“Perhaps in time you will receive an opportunity,” said Aunt Zita, “perhaps in time you can even marry for marriage can be the lesser of various evils and in marriage you can make of your bed a school for the soul of your husband.”
Lucia watched the dust on the horizon. It was getting nearer.
Aunt Zita’s words drifted to her, as if from a distance. They sounded like something she had read, something Aunt Zita had given her to read.
Lucia wished that the approaching dust might have been lifted by the rapid hoofs of the horse of Edward Chance, that he might be riding back, even now, riding back for coffee as he had asked, that he might be coming even now to fetch her, to claim her for his own, to tell her that he wanted her, that he loved her, she and she alone.
She smiled bitterly.
Never, never would she see him again. She had little to remember him by, only the memory of a single kiss which she would never forget, and the sound of the hoofs of his horse as he vanished in the night.
It could not be the dust from the hoofs of his horse, not if he were coming alone. It was the dust of several horses.
“I myself,” Aunt Zita was saying, “have never allowed myself the weakness of the flesh.”
Several horses, several.
“Nor must you,” said Aunt Zita.
Suddenly Lucia turned to face the older woman, her face crimson.
“What do you mean?” she demanded.
Lucia forgot about the dust, the horses.
“Did you place your lips on him?” asked Aunt Zita.
Tears suddenly burned in Lucia’s eyes.
“Did you allow him to put his mouth on you?” asked Aunt Zita.
Lucia burst into tears and ran to the cot on which she slept, throwing herself on it, pushing her face into the folded blanket that covered the pillow, the dust in the distance forgotten.
Aunt Zita rose from the table, her spine as straight as an angel’s sword, her eyes as hard as the points of nails.
She stood over Lucia.
“Did you put your mouth on him?” demanded the older woman. “Did you allow him to put his mouth on you?”
Lucia lifted her head, her eyes filled with tears. “I would have let him do anything he wanted,” she said.
Aunt Zita’s black-sleeved arm whipped forward and her thin, bony hand struck Lucia fully across the mouth, viciously, jerking her head back.
“Shameless,” said Aunt Zita.
Lucia put her fingers to her mouth, which felt numb. Her lips, she could tell with her fingers, were wet. She tasted blood.
“Anything he wanted to,” repeated Lucia, scarcely hearing the words.
Once again Aunt Zita’s bony hand lashed her mouth.
“Anything,” said Lucia, “anything.”
Aunt Zita stepped back and Lucia, in tears, mouth bleeding, struggled to her feet, stood up on the dirt floor beside the cot, bent over, facing her, her fists clenched. “Anything!” she screamed at the older woman. “Anything!” Then she turned awkwardly back to the cot, and fell on it again, weeping.
Aunt Zita’s face was white and hard.
“We are going back to Saint Louis,” said Aunt Zita.
Lucia began to laugh, crying, the sounds muffled in the blanket, laughter, hysterical, preposterous, tears, not controlled, wild, laughing, crying.
Aunt Zita looked on the distraught figure of the girl as though she might have been demented.
“We are going to leave this place,” said Aunt Zita.
Lucia sat up on the cot, wiping the sleeve of her dress across her eyes.
“No,” said Lucia. “I’m going to stay here. I’m going to wait for him.” Then she put her head down and held her sides, laughing.
“You are mad,” said Aunt Zita.
Lucia looked up. “He may come back for a cup of coffee,” she said. “Don’t you understand?” And then she laughed again.
“Mad,” said Aunt Zita. “You are mad.” Then the older woman turned away and walked to the center of the room, and then sat down at the kitchen table, not facing Lucia. “This is a Godforsaken place filled with heathen,” said Aunt Zita. “They’re even the color of the devil that possesses them.” Aunt Zita stared at the wall of the soddy. “In this place, Lucia Turner,” she said, “you have been lured into listening to the call of the flesh.” Aunt Zita turned and faced Lucia. Her eyes were stern. Her voice was cold. “On your knees, Lucia Turner,” she said, “and together we will beg God’s forgiveness.”
“No,” said Lucia.
“Together we will beg God’s forgiveness,” said Aunt Zita.
“If God must forgive me for how I feel,” said Lucia, “then you must beg Him, for I will not.”
“You are shameless,” said Aunt Zita.
“I’m in love,” said Lucia.
Aunt Zita stared at Lucia. The silence in the soddy was as tangible and inflexible as the blade of a knife.
“I’m in love,” said Lucia, quietly, herself amazed at the words she had spoken, words that she had not known to be true until she had heard them said, words that made her happy and yet hurt her more than she could tell, because Chance, the man, was gone, and would not return. “Yes,” said Lucia, quietly, now calm, not crying, wanting to hear the words said again, as if she had not trusted herself to have spoken them, as if she did not trust herself to speak them again, “I am-I am in love.”
Suddenly outside there was a shout and the sound of several horses, a cry in Sioux, the snorting of animals.
Lucia ran to the door of the soddy, throwing it open.
About fifteen yards from the soddy, on stamping, barebacked ponies, were seven riders, their mounts white with the lather of sweat. Feathers were twisted into the manes of the ponies. Four of the riders wore a feather, a single white, black-tipped feather, among them their leader, whom Lucia recognized as Drum. The braves wore no paint but their blankets were loose around their waists, leaving their hands and arms free for using their weapons.
Drum, mounted, speaking rapidly in Sioux, gestured over the hill and toward the soddy.