BRANDED

“Is she under lock and key, Sergeant?”

“Yessir, Colonel. She’s a real wildcat, sir”.

As the sergeant spoke, he turned his head to show the officer the scratches he had suffered down the side of his face and neck.

“It'll take her a while to settle down, I reckon. See how she goes with no food for a day”.

“Yessir”.

The sergeant left his commanding officer’s quarters and strolled across the sandy parade ground. When he was sure he was out of sight, in the shadows of the stockade, he opened his leather gloved hand and stared intently at the locket he had snatched from the woman’s neck as she fought off his sexual advances. With difficulty, he prised it open and stared at the daguerreotype within; a picture of a middle-aged woman staring directly at the person taking her image.

“Might just be worth a dollar or two. That’ll teach that bitch and her sharp claws”.

The storeroom, which was occasionally used as a makeshift gaol when necessary, usually when one of the enlisted men had, unwisely, decided to spend his pittance of pay entirely on whiskey, had never before held a female. This fact had, almost certainly, escaped the thoughts of the hardened cavalry men who had captured the woman. The room consisted of timber planks roughly nailed together and erected against the sturdy log walls of the fort. Its contents were sacks of food stuffs such as corn, wheat and sugar and barrels of fresh drinking water that had been hauled from the nearby Rio Grande river. While a drunken soldier could collapse on the dirt floor without a second thought, there was no place for a young woman to lie down and, even worse, to relieve herself should the need arise.

It was this lack of thought that aroused the ire of the Reverend Chaplin’s wife when she first peered into the storeroom at the behest of Colonel Walters, several hours later upon her return from Socorro where the reverend had been preaching. She was appalled as she stared through a gap in the planks and espied the captive squatting low and in the act of urinating, a steady stream meandering down the uneven flooring of this cell and heading straight for one of the hessian sacks containing vital provisions for the inhabitants of Fort Craig. Turning abruptly on her heels, she headed back to confront the commanding officer.

“Nathan Walters, that...that woman is...she...why, she is using our storeroom as a toilet”.

“Settle down, now, Muriel. I’ll have someone take care of it immediately...”

“Oh, fiddlesticks, Nathan. Shame on you. That young girl should not be incarcerated in a room with no facilities, is what I mean. Where is she supposed to sleep for starters?”

This conundrum had clearly not been something the colonel had given too much thought to and, now that the subject was being raised by this firebrand of a woman, one he respected and was slightly in awe of, he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it himself. In trying to explain his lack of rationale, he could only mumble incoherently.

“Well, you see...uh, this is a most unusual.. uh...circumstance, Muriel. I...”

“It is unusual. I’ll grant you that”.

Somewhat mollified, the colonel began to stand from his desk chair but Muriel Chaplin had not finished with him just yet.

“So unusual that you should have thought about this more carefully before just locking her up like this. Don’t you see, Nathan, that young girl is a victim. As Christians, it behoves us to help her not treat her as though she is a common criminal”.

“Well, I...most certainly...uh...Oh hell, Muriel, what would you have me do? I have never come across a situation like this before and she was wild when they found her. Wild, I tell you. You should see the scratches on Sergeant Wilson’s face. I just had her put under lock and key...”

“Sergeant Wilson is a heathen of the first order. He is a drunkard and a liar. I don’t know why you tolerate the man. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him but that’s by the by. Nathan, that girl cannot be kept in that place, do you hear me? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you had also ordered her not to be fed so’s you could teach her a lesson”.

The colonel’s stupefied reaction confirmed Muriel’s astuteness.

“Dear God in Heaven, Nathan, do I have to repeat myself? That girl is a victim!”

“Alright, you’ve made your point but she’s a savage, Muriel. If you want her, you can have her but I won’t be too startled when I learn that she has escaped after slitting both you and your husband’s throats. There! What d’you think of that little possibility?”

“She is no savage. Have you even seen her, Nathan?”

“Not yet, no. But I was about to go look when you arrived back”.

“She has blonde hair. She has blue eyes. But enough of this. I understand that she is scared, probably terrified, unsure of what will happen to her. She needs to be spoken to, reassured. I suggest that you move her to our quarters. She can be sequestered in our spare room. At least she will have a bed to sleep on. I’ll see that she has a chamber pot and food and the door will be locked. I can talk to her through the door. All you have to do, Nathan, is post a guard outside the window. Let me try this approach”.

An hour later, the reverend’s wife had to admit that the colonel had not been understating the wildness of this young girl. Muriel had watched as two soldiers had forcefully carried her into the Chaplin’s cabin, the girl screaming and kicking throughout. Now, as the reverend’s wife sat on the floor outside the locked door, attempting to talk soothingly, reassuringly to her strange visitor, the girl had begun a high pitched keening. It was a sound that Muriel had heard before when she had begun her missionary work alongside her husband amongst the indigenous tribes of the west; the sound of deep mourning. She sighed resignedly as her husband joined her. They both knew it was going to be a long night.

Around midnight, the Reverend Chaplin gently shook his wife to waken her.

“Oh, I fell asleep. I’m sorry, John”.

In response, her husband put his finger to his lip and pointed towards the bedroom door. The keening had stopped. The reverend mimed the act of sleeping.

“It stopped a half hour or so ago. I waited a while before opening the door quietly. She’s fast asleep atop the bed; snoring. I took the opportunity to put in a tray. Just a sandwich and some water but she’ll see it when she wakes up”.

Muriel, noting the blanket that her husband had placed over her while she slept, smiled up at her husband.

“You’re a good man, John. What would I do without you?”

Jonah Wilson, sitting on a corn sack in the storeroom gaol, quietly fumed as he digested everything that had occurred in the last few hours. The feral girl had obviously reported the stealing of her locket, leading to the discovery in his possession and immediate stripping of his rank and the court martial that awaited. To add insult to injury, he could clearly see the trail that the savage’s urine had made in the dirt floor. It wasn’t right that he should be locked up like this while she was sleeping in a proper bed. He spat on the floor in disgust.

“Damned savages, that’s what they are. I’ll make her plenty sorry if we cross paths again”.

“It must be her mother, or somebody else dear to her, Nathan. There’s no other explanation”.

“I hear you, Muriel but there’s still the possibility that she stole the locket from some poor unfor...”

“Can you just hear yourself? The hair, the eyes and, now, this? What more proof do you need? And I have told you so many times that Jonah Wilson was not to be trusted...”

“I admit, you were right to doubt him. One of the other men found him with the locket by chance. I have sent a telegram to Albuquerque and, hopefully, they will be able to match a description of the girl pictured in the locket with their records. In the meantime, how’s she doing?”

‘I’m making progress. It’s painstakingly slow but I just know she can understand what I say. She listens when I talk. I think she may not have spoken our language for a while but she is starting to remember; I’m sure of it. Plus, she is eating and doesn’t try to rush us when we enter. I have provided soap and water for her to wash but, so far, she hasn’t taken the bait. She sure smells powerfully strong”.

“It’s bear grease. It stinks but they use it in their hair. Guess it smells good to them”.

Colonel Walters and Muriel Chaplin stood in the parade ground and watched as the gates of the fort slowly opened admitting the stagecoach. The fine sand swirled as the horses were brought to a sharp halt. The sun beat down relentlessly and Muriel was glad she had worn her bonnet as she looked expectantly at the two people, a man and a woman, as they alighted from the coach. The man was elderly, stiff from the journey, dressed soberly in a dark suit, almost certainly, his Sunday best. The woman was younger though her face betrayed the harshness of life living on the prairie. Both newcomers appeared beaten down by the reason for this trip, an extension of the wandering lives they had felt compelled to live for the last seven years. Nathan Walters approached them both and welcomed them to Fort Craig.

“It is my daughter. There’s no mistaking her”.

The man, who spoke with a strong European accent, wiped the tears from his eyes as he spoke, passing the locket to his younger companion who, upon seeing this image of her sister, immediately collapsed into sobs. Through her tears, she confirmed the identification.

“ It’s Rebecca, for sure. Where? How did you...?”

The father and daughter comforted each other as Nathan Walters explained the situation.

“When Albuquerque confirmed that the description of the daguerreotype matched your daughter’s, Mr. Kaufman, I didn’t want to get your hopes up. I simply said that we might have some news that would interest you...”

The woman interrupted the colonel.

“We came immediately. We know, of course, that Rebecca is dead. We found her body, that day...”

“Alongside my wife’s and my two son in laws. Slaughtered, scalped”, the father finished his daughter’s sentence.

The man started to shudder, sobs wracking his body, the memory of that awful day too unbearable to recall. His daughter continued in his place.

“There was no sign of Rebecca’s daughter, Missy. We...we hoped that...we never stopped searching, never gave up hope even though it’s been seven years. We sold the farm, the stock, everything, so we had enough money to allow us to search. When we got word of the locket, it gave us new hope. We caught the next stagecoach”.

Muriel Chaplin addressed the two sympathetically.

“I am so sorry for your loss. The incident must have been truly horrific. We certainly don’t want to get your hopes up but, before you see the girl, there’s a few things you need to prepare yourself for. Colonel Walter, here, had the army surgeon from Socorro examine her and I have to tell you that she is no longer unsullied. He also confirmed that she has borne, at least, one child. I can say, from my own limited dealings with her, that it is being parted from the child that seems to be causing her the most distress”.

Kaufman looked askance at his daughter, Abigail, whose own face had grown ashen at this news. It was Abigail who spoke for both of them.

“Obviously, this has come as a shock. I’m sure you understand. In our minds, we still think of Missy as the sweet, innocent child of twelve that we last saw seven years ago before...”

Muriel Chaplin nodded.

“There’s something else that I feel you need to be aware of...this young woman, has...well, she has markings; on her face. You may find them to be quite disturbing”.

“Scars? On her face? You mean on her cheeks?”

“No. Tattoos. And they cover her mouth. It can be very off-putting at first. At least, it was for me”.

Colonel Walters, seeing the appalled looks on the newcomers’ faces, broke in.

“May I suggest that we take you to see this woman. After all, there is still a very good chance that she is not Missy”.

The Reverend knocked once on the bedroom door before turning the key and admitting Kaufman and his daughter entry into the room. He, his wife and the colonel looked at each other apprehensively. At first, there was no sound but, after a few minutes, they could hear muffled murmurs followed soon after by sobs. They respectfully withdrew some distance and awaited the outcome. It was an hour before a knock sounded from within and the reverend scurried to unlock the door. Kaufman and his daughter, their eyes red from crying, exited. Immediately, Kaufman stated in his strong German accent:

“It is not my granddaughter!”.

Abigail looked tearful, still, but she shook her head in agreement with her father. The two seemed extremely eager to leave the cabin and moved towards the door. Colonel Walters shrugged at Muriel but the reverend’s wife looked puzzled. The tears, the sound of talking. Surely, neither would have occurred unless the young woman had struck a nerve or contributed to the conversation. It just made no sense. Kaufman turned at the door.

“We thank you. It was worth the trip. At least, we have my daughter’s locket which will bring us much comfort but we intend to board the stagecoach when it leaves in an hour”.

The two sat alone in the stagecoach awaiting the changing of horses. Muriel Chaplin came hurrying from her cabin waving in their direction and called out to the Kaufman duo.

“We’re just making you up some sandwiches for your journey”.

Abigail stepped down reluctantly from the coach to go and collect the food offering. As she neared the Chaplin cabin, Muriel spoke, loud enough for Abigail to understand but not so loud that the Kaufman patriarch could overhear.

“That girl inside has been crying. I can tell from her eyes. She is Missy, isn’t she?”

Abigail looked back at the stagecoach but her father wasn’t looking in their direction. She nodded to Muriel.

“Yes. She is my niece, Missy; my sister, Rebecca’s daughter. I recognised her as soon as I saw her, despite the hideous markings on her face. She recognised us, too. She understood every word we said though it was clear that she hadn’t spoken English for some time. You have no idea how far and wide we have searched”.

“Then why, in God’s name, are you not taking that girl away with you? She’s your kin!”

Once again, Abigail glanced back at the stagecoach before speaking, just as the Reverend Chaplin emerged from the cabin with a basket.

“You have to understand. It breaks my heart but it’s too late. There are so many reasons why Missy cannot come with us. She has a daughter, a husband, and she will not rest until she is reunited with them. She told us that she is so long away from our customs, so adapted to their ways that she is one of them now; a savage. She doesn’t want to be with her kin; especially not with my father. He’s a good man but very strict in his ways. I believe, in his heart, he disowned Missy the moment he saw her”.

Struggling to understand, as her husband came alongside them, Muriel protested.

“But, of course, it would take time. Maybe, if your father won’t accept her, you and she could...”

“It’s her face; that tattoo across her mouth. No white person will ever accept her again. She knows that. We’d be outcasts from society. I’m...I’m sorry but it’s all too late. She is better off with her new life”.

Grabbing the basket and mumbling her thanks, Abigail returned to her father and Muriel and Reverend Chaplin watched as the stagecoach departed.

During the week that followed, Muriel had spent that time convincing Colonel Walters that it was in the girl’s best interests that Missy be returned to the place where she had been captured and allowed to seek out her new family and when, finally, Nathan had granted permission, Muriel had exulted in Missy’s joyous reaction. Muriel would accompany the troopers entrusted with this task.

The two women sat either side of the man driving the mules that pulled their wagon with two mounted infantrymen front and back. On the other side of the fort, at that same time, Jonah Wilson was being led from the store room to the horse that awaited him, about to commence his journey to Albuquerque for his court-martial . His hands untied, he spotted the savage responsible for his downfall riding alongside the wife of the reverend, another bitch who had never liked him. In an impulsive act of vengeance, Wilson broke away from his guard and reached for the soldier's pistol, firing point blank as the wagon passed him, the bullet piercing the heart of Missy Kaufman also known as Somebody Found or Nadua in her new, Comanche tongue.