The Captive Heart (23 page)

Chapter 32

M
i madre
will dress herself and come out shortly,” Kyra said, joining them at the table. “The boys are away, helping my uncle for a few days. It's good they are not here now because I need to know exactly what happened. Miriam, you must tell me every detail. It is very important.”

The whole conversation was in Spanish, for Kyra knew only a few words of English. Micah's eyes wandered about the room as he crossed his arms and sat back, uncomprehending.

“We don't know what happened in the pass,” Miriam said, “because only Domingo was there. But the night before, he was severely beaten—twice, according to Rachel and Jake. He was not himself even
before
he turned back to hold the pass.”

“Even hurt, Domingo is formidable,” Kyra said. “Do not underestimate him. How many were there?”

“Rachel said six, including El Pantera.”

Kyra shuddered at the name, but she took a deep breath and asked, “Did anyone come through the pass after Domingo went in?”

Miriam shook her head. “Jake said no one got through, and Domingo never came out either.”

“Then we still don't know for sure if he's dead or alive,” Kyra said.

The door from the back room opened and Kyra's mother joined them, her eyes puffy and red. A short, stocky woman with the leathered face of one who'd spent ample time in the fields, she wore a plain black dress and a black lace scarf over her graying hair.

“Por favor, continue,” she said as she pulled out a chair. She said nothing else, clearly fighting for control, holding a handkerchief over her mouth and moving it only occasionally to dab at her eyes.

“Again,” Kyra said. “From the beginning. I want to know any detail you can remember. Any little thing might be of use to me.”

Kyra's eyes said she recognized the name Diablo Canyon as Miriam recounted Rachel's story. Kyra's late husband must have talked about it. By the time Miriam finished everyone was crying, except for Micah. He remained stoic, his arms crossed on his chest, understanding almost none of what was said.

“There is one more thing,” Miriam said, staring at her hands, pausing to get her voice under control. “Domingo told Rachel to tell you he was thinking of you at the last, and he requested that my father look after you. My father is a man of honor, and he loved Domingo. You will be part of our family from now on. You will never go hungry.”

A grim silence hung over the room for several minutes until Kyra's mother rose from her seat and made her way over to the table in the corner. She struck a match and lit the stubby candles, then knelt down, clasped her hands in front of her face and prayed to the hand-carved crucifix.

Kyra rose slowly. “I need to change clothes. I must go and look for Domingo.”

Miriam blinked. “Now?”

Kyra nodded, met her gaze. “Sí. The sooner the better. I will not leave him to the coyotes and the buzzards. Miriam, I am deeply grateful to you for coming here tonight. It must have been very hard for you.”

Miriam shook her head, tried to smile. “The least I could do,” she said.

Kyra went into the back room and closed the door. Micah got up, yawned and stretched.

“Well? Can we go home now?”

Miriam stood up, but her eyes never left that bedroom door. “I should go help her get ready. Kyra needs me just now.”

Micah rolled his eyes, but said nothing.

“She is my friend,” Miriam said, and went to the back room without another word.

The bedroom was small, containing only three pieces of furniture: a double bed with a straw mattress where Kyra and her mother slept, a dark ancient chifforobe at the other end, and a dresser. The dresser seemed strangely out of place, for while the other furniture was heavy and crudely made, the dresser was dainty and beautiful, with elegantly curved legs. It held three finely crafted drawers with brass pulls and fancy inlaid designs, all highly polished—a very expensive piece of furniture.

Standing in front of the little dresser with one of the drawers pulled out, Kyra saw Miriam staring at it and explained.

“My father brought this home on the back of a hack, covered with a piece of canvas,” she said. “He took it from a hacienda that was about to be burned. It is the only beautiful thing we have ever owned.” She looked up at Miriam and added, “The only thing the Revolution ever gave us in exchange for my father's life.”

She pulled a shirt from the drawer and held it up by the shoulders—a man's shirt made from the rough, heavy cotton that all the poorer Mexicans wore. Stained and dingy and frayed from long use, it might have once been white.

“My mother keeps what's left of my father's things in here. It's like a shrine.”

Kyra laid out the shirt on the bed behind her, pulled out a pair of pants that looked just as rough and laid them with the shirt. Then she began to undress.

“You're going to wear your father's clothes?” Miriam asked.

“Sí. If I am going into the mountains alone, I have a better chance if I look like a man—at least from a distance.”

“You're really going to do this? Alone?”

Kyra met her eyes, unflinching. “Domingo is my brother, and we do not even know if he is dead or alive.”

“You know how to find El Ojo?”

“Sí, I know the place,” she said, stepping into a pair of pants. “The full name is El Ojo de la Aguja.” The Eye of the Needle. “We went that way many times when I was a child.”

Kyra pulled the stained shirt over her head, slid her hands under her hair and flipped it out, then began twisting and binding all that luxurious hair on top of her head.

In that moment, as Kyra stood there dressed in her father's clothes, the sight suddenly triggered a shock in Miriam, an earthquake tremor of déjà vu.

The dream.

These were the very clothes she had seen in the dream, except that in the dream she'd been wearing them herself. She had nearly forgotten that part because it made no sense. Up to this moment the clothes meant nothing, an anomaly, an afterthought hastily drawn in the shadowy corner of a surreal painting. But Kyra looked enough like her to be her sister, and the sight of her in those rags had jarred Miriam's memory. Her mind flashed startlingly clear images of the desperate fight, the fall, the empty moaning wind and herself . . . clad in the rags of a peasant laborer.

When the moment passed and her senses returned, Miriam found herself leaning heavily on the dresser, her knees too weak to hold her.

The drawer was still open.

There were more clothes in it.

Kyra touched her shoulder. “Are you all right? Your face is as white as your kapp.”

Miriam nodded numbly. “Sí. It will pass.” Staring into the drawer, she now knew what she had to do.

After a deep calming breath, she lifted a dingy shirt and a pair of pants from the drawer and tossed them on the bed. As Miriam took off her kapp and began removing the straight pins that held her dress together, Kyra suddenly realized what was happening. Her mouth flew open in shock and she grabbed Miriam's shoulder.

“
No
, Miriam, you cannot do this!”

“You're going to need help. You know you can't do it alone.”

“Miriam, no! It's too dangerous, and you'll get in trouble with your people. I cannot let you do it.”

Miriam looked calmly into her friend's eyes. “I cannot do otherwise. My people will have to forgive me.”

“But
why
?” Kyra's eyes pleaded.

Miriam shook her head, broke eye contact. “Do you believe in dreams?”

A shrug. “Everyone dreams.”

“Do you believe they can tell you something, that sometimes the voice of Gott is in a dream?”

“Oh, sí! It is in the Bible.”

“Then later, when this is all over, ask me about the dream. But not now. Right now I could not bear it. How long will it take us?”

“What?”

“El Ojo. How far is it?”

Kyra stared at her for a moment and her shoulders slumped a little, resigned.

“A day there, a day back. Three days at most, if all goes well. Miriam, you're loco. I wish with all my heart that you would not do this . . . and yet I am glad. You are a true friend.”

Ten minutes later the two women emerged from the back room with their hair tied up under ragged straw sombreros, wearing heavy ponchos with faded stripes over the clothes of common laborers. There were sandals on their feet.

Micah's mouth fell open in utter shock and disbelief. He shook his head, raised an arm and pointed toward the back room.

“You go in there and change back.
Right now
, Mir! This is an abomination!”

Kyra's mother glanced up from her kneeling place in the corner, but she said nothing.

Miriam went up to Micah and placed a hand gently on his chest. He looked her up and down and recoiled as if she were diseased, his face twisted in disgust.

She lowered the hand, but met his eyes. “The clothes are a necessary evil, Micah. I'm going with Kyra, to help her. We know too well that there are bad men in those hills, and if they see two women traveling alone they will teach us the
true
meaning of abomination.”

His head shook, almost involuntarily it seemed. “You cannot do this, Miriam. I forbid it!”

“You
forbid
?”

He blinked. “Jah, I forbid you. If you do this thing, you will not be my wife, Miriam. I have spoken.”

There was a noise behind her. Miriam looked over her shoulder and saw Kyra down on her hands and knees pulling a long box out from under Domingo's cot.

She turned back to Micah. His breath hissed between his teeth in bursts as if he were in a wrestling match, his jaw muscles flexing and his eyes blazing. It had never occurred to Miriam to openly defy him but it was he who had issued the ultimatum, and there was too much of Caleb Bender's blood in her veins to even think of abandoning what was right just to please Micah.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “Domingo died saving my sister. I cannot let
his
sister go up into those mountains alone. You can forbid me, Micah, but you can't stop me. If you will not have me now, then so be it.”

She turned away before he had time to answer, and went to help Kyra with the pine box. Kyra laid the hinged lid back to reveal weapons—the remains of the pistol belts, knives, and bandoliers that Domingo had taken from the bandits. There was also an old Henry repeating rifle. Kyra strapped a gun belt around her thin waist and handed Miriam a bandolier. Standing, she turned to Micah with the rifle propped on her shoulder and said, in broken English, “How I look?”

Miriam knew that Kyra's intention was not to confront or offend. The plain fact was that she didn't speak Dutch and hadn't understood a word of what passed between Micah and Miriam.

But Micah didn't answer; he just snatched his hat from the table, jammed it on his head and stomped out the front door.

Miriam ran after him, calling to him from the open door. “Micah, wait! We're riding back to the house with you. We'll be needing horses.”

It was an icy ride home, the three of them crammed side by side on the single bench of the courting buggy. Micah's jaw was clenched, his eyes stone. He never uttered a word the whole way, but he took out all his frustrations on the horse. There was nothing Miriam could do, though she understood. Any Old Order Amishman would be mortally embarrassed at the mere thought of being seen with a girl who was wearing pants, let alone the whole outfit of a Mexican laborer. On top of that, Kyra sat beside them dressed exactly the same, only with a bandolier across her chest and a rifle on her lap. Halfway home, Micah reached behind the seat without a word, shook out a blanket and threw it over them both.

———

By the time they arrived back at the Bender farm the house was dark and dead quiet, everyone asleep. Miriam and Kyra lit a lantern in the barn and grimly went about saddling two fresh horses while Micah watched, his arms crossed on his chest, his jaw working.

“We'll need food, and some blankets,” Miriam said as Kyra saddled a young mare.

“We will need rope, too,” Kyra said. Her voice dropped when she added, “For binding the body to the horse.”

“There's plenty in the tack room. You go and get the rope while I gather what we need from the house.”

Kyra headed for the tack room, and as Miriam passed Micah in the doorway of the barn she stopped and said, “Micah, you may as well go on home now. There's no more to do here. In the morning, tell my mother where we've gone. It won't do any good, but tell her not to worry.”

He glared, his arms still crossed. “Miriam, do not do this thing . . . please.”

Any other time Miriam might have taken that last word as merely a polite afterthought, but now, as she looked into Micah's eyes in the lantern light, she saw through his innate pride and stubbornness. His voice, though hard, was tinged with regret, and she suddenly realized there was no going back. He had painted himself into a corner. His pride would never allow him to back down once he'd issued an ultimatum, so now he was practically begging her to change her mind. It was the only way he could keep both his pride
and
his girl.