The Valiant Women (29 page)

“Listen,
doncellita
, they make the neck sore in order to control the horse more easily. The hackamore, as you see, has no bit, just a noseband. Don't you think a vaquero needs a little help?”

“But—”

Belen led her to his tough little roan who was hitched near the corral. “See, he's rolling the
rodaje
or little wheel with his tongue. It entertains him when he's waiting for me. But look at what's on the other end of the little roller.” Belen pried open the roan's mouth to expose the bit, a mouthbar with braces holding what looked like a small spade.

“This is a spade bit,
doncellita
. If one is heavy-handed, it cuts a horse's mouth terribly so we accustom him slowly. He is ridden with first a heavy hackamore, then a light one, till he handles well and learns to work cattle. This may take a year or more. Only then does he have a bit, and that's introduced with great care.” Belen released the roan who rolled his eyes at him and went back to tinkling the wheel. “The hackamore reins are tightened some and fastened to a band running around the
potro
's withers so that he has to arch his neck. The bit is put in his mouth but the reins to it are left loose. He wears the bit about half an hour the first time, and next day keeps it longer. After a while he gets used to the feel and starts playing with the
rodaje
. Only when he's used to the bit is he ridden with it, and the hackamore is still worn for control, its reins tighter than those of the bit, till he can be reined easily.”

Talitha shuddered. “I don't want to beat my horse on the neck! Or cut her mouth.” She pointed at the dun gelding who was being led around the corral. “He's a grown-up horse, Belen. Wouldn't it be easier to teach a colt?”

“Who has the time?” shrugged Belen. “A horse needs to be about four years old before he's ridden much. He's strong enough then to carry a man's weight and use for roping cattle.” Belen grinned at her, touching her hair with his brown hand, scarred from the reata and missing a fingertip. That had happened when the finger got caught when making a turn around the saddle horn with the rope when there was a big steer at the other end. “When a horse is small enough to be handled without trouble, he's no good for riding, and by the time he is, little Tally, remember well that he's dangerous on both ends and uncomfortable in the middle!”

Talitha hunched her shoulders. “I—I think I could get my horse to know me. Then I could train her without a club.”

Grunting, Belen said, “How will you exist on a ranch,
doncellita?
Horses and cattle are gelded. The cattle are sold for slaughter. If you feel such things too much, how will you live?”

“What's all this?”

Shea had come up and his eyebrows quirked in that way Talitha loved. What if he thought she was silly, too? But his eyes, blue and kind, yet piercing, demanded the truth; or, rather, she would always have to tell him truth whether she wished to or not. So she did.

There was a strange, remembering look in Shea's eyes. “My father was a rare hand with horses and though I don't remember him, much less how he did it, I have seen horses gentled in quite another way than this. But, Tally, ranch horses are pretty wild, even after breaking. You know Azul, Noche and Castaña have to be lassoed before they'll let themselves be bridled and saddled. In Ireland, and also with the U.S. Army, horses can be walked up to, usually, and haltered or bridled in the field. Whether a mustang could get like that …” He frowned dubiously.

“Couldn't I try? Get a young horse and make friends?”

“Friends!” snorted Belen. “With a horse, there must be a master, and the sooner he knows it, the better for both of you!”

“That's true for the wild ones,” Shea agreed. “But if we spent some time with the colts, leading them, getting them used to humans, it might settle them down faster in the long run.” He grinned at Talitha. “We can sure see what happens! Have you picked out your horse?”

Talitha shook her head, but Belen started for the other corral. “With permission, Don Patricio, let me show you a filly I think will be right. Though I fear you may let Tally spoil it!”

As she peered through the gate, Talitha caught her breath. There were five or six horses in the corral, but the one that entranced her was rich cream with a tail and mane that glinted like moonbeams. She had dainty hooves and great dark eyes, so beautiful that she seemed like a horse from a dream or fairy story.

Too wonderful for her. That one should be for a fine lady, a commandant's wife at the least. Talitha dragged her gaze from the small mare and glanced at the gray gelding, a sorrel filly, a handsome black with a white blaze on the forehead. These were obviously the pick of the horses gleaned from the wild ones.

“The golden one,” said Belen. “She is young and, though spirited, is not vicious.”

Shea glanced down at Talitha. “Do you like her?”

Breath squeezed tight in her chest. “I—I
love
her!”

Shea nodded. “Good. We'll see what we can do with her.”

The training of Ladorada, as Talitha named the filly, was a point of argument among the vaqueros, though as she responded to Shea's caressing firmness, even Belen began to take a grudging pride in the way she would come up to Shea or Talitha and no longer have to be roped.

Shea rode the filly till it was plain that she wasn't a bucker, roller or biter. Then Talitha took over, wearing trousers from the hoard of Cantú clothing. Shea or one of the vaqueros always went with her, but Ladorada's disposition was as sunny as her color and the lightest pressure of the reins was enough to turn or halt her.

The filly's training was so successful that Santiago used the same methods on the blaze-faced black colt, and when a promising young horse was spotted, it was given a chance to tame gently before the rougher ways were used. Castaña's colt by Azul, a bright steel gray, was haltered and led about when he was a month old.

It was during this period toward the end of the rodeo that the twins were born. Tjúni grumbled that, properly, Socorro should retire to a place of seclusion to give birth and be purified, but it happened that Socorro's sons were born under no roof at all.

Her pains began one afternoon when she and Talitha had been gathering wild grapes and, enticed by finding always another vine a little farther along the creek, they had gradually drifted several miles from the house. Talitha was putting a handful of grapes in the basket when Socorro gasped and her face contorted.

“We—we'd better start home,” she said as Talitha stared at her with frightened eyes. “Those funny small fingers that have been crawling up and down my back—now they are a great fist squeezing—”

If anything happened to Socorro! Talitha caught her breath in a whimper. She loved Socorro for herself as well as Shea's beloved. “Maybe you should stop here. I'll run for Tjúni!”

Socorro nodded, gripping a willow branch as another pain wracked her. Her teeth bit into her lip and a fine dew stood out on her forehead. “Bring Shea, too, if you can find him. I'll keep walking. Maybe I can get to the house.”

Talitha didn't know if that was a good idea, but there was no time to be lost in argument. Putting down the grapes, she ran as hard as she could, dodging roots and bushes, till she reached the long valley and could skim through the flatter grasslands above the creek. Her heart was bursting.

Blood hammered in her ears. But she didn't slacken pace till she found Tjúni gathering squashes while James watched from his cradleboard propped among some rocks.

As Talitha gasped out her news, Tjúni turned with maddening deliberation, went into the house and collected old cloths, a serape, a knife.

“Boil water,” she told Talitha.

Putting James down in the corner, Talitha built up the fire and put on a kettle of water, saw Tjúni poking about in her collection of herbs and roots and cried imploringly, “Oh, hurry! Please! The pains were strong!”

“First baby,” returned Tjúni placidly. “Take a long time. She probably get to house first.”

After what seemed forever, the Papago woman started out and Talitha began to hunt Shea, calling his name.

Catching up Ladorada, Talitha climbed up on the corral and mounted bareback, almost weeping with anxiety. Where, in all this expanse of hills and trees and cañons, could she find Shea? The only thing she could think of was to give Ladorada her head and hope she'd pick up the trail of Azul and the vaqueros' mounts.

At first Ladorada followed the trail to El Charco, then veered off at a silted dry wash. Talitha saw hoof tracks, fresh horse droppings, and breathed easier. Urging the little mare on, Talitha could soon smell burning hair, heard shouts and commotion.

Where the wash widened into broad plain, Chuey and Belen were guarding several cows, one of whom lowed angrily. Near a fire where several irons heated, Santiago held a yearling down by forcing its head at an angle and pinning its shoulders with his knee. Shea brought the iron down onto its hip.

A steamy hiss; the calf bawled frantically. Shea cut the ears, slipped the reata off the hind feet. The yearling heaved itself up, gave a mighty shake, and fled to his mother who sniffed him over and began to lick the brand.

“Shea!” Talitha called. “Socorro—the baby—”

He whirled, seeing her for the first time. “She's all right?”

Talitha nodded, swallowing. “Tjúni's gone to her. The pains started down on the creek.”

“She's not at the house?”

“No.” As if it had been her fault, Talitha hung her head.

Shea had reached Azul in several long strides, swung into the saddle, and was off without a word to the vaqueros. Talitha went after him, but not before she had seen how Santiago's tawny eyes followed Shea with something like hatred before he ordered Chuey to rope the next cow.

Talitha was worried that James might be screaming in his cradleboard, but at least he should be safe, so she rode down the creek. Shea was already kneeling by Socorro by the time Talitha reached them. Tjúni had got the serape under her. It was no more than a mile to the house, but even Talitha saw that Socorro couldn't walk. The pains gripped her every few minutes and though she held Tjúni's hands and strained, nothing was going forward.

Her long dark hair was damp with sweat and her lips were bloody where she'd gnawed them, but she managed to smile at Shea. “Your son,
querido!
He must be a big redhead burro, too, taking so long to come!”

In Tjúni's stead, he took her hands, braced as she strove, fell back in exhaustion. He turned to the Indian woman, pale beneath his sun-browned skin.

“Can't we do anything?”

“She do.”

“She can't keep this up—trying so hard.” Shea gritted his teeth as his wife's body convulsed. “There must be some way to help!”

Tjúni lifted a shoulder as if to say Socorro's deficiencies in childbirth were no fault of hers. “Something wrong. Baby's head not in right place.”

“Well, can't we move it around?”

“May kill baby.”

“Damn it, we can make another child!”

Tjúni said nothing. “Your hands are smaller than mine,” Shea said. “You won't hurt her as much. Try!”

Socorro pressed down again and panted, “Don't hurt my baby! Please, please! Oh, Shea, help me!”

“My hands are little,” said Talitha, astonished to hear her own voice. “I'll try if you'll tell me what to do. But my hands are awful dirty. Let me wash.”

She ran to the creek and scrubbed with sand and water. Kneeling between Socorro's arched legs, she saw the strange quivering opening that expanded during the next pain, thought she glimpsed something inside.

“I go make strong tea,” said Tjúni. “She need drink. You feel around,” she added grimly to Talitha. “If you find head, try move it down against birth opening.”

She moved off. When the pain came next, Socorro screamed. The way Mother had when James was born. Juh's women would have been glad for her to die with the child locked in her, but Judith had wanted to live to protect her daughter and at last James had come out and breathed and lived. Though mother had not—

Mother, help me!
Talitha prayed.

Trembling, though she moved as delicately as she could, Talitha slipped her fingers into the distended canal, feeling slowly at what seemed a confused mass of arms and legs, until she encountered a firmness that was rounded and seemed covered with short wet hair.

The head. It could be nothing else. But she wondered in cold terror if the baby could be a monster, for it seemed to have more hands than it should.

One shoulder was wedged against the opening. Talitha tried to shift it, terrified of breaking a bone or doing some lasting damage. Socorro bore down again. The shoulder wedged even more awkwardly. It had to move or both baby and mother would die.

Taking a deep breath, as soon as Socorro relaxed, Talitha, with the desperation of knowing there was nothing to lose, fitted her other hand around the baby and pulled. The shoulder slid around, the head dropped into place, and at the next contraction, as Talitha withdrew her hands, the head pressed against its gateway to life.

“The head's in place,” Talitha whispered to Socorro who lay with her eyes closed. “You can bring him if you try hard now.”

Socorro's lashes fluttered. “Him?”

“I don't know if it's a boy,” Talitha confessed. It was no time to say that it seemed to have at least three hands.

With the next spasm, Socorro bore down, and her cry was more like that of one in battle than in labor. The head looked as if it must burst through, but the swollen flesh restrained it. Maybe if Talitha held the lips wider …

Socorro screamed again. Talitha put a hand on either side of the baby's head, tried to ease it through the straining portal. The flesh tore, but the black-thatched skull thrust part way out.