by tiffy
Night Windʹs Woman
Shirl Henke
FORBIDDEN PASSION
Night Wind watched her glide through the water like a sleek little otter. He was surprised that she could swim. He had expected her to flounder and cry out to be rescued from drowning. Smiling grimly to himself, he shed his moccasins and breechclout and dove in after her.
ʺLadies do not know how to swim, Lioness,ʺ he said as he caught up with her in several swift strokes.
She gasped in surprise, then recovered. ʺConal taught Santiago and me when we were children.ʺ
His face darkened ominously. ʺHe has taught you much too much for a Spanish female of the noble class.ʺ
ʺSome Spaniard has taught you also too much for an Apache male of the renegade class,ʺ she replied in a haughty tone as cold as his expression.
He reached out and one wet hand clamped on her arm, pulling her to him.
ʺCome here. Take off your clothes,ʺ he whispered.
Other Leisure books by Shirl Henke: WHITE APACHEʹS WOMAN RETURN TO
PARADISE LOVE A REBEL . . . LOVE A ROGUE BROKEN VOWS PARADISE & MORE TERMS OF LOVE McCRORYʹS LADY A FIRE IN THE BLOOD TERMS
OF SURRENDER Night Windʹs Woman Shirl Henke For Carmine DelliQuadri, who possesses a vast knowledge of weaponry
and just enough common sense to have married
a redheaded woman.
A LEISURE BOOK®
Chapter 1
Outside Chihuahua City,
Nueva Vizcaya Province, 1774
ʺTake care going down. I would hate to lose you, little Indian,ʺ the guard said with a guttural laugh as he shoved the boy toward a gaping hole in the earth.
Yesterday an Opata boy had fallen from the rickety chicken ladder that took the slaves down twenty feet to the first level of the mine. The rawhide lashing had rotted, causing a rung to break, even under the emaciated childʹs slight weight.
He had broken his leg on the rock floor below. Green‐Eyed Boy had watched the guard bash the childʹs brains out with a club.
By the young Apacheʹs crude reckoning, he had been a mine slave for just over a year. Hate kept him alive. He choked as the cloying fumes of the torches burned his throat and eyes while he climbed down the ladder. Like a somnambulist, he stepped off the last rung and crossed the first level to the wicker basket that would lower him even deeper. Focusing on his enemyʹs face, he closed his eyes tightly against the rising nausea as he descended into hell. Only that way could he breathe and hold on to sanity in the gathering darkness.
The mine gasses seared Green‐Eyed Boyʹs lungs and he coughed. Dust from the crumbly earth and rock above him fell in a fine powder. When he and the Mescalero youth behind him reached the end of the tunnel, he began chipping at the rock and passing small, silver‐laden chunks to his companion. They worked in darkness, by touch alone. Many boys went blind from a combination of mine gasses and darkness. Each night, Green‐Eyed Boy forced his exhausted body to stay awake long enough to stare at the bright flames of the campfire, knowing he must be able to tolerate light in order to escape. Escape was his obsession.
ʹʹTomorrow is their holy day,ʺ he whispered to his Mescalero companion. ʺThere will be fewer guards. Many go to worship their Christian gods. Gomez never attends the blue robeʹs magic rites. If he is alone in the shaft with us tomorrow . . .ʺ He coughed and choked as he spoke the short, staccato sentences, all the while handing chunks of rock back to his friend.
Hoarse Bark was the older, but new to captivity and unused to the mine routine.
ʺIf we are caught coming up after we have killed Gomezʺ
ʺWe will die as warriors, not live as slaves,ʺ Green‐Eyed Boy answered in an icy voice.
ʺThere are high walls of stone at the outside of the mine . . . and much open ground between them and the mine pits,ʺ Hoarse Bark said unhappily.
ʺWe will vanish with the night wind before anyone finds his body,ʺ the Lipan replied grimly.
He had prayed to the Child of the Water, asking to be freed to avenge his band.
Perhaps it was his own hate rather than any vision from the supernatural that made him so certain they would succeed. Perhaps it was the terrible nightmare of being buried alive if he spent one more day in the small tunnels. Each day he hid his sweaty, shivering terror from everyone. Only in his dreams did it roam unleashed, stalking him like some malevolent beast.
The next morning the compound guard came to unlock the adobe hut in which they slept, kicking them awake. Few other guards were about as they huddled by the fire and ate a thin gruel of cornmeal. Their hands cupped the noisome slime as they sucked it greedily into their mouths.
Usually they were fed and sent down to dig by the dimmest light of dawn, with many guards prodding the chained prisoners toward the various pits, beating them as they stumbled in the darkness. This morning it was full daylight, and the compound around the silver mine was virtually deserted. When their guard gave the signal, they licked the last of the gruel from their fingers and followed him.
As the man unlocked their manacles and called down to Gomez at the bottom of the first level, Hoarse Bark exchanged a look of expectation with Green‐Eyed Boy. Gomez was new on the job and stupid. He did not heed the warning of the other guards who said, ʺHe is the son of a white man, a half‐caste, the most dangerous kind.ʺ
Gomez had only laughed. ʺHe is a skinny, starved cur. Green eyes do not make him a white man. He is some peasantʹs leavings with a squaw, that is all.ʺ
The two boys climbed slowly down the shaky ladder. The guard above, red‐eyed and ill from too much cheap wine the preceding night, staggered off to lie in the shade of a poplar tree. With his superior at church for the feast day, no one would reprimand him. The conspirators had planned every move as they lay on their straw pallets at night; now they executed the maneuvers. Green‐Eyed Boy dropped from the seventh rung of the ladder onto Gomezʹs shoulders as Hoarse Bark tripped him. They quickly brought the Spaniard to the ground. While Hoarse Bark kicked at his groin and grabbed for his club, Green‐Eyed Boy gripped him with a desperate choke‐hold about his neck. Gomez made only a faint gurgle as they shoved his body down to the second level, where it landed with a sickening thud on the jagged rocks. Green‐Eyed Boy remembered the Opata slave as they waited for darkness.
Once during the afternoon, a compound guard came by and called to Gomez.
When Hoarse Bark emitted several loud snores, the guard merely glanced down into the dim light below and laughed, sauntering away.
At dusk the two boys climbed up cautiously, armed with Gomezʹs knife and club. Green‐Eyed Boy raised his head and scanned the area. A campfire flickered across the compound. About thirty yards away stood a string of poplars, beyond which stretched the stone wall.
The boys could hear drunken laughter from the guards sitting around the campfire. Several of them were passing a bottle of aguardiente. Quickly Green-Eyed Boy motioned for Hoarse Bark to follow him as he crawled over the flat, rock‐strewn ground, his brown body and black hair blending into the shadows cast by the distant fire. Moving like chameleons, the two boys inched toward the poplars. Only when they reached the dark embrace of the trees did they stand up. Both were abraded and bleeding, but their skin had been toughened by rawhide whips and leather clubs. Green‐Eyed Boy quickly chose a place on the wall cast in deep shadows. ʺWe must hurry. Soon they will miss their drinking companion Gomez and go in search of him.ʺ
Only when the young Lipan had scaled the wall did he hear the outcry from the pit. Someone had gone in search of Gomez! Hoarse Bark was taller and his larger hands and feet were not as dexterous as Green‐Eyed Boyʹs. Reaching down to help the Mescalero, he heard a whine and then felt a sharp sting across his right side. Ignoring the pain, he y
anked Hoarse Bark up and over the wall.
As they tumbled to the ground on the far side and began to run, Green‐Eyed Boy faltered and Hoarse Bark reached for him. ʺYou have been shot,ʺ the older boy grunted as he supported his companion.
Green‐Eyed Boy shook free and sprinted ahead, gritting his teeth. He was free!
Never, never would he go back to that pit! Just thinking of it spurred him onward with renewed fury, sweeping the pain from his mind.
After leaving the compound, the Lipan and the Mescalero had no idea of how to complete their escape, other than to steal horses and ride north. But where were there horses for the stealing?
ʺWe must part ways, Mescalero brother,ʺ Green‐Eyed Boy said, forcing himself to stand straight in spite of the wickedly throbbing wound. ʺSeparately we can elude the Spanish more easily. At least one of us will escape.ʺ
ʺYou mean I might, but you are too weak,ʺ Hoarse Bark supplied. ʺI will stay with you.ʺ
ʺNo! I can speak Spanish well. It will be easier for me to talk with them if need be. You must find a fast pony and ride quickly. Do not argue. Already we have lost much time. I seek my father among the Spanish. That is not your concern.ʺ
With that, he turned and began to run toward the city, never looking back.
Hoarse Bark hesitated, then headed to the east through a rocky ravine that provided good cover. Perhaps if the Child of Waters smiled upon them, they would meet again one day.
With only instinct to guide him, Green‐Eyed Boy zigzagged from boulder to scrub mesquite, using anything for cover. He could feel the blood running thickly down his side, but a terrible desperation drove him to fight the faintness.
At daylight the soldiers could follow the trail of his blood!
Just as he rounded a stand of cottonwood trees, intent on reaching the seductive ripple of fresh, cool water, Green‐Eyed Boy collided with something very solidand moving. A burro. With a loud whump, he fell dazed to the earth near the burbling stream.
The man on the burro quickly dismounted and knelt by the boy, his coarse brown robes impeding his rapid movements. When he gently rolled the injured boy over, a knife flashed toward the manʹs throat.
ʺUtter a cry and you die, Spanish cur,ʺ Green‐Eyed Boy hissed, his expression a grimace of agony as he struggled to rise, keeping the blade at the wayfarerʹs throat.
ʺI trust I may speak if I do not do so over‐loudly,ʺ a soft, musical voice replied.
Deftly the traveler swept the blade aside, sending it splashing into the brook. He was large and easily held the injured boy down, but again there was an odd gentleness in the doing of it that seemed to transmit a message to the child.
ʺYou are one of the holy men,ʺ he said accusingly, giving up the uneven contest for the moment.
The big man laughed softly. ʺI am a Franciscan friar and a priest. As to how holy that makes me, only the Lord will be the judge of that.ʺ His alert gray eyes took in the boyʹs injury even in the dimness of the moonlight. ʺI would say you need help, my son.ʺ
Green‐Eyed Boy flinched, hissing, ʺI am no white manʹs son!ʺ
Again the gentle laughter as the friar swept the child into his arms and carried him to the burro waiting patiently at the side of the stream. As he placed the defiant boy in the saddle, he studied his profile. Escaped slave or not, I fear you are some white manʹs son, may God forgive him, the friar thought sadly.
Fray Bartolome was on his way from the City of Mexico to his new assignment at the Franciscan mission outside of Chihuahua City. His traveling companion, Fray Lorenzo, had become ill in a small village a few miles south, leaving Fray Bartolome to complete the journey alone.
When the friar and the Indian boy arrived at the mission, it proved a grave disappointment, just as the priest had feared. Along the way he had stayed at a series of missions whose primitive conditions and meager provisions were in direct proportion to their distance from the capital. ʺI should be grateful this is only Chihuahua, not El Paso or Sante Fe,ʺ he muttered as he looked at the dilapidated adobe with its weed‐infested orchards and crumbling bell tower.
The hour was late, well past midnight, for he had lost the trail twice before stumbling on the runaway child. He pounded on the heavy oak doors. The hinges creaked, but no one responded. Shoving the doors open, he entered the courtyard and called out. Finally a sleepy youth and an elderly friar answered his summons. Neither was pleased when they saw his cargo.
ʺThat is an escaped slave, one of the savages from the silver mines a few miles from here,ʺ young Fray Alonzo said in wide‐eyed horror. ʺThe soldiers will come for him,ʺ old Fray Domingo added worriedly.
ʺHe is an injured child, inhumanely treated in direct violation of Godʹs laws and our sovereignʹs,ʺ Fray Bartolome replied as he carried the child into the kitchen, where a small fire burned through the night.
As the younger friar stoked up the fire and the elder one brought water and bandages, Fray Bartolome examined the child, crossing himself in horror as he looked at the scars and fresh sores on the boyʹs back, ankles, and wrists. The bullet had slashed a long furrow in his right side, but had not gone deep. If properly cleaned and stitched, it should heal well. ʺPoor little one, to have suffered so much already,ʺ he muttered as he worked.
When he had finished bathing the boy, he prepared to close the gash in his side, but just then the boyʹs eyes opened and he stared intently into the seamed face of the priest.
ʺWhat do you do? Sew me up like teepee skins?ʺ the child asked as he eyed the needle and coarse thread the priest had taken from his saddle pack.
ʺHe speaks Spanish,ʺ Fray Alonzo said in surprise.
ʺLook you at the eyes! Bright green as bottle glass,ʺ the old friar said in amazement.
ʺHe is half‐caste, obviously,ʺ Fray Bartolome replied, impatiently dismissing the brothers. He turned to the boy and said gravely, ʺYes, I am going to sew up that wound so it will heal faster. This will hurt, so you must be very brave.ʺ
ʺI am Lipan. We know how to stand pain, holy man,ʺ he said with bravado.
Although he did not flinch, after three stitches he again lost consciousness.
ʺIt is really most extraordinary. This morning, when I tried to explain heaven and hell to him, I showed him the altarpiece depicting hell,ʺ Fray Domingo said in perplexity.
Fray Bartolome grunted as he unpacked his books. ʺLeave it to you to begin with hell.ʺ
ʺWell, these Indians need that for a goad onto the path of righteousness,ʺ the old friar said defensively. ʺBut the child made the oddest reply. He said he had already seen hell. And it was worse than the altarpiece!ʺ The old man crossed himself and rolled his eyes, then continued, ʺHe says his gods are like our Holy Savior and Blessed Virgin. He called them the Child of Waters and the Painted Ladyʺ
ʺ White Painted Lady,ʺ Fray Bartolome corrected. ʺYes, there are some rather startling similarities.ʺ He ignored the gasp from the old friar that intimated his remarks smacked of heresy, which he supposed they did. Still, each conversation he had with the recuperating boy intrigued him more.
Green‐Eyed Boy, for that was the way he translated his Lipan name for them, had been at the mission for ten days. He was strong and resilient, filling out quickly now that he was receiving adequate sleep and nourishment. But the child was an enigma. He would speak freely of Lipan religion and culture and of his life on the plains, but of his family he would only say that his mother and her people were dead.
With all of his new duties as the only priest at a crumbling mission, the last thing Fray Bartolome needed was a wary, bright, and troublesome Apache boy to shepherd. Still, he had been sent into the wilderness to minister to the farmers and soldiers in the rural areas around Chihuahua City. The boy was probably the son of one of them. That was reason enough for the priest to take an interest in Green‐Eyed Boy.
Fray Bartolome was a scholar, happier in his library at the Franciscan College in the City of Mexico than anywhere else. A large, thickset man with a rob
ust body, curly brown hair, and clear gray eyes, he looked more like a butcher than a lover of the classics. Among the Spanish clergy in the rural north, his erudition was rare. Even more extraordinary was his fascination with the native inhabitants.
Not having lived through the bloody conflicts between Spaniard and Indian, he came north with no prejudice. He wanted to learn. Did the boy?
ʺWill you be baptized?ʺ he asked that afternoon in his austere study outside the chapel. He watched the boy squirm on the splintering pine chair.
ʺI have listened to the stories of your godsʺ
ʺGod. Three in one, but only one God, son.ʺ
The boy dismissed that with a shrug. ʺIf I agree to the ceremonial washing,ʺ he said tentatively, ʺwill you teach me about the white manʹs world?ʺ
Fray Bartolome nodded gravely. ʺBeing received into the Christian faith would be a prerequisite to education. Why do you want to learn about us? You have already said you wish to find the Lipans in the mountains of New Mexico.ʺ He leaned forward across the crude oak library table that served as his desk.
ʺI will find the Lipan someday, but there is a thing I would do first.ʺ He would say nothing more until this holy man told him what he needed to know.
It was a stalemate.
ʺBaptism is a serious matter, not just a ceremony, my son. You grew angry when I reminded you of your white blood, yet now you want to learn white ways.
Why?ʺ
An odd smile quirked the corners of the boyʹs sculpted lips. ʺPerhaps I long to grow religious and have your Bird Spirit fill me.ʺ
Fray Bartolomeʹs eyes gleamed. ʺI should not doubt the power of the Holy Ghost, but I do not believe you. Do you want to find your father?ʺ
ʺYes, more than anything,ʺ the youth answered truthfully.
ʺWould you become a Spaniard to please him? You can choose between two worlds, you know. Few men have such a chance.ʺ
ʺNo. I will never live with him. I will join the Lipan again, but if your God is as strong as you say, let His Bird Spirit follow me back to them . . . if He dares.ʺ
ʺI will pray on it, son.ʺ
