Santa Fe Woman (28 page)

* * *

AT SUNSET THE PARTY stopped. Several buffalo were grouped together, and the thickset Indian called Fox asked a question. Santana nodded, and all of the Indians whooped and took off after the buffalo.

Carleen slipped off to the ground, and Jori dismounted. They both looked at Santana, who was watching them curiously. “We will eat,” he said. “Do not try to run away.”

Indeed, there was no place to run. Jori saw that, and she stiffly stood there. She went over and put her arm around Carleen’s shoulders. “We’ll be all right, honey,” she said.

“Are they going to kill us, Jori?”

“No, but they may be mean.”

“I ain’t afraid of them,” Carleen said.

“Try not to make them mad.”

Carleen said, “If we could knock that old Santana on the head and the other one watching the horses, we could get away.”

“We can’t do that.”

Santana ignored them. He appeared to be thinking deeply about something. He moved twenty yards away and stood there with his back to them, studying the sunset.

There was nothing to do, and Carleen and Jori simply waited. It seemed like a long time, and darkness had completely fallen
when the party came back. They had evidently killed a buffalo and cut it into chunks, for they quickly made up a fire. Some of them could not wait but began eating the liver and the tongue raw. Santana accepted a chunk of the meat, thrust it onto the point of a stick, and held it over the fire that the young men had made. He said something, and one of the warriors hacked off a chunk of meat and threw it in the general direction of the two captives. It fell in the dirt, and Santana gave another command. The same Indian that had thrown the meat hacked off a sapling, sharpened the point and tossed it to them.

“Eat,” Santana said, his face impassive, his eyes fixed on the meat that was sizzling in the fire.

“I don’t want their old meat,” Carleen said, but Jori shook her head. “We have to be strong,” she said and thrust the point of the stick into the meat. She cooked it, at least seared the outside of it, and then ate what she could. Carleen did the same. The Indians ate until they were gorged. Two of them disappeared out into the darkness and the rest simply lay down and went to sleep.

Santana had said nothing during the meal. Now he looked across the fire where the two sat, Jori with her arm around Carleen.

Carleen said, “When can we go home?”

Santana shook his head. “You never go home. You will be Kiowa woman. I will give you to one of my warriors.”

Carleen shook her head violently, her eyes fixed on the savage. “God won’t let that happen.”

The youngster’s words caught the attention of Santana, and he grinned faintly. He was a good-looking Indian with regular features beginning to show a little age now but still strong, and his eyes were alive. “Your God is weak,” he remarked.

“No, he’s not!” Jori said strongly. “He’s a strong God.”

Santana turned to face her. “I have heard many who believed in Jesus God. I have seen them die under torture, but Jesus God never came to save them.”

“He’ll save us,” Carleen said stoutly. “He’ll send Rocklin to get us.”

Santana’s eyes glittered. “I saw Rocklin in your camp.”

“You know him?” Jori asked.

“Yes. He was a Comanche.” He fell silent for a time, and finally he said, “He raided my village with a war party and killed my son. I’ve always known that I would kill him.”

There was utter finality in the Indian’s words, and Jori realized that nothing on earth could change the mind of this man. Rocklin had told her how strong family ties were among the Indians, and now she knew even more fear.

“You believe in Jesus God?”

Jori was caught off guard. “Yes, I do.”

But even as Jori spoke, there was a knowledge in her that the words did not reflect what she was. She had always attended church, for that was the family tradition. Kate was a devout believer, and her father was at least a nominal Christian. Mark was not, but he went through the motions as did the rest of them. As she sat there in the stillness of the desert air at the complete and total mercy of this savage who would pull her apart, taking one finger after another if he so chose, she suddenly knew that she could not call on God.
I don’t really know
God,
she thought.
I thought I did, but now I see that I don’t know
anything about Him.

Santana seemed to be able to read what was going on inside Jori’s mind, and his eyes were fixed on her. “Jesus God will not save you. You will see. No one can save you.” He gave a command, and one of the Indians apparently awakened. He listened
as Santana spoke. He came and tied the hands of both the captives with rawhide behind their backs.

It was cold in the night air, and the two huddled together the best they could with their hands tied. “It’ll be all right. Chad will come for us,” Carleen whispered.

The words brought no comfort to Jori. She was struggling with the knowledge that calling on God was impossible for her. She had not known this, and now a greater fear than ever came. She had somehow imagined that she could always call on God and he would answer, but now when she tried to pray she heard nothing but the silence of the desert.

* * *

THE SECOND DAY FOUND Jori even more hopeless than she had felt the night before. Santana seemed quick to keep the two of them safe from the attentions of the other Indians, but her heart was sick with the knowledge that all of her life she had, more or less, used God. She decided that religion had been a convenience for her. Now as she rode with the band headed for Santana’s home village, the future was dark, not only because of the atrocities that she might encounter at the hands of the Kiowa but the knowledge that her whole life had been a lie as far as religion was concerned.

They stopped at noon, and two scouts went out while the rest were content to eat what was left of the meat of the buffalo. Santana had kept two men to watch the spare horses, and late that afternoon as the sun began dropping in the sky, he came to stand before the two of them. His eyes were fixed on Carleen. He seemed to find her fascinating. “You have courage,” he said. “You will make a fine Kiowa.”

“No, I won’t ever be an Indian,” Carleen said. She stood straight and faced him fearlessly, so much so that Jori wondered how one small child had such lack of fear.

“You must learn our ways,” Santana said, “or you will die.” He turned to Jori and said, “You will be the squaw of one of my band.”

“I can’t do that.”

“You have little choice, but it will be harder for you than for the child.” He thought for a moment and then added, “We captured a woman once when I was a young man. She felt as you felt, that she could never be Kiowa, but she was given to my uncle as his squaw. We kept her for years, but many years later we were trapped by soldiers. They recaptured the woman. We heard what happened to her later.”

“What happened?”

“She had forgotten how to speak her tongue almost. She cried to be allowed to come back to her Kiowa husband and to her children. She had stopped being a white eyes and had become a Kiowa. She did not know any of the life. The girl will be like that. It will be harder for you.” He shook his head and said, “Do not hope. It’s useless. One day I will die. It will be as the gods ordain. Now, the gods have given you into the hands of the Kiowa. You will be a Kiowa woman. It would be happier if you’d accept this. It is not a bad life. It is different from anything you have known. You will find a way and a place.”

“I won’t ever be a Kiowa!” Carleen said, glaring at Santana. He merely laughed at her and turned away. Carleen went over and put her arm around Jori’s waist. “Don’t listen to him, Jori. We’ll get away. Chad will come for us. You’ll see he will.”

But Jori had lost hope. She did not respond but simply held onto the young girl and tried to keep the tears from falling.

* * *

“IT’LL BE UP TO you, Mr. Hayden.” Grat Herendeen was facing Leland, and the sunrise was throwing its bright light over the landscape. The two were looking back over the track that they had followed, and both were thinking of the two captives. The wagons were drawn up in a defensive position, and scouts had been out all night. The water was good, and there was enough graze for all of the animals. But Herendeen was worried. “We can stay here for awhile, but I’m worried about those Indians comin’ back. They saw how few of us there are, and if they find some more of their kind, they might attack.”

“I can’t just go off and leave my girls.” Leland Hayden seemed to have shrunk with the crisis. His shoulders were slumped, and dark circles were under his eyes.

“I’m right sorry about your girls, but Rocklin’s a good man. Him and them Indians, they got a chance of gettin’ ’em back. You want to stay here again today and see what happens?”

“Yes. I want to do that.”

“All right, Mr. Hayden. We’ll keep good watch tonight. I hope we find them.”

Leland walked slowly back to his own wagon and joined Kate. The two of them had spoken little, and now he said briefly, “I want us to stay here at least for awhile and wait and see if Rocklin comes back with them.”

“I’m glad we’re going to do that,” Kate said. “Leland, God’s going to help us in this. I know He is. Jesus said if we had as much faith as a grain of mustard seed, we could be heard. So let’s pray.”

“All right,” Leland said heavily, and the two of them fell upon their knees and began to call upon God.

* * *

“I’M RIGHT SCARED ABOUT what’s happened to those girls, Paul.”

Paul Molitor had come to help stand guard over the extra mounts. Callie had joined him, and both of them were thinking of the captives. It was impossible to get such things out of your mind, they had both discovered.

“I’ve heard awful things about what Indians do to white women. I’d kill myself before I’d let the Indians have me.”

Molitor turned to face the young woman. A strange feeling sliced through him as he saw how young and vulnerable she was. He saw the desire in her for the two captured women to be all right, and behind the worried expression a little girl’s eagerness vaguely stirred and displayed itself. There was a sweetness in this girl that somehow she had managed to keep despite her hard life. He suddenly wanted to comfort her and spoke softly, “Did you ever think, Callie, how close heaven is to us and yet how far off it is when we lift our hands to touch it?”

“Do you really think so, Paul?” She turned to him then and for that instant something warm lay between them, strong and unsettling. Both of them were still. A thin moon lay askew in the low south, and the small creek was a dull silver ribbon freckled with the shadows of the woods. Suddenly long, undulant waves, the sound of a breeze, washed across the land, and the sad wild cry of a coyote added a note of sadness to the night. As they watched a star fell and made a brilliant scratch on the heavens and then died.

“A falling star,” she whispered. “I always make a wish.”

“I guess I know what it is this time.”

“That Jori and Carleen will be all right.”

“That’s a good wish.”

“What will happen, Paul, if Rocklin and the Indians can’t catch up to them?”

“I don’t know. I don’t like to think about it.”

“Do you believe in prayer, Paul—that God hears us?”

“Yes, I do. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like it, but I believe it.”

“I’m glad you do. I want to believe it, too.”

“Well, we’ll believe together. God answers the prayers of bad people sometimes, I think. I haven’t been a good man, but this is a good thing to pray for.”

“Don’t say that!” She suddenly reached out and put her hand on his chest. “You’re not a bad man. You’re a good man.”

At that moment Paul Molitor felt something that had not touched him for years. He had known women long ago, and the sadness and the disaster of his own life had removed them from his thoughts. Now as Callie stood there, the tone of her presence was an urgency, straining against his sense of propriety.

“We’ll pray together about it. It’s a good thing to pray about.” He saw the glow come into her eyes, and a slight happiness shaped her lips. The moonlight lay against her, brightening her eyes, and the two sat there for a long time without speaking—but each knew that something deep within had touched them both.

* * *

JORI WOKE UP ABRUPTLY, not in stages as she had the previous morning. She lifted her head and saw that the moon was still high in the sky. As she heard the grunts and snores of the Indians, she paid no attention to them for something had come to her. It was a fragment of a dream, and she tried to bring it back, to dredge it out of the unconsciousness. She was not sure exactly
what it was. It seemed that someone had called her name, but she could not even be sure of that.

She lay there, pinched with anxiety about the future, but still there was the matter of the dream if that was what it was. Finally it began coming back to her. It was the memory partly of Good News as he had preached the sermon, and now she could hear his voice, not literally of course but she caught even the tone of it in her spirit: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

She lay there, and suddenly she was aware that the fear had gone. This came as a great shock, for nothing had changed. Shame and dishonor and pain lay ahead of her, but fear was gone. “What is it?” she whispered, but there was no answer. Still the sensation of peace was upon her. She began to think about the words that Good News had preached. Time and time again he had said, “Look to Jesus as the Israelites looked to their brazen serpent on a pole. He can save you.”

Finally a great sorrow came to her, and the knowledge that she had shut God out of her life was quite real. It was as real as any physical pain she had ever had, and she began to pray.

Her prayer was disjointed, and she did not even know, at times, what she was saying in her heart. She knew she was crying out, telling God that she was sorry she had ignored Him. She asked for forgiveness and she prayed many times, “Lord, save Carleen.”