Captive Trail (14 page)

“Sister Riva, bar the door and check the kitchen door as well.”

“Yes, Sister.” The younger nun hurried out, and Taabe heard the heavy wooden bar thud into its brackets inside the front entrance.

Sister Adele stepped forward and held out Taabe’s slate and chalk. “Perhaps this would help.”

Taabe seized it and sketched a small animal with a sweep of bushy tail.

“Squirrel,” Quinta said at once.

Taabe nodded but then shrugged. On the slate, she drew another animal, a little bigger and with perked ears. “Dog?” Quinta asked. “Coyote,” Sister Adele said.

Taabe nodded and spread her hands to indicate their guesses about the picture were correct, but she wasn’t sure what she’d seen. Finally she drew a human stick figure.

“Man?” she said, her voice raising in question. She drew several trees over and around the figures, pointed to her eyes, then to the slate. “What?”

Sister Adele placed her hand on Taabe’s sleeve. “My dear, do you think men would come to find you? To harm you?”

Taabe’s heart raced. She looked around for a rag, saw none, and wiped the slate with her sleeve. Sister Natalie opened her mouth to protest, but sank back with a shake of her head.

On one edge of the slate, Taabe drew a crude horse, with a stick figure on its back.

“Horse and rider,” Sister Adele said. They all watched for what she would draw next.

Behind that drawing, Taabe left a space then added three more horse figures with men on their backs. In the leader’s upraised hand, she drew a line with an arrow tip. A spear.

“They are chasing the other man,” Quinta cried. Her face sobered. “Or were they … chasing you?”

Taabe pointed to the fleeing figure. “Taabe.” She pointed to the leader of the pursuer. “Peca. Man.”

“Peca?” Sister Adele frowned. “Is Peca a man’s name?” She touched the figure on the slate. “Peca.”

“Yes,” Taabe said. “Peca …” She hesitated. How could she communicate anger? She made a wrathful face and shook her fist.

“He’s mad,” Quinta said. “This Peca is mad at you and he chased you.”

“Yes.” Taabe smiled with relief.

“You ran away,” Sister Adele said.

Taabe nodded, drained of the strength she’d felt when they walked out into the sunshine.

“Can’t we do something?” Quinta asked. “Taabe is scared.”

“Indeed we can. We shall pray, of course, but there are other precautions we can take.” Sister Natalie rose, her face somber. “Come with me, ladies.”

She led the way to the kitchen, which jutted off the back of the house. Sister Marie looked up in surprise from her bread kneading.

“I beg your pardon,” Sister Natalie said. “We must disturb you for a moment.” She looked around at the others. “It’s good that we are all here. As nearly as I can tell, Taabe saw something outside and is frightened that perhaps she has been followed here by an angry Comanche warrior. I think it best that we let her in on our crisis plan and show her the hiding place.”

Taabe watched her as she spoke, but much of the meaning escaped her. But Sister Adele strode forward, moved aside a small work table, stooped to lay back a woven floor mat, and lifted a section of three short floorboards of uneven lengths.

Sister Natalie pointed to the hole. “This is our root cellar. We keep it covered so it is not obvious. Anyone in the cellar can fasten two hooks that will keep the boards in place unless someone above rips up the boards with tools. There is space for two or perhaps three people to hide for some time. Do you understand?”

Taabe nodded slowly, and Quinta, her eyes gleaming, also nodded.

This was a secret refuge where they could go if anyone attacked them, or where the nuns could hide Taabe if someone she feared came searching for her.

“We will place a jar of fresh water in the cellar now,” Sister Natalie said. “Sister Adele, please take care of that.”

“Yes, Sister.”

“And some parched corn as well, and a blanket. A person in hiding could survive down there for some time if necessary.”

“And now, I shall take a short stroll in our yard—not far. Just to see if there is any obvious activity about the mission.” Sister Natalie looked around the circle, her gaze resting briefly on each of the nuns, Taabe, and Quinta. “Sister Riva, you will accompany me. We will take walking sticks. Our guests shall remain in the house until further notice.”

The nuns murmured their assent, and Sister Riva tucked her hands into the openings of her wide sleeves and quickly left the kitchen.

“Come, Taabe, Quinta.” Sister Adele smiled at them. “You may help me place the provisions in the cellar, and then we’ll do some reading in the sitting room.”

“Prayers will be on time unless something unexpected occurs,” Sister Natalie said. She left the room.

Sister Marie hurried to a shelf and took down a large water jug with a cork stopper. “Use this, Sister. And there is plenty of parched corn in that keg.”

Taabe helped Sister Adele fill containers and carry them to the hole while Quinta ran to get an extra blanket from the alcove where the nuns kept linens.

Sister Adele climbed down the short ladder into the hole and lit a candle. She held it up so Taabe, peering from above, could see into every corner of the refuge. The hiding place was square, only about as wide as Taabe was tall. An open barrel of potatoes and one of carrots took up much of the
space. Several candles and a tinderbox lay in one corner, and in another was an empty wooden bucket. A prison—or a haven. Taabe nodded at Adele, who gazed up at her. Quinta returned with one of the pieced blankets and handed it to Sister Adele.

Taabe stood back from the hole and watched as Sister Adele climbed out and replaced the cover, the mat, and the table.

The hole was not big enough for all of the sisters. What would the others do if the mission were besieged?

Ned watched the tenders hitch the fresh team to the stagecoach. The Phantom Hill station agent held the door for the passengers. Isaac Trainer climbed inside with five other men, and the agent closed the door.

Henry Loudon ambled toward Ned, his shotgun resting on his shoulder. “Where’s Trainer going?”

“I’m taking him to Fort Chadbourne to see if he can talk to that Comanche captive I was telling you about.”

Henry shook his head. “I wouldn’t trust that one.”

“Oh?”

“He’s thick with the Injuns.”

“I figured he’d be useful.”

“Mebbe so.” Henry headed for the stage, and Ned followed. Once on the driver’s box, he gathered the reins and released the brake. He clicked to the mules and steered them onto the road westward.

He glanced at Henry. “You think I’m making a mistake?”

Henry shrugged and pulled a plug of chewing tobacco from his pocket. “Hard to say. He might be just the man you need. On the other hand, I wouldn’t turn my back on him.”

Taabe sat with Quinta in the small parlor after morning prayers, sewing the bodice of her new dress. Stitching the factory-made cloth was different from sewing leather. In some ways, it was easier—certainly she needed less effort to run the needle through the material. But Sister Adele scrutinized her work frequently, and she was very particular. She demanded tiny, even stitches on every seam.

Quinta muttered darkly as she worked on one of her sleeves. Taabe could sympathize, but she would rather use her energy to master the craft. She had learned the painstaking art of beadwork from her mother among the Numinu. That had taken many sessions and hours of exacting labor. Her Indian mother, if anything, was more strict than Sister Adele when it came to stitching.

But the Garza household had been without a woman’s influence for some time. When Quinta visited the mission, and again when she arrived to stay, no mother came with her. Over the last few days Taabe had engaged in several conversations with the high-spirited girl and learned much through simple words and drawings on their slates.

Quinta had four brothers, and her mother now rested somewhere in a grave marked by a cross. The girl had sketched a graveyard with several such markers. For the first time, Taabe connected the crucifixes hanging on the walls throughout the mission with the crosses white people put over their loved ones’ graves. Somehow the cross was a symbol of their belief in the tortured man. Scraps of knowledge teased at the fringes of her mind, and Taabe often lay awake at night pondering what it was she didn’t know—but once knew—about the cross.

“The stagecoach is coming.” Sister Marie popped her head into the parlor and was gone again before Taabe could look up.

“It’s Ned!” Quinta threw down her blue fabric and ran for the entrance.

Taabe realized she’d heard the hoofbeats, but had been so lost in her thoughts and her stitching, the significance hadn’t penetrated the fog. She tucked her needle into the cloth and laid her project aside.

She heard the nun lifting the bar on the front door, and Quinta’s chatter. She stepped to the doorway behind them as the coach rolled into the yard. Ned halted the horses and lifted his hat.

Taabe couldn’t help smiling. When Ned and his friend, Brownie—who never came inside unless there were supplies to unload—arrived at the mission, everyone smiled. Ned was the sisters’ link to the outside world. For Taabe, he was more than that. She looked forward to his visits with an eager optimism. Ned brought treats and special supplies for her and the sisters. He brought people who were eager to help her find her family. He brought her hope, and his arrival always made her feel more alive in this new life she had chosen.

“Ladies! I have a visitor for you.” Ned hopped down and opened the door of the stagecoach.

Sister Natalie and Sister Adele came into the hallway.

“Is it Mr. Bright?” Sister Natalie asked.

“Yes.” Taabe stepped aside and let them pass her, following Sister Riva and Quinta outside.

Quinta ran straight for Ned. The sisters waited near the door. Taabe was about to step out with them to greet Ned when she caught sight of his passenger. She caught her breath and scanned the bearded man alighting from the coach. She had seen that man before.

Taabe backed away from the doorway, then turned and ran to the kitchen.

Sister Marie was peeling potatoes at her work table. She looked up with startled eyes as Taabe dashed across the room and shoved the small table aside.

“What are you doing?”

Taabe flipped the mat away and clawed at the boards.

S
ister Marie gasped and ran to her side, still holding her paring knife. She stooped and put a finger into a small crevice at one edge of the trapdoor and raised the section of connected boards. “Quickly, friend, quickly!” Sister Marie held the cover while Taabe scrambled down the short ladder.

The hole was deep enough for her to stand upright. She beckoned to the sister to replace the boards. An instant later, darkness engulfed her. Taabe stretched out her arms. Her right hand touched a cold wall of earth. She sucked in a breath. Her heart raced, and she pressed her hands over it, willing herself to calm.

The cellar smelled of dirt, with a faint trace of Sister Marie’s baking. Taabe bent over and felt about. She found the barrels and tried to orient herself. Over her head came a dull thumping, then a scrape as Sister Marie moved the mat and table back in place.

Taabe’s cold fingers touched the woolen blanket. She
opened it one fold and sat down on it. Looking up, she couldn’t see even a crack of light. She inhaled deeply and let the breath out slowly, through pursed lips.

She imagined the bearded man going from room to room of the mission, searching for her. He had been to the Numinu camps many times. He had brought the chiefs gifts. Peca had sat down with him and smoked and told stories. Was he here to find her for Peca? Would he tell the Numinu where she was?

She wished she had brought her parfleche and all of her Comanche things down here so the buffalo hunter would have no chance of seeing them. If things turned out all right today, she would ask Sister Natalie if she could put all her things in a bag down here.

Over her head, Sister Marie’s comforting footsteps moved about the kitchen. Taabe’s heart pounded, and she made herself breathe slowly and deeply. In her mind, words formed.
Help. Do not let him find me
.