Robson, Lucia St. Clair Read online

  As she moved farther out into the day, she had the vague feeling that she was being washed helplessly along, adrift in a fast, deep stream. When she looked back at the lodge it seemed as alien and forbidding as the rest. They all looked identical, the lodges. They squatted like fat cones, scattered among the oak and mesquite brush and the masses of prickly pear on a high plateau. But the lodge she had just left had a big, yellow sun painted on one side, and she noted it carefully.

  She memorized the shape of the tall pecan that stood behind it and the meat rack alongside it. The rack had three poles to hang the drying strips on while most of the others only had two. She had learned long ago to be always aware of her surroundings and to take her bearings on whatever was available. It would be easy to stumble into the wrong tent. She had a horror of that.

  Takes Down The Lodge, Black Bird, and Medicine Woman followed them out, watching. They lined up in front of the tent with Medicine Woman in the middle, and the two sisters on either side, like bookends. The sight of them, solid and smiling, reassured Cynthia a bit. She wasn’t completely alone.

  Life went on in camp. No one jeered. No crowd formed. There was no pause in the steady, rasping rhythm of the bone scrapers as the women bent over the hides pegged out on the ground. Children raced among them, chased by the puppies and young dogs who thought they were all part of the same pack. Now and then one of the longlegged, unkempt animals would jump onto a child’s chest and send him sprawling. Then they would roll, growling and laughing, in the dust. The older dogs had no time for play. They were constantly policing the camp for offal and defending their territories. There were few men in camp, mostly older ones, bundled in buffalo robes and sitting together in the hot sun.

  The other children don’t have any clothes on either. A quick look around showed her that she was better dressed than most of those her own age or younger. And naked or not, there was at least one piece of information Cynthia needed quickly. In the hand talk and pantomime of children she began talking to Star Name. Together they headed for the latrine, several thousand square miles of countryside.

  Cynthia timed her dodge badly and shrieked as the grizzly ate her. Mo-pe, Owl, was built like a bear cub, and Cynthia screamed as the strong brown fingers dug into her sides, gouging and tickling her until she squirmed and writhed on the ground. She rolled in the dust, limp from laughter. The other children darted in, trying to steal handfuls of sand, the “sugar” that Owl was defending. Those who had been tickled were out of the game and sat on the sidelines watching the others. When they had all been eaten, the children sprawled in heaps, panting with laughter and the midmorning heat. Some of them emptied their breechclouts of sand that had either sifted in during the game or had been stuffed inside. All of them were covered with red dust that was striped with channels of sweat. Their hair was powdered with it and plastered to their flushed faces and necks.

  Cynthia let the fine grains run through her fingers and looked over at Star Name. She’d known her less than a week, but she was sure her friend wouldn’t sit quietly for long. She was right. Star Name leaped to her feet and sprinted in the direction of the river.

  “Mea-dro, let’s go!” The tangle of bare limbs writhed and kicked as the children scrambled to unsnarl themselves and catch her. They fled through the village, howling like a pack of mad wolves, flashing bare, red bottoms and calloused soles. They used gear and cooking fires as hurdles, scattering belongings and breaking up dog fights. The dogs would have stopped fighting anyway to dash for the overturned meat racks. The women dropped their hide scrapers and their sewing and ran to beat them off the food supply. Owl’s mother, Tah-hah-net, She Laughs, grabbed a slab of buffalo steak as it snaked by her and held on. Brought up short, the dog on the other end worried and shook it, trying to dislodge her, but he was no match for her. She detached him with a feint and a solid kick to his bony ribs. He slunk off with his ragged tail between his spindly legs, and she hung the meat up to finish drying.

  As the red dust cloud blew off, dissipating like smoke in the wind, the women shook out their work and settled back down, laughing and gossiping as though nothing had happened. The old men relit their pipes and picked up the threads of their stories. Those who were gambling, woven into tight knots around their dice games, had never even looked up.

  Cynthia raced with the others toward the edge of their new camp and the cool river that slid silkily along between high limestone banks. She stretched her legs as far as they could go and pumped harder to catch up with Star Name. She leaped rocks and bushes, dodging the thorns of the deceptively delicate-looking, pale green mesquites. She could feel her muscles stretching, flexing, flowing under her skin. She was an antelope, a racehorse, a startled hare bounding free across the plain. She threw back her head and howled like a wolf from the sheer joy of it. Freckles, shame, unladylike behavior, they didn’t matter. The old rules didn’t apply here, and the new rules seemed few and simple.

  The last of the tents were cleared as they approached the edge of the bluff. At the bottom of it was the river, hidden by the tops of trees. She was so high up she almost expected clouds to roll by. Far below, rolling hills covered with bushy live oaks swept to the horizon. The undulating layers of them went from deep green to dark blue, each row fading until the last one almost blended with the sky. She felt like a bird soaring above it all and able to see a hundred miles in all directions.

  The children flung themselves over the edge of the cliff and ran down the steep path that wound through the grove of cedars. Cynthia grabbed a handful of the cedars’ small, hard, gunmetal-blue berries to pelt Owl and Star Name. Some tiny, unseen flowers perfumed the air with the smell of roses. Cynthia ran with her toes pointed in as Star Name had taught her. Takes Down had made her a pair of moccasins and they had hurt her feet until she learned the trick of walking pigeon-toed in them.

  They raced along the narrow, sandy red beach at the base of the cliff and clambered over boulders until they came to a deep pool. Rocks rimming it let the water flow in one side and cascade down a smooth gray limestone face before joining the main stream again. A dense, deep green canopy of towering pecan trees hung over the pools, allowing sunlight to warm only a few patches on the cool rocks.

  The first naked bodies dove off the boulders and into the largest pool like a hail of arrows. Cynthia stood, caught in the trap of her upbringing again. The breechclout wasn’t much, but at least it was something. Star Name and Owl surfaced, puffing and blowing and splashing each other. Owl climbed out and leaped in again, tucking her short, powerful legs up and aiming for Star Name. The backwash drove out a thick, black water moccasin that slithered up the opposite side of the pool and disappeared among the rocks.

  Spray from Owl’s cannonball splashed on Cynthia’s chest and cheeks, cooling her and making the decision for her. She kicked off her moccasins, dropped the breechclout where she stood, and, holding her nose, jumped in after her friends. It didn’t occur to her that she couldn’t swim. As she went under, her mouth and eyes filling with water, she churned desperately for solid ground. She fought her way to the surface with a push against the firm, gravelly bottom, but gasped and went under again. A strong hand grabbed her and hauled her to the surface. Owl grinned and held her while she spluttered and dog-paddled frantically. Star Name rolled over on her back and spouted water, her hair slicked to her head.

  The children slid like otters down the sleek rock ramp into the other pool. They swam to the edge, clambered out, and raced to dive in and do it all again. Star Name found a thick grapevine hanging from a tree limb over the water, and for an hour they swung on it. They sailed out to the top of the vine’s arc and dropped, kicking and squealing until they hit the water.

  Finally, Star Name and Owl and Cynthia pulled themselves onto a flat, cool boulder at the pool’s rim. Hanging over the edge of it like slick brown sea slugs, Cynthia’s friends scooped sand from the beach below and began rubbing it into their hair. They grabbed Cynthia and rubbed her down. Ignoring her w
riggling, they pulled the ribbons and bedraggled feather from her hair and worked the sand into her scalp with hard little fingers. It left her feeling tingly and clean and shiny, like the pots she and her mother used to scour the same way.

  They dove in to rinse off, then climbed out and lay in a patch of sunlight. They ate the handfuls of dried grapes and hunks of pemmican that Star Name and Owl had snatched as they ran through camp. Cynthia found her breechclout, but didn’t put it on. Lying naked in the sunlight was the headiest freedom she had ever known, and she wanted to savor it as long as possible. She napped like a cat in the warm grass by the beach while the others played the afternoon away.

  When the breeze began to blow cold across them, they came out of the water, shaking like soaked dogs, their fingers wrinkled from being wet so long. Cynthia looked away as the boys strolled by, their small, wizened penises nestling like brown mice between their legs. Some dried themselves with handfuls of grass and slowly put on their clothes. Others set out for camp with their breechclouts in their hands and trailing in the dust behind them. Cynthia shivered in the cool shade of the cedars as they toiled back up the slope.

  They left Owl at her lodge near the outskirts of the village, and hand in hand, Cynthia and Star Name wandered through the sprawling camp toward home. The three hundred lodges of Pahayuca’s Wasp band meandered for a mile along the bluff, with some families or groups of families choosing to set their tents up apart. Without Star Name as a guide, Cynthia would have been lost.

  “Yo-oh-hobt pa-pi! Yellow hair!” Star Name dropped Cynthia’s hand and whirled to face her seven-year-old brother, Pahgat-su. Upstream, and his gang of friends. Cynthia realized that she hadn’t seen many boys in camp older than Upstream. They must wander far afield.

  Star Name glared at him and spoke from the corner of her mouth. “Tah-mah, Brother.” It was one of the words Cynthia had learned. Star Name had pointed him out one morning, or rather his back as he raced off with his friends. But this was the first time their paths had crossed. Upstream was collecting a crowd of shouting children like iron filings to a lodestone. He had his sister’s impishness, with a dollop of meanness added. Cynthia braced herself for trouble. Upstream was Star Name’s own family. And these children were probably her friends. Why should she suffer for an outsider, a freak? Cynthia looked around her for clues as to the direction of Takes Down’s lodge. She was tall for her age and she was longlegged. She’d give them a good run.

  Star Name bent down and selected a large piece of chocolate-colored chert from the gravel at her feet. She rubbed the polished surface with her thumb as she hefted it skillfully, almost absentmindedly, to test its weight. With a graceful, fluid motion she swung her arm back and bounced the rock hard off Upstream’s head with a satisfying thunk. He yelped. The other children lost interest, skittering into tents or scuttling around behind them.

  “Tahmah Kuyanai, brother turkey!” Star Name added an insult to the injury and picked up another rock. Upstream retreated, looking back at his sister, as though hurt that she would humiliate him so. A stone whirred past Star Name’s ear and clipped Upstream on the heel, spurring him on after his retreating army. She spun around to find Tsinitia grimly tossing a spare rock into her throwing hand and raring back to let fly. Star Name laughed and clapped her hands with delight.

  “Toquet,” she said. “It is well.”

  Cynthia grinned back at her. “Keemah, come.”

  Linking arms, they swaggered through the village. As they rounded one of the lodges and entered the bare open space in the center of the camp. Cynthia braked suddenly, yanking Star Name backwards. Sitting in front of Pahayuca’s big tent were Eagle and Wanderer, Pahayuca, Buffalo Piss, and Cruelest One. And Star Name was heading right for them. Cynthia only allowed herself to be dragged toward them because to fight it would have created even more of a scene.

  Cruelest One’s eyes were hooded and hostile as usual. His thin, tense body seemed about to explode with the violence packed into it. How could Star Name stand there casually chatting with them? They all were fiends and assassins. They murdered women and children. Cynthia watched in astonishment as Star Name acted out the fight with Upstream and his friends, mimicking the yellow hair perfectly, down to the accent of her few Comanche words. Eagle, Pahayuca, Buffalo Piss, and even Cruelest One laughed.

  Wanderer didn’t laugh. He didn’t even seem to hear Star Name. He lay against a pack saddle with his long legs crossed in front of him, and looked at Cynthia with his solemn, steady stare. His gaze moved down her body and up again, catching her eyes and holding them. He seemed to be searching around in her mind to see what she was thinking. She dropped her head, studying the ground intently, feeling his eyes on her bare legs and chest. She glowed a deeper pink under her sunburn. She wanted to roll up like an armadillo, disappear in a dust devil, die. Anything but stand here helplessly with him laughing at her behind his solemn face.

  She began edging away, dragging Star Name reluctantly behind her. She tried not to limp, though the moccasins were hurting her feet. She had forgotten to walk toes-in at times during the day. And every time she looked back he was still following her with his gaze. As she stalked along, she clenched her fists. She hated him. She hated him even more than she hated the small vicious man, Cruelest One. At least she knew what Cruelest One was thinking. He might want to kill her, but he didn’t humiliate her. Star Name’s chatter annoyed her suddenly. It annoyed her because the only word she could clearly understand was Nocona, Wanderer. She could tell Star Name about Wanderer, if only she could speak her friend’s language.

  In the pale evening light the war shields stood tall on the spindly tripods that held them, like spectres against the darkening sky. She remembered those shields with their feathers flapping on the arms of the painted raiders. They had followed her across the plains like a flock of monstrous, vicious birds. The sight of them made her stomach churn with fear.

  She almost broke into a run when she saw the lodge with the bright yellow sun on it. Star Name waved and turned off toward her own tent nearby. Takes Down The Lodge sat outside, mending a pair of stubby moccasins by the fading light. Takes Down patted a spot next to her on the thick buffalo hide. The child sat obediently, wrapping her arms around her knees to keep warm. She shivered in the freshening night wind, and Takes Down grunted as she pushed herself to her feet and went inside. When she came out, she carried a brown and white robe of beautifully pieced rabbit skins, with white ermine tails sewn at the edges as a fringe. She draped it around Cynthia’s shoulders, fur side in.

  It was made for a child. But certainly Takes Down The Lodge hadn’t sewn this in one day. Was it Star Name’s? Cynthia looked down at it, stroking the silken hair and nuzzling a corner of it with her cheek. The cool fur took on her body’s heat almost immediately and seemed to glow with warmth against her skin. She had never owned anything so elegant and warm.

  “Thank you, Tsatua,” she said in English. Did Comanche have words for thank you? She looked up from the robe and saw tears in Takes Down The Lodge’s huge dark eyes. And she knew suddenly to whom the robe had belonged, and why Takes Down had wanted her. Her own eyes stung with sympathy, and Takes Down’s round, kind face blurred. She groped for the square, work-hardened hand and held it tightly.

  “It’s good, Tsatua. Toquet.” She sorted through her few words of Comanche language for the one she needed. She had learned it while playing grizzly and sugar, when Star Name took the part of the mother protecting her children from the bear. “Toquet, Pia, it’s good, Mother.” She knew why Takes Down was so quiet and sad. Surrounded by her own people, her friends and her relatives, Tsatua was lonely, mourning a lost child of her own. It was something Cynthia could understand. It happened often on the frontier.

  What had she been like, that other daughter? What did Takes Down expect of Cynthia? Of a white child who couldn’t even talk to her? Perhaps when she learned enough of the language she could explain that her own mother grieved for her, and needed her. Perhaps
Takes Down would understand and let her go. In the meantime, until she was rescued or could escape, Cynthia would try to make her happy.

  CHAPTER 7

  Why was Takes Down The Lodge cooking so much food? The big dented copper kettle hanging on the tripod over the fire was full of hunks of meat. The stew bubbled and steamed under a thick, brown-flecked foam. She asked Cynthia to brush the dirt off the wild onions piled in a heap in front of her, then cut the dried tops off them and threw them into the pot. The aroma curling up toward the black hole above made Cynthia’s mouth water, and the smell of the coffee heating at the edge of the fire made her homesick.

  “Kaka, onion. Too-pa, coffee.” As she worked, Takes Down told her the names of everything in the lodge, repeating each word over and over until Cynthia could say it. Now and then she would hold an object up. “Hakai, what?” And Cynthia would name it. It was a start. But what were the words for lonely and homesick and afraid? When would she learn those so she could tell Takes Down The Lodge how much she wanted to go home?

  It had been hours since she had had the sparse lunch of stolen dried grapes and pemmican at the river with Owl and Star Name. Her stomach was growling, and the smell from the pot was more than she could stand. There was no telling when they would eat. It must be close to nine o’clock at night. She fished out a piece of meat with the flat stir stick and blew on it to cool it before picking it up in her fingers and eating it. She looked guiltily around her, but Takes Down only smiled.

  Cynthia missed Star Name, but she didn’t dare leave the lodge to go looking for her in the dark. She didn’t know how to ask permission to leave, or even if she had to ask permission at all. Star Name never did. She took what she needed and gave just as freely. Cynthia was wearing one of her simple dresses over her breechclout. And she had brought an extra pair of moccasins for her friend. Cynthia wriggled her feet in them. She couldn’t understand how the women could be so kind and the men so cruel. Most of the men anyway. Takes Down’s husband, Sunrise, wasn’t and neither was Pahayuca, the big fat one.