Desert Hearts (11 page)

Elizabeth blushed again. Her Thomas had a good round behind. But he also had a good round belly. And the rest of him—well, she didn’t spend any time looking when they made love.

She put the puppy down on the straw and watched him make his way on trembling legs to his mother. Watching him nurse brought a smile to her face and took her mind off older males of her own species.

“You do not have any children,” said Serena. It was not a question.

“Why, no. We have been married almost seven years and I have never conceived.”

Serena heard the pain in Elizabeth’s voice. “Sometimes with an older man it can happen that way,” said the Navajo woman sympathetically.

“Thomas has been a wonderful husband to me,” responded Elizabeth. “He would have made a good father.”

“I am sure. Perhaps it is why you married him?”

The question carried a double meaning, Elizabeth realized. Serena could have been saying, “You married him because he would be a good father to your children.” Or perhaps she was suggesting that Thomas was somewhat fatherly to her, Elizabeth? “I married Thomas because I couldn’t live without him. He saved my life,” she said simply.

Serena looked at her questioningly and Elizabeth haltingly continued her story. “I…my family…we were traveling alone, just out of Colorado. We were attacked by Comancheros. My father was shot and my mother…set upon while I watched. My little brother was taken for a slave.”

Serena was silent, but the sympathy emanating from her was almost palpable.

“Thomas found me and took me to his sister in Santa Fe. He would visit whenever he got leave. I could never have married anyone else.”

“How old were you?”

“When he married me? Almost eighteen.”

“No, when you lost your family.”

“Fourteen.”

Serena was horrified, though she didn’t let her face show it. A girl just about to become a woman and her introduction to womanhood was watching her mother brutalized? She knew of the Comancheros and could imagine the scene very well. No wonder Elizabeth, although a married woman, felt so much like a girl to her. Her own coming to womanhood had been so different. How rich her life had been, despite her own great loss, compared to this
bilagaana
woman. She did not offer words of comfort, however. They would be poor things, under the circumstances.

“My coming of age was very different.” It was not the words, but the feeling behind them that made Elizabeth feel enfolded in a sympathy even greater than Serena’s, as though there were a feminine presence in them.

“We have a ceremony for it,” Serena continued. “
Kinaalda
.”

“
Kinaalda
,” Elizabeth repeated carefully.

“The young woman who is
Kinaalda
becomes Changing Woman for the Diné. It’s a great gift for the people.”

“Changing Woman?”

“I will tell you about her someday. But now I think it must be time for the racing. I want to watch my husband’s bay beat that Stringy-Ass Cooper!”

Elizabeth laughed and they both hurried out.

When they reached the crowds, Serena nodded a goodbye and made her way to the group of Navajo women on the other side of the finish line. Elizabeth stood there for a minute, made very conscious of the fact that she was forging a friendship with a woman not of her own people. She would not really be welcome with the Navajo women. And Serena would not be able to join her with the officers’ wives. Some were sympathetic with the Indians’ plight, but most looked down upon them as dirty, filthy savages. Much like Mrs. Compton had taught her to look down on the Irish. She hadn’t quite thought of it like that before, she realized.

She couldn’t blame some of the white women, for some had seen their men off to the fighting for years. They had seen the suffering caused by massacres.

But her suffering had been caused by white men who could hardly have been matched in viciousness by any Indian “savage.” She had never spent any time questioning her own attitudes toward people. The Irish were ignorant, from a backward country. They were also superstitious papists. She had taken that for granted. There had been no Indians in Boston, but the educated men and women there tended to be sympathetic to them and speak on their behalf. She herself feared Mexicans more than Indians, because there had been Mexicans amongst the Comancheros. She supposed it was partly a person’s education and experiences that determined her attitudes. This was such a new thought that she stood there right at the finish line for a few moments before Mrs. Taggert called to her.

“Elizabeth, you’d better get yourself over here before you get stampeded!”

She laughed and, picking up her skirts, ran over to join the officers’ wives.

When she had squeezed herself in next to Mrs. Taggert, the captain’s wife turned to her and said with a wide smile, “We have an unscheduled race to watch first, before Mr. Cooper rides.” She pointed down the track.

A small burro was trotting toward the quarter-mile starting point with a Navajo on his back. Right behind him was an army mule with a soldier riding. With Sergeant Burke riding, Elizabeth realized as she recognized his straight back.

The troopers were digging into their pockets, laying bets with each other and any Navajo who were willing to wager. Elizabeth could hear them shouting reckless bets at one another and at Sergeant Burke’s retreating back. “Two bits says the burro doesn’t make it to the finish line before sunset!”

“Whatever is going on, Emily,” she asked Mrs. Taggert. It was hard to keep a smile from her own face.

“Evidently Sergeant Burke and Manuelito’s nephew met up a few days ago and challenged each other to this ‘match race.’ Would you care to wager something, Elizabeth?”

“Isn’t that Lightning Jack that Sergeant Burke is riding?”

“Yes, and he is supposed to be one of the fastest mules we have,” said Mrs. Taggert, giggling like a schoolgirl.

“He is also the stubbornest son of a…” said a voice behind them. Elizabeth turned and there was Private Elwell, his face red with embarrassment. “Pardon me, ladies,” he said bowing slightly. “But the outcome of this race is by no means sure,” he added with a mischievous grin. “I myself have put my money down on the burro!”

“Then so will I, Private Elwell. Emily, I will bet you two loaves of bread that the burro wins. I have always preferred burros to mules myself; they are so much sweeter.”

“Done,” said the captain’s wife.

Sweeter, my ass, thought Elwell as he watched the riders turn toward the fort. A burro can match a mule for stubbornness any day, but trust a lady to go for something small and sweet-looking.

The signal flashed and the race began. Or the onlookers presumed it had. The burro was small and distant and it was hard to tell if his legs were moving. And Sergeant Burke seemed to be turning the mule in circles.

“This way, Sergeant, this way,” shouted the troopers as Michael struggled to get the mule pointed in the right direction.

* * * *

Antonio’s legs were already sore from keeping his toes from dragging in the dust. He hadn’t ridden a burro since he was little. He had forgotten what bony backs they had and what a jarring trot. His wife would be lucky if his private parts survived the bouncing around! What with holding his legs up and trying to protect his balls, he must look like some rider. But at least he was going in the right direction, he thought as he watched Michael struggle with the mule.

Michael was cursing Lightning Jack in both Irish and English. He could not get the damned shavetail pointed in the right direction and so he finally gave in to the animal and reined him backward.

“Ye don’t want to turn, do ye? Well then, ye’ll cross the finish line arse first.”

Antonio had gone only a few hundred yards when he saw Michael backing the mule past him. He almost fell off the burro laughing as Michael gave him a cocky grin and waved his hand.

“The
bilagaana
might beat us after all,” he said to his little mount. “I just wish he’d hurry up about it.”

The mule seemed quite content to be moving backward and Michael was about ready to compliment him. After all, he was demonstrating, albeit in a very annoying way, his good training! When reined backward, he backed up. They were more than halfway there and he could hear the men shouting. Antonio was fifty feet behind him, or in front of him, depending upon how you looked at it! He turned to wave to his men and at that moment the mule dug his heels in, lowered his head, and bucked him off his back.

A collective groan went up from the spectators. Michael lay there in the dust, watching the mule take off.

“Ye’re running fast enough now in the right direction, ye bastard,” he yelled, shaking his fist at him.

Antonio’s burro trotted by, little legs moving in a steady trot. Antonio’s face was set in a serious expression and he mockingly urged his mount in Navajo.

“Ye don’t need to be rubbing it in, boyo,” Michael called after him, standing up and brushing the dust off his clothes.

When he reached the finish line, the Navajo were clustered around Antonio with wide grins on their faces. Some of the troopers had tears rolling down their cheeks and Michael knew they weren’t from their lost wages but from helpless laughter. Two of them were still rolling around in the dust, clutching their stomachs, unable to stop laughing.

“Did you see him go flying off? He’s lucky he didn’t end up in a cactus!”

“I told you Lightning Jack was one stubborn mule.”

Michael bowed his head with mock humility and said, “I did me best, lads,” as they cheered and jeered him at the same time.

He strolled over to Antonio, who was standing next to the burro.

“You were right, boyo. Yer burro’s a fine animal. Are ye hoping to enter him against Cooper in the half mile?”

Antonio grinned. “I am going to give my…legs a rest,” he said. “That burro’s back is as bony as the lieutenant’s ass.”

“I was trying to give ye a chance, ye know, ridin’ backwards like that,” said Michael sadly. “That’s the last time I’ll do a favor for a friend.”

“You were lucky to get that mule moving in any direction!”

“I was, wasn’t I,” said Michael, starting to laugh as he realized what he must have looked like. Antonio was bending his knees to loosen them and Michael remembered what he looked like, legs out in front of him, backside bouncing on the burro, and he laughed even harder.

“Ye should have seen yerself, Antonio,” he sputtered. “I’m surprised ye can still walk.”

Antonio’s face, which had been open and smiling, suddenly changed, and Michael wondered for a split second if he had somehow unwittingly insulted him when he heard a hated voice behind him.

“Sergeant Burke.”

“Yes,
sir
,” he said, whipping around to face Cooper.

“Are you satisfied, having thoroughly humiliated yourself and the U.S. Army?”

Would “Yes, sir” or “No, sir” be the proper response
? wondered Michael, having a hard time keeping his face straight and his laughter under control. He decided the safest thing was to stay silent and at attention.

“Get back over to your mare, Sergeant, and get ready for the next race,” Cooper ordered, giving a disdainful look to Antonio and the men who surrounded him. Their faces were closed and humorless and Antonio felt anger rising in him. He wondered how much trouble his friend was in, but as Michael walked away, he turned and gave Antonio a quick wink.

One of Antonio’s men came up to remind him that he was riding soon, and shaking out his legs again, he went off to prepare the bay.

Lieutenant Cooper won his own race, although not against Antonio, who had chosen the three-quarter-mile again. Cooper beat two Navajo ponies and Captain Taggert’s chestnut, and Elizabeth had a hard time keeping her face straight as she watched him strut about, accepting the congratulations of his men. Every time he opened his mouth she expected to hear him crow. And when his back was to her—well, she couldn’t help noticing how loose and wrinkled his trousers were. No bottom at all, she thought, and laughed to herself.

She didn’t laugh, however, when she saw one of the Navajo dogs trotting by. It was a black-and-white sheepdog, alert and curious and intent on finding someone, it seemed. Lieutenant Cooper saw the dog at the same moment as she did and went after it with a scowl on his face. Elizabeth watched in horror as he followed the dog to his owner and started arguing with a tall, distinguished-looking Navajo.

“Whatever is the lieutenant doing,” exclaimed Mrs. Gray.

“I think that dog is the sire of Misty’s puppies,” said Elizabeth. “Isn’t that Manuelito, one of the headmen?” she added, her voice full of concern. The last months had been peaceful, but the relationship between the Navajo and the soldiers was precarious, and what seemed like a small thing could tip the balance and destroy weeks of good feeling.

“Where is that husband of mine,” said Mrs. Gray, looking around in desperation. When she finally spied the colonel, it was on the other side of the course, obviously intent on his conversation with Major Wheeler.

Mrs. Gray looked around and her eyes lighted on Private Mahoney, who was slouched against the fence. “Private!”

“Private Mahoney, ma’am, at your service,” he said as he stood at attention.

“Get my husband over here as quickly as possible.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Mahoney hadn’t seen anything, but he could tell something important was up. He ran across to the colonel, and Elizabeth could see him pointing back at Mrs. Gray.

“Charles, your Mr. Cooper is going to have us all massacred if you don’t stop him,” she said fiercely but quietly when the colonel reached her side. “It is too long to explain, but get him away from Manuelito!”

It was obvious to Elizabeth that the colonel and his wife understood one another perfectly. They had been on the frontier for twenty years together and had formed a partnership in which Mrs. Gray’s judgment was trusted instantly. She wondered if she would have had the self-confidence to summon Thomas under similar circumstances. His work had always been
his
work, and her realm the household. She felt a sudden stab of envy. Mrs. Gray had always been motherly to Elizabeth, offering her care and support to her and the other officers’ wives, always with a warm smile for the rawest of recruits, encouraging them as though they were her sons. But today Elizabeth had seen another side of her, the strong woman who understood very well the delicacy of her husband’s position and the importance of everyday dealings with the Navajo.