The Captive Heart (30 page)

“Stop. There's no need to do this, Micah. You were right. It would never work out between you and me. We would never be happy together. It was wise of you to break our engagement before we made a serious mistake.”

His eyes wandered, searching for words. He clenched his hat in front of him, his fists unconsciously rolling the brim. It was a lost cause, the cold distance between them well established earlier in the crowded living room when she would not meet his eyes.

“Well, I'm real sorry about that. I wish you'd change your mind, Mir. I would still have you, you know. I didn't really mean what I said.”

She stood her ground, shaking her head slowly. “No. You're a good man, Micah, and you'll make someone a fine husband. But it won't be me.”

He turned away quickly, jammed his bent hat on his head and plodded quietly to his buggy. Watching him drive away, though she would never have admitted it to anyone, Miriam felt a stab of guilt. It was never her intention to hurt him.

Later, in bed, Miriam could tell that Rachel was still awake after everyone else had fallen asleep, though she'd been strangely quiet.

“Rachel,” she whispered, “are you all right?”

“Jah.” She didn't move, didn't elaborate.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Lying back to back, Miriam sensed a distance between them. “Rachel?”

“Jah.”

“When you were telling us about what happened with the bandits—you know, the night I left—I got the feeling there was something you weren't telling us. You kept looking at me, like you do when you're hiding something.”

“Oh, that. Jah, I remember. I just didn't want to say it in front of Mamm, upset as she was already, but the bandit in the barn—the one Jake knocked out—he came there in the middle of the night to . . . you know. It was awful.”

“Did he? I mean, did he
harm
you?”

“No. Thank Gott, Jake got there in time.”

Miriam pondered this for a minute. Rachel hadn't moved or raised up and she seemed reluctant to talk—very unlike Rachel.

A slight hesitation, then Rachel's voice from the darkness, “It was no big deal, I just didn't think Mamm needed to hear that. What about you? I felt the same way when you were talking tonight, like there was something you weren't telling us. What
really
happened in the Valley of the Parrots?”

Miriam held her breath for a moment, then said, “So many things happened, it will take me a long time to remember them all.”

“Really?”

Now it was Miriam who hesitated and lay too still. “Jah. It was nice there. You wouldn't believe how much Kyra knows about living off the land. She was amazing.”

A long pause, and then Rachel's voice, muted, drifting. “Jah, she's quite a woman.”

Chapter 42

T
wo weeks passed without a word from Domingo or Kyra. Caleb rode over to check on them twice, but he brought no word for Miriam apart from Domingo's rapid improvement.

“Kyra keeps a good stiff splint on that leg, and he walks with only a cane now,” Caleb told her after his last visit, three days ago.

On a Monday afternoon, late in the day, Miriam was out taking down the laundry from the line when she heard hoofbeats.

Kyra trotted into the yard on Star, keeping her dust trail well away from the clothesline. Miriam did a double take when Kyra swung down from the saddle, for she had almost forgotten how beautiful Domingo's sister looked in a peasant blouse and painted skirt.

“You're a woman again,” Miriam said.

“I know!” Kyra answered, beaming. “I almost didn't recognize you in that dark dress and white kapp. I'll have to get used to it all over again.”

Doing her best to make it sound like a casual question, Miriam asked, “How's Domingo?”

Kyra rolled her eyes. “We can't keep him still. He wanders around in his bean field all day—leaning on a
cane
! But I guess it's for the best. We would all go crazy if he stayed in the house.”

“So what brings you here?” Miriam asked, picking up the laundry basket.

“Oh, I need to borrow a pot. A
big
one. We have a lot of canning to do tomorrow—bushels. I don't know how we'll get through it, with no one to help and my mother's knees acting up.”

The thought traveled from Miriam's heart straight to her mouth without a second's hesitation. “I will come help you.”

“No, you mustn't do that,” Kyra said. “You have too much work—” A casual glance at Miriam's face chopped off her objection. A wry smile crept into Kyra's eyes then, and she nodded slowly.

“Sí, I could surely use your help, Miriam. Perhaps you can come stay with me tonight, then help me in the morning and bring home the pot when we are done with it.”

Her dat cast a worried glance at Mamm when Miriam asked if she could go with Kyra, but he reluctantly agreed. Mamm was better, though still not herself. Miriam wondered if she ever would be.

She saddled a horse and rode beside her friend with a huge pot tied to the saddle horn, bouncing as they trotted over the fields. The sun had disappeared behind the western mountains by the time they reached Kyra's barn on the back side of San Rafael.

———

Putting away her horse in the twilight of the little adobe barn, Miriam grew nervous. “Listen, Kyra, before we go inside, I need to talk to you about something very important. I need to know what you think about it.”

Kyra shrugged. “All right. My opinion is worth almost as much as you pay for it.”

She decided to just say it and get it over with.

“Kyra, you know I love Domingo.”

Kyra didn't bat an eye, hefting her saddle up onto the stall rail, dusting her palms. “Sí. I saw the two of you in El Paso de los Pericos. I am not blind.”

“And he loves me.”

A little shrug. “I knew this long before you did. There are some things a brother cannot hide from a sister.”

“Well, did you know that while we were at Parrot Pass, Domingo asked me to marry him?”

Kyra's mouth flew open in shock. “No! And did you give him your answer?”

Miriam shook her head. “I couldn't, then. It is a heavy thing, to choose between Domingo and my family. I needed time to think. I would be banned from the church, and my people would shun me.”

Kyra nodded thoughtfully. “This explains much. He has said hardly a word in the two weeks since we brought him home. Have you come to a decision?”

Miriam glanced away for a moment, marshaling her courage. She had never spoken the words aloud.

“I am going to say yes,” she said.

Kyra leaped into the air screaming and came down hugging her, dancing her in circles, laughing, squealing.

“You will be my
sister
! And such sisters we will be, Miriam! We will set Mexico on its ear!”

Miriam did her best to calm her excitable friend before she said, “You get ahead of yourself, Kyra. I should talk to Domingo before we celebrate.”

Kyra peered out the door. “He is still out in the bean fields. Oh, but sister, I cannot let you go to him like this,” she said, touching her fingertips to Miriam's kapp. Her dark eyes lit up suddenly. “Quick, come into the house with me! I have an idea.”

Life must go on
, Caleb thought after he watched Miriam ride away, but it was still a hard thing to let her out of his sight for the first time since she came home. The door to life opened on infinite possibilities—including, as Caleb now knew too well,
unthinkable
possibilities. But even a father could not keep the door closed forever, so he swallowed his misgivings and let his daughter go.

For reasons he could not quite fathom, full of a pain he was not ready to talk about, Caleb struck out on foot, without a word to anyone, to the other side of the valley. In a little while, walking alone up the foot of the far ridge, he arrived at the cottonwood tree whose shade had now merged into the twilight. The western sky was still stained with blood, the east a shimmering promise of moonrise with a single star keeping watch, low over the black hills.

He sat down beside the loose mound of dirt that marked his son's grave, propped his arms on his knees and stared out over the valley. There were no words. Caleb Bender was a thoughtful man, but his bruised soul could not begin to put words to the questions life had asked him of late. Gott's reasoning was as far away as the morning. Even to grieve overlong was to question Gott. All he could do was trust, and wait. This too would pass. The light would come.

It was a tiny sound, brief as a cricket's chirp, and it came from far away. Perhaps it drifted across a mile of perfect stillness from the door of Mary's home, or perhaps it was one of Gott's little lights shined unerringly into the bleak recesses of his own soul, but for a fleeting second Caleb could have sworn he heard the faint, sweet squeal of a harmonica.

Night had nearly fallen by the time Kyra pushed Miriam out the back of the house with a final word of encouragement, shutting the door behind her. She could make out Domingo's shadowy figure in the dusk, hobbling out of the edge of the bean field on his cane, his new wide hat low over his eyes, his head tilted down, careful of his steps.

Self-consciously at first, she walked tentatively, pausing at the back of the garden by a fence post entwined with lush green vines. From the darkness near the ground a glint of blue-white shone up at her—a moonflower bloom. She pinched the bell-shaped flower from the vine and tucked the stem above her ear. As her fingers lingered in her undone hair, she closed her eyes and that voice came back to her, soft as a breeze in the corn, a whispered memory.

Dulcinea.

She struck out toward him confidently now, her head up, her shoulders back and daringly revealed by one of Kyra's white peasant blouses. Kyra's best black skirt—the one with the embroidered roses—swished about her sandaled feet.

She was ten feet away when Domingo finally looked up and saw her. She stopped, and he stared, the whites of his eyes showing in the dusk, surprised.

“Miriam?”

Blushing, her gaze dropped away from him.

“You didn't see me?”

“I saw,” he said, “but I thought it was Kyra.”

She remained motionless. Sand and rock crunched underfoot as he hobbled closer and stopped with mere inches between them. When he reached up very slowly and lifted her chin to face him, she saw hope burning in his eyes.

“Like a dream,” he whispered as his hand slid gently under her hair, caressing her cheek. His eyes roamed over her face with obvious pleasure, lingering on the moonflower.

“Is this your answer?”

She nodded slowly, a demure smile creeping onto her face. “I never really had a choice,” she said. “I will be your wife, and your people will be my people. But we must not speak of it until the time is right. My mother is not well, and I cannot do this to her while her heart is heavy with the loss of Aaron and the little ones. I love you, Domingo, and I will promise myself to you, but we must wait. I don't know how long.”

“Then I will wait, Cualnezqui,” he whispered. “For as long as it takes.” His cane clattered to the ground, forgotten as he swept her into his arms.