The Valiant Women (55 page)

It was the first time Talitha had seen Fort Buchanan. In spite of Irwin's grumblings, she was shocked. They had to splash through a
cienega
or marsh to reach the slope at the bottom of the foothills, and then crude huts were scattered over perhaps a half-mile without any apparent plan. Log barracks were being raised, some of peeled pine which Irwin expected to serve well, but he swore about the ones made of oak with the bark left on.

“Already decaying,” he gritted. “And there's nothing I can say to convince the commander that heaps of manure and filthy pigpens breed more disease on top of the fevers from the marsh!”

The Penningtons were close to the fort. Their cabin looked sturdier than most of the fort buildings and comfortable with household things from the east gracing the rough homemade furnishings. The house seemed full of daughters. Eight of them, from pretty Larcena, who was about Talitha's age, on down. The younger girls swooped on Caterina at once. The four sons shook hands with Shea, bobbed their heads shyly at Talitha, and faded to the back of the room while Shea and Mr. Pennington got acquainted.

Larcena made coffee and the sisters passed around great pans of what they called cinnamon rolls. One, two, then three of them melted in Talitha's mouth. The ranch grew wheat, but the coarse flour produced by the little mill was nothing like this! The twins didn't stop at three rolls. Before they could gobble all of them, Talitha sent them to fetch the things she'd brought.

One of Pete Kitchen's famous hams, bacon from their own hogs, candied pumpkin, nut cakes, strings of chilies, bags of beans, parched corn, sunflower seeds, piñon nuts and dried peaches. Talitha answered eager questions about what some of the foods were and how to use them, adding that she'd be glad to show them where and when to gather wild foods.

“Nice folks,” remarked Shea, as they left late that afternoon. “Pennington and his sons are supplying hay to the fort, and teaming. The girls do some sewing for Mrs. Steen and one or two other ladies.”

“As if they didn't have enough sewing for themselves!” Talitha hooted, still overwhelmed by the enormous family.

“Pennington may be hard put to it to hold on to a housekeeper. The dragoons must be drawn to that house like bears to a honey tree. But it's good for you to have some females to visit with.”

“We're all too busy for much of that,” said Talitha. “But it's good to know they're close.”

She saw Larcena again at Colonel Poston's Christmas party to which John Irwin escorted her. Larcena was with a young man named John Page, and from the way they looked at each other, it wouldn't be long till Elias Pennington lost a daughter.

Marc Revier was there. Talitha's heart skipped as she saw him. He made his way to her as she turned from Colonel Poston's gallantries, bowed and said to Irwin, “Well, doctor, I suppose I must thank you for bringing Miss Scott though I'd rather planned on having that pleasure myself as soon as I'd rested.”

Irwin laughed. “It's lucky for you, Revier, that you were generous in letting me dance with her! Tonight you'll have your reward.”

It felt good to see Marc, like a completeness, the easing of an ache so deep and masked she'd hardly known it was there till it stopped hurting. Taking one of his hands between hers, she cried, “Oh, Marc! It's been a whole year!”

“How well I know it.” He was thinner, browner, and there were deeper lines in his face, but the blue of his eyes seemed even brighter. “And how has the year passed with you and all of the O'Sheas?”

“We've missed you sadly! Won't you come tomorrow and stay a few days?”

“I'll come, gladly, but will have to be off next morning. I'm checking on the Pajarito Mine while I'm here and can't leave the Tecolote very long. My assistant's honest but fresh from the East and I'd rather he learned his lessons while I'm around to keep them from being disastrous.”

Pete Kitchen was there, and Doña Rosa; Charles Schuchard, Ehrenberg, Colonel Douglas, William Mercer, the Collector of Customs, and guests from Tucson and Mexico. The dress uniforms of the Fort Buchanan officers gave added swagger and this year there were imported wines and Scotch.

Through dinner and the dancing, the two men good-naturedly vied for Talitha's attention. She had a marvelous time, though it wasn't the same as it had been the year before when Marc held her. The strength of his arm made her want to melt against him, close her eyes and follow his lead.

Once when she had been doing just that, she opened her eyes to find him watching her in a way that sent a deep, almost painful thrill through her. The pressure of his hand increased and her body brushed his.

“Marc,” she breathed. “Marc, don't—”

“Don't what, Talitha? Love you?” His laughter was harsh. “I've tried all year to stop and what happens? One look at you and I'm deeper in than ever!”

She shook her head. “Please, Marc, don't make me feel guilty. I—I'm so glad to see you again. It doesn't seem right for you to be so far away.”

“Yet you still won't come with me?”

She said desperately, “I like you so much! In a way, I must love you! But it's not what you want, not the way it should be.”

He drew her out of the dancing, shielded her with his body. “Marry me and I'll take a chance on that!”

Frightened of the treacherous softness in her body, dismayed at the hunger in his eyes and hands, a hunger which by its very strength seemed to compel her to yield to it, she thought of Shea, invoked his branded face.

“Marc, I can't.”

“You loved me tonight,” he said beneath his breath. “I felt it in you.”

“No!”

Anger stiffened him. His eyes veiled. “I'll take you to your escort. I'm going to be riding on to the Pajarito tonight.”

“You—won't come tomorrow?”

“I won't. Much as I'd like to see the family, I can't be around you, Talitha. Especially now that you're lying to me and to yourself!”

“That's not fair! It's not true!”

“Maybe not fair, but it's true!” He paused by the door, his hand beneath her arm cruel in its grip. “If I took you to one of the rooms, Talitha, if I held you and loved you, you wouldn't stop me. Your body answers mine.” He moved her grimly along toward John Irwin who was drinking with Poston. “But I don't want you that way. So I'll have none of you!”

He made his farewells to the two men, thanking Poston for the entertainment. “Give your family my greetings,” he said to Talitha and started to go.

Did he mean he was dropping out of their lives for good? “Won't you come some other time?” she asked.

He shrugged. “It's a long way to the Tecolote.”

Then he was gone, stiff-backed, and though Talitha danced with officers, engineers and ranchers, sipped the wine John Irwin brought her, and forced herself to laugh, for her the party was over.

Long after Irwin saw her to the room where she was staying, long after she was in bed, she thought of Marc riding through the cold night, and then, after his chores at the Pajarito, striking west for that deadly country where so many Gold Rushers had lost their lives, to thirst or the
Areneños
. She wouldn't even know if he'd reached the mine safely until some roundabout word came from Frost.

She didn't think she loved Marc. How could she, when she felt as she did about Shea? But she missed Marc terribly, not just his smile and voice, but the strength of his arms, the strange, exciting fire that had coursed between them. Most of all, he had been her trusted friend. She wept for that, far into the night.

“Red eyes, my dear,” John Irwin said next morning as they were riding home. “Did that miner say something that I should be shooting him for?”

His tone bantered but there was an underlying steel in it. “He didn't say anything he didn't have a right to,” Talitha admitted ruefully.

Irwin's eyebrows raised. “A right to make you cry?”

“I did that, John.” She managed a shaky laugh. “If I won't marry him, I can scarcely expect him to be my friend if he finds it impossible. He says he does.”

The doctor sighed and the storminess left his face. “So that's the way of it. Can't blame Revier, Talitha. You'll have to cry.” His mood changed and he grinned at her, very handsome with his fringed gold epaulets and plumed hat. “But why do that when you can smile at me?”

“You won't—” She broke off, flushing.

“Give you the either-or like Revier?” Irwin shook his head. “If you encouraged me, Talitha, who knows what would happen? But you won't and my instincts of self-preservation are pretty strong. I can be your friend and enjoy it. You may even,” he offered outrageously, “cry on my shoulder about Revier while I tell you about the girl who jilted me!”

“John!” she giggled in spite of the tears pricking at her eyes. A rush of affection for the kind, gruff young redhead went through her. How lucky she was that he was of no mind to issue ultimatums! But even as they teased and talked, cantering in the bright frosty morning, deep within her, she longed for Marc.

Sylvester Mowry hadn't been seated by the House, and in spite of strong support from financiers and railroad interests, the bill for the organizing of Arizona Territory was voted down.

“But at least the El Paso–Yuma road's coming along,” Irwin told Shea. “Leach, the superintendent, thinks it'll be done by summer. Nothing fancy, mind you, but wagons can get over it. Eighteen feet wide on the straightaway and twenty-five feet on curves.”

Shea chuckled. “Reckon it'll be a long time before anyone'll have to worry about passing! But that's sure a long dry stretch.”

“Leach is drilling wells and making cisterns to catch rainwater.”

“God's whiskers!” complained Shea, but with a twinkle. “Soon won't take any kind of fiber to cross this country!”

“Just wait till Butterfield gets his Overland mail and passenger service running this fall!” The doctor added wryly, “There are still Indians to keep things lively. The news we get from Fort Fillmore near Mesilla is that a gang of toughs named the ‘Mesilla Guards' are waylaying peaceful Mescaleros. Seems they agree with our ex-lieutenant Lowry who's all for extermination.”

“It'll likely get worse before it gets better.” Shea stared at the fire and Talitha knew he, too, was thinking of James and Mangus.

It was a strange year for Talitha, 1858. It was as if there were so many things she had to endure silently that her energy spent itself in that: in worrying over James, wondering why Santiago had never come to see them, grieving helplessly at Shea's use of mescal as his night companion, her aching for Marc.

Not that she acted sad or very often felt truly miserable. She did the work of the days and seasons, heard the children's lessons, and warmed herself by cuddling Caterina, and making up stories when she ran out of them. Warmed herself, too, by riding with John Irwin or showing him plants.

The Butterfield Overland Mail went into service that September between St. Louis and San Francisco. On its first return trip, Jared Scott stepped down at Tucson, slept in the plaza since there was no hotel, bought a horse next morning, spent that night at Tubac, and reached Rancho del Socorro at nooning.

Talitha didn't know him, the broad-shouldered man with an outthrusting red beard and hair that gray was starting to tame. Then, as he came toward her, she saw his eyes, warm russet, and he smiled, holding out his arms.

“Tally! Tow-headed as ever!”

It was like being hugged by a bear, but Talitha decided that she liked him. Shea welcomed him heartily, the vaqueros bowed, Patrick and Miguel stared at this father of the girl they considered their big sister, and Caterina was much intrigued with his watch and chain.

“For sure I'll never go back to California now!” he groaned laughingly as they all sat back to eat. “That stage! It has to cover twenty-eight hundred miles in twenty-five days or less which means jolting along at an average five miles per hour. The horses get changed at each relay, but the passengers don't.”

He took a long drink of milk, having refused coffee, settled back and beamed. “But it's fast, and I'm finally here, and I do thank God for keeping you safe, Talitha!” He nodded to Shea. “I surely am thanking you also, sir, from the bottom of my heart.” He glanced around, puzzled. “And where's your good wife?”

Shea's face paled. Stricken, Talitha said quickly, “She—she's dead, father.”

His burly jaw dropped. He apologized hastily to Shea but Talitha braced herself for some questions. Scott went out with the men that afternoon to see the cattle, but he came in alone while Talitha was getting supper and watched her for a while with his big head at a worried tilt.

“When did Mrs. O'Shea die?”

“It's five years now. When little Cat was born.” Talitha said it deliberately, reminding him that there were children dependent on her. “We had an Indian woman living here awhile, but since she left, I've managed with Anita's help.”

“Don't take offense,” this stranger-father rumbled, rubbing his neck. “But Mr. O'Shea's a young enough man that it don't seem fittin' for you to keep house for him.”

Talitha gave him such a surprised look that he colored and fidgeted. “Don't be put out with me, honey. I know well enough these folks saved you from the heathen and when it comes right down to it, you know Mr. O'Shea a sight better'n you do me. But—”

Caterina chose that moment to come burrow her dark head against Talitha and peer out flirtatiously at this new man-creature. She still had that heart-shaped face clustered about with slightly curling black hair, and there was a translucent quality to the sun-kissed skin.

Giving her a hug and telling her to set the table, Talitha said gently to her father, “Shea does his best, but all three children need me, especially Cat. It's my chance to pay back what was done for me.” She almost added:
and James
, though she checked in time. No use in inflicting that knowledge on Jared since James had apparently chosen to stay for good with the Apaches.