The Valiant Women (44 page)

“We don't! Oh, Shea, please—I can do anything she can!”

He had moved a distance off. “No,” he said. “You can't.”

Talitha's body, which had been waiting, too, that winter, waiting to be charged with a woman's feelings, understood before her mind did.

Even then she fought against recognizing what Shea needed from Tjúni that he couldn't have from her, tried to calm herself by arguing that the Papago woman had been part of his life with Socorro, a partner in the founding of the ranch. It was natural for him to think of her. From his manner, Talitha knew it was useless to protest. But she had to turn her head to keep tears from falling into the stew and she wouldn't look directly at Shea for the rest of that evening. It hurt too much.

Tjúni came. Her body was fuller now, more richly curved, but her face had its old haughty cat-like beauty. Belen moved in with Chuey and Anita while a house was built for her and Talitha was glad to be spared sleeping in the same room with her till she woke one night and saw Shea moving quietly through the house.

A fiery blade seemed to turn in Talitha. When Shea didn't return in a moment, she got up and peered out the window, detected his shadowy form against the paler darkness. As Talitha watched, fingernails driving into her palms, she hoped desperately he was going to do what she'd so often prayed he wouldn't, go up the hill and mourn by Socorro's grave.

This night he went straight to the vaqueros' quarters. As he vanished inside, Tjúni's exultant laughter echoed and reechoed in Talitha's head. Huddling down in her blankets, she pulled a startled Chusma close and sobbed against the warm soft body of the cat.

She was to do so often, though without Chusma, for the cat disapproved of such demonstrations and freed herself quickly or eluded capture. After Caterina started sleeping through the night, Anita had moved back with Chuey, so there wasn't even the soothing gentle rumble of her snoring.

Not that Shea went to Tjúni every night. Often five or six would pass before he moved quietly past Talitha. He never stayed long, either. Once he came back while Talitha was crying, unaware of his presence till he dropped to one knee.

“Why, Tally! What's the matter, child?”

“I—I'm not a child!”

From his voice, she knew he suppressed a grin and in the misery of that moment, she hated him for it. “Very well, Señorita Scott. What ails you?”

“Nothing!”

He was very close in the darkness. “Tally, you don't cry for nothing. Now tell me what it is. Maybe I can fix it.”

Her breath felt shallow and tight as if invisible weights crushed on her. “Will—will you send Tjúni away?”

He was still for a heartbeat. “Why?”

In the main Tjúni ignored them regally. She had taken over the cooking and general management of the household, leaving Talitha to see to the twins and Caterina. “I—I just liked it better before she came.”

Shea laughed, sounding relieved. “Nose a little out of joint, Tally? Young as you are, I guess you really were running the house. But you're able to get outside now, ride Ladorada and help with the outdoor work. I thought you liked that.”

“I do, but not … Oh, Shea, tell her to leave and I promise I'll do everything she has!” The words wrenched from her violently with no conscious decision on her part.

Silence deepened between them. Shea's voice was strained and husky. “Everything, Tally?”

Unable to speak, she moved toward him in the blackness, awkwardly tried to find his mouth with her own. Roughly, he caught her wrist, forcing her away.

“No, Tally! My God, you're the same as my daughter!”

“But I'm not your daughter, Shea! I—I love you. I always have, I always will!”

As if her cry had steadied him, given him a foundation from which he wouldn't move, he took her in his arms then, tenderly as a father would, and stroked her hair. “I'm glad you love me, darlin'. God forbid you should ever be sorry and strike me dead if you are. I love you, too. But you have your loves mixed up, little Tally. Because I am about the most father you've known, I won't take what should go to a very lucky man someday, the man you'll love for your mate.”

She shook her head. “I love
you
.”

“It's not the same.”

Flaring at the weary patience in his tone, she demanded bitterly, “Do you love Tjúni?”

“No. And she knows that. But we were companions in the desert. She's wanted this a long time.” He sighed. “Tally, we shouldn't be talking like this but since we are, try to understand. I don't know what you know about men, but I'm only thirty-five though that must seem a vast age to you. I need a woman sometimes. I've no wish to visit the overworked whores of Tubac, nor will I tamper with the wives of my vaqueros. Tjúni eases me and I pleasure her. We're hurting no one.”

You hurt me
.

Humiliated and desolate, Talitha tried to free herself, but Shea, kissing her cheek and rising, seemed not to notice.

Often that spring Marc carried the baby in the cradleboard that had been James's and went with Talitha to gather cattail roots, cholla buds and the stems of
yucca palmillo
. He helped shake the cholla buds in a basket of gravel till the spines rubbed off, and helped plant the first corn crop.

“You're teaching me more than I'm teaching you,” he said one night after the twins had vied in showing him how to cast a
peal
and
mangana
.

“But you don't need to know what we can show you,” Talitha laughed. “An engineer doesn't rope cows or plant corn or roast cholla buds!”

“This engineer plans to,” he retorted. “As soon as the new boundaries are fixed, I'm buying some land of my own adjoining the company's.”

“You plan on staying in the valley permanently then?” asked Shea.

Marc nodded. “It's got a grip on me. Marching mountains—everywhere you look, there's a range and behind it another, and another till they fade into the sky. Green gentle country can never hold me again.” He smiled at Talitha. Weeks ago they had fallen into using first names. “So you see, Talitha, I'll be very grateful if you teach me all you can.”

He was especially interested in medicinal plants. Talitha taught him what she knew and showed him the roots and herbs Nōnó had given her. “The
lantana
he told me to give Socorro didn't help, though,” she said and was gripped with a wave of grief.

Socorro was dead six months now, and the sharpest loss was dulled, but when Talitha really thought of her, she felt a deep wrench of sorrow and rebellion.

To die at twenty-four, leaving a beloved husband and three small ones! It wasn't fair, it shouldn't happen! And James shouldn't be up in the mountains with Apaches, he should be here!

Revier said quietly, “Perhaps it helped enough to get the child born. If Nōnó cured Shea of hydrophobia, he must have powerful skills.”

“Yes, and he told me a cure for snakebite that sounds awful enough to work.” Resolutely, Talitha directed her thoughts away from the ache of remembering Socorro. There had been so many happy times. She'd try to think of them, not those last hours.

“And what is this awful remedy?” Marc teased.

“Catch the snake and kill it, then take out its liver and gall and smear the gall on the bite. Eat as much of the liver as you can.” She made a shuddering face. “Ugh!”

Marc chuckled. “It might work, Talitha. I had a biology professor who thought very strong antitoxins are present in the bile of some animals. And in the Talmud it says hydrophobia can be cured by eating the liver of the dog that bit you! Nōnó's in good company.”

That led to his explaining what the Talmud was and comparing it with the Koran, the Bible and the Zend-Avesta. Talitha darted him an incredulous look. “You didn't have to learn all these things to be an engineer, did you?”

His blue eyes danced. “No, indeed. But let me tell you an important fact: all things being equal, streams tend to meander. And so do I. Most engineers don't like that. They have their T-squares and angles and want to go in straight lines. But that's ridiculous!”

Talitha eyed him dubiously. “It is?”

“Of course it is! It's against nature which has precious few straight lines.” He blew out his cheeks and she guessed he was voicing an ingrained aggravation. “Men are crazy and scientific ones are the worst! What do they use for boundaries? Rivers! Rivers that shift drastically with any big flood! Now why, instead, not use a mountain range or a ridge that's not going to alter?”

“From what you just said about streams meandering, I should think you'd like rivers for boundaries,” said Talitha.

His scowl changed to a surprised grin. “So I should! It's one place where the engineers haven't triumphed.”

She shook her head in laughing puzzlement. “I don't understand you, Marc. You're an engineer yet you grumble about their methods!”

“Mining engineers are different,” he said smugly. “Just remember this, my dear; there's a rock at the bottom of everything!”

Casually, he taught her and the twins a little about minerals. How volcanic magma turned to igneous rock which might then become sedimentary or metamorphic; how conglomerate rocks were formed of many small rocks or pebbles cemented together by clay in some alluvial dump; and how the study of rocks led to a grand and staggering view of the world, a time before man existed, when plants and creatures both immense and miniscule left their traces in mud now hardened to stone.

It fascinated Talitha to hear Marc apply his scientific knowledge to everyday things. He pointed out that the white rocks at the bottom of a pool attracted enough light to permit algae to form. On a cold day, when they saw a prairie pheasant or paisano lying on a rock with its wings spread, he surmised that the dark patches in its plumage were soaking up sun to raise its body temperature. Once when they rode far enough west to find saguaros, he pointed out that the nesting cavities made in them by woodpeckers and flickers, and later used by sparrow hawks, elf owls and other birds not only provided a great measure of safety from predators but maintained a fairly steady temperature.

“Which is good in winter,” he said, “but how wonderful in summer when, I'm told, temperatures can go well over a hundred!”

Talitha laughed. “Oh, well over a hundred. For days and days and days!” She studied a saguaro cavity with fresh respect. “It's too bad we can't live in something like that!”

“Well, your thick adobe is a good insulator. Or people could get many of the same benefits by building in the side of a hill or partially underground.”

“But that would be so dark!”

“Not as glass gets more plentiful. One whole open side would give a lot of light and sun heat.”

“Which we certainly don't need in the summer!”

“Heavy curtains could shut it out then, Talitha.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, reined his buckskin around for it was time they got back to the ranch. “It's all a matter of properly using man's brain on what God has provided.”

Without Marc's wise and cheerful company most weekends and the challenge of studying in between, Talitha wouldn't have been able to bear Tjúni's presence even though Shea didn't, at least openly, treat her any differently than he had before.

Talitha wished desperately that Santiago would come back and supply a balance. Since the night Shea had refused her, there'd been constraint between them. They seldom looked directly at each other or spoke more than was necessary. Talitha was sure that Tjúni had noticed and was glad of the estrangement.

It would have been a relief to pour all this out to Marc, but Talitha couldn't babble about Shea's private arrangements. Santiago would see and understand, though, without any words. With him there, she wouldn't feel so alone. Apart from wishing he'd come for the comfort of his being at the ranch, she was increasingly worried as March advanced.

There were always Apaches and bandits but William Walker's filibustering had made it even more hazardous for strangers to go wandering about Mexico, especially if they were looking for ports convenient to the region Mexicans felt had been all but stolen from them. So, while she hoped Judah Frost would never return, she prayed that Santiago would.

It was strange to start working the cattle that spring without Santiago urging Noche to turn some escaping steer, expertly roping the most elusive yearling, filling the air with good-natured obscenities flavored with Spanish color and elegance.

There was quite a mix of brands and earmarks. Santiago, a partner, shared those branded with Rancho del Socorro's S; the Vasquez brothers used a V, Chuey Sanchez had an S lying on one side, and his father and brother at El Charco branded with a circle. Belen still insisted on contributing his share to Talitha. Her pile of
señales
had grown till she'd long ago had to start keeping them in a box Shea had made for her. It had used to give her a glow of ownership to see her Cross T on an animal but that had been when she vaguely dreamed that one day she and James would have their own small place near the ranch.

James
. That ache, unlike the one for Socorro, seemed to get worse as time passed with no word of him. He'd gone off, blaming himself, thinking all of them blamed him; a terrible load for a little boy who wouldn't have his seventh birthday till this July.

So Talitha got no particular thrill out of burning the Cross T on this twentieth unbranded cow that she and Belen had caught. As he let it up and she stepped out of its way, Belen straightened and peered up the arroyo.

“That horse—it looks like Señor Frost's!”

Whirling, she gazed beyond the mist-gray mount, straining to glimpse the gleaming, black of Noche, but there was only the big gray and the pack mule. Talitha dropped the iron, untied Ladorada and urged her into a gallop.