman guided her horse around the carnage, paying no attention to the lightning, thunder, and snow. She nodded, evidently satisfied that they could do no more damage. Leaping off the back of the woman’s horse, Toshua mounted an Apache stallion. The animal rolled its eyes in terror. After a few sharp jerks, it kept still, though it was hardly docile.
“Follow me,” Toshua said, pointing south with his lips. “Let’s find my little sister.”
In single file, riding parallel to the rim of the canyon whose vastness was revealed by lightning, they rode to the place where the Apaches had waited, before so foolishly charging them. Marco leaned out over his saddle, relieved to see the trail below. It wasn’t wide enough for two horses abreast, but he knew something of narrow trails.
Apparently Antonio Gil did not. Marco heard him whimper, but he followed, probably because the Comanches behind him were in no mood for cowardice. The storm lifted even as darkness came. They descended slowly, until Marco was able to make out a dark mound on the trail. He squinted closer, the bottom dropping from his stomach as he saw all the blood in the fading light. Oh please no, he thought, as Toshua dismounted, knelt by what proved to be a buffalo robe, and pulled it back.
Marco looked closer and sighed with relief to see his wife and another woman, their arms tight around each other, alive.
“Paloma,” he said, and she looked up, her concentration so fierce that he wondered if she recognized him. Toshua helped her along the trail and lifted her into Marco’s saddle, as Toshua’s woman swung up the other one.
She still wore her heavy cloak, but it smelled of blood and death. She gripped a knife tight in her hand. Gently he tried to loosen her fingers, but she shook her head. Very well, then; he knew something of terror. The knife could wait.
“Paloma, my love,” was all he said, even though he wanted to say so much more.
Marco reckoned an hour passed before they reached the canyon floor. By now the storm was a distant rumble, even though snow still fell. Darkness encircled them, until he noticed little points of filtered light here and there. He looked closer. They were in the middle of a Comanche village, and the mellow light shown through buffalo hide tipis. It was a small encampment, pitifully so.
He listened; no dogs. He sniffed; larger fires had burned here earlier. Ahead of him, Toshua dismounted and simply stood there, looking around him. The woman dismounted and stood beside him. As Marco watched, amazed, the Comanche put his arm around her.
“That’s his wife,” Paloma whispered, the first thing she had said since Toshua put her into his saddle. “He told me her name but I can’t remember it.”
Marco tried again to take the bloody knife from her and this time she surrendered it. “I stabbed a man and pushed him off the ledge,” she whispered again. “I have also learned to be very quiet.”
He dropped the knife in the snow and put his arms around her, holding her tight until she stirred and looked around. “The other one with you?” he asked.
“Ayasha. She has no one.”
Paloma leaned back against him, a sudden heavy weight. “I am so tired,” she whispered.
She offered no objection when Toshua held out his arms for her. He carried her to the woman as Marco dismounted. After a low-voiced discussion, the two Comanches walked into the circle of tipis. Paloma looked around for him and held out her hand. Marco followed, stiff and sore, feeling every pain of the encounter with the Apaches.
“What about me?” Antonio Gil asked.
Marco ignored him, then remembered he was still a Christian, a juez, and a kind man, generally. “Come along, little man,” he said. “Paloma would say we are having an adventure.”
“I hate adventures!” he snapped.
Marco wondered again why God in His infinite wisdom had saddled them with an idiot. Where was this written in his charge as juez de campo from the governor and the viceroy in Mexico? I swear that if I survive this, I will give up that job, he told himself, not for the first time.
Paloma was on her feet now, reaching for him. Marco grabbed her and held her to him, doing nothing more than breathing. In a moment the woman touched his arm and gestured inside. He ducked into the tipi with Paloma and sighed with the pleasure of sudden warmth.
He thought Paloma would relax, but she stiffened, as if remembering something, and moved to the tipi flap. She stepped outside.
“Paloma?” he asked, following her.
She ignored him and walked to the horse where the younger woman was just dismounting. “Where will you go?” she asked.
“I have a place with the Old One,” she said. With a little wave, she disappeared into the gloom.
“Paloma? It’s cold out here,” Marco said gently.
“Ayasha taught me to be silent in danger.” Paloma put her hand in his, her expression troubled. “I knew that once before, and it saved my life. I suppose I had forgotten.” Silent now, she let him lead her back to the tipi.
Once inside again, the woman—Toshua’s woman, Marco supposed, but there was an explanation owing—unclasped Paloma’s cloak with sure fingers and tossed it to one side. While Marco just gaped stupidly, worn out with terror himself, the woman worked fast, unbuttoning Paloma’s wool sacque. She had started on Paloma’s basque when she backed away. “Let Marco help me,” she whispered, her eyes on Toshua. “Please, lady, do you speak Spanish?”
“Claro,” the woman said. She turned to look at Toshua and said something sharp in Comanche.
Toshua nodded. He glanced at Marco with faint embarrassment. “Sometimes I forget how shy you people are,” he said as he left the tipi.
The woman stepped back, and Marco finished undressing Paloma, who was visibly shaking now, perhaps from both cold and fear. The woman pointed to the pile of buffalo robes and pulled them back, motioning to him. He guided his trembling wife to the pile and helped her down, covering her.
“You, señor,” she said next. When, in his own stupor, he didn’t move fast enough to suit her, she yanked at his belt and started to tug on his breeches.
“I can do that,” he said hastily.
She gave him a look faintly reminiscent of one from his sister Luisa, as if she wondered how someone could be as old as he was and yet so silly. “Do your own business then.”
He knew she wasn’t going anywhere, so Marco resigned himself to stripping in front of her. He smiled a little when she gave him a push on his bare bottom toward the robes. He lay down beside Paloma and gathered her close. They warmed each other until Marco felt his shoulders, so tense, begin to relax. He was aware of the woman gathering up their clothing and putting it somewhere. He felt a puff of cold air as the tipi flap opened and then closed. He heard low voices, then the sound of more clothing dropping, then silence.
Marco lay there a long moment, naked and defenseless and deeply unused to such feelings. The soothing sound of his wife’s deep breathing calmed his heart, and he slept, too.
Chapter Twenty-Two
In which Toshua explains his wife
Alert to strange sounds, Marco woke once during the night, careful not to jostle Paloma, who had burrowed even closer. In the dim light from the fire, he watched her eyelids flutter. He had seen her do that early in their marriage, when he knew she suffered from nightmares. He had not noticed it in recent months, so the sight saddened him.
But she hadn’t wakened him. He turned over slowly, facing toward the center of the tipi, curious.
They were doin
g their best to be silent, but Marco knew enough about Comanches to turn his back again, shy himself, even if they weren’t. Paloma said the woman was Toshua’s wife. Marco smiled to himself; all evidence did seem to point that way. As Toshua panted softly, and the woman sighed, Marco felt himself relax even more. Yes, he was shy. He hardly ever even kissed Paloma outside of their bedchamber, but there was something so oddly peaceful about what was happening in that tipi, deep at the bottom of a canyon in winter.
For the first time in his life, he was seeing Comanches as people. True, he had become used to Toshua far sooner than Paloma had, but there was always that wary separation he did not know how to overcome, because it was engrained in him since birth. One must fear the Comanche always and never let down any guards. To do so meant death, and not any ordinary death, but death so painful that he could not bear to think about it. The people in whose tipi he and his wife slept were masters of torture and intimidation. And here he lay with Paloma, calm, faintly embarrassed to have heard what he heard, but comforted. He suddenly knew, as deep as he knew anything, that Toshua meant him no harm. Paloma had begun the bond when she saved Toshua’s life the first time, even if she wasn’t entirely aware of this yet. It had come full circle in Marco’s own difficult life, and he wanted to praise God.
Te deum laudamus, he thought, knowing that to even whisper those holy words would alert Toshua, because the man truly had powers that left Marco in awe. Can you even hear my thoughts? he asked himself. If you can, please know that they are kind thoughts. I am in your debt forever. In complete peace, almost as if he had received sexual release, too, Marco slept again.
When he woke, morning had come and the tipi was light. Someone had piled on more wood, because he was pleasantly warm for the first time since their journey began. He opened his eyes and looked directly into Paloma’s.
“Great God, you are beautiful,” he whispered.
Her gaze was just as serious as his. “And we are still alive, husband.”
He laughed, and she put her hand over his mouth to hush him, but he just rolled onto his back in complete peace and stretched. He glanced toward the other side of the tipi. Toshua’s woman was up and dressed. She turned around to look at him, and he understood why she was alive, and not even now a frozen corpse on the Llano with those who must have been forced from this tribe because they were diseased.
Smallpox had not been kind to Toshua’s woman. Her face bore the scars of a distant encounter with what Toshua called the Dark Wind. To look at her gave him some idea how old Toshua might be, perhaps a little older than him, perhaps not. He—juez de campo of the most dangerous place on earth, bar none—looked into her eyes and saw nothing but kindness there. He could not have been more relieved.
“Thank you for saving us,” he said simply, in his most careful Spanish, unsure of her language skills. “We owe you our lives.”
She merely nodded, and he thought he had embarrassed her. He hoped he saw good humor in those expressive eyes set in a ruined face. Her hair was cut short in typical Comanche woman’s fashion. She wore what appeared to be a much-used deerskin dress, with the high boots of winter. There was little beadwork on the dress, and it was patched in places. Recent years had not been kind to her.
Marco put his hands behind his head, completely vulnerable. “I would like to know your name,” he said.
“Eckapeta,” she replied. She dipped into a copper pot near the rim of the fire, poured what looked like broth into a wooden bowl, and held it out to him. “Sit up now, so you do not spill on my robes.”
He promptly did as she asked, reminded again of his older sister and her admonitions. He nodded, after a sip of something that tasted faintly of meat; he wasn’t about to ask what kind. Eckapeta dipped another serving into a second bowl and held it out. “Tell your woman to sit up.”
Marco shook his head. “Alas, I know she will not, because she is modest and shy and also naked.”
“No matter how hungry she is?” the woman asked, more curious than irritated.
“No matter. Tell me, is that camisa she took off last, right before her bare skin … is that dry now? If you can find that, I might be able to coax her out of the robes.”
Eckapeta set down the bowl and went to the far side of the tipi, where she must already have folded their dry clothing; he admired the neat piles. Taking out the camisa, she handed it to him. “Tell her not to be so shy. We have all seen breasts, and hers are probably no different.”
Paloma was listening, of course, her face fiery. “Marco, I cannot,” she whispered.
“Oh, you can,” he told her quite firmly, almost in his juez de campo voice, but not quite. “This is their world, my dove, and we are guests.”
Paloma watched him, still so serious. “Do you know what I learned last night, as the Apaches began dropping down onto the ledge?”
Marco shuddered inside to hear such words from his wife. “Tell me, please.”
She looked at him, then at the woman, who was regarding them both with interest. “Exactly what you said. It is their world, but I might need reminding.”
“I might, too.”
She took a deep breath and sat up, instinctively crossing her hands over her breasts at first. She took another deep breath and put them by her sides. He thought he sensed a little pride, because she did have nice breasts. She took her camisa from him, raising her arms high to drop it over her head. She wriggled the camisa down over her hips, still covered by the robe—after all, she was Paloma and could not discard all modesty—then held out her hand for the bowl. She drank deep, even as he had, asking no questions.
She endeared herself to him forever by sitting there, practically naked by her own standards, but with her hands clasped in front of her on the buffalo robe, still a Spanish lady.
Eckapeta watched her, then leaned across him and pointed to her shoulders, not quite touching her. “I have never seen such things before,” she said. “What are they?”
Paloma looked where the woman pointed. “Do you mean my pecas?”
Eckapeta repeated the word. “Do you have these little brown things all over you?”
Paloma blushed again. “Mostly just on my shoulders.”
“Mostly,” Marco teased, which made Paloma nudge him. The woman smiled and turned back to the fire.
“You can stop right now,” Paloma whispered to him. “What must she be thinking of us?”
He was spared from any answer that would probably not have satisfied Paloma when the tipi flap opened and Toshua came inside. With a shock, the juez saw someone else now. Toshua had discarded the woolen pants and wool shirt he wore at the Double Cross. From his high winter boots, to his breechcloth, to the deerskin shirt and trade blanket around it all, he was what he had always been, a Comanche warrior.
Paloma swallowed audibly and clutched Marco’s hand under the cover of the buffalo robe. All he could do was run his fingers across her knuckles and twine their hands together.
Toshua squatted by them in that easy way of his. “Our little doctor is complaining again.”
Paloma had pressed herself close to him, and Marco felt her shoulders lose their tense lift at Toshua’s words. “Please ask your, um, friends to humor him a little. Think of the good he can do,” she said, her voice perfectly normal. The page that had turned in Marco’s book of life a few minutes ago must have turned in hers, too.
Toshua nodded and stooped slightly to crouch his way out of the tipi.
“One more thing, my brother. Please tell us what is going on here.” Paloma said.
“It is not a good thing.” He opened the flap. “When I return with the little doctor, I will say more. Come with me, tami.”
“When in Rome ….” Marco threw back the buffalo robes that protected him, too. Naked, he walked with all the dignity he could muster to the folded pile of clothing, wishing that Eckapeta wasn’t watching him so closely. Trying not to hurry, even though his face flamed, he pulled on his smallclothes, and then his breeches, wool
shirt, stockings, and boots. When he finished, he beat a retreat for the tipi flap, but not before he heard Eckapeta say to his wife, “Your man has a lot between his legs.”
He sighed, embarrassed beyond belief and certain he would never enter that tipi again, especially when he heard Paloma’s low laugh. Toshua watched him with a lurking smile.
“My old woman will tell the other women and you will be much in demand.”
Marco stopped and put both hands on Toshua’s shoulders, something he had never done before. The Comanche started in surprise.
“Pabi, let us come to a right understanding here: I will not meet any woman’s demands except Paloma’s, and she will satisfy no man but me. I know what you suggest is the Comanche way, but it is not the Spanish way. On this, I am unyielding.”
After only a brief staring match, Toshua nodded and Marco released him, wondering if he had committed some grave sin against a warrior by touching him that way. So be it. Toshua merely shrugged and gestured toward a tipi.
Marco looked around as they walked, and what he saw distressed him: few tipis, no dogs, a mere handful of warriors, and more children than mothers, apparently. No one looked well-fed. If exhaustion was something that could be put in a jug and sold, this village could supply all of Texas, he was certain. Granted, it was winter, and a lean time for everyone, but there was something more sinister here. He sighed to see what might have been a mound of burned tipis, some with the lodge poles sticking out like bones. He thought of the frozen dead outside their fire circle on the Staked Plain, and he wondered.
As they approached the smaller tipi, the flap flew open and Antonio Gil came out, his face a study in discomfort. Marco found himself wondering about this magic place called Georgia that el médico liked to talk about whenever things were not at their best, either on the plain, on the Double Cross, or apparently here. Even as he pasted a pleasant expression on his face, Marco decided that some people should only stay at home, where evidently things were perfect.
He held up his hand as the doctor stamped toward him. “One moment, little man. I do not care how aggrieved you are. Look around you. We are completely outnumbered and there are surely some here who would like to peel your skin from your body in little tiny strips. Granted, many are in a weakened state, but that is not so much a problem with Comanches.”