Homecoming

Daybreak was soon enough to start planning an escape.

Chapter Six

H attie rose early the next day and nearly stumbled over Joe asleep in the dim morning light of the hallway. She woke him gently, half-afraid he’d awaken with a start and grab his shotgun.

He was mumbling and grumbling his way to his own room when she knocked on Deborah’s door and then slipped inside the bedroom.

Deborah’s eyes were suspiciously red and swollen, as if she’d cried herself to sleep. It was the first and only sign of vulnerability and loss that was apparent.

Hattie noticed Joe didn’t look as if he’d fared much better. When he sat down at the breakfast table, there were dark shadows in the hollows beneath his eyes and he moved as if his back was stiff as a cedar plank.

Hattie was amazed at how the girl shadowed her all week. Deborah was complacent and willing to do whatever task she was shown though she’d yet to utter a word.

Those first few days, Joe didn’t trust the girl enough to do anything that involved straying too far from the house. He was convinced she would try to escape, but time wore on and Deborah continued to placidly follow Hattie around, silently doing her bidding.

Hattie knew it was better to let her hardheaded son come to terms with the situation in his own time, so she didn’t push. She waited him out and sure enough, a week after they had brought the girl home, he began to fall into his old routine and ventured farther from the house and barn.

They’d been hit by spring showers for the past two days, but he’d still ridden out to cull the Rocking e cattle from the commingled herds closest to home.

Driving in a few head at a time was a chore he could accomplish on his own, but time was near when he’d be forced to ride into Glory and contract a few extra hands to help out.

It was an expense Hattie knew he’d like to avoid, but a necessity. There was no way he could single-handedly round up all their cattle that spread across the open range.

While he was gone, she and Deborah worked side by side putting in the vegetable garden. It was a backbreaking chore, and yet it was another sign of spring that always filled Hattie with delight after a long winter inside.

Deborah never gave any sign that she understood, but Hattie spoke and gestured to her continuously as she taught the girl to move slowly down the paths between the furrows and flick precious seeds out from between her thumb and forefinger, depositing them into holes they’d bored into the dirt with thin sticks.

“This is one of the greatest gifts God has given me, outside of my Joe, that is,” Hattie told her. “And Orson and Mellie, rest their souls. I love digging my hands deep into the soil, feeling the richness of the earth. Out here, beneath the open sky, I like to pause and listen for God’s word as I work. As the Good Book says, ‘And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden.’”

Though Deborah never refused to work, there were times when Hattie would stand and stretch her back and legs, only to discover the girl staring off toward the horizon, her lovely features a study in sorrow.

In those poignant, silent moments, Hattie let her be and waited until Deborah turned to her work again. Hattie would offer up a prayer and ask God to look down upon the girl, to grant her swift healing and acceptance of this new life He’d given her.

The rain had run them out of the garden earlier this morning and now, inside the kitchen, Hattie worked at the sideboard, up to her elbows in bread dough. Her joints ached and she grew more and more tired as the day wore on. By the time she was mixing a double batch of dough in the huge crockery bowl, her head was pounding. She was punching the dough down when she heard Joe’s whistle. He was still a ways off, but letting her know she should run out and stand ready at the corral gate.

If she didn’t hurry, there was a risk of an ornery cow breaking away and trampling the newly seeded garden.

She worked the bread as fast as she could, knowing by the sound of the bawling cattle that Joe wasn’t that close yet.

Punch, knead, fold, press. She was working so fast she felt dizzy. She glanced over her shoulder at Deborah, who was sitting in a straight-back chair with a mixing bowl in her lap, busy creaming together butter, sugar and eggs for currant cakes.

Hattie thought she had plenty of time—until she heard Joe’s deep voice carry across the yard with greater urgency.

“Ma! The gate!” he hollered.

Another wave of dizziness hit her. She called over her shoulder, “Deborah!”

The girl immediately looked up at the sound of her name, stopped stirring and waited expectantly.

Thrilled, Hattie smiled. It was the first time Deborah had shown any response to her name. Usually all she did was mimic Hattie’s motions.

“The gate. Go open the gate.” Hattie nodded toward the door. Deborah had seen her open the gate and had stood back as Joe drove the cattle into the corral for two days now.

“Open the gate. Gate,” Hattie told her with greater urgency. “Joe’s back.”

By now Joe was yelling and whooping to beat the band. The bawling of the cattle intensified as they drew nearer to the corral.

Hattie held up her flour-coated hands and, like a general facing his troops, barked out the order. “Go open the gate!”

The girl set down the bowl, shot to her feet and ran out the door.

Hattie took a deep breath and her light-headedness subsided. She caught herself smiling as she kept watch through the window over the dry sink.

Gate.

Eyes-of-the-Sky knew the word. She knew many of the whites’ words now, though she refused to give her captors any sign that she was learning. For the first few days, the words had been nothing more than a confusing jumble that made her head ache, but as time wore on, distinct sounds began to separate themselves and she began to understand.

The foreign tongue almost seemed a part of her somehow. At night, the words invaded her dreams until she dreamed both in Nermernuh and in the white man’s tongue. She dreamed odd dreams filled with Nermernuh and whites, faces she knew so well and others that were unfamiliar. Unsettling dreams that left her feeling anxious and confused.

On the first day of her arrival, when they took away her clothing, it became clear to her that she was a slave, and that she now belonged to the woman, Hattee-Hattee. From sunup until the evening meal, she worked with Hattee-Hattee and did everything the woman told her to do.

In this, she realized, the whites were no different from the her people. Whenever the warriors returned to the encampment with captives in tow after a raid, their possessions were taken from them. They were beaten, whipped, even burned and tortured by their owners.

That was the Comanche way and, knowing she was now a slave, Eyes-of-the-Sky was determined not to shame herself by crying or showing fear. Among her people, things always went easier for those who showed courage and strength of will. Weak or cowardly captives were tortured by the women, if not killed outright. She never let herself forget that Hattee-Hattee, no matter how kind she appeared, had the power of life and death over her.

For now, she would obey. She would pretend to have accepted her fate.

In the beginning, the man remained close by, watching her, making certain she did not try to escape or attack the woman.

Whenever she turned around, he was there. Whenever she followed Hattee-Hattee from one place to another, he was there. Sometimes he would speak to the woman and then leave them for a short while, but he soon returned. He was always watching.

As a slave, she had no right to deny him anything. When he decided to use her in any way he pleased, that was the way of things. She would do what she must to survive.

She had endured the Blue Coats’ attack. She could endure him, too, if that was her fate.

Lately he had begun riding out before the sun rose and would bring more cattle back to the enclosure near the dwelling. She thought him crazy for collecting worthless cows.

She was sitting in the place where the food was prepared—the kitchen —when she recognized his whistle. It was his way of letting the woman know he was nearly there, that he had returned with more cattle.

It was Hattee-Hattee’s task to meet him at the corral, to lift the rope, push the heavy wooden gate wide, so the cattle would run into the enclosure.

But today the woman was making bread, the food that she enjoyed most of all. She loved the taste of it in her mouth, the warm comfort and softness of it. The magic way it melted on her tongue. She loved to inhale the scent of it as it grew plump and hot inside the iron beast with fire in its belly—the stove. The woman’s hands and arms were covered in the white powder— flour. Mixed with yeast, it magically became bread.

Outside, the whistle grew sharper, louder, as the man brought the cattle closer and closer to the house. So close that she could feel their hooves against the earth.

Hattee-Hattee was speaking to her, saying the words Joe and gate among others that she didn’t understand. Suddenly, Hattee-Hattee turned to her and commanded her to go.

She leaped to her feet and ran for the door, then outside into the blinding sunlight. Shielding her eyes with her arm, she tripped over the edge of her long garment and almost fell headlong down the steps but regained her balance just in time.