Apache Flame

by Madeline Baker

  “Forbid it?” She stared at him. “Forbid it?” She took a deep calming breath. “You’re not my husband yet, Roger. And I am going, as soon as possible.”

  “Is that your final word on the matter?” Roger asked quietly. “You won’t change your mind?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Very well. If you won’t reconsider, I think I shall have to call off our engagement.”

  “Call it off?”

  Roger nodded. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I could tolerate a wife who will not heed my counsel.”

  She felt a twinge of regret, and a wave of relief. “I’m sorry, Roger.”

  “So am I. Goodbye, Alisha,” he said stiffly, and taking up his hat, he left the house.

  As soon as Roger left, Alisha put on her gloves and bonnet and hurried into town. It took her over an hour to find the man she was looking for, and when she did, she wondered if she was making a huge mistake.

  Red Clements was a short, squat man with long, limp brown hair, squinty brown eyes, and a nose that had been broken more than once. Alisha judged him to be in his late thirties, but his face was so lined and brown from the sun, it was hard to tell. He wore a greasy buckskin shirt and trousers and carried an enormous knife on one hip and a huge pistol on the other.

  “You loco, girl?” Clements exclaimed when she told him that she was looking for a guide to take her to Apache Pass.

  She had assured him she was not. Like Roger, Red Clements tried to talk her out of making the journey. He enumerated his reasons, counting them off on his fingers. The Comanche and the Apache were on the warpath, there were wild animals, it wasn’t seemly for a single young woman to be traipsing around with an old reprobate like him, it looked like rain, he had just come back from a long journey and needed a rest.

  Alicia refused to be put off. She listened patiently to his objections and when he finally ran out of reasons, she offered him twenty-five dollars, and when he still refused, she offered him fifty. It seemed fitting, ironic even, that the money left to her by her father be used to find her son. It was the fifty dollars that changed the man’s mind.

  Clements studied her a moment. “What kind of business does a little gal like you have with the ‘Paches?”

  “I have family there.”

  Clements shook his head vigorously. “I’m not going into Apache Pass to try to rescue no captives. Not for fifty bucks. Not for a hundred bucks! I value my scalp more’n that.” He turned to walk away.

  “They aren’t captives.”

  Clements wheeled around to face her again. “No?”

  It was obvious she didn’t have any Apache blood, and just as obvious he was wondering what kind of relatives she could have there.

  “If they aren’t captives, what are they?” Clements asked.

  Alisha thought about it a moment, then smiled. “They’re…they’re guests, of course.”

  “Uh-huh.” Clements looked at her oddly a moment, then shrugged. “You’ll have to pay for our supplies, too,” he said. “Is that gonna be a problem?”

  “No, not at all,” Alisha replied, though she thought that the fifty dollars should have covered the price of their supplies, as well. Still, she would gladly have paid three times that amount, if she’d had it, for the chance to find her son.

  “We’ll leave tomorrow mornin’,” Clements advised. “I’ll pick up some grub. You got a horse?”

  “No.”

  He grunted softly, as if he had expected that answer. “You want I should get one fer ya?”

  “Yes, please. How long will it take us to get there, to the Indians?”

  Clements scratched his head. “Usually takes me ‘bout three, four days, but I expect you’ll slow me down a mite.” He looked her up and down. “I reckon it’ll take us at least five days, maybe six.” He grinned. “Maybe seven.”

  “I don’t intend to slow you down, Mr. Clements.”

  He chuckled. “Well, we’ll see ‘bout that, won’t we? I’ll be by to get ya at first light. Be ready.”

  “I will. Thank you, Mr. Clements.”

  “You won’t be thankin’ me tomorrow,” he muttered. “You’ll be wishin’ you’d stayed here, where you belong.”

  “Tomorrow morning, Mr. Clements,” she said. “I’ll be ready.”

  * * * * *

  Alisha spent a good part of the rest of the day packing up her father’s belongings. He’d had little in the way of worldly possessions—his clothing, a shelf of books, a well-worn Bible, which she kept, along with his silver-backed pocket watch. The house and most of the furnishings belonged to the parish. She blinked back her tears as she left her father’s bedroom and closed the door. She would donate his clothing and books to the church.

  She went through her own clothing, putting what she would be taking on her journey to one side and packing the rest in boxes. She would ask Chloe to keep them for her until she returned.

  With each passing minute, she grew more excited. She was going to find her son! Mitch’s son. She wondered how tall he was, if he was chubby or thin, if he looked like Mitch. No doubt he had Mitch’s dark hair. What color were his eyes? She wondered how old he had been when he took his first step, said his first word. She had missed so much. After his birth, she had felt empty, bereft. Her arms had ached to hold the baby she had never seen. In the first few days after his birth, she had awakened several times each night, certain she heard a baby crying in the house. Never had a day gone by that she hadn’t thought of her child, yearned for him. Many a night, she had cried herself to sleep, knowing that the empty place he had left in her heart would never be filled.

  Her son, born out of her love for Mitch. She couldn’t stop smiling as she thought of him, of seeing him. She had no doubt that she would find him. No doubt at all.

  She went to bed early, but she was too excited to sleep, and when, in the wee small hours of the morning, she finally dozed off, it was to dream of her son, running toward her with outstretched arms, crying, “Mama, Mama, I knew you would come…”

  * * * * *

  Red Clements knocked on her door shortly after dawn the following morning. “You ready?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked her up and down, one brow raising as he took in her starched white shirtwaist and brown twill skirt. “I don’t suppose you got any…uh…trousers?”

  “Of course not.”

  “How many petticoats you got under there?”

  A flush rose in her cheeks. In deference to the journey, she was wearing only one petticoat instead of the three she usually wore. It was bad enough that she felt almost naked without him asking such a forward question. “Please don’t be impertinent, Mr. Clements.”

  “What? Oh, sorry, ma’am.” He shook his head. “Them skirts are gonna git mighty dirty. You got a hat?”

  “No.” It wasn’t quite the truth. She had several hats, but none of them were suitable for an arduous trip in the desert.

  “That’s what I figured.” He handed her a hat that was similar to his own, only much cleaner. “That your gear?” he asked, gesturing at the string bag on the floor inside the front door.

  “Yes.” She put on the hat, securing the cord under her chin.

  Reaching down, Clements hefted the bag, then looked at her, one eyebrow raised. “What you got in here?”

  “Just a few changes of clothing and my…uh…personal things.”

  He grunted softly, then turned and went to where he’d left the horses. He stopped beside a tall, raw-boned horse that was the color of mud. Flipping open the saddlebags, he dumped her gear inside.

  He glanced at her over his shoulder. “You do know how to ride, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” Alisha replied brightly. She didn’t think it would be wise to tell him that she hadn’t ridden in years, not since she was a little girl, and that she hadn’t been very good at it then.

  “This here’s Sophie. She ain’t much to look at, but she’s got a nice easy gait, and plenty of speed and bottom.�
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  Alisha nodded. She didn’t know what speed and bottom were, but, judging by Clements’ tone of voice, they were worthy attributes in a horse.

  “Come here and mount up. Like as not we’ll have to adjust them stirrups.”

  She pasted a smile on her face as she approached the horse, which was even bigger close up. Taking hold of the saddle horn with her left hand, she put her left foot in the stirrup, gave a little hop and pulled herself into the saddle. It was, she thought as she settled her skirts around her, like sitting on top of a mountain.

  Clements adjusted the stirrups, handed her the reins, then mounted his own horse, a wiry buckskin with one blue eye and one brown eye. Taking up the reins, Clements glanced over his shoulder. “Ready?”

  “Ready,” Alisha replied, hoping she didn’t sound as apprehensive as she felt.

  With a nod, Clements clucked to the buckskin.

  Sophie needed no urging. With a shake of her head, the mare followed the buckskin’s lead. Alisha felt a surge of excitement. At last, she was on her way! She was ready for some adventure in her life, she thought. She was tired of living the staid life of a schoolteacher, tired of always being on her guard, of never being able to say what she was really thinking. Except for the trip to Dawes City when she was pregnant, she’d never been anywhere. Ever since Mitchy left Canyon Creek, her life had been as dull as dishwater. Of course, going to Apache Pass wasn’t quite the same as taking a trip to Boston or New York City, but at least she was going somewhere.

  Soon, the town was far behind them, and there was nothing to see but miles of flat ground, gray-green sage, and spiny cactus. Now and then a jackrabbit sprang into view. Once, she saw an eagle gliding on the air currents, but, other than that, there was little to see but Clements’ back.

  After three hours in the saddle, some of her excitement waned. The mare did, indeed, have a nice easy gait, but after three hours in the saddle with only one brief stop to rest the horses, Alisha was ready to call it a day. Her thighs hurt. Her back hurt. Her shoulders hurt. Her backside hurt. However, when Clements asked how she was doing, she forced a cheerful note into her voice and assured him that she was fine, just fine.

  It was a vast, quiet land. It made her feel small, insignificant. Lonely, somehow. It was hard to imagine that anyone, even Indians, would choose to live in such an inhospitable place. She knew all manner of creatures made their home in the desert—and lizards and Gila monsters and all manner of creepy crawly things, like scorpions and spiders.

  She remembered that Mitch had once told her that Apache Pass wound its way between the Dos Cabezas Mountains on the north and the Apache stronghold on the south.

  To pass the time, she tried to recall everything she knew about the surrounding area. In 1854, the Pass and the surrounding area had become part of the United States as part of the Gadsden Purchase when 29 million acres of ground had been purchased from Mexico. In 1857, the Butterfield Overland Mail built a stage station near Apache Spring. Butterfield employees had been the first whites to live in Apache Pass. The Butterfield transported mail and passengers from St. Louis, Missouri to San Francisco…

  Alisha smiled. She had always wanted to go to San Francisco, but the price of a ticket was over a hundred dollars, far too expensive for a schoolteacher…

  Schoolteacher! She suddenly realized that, in the shock of her father’s death and the excitement of learning her son was alive, she had neglected to let anyone on the school board know she was leaving town. Well, she thought, it was too late to worry about it now.

  At noon, Clements reined his horse to a halt. “We’ll rest a bit,” he said.

  Feeling as though she had been riding for days instead of hours, Alisha lifted her right leg over the horse’s withers and slid to the ground, but her legs refused to support her and she landed on her fanny, hard.

  She glared at Clements, who was trying not to laugh but it was no use. He laughed until tears ran down his cheeks, and then, still chuckling, he offered her a hand up, which Alisha disdained. With a little humph of pique, she grabbed hold of the stirrup and pulled herself to her feet, realizing, as she did so, that she needed some privacy, and very quickly.

  She looked around, hoping for a large shrub, a bush, a tree. There was nothing, only flat ground and stunted clumps of sage and mesquite and cactus as far as the eye could see.

  Resolutely, she started walking toward the largest cactus.

  “I need to…to, ah…I just need to!”

  “Ah,” Clements said. “Well, watch out for snakes!”

  Snakes! Standing behind the cactus, she cast a hasty glance around. You can do this, she told herself. You can do whatever you have to, endure any hardship. Just think about your son.

  When she returned to where Clements waited, she saw that he had unsaddled the horses and was offering them handfuls of grain. When the horses had been fed, he reached into his saddlebag and pulled out two hunks of beef jerky.

  Alisha accepted one with a wan smile. Taking a bite was like stepping backward through time as she recalled a warm summer day when Mitch had brought several hunks of jerked beef to the river. She had stared at it, not sure what it was, until he explained that it was jerked beef, and that his mother had made it. He had told her that the Indians made it out of buffalo or venison. He had wolfed his down like it was candy. She had thought it tasted like sun-dried leather.

  It still tasted like leather, she mused as she bit off a piece.

  An hour later, they were riding again.

  By the time Clements made camp for the night, she was certain she would never walk again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mitch sat beside Rides the Buffalo, listening as his mother told the story of how fire came to be. It was a familiar story, one she had told him when he’d been about the same age. Last night, she had told the story of how Coyote stole the buffalo from Humpback.

  Mitch settled against the backrest, his legs stretched out in front of him. The sound of his mother’s voice, soft and low as she began the story, took him back to his own childhood.

  “In the long ago time, before there was fire,” White Robe began, “animals and trees talked to each other. Of all the beasts, Fox was the cleverest, and he tried to think of a way to create fire for the world. One day he went to visit the Geese because he wanted to learn to fly. The Geese promised to teach him if he would fly with them. They put wings on Fox, but warned him he must not open his eyes while flying.

  “When the Geese flew, Fox flew with them. One time, darkness fell quickly as they were flying over the village of the fireflies. Suddenly, the glare from the fireflies made Fox forget he was supposed to keep his eyes closed, and he opened them! And do you know what happened?”

  Rides the Buffalo shook his head.

  “Fox began to fall. He landed inside the fireflies’ village, where a fire constantly burned in the center. Two fireflies came to see Fox, and gave him necklaces of juniper berries.

  “Fox hoped to persuade the fireflies to tell him how to find his way out of the village. They led him to a cedar tree and told him the tree would bend down at his command and catapult him over the wall, if that was his wish.

  “Fox said he would think about it. That night, Fox found a spring where the fireflies got their water. He also discovered colored earth with which to make paint. He painted himself white and went back to the village where he suggested they have a dance.

  “The fireflies thought that would be fun, so they gathered wood for a fire. Secretly, Fox tied a piece of cedar wood to his tail. Then he made a drum, maybe the first one ever made, and beat it vigorously with a stick. Slowly, he moved closer to the fire.

  “Fox pretended to be tired from beating the drum and he gave it to some fireflies. Fox quickly put his tail in the fire, lighting the bark, and said, ‘it is hot here. I must find a cool place’.

  “Fox ran to the cedar tree, calling, ‘Bend down, bend down’.

  “The cedar tree bent down so Fox could grab hold and
then it straightened up and fox jumped over the wall. He ran and ran, with the fireflies chasing after.

  “As Fox ran, the bushes and wood on either side of his path caught fire from the sparks falling from the bark tied to his tail.

  “When Fox got tired, he gave the bark to Hawk, who carried it to the brown Crane. He flew southward, scattering sparks everywhere he went. And that is how fire came to the earth.”

  Rides the Buffalo clapped his hands, pleased with the story. Rising, he bid his father good night, gave his mother a hug, smiled at Mitch, and crawled into bed.

  “I think I’ll go for a walk,” Mitch said. Rising, he gave his mother a hug. He had found himself hugging her a lot in the last two days. Making up for lost time, or maybe just proving to himself that she was real.

  He stood outside a moment, listening to the quiet sounds of the night. He didn’t really want to go for a walk, but he felt the need to give his mother and Elk Chaser some time alone.

  With a sigh, he walked down to the river. Sitting on the bank, he gazed up at the sky. As always these days, he found himself thinking of Alisha, wondering what she was doing, if she missed him as much as he was missing her.

  A falling star caught his eye, reminding him of the nights they had spent together, how she had always made a wish on a falling star, and insisted he make one, too.

  “‘Lisha,” he murmured. “I wish you were here.”

  * * * * *

  Alisha gazed up at the star-lit sky. She hadn’t been afraid this afternoon. Why was she afraid now? Mr. Clements had assured her that there was little danger that the Indians would bother them at night, something about a belief that their souls would wander forever in darkness if they were killed at night. She hadn’t given any thought to the danger of Indian attack that afternoon. She had been far too excited about the prospect of seeing her son to think of anything else. Only now did she realize the danger she was in. She could be killed by Indians and no one would know. And even if they reached the Apache village safely, there was no guarantee that they would be welcome.

  She shook her fears aside. She was here now, and she wasn’t turning back. Her father was dead. Mitch was gone. She had nothing to live for except her son. If only Mitch was there beside her, she wouldn’t be afraid. She had never been afraid of anything when he was beside her. Where was he now?