Listen to the Mockingbird (16 page)

“The christening is tomorrow,” she said.

“My brain isn’t so addled that I don’t know what day it is.”

Ignoring my churlishness, she washed her hands, led me to the table, bade me sit and cover my eyes.

I protested, “I don’t have time for nonsense.” But she would have it no other way, so I obeyed.

When she commanded me to open my eyes, I could scarcely believe the bundle of cloth she was holding before them.

“You got nothing decent for the churching, so I find me a bit of calico here, a patch of muslin there.”

It was a dress. The bodice and skirt were pale purple calico. Winona danced it about. In the back she had pieced together scraps of deep blue muslin over a big crescent of padding.

“A bustle?” I shouted. “Winona, is that a bustle?”

She grinned. “It do seem to me we will be the most fashionable ladies that town ever did see.” She held up a similar one she had made for herself.

I flung my arms about her, unable to stop the tears.

Given those astonishing frocks, plus Tyler Morris’ sudden retreat without a single horse, my spirits soared from the hollow void that had trapped them. By the next morning, I was fair looking forward to challenging Isabel’s fool notions of witchcraft.

Zia, in her white silk gown, was a sight to behold, and she did know it. She would cock her head, roll those shiny brown eyes and wait for someone to look toward her. Then a smile would ignite, like the sun does when it first breaks the horizon on a clear day, full of energy and sheer delight.

Winona stood tall and proud, holding Zia as Father Raymond intoned the ritual words. I stood next to her, our pair of bustles in full view of envious parishioners. Isabel, her waist unbelievably narrow in a dark blue dress with little purple dots and at least a thousand buttons, was there behind us in the first row of pews.

Only half of me was listening to the padre; the other half was planning the small skirmish that would come as soon as we left the church. Isabel, I was certain, would not be able to resist making some remark to me about Winona. I would steer her to Tonio, introduce him as someone who had been educated at a monastery, who still had ties to the Church—he did send seed from time to time to Brother Mario. Tonio, as we had rehearsed, would say that he knew Winona to be an honorable woman, a good Catholic and certainly not a witch. I hoped God would not strike me dead for the “good Catholic” part.

On the other side of the church sat Herlinda, her squat body swathed in black as always, her face clamped in its perpetual frown. In the wagon, she had muttered a few words that brought a stream of Spanish from Nacho, and I had hoped he was telling her that an innocent babe should not have her baptismal day spoiled by a cantankerous woman.

When we set out for the cuevas to call for Tonio, Herlinda’s jaws had been so tight you could see the cords in her neck. She had never mentioned seeing me that day at the cave, but I shifted nervously on my seat just the same. Still, she did regard Tonio as a holy man, and Herlinda was nothing if not devout. I was sure she would listen to what he would say about Winona. Father Raymond would be useless as an ally; but I figured if he were brought into it, his chronic befuddlement would likely not harm our cause.

People had openly inspected us as we arrived. Just about everyone who left town in fear of the Union Army had come back; the churchyard was full. Winona and Zia caused enough stir, but when Tonio descended from the wagon tongues really began clacking. I quite enjoyed it.

Father Raymond was droning on, and I wished he would get on with it. My feet ached. I hadn’t worn proper shoes in months. I thought about the baptism rites and the wedding rites, and how in the depths of my misery with Andrew I had visited the Army’s chaplain to beg for help. He had read to me from the Bible: “Thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.”

Zia was being baptized, but I hoped she would never wed.

At long last, the good padre placed his hand on her forehead. She giggled, eyes wide, face like honeyed tea. With that, a place for Zia’s soul was reserved in heaven, and I had officially acquired a goddaughter.

I congratulated Winona, whispering a reminder that she should make herself scarce when church was dismissed. We turned toward the congregation. Lieutenant Morris’ presence next to Isabel in the front pew gave me a start.

Outside, the sun was high and bright. I dawdled near the door waiting for Isabel. When she emerged, prim and stiffly straight, I moved toward her.

“Hello, Isabel, a pleasure to see you.”

She drew herself even straighter and licked her thin, unpainted, almost-white lips. Her voice began so low I had to strain to hear, but it rose almost immediately to a harsh, defiant whine like that of a wasp. “You defile this church with the presence of that Nigra witch and her bastard child.”

I paused, shocked at her harshness, but managed to answer calmly, “Zia is no bastard. Surely the Baptists would not stain a babe with such a lie. Her father is dead.”

Isabel’s eyes opened wide and she swayed a little. “Where?” she asked.

I wasn’t sure what she meant. “Where was the child’s father killed?”

Isabel’s head bobbed like a bird pecking for worms.

“I don’t rightly know. He was an Indian and—”

Isabel’s lips made a bloodless little O. “An Indian! And her mother a witch! How dare you bring them into our church? You risk our immortal souls!”

I didn’t try to point out that this wasn’t her church, and that Father Raymond had been quite willing to perform the baptism. Never mind that I had paid an arm and a leg for a bottle of the finest red wine I could find to present as a gift when I had first discussed the baptism with him. Communion wine, of course.

Instead, I put my hand under her elbow ready to steer her toward Tonio, forced myself to smile and ask pleasantly, “Have you met Antonio Bernini? He lived a long time in a monastery in Italy and still has close connections to the Church. It’s the Roman Church, to be sure, but so far as I know, the Romans are still quite Christian.”

Isabel gave a good imitation of genuine concern for me. “My poor, dear Matty. You mean you don’t know?”

“I’m sure Mr. Bernini will tell you he has talked with Winona,” I carried on blithely. “He has examined her catechism”—I hoped it was possible to examine one’s catechism—“and found her to be a good Catholic. And beyond any doubt, not a witch.” I stopped. “Know what?”

“Your Antonio Bernini was defrocked by the Church.”

I started to shake my head.

“Yes.” Isabel’s voice was firm as any preacher’s. “Excommunicated. By the Pope. It seems the Church owned a gold mine. He was put in charge of the miners, and he stole huge amounts of gold. From the Church. Now he’s come back for the rest.”

“You must be mistaken.”

“Yes, Matty. It was twenty or more years ago, but it did happen. When he first arrived here I heard rumors. I was so afraid for you, my dear. And as I was in frequent correspondence with the Missionary Society, I asked if they could find any information about him. And they did.”

My eyes fastened on the little purple spots on Isabel’s dress. They were violets. Tiny and dainty. My mind went blank of everything save that I hadn’t seen a violet in many years. They reminded me of my mother. I was still trying desperately to pull myself together when a hand took firm hold of my shoulder, and I turned to look into the meaty face and mean little eyes of Sheriff Zeke Fountain.

“Just a moment, Zeke,” I said distractedly, but his hand clamped my shoulder more tightly.

“’Fraid it can’t wait,” he growled, fair relishing the words: “I got to arrest you.”

My mouth dropped open so wide it nigh dislocated my jaw. “What?”

Zeke cast his eyes to the sky then swung his blue gaze back to me. “Like I said. I got to arrest you. For the murder of a man of Mexican persuasion, found dead from gunshot on April twelve, year of our Lord 1861. In your barn. And…” The pronouncement apparently dried his throat. He cleared it then went on, “And for robbing, in March, year of our Lord 1857, the Cuthright and Dobbins Stagecoach Company.”

Chapter Eighteen

To say the jail cell was cold and filthy would put too sweet a light on it. A mouthful of food had been spat on the floor—months before, by the look of it—and still lay there. The air stank of the sweat of a dozen or so past occupants. The sweat of fear.

I didn’t care. I prayed for the world to end, to die in my sleep, to be hanged now, with no more ado. I railed at God. If not death, please, at least unconsciousness. I could not bear to think.

All that day and the next I don’t believe I spoke a word. Neither did I eat the loathsome food Zeke brought, rattling the bars as he set it inside. At intervals, I was vaguely aware of Winona’s voice somewhere in the distance but could not rouse myself from the backless, broken chair in the corner of that cell. I slept some, but it was more stupor than sleep, every inch of my being wrapped in a shroud of dull, unceasing ache.

Eventually, I could no longer sit in that awful chair. The setting sun was just extracting the last of its light from the bars of my tiny window when I rose and began to pace, like the wild mustangs sometimes do when first corralled. Mindless steps, going nowhere.

Slowly, my head began to clear.

I had not killed that piteous Mexican boy. But I could not prove it. No one else was there when he died but me. A sense of dread drenched my very soul, the same sinking, hopeless dread that had flooded over me in the office of J. Marcus Lewiston, the lawyer. I could no more prove I had not killed that boy than I could prove that Andrew threatened daily to kill me.

Why would anyone believe me? I was a convicted thief. I had, in fact, robbed the Dobbins and Cuthright Stage Coach. And I had been lying every time I answered to the name Matty Summerhayes.

I reached out to touch the cold bars; and my eyes fastened on my hands, the nails broken and chipped from mending fence. The palms ran with the same ice water that trickled down my sides, inside Winona’s wonderful calico dress. All I had managed to do since my arrival was to remove the bustle to make the sitting easier.

Something skittered over my foot. I strangled a scream. A rat? One of those furry spiders as big as a man’s fist, a tarantula?

A whiter haze of light began to inch into the cell. Restless now, I dragged the broken chair from the corner and climbed up to look through the window, which was little bigger than a belt buckle. The sight fair transfixed me.

A mystical trail of lights seemed to be slowly making its way from heaven to earth. Slowly, it came to me that this must be the Tortugas’ Christmas pilgrimage. I knew the story from Jamie.

Converted centuries ago by Spanish padres, the Indians are intensely devoted to the Virgin of Guadalupe. Carrying her image, they wind their way up their small cone-shaped mountain gathering piles of grass and creosote along the way. Great signal fires are lit at the top, and when the Indians begin their descent after dark, they ignite each pile of brush as they pass. Jamie was right. The sight was wondrous to behold. Tears dammed up behind my cold, dry eyes broke free and surged down my cheeks.

Long after the tears were used up, I went on weeping. Between great dry shudders, I was grateful no one was around to hear me. I slept like the dead.

999

A familiar voice called me back to the living next morning.

“Get up, Miss Matty!” Winona was saying. “You got to fight this. I brung you some clean duds. If you don’t get yourself up right now and put ’em on, I’ll be getting that sheriff to let me in there and I will change you like a baby. I am not leaving this jailhouse till you do as I say.”

I did as I was told, pulling clothing off and on my benumbed limbs while Winona held a blanket against the bars to give some privacy.

“That feller out to the caves seems a right decent man. Is it true what they say?” she asked.

“You mean was he a priest cast out of the Church? I don’t know. Can’t rightly say that part bothers me much.”

“Seems a mite farfetched that he stole all that gold,” Winona said.

“Why would he even have had access to so much church treasure?”

Winona sniffed. “If you ask me, it’s hogwash. People who steal themselves a big pile of gold don’t go sleepin’ in caves.”

I was thinking that whatever the true story, he had hidden his past no more than I had hidden mine. And now he was exposed. Because of me.

“I got to tell you something,” Winona said as I fastened the last button. “I don’t want to, but I figure you would never forgive me…”

The hesitation, so unlike Winona, made me pause as I dragged my fingers through my filthy hair. The braid had completely untwined. “Well, put down that damn blanket and tell me,” I said, my voice raspy with disuse. “There’s nothing left that could harm me.” But there was.

“There be men out to the ranch. Texas soldiers.” She was watching me for a response. I gave none. “They is ridin’ over the land, lookin’ over the buildings.” Her next words came out in a rush: “They say they aim to con…con-fis…”

“Confiscate?”

“That was it. Throw us off it, anyway.” She peered around the blanket, saw me standing fully dressed and handed me a brush. “Fix that hair. You look like a madwoman.”

I took the brush and began sorting out the tangles.

“That fella who come for the horses,” Winona said, “he’s the one in charge.”

“They can’t do that.”

“They be sayin’ they can. That you a murderess.”

I thought about that while I plowed the brush through the snarls. Something still delicate but growing very fast began to stir inside me. “But I haven’t been convicted. That is my land. Mine!” I shouted the last word.

“Be that as it may,” she said, her voice sounding falsely calm. “There ain’t a lot you can do about it while you’re in here.”

“Come hell or high water, they will not take it from me. They will not run my people off.”

“I hope you is right, Miss Matty. I do whatever I can.”

I gripped the broken chair and banged it against the bars. “Zeke!”

He appeared like a large, unsavory ghost. “Sheriff Fountain, to the likes of you,” he snapped.