SCENE NINE The Riordan/Randolph homestead, near Los Miraboles Canyon
Cooper Smith sat next to Miriam Randolph as she took a few quiet moments to play with and feed some supper to her twins, named, he'd been surprised and a little chagrined to learn, Nathaniel and Jacob.
"Not for me and my cousin up in Wyoming Territory, I hope, Miri." the scout, who'd been christened Nathaniel Kieran Anglim Cooper, asked. "We're not worth a hill of beans put together, much less being named after."
"Don't be silly! We named the twins for your grandfathers, Nathaniel Cooper and Jacob Smith, two truly fine gentlemen who surely deserve more than one namesake each." Miri answered. "But what do you hear from that wild-heart cousin of yours, these days, Cooper? Has Jess really put down roots up in Wyoming? I have to say, when I heard he might have, I could hardly believe it."
"He likes it up there pretty well. He's even gone partners on a small ranch, which I have to admit, I found hard to imagine myself. So of the two of us, I'm more the tumbleweed these days, still scouting for Chris Hale's train." Coop shrugged. "Still haven't found anywhere to settle."
"You never think any more about going back to Nacogdoches?" Miri probed. "That is, when you're ready to stop tumbling across the plains and rivers and mountains?"
"With momma and so many others gone… " Coop shook his head. "I dunno, Miri. Last time I stopped there, it still didn't feel like home, without her, without Jeffy… and …"
"Without Thea?"Miriam asked, with a look that said she hated asking but still wanted to know the answer.
"She married Mickey a long time ago, Miri. So the answer's no. I don't think about Thea much at all, or I didn't for a long time… before today." Coop turned from trying to interest one year old Jacob in his namesake's battered and tarnished watch-fob, that had no watch to go with it, to glance at Miriam sharply.
"But ever since I got here, Miri, ever since I laid eyes on you, I've been wondering the same thing. When are you going to tell me what happened to Thea? How did she … what happened to her? I know you're holding back cause it's not easy saying or easy hearing… But … you said I was dancin' all around the question I wanted to ask you. So now I'm right out asking. So just tell me. What happened to Thea?"
"She saved our lives, Cooper, all of our lives." Miriam answered quietly and somehow proudly, Coop thought. "And she was… purely amazing doing it, too."
"Well, Timmy… Thea, I mean always was amazing … to me, anyhow." Coop nodded. "But go on, Miri. I … want to know. "
Miriam smiled tiredly and laid both her hands on Coop's. "Alright, Cooper. Do you remember how when we were kids back in Nacogdoches I was the one everyone plagued because I thought I wanted to be a midwife and even a doctor if I could. I was always running after your momma and trying to learn her ways, and her skills and such. I was in her kitchen or her still room almost as much as Jemmy Singer was back then, before he and his Daddy …moved away. And everyone said it was all because I had a case for Jemmy. But I never did, I pretended to sometimes, because I liked to plague some folks right back again in those days…"
"Especially Eli, because he never had a case for anyone but you, right?" Coop chuckled. "Alright. Yeah, I remember all that. What does it have to do…"
"Well, you see it wasn't me who truly learned from your momma. Oh, I picked up some of her ways with making simples and salves. But it turned out, Thea was the one who learned her … well, I'd call it magic, if you think it wouldn't insult Missus Beth's memory. When we first met Bavi and his people out here, it was Thea who worked Missus Beth's healing ways for Bavi's sisters. It was Thea who kept them both and their babies from dying in childbirth. And to Bavi's people, every child is not just thoroughly loved and cherished but desperately needed if they're going to survive into even one more generation.
Now all that happened at the point when we were just getting to know each other, our little band from east Texas and Bavi's people. And I know you can understand, Cooper that it wasn't easy trying to live alongside each other. They thought we wanted to take their lands, when all we wanted, truly was a new home here. And we thought they wanted to drive us away. When all they wanted was not to be cheated, lied to and robbed by another band of white settlers.
So it was Thea who eased Bavi's uncle who had been their leader, through his last illness. And that, along with her midwifery began the process of drawing us all together. And she did that without once letting that good, wise old man seem weak or dependent. And I think in that case she learned what to do while her own grandfather was dying. So Bavi's people came to trust Thea, and to trust us because of her. And when things began to go badly here for just about everyone, that trust, the friendships that grew out of it, helped us all get through… It still is, you can see that, can't you, Cooper?" Miriam asked her dark, wide eyes full of worry and compassion.
"I guess so." Coop agreed, shifting his weight from one uncomfortable spot to another. He was trying to imagine Thea working the same kind of healing his mother did so often for so many. But that wasn't fitting in his head anymore comfortably than the crumbling adobe blocks fit underneath him right now.
"But what happened then?" Duke asked, from his post by the wall across from the old friends. "Seems to me you've only told half the story, Mrs. Randolph."
"Big pitchers have big ears, too, it seems to me." Coop laughed. "Aren't you supposed to be keeping an eye out towards that canyon?"
"I am. Nothing and no one is moving out there." Duke answered. "But I apologize, Mrs. Randolph, for eavesdropping. I just know this close-mouthed black haired tombstone you're talking to. And he'd never let anyone in on what sounds like a pretty interesting story. But, I'll move further away if you'd rather…"
"No, no, it's fine." Miriam shook her head. "And please, call me Miriam. Mrs. Randolph will always be Eli's grandmother, as far as I'm concerned. What happened then wasn't an event, it was a person. It was a man who calls himself a man of the cloth, a Man of G-d. He calls himself the Reverend Anthony Alexander Zerachiel Godsey. And he claims to be a minister out here on a Holy Mission.
He came into this part of the territory almost two years ago now, with a troop of men. And most of them are former soldiers, I think, former Confederates, like Eli and Micheal, and you, Cooper. But what I know for certain sure is that all of them are worse renegades, thieves and … outlaws than any of Bavi's men could ever be. And I wish I could tell you we knew Reverend Godsey brought nothing but trouble with him right away. But we didn't.
Well, the Reverend came out here claiming it was his vocation to bring G-d to this territory. But all he brought was hatred, violence and vengeance. And more than anything or anyone, he seems to hate people like Bavi and his family… people of both Indian and Mexican families. I don't know why and I'm not sure I want to. What I do know is he succeeded in tearing our home here apart. He succeeded in setting us at odds with each other. And he succeeded in breaking a lot of hearts here. And one of those hearts was Thea Riordan's, when Micheal took sides with the Reverend, against Bavi and his people."
"Ah G-d!" Coop sighed. "When will Mickey ever learn? Once Thea gets an idea in her head, or decides to trust, or not to trust somebody, there's just no one and nothing can move her! But I think we're still missin' part of the story, Miri. You said b'fore that Aguilar saved you, and Thea and your kids from bein' carried off to Mexico by…"
"Other bands of Comancheros who are dealing in a slave trade out here, these days." Miriam agreed. " He did, Cooper. Bavi and his men, his family fought off …oh it must have been four or five raiding parties, before those marauders got the message. He…adopted us, if you want to put it that way. He put us under his protection, under his 'eagle's wings', oh, months and months before his uncle died."
"But that's what I still don't understand, Miri." Coop replied, frowning. "And … I'm not sure I even want to know the answer to my next question. But I have to ask you. Why did Aguilar do that? Why would he? For the sake of his sisters and their children? For the sake of his uncle? Or was there some other reason?"
"Well, of course there was. There was Thea, Cooper." Miriam answered, as if she were explaining something any child could easily grasp. "The first time he saw her…"
"He fell in love with Thea?" Coop demanded, his frown and his eyes getting stormy "Aguilar wanted to…"
"NO!" Miriam replied frowning up at Coop. "No, that wasn't it at all. Will you let me finish? The first time Bavi and his little boy saw Thea, his son Toyarohco called out 'Kwihnai Ohapitu' which we later learned means 'yellow eagle' or … if you stretch a point, 'bright eagle'. Well, I'm sure you know very well how important the eagle is to the Shoshoni and the other plains tribes. And I know you must have been perfectly well aware before Bavi mentioned it, that the Comanche were part of the Shoshoni, and are still close cousins. So Bright Eagle is what Bavi and his people started calling Thea. And they said it meant she was Good Medicine for them, and they were bound to protect her, and anyone who … belonged with her. And Thea proved them right."
"But they didn't do such a fine job of protecting her, did they?" Coop asked, making a sudden,serious study of his hands, which still had Miriam's hands wrapped around them. "Aguilar and his people didn't protect Thea when it came down to it, did they? Because what you're leadin' up to tellin' us is that when this Godsey, this Reverend made all that trouble…that's when Thea … that's when she …died…"
"Why Nathaniel Kieran Anglim Cooper Smith!" Another woman's voice, throaty and warm and unmistakable called out, laughing.
"Whatever in the world makes you think that? Who in the world told you I died?"