The Yellow Rose (41 page)

Quaid had been unable to keep his seat on his horse. They had been forced to stop and put together a travois out of saplings and saddle blankets. When it was finished, they tied Quaid into it and pulled him behind the horse slowly. Both Moriah and Brodie kept looking over their shoulders, expecting at any time to see Bear Killer thundering in with his warriors. Brodie had shot a longhorn and dressed it out, and Moriah had cut it up into pieces and made a stew out of it. She had practically forced Quaid to eat it in his brief moments of consciousness.

Ethan had come over to stand beside Moriah, looking down into the face of the wounded man. He said, “Man sick?”

“Very sick, son,” Moriah said.

Brodie put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and nodded. “He’s gonna be all right, though. Now, don’t you worry about it.”

Brodie rose to his feet and said, “We’d better keep that fire out.” He picked up a rifle and disappeared into the darkness. For a time Moriah sat there silently. Her mind was swimming with thoughts. Everything had happened so quickly. It had been hard to believe that she was actually delivered from the hands of the Comanches. Now as she sat there, she looked up at the stars glittering overhead for a long time, and then she said quietly, “Lord, I thank You for Your deliverance, and now I pray that You would deliver this man. He needs Your help, Lord.”

Ethan grew sleepy as time passed. Moriah rolled him up in a blanket, and he went to sleep instantly. She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, and as she went back to take up her vigil beside Quaid, her thoughts were filled with what it would be like to be home again. She knew that people could be cruel, and she had heard talk all of her life about how worthless half-breeds were. One had lived near them when they had first come to Texas. He was a drunken old man and was called “Breed” by everyone. Moriah thought with a pang how she had treated him as inferior, as had everyone else.

A sound caught her attention, and she looked down and saw that Quaid had his eyes open. Quickly, she leaned over and said, “Are you hurting, Quaid?”

He looked at her for a time, licked his lips, and shook his head. “Not bad.”

“I think you are. You took some terrible wounds.”

“Where are we?”

“About three days from home, Brodie says. I want you to eat something and drink something.”

“Not hungry.”

“That doesn’t matter. You’ve got to eat and drink as much as you can. You have to keep your strength up.” She moved over to the pot of stew, which was still warm over the fire that had been extinguished. She picked up the pot and came back and said, “You’ll have to sit up.”

She leaned forward and pulled him into a sitting position, her left arm around him. She waited to see if he could hold it as she set the pot on the ground. Spooning out a portion of the stew, she held it to his lips, and he accepted it. She watched him carefully as he chewed, and she continued to slowly feed him.

“I feel like a blasted baby!”

Moriah shook her head. “You saved Ethan and me. Don’t try to talk. Just eat.” She fed him more stew and then water from a cup. “Do you want to lie down again?”

“No, it feels better to sit up, but it seems like the whole world is swimmin’ around.”

“You lost far too much blood. Some of those wounds should be stitched up, but we had no way to do it.” They had been in such a hurry to put as much distance between themselves and the Comanche camp that there had been no time. Quaid said, “There’s a needle in my kit bag and some stout thread that might do.”

“We’ll have to do that, but we’ll need light. First thing in the morning. I’m afraid it will hurt a great deal.”

Quaid did not answer. He sat there, and she continued to feed him more of the stew. It came to Moriah then how strange it was that this man, whom she had hated so bitterly when she had first been captive, had become the one who had saved her. He was studying her face, and she said, “What are you thinking about?”

“I’m thinkin’ about—how I let you down, Moriah. I never regretted anything more than letting you go home alone that night. I know you must hate me.”

“It was not the right thing to do, but then we all do things that aren’t right.”

“Not like that. It’s been eatin’ at me ever since.”

“That’s why you came after me. Brodie told me how all this time you’ve had one thought, and that was to get me back. So that makes up for everything.”

“So you don’t hate me anymore?”

“I did, but that’s gone now.”

Quaid smiled then, the first smile she had seen, and said, “I feel better.” He looked over at Ethan. “That’s a fine boy you’ve got there.”

When she did not answer, he looked at her in surprise. “What’s the matter?”

“He’s half Comanche. You know what that means, Quaid. He’ll be called a half-breed.”

“Maybe not.”

“You know Texans better than that. You know how they hate the Indians.”

“Not all of them.”

“Most of them do.”

“This will be different, Moriah. He’ll be a Hardin. That means everything. Everybody respects the Hardins and the Taliferros.”

A tiny bit of hope began to stir within Moriah, and she whispered, “Do you really think so, Quaid?”

“Oh, there will always be knotheads who have no better sense, but he’ll be a good man, and everybody in the whole family will love him. He’ll have brothers and sisters. It’ll be good.”

Moriah saw that he was tiring and said, “You’d better lie down and rest now. We want to make a lot of time tomorrow.” She helped Quaid to lie down and said, “We’ll put those stitches in tomorrow morning, then we’ll travel hard.”

“Bear Killer will come after him just like that Indian said.”

“I know it. He’s a strong man, and he never gives up.”

Quaid reached out and touched her hand. “He won’t get him. We won’t let him. Me and Brodie and Clay and Zane—we won’t let him.”

Moriah watched Quaid’s eyes begin to flutter, and he went to sleep with an abrupt suddenness, a sure sign of weakness.

“You never gave up,” she whispered.

Brodie had been on guard and came in later that night to sleep some.

“How has he been?”

“He ate a lot of stew, and he talked. He’s feeling better.”

“That’s good.”

“He’s got some thread and a needle in his kit bag. We need to sew those wounds up in the morning.”

“I wish we had some liquor to put him out.”

“It’ll hurt, but it’ll have to be done.”

The next morning they rose, and getting the needle and thread, Moriah sewed Quaid’s wounds together. She had seen this done often enough before but had never helped. Quaid did not make a sound, although it must have been extremely painful. Tying up the wounds, she said, “Now, they can start to heal, but they’re going to leave scars, but they’ll be honorable scars.”

“Can’t hurt my manly beauty none,” Quaid whispered. He got into the travois, and Moriah bound him in. Then she got on his horse with Ethan behind her.

“We’ll make as good a time as we can. I’ll feel a heap better when we get home,” Brodie said. They moved forward, and all that day they looked over their shoulder for sign of Bear Killer but saw nothing.

They traveled hard all day, stopping frequently to give water to Quaid, and that night when they camped again, Moriah said, “He never gave up, Brodie.”

“No, he never did, and Ma, she didn’t either. She always thought you’d come home, no matter how the rest of us doubted. I don’t think she ever did doubt. And I know she prayed for you every day.”

The two sat in the darkness until Quaid woke up. They fed him one more time, and Brodie said, “I think we might make it in tomorrow night if we have a good day. Next day if not. That’ll be good, Moriah.

We’re gonna see a celebration like none of us ever seen before.”

Mary Aidan was milking Esther the goat. She always talked to her exactly as if the goat understood every word she said, but then Mary Aidan talked to Bob the dog, Smokey the cat, and any other sort of animal life that happened to be close.

“Esther, if you’d just be still, this wouldn’t take as long. Now, like I was tellin’ you. This boy that lives down the road, his name is Harold, and I think he likes me. But he likes Mary Sue Gaston, too. She’s a year older than I am, and I’m worried because she’s already shapin’ up, and I’m shaped like an old rake handle. So, what I been thinkin’ about doin’ is sort of paddin’ myself up, you know, to make myself look better. Kind of catch Harold’s attention.”

Continuing with her talk at a steady rate, Mary Aidan filled two buckets and then freed the goat and started walking toward the house. It was a cold December afternoon, and she stepped up on the porch, when suddenly a movement caught her eye. She looked at the road, and then her eyes flew open. Dropping both buckets and letting the milk splash on the porch, she hit the door hollering, “Ma—Ma, it’s Brodie and Quaid, and they got Moriah with them!”

Jerusalem had been cooking supper, and at Mary Aidan’s wild cry she turned pale, whirled, and ran through the house. She opened the door and almost fell outside with the twins running right behind her. She saw the travois behind one of the horse, and then quickly saw that Brodie was astride his horse and knew that it was Quaid who was hurt. She ran forward and saw Moriah dressed as an Indian with braids and skin burned by the sun, but all she saw were the tears running down her daughter’s face. She grabbed Moriah and squeezed her with all her might while the twins danced around, with Mary Aidan popping questions a mile a minute.

As for Moriah, to be enfolded by her mother’s arms brought a sense of peace and security and love she had longed for. She put her head against her mother’s neck and simply stood there crying from joy. Her mother was stroking her back and making comforting noises and calling her name tenderly, tears streaming down her face.

“Ma, give us a chance. We ain’t got to do no huggin’!” Mary Aidan protested.

Jerusalem’s eyes were wet, but she gave a half laugh. “Well, I reckon that you deserve it.” She stepped back, and as Moriah took Mary Aidan and hugged her, Jerusalem turned to Brodie, who had stepped off his horse and was grinning at her.

“Well, we done got her, Ma.”

“You did. We’ll have to hear all about it, but what about Quaid?”

“It was quite a thing, Ma. He had a knife fight with one of the sub-chiefs of the band. Got cut up pretty bad. We wasn’t shore he’d live, but he’s doin’ better now.”

Jerusalem went at once to the travois. She knelt down beside Quaid and saw that the dust had gathered on him. She took out her handkerchief and wiped his face and smiled at him. “How are you, Quaid?”

“Fine, ma’am, just fine.”

Jerusalem leaned over and kissed him and then put her hands on his cheeks. “We’ll always be beholden to you, Quaid, for bringing my girl back.”

“I’m glad it turned out like this.”

The twins had gone over to the horse where Ethan still sat perched in the saddle. “What’s his name? Who is he?” Sam demanded.

“He’s an Indian boy,” Rachel said. “Can’t you see? Where’d you get him?”

Moriah went over and lifted him out of the saddle. She held him and looked at her family and said, “This is my son, Ethan.”

At once, without a moment’s hesitation, Jerusalem said, “Well, ain’t that fine! Look at him. Why, he looks like Jake, Mary Aidan! Look at him.”

“I always thought so, Ma,” Moriah said as she held Ethan.

“You reckon he’d let me hold him?”

“He’s a little shy, but you can try.”

Jerusalem smiled and coaxed Ethan until finally he released his mother and came to Jerusalem. “Wait until Clay sees this boy. He’ll be proud as a strutting peacock!”

“Let me hold him, Ma,” Mary Aidan said.

“Now, you kids don’t pesterfy him. Brodie, you come on in the house. I’ll make a bed for Quaid. I want to look and see what kind of treatment you gave this poor fella.”

“Well, he got cut up like chicken for the pot, Ma, but we done the best we could.”

Moriah watched as her mother, not releasing Ethan, carried him into the house. The children all followed, and she turned to Brodie and said with a tremor in her voice, “It’s good to be home.”

“They’re gonna love that little feller just like I do, sis. Don’t you worry now. Come on. Let’s get Quaid in the house. Quaid,” he said, “you soldiered long enough in that blasted travois. You want me to carry you in like a sack of meal, or do you want to walk like a man?”

“I think I can make it,” Quaid said. They helped him out of the travois. His clothes were hanging on him, sliced by the knife and bloodstained.

When they got him in the house, Jerusalem fixed a bed for him and said, “You put him down right there. We want to wash him off, and I’ll see about them wounds. Supper’s almost ready. As soon as we get him cleaned up, we’ll all eat.”

“Where’s Clinton and Pa?” Brodie asked.

“They went huntin’, wouldn’t you know it! They ought to be back soon. He promised me they’d be back before dark.” She went over and put her arm around Moriah again. “They both worried about you more than you’d think.”

Moriah could not speak, her heart was so full of emotion. Jerusalem, seeing her almost starting to cry again, said, “Why don’t you go to your room and get you some clean clothes. They’re right where you left ’em.”

Moriah nodded, and Brodie said, “Ethan, why don’t you come outside with me. I’ll show you some fine horses out there.”

“Yes!”

As soon as the two left, Jerusalem said, “You taught him English.”

“Every day of his life, I’ve talked to him in English. He’s not very good, but he’ll learn fast.” Then she hesitated and said, “I’m afraid what people will say, not about me, but about Ethan. That he’s a half-breed.”

“Well, God’s answered one prayer to get you home safely. Now we’ll take it a day at a time.” Jerusalem came over and kissed Moriah and said gently, “Now, I’ll bring you up some hot water. You can take a good bath and put on fresh new clothes, and we’ll start all over again.”

The twins were fascinated by Ethan. They were almost five now and talked almost as much as Mary Aidan. Ethan was silent at first, but he could not resist them. He was an inquisitive two-year-old, and soon the twins were busy showing him their possessions and their pet coon, of which they were very proud.