After the Thunder (8 page)

“I should’ve known you’d be great. I never should’ve dreaded coming here, but Cade made me so furious, bossing me and judging me the way he did.”

“Don’t be mad at him, ’Tannah. I think only another woman could even guess at how you feel about men after all the hard knocks you’ve had.”

Her understanding tone made a huge lump form in Cotannah’s throat.

“I think Cade wanted you and Tay to keep me away from all men, but I do need to have a beau while I’m here,” Cotannah said, “just for the principle of the matter.”

“I know. You need to show everyone in the Nation that you have other suitors while you’re living under my and Tay’s roof.”

Cotannah shook her head in wonder and smiled ruefully. “This is why we were true best friends for so long,” she said. “You understand me better than anyone else in the world.”

“And you me.”

Emily righted things and poured them both some more tea.

“We’ll be going to the horse races two days from now,” she said, suddenly, “and Walks-With-Spirits will be there.”

The suddenness of the remark made Cotannah laugh.

“You sound like a matchmaker, Miss Emily. And how do you know he’ll be there?”

“He’s been doctoring our bay mare, which is going to run. He’ll come to look her over at the last minute to see if she’s sound.”

“After Jacob pulled a gun on him today he may be scared of getting shot if he comes back to town.”

“Walks-With-Spirits isn’t afraid of anybody or anything. I’ve seen him face down a dozen people without turning a hair, people calling him witch, yelling that witches have to be killed.”

“Aunt Ancie says he’s an
alikchi
.”

“So do I and the half of the Nation who disagree with the other half, who say he’s a witch.”

Goose bumps sprang up on Cotannah’s skin.

“That scares me,” she said. “Somebody besides Jacob might try to kill him.”

Suddenly, she couldn’t think about that. She couldn’t think about Walks-With-Spirits at all, anymore.

“What do the two halves of the Nation say about Jacob Charley?”

“Some … mostly men … say he’ll never be the man his father is,” Emily said, “and others … mostly young girls and their mothers … think he’s a charming young man and a great catch.”

“Jacob’s earthbound, for sure. He’s not ethereal.”

“And he would notice you in your rose-silk dress.”

They both laughed.

“Indeed he would. I have a feeling he would not let me out of his sight in my rose dress.”

Emily broke a tea cake in half, then let both pieces lie.

“Be careful,” she said. “He sounded really mean when he was arguing with Walks-With-Spirits.”

“I will. I’m only amusing myself with him.”

“Today in town it looked as if you can amuse yourself watching the two fight over you,” she said pensively.
“Maybe we’re wrong. Maybe Walks-With-Spirits does see you as a woman, after all.”

“Only briefly,” Cotannah said, “for about one heartbeat when I was wrapped in his arms smashed up against that tree with Sophia between us.”

“And maybe Jacob isn’t mean,” Emily said. “It was probably his hurt pride talking this morning—he must’ve been terribly embarrassed that he wasn’t the hero of the day.”

“You haven’t changed one bit, Emily Harrington,” Cotannah said, laughing. “Always trying to see the best in everyone and every situation. Always trying to make everyone happy.”

“Neither have you changed, Cotannah Chisk-Ko, always trying to stir up some excitement.”

They both laughed frequently as they emptied the teapot and ate every tea cake on the tray and talked of one person and then another, of Las Manzanitas and Tall Pine and every member of the family, sharing every detail they could recall of these past two years of separation. Then they cried together when they spoke again of Sophia and the danger of the afternoon just passed.

Finally, when the big clock downstairs began striking four, Emily clambered out of bed and hugged Cotannah good night.

“I’m so glad that we’re friends again,” she said. “I’ve missed you fiercely, ’Tannah.”

Cotannah confessed the same and then, when her old friend had gone back to Tay, she wandered to the open window and lifted her face to the breeze. She could sleep now, for having Mimi’s friendship again was a wonderful comfort against loneliness.

The thought of it made her shake her head in wonder that their old wounds were healed. Emily truly was the kindest, dearest person, and a wonderful friend who
never stopped trying to make other people happy!

But it would take a miracle for her inveterate matchmaking to work out. Cotannah knew in her heart that she might as well forget about Walks-With-Spirits and concentrate on Jacob Charley or somebody else, maybe someone she would meet at the horse races. If Emily was right, she would never have any more power over Walks-With-Spirits than she did right now.

For she would be helpless trying to deal with a man who responded to her as a person instead of a woman. And she couldn’t say something wise if she tried from now until she was ninety.

The horse races were still held in the same place Cotannah remembered from her childhood: the grassy flats south of Tuskahoma that stretched east from the Texas Road along the Kiamichi River. And the homey smells of fry bread sizzling and grape dumplings cooking, the sounds of children playing horse while they rode down the saplings that grew near the river and of the adults calling back and forth and making wagers on the running horses were all still the same.

Auntie Iola called out from her seat in the shade, demanding a hug before Cotannah had even dismounted, and that was still the same, too. She lifted her face to the breeze and let it ruffle her hair as she unsaddled Pretty Feather and turned her to graze with the other horses. All of it, everything, was still just as it had been in the best times of her childhood.

Except for her.

She pushed that thought away. The day was beautiful, and excitement crackled in the air the way it did only on Race Day and she was not going to let any guilt or regret sneak into her mind to spoil it.

“’Tannah, you come here this minute and give your old auntie a hug!” Iola called again.

That was something else that never changed. Iola wasn’t really anybody’s aunt except Tay’s, but that was her title of respect and she loved it. She also loved ordering everybody around. Cotannah smiled and started toward her.

“Have you picked some winners yet, Auntie?”

Iola nodded vigorously.

“I’ve made my wagers, and I bet the most on Tay’s bay mare, of course,” she said, holding out her arms without bothering to heave herself up out of her chair.

Cotannah bent and embraced her, then sat down in one of several empty chairs placed in a half circle in the shade of a big oak tree.

“Where are all your friends? Where’s Hattie?”

“Not here yet. Hattie’s getting lazy in her old age. Where’s the rest of your bunch?”

“Packing the food and getting the baby ready. I came on ahead to have a quiet ride by myself.”

To have a chance to see what young men are here. To look them over and decide who my new conquest might be. To see if Jacob is here. To see if Walks-With-Spirits is coming to look over Tay’s mare as Emily promised
.

Iola gave a raspy chuckle.

“A quiet ride? Don’t sound much like the Cotannah I know,” she said, narrowing her beady eyes. “You can tell me the truth, girl. You’re a’wantin’ first pick of the young warriors, I’m a-thinking.”

How could one old woman know everything?

She didn’t say it to Auntie Iola, however. It would only puff her up and make her even more difficult to deal with.

“Just like you when you were my age,” Cotannah said lightly.

“No, from what I hear, you’re a bit bolder than the girl I was.”

So. Iola did have the second sight. Or she’d had a letter from Cade.

But she said it in a tone so full of curiosity that Cotannah took no offense.

“What makes you say that?”

“Watchin’ you makin’ eyes at Jacob Charley. I was standing in the window of Brown’s store the other day while you and him acted like Emily and Ancie and Jumper wasn’t even there.”

“I was not!” Cotannah exclaimed. “Jacob was the one making eyes at me!”

Then she remembered and who was flirting with whom seemed completely unimportant.

“The baby was there, too,” Cotannah said, her heart sinking again as she remembered the sight of Sophia running beneath the tottering pile of bricks. “I tell you, Auntie, I nearly let Sophia get killed right in front of my eyes.”

“I couldn’t see you and her after y’all went behind the new mercantile,” Iola said. “But I hurried over there when the screamin’ started and got there in time to see Jacob pull his pistol on the
alikchi
.”

She made a derogatory clucking sound and shook her head in disapproval.

“Jacob’s just asking to be struck dead,” she said. “For somebody who’s suppose to be so clever he sure acts stupid sometimes.”

“Walks-With-Spirits told me I was stupid for even going back there by the scaffolding,” Cotannah said, and began to grow angry just remembering it. “He talked to me as if I were a backward child.”

But mixed with her anger was the stinging admiration she’d felt when he’d stood up to Jacob so coolly. Jacob and his gun. She fought it off. She was not going to let herself feel drawn to him anymore.

“He made me so mad I don’t care if I never speak to him again,” she declared stoutly.

Iola turned quickly and looked at her.

“Underneath those words, your voice is telling me something different.”

“No! It’s true. I don’t need anybody else picking me to pieces and telling me I’m wrong all the time. Cade did enough of that this spring to last me for years.”

“Did you ever think that maybe you should listen?”

“No! He’s unreasonable and bossy and so is Walks-With-Spirits!”

Iola looked at her sharply, but then Hattie’s wagon came rattling down the incline in front of them and drew Iola’s attention away. Once they’d both greeted Hattie and helped her settle into her accustomed place, Cotannah sat with the two of them only long enough to be polite. If she knew Iola—and she did—in a very short while she would go back to her original topic of conversation and there’d be two old women lecturing instead of one.

“I’ll find you both again later,” she said. “I want to go look at the horses before the first race and Emily sent a message to Tay.”

Cade, darn his hide, did write to Iola, too, Cotannah decided, as she wandered off into the sunny field. Of course he had. He had mentioned Iola when he’d announced that she was going to learn to be a “real woman in the old Choctaw way,” and he had written to Iola about every single one of Cotannah’s sins and indiscretions.

Her face grew warm and her blood rose. No, she told
herself, just for today, for one nice day, she was not going to think about anything unpleasant. She wasn’t going to care if Cade had told the whole world that she was a wild, heartless, shameless user of men.

She would just find some new man and use him, she thought with a mischievous grin.

Or she’d ignore all the men and pretend that she was a young girl again, saved from the white man’s boarding school and its evil, perverted headmaster by her hero, her big brother, Cade. The old Cade, who would do anything for her and take her side on any issue; the old Cade who loved his little sister and thought she could do no wrong.

The ancient, constantly hovering question attacked without warning. As a young girl she had done no wrong. She had been shy and quiet with everyone except people she knew very well. So what had caused bad men, strangers, to manhandle her and abuse her? If none of the horror and humiliation with the headmaster, Haynes, and none of the terror and shame at the hands of the
bandidos
was her fault, if she was completely innocent, then why had such awful things happened to her in two different states at two different times in her life? They didn’t happen to most women even once.

Cotannah stared out at the festive scene as she walked blindly across the browning grass. That chain of thoughts fell into the rut they’d worn in her brain over the years and started going around and around, dragging their load of guilt and regret and infuriating, unsolvable mystery. What was it that was wrong with her?

She pushed the question away. She could forget it if she tried, so she made herself truly look at, really see her surroundings and think about that.

The whole scene was still the same as it had always been. The running horses dotted the landscape, each one
the center of a swirl of activity by a whole gaggle of people: owner, rider, handler, stableboy, friends, family, and lookers-on, each group ensconced in a different spot of shade. Over there, halfway across the field beneath two huge sweet gum trees, stood Tay’s tall bay mare surrounded by her people.

Cotannah started in that direction. Iola would be watching for her to find Tay as she’d said she intended to do.

On her way, she waved to Hattie’s daughter, Tulla, and to Molly Leflore but luckily she was too far from them to get caught in conversation. The restlessness was coming upon her, now, bad, and she couldn’t stand still, couldn’t force herself to listen to their chatter. No, she needed stronger distractions than that to drown out the nagging question in her head.

Distractions like the two young men standing straddle-legged up ahead of her, their hats pushed carefully to the backs of their heads while they shot blowdarts at a target tacked to a stack of hay bales. As she watched, the taller one blew into his gun, but when the dart came out, the breeze caught it and carried it to the very edge of the bales where, fortunately, it did enter and stick.

“You all be careful, now,” Cotannah said in a teasing tone, slowing her steps and swishing her skirts as she strolled over to them. “My horse is out there somewhere, and I’d surely hate for you to miss that great big target completely and hit her instead.”

They both lowered the hollow canes they were shooting through and turned to her. She didn’t know either of them, but that didn’t matter. Soon she would.