Homecoming

Mellie loved to make up stories for the origin of each and every piece of fabric. She’d drag him into her room with her white-blond ringlets bouncing and a dimpled smile that lit up a room. More often than not, that smile shone just for him. She’d beg him to pull up a chair and listen as she spun her tales.

Tonight, a single lamp burned on the dresser and beyond the lamplight, the room was cast in darkness. Mellie’s smile was forever extinguished and she’d taken the light with her.

The windows were open to the cool night air until he closed and nailed them shut. Then he went back to the front room where Hattie waited on the settee beside the girl.

His mother pointed to herself and repeated her own name over and over. “Hattie. I’m Hattie. Hattie.”

When she noticed Joe in the doorway, she waved him over.

“Joe.” She pointed to him and repeated his name.

Then she pointed to the girl and waited for her to tell them her name.

Hattie waited. The girl remained silent.

“Hattie. Hattie.” His mother tried again.

“She’s not going to say anything, Ma.” Joe sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m turning in.”

Hattie refused to give up yet. She pointed to herself and said her name twice more. Then she pointed to the girl and said, “Deborah. Deborah.”

The girl said absolutely nothing.

Joe rolled his eyes and walked out.

His mother tapped on his bedroom door a few minutes later.

“She’s all settled.” Hattie looked exhausted, but there was a new enthusiasm for life, a sparkle in her eyes that he hadn’t seen in them forever.

“I really would prefer you didn’t nail her door shut, son. I’m afraid I’ll be up all night worrying if you do. What if there were a fire?”

“I won’t lock her in if you’re going to lose sleep over it.”

He already figured he’d be losing enough sleep of his own.

“Thanks, son, for giving in on this. We have to do everything we can to help her.” She took a deep breath. There was no denying the tears that shimmered in her eyes. “I can’t help but think that, if things had turned out different, if Mellie had been taken captive instead of…well, instead of being killed…I like to think if she’d been found that someone would have opened their home and hearts to her the way we’ve done for this poor child here.”

Joe knew he may have opened his home to her, to Deborah, but it was only because his mother wanted it. Even in the shadowy hallway, his mother’s scar was visible.

He might open his home, but never his heart.

Hattie said good-night and disappeared behind her own door. Joe lingered in the hall, listening. He was about to close his bedroom door when he heard soft footfalls in Mellie’s old room. Then a soft thump or two and he knew without a doubt, the girl was trying to open the window.

He crept closer and halted outside the door, held his breath and listened. The footsteps stilled, but he heard the hush of breath directly on the other side of the door. The girl was standing there, separated from him by thin planks of wood.

If she thought he was going to give her the chance to walk out, or worse, to try and kill them in their sleep, she had another think coming.

Barely breathing, he waited until he heard her bare feet against the floor again. He waited to hear the bed ropes creak, but the sound never came.

He walked back to his room, pulled off his boots and grabbed the pillow off his bed. Then he went into the sitting room, picked up the rifle he kept by the front door and carried it back into the hall and stopped outside the girl’s door.

The pillow hit the floor. He hunkered down, lay the gun on the floor and stretched out beside it. He wasn’t a stranger to sleeping without the comfort of a bed. He’d spent weeks sleeping on the ground during roundup.

But tonight, he doubted he’d sleep at all.

Eyes-of-the-Sky stood in the middle of the small place where the woman had left her. She’d been forced to change into another garment. The woman gave her to understand, with gestures and signs, that this one was meant for sleeping. The cloth was light as air and the color of a billowing cloud.

In this private space there was a place to sleep, soft and high up off the floor. There was a container of water on a big wooden box that hid clothing from view. The woman, who kept pointing to herself and repeating, Hattee-Hattee, had taken the glass that held a flame captive when she walked out. Now the room was drenched in darkness.

Though Eyes-of-the-Sky could look outside and see the huge shelter where they kept the horses, the stars in the sky, the sliver of moon beyond the big slick glass, there appeared to be no escape. She tried softly pounding on the wood around the glass, but couldn’t make it move. She knew if they heard her break the glass, the man would come running.

She’d known when the man, Joe, was outside the door. She heard his footsteps, heard him breathing slow and steady. Her breath caught in her throat. Her heart began to pound.

Wadding the soft white fabric in her hands, she knelt and slowly crept to the door on hands and knees. She lay on the floor, pressed her cheek against the wood and tried to see through the crack between the door and floor.

It was too dark to see anything, but she knew that Joe was out there. She could not see him, but she sensed his presence.

Tonight, there was no escape.

She waited a few moments more, then she crawled back to the sleeping place, pulled off a covering and wrapped it around her shoulders.

So tired she could barely sit upright, she pressed her fingertips to her temples. The white woman had not stopped talking all day. The sound of her words was tormenting. She knew not what the woman was saying, and yet the longer Hattee-Hattee spoke, the more the words wormed their way into her mind.

Tonight, the woman had sat in a chair that rocked back and forth, holding a heavy block on her lap and chanting a tale of some kind. The words had flowed over Eyes-of-the-Sky, over and through her until she was forced to rub her fingers in circles against her temples.

It was all too much. Too raw and foreign and confusing.

Finally, when she could no longer fight her exhaustion, she stretched out on the wood beneath her. Every bone in her body ached. She longed to sleep, but her troubled mind would not quiet.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the Blue Coat raid all over again, smelled the blood, the smoke. Heard the screams.

Not again.

The confusing thought came out of nowhere.

Not again.

She stuffed her fist against her mouth, refused to cry. She refused to show weakness, even here, alone in the dark. She would not shame those who had gone before her.

She would bide her time. She would remain on alert and wary of these strange people with their gruff language and their big wooden lodge from which there was no escape.

Most of all, she would be on guard against the white man with bitterness in his eyes. She’d seen the same look on the faces of the Comanche warriors who had no hope for the future. Men who had lost all hope for the Nermernuh.

She feared him far more than she did the woman. He had nothing to lose.

She promised herself never to give in. As soon as she was stronger, she would try to run, to find who, if any, of her people were still alive.

But now she was so very weary. She closed her eyes on a sigh.