The Valiant Women (38 page)

“Tarahumares?” Santiago gave a bitter laugh. “Those heathen deep in their
barrancas
in the Sierra Madre? As well say the man in the moon has a cure!”

“We do not have to go to the
barrancas
, the great cañons,” said Belen. “On the Rio Cocóspera not far from where it leaves the Rio de los Alisos, there lives a Tarahumare who has, I swear it, healed two vaqueros even after they were in fits. When one of Don Narciso's men was bitten by a skunk, an old Papago told us of the healer. We tied our friend to his saddle and took him to the Tarahumare. In three days he was well. A few years later, this Nōnó cured another of our men.”

“Will you go bring him here?” Socorro asked, face brightening with hope.

“
Madama
, one must go to him.”

Santiago's eyes had narrowed as he thought. “I believe I've heard something of this Nōnó. Isn't he a sorcerer?”

“His people thought so,” admitted Belen. “He was a great shaman, known for his power in cures, but when several of his rivals died, it was thought he had turned his gifts toward evil. People avoided him and at last he decided to move far away.”

“I don't care if he's a sorcerer or not if he can make Shea well!” cried Socorro. “Let's start at once!”

Belen looked astonished. Santiago's breath caught sharply. “My lady, you cannot go! If it will please you, if there's a chance, Belen and I will take Don Patrick.”

“And if he died on the way, and me not with him?” Socorro got to her feet. “I will come.”

Santiago flushed but said doggedly, “You are near your time. It is too dangerous.”

The usually sweet mouth curled in abrupt savagery. “You speak of danger with Shea like this?”

“I'll come, too,” said Talitha. “If—if the baby is born—I helped before.”

Socorro hesitated a moment. “The children—Anita will look after them, and we can stop by El Charco to see if Juana and Cheno will help out here while we're gone. Yes, Tally, I'd be glad to have you.”

Within half an hour they were ready to go. Socorro kissed the bewildered twins and told them to be good for Anita till she came back. James edged forward and touched her skirt.

“Doña Socorro!” That summer he had adopted the vaqueros' style of addressing her. “I—I—” He gulped. Though her gaze rested almost feverishly on Shea, whom the men were helping to his horse, she turned to the boy and caressed his black hair.

“What is it,
mi buen vaquero?
”

His desperate gaze flickered at Talitha, then came back to the tender face bending over him. “Chusma did scratch Chacho, Doña Socorro. But—I didn't look. I—” His throat worked convulsively. “I didn't know the mark on him was from her, I just wanted it to be so I believed it—”

Talitha's own throat felt filled with thick, choking blood. He hadn't been sure! He—he'd
hoped!
So Shea was dying. She caught her brother's shoulders and shook him, violently. He didn't resist, his head snapped back and forth, and this meekness of his now, now when it was too late, enraged her even more. She was drawing back her hand to strike him when Socorro put her firmly aside.

Cradling the boy's head against her heaviness, she brushed away his tears and kissed him. “My brave one, I know how one can hope when one loves. We are all in the hands of God. Instead of hating yourself, help the men while we're gone, and take good care of Patrick and Miguel. Will you do that?”

She smiled at him in a way that coaxed the shadow of a smile to his lips. He nodded. “I promise. I'll take very good care of them, Doña Socorro!”

“Good! They'll mind you a lot better than they will Anita.”

Talitha's mind had cleared. She no longer felt like physically punishing her brother, but neither could she bring herself to embrace him, though there was a terrible yearning sadness for him in her as she gave a short small nod and said, “Goodbye, James.”

She didn't look back as they started off.

Shea was lucid when they began the journey but after a few hours he grew restless and began to talk excitedly, trying to climb out of the saddle. Belen and Santiago tied him in the saddle, his hands to the horn, legs to the stirrups, and took turns leading Azul.

It was a terrible day. Sometimes he seemed to be in a stupor, head drooping forward. Other times he swore viciously, sometimes at soldiers trying to run up a white flag of surrender, sometimes at guards who were taking him to be branded or flogged.

He would cry out, “Socorro! Socorro!” but would not know her when she rode near and touched him, told him she was there.

At El Charco, they took him down for a while, drifting in and out of lucidity while they chafed his wrists and legs and hips where the bindings had left marks and fed him gruel. Socorro told him they were going to a healer who should make him well and he managed to smile painfully at her, lift his hand toward her cheek, before he sank into his illness.

Santiago left Pedro in charge. Cheno and Juana promised to go at once to the main ranch. The Sanchezes knew of the Tarahumare, and though Carmencita crossed herself, she agreed that he had cured men of hydrophobia.

“And of an ill they caught more often!” said Pedro with a grin before, sobering, he helped get Shea back into the saddle.

San Manuel was out of the way so they wouldn't be seeing Tjúni. Talitha was glad of that. South and west they traveled, stopping in midafternoon to rest Shea and massage his wrists and legs. His eyes were clouded, and when they gave him water he thought it was sand.

That night they stopped near the ruins of Guevavi, which had been the mission headquarters for the area, Calabazas being one of its
visitas
, until it was overwhelmed by Apaches over seventy-five years ago.

The ruins, dissolving back into the earth they had been made from, increased Talitha's sense of desolation and her uneasiness as night came on. No one had mentioned Apaches or bandits, but they made no fire and shortly after they had tended Shea and fed him a gruel of pinole, they ate their own meal of tortillas and jerky.

Santiago lay on one side of Shea, Socorro on the other. Belen settled at a short distance and Talitha huddled in her blanket near Socorro. The days were still hot, but the nights were chill. Shea had been loosely tied but he fought his bonds and babbled between stretches of quiet. In one of these, though she'd thought she couldn't, Talitha fell asleep.

They left the Santa Cruz next morning and struck south for the Rio de los Alisos. Fortunately, Belen knew the region which was at the northern edge of Don Narciso's holdings. He reckoned it was another sixty miles to the Tarahumare, two days' journey.

Talitha didn't dare ask the questions that drummed in her head. What if Nōnó was dead or moved away? What if his medicine didn't work? Or supposing Shea died before they even got there?

Striking the river about noon, they followed it between rugged mountains, passing a few deserted ranches. They spent the night at one of these. Crumbling as its walls were, they'd offer some protection in case of attack.

Late next afternoon they came to the settlement of Imuris where the kindly wife of one of the soldier-colonists gave them delicious small peaches, a cooling drink made from limes, which Talitha had never seen before or tasted, and a meal of stewed wild turkey and fresh tortillas.

“
Pobrecito!
” she murmured as it took both Santiago and Belen to hold Shea while Socorro got him to drink of the cooling lime mixture. “So handsome, so young!”

Her eyes widened and she crossed herself at mention of Nōnó. Yes, so far as she knew the old witch was still living. In a case like the Señor's, clearly any risk must be run. “But,
madama
,” she besought Socorro. “You should not go! Only think if he cast a magic on your babe!”

The three days' hard travel and fear for her husband had told heavily on Socorro. In spite of increased exposure to the burning sun, there was a transparency to her skin stretched over the fine bones of her face. Her eyes looked bruised.

“Why don't you stay, my lady?” urged Santiago.

“If—if you are needed, Belen or I would come for you at once,” Talitha added.

She shook her head, clearly too weary for argument, but summoned a grateful smile and warm thanks for their buxom hostess. Santiago tried to pay her but she refused almost indignantly.

“No, rather may my good husband be succored if someday he's sick far from home! Go with God.” Catching Talitha by the shoulder, she whispered harshly, “Have a care for the lady! Her time is near.”

Talitha nodded. The woman's thought was kind but futile. Socorro wouldn't rest till they had brought Shea to the healer. Cutting directly east from Imuris, they soon picked up the Rio Cocóspera and shortly after that they saw a scatter of structures up ahead, gilded by the late sun.

A gaunt brown man rose from a cookfire by the
ramada
and watched as they approached. A coarse white woolen cloth was kilted about him with a broad, exquisitely designed, extremely soiled girdle. A matching band went around his head, somewhat taming a stiff mass of white hair. Shell earrings weighted down his ears and around his neck hung a mummified hummingbird. As the little group halted, he squinted at Shea with charcoal-colored eyes.

“The falling-down sickness?”

Belen explained while Shea muttered and fought his bonds. Nōnó asked a few questions, then made a heaving motion with his skinny shoulders. “I will try. But it is difficult, this hydrophobia.”

“You have cured others,” said Santiago harshly.

“Each man has a different fate,” the Indian returned equably. “I do not know what this one's is.”

“For your health, it had better be to live!” rasped Shea's partner. Socorro laid a restraining hand on his arm.

“You will do your best, señor?” she pleaded. “That is all we can ask, I know it!”

Nōnó gave Santiago a scornful glance, but his tone gentled as he spoke to Socorro. “I will do my best and that is all I can do. Bring him to this space before the crosses.”

There were three tall slender crosses with small arms in a row between the
ramada
and the house built of stone and poles. Shea lay before the crosses on his blanket, quiet now, unmoving, after the shaman's treatment.

Nōnó had made a brew which, with the men's help, he'd forced Shea to drink. Then he'd passed his hands over the sick man, blowing vigorously, and with a small wood cross, touched Shea's head, neck, back and shoulders. When Shea struggled and cried out, the shaman gave him another potion, accompanied with signs and mutterings.

Next Nōnó took several large stones from the edge of the fire and placed them in a hole in the ground. He covered them with aromatic branches, poured water in so that the stones hissed and steam rose thick and pungent, and commanded the vaqueros to place Shea in the hole where he could breathe the vapor.

Now that was done, the shaman had danced and chanted with his gourd rattle, and he concerned himself with his guests, bringing them a drink made of ground toasted corn, water and green herbs. He called this
iskiate
. He glanced somewhat longingly at two small bits of meat cooking on wooden spits.

“I have plenty of tortillas,” he said, “but only two mice.”

Santiago hurriedly assured him that they had plenty of jerky, though some tortillas would be welcome. They shared their peaches with him and he was especially pleased with the tobacco Belen gave him. After the meal, he gave Shea another gourd of some concoction.

Socorro watched the old man pleadingly. “Señor, do you think—”

“I do not think yet, señora, I only pray. But the medicine has not killed him, so it may cure.”

Santiago sprang up, was checked by his limp, but loomed menacingly beside the emaciated Indian. “You gave him something that can kill?”

“What would you?” shrugged the old man. “It is a deadly illness. Small wonder that the cure, also, can bring death.”

In the flickering light from the small fire, he looked very much a sorcerer. As if he somehow divined the chill shooting through Talitha, he studied her a moment and said, “I will make a gourd of medicine which you must give him anytime he is restless. If he drinks it all, call me and I will make more.”

“I will watch my husband,” said Socorro.

Nōnó shook his head. “I am a shaman, not a midwife. You will sleep. The girl is young and can rest tomorrow.” Ignoring Socorro's protests, he brought her a potion and stood over her till she drank it. “The storehouse beyond the steambath is empty if you want to sleep there,” he said. Then he prepared Shea's draught, gave Talitha an admonishing nod, and retired to his house with no further words.

Socorro insisted on sleeping near Shea. The men spread their blankets on the other side of the crosses. “If you grow sleepy,
doncellita
, rouse me,” instructed Belen.

Talitha pulled her knees up beneath her chin, wrapping her blanket close against the night wind. “Thank you, Belen.” But she didn't intend to get sleepy.

She would watch this night, and pray to the Temple God of Nauvoo and the Mormon camps, to Socorro's madonna, to the elemental forces she felt in the dark night around her. A world without Shea? Unbearable!

XXI

In spite of her resolve, Talitha did drowse a time or two. When her head dropped forward enough to wake her, she dragged herself up, without the blanket, and stood there till the cold revived her. Only a few coals winked in the fire pit, freshened by the breeze, but in the boundless sky she found the Big Dipper and the small one, which Shea had told her about so that she could find the North Star in case she was ever lost at night—and very lost she felt this night, but the stars were high and grand and far away.

For Belen, the Big Dipper was
El Reloj de los Yaquis
, the clock, for it swung around each twenty-four hours though the last two stars in its bowl opposite the handle continued to point at the North Star. And to Belen and Santiago the Morning Star was the Star of the Shepherd.