Where the Broken Heart Still Beats Read online

  The People had nothing like this wagon. Everyone rode horses, even young children, and they moved their goods with pack horses and mules, each dragging two long tipi poles tied to the saddle, their tipi skins and other belongings slung between the poles. She would have preferred riding one of the mules that pulled this wagon to being jolted on the rough wooden seat.

  At night they camped, unrolling their blankets beneath the wagon. One of the men was always posted as a guard. To keep them from being attacked or to keep her from running away? She did not know. She half dreamed, half remembered: Long ago in the other time, a wagon much bigger than this one with a cover over it, crossing rivers and plains for many days, going to the new place, Mother and Father and others, two brothers, then a sister. What were their names? Me—Sinty-ann. And the brothers—John, was that one of them?

  After a few days, White Hair and the others brought her to a big log cabin. More strangers poured out to greet her. More noise, more talk in the strange tongue with its faintly familiar sounds: Sinty-ann, Sinty-ann. They led her inside, hovering close, smiling, staring, talking loudly.

  Holding Topsannah tightly, she looked around, half-curious, half-frightened. The cabin had two large rooms joined by an open hallway with a steeply pitched roof that covered the broad gallery. The rooms were filled with strange objects, uncomfortable to sit on, she found, and worse to lie on. The first night they insisted that she sleep on a soft mattress of feathers laid on a web of ropes strung on a wooden frame, but she took the blankets from the bed and spread them on the wooden floor.

  She missed her tipi of lodgepoles set in a circle and tied together at the top, covered with buffalo hides she had tanned and stitched herself. Thick buffalo robes on the inside kept cold drafts from coming in, and a small pit fire in the center warmed them better than this fire in a stone part of the wall. She missed her sleeping skins piled on a bed of dried grass.

  The white women gave her more strange things to eat and drink, and all of them talked to her, asking her questions she did not understand, waiting for her answer, but never listening to her questions: Where are my sons? Where is my husband? When can I go to them?

  The girl called Loo-see lived in this cabin with White Hair and people Naduah thought must be her parents and brothers and sisters. When the others had finished with their questions, Loo-see gently led Naduah around the cabin, pointing to things and saying their names: table ... stool ... fire ... lamp ... kettle. Loo-see seemed kind, not loud-speaking like the others, but not even to please her would Naduah try to imitate the sounds Loo-see made.

  Then Loo-see took her outside and showed her other, smaller buildings near the big cabin: a smokehouse with haunches of meat hanging inside, a corncrib half-filled with dried ears from the fall harvest, a springhouse where they got their water. In the distance at the edge of the fields was a small, crude cabin. "That's where Grandfather's Negroes live," Loo-see explained.

  Naduah looked for the place where the horses were kept and easily found a long shed with a corral. As soon as she could, she would take two or three of the sleek, well-fed horses and go in search of the People.

  She knew it was a long way. This place was not familiar, but she would ride toward the setting sun until she recognized where she was. She had no bow and arrow with which to shoot game along the way; she would have to take some of the white people's strange food, and, if necessary, kill one of the horses, as the men in her tribe did when they needed food as they traveled. She would watch carefully for her chance.

  Loo-see, her mother, and her sister Mar-ta, a tall, thin girl with yellow hair and blue eyes like Loo-see's, prepared a large meal. They set food in bowls on the wooden table. Loo-see's family took their places around the table on benches and stools with three legs, a little girl and a little boy and an older boy with one arm missing seated on one side with the mother, Loo-see and Mar-ta on the other side with the father. White Hair sat at one end, and Naduah and Topsannah were placed at the other in what she understood was a seat of honor. Hands together, heads bowed, they were silent while White Hair spoke, his eyes closed. She heard their name for her, "Sinty-ann."

  Then Loo-see's mother, a stern-faced woman with a thin, pinched mouth, took meat and other food from the bowls and put it on plates, which she set in front of each one. "Beef," she said, pointing to the meat.

  Naduah had eaten beef, often stolen in raids on farmers like these. She preferred buffalo, but she reached out and picked up a piece of meat in her hand.

  "Sinty-ann," said Loo-see's mother, "use your fork. Like this." She held up a metal tool with sharp points.

  Naduah was not accustomed to tables and plates and such tools. The People used knives to cut chunks of meat that had been speared on a green stick to cook over a fire or boiled in a pot. They sat on the ground to eat and held the food in their hands or on stiff pieces of hide or bark. Awkwardly, Naduah tried to use the tool.

  White Hair sliced the large, soft lump in front of him and passed the pieces to Loo-see's sisters and brothers. "Bread," the little boy said, watching her with narrowed eyes.

  This, too, was strange. She laid the slice on her plate and tried to eat it with the metal tool as they wanted her to eat the meat. The younger children laughed, covering their mouths with their hands. Then she saw that the bread was not eaten with the metal tool but held in the hand. It was soft, spread with some kind of fat—butter, they called it. Odd, but it tasted good. Yet as she chewed it, she remembered: Mother—putting something in the oven, taking something out, puffed and brown. Did she call it bread? This bread would be good to take with her, to eat on the journey. She knew there was more of it hidden in a cupboard.

  The younger boy and girl ate without taking their eyes off her, ready to laugh, although the parents spoke to them sternly when they did. Topsannah laughed when the children laughed. She seemed to like them, and later, when they had finished eating and Loo-see was putting the dishes into water, they played with her. Not knowing what else to do, Naduah sat watching them. Then she heard them call her baby by a strange name: Tecks Ann.

  "Tecks Ann?" Naduah repeated.

  "We don't like that old Indian name," the little boy James, said. "We gave her a new name. We call her Tecks Ann."

  "Name—is—Topsannah," Naduah said carefully.

  They all looked at Naduah in surprise, and Loo-see wiped her hands and clapped them in pleasure. "Listen, she's learning, she's remembering English!"

  They praised her and then went on with their work. Topsannah crawled up on her lap and whispered, "Tecks Ann."

  She decided she would not tell anyone else her own name: Naduah. She would teach it to Topsannah, but that was all. And when they called her Sinty-ann, she would respond, but she would not say that name herself.

  Toward sunset some nights and days after she had been brought here, she saw the chestnut mare again, not in the corral with the other horses but tied up outside the cabin. Maybe this was her chance to escape. Maybe she could simply grab the child and flee on that horse, taking the risk of finding food along the way. If she found nothing, she was used to going without food; the People had had many hard times in past winters. Hunger was nothing new to her.

  Hair Beneath His Nose had come to visit Marta. "That's Jedediah," Loo-see told her. "He and Martha are engaged to be married."

  Naduah did not understand all of Loo-see's words, but she understood the look that passed between the girl and the young man. That did not interest her. She and the man looked at each other warily. The horse that waited outside was the one he had been riding when he helped to capture her. That was the horse she would take, with pleasure.

  That night when the cabin was dark and she was certain the others slept soundly, Naduah wrapped herself and her sleeping child in whatever blankets she could find. Moving silently, she gathered two loaves of bread and a knife from the cupboard and tied them in a bundle. Then she crept outside.

  The handsome horse was still there. It had not been put in the corral
with the other horses. She laid her hand on the animal's nose and spoke quietly to it, calming it. Then quickly, as she had done many times with her own horses, she untied it and sprang up on its bare back, hugging the baby to her chest. There was probably a saddle in the shed, but she didn't need to look for it. She was used to riding without one, to directing a horse with the pressure of her legs and leather reins she had braided herself. But this horse had not been as carefully trained as the People's ponies, and it did not know how to respond as well as it should. Still, it was a strong horse, and she thumped it with her heels to urge it across the hard-packed earth.

  She glanced at the sky and saw that the horns of the new moon pointed up. That meant rain, or even snow. It meant her trail could be easily followed in the damp earth. She would have to press the horse to its limit to keep ahead of those she knew would pursue her.

  She was accustomed to riding hard. After a raid on a white settlement or on an enemy tribe, the People drove their ponies furiously, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and their enemies. Only much later when they believed it was safe did they allow themselves and their horses to rest. She had been on many raids with her husband. She had ridden as hard as he had.

  During the night she and Topsannah headed straight into the teeth of a harsh wind that swept across the plains. Clouds gathered, covering the moon, and it began to snow. Fine swirling, needle-sharp flakes stung her face. Naduah wished she had her buffalo robe to keep them warm and dry, but that foolish woman at the soldiers' camp had taken it from her and kept it. She wished it not for herself, but for the child, awake now and crying with cold.

  Chapter Three

  From Lucy Parker's journal, February 9, 1861

  I truly believed we were making great progress with Cynthia Ann, but now I see that I was wrong. Just as I began to hope that we will succeed in civilizing her, something dreadful happened.

  Three nights ago Cynthia Ann stole Jed's horse and rode off with Topsannah while everyone was asleep! Of course they found her the next day. It had snowed during the night, so her trail was easy to follow. She had traveled quite a long distance, but the cold must have been too much for her, or maybe for Topsannah, and she had stopped to make a fire.

  Papa and Jedediah and my brother Ben brought them back wet and shivering with cold. We were all quite shocked that she would do such a thing, although I was less surprised than the others because I can see her deep unhappiness. Now Grandfather says someone must watch her night and day, and the "someone" turns out to be me during the daytime. I do not enjoy the idea of being a jailer, but I suppose it must be, at least until she comes to accept that she must stay here with us and gives up her idea of returning to the Indians. If she ever does!

  This event spoiled Martha's visit from Jedediah. He is busy with the Rangers, protecting our settlements from the depredations of the Indians, and has little time to stop with us. He talks of resigning soon, as does his friend Capt. Sul Ross. This is no life, he says, once the excitement is over. Jedediah dreams of becoming a merchant, a business he feels would be profitable with all the new people moving into Texas from the east.

  Martha has confided to me that they plan to marry in October, after her sixteenth birthday and after the cotton crop has been brought in. I am to say nothing to anyone until Jedediah has spoken to Papa. I am quite excited at the idea of a wedding in the family, although I cannot bear the thought that Martha will be leaving us.

  Last evening Papa pressed Jed for details about the attack on the Comanche camp up at Pease River. He has told us little, except to say that he believes Cynthia Ann's husband was a war chief much respected by his tribe. Capt. Ross claims to have shot and killed this warrior, Peta Nocona, but Jed is not certain of that. He says he is sure there were fewer men in the camp than some Rangers claim, that perhaps most of them were off on a hunt and the chief may not have been there at all. I do hope for Cynthia Ann's sake that her husband is not dead, although the world is surely better off without him. As Papa says, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."

  My brother Ben hangs on Jedediah's every word, because he is determined to be an Indian fighter when he is old enough, even though crippled by the loss of an arm from a rattlesnake bite. Martha is more tenderhearted. "But I cannot believe your men would shoot helpless women and children," she cried, thinking, I am sure, of Cynthia Ann being fired upon and nearly killed by her own people, after all these years.

  "There is nothing helpless about those women," Jedediah said, his voice turning hard. "They can ride and shoot as well as the men, and they're just as fiendish. There will be no peace on the frontier until we've gotten rid of every last one of those red devils." I could see Ben nodding vigorously in agreement.

  These seemed like such harsh words, but Papa reminds us that our people have suffered greatly from atrocities committed by the Indians. Our own family was nearly destroyed: my great-grandfather Elder John Parker scalped and mutilated, my great-uncles the same, including Cynthia Ann's father. Grandfather was indeed fortunate to escape harm. Two of his sisters-in-law were captured and treated horribly. And look now at Cynthia Ann! Mama and Papa believe that her mind has been forever destroyed by the harsh experiences of her capture and the years of living among savages. But we do not say this to Grandfather, who insists that our kindness and good care eventually will heal her.

  Mama and Martha have decided that it will be better if Cynthia Ann learns useful work and that perhaps she will remember some English if she is kept busy with us. And so this morning, as the day was unusually mild and sunny for this time of year, we washed our clothes. We filled the tubs outside with Water, and then we showed her how to work the clothes and bedclothes in the soapy water with a wooden stick. She is a strong and able worker, but she seemed to have no understanding of what we were trying to accomplish.

  "Surely she has done this in her home!" I whispered to Mama, who said grimly, "Surely not, Lucy! Those barbarians never wash themselves, never clean their clothes. And I'm told their camps are so filthy they have to move often because it gets to smelling so bad. Mrs. Evans sent word from Fort Cooper that the poor thing arrived there full of lice. She destroyed all of Cynthia Ann's clothes, except for the buffalo robe, which she tried to wash. She thinks it might be made clean again if left outside in the sunshine."

  It makes me shudder to think of that! How could any white child forget every bit of her upbringing and turn into a filthy savage? That is one question I ask myself. I look at my own younger sister, Sarah, who is a happy little girl, as Cynthia Ann must have been, always glad to help us with our chores. It pains me to think that something so sickening could have happened to such a young and innocent person.

  Does Cynthia Ann remember those happy times with her family? She gives no sign. I see her watching our Sarah run and play, and I wonder what thoughts are in her mind. If she does remember, I hope her memories are of those early, happy days and not of the cruel ones that followed her capture. We have heard stories that captives are treated brutally. Papa, Mama, and Grandfather will not tell me what sorts of horrors they are made to suffer, and I frankly cannot imagine what they might be.

  Grandfather has brought us a length of good blue calico so that Cynthia Ann may begin to learn to sew and make clothes for herself, as nothing of ours fits her properly. Mama has no patience for this, and so I suppose it will fall upon me to instruct her. It is logical, for I am the one who spends the most time with her as her "guard." I wonder if she knows that is my duty.

  Slowly we are teaching Cynthia Ann what it is to be a white woman and to do the kind of chores a white woman does. As we work together, I make it my business to say the words of each thing that we do, and she has begun to repeat them after me, but very reluctantly. Often her mind seems far away, as though she does not hear me. Other times she seems to remember words from long ago and the language comes back to her in fits and starts.

  Many of the things that we take for granted she appears not to know. She has
never baked bread, that much is plain, for yesterday we showed her how to knead the dough, and she seemed mystified by its rising. Has she never seen a butter churn? I guess not, although according to Grandfather the Comanches have stolen many of the farmers' cattle, herding them right out from under our neighbors' noses and driving them west across the border into New Mexico to sell to the Comancheros, the Spanish-speaking traders. But with all those cows, it seems the raiding Indians did not bother to milk them, let alone to turn the milk into butter.

  The strangest thing happened after Cynthia Ann had churned the cream and worked the curds in a bowl with the paddle until she had a crock of butter ready to take to the springhouse. She asked for some, and we gave it to her, thinking she wanted it to spread on the bread just taken out of the oven. Instead, she put the butter on her hair!

  This made an awful mess and quite upset Mama, who is convinced that Cynthia Ann is truly, hopelessly mad. "If she continues to behave like this," she complains to Grandfather, "I don't know what I will do."

  "We must pray for her, Anna" is his reply. This is always his response to our problems. Grandfather is determined that Cynthia Ann will become a Christian again, as she was as a small child. Each night he gathers us together and reads aloud from the Bible, hoping, I suppose, that the words themselves will affect her. And keep her from buttering her hair.

  Chapter Four

  Loo-see draped the length of dark blue cloth around Naduah's body and held it while Loo-see's Ma-ma marked it with a white stick. Then they spread the cloth on the table and cut it with two knives connected in the middle. Naduah had seen this doubleknife among the goods the traders offered the People, but it hadn't interested her. Now she saw how the thing worked, opening and closing to cut. Loo-see began to sew the pieces of cloth together.