Harvest of Fury (17 page)

On the third night they camped in a grassy basin watered by a small creek that meandered down from the northern mountains. “We'll have been seen by now,” James said. “Tomorrow you'd better start back.”

Out of the shadows a figure materialized. Talitha choked back a scream and reached for her rifle, but James was already on his feet, greeting the giant warrior, who responded briefly, but with affection, before coming to stare down at Talitha.

“So, Shining Girl,” he said in Spanish, “you have come to see me?”

“No. My brother brings a present. The vaquero and I have helped him this far, but tomorrow we turn back.”

“That is wise. If your brother hadn't been dressed as an Apache, you would all be dead.”

He sat then, and as he ate the food they offered he asked about the twins who'd been carried in a double cradleboard that was his gift, and about Caterina. With surprise, Talitha concluded that he really cared. He hadn't forgotten Socorro, who'd saved the lives of some women of his camp.

“And Hair of Flame?” That was his name for Shea.

Talitha explained as best she could about the war. Mangus sighed heavily. It came to her that he was old, close to seventy, and had been wounded nearly to the death that July at Apache Pass.

“We thought the soldiers were gone for good,” he said. “Now they are back. They have made a post at Apache Pass.”

“This time they'll stay,” warned Talitha. And she told the Apache of Carleton's order. “The only hope for your people is to stop raiding and attacking,” she finished. “Otherwise, you'll be tracked and killed like wild beasts.”

Mangus laughed. “The whites are poor trackers.”

“Then they'll wait and kill you when you come out of hiding.”

The huge man got slowly to his feet. “Are we to do as the Mescaleros? Consent to settle on land where there's not enough game to feed our families and where the agent never gets enough food and supplies? I would rather die in the mountains.”

He faded into the night as silently as he had come.

“A crippled hawk is fed,” James said. “A wild one preys. When it cannot, it is no longer really a hawk.”

Next morning two warriors appeared to help James with the cattle. Before them Talitha couldn't kiss James good-bye, but she caught his hand and pleaded, “Come back when you can.”

By the time she had stopped weeping, her brother was out of sight.

Christmas was terrible that year for Talitha. James recently returned to the Apaches and certainly in danger from the increased warfare; no word from either Shea or Revier; and always the freezing knowledge that though Judah Frost's mission would take months, he was her husband and he'd come back, just as he'd returned from apparent death.

Ironically, he got letters to her, one from Mesilla, another from Santa Fe, several from St. Louis, passed along by merchant or military trains, brought to her by military patrols, travelers to Sonora, and once by Pete Kitchen.

Pete must have been astonished at her marriage to the man who'd killed Santiago and abducted her, but he never spoke of it directly. He probably took the pragmatic view that she was better protected by a strong ruthless man than a weak good one. It was Pete who brought the news that Sylvester Mowry had been acquitted by the commander of the Department of the Pacific and released from his Yuma arrest in November. He had filed suit in California's Fourth District Court against Carleton and others for more than a million dollars in damages.

“But I reckon he won't be back for a spell,” drawled Kitchen. “General Carleton's ordered him arrested if he sets foot in Arizona. 'Course, if we get made a territory, Carleton won't be the boss of us anymore.”

Frost's St. Louis letters were jubilant. France and England had been on the verge of recognizing the Confederacy and forcing mediation, but the severe faltering of the South at Antietam had led Britain to reject intervention. The Union victory also set the stage for Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which provided that as of January 1, 1863, all slaves in regions still in rebellion, would be “thenceforward and forever free.” The railroad system was breaking down in the South, bringing shortages to both cities and armies.

“It'll take a while,” exulted Frost. “But without help from Britain or France, the Rebs are done for.”

All more remote and far away to Tally than Shea's stories about Ireland and Revier's about Berlin. Where were they, the men she loved, in that massive struggle convulsing the nation?

It was a cold, drizzly afternoon late in January when Miguel, who was on guard, gave the signal for a single rider. A lone traveler could be a decoy for a whole band of thieves, so everyone got weapons and watched as the scrawniest burro Talitha had ever seen plodded slowly onward.

The rider was scrawny, too, wearing ragged homespun, a villainous serape, and moccasins. He rode head down, as if wounded or exhausted. He halted a little way from the house and took off a tattered hat, revealing lank yellow hair.

“This Cap'n Shea's ranch?” he called.

Forgetting caution, Talitha ran out. “Do you come from him?” she cried. “How is he? Where—”

The young man, scarcely more than a boy, swayed in the saddle, caught himself. “Ma'am, you reckon I could come in before, I tell you? I'm plumb tuckered out.”

The twins were already taking the burro in charge. Belen put an arm around the stranger and helped him inside. Frost had laid in a stock of coffee, and a pot was kept going most of the time. Talitha poured a cup of it, sweetened it with honey, and gave it to the boy, whose freckles stood out on his weather-burned face.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, battling the urge to seize his slumping shoulders and shake out of him whatever news he had.

“I was, ma'am, but I'm pretty much healed over.” He shivered as Carmencita took his soaked blanket and put a dry one around him. “Been a long ride. Ma'am—”

Suddenly, Talitha was afraid. She didn't want to hear what he had to say. “Here, Belen's fetched you some dry clothes. We'll leave you by the fire to put them on. Then you need a big bowl of corn soup and some beef and beans. After that, we'll talk.”

A year and nine months had passed with no word from Shea. Twenty minutes more wouldn't matter. And for that twenty minutes she could go on hoping, she could believe—

Patrick burst in, holding a rifle, Miguel at his heels, lugging a bedroll and a canvas bag. “This is Father's Sharps'!” Patrick held it so they could all see the initials carved in the stock, then confronted the stranger. “What're you doing with this stuck in your scabbard?”

“I brought it for you if you're his boys, and you must be.” The young man reached under the blanket and produced a revolver, which he tried to hand to Talitha. When she shrank away, he gave it to Miguel. “This is his'n, too.” There were tears in his eyes as he turned again to Talitha. “Ma'am, I sure am sorry. I was tryin' to think of some way to tell it right. But I—I guess there ain't no right way, is there?”

She was flying apart, bursting into particles. She was dwindling, melting, vanishing. There'd be nothing left to hear, to feel. Nothing.

Cat gave an odd little moan and buried her face against Talitha. Patrick was shaking. He put down the rifle and stood close to Miguel.

“Ay,
por Dios!
” wailed Carmencita.

Talitha forced her disintegrating self back into her body, took Cat in her arms, and moved close to the twins.

“Tell us,” she said.

So Lonnie Chandless, late of the 7th Regiment of Texas Volunteer Cavalry, told how Shea had shielded him with his dying body, and how the Apaches had closed in.

“One of the devils lanced me. I figgered the jig was up, but here comes Lt. Rip Harris with enough men to chase off them slaverin' Apaches. They carried me along with 'em.” The husky voice broke completely. “It's on my conscience they left other men who couldn't walk no more, but they took turns and got me out. Not because it was me. Because Cap'n O'Shea died to help me, so they was bound he didn't die for nothin'.

“There's a letter for you, ma'am, if you're named Talitha.” Lonnie looked in bafflement from Talitha to the twins, obviously wondering if she could be their mother. He knelt over the canvas bag and rummaged till he extracted an envelope. “See, there's a map drawn showing how to get here. And I'd of made it months ago, but Apaches jumped me up close to Camp Bowie. Got a hole in my right shoulder to match the one in my left.” He chuckled. “Never thought I'd be glad to see Yanks, but that patrol looked like angels, scatterin' them heathens like ducks after June bugs! I reckon those soldiers guessed there was more to my story than just that I was carryin' things to a friend's widow, but they took me to the post and patched me up, fed me till I could ride.”

Lonnie looked slowly around him, at the vaqueros, their women, back to Shea's family. His thin shoulders moved in a sigh. “So I've come. You can sure be proud of him, the cap'n. First in a fight, first to help, first to laugh when it weren't easy.” He shook his head. “I sure wasn't worth his dyin'! If I can do anything … I want to pay back much as I can.”

“You'll stay with us awhile,” said Talitha. “After you've eaten, Belen will show you where to sleep.”

Like one in a dream, she moved into the
sala
, sank numbly down before the madonna, Cat still in her arms. The twins followed. Then the vaqueros and all the women and children except Natividad's Marsát, who was looking after Lonnie.

Dead. Shea was dead last summer.

He might even have been dead when she married Judah Frost to save his ranch for him. What was left now of that strong, beautiful body, of the flaming hair, the doubly branded cheek? How could it be that those blue eyes would never again behold the sun?

Sewa clambered into her lap, stroked at her tears, told her in Spanish, English, and Yaqui not to cry, as if one language might work if another didn't.

“Daddy's not coming back?” Cat sobbed against Talitha's neck. “Never, ever?”

Patrick leaned against the window, clenching his hands. Beside him, Miguel tried to control his heaving shoulders. The women were crying. Vaqueros sat hunched into themselves. If there were someone to say the prayers, lead them in mourning, help them have their grief … As Belen came to her Talitha looked up at him, hoping he'd take charge, but the grizzled Yaqui watched her sternly.

“
Madama
, we must have a service, raise a cross for Don Patricio beside Doña Socorro's and Santiago's.”

They were all dead. Tjúni, also. The four strangers, of different bloods, who had each died deaths of a sort before joining to build the ranch.

Yes. But Talitha held in her arms the sweet flesh of the children of those on the hill. Patrick must be the image of Shea as a boy. Miguel's eyes were his mother's. And over at San Manuel was a son of Tjúni and Shea.

But I'll never have his baby now
, Talitha thought, anguish twisting her inside till she felt she couldn't breathe.
Never hold him again, make him happy after his years of loneliness
… That hurt more than anything else, that she could never repay him for saving her and James, for all his kindness, for all his grief.

He's with me now
. The voice, Socorro's, was so real that Talitha started and looked around. She saw no one, but in her mind was a flash of Socorro's smile, a strong sense of loving presence, a knowledge that it was well with Shea, very well.

Talitha wept, in cleansing release. Then, still holding Cat and Sewa, she said to the others, “We will miss Don Patricio all our lives, but we must remember he, is with Doña Socorro, whom he loved past telling, with Santiago, and his brother who died in the desert and his mother who starved in Ireland and his father who was murdered. We know he gave his life for his friend. There's no greater love than that, no greater honor.” Her voice broke. With tremendous effort she steadied it and went on. “Tomorrow we'll place his cross on the hill. But now, let's speak of him and remember.”

For an hour, perhaps two, his people made a picture of Shea, each sharing something private, a special thing. When Juana had miscarried, he'd sent her a bolt of red cloth to make a pretty dress; he'd jounced cranky teething children on his big shoulders, always hugged Carmencita and told her she was beautiful, taken the roughest of the riding and cow work, never cursed a man whose rope slipped, though he wouldn't tolerate unnecessary roughness.

“He didn't use our women as most
patrones
would,” said Francisco. “And we knew he'd take care of our families if we were killed.”

“If there was a question about a calf,” said Pedro, “he'd tell us to put on our own brand. He would always ride that last hard mile himself, comb the last thicket.”

Patrick took a deep breath. “He always let us try things.”

Miguel nodded. “And he sang.”

Caterine slipped off Talitha's lap. “I want him back!” she cried, her small face convulsing. “I want him back! And I want James, too! Why does everyone have to go away?” She ran out, into the cold, dark rain.

Talitha found her sobbing in the granary and finally persuaded her to come inside for supper. Several times that night, when Talitha woke from exhausted drowsing to weep into her pillow, she heard strange little whimpers from Cat, but when she went to her, Cat was asleep. Safely nested in the corner of her bed were James's carved hawk and Cinco's little blue bird. Talitha wondered when she'd stopped sleeping with her doll.

The cross was planted in the ground beside Socorro's. It was a bright, chill morning, smelling clean and bracing from last night's rain. Talitha read from a Bible Marc had given her.

“‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.… There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.'”