She Returns from War

SIX



Her stomach rolled and pinched, begging to be fed. The girl ignored it as best she could. It would do no good to go to her father for help. He could not feed her any more than he could feed himself. His legs were thin like a bird's legs now, and his face had sharp edges. She didn't like the way he looked.

They had been living in the new area for a long time. She could barely remember her old home, the one with the big blanket over the entrance. It seemed like something she dreamed at night to forget what it was like to be awake. She was always hungry, but she didn't like waiting in line for food from the soldiers. All of the people looked sad when they stood in that line. They talked of times when they could plant their own food, when they were safe from the Apaches, when they lived in the land their ancestors had given them. They did not belong here, in the place they called Hweeldi.

The girl did not understand everything they said. She didn't remember the life she had before Hweeldi. To hear the other people speak of it, it had been a happy life, and it made her sad to think she didn't remember it.

She did remember her mother, though, and the memory made her sadder than anything else. Her mother had been brave and strong and good. How could she have died? When she closed her eyes, the girl could sometimes see the blood covering her mother's feet as she shivered from the cold. Other women had ridden in the cart with the girl, but her mother would not sit next to them, even when her feet began leaving red footprints in the dirt.

When she thought about it, it made the girl angry. If her mother had ridden in the cart with them, she might not have died and left her alone with her father. The girl didn't like being angry at her mother. Still, she would sometimes think of that memory before she went to sleep at night. If she did, she might dream of her mother again. The dreams weren't always nice, but her mother was alive in them, and that was enough.

One night, she dreamed that her mother came to her as she stood in the line for food. She was as pretty as ever, the sun shining in her hair. In the strange way of dreams, the girl didn't remember that her mother was dead; she just smiled at her. Her mother wrapped the girl's hand in one of her own and led her away from the line into one of the stone buildings used by the soldiers. The girl was frightened to be in this room, but she only held on to her mother's hand and said nothing. Her mother was wise; if she was in this room, it was allowed.

Soldiers suddenly appeared in the room with their blue clothes and long weapons. The girl knew now that those weapons were loud and dangerous. She had seen the soldiers kill men with them. Hiding behind her mother, the girl cringed as they yelled and pointed their weapons. Her mother tried to speak to them, but they did not understand her. The girl knew some of the white man's tongue and looked up, hoping to speak for her mother.

The weapons roared, and the girl woke with tears on her cheeks.

Victoria itched. Her arms itched, her legs itched, her head itched, her feet itched, her hands itched, even her face itched. She blamed her new clothes for much of the problem, but the sun and the desert wind were also at fault. The sun beat down on her, making sweat bead on her forehead beneath the brim of her hat. Stirred up by the wind, dust and sand clung to the sweat, forming a film that covered her from eyebrow to collarbone. Denim trousers - the first trousers she'd ever worn - rode up behind her knees and chaffed her thighs. Her new shirt was slightly too large, billowing out around her chest, and yet it still bunched up under her armpits and stuck to her back. Blisters were already starting to form on her feet, drawn up by the rubbing of her new boots. The horse's constant motion beneath her, up and down, back and forth, twisted her hips and back until the joints creaked with every step.

She was miserable.

"You sure we're riding the right way?" Cora asked from beside her.

Victoria squinted at the horizon. "As long as we don't change direction, yes. It was dark, though, so I can't be certain." Truth be told, she wasn't at all sure they were going the right way. They'd started from where the blueeyed man had left her just outside of town and ridden back along his path. None of the landscape looked familiar because it all looked the same: scrub brush the color of aged cheese and taller bushes standing like sentinels at irregular intervals. Mesas loomed on the horizon, distant and serene, attended by rolling hills.

The sight was enough to make her dizzy, and she dropped her gaze to the saddle horn. What made her most uncomfortable about her predicament, even more than the blisters swelling on her heels or the vast expanse surrounding her, was the weight resting on her left leg. She glanced nervously at the smooth wooden grip sticking out of the holster like a thick, hooked finger. The guns her father used to hunt game had always frightened her; to carry one on her person, even a small one, made her more than a little uneasy. She kept expecting the heat or the motion of the horse to somehow make it fire and blow her leg off. When dismounting to make water or eat a quick meal of salted beef, she made sure to carefully remove the revolver from its holster and hand it to a smirking Cora.

"How far was it, again?" Cora interrupted her thoughts.

"I'm not sure, exactly," Victoria said. "The woman with him said it was farther than I could walk in a day and a night."

"So two day's walk, then? I'd say that's about a day's ride if we push it some." Cora tapped her heels into her horse, an aging chestnut mare she called Our Lady of Virginia. The mare responded by breaking into a brisk trot. Victoria urged her own horse forward to match Cora's pace. She hadn't bothered coming up with a name for her new mount, a silver-grey gelding whose coat seemed to shimmer in the sunlight. Cora had picked it out. No horse would be more reliable than a good old Confederate grey, she said.

Aside from her own mare, anyway. Victoria's stomach had turned slightly when she saw how comfortable and indeed friendly Cora was with her horse. The old hunter not only spoke to it as if it could understand her, she even fed it handfuls of oats from time to time. Victoria shuddered at the thought of a horse's wide, slobbering lips covering her hands. Even if she did bother to name her new beast, she would never go that far.

"Quick!" Cora's voice cracked like rawhide strips.

Victoria's head snapped up, but she couldn't see anything. "What is it?"

Cora punched Our Lady's sides, and the mare sprang away. Startled, Victoria tried to follow her, but the gelding didn't heed her kicks or her voice. It tossed its head at her and kept its trotting pace, forcing Victoria to watch Cora thunder off into the desert. The old hunter pulled a rifle out of her back scabbard as she rode. Somehow, she managed to hold it level as the horse ran beneath her, aiming at something Victoria couldn't see. Even at this distance, the gunshot clapped her ears like thunder. She flinched along with her horse, cowering slightly in the saddle. A second shot.

When the ringing in her ears died away, she could hear Cora whooping at her. She looked in the direction of the hollers and saw the old hunter pointing at the ground.

"What is it?" Victoria asked.

"Supper," Cora replied. "Now go on and fetch it up."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Them's the rules, Vicky. One shoots, the other roots."

"My name is Victoria."

"Sure is." Cora slid the rifle back into the scabbard. "If you don't pick up that hare, I'll make sure they carve it up real pretty on your tombstone."

Victoria couldn't tell how serious Cora was, but she figured it was safer not to take chances. Father Baez's warning came back into her mind, bringing with it a slight chill despite the afternoon sun. The old hunter was more than just her hope for vengeance now. Out here, she was also her best hope for survival. While she probably wouldn't shoot her outright, Cora could easily make this trip and the trip to England miserable if she chose.

Sighing, Victoria turned her horse toward her companion. Keeping her hand on her new gun, she climbed down from the saddle and walked to where Cora was pointing. Her boots rubbed against her blisters, but at least her feet were safe from the rocks and spines covering the ground. She smiled at the thought. She might be traveling with a woman of questionable sanity toward a rendezvous with two not-quite-human creatures in the middle of the American desert, but at least she wasn't wearing her dressing gown this time. Indeed, before she'd discovered just how uncomfortable they could be, she'd quite liked the sight of herself dressed in such a roguish manner.

Her smile vanished when she caught sight of a small, bloody mass lying among the brambles. She glanced back at Cora, but the hunter merely waved her on. Steadying herself, Victoria stepped toward the remains. Tan fur streaked with brown covered a small, round body. The rabbit's head was gone, its neck ending in a red, oozing stump. Victoria held one hand over her mouth and nose as she reached toward the animal. She wrapped her fingers around one long, furry leg and lifted. The rabbit was heavier than she expected. Its front legs hung at awkward angles, one foot pointing accusingly back at her.

Holding the carcass at arm's length, Victoria turned back to Cora and held it out.

"Ain't you going to tie it up?" Cora said.

"What?"

"Well, I reckon you could carry it in your lap the rest of the way if you're so inclined, but most folk like to tie up their kills."

"It isn't my kill, it's yours," Victoria said.

"You'll change your tune come nightfall," Cora said. "Won't be nothing better in all the world than half a roast hare. We can't roast it if we don't have it, and I ain't carrying it." She turned Our Lady around and nudged her forward.

"Wait!" Victoria said, running after her. "How am I supposed to tie it up?"

Reaching into one of her saddlebags, Cora produced a spool of twine and tossed it to her. "Don't tell me you can't tie a knot, or I might just give up on you right here."

Victoria replied with a huff of indignation. Setting the carcass down, she recovered the spool from where it had fallen and walked back to her horse. She wasn't a frontier explorer or fur trapper, but she could at least tie a knot. Aristocratic society in England came with its own set of dangers and trappings. Without a rudimentary knowledge of knots and bows, she'd have embarrassed herself at more than one social.

Tying a headless rabbit to a horse in the middle of the desert was a new application of that knowledge, however. She figured the saddle horn was as good a place as any to loop the first knot. Holding the twine in place with one hand, she balanced the spool on the saddle seat. Pulling a long, horrid knife - yet another piece of her new outfit - from her belt, she sawed at the bit of twine joining her loop to the spool. After it snapped, she quickly put the knife back in her belt and proceeded to tie the first knot.

Now for the unpleasant part. Picking up the rabbit by its hind legs, she hurried back and set to work. The rabbit's blood smelled faintly of old coinage, and she wrinkled her nose. After a few unsuccessful attempts, she managed to loop the twine around the joints in the hind legs. The rabbit almost seemed to twitch and dance as she tied the knot around its ankles. Despite herself, she pictured the March Hare from Mr. Carroll's story dancing headless in her hands, waving his tea kettle about in one bloody paw. The image made her shudder, and she nearly let the knot slip as she looped it around a second time.

Finally, the ordeal was done. Wiping her hands on her trousers, she stepped back to evaluate. The hare hung upside down, blood still dripping from its neck. Swallowing back a sudden impulse to vomit, she tucked the twine into one of her own saddlebags. By the time she pulled herself up into the saddle, Cora was already several hundred yards ahead. The carcass bumped into her leg as she spurred her horse into a trot.

"Get it sorted?" Cora asked as she rode up.

"I believe so," Victoria said. She lifted the twine for Cora's inspection.

Cora barely glanced at the hare. "Why, you're a regular grizzly trapper."

"I don't appreciate your sarcasm."

"Weren't sarcasm, neither," Cora said.

Victoria opened her mouth to reply, but the smirk on Cora's lips made her think twice. The old hunter was baiting her. Victoria dropped the conversation and the hare, turning her attention to the landscape before them. Nothing had changed except the length of their shadows, which had started to grow as the sun climbed downward from its noonday spot.

Hours later, as the sun approached the horizon, Cora pulled her mare up short. Lost in the haze, Victoria didn't notice. She kept plodding toward the setting sun until the hunter's voice brought her around.

"Hold up a second," Cora said.

Victoria started, jerking the reins back. Her horse snorted in protest. "What is it?"

Cora held up a hand to block the sun's glare. Crow's feet deepened around her eyes as she squinted into the distance. "Looks like we might be getting some weather up ahead."

"What do you mean?" Victoria asked, turning to look for herself.

"That line on the horizon there," Cora said. "That looks like more than a little trouble."

Victoria could barely make out the dark grey smudge in the distance. "Are you sure? It can't be more than a light shower."

Cora's laughter rolled back at them from a nearby hill. "I don't reckon we've ever seen one of those around these parts. Here, it's either parched or flooding, and nothing in between."

"Really?" Victoria asked, looking at the withered plants surrounding them. "It doesn't look to me as though these plants have ever seen so much as a sprinkle, much less a flood."

"Just you wait," Cora said. "You're about to see the sky boil up all angry and menacing in half the time it takes you to blink. When it does, we'd best be close to this ranch of yours, or the going will get a good sight harder."

Victoria squinted into the sunlight. They stood on a small hill that spilled down into a wide plain before them. In the distance, she could see rust-colored cliffs rising from the desert floor to form the sides of a small mesa. The shape of it looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn't be sure if she'd actually seen it before or if it just looked like one of the countless others they'd ridden past. "I do think we're getting closer."

Another laugh. "We'd best be, Vicky. If you've been playing me for a fool, we'll find out just how good you are with that shiny new gun of yours."

"A fine test that would be," Victoria answered. "You know I've never fired a gun in my life."

"Time to change that, I reckon," Cora said. She pulled her own revolver from its holster. The sun glinted on the nickel finish. "Go on, draw."

Victoria gently wrapped her fingers around the wood grip of her gun. Taking a breath, she slid it from its leather cradle. Cora had picked it out specifically for her back in Albuquerque, saying it was best suited for a fine lady. Except for its new, unused polish and shine, it looked exactly like Cora's revolver, which she called a Colt .38. Victoria knew the number had something to do with the bullets, but she wasn't sure what.

"Glad to see you can do that much," Cora said, "though I'd try to do it without wincing next time if I was you."

"I don't want it to go off before I'm ready is all," Victoria said.

"No worry about that unless you get your fine lady fingers on the trigger," Cora replied. "These here guns are good quality. So long as you treat them right, they ain't never going to let you down." She urged her mare forward, beckoning for Victoria to follow. "Come on, now. Ain't no reason you can't learn to ride and shoot at the same time."

Reluctantly, Victoria gave her gelding a punch with her heels. Her stomach twisted inside her, feeling like it was going to jump out of her mouth at any moment. She swallowed. No need to worry. If this rustic, uneducated woman could master the use of guns, so could she. One of her grandfathers had served in the Royal Navy, hunting pirates far and wide. She had the blood of a soldier in her veins; firing a gun would soon become second nature.

"Now, then," Cora said, "I reckon even a fine lady is familiar with the simple idea of a gun, right? You just point it at something and pull the trigger?"

"Yes."

"Good. Means we can go on to the finer bits of it. First off, you got to pick something you think would be better with a few more holes in it." Cora pointed at a large bush ahead of them on her right. "There, now, that looks like it might be trouble if we don't see to it first, don't it?"

"I suppose, yes," Victoria replied.

"Once you've got your target, all you got to do is point the gun, pull back the hammer, and squeeze the trigger. It's best if you try to aim a bit first, though. No good wasting bullets if you ain't got to, especially the ones we shoot." Cora leveled her arm at the bush. "Aiming's best if you close one eye and line up the sight over your varmint. Once you got your shot lined up, pull back the hammer." She demonstrated. "This is about as far as you get when aiming at most folk. Even them as call themselves outlaws will go all watery in the legs when you got a bead on them. Real outlaws and monsters, well, they're a different story."

"Have you ever shot another human?" Victoria asked.

"You bet your bonnet I has," Cora said. "Back in my younger days, me and Ben would fall afoul with bandits every now and again. Some we knew, some we didn't, but it don't matter none when the other feller's sending lead your way. So we shot back, killed a handful, and the rest tucked tail."

"Who's Ben?"

Cora's gun arm drooped. She looked down at Our Lady of Virginia without replying. Victoria watched her, suddenly anxious, the revolver in her hand forgotten. The silence stretched out like the desert around them. In the distance, some animal let out a high-pitched cry, and Victoria's gelding tossed his head.

"My late husband," Cora finally said.

Victoria felt a tug of pity for the old gunfighter. "I'm sorry. How did he die?"

"Ain't none of your business is how," Cora said. Without warning, she brought her Colt back up and fired. The gunshot jolted Victoria from head to toe and stuffed her ears with cotton. The gelding whinnied in alarm.

Cora spurred Our Lady into a trot, putting several yards between them. "There now," she called over her shoulder, "you give it a try."

Victoria remembered the revolver in her hand. She squeezed the grip against her palm and lifted it. It wasn't as big as some of the ones she'd seen the men in Albuquerque carry, but it was still heavy for its size. Holding it out at arm's length made it difficult to keep the barrel raised. Gritting her teeth, she closed one eye and looked down the gun at the bush Cora had picked out. The metal nub at the end of the barrel wavered in her hand. She forced it to hold still while she pulled the hammer back. The cylinder rotated with a soft click.

Now for the moment of reckoning.

Closing her eyes, she pulled the trigger. The Colt stung her fingers as it jolted in her hand, but she kept her hold on it. Her horse broke into a run, nearly throwing her backward out of the saddle. Her free hand wrapped around the saddle horn before she could open her eyes. Instinct took over, and she crouched low in the saddle, bending low over the gelding's grey mane. Her balance restored, she gripped the animal between her knees and released her hold on the saddle horn. The reins bounced along the horse's neck. She grabbed them with her free hand and began pulling backward, easing the gelding out of his frightened run.

As they slowed to a trot, the thunder of the gelding's hooves was replaced by rasping echoes of laughter. Turning her grey back toward the hunter, Victoria frowned. "I hardly see what's so amusing," she called to her companion.

"Just been a good long while since I rode with a greenhorn is all," Cora replied. "I plumb forget how funny you lot can be."

"I think I performed rather well, all things considered," Victoria said, sitting up straight. "After all, I completed the lesson and managed to keep my seat."

"You ain't no stranger to riding, I'll give you that," Cora said, suppressing another chuckle. "Still, a display like that ain't going to do you any favors in a firefight. Can't go spooking your horse with every shot."

"What do you suggest I do, then?" Victoria asked. "Tell the dumb beast I'm about to fire a gun and that it might want to brace itself?"

"Might work. Might also try making friends with him." Cora patted her mare's neck. "Me and Our Lady been riding together for well over ten years now. I trust her more than any other creature on God's green earth, animal and human both. We've pulled each other out of more scrapes than I can recollect. She knows I wouldn't never do a thing to put her in danger unless it was necessary, so she don't bat an eye when she feels me setting up to shoot."

Victoria grimaced. "You expect me to befriend an animal?"

Cora urged Our Lady forward until the two women were no more than three feet apart. "What, that don't sit well with you?" Reading Victoria's expression, she shook her head. "You ain't going to last out here, kid."

"I am not a child."

"No, you ain't," Cora said. "Even kids know how much rides on the backs of horses in these parts, and it ain't just your pretty little rump. Horses are the difference between life and death out here. You got a good one under you, you got a good chance of surviving most everything this desert can throw at you. Sun, coyotes, thirst...all of them's easier to deal with if you're mounted right. That's why they ain't cheap. That pretty grey cost you a bundle, didn't he?"

"Yes," Victoria admitted. "A full one hundred and fifty of your dollars."

"One hundred fifty," Cora repeated. "That's more than a schoolteacher would see in two years of teaching. Maybe them as own a railroad or two wouldn't bat an eye at that, but most folk can't buy a horse all easy-like the way you done."

"I'll spend my money how I see fit," Victoria said.

"Ain't my point. Point is, you'd best make friends with that critter under you. He's apt to save your life if you do. If you don't, he'll throw you sooner or later."

"I never bothered to befriend any of the horses I rode as a girl, and they didn't throw me off."

"But was you shooting guns at other folk shooting back?" Victoria shook her head. "There you go, then. Them horses you rode before didn't need to trust you none."

"But this one does?"

Cora nodded emphatically. "Now you're catching on. Put it another way: how do you reckon you'd get back to town if you didn't have a horse?"

"If I didn't have a horse," Victoria said, "I wouldn't have left town in the first place."

"Well, ain't you the clever one," Cora said. "Silly me trying to teach a fancy lady anything, seeing as how I ain't book-learned."

Before Victoria could reply, Cora put her heels to her horse. Our Lady eased into a healthy gallop in the space of a few seconds. Soon, both horse and rider disappeared into the dust clouds they stirred up, leaving Victoria alone on the hillside.

Turning her own horse to follow, Victoria urged him into a trot. The headless hare bounced against her leg. Overhead, the shape of a bird circled, black against the blue sky.

How could she befriend a horse? Even if she felt so inclined, it wasn't as though she'd brought apples or sugar along in her saddlebags. Cora's list of supplies included salted beef, a flavorless sort of biscuit she called hardtack, and sacks of oats for the horses. Tough food for a tough land, she'd said in the general store. Tough food wouldn't win a horse's love, though; even Victoria knew that. She'd seen her father's grooms tending to the horses, watched how they'd slip the animals apple slices while brushing them down at night. A silly thing to do, or so she'd thought then.

Did she really need to bother with such things, even now? She was familiar enough with the animals to know that this one wasn't scared of her. When she'd fired her gun, the horse had spooked and bolted, but it hadn't thrown her. Besides, she planned on keeping the animal just long enough to help Cora hunt down the blue-eyed man, the one calling himself Fodor Glava. Once they were done, she would sell it back to the Albuquerque livery and leave this God-forsaken desert behind her. She would return to Oxford with its proper laws, proper dress, and proper baths.

The thought made her smile. Punching her heels into the gelding, she bent low over his neck and galloped down the hill after Cora.