The Valiant Women (40 page)

Next day Shea was stronger but Socorro rode with a set face. During the night, she went into labor. In spite of the danger, there had to be a fire for light and Talitha put the roots to boil in a kettle of water.

Socorro drank meekly of the brew but though she gripped Shea's hands tight and moved with the pains, by dawn she seemed no closer to relief and she was much weaker.

“Sweetheart,” Shea whispered, face strained and gray in the first light. “Try hard! Push!”

She obeyed but soon lay gasping. Helpless tears slid from her eyes. “Shea, I—I cannot!”

He glanced desperately at Talitha. “Your hands are still small. Can you see if the baby's placed wrong?”

Talitha washed her hands in hot water boiled after the root brew had been poured into a gourd. Last time, when she helped with the twins, she'd been too young to realize all the dangers. Now, with her own body that of a woman, she was cold with fear.

Carefully, she felt around the taut flesh as the tiny skull forced down and Socorro screamed. “I'm sure the head's in place,” Talitha told Shea. “I can feel the fine hair on it.”

“There's just not enough strength in the contractions,” Shea groaned. “And she's getting weaker!”

“Perhaps if she sat up and we sort of held her—that's how the Apaches do. Let her hang on to that paloverde branch?”

“Let's try it.”

Between them, they supported her in a squatting position. It seemed to help. She gripped the branch till her fingernails were white, made animal sounds and sweated. Then her hands loosened, fell limp, and she collapsed.

“Socorro!” Shea cried. “Socorro!”

She didn't answer. The pulse fluttered in her throat. Her breath came in quick shallow gasps. “We've got to get that baby out!” Shea rasped. “Even if we kill it, it's got to come!”

“Let me give her another drink.” Talitha brought the root tea and coaxed some down Socorro's throat, washed her hands again as she turned to the task she dreaded. “Talk to her,” she told Shea. “Hold her hands and get her to push.”

He did this, talking of Patrick and Miguel, how excited they'd be with a new brother or sister. Socorro responded bravely, bearing down with the weakened contractions, trying to make them do their work. Talitha inserted her fingers on either side of the head, tugged as gently and firmly as she could with the next spasm. The head moved forward slightly, seemed to stick, and then with Socorro's next desperate effort, Talitha pulled and the head came through.

“One more big push!” she called. “One more!”

It came, and with it the slippery little body. As Talitha cut the thick, pulsing cord that still connected baby and mother, dark blood and mucus came out. Putting the baby in Socorro's arms, Talitha cleaned the afterbirth out of Socorro, leaned back to catch her breath.

“A girl!” Shea was telling Socorro. “She'll be beautiful, just like you!”

Socorro touched the damp fuzz on the little head and smiled.

But the bleeding wouldn't stop. Santiago, summoned hastily from the slope where he and Belen had withdrawn, worked with Talitha to staunch the flow, propping up Socorro's hips and legs, packing the cleanest garments they had between her thighs.

Nothing worked. Her life drained away before their eyes as Shea held her. She knew she was dying, asked him to take good care of the baby and call it after her own mother, Caterina. This done, she was quiet a moment before she opened her eyes to caress Shea.

“
Querido
,” she said to him in a tone so soft it was nearly inaudible. “We saved each other in the desert. We rode through the mountains. Now we have slept again beneath the stars—”

Her voice trailed off. She was smiling when the great gush of blood poured from her.

She was smiling when she died.

His big body wrenched with sobs, Shea held her close, pleading with her to come back, begging her to live. But her dark eyes couldn't see him though a tender smile lingered on her mouth.

Talitha took the baby. This red scrap to cost Socorro's life? It wasn't fair! If Socorro had been at home instead of jolting horseback through the heat in an agony over her husband, this would probably not have happened.

And Shea wouldn't have been bitten if … In a flash, she saw James as he'd been when they left, saw Socorro bending to kiss and absolve him. But it was his fault! It was!

Or was it hers, for insisting Juh's son come with her instead of staying with the Apaches?
I
wish he had!
she thought miserably, immediately knew that wasn't so. She still loved James. And he was so little, only six, and how was he going to feel now, with Socorro dead?

Staring down at the feebly squirming infant, Talitha wondered what to do with it. She had cared for James almost from birth, but at least for a while he had been grudgingly nursed by one of Juh's wives. It was with vast relief that she remembered Anita whose Paulita was two months old.

Plenty of milk there, and it would be lovingly given. The baby could exist on water till they got home, which they could do tonight if they started soon. Shea still held his wife but Santiago was standing a little way off, staring at nothing. His hands clenched and unclenched.

Talitha washed the baby quickly and carried it to him. “Please hold her while I fix her a rag to suck on and make our
pinole
,” she said.

To her astonishment, Santiago's tawny eyes were filmed with tears and his face seemed as young as James's. Talitha suddenly knew what her maturing senses had been detecting for a good while. Santiago had loved Socorro, too; as a man, not as a companion only.

“Who can eat?” he said dully, though he took the baby obediently enough.

“We all must,” Talitha replied shortly though her heart was wrung with pity for him, swelling with her own grief and loss. “Shea's still far from strong and we need to get the baby home where Anita can feed her.”

“Socorro, she's—dead,” whispered Santiago.

“Yes, she is!” Talitha almost snarled at him. “But her baby's alive. We have to take care of it!”

Fighting tears that came anyway, she hurried to find a piece of cloth that could be used to get a little water down the child and pacify its instinctive' need to suck.

It wasn't only Shea's miracle that was gone, but a grace and kindness that had blessed them all. How would they manage now? What would they do?

In an hour they were on their way. Shea carried Socorro in front of him, held by a sort of sling rigged to shift much of her weight to the cantle. He had swallowed the
pinole
Talitha urged on him but he seemed a long way off.

Talitha and the vaqueros took turns carrying the baby and dipping the twisted rag into the gourd of water Talitha had boiled. She had thought about mixing in a little brown sugar, but decided it might bring on a colic. Better wait for Anita's milk.

Wrapped in its mother's shawl, the baby sucked eagerly on the cloth and slept most of the time, which was fortunate. Talitha felt sorry for it, thrust out of its warm, safe home, having to become accustomed to air and light. Instead of having a warm nourishing breast to soothe the abrupt change, small Caterina had only a watered bit of cotton torn from one of Socorro's blouses.

As the day wore on, Belen assumed the practical judgments such as when to stop and where to ford the river. Santiago seemed almost as dazed and remote as Shea. Talitha had made several diapers from what softer clothing remained after the attempt to staunch Socorro's blood, and when it was necessary, she stopped and changed the baby, rinsing the soiled cloth in water from the river and fastening it behind the cantle to dry.

By sundown they reached El Charco. The Sanchezes' amazed delight at seeing Shea alive was quickly smothered when they saw Socorro, but Carmencita got control of herself, hurried to feed them though tears ran down her plump face and she lamented continuously.

“
Ay, Dios! Pobrecita!
So lovely, so young! Poor Don Patricio! The small Miguel and Patrick! This tiny
niña!
”

Poor all of us
, thought Talitha, exhausted.
And poor, poor James! He'll blame himself even if Shea doesn't
. But it was temporary surcease to rest under the
ramada
and eat the mashed beans, steaming tamales and fresh tortillas that Carmencita brought out to them.

It was also Carmencita who enfolded Socorro, lying near Shea on some blankets, in a thin woven coverlet, also Carmencita who took the baby and added a little goat milk to the water she sucked with increasing frustration from the rag.

“My Anita will take care of you,” she promised the tiny creature. “I could send for her, Don Patricio, if you wish to stay here tonight.”

Shea roused from some bleak ranging of the spirit. “Thanks, Carmencita, but we'll ride on. Tally, you can stay over if you want. You must be worn out.”

She shook her head though she felt so weary that she didn't think she could get into the saddle. As she almost hung by Ladorada, gripping the horn and willing her body to respond, Belen gave her a swift hand up.

“Courage,
doncellita!
”

He gave her hand a rough pressure, stepped aside as Carmencita handed up the baby. Santiago helped Shea lift Socorro in front of him, and they rode off in the twilight.

No light showed from the ranch but as they approached the corrals, their horses began to snort and sidle. A voice called softly, “Hair of Flame?”

“Mangus!”

The giant shadow rose before them. “You are healed,” said the Apache. “It is good.”

“It is not good, great chief. My wife is dead.”

Mangus was still for a long moment. “She had a flower face, but she was very brave. My heart is on the ground.” His tone sharpened. “Did she die by the hand of men?”

“No. In birthing.”

A deep sigh came from the Apache. “The child lives?”

“Yes. A girl.” Shea's tone was bitter and Talitha held the baby closer. Poor little thing indeed if everyone was going to blame her for Socorro's death!

“Perhaps she will be like her mother and brighten your days as she grows,” said Mangus. He added slowly, to Talitha, “I came to tell you that the one who was your brother's father is dead, killed in a fight with Mexican soldiers. He will not be claiming his son. But the boy says he would like to go back with me.”

Talitha gasped. “James said that?”

“Yes.”

“It—it's because he feels to blame for Shea!” she cried. “And I was mean to him, I was so scared and angry! Don't take him! Please don't!”

“We'll talk of it later,” the Indian said. “It's late. You must all be tired.”

He waited, not offering to help, for the horses were nervous of his scent as it was. A horse got used to a certain kind of human odor, and a radically different smell upset it. But the ranch had come awake at the voices. A candle glowed from inside and Chuey and Cheno came out, tagged by a small boy who no longer swaggered, who no longer was shadowed by a large black cat.

“James!” Talitha called softly.

She wanted him close to her when he heard what had happened and she ached as she saw, even in the near-dark, that he approached her cautiously. Belen had helped her down and led away her horse.

Kneeling by James, she put her free arm around him and guided his hand to the baby's head. “This is Caterina, James. The new baby.”

“Shea—he's alive! I heard him!”

“Yes.” The lump in her throat swelled. She couldn't go on. But at that moment Chuey's shocked voice exclaimed, “Dead, Don Patrico? Doña Socorro?”

James twisted in Talitha's arm, but she held him. “Is she?” he choked. “Is she dead?”

Talitha could only nod as her tears fell hot and fast. Swallowing, with tremendous effort she managed to speak. “Remember what she told you, James. She didn't blame you. She—she bled so much! I couldn't stop it. She might have died anyway, right in her own bed.”

“No, she wouldn't!” James wrested loose. She couldn't prevent him because she was holding Caterina. “I heard Juana and Anita! They said it was crazy for her to ride, that the baby would come dead or hurt some way!”

“Well, it didn't. The baby looks fine.”

And everyone will wish she had died if it would have saved her mother
. Though she'd had that feeling at first and traces remained, Talitha protectively gathered the little thing closer. All she could do for Socorro now was try to look after her family, especially this most helpless, friendless one.

“It's my fault,” James said miserably.

“It's over. You didn't mean harm to anyone.”

They were walking toward the house. As the women came out, Talitha gratefully handed over the fretting infant to Anita, briefly explained and asked her to feed and tend it. Then she looked around for James, found him by the corral with Mangus.

“Come in and sleep,” she coaxed her brother.

“No. I don't belong there anymore.”

“Of course you do! Now don't be silly, James! Come along—”

She tried to hold him but his body was rigid and tight. He pushed away. “Mangus says I can go with him.”

“
What?
” Talitha's whisper echoed in her ears like a scream.

“I'm going with Mangus.”

“You can't! Juh's dead!”

“He will be my son,” said Mangus. “I will teach him our ways.”

Maddened past restraint, Talitha blazed, “Yes, you'll show him how to kidnap women and burn men over slow fires! He can't go! He's my brother!”

“Half your brother,” Mangus corrected, but he didn't sound angry. “You know well that Din-eh are not the only ones to steal women and torture men. Your brother will learn to stalk and hunt, find his way through every mountain range in this part of the country, whether claimed by Americans or Mexicans.”