Enchanted Heart

by Brianna Lee McKenzie

  Then, when morning came, he saw the first feather appear above the red rocks and he scrambled away from the safety of the wagon, fully prepared to kill as many of the Indians as he could before they invaded the camp. But as he walked toward the lone rider that sat proudly upon a painted pony, he stopped short and lowered his rifle.

  ****

  When dawn sang her sunny song, Marty awoke with a start, suddenly frightened by the seductive clucking of lonesome prairie hens. She looked around and found herself alone in the blankets beneath her wagon. Not even Seraphina snuggled beside her. Fear gripped her heart again and she scrambled to her feet, determined to find her sister and niece, to find Caid.

  She saw everyone, including Caid, standing around a lone campfire, sipping coffee and conversing in jovial jest as if no threat was in their midst.

  Then she saw the Indian among them.

  Her heart fell in dread and her head became light as if she was going to faint but she silently admonished herself for letting fear control her. Raising her shoulders in dignity if not fortitude, she picked up her skirt to confront the intruder. She stopped in her tracks when she saw Caid place a hand upon the red man’s shoulder and laugh. Narrowing her eyes and stepping forward again, Marty watched the circle of families bend over in laughter as well.

  The Indian laughed with them, his feathered head bobbing in his amusement at the words that Caid must have said. His sun-reddened skin glistened like glowing crimson coals in the morning mist. His long, black hair tumbled over his broad, formidable shoulders as he dipped his head to chuckle. He held a strong hand to his middle, pressing a breastplate made of cane, bones and bear claws interwoven with tufts of stiff black hair as he leaned over in a guffaw that rattled the wooden armor, its resounding clatter reaching Marty’s ears before the jovial laugh could.

  She sighed and let her arms drop to her sides while she walked toward the circle of people. She smiled at them when they greeted her and Greta offered her a tin cup filled with coffee. She took the warm cup into her hand and looked warily at the Indian, who appraised her just as cautiously.

  “Marty, this is Black Bear,” Caid told her, calming her once again.

  “How do you do?” Marty asked the strange man in front of her and instantly wondered if he understood their language.

  “I am well,” Black Bear said with a slight bow, his blue-black head dipping low in a polite gesture. The longest feather that was bound by a leather strap with two shorter ones at his crown almost tickled her nose as he leaned forward, his hand extended toward her.

  Marty took the large hand into hers. The tall red man squeezed her hand and held it for moments longer than she had expected. She felt as if the Kiowa brave was gleaning her personality just by his touch, a silent palm-to-palm, skin-to-skin exchange that almost took her breath away. His dark eyes scrutinized her, yet never instilled fear while he searched her soul with his appraising gaze. Then his smile, wide and bright, encompassing every part of his handsome face, assured her that he approved.

  “He’s one of the scouts that I told you about,” Caid explained to Marty, causing her to duck her head and release the Indian’s strong hand. “He said that he and his men had seen our wagons from far away and when they saw me scouting ahead, they were wondering if we were going to attack his village. Black Bear came alone to pledge to us that they were not hostile and we ensured him that we were only passing through and that we mean no harm.”

  Marty nodded to agree with Caid as she told Black Bear, “We are going west to Fort Concho near the San Saba River. Do you know about the hill country?”

  Black Bear nodded in the affirmative as he said in broken English, “Hard country. Bitter cold winters. Comanche country. Hair like yours,” he paused, almost unconsciously reaching for her waist-long unbound hair, “look nice on Comanche lance.”

  Marty pulled away in fear while she caught the flying auburn tendrils that whirled around her head and twisted them into a red rope at her neck. But Caid swore both to her and to Black Bear that a treaty had been signed with the Comanche and that they would be safe in their company, besides, they were headed to a fort with plenty of soldiers to keep them safe. Black Bear only shook his head and waved his hand as if to say that he did not agree but would take the white man’s answer as the truth.

  After a few more moments of conversation, Black Bear left them to join his band and Marty drew in a breath of relief while she watched him ride away on his brown and white pony. She felt Caid’s arm around her shoulder and she did not shrug it away, but welcomed it and its comforting warmth in the cold morning air that brought with it the warning that they were heading into hostile territory whether the man next to her believed it or not.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The wagons were hitched and were steered westward toward Comanche country and their new home. Caid did not join her in the wagon but rode ahead of the train as a look-out for trouble, an act that caused much trepidation in Marty’s heart. But she did not show her fears to Greta or to Seraphina, who skipped along beside the wagon in front of her mother and next to Ingrid. Instead, she concentrated on watching the horizon in all directions, hoping that there was no trouble with the Indians that the Kiowa brave had called hostile.

  Late that afternoon, Caid came back to her and threw himself onto the seat beside her while taking the reins from her. With a quick wink, he smiled and said, “Black Bear is scouting ahead of us until we get to the foothills. He said he’d let us know if anything happens up there.”

  “He is a good man,” she said, and, remembering the same words that she had used to describe her own husband, she ducked her head and changed her words, “He’s a good friend to have.”

  “Yep,” Caid agreed as he clucked to the oxen and flipped the leather lightly upon the backs of the bulls. “I’ve had worse friends.”

  There was a slight silence as Marty searched her mind for an answer to his statement and when none came, she changed the subject, “How long until we get to Fredericksburg?”

  Caid considered her question and calculated the time that it would take to transfer these slow-moving wagons to their destination and then he answered, “I think about three more days.”

  “Three!” Marty exclaimed in disbelief. “I thought it would only be a day or two.”

  “Not with these ornery critters,” he joked as he indicated the oxen at the end of the reins.

  “And then how long to Fort Concho?” she asked.

  “Another two—three weeks,” Caid said. But seeing her stricken expression, he assured her, “We’ll be there before you know it.”

  “I hope so,” Marty said as she looked ahead at her sister, whose steps were becoming slow and timid. “I think Greta needs a rest.”

  “She should ride,” he told Marty and then he called to her sister, “Greta! Come and ride with me!”

  Grateful that he was concerned about her sister, Marty gave up her seat and let Greta climb in beside him. She took a step forward but noticed something gleaming in the bright sunlight. Inquisitively searching the prairie ahead, Marty wondered what it could be.

  With a smile at Greta, Caid began to cluck to the oxen, to ask them to move forward again. Then he paused to watch Marty, who had stopped suddenly to raise a hand to her brow against the sun. He followed her gaze to search the tracks in the grass and saw something peculiar beside the wagon ruts. When she hiked her skirt and ran ahead of the wagons, he pulled back on the reins and threw himself down to follow her, to find out what had caught her attention.

  “What is it?” Greta asked before she too jumped off of the wagon. “Seraphina, come with Mama!”

  “Sera Dear,” the girl corrected her mother for the umpteenth time.

  “Just come with me!” Greta ordered as she ran with her daughter as fast as she could to find out what the mysterious object was that everyone had gathered around. When she finally caught up to them, she gasped and held her palm to her heart. She pulled Seraphina toward her and wrapped her ar
ms around the girl to shield her from the sight while she exclaimed, “Oh my God!”

  “What is it Mama?” Seraphina mumbled into her mother’s skirt.

  “Go back to the wagon, Seraphina, and get a blanket for me,” Greta told her daughter.

  Sera Dear wanted to remind her mother about her new nickname, but deciding not to, she asked with worry in her heart, “Are you cold, Mama?”

  “Never mind, just go!” Greta put a hand upon Seraphina’s back and hurried her along while adding, “Ingrid and Arnie help your cousin.”

  Arnie growled a protest but was pushed into motion by Elsa, who cuddled Baby Jake closer to her face, warding off the sad sight. Then, she turned away from it and moaned in repulsion. All that remained of the skeletal human body was a skull, which was missing a lower jaw, and the first three rows of rib bones. Curious, she looked around for the rest of the body. About twenty feet away beneath a cluster of cactus she discovered what must have been an arm bone that had been gnawed by some hungry creature and then left to lay in solitary silence after the flesh had been removed.

  “How do you suppose he died?” Daniel Bader asked, leaning over the skeleton to surmise what caused its demise. The young man, not quite old enough to realize the perils of adulthood, surveyed the scene with inquisitive inspection.

  “Do you think it matters to him if we knew?” Caid asked with a touch of ire in his voice.

  The boy shrugged and stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets. His mother, Mrs. Bader, pulled him away from the body, chattering her displeasure at his disrespectful manners.

  Caid knelt over the body, what was left of it after buzzards and other scavengers had carried off most of the carcass. He removed the arrowhead that was barely visible in the russet dirt beneath a bleached rib bone. Hiding it within his fist, he rose to his feet and slipped it into his shirt pocket. No need to cause undue distress in the women who were already on the brink of fright, he thought. Although the remains of the body had been lying there for quite a while, Caid looked across the horizon, instinctively searching for the weapon’s owner and then he inspected the ground around the bones for the missing shaft. Judging from the arrowhead, which was made of scrap metal that had been pounded into shape and probably tied to an arrow made from Cimarron wood, it clearly belonged to a Lipan Apache warrior who had ripped the arrow from the body to attach it to another sharp and deadly metal tip.

  “We have to bury him,” Marty said just above a whisper while she clutched Caid’s arm in her fists. Seeing the sparse collection of brittle bones reminded her of the many piles of skeletal remnants that dotted the trail from the coast of Texas to New Braunfels. She shivered at the notion that Papa’s bones would also be spread out across the prairie like this body’s bones and those of the others who had been left behind.

  “He’s been laying here this long, why not leave him be?” A faceless male voice from the crowd interjected.

  “No,” Greta emphatically agreed with her sister. “I wasn’t able to bury my husband. I would hope that someone came along later to give him a proper burial.”

  Marty nodded, staring at the pile of stark white bones that lay at her feet while saying, “I would hope, too, that someone has buried our Papa.”

  Greta mumbled in agreement, hiding her grief behind her fist and turning away from the heart-wrenching sight. At that moment, Seraphina returned with a blanket in her hands, curiously trying to see what lay beyond her aunt’s billowing skirt. But Greta took the blanket from her daughter and then sent her back to the wagon for a cup of water.

  Seraphina stamped her foot, but after her mother shot her a cross expression, she shrugged and turned on her heel to do as she was told. She skipped back to the wagon but stepped up onto the spokes of the wheel in order to get a better look.

  “Get down from there!” Greta ordered her daughter and, satisfied that the girl was climbing down and heading toward the back of the wagon and the water barrel, she turned back to the body that lay on the ground and covered the bones with the blanket. With a sigh, she said, “I’ll get a shovel.”

  Caid waved his hand to silently tell her that he would get it before he strode to the nearest wagon to extract a shovel. He stopped by Marty’s wagon and gave the children a mission in the guise of searching for a lost coin, which he had flipped into a tuft of grass while they weren’t looking, so that they would be preoccupied while the adults buried the body. When he returned, Marty put her hand out to take it from him, but he shook his head and said, “I’ll do it.”

  “Please, Caid,” Marty asked with fervent emotion. “Let me at least get it started. For Papa.”

  Greta wiped a tear away and drew in a quick breath before she said, “And then I’ll take over, for my Gunnar.”

  Caid conceded with a nod and gave the shovel to Marty, who placed it a few feet away from the stark skeleton and poked the blade into the ground. With her foot on the edge, she pushed with all her might in order to insert the shovel into the hard Texas clay. He tried to take over, but she waved him away with a determined expression. Deciding to let her continue her endeavor, Caid walked around with Daniel Bader in search of more remains of the body to bury. They returned with very little more to offer.

  Blowing a lock of hair from her face, Marty hunched down and stomped on the blade of the shovel with both feet. Finally, the ground gave way, allowing the blade to slip a tiny bit into the soil. She bent over and lifted the shovel with its diminutive contents. With a grunt of exasperation, she turned her body and ceremoniously dumped the load into a tuft of grass. She silently watched the dust fly away in the wind as if it carried her sadness with it. Stepping backward and handing the shovel to her sister, Marty wiped the back of her hand over her perspiring brow and then let out a breath of relief.

  Greta took the shovel and, after significant effort, she made Marty’s small hole slightly larger. With satisfaction on her face, she dumped her load on top of Marty’s minuscule mound. Then she handed the shovel to Caid who took it and smiled at Greta, who smiled in return. She reached toward him to squeeze his hand, silently thanking him for pleasing them. Afterwards, she hugged her sister. The two clung to each other, sobbing and declaring aloud that it was done, that their kin would be posthumously and symbolically buried.

  When all of the bones that could be found were placed into the grave, which had been ceremoniously dug by every adult member of the party as a gesture of good will, they all gathered around the mound of dirt and clay with their heads bowed while Mr. Bader said a prayer.

  When Marty raised her head again, Caid was next to her, pulling her into his arms with a warming embrace. She melted into his body, the tears spilling anew. Soon, her sister joined her while Caid wrapped an arm around each of the women with a smile of reassurance.

  When they had cried themselves dry, they pulled away from Caid to find that everyone else had moved back to their respective wagons and were waiting patiently. Marty peered through her lashes at Caid and then smiled at Greta and said, using a phrase that she had heard Caid use, “We’d better get back on the trail.”

  He enveloped her in his arm and then tucked Greta beneath his other arm while he walked them back to their wagon. While rubbing her sister’s shoulder with his large hand, Caid kissed the top of Marty’s head and whispered, “I’m sure he appreciates that we took the time to bury him.”

  Marty nodded and wiped away the last tear of grief for her father, at least for that day. The act of interring the stranger’s body seemed to heal her heart and she knew that Greta felt that Gunnar’s body could possibly not still be lying alone in the Texas sun. Hopefully, for their sanity if not for brief relief from their grief, someone had performed the same noble deed for their abandoned loved ones.

  When they reached it, Marty stopped and shook her head, saying, “I still want to walk. Greta you ride with Caid.”

  Greta agreed with a nod and allowed Caid to help her aboard. She scrambled over the seat of the wagon and rummaged through her things. Wh
en she found the stack of papers, she carried them lovingly back with her. She waited on the seat while Caid walked around the oxen, pausing to touch a palm to Marty’s forearm while he whispered something into her ear and then he climbed into the seat.

  “What do you have there, Greta?” Caid asked with a curious expression.

  “Letters from my Gunnar,” she said proudly as she clutched them to her breast.

  “Letters, hmm?” he asked while taking a peek at the scrawling handwriting on the page that she had opened and spread out on her skirt.

  “And poetry. His poetry still moves me.”

  “He was a poet?”

  “Yes,” Greta replied with stars in her light blue eyes. “What a magnificent poet, he was!”

  “It’s good that you have those to remember him by,” Caid mused before he clucked to oxen.

  “I should know them by heart,” she said with a shrug. “But I still love to read them. I even hear the words in his voice inside my head.”

  “You still love him,” he said, wondering if Marty still had such deep feelings for her dead husband.

  “Yes,” Greta said pensively. Then she tilted her head and said as if to herself, “But time has a way of erasing certain memories.”

  Caid looked at her then, delving into his mind for a suitable response but he found none. Instead, he pulled her beneath his arm and hugged her. Then, the heart-felt words tumbled from his mouth when he whispered, “You still have them. You will always have them.”