by Carla Kelly
Antonio stopped, suddenly fearful, and looked around. He said nothing, which Marco considered one of the great blessings of the day, and one achieved so early. He knew such compliance could not last, but he was going to savor it as long as possible. Marco put his hand on the doctor’s shoulder and gave him a shake.
“I want you to look around you and see the suffering. Ask yourself if there is anything you can do.”
Antonio surprised him. “I have already looked around. I confess that I do not even know where to begin.” His eyes filled with tears. “How have they managed to come this far?”
“They are Comanches. That’s all the explanation I have,” Marco said, hearing something in Antonio Gil’s tone of voice that gave him some hope. “Begin with the children. If they have sores, find something in your medical bag, some salve. It may do no good at all,” Marco said, drawing close so Toshua could not hear him. “Let them know you care.”
“Nothing is that simple,” Antonio argued.
“Try it. That little fellow over there.”
Marco turned away to follow Toshua. He looked back and smiled to see Antonio pick up a little boy who wandered aimlessly, wearing only a deerskin shirt to his knees and moccasins that had maybe seen better days a century ago. Well, well, he thought, as the doctor removed the trade blanket around his shoulders and wrapped up the child, before setting him on his feet again.
After checking the horses—it relieved Marco’s heart to see a small stream flowing by the village—he took a sack of pemmican that had been plopped with their other possessions under a tree, surprised that no one had stolen it.
“Pick up the other one,” he called to Antonio, who looked around, a frown on his face. “These people are hungry. Tomorrow I will go hunting with Toshua.”
The doctor did as asked with no objection—another blessing—and trailed after them as they returned to the tipi.
Eckapeta had left the tipi, but Paloma was there, dressed now and her hair brushed and pulled back with a simple rawhide tie. She made a face to see the pemmican, but did not hesitate to take one of the misshapen balls of meat and grease when Marco handed it to her.
“No one is eating much here,” she said to him as she stared at the pemmican, as though wishing it would transform itself into posole or tortillas. “The People are hungry because it is winter and many warriors are dead from la viruela. And the old ones ….”
“I know. When Eckapeta returns, will you help her distribute both sacks to the other tipis?”
“It won’t be enough, but yes.”
“I’ll go hunting tomorrow.” He looked at Toshua, who nodded. “We’ll go hunting.”
In that way of women, Paloma seemed to have claimed one half of the tipi. The buffalo robes were stacked in a neat pile. She had even hung her Rosary on a little notch in a tipi pole. She gestured to them to sit down, much as if they were guests in her kitchen on the Double Cross, or even in the more exalted sala. It touched his heart when she sat next to Toshua and leaned her head for the briefest moment against his arm.
“I know there is much to do, brother, but please tell us: how is it that you and Eckapeta ….” She let the sentence trail away, because she was not a prying woman.
Toshua eyed the tipi entrance, obviously wanting to finish his explanation before Eckapeta returned. “You already know how my women threw me over for a younger man. It happens sometimes, but I did not think it would happen to me.”
Paloma nodded. Her hand was on his arm now.
He looked at Marco, apology in his eyes. “Forgive me, señor, but that second wife of mine—the Spanish one I stole from the rancher—what a horrible woman! She bullied my youngest wife, the pretty one with not a brain in her head. True, I had loaned them to the man because he was my friend.”
Paloma stared open-mouthed at Toshua.
“It’s a Comanche custom,” Marco whispered.
“Maybe he was better.” Toshua shrugged. “I cannot say my wives’ foul names because they died there in the cold before our campfire on the plains. Eckapeta told me last night after we fought the Apaches that the other wives forced her to follow along with their scheme to dishonor me and throw me out.”
Antonio folded his arms across his chest, skepticism writ large. “You believe that?”
“I do,” Toshua said, after giving the doctor such a withering look that the little man seemed to grow even smaller. “When she comes back, look at her hand. Those evil women cut off two of her fingers and said they were ready to do worse if she objected. They told their tale and threw me out. You know the rest.”
“You have forgiven this woman, who did you such wrong?” Antonio asked.
“She is my old woman and I feel better when she is near me,” the Comanche said simply. He looked at Paloma. “My little sister, you have shown forgiveness to your cousin that I would still like to murder.” His glance shifted to Antonio. “I did not know forgiveness until my little sister showed me.” He patted the doctor as though he were a child. “You’ll learn.”
They were all silent then and Marco looked around. We must act, he thought. “How do we begin?” he asked finally.
Paloma stood up and gave him her kindest look, the one that always preceded some assignment for him. Felicia used to do the same thing. He waited, thankful for someone else to take charge, even if that didn’t make him impressive in his own eyes.
“Dearest heart, you and Toshua need to go hunting today, not tomorrow. Eckapeta and I will hand out this pemmican. When you return with a deer or two, we will eat and talk about this.”
“What am I to do?” Antonio asked.
“You will save these people,” Paloma said simply.
Apparently Antonio was going to be a slow student. “This is just a small encampment. I am looking for the large gathering, somewhere in this canyon. They will have Pia Maria. We could ride out today.”
Do you learn nothing? Marco asked himself. A sidelong glance at Toshua’s narrowed eyes suggested that his friend, pabi, and totally necessary ally was having second thoughts about this entire expedition. Marco didn’t dare look at Paloma for her reaction.
When she spoke, it was as though she spoke to a child, and not a bright one. “The People here have survived an ordeal of la viruela. Time is wasting and I want to get home to the Double Cross and plant chives in my kitchen garden. If you will not inoculate those who need it, I will.” She looked at Toshua for reassurance, which relieved Marco; he was still stunned by Antonio Gil’s callousness.
“If I said the word, little man, in five minutes there would be not enough left of you to gather into a small pile,” Toshua said as he stood up. He held out his hand for Paloma. She took it without hesitation.
“Don’t waste our time,” Paloma told Antonio. It was simply said but with more power than Marco had ever heard from his wife.
They all stared at Antonio. Even behind his timid demeanor there was a look of desperation that gave Marco an unsettling glimpse of what a father would do for his child. I can understand that, he thought.
Paloma must have seen it, too. “If we do not help here, there will be no opportunity to find Pia Maria. If ever anyone needed friends and allies, we do.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
In which Paloma marshals their skimpy forces, and learns more lessons
Before they left for the hunt, Marco surprised Paloma by planting a kiss full on her lips in front of everyone. When she felt her face grow warm, he did it again, then whispered, “Maybe I’ll get into the spirit of the Comanche.”
“You are a rascal,” she teased, which earned her a pat on her rump. Dios mio, my man had gone crazy, crossed her mind.
Eckapeta seemed to appreciate the sentiment, if her smile was any indication. Her face clouded over a moment later. “I have not smiled in a long, long time,” she said.
Paloma put her hand on the woman’s arm. “Then I will make sure he does that again when he returns, if it makes you smile.”
She took a q
uick glance at Eckapeta’s hand, minus two fingers, as Toshua had said. She couldn’t help her exclamation, which caused Eckapeta’s pock-marked face to harden.
“Look at this hand, too,” she said quietly, holding up her other hand, where the tips of three fingers were missing. She touched her face, drawing her hand through the smallpox scars to trace longer scars made with a knife by a woman in mourning. “Toshua and I had three children. All gone now.”
Paloma felt her heart go out to the woman. “Perhaps I should not complain of my own trial,” she said.
“We all know sorrow,” Eckapeta replied. She held up her hand. “One fingertip for each child.”
While Eckapeta watched, Paloma took a dozen pemmican balls from one sack and the same amount of hardtack from another. “We don’t know if our men will find deer, but we won’t go hungry in this tipi,” she explained, setting them aside, happy to change the subject. Paloma handed one of the sacks to Eckapeta. The other pemmican sack went to Antonio, and she carried the hardtack. With her boots on and her cloak tight around her, she left the tipi.
Yesterday’s storm had blown away and was probably over east Texas now. The day was crisp and clear, with nothing to stop the view that greeted her. Her mouth open in amazement, Paloma looked up and up to the canyon rim, even as she wondered how they had ever survived their descent in last night’s storm and darkness. In the distance, she saw Marco and Toshua on horseback, following the stream. Hawks wheeled and dipped far above. She had never seen anything like this canyon.
“What is this place?” she asked in awe.
“It is our winter refuge,” Eckapeta told her. She indicated the other tipis with a wave of her hand. “Usually we are much deeper into the canyon by this time, but the Dark Wind blew.”
It was as Marco had feared. The band must have been traveling toward winter refuge when la viruela struck, forcing them to remain on the Llano Estacado. The dead they had encountered must have been cut loose, for the safety of the others. And so they had wandered.
Eckapeta gestured to what Paloma assumed was north. The canyon gave her no reference. She was as lost here as on the endless plains. “We are safe here, or we might be,” Eckapeta said. “Who can tell? You can ride for days, until the rim is so high that the gods must perch there and look down on us.” The woman sighed. “The gods have not been of much use lately.”
Paloma nodded, taking in the shabbiness of the tipis. She knew that winter even made the Double Cross look a little rundown, what with no flowers in the hanging baskets, and the gurgle of the acequia hushed by a film of ice. But there was more than winter at work here. This was a village near death.
“How many have survived la viruela?”
“Three or four only survived, and they are so weak. Others seem not to have suffered, and we worry about them. Perhaps the Dark Wind will strike them yet.” Eckapeta pointed to the scars on her face. “Those of us visited in other years by the Dark Wind are alive.” Her voice hardened. “Others from farther in the canyon have forbidden us to come closer until we are sure the wind has blown over us. Meanwhile, we starve.”
“I can understand that,” Paloma said calmly, she who comprehended hard choices as well as the next woman. “We’ll just have to change things.”
For the rest of the day, they went from tipi to tipi with their modest amount of pemmican and hardtack. At first, her heart was in her mouth from the sheer terror of what she was doing, with Marco, her bulwark, nowhere in sight. By the end of the day, her heart was in her hand and she gladly offered it to The People.
She was no physician, but even to her untrained eye, the ones unaffected by la viruela—those who had developed immunities earlier—were also ill. She asked Antonio, and he shook his head. “Mostly they’re hungry,” he whispered to her. He looked her in the eye, maybe because to gaze too long on such suffering drained him. “I know how hunger feels. You do, too.”
Paloma nodded, and turned her attention back to The People, admitting to herself that she could not argue with Antonio’s shake of the head as he had wondered where to begin. How can we make a difference? she asked herself. How can we keep The People alive?
“I can help the little man.”
Paloma turned around to see the young woman who had probably saved her life on the trail last night. “Ayasha?”
Ayasha nodded, obviously pleased that the Spanish lady remembered her name. “He seems afraid, but if you and the tall man tolerate him, perhaps he will be of use in some way.”
“I believe he will be, and soon,” Paloma said, happy to have Antonio Gil off her hands. After a moment’s thought, she leaned closer to Ayasha, making them conspirators. “Actually, he is a man with powerful medicine, so powerful that he will save your people here.”
Ayasha didn’t try to mask her skepticism. “I do not see how that can be.”
Stand up a little straighter, Señor Gil, Paloma wanted to tell him, because he did not look much like a savior. “Small and mighty. You will see,” she told Ayasha. “Take him to those tipis and help him divide the food we bring.”
Ayasha walked to Antonio, touching his arm lightly. When he jumped back in alarm, she turned her face to hide her amusement and rolled her marvelous brown eyes at Paloma.
“Very powerful man,” Paloma said firmly, ready to thump Antonio.
She heard Eckapeta’s chuckle. “Well, he is,” she insisted. “When our men come back from the hunt, you will see.”
They spent the day going from tipi to tipi, handing out what food they could. Paloma repented of complaining to Sancha that they would never need one more ball of pemmican, when the housekeeper had suggested they keep making more, back on the Double Cross. She had finally convinced Sancha, but as Paloma felt her heart grow heavier and heavier to see the dire need all around her, she wished she had listened.
Paloma finally lost all fear in the tipi where an older warrior with hollow eyes lay, frustration written all over his gaunt features. One of his hands clutched an arrow as the other patted for a bow just out of reach.
“Poor man. He knows he should be out hunting, and he is too weak,” Eckapeta whispered to her. “His son and daughter are dead of la viruela.” She touched his face, tracing earlier smallpox scars like her own. “He is starving and he has few teeth left.”
As Paloma watched, barely breathing, Eckapeta bit off a hunk of pemmican and chewed. When it was soft, she took it from her mouth. With her finger against his lips, she coaxed the man to open his mouth and put in the food. It took him a few seconds to realize what was happening, and then he began to chew. Paloma knelt beside Toshua’s woman, her heart full of an emotion she couldn’t even identify.
“Some of The People might say I am wasting my time, that he will die soon,” Eckapeta said. “Maybe I am, but I have not the heart within me to drive anyone else onto the Llano.” Tears filled her eyes. “I should never have done that to Toshua two years ago, even if his other wives had threatened to cut off all my fingers!” She sobbed out loud, then clapped her hands to her mouth, shamed. “He’s a good man, my Toshua,” Eckapeta said finally. “Maybe I forgot.”
“Toshua told me I am his little sister,” Paloma said.
“He told me how you have saved his life over and over,” Eckapeta told her. She shook her head mournfully. “I couldn’t even do that once. No wonder he is your older brother now.”
Without a word, Paloma took the pemmican from her and began chewing for the man lying there with something close to hope in his eyes now. When she finished with the pemmican, Paloma chewed hard bread and continued the meal, deeply aware she was probably performing a task more humble than even Father Damiano had ever attempted, and doing it for her enemies since childhood.
While she fed him, Eckapeta took water and deerskin scraps and cleaned the old fellow, despite his protests.
Paloma finished the puny feast with a swallow of water from her hand, the other hand behind the man’s head to raise him a little. He smacked his lips in that way Toshua di
d when he ate with them in the kitchen of the Double Cross, and she knew he was satisfied. As the man she had fed looked at her and nodded, she wished that she had never scolded Toshua to stop smacking his lips.
“Sleep now,” she whispered, her hand on his skinny chest. “My man will bring meat tonight.”
She knew she would never be the same again, not ever, when she arrived at the next tipi and watched a young woman with exhaustion deep in her eyes and hunger practically sitting on her shoulder like a vulture nurse two infants. To say that she looked overwhelmed was to understate the matter.
“What is this?” Paloma asked, horrified.
“Her sister died of la viruela,” Eckapeta said, “and she is trying to keep both of their babies alive. I think her husband followed my husband and your man on the hunt this morning. If they are successful, she gets the first meal, else how can she keep them alive?”
Paloma nodded. She knelt close to the woman, all fear gone. When one baby appeared satisfied, she picked up the child and gathered it to her heart, wrapping her cloak around the little morsel. “Would to God this were mine,” she murmured into its hair. “Would to God.”
Eckapeta looked at her, eyes alert. “I … I thought perhaps you had left your children with a nursemaid at that fortress with the stone walls that Toshua told me of last night.”
“I have no children. I am barren,” Paloma said. Only blunt speech would do in this place of nothing but terrible truth. “It is the sorrow of my life, perhaps even greater than the death of my family.”
“We have all suffered,” Eckapeta said quietly. They sat together, shoulder to shoulder, until the woman with the one baby now held out her hand for the pemmican. Paloma had to look away. The desperation in the young mother’s face was as great as the desperation in Toshua’s eyes, when she found him starving in Señor Muñoz’s henhouse and rolled a rotten egg his way. She held the baby close, not caring when it wet on her and soaked through her cloak.