He couldn’t bring himself to believe or trust in a God that dealt such a heavy hand to the innocent.
Seeing his mother clutch her purse strings, it took all the will he could muster not to turn the team in the direction of the ranch and take her home.
Jaw clenched tight, Joe climbed down off the wagon seat and reached up to help her to the ground.
“You all right, Ma?” He stared up into her eyes. Most of her face and all of her hair was conveniently hidden from the crowd by the wide brim of her poke bonnet.
“I’m fine, son.” She shook the folds out of her skirt and smiled tremulously. Her eyes were hazel, clear and shining. All the color had drained from her face except where her cheeks were stained by two bright red spots of embarrassment.
He thought of the way she used to smile, the way she’d flush with excitement over the smallest things—going into town for Sunday service, chatting with friends at a social, baking something special for the Quilters Society Meeting.
Despite her scar, at forty-five she was still a handsome woman. Just now he was proud as she held her head high and started toward the double doors of the church hall.
Joe looped the lines over a hitching post and hurried to catch up. Ignoring the stares and murmurs of the assembly, he caught up to Hattie and offered her his arm, not only a sign of the good manners she’d instilled in him, but as a way to ignore the crowd.
No one spoke a word in greeting. When Jesse joined them and they crossed the porch, those gathered near the doors parted to let them pass. He kept his eyes on the double doors to the hall. The window shades were pulled down tight, obscuring the view inside. Two uniformed soldiers stood on each side of the doors like bookends. They saluted as Jesse approached.
Without hesitation, Jesse opened the door just wide enough for the three of them to enter before he quickly drew it closed behind them.
Joe felt his mother’s fingers tighten around his elbow the moment the door clicked shut. She seemed to sway and leaned into him, startling him. He’d never seen her swoon before and her reaction frightened him.
“We’re leaving,” he told Jesse, his focus centered on Hattie, on her welfare. The close air in the room smelled of charred wood and fear. Dirt and sweat and blood. He tasted his own fear when a low, mournful wail permeated with hopelessness issued from the far corner.
Beside him, his mother drew herself up, straightened her spine and let go of his arm.
“I’m perfectly fine. We are not leaving,” she said.
“You sure you’re all right?” He saw only the gathered edge of her poke bonnet.
“I’m fine, ” she whispered, turning to face him full on.
His mother had never lied in her life—before now. Her skin was the color of her Sunday-best white linen tablecloth. Her eyes were wide and terrified—of either the past or what she was afraid she’d see before her. He couldn’t tell. But he did know she was far from fine.
“Over here.” Jesse stewarded them across the room toward the opposite corner, moving swiftly, as if worried Joe would make good on his threat to leave.
They stopped before four filthy women huddled together on the floor, their backs against the wall. It wasn’t until they were nearly upon them that Joe realized the women were bound together, hand to hand, foot to foot.
Except that the oldest had muddy blond hair, they bore no resemblance to white women at all. Dressed in fringed deerskin gowns, their hair parted and plaited into long braids, there was nothing about them that indicated they were anything but Comanche.
Who had they been?
Who were they now?
“So many,” Hattie whispered.
Joe knew she believed no one was ever beyond redemption, but this? These women had been carried off into another world, a savage, brutal world. Was there anything left of their former selves to be saved?
Jesse stared down at the unfortunate women. “If female captives aren’t made slaves or adopted into the clan, they’re sold and traded many times over.”
None of the former captives made eye contact with Joe, Hattie or the captain, nor did they look at one another as they sat shoulder to shoulder, each imprisoned in her own misery.
The oldest, the blonde, rocked back and forth with her eyes closed, a strange, demented smile on her face. Her fingers picked endlessly at her skirt.
Ceaseless moaning came from a heavyset woman beside her with sun-damaged, puffy cheeks and matted, reddish-brown hair. The tip of her nose was missing. She stared across the room with unseeing eyes, her face slack and devoid of expression. Whatever haunted her now was trapped in her mind and not this room.
A girl of around twelve years slowly looked up at them. Joe’s breath caught when he noticed all the fingers of her left hand were missing and had been for some time. The stumps were healed over, her skin tanned to a golden brown. He tried not to stare and failed miserably.
When their gazes met, the child’s lips curled. She bared her teeth like a feral animal.
“She’s from outside Burnet. Taken two years ago. Her parents are on the way to get her,” Jesse explained.
“What if they don’t want her?” Joe wondered aloud.
“She’s someone’s girl, Joe,” Hattie said with assurance. “Their baby. If you were a father you’d know. They’ll still want her.”
He doubted he’d ever be a father. Doubted he had the strength it would take to confront what this battered child’s parents would be facing. Doubted he could accept such a burden. Hattie was speaking with a mother’s heart. For years now he’d been certain he didn’t even have a heart anymore.
“The girl we intend for you to take is over here.” Jesse’s words reminded Joe of why they’d come. Staring at the maimed, feral child, he knew giving in to his mother’s request had been a big mistake.
Jesse led them over to a boy tied beside yet another young woman. About ten years old, with a head full of white-blond hair, the male child cried without making a sound. Tears streaked his face and dripped down his chin. He was near naked, wearing only a rawhide breechcloth and well-worn moccasins.
Beside him, a trim young woman in a fringed and beaded tanned deerskin skirt and shirt matted with dried blood sat with her head hanging down, her hands clenched in her lap. Intricately beaded moccasins covered her feet.
“That’s her,” Jesse said.
“The slender one?” Hattie asked. “Why, she’s no bigger than a minute.”
Joe glanced away from her bare, shapely ankles and calves and focused on her bound wrists and clenched hands. She appeared to be anywhere from her late teens to early twenties and from where he stood, she could pass for full Comanche. Her skin was a golden, nut-brown. Her arms looked strong and firm, as if she was used to heavy work. Her hair was dark brown, but upon closer inspection, he saw it was shot through with reddish-gold highlights.
He tried to imagine taking her back to the ranch, settling her into his sister’s room.
Turning his back on her.
What is my mother thinking?
“How do you know she’s not a half-breed?” he wondered aloud.
Jesse hunkered down into a squat, gently put his hand beneath the girl’s chin. She didn’t resist or try to pull away as he forced her head up.
When she stubbornly kept her eyelids shuttered, Jesse commanded, “Look up.”
Slowly, the young woman raised her thick, silky lashes and insolently