Where the Broken Heart Still Beats (14 page)

"Oh, let me go, too!" Lucy begged, tears streaming down her pale cheeks. "I know that I can be a big help to Uncle Silas and Aunt Mary, getting Cynthia Ann and Prairie Flower settled there, so they won't feel so lonely, and Aunt Mary won't feel as though she has complete strangers in her home."

It was plain that Anna did not want Lucy to go, that she feared letting one more member of her family out of her sight. It had already been decided that Ben must ride along with Silas for protection, after Silas's description of their narrow escapes on the way over, and that he must then join a west-bound party to make the trip home safely. Since the beginning of the war and the withdrawal of the soldiers from the frontier forts, Indian raids had increased. Almost weekly they heard reports of new attacks at settlements along the unprotected frontier. Uncle said it was foolhardy for anyone to attempt the four-day trip without at least two armed men. But he did manage to convince Anna that Lucy might be safer once she reached east Texas than she was at home in Birdville.

At last Anna gave in, and Lucy brightened visibly. "Come, Cynthia Ann," Lucy said bravely, "we must mend your clothes and see about making some new ones." For the week or so that it took them to make their preparations, Martha helped. Anna seemed calmer. Silas and the boy helped Ben and Uncle to butcher a pig, mend fences, and put a new roof on the shed.

Then it was time for them to be on their way. They ate a last meal together, and once again Uncle prayed for all of them, for Isaac and Jedediah and the brave men of the Confederacy, and now for Silas and Joseph, and for Cynthia Ann and Tecks Ann, as he still called her, and for Ben and Lucy, who were setting out on a journey.

Prairie Flower, who had not yet gotten used to sitting quietly through these long prayers, squirmed and wriggled and began singing a little song Sarah had taught her. James did his best to make her laugh, teasing her until she began to giggle uncontrollably before the Amen. James managed to look completely innocent.

"Thank God you are leaving here!" Anna said loudly, interrupting the prayer. "I have little enough to be thankful for, but at least I can be grateful for that!"

Martha reached out sorrowfully and patted her mother's arm, Lucy bit her lip and seemed to study her plate, and Sarah and James looked wide-eyed from one to the other. Silas appeared distinctly uncomfortable.

"There's been trouble, then?" he asked, turning to Uncle.

"Trouble? Nothing but trouble, where that one's concerned!" Anna said shrilly, her hard voice cracking.

"Oh, Mama," Lucy sighed. Her lip was trembling, and a pair of tears slid down her cheeks. Cynthia Ann looked away and gazed steadfastly past them all.

"It's been hard at times," Uncle said to Silas. "No one's to blame."

They ate in silence.

After the dishes had been washed and put away and the dishwater thrown out to the pigs, Cynthia Ann gathered her few possessions and waited to be told when they would leave.

"At first light," Silas said.

Cynthia Ann kept her eyes on the horizon. Prairie Flower curled up beside her, her battered rag doll clutched tight. Across from them, Lucy dozed against a heap of sacks. From the wagon seat, Silas guided the yoke of plodding oxen, cracking his whip and calling "Whoa-come!" and "Back!"

Next to him, Joseph kept turning around and peering over his shoulder at her until Silas said something that caused him to stare straight ahead again. He was supposed to be keeping watch as they made their slow, steady way eastward. Beside the cart, Ben rode his grandfather's horse, a rifle slung over his shoulder. Cynthia Ann knew he was watching out for Indians. So was she, but for a different reason.

The first night they stopped to camp near the settlement of Dallas. Unable to find a farmhouse that welcomed travelers, Silas and Ben and the boy Joseph took turns staying awake as guards. Lucy crept close to Cynthia Ann to sleep, with Prairie Flower between them.

They ate simply, not bothering to build a fire, although Cynthia Ann had hoped they would. White people always built big fires, visible for miles. Perhaps some of her People would see and come for her. But now she realized that if some Nermernuh did attack this little company of travelers, they might mistake her for a white woman. They wouldn't know that she was one of the People unless she could call out to them first in their language. But what if she couldn't call out soon enough? For the first time, she understood the fear these white people had and even shared it.

On the second day, they joined the freight road that ran from Dallas to Shreveport. It was better than the road from Birdville, broader and not so rough—the stumps had been cleared away—and they made better time.

The second night they stayed at a farmhouse. After Silas introduced himself and the rest of his party and they had settled at the table with mugs of some dark liquid, a coffee substitute made from parched barley, the farmer and his wife hunched closer for a better look at Cynthia Ann.

"Too bad what those savages done to her," the grizzled old farmer said to Silas. "She looks like a strong worker, probably make a good wife, but there ain't a white man who'd want her after she's been with those Comanches. I remember when they brought your cousin Rachel Plummer back, that was probably twenty-five years ago. I knew her people, and they paid a ransom for her, but she was never quite right again." He tapped his forehead. "Died exactly a year after she come back, as I recall."

Rachel.
Cynthia Ann remembered: a young woman with a baby, a little boy. Rachel and the baby were part of the memories she had pushed away. They were all captured together, carried off together, beaten and tormented. Then Rachel and the baby disappeared. So had the other woman, Mrs. Kellogg. And her own brother, John. He was Silas's brother, too. He had been sold to another band, as she recalled.

"Whatever became of your brother, John?" the farmer asked Silas. "There was a ransom out for him, too. But I don't think it was ever claimed."

"Turned Indian, best I know," Silas said. "Became one of them. Story we heard is he got sick, smallpox I believe it was, and the Comanche tribe that adopted him left him to die. But some little Mexican gal, one of their slaves, saved his life and nursed him back to health. He married her and went to live down south somewhere, near El Paso. They say he ranches there."

The old man shook his head. "You hear all kinds of things," he said.

His gray-haired wife was bustling around, preparing them a meal, but keeping a wary eye on Cynthia Ann. "Tell them what you heard, Ely," she instructed.

"Well," the farmer said, shifting his eyes toward Cynthia Ann, "a while back there was a trader stopped off here for a night. Told us Indian raids are picking up something awful out your way." He held out his tin cup to his wife to refill and watched as she poured the steaming brew. "Awful stuff," he commented. "Can't hardly stand to drink it. Anyways," he said, resuming his story, "this trader, Mr. Ennis, says there's a new young warrior leading these raids, raising all kinds of hell. Name of Quanah."

Cynthia Ann tried never to let the white people see how she felt about anything, but the news caught her by surprise. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she stood up suddenly, spilling her drink. The farmer's wife ran to get a rag to mop it up.

"Mr. Ennis says Quanah is this lady's son," he drawled. "Guess that answers my question."

On the fourth day they turned south, off the freight road, onto one much rougher with deep ruts and uncleared stumps. Heavy winter downpours turned the road into a muddy swamp. Swollen creeks had to be forded. Progress was slow.

They reached Silas's farm on the fifth day. As the wagon approached, Cynthia Ann saw a small, thin woman step out of the cabin, a baby in her arms and a little boy peeping out behind her skirt.

"That's Mary," Silas said. He had spoken very little on the trip. He lifted his hat, and she waved.

The wagon drew up in the yard, and the travelers stiffly clambered down. Mary stayed by the cabin door, motionless as a tree, until they all straggled up to her. Silas made introductions. "This here's Lucy, Cousin Isaac's girl—Isaac's gone off with the regiment—and Ben, his boy. And this here's my long-lost sister, Cynthia Ann, and her baby girl. Tecks Ann, some call her." He stepped back, and Mary peered at the newcomers.

Her gaze came to rest on Prairie Flower. "My, she sure does look Indian," Mary said flatly. "Is she filthy, like her people?" she asked Silas.

Silas coughed and looked down at his boots. "They've lived with Isaac's people for near a year now and learned their ways. They speak our language pretty good," he said.

But at that moment, Prairie Flower, who always chattered in English when she played with Sarah and James, suddenly turned to her mother and asked her something in the Nerm tongue.

Mary seemed shocked. She turned angrily to Lucy. "You mean your family let this child talk that savage language? I thought he said she'd been taught to talk proper."

Lucy glared at Silas's wife. "She can speak both," she said quietly. "Depends who she's talking to."

"Well, she can just forget that Indian talk altogether when she's living in
this
house," Mary said. "Come on in, then," she added brusquely and marched into the cabin.

Cynthia Ann clutched Prairie Flower's warm hand and slowly followed the sharp-faced little woman. Lucy trailed behind. Silas and Joseph had gone to unyoke the oxen, and Ben went with them to water his horse.

They had a plain supper of cornmeal mush and bacon, prepared by an old Negro woman, and ate without much conversation except for Mary's questions about how they were surviving the war in Tarrant County. Then it was time for bed.

"We planned on you and the little girl sleeping in that bed, Sister," Silas said.

"No need," Cynthia Ann said. "We sleep on this." She unrolled the buffalo robe and waited to be shown where to lay it. But Mary reacted as unhappily as Anna had when it first came to her cabin. Lucy intervened.

"It's what they always sleep on," Lucy explained. "It was her robe. She made it. It's very precious to her. It's quite clean, I assure you of that."

Mary regarded it doubtfully. Cynthia Ann watched her. If Mary refused to allow the buffalo robe, then Cynthia Ann would refuse to stay. She would insist on going back with Ben.

"Mary," Silas said quietly, pleading in his voice.

Mary threw up her hands in resignation. Cynthia Ann spread the robe in the corner farthest from the fire, and soon everyone had found a place to sleep. The only sound in the cabin was the deep, even breathing of the Parkers. Cynthia Ann lay awake, staring into the darkness. The old impulse was there again—
run.

The impulse had never gone away. She had not stopped searching for a way to get back to her People. But she was watched too closely, and every attempt she had made had met with failure.

It was clear from the first meeting that she would get along no better with her brother's wife, Mary, than she had with Anna. Lucy would not stay here long. It made no sense to think of running, but that is what occupied her mind throughout the night. Perhaps Silas and Mary would not be so strict, she thought, or would not have the time to watch her so carefully. The distances were even greater now, she knew; she was far, far away from the land of the Nermernuh.

But now she knew for certain that Quanah was out there somewhere. Her son. She would not truly rest until someday, somehow, she would be with him again.

When I persuaded Grandfather to let me travel here with Uncle Silas to stay with Cynthia Ann in her new home, I had not reckoned on what it would be like to be away from my family or to be here with this one. Ben stayed just long enough to eat and sleep and rest his horse, and then he joined a group of soldiers headed west to Fort Worth and left for home.

I longed to beg him to take me with him, but after going to so much effort to be allowed to make this trip, I could scarcely announce a change of heart.

I am not confident that things will go well here for Cynthia Ann and Prairie Flower, for it seems that this was Uncle Silas's idea and Aunt Mary makes only a grudging welcome to her sister-in-law and little niece and not much more to me!

It is a very comfortable home, a double log cabin like ours, but with four large rooms with high ceilings and a good stone fireplace. Grandfather's cabin, said to be the finest in Tarrant County, does not hold a candle to this. The furniture quite astonishes me; much of it was shipped all the way from New Orleans as a wedding gift. (Grandfather had given me to understand that Uncle Silas married a woman from a Louisiana family of considerable means.)

Mary brought many possessions from her family home in Shreveport, including a set of English bone china, which is displayed on a shelf built high up the wall. Her wardrobe of beautiful silk dresses is kept in a leather-covered trunk. She even brought her Negro, Silvy, who has taken care of her from the time she was in her cradle.

The farm is quite large, and with the help of several slaves, Uncle Silas has managed to clear a good portion of it to produce all kinds of crops. It would seem that Aunt Mary could want for nothing—although it's true, we all want for
something
with this dreadful war—but she complains constantly.

"If only we lived in Tyler!" she laments. Tyler is a large town a long day's ride to the east, where she describes well-stocked shops and a lively social life. "Before the war," she says, "we went there at least once a month to barbecues and cotillions. There was always something going on. Not like Shreveport, but better than
this.
" She claims life is quite giddy in Tyler when the soldiers are home on leave and seems to regard the war as a serious inconvenience to her pleasure, since no one close to her here has had to go off to fight.

I was curious about that. Uncle Silas is several years younger than Cynthia Ann, much, much younger than my dear Papa and not so much older than Jedediah, both of whom are serving the Confederacy. Most of the men in this area, I have learned, have also gone off, leaving their wives in the most desperate straits as they try to manage farms and Negroes in the absence of the menfolk. However, Uncle Silas owns a tannery that has been requisitioned by the government to provide boots for our soldiers, and this keeps him safe at home. Yet his wife does not have the sense to be grateful for this good fortune but importunes him daily to take her to Tyler, to Athens, even to Ben Wheeler for an entertainment.