Captive Trail

by Susan Page Davis

  “Say, do you know anyone who speaks the Comanche lingo? I asked Henry, but he said he doesn’t speak it well, and he wouldn’t want to go all the way to Fort Chadbourne. Too far from his ranch.”

  The station agent scratched his head. “You might try over to the saloon. There’s a buffalo hunter hangs around there when he’s in these parts. Isaac Trainer. He claims he spent a winter with them.”

  Ned pulled on his leather gloves and turned up his coat collar against the chilly November night.

  His mother back in Alabama would weep if she knew he was headed for the sordid little shanty of a saloon. But she need never know. Even so, Ned silently renewed the promise he’d made her five years ago, when he left the family farm, that he wouldn’t do anything that would shame her and his pa.

  He missed the family, but with seven siblings, he’d felt the cramped walls of the farmhouse and longed to get out on his own, to try his hand at something other than dirt farming. In Texas he’d found opportunity. Patrillo Garza had taken him on to help with his new freighting business, and the growing family had made Ned feel at home—though he had his own room at the ranch house. He’d worked hard. Patrillo liked him and his penchant for figures, which had helped them save a lot of money. By the time the mail contract came along, they were full partners in the business.

  He wondered how Quinta was doing at the mission. Was she homesick and bawling her eyes out? More likely she was up to mischief. She’d be good for Taabe—a distraction from the uncertainties that must plague her.

  Thoughts of the beautiful young woman hastened his steps. More than anything, he longed to know her full story—how long she had been with the Indians, if she had escaped on her own, and how she had survived.

  And was she safe now? The scattered rumors of Indian unrest bothered Ned, but there was nothing he could do to ensure that the nuns and their guests wouldn’t be harmed. He paused outside the saloon and looked up at the star-filled sky.

  “Lord, You know my intentions of going in here, so I figure You’ll overlook it.” He shoved aside the twinges of conscience and pushed the saloon door open.

  Inside, the air was hazy with smoke. He succeeded in holding back a cough as he searched the small room. A black-haired woman of indeterminate age tended the bar, and three men stood before it. Two more sat at a rickety table with glasses at hand, playing cards. Ned looked the five men over and decided one of the card players was the most likely candidate for a buffalo hunter.

  He sauntered toward the table, staying aware of the other people around him. The woman at the bar watched him from beneath lowered lashes.

  “You Trainer?” he asked the older of the two card players.

  The graying man looked up at him. “Nope.”

  “I’m looking for Isaac Trainer. Do you know him?”

  “Yup.”

  Ned tried not to let his frustration show.

  “Whatcha want him for?” asked the man’s companion, who looked a bit younger but also had a tanned, creased face. His dark beard blended in with his shaggy hair near his ears, and he kept his dark brown eyes riveted on his cards.

  “I need someone who can translate for me,” Ned said. “I heard he speaks Comanche.”

  “He does. Whatcha payin’?”

  Ned eyed him cautiously. “Are you Trainer?”

  “Maybe.”

  Ned pulled out a chair and sat down. “Listen, mister, I don’t want to broadcast this, but the army’s got a returned captive. They want someone who can speak the lingo to question this person and see what they can find out.”

  For the first time, the man looked directly at him. “Where’s this captive at?”

  Ned hesitated. “Not here. It would involve a few days’ travel, but I can get you a pass on the Overland stage if that would help. If you’re Trainer, that is.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “What else?”

  “We’d pay your expenses and send you back here after.”

  “And?”

  Ned swallowed hard. “Ten dollars.”

  “Hard money?”

  “Dollars.”

  “American or Mexican?”

  Ned’s patience had reached its limit. “American paper money. Take it or leave it.”

  The man folded his hand of playing cards and laid them on the table. “I’m out, Reg. You take it.”

  The older man scooped up the few coins of the table.

  “I’m Trainer,” said the younger man. “When we leaving?”

  Though Quinta apparently disdained sewing, she accepted the challenge of laying out the patterns on the blue fabric to the best advantage. Sister Adele and Sister Riva used Taabe’s and Quinta’s dresses as patterns and cut pieces of brown wrapping paper the same shape as each portion of the dresses. They showed Taabe and Quinta how to arrange those patterns on the fabric close together, so little cloth was wasted, and Quinta eagerly moved them around until all agreed she’d found the best arrangement.

  Throughout the next step—cutting out the pieces of the new garments—Quinta muttered and complained. Taabe couldn’t understand most of what she said, but Sister Adele chided her gently, both to speak English and to think on beautiful things.

  The sentiment came from the Holy Book—the Bible. Sister Adele had read from it many times to Taabe while she worked at her language lessons. Taabe loved the black book. She had seen such a book before, she was certain. That must have been part of her distant childhood. That verse particularly spoke to her heart. Sister Adele read the portion aloud to her first while she still lay feverish in bed, and it flowed like a poem.

  “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely … think on these things.” Once she grasped the meaning, Taabe found the verse comforting and often repeated it to herself. She wanted to think about things that were lovely and pure and honest.

  Quinta, however, had other things on her mind. She scowled and thumped the cutting tool down on the table, muttering to herself.

  “Think on things that are lovely, Quinta,” Sister Adele said. “Your new dress will be lovely. Think on that and our Lord’s sacrifice for you. And speak English, please.”

  A few minutes later Quinta came out with a word that caused both nuns to stare at her in horror. After a moment, Sister Adele cleared her throat.

  “My dear, when I asked you to speak English, I did not mean for you to use such language. It is better if such words are not spoken aloud in any tongue.”

  Quinta folded her arms and lowered her chin. “The shears are dull.”

  Taabe reached for the tool. “I cut,” she said. “For you.”

  Quinta blinked at her but said nothing. The sturdy fabric did resist the blades, but Taabe persevered, holding the shears the way Sister Adele had showed her, with the bottom blade touching the table.

  When she had cut free the large piece that would be the front of Quinta’s skirt, Sister Adele patted her shoulder. “Nicely done, Taabe. Those shears are dull. Perhaps Mr. Bright can take them to Fort Chadbourne for us the next time he comes through, and someone could sharpen them for us. I believe the blacksmith at the fort might have a grindstone.”

  They labored on, and Quinta meekly took another turn at cutting. By the time Sister Marie rang the bell for the midday meal, the pieces for both dresses lay neatly folded on the table.

  “Excellent,” Sister Adele said. “After lunch, the two of you should go outside for a while.”

  Taabe strung together the words in her mind. A walk in the open air with Quinta appealed to her, but she had made it a habit to wash dishes every afternoon.

  “I help Sister Marie,” she said, then corrected herself. “I will help.”

  Sister Adele smiled. “That’s good, Taabe. Perhaps you could both help in the kitchen, and then you would finish faster and get to walk about outdoors sooner.”

  Taabe thought she grasped the meaning and glanced at Quinta.

  �
��Sure,” Quinta said with only a small scowl. “I do know how to do dishes—it’s one thing I’ve done a lot of.”

  Sister Adele took that comment with grace. “I’m sure Sister Marie would be most appreciative if you offered. And since you and Taabe are both used to spending a great deal of time outdoors, we would like to allow you some freedom for exercise.”

  Quinta opened her mouth but said nothing. She looked at Taabe.

  Taabe shook her head, not sure she understood Sister Adele’s point, other than that she would get to go outside with Quinta after the two of them helped clean the dishes.

  Over the two weeks she had spent with the sisters, Taabe gathered that they had lived in the adobe house only a few months. Every day if there was no rain, Sister Riva toiled in her garden, preparing the soil for the next crop. She took the two girls out with her that afternoon and walked with them around the perimeter of the plot she’d been spading up. Next to it was a fenced corral, but no animals grazed there. Taabe supposed the people who had lived here before the sisters had kept horses and maybe some cattle. Perhaps the sisters would add livestock later on. The only domestic animals about the place were a small flock of chickens. Sister Riva locked them up every night in a small house at the edge of the garden and let them out every morning to forage. They produced a few eggs and an occasional dinner of roasted chicken, followed by chicken stew the next night. Taabe eyed them with a greedy desire for another chicken day.

  One of the hens followed them as they strolled about the garden, and Sister Riva crooned to it occasionally.

  “I shall plant carrots and potatoes here.” Sister Riva waved her arm in a sweeping movement that encompassed the far end of the garden. She’d spaded long rows to within a few yards of the edge of a pine woods beyond.

  Taabe had seen her pull a small cart with sticks on it, and she supposed this was where the sisters gathered firewood for cooking, though she’d seen quite large, split sticks in Sister Marie’s wood box. Perhaps a man from outside the mission provided firewood for them.

  As she gazed toward the trees, she caught a flicker of movement. She stood absolutely still and waited, peering toward where she had seen it. Was it only the branches swaying in the breeze? The air was calm today, and the trees did not move as she watched. Something darker among the pine trunks moved—a shape that didn’t belong drew back and lost itself among the boughs.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Taabe’s throat dried and she stopped breathing. Sister Riva touched her sleeve. “Come.”

  Taabe didn’t move, still staring toward the pines. “What is it?” Sister Riva stood close to her and followed her line of sight. “You wish to walk in the forest?” Taabe shook her head. She pointed to her eye and then toward the trees.

  “You saw something?” Sister Riva’s whisper held a note of alarm.

  Quinta moved to Taabe’s other side. “What’s the matter?”

  Taabe hesitated. Perhaps it was nothing. A squirrel scampering among the trees. But she’d heard no chirring since they’d come out here today, and she saw no further movement now. She forced her gaze upward, to the treetops. Shouldn’t there be squirrels and birds flitting about? She’d seen them on other days she’d come out here with Sister Riva.

  “Don’t know,” she said. Her stomach felt odd, the way it had one summer day when Pia’s mother ran into the tepee and grabbed her wrist. “Bluecoats,” she’d said. “You hide.”

  Taabe and Pia had run to the edge of the creek and hidden in tall reeds for two hours before their mother came and told them the soldiers had gone. Apparently a small detachment had stopped by the camp, spoken to the leaders, and left again without any discord. But Taabe learned from that and other incidents that when a stranger came around the camp, it was best for women and children to hide.

  “We go in.”

  “Yes.” Sister Riva took their arms and turned them back toward the house, casting an anxious glance over her shoulder.

  They walked as quickly as Taabe’s ankle allowed, back across the field, through the gate in the garden wall, and around to the door of the mission.

  Sister Riva left her and Quinta in the small parlor and hurried off, returning a moment later with Sister Natalie and Sister Adele.

  “What has happened?” Sister Natalie asked, drawing Taabe to one of the chairs they kept for visitors. “My dear, tell me as best you can.”

  “I …” Taabe looked around at the three nuns and Quinta. If only she had the words to tell them.

  “She saw something in the pine woods,” Quinta said. Taabe nodded.

  “An animal?” Sister Natalie asked. Taabe shrugged.

  Sister Natalie sat and peered into her eyes. “Do you think it was a man? Men?”

  Again Taabe raised her shoulders helplessly.

  “Sister Riva, bar the door and check the kitchen door as well.”

  “Yes, Sister.” The younger nun hurried out, and Taabe heard the heavy wooden bar thud into its brackets inside the front entrance.

  Sister Adele stepped forward and held out Taabe’s slate and chalk. “Perhaps this would help.”

  Taabe seized it and sketched a small animal with a sweep of bushy tail.

  “Squirrel,” Quinta said at once.

  Taabe nodded but then shrugged. On the slate, she drew another animal, a little bigger and with perked ears. “Dog?” Quinta asked. “Coyote,” Sister Adele said.

  Taabe nodded and spread her hands to indicate their guesses about the picture were correct, but she wasn’t sure what she’d seen. Finally she drew a human stick figure.

  “Man?” she said, her voice raising in question. She drew several trees over and around the figures, pointed to her eyes, then to the slate. “What?”

  Sister Adele placed her hand on Taabe’s sleeve. “My dear, do you think men would come to find you? To harm you?”

  Taabe’s heart raced. She looked around for a rag, saw none, and wiped the slate with her sleeve. Sister Natalie opened her mouth to protest, but sank back with a shake of her head.

  On one edge of the slate, Taabe drew a crude horse, with a stick figure on its back.

  “Horse and rider,” Sister Adele said. They all watched for what she would draw next.

  Behind that drawing, Taabe left a space then added three more horse figures with men on their backs. In the leader’s upraised hand, she drew a line with an arrow tip. A spear.

  “They are chasing the other man,” Quinta cried. Her face sobered. “Or were they … chasing you?”

  Taabe pointed to the fleeing figure. “Taabe.” She pointed to the leader of the pursuer. “Peca. Man.”

  “Peca?” Sister Adele frowned. “Is Peca a man’s name?” She touched the figure on the slate. “Peca.”

  “Yes,” Taabe said. “Peca …” She hesitated. How could she communicate anger? She made a wrathful face and shook her fist.

  “He’s mad,” Quinta said. “This Peca is mad at you and he chased you.”

  “Yes.” Taabe smiled with relief.

  “You ran away,” Sister Adele said.

  Taabe nodded, drained of the strength she’d felt when they walked out into the sunshine.

  “Can’t we do something?” Quinta asked. “Taabe is scared.”

  “Indeed we can. We shall pray, of course, but there are other precautions we can take.” Sister Natalie rose, her face somber. “Come with me, ladies.”

  She led the way to the kitchen, which jutted off the back of the house. Sister Marie looked up in surprise from her bread kneading.

  “I beg your pardon,” Sister Natalie said. “We must disturb you for a moment.” She looked around at the others. “It’s good that we are all here. As nearly as I can tell, Taabe saw something outside and is frightened that perhaps she has been followed here by an angry Comanche warrior. I think it best that we let her in on our crisis plan and show her the hiding place.”

  Taabe watched her as she spoke, but much of the meaning escaped her. But Sister Adele strode forward, moved aside
a small work table, stooped to lay back a woven floor mat, and lifted a section of three short floorboards of uneven lengths.

  Sister Natalie pointed to the hole. “This is our root cellar. We keep it covered so it is not obvious. Anyone in the cellar can fasten two hooks that will keep the boards in place unless someone above rips up the boards with tools. There is space for two or perhaps three people to hide for some time. Do you understand?”

  Taabe nodded slowly, and Quinta, her eyes gleaming, also nodded.

  This was a secret refuge where they could go if anyone attacked them, or where the nuns could hide Taabe if someone she feared came searching for her.

  “We will place a jar of fresh water in the cellar now,” Sister Natalie said. “Sister Adele, please take care of that.”

  “Yes, Sister.”

  “And some parched corn as well, and a blanket. A person in hiding could survive down there for some time if necessary.”

  “And now, I shall take a short stroll in our yard—not far. Just to see if there is any obvious activity about the mission.” Sister Natalie looked around the circle, her gaze resting briefly on each of the nuns, Taabe, and Quinta. “Sister Riva, you will accompany me. We will take walking sticks. Our guests shall remain in the house until further notice.”

  The nuns murmured their assent, and Sister Riva tucked her hands into the openings of her wide sleeves and quickly left the kitchen.

  “Come, Taabe, Quinta.” Sister Adele smiled at them. “You may help me place the provisions in the cellar, and then we’ll do some reading in the sitting room.”

  “Prayers will be on time unless something unexpected occurs,” Sister Natalie said. She left the room.

  Sister Marie hurried to a shelf and took down a large water jug with a cork stopper. “Use this, Sister. And there is plenty of parched corn in that keg.”

  Taabe helped Sister Adele fill containers and carry them to the hole while Quinta ran to get an extra blanket from the alcove where the nuns kept linens.

  Sister Adele climbed down the short ladder into the hole and lit a candle. She held it up so Taabe, peering from above, could see into every corner of the refuge. The hiding place was square, only about as wide as Taabe was tall. An open barrel of potatoes and one of carrots took up much of the space. Several candles and a tinderbox lay in one corner, and in another was an empty wooden bucket. A prison—or a haven. Taabe nodded at Adele, who gazed up at her. Quinta returned with one of the pieced blankets and handed it to Sister Adele.