A Lady Bought with Rifles (14 page)

She nodded, though she couldn't have understood very much. I bandaged the stump with clean white rags and then, with Consuelo's help, got Sewa out in the patio and settled Ku near her.

The raven was stronger and seemed every day to be a bit more fully and blackly feathered, but the splinted leg looked dead and the drooping claw did not respond to touch. I couldn't tell anything about the wing, but I suspected that when the splints came off in two more weeks, according to Cruz's advice, Sewa would never have to worry about a pet that could fly away.

Consuelo lingered. “Señorita, thank you for—for last night. My family is very grateful.”

“It should never have happened,” I said. “It is my place to be sorry, and I am.”

She raised one cinnamon-honey shoulder and it was easy to see why Court had been tempted. “Men try. I know I must keep out of their way, but we thought Señor Sanders—” She broke off in confusion. “Anyway, señorita, a thousand thanks.”

She hurried off, leaving me to wonder what she had almost said about Court. That he was thought to have a woman at Las Coronas? Why would she have choked off that supposition? If his mistress were one of the people, it would surely be definite common knowledge.

I thought of Reina and wondered. She loved Trace, I was sure, but so did I. And if Court Sanders would still stir my senses, wasn't Reina as vulnerable for all her pride, of family?

Reina and I sat at opposite ends of the long age-mellowed table through a practically silent lunch. “Perhaps you would like to go riding with me tomorrrow,” she said as I rose to leave. “I wish to look over our south boundary near the mountains. It would acquaint you with that area.”

“I'd like to,” I said, hoping in spite of myself that she might be developing a certain grudging fondness for me. That I seized on such a slight opening made me conscious of how much I'd desired her love, how much I'd wanted a sister.

“Be ready and we'll leave after an early breakfast,” she ordered. “If your riding skirt isn't ready, you may borrow one of mine.” She tossed down her napkin and strode out ahead of me.

I didn't understand her, but the prospect of a fide and a warming relationship lightened my heart. I'd have to get Consuelo to look after Sewa tomorrow and keep her company some of the time, so I cut through the patio toward the kitchen but was still on the gallery when a small procession entered through the gate.

First came a wiry, shriveled man whose skin resembled the leather he carried. Behind him was María, also holding leather, and behind her walked Consuelo with a peculiar object that resembled a boot.

“I am Emilio Sánchez,” said the gnarled, man, halting a few steps away. “Consuelo is the child of my dead brother and sister-in-law. My wife and I are in your debt, señorita, for your acting to save Consuelo from shame.”

He shook out a gracefully cut suede riding skirt, a bone-toggle-closed vest and matching jacket, all stitched painstakingly. “These are for the child,” said María, smiling with some effort as she approached Sewa and displayed a smaller version of my skirt and vest.

Sewa stared, unable to comprehend, till María, who on closer confrontation evidently found the girl more like the children of the ranch than not, bent to her, and held the vest. Sewa's face glowed like a flower candle as the soft leather fitted around her shoulders. She touched the fringes with amazed delight and produced one of her few Spanish words.

“Gracias
—
gracias.”

“De nada, muchachita,”
said María. Impulsively, she gave the child a hug, fell back as Emilio cleared his throat authoritatively. “I have made a sort of raised boot for the child like one I made for a friend who lost his foot from a rattlesnake bite. Let us see how it fits—yes, señorita, I know the girl cannot stand on it yet, but I can get an idea of the length and whether I need to add another sole or trim this one down.”

Kneeling, he slipped the boot, opening widened, over the stump, gently straightened out the good leg, and compared. “I must add another half-inch to the sole,” he decided. “Otherwise it seems perfect. Look, señorita. The foot part is filled with shaped wood. On top of that is a cushion of goose feathers. Then the boot closes up to the knee with these broad straps. It will take time to learn to use it, but it is much more natural than a crutch.”

“Wonderful!” I said, dumbfounded at this outpouring of goodwill. “I had meant to look today for someone who might make Sewa an artificial foot. This is much better than I'd dreamed.”

Emilio beamed. “You will try your riding clothes, señorita?” he asked. “I wish them to fit exactly.”

Gathering them up, I went to my room, changed, and emerged feeling very much the
ranchera
. The soft belt of the skirt fitted snug at the waist, the vest had a jaunty cut, and the jacket gave ease around shoulders and arms without being bulky.

“It feels altogether right, Emilio,” I told him. “And I'm glad to have it, for tomorrow I ride with my sister.”

He looked stunned. A glance passed between him and María. “Ah,” he said with a heartiness I found strained. “It is good that you become at home here. But be careful while riding, señorita. Our horses must be different from those of England.”

“I've learned that,” I said with a laughing grimace. The Sanchezes departed, leaving Sewa and me to admire our new clothes.

“And you'll be able to walk,” I told her in mixed language and signs.

She nodded with such joy in her eyes that my heart ached for her. To have to be glad that one had a contrivance instead of a real foot!

She took a scrap of leather that had dropped from the clothes and wrapped it around Ku, who blinked at this robing while Sewa laughed merrily and said, mostly in gestures, that till he could get his coat of a thousand colors, this one would have to do.

Consuelo promised to bring Sewa her meals and tea and stay with her awhile each time so the child wouldn't get too lonesome. Now that the Sánchezes were kindly disposed toward Sewa, I felt easier about leaving her for the day. I kissed her good-bye next morning after breakfast, explaining that I'd be back by night and that she must ask Consuelo for anything she needed, then hurried to the front of the house.

Four vaqueros were waiting. They wore bandoliers and rifles were thrust in their saddle scabbards. Two were holding saddled horses, Reina's black and the little chestnut mare I'd ridden before. Reina came out, smiled graciously, and mounted smoothly while the vaquero holding my mare gave me the cradle of his hands to boost me up.

“So your outfit was ready,” noted Reina. “Let us hope your riding soon becomes as appropriate as your clothes.”

We rode out the gate beneath the heavy arch carved with the three crowns that gave the hacienda its name, two men ahead, two behind. “Is there trouble?” I called to Reina.

“No more than usual.” She shrugged. “But there have been clashes between soldiers and Yaquis near the boundary and one never knows what a gang of Sierra Yaqui may do.”

I felt like saying there seemed no point in taking chances, but was sure that would bring down her scorn, so I patted my mare's neck and took in the country.

Mesquite and giant cardones, prickly pear, cholla, iron-wood, palo verde—I closed my eyes to imagine English oak, yew, wych elm, and chestnut, but I could no longer evoke a sense of reality about them. I opened my eyes again to the glaring sky, the reflecting desert, and wondered if it would ever seem familiar. I doubted it. One might as foolhardily hope to be comfortable with God.

Cattle were scattered about, and as the day heated, those that could find shade got under it, lying under the cottonwoods and giant mesquites shading watering tanks of earth. These few bright green spots showed where water was and a swath of green followed a dry stream bed. Reina explained that Las Coronas could ship cattle by driving them thirty miles to the railroad at a place called the Switch.

By noon the Bacatete Mountains rose jaggedly before us. I wondered how many Yaquis were hiding there and what was happening on the other side of the range down on the Yaqui and Mayo Rivers in Cruz's Eight Sacred Pueblos.

The mountains were the boundary of the estate and we stopped in the foothills to rest. The vaqueros loosened the horses' girths and made a fire for coffee, which we drank black and steaming from tin cups, washing down bread and cheese.

“There are jaguar in the mountains,” Reina said. “Also the bighorned wild sheep. It is a place fit only for wild beasts and wild Indians.”

I was too tired to make any comment, though I suspected she was trying to intimidate me.

I hadn't been on a horse since riding back from Cruz's five days ago. My muscles screamed and I had to keep myself from hobbling by an effort of will. Reina looked as fresh as when we started and her back was arrow-straight as she bantered with the men. So long as she was clearly
la patrona
, she could be friendly, and the vaqueros watched her with admiration that made me despair of getting help from them should I ever clash with her.

After our short break, the girths were tightened and we continued, riding along the mountains. Suddenly one of the advance riders reined in, lifting his hand. He rode forward, around a hill, to return and call to Reina.

“Some dead Yaquis are ahead, señorita!. The soldiers must have caught them only today, for they are not yet stinking. Let us swing to the plain and avoid them. It's not a sight for ladies.”

Reina flashed me a hard smile. “Oh, but it is!” she said. “My sister needs to understand the country, get rid of her English softness. Come!” She urged her black on.

“Señorita!” protested the man, but she rode ahead and he had to follow.

So did I, partly because someone might be alive and needing help, mostly to prove my nerve to Reina. But I hadn't counted on what we saw as we rounded the hill.

Men lay with cut throats swarmed over by flies. Vultures lurched heavily away from the corpses, flapped awkwardly into the air. But what made me turn my head and gag was three women hanging naked from a large mesquite, feet nearly touching the ground. Their purple tongues protruded from hideously contorted faces. Milk had curdled and crusted on their breasts, where it had oozed from their nipples. At the base of the tree three tiny bodies had been carelessly tossed, apparently after being swung against the tree to crush in the soft little skulls.

“Oh, no!” I heard myself wailing, and could not stop. “Oh, no, no, no.…”

“I told you this was not good, señorita,” said the lead vaquero reprovingly.

Sweat dewed Reina's face, but she said, “Six men. They must not all have been married, or perhaps their women had not cubbed and could be sent to plantations.”

I wiped my mouth and rose to where I couldn't see the women and babies. “Bury them, at least,” I begged of the men. They glanced at Reina. She shrugged.

“Do what you will,” she told them.

The lead vaquero spat. “Your pardon, señorita, but Yaquis cut off the soles of my father's feet, made him run barefoot through the desert till he fell and died of sunstroke.”

“They impaled my sister on a cactus,” said another man.

“They have had their chance to be Mexican,” said the third horseman. “But all they have done for over a hundred years is rebel and raid. Let these carcasses stay here to teach the rest a lesson.”

I turned to the youngest and last man, slender and lithe, not long out of boyhood.
“Por favor,”
I pleadedr “I will pay you well.”

He hesitated only a moment. “Ride on,” he told his friends.

“You will bury these dogs for money?” demanded the chief.

“I will bury them.”

“Hard work for offal,” said the leader, shrugging. The others started on. I paused by the young vaquero.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “Truly, I will pay you.”

“You already have,” he said, loosening the machete at the back of his saddle. “Consuelo and I are betrothed.”

So I rode on, sickened, weak with horror. I couldn't doubt that the vaqueros had suffered in the ways they had mentioned. I was beginning to understand how the very name Yaqui brought fear to Mexicans. But those women, those babies …

Perhaps Court Sanders was right. A whirlwind must be rising to sweep away such terrors.

7

Except for meals, I saw little of Reina for the rest of the week. I was haunted by the bodies of the women dangling like ripe bloated fruit, and there was no one I could talk to about it, not even Court with his cynically detached intelligence. When I cuddled Sewa, I knew she had seen her family and neighbors die a similar death, and I marveled that she hadn't gone mad or into complete and utter hatred of strangers.

She was getting stronger every day. It wouldn't be too long before she could try Emilio's boot foot. She was becoming something of a pet with those of Las Coronas who had occasion to pass often through the patio, and Ku was growing plump from tidbits he received for croaking accompaniment to the flute. Enrique, the young vaquero who had buried the Yaquis, sent word through Consuelo that he was gentling an exceptionally sweet-tempered
burra
for Sewa to ride.

“For me?” she repeated when Consuelo told her, for she had rudimentary Spanish by now.

“For you, little flower-bird,” promised Consuelo, laughing at the child's delight. “And my Uncle Emilio is making a leather nest with high sides in which your Ku may ride.”

But after Consuelo had gone about her work, Sewa's joyful excitement faded. “La señorita will permit?” She was speaking of Reina, who, though she ignored Sewa, managed to exude a withering hostility on the rare occasions she came in sight.

“Reina probably won't even know,” I told Sewa, and diverted her into a chess game Emilio had improvised from scraps of wood and leather. Our board was of toughened hide with the squares marked by a hot iron. The queens wore suede skirts and the knights were vaqueros with tiny horsehair lariats. I wished Miss Mattison, with whom I had spent many vacation hours playing chess, could see this array.