A Woman Clothed in Sun

by Jeanne Williams

  Then Rachel remembered the way he had kissed her, the surging need between them, and from deep within this memory she smiled at the Mexican girl.

  “Matthew likes honey. But no more than Juanito does! Look at him hunt for more!”

  Lupe nodded, smiling as she fondled her child. But Rachel walked toward the pass, where Matt had waved good-bye, and stared out at the fierce mountains stretching in every direction.

  What had happened to him across the Rio Grande? When would he be back? She could not let herself think that he might already be dead, that she might never know how or where he died. He must come. And he’d bring cattle, the start of their herd, just as she and Lupe had begun their home.

  X

  Matthew crossed the Rio, filled his water skin where he and Rachel had camped and paused to watch the eagle plummet from the heart of the sun to something below.

  The mate of the eagle screamed, soaring, climbing into the blinding brightness, and the wild splendor of the flight, the upward beat of the pinions like the visible throbbing of God’s savage golden heart, seemed to Matthew the song of the great bird, not its raucous shrieking.

  Matt eased the reins and urged Storm onward. “I’ll see you in a month, brother,” he called to the eagle. “Or I won’t see you again at all. But I suppose men are like big ants to you, fastened to the ground.”

  Once across the Rio, he turned south, the chiseled pink and purpled mesas of the Sierra del Carmen to his left. Resting middays, he rode in the early mornings and from midafternoon till twilight. On the third morning he saw cattle grazing, scattered widely because the grass was poor.

  Then he saw the first men he’d met since the bandits, three men in peaked sombreros riding toward him at a gallop. Leather men, brown-skinned, in their high-cantled saddles, hide-covered stirrups for brush work and leather pants and vests. They may well have been among the raiders who destroyed Lupe’s village.

  Their ropes were leather, too, braided rawhide, and they began circling him, their reatas whistling. Matt halted Storm, controlled the excited horse by a tight grip of the knees, thighs and hands. One of those ropes snapping tight around a man’s neck could break it or, more slowly, strangle him.

  “Don Celestino Cantú!” Matthew called authoritatively, and blessing Guadalupe for the Spanish she’d taught him, commanded the men to take him to their patrón.

  “He knows you, señor?” demanded the most ferocious looking of the horsemen.

  “He wants to know me,” Matt said carelessly. “Andale, hombres!” He spun Storm and rode between two of the leather men, confidently, not looking back, as if certain they must obey him.

  It was a tribute to his audaciousness or their fear of possibly angering their master that no rope settled over his shoulders. He was allowed to ride free, a vaquero on either side and one behind, through scattered herds of longhorns, spotted and dun and gray and black, marked with the Cantú triple crown, but wild as the Big Bend pronghorns.

  What held his eye more, though, were the horses. From the distance he saw a herd of several dozen grays, which was strange enough, but several miles further on, a score of chestnuts ranged together. As his guards steered him south, Matt saw bands of bay, black, gray and white horses, all grazing unfenced.

  “Caballos,” he said at last, to an impressively mustached rider, and asked why they were grouped like that.

  He missed some fine points of the answer, but he did learn that the best stallion of each color was kept with matching mares because Don Celestino wished to breed the best possible line of each color. This was difficult, though, because the Comanches ran off some of the stock each year.

  “And it won’t be long till they come again,” said Matt pleasantly.

  The vaquero shot him an angry glance and spurred forward, so that Matt had to urge Storm to a faster pace.

  Storm responded eagerly. He was jaded from the long ride, but he never liked other horses to get ahead of him. Matt didn’t like eating dust, either, and when a sprawl of buildings showed white against the far purples of the Sierra del Carmen, he touched Storm with his heels and sent him forward.

  Knowing the vaqueros could rope or kill him, Matt was careful not to overplay his hand. He waited for them where he halted before the great abode, and he smiled as they scowled and muttered, except for the mustached one, who laughed.

  “Don Celestino will indeed wish to see you! At least for a moment!”

  There was the sound of a lifting bar and the massive door, carved with the Cantú emblem of three superimposed crowns, swung open.

  Huge and heavy as the door was, it could not dwarf the man who stepped out, though except for a fine white shirt, he wore the leather of his vaqueros. There was grandee blood in him, the pride and toughness of conquerors, though he walked with a limp and his hair was gray.

  “Felipé, Abram, Luz!” His voice cracked like a whip at the men, who swept off their sombreros and looked as abashed as children. “How is it that I see you with dust on your faces from riding at the tail of a gringo?”

  “I told them you wanted to meet me,” Matt began. He showed his teeth in a smile, though he felt cold in the pit of his belly. He wished his Spanish were better.

  Don Celestino’s thick gray brows lifted and he studied Matthew with hawklike intensity, his mouth grim in his lean, weathered face. He dismissed his men with a gesture.

  “Get down,” he ordered Matt. “No man stays higher than I.”

  Matt climbed down obediently. He was a bit taller than Cantú, and much younger, but he would have hesitated to fight this man, whose very presence exuded power.

  “Why should I want to know you?” demanded Cantú.

  “First, señor, my horse needs water.”

  Don Celestino whistled to his vaqueros. “Luz,” he instructed the mustached horseman, “unsaddle this man’s horse, give him water and grain and leave him in the corral.”

  “Mil gracias,” Matt said, moving stiffly toward the long veranda, supported by adobe pillars that ran the length of the house. Wood benches and a few rawhide chairs stood on the porch. Earthen jars planted with vines were by each pillar, and trees grew along the porch, providing shade for summer.

  Stables and outbuildings spread to the right, clustered about by enough dwellings to form a small village. Around the small whitewashed church were graves marked by crosses and stones and decorated with bits of ribbon and colored pebbles.

  Near a well where women filled their jugs, dogs, cats and scrawny chickens dodged plump toddlers. Little girls made and played with shuck dolls, or tugged babies about while boys as young as five and six lassoed everything in sight that couldn’t elude them, from roosters to their younger sisters. Matt gazed past the bustle to corrals where the best bulls were kept, out toward the herds ranging beyond his vision.

  Someday he might have a place like this. How Rachel would love the vines, the thick adobe walls that held warmth in winter and coolness in summer. She’d love the children playing, the chatter and laughter of the women …

  “You approve of Tres Coronas?” jabbed Cantú’s dry voice.

  Matt turned. “It’s good to see people—families—living here, and able to laugh. But I suppose they don’t laugh much during the Mexican Moon. Nor must you, when Comanches run off your fattest cattle and best horses.”

  “You have a warm heart, to feel for our troubles,” mocked the older man, his eyes narrowing. “But I would rather lose stock to Indios than Texans!”

  Matt swung toward the older man, probing his eyes, and found in them a spirit he could talk to. “Don Celestino! If I can help you keep your herds this fall, wouldn’t it be worth a tithe of what the Comanches would take?”

  Don Celestino threw back his head. Laughter erupted from him, bright angry laughter tinged with wry admiration. He stopped as abruptly as he had begun and stared at Matthew, who returned his gaze until Cantú, with a brusque nod, limped to his door and swung it open.

  “Enter, Texan! It is at least worth conv
ersation, this offer of yours!”

  The barred windows had panes of real glass, so although the corners and hallways were dim, light splashed brilliantly on polished wood and glazed tile, heavy silver candelabra and goblets, rugs woven in ochre, cream, black and gray. This main room had high beamed ceilings plastered white, as were the walls, and a great fireplace at either end. It was a room of mixed beauty and crudeness, family treasures from Spain or Mexico City next to goatskins and clay jars, crystal in a rough-hewn cupboard, an alabaster Virgin on a slab of unpolished onyx.

  Don Celestino clapped his hands, sinking into a carved chair made comfortable with hand-embroidered cushions and he signaled Matt to take another. A barefooted young girl, prettier than Lupe but without her distinctive, almost haughty refinement of mouth and nose, hurried in, bowing her head to await Cantú’s will.

  “Will you have chocolate?” asked the Don. “Perhaps tequila or mescal suit Texans better.”

  “I would like water first,” said Matt easily, smiling at the girl, who regarded him with intrigued wariness. “And then, Don Celestino, I will drink whatever you commend.”

  The Don gave an order. Bowing, the girl, whom he had called María, went out, her bare feet soundless on the tiles. Resting his chin on his hand, Cantú regarded Matthew.

  “Your Spanish is poor. You do not seem of the Rio Grande.”

  “I have traveled a long way, but I shall live near the Rio from now on.”

  Cantú smiled. “Many who thought that died instead.”

  Matthew thought involuntarily of the first man who’d fled his homeland with a brother’s blood on his hands. God put a mark on Cain so that no one would kill him.

  “I expect to live,” he said. “So I need cattle and horses.”

  “Plainly.” agreed the Don.

  The girl brought in a silver tray with mugs of frothy chocolate smelling of cinnamon, Matt’s water in a cut-glass goblet, and a plate of small cakes decorated with currants, nuts and candied fruit. Don Celestino crunched several of these reflectively, his eyes half-shut, then grew stiff and serious again.

  “Tell me, señor, how would you discourage the Comanches?”

  Matt had his answer ready. “I’d dig out the sides of the ford so only a few at a time could climb up the Mexican bank, and I’d pile up earth and rocks to protect men who’d pick the warriors off as they rode forward.”

  “But there’ll be hundreds of Comanches!”

  “Not all at once. When our fire opens, several dozen may be in Mexico, more will be in the Rio, where they’ll make easy picking, and if the others get across they can still only reach the bank a few at a time. How many men have you, men who can shoot?”

  The Don laughed. “There must be a hundred men scattered over my lands, tending sheep and cattle and horses. But they are not bravos, señor. I doubt if twenty could be taught to fire a carbine.”

  “Well, choose twenty and let me train them,” said Matthew.

  “There aren’t twenty carbines on Tres Coronas.”

  “No wonder the Comanches steal you blind!”

  “I’m a rancher, not a soldier,” said the Don stiffly. “It’s the government’s place to protect us, but though troops come out from Chihuahua now and then, it’s never at the right time. They fear the Comanches anyway.”

  “Give me men and carbines and we’ll give the Comanches something to fear,” promised Matt.

  “I’ll ponder it,” said the Don. “I’d have to obtain the guns but—Be my guest overnight. I’ll give you an answer tomorrow.” He clapped his hands. The girl came quickly. “Take the señor to a room,” ordered the Don. “See he has everything for his comfort. He’ll join Doña Anatacia and me at dinner.”

  So this hidalgo had a wife. “Do you mind if I look around?” asked Matt.

  “I’ll have Luz come to you in an hour with a fresh horse. He’s in charge of my north ranges—and, señor, he is very good with a carbine, machete, reata and knife.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said Matt following the girl.

  The house was a hollow square, one room wide, around an inner court planted with vines, shrubs and two great cotton-woods. Matthew’s room had a tremendous bed, a heavy carved chest, rush mats on the floor, and a rawhide chair. Above the bed hung a gruesome-looking crucifix with real teeth and thorns making the figure grotesque.

  Bringing towels and a pitcher of water, María placed them on the wash stand by a large washbasin. Someone had already brought in his saddlebags. She was back in a few minutes with a silver plate of dried peaches. Giving Matt a shy smile, she waited to see if he wanted anything more. When he thanked her, she bowed her head and vanished on those silent brown feet.

  Matt shaved, then stripped to the waist and scrubbed with one of the coarse homespun towels. Refreshed, he pulled the rawhide chair to where he could gaze out at the big cotton-woods in the inner court.

  Would one like those grow where he planned to make his headquarters? Munching the tasty leathery peaches, he reflected that this kind of fruit would be a blessed change from pitahaya and cactus tunas. He stretched out on the bed, grinning at the rustle of the corn shuck mattress. What a mixture of luxury and Sparta this place was, like Don Celestino himself.

  Would the Don gamble on Matthew’s plan? And if he did, would it work?

  Matt yawned and stretched. The Don might not like gringos, but he was smart and tired of losing stock. Having raided and destroyed San Ysidro, the Comanches’ return station, he wouldn’t increase his risk of loss much by attacking the Indians.

  Of course, he might use Matt’s plan, without Matt.

  And if he, Matt, didn’t return to the women in the valley, what would happen to them? At least there was water and they wouldn’t starve. If he didn’t come back by late autumn, they’d probably stay the winter, and when spring rains put some water in the desert stretches, they could make their way toward Fort Davis or Fort Stockton. Matthew pushed that speculation out of his mind.

  He was going back. With cattle. If Don Celestino wouldn’t hire him, some other Comanche-harassed rancher would!

  Matt was dozing when the girl called from the door. “Señor! Luz waits outside!”

  Stuffing his shirt into his pants, he picked up his hat and followed María along the corridor that led around the house, with doors to each room opening onto it. They passed through the big central chamber, and she held the crown-emblazoned door as he stepped out.

  Mounted on his tough, scrubby little mustang, Luz held the reins of a handsome black who showed Arab blood.

  “Señor,” he greeted Matt, but he did not smile.

  Wonder what’s bothering him? Matthew puzzled. Hates gringos? Thinks I want a job here?

  Taking the reins, Matt smoothed the neck of the fidgeting horse, speaking softly to him until the laid-back ears pricked up. Only then did he mount. The black moved with nervous pride, but he had a good mouth and didn’t fight the bit.

  “Soldán, is Don Celestino’s,” Luz said. “The Don has pain in riding so the horse gets little use.” He laughed, tilting his head with the peaked sombrero trimmed with snakeskin and tarnished silver. “A marvel Soldán let you mount. He has a hate for strangers.”

  “Perhaps his manners are better than yours,” Matthew smiled.

  Luz shot him a look of grudging respect and encouraged the dun with a touch of his large sunburst spurs.

  Don Celestino’s herds were mixed—Spanish “black,” usually linebacks, with a stripe of white, brown or dun from tail to shoulder, some with brownish faces, many-colored “Mexican” cattle, which were fatter and heavier-horned, and some longhorns, bigger still, though they seemed mostly bone with horns that often measure as much as nine feet from prong to prong.

  When Anglo settlers brought their own cattle in from Arkansas, Missouri and Louisiana, these had mixed with the Spanish black cattle and Mexican stock, both descendants of seed brought by Spanish explorers. From this mingling came longhorns, as quick as deer, as wary as wild turkeys an
d capable of protecting their young from wolf, coyote and panther.

  Sheltering in scrub timber when not grazing, scenting moisture under dry creeks and following it to water, a longhorn would sense a coming norther and wait in the thicketed breaks until the freezing blast was gone. Longhorns, like mustangs, came in all colors. They were just as wild and ranged all parts of Texas that had graze.

  “The Spanish blacks are from the blood of fighting bulls,” said Luz. “See how their horns set close together at the base, reaching out to battle? Have you ever seen a bullfight, señor?”

  Matthew shook his head.

  “A pity,” commiserated Luz, gazing at the blacks with loving admiration. “We have bullfights at certain fiestas. Don Celestino brings up some promising young torero from Mexico City or Chihuahua, and he meets the bravest of our bulls in the round corral.” Luz nodded approvingly at the blacks, deep of chest and narrow of flank. “The toreros say our bulls are as good as those they meet in the great bullrings—eager, fast, muy valiente!”

  As they rode on, Luz explained that Don Celestino tried to keep his best stock farthest from the likely route of the Comanches. After branding, yearlings were put with a herd of their quality, and in recent years, in an effort to improve his cattle, the Don had begun castrating inferior males and selling or slaughtering them and scrub females for beef and hides—those the Comanches left.

  Jacales, sometimes occupied by lounging vaqueros, were scattered about. Luz called greetings to the men and told Matthew they took turns at minding these outlying herds, though their families always lived near the main ranch.

  “The pastores stay with their sheep all the time,” explained Luz, wrinkling his nose as they approached dirty cream-white blobs that gradually became recognizable. Four dogs ran out, barking, but their clamor didn’t alarm the placid herd, which went on feeding wherever the cattle could find a blade of grass.

  A bent man with white matted hair and beard and skin like weather bark ran forward, signaling his dogs, which were making strange noises.