Ride the Wind

  Tears streamed down her face as the flames devoured her lodge, eating at the seams she had sewn so carefully. She felt her life shrinking, shriveling, being consumed along with the poles and the hide cover, while around her the Texans laughed and joked.

  As she sat with them now, she grieved inwardly. She refused to speak to the interpreter or to look at anyone. She held Flower on her lap, wrapped in the blanket with her.

  Under the blanket she clutched the one thing of value that the white men had missed. The gold of the eagle coin and chain was warm and smooth in her hand. She could feel the embossed design with the tips of her fingers. As she held it she remembered Something Good and the night word was brought of the death of Wanderer's brother. It was the same night Wanderer had asked her to take care of his war pony for him.

  She thought of the times she had played with the coin as it lay against Wanderer's strong, naked chest. She used to twine the chain around her fingers when they had finished loving and lay quietly, side by side. He always left it with her when he went away. He left it as a part of him and a part of the past, a reminder of his brother who was dead and of Something Good.

  Absentmindedly, Naduah rubbed her daughter's bare foot with her other hand, trying to warm it. Then she noticed that one of the men was turning a small moccasin over and over in his hands. She stared at him fixedly until he noticed her. He looked from her to the child's bare foot, and then to the shoe. He had obviously been intending to keep it. Finally he held it out to them. Naduah nodded, and Flower crawled down from her lap. She toddled to the man, took the moccasin, and returned to her mother. Naduah put it on for her, then tucked her back into the blanket.

  Puzzled, Ross watched them. Who was she? She stubbornly refused to answer any questions. The rumor was going around that she was Cynthia Ann Parker, missing for over twenty-four years. It was possible. She could be about thirty-three years old. The sun had tanned her face to a deep brown, and there were fine wrinkles around her eyes. She was dirty, but then everyone was. Ross could still feel -the grit in his ears and in his hair from the sandstorm. Her hair had been combed, but it was chopped off short and tucked behind her ears. It wasn't a becoming style for anyone.

  Still, considering the hard life she must have led and the years that had gone by, she was a handsome woman. Her features were regular, and her mouth was wide and strong. There was a sensuous curve to her full lips. Her eyes were the most arresting thing about her, though. Ross couldn't stop looking at them. They were large and expressive and a brilliant blue. She must have been a great beauty when she was younger. In a way, she still was. There was a feeling of strength and dignity about her.

  If she was the Parker girl, she was lucky. Her family had become very influential in east Texas. And they never stopped searching for her. Most likely she would be welcomed back among them. And that wasn't something one could say of many returned captive women. She'd be better off away from this dirty, dangerous, degrading existence. But Ross wondered, briefly, why he had the feeling he was condemning a beautiful, wild animal to living out its life in a cage.

  It was almost a week before survivors of the attack found Wanderer and his men. The three women rode wailing into camp. Wears Out Moccasins was one of them. Wanderer grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, which was no mean feat.

  "Where's Naduah?"

  "I don't know," Wears Out Moccasins cried.

  "What happened to her?"

  "I don't know."

  "Who were they?"

  "Texans."

  "Anyone else?"

  "Tonkawa. I saw Placido."

  "You must have seen her. Where is she?" Wanderer was shouting, his eyes wild. Placido's threat rang in his head. It was the first time Quanah had ever seen his father lose control.

  "I don't know. I don't know! They killed so many." Wears Out Moccasins was sobbing.

  Without stopping to do more than collect his weapons, Wanderer leaped onto Raven and galloped east toward the campsite on the Pease River. Quanah followed on Polecat. They neither rested nor ate until they stood on the bluff overlooking the village. A light snow was falling like sifted flour. It softened the charred ruins of the lodges and drying racks. The camp was deserted, the women were afraid to return without their men. They had come creeping into the village only to pick through the piles of burned things, looking for anything worth salvaging. Then they had gone back into hiding.

  Even on the bluff there were signs of the attack. A saddle lay where it had fallen. There were boxes and bags, spilled from packs. As Wanderer and his son rode down the trail toward the valley, the debris became thicker. Small bows and arrows, dresses, a single moccasin, ladles and kettles, finely beaded pouches, a smashed mirror, tools, feathers, scraps of leather and pieces of rope. There was a daguerreotype album, stolen on some raid. The soaked pages were beginning to disintegrate. There was a long, curved powder horn studded with brass tacks. Strings of trade beads lay like bright coral snakes in the brown grass.

  Wanderer and Quanah found the first body on the outskirts of camp. The attackers had missed it when they had neatened up. The rest of the corpses, twenty-six of them, were stacked like cord-wood. They had frozen into the positions in which they had fallen. Arms and legs protruded from the pile like untrimmed branches. It had been so cold that the wolves had only been able to gnaw on the bodies. They hadn't eaten much.

  There was a horse starved at its tether. But its body heaved as though it were trying to stand. When Wanderer and Quanah approached it, a vulture exited through the pony's enlarged anal opening. More birds moved about inside. They had eaten their way through the anus and were feasting until the pony froze too solidly.

  As Wanderer and Quanah rode through the ruins, blackened, half-burned lodge covers fluttered listlessly. A lone dog howled his misery. When they came to their own lodge, they stopped. In the center of the charred heap of their life's belongings lay an undamaged arrow. It had three red rings painted around its shaft. Wanderer stared at it as though it were a ghost. With his heart pounding, he searched for some sign of Naduah and his daughter. Not finding any calmed him a little. If Placido had been able to make good his threat, he would have left their remains where his enemy would surely see them.

  Wanderer and Quanah rode to the stack of bodies. They began the grim task of pulling corpses from the pile, looking for Naduah among them. She wasn't there, but the bodies of many of their friends' women were. As they worked they both wept.

  "What should we do now?" asked Quanah when they had finished.

  "Wait for the men. They'll be here soon. They'll want to bury their own."

  "And what will you do after that?"

  "Find her." The calm, distant look on Wanderer's face unnerved Quanah as much as his shouting had. "Where will you look for her?"

  "Where I found her twenty-four years ago. In the east."

  Wanderer pulled his knife from its sheath. He sawed at his braids and dropped them at his feet. The braids were three feet long, and his pride. He strode off to mourn his loss alone. It would be a strange mourning, grief for one who was not dead.

  CHAPTER 54

  Sul Ross's Mexican cook served Naduah rations along with the men. The bread had dried to the texture of an iron wedge. It was tasteless, like dust in her mouth. She chewed it slowly, her thoughts far away, searching through the vast, empty brown land for Wanderer. When she finished eating, the cook tried to talk to her again. She turned away from him, pulled up the bottom of her poncho, and began nursing Flower.

  She sat, her arms wrapped around the child, soothed by the tiny mouth sucking and the small hands pressing warm against her breasts. She felt contained, protected from her enemies. She was a soft kernel inside a hard shell of hatred and disdain. She ceased to hear the cook's voice and he shrugged his shoulders, lifted his eyes to the night sky, and left. When her daughter finished nursing and lay against her chest, Naduah crooned softly to her. Her song was a lullaby and a song of mourning.

  As he watch
ed Naduah, Sul Ross wondered what she was thinking. It was disturbing to see a white woman behaving like a savage. Perhaps she had been brutalized too much to ever think like a civilized human being again. At any rate, once they reached the fort, she wouldn't be his problem anymore. He'd already dispatched a messenger to report to Camp Cooper and then to notify the Parkers that Cynthia Ann had been rescued. If she was indeed Cynthia Ann Parker, Ross doubted that her family would have a joyous reunion with her.

  It was a relief for Ross to see the rough wooden buildings of Camp Cooper on the deserted Brazos reservation. To protect his wards from vengeful Texans, Agent Neighbors had led the Penateka into Oklahoma and Indian Territory. He took them "out of the heathen land of Texas" as he put it. So at Camp Cooper there were no Comanche left who might try to help this woman escape. But there was still an interpreter, who could be of use in getting information from her.

  Sul Ross would be glad to turn over his charge. "Prisoner" would be a better word for her, actually. He couldn't bring himself to tie her up after all she had suffered, but he had to post a guard on her day and night as they traveled. Even when she was staring stonily straight ahead, which was most of the time, she seemed to be searching around her for an opening through which to slip.

  Naduah kept her face rigid as they approached the white man's fort. A slight twitch of the muscles around her mouth was all that betrayed her terror. As they entered the trampled parade ground, she saw the women waiting for her. Pale women, like maggots in voluminous dresses and shawls. They would torture her, of course. That was what the more vindictive women did to captured enemies. Naduah had a clear vision of the manner of her dying, piece by agonizing piece. She gathered herself to meet it with the dignity and courage of a woman of the People.

  Her escort was greeted by the fort's commander and his officers. They accompanied the Rangers to a large white canvas tent. Ross motioned for Naduah to dismount. She did, and held Flower closer to her. She watched the men carry her few belongings into the tent and pile them next to the cot that had been neatly made up.

  Chattering like magpies, the women fluttered across the parade ground and caught up with them. Clutching Naduah's arms, they herded her toward one of the long, low, sagging buildings that housed the officers' families. The chicken coops, they called them. A huge black woman, someone's slave, waddled along behind. She shook her head and tsk-tsked in sympathy. Naduah jerked slightly at the sound, which was so like her own people's cry of alarm.

  The women tightened their grip. They weren't about to let this exciting find get away. Naduah's rescue was the most interesting event to occur on the post since Molly, the lieutenant's wife, discovered Rabelais among her husband's books. She regaled the other wives with selected passages when the colonel's lady was away.

  The house closed in around Naduah and she focused her attention on the large wooden tub full of steaming water in front of the hearth. The ceiling was so low she felt it would fall and crush her. The large, heavy furniture crowded the room like buffalo milling in a box canyon. The dark wooden walls would never let in light the way the hide covering of her lodge did. The only cheerful thing about the place was the fire burning brightly in the big stone fireplace.

  The black woman took little Flower gently and stood by the door, rocking her in her huge arms. She sang to her in an undertone. In the gloom, the brilliant white of her teeth and bulging eyes seemed disembodied in her dark face. For the first time since the attack, the child smiled and laughed, poking her fingers into the mammy's mouth. The woman was shaped like Wears Out Moccasins, and she had a similar gruff, sure touch with children. Naduah was comforted. No matter what happened to her, perhaps the child would be spared.

  Naduah allowed herself to be stripped and bathed in the tub by the fire. At least she would die clean. She assumed they were preparing her for the victory celebration. With everyone crowded around her, she didn't see one of the wives carry her clothes outside and hand them to an orderly to burn. The woman held Naduah's old, stained work dress and moccasins at arm's length, as though she had a dead mouse by the tail.

  When Naduah was clean, she stood, stolid and uncooperative and shivering with cold, on the rough plank floor. The others bustled around her, holding up skirts and blouses, discussing what would fit her and what would look best. She was a project for them, a doll to dress out of charity. In this godforsaken outpost they thought she was someone even worse off than they were. She was someone to pity, someone to take their minds off their own dreary lives.

  The owner of a butternut brown wool skirt fastened it at Naduah's waist, while another buttoned a blue and white calico blouse. They decided to dispense with drawers. No one wanted to attempt putting them on. As the lieutenant's young wife, Molly, was knotting a yellow linen neckcloth at Naduah's throat, she stared into her eyes and shook her head in sorrow.

  "Poor, poor woman," she said. "You poor thing."

  Naduah was a chief s wife. She was a respected healer among her people. Her advice was sought by all the women in her band. She carried her husband' s sacred shield and his lance when they moved. And she rode at the head of the column on his best war pony. She was loved by a man such as none of them would ever know. She was prepared to die in agony, tortured slowly by the women of her husband's enemies. But she wasn't prepared for kindness or pity. The simple compassion in the woman's pale green eyes affected Naduah as pain and cruelty couldn't. She began to cry.

  Before anyone could react, she darted around the lieutenant's wife, past the astonished black woman, and out the door. She ran sobbing across the parade ground, tearing at the clothes that bound her and tangled around her ankles. Ice crystals formed in her wet hair, but the cold wind on her bared chest felt like a welcome bath in a running stream after the suffocating air of the cabin. No matter what happened, she was Wanderer's wife and she would dress as a woman of the People.

  The black woman lumbered ponderously in pursuit, waving a blanket to cover her. The men loitering around the parade ground watched in amusement and hoped she would get all her clothes off before anyone caught her. Wailing, little Flower tottered after her mother. When the women arrived, Naduah was in the canvas tent. She stood on the wool skirt as it lay in a puddle at her feet. She had pulled on the best dress she had among her clothes and was searching for a pair of leggings.

  The women crowded around the door giggling and wondering what to do next. Someone had scooped up the child and set her down inside the tent. She ran to her mother and clutched her legs, wrapping her arms around them at the knees. Naduah held her leggings in one hand and stared defiantly at her enemies. Her eyes were trapped and desperate.

  "She's like a wild beast," said Molly.

  "We'll leave her here with a guard and let her calm down. She's had a terrible experience." The colonel's wife had steel gray hair with eyes to match and a parade ground bearing. If she had been a man she would have been a general. As they walked back toward their quarters, she lectured.

  "All those years with savages, she's probably mad. There's no telling what bestial brutality she's been subjected to. Or what vile acts she's witnessed." The woman had everyone's attention. The other wives were hoping she'd elaborate on the vile acts. "We'll do what we can to get her safely back to her family and into God's fold, but we can't allow her heathen ways to infect us. This wanton display is evidence of her total lack of morality. You girls stay away from her. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, ma'm," they chorused.

  It was almost the shortest day of the year, and darkness came early. With it came Molly. Her thick pile of red-gold hair shone in the light of the guard's small fire like a halo around her head. She smiled angelically at him as he warmed his chapped hands near the flames. He had been so long without a woman that he was torn between the urge to fall on his knees and worship her and the desire to throw her down and ravish her. He stared at her dumbly instead.

  "I came to visit the poor woman you're guarding, Private."

  "Colonel says n
o one's to go in there, 'ceptin' to take her meals." The private recovered his voice, but it broke briefly into a falsetto, making his face even pinker in the firelight.

  "The colonel means no men, of course. I'm here on an errand of mercy. I'll only be a few minutes." Before he could collect his scattered wits for a reply, she had swept through the door and stopped just inside it. The tent was cold and dark and smelled like musty canvas. In the dimness, Molly could see the mother and daughter wrapped in layers of blankets and sitting huddled on the bed. She had a brief twinge of fear. Perhaps the woman was really wild. Perhaps she would attack. Molly spoke softly in Spanish, using what little she had learned at Fort Bascom, New Mexico. "Señora, tienes frío, are you cold?"

  There was no answer. The new conical Sibley stove in the center of the tent was empty. The woman had taken the wood out and tried to build a fire on the ground, but she had nothing to light it with. Molly walked slowly to the wood, watching Naduah carefully. She stooped and picked up the tinder and kindling. She lay it back in the stove. Then she went outside and brought in a brand from the guard's fire. She lit the wood, and made sure it stayed lit. She warmed her hands at it as the sheet iron heated up. She smiled at Naduah.

  "Tiene frío la bebé, is the baby cold?"

  Naduah nodded .Molly opened her arms, asking without words if she could hold the child. Naduah handed her over, tears welling in her eyes. Molly rocked her, pulling back the blanket to look at her face. The baby's huge brown eyes looked like those of a fawn startled by the wide world.

  "Qué hermosa eres, how beautiful you are," Molly murmured to her. "Cómo se llama la niñita, what is the little one's name?"

  "Topsanna, flor." It was the first word Naduah had spoken.

  "Flor, Flower. Little Prairie Flower. A pretty little black-eyed Susan." Molly carried her to the bed and sat on it next to Naduah. She searched for more words.