Waltzing With Tumbleweeds Read online

  “Oh,” she said and laid back on the pillow to stare at the tin ceiling tiles. Why did she fear the notion of Charlie Macon coming for her? Sooner or later she had to expect to be returned to her “man.” What would he think? She squeezed her eyes shut and soon fell into a deep slumber.

  When Alberta awoke, Georgia proved her mettle as a hostess. The woman had a large copper bathtub full of hot water and perfumed soap ready. Her first real bath in almost a year. A long handled brush proved a great tool as she sought to erase every trace of Apache from her skin. Her bath water had turned lukewarm when at last she stepped out to dry herself with the Turkish towel.

  For a long moment she stared in shock at the thin woman in the tall, oval mirror. She had lost many pounds, her legs looked like sticks, her stomach drawn in and her once globe shaped breasts shrunk to pears. With her hands, she swept her long hair back from her face, still peering at the reflection of this stranger in the looking glass. Would Macon even know her?

  “We’ll shampoo your hair with yucca soap and then braid it,” Georgia said, helping her into a robe.

  “How will I ever repay you?”

  “We won’t worry about that.”

  “Oh, but I must.” She leaned closer to the mirror and examined her face. “He won’t even know me.” She ran her hand over her deep, sunburned cheek. “My skin’s dark as a squaw. Oh Georgia, I should never have come back.”

  “Nonsense, you belong with your own people, with your husband.” Georgia guided her away from the mirror. “We need to wash your hair now. Why, your husband will bust his buttons when he sees you. Pretty girl and all like you are. Why he’d be foolish to do anything else.”

  “No, he won’t. I’m soiled.”

  “Here, here, let’s look to the bright side of things, my dear.”

  Alberta shook her head in defeat. In her heart, she knew nothing would ever break through his stubbornness. He would never accept her.

  With a deep breath for strength, she bent her head over the washbasin. If only she could scrub away those nights she laid under his muscle-corded belly. The many times he made her forget she was in a grass thatched wickiup, making love with a man who wasn’t her husband. Feeling all the things, she had never felt before. All those crazy intimate nights with her crying out in wanton pleasure, something she had never ever done in bed with Macon.

  Her regrets consumed her until she no longer could face the people on the base. She could not stand them staring at her, knowing she had laid with an Apache. Been penetrated by a savage… allowed him access. She had not fought enough, she had succumbed too easily… submitted willingly. Filled with dread of what the future would bring, she closed her eyes, but even they denied her tears.

  She kept her lids tightly shut. Her shoulder quaked under Georgia’s comforting hand. Any day—any time Macon would come for her. Or even worse he would ignore the message. What would she do then?

  Two more long days crawled by. After an embarrassing physical examination, the post physician declared, she was likely not pregnant and apparently free of venereal disease. He muttered before he left, she was very lucky.

  Meanwhile Georgia sheltered her from the others. Alberta could hear the various visitors in the other room.

  “Oh, she is not up to having company today?”

  “Did she take an Apache husband?”

  “I don’t know,” Georgia would say. “She never told me.”

  Alberta’s memory could recall every illicit, intimate moment she spent with him. It branded her brain like a hot iron scorched a calf’s skin at a roundup. The bitter smoke of the burning hair even hurt her nostrils as she recalled it.

  On Friday, Charlie Macon drove up in a buckboard. He wore a tie and his brown Sunday suit. She always called it his Sunday suit, though he never attended church. He wore it to town when he took out loans and he wore it to funerals. This time he wore it to pick up his errant wife.

  Georgia fixed her a satchel complete with a cotton night shift, under garments, an everyday calico dress they sewed together. She wore a black skirt and a starched white blouse under a shawl for the ride home. No need for a hat, she couldn’t get any darker than she already was. The soft slippers on her feet were hand-me-downs from another woman at the base.

  “Afternoon,” Macon said removing his wide brimmed Stetson for Georgia. His snow-white forehead contrasted with his deep leather colored face.

  The two women looked at each other. Alberta rolled her lower lips under her sharp upper teeth. It would be hard to leave this true friend. Sadness stabbed her, she would never again have anyone to lean on like Georgia.

  “Ready?” Macon asked, taking her bag.

  “Yes.”

  “We better go. We’ve lots of miles,” he spoke with his back to her as he loaded it in the rig.

  “Good bye Georgia and thanks for everything.”

  “Good bye and God be with you my dear.”

  I’ll need him. She waved and hurried to where he stood waiting to help her up in the buckboard.

  Apache Pass behind them, the rusty red Dragoon Mountains lie ahead. She sat the spring seat beside her silent husband, touching his shoulder with hers on the bumps. Like sitting with a statue, an unmoved man in a thin veil of dust from the hooves of the trotting team.

  The brown grassland of the Sulphur Valley spilled out around them. By sundown, they had passed through several small canyon mining towns. He stopped in Gleason. Without a word, he tied off the reins and went inside the store. In a few minutes, he returned with a sack of crackers, cheese and two cans of sardines and handed them to her with a, “Here.”

  Macon undid the lines and drove out of Gleason. A mile south, he pulled off the road into a dry wash, and speculated in silence over the fiery sunset far off over the Whetstones.

  “We can camp here.” He never looked at her, climbed down and began to unhitch the team.

  Obviously he intended for them to dine on the food in the poke. For a long moment, she considered it then she climbed down and went off to relieve herself. When she came back, she set the food out on the tailgate.

  He was busy hobbling the horses. There had been enough water in the pot hole to quench the animals’ thirst. Two burlap wrapped jugs in the wagon bed contained their drinking water. She sipped some. Living so long on the move with Chirichuas, she had taught herself to temper her thirst. Macon joined her with a nod and began to eat.

  Darkness set in on the hills around them. Finished eating, he hoisted the bedroll out and undid the straps. She tried to ignore the deepening light. The Gambell quail grew silent. A lone coyote threw his head back and howled until the stars began to twinkle.

  “You coming to bed?” he finally asked.

  She whispered, “yes,” then swallowed a hard knot of dread. The time had come to be his wife again. What did she fear the most? Rejection? Accusation that she had not resisted? Or his damn smug silence? She had resisted.

  The next few minutes in the bedroll beside him were the longest in her life. She dared not upset him, give him any clue of her life with the savage; she was his wife. Grateful he only lasted for a short while on top of her, then he rolled off and with his back to her, went to sleep.

  His fluids seeped from her and she didn’t bother to stem it. Her sore eyes stared at the stars. Like the lonely coyote, sleep eluded her. With only the galaxies to keep her company, she lay on her back, blankets to her chin and considered the future.

  At sunup they shared a wordless breakfast of dry cheese and crackers. The food crumbled in her mouth. He hitched the horses. They drove through Tombstone as the sleepy-eyed miners in their dust floured clothing headed for their shift at the mines. Like the workers, she was headed for a cavernous existence; only there would be no small jokes, laughter or even words in hers. Macon would never forgive her.

  Even during her captivity she had dreaded her return. Lying at night beside the savage, she had worried about how Macon would treat her. Now she knew. Deep inside, she rolled the
notion over and over in her mind as they struck the road westward toward the Whetstones. Shunned was the word.

  Things that needed to be done began to occupy her thoughts as they crossed the rolling, grassy plateau. She would clean the house. It would be spotless. Make a few new quilts, repair his clothes, there would be enough to occupy her time. Maybe not enough to stop her mind from plowing it up again and again. Work would satisfy her, she promised herself.

  Sight of the clapboard house in late afternoon warmed her. He reined up at the corral, dismounted as if she wasn’t even along. Macon never talked much before, but his silence had grown deeper. He was punishing her for her transgressions. She must do penance. Perhaps in time he would accept her again and fall into talking about his cows and horses, as he had formerly, including her in his few words.

  Days went by. The nights were long beside his sleeping form. Since that first evening on the road near Gleason he had even ignored her body. Staring at the dark abyss of the open ceiling overhead, she wondered if her whole life would pass in this fashion. Ostracized in her own house, she closed her eyes, unable to even cry.

  Macon left at daybreak that morning to check on a water hole. He took a small spade with him. All she could imagine he needed a shovel for; he never said. She had tossed the small rug over the line and was beating it with a bat size stick. The fury of her attack sent clouds of dust off in the wind.

  Out of breath, she dropped the club and bent over to recover. A sobering notion washed over her; someone was watching her. Straightening up, warily, she turned to look around.

  He squatted on the heels of his knee high boots. The tail of the white breechcloth hung down as he sat motionless. His black bangs needed to be trimmed, but his eyes told her he had not come for revenge.

  “That is your enemy?” he asked as if mildly amused.

  His words forced a smile on her face. How long since she had smiled?

  “It has many ghosts in it,” she said.

  “You are happy here?” He tossed his head toward the house.

  “Are you happy?” she asked sharply, not daring to answer him.

  He dropped his gaze and shook his head. “No.”

  “I cannot live on the run all the time from the Army—”

  “We could go to the White Mountains.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Pines, cool streams. Many deer to eat.”

  “Would the soldiers search for us there?”

  “No. It is a reservation.”

  “Would you be happy there?” She swept up the stick and watched him closely for his reaction to her question.

  “Only if you would be with me.”

  She tapped her bat in the dirt. For a long moment, she studied the dusty toes of her slippers. How could she even consider doing this? A married woman run off with a savage? She must be mad even to consider the notion. Go live in some wild mountains, cook over a fire, do without a bed, a roof?

  With a fling, she threw the stick aside and went to him. He rose and they melded into each other’s arms.

  “We may never have children.”

  His forehead pressed to hers. The great brown pupils looked into her very soul.

  “We will have each other,” he said and melted her heart.

  “Yes, Nah-tice, we will have each other. I will get a horse,” she said and started to turn away.

  “No, I brought one for you.”

  She brightened at the prospect of a mate who knew she existed. Excited with her new-found decision and going away with him, she watched him run off into the greasewood. Two mounted Apache men she recognized returned with him. They put five horses in the corral. The pair laughed and grinned with each other.

  “Why do they do that?” she asked him with a frown.

  “To pay for you,” he said and handed her the reins to a fine pony. She agreed with a nod. Macon wouldn’t have to talk to those horses. Pleased with his trade, she quickly kissed him on the mouth to seal their arrangement and then mounted up. He smiled in approval at her actions and they rode away.

  Four years later, Captain Jeff Liggett, the new military commander of Fort Apache stood on the porch of the post’s headquarters in the early morning light. Alberta nodded to herself, noting his sparkling uniform. Drawing closer to him, she spoke in Apache for her two small children to stay close.

  “Mrs. Macon, is that you?” he asked in disbelief.

  “No, I am Alberta, wife of Nah-tice.” She shook her head and then gathered the hair back from her face. “I am here to complain for my people.”

  “Complain?”

  “Yes. There is a soldier by the name of O’Day that abused a young Apache girl two days ago. She is not a whore and this man used her.”

  “I will put that on report.” He drew his shoulders up square and looked very official.

  “I hope you do more than the last commander we had here. He did little about such bad things. There is more.”

  “More?” He frowned.

  “Yes, last month, the beef they sent us was too tough to eat. I saved this jaw bone from one of them.” She drew it from her pocket and shoved the polished bone at the man. “See he had even lost his teeth. So old and stringy you couldn’t even make shoes from his meat.”

  “I understand, Mrs. Macon. There have been many things wrong here and I will correct them.”

  “I am Alberta, wife of Nah-tice.”

  “Yes, Alberta,” he corrected himself. “I will see to these things at once.”

  She turned and shared a look at the knot of Apache men standing back at a respectable distance, listening to her complaining. She spoke to them in their tongue.

  “I know this man. He is an honorable man and will be fair to us. I have told him our worst troubles.”

  They nodded they heard her. Satisfied, they turned and went about their business. With that completed, she called to her children swinging on the hitch rail to go with her. Of course, he would see to them, she knew this man well.

  Appeared in the March 1991 Darlington Times, Darlington, Md.

  Heroes Were Never Born

  They were buffalo hunters. And they were out of work because the slaughter of the southern herd was over. A handful of grizzly, unbathed buckskinners that lounged around Rosarita’s cantina across the New Mexico line. Four men who lazed around, drinking bad whiskey, whiling away the money left from the final sales of hides and lamenting the end of a way of life.

  “All the buffaloes are gone,” Mulky Nelson said aloud with choking emotions rising in his normally tough voice. Earlier that morning, he had considered biting down on the .50-70 caliber Sharps hexagon muzzle and using his toe on the trigger to end his misery.

  Whatever would he do? For a decade, he had hunted the wooly devils. Flush from the sale of robes, he always spent his earnings on voluptuous doves, cards and good whiskey. He didn’t miss the overindulgence in pleasure as much as the exhilaration of squinting down his gun sights, squeezing off the trigger and seeing the shaggy beast fall dead.

  At the end of each day, his ears rang from the muzzle blasts, his shoulder was tender from the powerful recoil and both his arms ached from helping the skinners peel off the hides. The copper musk of butchering in his nose, his fingers stiff from drying blood, Mulky ate handfuls of raw liver to restore his manhood. Even the buzzards, too full to fly, appreciated him. Damn. Those days were gone forever.

  Mulky hated to see men like Measles Hankins, Big Dee Thompson and Ike Woolford sitting around in sullen depression. They deserved an ending better than that.

  For a moment, he considered going the fifty yards to see Estelle, the settlement’s only lully-tropping-woman, but the notion soon passed, having little appeal to him.

  “Tell me something,” he said, beckoning to Rosarita, the thick-bodied saloon owner.

  “Yes?” she asked. looking standoffish across the bar.

  “Are they all dead?” he asked, realizing the liquor was twisting his tongue.

  “Yes.”


  “Good, I didn’t want one of them left out there.”

  “When will you quit asking me?” she demanded. “Every last gawdamn buffalo is dead.”

  “I heard you,” he said growing angry. The least, the woman with the fine black hair on her upper lip could say, was, ‘Maybe there is one more left.’

  He turned and mildly studied a new customer coming in the door: a lanky cowboy with jingling spurs, a fresh kerchief around his throat and a washed, clean shaven face.

  Mulky heard him order a rye. Ha, he thought, that fat woman gets all her whisky from the same barrel of swill.

  “You guys are hunters, ain’t ye?” he asked them in his deep Texas drawl.

  No one bothered to answer the hardly more than a boy. It was bad enough to have salt in a festering wound, no one needed to rub it in.

  “Well,” the cocky stranger swelled out his small chest, “I seen an old cow buffalo a week ago that you missed.”

  Four sets of marksmen-quality eyes glared at the cowboy. The scrape of chair legs on the dirt floor was noisy as the hunters stood up. Was the man lying—they searched each other’s faces.

  Measles beat the others to the man by seconds. He grabbed a fistful of the cowboy’s shirt in one hand, the sharp honed skinning knife laid on the speaker’s throat as the hider bent him backwards over the bar.

  “You’re fixing to be a dead liar,” Measles said, through his rotting teeth.

  “Wait!” Ike ordered, wrestling the knife arm back. Mulky helped him pull their irate companion off the ranch hand.

  Freed, the shaken cowboy felt his throat to be certain the jugular vein was not severed. Pale faced and shocked, he looked wide eyed at them.

  “I ain’t lying,” he began, holding his hand out to hold them off. “I was checking cattle a week ago down by the Frances Mountains. I saw her all right. She was a skinny cow, but when she saw me she high tailed it.”

  “Which way did she go?”

  “West,” he said, warily searching their faces.

  “If you’re a lying to us—” Measles started for him, but Mulky and Ike blocked his way.