The Valiant Women (45 page)

Judah Frost's handsome thin lips curved in a smile as she drew up beside him. “So eager, Talitha? You rejoice my heart!”

“Where's Santiago?”

“Here comes your worthy guardian. Allow me to explain once and for all, my dear. I'm quite fatigued—”

“Is Santiago alive?”

Frost sighed plaintively. “Of course he's alive. Very much so. Now please wait till the others gather 'round.”

Shea and Chuey were waiting with Belen when frost reined in Selim and slid from the saddle to shake hands with Shea and nod a greeting to the vaqueros.

“We found a port,” he said, “but you want to know about Santiago so I'll tell you about him first. By now he must be married to a very pretty woman of mature years, the widow of a prosperous ranchero. We stopped at her home for shelter—she lives about halfway between Hermosillo and the proposed port, and she and Santiago made friends so quickly that I assure you I felt very much out of it. By the time we had rested enough to go on our way, she had persuaded Santiago not to.”

Shea looked dumbfounded. “Just like that? I'd have thought he'd come for his cattle and share of the mine proceeds.”

“His fair widow has more cattle than she can keep track of,” Frost grinned. “And she didn't favor letting her potential husband risk himself in Apache country since it was on a trip to Tucson that her first one was killed. Santiago said to tell you his cattle are for his godson, young James. Talitha and the twins are to share the mining profits, with you in charge, Shea.”

Standing as if an invisible current dashed against him, Shea didn't speak or move for a time. Then, with a heavy shake of the head, he said slowly, “Hard to believe! After all this time, he's gone just like that. I sure wish he'd have come back himself to talk it over.”

Talitha's feelings echoed Shea's words. Santiago had promised to come back. It was hard to believe that he'd just stop someplace and forget all about them.

“My dear Shea,” chuckled Frost. “It wasn't with talking the lady got her way! And Santiago did want to break the news to you but she pleaded so tearfully it would have melted anyone's heart, let alone a prospective bridegroom's.”

“There'll be a priest to marry
them
,” Shea said under his breath. He seemed to contract his loosened body, drew himself up straight. “Well, after he's been wed awhile, perhaps he can journey this way now and then. And you must tell me how to find him.”

Frost gave directions from Hermosillo, in such detail that Talitha was reluctantly almost convinced. Then, since it was growing late in the day, Shea called a halt to the branding and they all rode for the ranch.

At the sight of Tjúni, Frost shot his host a quick glance, then smiled at Talitha. “So this is why you're out playing vaquero! You've got someone else to make the tortillas and watch the baby.”

Talitha flushed. She had washed her hands and gone straight to pick up Caterina who had stopped nursing at Anita's breast when Talitha appeared. Gurgling with delight, Caterina seized fistfuls of Talitha's hair.

Shifting her to a shoulder and patting to bring up any air bubbles, Talitha stared at this man whom she feared as she had never feared Apaches. He threatened not only her body but the very core of her being, what her mother and Socorro would have called a soul.

Talitha wanted to shout that she didn't fully believe him about Santiago, but that could bring on trouble for Shea who now saved her from answering Frost's belittling remark.

“Tally doesn't play at vaquero. For weight and size, she's as good as they come.”

“Really?” murmured Frost. His polite tone, at least to Talitha, held an edge of amused derision. “I suppose I'm judging her by eastern girls. At her age, they've scarce put away their dolls.”

“I still have my doll!” Talitha flashed at him.

“Indeed?” he murmured. “I'm glad to hear it.”

“Why?”

He said blandly, “It's refreshing to hear that such an independent young lady clings to her toys.”

The wonderful doll brought up by
conducta
, named for Talitha's mother and once besought to keep Juh from claiming James, was little more of a toy than the madonna in the
sala
but Talitha wouldn't have told Frost so. She felt instinctively that the more mistaken he was about her the better.

Caterina burped milkily on her shoulder. With a final hug, Talitha gave her to Anita who was fending off nine-month Paulita, promising to feed her as soon as they went to their own house to cook for Chuey. As Talitha helped Tjúni finish preparing supper, Frost leaned back in one of the rawhide chairs and described the two harbors he and Santiago had located on the Sonoran coast.

“The northern one would be less than two hundred miles from Tucson and the southern slightly more.” He placed his chin on slim, pyramided fingers. “I'd reckon on getting goods from San Francisco in about forty days compared to four months coming through Yuma, and the cost should be about six cents a pound as compared to fifteen to eighteen.”

“Sounds good if the Mexican and Sonoran governments will open the port.” Shea was interested in spite of his shock over Santiago.

“I've talked to the governor and think he will. He's even hinted at letting goods pass duty free through Mexico into the United States since a thriving new port would help the Sonoran economy.”

Shea whistled. “Maybe I should have bought into your freighting business!”

“There's still time,” Frost grinned expansively. “Anyway, nothing's going to happen till the Gadsden treaty's been settled. By the way, Congress is quibbling over it; that may be a while.”

At Shea's urging, he stayed the night, sleeping in the vaqueros' quarters while Tjúni grudgingly spread her pallet in the kitchen as she had before she went away that fall the twins were born. Passing through the
sala
as Talitha readied Caterina for the night, Shea paused and gazed down at his daughter.

Her tiny fingers reached for him. With a kind of sigh, he offered a brown finger, laughed in surprise as she closed her chubby honey-colored fist around it, holding so tight that he could raise her.

“God's whiskers! She hangs on!”

“Yes.” Talitha could scarcely speak. This was the first time he'd laughed at his baby, looked at her with anything but pain and guilty resentment. Talitha's heart swelled.
Oh, let him love her!
she pleaded silently to mother, madonna and Socorro; God, if He listened.
Please, let him love her
.

At least, after all these months, he was
looking
. If he looked, he had to love. Caterina was such a beautiful, funny baby with eyebrows that puckered fiercely when her wants weren't promptly attended to. She spent hours each day now rocking on her knees and could already hitch herself along a little way before she collapsed.

“Well, my lass, come here then,” Shea told her as she squealed and refused to let him go. Awkwardly, he held her at arm's length. “She doesn't weigh much,” he said anxiously to Talitha. “Do you think she gets enough to eat?”

If
she didn't, this would be a fine time for you to notice it
, thought Talitha but she was too overjoyed at his interest to chide him. “Of course she does! Anita still feeds her and I give her ground piñon nuts in honey and water, the way I fed James.”

He frowned, obviously not satisfied. “She feels too light to me.”

“She wouldn't, if you'd been holding her since she was tiny.”

Talitha bit her lip, but he seemed not to notice the indirect reproof.

“Reckon I'd better start getting milk out of one of those old range cows. The babies can get used to it gradually and when Anita's milk gives out, they can change over entirely.”

“I don't know what's gotten into you.” Talitha frowned. “Socorro fed both twins till they were almost two and you never worried about them.”

“That was different!
She
saw to things then. Now it's up to me. And this one is going to have what she needs!” He squinted at Talitha across the baby's shoulder. “A glass of milk a day wouldn't hurt the twins. Or you, either! You're skinny as a post!”

“Milk?” Talitha echoed. Milk belonged to Nauvoo, before they'd had to cross the icy river in the night. It belonged to a long time ago. “Me, drink milk? Why, Belen would laugh his head off!”

“Never you mind that.” Shea uncurled his daughter's hand from his hair and put her back in her basket. “Starting tomorrow, there's going to be milk! And it's time you had your own room, you and little Katie.”

“I don't mind, Shea.” She couldn't say how comforting it was to have him just a wall away, except for the occasional hours he spent with Tjúni.

“You're almost a young lady! Time you had a proper bed and place instead of a pallet in what'll be the living room if we ever get that civilized! As soon as we get back from selling the cows, we'll get that room of yours started.”

She didn't argue. It was good to have him wanting to do something more than the necessary things. In spite of her misgivings about Santiago, Talitha went to bed that night in a glow of happiness. Shea had held the baby, really looked at her, and for the first time had given her a name!

Katie. A wee Irish name, with none of the haughty stateliness of Caterina which Talitha had already begun shortening to Cat. It was going to be all right. Shea had started to love his child.

XXIV

Talitha had avoided being by herself where Judah Frost might find her but next morning after breakfast when he was preparing to leave, he asked her if she had the letter for her father.

“I have business in San Francisco and I can see Mr. Scott with no trouble,” he offered smoothly. “I'll tell him about you, of course, but I'm sure he'd welcome something in your own hand.”

It was a reasonable, even thoughtful, suggestion, but Talitha wanted nothing to do with this handsome cold-eyed man and though she wished her father well, she shrank from an entanglement that might jeopardize her place in Shea's household.

“Perhaps you could just tell him—” she began, but Shea, ready to go out the door with Belen and the twins, faced about sternly.

“You write your father, Tally. If you can't spell all the words, Judah will probably help you. We'll be working the mesquite thickets over behind the second ridge today. You can join us there.” He nodded at Frost. “Have a safe journey and come see us when you're back.”

Frost rose to shake hands. “Be sure I'll do that. I feel quite at home here.”

Yielding to the inevitable, Talitha located a clean page in the ledger and sat down at the table, sucking in her cheeks as she concentrated on the letter. Fortunately, Marc had taught her how to spell most of the words she'd need for such a message, but Frost's presence, now that the men were gone, seemed to scramble her brains.

“Dear Father,” she began, stopped to bite into the pencil. She had already decided to say nothing about James. “I am glad you have done well in California. I am fine and live with a nice family. Mother died after the Apaches caught us.”

What else?

Her attention shattered completely as Tjúni took the water bucket and went out. Hastily scribbling her name at the bottom of the page, Talitha jumped up, folded the letter and thrust it at the tall man who seemed to loom over her though he hadn't moved.

“Thank you, Mr. Frost. I've got to hurry now and catch up with the others.”

“Talitha!” he exclaimed in pretended hurt. “So long since we had a word in private and the moment we have an opportunity, you want to run off!”

“I don't want any private words with you!”

His eyebrows raised. “None at all? Come now, Talitha, there must be something you'd like to say without your estimable foster father overhearing.”

Goaded, she narrowed her eyes, challenged him. “That story about Santiago—I think you're lying!”

“Why would I do that?”

“I don't know. I—I just can't believe he'd decide to stay down there like that and never even come to tell us.”

Frost considered her. “Especially since he was in love with you?”

Talitha stared in blank dismay. Frost took a long step toward her, crystalline eyes probing. “Surely you knew that, my dear?”

“No!” She tried to refuse to think of those times Santiago's gaze had changed, when the lazy gold of his eyes turned to flame; or of the puzzling things he'd said before he went away.

“He never told his love?” It sounded like a mocking quote. “Perhaps not since you're so young. But he told me. That was why he went with me in the first place, to get away from the temptation of constantly being near someone he felt honor bound not to approach for several years yet, if ever.”

Talitha's head whirled. She wanted to hurl denial at this man who watched her, ostensible sympathy failing to cloak the cruel pleasure he took in her confusion. But she believed him. It made sense of Santiago's bewildering behavior, trifling little things she'd never confronted squarely.

“Ah, you begin to understand.” Frost's white even teeth were startling in his deeply tanned face. “Is it a wonder he turned with relief to a ripe, handsome woman who adored him? If you care for your friend, Talitha, you should rejoice that he's so happily delivered from the torment of daily beholding what he couldn't possess.” He paused a moment. “Especially since he'd been through all this before.”

“What do you mean?”

Frost tilted his head. “Did you never guess that he loved Doña Socorro?”

That, too, made certain things fall into place. Once again, against her will, Talitha had to believe.

“So you should see that Rancho del Socorro had become impossible,” continued Frost in that soft commiserating tone. “There he was, between grief for the woman he'd never had, and desire for the one he felt forbidden.” Pausing, Frost added the remark that completely convinced Talitha. “Santiago got gloriously drunk the night he decided to accept his importunate widow. He told me if he had any real hope that you'd turn to him in a few years, that he could ever have you, then he'd have returned. But he's, sure your heart is so full of Shea there can never be anyone else.”