These Is My Words (22 page)

Albert said to him, We will come back, we have to go check on our places, but I don’t think he understood, as Mr. Maldonado was still holding his hands up to the sky and crying out in Mexican when we rode away. At my place all looked peaceful, but Bear sniffed the air and he knew something was wrong. We decided I would ride to warn Harland and Savannah to hide in the cellar.

When I got to Mama’s, all were determined to help our neighbors, not to hide and wait, so together we hitched two wagons. They brought one wagon with shovels and drinking water, and Savannah came with the babies in another, as we figured the Indians would not return to where they thought all were destroyed. They came quick, all the babies were crying because they were disturbed, and they followed me back to the Maldonados’.

Then I went on to catch up with Albert. We made the crest of a hill, and laid eyes on the worst sight yet. There by the Raalle’s clearing was seven Cavalry men standing and firing in all directions, and at least eight more, laying dead or dying nearby in the dirt. At least twenty Indians surrounded them, dashing toward them on their horses as if the soldiers’ bullets couldn’t harm them.

Behind that scene sweet old Mr. Raalle lay tied hand and foot spread eagled from the branches of a tree and looking like a Indian pincushion. The Raalles’ house was already a stand of black boards and singed adobe, but fire had spread and the smoke rose from a hay stack and the chicken coop and outhouse. I whispered to Albert that those soldiers are surely counting their shots now.

To our thankful hearts, we heard hooves behind us, and Rudolfo rode up with a repeater rifle of his own and two full bandoliers on his shoulders. The three of us crept closer and closer, and at Albert’s word, all at once began to fire on them. Instead of returning fire, the Indians rode quick to the top of a rise further east, held each one’s weapon in the air, and whooped at us.

It was a word of defiance, I know. It was like the time when we were children and Ernest had wrestled me to the ground and made me say uncle, and then I ran off and stood on top of the corncrib and said I took it back and I would never say uncle to him for all my days. Some of the soldiers fired last shots, some quickly got on horses and went after them, and I saw them ride over the next hill and counted eighteen Indians that got clear away.

Behind us, here came Mama, Harland, and Savannah and the Maldonados, all carrying pitchforks and sickles and anything they could carry that would made a dent in a man, with the littlest children in the rear and holding tight to the babies. They were a little pathetic bunch of determined looking soldiers. In front of us, the battle suddenly turned. The Indians on horseback had led the soldiers in a grand circle, and came charging over the hills right at us all.

I had fired my last shot, and cried out to Rudolfo to throw me some shells, but he was cut off by a fast riding Indian. Albert was bleeding so bad from his head he looked like a moving dead man, but still was loading and firing, though too far from me as he moved back to protect the children. Even Harland has squeezed off some shots.

Someone yelled out, Sarah! And as I turned and looked, barreling toward me with a spear in his hand raised over his head is an Indian man with hellfire in his eyes. I slipped off that saddle fast but as weak-kneed as ever I have been, and the spear nicked the pommel and stuck in the dirt behind me. The Indian wheeled his horse around and pulled out a rifle, stopped and aimed it at my head. I fired at him, but there was no bullets. I pulled the trigger again and again, and he began to laugh and point the rifle at me, coming a step closer each time I pulled the useless trigger.

The empty clicking of my rifle sounded so loud, like a cannon near my ear, but still he stayed on the horse, smiling hard and aiming. Finally, he cocked the action, and I tried to scoot behind the horse, but it jerked and ran. There was so much dust and smoke, I could hardly see anything beyond that rifle barrel and I knew I was dead.

Oh, my baby April, I said, over and over. The Indian raised the rifle to sight it in on my head, and I dropped my useless aim on him. Just as I thought I would hear a bang and die, he flew off the horse, dragged down in a crazy confusion of dust and blue cloth. A soldier had him by the throat and I saw a hand go up with a knife. The Indian’s rifle went off wild into the air, and then he laid limp on the ground. I ran.

Again, the soldiers had the Indians on the run, there being only about six or so left alive, they mounted up and this time after just a few minutes, the soldiers returned weary and exhausted, but with no one left to chase.

Savannah was cuddling the swarm of children who seemed to be all sobbing at once. Mama was tying an apron around Albert’s head. He was talking to a soldier, and I saw them shake hands, and suddenly I recognized that soldier just from the way he stood and moved.

I was sitting in the dust near Rudolfo, shaking bad like a pot that is boiling over, and Rudolfo looked just terrible hard and pained, staring at it all. Then he turned to me and said very softly, Ruben loved you, Señora Reed.

I told him I knew, and then I hugged him, and I don’t know what came over me to tell such a lie, but I said, I loved Ruben, too.

Rudolfo looked cheered for a moment and then started to cry. It was the saddest thing, that big, man-sized boy strapped with guns and ammunition crying in the dust. I decided it would not matter to him that I only loved Ruben like a brother, but it mattered a lot that his brother died with a little happiness first.

Smoke was rising now from the last standing building on the place. Mr. Raalle had planted pretty hedges all around that turned out to be a fire path from each outbuilding to the next. As the dry wooden shed started up in flames, horrible child like screams came from inside it. The whole crowd of us ran to it, but stopped, it was already a huge fire and flames shot into the sky.

Then suddenly, there was Captain Elliot, sparks all around him, tearing at the door, kicking the embers, he went right through the wall and came out with Melissa Raalle in his arms, the both of them smoking and singed and little hot red cinders clinging to their clothes as if they could burst into flames together like a human torch. Melissa’s hair was matted and burned up, and part of the back of her dress fell away, showing a bad scorch place on her back.

Mama was there, and Melissa shrieked Mama! and held out her arms, and the two of them fell to the ground, Mama rocking her back and forth like a baby, and Melissa wailing and shrieking without stopping for many minutes.

It was a long time before anyone could move. At last, one by one, soldiers started to get a drink from the Raalle’s well, and to sit and get their breath. I just stood there, feeling that if I moved I would faint, but as long as I stayed rooted there, I could stand. All seemed to get quiet. There was no sound except for the crackling of the cooling coals left of the Raalle’s home.

April came to me calling Mama, Mama, but when she saw me all dirty and black, she ran back to Savannah, afraid of me.

Lieutenant, said Albert’s voice behind me, We have lots of folks here to bury. Could you spare your men a while to help us with a Christian burial before you leave? We’d take the soldiers, too.

Jack Elliot looked at him, and said, I’m not in command, here, Albert. The commanding officer is lying over there. Then he turned to the others. Will you men help bury these folks?

And they all nodded, looking around themselves at the horrible scene. One of them picked up a shovel right away, it had been leaning against the adobe wall and was not burnt.

Wait, I said. This is a homestead. If Mr. Raalle doesn’t live on it, he doesn’t own it. She’s just a child, she can’t live here alone. And if you bury him here Melissa may never see his grave again. Put him up at my place, next to Jimmy. And you men can clean up and I’ll feed you, and you can put down for the night there.

Captain Elliot said, Well, men, You’d better listen to the Colonel, there, and I saw him look at me real strange again.

So Mr. Raalle is buried next to Jimmy and four soldiers from Fort Grant. It is too far to carry them back all that way, since that fort is not near Tucson. And Ruben Maldonado is next to his Mama and Yoyo’s grave with three other soldiers near. His Papa begged the soldiers to dig his hole too, as he thinks he will die of the arrow in his leg. Somehow he had got it out before we got back, but he still thinks he will die of it.

One of the soldiers is well enough to travel back to the fort. All those men ate a big supper late at night when they got done with the burying, and I told them I would stay in the house while they cleaned up out back, and gave them all lanterns and plenty of the soaps that I couldn’t sell anyway, and thought how lucky it was that I had made all that and couldn’t sell it, so I had it on hand.

It is an awful thing to look on such sad circumstance and not be able to shed a tear. It is not because I do not feel for these folks, but maybe I feel too much. Part of me is glad, in a low down, mean way, that it is not Albert’s or Mama’s graves we are digging. Glad that it is some soldiers I don’t know and neighbors and friends but not family. Lord, I must be the cussedest woman there is to think that. Finally, I felt so guilty for thinking those things that I cried. Then I began to feel the heartaches of our friends and neighbors and I cried for them, too, as we said prayers over each and every grave.

Then I heard Savannah praying on her front porch, and she was saying Thank you, Father, that our home and family was spared, and I suspect she may feel the same way I did, and maybe it wasn’t so awful then.

May 5, 1885

Captain Elliot said I should stop calling him that as he is not in the regular Army and now holds the rank of Lieutenant anyway. I told him when he said he was off to fight Indians I thought he meant far away, but we agreed that the soldiers were our only chance for we might all have been dead. He said the leader of these Indians was Ulzana, part of Geronimo’s tribe or gang, and now maybe Geronimo would stay in Mexico.

One of the soldiers left early this morning to ride to Tucson to tell General Crook about their battle and how badly it went for all concerned. The others will leave after breakfast and having some fresh bandages and water for all. Then we were on the back porch while Captain Elliot was washing his hands and face as we talked and I saw for the first time that his hands were blistered and burnt pretty bad.

He said it didn’t hurt, but I scolded him and made him let me bandage up all his fingers, as they looked down to the bone in places, and he could end up with gangrene or something and die. I wrapped all his fingers carefully.

When I was done he said Thank you, Sarah.

So I kind of smiled and said did he think saving all our lives gave him leave to be familiar with me?

He looked around us and saw no one near, and said to me, No, but this might. And then that Jack Elliot took my face between his mittened up hands and kissed me plum on the mouth. My heart jumped about three beats.

Captain Elliot! I tried to whisper in a angry voice. I never!

And he just grinned like he does, and said, I know.

Then he had me by the shoulders, and said, It’s just too dangerous, I wish you didn’t live out here alone, you should move back with your family for a while. Or come to town.

Well, I said, I hate Tucson, it is dirty and ornery.

And he said back, It just needs a few women that are clean but ornery to straighten it up.

And then he kissed me again, different that time. Real hard and took my whole mouth and wouldn’t stop even when I tried to push him away. He just kept on and kept on, and crushed me against him until I thought the life would go out of me for the feeling of lightheadedness and flush I felt. My heart was trembling inside and my legs felt watery and I couldn’t stop breathing so fast and whimpering a little. His hands moved up and down my back and his whole body pressed against me. Then it stopped being hard and forced and became real tender and soft and kind of hungry feeling. He was kissing me so that I felt myself get weak, and I held onto him from faintness. When he finally let me go, I had to grab the wall to keep standing.

Then that man just grinned at me, and laughed a bit and said, I thought so! and went and saddled his horse.

May 15, 1885

Mr. Maldonado has got well in spite of himself, and he and Rudolfo and Estrellita have gone back to working as usual.

Albert’s head is scabbed up and painful and now that side of his face kind of hangs down a bit and his smile is crooked. But Savannah said to him it is the most precious smile in all the world, crooked or not, and she kissed him right in front of the children and all of us.

Every few minutes, a burning hot feeling on my lips and the memory of hard pressing of hands kneading against my back makes me feel a certain other kiss all over again. It was not like the first one he gave me a long time ago, and surely nothing like any kiss Jimmy ever gave me. One time I think, he was mocking me and telling me I am a wanton woman, and then the next I think, he was scared for me and maybe it was him that killed that Indian that had me squared in his sights, and he loved me so much he just had to kiss me. Just like Savannah kissed Albert.

I must think about something else for a while. But then I remember his warm arms and his big strong legs touching mine and how hard and wide his chest was and how hot his kiss was, and I go outside and feed the chickens. They are getting mighty fat.

May 16, 1885

We go to get mail together, armed like a band of outlaws. Today I was expecting a package of rouge and perfume for soap, but instead I got a folded up paper package in a real neat little printed hand I didn’t recognize. I opened it up and it was ten different little packets of flower seeds. There was no bill inside, but no note either, and I kept looking at the address, and it was surely meant for me, but no way to know who it was from.

The stage manager said, Appears you have a secret admirer, Ma’am, and smiled. Mama and Savannah looked at me strange but I just said I don’t know who, it must be a mistake.