Waltzing With Tumbleweeds (2 page)

Sandal clad feet churned up loose sand in the dry wash. Out of wind, her lungs felt on fire. Fierce cramps stung both legs and a sharp catch in her side threatened to bowl her over. She held the many-layered skirts high enough to free her knees. Despite the discomfort, she ran on. With dread, she glanced back for signs of pursuit. Nothing. No need to try to conceal her footprints, her captors could track a lizard across bare rocks.

At last, she slowed her strides to a stilted walk approaching the forks in the watercourse and she looked both ways. A huge gnarled walnut grew on the alluvial plain; its shade tempted her to drop and rest. She dared not stop yet. With a shake of her head, she dismissed the notion and began to run again down the broad sparkling wash.

Hours before, she’d slipped away from the other women who were busy digging up Century plant roots to make
tiswain
—Apache whiskey. Using the excuse that her belly hurt, she went around some junipers. From her cover, she slipped away before they noticed her missing. This was her chance to escape. Sometimes they let an escapee get away. She hoped that would be her case and they would not track her down.

The poor Mexican girl, Margarita, they brought back and after that they tied her up every night. She soon lost her mind. Reduced to a mumbling incoherent thing, she roamed around the camp. A vision of the girl’s sad mental state made Alberta’s shoulders tremble as she ran.

How long had she been among the Chirichuas? Nine or ten months, she lost track of time. One day long ago, unaware, she had been hanging clothes on the line at the ranch yard, the cotton ropes that her husband Charlie Macon had strung for her. Next thing she knew, she was jerked up and forced to lay belly down across his horse. The screaming near naked buck pinned her painfully over his lap and despite her struggles to get free, he galloped away with her.

At first, she felt guilty for letting him abduct her. Was it really her fault? How could she have avoided being captured? She certainly never would have gone willingly. Would Charlie accept her back as his wife—soiled as she was? No matter—she looked at the spiny trees on both sides of the watercourse and ran harder.

Her heart pounded under the thin material of her waist, her tender breasts shook with her strides. She rounded the corner and ran face to face into two dismounted Apaches.

An ear-shattering scream ripped from her throat. Both men blinked in disbelief. Unable to run a step further, she dropped to her knees and closed her eyes to await her fate. Hands clasped together before her, she began to pray.

“Our father who art in heaven—”

“Miss! Miss!” someone shouted in her ear.

Alberta tried to shake free from the panic that gripped her as if she had gone mad. Someone spoke to her, someone spoke to her in English. Did those two Apaches speak that fluent English? With her hand, she swept back the long brown hair from her face. She blinked up at the tall man in the sparkling blue uniform with gold buttons that glinted in the sunlight. “You’re a white woman, aren’t you?” he asked gently lifting her to her feet.

It must be hard to tell I’m white
. “Yes,” she said and felt a wash of grateful relief sweep over her.

“Toby,” the Lieutenant shouted to one of his scouts. “Go get this lady a horse to ride.”

“Alberta—Alberta Macon’s my name.” She straightened, embarrassed by her impulsive urge to clutch this man. Gathering her wits about her, she fought for composure. Hard to believe, but at last she was safe. She looked around at the junipers and pinons, no sight of anything. Then as the truth settled in on her, she closed her eyes and nodded gratefully. Her prayers had been answered.

“Jeff Liggett. Lieutenant U.S. Cavalry.”

“Nice to meet you, Lieutenant.”

“Your husband?”

“He’s at the ranch near the base of the Whetstone Mountains. Charlie Macon’s his name.”

“Yes, I saw your name on a report some time ago. I’m sure he’ll be glad you’re alive.”

“Yes,” she said, but without enthusiasm.

“I’ll take you back to Ft. Bowie and we can send him word that you’re safe.”

Alive, yes, but not unsoiled. She took both her hands and swept her long hair back.

“I have a leather thong if you would like to tie it?” He offered it to her.

“Yes, thank you.” That way her hair would be out of her face on the ride to the fort. She accepted his generous offer and tied it back.

“Can you walk up this bank?” he asked.

“I could walk to hell with you,” she said then realized her words and blushed.

“Only to the horses, ma’am.”

“Yes.”

The patrol was composed of a dozen enlisted troopers, four Apache scouts and the lieutenant. They arrived at Ft. Bowie at sundown. Final rays of sunshine bathed Signal Peak that rose above the camp.

They halted at the orderly’s post. The adobe hut fit in the U-shaped arrangement of buildings that composed the fort’s various structures including some nice bungalows, no doubt for the officers and their wives. Ft. Bowie nestled in a wide pass between the mountains. Brushy junipers clung to the hillsides above them.

Several passing soldiers stared at her. Obviously her squaw clothing made them take a second look.

“I’ll arrange a place for you to stay,” the lieutenant said.

“Thank you,” she said and began to dismount.

Her weak sea-legs shocked her when she stepped down light headed. The world began to tilt. Her knees threatened to buckle. Next, her vision
blurred. She lost her grasp on the army saddle, and she fainted.

“Everyone clear out!” An authoritative woman’s voice ordered. “Out! Out! The poor girl needs some rest.”

Alberta raised her head up. She found herself lying on a clean smelling bed that made her sweaty-campfire smoke flavored body stink like some kind of an animal.

“Get some rest now, dear,” the gray haired woman said.

“But I’m so filthy,” she protested.

“You’re too tired to do a thing about it right now. Rest. We can wash those sheets later.”

“My name is—”

“Alberta Macon, the lieutenant told me that already.”

The short woman in the starched blue dress smiled at her. “Georgia Kline is my name. My husband Abner’s the post sutler. Now go to sleep and stop worrying, they’ve already sent for your husband.”

“Oh,” she said and laid back on the pillow to stare at the tin ceiling tiles. Why did she fear the notion of Charlie Macon coming for her? Sooner or later she had to expect to be returned to her “man.” What would he think? She squeezed her eyes shut and soon fell into a deep slumber.

When Alberta awoke, Georgia proved her mettle as a hostess.
The woman had a large copper bathtub full of hot water and perfumed soap ready. Her first real bath in almost a year. A long handled brush proved a great tool as she sought to erase every trace of Apache from her skin. Her bath water had turned lukewarm when at last she stepped out to dry herself with the Turkish towel.

For a long moment she stared in shock at the thin woman in the tall, oval mirror. She had lost many pounds, her legs looked like sticks, her stomach drawn in and her once globe shaped breasts shrunk to pears. With her hands, she swept her long hair back from her face, still peering at the reflection of this stranger in the looking glass. Would Macon even know her?

“We’ll shampoo your hair with yucca soap and then braid it,” Georgia said, helping her into a robe.

“How will I ever repay you?”

“We won’t worry about that.”

“Oh, but I must.” She leaned closer to the mirror and examined her face. “He won’t even know me.” She ran her hand over her deep, sunburned cheek. “My skin’s dark as a squaw. Oh Georgia, I should never have come back.”

“Nonsense, you belong with your own people, with your husband.” Georgia guided her away from the mirror. “We need to wash your hair now. Why, your husband will bust his buttons when he sees you. Pretty girl and all like you are. Why he’d be foolish to do anything else.”

“No, he won’t. I’m soiled.”

“Here, here, let’s look to the bright side of things, my dear.”

Alberta shook her head in defeat. In her heart, she knew nothing would ever break through his stubbornness. He would never accept her.

With a deep breath for strength, she bent her head over the washbasin. If only she could scrub away those nights she laid under his muscle-corded belly. The many times he made her forget she was in a grass thatched wickiup, making love with a man who wasn’t her husband. Feeling all the things, she had never felt before. All those crazy intimate nights with her crying out in wanton pleasure, something she had never ever done in bed with Macon.

Her regrets consumed her until she no longer could face the people on the base. She could not stand them staring at her, knowing she had laid with an Apache. Been penetrated by a savage… allowed him access. She had not fought enough, she had succumbed too easily… submitted willingly. Filled with dread of what the future would bring, she closed her eyes, but even they denied her tears.

She kept her lids tightly shut. Her shoulder quaked under Georgia’s comforting hand. Any day—any time Macon would come for her. Or even worse he would ignore the message. What would she do then?

Two more long days crawled by. After an embarrassing physical examination, the post physician declared, she was likely not pregnant and apparently free of venereal disease. He muttered before he left, she was very lucky.

Meanwhile Georgia sheltered her from the others. Alberta could hear the various visitors in the other room.

“Oh, she is not up to having company today?”

“Did she take an Apache husband?”

“I don’t know,” Georgia would say. “She never told me.”

Alberta’s memory could recall every illicit, intimate moment she spent with him. It branded her brain like a hot iron scorched a calf’s skin at a roundup. The bitter smoke of the burning hair even hurt her nostrils as she recalled it.

On Friday, Charlie Macon drove up in a buckboard. He wore a tie and his brown Sunday suit. She always called it his Sunday suit, though he never attended church. He wore it to town when he took out loans and he wore it to funerals. This time he wore it to pick up his errant wife.

Georgia fixed her a satchel complete with a cotton night shift, under garments, an everyday calico dress they sewed together. She wore a black skirt and a starched white blouse under a shawl for the ride home. No need for a hat, she couldn’t get any darker than she already was. The soft slippers on her feet were hand-me-downs from another woman at the base.

“Afternoon,” Macon said removing his wide brimmed Stetson for Georgia. His snow-white forehead contrasted with his deep leather colored face.

The two women looked at each other. Alberta rolled her lower lips under her sharp upper teeth. It would be hard to leave this true friend. Sadness stabbed her, she would never again have anyone to lean on like Georgia.

“Ready?” Macon asked, taking her bag.

“Yes.”

“We better go. We’ve lots of miles,” he spoke with his back to her as he loaded it in the rig.

“Good bye Georgia and thanks for everything.”

“Good bye and God be with you my dear.”

I’ll need him
.
She waved and hurried to where he stood waiting to help her up in the buckboard.

Apache Pass behind them, the rusty red Dragoon Mountains lie ahead. She sat the spring seat beside her silent husband, touching his shoulder with hers on the bumps. Like sitting with a statue, an unmoved man in a thin veil of dust from the hooves of the trotting team.

The brown grassland of the Sulphur Valley spilled out around them. By sundown, they had passed through several small canyon mining towns. He stopped in Gleason. Without a word, he tied off the reins and went inside the store. In a few minutes, he returned with a sack of crackers, cheese and two cans of sardines and handed them to her with a, “Here.”

Macon undid the lines and drove out of Gleason. A mile south, he pulled off the road into a dry wash, and speculated in silence over the fiery sunset far off over the Whetstones.

“We can camp here.” He never looked at her, climbed down and began to unhitch the team.

Obviously he intended for them to dine on the food in the poke. For a long moment, she considered it then she climbed down and went off to relieve herself. When she came back, she set the food out on the tailgate.

He was busy hobbling the horses. There had been enough water in the pot hole to quench the animals’ thirst. Two burlap wrapped jugs in the
wagon bed contained their drinking water. She sipped some. Living so long on the move with Chirichuas, she had taught herself to temper her thirst. Macon joined her with a nod and began to eat.

Darkness set in on the hills around them. Finished eating, he hoisted the bedroll out and undid the straps. She tried to ignore the deepening light. The Gambell quail grew silent. A lone coyote threw his head back and howled until the stars began to twinkle.

“You coming to bed?” he finally asked.