“I know the whites have often been as cruel as Apaches,” Talitha said. “But the whites are going to keep coming. Nothing will stop that, James. So the Apaches must manage to live with them, somehow, or be killed out.”
“There are always the mountains of Mexico where white-eye soldiers can’t go.”
“For heaven’s sake, you have ‘white eyes’ yourself! And the Mexican government will surely help the United States ferret out Apaches in the Sierra Madre if they can’t spare troops to do it themselves.”
The conversation was turning into an argument. The last thing Talitha wanted was to push her brother into stubbornly siding with the Apaches. She clamped her teeth on other undeniable facts and went to wash off the smell of dust and cattle.
IV
Talitha dispatched three hundred head to join Kitchen’s herd at Calabazas. The Vasquez brothers and Rodolfo, two of them bachelors and eager for a town, were to help Kitchen’s men to get the cattle to Tucson, but the other vaqueros rode back after the rendezvous.
In about ten days, while those at the ranch harvested beans, melons, and the last crop of corn, the trail riders returned. They hadn’t been bothered by Apaches, and the townspeople had been delighted to buy beef. It would be needed that winter, what with the outlying food-producing places abandoned and those who’d lived on them refugees in the little city. Colonel Baylor had proclaimed Mesilla the capital of the Confederate Territory of Arizona and himself the governor, but he was going to be fighting for control of New Mexico. Beleaguered Tucson could expect little help from him.
Most of the ranch’s money was in a San Francisco bank. Talitha hoped to leave it untouched till Shea’s return, though there’d be no income from the mines unless they could be protected. The ranch, however, was almost self-sufficient, and had supplies of cloth and other purchased necessities, though she had told the vaqueros to fetch back sugar and coffee.
So the gold and silver she put in the chest that held Shea’s senales and the gold nuggets her father had left with her would go mostly for wages, which she kept track of and paid on request. She suspected there’d be few chances to spend money as long as the war lasted.
Now that the ranch force was in full strength again, Talitha went on a piñon-nut expedition with James and the twins. Cat, in spite of her entreaties and tempers, was left behind.
For years, first with Socorro and Tjúni, more lately with the twins and a vaquero, or Shea, if he was in the mood, Talitha had gone into the mountains above the Place of Skulls to collect the small, tasty nuts. She knew where the largest stands were. A steep trail contoured up the mountain and led along the ridges through piñon and juniper with pines towering higher.
It was only midmorning when they reached a place where the horses could graze while they picked up the fallen nuts from beneath the gray-barked trees. By sunset they’d gathered several leather bags full and sat down to eat their jerky and pinole, not risking a fire.
Suddenly James stopped chewing and listened intently.
“A horseman.”
In a few seconds the rest could hear, too: hoofs muffled by the fallen leaves and needles. “Shod,” whispered James. So, unless the intruder rode a stolen horse, it was no Apache. Rising soundlessly, James took his bow and arrow and crept back along the trail behind a dense growth of manzanita.
Talitha and the twins picked up their bows, nocked arrows, and waited. They all had rifles and revolvers, too, but the flight of arrows wouldn’t give them away as bullets would.
“Belen!” James exclaimed.
The boys and Talitha hurried along the trail. Belen looked at them in great distress. “She isn’t with you? Caterina?”
“Cat?” cried Talitha. James made a sound in his throat, and the twins went pale. “She—she’s not at home?”
Belen shook his head. “Paulita had the watch at noon. When Caterina didn’t come for dinner, we thought she was with her friend, but when Paulita came down without her, and Mancha was gone, we knew she must have followed you.”
Talitha’s mind raced. If her horse had slipped or any ordinary accident befallen, Belen should have found the evidence. Oh, Cat! Wicked, beloved, willful little Cat! Had Apaches got her, or bandits?
Of the two, Apaches were preferable. They wouldn’t ravish the child or really hurt her—but Caterina Teresa O’Shea y Quintana to be an Apache drudge, as Talitha herself had been?
James was asking if there’d been any signs of struggle. Belen had observed none, though he admitted he’d come in a hurry, anxious to be sure she was safely with the others.
“Of course, at the places where you left the horses and gathered nuts, there was much confusion, many tracks.” His eyes widened. He said quietly, “There were moccasin prints among the others, but I thought them James’s.” For James preferred his Apache footgear.
James went back to kneel by his saddlebag. He got out pinole and jerky, then took a long, deep drink. After a moment’s thought he took a serape, not for himself, Talitha was sure, but for Cat. He had his knife, his rifle and his revolver, and his bow and his quiver, filled with thirty arrows.
“It’s almost dark,” Talitha protested, catching his arm.
He shrugged. “Maybe I can hear something. Or smell. Anyway, I can’t stay here.”
“Let us go with you!” Patrick urged. Miguel was already collecting necessities.
“No.” James’s voice was bleak. “You’d be heard. I’ll do better alone.” To Talitha he said, “If I don’t come back, try to get word to Mangus. He’d return Caterina, no matter who took her, for her mother’s sake. Apaches don’t usually think much of women, but he revered Doña Socorro for her valor and sweetness.”
All Talitha could do was nod. She had delivered the twins, just as she’d delivered Cat, but the boys had had a living mother. Talitha had carried the newborn girl home while Shea rode with the dead woman in his arms. Cat had been to Talitha both daughter and younger sister, loved as dearly as James, though less fiercely, since no one had threatened her until now. Now both were in danger.
It would have been a relief to follow James, but he was right. Apache trained, he was the one to trail them, or anyone else. But how, how, to get through the night?
“I’m not sleepy,” she told the others. “I’ll keep watch and wake you later.”
The boys grumbled but were asleep almost as soon as they rolled up in their blankets. Talitha huddled in hers, leaning against a tree. She felt as if she were shriveling inside with icy dread.
Did Cat sleep tonight? Was she alive? It was strange to pray that Apaches had her, but far better they than white men who’d abduct a child.
“Doncellita.” The old pet name spoken in Belen’s gruff voice was as comforting as a touch. “Can you not rest?”
“Later. You sleep now.”
He settled against a nearby tree, wrapping his own serape about him. “There’s no use for us both to stay awake,” Talitha protested. Belen said nothing. Gratefully, with a rush of love for the aging Yaqui, she understood. He would not leave her to endure alone the terror of that night.
“Do you think there’s any chance James may find her in the dark?” she asked.
“There might be a fire. Or noise.” Amazingly, he said, “Let me tell you a story, as I did when you were small.”
“Oh, Belen—”
“Try to pay attention. It is good to have stories in a time of trouble. They remind us there is more than now.
“When I was young and the Mexicans tried to break up Yaqui land, tax us and make us live like them, I fought, as you know, under our great general, Juan Banderas. He was executed in 1833, and that’s when I came north. But I remember those tales we told around our fires to hearten us in the nights of fear.” He chuckled. “There are some I will not tell you.”
But he told her of the time it was so dry that even the Río Yaqui dried up, the mountains were hazy with heat, and rocks burned like coals. The desperate people sent first a boy and then a swallow to Yuku, the
thunder god, but though he promised rain, he didn’t send it.
Then the leaders of the eight pueblos asked Bobok the toad if he’d carry their message. Bobok agreed and borrowed some bat wings with which to fly up to Yuku. Again Yuku promised rain; but Bobok, instead of going home, dug under the ground near Yuku’s door. When Yuku sent a storm to destroy the importunate toad, it couldn’t find him and hunted all the way to earth, raining as it tried to kill him. Bobok flew down to the top of the rain cloud and sang loudly, “Bobok, bobok, bobok!”
The storm tried to find and kill the toad and rained even harder. He led it to the land of the Yaquis, and it rained till there were hundreds of little Boboks all singing gladly because the rain couldn’t kill them. That’s why toads still come out singing after every good rain. So the earth was saved, and Bobok went back to his pleasant muddy lagoon.
Talitha drowsily smiled at the story. She’d heard the toads so many times, great choruses of them when the rain had spread like a sheet over the broad grassy valley. She was getting sleepy. She should get up and move around.…
“Did I ever tell you about my mother’s brother who went into the Red Mountain near Torim?” Belen continued. “He was hunting one day when suddenly he was stricken with chictura. This is when one becomes lost, even knowing a place very well, and can’t tell north from south, east from west. The cure is to make a cross of spit on the ground and sit on it with head hanging down for a few minutes. My uncle did this; and when he stood up, he knew his directions again, but he found he was very close to Sikil Kawa, the Red Mountain. Within is Yo-Ania, an enchanted place where no Christian should go, and he started to walk fast toward his pueblo. But it was exactly noon, and as he passed a little cavity in the hill he heard music so beautiful that he simply had to hear it better. My uncle was a musician, but not very good with his flute because he didn’t practice.
“He squeezed through the little opening and found himself in a big room where a bearded man greeted him and gave him into the charge of the loveliest girl he had ever seen. She took him deeper into the mountain. By magic she showed him all the richness and marvels in the world, all that delights the heart and body. Then she brought him into a cavern of ferocious wild animals, lions twice the size of any he’d ever hunted, huge bears with claws like steel. These pressed against him, showing their teeth, growling. He smelled their tainted breath but managed not to flinch or walk faster.
“‘You must be tired,’ the girl said, smiling at him with very red lips. ‘Sit down on that log a moment.’
“He did as she said. The log began to move, coil up around him. It was the king of all the animals, a huge snake that entwined him in a horrible embrace and licked his face, darting its forked tongue about his eyes and nostrils. My uncle stared into those ancient evil eyes but managed to stay quiet.
“‘Bueno!’ laughed the girl. The snake unfolded itself, and my uncle was brought to where the things for dancers, musicians, hunters, and vaqueros were displayed. He could have picked any gift he wanted and walked out of the cave, the best at whatever talent he chose, except for Christian things, a matachini, maestro, or fariseo.
“He passed the rattles and masks of the pascolas, the headdress of the deer dancers, the reata and gear for vaqueros, the hunters’ weapons, and out of the drums and other instruments he took a flute.
“‘That is your don, your gift,’ agreed the girl. ‘Now your soul belongs to Yo-Ania. Since you are young, you have twenty-one years to play the flute better than anyone. At that time, no matter where you are or what you’re doing, you’ll vanish from the world and come to live in our Red Mountain.’
“Well, my uncle didn’t think that such a bad fate if he could spend eternity with the girl, and not the king snake with his clever, licking tongue. He took his flute and squirmed with great difficulty out of the mountain, for the hole was only big enough for his head. He came back to Torim and was very famous. People suspected what he’d done, but it was his soul and they were glad to have his wonderful music at fiestas.
“In the twentieth year, he began to drink a lot, dreaming of giant snakes. In the twenty-first year he went off hunting and never came back again.”
Talitha’s spine tingled. “I hope the girl met him, not the snake.”
“If you lose your soul, what matters?”
She would have made such a bargain to have Shea. Perhaps in a way she had, refusing Marc and John Irwin, waiting insistently, offering what she knew Shea desired, though his conscience forbade it. But if there was a way to barter with the powers, she’d do it now, trade her lifelong dream of being Shea’s love for the safe return of Cat and James.
Belen told other stories, then: of the naked Ku bird who begged feathers till he became the resplendent parrot, always gabbling boastfully of his splendor; of the talking tree that long ago foretold the coming of the white men; and of the clumsy pascola who became graceful and witty after his encounter with an enchanted goat.
Lulled by the familiar deep voice, Talitha kept jerking awake. The next thing she knew, there was gray light filtering through the trees.
Then everything came flooding back. How could she have slept? Scrambling up, she saw with fresh guilt that Belen had folded his blanket around her when he had evidently settled her beside the tree. She wrapped the rough wool around him now, saying reproachfully, “You tricked me! Belen, you kept watch all night!”
“I told myself stories,” he teased as he smiled at her.
“Sleep awhile now,” she commanded.
He stood up, offering her a piece of jerky. “I’m refreshed. I’ll follow James. Perhaps he needs help.”
Or perhaps he’s dead. “I’m coming with you.”
Belen started to object, but she hushed him with a glance. “The twins can wait for us today. If none of us return, they can go home tomorrow, and maybe Pete Kitchen can help get a message to Mangus for help in freeing Cat.”
“What’s that about the twins?” yawned Patrick, stretching.
Belen raised a hand. They all listened. In a moment Talitha could detect the sound of shod hoofs, the occasional ting of metal striking rock. Talitha started to run forward, but Belen checked her.
“Hide, you three. I’ll see who it is.”
Talitha shooed the reluctant twins behind a matted thicket of manzanita and waited, her heart feeling wedged in her throat, as Belen left the faint trail and vanished in the juniper and piñon.
It was only minutes before she heard his voice, full of joy and relief, though she couldn’t make out the words. With the boys she ran toward the voices, hearing Cat’s now.
Cat slid down from Mancha and ran to Talitha, almost leaping into her arms. “Oh, Tally, I was bad to follow you!” There was a bruise on one cheek, but otherwise she seemed unhurt. “That man caught me! I was so scared. And—and James had to kill him—”
James, on foot, looked exhausted. “Tulan had her. He’s a Mimbreño who doesn’t live with the people anymore because on a raid he ran and didn’t help his companions. He had made a fire, and that was how I found them.”
“He was going to kill Mancha and eat her,” Cat went on in a trembling voice. She was shaking all over, though Talitha had wrapped a serape about her and held her close. “I—I tried to stop him. I bit him, hard. He knocked me into the bushes. That was when the arrow went into him. All the way through his chest.”
“Tulan was always a glutton,” said James. “If he hadn’t been so eager for roast horse that he risked a fire, I might not have found him till after daylight.” James looked ready to drop. His mouth contorted. “He was a coward and an outcast, but I wish the first man I killed hadn’t been Apache.”
Pulling away from Talitha, Cat ran to hug him, but he didn’t bend so she could reach his neck and she caught his hands, pressing them to her face, kissing them. “James, I—I’m sorry! Sorry you had to kill the man—”
“I’m not.” James sank on one knee to hold her while she sobbed. “I’ll never be sorry for anything I do fo
r you. I just wish an Apache hadn’t been my first kill. Stop that crying, Catarina! You need to go to sleep now.”
He picked her up and set her on Mancha, but as she clung to him for a last instant she murmured against his cheek, “I love you, James! Best in the whole world! I’ll always love you.”
Though the sun was up, it seemed to Talitha to be suddenly muted. Fear gripped her. The adoration in Cat’s eyes as she smiled down at James, the passion of her whisper, were altogether too much like the consuming way Talitha had, from a slightly younger age, worshiped Shea. With James fixed on being Apache, what could come of that but grief for them both?
Cat, Belen, and James slept that morning while the others gathered nuts. At noon Belen took the child home. After two more days of piñon collecting, the rest came down. James had been moody and silent, but when he showed them where Mancha had been led off from a mass of confused tracks marking where they’d stopped to gather nuts, he apparently decided it was time they had some lessons in tracking.
He searched till he found where a footprint had flattened the grass, then carefully pressed the marked grass down and examined it. “See the moccasin print?” he invited. “A white man’s boot or shoe would crush the plants. The grass is discolored, which shows the print isn’t fresh.” He broke off a few pieces and showed them there was still juice inside the stems. “But since the grass still had moisture inside, I know it hasn’t been a long time since a Mimbreño walked here.”
A little farther on he picked up a piece of dung, broke it open, and showed them the residue of grama grass. “If it were sacaton, we’d know the horse came from where it grows. Barley usually means Americans, but maize would probably be Mexicans, or travelers from there. If you study droppings, you’ll soon be able to tell how old they are from the amount of moisture left.” He pointed to where Mancha had urinated. “A mare goes like that, behind her rear prints. A stallion or a gelding shoots his spray forward toward his front feet.”
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