The Valiant Women (13 page)

No one was interested in viewing such antiquities, however, nor did they linger at the
ranchería
longer than was necessary to water the herd. The men of Sonoyta had, as Tjúni explained was Papago custom, buried the dead with their belongings, sitting up in holes dug in the ground, covered with mesquite or paloverde poles from their houses. These burial pits were heaped over with stones. Thus even the village was gone except for a few
ramadas
and heaps of mud-daubed ocotillo that had been the walls.

Standing near the stone heaps, Socorro prayed for the slain. Shea and Santiago joined her. But Tjúni, face stony as the dark mountain, only stared eastward after the murderers.

The “river” forked here and next day they took the southern branch which ended at a deserted
ranchería
at the foot of the Sierra de Cobota. From there it was four days to the Santa Cruz.

Twining a way through the rugged maze of the Sierra del Pajarito was the worst part of the whole journey and it was fortunate Tjúni was along for she knew the passes which time had dimmed in Santiago's memory.

When they came out of this range onto level land where mountains marched on all sides of them, Santiago took off his sombrero, gave it a wild flourish that sent Noche dancing.

“The Santa Cruz tonight,” he shouted. “Socorro tomorrow.”

That night they crossed the shallow waters of the Santa Cruz and camped beneath the ruins of what had been Calabazas. According to Santiago it had been first a Pima village, then a
visita
of Mission Guevavi where Jesuits held services. When the Pimas died in an epidemic, Papagos setttled there, and when the Jesuits were expelled from all Mexico, gray-robed Franciscans took over and Tumacácori became the mission headquarters for
visitas
in the area.

During those years of the late 1700s, Apache raids depopulated Guevavi and much of the region. After Mexico got its independence in 1821 Spanish troops were withdrawn and most of the Spanish-born Frandemic, Papagos settled there, and when the Jesuits predecessors had been fifty-four years earlier.

The Apache renewed their raids. Thousands of settlers fled and thousands more were killed. Calabazas was abandoned like nearly every ranch or settlement that wasn't very close to either Tubac or Tucson, the last presidios in all that wild country.

Gazing up at the ruins on the east bank of the river, Socorro shivered. If this place, with its long history of Indian and mission occupation, hadn't survived the fury of the Apache, how could they hope to withstand it at the old ranch?

She straightened her shoulders. Better risk this savage land with Shea than return to the captive life of Los Alamos or ask her unknown
hidalgo
cousin to take a violated woman for his bride. The truth was that she couldn't imagine life without Shea though she very well knew such a man couldn't forever sleep chastely beside her.

Sighing, she got out food for the evening meal. It was too dark now to start a fire for fear of Apaches, so dry jerky and corn must feed them, though they could each have a sweet taste of honey.

What a difference being able to cook these staples made! The jerky, well stewed with chilis, was quite good. Added to corn, it made stew. And the com could make soup, mush and tortillas.

When they got to the ranch, within the shelter of walls, they'd risk fires, of course. It was where they were going to stay and they had to take certain chances if life were to be worth living. It came to her suddenly that home, in this region, wasn't a place of safety so much as a place where people decided to take the chances of being permanent, the pleasures and the perils.

Taking a handful of corn down to Viejo, whose lacerations were starting to slowly heal, Socorro patted him along the black cross marked on spine and shoulders. It was supposed to be Christ's cross, bestowed on the ass because it had carried Jesus on the flight into Egypt and again into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

“Why,
burrito!
” she said, laughing. “Your lineage is more ancient and honorable than that of any grandee! Yet you bear our burdens.”

She imagined that Carlos would be most upset at such a notion and in that moment ceased to be troubled by his presumed standards or those of Alamos society. The
gente de razón
, from her experience, had more pride than reason, pride in things she could no longer consider important after her struggles in the desert.

The breeze lifted her hair as she walked back to camp. If, to have a home, she must dare light a flame that might call down Apaches, couldn't she risk the fire of her love for Shea? Must she huddle in dark fearful cold because he had a man's hands and a man's body?

In the moonlight she could see Tjúni watching Shea and a tide of jealousy rose in her. The girl was beautiful in her wild way and, set as she was on avenging her family, she still hadn't endured that shameful agony which had branded Socorro as viciously as the iron searing Shea's cheek.

I'll always have the scar
, Socorro thought,
but it needn't be a wound
.

As if called by her resolve, Shea came to stand by her, his bright head a glory that she yearned to touch. His eyes were shadowed but his voice was deep, husky with controlled violence.

“Tomorrow, lass! Tomorrow we'll reach home. You'll have a hearth again, a bed.…”

She heard his breath catch. Her own blood raced painfully. Caught between dread and desire, she forced a laugh.

“And a
metate!
Back to grinding corn!”

“We'll make a mill for you,” Santiago promised. “But we haven't lost a cow, a horse, or, thanks to you, lady, even that old burro! And more than likely we can increase our herds with cattle and horses that have run wild since the ranches were abandoned.”

Tjúni's voice slashed like a knife through these dreams and plannings. “You have sworn to find the scalp hunters.”

“True,” said Santiago. “First we do that.”

Shea nodded. And though Socorro slept between them that night, she felt as if they had already gone away.

VIII

Agua Linda, or Socorro, as Santiago insisted they call it from the start, came in sight late the next afternoon after a journey down the valley through which Sonoita Creek flowed. Towering red cliffs and mountains on either side were softened by huge trees, some of which were black walnuts that had dropped their nuts which lay darkening on the ground.

White-trunked sycamore and silvery gray cottonwoods were losing their yellow or browning leaves among red-leafed maples and elms, while farther from the stream on the flatter, dried land were large oaks and the smaller, more densely growing ones.

On the mountainsides changing leaves were brilliant against the deep green of pine, fir, spruce and cedar.

Squirrels were busy, an antelope bounded away, and they glimpsed a bandit-masked raccoon washing its food as a woodpecker thumped resoundingly.

The grass grew thick and high, a feast to all the desert-reared animals. There was no cholla and little prickly pear though agave and yucca still jutted from the hillsides and impossible-seeming niches along the rugged cliffs. It was an altogether greener, softer, more luxuriant region than Socorro had ever seen, for though Alamos was rich in shady trees and flowers, it was still part of the desert.

The valley widened into a broad plateau that stretched to rolling hills with sharp-toothed mountains beyond. Sun turned crumbling adobe to warm gold, touched bleached, gray-white corrals, the remains of several
ramadas
and sheds, sunflowers growing thick around them.

“Rancho del Socorro!” called Santiago, reining back so that Noche pranced beside Castaña. “Is it not a beautiful place?”

It was, in spite of the desolation. Gazing at the house located safely above any floodings of the clear sparkling stream, Socorro said, “The people must have hated to leave it.”

“They feared Apaches more,” Santago brooded, hawk's eyes smoldering. “Some fled to Don Antonio's and lived another twenty-five years only to die at the hands of those scalpers!”

“But they had twenty-five years first,” Socorro reminded him.

He shrugged. “I think no mortal can escape his fate.”

“Yes,” agreed Socorro ironically. “No doubt hard-headed daredevils are fated to die sooner than other people, and in more interesting fashions!”

He only laughed at her and rode off to push along some stragglers who were trying to eat all this marvelous grass before it vanished into desert and cholla.

It was spine-tingling to watch the cattle stop when Santiago rode up front and signaled to Cristiano that his duty was done, that now the herd could spread out up and down the valley, water when they would in the flowing creek.

The burros were driven up to the buildings to be unloaded. When this was done, they joined the unsaddled horses in rolling sweat off their backs and stiffness from their bodies. Only Viejo lingered near the people who entered the old ranch house to survey its disasters and possibilities.

The roof had fallen in but the walls, though eroded by wind and rain, were five feet thick and basically sound. Leveling off the uneven top and adding new adobe shouldn't be too difficult, and most of the roof poles seemed sturdy and unrotted.

There were three rooms, as wide as the roof poles had been long, about twelve feet. The longest room was in the middle, perhaps twenty feet long, with adobe benches built along the walls. It shared a fireplace with what had probably been a bedroom, the fireplace built facing where the inner wall left off to form a passage.

The kitchen had a fireplace, too, and more adobe benches on either side of it as well as niches conveniently made in the wall to hold cooking needs. A
metate
and
mano
and the heavy stone griddle for baking tortillas had been left, doubtless because of their heaviness.

What woman had used them last? Socorro wondered. Where was she now? But there was little time for fancies. She said to the men, “If one of you will make a fire, I'll get a stew going.”

Santiago accepted that chore and went off to collect wood. Shea brought up fresh water and started taking things from the packs, leaving the food, jars and baskets for Socorro to put away. When Tjúni saw the baskets of corn, she put some in the
metate
and started grinding with graceful, practiced skill that made Socorro extremely rueful about the progress she had, till now, been proud of.

Socorro put jerky, chilis, corn and water into the big kettle. The meat and corn could be softening even though the fire wasn't ready. She tried talking to Tjúni but the Papago girl answered in monosyllables so that Socorro was glad to leave the kitchen and was clearing out rubble and parts of fallen roof, wary of snakes and rodents, when Shea's hands closed over her eyes.

“Come here,” he ordered. He brought her forward, then let her look. In a niche above the door stood the blue- and gold-robed dark madonna, standing on the crescent moon, her lips parted in a gentle smile.

Socorro's throat choked with tears. She was happy and sad, hopeful and fearing all at once. Shea's hands dropped to her shoulders. She tried to meet his gaze but the depths of his blue-gray eyes made her feel she was sinking into them, drowning.

He tilted up her face. “Welcome to your home, my love, my lass!” His lips were cool and hard and very sweet. Socorro had no strength; she lay in his arms while his kiss possessed her.

His breath caught in. He crushed her against him, mouth pressing fiercely on hers, burning to her throat. “My God!” he groaned. “My God, I need you!”

She scarcely heard; that wild melting in her changed to terror. She fought him, striking out, writhing, weeping. He pinioned her, holding her close. He must have done this for some moments before her mind cleared and she understood what he was saying, knew him again.

“Is it that bad,
chiquita?
Don't tremble so! I'd rather die than hurt you, don't you know that?”

“Oh, Shea!” She clung to him, sobbing. “I—I love you! But something happens—something awful!”

He stroked her shoulders, her back, soothing her till her tears stopped. “I love you,” he said simply.

“And I love you! But—”

He hushed her with fingers on her lips. “We love each other. We're home. Think how lucky we are, my girl, and don't worry about the ‘buts'!”

Somewhat comforted, Socorro dashed the tears away, caught up his hand and kissed it, pressed it to her face. “You are too good to me! I—I'll try—”

“Not right now,” he teased. “Aren't you going to put something on that fire Santiago's built?”

Making a face at him, she hurried into the kitchen and put the stew on to cook. Tjúni was still grinding, the coarse cotton of her shiftlike dress pulling back against her breasts in rhythm with her motions. Her eyes followed Shea. She smiled very slowly. If Shea kissed her …

Socorro closed her mind against the tormenting vision, energetically continued putting things away, placing them on the earthen benches or hanging them from pegs, while Shea and Santiago took over the clearing out of debris and remnants of roof. Santiago made a broom of strong sacaton grass tied to a paloverde branch and swept out everywhere but the kitchen where the dust would have gotten in the food.

By the time Tjúni had a basket of tortillas ready, perfectly thin and round to Socorro's great envy, the stew was bubbling, giving off a tempting odor. Shea brought the sleeping mats for them to sit on and they attacked their food with hungry relish, grateful for the warmth and light of the fire as night deepened. They were at a higher altitude now. It must have been nearing the end of November, and the air cooled instantly when the sun dropped behind the mountains.

When the meal was finished, Tjúni's dark eyes traveled from one man to the other. “When do we hunt the scalpers?”

Santiago's gaze joined hers, fixing on Shea. “We've got to get some men and at least one woman to stay here with Socorro while we're gone,” he said. “We should put the roof on and bring in some game or kill another steer.”