Homecoming

Chapter Five

J oe no more knew what the girl was thinking when they reached the ranch than when she’d stepped into the wagon, but he’d been aware of her presence all the way home.

How could he not? What with her sitting there all stiff and silent beside him, her shoulder occasionally bumping against his, his shirtsleeve brushing her bare arm with every sway and bounce of the buckboard.

Having her wedged between him and Hattie, the miles along the rough, dry road seemed endless. His mind was so burdened with worry over what might happen while she was living beneath their roof that it was all he could do to keep the wagon wheels in the well-worn ruts.

Relieved when he finally guided the horses through the main gate of the Rocking e, he pulled up near the front of the house, set the brake and tied the reins.

Though the girl never reacted, his mother had prattled on and on throughout the entire trip home. She’d commented on the budding spring wildflowers, the roads that cut across the open plain toward other ranches and homesteads, the need for rain. She chatted without encouragement or response.

His mother’s enthusiasm was unsettling. Joe couldn’t remember the last time he’s seen her so pleased. For her sake, he hoped she hadn’t just brought another round of endless heartache home.

He nudged the girl to draw her attention. She jumped when his elbow connected with her arm and turned wide, startled eyes his way.

Their gazes locked. Wariness and suspicion crackled between them, nearly as visible as lightning.

“Help her down, Joe.” Hattie seemed anxious to get the girl inside.

He climbed down and offered his hand. When the girl ignored him and climbed down unaided, he felt a tug of relief deep in his gut. Without knowing why, he was thankful for not having to touch her.

Hattie came around the wagon, gently took the girl by the arm. The hound, asleep on the porch, must have sensed movement, for he roused himself and got up to greet them. He was a few yards away when he got a whiff of the newcomer, whimpered and ran around to the back of the house.

The mutt had been worthless before the raid—which was how he got his name—but since then, he’d been deaf as a post and blind in one eye.

Hattie looked to Joe. “What’s got into him, I wonder?”

“Caught the scent of Comanche.” He purposely avoided looking at the girl.

“After you unhitch the wagon, would you set some water on to boil for me, Joe? I want to get her cleaned up first thing.”

Her words brought him up short. Practical and efficient, his mother would naturally want to jump right in and scrub the girl down. That meant extra work for her. Not to mention extra work for him that he didn’t need.

“What if she doesn’t want to bathe?” He looked the girl over from head to toe, taking in her matted hair, her bloody clothes.

Hattie gave him a look he knew all too well. She wasn’t going to budge or argue. She lowered her voice but lifted her chin. Her eyes were shadowed with remembrance.

“She’ll be willing to shed these bloody things. She won’t want to be reminded of what happened to her yesterday. And she will bathe.”

Joe noted the girl’s rigid stance and squared shoulders. Her posture would do a queen proud. Perhaps his mother was wrong. Maybe the girl wore her bloodstained clothes proudly, like a badge of honor.

“The horses and water can wait,” he said. “I’m going inside with you.” He wasn’t ready to walk away and leave his mother alone with her charge yet.

The girl had her back to him and was staring at the house. He tried to see it through her eyes—the two low structures connected by a single roof that covered the dogtrot between the kitchen building and the main house. Constructed of hand-hewn logs, the cracks chinked with sticks and clay, the buildings hugged the earth and blended into the landscape.

Stick-and-clay chimneys extended from the roofline in both the kitchen and main buildings. The clapboard roof still showed signs of smoke damage in one or two places where it had started to catch fire during the Comanche raid. Spots that were low enough for Joe to have been able to extinguish the fire before it took hold.

Hattie held on to the girl’s elbow, leaning closer until their heads were nearly together.

“Come on, honey,” she said. “I’m going to have you cleaned up in no time.”

“She’s not a child, Ma.”

“I know that, but I want her to understand that I don’t intend to hurt her.”

He followed them inside, but Hattie paused just inside the door and sighed.

“You can’t set aside your work to watch her every minute, son. You’ve already lost a good half a day. I can hold my own against one skinny little gal.”

He ignored her comment and lingered until Hattie handed the girl a glass of water and encouraged her to drink. His mother bustled out onto the back porch where she kept the tin bathtub and dragged it to the back door. When he saw what she was doing, Joe carried it the rest of the way into the kitchen while the girl ignored them both and stared out the open door as if she were there alone.

Hattie left for a moment and came back with an armload of folded towels.

“It’s gonna be impossible to get this child bathed without that hot water,” she told him. “Look at her, Joe. She’s dead tired. She’s too exhausted to try anything. Go on now. Fetch me some hot water.”

He shot a glance in the girl’s direction. She was, indeed, practically weaving on her feet.

“’Sides,” Hattie started in again, “we’re miles from anywhere. You’ll track her down in no time if she takes off. She knows that as sure as you do.”

He got himself some water, drank it and hesitated by the door. What if the girl was feigning exhaustion? Waiting for just the right minute to overpower his mother and run?

But Hattie was right. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

Hattie planted her hands on her hips. “Either you go get the water or I’ll do it…and leave you to get her undressed.”

Without another word, he turned on his heel and stalked out.

They argue over me.

Eyes-of-the-Sky knew it not only by the hardness in the man’s voice, but the coldness in his eyes that gave his anger away.

Whatever the woman just said had shamed him in some way. Shamed him so that he walked away without looking at either of them again.

After he left, the older woman laughed softly and shook her head. The words that followed her laughter were as unintelligible as all white man’s words were to Eyes-of-the-Sky.

She was led into a smaller room lined with wooden boards filled with stored food. Through gestures and gibberish, the woman soon convinced her to take off her garments.

Eyes-of-the-Sky fought to keep her hands from trembling as she touched the front of the once soft doeskin now stiff with the blood of little Strong Teeth.

The woman knelt before her, touched her knee and then her ankle, urging her to lift her foot, then she gently slipped each of her beaded moccasins off for her.

The simple gesture was so gentle and unexpected that it inspired tears—tears that Eyes-of-the-Sky refused to let fall.

Though the woman seemed kind enough, Eyes-of-the-Sky dared not show weakness. The white woman’s tenderness was surely some kind of trick meant to lull her into complacency.

Though Eyes-of-the-Sky refused to remove her garments, the woman soon made it clear she was to undress or they would stand there facing each other in the close confines of the little room forever. Wary and wondering where the man had gone to, Eyes-of-the-Sky looked around.

With words and more gestures, the woman let her know the man was gone. Then the woman covered her eyes with her hands and said something that sounded like “Hewonlook.”

Finally, as Eyes-of-the-Sky slipped off her clothing, the woman quickly drew a huge striped blanket around her, covering her from shoulders to knees.

Eyes-of-the-Sky heard the sound of the man’s heavy footsteps coming and going outside the door. Suddenly, the woman stopped talking, gathered the soiled doeskin dress and moccasins, and stepped out, quickly shutting her inside the small room full of supplies.

With her ear pressed to the door, she heard the man and woman whispering together and wondered what they were planning. Her heart raced with fear for she had no idea what to expect. She knew nothing of their ways.

When they brought her here, trapped between them on the high seat of the rolling wagon, they’d bounced along in a way that made her already warring stomach even more upset.

She was shamed because she wasn’t strong enough to fight them. She no longer had the will or the stamina. But her strength would recover. She was determined to escape, to go back to her people. To return.

To what?

The question came to her from the darkness in her heart. Go back to what? When the Blue Coats had led her away from the encampment, she’d seen only death and destruction. She’d heard the cries of the wounded and the ensuing gunshots that stilled their cries. The silence was more deafening than the screams.

Suddenly he was walking around in the room beyond the door again. She heard heavy footfalls, heard the splash of water. Then the sound of his heavy boots against the wooden floor ebbed away.

When the door opened again, Eyes-of-the-Sky jumped back, clutching the blanket to her. Only the woman remained on the other side of the door.

“Comeoutnow,” she said, gesturing for Eyes-of-the-Sky to follow her into the larger room.

Clutching the cloth around herself, she crept forward, let her gaze sweep the room. The man was nowhere.

The large metal container was full of water that was so hot steam rose from its surface.

I am to be boiled alive.

Clutching the blanket, she backed away, bumped into something wooden and she winced.

The woman took her forearm and, gently patting her, spoke in the kind of lilting tone Eyes-of-the-Sky had once used to cajole her little brother into doing things he was afraid of doing.

The woman left her side long enough to walk over to the huge container of water, to scoop warm water to her face and neck and wash herself.

“Comeon.” The woman encouraged. She gestured to the water again. “ Come. Here.

“Come.” She wants me to walk to her.

The clear, steaming water was so tempting. Eyes-of-the-Sky moved closer, watched the woman with every step that brought them together. She clung to the blanket with one hand, slowly touched the surface of the water with the other.

She looked into the woman’s scarred face, saw her nod her head. Then the woman turned her back.

Eyes-of-the-Sky quickly glanced around the room. There was no way out, no weapon within reach. She knew the man was waiting somewhere outside, waiting for her to try to escape.

She looked down into the warm, inviting water, saw her reflection there. Her hair was matted with dirt and ash. Her skin was streaked with sweat and blood. The smell of death and destruction filled her head.

She glanced over at the woman again, dropped the blanket, then slipped into the warm water.

After Joe left them alone, he headed for the barn, nearly running until he reached the watering trough. Without hesitation, he dunked his head under the surface of the cold water.

Standing there with his wet hair dripping down around his ears and soaking the front of his shirt, he knew that if he was still a praying man, he’d ask the Lord to let Jesse find the girl’s family. And find them fast.

In an attempt to settle back into his routine, he unhitched the horses, turned them into the corral and had just picked up a shovel to muck out the stalls when he heard Hattie call to him from the porch.

He dropped the shovel and hurried outside, slowed his rush when he saw her with the girl’s discarded clothing in her arms.

He went back to the house and when he got there, Hattie explained.

“She fell sound asleep in the warm water. Thought we might as well get rid of these,” she said, looking askance at the pile of stained hide clothing, the beaded moccasins.

He held out his arms and she dumped the Comanche clothes into them. Lice ridden, no doubt. Reminders of exactly who the girl was now and where she’d come from that were every bit as sobering as his dunk in cold water.

“I’ll take care of them,” he promised. Gladly.

“I’d better get inside and make sure she hasn’t drowned in there.” Hattie glanced back at the kitchen door.

He headed for the barn again, concentrating on the buckskins in his arms instead of the young woman asleep in the tub.

The hides were soft where they weren’t bloodstained, the beadwork intricate and colorful. Small shells and fringe also decorated the long shirt. Collectors back East paid a pretty penny for Indian gewgaws like this, but bloodstains had no doubt ruined any value they once possessed. The best thing to do would be to burn them.

He carried the clothes to the downwind side of the barn where he burned rubbish and stoked the fire he’d built to heat the water.

He went back into the barn and mucked out another stall while the fire took hold. When it was hot enough, he picked up the girl’s things and tossed them on the open flames.

A second later, a heart-stopping cry rang out behind him, one that sent a chill down his spine. The back door banged. He spun around, ready to sprint toward the house.

That’s when he saw the girl, a blur in yellow taffeta, flying across the open yard.

Barefoot, her long hair damp and streaming free, she sprinted toward him, shouting words he couldn’t understand. He tried to grab her as she barreled past but she lithely sidestepped him. Without pause, she stood perilously close to the fire and reached into the flames.

He gave a shout, lunged and caught her around the waist, then pulled her back.

She’d managed to tug the hem of the doeskin shirt out of the fire. The piece was still smoldering in her hands.

He let go of her and slapped the Comanche garb to the ground, then pushed her back, away from the smoldering garment that threatened to catch the hem of her gown on fire.

Stomping on the burning doeskin, he managed to extinguish the flames, but the shirt, as well as the pieces still burning on the fire, was ruined.

“Are you crazy?” He turned on the girl. The thin tether that had held his emotion in check since they’d walked into the church hall finally snapped. Now, though she was but a foot away, he shouted at her.

“You could have burned yourself up just now!”

She yelled right back. He might not be able to understand what she said, but the way she spit out the words was clear enough—she was swearing at him in Comanche.

He grabbed her hand, anxious to drag her back to the house and turn her over to Hattie, but when his palm connected with hers, she cried out. Not in anger, but in pain.

Instantly, he shifted his hold to her wrist.

She turned her hands palms up, staring at them in silent shock. Her skin was marred by red, angry burns.

Joe’s anger fizzled away on a sigh. He let go of her wrists.

She stood before him, head bowed. Her long damp hair hid her expression like a chestnut veil. Her bare toes, coated with dust, peeked from beneath the hem of the taffeta gown.

No longer were her shoulders stiff with pride. No longer did her ice-blue eyes blaze up at him full of stubborn determination.

The ruination of her things had left her defeated, limp and lifeless as the scorched and smoldering garment at their feet.

Hattie ran out to join them, her eyes full of worry, her hair limp from the steaming warmth of the kitchen. She’d taken off her bonnet and, as she did when they were home alone, tried to comb some of her hair over her scar.

“What happened?” Her focus dropped to the girl’s reddened palms. “What have you done?”

“Are you accusing me or asking her? If you’re asking her, you might as well be talking to a fence post, Ma.”

“I’m not accusing you.”

“She grabbed her Comanch’ dress out of the fire, is what happened. Grabbed it after it started to burn and scorched her hands.”

Hattie cupped her hands beneath the girl’s and inspected the wounds. “Thank heaven, these burns aren’t very deep. They surely must hurt something fierce.”

She reached up and tucked a lock of the girl’s hair behind her ear.

“She ran out the back door fast as lightning.”

Joe heard admiration in his mother’s voice, noted the gentle, caring way Hattie dealt with her. She’d dressed the girl in the yellow taffeta, a gown he’d never seen her in, but one he knew Hattie wore when she was young and wealthy and living back East.

A dress she’d owned long before she’d married his father.

She’d been saving it for Mellie to wear when she was grown. But now Mellie was gone.

His already hardened heart hated seeing this stranger wearing it.

“She looks ridiculous, Ma. We can’t have her running around the place in a ball gown.”

“She’ll have to wear it until I can make over one of mine for her. As it is, my clothes are way too big for her. I think she looks just fine.”

“It’s a party dress, Ma, and this is no party.”

“She doesn’t know the difference, Joe. Might as well use it.” Hattie fluffed a ruffle on the sleeve of the gown. “She looks real pretty.”

She looked, Joe was forced to admit grudgingly, almost beautiful.

“Don’t forget she’s not staying, Ma.” For a minute he wondered if he wasn’t reminding himself.

“What are you saying, Joe?”

“I’m just saying don’t get attached. She burned herself trying to save those Comanche things. No matter what you’d like to believe, she’s not one of us. I’m telling you she’ll turn on us as soon as she gets half a chance.”

The girl was watching him very closely, as if straining to understand.

He flicked his gaze away, willing himself to look anywhere but into her eyes. There was no way he’d let himself grow soft toward her. No way he’d drop his guard. He wasn’t about to start thinking of her as anything but what she was—the enemy.

“Where’ve you gone, Joe? Where has your faith and the love in your heart gone?”

Hattie’s whispered words were barely discernible, and yet he’d heard them, just as he heard the sorrow laced through them. His mother was looking at him as if she didn’t really know him at all.

She already knew the answer as well as he did.

Where was his faith? What had happened to the love in his heart?

“The Comanches took them,” he told her.

Hattie surprised him by giving a slight shake of her head.

“No, son. You and I both know your faith faltered long before the Comanche attack. What I’ll never understand is why. ”

Without waiting for an explanation, she turned to lead the girl back to the house and left him standing alone with his guilt, his doubt and his suspicions.

He knew that no matter how much he wanted to blame the Comanche, his mother was right.

He’d lost his faith long before that dark and terrible night.

Somehow they got through supper.

Before she pulled a meal together, Hattie treated the girl’s burns with a poultice of raw potato scraped fine and mixed with sweet oil. Then she bound them with clean strips of cotton from the scrap basket she kept for quilting.

The former captive sat in silence with her burned hands resting in her lap. She watched Hattie work, either out of curiosity or sullenness, Hattie couldn’t tell which.

Though the girl never once reacted, Hattie explained what she was doing every step of the way and kept up her stream of chatter, hoping that something she said or did might trigger the girl’s memory.

She rang the dinner bell and called Joe in from the corral where he was working with a new foal. He walked into the kitchen and ignored the girl, but Hattie felt undeniable tension in the room from the minute he crossed the threshold.

As she drained boiled potatoes, she offered up a silent prayer, asking the good Lord for guidance in dealing with the girl and patience toward her headstrong son.

When supper was laid out, she sat the girl opposite Joe even though it was easy to see the two young people were determined not to look at each other.

The girl stared down at the layered beef and mashed potato bake on her plate.

“Join hands and we’ll give thanks for God’s blessing.” Hattie reached for Joe’s hand and for the girl’s bandaged hand, careful to touch only her fingertips.

“Take her other hand, Joe, and close the circle.”

“She’s a heathen, Ma. She’s got no idea what you’re doing.”

“By some accounts you’re a heathen, too, son, but you still bow your head as I pray over our meals. So can she.” Hattie waited.

Grudgingly, Joe reached across the table. When the girl hid her free hand under the table out of his reach, Joe shrugged.

“Guess she’s doesn’t want to touch me any more than I want to touch her.”

“Bow your head, then.” Hattie motioned to the girl, who watched Joe bow his head. Though the girl didn’t oblige, Hattie began anyway.

“Lord, thank you for this food. For this day. For bringing this child into our lives. Let her grow in understanding. Let her come to know You and Your mercy and wonder. Reunite her with the family that surely loves and misses her. Amen.”

Joe waited until Hattie took her first bite before he dug in. The girl watched them for a few seconds more, then, ignoring the flatware beside her plate, she grabbed a piece of beef with both hands, wiped off the potatoes and shoved it in her mouth.

Hattie was shocked into silence. Joe almost laughed.

“Ma, I believe this is the first time I’ve ever seen you speechless.”

The girl was quickly shoveling pieces of meat into her mouth with both hands, her bandages hopelessly soiled.

Hattie rolled her eyes heavenward and finally admitted, “This may be more of a challenge than I’d bargained for.”

You got yourself into this.

Joe was tempted to say I told you so as they watched the girl shove food into her mouth. By some miracle, she didn’t spill any on the front of her dress. Much to Joe’s amazement, his mother allowed the girl to eat without trying to cajole her into using utensils.

“She’s been through enough for one day. Morning will be soon enough to work on using silverware,” Hattie explained.

Darkness fell before supper was cleared and the dishes were done. When Joe came in from bedding down the stock and making the rounds, securing the gate and checking the boundaries of the yard, he found his mother and the girl seated in the front room of the main house. Hattie formally called it the parlor.

A mellow glow from the oil lamps cast halos of light around the room. The walls appeared to close around them as shadows wavered on the flickering lamplight.

Hattie was seated in her rocker with her Bible open on her lap. It was her habit to read from the Good Book at the beginning and end of every day, always starting where she’d left off. He had no idea how many times she must have read the entire Bible straight through.