The Valiant Women (41 page)

“Shea won't let you have him.”

Mangus said patiently, “Hair of Flame has said the boy will always have a home at the ranch, but that if he wishes to go with me, he will not prevent him.”

Feeling betrayed, Talitha stood helplessly in the darkness, glancing from the towering shadow to the small one. “James!” she cried. “Oh, James!” And he was not the boy precociously expert with
reata
and horses who squirmed from her embraces and followed the men, but the child she'd carried in a cradleboard almost as long as she was, that she'd fed with crushed piñons and water and kept alive in spite of Juh's women.

Mangus's hand on her was so kind that, to her own surprise, she didn't shrink from it. “Your brother can visit you. And if the white part of him is strongest, if he does not live well among the Din-eh, he can come back as he wills.”

She grasped at that. A small hope, at least. Hadn't James been reared as white ever since he could remember? One part of her mind was even forced to admit that it might be best for James to leave for a while, get away from the people and place that would confront him daily with guilt. And Shea … He was too generous and fair to be unkind or vengeful, but who could blame him if he felt differently toward the boy he'd ransomed with his own pain?

Into the silence, Talitha said, “James? You won't forget us? You will come back?”

“I won't forget you!” he cried with an indrawn breath, and then, with a gasping sob, he ran away.

“I will watch him,” Mangus said. “Go and sleep. I will watch Hair of Flame, also.”

“How can you? Isn't he inside?”

“No. He has carried his wife to the bottom of the hill. He said he would sleep with her this last night before she goes into the earth.” Mangus's tone held an edge of awe. “He does not fear her spirit!”

“No, how should he?” Talitha said.

Stupid with weariness and grief, feeling as if her bones were dissolving, she gazed toward the slope. So Shea, for one more night, would hold his love beneath the stars.

But the day would come, and the burial, trying to explain to Miguel and Patrick. James would go with Mangus and …
I
can't bear it!
Talitha wept inwardly, stumbling as she walked to the house.
I
can't bear any of it at all!
But she would have to.

XXII

Socorro was buried on the hill where the cross above her would be touched by the earliest sun and the latest. The vaqueros made a coffin of oak that had been curing for use in furniture and the women had dressed her in her best clothes and arranged the mantilla over her face. Shea added the jewels he had bought her, fetched up from Chihuahua by the
conducta
, an emerald ring and necklace, a rosary of gold and precious stones, a medal of Guadalupana.

On the hill, Shea tried to speak and could not. Nor could Santiago who stood with his face averted. At last Mangus loomed forward. “She who has gone away was beautiful in her face and in her ways. Her deeds were kind and she was valiant. Since it is not your way to kill a mount for one gone away, I will do that when I return to my own place.”

“That would pain her,” Shea roused enough to say. “Do not, great chief.”

Mangus didn't answer, but turned and strode away. James went with him. They mounted their horses at the bottom of the hill and by the time Socorro was lowered into the earth, her grave heaped with stones and the cross raised, the travelers were out of sight.

In the days that Mangus had waited for the return of Shea's party, he had talked a little with Chuey and Cheno and made no pretense of liking them. He was troubled about the Americans pushing through his country, especially when they spoke of boundaries, though John Bartlett, the first Boundary Commissioner, had given him an officer's tunics, some blue pants with red stripes, epaulets, shoes and even a cravat. Unfortunately, these had been lost in gambling.

Even more unfortunately, Mangus had hoped to get some encroaching American miners to move their operations to Mexico and had gone alone into their camp, offering to take them to a valuable site. Not believing him or understanding who this huge man was, they wrestled him down and lashed him with a bull whip. That was two years ago. Mangus now believed the Americans to be as much his enemies as the Mexicans.

Startled out of his apathy, Shea said, “He didn't tell me about this!”

“Probably, Don Patrico, he felt it was not the time,” said Chuey, pockmarked face very serious. “He said that as much as he could, he would protect this rancho, but if the whites crowd in and constantly enflame the Apache, he's not sure how long his friendship will keep the other groups away.”

“We'll just have to take our chances,” growled Shea.

“Which may rapidly improve,” put in Santiago. “If the United States is buying this region for its railroad, it'll have to send soldiers.”

Shea grimaced. Santiago gave him a slight smile. “I don't love the Americans, either. But at least they should be more numerous and better-armed than the presidio garrisons!”

“Captain Zenteno's doing his best,” defended Shea, for on their fall drive to market in Tubac, they'd learned that Zenteno had been named commander of the whole sector from Santa Cruz to Tucson.

“The other garrison commanders will have to do what he says,” agreed Santiago. “But look at what he's supposed to do! Keep in touch with the Gila Pimas and San Javier Papagos and convince them to muster in case of trouble; send six men to Calabazas to help guard the stock; stay constantly alert, defend the whole stretch of territory and still keep enough men at Tubac to repel attacks! Poor Zenteno! I bet he hopes the United States will take the whole mess off his hands!”

Shea didn't answer. He'd lapsed into the brooding silence that still claimed him much of the time though he had at least gone on living. And from that, Talitha argued to herself as weeks passed and he barely ate, was bound to gradually come a renewed zest, a return of energy. At first he wouldn't pick up Caterina, even look at her if it could be avoided, but lately he'd started watching her as she kicked on a blanket or slept in the big willow basket Belen had made for her.

That eased a pressing weight on Talitha's heart. She'd been afraid he might abhor the baby, or have nothing to do with it, which didn't matter so much now while there was Anita's warm breast, the fascinated twins to rock and cluck and coo, the vaqueros' rough adoration, and Talitha's own great love.

No, for a long while Caterina wouldn't miss one more worshiper. But as she got old enough to wonder, especially when she understood it was her father who ignored her … Well, Talitha had been terrified of that! Not now, though, for once Shea began to
see
his daughter, how could he not be utterly conquered?

The fair baby hair had been replaced with fine black curls that clustered softly around the tiny triangular face. Darkly imperious eyebrows slanted above eyes that were a deep blue-gray fringed with long black lashes.

“She'll break many hearts,” laughed Santiago as she closed her perfect little fingers around one of his big brown ones. “And what a grip she has! The man she wants will never get away!”

“Don't start in on that already!” said Talitha rather crossly.

The baby had had colic in the night and she and Anita had taken turns walking her about. Now, while they yawned and struggled to get through the day, Caterina, the small devil, slept blissfully between gurgling happy bouts of squirming and reaching for the trinkets Talitha had tied to her basket.

“Why, Talitha!” grinned Santiago. “Do you fear you'll grow into this one's skinny old
dueña? Caray!
In a few years more you'll be famed from Hermosillo to Tucson! The visiting
caballeros
' horses will eat so much grass that we'll have to marry you off before we lose all the pasture!”

“
Cojones!
” She threw the corral expression “What balls!” at him, took wicked pleasure in the shock that widened his golden eyes, then made them narrow.

“Talitha! Only bad women, very bad women, talk like that!”

“You do. And Belen and Chuey and—all of you!”

He flushed. “Not in front of women,” he said sternly. At the protest in her face, he added sheepishly, “If you're always around the branding and rough work, of course you'll hear things! Which reminds me that I must tell Don Patrick you're too old to go on as you have been.”

“Too old?” She glared in outrage. “Why, I'm just getting strong enough to be really any help! You know that, Santiago! Don't be a burro!”

Something changed in his eyes, in his face. Suddenly he wasn't the big-brotherly person she'd taken for granted, but a man, one with a strangeness on him that somehow reminded her of Judah Frost, made her retreat though Santiago didn't move.

“How old are you?” he asked abruptly.

She blinked. “Fourteen next April.”

His breath escaped in a sigh. He turned away. “Well, you're too old to talk like a vaquero or hang out with us, and so I shall tell Don Patrick this very day.”

Talitha felt blind with fury. She could do housework, and did, without complaint, but she only felt alive when she was outside, and the baby's care took so much of her own and Anita's time that she rarely had a chance, now, to ride Ladorada, even seize a few hours to gather nuts or wild foods. And Santiago, for the sake of ideas thought up a long way off and a long time ago, wanted to condemn her to a life of cooking and household chores?

“
Sangrón!
” she shouted at him. “
Bembo! Zonzo!
” Having called him hateful one, simpleton and stupid, she didn't dare, even in her outrage, to spit out the really bad names, so she ended rather weakly, “Shea won't listen to you! And—if he does, I'll hate him, too!”

At the hurled names, he had checked as if astounded, turned swiftly toward her, but the anger that flared in his eyes softened, as he watched her, into amusement. “Ay, Talitha, you are growing up! The kitten's getting claws. But it's not, you know, altogether unpleasant to be a woman.”

The memory of Socorro bleeding flashed through her mind. It did through his, too, or he read her thoughts, for his face twisted as he whirled and went out, his limp heavier.

Ashamed, for she loved Santiago next to Shea, James, the twins and Caterina and knew that however obtuse he was, he truly wanted what was best for her, Talitha started to go after him and say she was sorry. Then she heard him laughing with the twins who had apparently ambushed him outside the door and decided that after all, he'd smiled, he'd known she hadn't meant it.

The twins' fifth birthday only a few weeks after their mother's death had been a hushed affair, but Shea had given them their first personal horses, Thunder, a steel-gray son of Azul, and Lightning, sired by Azul out of Ladorada, as creamily golden as the mare.

Talitha had helped work the young geldings and as Shea and Santiago gave the boys a boost into the fine new saddles brought up from Chihuahua, her heart swelled with the beauty of flame-haired Patrick on his dark horse, black-haired Miguel on his golden one. The boys had good hands and even in their jubilation they used the reins lightly.

As they went off for their first canter, followed by Belen, Shea's smile faded. His bleak gaze sought the cross on top of the hill. Hesitantly, Talitha put her hand on his.

“I think she can see them—and how proud it must make her!”

Shea patted Talitha's hand. At the evening meal for which she and Anita had fixed all the twins' favorite foods, he teased them gently and said they'd have to be top vaqueros to live up to their horses. He put them to bed that night and sang them a couple of lively Irish songs. But then he'd gone outside and though Talitha lay awake long after Anita, who was sleeping in the
sala
in order to suckle Caterina when she woke up hungry, had soothed both babies to sleep, she never heard him come in.

At last, unable to stand her worry anymore, Talitha put on her sandals and made her way in the light of a half moon to where she'd been certain he was. Only he wasn't kneeling or sitting by the grave. He lay upon it.

A terrible fear that he was dead froze Talitha, but she must have made some sound for he slowly raised his head. “Oh, Shea!” she cried. “Shea, please—”

“Go in, lass,” he said. When she didn't move, he added dully, “I won't murder myself. There are the lads and now that—that new one. They're her own sweet flesh and I'll see to them, I swear it. But leave me be, Tally. Leave me as close as I can get to her now.”

So she had gone back weeping, and finally slept, and morning had come.… Anita said it was a mercy and a marvel he didn't turn to mescal, but Talitha almost wished he would if it would help him rest, take the puzzled grief from his eyes. Still, life went on. Gradually, his appetite improved and he seemed to sleep better.

The twins had cried for their mother, but almost as desolately for James. Luckily, they had happy dispositions and responded to the vaqueros' increased male tenderness. On their new horses, they were improving the skills they'd played at since they were able to walk, and they slept among an array of Chusma's grandchildren with their small sister—when they had time.

Yes
, thought Talitha, watching them now as they flanked Santiago, that's how it is; if you're alive, you go on living. And after a while, you could laugh again. But why had Santiago's look, just for a second, reminded her of Judah Frost's?

She didn't like to think of that man. Nor, though she didn't want Shea and Santiago to lose the money they'd invested, did she want Frost to come back.

He did, on the day of the Feast of the Roof, celebrated that year only because of the twins. At the sound of approaching horses, Shea rose quickly and went to the door while the vaqueros got in reach of the rifles.