A Woman Clothed in Sun

by Jeanne Williams

  “Matt ought to be along soon,” he said. “I guess it’ll be a long time before everyone gets home.”

  Rachel put their fear into words. “Perhaps he’s—not coming.”

  “Mother of God!” cried Lupe, whirling on her. “How can you say such a thing?”

  “It’s what we’re all thinking.”

  Quil grinned at Juanito and drew him close with one long arm. “I’m not! Matt’ll be home any day. Now tell me how you got along. Where’s that Changa?”

  The women exchanged distressed glances. “Forgive me,” Rachel muttered, stumbling up. “I—I think I’d better go look at the sheep before it gets dark.”

  “Sheep?” echoed Quil, looking dazed.

  But Rachel’s throat was knotted too tight for speaking, She was glad Quil was safe, glad the wretched war was over, but it was harder now to believe Matt lived, that he was returning. Best for her to get away for a while, not darken Quil’s homecoming more than it would be by hearing about Changa.

  Rachel’s eyes stung as she hurried up the meadow in the long June twilight, but she couldn’t cry. All that spring she’d been haunted by the eagle on the cliff who’d lost her mate. She’d broken her wing but had managed to get to her nest, calling vainly for the tiercel.

  He never came. And the eggs were infertile. Even though an eagle was a threat to new lambs, Rachel prayed this one would get well, and she crossed the river several times, scaling the cliff and dropping dead rabbits down into the nest made of sticks as long as a man’s arm and lined with bark. The three eggs never hatched, and a few weeks ago when Rachel climbed up, a ruin of feathers and bone was all that was left of the birds who’d ruled this place from their high aerie when Matt and Rachel first came to the river over four years ago.

  The eagle’s fate had haunted Rachel though she tried to shake off the foreboding. But she knew now the war had ended two months ago. Now that Quil had made his way back, her fears and terrors threatened to overpower her, and she had to stifle sobs as the old shepherd came to meet her, his dogs wagging their tails in welcome.

  With old-world courtesy, Santiago invited her for coffee. He was still happily proud of the spring clip, which Don Celestino had bought at a very good price. The Don had sent his experienced shearing men up to do that job and bring the wool back to Tres Coronas. He sent her a letter, also, and when she opened it and scanned the Latin penned in a strong graceful script, her heart contracted. The Don, as she had with Matt, remembered the words of Augustine: “Sero te amavi, pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova, sero te amavi!”

  Too late came I to love thee—That was all except for the courtly farewell. Yo beso sus manos. I kiss your hands. But the shearing foreman had told her the Don wished to know how she and her household fared and if he could serve her in any way, so she had written a long letter back. It had sounded stiff and formal, but she hoped he would read into it all the things she must not say.

  Now, as always, watching the sheep settling for the night gave her a sense of calm. She drank coffee with Santiago, collecting herself to go back to the house and share properly in Quil’s homecoming. She turned as the dogs began barking.

  “I came to see the sheep,” Quil shouted.

  Santiago made a pleased sound and quieted the dogs. He remembered Quil from Tres Coronas and had been glad to hear of his return. After the men had talked a bit of hacienda folk and the war, Santiago moved off with his dogs to patrol the far end of the meadow.

  “It’s quite a flock,” Quil praised. “A good thing you have Santiago and the dogs, but even so, you’ve kept busy with them, I’ll bet!”

  “Juanito and Lupe had helped a lot. We only lost a few at lambing to eagles and lions and coyotes.”

  Quil hesitated. “Matt seems not to like sheep. Do you think we should find another range for them so that when he comes back he can restock the valley with cattle?”

  Rachel stiffened. “Sheep are better than cattle! No one’s as likely to steal them as cows, and they give meat and wool. They can find food where cows would starve.”

  “That’s true, but—”

  Rachel cut in. “If Matt comes back, he can start cattle if he likes, but I’ll keep these sheep!”

  A sheep blatted from a distance. She hurried toward the sound with a free-swinging stride, her slingshot dangling from the rawhide belt looped around her waist. When Quil followed, he found her bending over a young buck who’d broken his leg, and helped her splint it with Spanish dagger and fiber from the same plant.

  “You like sheep,” he accused half-laughingly. He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Sheep and cattle can run on the range. Don Celestino does it.”

  “Certainly it can be done,” Rachel said. “In any case I can take care of sheep and I’m keeping these!” Her voice frayed. “Oh, Quil! Do you think Matt will come?”

  He put his arm around her, letting her sob. “Of course he’ll come. Sure he will!” But they both knew there was no way of being sure.

  Matt came in August, when the sun had baked everything to the color of clay and dusty green. He rode in late one afternoon on his big gray horse. The rider with him was so lithe and slight he seemed a young boy until one saw his frosty hair. He slowed his black horse, holding back, while Matt rode toward the adobe house and gave a shout.

  Lupe ran out, drying her hands from some household chore. Quil, filling kettles at the spring, set them down and loped forward with an answering hail, scooping up Juanito, who was with him.

  Matt grasped Quil’s hand, swung Juanito to his shoulder, gave Lupe a hug and kiss, but looked past them to the house with his plantings of pomegranates and peaches, trees laden with ripening fruit and patches of corn, beans, melons and squash. Then he scanned the bluffs above the spring and turned his head slowly, searching.

  “Rachel!” His voice was clipped with sudden fear.

  “I’ll get her,” Quil said quickly. Matt caught his arm.

  “Where is she?”

  “Tía Rachel’s with the sheep!” Juanito burst out. “She took some medicine for a ram who’s got worms.”

  “Sheep?” Matthew moved past the blocking house, gazed at the upper valley. Sheep were there, not quite beyond his view. He whirled to Quil and Lupe. “What’s this?” His eyes swept the meadow from one side to the other, snagged on a few dozen head of cattle ranging near the corral. “Where are the cattle?” he demanded. “Where’s Changa?”

  “Bandits ran off the cattle over a year ago,” said Lupe. “They killed Changa when he tried to stop them.” She waved her hand toward the scraggly mixture of longhorns, black and Mexican cattle. “The bandits missed a few of these who’ve calved since, and a few longhorns have strayed in.”

  Matt almost whispered. “These—these are all that are left? Out of several hundred?”

  “Changa’s not left at all,” said Quil.

  Matt passed the back of his hand over his eyes. “The Monkey! Hard to believe—”

  Matt was stricken silent, his jaw muscles clamped tight as his gaze roved this changed home place of his, resting finally on his companion who waited, his knee curved across his saddle horn, smoking.

  Nels never pushed, stood back to watch and think his own thoughts.

  “Nels!” called Matt.

  Unhooking his leg and lifting his reins in one easy action, the gray-haired man rode up to the others. A smile touched the edge of his lips, and he took off his battered gray hat to Lupe, bowing in the saddle, while eyes that seemed black but were the translucent darkness of a clear pool regarded her gravely.

  “Nels Layne has been with me since we both joined Terry’s Rangers,” Matt said. “Nels, climb down and get acquainted with Lupe and Quil while I go see my wife!” He handed Juanito back to Quil, swung upon Storm, and rode for the far end of the valley.

  Rachel kept her legs clamped tight around the ram’s neck in spite of sick disgust at the worms she scraped from the gash in its head where another ram had horned it.

  “Hold still, you crazy d
evil!” she told the struggling beast as she threw away the pointed stick and daubed the flyblown wound with medicine made from twigs and leaves of the creosote bush. The ram struggled to escape the sting, but Rachel held him grimly and daubed the wound till she was sure the sore was thoroughly treated.

  “Just like men!” she said, giving one of the ram’s coiling gold-brown horns an admonishing tug. “Fighting, hurting each other—”

  She let him go, stepping out of his way and looked up to see Matt. Dropping the creosote, she stared in disbelief, her stained, work-calloused hands going to her throat.

  “Rachel!”

  “Matthew!”

  Neither spoke for a minute, or moved. Rachel felt as if she were dreaming, unable to realize this moment she had once longed for, then gradually despaired of. She started to run forward. But his voice, rough and male, brought her up short.

  “I never expected to come home and find you straddling a wormy sheep!”

  She stiffened. “Is—is that what you have to say, after three years?”

  “Sheep!” He waved his hand, indicating and rejecting the flock scattered through the brush. “I can understand your not getting more cattle after the raid—but why in hell did you bring in these stinking lousy sheep?”

  “Because they don’t get stolen, for one thing,” she cried furiously. “They give wool, for another, and they can live here when cattle would starve!”

  “Cattle will starve after those sheep stink everything up with that stuff oozing out of their hoofs!”

  “It comes out of an opening above the hoof and it helps sheep find the flock!”

  “And runs off any self-respecting animal!”

  The rush of joyous welcome curdled in her till she felt she was shouting at a crude stranger. Rachel vented an icy laugh. How could he?’How dare he? Worst of all, how could he stay over there arguing when his eyes were still that stormy gray that could melt her? Then she remembered those eyes watching her from Roque’s face and threw back her head.

  “Does that include people?” she challenged.

  “I—” His face changed.

  Coming out of the saddle, he sprang across the gully to her, catching her close. “Oh, hell! Rachel, damn you, how I’ve thought about this—dreamed about getting back, holding you! What are we doing, fussing about sheep—”

  But the thought of Roque on top of Matt’s first words filled Rachel with furious hurt and disappointment. Wrenching free from him, she spoke between her teeth.

  “Did you dream also of Anatacia?”

  “Ana—” His puzzled echo broke off and he crimsoned. “How in hell did you—”

  “One need only look at her son,” Rachel said with poison sweetness. “Your son.”

  “Damn it, Rachel, that hasn’t got anything to do with us!”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “Since you know about it, you must know Don Celestino needed an heir.”

  “So you gallantly sacrificed yourself!”

  “Oh, hell! Anatacia’s a beauty. But I didn’t seduce her, her brother knew it and it was just one time!”

  “Lucky you! To be thanked for what would ordinarily get a knife or a bullet!”

  He didn’t say anything but seized her wrists and brought her back against him, arching his body over hers until his mouth found hers. He kissed her ruthlessly until her resistance faded, until she would have fallen if he hadn’t held her. But in spite of the slow wild stirring in her blood, the softness in her loins, she demanded as soon as he took his lips from hers, “Is it nothing to you that you have a son?”

  “He’s Celestino’s, Rachel. My sons are the ones we’ll have.” When she stared up at him in angry defiance, he let his hand travel from her cheek to her breast, as if, she thought, he were claiming territory. “I’m back, Rachel, and you’re the woman I’ve loved in all my waking and my dreams. I’m going to love you tonight. Come home now.”

  He helped her leap the gully, put her up behind him on the stallion. “Of course,” he grinned back at her, “you’re going to need a bath. Try not to get that creosote on me, will you?”

  She gasped in outrage. He chuckled. And they rode up the valley.

  Lupe had a feast waiting. Matt and Rachel washed at the basin sitting on a bench outside, Rachel anerily wishing Matt hadn’t found her smelly, dusty, sweaty and doctoring that ram!

  But he’d been off three years, hadn’t he, fighting like the stupid ram? What right did he have to act as if she’d committed treason? She’d done her best to see he came home to something more than bare range, and her reward was being treated as if she were guilty of some loathsome crime! He wasn’t even properly contrite about siring a child on Anatacia!

  Simmering, Rachel flung into the main room, and collided with a stranger—a tall man who steadied her with swift strong hands and laughed.

  “You must be Rachel.”

  She nodded, blood rushing to her face, and flushed hotly when tingling shock ran up her wrists and she realized he was still holding her hands.

  “Sorry!” He stepped back.

  Matt came in then, introduced them, and they all sat down to supper, Juanito, big-eyed, in between Quil and Matt, almost squirming with delight.

  Quil and Matt did most of the talking, catching up on where each had been, but now and then Matt’s gaze traveled to Rachel. She never met it but twice, and glancing up suddenly, she found Nels Layne watching her with a kind of disbelief in his strange ash-colored eyes.

  Instantly he’d make some comment in his easy Southern tones on what the others were saying, but Rachel felt alone with him, as if he sensed the upsetting effect he had on her. The frost-gray hair made him seem ageless. And he watched her with secret marveling pleasure.

  After the meal the women cleared away the dishes, and the men talked about the war until each was lost in his separate thoughts. After Rachel and Lupe finished, Matt cradled Juanito, who kept waking with fitful jerks to protest any notion of putting him to bed. He turned to Nels, “Too tired to give us a tune on your banjo?”

  Nels laughed and rose like a cat stretching. “If you’re not too tired to listen, I’m never too tired to play!”

  He got the banjo from the separate room built for Changa and Quil, and tuned up, humming.

  I know where I’m goin’ and I know who’s goin’ with me!

  I know who I love but the Lord knows who I’ll marry—

  Juanito fell asleep. To see the boy limp and trusting in her husband’s arms made Rachel’s eyes sting, and she bit her lip as she thought of Roque.

  Would she and Matt ever have a child? Could they make a new life together? He’d left her alone for so long, so much had happened. They had barely been recovering from Harry’s death when Matt had gone to war. And she wasn’t a young yielding girl anymore. She’d defended the meadow, killed men, endured the seasons, and couldn’t, now, tamely submit to Matt’s will and judgment. It wasn’t fair! He had no right to expect it!

  Better to listen to Nels as his deep sweet voice moved through songs of struggle, high hopes, homesickness, loss. Bonnie Blue Flag, Lorena. Dixie.

  “We sang that one, too,” said Quil. “We sang a lot of your songs. And at sick-call those of us who could used to holler out:

  Are you all dead? Are you all dead?

  No, thank the Lord, there’s a few left yet,

  There’s a few left—yet—!

  Nels and Matt joined in the chorus. “Here’s one for any soldier!” Nels said and launched into a swinging lilt. Soon all three men were singing about “the girl I left behind me.”

  Nels’s gaze rested upon Rachel; their eyes locked before she lowered hers to the banjo. After that tune, the music stopped. Matt stood up, carrying Juanito toward Lupe’s room. “It’s time we turned in!” he said.

  Nels got up, again stretching lithely as if tuning his muscles. He bowed formally to Rachel. “Good night, Mrs. Bourne.” He and Quil went out to their bachelor quarters.

  Unsettled, caught in a spin of
sensations and powerful feelings, Rachel went down to the coyote spring, filled a basin and laved her body with night-chilled water, scrubbing with soap to get rid of the lingering odor of creosote. Whatever happened with Matt, she didn’t want him wrinkling his nose at her!

  Why did the stranger make her feel this way, shy and eager as a girl, in a way she’d known only briefly once before, in the first days she had loved Matt, before guilt and trouble poisoned the sweetness of their love? Shivering in the night breeze, she dried with a rough cloth, starting for the house.

  Matt’s tall form filled the door. She halted, frozen in a kind of dread. Why had they quarreled the instant they met? Had the years left a chasm between them they wouldn’t be able to bridge?

  “Rachel?”

  It wouldn’t do to sulk. They had their whole lives before them. No good to embitter them with what had happened. Matt was home! That was what mattered! Gathering up her skirt, Rachel ran to her husband.

  In the bed she’d used so long alone, Matt possessed her with sudden violence that triggered a memory of the last man who’d taken her in that room, Rico, whom she’d killed. That ugly thought along with Matt’s urgency left her feeling wooden, completely separate from him. She lay awake for a long time after he slept, her body tightly clenched. It would be better, of course it would, when they got used to each other again.

  At last she slept, later waking to long fingers caressing her, a mouth teasing her breasts until she moaned with eagerness and turned fiercely to him. He wooed her till neither could bear it another second, entered her with one deep thrust, rested within her while she gasped and abandoned herself to him, meeting the mounting tempo of his need, feeling him shudder and cry out as a dazzling fountain spilled over within her.

  “You’re home,” she breathed, sobbing laughter muffling her words. “Oh, Matt, you’re really home!”

  “I am,” he assured her, kissing the tip of her ear. “I mean to stay, too! If I left again you might start raising javelinas!”

  She stiffened a bit at that, but it was lovely to be in his arms like this and she drifted into sleep happier than she’d enjoyed since her girlhood before her father died.