The Valiant Women (9 page)

Socorro knelt by the mass grave. This must be where she came during those daily absences that seemed longer than responses to natural needs.

Our lady was praying to Our Lady. Head bowed by the crosses, she seemed the embodiment of all women who grieved, yet still hoped and did all they could for the living.

Ashamed because he burned to have her as a woman, Shea turned quickly down the bank before she could see him, swore only mildly at the acacia that caught his ankles, and forced himself to concentrate on finding wood that might make serviceable bows.

Acacia was too crooked, small and brittle, you'd do well to make darts from it. Dubiously eyeing paloverde, ironwood and mesquite, Shea thought he might have to settle for branches from the first, but none of the three inspired confidence. The limbs were either small, or gnarled and knotted from their struggles with wind and drought.

Then, as he trudged down the arroyo, he saw another kind of tree, several of them, white-trunked and tall, with leaves that were shiny green on top and silvery gray beneath.

This was more like it! And the first tree he'd seen since leaving Caborca that stood more than twelve feet high. Most weren't as tall as he was.

Seizing a down-bent branch, he tested a suitably long limb. It had some resilience but didn't threaten to snap. A moment before he'd have taken it gladly. Now, with several trees to select from, he prowled about, testing his visual judgment by bending and feeling.

Should they arm Socorro? Shea thought of Indians, white scalp hunters and varicolored no-goods, and grimly decided she'd better have all the protection they could scrape up.

Selecting the three boughs he deemed most likely, Shea axed them off, cleaned them of smaller limbs and leaves and took them to Santiago, who was lying on his side watching Socorro as she knelt at the
metate
, bringing her weight down on the pestle as she ground.

Hard work, but it was also a sensuous moving of the upper body though she chatted away with no awareness of that.

Standing where he blocked Santiago's view, Shea offered the boughs. “Think they'll do?”

“
Alamos
—cottonwood,” approved Santiago. “Probably the best thing we can get here.” He hitched himself into a sitting position, thanked Shea who put a serape behind him for support. “There should be some good strips of rawhide in the storeroom. Please, if you'll bring them and the knife, I'll see what I can do. We need three bows?”

Shea nodded toward Socorro. “She'd better learn to use one, too.”

He brought the lengths of rawhide to Santiago. “Have any ideas on what would make the best arrows?”

“Apaches use cane. There's a stand of it below where you found the cottonwoods.”

“Cane? That wouldn't be strong enough!”

“Tell that to the men who've been pierced with cane arrows from three hundred feet away!” suggested the vaquero.

“I suppose we can try them,” Shea grudged. “But if they snap when we try them on targets, we'll use something stronger.”

“By all means,” returned Santiago placidly.

As Shea went out, he heard Socorro say in a defensive tone, “You must remember, Santiago, that
el señor
is from another land.” That smarted more than Santiago's veiled amusement.

God's whiskers!
vowed Shea.
Cane arrows or ironwood, I'll learn to outshoot that little monkey!

Through the afternoon the two men worked on weapons. Socorro brought Santiago frequent drinks of tea she'd made from an herb drying in the storeroom which she confidently said was
manzanilla
, a good tonic.

She offered some to Shea who took a sniff and shook his head though he longed for real tea or coffee. That was human nature for you! Here they were in comparative luxury and he craved more. Which reminded him.

“We've used up the jerky,” he remarked to Santiago. “Mind if I butcher one of the scraggiest old steers?”

“Take your pick, except for an old roan stag who has the Cantú brand on his shoulder and a cross on his flank.” Santiago glanced at his poulticed hip. “I think I can travel in another week or ten days. We'll need jerky for the trip. Those steers are skinny. Better kill two.”

Shea took the knife and ax down to the well, kept an eye on the cattle who came to the trough. There were quite a few, to his eye, who qualified for slaughter. He waited for one particularly gaunt old warrior to drink his fill. As he moved back, thirst quenched, Shea waited till he was out of the way of the other cattle, then brought the ax down as hard as he could at the back of the neck, cleaved through the vertebral column deep into the flesh.

The steer fell, wound pumping blood, head lolling, dead almost immediately. Shea skinned him, then with the ax and knife carved him into quarters. He took a generous chunk of loin up to the house for supper.

“Save the head,” admonished Santiago.

“What for?”

“
Tatema
.” Santiago kissed his fingers. “Delicious!”

It didn't sound that way, but if this kid was running a bluff, Shea meant to call it. “I'll save it,” he promised and went back to work.

By the time all the meat was in the house where it'd be safe from hungry birds and animals, Shea was more than ready to rest and eat. They heard snarling outside, a sharp yip. Santiago laughed.

“Someone disputes with Don Coyote. You
did
save the head?”

“Yes. Now you'll have to tell me what to do with it.”

“Simple. Make a hole and line it with rocks. Build a fire and keep it going till the rocks are very, very hot. Meanwhile, you've shaped clay all around the head. This goes in the hole, you cover it with more hot rocks, then earth on top of that. Do it in the morning and we'll have a rare treat by evening.”

Socorro said decidedly, “
I
won't!”

“Lady!
Tatema
melts in the mouth.”

“Not in mine.”

Santiago tilted his head at Shea, who choked a bit on a tough but good-flavored hunk of beef. “I'll try anything once. What do you think of the bows and arrows?”

Thoughtfully considering the weapons piled beside him, Santiago hefted an arrow. It was three feet long and a thin wedge was cut out of the cane into which was set a piece of whittled hardwood with a bone point.

“No feathers and an Apache would probably die laughing at the balance, but I shot a few out the door and I think they'll serve. The piece of hardwood will come loose if the arrow's jerked at and leave the point in the quarry.”

“Hey! What if I'd been fixing to come in when you shot?”

“Oh, our lady watched to be sure that didn't happen and then fetched in the arrows,” explained Santiago airily.

Shea grunted. “We'd all better start practicing soon.”

Socorro's smooth brow had been furrowing. Now she burst out impatiently. “Don't you notice something, Shea?”

He looked about, saw nothing different, studied the food which he'd been too busy eating to pay much mind to. “The beans! They're almighty flavorsome tonight, Socorro.”

Ominously, she said, “They're exactly as they have been, neither worse nor better.”

“Uh …” Trapped, he said desperately, “Your dress looks nice.”

“Ay, ay! Burro!”

Dashing back glittering tears, she sprang to her feet, fled into the next room. Stifled sobs. Shea turned helplessly to Santiago. “What—?”

Santiago pointed to the basket of tortillas. “No lumps, no holes, none burned!” he whispered. “So proud she was, Don Patricio!” Jealously, he added, “She could scarcely wait for you to pick one up and notice.”

Tortillas!

Shea blinked, shook his head. This girl who'd survived a massacre, snatched two men from death, found water where most people, including him, would have died—this girl who'd walked uncomplainingly through the closest thing earth had to hell was crying because he hadn't complimented her improved tortillas!

God's whiskers!

But when you thought of the hours she put in at that
metate
, the way she'd persisted in trying to flatten the small balls of dough into perfect, even rounds, the way she'd burned her fingers on the griddle—yes, Shea could understand.

Tentatively picking up one of the flat cakes, he saw that indeed it was vastly superior to the first ones she'd made. He got up and headed for the bedroom, casting Santiago a look.

Huddled on the big bed, Socorro looked very small and vulnerable. “Go away!” Her shoulders heaved. She burrowed deeper into the serapes:

Shea dropped to his knees. “Socorro, the tortillas are—why, they're handsome! I should have noticed right away but I was too busy stuffing myself with them like a mule eating hay!”

Another snuffle.

“Socorro! Damn it, I'm sorry!”

She hitched herself up on one elbow. Slowly, her face emerged. She dashed her tears away before she gave a soft, shaky laugh. “A big redhead mule devouring my poor tortillas! Yes, that's what you are!”

He'd be any kind of mule if she'd forgive him. “Come watch me flap my ears while I eat some more?” he invited.

Her smile broke like the sun from behind clouds. “Come, then,
burro pelirrojo!
”

Though he wasn't hungry, Shea finished off the tortillas. Beneath Santiago's sardonic stare, he couldn't say much beyond “Mighty good!” but he looked at each tortilla admiringly as he lifted it, rolled it with respect and took small appreciative bites while Socorro beamed.

Somehow it all made him remember his mother, how she'd tried to give a bit of flavor and grace to their scanty meals, flowers in a broken mug, scallions and herbs from the garden, wild mushrooms, salvaged windfall apples that better-off people left for their pigs.

He understood suddenly that feeding people was a way of loving them. One of the most important ways; without food they died. And he undertook to never again have a meal without thanking in some fashion the person who'd fixed it.

Even, he thought dourly, if it was Santiago!

The
tatema
was exhumed from its pit next evening, the mud peeled off along with the hide, and the result placed hurriedly by Shea in front of Santiago.

Blissfully spooning out one of what had been the eyes, Santiago said, “
Muy sabrosa!
Try it, Don Patricio!”

Swallowing hard, Shea gingerly poked around with a tortilla and the knife they all shared at meals.
If
you could forget what it was, the
tatema
was tasty. Santiago hadn't been playing a nasty joke.

But the vaquero got to enjoy most of that special delicacy.

They prepared now for the journey north. Santiago made more arrows and they all practiced shooting for about an hour each day. Even sitting, as he was obliged to, Santiago quickly became a good marksman.

“It must be carried over from using the reata,” he said when Shea swore disgustedly after his fifth miss at a gourd Santiago had hit on his first try. “Without boasting, Don Patricio, I was the best roper among many good ones. Using the eye and hand together takes training.” He grinned. “Or maybe it's my Apache blood!”

It had turned out that Santiago's blood was considerably mixed. His grandfather had been an Opata captive who was raised by the Apache and had married one of their women. The daughter of this union had been captured by slave traders and sold to Don Antonio—who, back in his blue-blooded ancestry, had a Tarahumare woman whose conquistador master had legitimized his sons by her.

Whatever the blend, it had produced a splendid result, Shea thought, as he brooded on the fact that he had never thrown a rope in his life. One more thing to learn! He thought of Socorro's improved tortillas and doggedly notched another arrow.

Socorro's bow was smaller than those of the men and her arrows were scaled to it. It took her a while to learn how to hold the arrow while pulling back the bowstring, but once she got the feel of it, she shot with a kind of joy.

“I never got to do anything like this before!” she exclaimed one day as Shea brought back her arrows. Windblown and flushed, she had never looked more beautiful. “It's a lot more fun than grinding corn!”

At first it had seemed the scalp hunters had stolen the horses and mules. They must have taken the main
remuda
, but gradually ones they'd missed turned up for water and Shea got them into the corrals where he fed them with grass cut from the region where the cane grew, with cottonwood boughs, and singed prickly pear.

Remembering that his father had died because of a horse, Shea had a special feeling for them though he'd only been mounted a few times in his life, and that uncomfortably. He counted with considerable pride as three horses and two mules increased to five and six, respectively. There were packsaddles and the big box-like leather
aparejos
, or square bags, which could carry useful things, serapes, kettles, the ax, tools, provisions. And plenty of water!

“Just how do you figure we can drive that herd one hundred and fifty miles?” he asked Santiago one night.

“We won't. Cristiano will take them for us.”

“Cristiano? Who's he?”

“The old roan stag I told you not to slaughter. The one with the cross on his hip.”

“Now, look, youngling, I'm new to this country, but—”

“Cristiano is the leader. Before, when we've taken herds to Tubac or Tucson or the mines, he's led the way.”

Santiago looked so serious that Shea believed him though he scratched his head. “How was he trained?”

“Lead steers do it naturally. Of course, Cristiano was a bull till he was five years old. As you may know, in Mexico we seldom geld cattle or horses, but Cristiano grew so fearsome, goring several other good bulls, that Don Antonio had to choose between virility for him or all the rest of the males. Gelding took away Cristiano's rages but he's still the boss.”