I SHOT ONE rattlesnake on the way back. It slithered into our camp that night. I had gathered the wood for the fire and rubbed the steel and flint together to start it. I cooked the supper and cleaned up afterward.
Gabe spoke to me, giving directions. We would take our watches, as usual, he said. If he saw something, he’d wake me so I could ready my gun. There was no more talk about “others out here like us” because he knew there never could be. And no more talk about who was scared and who wasn’t because I knew now that I would be scared, too, just sitting down in Ma’s house.
He saw the rattlesnake first. I picked up my gun, feeling it an alien thing in my hands. I sat there just looking at it dumbly.
“Come on, shoot!” he urged.
I shot. I killed the rattlesnake. Just like I had killed Sis Goose.
“It only took you a hundred years!” he scolded. Raw, unconcealed anger. I turned away and he picked up the snake and threw it into the far night.
I took the first watch. There were no stars in the sky.
THE NEXT day we reached San Felipe and the Sisters of Charity.
They welcomed us. They exclaimed over Gabe’s wound and took him in hand and changed the bandages. He told them what had happened and how I couldn’t talk. And Sister Geraldine took me in her arms and called me poor child and hugged me.
We saw Ham. And the reunion was joyful between him and Gabe, the way it used to be with me. I know Sister Geraldine spoke to Gabe in private about me. I know she told him I was hurting because he hadn’t spoken like his old self to me.
I know this because I wrote it out for her in one of our conversations.
We sat at table together. We enjoyed Ham’s company and the food and the talk, and still Gabe never teased or joked with me.
I went to take a siesta that last afternoon of our stay because I was tired, because tomorrow morning we were leaving for home, and because I needed to think. About Mama and what I would tell her about Sis Goose. About Pa and what he would say to me. Would they ever forgive me?
I suppose I could have gone into the chapel, like Sister suggested. I tried. I did try.
But when I opened the heavy, dark door I nearly wet my pants.
There was Gabe. Seated in the third row from the back, his hat off. Just sitting there, doing nothing. Still, the idea of my strong, Indian-fighting brother, my shot-up, bandaged-up brother even coming in here . . .
I closed the door and crept upstairs to my room to rest.
As long as I live I’ll never forget that image of him sitting there and praying. Because that’s what he was doing. Why else does a person go to a place like that with all those statues staring at you?
And as long as I live I’ll never tell him I saw him there, either.
But never mind Gabe. What about me?
For no matter what anyone said to me, even with Gabe testifying that it was not my fault, even with Major Cogan setting us free of all charges, even with Sister Geraldine talking softly to me and tucking me in and telling me that God did not hold me accountable, even with all that, I did not feel forgiven.
It wasn’t God that I needed to forgive me.
Afternoon sunlight filtered in through the blinds. From somewhere downstairs a nun was playing a harp. The song was “Greensleeves.” I fell asleep. I don’t know how long.
It was then that I heard some men talking. I looked out the window to the barnyard and I saw Gabe and Priam, the nuns’ man-about-the-place.
Priam was checking the cinch on Gabe’s saddle.
Gabe was saddled up! He was leaving! Without me!
How, oh how, had this come about? He was leaving me here with the nuns!
How could he get home alone? Who would do for him? Who would gather wood for his fire? Strike the steel and flint to start it? Shoot the rattlesnakes?
Just because I’d frozen before shooting that rattlesnake around our fire, had he given up on me? And then I saw Ham on a horse. Not mine, but one belonging to the nuns.
Oh, he was taking Ham and not me! I stumbled about, looking for a robe and my moccasins. I opened the door and fumbled my way down the stairs.
I ran through the house and out the back door. Over the back verandah and out to the barnyard.
They were gone!
I ran down the path on the side of the house that led to the street. They were in the street already. Several houses away.
I stood there like a jackass in the rain. And then, not thinking, I called out.
“Gabe! Gabriel Holcomb, you come back here!”
They stopped. They turned their horses to look at me and I ran to them, running until I was out of breath. I stood in front of them in the afternoon street. Oh, I could see their faces all right. And they could see mine.
“Gabriel Holcomb,” I scolded, just like Mama would when he came into the house with muddy boots. “Where do you think you’re going?”
He scowled. Then he shook his head. “You’re talking,” he said.
“I’m doing more than talking. I’m giving you the what-for you deserve. Where do you think you’re going without me? Who’s going to light your fire, cook your food, kill your rattlesnakes? Ham? You know you need me. Do you hear me?”
“The whole town does.”
“And why would you leave me here? What for?”
“Leave you? Do I look like I’m leaving you? Where are my saddlebags? Where’s the mule? You’re really teched in the head now. Besides which you look really domineering in your robe and slippers in the middle of the street.”
I looked down at myself in horror and hugged myself for modesty.
“Where are you going then?” I demanded.
“Taking one of the horses to have its shoe repaired at the blacksmith at the end of the street. Is that all right with you, madam?”
He was joking with me again. It was so all right with me I wanted to pick up stones and weeds and throw them, cry out, and do other necessary solemn acts, like Grandpa had done when he claimed the land, only I didn’t know what they were.
“All right if we go get the horse’s shoes fixed now?” he asked.
I nodded. “Be back in time for supper. We ride tomorrow morning.”
“There’s one thing you’re forgetting, Luli. I’ve got to come back with you. Can’t leave you here. I promised Cochran. You’re under my recognizance, remember? That’s his language for it. In mine it’s Southern honor.”
I just looked at him. It meant a lot to him, that honor business.
“It’s what the war was all about, Luli. Lost or not. It’s what we’re all about, and if I have to teach you that, I will. Anyway, glad you’re talking.”
“Me, too.”
“Remember, no sass.”
“No sass,” I agreed.
I turned and started walking back to the convent.