A Lady Bought with Rifles

by Jeanne Williams

  “Let’s hope the commandant lets the men go,” I said, but I felt sick and couldn’t eat.

  If I had kept still, we would be on our way to the Mina Rara in a few days. And Reina had as good a chance as I to live, I wouldn’t have been abandoning her to certain death. Now it would mean more watching, fearing, wondering.…

  But there was nothing else I could have done.

  Lío permitted Reina to rest for an hour after supper. Then she was tied in the saddle, blindfolded in spite of the darkness, and sent between two men out of the basin. Lío had placed her in the saddle, his hands had lingered, and I wondered what would happen if they ever met again. I didn’t tell her good-bye. If she had hated me before, she would abominate me now and I doubted that she would have consented to the switch if it hadn’t been for the vision of Lío’s head to kick in the dust. The canyon swallowed her up, and I lay down with the children.

  Domingo took Sewa walking around the basin next day. He hadn’t spoken of the clash with the Las Coronas vaqueros. Had he killed yet? I couldn’t ask. Through the day, as I worked on the shelters, I watched, glimpsing the children now resting on a ledge, now strolling along the canyon, Sewa using the sotol staff Cruz had given her.

  “They are fond of each other,” Lío said, startling me since I hadn’t heard him coming. “Domingo will miss the little flower—if she goes to the Mina Rara.”

  I knew he meant if my life, now in pawn for his comrades, were redeemed. But I refused to worry. I would believe I was going free until the messenger came back with fatal news. And so I took advantage of Lío’s pensive mood.

  “Domingo’s very young. Could he stay at the mine with me and Sewa?”

  Lío scowled. For the first time I felt his eyes raking me in a male questing. I couldn’t help blushing but I didn’t retreat, though he took a step forward till his brawny arm almost touched my breast.

  “If you have such a penchant for Yaqui children, lady, you should get some of your own.” He laughed. “They would be half-Yaqui anyway.”

  I didn’t try to put distance between myself and Lío or answer his crude teasing. “Can Domingo come with me?” I persisted.

  Lío shrugged. “You will have to ask Tula. And that will be easy. She’s coming this way.” He chuckled wickedly. “She’s jealous, you know. She cannot believe that gratitude to your father was enough to make me let you go. And of course she’s hoping the Mexicans will not exchange our comrades so that I will have to cut your throat.” He turned to the lithe woman in my riding skirt, who was regarding me, hands on her slender hips, head tilted. “Tula, Señorita Greenleaf wishes to ask you a question.”

  I swore, at him silently. Domingo would have done better at getting her consent. Now she might refuse out of sheer hostility to me.

  “Oh?” Tula laughed in a brittle way. “Who could have guessed you were discussing me? You seemed absorbed in each other.”

  “In truth,” drawled Lío, “we were speaking of Domingo.”

  “Domingo?” Her voice rose and her eyes slitted. “What of Domingo?”

  Oh, damn Lío! There was little chance now, but I had to try. “He and Sewa are very fond of each other,” I said carefully.

  “Yes. If you get to go to the Mina Rara, I will care for her, if you like, and they can stay together.”

  That proposal startled me into blurting, “Could Domingo come with us?”

  “What?” Her face grew terrible.

  A cold sensation inched down my spine as I felt her almost palpable hatred. “He’s so young,” I pleaded. “You must want him to grow up, have something out of life except killing or being hunted.”

  “First and last, he is Yaqui.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “He must share the fate of our people.”

  “Some will live, surely, though some will die.”

  Lío interposed and a look passed between the two of them that made me catch my breath and realize the depth of their bond, a tie of pain shared in exile, comradeship in fighting, that far eclipsed the ordinary experience of love. “Tula means, lady, that Domingo must take his chance with our people, not shelter with outsiders. If he lives, God be praised. If he goes to Glory, he will meet his family there.”

  That was what Yaquis called heaven. Glory. It was like their love of flowers, brave in a harsh country, in such a cruel life.

  “You will not let him choose?” I asked her slowly. “You, his sister, will not give him the chance to have at least a few years before he must fight?”

  “There would be no problem if you had died by the train.” Tula’s lips pulled tight across her teeth. Suddenly she threw back her head and laughed. “We talk nonsense. If the Mexicans do not release our comrades, you will die. If I were you, I would not make too many plans for the future.” She slipped her arm through Lío’s, moved him away with her.

  I watched the youngsters where they rested under a rock outcropping near the canyon mouth, ached with angry frustration and a sense of failure. What would become of them? If they were still alive in ten years, would they be like Lío and Tula? I tried to tell myself that at least they had the day, this time of being together, but somehow that only made it worse.

  The messenger did not return that day, but late next afternoon, a silent message arrived when one of the lookouts led in the messenger’s horse carrying what was left of him and, it proved, of several other men; after the first horrified shock, everyone realized that no man had eight hands or four heads or shriveled parts that looked like flesh-colored chilis strung on a thong.

  “Here is your answer,” Tula said to Lío, gaze crossing him to light on me. Her triumph was more horrible because it was plain she’d rather see her comrades dead than let me go.

  Lío’s face seemed carved from the mountain. “Yes,” he said in Yaqui. “We have our answer.”

  “Then you must—” Tula began.

  He gave her a look that stopped her words. “I know what I must do. But leave the time to me, woman. Now we will bury our friends.”

  The heads, hands, and privates of the four men were collected and buried under a cairn of copper-streaked rocks at the western side of the basin where the morning sun would touch it daily. While the burial was taking place, I wandered numbly along the palisades.

  Lío had to kill me. If he didn’t, the others would. Would I die tonight? How? I hoped Sewa wouldn’t have to watch. That made me wonder where she was. I hadn’t seen her since morning when she and Domingo had gone walking.

  They didn’t know yet …

  And now she would live with the fugitives for the hunted, harried weeks or months or years till soldiers cut them down. At least Domingo would have a care for her and the people, in their fashion, would be kind.

  A small hand closed on mine. “Kawah!” greeted the raven, balancing on Sewa’s shoulder.

  “Domingo and I saw,” the girl whispered though there was no one in earshot. Everyone was gathered at the western side of the valley. “We saw the lookout find the horse out on the plain.”

  “Do you think Mexicans trailed the horse in case it could lead them into the basin?”

  “A couple of soldiers watched from a thicket while the horse grazed about all the morning. He was not going anyplace. Domingo showed our lookout where the soldiers were and he waited till they got disgusted and rode away, before he went down for the beast.” The child shuddered. “He led it past us and we saw what was tied about the saddle.”

  “So you know Lío has to kill me.”

  Her grip on me tightened. “I will not let him!”

  I bent and cradled the small fierce body. “Hush, chiquita! You’ll have to live here after I’m gone. Don’t make it harder for yourself. I made the bargain. It’s not Lío’s fault.”

  “Has he said when?” Her voice faltered and I found myself comforting her by trying to speak lightly.

  “No. He doesn’t want to. But whether that will make him delay or hurry to get it over with, who knows?”


  She pondered, absently ruffling Ku’s feathers. “Domingo is going to tell Cruz,” she said at last. “Perhaps he can think of something. These Yaquis have heard of him, they know he is a sabio if not a witch. If Lío waits until tomorrow—”

  What could Cruz do? But even a glimmer of reprieve sent my heart racing so that I laughed ruefully, understanding that the body cannot resign itself to death though the mind may. And, of course, I wondered if Trace would hear, if he would care. I wouldn’t allow myself to build hope about him. He wouldn’t have left me at Las Coronas without a word had he intended to help me. But Cruz …

  So when Lío came to me while a subdued band ate supper that night, I had a different game to play than my earlier hopeless one that could aim only at dying with some style, show these Yaqui that someone else could be brave, at least for the few minutes it took to get through dying.

  “Well,” Lío said to me, dropping on his heels and tickling Ku’s head. “Would you prefer another night, lady? Another sunrise? I cannot give you much, but I can permit that.”

  “You guarantee the sun will shine?” I asked in mock wonder.

  He gave me a stare of surprise and then clapped his knee in a roar of appreciative laughter. “By God, even in Jonathan Greenleaf’s daughter I had not expected such humor! You should have been a man.”

  I shrugged.

  “Men are afraid that a woman with a sense of humor is laughing at them.”

  Lío chuckled. “If you can laugh at anyone now, lady, I am glad.” He sobered. “I do not like what I must do.”

  “I know.”

  He hesitated, biting the edges of his moustache. “You understand, though, that I must.”

  My nerves, rubbed raw already, frayed and exploded. “Damn you, what do you want? We made a bargain. I’m not begging. But if you expect me to tell you that you’re a fine fellow and I don’t at all mind your killing me, why, damn you to hell. I want to live.”

  As he stared, jaw dropped, I gulped and set my teeth, getting control. “I’ll take the night,” I said. “And that sunrise you promise so confidently—every moment I can have.”

  He rose, head slightly lowered, and in spite of myself I did feel for him.

  “Thank you, Lío,” I said and held out my hand.

  He gripped it in his callused ones, pressing the bones till they hurt. “Sleep well, lady. I promise that Sewa shall be like my daughter.”

  She dragged herself up, lame foot dangling, and her eyes smoldered like a trapped wild creature’s. “I’ll hate you, always hate you—”

  His face closed. “Tula was right,” he said. “Yaquis must stay with Yaquis or they lose Yaqui hearts. Good night then.” He took a few steps away, halted, gazed around. “Where is Domingo?” he asked, turning back to Sewa.

  Without blinking, she said, “He wanted to go to a cave that was too far for me to walk. He thought it might be a good hideout one day and wanted to see if there was another way out.”

  Lío frowned. “Where was this cave?”

  “On the southern slope somewhere. He said he might spend the night there and to tell Tula not to worry.”

  “And did you?”

  “I thought I would wait till dark.”

  “It is dark,” Lío growled. “I will tell her, there’s no use in your hobbling over.”

  As he strode away, Sewa let her breath go in a long sigh, only then betraying that she’d been nervous. “If Domingo can find Cruz, they should be back by morning,” she said. “Domingo knows the box canyon. This band has stopped there for water.”

  “It was brave of him to go,” I said. “Sewa, if he doesn’t get back in time, tell him I leave my love and thanks.”

  “He’ll get back.” She threw her arms around me as if to defy the world. Strangely, vulnerable as I was, in as much danger, her embrace made me feel safer in some inner core of self, more loved and protected than I had ever been.

  And so we settled Ku above us and went to sleep in each other’s arms, and if it was to be the last night of my life, at least I had loved and been loved by this child. I wouldn’t drop into the dark bottomless pool of death without leaving someone in the world.

  I woke in faint gray light, my arm heavy from Sewa’s weight, and shifted position gently, remembering in instant consciousness what was to happen that morning.

  Domingo wasn’t back. The camp was still except for the faint mewling of a baby who hushed even as I listened. Yaquis fed their children when they could, held and played with them; they didn’t build character or develop lungs by leaving infants to wail alone.

  For just a moment I thought of trying to slip away, almost as if it were a possibility confronting another person. I’d been around the Yaquis too long. I would keep the pledge I had made unless they remitted it—and that was not likely to happen, not after the hands and heads and severed sex organs.

  So I lay watching the sky lighten above the palisades, the gold-red streaks color the waiting gray. A sunrise is so glorious that if one only occurred at a certain spot in the world once in a hundred years, throngs would travel oceans and pay vast sums to behold it.

  One thing that death sentence gave me was a lasting appreciation of sunrise. I watched it happen and change and flower with the hunger of a person who must die before tasting sexual love and parenthood and the physical consummation we are born for, my unlived life. I thought of Trace. Of all the things I regretted, I was most sorry that somehow I hadn’t gotten him to really make love to me. The virginity he had been so careful to save for my husband would now go to death. Another child waked, a dog barked, I heard muffled voices.

  Raising myself with care so as not to wake Sewa, I saw Lío’s squat figure, recognized the thin white-clad man as Cruz. Domingo stood to one side.

  Lío let out a bellow that brought the camp scrambling. “Five dozen rifles. Five dozen. We can arm another band with those.”

  Cruz answered. I couldn’t hear him, but Lío’s tones carried far beyond the people who were gathering to listen. “Is the girl worth five dozen rifles? Of course she is not, I’d trade her for a dozen if that was all there was to it. I made a swearing, Cruz. I must kill her this very morning.”

  Cruz glanced about the crowd, seemed to be speaking to this person and that, then asked something that brought shifting, questions, a murmur of discussion.

  “No,” cried Tula, fists on her hips. “Keep your word, Lío. Remember our dead comrades, our slaughtered messenger.”

  “But five dozen rifles,” one of the men shouted. “We can take many Mexican lives with those—avenge our comrades far better than by killing one woman.”

  A shout of approval. My heart swelled, began to pound with fearful hope, though all I could grasp was that Cruz was bartering rifles for my life.

  “The woman must die,” Tula cried. “It was a vow, Lío.”

  The group subsided and watched him. He stood, head bowed a moment, then thrust it back with bull-like strength. “It was a vow. But if you prefer guns and release me, I will not have broken my word and we will have five dozen of the best rifles of the U.S. Cavalry.” He gazed around. “Those who prefer sixty rifles to a girl’s life, keep standing. Those who want the life, sit down.”

  Even the slain messenger’s woman and kinsmen stood, but Tula seated herself. When she read the silent choice, she leaped up and shouted, “Is this Yaqui honor, to hide men’s blood under a heap of rifles and the smiling mouth of a gringa?”

  Lío spat at her feet. “We need guns, not more honor,” he said dryly. “The bargain is made, Tula.”

  “I do not release you,” she screamed.

  He only shrugged. She caught back her furious hands, held them to her sides. Each word glittered like obsidian, cut sharp and wicked. “I have made no bargain. As far as I am concerned, the woman’s life is forfeit.”

  Lío stared at her. The anger, the sense of betrayal that ran between them were visible in his massive figure, in her slender one. “Fight the enemy,” he told her roughly. “Do not
fight me.” He turned to Cruz. “The rifles?”

  “A friend is bringing them from Arizona.”

  Trace?

  Lío frowned. “When will they be here?”

  “Within the month.” Cruz shrugged. “As you know, such matters take time.”

  “When we have the rifles, Señorita Greenleaf may go,” said Lío after a moment.

  “I want her loosed now,” Cruz said.

  “There are no rifles,” shrilled Tula. “It’s a trick.”

  “I have helped you before,” Cruz said, smiling. “Was that a trick?”

  Lío cut in. “Why should it matter if we hold the girl a few weeks longer?”

  “Life is uncertain. And I think it may be uncertain for all of you until the señorita leaves this basin.”

  “Fraud!” shouted Tula. “She will leave and we will have nothing.”

  “We know where to find Cruz,” Lío pointed out.

  I slipped out of the hollow and hurried to the group. “Cruz! Cruz! I must talk to you.”

  Lío nodded consent and Cruz strolled with me out of earshot. “You look well, Miranda. How is the little flower?”

  “You can see her.” I caught his arm, searching those ash-gray eyes. “Cruz, you must not trade yourself for me. Are the rifles coming?”

  “Yes.”

  “Truly?”

  “As I see you.” He patted my hand. “You must ride out of the canyon. Someone will meet you there, take you to Mina Rara. That seems the best place at the moment.” He glanced at Sewa. “She goes with you?”

  I nodded, too joyously relieved to speak. “I will greet her while you get ready,” Cruz said, starting for our grotto. Domingo moved with him.

  Tula was after him like a lynx, swinging him about, striking him across the face with all her strength. The boy staggered. Blood welled up on his mouth, trickled down his chin.

  “Go with them,” Tula shouted. “You are no brother of mine, no Yaqui.”

  She would have struck the unresisting wide-eyed boy again, but Lío seized her wrist, wrung it till she was forced almost to her knees. “Domingo is my brother if not yours, Tula. He may stay with us, in full honor, or go with the señorita.”