Paulette Jiles - News of the World

IT DID NOT matter what the Captain said to Wilhelm Leonberger, that the girl needed quiet and peace and a gradual adjustment to her new circumstances, that she thought of herself as a Kiowa and must slowly be brought to learn European behavior all over again, that she had changed guardians three times now and needed reassurance. He knew that the news was too good, too electrifying to keep to oneself. Soon they would come, probably with the priest, they would come with songs and praise and thankfulness and sausages and cakes mit schlage über. They would cry out words in German to her, to see if she remembered. They would hold out to her tintypes of her parents, a dress she had had when she was six. Remember? Remember?

The Captain sat on a horsehair sofa with a cup of strong coffee in one hand and a seed cake in the other. Johanna had fallen into a corner on her haunches with her hands clasped around her ankles and her skirts bunched up in her elbows, staring at all the things the white people collected and put inside their immovable houses. The daguerreotypes, which to her were strange metal plates with odd arrangements of blacks and whites. The doilies, the carpet with violently orange and garnet flowers, glass in the windows and ironstone dishes standing up on a sideboard like plate armor, fragile little side tables. There were drapes hanging in front of the windows against all logic. She did not know why one would make windows in a stone wall and put glass in them and then cover them over with cloth.

Get up, the woman said. Get up now.

Johanna regarded her with a serious and searching gaze and then turned away.

We found them with the brains out, said Wilhelm. My brother and his wife. The savages spill out the brains and then stuff in the grass. In the skull. Like hen nest.

I see, said the Captain. His coffee was growing cold. With some determination, he drank it.

Her mother they outrage.

Terrible, said Captain Kidd.

Then kill in pieces.

Unspeakable. He shook his head. His stomach felt suddenly unstable.

Anna was a thin woman, defined and accurate in her gestures. She was dark with the smooth olive skin and black eyes of Bavarians. She turned her head slowly, slowly, and looked at the girl defiantly sitting on the floor in a welter of madder-and-yellow-checked skirts, the lace edging torn off, hard bare feet, her hair spraying out of its braids, and then pressed her lips into a tight line and regarded her shoe toes.

Anna said, The little sister they kill by the troat being cut. They hang her by a leg on the big tree on the Sabinal where is the store there. Anna shut her hands together. No chasing will catch them. The men all chased. They rode their horses to death to chase.

I understand, said the Captain. He dabbed at his lips. The coffee was strong enough to stand a spoon in.

So. Anna looked down. She wiped at her eyes with her wrist. She is glad to come back then, from the savages.

They all turned and looked at the little captive. She was singing to herself, slowly, very low, her head nodding a beat at a time, some song in Kiowa. A curse, perhaps, on the enemies of the Coi-gu , a plea to the sun which is the father of all things, praise for the Wichita Mountains, a call for help.

She must learn to work again, said Wilhelm. She must learn our ways again. He took a deep breath. We have no children except for a nephew of us who is now working at the cattle establishment of the Englishman in Frio Town. We are prepared to take her in. My wife needs help. There is much work to be done. She doesn’t like a chair for sitting? Look at her on the floor.

She thinks she is Indian? asked Anna. She slid her eyes sideways to look at Johanna again. Get up, she said. Johanna ignored her.

I’m afraid so, said the Captain. I hope you will take that into account. She is only ten.

The child must be corrected strong.

I think she’s already been through that.

Anna nodded. She is not too small to do her share.

Certainly not, said the Captain.

Wilhelm paused with his mouth slightly open. He was puzzling over something. They waited, as if suspended on strings while his lips worked. Finally he said, And so you have no receipt for the purchasing of that vagon?

No.

THE CAPTAIN SPENT the night lying like a plank on a hard bed upstairs but Johanna would not be moved from the Curative Waters wagon bed and her big red jorongo. The next day, when all the people came she darted into the barn, swarmed up the ladder with her skirt front tucked into her belt, showing her ankles and shins, and would not come down. When they tried to climb halfway up the ladder and speak to her in German she hurled down a sickle and a barking spud.

Leave her alone, said Captain Kidd. Can you not just leave her alone for a while?

And so the community of D’Hanis celebrated the return of one of their own from the hands of the savages without her. Kind, well-meaning people whose labor had brought about the elegant stone church of St. Dominic’s, and graceful stone houses with long gallerias, gardens grown from seeds of the celebrated Huth Seed Company of Castroville, peonies big as cabbages and cabbages the size of butter churns. The priest shook the Captain’s hand heartily for several moments, clapped him on the shoulder and expressed his thanks, his admiration, said God surely had protected them that long way. He had an Irish accent. They laid out long tables in the yard, spread with Alsatian foods, smoking briskets in the Texas style, and dishes made of potatoes and cheeses and cream.

Adolph the messenger came to sit beside the Captain. He was a broad-shouldered man with the inevitable squared head of Germany. The dogs had been beaten back under the wagons and lay there with tails thumping steadily in the dust. A bright blue scrub jay darted down to land on the fence palings and look at the food with one eye first and then the other eye, overcome with admiration for the rich look of Alsatian cooking.

The man said, Wilhelm and Anna, they work hard.

The Captain lifted a fluffy biscuit. He said, I’m listening.

They had their nephew staying with them but he ran off. Down to the Nueces strip.

Frio Town.

The same.

Because they worked him like a Turk.

Yes.

The Captain said, What can be done?

Nothing. The man gestured with his big-boned hand toward the crowd with a fork. Everyone has come to celebrate her return. They will go home and talk about it forever, unto the next generation. But they will not come here and ask about her welfare. They will not intrude into the family circle of the Leonbergers and find out if she is in fact being well-treated. Is it not the same with you English?

Unfortunately.

Not anywhere. Not English or Spanish or German. So it is with the world. I am German myself and I tell you, these people can be hard. He let out a long breath. I chased the Indians when they took the girls, killid her parents. I killid my best horse. He blew his lungs out on Bandera Pass.

You did your best. The Captain laid a hand on the man’s shoulder and then got up and sat his plate on the tailgate of a wagon. I must go, he said. Thank you for the warning. But I am helpless here.

They have no adoption papers.

Who would care? The priest?

Yes. He would be the one to prepare them I suppose.

Will they adopt her?

The tall man leaned back in his chair and turned his head to look at Wilhelm and Anna. They sat among the crowd of friends and neighbors, stern and cold as if they were at a judicial hearing. The Captain saw that few people were talking to the couple. The guests were laughing and joking among themselves, happy, talkative, and some few were glancing toward the big pole barn where Johanna hid, but they were not talking with the Leonbergers.