Texas Rifles (7 page)
Authors: Elmer Kelton
She didn't try to answer him until she had her breath. Then she turned her face up to him, her blue eyes pleading. “Please, please, that is my home.” She spoke slowly, the words still difficult for her. “My baby is there. Why can't I go? You took no other woman.”
“You're a white woman, the only one there was.”
“I am not white woman. My face is white, my eyes
are the eyes of a white woman. I have often been ashamed of that. But my heart is Nocona. My baby is Nocona. Why do you want me?”
are the eyes of a white woman. I have often been ashamed of that. But my heart is Nocona. My baby is Nocona. Why do you want me?”
Cloud looked to Miguel for help and got none. “But you
are
white,” he said, knowing it wasn't answer enough. “That's all the reason there is.” Now it was Cloud who pleaded with his eyes, pleaded for her to understand. “Maâam, you grew up with the Indians, so there's a lot you can't know. There's things a white woman just don't do. You get back to the settlements, and live awhile with your own folks, you'll understand what I'm tryin' to tell you.”
are
white,” he said, knowing it wasn't answer enough. “That's all the reason there is.” Now it was Cloud who pleaded with his eyes, pleaded for her to understand. “Maâam, you grew up with the Indians, so there's a lot you can't know. There's things a white woman just don't do. You get back to the settlements, and live awhile with your own folks, you'll understand what I'm tryin' to tell you.”
Despair colored her voice. “I don't want to go to the white people. I want to go to my baby. It is a weak baby, a sick baby. It needs me.”
For a moment Cloud thought she would cry. His throat tightened in sympathy for her. Again he looked to Miguel and got no help.
“Miguel,” he said, “ain't there nothin' you can say to her?”
Miguel shook his head, and Cloud could see in the Mexican's eyes a dislike for the task they had to do. “There is nothing to say. We follow the order, like it or not. The
capitán
say she come, she come.”
capitán
say she come, she come.”
Cloud looked at the bereaved woman and wished he had never seen her. He turned away, flexing his hands.
There
was
a way, he thought suddenly.
was
a way, he thought suddenly.
He turned back. “Miguel, how far you reckon it is to that Indian camp?”
Miguel shrugged. “She come pretty far. Two, maybeso three more miles.”
To the woman Cloud said, “What if we went with you into that camp to get your baby? Would you come out with us again, and no fuss?”
The woman looked up quickly, sudden hope in her face. “You would let me get my baby?”
Miguel pointed out in argument, “The
capitán,
he don' like it.”
capitán,
he don' like it.”
“I don't care. It just ain't natural to take this woman away from her baby, no matter what color it is.”
“He raise plenty hell with us.”
“But he can't turn back anymore, and he can't just leave the baby out on the prairie.”
Miguel shrugged. Cloud could tell he wasn't keen about the idea. “Whatever you say, my frien', I go with you. But we have to watch those squaws. They get the chance, they cut us to pieces.”
“We'll watch.” To the woman he said, “How about it? Promise to come out with us again and not give us no trouble?”
Tears of joy shone in her eyes. “I promise. I promise.”
He reached down and took her hands and helped her to her feet. The warmth of her hands stirred him, and for a moment he held them. She pulled the hands away, letting her blue eyes briefly meet his with their glow of gratitude. “You have good heart,
Tejano
.”
Tejano
.”
“I got a conscience,” he told her, “and for a little while there, it didn't like me much.”
He helped her onto her horse, and they headed toward the village. Miguel moved out a little in the lead, watching ahead of them nervously. Worry rode heavy on the Mexican's shoulders.
Cloud tried to watch the prairie too, but most of the time he watched the woman. He watched the graceful way she sat the Comanche saddle, her back straight, her shoulders square. She would glance at him and catch him looking at her, and she would look away again.
“You know somethin', ma'am?” he found himself telling her. “Get you back to civilization, put some good
clothes on you and do your hair up settlement-style, you're goin' to look prettyâright pretty.” He felt a flush of embarrassment then and wished he hadn't said it. But she didn't seem to have understood. He could see the eagerness in her eyes, and he knew she was thinking only of the baby.
clothes on you and do your hair up settlement-style, you're goin' to look prettyâright pretty.” He felt a flush of embarrassment then and wished he hadn't said it. But she didn't seem to have understood. He could see the eagerness in her eyes, and he knew she was thinking only of the baby.
He rode a while farther before he finally asked her, “What's your name, ma'am? Your white name, I mean.”
She shook her head. “My white name? Easter. Easter Rutledge.” A look of wonder came into her face. “It has been a long time since I have said that name. Easter Rutledge. Easter Rutledge.” She spoke the name slowly, almost as if she were carefully tasting something that had a strange new flavor. “It sounds ⦠I don't know what to say ⦠funny. It is like the name of someone else.”
“Don't reckon you've had much chance to use it. How long you been with the Comanches?”
“Long ago they took meâmany, many years ago. I was a little girl. I do not remember muchâthe shooting, the screams. My white fatherâI am sure he died. My mother ⦠I can't remember. It has been so long ago.” She looked down, frowning, trying to recall the far-distant past. “I was given a new father and mother in the Noconas. With them I was not white. I was Nocona. Always I have been Nocona.”
Cloud observed, “You're gettin' better with your English. You must've had some practice on it.”
“There was a white woman with us many years. Slave. Always she called me Easter. Always she spoke English. She said I must never forget my English, must never forget I was white. I told her I was not whiteâI was Nocona. But I spoke English with her. She died two or three winters ago. Since then I have not spoken with a white person. I have not spoken English.”
Cloud was a little hesitant about the next question, and
he waited awhile before he asked it. “You have a husband?”
he waited awhile before he asked it. “You have a husband?”
She shook her head. “He is dead.”
“Was he ⦠I mean, did you love him?”
“Love?” She seemed a little puzzled by the word. “He brought me food. He gave me my son.”
“But were you in love with him?”
She frowned. “I don't know what you mean.”
Cloud nodded, satisfied. “You weren't, I reckon, or you'd know what I meant.” The thought made him feel better, somehow.
They rode awhile in silence, following Miguel. They were into the rolling hills now, not far from the creek where the camp stood.
“Soon now,” Cloud heard the woman speaking softly, more to herself than to him. “Soon now.” Her face was happy.
Easing up a rise, Miguel Soto suddenly stopped. The way he stiffened in the saddle, Cloud knew something was wrong. Miguel held up his hand in a signal for the other two to halt. Cloud did, for a moment, then he and Easter Rutledge moved slowly forward, drawing abreast of Miguel.
Somberly Miguel turned to her and said, “Very bad luck, senora. Very bad luck.”
He pointed. Cloud could see the riders down yonder, strung out in a dusty line along the creek, pushing a small bunch of horses straight toward the ravaged camp.
“Comanches,” Cloud breathed. “Another raidin' party just comin' in. And way too big for us.”
He turned regretfully to the woman, to tell her what this meant. He saw despair drive the glow from her face.
He didn't have to tell her. She already knew.
B
RUSH HILL WAS NOT MUCH OF A TOWN, EVEN AS frontier settlements went. It had been built with little view toward permanence and no view at all toward beauty. Money scarce the way it was, few people could afford to buy much in the form of niceties or comforts. Either they built what they wanted out of what was at hand, or they did without.
RUSH HILL WAS NOT MUCH OF A TOWN, EVEN AS frontier settlements went. It had been built with little view toward permanence and no view at all toward beauty. Money scarce the way it was, few people could afford to buy much in the form of niceties or comforts. Either they built what they wanted out of what was at hand, or they did without.
Besides, there were the Comanches to worry about. No use in a man spending months of labor and breaking his heart building something the Indians might burn down in minutes. Main thing at first was to put up something with a roof on it to keep the family in the dry, and something that would provide a man a solid wall to stand behind with his guns in case the Indians came. There would be a time later to build the fine homes the womenfolks dreamed of, a time when there was money in circulation and no longer any need to worry about “John” sneaking
in on a moonlit night to put it all to the torch.
in on a moonlit night to put it all to the torch.
Cloud had seen a lot of settlements like Brush Hill, although he had not been in this one before. It was a loose scattering of picket and log houses, for the most part, each having its garden and shed and outbuildings, its cedar-stake corral to hold the stock. Oldest houseâby the aging of its logs Cloud figured it to have been up six or eight yearsâwas built next to a spring which percolated out of a rock outcrop and formed a deep, clear pool. From the pool flowed a small creek, winding its erratic way down through the grassy hills, seeking a level spot it wouldn't find.
The newer the houses, the farther down the creek they sat.
Approaching the settlement, Cloud had seen the plowed fields, the crops mostly burned now under the barren heat of the summer sun, the moisture-robbing search of the dry wind which moaned down from the high plains. He had seen the settlers' cattle, scattered over a hundred hills and more.
Here lay a land of promise, a fresh new land which had seen far more of the Indian than of the white man, far more of the buffalo than of the new spotted cattle, a land which for the most part had still not felt the rip of the plow. Small wonder, thought Cloud, the Indians hated to see it go.
But he felt, as most settlers did, that the Indians had no solid claim upon it. They had come only now and again in search of game, touching lightly like the wind, leaving no mark upon the land, neither building nor tearing down.
Judging from the widely scattered houses he had seen, Cloud would estimate there were fifteen or twenty families in Brush Hill settlement. He saw one large log building he took to be a store. There wasn't much a frontier store could handle except the barest essentials of life, for
its customers had a hard enough time buying even those. Here a man earned his daily bread by raising the stuff that went into it. If he didn't raise it, he didn't eat.
its customers had a hard enough time buying even those. Here a man earned his daily bread by raising the stuff that went into it. If he didn't raise it, he didn't eat.
Mighty little room in a settlement like this for the riffraff that so often gravitated to the land beyond the law. To make a living here they would have to work for it. Plain to see there wasn't any loose money floating around.
Cloud wouldn't have expected the Rifles to attract much of a crowd here, because there just weren't that many people. But it seemed everybody was out to watch the men bringing in that big string of recovered horses. Children ran and shouted, and chased afoot after the horsemen. Men grinned as they recognized mounts they had lost.
“Hey, Elkin,” someone shouted, “did you get back that blue roan of mine?”
Elkin called to him, “We're fixin' to pen them down at the camp. Come along and look them over.”
As the horses passed, eyes of the watchers touched first upon the little Mexican girl riding alongside Miguel Soto. Then, inevitably, they would find the buckskin-clad woman of the brown hair and the blue eyes, riding beside the dark-bearded man named Cloud. Cloud could see people pointing to her. Though he couldn't hear them, he knew they were talking about her. And by the way she rode with her chin down, her eyes half closed, he knew she knew it.
White woman,
the word raced down the road.
They've rescued a white woman.
the word raced down the road.
They've rescued a white woman.
They passed by the store, and Cloud could see the aproned proprietor with three or four other men, standing on the narrow front porch. Atop a low, slender flagpole flew the Texas flag. Cloud stared at it.
The red-haired Quade Guffey said, “They used to fly the United States flag, but come secession they hauled her
down. Ain't nobody out here got a Confederate flag, so they use the old Lone Star in its place.”
down. Ain't nobody out here got a Confederate flag, so they use the old Lone Star in its place.”
Captain Barcroft had been riding up at the head of the column, out of the dust. Now he dropped back, holding still while the horse herd moved past him. When the last of them had gone by, he cut in behind and signaled Cloud to stop.
His glance went to the woman, then just as quickly left her. Cloud had seen Barcroft look at her this way many times since he and Miguel had brought her back to the command. There was an uneasiness in his manner with the woman, almost a distaste. The captain had avoided any unnecessary conversation with her, except that he had asked her once if she had seen a little white girl with the Indians. She told him she hadn't.
Since then, the captain seemed to have gone out of his way to stay away from her. Yet he often glanced at her, as if in the grip of some fascination he wanted to avoid.
“Cloud,” he said, “Miguel will take the girl to a Mexican family at the edge of the settlement. I thought we might bring Missus ⦠Miss Rutledge here to these people at the store. I think the Lawtons will take care of her until we can find out more about her and get in touch with her own people.”
Without exactly saying so, Barcroft seemed to have delegated Cloud to be Easter Rutledge's guardian. When the captain was around, she would stand steadfast and stare straight ahead, as if she could not see or hear him. But she somehow seemed to accept Cloud, to look upon him as something of a buffer against the tall, dark-eyed officer with the grim voice, the unsmiling face.
Maybe he looks on both of us as outcasts
, Cloud thought.
Figures we make a pair.
, Cloud thought.
Figures we make a pair.
Easter Rutledge had not talked since their failure to get into the Indian camp, except to say the things that had to
be said. She had not offered to tell any more of her past, and Cloud had not tried to question her. As he saw it, when she felt like talking, she would. You couldn't expect much from a woman who had just been forced to give up her baby.
be said. She had not offered to tell any more of her past, and Cloud had not tried to question her. As he saw it, when she felt like talking, she would. You couldn't expect much from a woman who had just been forced to give up her baby.
The captain rode past the front of the store. The proprietor, heavyish and balding, with an old man's step, moved off the porch. “Welcome back, Aaron,” he spoke to the captain, a genuine gladness in his voice. But his eyes were on Easter Rutledge.
“Thank you, Mister Lawton,” the captain responded. “Is Mother Lawton at home?”
“Just go on back,” Lawton said.
The Lawton house behind the store was a double cabin, somewhat like Lige Moseley's had been, with a dog run in the center and an extra lean-to on one side. A young woman stood on the dog run, watching the three riders approach, the old proprietor following along afoot. As Barcroft stepped down and dropped his reins over the cedar-stake fence, she hurried out to meet him. He moved through the gate and stopped.
“Hello, Hanna,” he said.
She reached out as if to put her arms around him, reconsidered and drew her hands back against her body. “Aaron,” she said softly, a catch in her voice. She summoned up strength and said, “Aaron, it's good to see you back. We were worried.”
She was tall and slender, a strongly handsome woman in her early twenties. At first Cloud thought she could be Barcroft's sister, but he decided against it when the captain said, “We came to see your mother.”
Still at a loss as to what she should do with her hands, the young woman finally crossed her arms. Cloud thought he could see a trace of tears in her eyes. Tears of relief, he thought. “She's in the house,” she said. “I'll call
her.” She walked back toward the cabin and called, “Mother, Aaron's home.”
her.” She walked back toward the cabin and called, “Mother, Aaron's home.”
An elderly woman stepped out through the open cabin door onto the dog run, her hands wrapped in an apron, her eyes wide in joy. “Aaron! You're all right? Not hurt or anything?”
“Just fine,” he told her. She walked to him, gripped his arm and pulled him down to kiss him on the cheek. For a moment the captain seemed to soften. Then he glanced at Cloud and Easter Rutledge, still sitting on their horses outside the yard fence. He regained his stiff composure. “Mother Lawton,” he said, “I've brought someone who is going to need help.”
For the first time the two women in the yard noticed Easter Rutledge. There was a moment of shocked silence as they looked her over, taking in the buckskin clothes, the fringed mocassins, the Comanche braids in her long brown hair.
Then the older woman stepped to the gate, lifting her hands as if to help Easter down. “You poor child,” she said with concern, “you must be completely worn out. Come on in with us.”
Cloud swung down from his saddle and turned to help Easter. She glanced at him desperately as if asking him what to do.
“It's all right, Easter,” he told her, not even conscious of speaking her first name instead of the “maâam” he had used so much. “These folks are goin' to help you.”
Mother Lawton's gray eyes were wide with anxiety as she looked the girl over again. “Those clothes! Land sakes, you've been held by those Indians, haven't you? You poor child!” She bit her lower lip in an unconscious gesture of sympathy. “I'll bet you're glad to be back among Christian folk again. It's God's blessing that our Aaron found you.”
Easter Rutledge looked at the ground. Her shoulder jerked in the beginning of a sob before she could catch herself. Mother Lawton put her hands on the girl's shoulders and spoke gently, “There now, there's no need to cry anymore. Everything's fine now, just fine.”
Captain Barcroft said quietly, “Before it goes any farther, Mother Lawton, there's something you should know. She's lived among the Indians so long she doesn't feel she's really white. We brought her against her will.”
The gray-haired woman looked up sharply. “Against her will? I don't believe it.” Her gaze dropped to the girl again. She shook her head slowly. “Then she's more to be pitied than ever. Only god knows how many kidnapped girls there are out yonder like this one, slaves to the heathen.”
She took Easter's chin in her hand and looked into the young woman's glistening eyes. “You won't be unhappy long, child. You'll get used to the ways of your own again, and you'll be able to live as a Christian. You'll be glad you came back.”
Still Easter did not speak. Barcroft said, “One more thing. You'll learn it soon enough, so I'll tell you now. She had an Indian husband. And she had a babyâan Indian baby.”
The old woman's eyes went wide again. “A baby?” She paused, absorbing the idea and finally accepting it. “Well, where is it?”
“We left it behind,” said Barcroft.
“You
left
it?” The sharp rise of her voice seemed to surprise Barcroft a little.
left
it?” The sharp rise of her voice seemed to surprise Barcroft a little.
“We thought â¦
I
thought it best not to bring it. It'll be hard enough for this woman to readjust herself to white people's ways without having a half-Indian child along. You know the stigma it would attach to her.”
I
thought it best not to bring it. It'll be hard enough for this woman to readjust herself to white people's ways without having a half-Indian child along. You know the stigma it would attach to her.”
Easter dropped her chin again. She closed her eyes, but
not before a tear squeezed out and ran down her cheek.
not before a tear squeezed out and ran down her cheek.
The old woman stood in silence, the anger rising in her face. Then she blazed, “Aaron Barcroft, sometimes you're the smartest man I know, and sometimes you're a fool. This time you're a fool!”
The younger woman named Hanna spoke up in protest. “Mother ⦔
Anger came into Barcroft's face. “I thought it would be better for her in the long run. I still do.”
“And you're still a fool!”
Hanna Lawton stepped quickly to Aaron Barcroft. “Aaron,” she said, “Mother's sorry. She says things she doesn't mean.”
“She means it, all right,” Barcroft replied tightly. “But when she thinks about it some, she'll know I'm right. It was the only way, the only right and proper way.”
Mrs. Lawton paid little attention. Her arm around Easter's shoulder, she guided the girl toward the cabin. “Come on into the house, child. Come on in with me.”
Hanna Lawton stood by the captain and watched her mother take Easter inside. Her fingertips were white as she unconsciously dug them into her crossed arms. Her eyes were plainly sympathtic to Easter, but she seemed hesitant to say anything that might hurt Barcroft. “It's going to be hard for her, Aaron. Perhaps you don't know what a sacrifice you've forced her to make.”
Pain tightened the captain's face. “Hanna, youâabove all peopleâought to realize what I know about sacrifice.”
She reached out and touched his arm, then pulled her hand away. “Yes, Aaron. I'm sorryâI shouldn't have said it. Sometimes a man has to do what he thinks is right, no matter how hard it may be.”
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